Fried

Yes, I am totally fried. Tired and thinking I am glad to be done for the day.

We started, as usual, around 7:30 this morning. Have cleaned, power-washed, cleaned, waxed, cleaned, washed... well, you get the idea.

I have cayenne peppers in the dehydrator right now. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning while the dew is still on, plan on going out and cutting the top half from the sage plants by the watercourse. They will go into the dryer next. Then there is the Greek oregano that is ready to be taken care of, plus the spearmint. Then there will be the purple sage and tri-color sage, the parsley, chives and thyme.

I didn't grow any rosemary this year since the Herd seems to have decided, for no reason that is obvious to me, that they don't like it anymore. Have totally given up on growing basil, too. I just can't seem to get it to go. There seem to be hordes of people around who have Monster Basil Plants growing out of every spot that isn't already inhabited by something else but I just can't get it to live. This is kind of a pain as I use a lot of basil. Thyme is no problem, nor is spearmint. The only problem those 2 present is keeping them from taking over the world.

3 of my 4 roma plants are producing lovely, large fruit but that 4th one has the blight, or something similar. It has produced fruit that is about the size of a shooter marble but does taste good. Not much use for canning but tasty to munch on. The other hybrid plants down on the terrace are loaded with fruit and some of them are starting to show some color. That's a good thing and I hope we have enough summer left to allow them to ripen fully. If the weather turns, I will have to bring whole plants in and hang them upside down in the laundry room or somewhere to allow the fruit to ripen. That is a messy and cumbersome operation so would rather not have to fool with it.

Since I only have about 1/3 of the amount of tomatoes that I would have under normal circumstances, I am seriously considering slicing them and just putting them in the food dryer. Dried tomatoes are great for a lot of things and can be reconstituted for marinara, paste, and sauces.

The hot banana pepper plants have done a nice job of producing fruit, too. Since I don't use many of those, I only have 2 plants but they have some nice yields. Those will go into the freezer since they don't dry well. The jalapenos are doing well but not producing like I expected. The peppers are very nice but there aren't many of them, maybe a dozen and a half total, right now. I still have some in the freezer from last summer so this won't be a real problem. Unless someone decides they are going on a jalapena jag and then we're in trouble.

That gross of onions are doing nicely, too. There were actually more than 144 of them but some died and some haven't grown. Went out this morning and thinned the ones in the long container. Last weened I thinned the ones in the pots and the remaining onions are now growing a lot larger and may produce some nice winter tastiness.

We planted several dozen onions down on the terraces but the rabbits ate the whole blasted lot of them, dammit. The radishes down there didn't get eaten but Himself never went down and thinned them so he doesn't have any radishes. He kept saying that he would "do it pretty soon" but he ended up distracted by other issues and never got to it. They were too close together and, since they had no room to grow, went to seed rather than making radishes. I figured, since I don't eat radishes, I would leave the thinning to the Radish-Lover and it didn't turn out well. Not my loss and I don't suppose not having radishes will make much difference for him, either.

I broke down a couple of weeks ago and used a chemical spray to kill that blasted crabgrass around the front of the house and down along the driveway. I really hate using that stuff but, even with weeding like crazy, it came up so fast and thick that we couldn't keep up with it. Now there are big brown and dead patches around the place that have to be plowed up and reseeded.

Also having a weed problem down around the watercourse and ponds. This spring was so wet that the things that could grow the best seemed to be the weeds. Some of our ferns came back but most of the stuff down there just died. That's a p.i.t.a. because we spent a lot of cash and a lot of sweat on preparing the ground and planting stuff. DS1 came up one day last summer and spent the whole day, scooting around on his butt, planting ferns. I am hoping that his labors will pay off next spring but who knows?

The river is so low that the kayakers who came by last weekend had to paddle right under the cliffs at the bottom of the yard. I miss having boaters, canoeists, and kayakers come by in the afternoon. The fishermen aren't even bothering to go out on the river. The only fish up here are carp and they might migrate further upstream. Still have soft-shell turtles coming out to sun themselves but the Canada geese, herons, and egrets are gone. It is also starting to smell. It doesn't smell nice. Dead fish, river bottom, mold... ick. The city says it has a "study" ongoing to figure out how to fixthe levee with the least expenditure of money and the best results but it may be years before we see any results. I estimate that the river level is about 10 feet down and, now it's late August and dry, it will go lower. This pretty much puts paid to the water trail project for the foreseeable future, too. That's a shame as it would have brought money to this town and shown folks that it isn't a total shithole place to live.*

We had planned on going to visit some friends at their acreage this afternoon but ended up not doing that. I had to take some allergy medicine, which I abhor and avoid like the plague, which had made me shaky and short of breath. We will most likely go out to see them tomorrow afternoon, as long as they are available then. It's kind of a weird situation, too. He has been our friend for many years but she avoided any contact with us until a couple of years ago. Not sure what changed her mind but we now can sit and talk for hours about all kinds of subjects. Both of us are having problems with adolescents, she with a girl, me with a boy. Gives all kinds of room for discussion. And then there are the men... LOL!

DS3 has retreated downstairs, DS2 is going to a friend's for the night, SS is, well... who knows where and Himself is at the bar. This leaves me free to do absolutely nothing. YeeeHA! Of course, since it isn't 6 p.m. I can't in good conscience put on my jammies but sure would like to do just that. Rats.

OK, since Himself is at the bar I suppose I should get my butt in gear and go have a drink with him and make sure he doesn't get out of hand. He has been behaving strangely of late. It isn't just him, it is a number of males. I have heard from several women that their husbands, boyfriends, or SOs, have been acting weird. Since there isn't a full moon I don't know what's going on but I sure wish I did. Maybe I could help. Maybe not. Don't think most males have the self-awareness to figure out that something is bothering them, what it is, and how to deal with it. Ah, yes, men...






* Granted, I want to get the hell out of here but not because I hate my house or whatever, just because there is nothing to do unless you like hunting, fishing, golf, or sitting at the bar getting stupid. I don't care much for any of those things and would like a variety of food options, museums, libraries that have books other than fiction or romances, and people who have a few thoughts about how things are and why.

Our main course this evening is...

coq au vin.

I adore the stuff. It's so easy to make that the results are almost like cheating. The recipe is as follows:

2 broiler chickens, cut up or 8 thighs, bone-in with skin
1 750 ml bottle of a decent dry red wine, decant it carefully and let it breathe for an hour or so
1 large onion, sliced thin
1 large carrot, sliced thin
4 springs thyme
5 sprigs parsley
2 T butter, clarified if you have it. unsalted if not.
1 pound small white mushrooms
1 pound white pearl onions
3 garlic cloves, chopped fine
4 slices good bacon, cut into 1/4" pieces
1 bay leaf

In a bowl, place the wine, onion, carrot, thyme and parsley. Let it sit for at leasst 4 hours. Overnight is better.
Strain and reserve wine and vegetable/herbs separately.
In a large heavy pan (I use a 12" enameled cast braising pan) sweat/fry the bacon chunks until crispy and brown.
Remove and reserve.
Add 1 T butter to drippings. Brown chicken, in batches. Set aside in large bowl.
Add 1 T butter to pan, scrape well and brown the pearl onions until golden. Put in bowl with bacon.
Add the mushrooms, stirring well until they release some juice and start to brown. Add garlic and stir until garlic's aroma is released, about a minute. Remove all and put with onions and bacon. Set aside until later.
If needed add more dripping and/or butter to pan. Cook marinated vegetables and herbs until very limp. (The carrots won't cook through. Don't worry about it.)
Whisk in reserved wine and return combination to a slow boil.
Add chicken back in and cover. Simmer until chicken is tender. (Usually about 45 minutes.)
Return bacon, pearl onions, mushrooms and garlic to pan, placing them between and around the chicken pieces.
Recover and simmer until sauce is beginning to reduce. (try to keep this well below a boil. Depending on what kind of wine you use and it's quality, boiling with usually give a nasty "bitter" taste to the sauce. It's icky and you don't want to waste all that good stuff. Even using a heavy pan, I put a heat diffuser under it and turn the gas as low as possible while still maintaining a decent simmer.)

There's 2 ways this can be done. If you don't like the sliced onion and all that in your dish, remove the chicken from the pan and strain the wine. Do this before adding in the onions, bacon and so forth. Return chicken to pan and add that other stuff.
Otherwise, if you don't mind the slices (which I don't) just continue simmering. If you are concerned about cooking the chicken too long, remove it for the time being. If you do this, you can simmer the wine and stuff until it's a consistency you like without worrying about the fowl falling apart totally.

This is tasty is cooked one day, cooled and kept in the fridge until the next day. Then reheat.

Serve with baquettes and salad or whatever you want. Mashed taters, rice, noodles, it's your call.

NOMNOMNOMNOMNOM as DD says.


I don't generally have a problem with stuff burning during the first few steps. If your pan is heavy enough and your heat is low enough and your patience is, well, patient? You will be fine. It would be a shame to burn something and lose the accumulated flavors and aromas from all the good stuff being sauteed or sweated or whatall.

Another thing... if you prefer to use olive oil in place of the dripping and butter, go ahead. It will change the final taste a bit but cut down on the saturated fat.

If, for some reason, you aren't happy with how the sauce is melding, a sneaky (and not authentic) way of bringing it together is to use about a tablespoon of tomato paste. Take everything out of the sauce, return to simmer. Stir in the paste and put everything back in. You won't taste the mater but it sure does tend to pull all the flavors together. Maters, the miracle fruit/veggie/dobob.

If you prefer to not use so much wine, a nice way to proceed that works just great is to use 1 1/2 to 2 cups wine and sub 1 cup chicken broth and 1 cup beef broth for the remaining volume.

Near the end of the cooking process, taste the sauce. You may need to add some salt, and various herbs to your personal taste. I do sometimes, depending on my mood at the time.

Can anyone say "reprisal?"

As I noted yesterday, a TSA inspector was being an idiot and climbing on planes belonging to American Eagle airlines. The company complained but, golly gee whiz, now the TSA has opened an investigation into "possible violations" by American Eagle.

Re-prize-all. Say it together, dear readers, REPRISAL.

TSA having a tantrum

Somebody needs to reign in that rabid entity before it gets worse than it already is.

TSA strikes again

and again and again...


This is so good that I have to post the whole article. It's from a general aviation website.

Commuter Flights Grounded Thanks To Bumbling TSA Inspector

Wed, 20 Aug '08

Damaged TAT Probes On Nine Jets While Conducting 'Security Checks'

They're the government... and remember, they're here to help. A bumbling inspector with the Transportation Safety Administration apparently has some explaining to do, after nine American Eagle regional jets were grounded at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on Tuesday.

Citing sources within the aviation industry, ABC News reports an overzealous TSA employee attempted to gain access to the parked aircraft by climbing up the fuselage... reportedly using the Total Air Temperature (TAT) probes mounted to the planes' noses as handholds.

"The brilliant employees used an instrument located just below the cockpit window that is critical to the operation of the onboard computers," one pilot wrote on an American Eagle internet forum. "They decided this instrument, the TAT probe, would be adequate to use as a ladder."

Officials with American Eagle confirmed to ANN the problem was discovered by maintenance personnel, who inspected the planes Tuesday morning... and questioned why the TAT probes all gave similar error indications.

One Eagle pilot says had the pilots not been so attentive, the damaged probes could have caused problems inflight. TSA agents "are now doing things to our aircraft that may put our lives, and the lives of our passengers at risk," the pilot wrote on the forum.

Grounding the planes to replace the TAT probes affected about 40 flights, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Mary Frances. "We think it's an unfortunate situation," she told ABCNews.com.

TSA conducts routine spot inspections of aircraft parked at commercial airports, according to agency spokesman Elio Montenegro. "Our inspector was following routine procedure for securing the aircraft that were on the tarmac," Montenegro said, adding the inspector was attempting to determine whether someone could break into the parked planes.

Pilots respond that agents are only allowed to check for unlocked cabin doors... a clear security risk, that could indeed compromise security. Indeed, regional airline Mesa Air Group notes "48 percent of all TSA investigations involving Mesa Air Group involve a failure to maintain area/aircraft security."

It's unclear whether that duty also allows an inspector to paw around an aircraft, however.

E-I-C Note: This was an extraordinarily dangerous incident, folks. The TSA has neither the mandate nor the knowledge to inspect any aircraft for any reason. The stupidity of this matter is nearly unbelievable... until you hear that the TSA is involved... then it becomes understandable, though still tragic. And I can not tell you how frustrating it is, to see them continue to hurt an indsutry that they were created to protect.

The TSA has NO BUSINESS putting untrained personnel in a position to damage aircraft. Their bizarre games, in the name of security, do NOTHING to enhance security and do much to inhibit safety. Aviation personnel -- pilots, A&P's, ground personnel -- are all either licensed or supervised by licensed personnel and this kind of tampering, had it been accomplished by anyone else, would have subjected that person to criminal charges.

In this case, ANN strongly recommends and encourages the criminal prosecution of this so-called inspector and his immediate supervisors... it is a matter of time before one of these morons does something stupid and gets someone killed... and with the way these incidents are occurring, we believe it is a virtual certainty that a TSA "Inpector" will hurt or kill someone in such a manner. No kidding.

A few other notes.. ANN spoke directly to the TSA PAO in this story, Elio Montenegro... a man who desperately needs to get his stories straight. When ANN talked to him early Tuesday evening, Montenegro first stated that no aircraft were tampered with, and thereafter attempted to minimize the issue by stating that a TSA Inspector "may have touched" the aircraft... which American Eagle "sorta" objected to. He claimed that there was no attempt to enter the aircraft, and when he was asked if TSA was, in fact, authorized to attempt such an entry -- out of the sight/knowledge/supervision of American Eagle personnel -- he said that he thought that I had asked a good question, did not know the answer, and promised to get back to me... in direct conflict with other reported statements. TSA can not keep their stories straight... and lying to the media... especially that part of the media that actually knows a thing or two about airplanes, was just plain foolish... if not a deliberate attempt to mislead.

Mind you, this is the same agency that now wants to step up supervision and surveillance of the GA world. Would you trust these kind of folks around your airplane?

I sure do not, and will not -- and the first time that I see a TSA person attempt any interaction with any aircraft under my control, I will call the cops and do my utmost to see that person charged with a crime... TSA can not be trusted around Air Transport airplanes... hell, TSA can not be trusted around GA... and TSA has shown us little or no reason why they should be trusted, in any way, with the security of the traveling public.

We're fed up with the incompetence of this organization... and while it was simply 'annoying' when they were sniffing our shoes or trying to rip off our laptops, it gets downright threatening when they start tampering with our airplanes.

Yes... this is quite the rant and I admit to no end of frustration with this organization... but I have to tell you, it's time to scrap the TSA and failing that, it is WAY past time that they be SEVERELY curtailed in their ability to harm others. Simply put, it's time to reign in the TSA... before they kill someone... if they haven't already.

Rant over... for now. -- Jim Campbell, ANN E-I-C.

ROFL

Another priceless entry in the Redneck Hall of Fame.

And now we know

that "earworm*" has an actual definition in the psych dictionary.

It's called cognitive itch.

Knowing this won't make the annoyance any less, I don't suppose.

Furthermore, someone who hears something and can bear witness to it is called an...


"earwitness"



"Flightseeing" is sightseeing but from an aircraft.


ROFLMSAO


I love dictionaries.



* You know, earworm. When you get a song or tune stuck in your head and it won't go away.

Congitive dissonance from Washington*

First comes the news that the DIA is combining all military intelligence operations under one roof.

That's here.....


Now, consider that previous article in light of this one:

Watching who???

Ahem.

"History has shown, whether you are talking about criminal or terrorist activity, that plotting, planning or even relationships among conspirators can go on for years,"

Yeah, and stupidity, intrusiveness, and dumbassery from guvmunt can go on for years.



* Just in case someone doesn't know what cognitive dissonance is, it's this:

"anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like."