Right Wing Nation

Almost as disgusting as raw chicken. And you do know, don’t you, that the Japanese love raw chicken? (Mmmm, raw chicken, sticky . . . ) Or that the ultimate in “fresh” for the Japanese isn’t raw, but alive — as in chopping off octopus tentacles the second before you eat them so they writhe around as they go down? (Mmmm, live tentacles, wiggly . . . ) And what does that tell you about Japanese food?

Look, when you live on a rock in the middle of the ocean, a rock that’s incapable of producing much in the way of, well, you know, food, you start eating nasty crap out of the ocean that no human being was meant to eat. Seaweed. Jellyfish. Sea cucumbers (have you ever seen one of those nasty things?) If your ultimate food fetish is eating things alive, sure, you snarf it down raw. And I won’t even touch the nasty, gluey rice.

Japanese food is an oxymoron.

Yes, it’s chi-chi. I spent years working as a chef. I can do chi-chi as well as anyone. Note, however, the simplicity of these recipes. Nothing is masked or hidden. The venison stands on its own, enhanced but not cloaked by the reduction; the sugar snap peas are accented by the lime juice. And the potatoes? Well, if these don’t set off your guilt meter, nothing will.

I’ve done this with venison and elk (both of which were more readily available in Indiana than bison), though I’ve never done it with the obvious, beef.

Venison Medallions in Raspberry Reduction

4-6 1-inch thick medallions
flour
2 T. clarified butter
1/2 pint raspberries
1/4 c. red wine
1/4 t. tarragon
salt and pepper to taste

First, run the raspberries through a food mill to extract all the juice. You will need 1/4 c. for the medallions.

Preheat oven to 500. Melt the clarified butter over high heat in a heavy pan and lightly dust the medallions on both sides with flour (you would not need to dust beef medallions). Brown on both sides, then roast in the oven for an additional 5 minutes, until medium rare. Remove.

Turn the heat up high, and add the wine and raspberry juice, then the tarragon. Stir to deglaze the pan, and let the liquid reduce to almost a thick glaze. Add salt and pepper to taste, and pour over medallions.

Serve with:

Sugar Snap Peas in Lime Butter

Yes, yes, you can use (shudder) snow peas if you really must. Shudder.

1 lb. sugar snap peas
4 T. clarified butter
juice of 1/2 lime
sugar and salt to taste

Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat. Add the sugar snap peas, stir them well to coat them in butter, then add the lime juice. Cover tightly and let simmer over low heat for five minutes. Uncover, turn up heat, and cook, stirring constantly, until nearly all the liquid is gone. Taste. You may (emphasis on may) need to add a pinch of sugar if the lime is particularly sour. Salt to taste and serve with:

Roasted Garlic and Gruyère Mashed Potatoes

We’ve been through this before. No, there are no “peels” in the mashed potatoes. Disgusting. And no, there are no lumps, which is just as disgusting. The Baby Jesus cries when you make lumpy mashed potatoes, as do my mother and both my grandmothers from beyond the grave. And by the way, when I was a kid and we still lived in a decent, God-fearing nation, potato peels went into the bucket with the rest of the hog slop, where potato peels belong.

1 head garlic
1 T. olive oil
4 large potatoes, peeled and boiled until done
1/2 lb. gruyère (or Emmenthaler), shredded
milk

First, roast the garlic. Preheat the oven to 375, cut off the very top of the head of garlic, and put it (no reason to peel it) on a piece of foil. Drizzle with the olive oil, wrap up tightly, and toss it in the oven. Bake for about an hour, until soft. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the garlic out of the peel into a mixing bowl.

When the potatoes are done, drain them and add them to the mixing bowl along with the shredded cheese. Add a couple of tablespoons of milk. Beat at high speeed until smooth, adding more milk if necessary (or desired). Serve immediately.

I know what you’re thinking. Don’t. Really, these potatoes need no butter. Seriously. But speaking of butter, since you have all that raspberry juice, why not pick up some nice rolls — or make your own — and serve them with pats of raspberry butter?

Raspberry Butter

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 T. raspberry juice

Mix the butter and raspberry juice together, then put in the refrigerator for about twenty minutes, until the butter is more or less at room temperature softness. Put the butter in a pastry bag with a rosette tip and squeeze out little rosettes onto a piece of wax paper. Refrigerate. Remove from the refrigerator to soften about a half hour before serving.

And what to do with the rest of the raspberry juice? Well, I’m sure you can come up with a dessert idea. Or start with a quart instead of a half pint. Sweeten the leftover raspberry juice (a bit more than you would normally), pour into an ice cream freezer and freeze into a raspberry ice. Delicious, non-fattening (like I care about that), light, and an intensely flavored dessert.

Patrick has an article about crabs, and some photos. But that raises another problem with living on the coast.

I like shellfish, for the most part, though it’s not something I crave more than once or twice a year. Crabs, I can do. The problem is the fish.

I’m not crazy about fish. Not at all.

There are very few salt-water fish I find edible. For the most part, they’re far too fishy (and tuna is a vile thing, unfit for human consumption — and is just as vile whether fresh or out of one of those cat food cans. And there’s another thing. Tuna comes in a cat food can. What does that tell you?) If you live on the coast, you’re constantly being pressed to eat vile, disgusting, fishy fish.

The problem is that people on the coasts — particularly transplants — are Fishlamists. They’re forever going on about their “wonderful” fresh fishy fish.These are not to be confused with Oregonlamists — of whom Patrick is not one — who are forever going on about how Oregon has the very best whatever food is the topic of conversation, and must all be killed. They’re infidels who believe that poached, baked, broiled, even raw fish (worse, with raw seaweed) is fit for human consumption.

The only way God Almighty meant us to eat fish is dipped in milk and egg, rolled in flour and cornmeal, and fried (battered fish is borderline edible). With tartar sauce on a bun. And hushpuppies. Trout. Catfish. Fresh-water, non-fishy fish. Edible fish. Try ordering fish as God meant it to be eaten on the coast, and see the Fishlamists jeer at you. Go ahead, try it.

Fishlamists. God has a special place in Hell for them.

First, a couple of important announcements. Michael Trucco, who plays Sam Anders, has just signed on as a regular cast member (this will be important when I get to this week’s episode). Also, as you know if you’ve watched any other Sci-Fi Channel series, the Sci-Fi Channel as always broken their seasons into two parts, with a hiatus in the middle. When BSG returns from the hiatus in January, it will move to Sunday nights. Now, on to the episode.

After a couple of comparatively lame episodes, Battlestar Galactica is back on track. This week’s episode, “Unfinished Business,” opened on a boxing match on the ship (by the way, the boxing was fairly realistic, so if you have small children, you should take that into account) between Helo and Lee. It’s explained that the boxing matches are fairly regular events, and allow everybody to work off steam. Helo slams Lee, and Lee has a flashback — and that sets up the format for the episode.

The point isn’t the boxing match. The point is the story told in the flashbacks, which take place 17 months previously on New Caprica, 8 months before the Cylon occupation.

After Starbuck blows off Anders, she goes to the match and challenges Lee — who just had his butt kicked by Helo. He refuses, and she insults Dee by asking how she likes taking sloppy seconds, and Lee punches her, then accepts the challenge.

Adama then comes to the match and is talking with Roslin. We then flash back to the Chief asking Adama for permission to leave the ship for New Caprica so they can raise their son on the planet. Adama refuses.

Adama suddenly gets into the ring and calls the Chief out. During the fight, we find out through flashbacks that the crew of Battlestar Galactica was on New Caprica for some sort of festival — and what was it with the Irish jigs? — and it seemed to imply that Adama and Roslin were being more than just pals, if you catch my drift. After the, ahem, postcoital scene (it may not have been that, since they did have their clothes on, but that’s what it looked like) Adama changes his mind, and tells the Chief and Cally that they may move to New Caprica.

After Tyrol wins the fight, Adama struggles to his feet and tells everybody that he made a mistake and let himself get too close to the crew. He says that because he was too lax, they were unprepared when the Cylon fleet arrived at New Caprica, and that it would not happen again. Adama then leaves the ring, and Tigh declares the fights over.

Starbuck won’t let Lee get away without fighting her, so they get in the ring. During flashbacks, we find that they had bumped nasties, and both proclaimed that they loved each other — and that Starbuck had agreed to tell Anders. When Lee appears the next morning at the camp, Adama tells him that Starbuck had gotten up, found a priest, and married Anders.

Lee promptly finds Dee and kisses her. So it seems that Starbuck was right, and Dee was a rebound.

In the ring, Starbuck and Lee are beating each other up pretty good, and they collapse into each other’s arms as Anders and Dee look on. Anders is not a happy camper and leaves, and Dee looks stricken as Starbuck says, “I missed you,” into Lee’s ear, and he says, “I missed you, too.” End of episode.

The sexual tension between Starbuck and Lee has been there since the first season. More than just sexual tension, actually. It’s been pretty obvious that the two have it pretty bad for each other. The events the night before Starbuck married Anders, and the fact that she did run off and marry Anders, demonstrates (again) that Starbuck has serious relationship issues. I doubt that we’ll see Starbuck and Lee living “happily ever after.” But the episode sets up tension between Starback and Lee and Anders and Dee.

Good episode. No thinly-disguised politics. Back to the characters.

Thumbs up.

From Tom Purcell:

Good Grief: It’s Christmas
– by Tom Purcell

It has been 41 years since the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special first aired. It was broadcast again the last Tuesday in November, and the show holds more power over me now than it did when I was a kid.

I think I know why.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Americans, bolstered by stability and prosperity, married young and had large families. In my neighborhood, we had six kids, the Kreigers five, the Gillens four, the Greenaways four and so on.

The design was simple then for many folks: Many men and women believed that when they married, they became one under God. They believed their role was to sacrifice for their children, so their children could have better lives than they.

Their mission was to teach their kids good values and to provide them with an excellent education. That’s why so many moved into our neighborhood. It was located a few blocks from St. Germaine’s Catholic Church and School.

It was a traditional time, to be sure. Most of the dads went off to work while most of the moms kept an eye on both kids and neighborhood. And although life for adults certainly had its limitations and challenges, there was no better time to be a kid. Especially during Christmas.

At Catholic school, we kicked off Christmas preparations one month before the big day. We put up decorations, sold items to raise money for the needy and practiced for Christmas concerts (we sang real Christmas songs, too, such as “Silent Night” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”).

We were just as busy at home. My mother was a master at building suspense. She played Mitch Miller’s Christmas albums on the stereo most nights after dinner and whistled to the tunes as we hung decorations and talked over what to get for one another. She celebrated the mystery of giving and taught us that being kind and helping others were the best things we could give.

Silly as it may sound today, the TV Christmas specials were a real event in our home. We all packed into the family room and plugged in the tree. We turned off all the lamps so that the Christmas lights would shine bright. Then we’d wait with great anticipation for the specials.

Every year I laughed out loud when the Grinch’s dog, massive antlers strapped to his tiny head, jumped up on the back of the sleigh, causing the Grinch to grimace. In “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the Abominable Snowman terrified me, but I was always relieved when he turned out a lovable fuzz ball.

But the granddaddy of them all was the “A Charlie Brown Christmas” special, a show that captured half the viewing audience when it first ran on Dec. 9, 1965. As it goes, Charlie Brown is depressed because everyone around him fails to see the true meaning of Christmas. Lucy complains that she doesn’t want stupid toys or a bicycle or clothes for Christmas, but real estate.

To resolve his depression, Charlie Brown throws himself into work as the director of the Christmas play. But that soon falls apart, too. Distraught, he follows a light in the east and finds his way to a Christmas tree lot. The only tree he can find is a small sickly one.

When he brings it back, the others mock him. But then Linus comes to the rescue. Linus tells Charlie Brown he knows the real meaning of Christmas. He tells the story of Christ’s birth.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, goodwill toward men,” he says, quoting from the Bible.

Suddenly, the other characters are transformed. They become compassionate and concerned. They decorate the tree and transform it into a thing of beauty. They wish Charlie Brown a Merry Christmas and sing a Christmas carol.

This show holds tremendous power over me still because it brings back powerful childhood memories—memories of security and love and the anticipation of Christmas morning.

But I love it for another reason. Despite Christmas being based on the birth of Christ, a historical figure – despite that the show’s innocence, simplicity and honesty still make it a ratings winner – it would never be made today.

Good grief.

Tom Purcell’s weekly political humor column runs in newspapers and Web sites across America. Send comments to Tom at TomPurcell@aol.com.