Right Wing Nation

I’m making this.

I could spend hours there.

Haven’t made this for years, so I will tonight.

Vinegar-Splashed Chicken

The original recipe calls for boned chicken with skin on, which is hard to do unless you bone your own chicken. Feel free to substitute boned, skinless chicken. Also, if you want this a bit spicier, instead of adding a bunch of chilies, try dicing a couple of Hungarian wax peppers and tossing them in.

1 1/2 lb. chicken, cubed

Marinade:

2 T. dark soy sauce
1 T. ea: light soy sauce, sherry, sugar
1/2 t. ea: salt, Szechuan peppercorns (toasted and ground)

4 quarter-sized pieces of ginger, peeled and minced
2 large cloves garlic, minced
4 green onions
1 T. ea: black vinegar, sesame oil
2 T. oil

Mix the marinade until everything is dissolved, and pour over the chicken in a large bowl. Mix well, and let sit at least 30 minutes (longer is better).

Finely slice the white part of the green onions and put them on a saucer with the ginger and garlic. Chop the green part into inch pieces and reserve separately. If you’re using wax peppers, stem, seed, and cube them.

Put the wok over highest heat until extremely hot. Add the oil, swirl it around, then toss in the garlic, ginger, and onions. Flip around in the oil for about thirty seconds. Stir the chicken and marinade, and add it all at once. Cook, stirring constantly, for about two minutes, then turn the heat to low, cover, and simmer for two minutes. Uncover, turn the heat back up to high, add the green of the green onions (add the peppers here, if you’re using them), and stir until the marinade turns to a glaze. Add the sesame oil and vinegar, stir a few times, and serve.

So I hooked up the laser disc player (you know, those 12-inch laser discs). We have hundreds (at least) of dollars in laser discs, and it would cost hundreds (at least) to replace them. The player works — it’s not like we have to replace them immediately, but it’s an old player, it won’t last forever, and laser disc players are ridiculously expensive. I’ve always bought the cheap DVD-R disks, but my burner won’t let me set chapters on them, so I’ll get a big stack of whatever disks it needs, dig out the instructions so I can figure out how to set chapters, and start burning laser discs to DVD.

While going through boxes, behind one I found the blanket I’d brought out here, you know, before the furniture came, and has been sitting there all this time — a (once) white blanket. It’s a good thing there’s bleach in the house.

I’ll take “Free Speech Victories” for $1000, Alex.

Uh, well, I hadn’t gotten much sleep and felt like hell, but I got extremely hungry, so I went to the Waffle Shop. I ordered way too much food, and went into a coma after I got back.

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Back to the Golden Wok — I think we’ll be eating there a lot.

I collect regional cookbooks (and recipes). I love those cookbooks printed by church or social groups, and if I do go into an antique store, I look for the books (antique stores are great places to find old, out of print, church cookbooks). When I travel, I rarely come back without a regional cookbook.

I looked in Charleston. There was a book store just down the street, and I looked there. All of the cookbooks billed as regional weren’t. There were Charleston’s favorite chef’s favorite recipes cookbooks, you know, with recipes that were in no way regional. You’d be just as likely to find those sorts of recipes billed as “regional” in San Francisco, Chicago, or Portsmouth. I ran into the same everywhere I looked.

After we got back from the Fort Sumter trip, we had just under two hours before the performance, so we didn’t have enough time to see the WW2 museum on the Yorktown. Next door was the aquarium, and if you see Fort Sumter you get free admission to the aquarium, so that’s where we went.

In the gift shop, there was a large cookbook section, and again, they were all silly foo-foo recipe collections — except one: Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking, edited by Blanche Salley Rhett. There a quite a lot of old recipes — and I mean old. One calls for bitter almonds (they’re illegal here, since they contain cyanide, but only bitter almonds have that characteristic intense almond flavor). There are recipes for corn bread, and something called batter bread, which looks like what I know as spoon bread. There are three or four recipes for Lady Baltimore cake, and of course, she-crab soup. Then, there are passages like these:

There were a dozen Negroes around the place, serving, cooking, singing, and dancing, and every few minutes, Dr. Adams would should into the kitchen, “Stop that cooking and come in and sing something!” So the Negroes would shift back and forth, to their own perfect delight, from cooking to dancing, from singing to serving.

Frankly, I’m surprised they weren’t forced to edit those old passages. But regional? It certainly is, and I plan to explore it in the kitchen. My question, though, is why authentic regional cookbooks are so hard to find. Why would you publish the recipes of some yankee chef who works in a popular restaurant and call it a regional or authentic cookbook? And is anybody stupid enough to look through a cookbook billed as regional, seeing pictures of nouvelle cuisine nonsense arranged in a little tower on a plate, and believe there is anything regional or authentic about it?

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Somebody (Mitch, maybe?) suggested the Golden Wok downtown, so yesterday, I went there for dinner, and left quite happy.

I started with hot and sour soup. The first thing I wondered as I took my first sip was whether the chef forgot to add the vinegar. There was no “sour” detectable. But the stock was rich, there wasn’t too much cornstarch, and as soup, it was extremely good.

I had spotted House Special Pan Fried Noodles on the menu. I wondered if this was what I thought it was, so I asked the waitress. She confirmed, and I ordered it. Chao mian, the progenitor of chow mein, is a Chinese dish in which the noodles are stir-fried with the other ingredients. In Hong Kong, the noodles are fried separately in a layer until the bottom is crunchy. They are flipped over onto a plate, crunchy side on top, and a combination of meats and vegetables stir-fried in a brown sauce, is poured over the top. The sauce softens the noodles, so you get a little bit of crunch and soft, carmelized noodle together.

This is what the Golden Wok’s pan fried noodles are, and I ordered it. The brown sauce was just a tiny bit sweeter than ideal, but that’s a small criticism. It was very good. I will be going back. A lot. Maybe even tonight.

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I’ve been getting around 500 spam messages every fifteen minutes today — I’m busy downloading then deleting them. What’s today? What’s going on? Am I the only one?

Here’s Carreras again, singing Colpito qui m’avete from Andrea Chénier, and he’s not slopping all over the place. So José, why don’t you sing the music as it’s written and the composer meant for you to sing it all the time? Why do you want to sound like a pig?

Oops, spoke to soon. He hit a couple of really sour notes there. And there he goes, slopping the hogs again. God, I despise Carreras. Really, really despise him.

And dear God, is that Eva Marton singing Maddalena? Who thought that was a good idea? I’m so glad I didn’t see this production . . .

We just started getting Ovation TV recently and for the first time, I tuned in. Great Tenor Performances is on. I had to mute the system when I first tuned in because the ghastly José Carreras was on, doing what too many Italianate singers do, scooping all over the place (actually, what Carreras does can’t even be called scooping — slopping is more like it). Please. I realize it’s more “expressive” to screw the damned notes and slide up and down, but it sounds like shit. Can we have some musicality? Some indication that you can, in fact, read music? And you wonder why I prefer singers who specialize in German repertoire?

Ah, but the amazing Jon Vickers is now on, singing Vois ma misère, hélas! from Samson et Delilah. Astounding.

The idiots at HuffPo have simultaneously gone off the rails and yet again demonstrated that they have no morals, no ethics, no principles, and no sense of proportion: “At least Hitler meant well” (link is to Ace’s post — if you want to read the original, it’s linked there. I won’t link directly to any nutty leftwing sites, cause I don’t want to be swamped with idiot trolls).

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The envirowackjobs somehow manage to outdo their own idiocy, delving for new depths of utter stupidity in search of global hysteria. Thanks to Tim Blair, I saw this Chicken Little story:

Boaters on Lake Superior said the water is so low it appears the world’s largest freshwater lake is disappearing.

The lake, which is about 18 inches below average, has dropped nearly 2.5 feet over the past decade and the entire Great Lakes Basin is seeing reduced water levels, CBS News said Friday.

Oh my God, no! Lake Superior is disappearing! Oh whatever will we do! Sign Kyoto now!

Let’s look at this in perspective, shall we? Lake Superior is the largest fresh-water lake in the world. Its surface area is 31,820 square miles, larger than many states (larger than South Carolina). The average depth is 483 feet, and the maximum depth is 1,333 feet, and during storms, waves often reach 20-30 feet.

Let’s stop there for a minute. Forget math. Just think about it for a minute. The average depth of Lake Superior is 483 feet. Would you be afraid it was drying up if the water level sank 18 inches? But let’s go on.

Lake Superior holds 2,935 cubic miles of water. Why cubic miles and not gallons? Because that’s 3,231,778,805,900,000 gallons. Three quadrillion, 231 trillion, 778 billion, 805 million and 900 thousand gallons. That’s enough water to cover every inch of North and South America with a foot of water.

Think about it. 18 inches. 3,231,778,805,900,000 gallons. Perspective.

The real joke here is that this idiotic story appeared in the “science” section. This, my friends, is the problem with majoring in the liberal arts.

Hamas to Spiegel:

There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 — now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!

Hat tip to LGF.

While I’m repairing the hard drive, here are a few gems of leftist idiocy. Remember Cameron Diaz, one of the stupidest idiots in Hollywood? The ditz who said on Oprah before the 2004 election, “If you think that rape should be legal, then don’t vote,” that idiot? Well, she’s made a leftist ass out of herself again, this time in Peru:

Actress Cameron Diaz appears to have committed a major fashion crime in Peru.

The voice of Princess Fiona in the animated Shrek films may have inadvertently offended Peruvians.

They suffered decades of violence from a Maoist guerrilla insurgency by touring there on Friday with a bag emblazoned with one of Mao Zedong’s favourite political slogans.

While she explored the Inca city of Machu Picchu high in Peru’s Andes, Diaz wore over her shoulder an olive green messenger bag emblazoned with a red star and the words ‘Serve the People’ printed in Chinese on the flap, perhaps Chinese Communist leader Mao’s most famous political slogan.

While the bags are marketed as trendy fashion accessories in some world capitals, the phrase has particular resonance in Peru.

The Maoist Shining Path insurgency took Peru to the edge of chaos in the 1980s and early 1990s with a campaign of massacres, assassinations and bombings.

Nearly 70,000 people were killed during the insurgency.

A prominent Peruvian human rights activist said the star of There’s Something About Mary should have been a little more aware of local sensitivities when picking her accessories.

“It alludes to a concept that did so much damage to Peru, that brought about so many victims,” said Pablo Rojas about the bag’s slogan.

“I don’t think she should have used that bag where the followers of that ideology” did so much damage.

Not to echo Don Surber, but maybe when she and her idiot Hollywood friends next tour Israel, they should take handbags with chic and trendy swastikas on them. She’s also an eco-moron, of course. More on her most recent enviro-babble here.

Then, there’s Cohen and Grigsby, a law firm in Pittsburgh, who were so proud of the job they do informing businesses how not to hire Americans that they (are you ready for this one?) put up a video of one of their presentations on youtube (video here). Lou Dobbs saw it, and raised hell (video), and although the MSM would have ignored it if Dobbs hadn’t shone a spotlight on it, AP covered it. Now, Grassley is demanding a White House investigation. Somebody forgot to take his smart pill. Or maybe it’s something in the water. Or maybe they’re just blithering idiots.

Occam’s Razor favors the last hypothesis.

Just in case you wondered.

Making your own isn’t too tedious (provided you don’t buy a whole coconut), but it’s more time consuming than buying canned. I keep dessicated unsweetened coconut just for that emergency.

Don’t even think about the whole coconut thing. First, you have to split it open, and that’s the easiest part. Then, you have to separate the coconut from the shell. That’s not only a pain in the ass — it’s dangerous. Then, you have to grate it. Probably the best option, though pricey, it to buy shelled coconut in the produce department (I’ve been seeing that everywhere for the last year or so), and grate what you need. Or buy unsweetened coconut (usually dessicated, or powdered).

If you want to make 2 cups of coconut milk, you’ll need two cups of coconut and two cups of water. Put the coconut in a large bowl, and bring the water to a boil. Pour the boiling water over the coconut and let it cool to room temperature. Strain through double thicknesses of cheesecloth, and squeeze the cheesecloth dry. You’ll have to let it sit an hour or so for the cream to rise.

I did the whole make your own Thai curry paste thing until I noticed all the Thais at the local international grocery were buying little cans of curry paste. The store sold so much of it to the Thais, in fact, that they had trouble keeping on the shelves. So I tried it, and I haven’t made curry paste since (and thank God I don’t have to open any little cans of shrimp paste).

The ingredients you need are whatever meat and vegetables you’re putting in the curry, Thai curry paste, coconut milk, fish sauce, and fresh basil (the basil is a garnish, though a flavorful one, so if you don’t have it or forgot to buy it, don’t worry about it).

Much as Mexicans classify molés by color, so Thais classify curries (though as with molés, color isn’t the only difference). There are six major ones: Yellow, red, green, panang, masaman, and sour (or sour yellow, or sour fish). All are readily available in any international or Asian grocery. Yellow is the mildest. Green is usually the hottest, and is “sweet” (by Asian standards, not sweet at all), and usually contains eggplant. Red is nearly as hot, and often contains bamboo shoots. Panang is “peanutty” and usually contains green beans. Masaman (from “Muslim”) is heavily Indian influenced, and often contains potatoes.

Coconut milk can be found at any international or Asian grocery, or if you’re a masochist, you can make your own. Typically, an Asian grocery carries at least four different brands, usually from the Phillipines and Thailand, and sometimes, Indonesia or Malaysia. Coconut milk, just like cow’s milk, contains fat that separates as cream. The more cream, the better the curry (get Coco-King extra rich from Thailand, if your store carries it). Do not use sweetened coconut milk!

You’ll want to make rice to go with the curry. Regular long-grain is fine, though if you want to be authentic, you’ll want Jasmine or sticky rice (in Cambodia, they serve sticky rice, which you form into a ball with your fingers, then use it to scoop curry up and eat it). Chopsticks are not used in southeast Asia.

You can use pork, beef, chicken, fish, or shellfish. If you use fish or chicken, cube it. If you use pork or beef, slice it thinly. If you use potatoes or other root vegetables that don’t cook quickly, cut them into small cubes so they’ll cook in only a few minutes. If you have basil, shred a few leaves and put them in a bowl or small container, and put it on the table (the basil goes on top after the curry is served).

Store the coconut milk the same way it was on the shelf (that is, don’t turn the can upside down). The cream has risen to the top, and you want to get to the cream first.

Start the rice. Heat a pot over high, then scoop out the cream (half the cream if you’re using extra rich) and add it to the hot pan and stir. Turn the heat down to medium while you open the curry paste.

How much curry paste you use depends on how intensely flavored and how hot you want the curry. I use a can of paste for each can of coconut milk. If you have a delicate palate, you probably want less (then, if you have a delicate palate, what are you doing eating Thai food?) Look at the coconut cream in the pan. After just a minute or two, the oil will start to separate out (you can see it pool up on top of the cream). When this happens, add the paste, blend well, and turn the heat back up to high. Add the meat and stir to coat evenly with the paste mixture. Add any vegetables and the rest of the coconut milk. Simmer until everything is done. Add a tablespoon or so of fish sauce and taste. If it still needs “salt,” add fish sauce, a little at a time, to taste. Bowl the curry, and sprinkle with shredded basil.

There’s a reason your favorite Thai restaurant uses canned curry pastes, you know.

I’m going to have red pork curry with bamboo shoots.

As in Sam’s Club for some needed supplies. Of course, I dedicate my trip to Sam’s Club to the Silky Pony and his “two Americas” idiocy.

Line of the day: “This is what I get for trusting a bunch of goddamn hippies with chemistry degrees. Oh, they’re okay when it comes to making bathtub meth. Just don’t let them near your garden.”

I’ll stick to roller coasters.

If you change the date on an article, it changes the URL. See here. Updated.

Homemade sausages:

Pictures and directions here (though my question is where’s the kraut and mustard?)

I was at Wally World, and they had these little Brinkman charcoal smokers for 28 bucks. I owned one of these before, and they do give you great results, and barbecuing on my grill is expensive (it takes more charcoal and wood), so I bit the bullet. Putting it together was fun, especially since all the nuts and bolts weren’t there (that’s why we have all kinds of screws, nuts, and bolts in the garage) . Oh, and I picked up this one piece and it looked like there was a hair on it, so I grabbed it and yanked on it. It wasn’t a hair, and it didn’t come off. It was a thin, razor-sharp, piece of steel, and I got a nice cut and bled like a stuck pig.

Speaking of pigs, Rory the South Carolinian belongs to the Church of Carolina Gold. If you want barbecue wars, head to South Carolina. In the east, they swear by a simple, vinegar baste. In the center of the state, they prefer a mustard-based sauce (Carolina Gold), and in the west, a tomato-based sauce (Carolina Red). Anyway, I found a recipe for a Carolina Gold sauce that looked good, and I had that pork butt from Giant (I put the rub on it, wrapped it up in plastic wrap, and let it sit all day and night in the refrigerator), so I thought I’d try it in the new smoker. I know I rarely post food pics (cause I usually start picking at it as soon as it’s done, if I wait that long), but I want you to see this. Moist. Falling apart (I had to stick it back together — I think I did a pretty good job of hiding where it fell apart). When I pull it apart, it will be all pink around the edges. The pork butt is dedicated to PETA, of course, since they’ve had not one, but two traumatic incidents this week.

I used the same rub I always do. I used mesquite, partly because I prefer it to hickory, and partly because Wally World was out of hickory chunks (and nobody here I’ve found carries pear or apple wood chunks). It’s a 2.5 pound roast (more or less). I put it on, over water, at 9:00 am. I took it off around 2:00 pm. I want it a bit more done, so I tossed it in the oven with a foil tent (the fire was about gone, and I didn’t want to open another bag of mesquite chunks to feed it, plus it’s been over the smoke five hours). I turned and basted it with the Carolina Gold about every 30 minutes after the first hour. I’ll tell you how it tastes after I eat some (I’m going to let it go in the oven about 45 minutes), and if Rory’s converted me from vinegar to mustard (this sauce doesn’t look, er, icky like the mustard sauces I’ve had — course, it calls for “yellow mustard” and we only have Gulden’s brown and Hengstenberg yellow, and there is no way I’m using Hengstenberg in a sauce I haven’t tried yet, so I used the Gulden’s. That may have made it less “yellow” and more “gold.”)

For more detailed directions, see here (and follow the link).

Rub:

2 T. paprika
2 T. salt
1 T. black pepper, ground
2 t. cayenne, ground

Carolina Gold Sauce

2 c. cider vinegar
2 T. honey or molasses
2 T. prepared mustard
2 T. brown sugar
2 T. salt
2 T. crushed red pepper
1 T. black pepper

Mix and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Oh. I went back to the Asian grocery today and they were open. Curry tomorrow.

Another political quiz (this one is even more simplistic than most), courtesy of Mamacita.

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 95% Conservative, 5% Liberal Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Ethics: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

There’s only one terminal at the State College airport, and as I was sitting there waiting to board the plane, I happened to turn around and see three flags. Now, if you saw three flags in an airport, what do you think they would be?

Sure, there was Old Glory. And yes, there was the Pennsylvania state flag. So what do you think the third flag was? It was this flag.

This may be a Pennsylvania thing (Tom Ridge, you know). I did look in Dulles and Charleston, but saw no flags of any variety at either airport. But I doubt it.

Please explain:

• why the Department of Homeland Security needs its own flag
• why taxes should be allocated to produce God knows how many of these flags

And while you’re at it, did you know DHS had its own flag? Did you know that your taxes were used to make this flag?

I have no problem with tax money being used to make, say, American flags. Or tax money being used to make, say, military flags. Or state taxes used to make, say, state flags. But I do have a problem with taxes being used to make DHS flags. Or FBI flags (is there such a thing?) Or CIA flags (again, is there such a thing?)

Yet another of those good government bureaucrats spending your money.

Would you like to know what your elected congresscritters think of you? Are you sure? Then, be my guest — but it’s not pretty. Hat tip to the good folks at Maggie’s Farm.

you’d want locked up psychos to be able to vote, too.

First, there was the man who strangled the bobcat. Today, there’s this:

A camping trip to Low Gap Camp Grounds near Helen turned into a harrowing experience for Chris Everhart and his three sons when they tangled with a 300-pound black bear.

But it proved fatal for the bear.

The bear had taken the Everharts’ cooler and was heading back to the woods when 6-year-old Logan hurled a shovel at it.

Fearing what might happen next, the Norcross father and ex-Marine grabbed the closest thing he could find — a log.

“(I) threw it at it and it happened to hit the bear in the head,” Chris Everhart said. “I thought it just knocked it out but it actually ended up killing the bear.”

But it’s apparently a great week for idiots. The DNR drools as much as our earlier morons:

The man was given a ticket for failing to secure his camp site, said Ken Riddleberger, a region supervisor for game management with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

So a bear invades the site, he kills it so it won’t attack them — and the DNR gives him a ticket. Sweet.

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Ants Climbing a Tree (Hunan — more western Chinese recipes here)

This is a remarkable dish. The little bits of pork look like ants and the noodles like tree limbs (that’s the idea, anyway). Note that there is a trick to this dish. What makes it memorable is the contrast between the spicy hot flavor and the cool temperature of the dish (but not refrigerator cold, or you can’t taste it). And it is spicy hot. I make this in the summer (with two heaping tablespoons of chili paste, not just one–I like this so spicy it makes my scalp sweat and my lips burn).

1 lb. Chinese egg noodles or vermicelli (thin spaghetti)
1/2 lb. ground pork
2 inches ginger, peeled and minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. dark soy sauce
1 heaping T. chili paste with garlic (available at your local Chinese food mart)
1/2 c. chicken stock
1/2 T. cornstarch
sesame oil
2 green onions, minced

First, make the sauce. Heat a wok over high heat until smoking, add the oil, and swirl to coat the wok Add the ginger and garlic and stir for 15 seconds, then the ground pork and the white part of the onions. Flip for a minute or two until the pork has lost all color, then add the chili paste and soy sauce. Mix the chicken stock with the cornstarch, then add to the wok and cook until thickened. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil or so, stir thoroughly, and refrigerate until cool to the touch, but not ice cold.

Cook the noodles or pasta just until done. Drain, and rinse thoroughly in cold water until the noodles feel cool to the touch. Mix with the sauce, stir in the remaining green onion, and serve.

Yum Nur (Thai)

I first had this at the Siam House in Bloomington, when they first opened and before they went to hell (I’ve heard that the owner came back to town and they’re better, but we stopped eating there, so I can’t testify either way). Everything about this dish is remarkable. It’s astoundingly spicy — painfully so. But the contrast with the temperature, the citrus-y lime, the cucumbers, and the mint, well, you’ll just have to try it yourself. Your local Thai restaurant most likely has this on the menu (it’s a standard). Or try this recipe.

Oh. Fish sauce. This is the southeast Asian equivalent of soy sauce, and you can pick it up at any Asian grocery, and many larger supermarkets. Yeah, it’s what you suspect it is, but don’t think about it. You also want to keep your nose far away from the top of the bottle when you open it because it really stinks, but it tastes nothing like it smells. You know how I feel about fish, so if it did, I’d tell you.

1 lb top sirloin, new york strip, or tenderloin
10 (or more) fresh chilies, slice crosswise very thin (jalapenos or serranos work fine)
2 large cloves garlic, sliced crosswise very thin
1 T. sugar
5 T. fish sauce
5 T. fresh squeezed lime juice (1 medium size lime)
1 head Bibb or Boston; or 1 heart of Romaine lettuce.
12 sprigs fresh mint (leaves only)
1/2 hot house cucumber or 1 small cucumber (seeds removed), peeled and sliced thin
2 to 3 shallots, sliced crosswise very thin or 1 small red onion, sliced very thin
3 or 4 sprigs cilantro, stems removed

Grill or broil the steak until medium-rare. Trim off any fat. Cool and slice thin, into pieces approx. 2 inches across and 1/8 inch thick.

Mix garlic, chiles, fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar in a small bowl. Add the sliced meat and toss with the cucumbers and shallots. Taste and add more fish sauce if desired.

Make a bed of the lettuce on a serving plate. Place the beef on top. Garnish with cilantro. Serves 2 to 3 as an appetizer or as part of a meal.

Laab Kai (Thai)

This is really good too, though it’s not as spicy hot as the num yur.

1 lb. boneless chicken, chopped or ground
1 Tbs. peanut oil
6 cloves garlic, minced and pounded to a paste
1 stalk lemon grass (optional), trimmed and sliced into thin rounds or chopped
1 shallot, finely chopped
2 green onions (use white part only), finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves
2 small pieces dried galanga, toasted and then ground finely
2-4 tsp. ground roasted dried Thai chillies
3+ Tbs. fish sauce (nam bplah), to taste
Juice of 2-3 limes, to desired sourness
1/2 to 1 tsp. sugar as needed to balance flavors
2 Tbs. ground roasted rice¹
An assortment of raw or lightly steamed vegetables and aromatic herbs, such as: sprigs of various tropical basils and mints, green beans/long beans Thai eggplant, cabbage morning glory/water cress, cucumber/squash/zucchini lettuce etc.

Cook the chopped or ground chicken in a little bit of oil in a wok until thoroughly cooked, breaking into small bits. Set aside.

Prepare the garlic, lemon grass (if using), shallot, green onions and mint. Toast the galanga in a small dry pan over medium heat until the pieces are darkened and slightly charred. Let cool before grinding in a clean coffee grinder to a fine powder. Then roast a handful of whole dried Thai chillies in the pan, turning frequently until they are darkened and slightly charred. Grind into a fine powder.

Toss the cooked chicken with the garlic, lemon grass, shallot, green onion, mint, ground toasted galanga and chillies, fish sauce and lime juice. Mix well. Taste and adjust flavors to desired sourness, hotness and saltiness. Add sugar only as needed to pull the flavors together. Toss the toasted rice powder into the mixture and serve salad at room temperature with a tray of assorted vegetables and herbs.

Summer Steak Salad With Ginger-Lime Dressing (Shaking Beef, Vietnamese)

This is not very spicy at all, by the way, but delicious and refreshing.

Dressing

3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon minced red jalapeño chili

Salad

2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon medium-dry sherry
2 teaspoons medium soy sauce (Kikkoman)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon (packed) brown sugar
1 1/4 pounds New York steak, trimmed, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 bunches watercress, bottom 2 inches discarded, cut into 1-inch lengths
3 cups mizuna leaves, torn in half if very large (about 1 1/2 ounces)
2 cups (lightly packed) torn Bibb lettuce leaves (about 6 large)
1 cup basil leaves, cut into 1/2-inch-wide strips
1/2 12-ounce English hothouse cucumber, halved lengthwise, sliced very thinly on diagonal
12 cherry tomatoes

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 medium-size red onion, cut into thin wedges
2 shallots, sliced into thin rounds
1/4 medium pineapple, peeled, cored, halved lengthwise, cut crosswise into 1/3-inch-thick slices

Dressing:

Whisk all ingredients in small bowl to blend.

Salad:

Mix oyster sauce, sherry, soy sauce, minced garlic, and brown sugar in medium bowl. Stir in steak. Marinate steak at least 30 minutes and up to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

Combine watercress, mizuna, lettuce, basil, cucumber, and tomatoes in large bowl. Add half of dressing and toss to coat. Arrange greens mixture on large rimmed platter.

Heat oil in a wok or large nonstick skillet over high heat. Add onion and shallots and sauté 30 seconds. Add beef with marinade. Sauté until beef is brown outside but still pink inside, about 4 minutes. Add pineapple slices and stir until pineapple is heated through, about 1 minute longer. Spoon steak mixture with any pan juices atop dressed greens mixture on platter. Drizzle salad with remaining dressing and serve.

Too much Asian? Okay, how about this one.

Blackened Steak Salad (Chicago Chop House)

For spice mixture

1 tablespoon paprika
2 teaspoons ground black pepper
11/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

For salad

1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
6 cups (packed) mixed baby greens
1/2 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion

2 5- to 6-ounce beef tenderloin steaks, each about 1/2 inch thick
3 tablespoons butter, melted
6 tablespoons crumbled blue cheese (about 3 ounces)
1 tomato, quartered

For spice mixture: Mix all ingredients in small bowl. (Can be made 1 week ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.)

For salad: Whisk oil, vinegar and mustard in large bowl to blend. Season with salt and pepper. Add greens, bell pepper and onion and toss to coat. Divide salad between 2 plates.

Spread spice mixture on plate. Coat both sides of steaks with spice mixture. Dip both sides of steaks into melted butter. Heat heavy large skillet over high heat until very hot. Add steaks and cook to desired doneness, about 2 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer to cutting board; let stand 2 minutes. Thinly slice steaks crosswise. Arrange slices atop salads. Sprinkle with cheese. Garnish with tomato and serve.

Pesto Chicken Salad

2 c. fresh basil leaves
1/2 c. extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 t. salt

1/2 c. parmagianno-reggiano, grated

1 lb. chicken
1 small red onion

2 c. baby spinach leaves

Either poach or broil the chicken just until done, and moist. Cool, then debone and cube.

Make the pesto. Toss the basil leaves, garlic, and salt in your food processor, turn it on, and add the olive oil. Scrape the bowl down, and pulse a few times, until everything is well chopped and blended. Add the cheese, and pulse a few times, until “emulsified.”

Peel the onion, quarter, and slice very thinly. Separate. Toss spinach, chicken, and onion with the pesto and serve.

1. Roasted Rice Powder: Make your own rice powder by roasting raw rice in a hot skillet (cast iron is good) or wok over low to medium heat until golden brown for about 12 minutes. Stir constantly so that it does not burn. Grind in a mortar with a pestle or clean electric coffee-grinder until pulverized. [↩]

I was extremely hungry for some reason a little after ten this morning, so I shut down the laptop and headed to the Waffle Shop. They don’t have a webpage (though Mr. Breakfast has reviews here), but here’s a pic:

Wait. I was thinking to myself as I drove there, “Self,” I thought, “We’re all out of coconut milk, and that Asian grocery is just down the street from there, so why not go there first, then hit the Waffle Shop on the way back.” So I did — only to find out that they opened at 10:30. So back to the Waffle Shop I went.

The summer is the time to go. The Waffle Shop is one of the most popular businesses in town. Go during the academic year when the students are here, and you’ll wait in line — and don’t even think about going on a home football game weekend.

The Waffle Shop is a family-owned business, and there are four (as far as I know): Three in State College, and one in Bellefonte. This ain’t IHOP. It’s not the Pancake Pantry, either. The Waffle Shop is bright and clean, the service is outstanding (and fast), the prices are cheap, the servings are immense, and the food couldn’t be better.

It’s breakfast food, and a pretty spartan menu. The fanciest items on the menu are the strawberry pancakes (strawberries and whipped cream everywhere), blueberry pancakes (as in blueberry pancakes), and corn pancakes. Bacon, eggs, sausage, fried potatoes, that sort of thing. No biscuits and gravy (and of course, no grits), in fact, no biscuits on the menu at all. English muffins. No biscuits.

I got the 12-inch Belgian waffle and sausage, as I always do. Six minutes after I ordered it, the waitress set the food down in front of me. After I ate, she and I had a long conversation about where to eat (and not) in the area. I left at 10:40, a very happy and full man.

So I drove back down the street to the Asian grocery — and they still weren’t open. So I waited. And I waited. And at 11:00, I figured I’d go back, maybe tomorrow afternoon.

I stopped at Giant on the way back, with no idea what I wanted. I had wanted to make a curry, but that Asian place wasn’t open, so I checked out the meat counter. They had pork shoulder roasts at $2.19, so I picked one up and headed back.

Oh. The plumbing. Before I decided to eat at the Waffle Shop, indeed, one of the reasons I decided to go out instead of cook, was the water pressure. I turned on the hot water, and very little water pressure. The cold was fine. So I checked each faucet in the house, and each had very little hot water pressure. I didn’t want to wash any more dishes than I had to, so I went out for breakfast. And of course, I called the plumber.

Anyway, I got that pork shoulder at Giant, so I swung past Wally World, and picked up some mesquite chunks. I got home, mixed up the rub, and I’m going to barbecue it tomorrow. And speaking of food, I think I’m going to eat some bacon.

From Jeff Jacoby:

From school vouchers to stem cell research to racial preferences to torture, the American right bubbles with debate and disagreement, while the left, for all its talk about “diversity,” rarely seems to show any. As National Review’s Jonah Goldberg points out, that may be because “liberals define diversity by skin color and sex, not by ideas, which makes it difficult to have really good arguments.”

Good arguments are no bad thing. They energize political parties and put convictions to the test. They illuminate the issues. They make people think. The debates on the right enliven the marketplace of ideas and enrich the democratic process. Some debates on the left would, too.

Talk about my era TV. Bonanza is on. I’m sure I haven’t seen an episode of Bonanza since they first aired.

It’s close to two years now, so I thought I’d sit down and look at my representative’s stances and votes and see how he rates. Given that he first took office in 1997, John E. Peterson (PA-5) has to be one of the most low-key representatives in the House — I mean, have you heard of him? No? I rest my case.

He votes. He’s not one of these representatives who gets elected and then can’t bother to be there to vote. There are a handful of NVs on his voting record, but not many.

He does answer mail, but by the time you get it, you’ve forgotten what you wrote to him about, and you get a meaningless form letter response. Then, that’s standard. I’m spoiled, I suppose, after living in Indiana’s Ninth District, and being represented by Baron Hill (yes, he’s a Democrat). One thing I can say about Hill is that whether he agrees with you or not, every time you write him he sends a response, and it’s not only polite, but a real response, not a form letter. He probably hates me, as often as I wrote him, and however I feel about his politics, he takes his job as a representative of the people seriously. But back to Peterson.

He’s a pro-business, free-trade, social conservative, and here I’ll admit that he’s a good match for this large, mostly rural, district (even though some of the things that make him a good match really irritate me). The Democrats don’t even bother to run anybody against him.

Let’s look at his ratings, then his voting record.

First, there’s this:

Americans give both President Bush and the Congress failing marks on their handling of immigration, according to a new UPI/Zogby poll on the topic.

The Zogby Interactive poll of 8,300 adults nationwide finds just 3% of Americans viewing Congress’s handling of the immigration issue in favorable terms, while 9% say the same of the President-even as respondents in the survey rated it the second most important issue facing the country, after the war in Iraq.

Do they care? Why, no! They’re going to push this bill through, and we’re going to thank them for it!

Then, there’s this — idiocy, yes, but malignant idiocy:

When a neighbor screamed she’d been shot, Colin Bruley grabbed his shotgun, found the victim and began treating her bloodied right leg.

Tonnetta Lee survived Tuesday’s pre-dawn shooting at her Jacksonville apartment, and her sister and a neighbor praised Bruley’s actions. But his employers, the same people who own the Arlington complex where Bruley lives, reacted differently. They fired him.

Bruley, a leasing agent at the Oaks at Mill Creek, said he lost his job after being told that brandishing the weapon was a workplace violation, as was failing to notify supervisors after the incident occurred….

He never fired the shotgun.

“I was expecting work to give me some kind of commendation,” said Bruley, 24. “I was totally blown back. It was a crisis that most people don’t go through.”

[ . . . ]

A complaint Bruley said was given to him by his supervisor Tuesday said he violated several company policies found in an employee handbook. Those procedures were also explained in a recent meeting and an e-mail, the complaint said. One policy prohibits any type of weapons being used in the workplace. The complaint cited him for “gross misconduct.”

“Colin demonstrated extremely poor judgment in responding to this situation,” the complaint said. “Colin’s failure to immediately report this incident … could have serious ramifications to the property, its associates and residents.”

And there’s this — almost as malignant as the last:

Here’s a little story out of my hometown. A little background - after the first Gulf War, some veterans in Maine thought it would be nice to greet the troops coming back from that conflict. Many of them were Vietnam Vets who still remember the less-than-warm welcome they received upon coming home, and wanted to give today’s vets a better memory.

The idea really took off. According to the organization’s website, the troop greeters have met over 400,000 troops and provided free cell phones, cookies and hugs.

I’ve been at the airport when some vets have returned and watched the greeters at work and the response of the troops. It’s pretty moving stuff.

Read the whole thing — I won’t spoil it by giving it away.

And if it’s feminut stupidity you’re looking for, well, here’s your fix for the day.

Sadly, I suspect there will be even more examples to come in today’s news.

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Jules Crittenden is a poet!

I realized our glasses are too narrow (and don’t hold enough) for a proper float, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Then, I spied my NRA giant travel mug, and it was perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the NRA Life Member Root Beer Float:

That was before I ate it (you didn’t think I’d blog before I tackled it, did you?)

“That was fast!” you say, and it was. I went to Sheetz. Half the distance of Wegman’s (okay, so neither is far), and no lines, no waiting.

Now it’s time to make that float . . .

Today is National Ice Cream Soda Day, and to celebrate, I’m off to the store to buy some ice cream and root beer.

I figure this is worth at least one naked protest with giant puppets: Vietnam vet kills bobcat with his bare hands.

This week’s Carnival of Education is up, and I stopped on this article by the Science Goddess:

I was amazed when I moved here and discovered that the high school had an espresso cart. Kids bought and sold coffee, for crying out loud—something you would never have seen in the southwest US.

First, kudos to the kids for being entrepeneurs. Back at the business school, student organizations sold food and coffee (doughnuts and bagels in the morning, pizza at noon, and cookies — specifically, seriously kick-ass oatmeal raisin cookies — in the afternoon) on the first floor. I emptied my wallet of cash every day down there, partly because I was hungry, and partly because they got no funding from the university and only their own efforts. Imagine students not on the public dole!

But after my initial applause, I got to this (emphasis mine, of course):

There is a definitely coffee culture here in the northwest. Don’t let the cliches fool you. And if you need any more evidence, take a look at this article about how the district administration offices in the Edmonds School District have a new $15K espresso machine, even as jobs are being cut.

I could say it’s outrageous, but that would miss the issue. It’s fiscally irresponsible. And for the sake of clarification, let’s contrast the school district (well, really their new $15K espresso machine) and a large, financially well-off, midwestern business school (well, really their lack of a new $15K espresso machine).

There is a faculty lounge, a staff lounge, and two student lounges (one for undergrads and one for grads). The faculty and staff lounges have those huge, party-sized percolators (and the coffee sucks, unless you like cheap, weak coffee). That’s the only state-subsidized coffee in the entire business school.

As I mentioned above, student organizations sell food and coffee on the first floor (but their coffee sucks too). One of the local coffee houses runs a stand where you can buy a good, strong, double espresso (or if you like such stuff, lattes and so forth — me, I prefer my espresso straight up). Or you can walk across the street to the dorm immediately to the north, and buy pretty good strong coffee at the food court (did I mention that food services at the university were entirely privatized about fifteen years ago?) Or if you’re too lazy to walk either there, or to the coffee cart (or to be fair, only have a few minutes and really need a dose of caffeine before class), you can (ta-dum!) bring your own espresso machine to your office!

I did that. I had a small espresso machine in my office. It wasn’t so much that I was too lazy to walk as it was that I’m an early bird who (God willing) taught 8 o’clock classes (there’s not much competition for those, so if you like ‘em, you pretty much got ‘em), and I’d get to work around 6:30, 7:00 at the latest, often before anybody had started selling coffee.

I could probably have gotten the university to pay for that espresso machine, had I tried. I did not, just because I didn’t think I was entitled to state-subsidized caffeine. And you’ll note that the financially well-off business school doesn’t provide much in the way of state-subsidized caffeine, either, whereas the school district apparently thinks everybody is entitled to all the espresso they want — at state expense.

What’s that you say? They bought it, so it’s not state expense? Well of course, it is. They bought it with taxes — you know, the “We need more money for education!” taxes.

Guess what, folks? You’re not entitled to espresso. Or cigarettes. Or chocolate truffles. If you want espresso, a cigarette, or a truffle, go right ahead — just pay for it out of your own pocket. And that leads me to another point of irritation.

Quite a few times on edublogs, I’ve seen teachers whining about having to buy pencils or paper or God knows what for their students because the school district wouldn’t supply it, and never have I responded. Well, I’m going to respond now.

Suck it up, boys and girls. I have no sympathy. When I was a grad student and making far, far less money than the lowest paid public school teacher in the nation, there were things my program would not supply, so I did. Out of my own pocket. And I made one hell of a lot less money than any of you whiners did — plus, I never whined about it. If the class needs it, they need it. If the school board or administration won’t supply it, and the parents won’t supply it, well, then you have to.

Suck it up. That’s the real world. There ain’t no free lunch, kids. Grow up, and stop whining.

Identifying the uninsured (and unlike Mike Al-Moor, all the data sources are cited and linked). My particular favorite of the interviewees is Faye Chao:

Faye Chao (Uninsured 26-year-old):
My rent currently is $475 plus utilities. In total, my cost comes out to about $530 a month.

Stuart Browning:
What’s your average monthly income?

Faye Chao:
On average my monthly income is twenty three hundred. And it’s not taxed. Sometimes, you know, it varies. I save almost a thousand dollars a month.

Stuart Browning:
So why don’t you have health insurance?

Faye Chao:
I’m young right now and currently don’t need health insurance. Probably don’t want to spend $200 a month.

Stuart Browning:
In this state, a 26-year-old non-smoker with no preexisting conditions can get a policy for $96 a month.

Faye Chao:
It’s 96 dollars a month, but that’s twelve hundred dollars a year you’re spending on health insurance. And honestly, I feel it’s ridiculous that we live in a first world country where I have to pay for basic health care.

Ah, she’s entitled! Given her “Everybody else should have to pay for my health care” attitude, this is hardly surprising:

Faye Chao:
I bike everywhere in the city, so I have gotten hit by drivers twice - and one time I ended up in the hospital. No, I didn’t have health insurance, but I was treated - and billed for it later.

Stuart Browning (off camera):
Umm hmm. How much was the bill for? Do you remember?

Faye Chao:
Honestly I don’t because I didn’t bother to pay for it.

Not only is she entitled, she’s a thief–anyone who is “entitled” is a thief by definition.

Do read the whole thing.

I was looking at the most recent Rasmussen poll results on the GOP candidates, and noticed something I found (at least at first) a bit unexpected. Here are the results:

Thompson was added to the Rasmussen poll on 3 April. Look at the numbers for the other three candidates for that week, then compare them to their numbers for the previous week. Note that whereas Romney and McCain seem unaffected by adding Thompson, Giuliani drops by nine percent. This isn’t unexpected. But this is (and it’s easier to see with line charts). Here are the candidates before 3 April, when Thompson was added:

McCain and Romney are falling, and Giuliani is rising. But note what happens after Thompson is added to the mix:

Thompson starts above Romney, but below McCain, and he stays below McCain until the week of 29 May, when his numbers start to rise sharply. Note that whereas at first, Thompson was pulling votes from Giuliani, from 29 May on, both Thompson and Giuliani are rising, while McCain and Romney are falling, so both Thompson and Giuliani are pulling voters away from McCain and Romney. Given that the 29 May is right after the immigration bill fight began, I’m not surprised to see McCain falling in the polls. I am a bit surprised to see Romney’s numbers falling, not to mention Giuliani’s numbers rising along with Thompson’s.

I just thought it was interesting.

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Duke’s tenured vigilantes. I’m sorry to say I know one of the Gang of 88. I’m even sorrier to say that apparently, she never became an adult.

Joan M’Benga, ethnic looking clip-art model sez:

I buy Apple products. It just makes me feel special.

Hat tip to Kim DuToit.

and hard:

The ISRA is expressing great concern over reports that Illinois State Police (ISP) detectives have been visiting the homes of people who phoned or faxed Sen. Dan Kotowski (D-Park Ridge) to express opposition to gun control legislation sponsored by the senator. The ISRA has recently conducted a thorough investigation into one complaint, and is gathering additional information on as many as several dozen other reported incidents of police questioning citizens who have spoken out against gun control
legislation.

In the case investigated thus far, the respondent reports that ISP detectives arrived at his home, unannounced, and informed him that their visit was in response to faxes he sent to Sen. Kotowski. The detectives then went on to ask the citizen questions about his mental health and other personal matters. Although the citizen was not arrested, he reports that he feels that the detectives were there to deliver the message that it’s not a good idea to criticize Dan Kotowski or the gun control measures Kotowski supports.

Write your senator, and get a visit from the state police. Nice.

Am I the only human being alive who not only did not watch the Sopranos, but has