click to enlarge
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Poem: The Curtain
By Jack Brummet
1
There are pockets of sanity
Still scattered among us,
And light years between those
Shining Seas of Tranquility.
2
The task we face each day
Is keeping the tiller
Aimed away from
The Sea of Madness.
3
The silver rain
There are pockets of sanity
Still scattered among us,
And light years between those
Shining Seas of Tranquility.
2
The task we face each day
Is keeping the tiller
Aimed away from
The Sea of Madness.
3
The silver rain
Is drawn like a curtain
Between us
And God.
---o0o---
Monday, July 30, 2012
ATIT Reheated: [deceased] celebrity cookoff number three - President Eisenhower vs. Linda McCartney
By Jack Brummet, Food and wine editor
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office eight months before I was born and was the first President of all 50 states. He gave this nearly 900 word recipe to the Women of Christ Episcopal Church, back in the 1950's.
We have to give Ike a mulligan. Back then, you could still call a soup made with a beef bone ("the bigger the better"), chicken parts, and "a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton" a vegetable soup. Linda McCartney's soup, on the other hand, is even vegan. You do have to give Ike a point for using such a hip ingredient as nasturtiums. Linda McCartney's soup is magnificent: the best I've had. Her much briefer recipe follows DDE's. Ike was well-known for his cooking and grilling, particularly for his steaks, cornmeal flapjacks, and his "vegetable soup."
And now, Linda McCartney's justly famous vegetable soup:
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, took office eight months before I was born and was the first President of all 50 states. He gave this nearly 900 word recipe to the Women of Christ Episcopal Church, back in the 1950's.
We have to give Ike a mulligan. Back then, you could still call a soup made with a beef bone ("the bigger the better"), chicken parts, and "a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton" a vegetable soup. Linda McCartney's soup, on the other hand, is even vegan. You do have to give Ike a point for using such a hip ingredient as nasturtiums. Linda McCartney's soup is magnificent: the best I've had. Her much briefer recipe follows DDE's. Ike was well-known for his cooking and grilling, particularly for his steaks, cornmeal flapjacks, and his "vegetable soup."
First up, Ike's recipe, verbatim:
"The best time to make vegetable soup is a day or so after you have had fried chicken and out of which you have saved the necks, ribs, backs uncooked. (The chicken is not essential, but does add something.)
"Procure from the meat market a good beef soup bone, the bigger the better. It is a rather good idea to have it split down the middle so the marrow is exposed. In addition, buy a couple pounds of ordinary soup meat, either beef or mutton, or both.
"Put all this meat, early in the morning, in a big kettle. The best kind is heavy aluminum, but a good iron pot will do almost as well. Put in also the bony parts of the chicken you have saved. Cover it with water, something on the order of 5 quarts. Add a teaspoon of salt, a bit of black pepper and, if you like, a touch of garlic (one small piece). If you don’t like garlic put in onion. Boil all this slowly all day long. Keep on boiling until the meat has literally dropped off the bone. If your stock boils down during the day, add enough water from time to time to keep the meat covered. When the whole thing has practically disintegrated pour out into another large kettle through a colander. Make sure the marrow is out of the bones. Let this drain through the colander for quite awhile as much of the juice will drain out of the meat. (Shake the colander to help get out all the juices.
"Save a few of the better pieces of meat just to cut up a little bit in small pieces to put into your soup after it is done. Put the kettle containing the stock you now have in a very cool place, outdoors in the winter or in the ice box; let it stand all night and the next day until you are ready to make your soup.
"You will find that a hard layer of fat has formed on top of the stock which can usually be lifted off since the whole kettle full of stock has jelled. Some people like a little bit of the fat left on and some like their soup very rich and do not remove more than about half of the fat
'Put the stock back into your kettle and you are ready to make your soup.
"In a separate pan, boil slowly about a third of a teacupful of barley. This should be cooked separately since it has a habit, in a soup kettle, of settling to the bottom and if your fire should happen to get too hot it is likely to burn. If you cannot get barley, use rice, but it is a poor substitute.
"One of the secrets of making good vegetable soup is not to cook any of the vegetables too long. however it is impossible to give you an exact measure of the vegetables you should put in because some people like their vegetable soup almost as thick as stew, others like it much thinner. Moreover, sometimes you can get exactly the vegetables you want, other times you have to substitute. Where you use canned vegetables, put them in only a few minutes before taking the coup off the fire. If you use fresh ones, naturally they must be fully cooked in the soup. The things put into the soup are about as follows:
"1 quart of canned tomatoes1/2 teacupful of fresh peas. If you can’t get peas, a handful of good green beans cut up very small can substitute2 normal sized potatoes, diced into cubes of about 1/2 inch size2 or 3 bunches of good celery1 good sized onion, sliced3 nice-sized carrots diced about the same size as potatoes1 turnip diced like the potatoesa handful of raw cabbage cut into small piecesYour vegetables should not all be dumped in at once. The potatoes, for example, will cook more quickly than the carrots. Your effort must be to have them all nicely cooked, but not mushy, at about the same time.
"The fire must not be too hot but the should should be kept bubbling.
"When you figure the soup is about done, put in your barley, which should now be fully cooked, add a tablespoonful of prepared gravy seasoning and taste for flavoring, particularly salt and pepper, and if you have it, some onion salt, garlic salt, and celery salt. (If you cannot get the gravy seasoning, use one teaspoonful of Worcestershire Sauce.)
"Cut up the few bits of meat you have saved and put a handful in the soup.
"While you are cooking the soup do not allow the liquid to boil down too much. Add a bit of water from time to time. If your stock was good and thick when you started, you can add more water than if it was thin when you started.
"As a final touch, in the springtime when the nasturtiums are green and tender, you can take a few nasturtium stems, cut them up in small pieces , boil them separately as you did the barley, and add them to your soup."
And now, Linda McCartney's justly famous vegetable soup:
Linda McCartney eventually married one of my generation's great heroes: Paul McCartney. She was a photographer, and later a highly-regarded vegetarian cook, and food entrepreneur.
This recipe is from her excellent cookbook, Linda McCartney's Home Cooking (Arcade Publishing, 1989). When I make this soup, I only change a couple of things: I add a couple more cloves of garlic (I'm an addict), I peel the potatoes, and I probably use a heavier hand with the parsley and thyme. The recipe doesn't mention it, but after you add the tomatoes, I usually only cook the soup about five more minutes. I like this recipe because it tastes great and it is open-ended. However, she got it right, so you don't want to not stray too far from her instructions.
Linda Macca's Vegetable Soup
All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).
This recipe is from her excellent cookbook, Linda McCartney's Home Cooking (Arcade Publishing, 1989). When I make this soup, I only change a couple of things: I add a couple more cloves of garlic (I'm an addict), I peel the potatoes, and I probably use a heavier hand with the parsley and thyme. The recipe doesn't mention it, but after you add the tomatoes, I usually only cook the soup about five more minutes. I like this recipe because it tastes great and it is open-ended. However, she got it right, so you don't want to not stray too far from her instructions.
Linda Macca's Vegetable Soup
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cups trimmed (greens included), cleaned and sliced leeks
2 cups chopped celery
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups unpeeled, sliced carrots
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 cups unskinned cubed new potatoes
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh parsley
6 cups vegetable stock (fresh or canned)
8 medium tomatoes or 1 16-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium flame, and saute the onions, leeks, celery and garlic for 5 minutes. Do not brown the garlic.
2. Add the carrots, cabbage and potatoes. Stir well. Add the thyme, rosemary and parsley. Cover with vegetable stock and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Stir occasionally, adding water if evaporation is excessive.
3. If you are using fresh tomatoes, place them on top of the simmering liquid for about 2 minutes, or until their skins can be easily peeled away. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon, and when they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins. Gently crush the whole skinned tomatoes and stir them into the soup. If you are using canned tomatoes, stir them, liquid and all, into the soup.
4. Season to taste. Serve hot.
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cups trimmed (greens included), cleaned and sliced leeks
2 cups chopped celery
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 1/2 cups unpeeled, sliced carrots
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 cups unskinned cubed new potatoes
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon fresh parsley
6 cups vegetable stock (fresh or canned)
8 medium tomatoes or 1 16-ounce can of crushed tomatoes
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
1. Heat the oil in a soup pot over medium flame, and saute the onions, leeks, celery and garlic for 5 minutes. Do not brown the garlic.
2. Add the carrots, cabbage and potatoes. Stir well. Add the thyme, rosemary and parsley. Cover with vegetable stock and simmer, covered, for 1 hour. Stir occasionally, adding water if evaporation is excessive.
3. If you are using fresh tomatoes, place them on top of the simmering liquid for about 2 minutes, or until their skins can be easily peeled away. Remove the tomatoes with a slotted spoon, and when they are cool enough to handle, remove the skins. Gently crush the whole skinned tomatoes and stir them into the soup. If you are using canned tomatoes, stir them, liquid and all, into the soup.
4. Season to taste. Serve hot.
---o0o---
Where I've traveled 1971-2012
By Jack Brummet, Travel Editor
Where I've traveled from when I first really traveled in 1971 until last week.
Where I've traveled from when I first really traveled in 1971 until last week.
---o0o---
Sunday, July 29, 2012
"I have not talked with one person who will vote for Mitt Romney because he's Mitt Romney."
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
This is an excellent article by Paul Constant, articulating many of the feelings about Mitt Romney that I haven't been able to put into words; or at least the right words. Read the full article in Seattle's The Stranger here. A couple of nuggets from the article:
All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).
This is an excellent article by Paul Constant, articulating many of the feelings about Mitt Romney that I haven't been able to put into words; or at least the right words. Read the full article in Seattle's The Stranger here. A couple of nuggets from the article:
"I have looked far and wide, halfway across this country and back, and I have not found a human being who is genuinely fond of Romney and believes that, based on the strength of his character, he would make a great president. I'm not talking about an anti-Obama Republican; there are plenty of people who will vote for Romney because he's not Barack Obama. But I have not talked with one person who will vote for Mitt Romney because he's Mitt Romney."
"Democrats on Twitter are happily recycling a witty argument of unknown provenance that says when John McCain's inner circle was looking for a vice president, Romney's people turned over 23 years of tax returns for their perusal and, after looking over Romney's taxes, the McCain people thought that Sarah Palin was a wiser VP choice."
---o0o---
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Alien Lore No. 237 - Purported KGB footage of a UFO crash site in Russia
By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Editor
Thanks to reader Jeff Clinton for passing this along. It's hard to tell if this is staged or not (well, maybe not). The whole operation seems just a little too rag-tag to have been faked. Would a large team like this really begin handling pieces of the crash and UFO without containment suits, and extreme precautions against viruses and radiation? Would there be no containment trucks or heavy equipment? Just look at footage of investigators at any jet crash site, and you'll have the answer. In this film clip, at least, the actions of the group seem completely random and ad hoc. There is no serious attempt to systematically collect evidence and data. And, even if this footage were taken in the early 1950's, you would have seen evidence of photography, filming, and tape recording, aside from whoever shot this clip.
Finally, looking at the UFO, if you presume it failed while extremely close to the ground, the wreckage might look like this. Looking at the trees, it feels like there might have been more trauma to the trees...you can see standing trees nearly touching the spaceship.
Thanks to reader Jeff Clinton for passing this along. It's hard to tell if this is staged or not (well, maybe not). The whole operation seems just a little too rag-tag to have been faked. Would a large team like this really begin handling pieces of the crash and UFO without containment suits, and extreme precautions against viruses and radiation? Would there be no containment trucks or heavy equipment? Just look at footage of investigators at any jet crash site, and you'll have the answer. In this film clip, at least, the actions of the group seem completely random and ad hoc. There is no serious attempt to systematically collect evidence and data. And, even if this footage were taken in the early 1950's, you would have seen evidence of photography, filming, and tape recording, aside from whoever shot this clip.
Finally, looking at the UFO, if you presume it failed while extremely close to the ground, the wreckage might look like this. Looking at the trees, it feels like there might have been more trauma to the trees...you can see standing trees nearly touching the spaceship.
---o0o---
Friday, July 27, 2012
The Space Needle becomes a UFO above the clouds
A photo yesterday from KOMO-TV news. You actually see this happen a few times every year, when we have low clouds. And we have low clouds (and every other form of cloud) pretty often.
---o0o---
Ghost Story
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A professor at the Auburn University was giving a lecture on Paranormal Studies. To get a feel for his audience, he asks, 'How many people here believe in ghosts?'
About 90 students raise their hands. "Well, that's a good start. Out of those who believe in ghosts, do any of you think you have seen a ghost?'
About 40 students raise their hands. "That's really good. I'm really glad you take this seriously. Has anyone here ever talked to a ghost?'
About 15 students raise their hand. "Has anyone here ever touched a ghost?'"
Three students raise their hands. "That's fantastic. Now let me ask you one question further...Have any of you ever made love to a ghost?'
Way in the back, Elmer raises his hand. The professor takes off his glasses and says "Son, all the years I've been giving this lecture, no one has ever claimed to have made love to a ghost. You've got to come up here and tell us about your experience."
The student replied with a nod and a grin, and began to make his way up to the podium.
When he reached the front of the room, the professor asks, "So, Elmer, tell us what it's like to have sex with a ghost?"
Elmer replied, "Shit, from way back there I thought you said Goats."
---o0o---
Thursday, July 26, 2012
A great quote from "Don't Rock The Boat" (the 2000 politics/president movie starring Jeff Bridges)
By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor
"You've got five apes in a cage. You've got a banana hanging by a string in the middle of the cage. You've got some stairs going to the banana. Now, pretty soon, one of those apes is going to go for the banana and as soon as he hits the stairs you take a hose and you spray all five apes with freezing cold water for five minutes. Now, some time passes and pretty soon another one of the apes is going to make the same attempt with the same result. All five apes get sprayed with a cold water. You never use the cold water again. One of the apes is going to go for the banana. He hits the stairs, the other four apes pounce on him and beat the shit out of him. Right? Okay, understandable. Now you replace one of those original apes with a new ape. After a while that new ape is going to spy that banana and when he goes for the stairs, the other four apes are going to jump on him and beat the shit out of him. Right? Now, time passes, you replace another one of the original apes with a new ape. That new ape is going to go for the banana. The other four apes beat the shit out of him. Right? Including the first new ape, who has no idea why he's so enthusiastically beating the shit out of this poor guy nor why he himself had the shit beat out of him. Okay? Now you keep replacing the original apes with new apes until finally you've got a cage filled with fives apes who have never had the freezing cold water sprayed on them and never the less not one of those apes will never attempt to climb those stairs again. Why not? Because that's the way it's always been done around here." - Jackson Evans, The Contender
---o0o---
All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com).
Drawings: The Rising
Drawings by Jack Brummet
[hand-drawn scratchboard drawings digitized and cleaned up in Photoshop]
[hand-drawn scratchboard drawings digitized and cleaned up in Photoshop]
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