Giardiniera

     The Italian pickled vegetable mix is a favorite of mine, but our corner grocer doesn't stock the brand I like best.  They've got a nice Chicago-style, which is pickled, the brine poured off, and smothered in good olive oil, wonderful stuff in a sandwich or (the hotter kind especially) added to lean-meat chili, and they carry a vinegar brine version that is a bit mushy.  My guess is the maker cans it up hot, ideal for preservation but not what I'm after.

     But even those have a particular flavor profile that appeals to me.  Still...  I was looking up the spelling of "giardiniera" a few days ago and happened across a refrigerator-pickle version that appeared to be well within my abilities: no worries about putting it up and having a jar explode or go worse.  A good strong brine, half white vinegar and half water, boiled with plenty of pickling salt, seasoned with coriander, mustard seed, peppercorns and oregano, and a little fresh garlic in every jar.

     So I made the stuff -- cauliflower, red onion (I'll get back to that), celery, three hues of bell peppers and purple, white and orange carrots.  You chop the vegetables quite coarsely, boil the brine, load up several canning jars with the mix, a bay leaf and a couple of chunks of garlic,* then fill them not quite all the way with the hot brine, let it cool to room temperature, put the lids on and refrigerate it.  After a couple of days, the result is spot on: the precise flavor and plenty of crunch.  They'll hold up okay in the fridge for several weeks; the salty brine's got an acidity of about 2.5%.  I used some in an omelet for brunch today, with bacon and Swiss cheese: the very thing for a cold morning!

I'm not enough of a photographer to get a really good picture of the stuff.  Yes, that's a bay leaf.

     The red onion means the brine goes pale lavender and the cauliflower turns pink.  If you'd rather it didn't, use a white onion, or even peeled pearl onions.
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* The recipe calls for three jars and two cloves of garlic.  The only way to do that is to cut them in thirds and put two in each jar.  As things worked out, I had extra vegetables and brine, so I made up one more jar without garlic.

Traditions

     Thanksgiving, Tam and I had the traditional Roseholme Cottage* meal: turducken baked on the grill with roast vegetables and bacon-mushroom gravy.

     These are treats that usually come only once a year (one year, I had picked up a "safety" turducken roll at the grocer's in case the one I had ordered didn't arrive, and we had it for Christmas dinner) and we're happy to have them.

Turducken roll, fresh from the pan, freed of its netting. (Tam Keel photo)

Turducken roll being sliced: turkey, duck, chicken, sausage stuffing. (Tam Keel photo)

Bacon-mushroom gravy: a roux of bacon fat and flour, cooked golden-brown, to which chicken-mushroom broth is added. Once it begins to thicken, the bacon is snipped into it.  This isn't health food but it's certainly good!  There's a knack to making smooth gravy, but it's easier to learn than to teach. Cook the roux well; keep the broth, water or milk cold; don't stop stirring.
(Tam Keel photo)

     The day was bitterly cold and blustery, which made the grill a little more of a challenge.  But it worked out.
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* The name comes from the English grant of arms to someone who had the same last name as my family -- a "naturally-colored" rose on a gray or silver background.  Red or white?  I don't know.  The title that came with it amounted to a GI Bill, way down in the lesser peerage: the grantee gets the title, his firstborn gets a lesser one and the next generation, well, by then they're supposed to have land, a big house and a steady income from rents, and there you go, Squire.  I have no idea if that guy was an ancestor; the name is more of a toponym.

Giving Thanks

     Today, I'm working to embrace the thought that as bad as I think things are, they could be a great deal worse.  While I'm apprehensive about the future, the present is not really all that bad -- and for that, I am thankful indeed.

     Tam's away today, working, though she hopes to stop by for the holiday meal.  It's getting to be time to start the turducken.  Bacon gravy and roasted vegetables will accompany the nested birds and their sausage stuffing.  (I don't do a whole turducken -- maybe someday! -- just a smaller subset, a kind of turducken roll, better suited to two people and a few days of leftovers.)

Suspended Judgement

     Fulton County, Georgia is dropping the sweeping election interference case against Donald Trump and a number of co-defendants, stemming largely from the then-President's phone call to state officials, asking them to "find" sufficient votes to ensure his victory on the 2020 Presidential election.

     Now it will never be resolved.  And look, there are all kinds of problems with the case, especially now: there's no way a sitting President can be hauled into court; they can be impeached by Congress, and I presume they're still liable for traffic tickets, but anything in between is Constitutionally off the table.  And the case wasn't well handled by prosecutor Fani Willis in several different ways.

     But having the charges dropped, especially over side issues and Constitutional preemption, is nowhere near equivalent to being found innocent (or for that matter, found guilty) in a trial.  Assume everyone involved was as pure and guileless as the driven snow and it was all a matter of misinterpretation of highly figurative speech along with an earnest diligence to ensure no vote went uncounted and it still leaves a loophole that a subsequent unscrupulous President facing an uncertain election could drive an armored column through.

     This is the kind of swerve that brings down empires.

     In my opinion -- and this will make some readers boiling mad, if they're still bothering to read, though if they are, they're clearly not coming to the forest for the hunting -- there's one chance left: if the Democrats win control of both houses of Congress in 2026, they can impeach President Trump, haul evidence and eyewitness testimony into the light, and come to a decision, one way or another.  That would bring the mess and ambiguity to an end.  Oh, we'd still argue about it; there will be hard feelings no matter the outcome.  But it'd be done and not hanging out there, a festering sore of a brass ring for the next would-be autocrat to take a grab at.

     The American Experiment is teetering in the balance.  The formation of our constitutional republic, a remarkable democratic step, marked a change that swept through Western civilization and beyond, ending royal rule even in places where the Crown remained as a ceremonial head of state.  Whatever comes after the end of rule by the ongoing guidance and consent of the governed is unlikely to be an improvement for the common man.

Speaking About Deep Weirdness

     It's well known that tech zillionaire and all-around oddball Peter Thiel is a major backer of U.S. Vice-President J. D. Vance -- and look, I'm not the boss of him; he can spend his money any way he likes.

     But he's got some far-out notions, and he's happy to share them in front of a sympathetic audience, stuff that seems like it would be a better fit in a Jack Chick tract than in a speech from a supposedly forward-looking, high-tech Silicon Valley figure: he's thinking the Pope might be the antichrist.

     Religion is not my beat; I'm not going to tell anyone how they should be practicing theirs when I have never figured out my own.  Nevertheless, this old and highly-charged trope, from a major backer of a politically prominent adult convert to Catholicism, is way over the top.

     Much of this article is paywalled; you can noodle around and find most of the details of Thiel's talk online.  The Veep needs to hear some pushback.  I'm sure his good buddy (and sometime employer) has a smooth line of stuff, but it's a line that diverges radically from the mainstream of American thought, and we are better off with politicians who aren't being towed along in the wake of one set of outré opinions.

     Make Dr. Strangelove a dark fantasy again.  Kubrick wasn't supposed to be a prophet, just a storyteller. 

Lack Of Posting

     I haven't posted much this week -- current events leave me struggling to keep up with the craziness of it all, from a Russian-inspired peace plan for Ukraine that's surrender in all but name to the Department of Defense* deciding the Scouts are no longer okay† to pal around with, it's an unending string of preposterous stuff, most of it at the hands of comic-opera boobs; or it would be comedy, if it wasn't all too real and therefore only sad at best to tragic at worst.

     You don't need me to point it out and mocking it is pointless.
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* Congress named it, Congress renamed it, and if it wants to be renamed again, Congress is the only part of the Federal government that can do so.  If it wants to go by a tougher-sounding nickname in social settings until then, that's fine, but no one is obliged to go along.
 
† Yes, let's see, an organization for young people that is devoted to the notions of community service, patriotism, preparedness, physical fitness, outdoors and camping skills, respect for established institutions and competent adults, why would any decent military organization want anything at all to do with that?  Scouts have had their controversies but their aim remains noble.

The Ipcress File...Again?

     I found Len Deighton's not-quite-Everyman spy Harry Palmer the long way 'round and in reverse, starting with the book series by Charles Stross, a crossover between British spy novels and Lovcraftian horror,* The Laundry Files.  That led to Deighton's books (well worth reading) and from there to the films starring Michael Caine (well worth watching), and when one of our streaming services offered a preview of the updated, reimagined TV series version of the first novel some months back, of course I watched it.

     But it was one more streaming service, and expensive at the time, and there wasn't much else on it I wanted to see, so--  Maybe later.

     Much later, AMC finally re-released the series 1990s Remember WENN, (set in a small, independent radio station between 1939 and 1941 or so) and the first two seasons were available with ads on a free streamer.  I watched those, found it to be just as good as I remembered and wanted more.  The last two seasons were only on a couple of pay services, and one of them seemed like a better deal than the other.

     It wasn't until I'd signed up for it and saw their line-up that I realized why: they've got the TV series version of The Ipcress File, too.  So I've been watching it.

     The director and actor's Harry Palmer isn't Micheal Caine's.  The plot isn't exactly Deighton's either -- but he hadn't bothered to name the character to begin with, and the new guy is as delightfully competent and cynical as his predecessors in print and on film.  It's very stylish fun, set in a lovingly recreated 1960s (minus a few anachronisms most viewers will never notice) and I'm not entirely sure many of the reviewers figured out we're getting Harry's take on the story -- and Harry's looking up from fairly low on the class-system totem pole, with a complete lack of respect for the people who are supposedly his betters.  This is very much not James Bond, without bothering to sneer at the Bonds of fiction; Harry's much too busy to bother with that sort of thing.  He'll leave it to the empty suits who came from proper families and went to the right schools.

     They've taken such liberties with the plot that I'm not sure how it will end -- and I'm looking forward to finding out.
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* And also between computing history, a bit of math theory and a stack of D&D-type gaming, as things go on.

There Is Still No Antimemetics Division

     I read and enjoyed There Is No Antimemetics Division in both text forms, and it turns out there's a short film, as well.

     It's well done, and if you enjoy this sort of thing, here you go.

Great Moments In Geography

     This morning, a BBC World Service news anchor interviewed Mandy Gunasekara about her thoughts on the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference winding down in Belem, Brazil.  She was Chief of Staff at the EPA during the first Trump administration and more recently, an employee at the Heritage Foundation, where she helped write parts of "Project 2025" addressing climate.

     With that setup, the Beeb on one side, Heritage Foundation on the other and COP30 under the lens, you can well imagine how the interview went.  There were no surprises.

     Except for one thing; when the recent uptick in the size and scale of natural disasters came up, Ms. Gunasekara mentioned the current administration's work in the U.S., "building stronger, more resilient coastal cities all across the country."

     That, I think, merits parsing.  It's not coal vs. solar or CO/CO2 vs. particulates, well-trod ground with well-worn arguments.

     1. If the Trump administration is "building...cities," anywhere in the U.S., it's news to me.  I suspect it would be news to them.

     2. If they're "building stronger....cities," I'd sure like to see the details.  Does an infusion of National Guard picking up litter and showing the flag count?  Does sending in what appear to be poorly-disciplined ICE/Border Patrol squads to round up people for being too brown in public, demand papers, detain them (often in poor conditions) until their status is resolved and ship them out if they sneaked in count?  'Cos you can argue the legal side of it all you like, but roving raid teams don't do anything to make a community stronger or more resilient against natural disasters and shrinking the labor pool is more likely to make preparation, clean-up and rebuilding more difficult.

     3. Last but most saliently, how, exactly, does she think they're "building...coastal cities all across the country?"  The United States has a lot of coastline, but we've got a lot more interior.  And while I used to joke that I didn't need to move to Florida when I retired because rising sea levels and unpredictable New Madrid fault meant warm Gulf waters were headed for me right where I am, the Feds throwing up a series of shiny new bouncy coastal cities against need would be...impractical.  Not to mention the last thing I would expect from an administration that argues the climate is perfectly A-OK, and a worse tomorrow will never come.

     It has been said the Flat Earth Society has chapters and members all around the globe.  I think we'd better sponsor Ms. Gunasekara's membership.  And maybe check to see if she needs a new hot water heater or some pretty plaid polka-dot curtains for her office, possibly in sky-blue pink.

     It's not too much to require that a person's words make sense, no matter what their politics are.  Alas, the BBC interviewer was out of time, and probably far too polite to insist. 

Winter Again

     I think the thing that bugs me most about Daylight Savings Time is that it makes wintertime darkness hit abruptly instead of sneaking up.  One day it's still light at dinnertime and the next day, bang!  Dark!

     Every year, I realize all over again how poor my night vision is.  I'm grateful there are streetlights along most of my routes to and from the various work locations.

     The other interesting thing is that darned thermostat. The house used to be only a little chilly at 65°F.  Now even 68° feels too cold.  It must be out of calibration.  Yes, that's got to be it.

Attention, Mike Johnson

     Yes, Mike, you're Speaker of the House.  Bear in mind that it is not the senior legislative body.

     Speaker Johnson had opined that the U. S. Senate should "fix" undefined shortcomings in the House bill to release the Epstein files that made it to the floor over his efforts to stop it.  The Senate took note -- and unanimously voted to approve the measure exactly as passed by the House.  Which it was, and there you go.

     The House and Senate aren't supposed to be telling one another what to do -- and the Senate in particular is touchy about its prerogatives.  They are, after all, the more august collection of legislators (though these days, picking "white" as the natural hair color of any member of Congress will win handily on percentages), and they never lose sight of that.  Ancient Rome had a Senate, after all, and our Senators get pretty sure they were born to the purple.

     I'll give the Speaker credit for one thing, though: he sure doesn't know when he's whupped.

     By and by -- the Department of Justice has thirty days to let their fingers do the walking and they may take every one of them -- there will be plenty of people sieving through the Epstein files slime, looking to see what kind of dirt they can get and who they can get it on.  My guess is there won't be many surprises, and it will be a series of small icks in the face of the greater awfulness of the whole scheme; True Believers will be able to maintain their happy illusions and the Truly Appalled will find plenty of awful things to point at.  Hey, remember when politics was a little less like a tour of the sewers?

     The French occasionally shove huge spheres through the main drains in Paris, pushing all the big, nasty chunks to the outflow where they can be safely removed.  We get the chance to do so in Washington, DC every even-numbered year, and too often we decide to just leave it all where it fell.

No Shortcuts

     "Make it didn't happen" is one of our great human weaknesses.  When things occur that make us unhappy, we want to find some path back to the status quo ante.  It's rarely there.

     I mention this because there were some expressions of pleasure on social media that parts of the GOP's MAGA alliance was unraveling over the Epstein files.  Yeah, don't get too comfy and start singing the Munchkin song.  These sands are shifty indeed.  They kept shifting all weekend and into today.

     It sure would be nice if the two big parties would go back to being the same old Republicans and Democrats of my early adulthood, aging New Dealers and younger progressives against rock-ribbed conservatives and their louder, not so gray allies, but it's not going to happen.  It's especially not going to happen with Mr. Trump's stalwarts suddenly freezing, their hard shells crumbling away, and besuited Reagan-Bush-Goldwaterish hybrids emerging blinking into the light of a new day while the Dems magically grow spines and they all walk towards the rising sun in spirited, earnest debate, almost safe to ignore between elections.  Dream on.

     The only way through the present mess is through it, and there aren't any promises about what we are when we get to the other side.