Golden Glory Rice And Beans

      It was good, though it still needs fine-tuning: Yellow rice (Arroz Amarillo, if you will), blackeyed peas, fresh mushrooms and sausage.

     The ingredients list is mostly things I already had on hand.  The fine-tuning is to reduce the salt.  There was a box of dry seasoned yellow rice mix on the shelf from one of the Mexican-food outfits, which is always good stuff with pigeon peas and/or chicken; I had about ten whole fresh mushrooms (brown Agaricus bisporus, the most common domestic type, sold under multiple names and hues), a can of Amy's Mushroom Bisque Soup and a can of blackeyed peas, plus a whole chorizo sausage* in the fridge.  I had Tam pick up a couple more cased sausages on her way home, and a vegetable, which turned out to be ready-to-microwave baby asparagus, an excellent choice.

     She got a couple of mild Italian sausages.  I squeezed them out of the casing, added a little smoked paprika and Cajun seasoning for luck, and squeezed out the chorizo next to them.  While that was browning (and getting chopped up with a spatula), I washed and diced the mushrooms.  Then I drained the sausage, pushed it to the sides of the pot, poured the mushrooms into the center, added some dehydrated onion, garlic and chives, and covered it while I got out the rest of the ingredients.

     The yellow rice mix wanted two cups of liquid.  The bisque soup was about a cup and a quarter.  I decided to use the blackeyed pea liquor to fill out the rest, and that was a mistake: it's salty.  I should have used 3/4 of a cup of water instead.

     When the mushrooms looked a little cooked -- they get darker -- I stirred the pot and added the soup, bean liquid and beans, then covered it until it was boiling.  The rice directions say to stir it into boiling liquid (with a little oil or butter, which isn't needed here), give it a minute boiling uncovered, put the lid on, turn the heat to low and leave it for 25 minutes.  Easy enough! 

     Not quite a half-hour later, I zapped the asparagus and lifted the lid on the rice.  It smelled wonderful; if you're a beans-and-rice person, I think you'd like this stuff.  It even looks appealing, or at least it does to me.  As described, there's enough to feed at least four or five people.

     Fresh asparagus wants a pinch of salt to bring out the flavor.  I alternated bites of the rice dish and the (unsalted) asparagus and it all evened out.  Next time, I'll use water to fill out the liquid and rinse the canned beans to reduce the salt.  I might even use fresh onion and substitute plain ground pork (or turkey, but don't tell Tam!) for some of the sausage.
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* Two different versions of sausage with similar ingredients are sold as chorizo in most of the U.S. One kind is fairly dry and has been smoked until it's ready to eat.  The other kind is found in the butcher case with the other fresh sausages, and needs to be cooked first.  I had the second kind.

Valley Of The Shrieking Sky Kings?

     Today's title is beyond unlikely.  A few days ago, I exited the front door for my morning walk and discovered a large cicada had run out of gas and crash-landed right next to the door.  I flipped him over with a twig, but he was gone.

     Within a day, the ants had found him, forming a long procession to the remains and back.  The next day, it was closer to the edge of the porch.  This morning, it was gone.

     I have a mental image of a great mob of tiny ants bearing the relatively enormous ex-cicada away like people in Ancient Egypt carrying the sarcophagus of a Pharaoh, to be entombed at the heart of their nest, no doubt with goods for the next life heaped 'round it and chanting ant-priests keeping watch.  The reality is more like the ant collective having dim memories of the long, cold winter we recently endured, and wanting to keep their larder stocked.

     Either way, the cicada surely received fitting respects, and the darned ants now have something better to do (for a few days, at least) than sneak in and try to suss out crumbs in the hard-to-reach parts of Tamara's TV tray.  It annoys her no end to get it out and find that a work party has been mining the corners of the frame-like rim around the top of the thing and are still on the job, no matter how carefully she has wiped it down after the previous use.

Sociology? History?

      It'll be a PhD thesis subject some day, I'm just not sure in which department: Is Republican rage at Dr. Anthony Fauci primarily driven by his refusal to validate quackery during the Covid pandemic, or by his earlier work in helping find effective treatments for HIV/AIDS?

     There's a certain subset of the Right, especially the Religious Right, that was delighted they could cast gay sex as a death sentence, and Dr. Fauci played a huge part in taking that away.  He was a low-key villain for the nutjob Right ever after, and the more widespread craziness over Covid opened the door to spreading that loathing.

     Now they're promising to get him behind bars, one way or another -- for doing what was at the time his job.

     Sorry, horse dewormer is still not a miracle cure for viral illness.  Vaccination is an effective tool in stopping the spread of disease.  AIDS was not the wrath of God.  You can stick your fingers in your ears and chant, "No, no, no," all you like, but it's still true.

Red Stew Wednesday

     Because if I call it chili, the Texans get restive.  The various kinds of stuff we make in the Midwest are drastically different anyway, so I don't mind calling the genre by a different name.

     What I grew up with was a mild dish with ground beef, tomatoes, red kidney beans and elbow macaroni, with cumin-heavy seasoning.  What I make is...not that.

     Tonight's had lean ground beef, a cut-up strip of bacon, a chopped fresh white onion, red, fresh red,  yellow and green bell peppers, diced fresh mushrooms, a little grocery-store fresh pico de gallo, bright red peppadew peppers, two cans of mild green chilis, a little pickled red onion, some bell pepper bruschetta, hot pickled okra cut into rounds and a box of crushed tomatoes.

     That's a whole lot of stuff, which got browned and sauteed and stirred and simmered, with various spices along the way, mostly chili powder, Italian-mix seasoning, smoked paprika, a little celery salt on the ground beef, a dash of Cajun seasoning, and of course, three big bay leaves after everything was in the pot together and simmering.

     It looks like this:

   I liked it, and there's plenty left for later, probably with some different meat added and whatever else appeals to me.

What Are The Odds

     What, do you suppose, are the chances that a man who still denies he lost an election to the Presidency and incited a (dimwitted) insurrection to stop it after running through a great many legal-system gambits will try a rugpull on midterm elections that are likely to cost his party at least one house of the legislature and maybe both?

     This guy figures it's a likely bet.  He's probably right; losing will be somewhere between personally frustrating to catastrophic for the incumbent, who is not a man who will put up with that.  What form i will take and how well the effort is likely to succeed, that's another set of questions.

     We'll find out.

The Thing Is...

      "Every spot in history is the most dangerous," a commenter told me the other day.  Which is on one level a tautology: we're a species that floats on the edge of disaster.  Our genetic heritage tells the story of multiple narrow escapes; many of our legendary heroes, all around the globe, are clever tricksters who talk or connive their way out of trouble.

     Humanity spends a lot of time running right at the red line.

     On the other hand, we're got a regime in Washington right now that is an outlier in both degree and kind:

     Degree because they're profiting from holding office far in excess of the usual.  I have resigned myself to believing that with billions wooshing by overhead, Federal politicians all eventually conclude they'd be fools to not do as all around them are doing, and net a few million for themselves.  Okay; I don't like it but there it is.  But these guys are raking in billions, and most are not the least bit coy about it.

     Kind, because we haven't seen this level of racism from the party in power since Woodrow Wilson.  We haven't seen nativism so bullheaded since the Know-Nothings.  We've only seen this much division once before, and it didn't end well.  A little over two years ago, Kevin Roberts, the president of the rightwing Heritage Foundation, source of the Project 2025 agenda, told Steve Bannon on his podcast, "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless -- if the Left allows it to be."

     That's not politics as usual.  That's not normal.  That's a promise to turn things over, to purge and remake not by compromise but in the likeness of just one party, just one part of the American electorate.

     So, yes, the present is always the most dangerous time -- but some presents are more dangerous than others, and they don't become less dangerous by pretending it's the same old same old.

Tam Takes A Chance

     For years, I've been buying Michaels of Brooklyn pasta sauce.  It's consistent and I like it, but I mostly stick to two versions: "Home Style Gravy," which has a long list of ingredients, and "Marinara," which is a more classic tomato-and-spices sauce.  I've tried their spicy Arrabbiata, which is good, but the Puttanesca....

     I admit it.  The anchovies scared me.  Put 'em on a pizza and they're overpoweringly fishy -- which is fine, if you're in the mood for it.  I didn't know how that would play out in pasta sauce.

     Tonight, I was going to make something we have every so often, fancy mixed fresh vegetables (mostly broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, red onion, a little shredded carrot, zucchini and peapods) that the grocery packages with a little pat of Italian herb butter in a microwave-ready bag, with meaty pasta sauce poured over it.  I asked Tam to buy some sausage -- whatever looked good to her -- and a jar of sauce.  "Get the kind with the most ingredients," I said, not remembering if it was the Home Style Gravy or Marinara.

     As it happens, the Puttanesca sauce has the longest list of ingredients and she was happy to comply.  Dinnertime came, and I browned two mild Italian sausages and one hot one, all three squeezed out of their casings and crumbled as they cooked.  I drained it and added some fresh carrots cut into rounds and a half-dozen green onions, chopped, and cooked it a little more while I hunted up the sauce.  And it was....  Oh, my.  Well, it was what  we had.  I poured the Puttanesca in, gave it a stir and let the pot simmer, not knowing how it would turn out.

     It came out fine.  Better than fine -- there are green and black olives in Michaels Puttanesca, and capers, and if there are a few anchovies, well, think of 'em as Roman garum on the hoof (or fin): all they added was umami.

     I'll buy it again.

     The sauce-over-vegetables thing is an alternative to dinner with pasta noodles and salad.  It works very well, and anyone who has had that lecture from their doctor about limiting bread and rice and potatoes and pasta (and all those wonderful, lovely things) is advised to try it.  It's been a good way to serve zucchini as far back as I can remember, and adding a few other vegetables only broadens the appeal.

Don't Know Much About History?

     Have I got a guy for you!  A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry will take you on deep dives into history with a genuine scholar, footnotes and all, often answering those questions that gnaw at perceptive students getting a view-from-orbit look at history.

     Wear comfy shoes and pack a lunch.  You're going to be awhile.

Letter To An Auto-Peddler

Dear Bedroom Community Chevrolet Dealer Who Keeps Mailing Me Offers To Buy My Car:

     Please take this to heart: The only circumstance under which I would purchase a new car would be if someone was holding a gun to my head.  That is, unless they insisted that I buy a Chevy.  If they did, I would ask them to please hurry up and pull the trigger.

     Sincerely,
     Fool Who Purchased A Brand-New Cavalier (in the first year the model was offered and regretted it for ten years.  While I was having the engine rebuilt after the heads warped, I bought a rusty 1974 MGB for $300, and found it to be more fun and more dependable than the Chevy.  I parked the Cavalier and drove the MG.)

     You could not give me a Chevy.  I'm sure they make plenty of fine cars, but that wretched little hatchback soured me on 'em for good. 

If It's Good Enough For a Plowman....

     ...It's good enough for anyone.  Thanks to physical therapy and some very mild yard work afterwards, I was hungry around midday, which I usually am not.

     Breakfast was a three-meat (a little bacon, ham and pastrami) and egg sandwich on rye toast.  Lunch needed to be at least nominally more healthy.

     Behold:

     It's a "Ploughman's Lunch" and a very fancy one, with buttered multigrain bread, Brie and Babybel (very similar to Edam) cheese, dark-red fresh cherries, pickled red onions, hot pickled okra, umami-rich bell pepper bruschetta, Kalamata and Castelvetrano olives, and "half-done" dill pickles with lots of flavor and crunch, plus a few roasted cashews not seen in the photograph.

     A meal like that, light though is it, leaves your palate amused and senses satiated.

Current Events

     The thing about commenting on current events is, right now, we have got a whole bunch of men -- and it's mostly men, you boys gotta own that -- who are busily setting the world on fire, like an entire gang of firebug nitwits creeping around California at the height of dry season with boxes of strike-anywhere matches and aiming to do just that: strike anywhere.

     I can keep on pointin' 'em out, but there are so many and they are so determined in their efforts that there are not enough fire hoses, and none of them fat enough, to prevent some damage.  Sooner or later, one or another is going to get something major going and the winds of history will fan the flames.  The Middle East?  Ukraine?  The Atlantic overturning current?  Most of Canada burning to the waterline (hey, don't we have a state up that way, and a lot of it also covered in woods?)?  Stock market crashing, Africa overrun by infectious disease...?

     Don't know.  Can't say.  The human race perpetually dances on the rim of a volcano, and we have got us a crop of boys who are choosing the more overhanging parts of it for our dance floor and doing a lot of jumping up and down.  Eventually, something's going to give.

     Better be ready to leap for safety -- and to know which direction will do you the most good, 'cos they are just looking for the rush when it crumbles.

Hoppin' John, Skippin' Jenny

     I started with some pretty good Hoppin' John -- ham, mild Italian sausage, green peppers, onion, canned diced mild chilis, a box of crushed tomatoes blackeyed peas and a little this and that.  We had it last week and I froze the leftovers in two batches.

     Then I picked up some pickled mild banana pepper rings, sliced pickled hot cherry pepper, pickled red onions and spicy pickled okra, plus the usual green Castelvetrano olvies and black Kalamata olives.  Handy stuff to have.

     Tonight, Tam brought home bulk sweet Italian sausage (it's not sweet-sweet, just a different herb profile than the mild).  I browned it in olive oil with a little gumbo filé (I should have held that back for later, to help thicken the broth), Cajun seasoning and smoked paprika, added pickled peppers and onions as it was about done and drained it, then added a little more of the onions and pepper, plus five big okra cut into rounds, along with a few of each kind of olives, a small can of tomato sauce, a big can of fire-roasted green chilis and half a can of pinto beans.  Meanwhile, I defrosted the half-batch of Hoppin' John and added it, plus some dried chives, cilantro, a little oregano, some dried garlic and a big bay leaf.  Plus a little more Cajun seasoning after it came up to a boil and I had a taste.  I let it simmer a bit before serving.

     Reheated Hoppin' John is Skippin' Jenny, and this pot skipped as nicely as you please!  This combination is rich in pantothenic acid and other B-complex vitamins, which may be why I have picked up a craving for it: it's one of the building blocks for all the things that help our joints work.  Or, whatever, maybe I just like the flavor.