That’s Food for Thought

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Catholicism, chicken, cookies, crochet, dessert, dinosaurs, fruit, fundamentalism, interfaith dialogue, Iowa, Iraq, Limericks, meat, salad, sociology, world history

This photograph was done by Lewis Hine and is entitled “Newsies at Skeeter Branch, St. Louis, Missouri, 11 a.m., May 9, 1910.” It is from the MMA.

We often bemoan that our children grow up too fast these days. I wonder if that has not always been the case. These boys seem to feel quite grown up wouldn’t you say? I assume they are newsboys. I wouldn’t try to cheat them out of a nickel, would you?

Spring cleaning is going well. The bath is nearly done, just the floor to do by hand tomorrow, getting into all those corners that the mop hasn’t reached for several months. And then it’s on to my office/craft room. I hope I don’t lose interest when I finish it! Oh I checked out that site, “flygirl.net” or something to that effect. What an anal retentive site! I’m sure that some can benefit from it, being told exactly what to do, but it was a bit too dictatorial for me! I still intend to spend more time there since I want to examine her “zone” cleaning ideas.

Well, the feeds were alight today, so it may be a long one and I have still to make some macaroni and cheese and something or other for dinner. Anybody got any tips on how to design a good menu planning system to avoid my daily moan about “what am I gonna fix for dinner?” The Contrarian now claims that if I say that twice in a day, I have to make gravy for dinner! Hehe, he is crazy I told ya.

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Abby Sweets starts us off with a real winner of a tart, French Lemon Tart. I am a lemon fan, and make lemon meringue pie a few times a year. This is a nice little substitute that avoids the meringue. Get you a piece and then continue reading blogs!

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I am, on thinking about this, wondering why this day is not a holiday. I guess because the losing side wouldn’t have agreed. But today is the anniversary of the day the Civil War ended. All came to an end at Appomattox Courthouse when Lee surrendered to Grant. Read about it at American History Blog.

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It is also the anniversary of the death by assassination of the Emperor Caracalla in Rome. That was in 217 C.E. I wonder of Grant and Lee remarked on the event in their meeting at Appomattox?

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Sandi’s Crochet Blog has a butterfly that you can crochet into a square for an afghan or make the square and then cross stitch it into the block. I think it’s probably quite lovely, but I think it might also be hard to do. I’ve never been able to figure out how they do designs in knitting or crochet without a lot of messing around. I have never had the gumption to try it myself. Given Sandi’s excellent instructions, I bet I could succeed at this one.

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Civil War Women brings us another biography, this one about a nurse by the name of Miss Hattie Dada. Mattie, as always, does an excellent job of researching and writing about these mostly forgotten women who played important roles in our nation’s history. Enjoy her latest offering.

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Copycat Restaurant Recipes has a good one today. Exotic, it’s Kroger’s Thai Chicken Salad. I really liked the list of ingredients and plan on giving this one a try when I get to the store again. It was a bit off putting, the Kroger thing, but hey, its the end product that counts, not the name right? Note: the bacon bowl and picture is not a look at this salad I don’t believe. There are no tomatoes in the recipe.

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I’m not a huge fan of meat and fruit together. I don’t care for ham with pineapple rings all over it for example. This recipe looked quite tempting however, so I thought I would share it with you. It’s from the ever wonderful Epicurious and is Grilled Pork Loin with fire Grilled Pineapple salsa. I hope you think it worth a look see.

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Lynda at Essential Estrogen has the remarks of Iowa congressional representatives, Harkin, Braley, and Loebsack prior to the hearings for Petraeus and Crocker. Check them out so you know what they are saying and if you agree with them or not. The Contrarian who follows hearings much closer than I, says that Braley is really a sharp cookie. I’ve written to Loebsack who has yet to reply to my e-mail. I wish Braley represented me. I think he does a better job frankly, but that’s another story.

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It’s always a delight to find that Garrison Keillor has given us another of his little gems. This one is about our urge to compete. And he is most correct. I find myself doing it constantly while I decry the competitive nature that prevents us from truly coming together to work for the common good. One begins to wonder just how genetic this trait is? Keillor points out the downside of “Midwest manners” too, so I don’t know what to do now! This post is one of his best ones, so don’t miss it.

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Russell has a nice tribute to the young man honored posthumously with the Medal of Honor yesterday. I saw a bit of it myself and was also moved. I wondered what his parents really thought of the war, I wondered how many more must die in this senseless tragedy that we have been forced to engage in. Then I remembered that it was our failure of diligence, our failure to hold the White House’s feet to the fire that enabled this travesty to occur. We relinquish our responsibilities to a bunch of politicians for whom this is but a job, and a media industry that now counts dollars before facts. I feel ashamed as I watch parents, wives, husbands and friends bear the real cost as they bury their dead.

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The “scientific” theory behind Jurassic Park, as you may recall, was the DNA of dinosaurs found in insects trapped in amber. Now scientists today find that an unlikely possibility, but they have made one grand advance. Eighty percent of the amber found is opaque, and therefore anything inside cannot be seen. By using hocus pocus machines and techniques, they are now able to find them, and it seems that this opaque amber is just full of critters who lived among the giant creatures we are so fascinated with. They so far has discovered 356 different living beings in the amber they have tested. Read more and be amazed as I always am.

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Mad Kane has another limerick and you know you are addicted to them. She is so very good. She nailed it once again.

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Maureen Dowd has a clear, no nonsense post on the hearings yesterday and the state of woe this country is in as regards the country of Iraq we are so desperately trying to remodel into a temple of democratic rectitude. It is not working, never did, never will, and what the heck are we going to do? Both Petraeus and Crocker seemed like deer caught in the headlights yesterday, doing their best but wishing for sure to be nearly anywhere having a root canal rather than in that hearing room.

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Susan Jacoby writing for On Faith, the forum on religion for the Washington Post and Newsweek, has a thoughtful post today about Catholicism and the quest to convert the world to the one “true” religion. Yes, that is the case unfortunately. It is not something bandied about by most Catholics but a small fringe believes this vehemently. Such a stance, is of course, not productive of interfaith dialogue. Such a stance is not productive in democratic societies either. Read her interesting article about how proselytizing seems to consume Christianity and Islam.

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I came of age as it were in the 60’s, graduating in 1968. Wow that seems like forever ago now doesn’t it? I have always thought our beliefs and goals were laudable. I thought we were well read, well educated, knew our politics, and were among the first to really see that this was one planet wherein cooperation and assistance should be our watchwords. We got that we were not divorced from the ecosystem we lived in. Plenty since then, have done their level best to make the 60’s a time of only wretched excess in sex, drugs and rock and roll. The Salon has a wonderful look at the subject through examining the latest book on the subject. See what you think.

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Wouldn’t you know? I am the victim of my own genes. Or at least it may be so. It seems that new studies link back pain to genetics rather than any activity. This makes perfect sense to me, since I can recall lower back pain at least since my mid-teens. It ebbs and flows, but never is completely gone. It’s never a constant pain, but it’s quite apparent when I move, especially in bending. And standing for any length of time also is misery. The details can be found at Science Daily.

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Palmiers are cookies and I think they are fabulous and so easy to make. Just a simple puff pastry and some nice sugar and away ya go. Simply Recipes has the recipe, but does not include the puff pastry recipe, which is the bulk of the work in the first place. Odd, but you can find one anywhere on the net. Note, at the end she has some great links to other Palmiers. Enjoy, this is a very fast recipe to make.

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It’s Wednesday and that means another installment from Susan Posner’s Fundamentalist, the never miss post on the religious right and their nefarious plans to take over the country. It is simply the best.

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Another must see article at American Prospect is one by Paul Waldman. He claims that John McCain has placed his hopes on America being right of center. There is seldom an article in this publication that is anything but good, but make your own judgment here. I think he raises some excellent points. Can the Democrats convince the public that they can do better?

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The Inadvertent Gardener had me laughing as she described sitting in the corner as the snow fell yesterday. I just stomped around in utter disgust and told the Contrarian that this was going to go on until at least May in this upside down seasonal joke of a Spring.

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Another of those fabulous chicken recipes we cannot do without. This one is a bit more complicated, but not much. Uncommon Artistic Endeavors offers us Savory Chicken Triangles, made with puff pastry. She used store bought, but of course, you can make it quite easily yourself. Give it a look see and see what you think.

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“I’m a born-again atheist.” Gore Vidal

“Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!” Henry David Thoreau

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If there is not one hair-brained idea per minute I’d be surprised. Do people just stay up nights thinking of possible ways to do something not done until their feeble and ill-fitting brains come up with it? All I can say, is that’s a lot of ice cream to ingest. One wonders how the boat can be big enough to hold the growing ice-cream eating idiot that thought this one up. Well, its not that bad, I guess it floats and they have good intentions. Could have accomplished the charity side of it with a good deal less effort though. Visit Dave’s Daily.

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Well, I was unaware that Bob Dylan is a comic. Seems he is, if this from Vanity Fair is any evidence. The link is from Laugh Lines, the NYTimes funnies.

“My friend’s wife is a really bad cook. I broke a tooth on her coffee.”

“I once had a friend who said liquor will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no liquor.”

“A giraffe can go a long time without water. But he wants to see a menu right away.”

“I gave a bald-headed friend a comb. You know what he said? ‘I’ll never part with it.’”

“I don’t condone [blonde] jokes. I just repeat them in the public interest.”

“I want everybody to go out and paint their cars red and white tonight. We want a PINK CAR NATION.”