Surgery Can Be Amazing

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

You know, modern medicine is pretty spectacular. Today, through a four-inch incision, a knee can be repaired.

When I was a kid, the best we could do for knees was Mercurochrome; and we liked it.

A Fun Musical Pairing

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

I had a great time playing a hymn in church with my friend Dave last Sunday.

I played guitar and sang, while he played harmonica. (We did Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.)

It was very fun, well received, and actually sounded quite good, I think. Maybe it wasn't quite as good as when Buddy Greene did it, but we don't practice as much as he does.

Burlap to Cashmere

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

I had forgotten how good these guys were / are.  I'm not sure why, but I pulled out the old Burlap to Cashmere CD, Anybody Out There the other day and it's been in the car player a lot now.

The rhythms are complex, the playing is clean and crisp and amazing, and the vocals are distinctive. Oh - and the lyrics are great as well.

We were wondering what ever happened to them, and it turns out that they're back together again with a new CD being released. I may have to grab it and give them another spin. You should check them out, whether the old one or the new one!

Bothersome Speech Patterns

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

Please don't take this personally, even if it applies to you - I'm not even thinking of any particular person as I write this, even though I've tried to pick out an example to make it easier to write.

Maybe it's just me, but I find myself (probably unreasonably) bothered by a new-ish (new-ish to me, at any rate) speech pattern. I've found it mainly in young women, but I doubt it's really exclusive to them.

I can only describe it as "swallowing 'T' sounds" rather than actually pronouncing them. It's most noticeable with intervocalic Ts, but it definitely occurs at the end of words as well. It's not quite a glottal stop, but that's almost it.

I assume I have some mumblage in my speech, so I won't say I don't annoy someone out there with the way I pronounce something, but if I do, I'm sure it's because they're far too easily annoyed.

I don't know, it just bothers me, and I wanted to get it off my chest (and out of my ears).
Thanks for listening (OK, reading).

Glacage du Jour - 24 July 2011

Heidi: "I bought five ears of corn the other day."
Me: "I bought five ears of corn the other day too."

Oops.
What to do with ten ears of corn and only two mouths currently resident? Clearly the answer lay in the ice cream machine.  Here's how it went.

Cut the kernels off the cobs, and break the cobs into thirds.
Place in a pot with a pint of milk, a pint of heavy cream, and 1/2 C of sugar.
Bring that mixture to a simmer and let it go a few minutes, then grab the immersion blender and blend all the kernels into the mixture (not the cobs, please!), and let it infuse an hour or so.
Bring that back to a simmer and then turn off the heat - warning: this stuff will smell delicious already, but you're not done!
Now, whisk 1/4 C sugar into nine egg yolks. You're going to mix this into the hot liquid (you already removed the cobs, right?), but you have to temper it so you don't get scrambled eggs.
Whisk in a small amount of the hot cream mixture at a time, until you've added about a cup to the eggs.
Now you can whisk that egg mixture into the balance of the cream to make your corn custard.
Next, cook that custard - stirring! - over medium-low heat until it thickens enough to coat a spoon.

Strain the custard through a sieve, squishing as much through as you can, but dump the solids that don't pass through, and chill the custard for a few hours, or even overnight.

Once that's all chilled, it's just a matter of dumping the stuff in your ice cream maker (following the normal procedure for your machine, thank you very much), and letting it freeze and then harden.

Apart from one very vehement negative review (which frankly, I still find bewildering) this dessert was a definite hit. Oh, and I'm sure it counts as both dairy servings and vegetables! Bonus, no?

Delicious, and highly recommended.

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

Sojourners

A coalition of religious leaders, called Sojourners, seems to me to be more a political than a spiritual group. I've reached that conclusion based on their desperate plea that there be no limit to spending by the federal government.

The question to which they keep bringing me is, "Why do they want to abdicate their responsibilities?"

Somehow they seem to think that the church shouldn't be in the business of helping and ministering to the poor; but rather that is the job of government, or perhaps it's merely that that the church isn't able to meet the needs they see.
Even apart from the horrifically inefficient manner in which governments tend to do things, it also means two things I see as desperately wicked:

1. There can be no connection between the "charity" and the gospel, and
2. It requires the taking of money from people who may not approve of that particular "charitable" cause but may have another charitable use for that money.

By advocating government "charity" to the poor, these religious leaders are actively encouraging the government to break the 8th commandment by stealing from some members of society to give to others.

As Congressman Crockett once said, "We have the right as individuals to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”  

In short, forced charity is no charity at all, and if it is simply a payment of money or a gift of material goods, it misses the point of doing charity in the Name of the Author of Charity - Jesus Christ.

I would amend Rep. Crockett's statement to say that as individuals, we have an obligation to give away as much of our own money in charity as is prudent. Remember what John Wesley said, "Having, first, gained all you can, and, secondly saved all you can, then give all you can."

Once again, remembering that Charity is one of the Four Loves, I come to the same question, "Why do they want to abdicate their responsibilities?"

More on this here.

Carnage du Jour - 16 July 2011

from grandteuton.blogspot.com

It's been too hot to consider much in the way of cooking, really. Still, there were some left-over chicken thighs (made with a smoky citrus rub and roasted / semi-braised with some orange juice) in the fridge, so that seemed the logical starting point.
Pasta salad is always a good way to go when it's too hot to cook, but one is still hungry, so:

• A pot of small-ish shells was boiled and cooled
• Some aromatics were diced - onion, green pepper, and celery
• A few cherry tomatoes were sliced (generally into 3, sometimes 4 slices)
• Three chicken thighs were stripped and diced.

Now to dress the salad. Ranch dressing is a nice base for a pasta salad dressing, and I had just purchased a jar of jerk seasoning - a quick few squirts, a spoonful or two, a bit of mixing, and - voila! - a jerk ranch dressing that was quite tasty.

All in all, it was good enough to just grab a bite or two from the fridge the next day. Highly recommended to all and sundry.