We Have Pork Belly

I managed to score two nice 4# pork bellies at Whole Foods today and the bonus is that they are locally grown. They said that they don't always have it available but I timed it just right it seems. According to Sausagemaker.com my curing salt should arrive today via UPS so I should be in the bacon and pancetta business by this evening. The price is right as well. Fresh, locally grown pork belly was $1.99 a pound. Check out the price of artisan cured bacon sometime. I'll need less than a dollar's worth of Kosher salt and pink salt(sodium nitrite) plus some sugar and a week of waiting and I'll have bacon... a little longer for the pancetta which will have to be air dried after curing. A new culinary adventure begins and if all goes well with this trial I'll invest in some Berkshire pork belly which is also available locally from a few growers. It takes so little to get me excited.
Now it is out to plow a bit of garden for the potatoes and peas. It's playing in the dirt time!

Divide And Conquer

In case you haven't figured it out, let let me share a little secret. This latest effort to destroy the public service unions is just a distraction. The oligarchy has done its job on us...the non union, non public service worker. Our wages have stagnated, we have no retirement or pension, we have no health care. The wealthy have more of the wealth and we are worse off than we were 20 years ago...and the outlook is not good either. Not so with the union protected public service worker. They still have pensions (though somewhat miserly), they have health care, they still make a fair wage but not the outrageous amounts being reported. The public service folks are the last bastion of middle class folks with some prospect of a retirement without cat food on the the table.
The oligarchy has decided that as long as we can be distracted by pointing out that the public service folks have it somewhat better than we do(and Goddess forbid on our tax money), we'll focus our wrath on them (or is it jealousy?). If the oligarchs can keep us focused on how less screwed those public servants are than we are, we won't have the time or energy to focus on what's really happening and that is the wealthiest few percent of the country are taking it all and the rest of us can just suck it up. We are being repeatedly and deeply screwed and the best way to distract us is to point to someone who is less frequently and not as deeply raped as we are especially since they are being less screwed on the taxpayer's dime.
You can point out all the other facets of this you want, but this is root.

Fight among yourselves rabble for what bits of food and security you can find and don't bother us.

Still Good

Miscellaneous stuff.

Weather still holding beautiful. More work done in the yard and all the rest of the seeds in flats. Got all the crepe myrtle trimmed back but I was getting tired and the fallen limbs will have to wait until tomorrow since I have to work again this evening and I don't want to go in dog tired. I got two new 4x4 beds put in next to the greenhouse yesterday and now I just need to get some soil to fill them. Probably going to be an herb bed and a rhubarb and horseradish bed.

Everybody keep good thoughts going out to the Kiwi's. Christchurch got hit by a bad earthquake and we need to send some good energy that way. Looks like a bad one. Bryan has more details.

Libya going to worse from bad. People dying. Military pilots defecting rather than bombing their fellow citizens. No real information coming out but all indications are that Qadaffi is in serious trouble. It is long past time for him to go.

Mini revolts here in Wisconsin and Indiana. The GOP attack on unions is creating some major hate and discontent and it seems both governors underestimated public support for the right of people to have unions to protect them from the oligarchy. This could be the beginning of something bigger.

All in all not a lot of great news out there.

Glorius Day

Going to be a fabulous day. Seventy degrees and sunny...a great day for getting out and gardening...too bad I have to work but if I am lucky I will be outside in the garden center. Got the garlic planted yesterday and the greenhouse cleaned and straightened for the next pile of seed flats. Harvested some spinach and chard from the greenhouse and pulled a few overwintering leeks which made for a nice little tart when added to a few of Carmen and Kelly's eggs from down the street. Thank you ladies and your chickens too!

Off to work for me, but you guys that have it, enjoy the springlike day.

Great flocks of large birds (sandhill cranes??) overhead yesterday headed North. What an inspiring spectacle!

Seeds Are Started

Though somewhat delayed by the circumstances of life, I got the first of my spring seeds started yesterday. I'll get some more done this morning before I head off to work the afternoon/evening shift. So far only broccoli, cabbage and chard are started but I will get the tomatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant and other stuff going in the next few days. It is always and exciting time for me. It just fascinates and thrills me when I take those tiny, tiny and apparently lifeless seeds and merely put them in moist earth and they respond by bursting forth with a promise of good food later on. I planted leeks a few weeks ago and they are up nicely and will soon need to be transplanted into individual little pots before going out to the garden. If it stays dry until the weekend(which is forecast) I should be able to get the small raised bed tilled and the garlic in. I look forward to this time of year every year. I renews my being when I can get to playing in the dirt and growing things. The seed potatoes and peas are waiting too and they may get to see dirt this weekend as well. Oh Joy!

New Fun In the Kitchen

All you regulars know that I like to cook and learn new 'food things'. I've shared my adventures in bread baking, cheese and butter making, homemade pickles, kraut and all that. The thing is that once you start making your own mozzarella and ricotta(the easiest cheese in the world to make) the store bought stuff just pales. My latest adventure is to learn charcuterie(the craft of curing, smoking and preserving meats). I just received my copy of Michael Ruhlman's  Charcuterie and I am off and experimenting. I'll start off slow with making bacon and pancetta but I intend to go the whole route including dry cured sausages. The challenge is going to be finding a local source for the meats such as pork bellies and back fat. The book has Internet resources for the supplies such as nitrites and nitrates and bacterial cultures and casings but the high quality meat required is going to be tough. We have one artisan charcuterier here in Atlanta the Pine Street Market but I want to be able to do it myself. I love bacon, pancetta, dry sausage, summer sausage and all that so it is a natural next step in becoming as self sufficient as possible. This time next year I expect to have at least one home cured ham hanging in the basement. Stay tuned.

A Week to Remember

I mentioned that Madam was ill for our trip home but I came down with the same stomach virus Saturday. I managed an hour at work and then had to come home. I didn't make it home without a mess however. The nausea was short lived but the virus put me down until this afternoon. I've managed a bowl of Cream of Wheat, a soft boiled egg and a couple of cups of chicken broth over the weekend. The gallons of water consumed over the weekend went through me like a "June Bug through a duck" and its left me a bit fragile but  I think I am well enough to head back to work tomorrow however, as I am recovering quickly. Madam is still rather punk.
We both must have picked up the virus from the nursing home when we went to pick up Mom's things. The place was quarantined and the staff brought everything to the lobby but I am convinced that is where we were infected even though we were careful. It is surely the same virus that sent Mom into the death spiral. Stomach flu, dehydration, bronchitis, pneumonia. From its effect on me, an otherwise healthy 6'2" 250 pound man, I can see what it might do to fragile 82 year old and 3 other 'inmates' including Mom's roommate passed away in the last week.
Feeling almost human and had a bowl of somen noodles with broth for dinner. I think I will live.
We'll be back when we have more time to chat and no it wasn't much of a Hallmark Day for Madam and I.

Thanks For Your Thoughts

I'm back home (Friday night). Thanks to all of you for your sympathies and they are much appreciated. The three of us sons made it home and between the three of us the arrangements weren't too difficult. The small and only funeral service in the town has known the family for many, many years. They buried my grandmother and grandfather, uncle, father and now my mother. Madam Monk was there to do the clothes, pick the music and write the obituary. It all went quite well, in spite of the cold temperatures and the snow the night before. If you are interested the obituary can be found here.

I'm exhausted, what with the drive and stress and I will need a couple of days to recover though I work the weekend and both are the early shifts. Arrgh!Madam has caught a nasty bug and is down hard. She managed the drive back without crisis somehow but she is now crashed.

Thanks again for the support and good vibes. She was a strong woman (which you will see if you read the obituary) and spent a lot of her life in service to others. She and Dad did a great job with us three boys and I just hope I told her often enough how grateful I was for everything she did for us.

Another milestone in life crossed and I am now the patriarch of the family.

P.S. and yes the obituary reveals my secret identity(well at least secret to some of you) but them's the breaks.
The picture is mom and dad on their wedding day 10-17-1947.

Sad News

Sorry for being missing but I am in Virginia arranging for my mother's funeral. She fell ill with pneumonia on Friday, was moved from the nursing home to a hospital on Saturday and passed on Monday at noon. We'll  be back sometime next weekend. Thanks for your thoughts.

Nothing Good Will Come Out of Egypt

I haven't waded in on the mess in Egypt. If you have visited here over the years you know how I feel about U.S. support for Israel (we should have cut them off years and years ago) and I feel exactly the same about our aid to Egypt. We have a long history of supporting oppressive dictatorships all over the world and especially in the Middle East. Juan Cole expresses my views completely. We continually make the the wrong choices on Israel and Egypt and all the rest. Don't forget Ortega, Saddam Hussein, and the Shah of Iran, just to name a few.

Here is another view from Foreign Policy that basically says the same.

St. Brigid's Day

Today we celebrate Imbolc,or St Brigid’s Day. In Scottish it's Là Fhèill Brìghde and in Irish Lá Fhéile Bríde, it is an Irish festival marking the beginning of spring. Most commonly it is celebrated on February 1 or 2 which falls halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox  here in the northern hemisphere. Traditionally it is the day when the ewes begin to lactate in readiness for the coming of the spring lambs. It is one of the 8 holy days of Wicca. This is a day when you should reinforce and cherish your connection to the earth and your land. It is a good time to begin your preparations for spring with the planting of seeds that will be transplanted a bit later after the danger of frost is past.

I am going to be a bit late this year since one, I have to work today and two my seeds haven't arrived. I have some saved seeds that I will get to on Thursday but I have, at least, gotten my rhubarb and horseradish starts in the dirt.

Go out into your yard(or a park) today and reaffirm your connection to the earth and express your thanks for its place in your life. Thank the universe for the coming of another spring.

Blessed Be.

Win The Future Eh?

It's a great slogan...well other than the fact the it contracts to WTF. As much as I'd like to believe that we have the wherewithal to actually take a shot at the future I am sorely disabused of the idea that we have the spit to do it. The reality is that we have moved all of the foundation of greatness overseas. Its in China and India now. Yeah, I know we still have good schools and some high tech invention stuff and all that, and that's great. The thing is we can't do the small shit any more. For instance, we can't make our own shoes or clothes. Fully 95% or more of it comes from China or somewhere. I dare you to find some "Made in the U.S.A" clothes or shoes. (truth be told New Balance still has one or two shoe lines made here.). We also don't make our own tools. In my part time job I sell tools and nothing is made in the U.S. and that includes DeWalt and Milwaukee. Every screwdriver, screw, saw, knife, chisel, bolt, blade, and tool pouch is made in China, as well as every light fixture, ceiling fan, electrical switch, receptacle, shovel, hoe, pitchfork, rake and pretty much everything else you find at your local DIY store.

In the Wal-Mart driven world we live in today there ain't nothing, to speak of, "Made in the U.S.A." and that is the fundamental problem. Have you noticed how many products today have "Distributed by" instead of "Made by"? There is a reason and that is because we don't make it here anymore. I know that we no longer manufacture vitamins and other food supplements here in the U.S....all of it comes from China. I wouldn't be surprised to find that all the toothpaste, shampoo, soap, and Goddess knows what else comes from there as well and is just distributed by P&G, Kraft, General Foods and the rest. Who knows, because you sure as hell can't tell from the labels on anything....it all says 'distributed by'. Just check your next load of groceries and see what I mean.

To get back to the point...I just wonder if we have the spit to 'win the future'. We have been wedded to cheap crap from overseas for so long do we even care? We have been convinced that a box of chemicals is food and most are perfectly happy with a plastic frozen pizza or a Hungry Man dinner. Not a positive indicator for the future. Jeebus, when Jamie Olive showed a potato and several other fresh vegetables to school kids in West Virginia none of them recognized or could name them!

If you want even more proof that we are too lazy/stupid/poisoned/drugged to 'win the future' just consider that a large portion of our fellow citizens actually pay attention when someone as butt ugly stupid as Sarah Palin opens her pie hole. That alone should tell you that we are probably doomed and I won't even bother to mention most of the elected Republican party.

Seeds and More Seeds

The first batch of seeds are now on order. It is always a trial to decide which of the hundreds of varieties and I always tend to fail on the extra choice side which means I order more than I will probably actually need. The thing is if you want just a couple of plants of a certain variety you still have to order a packet of 50 or a 100 seeds. The good thing is that if you keep them carefully they will last for a couple of years.
It is always a pleasure to scour all the seed catalogs but a trial to narrow down your order to something reasonable since they all look so good. I got away this year with less than $200 but only because I kept seed from last year and saved the heirloom ones.
I've still to order my heirloom seeds from Seed Savers but that will happen tomorrow just as soon as I can narrow down my order to something sane. I want to grow everything, especially all the heirloom beans but I have to restrict myself to just a half dozen or so.

Spring Is Coming

It's warmed a bit today and I've got spring fever and have the itch to plant something. I've been looking through seed catalogs and am just about ready to make the big winter order. As luck would have it I just came back from Home Depot where I needed a small submersible pump for the greenhouse and while there I took a stroll through the garden department. Lo and behold they had starts for both horseradish and rhubarb. I have been looking for both as they are two things I don't have growing in the home garden. I'll get them started in pots in the greenhouse today as it is too early for them to go outside and that way they will be ahead of the curve come proper spring. I'll get some dirt under my fingernails today after all. When the harvest comes we'll all have a nice rhubarb pie.

I also stopped by Pike Nursery on the way home and found some organic leek seed which needs to be started now as well. I've still got leeks growing in the garden in spite of the horrible freezing weather and snow. The outer leaves are a little worse for wear but the freezing hasn't hurt the inside and if anything I think the cold has made them sweeter than normal. They will be, of course, one of the key ingredients in my cock-a-leekie soup in honor of good old Robbie Burns tomorrow night. And yes, there is a wee dram in the forecast.


Off to play in the dirt.

Cock-a-Leekie Soup

Seeing as how it is almost Burn's night (January 25th) and as how I haven't posted a recipe in a while I thought I would share one for cock-a-leekie soup. This is a traditional Scottish soup that is often included as the starter for a Burn's night supper. It's a very simple recipe and this is just one of probably thousands and some even including prunes. I think this simple preparation works best as a starter. It's not too heavy and you need to save room for the haggis(great chieftain o' the puddin' clan) and the bashed neeps and tatties.

The traditional method involves the slow simmering of a whole chicken but a cup up chicken will do the trick as well... you just want to be sure you have both white and dark meat.

Ingredients

1 pound or so of chicken breasts and thighs, skinned
4 cups chicken stock,
2 bay leaves
2 oz. or 1/3 cup long grain rice,
2 medium leeks, thinly sliced (using only the white a light green parts)
2 carrots, coarsely grated
1 pinch ground cloves,
1 tbsp chopped parsley
coarsely ground black pepper to taste
1 tsp fine sea salt or to taste (depends on how salty your broth is...taste it)

Process

Place the chicken in a pan with the stock and bay leaves. Bring to the boil then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Skim the surface of the soup and discard any scum that has formed. Add the vegetables, rice, cloves, and salt, bring back to the boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Remove the bay leaves and discard. While not absolutely necessary I like to remove the chicken, remove the meat from the bones and return the meat to the soup as it makes it a little nicer to eat.

This will make 4 nice bowls of soup.

Wally World's New "Healthy Food' Initiative

On the surface this is all apparently a move in the right direction. Wal-Mart is the biggest food store by a factor of two in the nation. One should never forget however that Wal-Mart is in business to make money. They are not a social service agency.

Marion Nestle tackles some of the issues and questions surrounding this new deal from Wal-Mart and she touches on some things that I think we need to keep in mind as we see this go forward.

We are still talking about mostly processed foods and highly processed foods with slightly less salt and sugar are still questionable food choices.

Two, lowering prices on produce can impact small farmers. Wal-Mart is famous for using their clout to drive companies out of business. We need to insure there is some balance here.

Lastly, no one is talking about Wal-Mart's nearly criminal low wages and working conditions and how these practices drive a lot of poorer people to make necessarily poor food choices.

GOP Belt Tightening

We are now seeing how GOP belt tightening will go. but basically, if it has anything  to do with arts, culture, public transit, infrastructure or the environment..its toast but Goddess forbid we touch defense spending.

The Republican Study Committee proposal would cut fiscal 2011 spending back to 2008 levels, which would save $80 billion, and push spending in fiscal 2012-2021 even lower, to fiscal 2006 levels, which would save $2.29 trillion, according to a summary. The proposal would strike funding for specific government programs, including the following:

• Corporation for Public Broadcasting subsidy: $445 million a year.
• National Endowment for the Arts: $167.5 million a year.
• Amtrak Subsidies: $1.565 billion a year.
• Community Development Block Grants Fund: $4.5 billion a year.
• New Starts Transit: $2 billion a year.
• Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants: $2.5 billion a year.
• Title X Family Planning: $318 million a year.
• Applied Research at Department of Energy: $1.27 billion a year.
• U.S. Agency for International Development: $1.39 billion a year.

Hobbit Marathon

I have mentioned the new BluRay disk player I got myself for Christmas. Pretty slick. It is an internet enabled model (Panasonic) and I have it hooked up to the wireless in the house so I have already watched some Netflix movies  via the tubes. It came with a one month free trial. My first impression is that there are really too few movies to select from that are accessible via the internet...I estimate only 1 in 10 movies available from Netflix are available so I am going to have to think about the monthly charge but it is only $8 or so.

Anyhow, I rented the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on BluRay yesterday so it is going to be a marathon to get them viewed before they have to go back on Saturday. Believe it or not I have never seen any of the movies so I am looking forward to it. I did read the trilogy many years ago. I have, however, had a pint in Tolkien's favorite booth at the Eagle&Child pub in Oxford so that is something I guess.

I Like Covers

I have been seeing ads on the idiot box for the Tempurpedic mattress. I might consider it but I like to sleep with covers. I also don't normally drink wine in bed especially while Madam jumps up and down so I guess it is out.

Over The Edge

I'm come to the conclusion that it might be best for all concerned if we just went ahead and collapsed as a country. I mean let it all go. Why all this creeping slowly to the precipice? Get it over with. Screw the debt ceiling, let the bankers and wealthy have all the money, let the corporations that grow our food run amok and just get along with poisoning us all. Repeal the affordable care act, don't fund the new food safety laws, quit funding education and and all this 'socialist' welfare like food stamps and unemployment.  We might as make it a law that everyone has to own a gun as well.

I am, of course, being facetious but seriously... maybe if it got bad enough. If folks were going to door(at least to those people who still have doors) begging for food or a blanket to keep warm. If friends were suffering or even dying for lack of medical care. If you had to fight or threaten others to get food. The worst of the worst you can imagine is happening maybe people would wake up and pay attention to what IS happening. It's like the old joke about working with mules. First you have to whack them over the head with a two by four to get their attention before you can proceed to get anything done.

I'm just watching this daily slide or slow circulation around the drain and am wondering how bad it has to get before people wake up to the reality. Right now the GOP is wasting money and time voting to repeal the not so great but better than nothing Affordable Care Act and are offering nothing (really nothing) in return and in the process are building all their arguments on bald face lies in complete rejection of reality  and all the while knowing it is a waste of time and will go nowhere beyond the House.

Just today Jack Kingston (R-Ga) stated in the AJC that he was seriously doubting that the Congress would fund(1.5 billion dollars) the new Food Safety Modernization Act since America's food supply was 99.9 percent safe and the benefit just wasn't there for a .1% increase in food safety. Believe it or not, he and his staff reached the 99.9% number by taking the number of food related illnesses last year as reported by the CDC and dividing it by the number of meals Americans eat each year. While this is a valid 'statistic' it actually represents you chances of getting sick from your NEXT meal and is not a measure of our food safety. The actual number, as calculated by the CDC and others, is that 1 in 6 people will suffer from a food born illness within the next 12 months and that poor food safety costs us some 150 billion dollars a year. This rube is in charge of funding food safety....think about it.

Yes, all in all, it is probably just time to jump the shark or at least get to the point where people will begin towake to the reality of the crumbling of the American Dream. This waiting for the other shoe to fall is killing me.