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Pot Luck

by: JayinPhiladelphia

Fri Jul 01, 2011 at 19:00:00 PM PDT


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Pot Luck | 83 comments
Syrian forces slaughter dozens... (4.00 / 1)
24 die as Syrian forces fire on protesters

At least 24 Syrian protesters were killed Friday when security forces fired on demonstrators in cities across the country, according to witnesses and activists.

The violence came just four days after President Bashar Assad's government allowed some dissidents to meet at a Damascus hotel. Other activists had labeled the highly publicized forum a government-backed public relations gimmick.

The protests Friday drew some of the largest crowds since the antigovernment uprisings began in Syria in mid-March. Protesters continued to demand the resignation of Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades, defiantly calling for a "Friday of Departure." The protests have become a weekly ritual after the Friday congregational Muslim prayers.

I'm sure we'll be seeing flotillas to Baniyas and al-Ladhiqiyah soon.

not the same but have you seen (4.00 / 2)
Waltz with Bashir?

http://waltzwithbashir.com

[ Parent ]
No, I haven't... (4.00 / 1)
I'm sorry.  What do you think of it?
[ Parent ]
its stunning visually (4.00 / 1)
and the subject matter is compelling. I highly recommend
[ Parent ]
New attack angle on menu labeling? (4.00 / 1)
Menu labels don't influence students' food choices

(Reuters Health) - Menu labels on cafeteria food -- highlighting the good and the bad of various meal options -- make no difference in college students' meal choices, a new study concludes.

The results add to evidence that, despite laws in some cities mandating calorie counts on fast-food menus, nutritional information makes little difference to people when they are eating out.

Okay so shhhh!  Let's keep things secret again?

Yeah, college students are always a good behavioral measure of society at large too, btw...

Now excuse me while I go take a pull off this blunt, dude.

;-P

Not that there's... (4.00 / 2)
...anything wrong with that, of course.

We could all use more weed in our lives, if you ask me.  Maybe the rest of us do need to live more like college students, after all.

;)

[ Parent ]
not too long ago I was invited to a luncheon (4.00 / 4)
with a bunch of female foodies. The food while not fancy was organic simple and incredible. At 59 I was the youngest.

Desert was incredible fruit

and weed.

[ Parent ]
And I was not invited?! (4.00 / 1)
Fooey!

;)

[ Parent ]
society at large (4.00 / 2)
Sometime very recently, in the last couple of days, I read the report of a survey of fast food patrons. 4% of people who ate at a pizza place self-reported that they ordered something healthful and nutritious at their last visit. About 13% of people who patronized another kind of fast food joint self-reported that they ordered something healthful and nutritious at their last visit. So, menu labeling or not, society at large knows durn well they make bad choices and they do it anyway.
[ Parent ]
CSA box filling out (4.00 / 4)
Growing season started late in Iowa this year, so the early June boxes were pretty much greens and scallions. This week I got more salad greens (several kinds), more scallions, garlic scapes, snow peas and a few snap peas, kale, spinach, radishes, and some young turnips (tender enough to be sliced raw and eaten in salad like radishes). I am loving summer! It will be a few more weeks before we get sweet corn, though. Tomatoes have appeared at the farmer's market, but not in my CSA box yet.

forgot to mention bok choy (4.00 / 2)
Yes, we've had some great stir fries in the desmoinesdem household. Fast and easy dinner.
[ Parent ]
kale and beans (4.00 / 2)
The Italians do some interesting pairing
http://www.projectfoodie.com/r...
[ Parent ]
I approve of your CSA box. (4.00 / 1)
;)

Btw, I'm conducting a poll of sorts.  How are strawberries around your way this year?  Sadly, Our Legendary Hoods (a.k.a. The Greatest Strawberries Ever Known To Humanity) are, quite frankly, crap this year.  Weather, bah!

I'm hoping our other berries make up for things as we move along, though...

[ Parent ]
I'm on the other side of the country (4.00 / 2)
but I'm digging up my measly strawberry plants. I just can't grow here.
[ Parent ]
yum! (4.00 / 2)
It's just started the hot and REALLY dry part of the summer here. I have to water much more than before and even fill up the chickens' water more than before. it just evaporates! I can't get enough mulch to meet my needs!

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman
[ Parent ]
- (4.00 / 3)

Thanks, Eddie. (4.00 / 2)
That is about the scariest video I've ever seen.

Poor me, so slow of feeble mind - I never considered that any GM crop can readily be a superweed in a field of another crop.

[ Parent ]
Canadian geese (4.00 / 2)
I think pretty much all of the continental 48 states are on a north-south flyway for some population of Canada geese. I wonder how far the geese can fly before they completely lose their loads of Canadian GM seeds.
[ Parent ]
I wonder what kind of barriers (4.00 / 4)
there are for a farmer to import clean non-GMO European seed for their soybean and corn crops.  
[ Parent ]
holy shit (4.00 / 2)
good point

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman
[ Parent ]
market for organics (4.00 / 2)
I might have commented, a while ago, that bankrupt A&P was selling assets to raise money. They wanted to find buyers for 25 stores in Maryland, Delaware, and D.C. Thirteen of those stores will close. Buyers were found for 12 stores. The auction raised only about $40 million, which is a small drop in a big bucket of liabilities.

Ten of those 12 were bought by a joint venture between Mrs. Green's Management Corp. and Village Super Market Inc. Both companies are aggressively trying to expand beyond their home regions. The store in my neighborhood will be operated by Mrs. Green's, a subsidiary of a Canadian hedge fund.

I think this is good news for organics. The ten stores operated by Mrs. Green's will continue to supply traditional supermarket fare, but the chain says they are committed to increasing the prominence of local food and organics. This tells me they see a future for organics that's worth a substantial investment.

Mrs. Green's Management Corp.

The Toronto hedge fund will be making at least a $40 million cash infusion into Mrs. Green's to support the acquisition of the leases, according to court documents. Catalyst Capital took hold of the chain last year with the acquisition of Planet Organic, a Canadian grocer that purchased Mrs. Green's in 2007. The brands are now managed by an entity of the hedge fund, Natural Market Restaurant Corp.

Two stores in Baltimore suburbs will be operated by Village Super Market.

Village Super Market Inc.

Village Super Market operates about 25 ShopRite supermarkets throughout New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. It is a member of Wakefern Food, the largest retailer-owned food cooperative in the US and owner of the ShopRite name.

I hope this works out. Our store is at most a couple of miles from a Whole Foods.

quick turnaround (4.00 / 2)
Our neighborhood supermarket will close the afternoon of July 6 and reopen the morning of July 9 with the moniker Fresh and Green, just time to restock and change the computer systems. Some guys were in the store this morning changing signs and preparing for other cosmetic changes.

I had half-thought the store might be closed for a while for renovation.

[ Parent ]
Great Mark Bittman column today (4.00 / 2)
about cooking simple food at home.

"When I cook, though, everything seems to go right. I shop an average of every two weeks in a supermarket, and make a couple of trips a week to smaller stores. I'm aware that my choices are mostly imperfect, but I rarely conclude that I should make a burger and fries for dinner or provide a pound per person of prison-raised pork served with fruit from 10,000 miles away, followed by a cake full of sugar and artificial ingredients. Yet, for the most part, that describes restaurant food."

North Alabama joy juice (4.00 / 2)
I made some North Alabama White BBQ Sauce according to the recipe Jay cited, without horseradish. That is potent stuff. I'll see if it calms down after a day or two in the fridge. Not too salty for me, which surprised me. I expect to tend towards less vinegar for potato wedges, but that is completely a matter of personal taste. Could be used as a sandwich spread with relatively less liquid or more mayo...
bummer (4.00 / 3)
Those "uncured" organic "no nitrates or nitrites added" hot dogs contain nitrates and nitrites, often at the same levels as in conventional processed meat. I still think those are a slightly less-bad option, but geez.
Wow (4.00 / 3)
how are they able to legally advertise that then?

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
stupid regulations (4.00 / 2)
from the same link:

In a role reversal, food manufacturers are now pushing the federal government for more truthful labeling that would allow them to tell consumers clearly that some products contain nitrate and nitrite, just from natural rather than synthetic sources. The current rules bizarrely require products that derive the preservatives from natural sources to prominently place the words "Uncured" and "No nitrates or nitrites added" on the label even though they are cured and do contain the chemicals. [...]

Nitrate and nitrite have been used for centuries to cure meat, giving products like hot dogs, bacon and ham their characteristic flavor and color and killing the bacteria that causes botulism. Today, conventional meat packers typically use a synthesized version known as sodium nitrite.

But companies that label their products natural or organic must use natural sources of the preservatives. They usually employ celery powder or celery juice, which are high in nitrate. A bacterial culture is used to convert that to nitrite. The resulting chemicals are virtually identical to their synthetic cousins. When the products are packaged, both conventional and natural products contain residual amounts.

A study published earlier this year in The Journal of Food Protection found that natural hot dogs had anywhere from one-half to 10 times the amount of nitrite that conventional hot dogs contained. Natural bacon had from about a third as much nitrite as a conventional brand to more than twice as much.

The current U.S.D.A. labeling rules require natural products to indicate there may be naturally occurring nitrate or nitrite, but it often appears in small print. When combined with the more prominently displayed "No nitrates or nitrites added" banner, many consumers are left scratching their heads.


[ Parent ]
Interesting... (4.00 / 2)
As always, the best thing to do is probably just cut consumption on all of it.  I should eat much less sausage myself these days...

My butcher (well, the "main" one, I patronize about six or seven small Portland butcher shops / sausage makers / farmers' market vendors in total, myself) down the street (they use local, "good" meats) has an FAQ page (we can haz FAQ?  heh).  Some random answers -

Do the sausages contain any preservatives?

Our Fresh Sausages, Potato Sausage, Chicken Sausages, and Bockwurst have no preservatives of any kind. The smoked sausages contain a small amount of nitrates so that we can smoke them to perfection in our one of a kind smokehouse.

Do you make nitrate free wieners?

Yes, they are in the freezer vacuum packed in 1 lb packages. These do not have any preservatives, MSG, gluten, sugar, fillers, or milk products of any kind.

Argh!  So are they telling the whole truth, or is something being hidden here?

This even still confuses me, and I pay attention to these things...

[ Parent ]
There was a salumi company around here (4.00 / 3)
that really didn't use nitrates. And they went back and forth again and again with the USDA on it. The USDA kept insisting it wasn't safe to be nitrate-free. They'd show the USDA guy the science proving their stuff was safe... and then wash, rinse, repeat...

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman
[ Parent ]
I posted this to the Molalla Buckaroo's photo album on Facebook (4.00 / 2)
Gotta love it in a town that has more feed stores than grocery stores and more tack shops than car dealerships.

That's why I love it out here! I've been seeing pickups and semis pulling horse trailers all week. Big fireworks all over the place, people shootin' off rifles and cannon. Yup, there really is someone up around Colton who has a cannon and they're firin' it off.

You all ways know what holiday it is by the ammount of gunfire you hear out here. 4th of July marks a week and a half of explosives and gun fire. If the leaves are begining to turn and you hear lots of gun fire all around you, you know hunting season is close at hand (everyone's sighting in their rifles). If the days are short and you hear lots of gun fire for about 10 minutes late at night, you know it's New Year's Eve.

;-)

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

Good shit. (4.00 / 1)
Btw, Jo... is the world ending?  You've posted about five comments in the past few days that I completely agree with!

I'm sure you probably know I very heartily approve of this -

more tack shops than car dealerships.

;)

We had the fireworks going here in C-K, SE PDX last night.  I'm sure they'll be back out again in full force in just a few hours.

Unfortunately, gunshots usually herald something completely different here around our way, though...

Which still doesn't lead me to oppose private gun ownership, however.  30-something years on into my life as an American, a very left-wing small-s socialist one at that, and I still really don't know what to make of that debate, although I lean very pro-RKBA at the moment and always kinda have...

[ Parent ]
LOL (4.00 / 2)
You've posted about five comments in the past few days that I completely agree with!

Must be the heat. ;-P

I hear ya on the gun fire. Out here I don't think twice about it, but in a city? Unless I'm living next to a shooting range, that'd be for a bit of nervous making....

I don't have any kind of issues with gun ownership of any kind. The thing I have issues with regarding fire arms is some peoples' choice of target.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
ownership issues (4.00 / 1)
Writing as the father of a policeman, it bothers me that he needs to deal with people, who may be crazy, whose weapons are more lethal than his. He's supposed to compensate for the discrepancy with his training and his smarts? Batshit.

Reminds me of General Custer. His guys had single-shot carbines while the Sioux had repeating Winchesters. Some things never change.

Interesting thing about the Custer example is that, while gun nuts could point out that superior firepower helped the Sioux defend their freedom from the ominous Feds that one time, the Feds won the war.

[ Parent ]
Yup (4.00 / 1)
that's why I won't live in a city anymore. Too dangerous. Too many people packed into too small a space. Even if the economy and everything else doesn't make more people a bit loonier than they are out here, sheer population density will increase the odds of a person getting shot, raped, beat up, mugged, etc.

Closest I ever want to get to city living would be a town the size of Molalla.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Tell that to Ted Kaczynski. (4.00 / 1)
Or the victims of any number of highway abduction / murders...

Come on now, just sayin'.

You can be killed anywhere, and it doesn't have to be urban violence.

[ Parent ]
Yup (4.00 / 2)
but your odds of being shot by a human go up the more humans you're around. It's not a morals thing or anything like that. Statistically, your more likely to be shot in an urban setting. You're around more crime, you're around more humans so statistically you're more likely to come across someone who, even if they're not engaged in crime, could be an armed loon.

It's just like you're more likely to be hit by a vehicle if you're in a high traffic area. If you're in an area where there are very few vehicles, you're less likely, just by sheer lowering of your exposure, to be hit by a vehicle.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Actually... (4.00 / 1)
Statistically, the odds of being killed by anything here in Oregon lean heavily toward motor vehicles.

I'd like to see some numbers on this -

but your odds of being shot by a human go up the more humans you're around.

Frankly, I don't believe it.  I have a theory that the closer we live to each other, the more tolerant we become of each other.

For example, here's a map of world population density -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Here's a list of world homicide rates -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

Why is it that Ireland, Germany, Scotland, France, The UK and The Netherlands all have significantly higher population densities and  significantly more urban-centric populations / cultures than us, yet their murder rates are 1/5 of ours or less?

Again, I disagree with this as well -

It's just like you're more likely to be hit by a vehicle if you're in a high traffic area. If you're in an area where there are very few vehicles, you're less likely, just by sheer lowering of your exposure, to be hit by a vehicle.

It depends on how fast they're going, and where.  I have to do some looking, but I actually believe you're much less likely to be injured by a vehicle on foot in Manhattan than you are to be injured by a vehicle on foot in Any Suburb, USA.

I believe this holds in Portland, as well.  You're much more likely to be run down in Oregon City than you are in downtown Portland, despite there being much more vehicular traffic here than there...

More to come tomorrow.  I like this discussion, good to see you again Jo!

:)

[ Parent ]
LOL, Good Times. (4.00 / 1)
I've really missed these debates of ours Jay.

OK, you put up your stats on shootings, and I'll go ahead and start keeping a tally on how many shootings happen in the Portland Metro area again.

LOL at the being more likely to be run down in Oregon City than in Portland. Usupose next you'll be saying a person's more likely to be run down in an area where on average there is 1 vehicle per hour driving on the road than if a person were to be walking on a 12" shoulder alond a 45 MPH highway that's a main arterial serving the Portland Metro from a bedroom community. Oh, wait, that's the road that runs in front of my house.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Another point I neglected to include in my commnet (4.00 / 2)
was that I wasn't talking about violence in the generic sense. I was talking specifically about gun violence. Sure, you can die anywhere, maybe by someone killing you, or by violent accident. We're all going to die somewhere. I could be kicked in the head by my stallion tomorrow and this would be the last you ever hear from me. More likely I'll be gutted by the really nasty emu hen who I'm going to kill this fall (if she doesn't get me first).

But to get back to the gun violence, I see shooting reports. I watch the local news every morning. I once decided to keep track of the urban shootings for a year, that happened in the Portland Metro area. I included Vancouver, WA as well. Vancouver is as much of the Portland metro area as Beaverton is. I kept track of the urban vs. rural shootings. I finally gave up after a month of several times a week shootings. I decided it would be easier record keeping if I recorded the days that someone wasn't shot. During that whole time I didn't see reports on any shootings out in the rural areas, even though it was the fall and there were people shooting all over the place around me.  

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
yo Jay (4.00 / 4)
hi. I'm sitting here getting too drunk and thinking about you.

I like you so much. We have a lot in common.

It really sucks that we don't get to live close to each other and visit.

I am not talking romantic; I'm a real fail with that, and even outside of that...you are someone who keeps seeming like new family.

If I ever had the opportunity to introduce you to my family in the PNW, that would be great. They'd love your intelligence and your sensibility about the real physical world. Your caring about plants and animals and even humans, how beautiful your photos are. They would love you.

I know you've been sick. I despair. But, I will work on. I hope you will too. You are an extraordinary person.

Love you, Jay.

"If God were to appear to starving people, he would not dare to appear in any other form than food." - Mahatma Gandhi

Syrian tanks deployed against civilians, hundreds arrested... (4.00 / 1)
Syria's army deployed tanks and armored vehicles at the entrance to Hama, a city north of Damascus, while security forces arrested hundreds of anti- government protesters, a human-rights activist said.

The troops took up positions yesterday after rallies in Hama during the previous two days drew as many as 400,000 people, Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, said by phone from the Syrian capital. The security forces killed at least two demonstrators late yesterday in the Damascus suburb of Hajar Aswad, he said.

A protester who died in custody was buried yesterday in the Damascus district of al-Muadamiya, Merhi said. Hundreds were also arrested in Idlib, Hama, Harasta, Douma and the southern area of Daraa, where the rallies against President Bashar al- Assad's rule began in mid-March, he said.

Security forces have killed more than 1,500 people since the start of the unrest, according to Qurabi.

At least 20,000 in all are said to have been arrested, as well, with at least half that many still in custody...

Syrian tanks enter Northwestern village... (4.00 / 1)
Syrian tanks rolled into a northwestern village and opened fire Monday, wounding at least six people in the latest military maneuver in a weekslong siege near the Turkish border that seeks to crush the country's pro-democracy uprising, activists said.

Two more protestors (in addition to the twenty four the other day) were shot dead, and eight were wounded, by government forces last night.

Syrian troops are storming houses, firing randomly... (4.00 / 1)
Syrian troops stormed houses in the city of Hama on Monday as thousands of residents took to the streets shouting "God is greater" in defiance of a government crack-down on recent large protests, residents said.

"At least 30 buses carrying soldiers and security police entered Hama this morning. They are firing randomly in residential neighborhoods," one of the residents, a workshop owner who gave his name as Ahmad, said by telephone.

I'm sure Alice Walker is on her way.

Off with her head... (4.00 / 1)
A woman, beheaded by the sword thousands of miles from home. This, at last, proved too much for Indonesia. For years, this Southeast Asian nation has been sending its citizens to work in Saudi Arabia and, for years, migrant workers there complained of poor working conditions, abuse and violence. But the surprise execution of Ruyati binti Sapubi, a 54-year old maid accused of killing her female employer, seems to have shocked the country into action. Indonesian authorities, who say Ruyati was routinely abused, are outraged they were not informed of the sentence.  They announced on Thursday that Indonesia will stop sending maids to the kingdom - at least for now.

Racists!  How dare they not accept beheadings of their "domestic guest workers," as part of routine "justice" in the Kingdom?!?!

Oh, look! (4.00 / 1)
Boats also travel from Jeddah to Suwaqih, Sudan (1st/2nd/3rd SR470/370/300, cars from SR460, 10 hours, three weekly both ways).

Two birds with one stone, adventurous "progressives" can take on Saudi Arabia and the Sudan both at the same time!!!

Or do they value having their heads connected to their necks too much?

Well, never mind that.  I'm sure there are hundreds of "progressives" itching to delegitimize those two countries, and break international law in a quixotic quest to 'enforce' same (while turning down official offers to deliver their cargo outside of their own propagandistic channels), in a twisted sort of way, sailing there...

I hereby offer to book their passage on the good ship Jeddah, anytime.  I'm sure they'll be welcomed very warmly into those tolerant, open states.

[ Parent ]
The Sudan... (4.00 / 1)
The world capital for crimes against humanity this month probably isn't in Libya or Syria. Instead, it's arguably the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, where we're getting accounts of what appears to be a particularly vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing, murder and rape.  [...]

An internal U.N. report says that Sudanese authorities are putting on uniforms of the Sudanese Red Crescent - a local version of the Red Cross - to order displaced people to move away from the United Nations compound. They were then herded into a stadium in the town of Kadugli, where their fate is uncertain.

Western aid workers have been forced to flee, and there are credible reports of government troops and government-backed Arab militias systematically hunting down members of the black-skinned Nuba ethnic group and killing them.

"Door-to-door executions of completely innocent and defenseless civilians, often by throat-cutting, by special internal security forces," a Westerner with long experience in Sudan recounted in a terse e-mail. The writer, who was on the scene but has now left, does not want to be named for fear of losing access.


More Sudan... (4.00 / 1)
Where's the world on this?

As the July 9 division of Sudan nears, the government in Khartoum is scrambling to crush any rebellious chunks of the territory that will remain its own. Its forces have been relentlessly pounding the Nuba Mountains from Russian-made Antonov bombers for weeks, demanding that tens of thousands of rebel fighters dug in here disarm and drop their insistence on more autonomy for the distinctive Nuba people. Hundreds of civilians have been killed, including many children. Bombs have been dropped on huts, on farmers in the field, on girls fetching water together, slicing them in half with buckets in their hands.

As the area inches toward becoming fully engulfed in war, the Nuba caves offer a crucial refuge. [...]

"These caves have saved my children's life," Ms. Ramadan said. A couple of hundreds yards below her is the evidence: jagged chunks of shrapnel, gaping bomb craters and a tree trunk with a huge hole blown straight through it. The bombings have shifted west in recent days, away from the Lewere Valley toward what is emerging as the front line in an area called Korchi. But the fear endures like a scar.

"Even the sound of a car sends us running," Ms. Ramadan said. [...]

Because they had been subjugated by Sudan's Arab rulers for generations, the Nuba sided with southern rebels during the latter half of Sudan's north-south civil war, in the 1980s and '90s. The government responded by bombing the hillsides, wiping out villages and incarcerating hundreds of thousands of Nuba in so-called peace camps where many were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. People fled to caves then, too.


[ Parent ]
Lol at the spammer... (4.00 / 1)
Any of youze see that one?

"Yes, farmers are good!"

typewriters China

and a few other links...

Idjit.

The end. (4.00 / 2)
Today (or yesterday) was the end of wild red raspberry season in Baltimore. I cleaned out the patch in back of the apartment building yesterday and those berries were pretty good. Today I went to the hillside patch on Cold Spring Lane one more time, but I shouldn't have bothered. The plants have been drying off for three or four days, and the berries really are done when that happens.

The season was great while it lasted, I must say. I've known for a couple of years that the Cold Spring hillside had berries because I could see them, but getting to them seemed like it would cost me too much pain and misery. This year I decided that, if that's where the berries were, I'd go for it. I got torn up more than I would have otherwise but it wasn't really bad. The difficult part was picking on a slope that was 45 degrees or steeper. Seemed like about 30-40% of my energy went to picking berries, the rest was invested trying to keep from toppling down the hill.

Correction... (4.00 / 2)
The end until next year!

;-P

I'm amazed at how many wild blackberries grow along the sidewalks of my street during the season.  I'm a bit hesitant to try them, though.  Four lane high-speed, exhaust-spewing drag strip just inches away from the bushes / canes.

[ Parent ]
exhaust (4.00 / 1)
One more reason for electric vehicles, right? At least our fuel is low-lead low-sulfur now. I know what you mean, though. I thought about that too, and decided I'd accept the risk. It isn't something I do every day all year.
[ Parent ]
Prince William splashes helo (4.00 / 2)
My Best New Thing for today is Prince William's helicopter training session. Although he's a Sea King pilot, he had never landed on water or taken off from water. Pilots in his RAF unit get their training in emergency landings in Canada, and Prince William requested training "as long as he happened to be in the neighborhood." Or maybe he just wanted to show off for his bride? Anyway,

William lands Canadian helo on water

Canadian Forces Major Mark Kotzer explained it was "very important for the pilot to keep the tail rotor out of the water," as the prince repeated the procedure a dozen times.

On the fifth landing, William shut off one of the Sea King's two engines to simulate engine failure, coming in faster and harder and kicking up a mist of lake water over the hundreds of fans watching from shore.

He also tried a few blind landings, using only the helicopter's onboard instruments.
...

"It's a very different feeling landing in water: (for the pilot) the horizon sits much lower than you're used to, and you can feel the water rush underneath the helicopter," he said.

The one slightly wacky thing about this is that he chose to do this while hundreds of cameras were pointed at him. What if he screwed up? Not to worry, he must be very confident of his abilities and, indeed, his first landing was very smooth. Of course a lake is much different from the North Sea or the North Atlantic, but I'm impressed even so.

Sometime during the day, I think before the helo exercises, Kate and William joined competing teams in a dragon boat race. Her boat let his team win.

I'd bet Kate is a big hit in Canada. Pictures have shown her wearing a maple leaf hat and maple leaf jewelry, and she has worn clothing by Canadian designers. Very nice, very thoughtful, and she's a good sport. I mean, she steered her dragon boat, she could have fallen off in front of those same hundreds of cameras, but she was up for it.

sugar cereal (4.00 / 2)
I just listened to an episode of the Roy Rogers radio program from 1951. The sponsor was a Post cereal coated with sugar, which was called Krinkles. It had a clear glaze on a rounded rice puff like Kellog's Rice Krispies. Later, Post had a sugar coated rice flake, whose glaze was not clear, which was called Frosted Rice Krinkles. It wasn't in the marketplace very long.

According to Mr. Breakfast, Post introduced Sugar Crisp in 1949 and Krinkles, originally called Sugar Krinkles, was introduced in 1950. Kellogg's introduced Sugar Corn Pops in 1950, the same year Corn Pops was introduced.

Sugar cereal has a long history in the U.S., but apparently not before WWII. Interesting.

I've noticed that there were a lot of changes to our country (4.00 / 2)
and how we live post WWII. WWII appears to have been a major technology incubator.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
Here are a couple of good articles (4.00 / 2)
on the topic of warfare and technology advances -

My Slingshot's Bigger Than Yours: The Science and Technology of Warfare Through the Ages

The Science and Technolory of World War II


Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Gha! :( (4.00 / 1)
No more Wall of Spices...

Limbo, the little produce market in Southeast Portland's Woodstock neighborhood, for 15 years has been home to a reliable source of fresh, organic produce and a dizzying array of exotic and hard-to-find herbs.

But today, the small, colorfully painted grocery, tucked next to a Trader Joe's on Southeast 39th Avenue, is nearly bare as the mom-and-pop store plans to close its doors for good Sunday.

It could be yet another sad story of yet another small, passionate group of people being pushed out of a market that's been increasingly crowded by big corporate chains. But owners Rick Nichols and his wife, Ellen Campbell, don't see it that way.

"We really feel great, like we've accomplished a goal," Campbell said.

That goal was to bring fresh, organic produce to the market -- long before it ever became a popular catchword. Nichols had owned numerous small businesses, turning Ross Island Grocery from a beer-and-cigarette store to a corner grocery and running the Yamhill Fruit Market downtown. Through those businesses, Campbell said he developed a taste for entrepreneurship and agriculture.

Gonna miss it, took it for granted for too long!  No more spinach in walking distance, no more berries 5 blocks away.  No more wall of spices and tea.  Sigh.

Shit, now there really are no coffee shops in this neighborhood outside of the two fucking Green Monsters.  Wtf.  Much more than coffee here, of course, but still.  All three places with a good cup of coffee within walking distance from my apartment are also now gone, and all within the past year or so.

Oh, but we have a new art gallery and tee-shirt shop across the street!  Eye roll.  Btw, when the hipster stuff moves into the 'hood, isn't that supposed to bring coffee shops and the like?  Argh.

Why did the coffee shops go out of business? (4.00 / 2)
Not profitable, owners retire, poor management? Those are the usual reasons for businesses folding.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
Because I'm here... (4.00 / 1)
...and brought my 'luck' with me.  Heh.  Only half-joking, I think.

This closing, plus one retirement (cafe down the block which then became a yoga studio), plus the place across the street which became a pizzeria full time in January.

The bar's doing very well!  I don't drink though, bah.  Heh, I wonder if they're doing so well these days because everyone's upset about the coffee situation...

[ Parent ]
Ah, I see (4.00 / 2)
Yup, it's problematic when a person decides to retire, or just can't make a go of it. If there's no one to step up and purchase the business, or open a new, similar business in its place then the community looses that asset.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
Three years! (4.00 / 2)
Oh, so nobody remembered La Vida Locavore's birthday this past weekend, btw?

The little tyke is three years old now!

;)

Happy Birthday LVL! (4.00 / 3)
And congrats to Jill for having such a wonderful blog!

And thanks to y'all who come here to chat and exchange info, views, etc.. This is actually my favorite place on the web.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Where else on the web (4.00 / 2)
would you learn about Krinkles and the origin of sugar cereal?
[ Parent ]
Heh, speaking of hidden nitrites... (4.00 / 1)
desmoinesdem mentioned this up above a couple days ago.

DOES YOUR SALAMI CONTAIN NITRATES? AND JUST WHAT ARE NITRITES, ANYWAY?

Yes. We use nitrites in the salt to cure our product. Nitrites are a natural component of vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, celery, beets & spinach, to name a few. We add nitrites because it helps to make our product safe by inhibiting growth of bacteria, and it also helps to keep the natural color of the pork.

(Little known fact: All cured meats contain nitrites in some form. When it is not included on a label, that is usually because the producer has utilized concentrated celery juice which contains nitrite. Sneaky! The amount of nitrite in our salami is similar to eating about a cup of celery.)

Their saucisson d'Alsace is the best salami I've ever had.

Sounds like a great company (4.00 / 2)
I love their FAQ and I'll have to look for their product when I'm shopping. I really ought to get a food sellers license sooner rather than later, so I can offer products like theirs to my CSA members. Because I'm starting to do meat production I'm all in on the whole licensing thing anyway. What's one more?

Nursery license, prepackaged meat sellers license, I'm going to have to get a food sellers licnese if I want to make pickles and sell them anyway. It's funny, when I was talking to the fellow over at ODA last week about the poultry slaughter thing, he told me about having to get the federal meat license. He agreed it was a pain, but he said to look at it this way, I can now partner with other farms and ranches to raise cattle, pigs, etc. for me. I can buy the animals from them, have them slaughtered and sell the meat by the cut as opposed to selling by the half or whole. Much more profitable than selling by the half or whole.

What I want to do out here is to form a kiretsu type group of farms, where we can all support each other in the types of farming we do and in our businesses.

A kiretsu is a group of interlinked businesses that work in partnership with each other to support each other's businesses. Originating in Japan, a classical kiretsu is formed around a major bank which the businesses use in their financial dealings, and the businesses also own stock in each other, as well as the bank, and the bank may own stock in the member businesses. I don't want my group to go that far, but I think it'd be a way for farms to partner with each other and be more stable than all of us operating all by our lonesome.

For instance, it'd be wonderful to partner with a grain farm, as well as parterning with my friend who's getting her kitchen licensed as a commercial kitchen. Those two businesses would give the other member farms a source of some feed components and possibly further processing of some crops. For the commercial kitchen can you imagine the baker who's using corn grown by a member farm, milled by a local miller like Bob's or a smaller miller, and that baker produces corn bread muffins? What a marketing advantage and a way for all us our businesses to support each other.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
Oy, (4.00 / 3)
got 50 cornish cross chicks and 10 broad breasted bronze turkeys in today. I have another 10 tukey poults coming tomorrow. And I'm over sold by 2 dozen eggs at the food co-op. I'll be able to cover that though. Business is booming.

Tomorrow morning I have delivery to Portland, and then I have a meeting in the afternoon with a lady who has over 100 acres and would like to partner with me to raise pigs or anything else that would work well in a wooded environment. I think pigs will, but I still need to talk to her, take a look at her property and see what will work well with her and her family.

Then I have another meeting after that with the lady who's commercial kitchen I'm going to help out with. Hopefully she will be able to make processed products from what I grow on the farm and what I can harvest on other farms.

Molalla Farmers Market is this Friday (it's held in conjunction with Molalla's Second Friday celebration). And I have another event in Molalla that I can have a booth at on Saturday, but I think I'll pass on that as Saturdays are my big tray seeding day and a CSA pickup day.

Did I say business is booming?


Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

Very good! (4.00 / 2)
That's good to hear that business is doing well!  
[ Parent ]
I hope booming biz (4.00 / 1)
means you're at last doing better than breaking even. Have you run the numbers for the first half of the year?

Gosh Joanne, are you still doing all this by yourself? Amazing.

Congratulations.

[ Parent ]
Yup (4.00 / 2)
margins are running from 30% or so to around 400%. Volume's still low, but it's picking up, really fast. Hooking up with the food co-op and the distributor is really helping.

I talked to the lady at the food co-op and I may have the oportunity to grow paste tomatoes and pickling cucumbers for them next year. Too late in the year for that this year, but if I have some lead time I can get beds prepped and tunnels up to start the crops early next spring.

Harold's son Scott is going to be moving up here very soon (I'm thinking in the next 2-3 weeks), and he's interested in working here instead of finding a job somewhere else.

He has some back issues, and if he moves up and wants to work on the farm, I'll put him to doing a lot of the light work, deliveries, marketing, harvesting, etc. Which will free up around 40 hours a week for me to do the nuts and bolts work.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
So far on the poultry end of things (4.00 / 2)
I picked up my first order of chickens and turkeys today. I'm keeping one for me, the rest are for sale. I had 2 reserved before I could even get them in the brooders. I'm making them available to the CSA members first for reservations, then I'll open them up to the food co-op members for reservations. I'm planning on slaughtering the first batch the first or second week of November. People wanting larger birds will have to wait until December.

I'm allowing people who reserve birds to pick a weight range they want them slaughtered at. The first reserved had a 20# request, the second a 12#-15# weight range.

On the CSA members, I have one lady who's interested in getting on a regular schedule for a chicken every week or every other week. I'll grow the birds to her weight specs. So she can have a 3#, 4#, etc. bird.

I like my birds between 8# and 10#, but that's because I like to cook once a week if possible.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
my friend Aliza is writing (4.00 / 2)
a  book on butchering. She's been interviewing folks who raise grass and pasture animals. Around here its mostly been chickens. Next week I am going with her to a farm in Maryland. So far I had 2 chicken dinners at her house from 2 different farms. The first was from a company owned by a Muslim Turk and a Jew. What was supposed to be humanely raised birds turns out to Empire chickens raised smaller. The second dinner was chickens that are were Kosher,sustainable and organic.


[ Parent ]
What's an Empire chicken (4.00 / 2)
A company like Foster Farms or Tyson? Were the birds raised outside or in grow out buildings?

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
Empire is the biggest Kosher Chicken company (4.00 / 2)
they are sold in most regular markets. I doubt very much at their birds are raised in anyplace other than inside.And they are Kosher. Which means http://www.jewfaq.org/kashrut.htm

[ Parent ]
Wow, those are some complex food laws! (4.00 / 1)
I have an idea why the large commercial outfits want their birds raised indoors. For one thing, you can regulate how warm or cool the building is. There used to be a common type of building that had sides which could be opened up. The open sides were screened to keep the birds in and the predators, etc. out. Now I think most of the buildings are completely contained. Air conditioned in the summer, heated in the winter. Everything computer controled, etc.

One of the problems with raising poultry out doors, aside from the temperature differences that would eat up any profit through higher feed costs, is the fact that all of these large commercial farms are under mandatory pre slaughter testing for avian influenza. All forms of AI are reportable diseases, even the onces that don't cause symptoms and especially don't cause death.

The only reason why I can get away with raising my birds out doors is that I'm exempt from testing. If I had to go through mandatory pre slaughter testing the state would be out here depopulating my farm every 6-12 months, especially in the winter when all the migratory waterfowl are flying over head and pooping out massive quantities of the virus.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

[ Parent ]
My winter raised chickens will be raised in a (4.00 / 1)
set of pens that will rotate around a central shelter. They'll have free access to outdoor pens, but if it's raining and/or very cold, they'll probably stay inside anyway.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.
[ Parent ]
'Bama white sauce (4.00 / 2)
My first batch of Northern Alabama White Dipping (BBQ) sauce definitely improved after a couple days of refrigeration. It still is quite tangy, but not so nakedly aggressive. Specifically, the distinct vinegar taste went away. The vinegar and lemon juice melded with other ingredients to form a new taste that I like a lot. Also, the sauce got thicker.

I expect the sauce to be good with more vegetables than just potato wedges. I just sauced a dish of steamed sweet potato and onion with it - that was great. Next up, steamed broccoli and onion.

Final verdict, very easy to make and quite versatile, just what I like. Play with ingredient ratios to your heart's content, add other seasoning if you must, have fun.

Alabama White Sauce... (4.00 / 2)
I'll be downtown today, I wonder if I can make it there to that BBQ cart (BBQ Fusion, SW 10th & Alder) on lunch?

Grin...

Heh, the reviews for the place are actually pretty "meh," and generally I agree... but damn, that Alabama White Sauce!

;)

Seriously, knocks an average pulled pork sandwich up at least two notches on a ten-point scale.  Five to a seven, easy.  Comes in chilled squirt bottles (interesting point about the 'aging,'  I should ask how long he lets it sit after making it?), I just take the top bun off and douse the pork in the stuff.  Comes as a platter with cole slaw and baked beans, I also add the white sauce to the beans and mix it in there.  Goes great with those too, maybe another idea for you if you like baked beans...

I can't really think of anything it wouldn't go great with.  On top of an omelet?  Asparagus (too late now, sniff...)?  Salmon?  Mushrooms?  A burger?

[ Parent ]
Best name of the day (4.00 / 1)
Spreading phone hacking scandal touches UK nerves

GREGORY KATZ
Associated Press
3 hrs ago

Tuna Amobi, an equities analyst with Standard & Poor's, said in a research note Wednesday that the advertising boycott by some companies was not significant for a company as large as News Corp.

Tuna Amobi. I luv.

Woodstock Farmers' Market... (4.00 / 1)
This is awesome.  Haven't hit it yet, but there's a new Sunday morning farmers' market in Woodstock, a direct, door-to-door 6-minute bus ride from my apartment.  Distance-wise, I think the (year-round, Wednesday evening) farmers' market at People's is slightly closer, but that one involves at least 7 blocks' worth of walking in addition to a quick bus ride (or a 25-block walk without the bus) and I get really lazy at times.  Heh.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get there this Sunday.

Looks good, plus some new farms I haven't heard of before  -

Woodstock Farmers' Market

This one will stand in for the Milwaukie Sunday farmers' market while it's in season, plus it shaves 12 minutes and 30 cents off the bus ride!

;)

Singing the pad thai blues (4.00 / 1)
There's always something on the Utubes


polo for dollars (4.00 / 1)
Prince William played a round-robin polo tourney in Santa Barbara to raise money for a charity (his and Prince Harry's.)  Three players paid &100,000 each to play on his team, 8 players paid $50,000 each to make up the two opposing teams. There's $700,000. Grandstand tickets cost $400 and an unknown number of fans paid $4,000 each to mingle and schmooze.

Peanuts, I say. Jay, do you know if the club was bright enough to sell video rights, either for live broadcast or for delayed broadcast? That would be worth a bundle of real money. I don't see anything about it on ESPN.

Heh. (4.00 / 1)
I don't know, but it would probably air on Versus if anywhere.
[ Parent ]
another superbug (4.00 / 1)
Scientists find first superbug strain of gonorrhea

Kate Kelland
Reuters
45 mins ago

The new strain of the sexually transmitted disease -- called H041 -- cannot be killed by any currently recommended treatments for gonorrhea, leaving doctors with no other option than to try medicines so far untested against the disease.
...

The team's analysis of the strain found it was extremely resistant to all cephalosporin-class antibiotics -- the last remaining drugs still effective in treating gonorrhea.
...

Asked whether a class of drugs called carbapenems -- known as the most powerful antibiotics yet devised -- might be a last ditch option for treating this new gonorrhea strain, Unemo said there would first need to be trials to assess their potential.

"Carbapenems have never been used for the treatment of gonorrhea so we cannot interpret the data in any reliable or quality-assured way at the moment," he said.


Imbeciles (4.00 / 1)
During a 50-minute press conference on debt ceiling negotiations, neither President Obama nor any reporter alluded to the fact that many of the people who ultimately will vote on the deal are multimillionaires. More specifically, 100% of the "top lawmakers" who are in the current negotiations might be multimillionaires. I have trouble finding a news report saying exactly who these "top legislators" are, but I think they must include at minimum Reid, Durbin, McConnell, and Kyl in the Senate; and Boehner, Cantor, Pelosi, and Hoyer in the House. All these people are multimillionaires. If committee chairs are included, both Max Baucus and Kent Conrad in the Senate are multimillionaires. I don't know about the relevant House chairs. If Ryan is there, certainly he's a multimillionaire.

I think the outcome of these negotiations might be much different if the negotiators typically had Adjusted Gross Incomes of $250,000 or $500,000. Seem reasonable? Reporters apparently don't think this is relevant, but then perhaps their AGIs factor into their questioning.

Pot Luck | 83 comments
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