A slavic german cooks traditional french soup:

So a couple years ago Allison gave me Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. Since then I've read it but only made um, 3 things from it (I'm not big on recipes). However the french onion soup worked out so well I really should dig deeper into this massive book for more inspiration.

And it is more inspiration than actual instruction - as the recipe spends about half a page on actual ingredients and procedures, but an additional page and a half on the quality aspects of it - like where the flavors come from and why even though it sounds interminably long, it is important to cook the onions in the butter for ~5 hours over a very low heat (which essentially turned the Walla Walla local onions into what you'd call candy in a blind tasting - they were that sweet)

I do wish I made the stock as opposed to using store bought though - it didn't add much to the flavor profile of the soup. The onions dominated the soup, and combined with melted emmentaler and local aged cheddar cheese and some croutons made from homemade bread it was an excellent dish.

It's actually really easy and cheap (under $20 for 6 servings - about $3 per serving!) to make - especially if you don't mind leaving a pot unattended on the stove while the onions very slowly melt.

If you have a dollar denominated savings account, read these.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/20/no-deal/

http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/09/some-thoughts-on-bailout.html

Seems that they're just throwing money at the problem rather than addressing the solution. One last huge giveaway to the favored corporations/supporters before the election I suppose. It's a cynical outlook, but given the information at hand, it may not be far from the truth.

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Oh, and Lucky-Charms-Treats, in the same approach as Rice-Krispy-Treats, is a good idea in theory, but the cereal is too dense in practice. Still tastes good, but has the consistency of a dense melty granola bar rather than a Rice-Krispy-Treat.

How to spend it.

Say you had a trillion dollars. It's a nice round figure. And say you were in a position of leadership of a country.

How would you spend it?

- Destroy some bridges and bunkers on the other side of the world, then oppress the citizens of those countries for a decade?

- Give it to your friends so they can save their failed financial institutions (which they ran into the ground) and still earn their year end bonuses while simultaneously screwing over the individual shareholders and taxpayers?

- Universal healthcare for all citizens of your country, along with lots of nice brand new hosptials?

- Repair all the 50+ year old crumbling transportation and utilities infrastructure with environmentally responsible and sustainable options?

I'm rather disappointed that given this situation the former two choices won out over the later.

Why pay taxes or give time and effort to support the system that consistently makes these decisions? There has to be a better way.

I know I know - all these bad choices haven't affected day to day life yet - though yet is the key word. Other countries have lived through rough financial times and come out the other side intact - but why with all the productivity/prosperity that is possible is a rough financial time even an option for this country.

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In that day to day life - http://www.skilletstreetfood.com/ - 3 people in an old Airstream trailer serving up decent lunch food in and around downtown Seattle - different location every day - many local ingredients (the berry crisp was great) and the food is well prepared overall (fried chicken was too greasy but still flavorful).

Also the local Greek Orthodox church is holding their fall festival this weekend - looking forward to the spanakopita.

One of those 'Oh $#!^ moments

So - when is the most inconvenient time to drop a bottle of [RED] wine...

Well, when it is full, so that the splash effect/spillage is greatest...

How about when you're on a hard surface floor... like a kitchen floor...

Add in a large appliance - say, when you're putting it in the refrigerator...

And that adds up to quite the mess to clean up - wine and glass under the fridge, splashed inside the fridge, up on the wall - 750mL for paper towels to absorb...

Fun times.

At least it was only 3 buck chuck.

Is it funny or sad or scary that this is a publicly stated point of view.

A few links to the same issue:

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
- http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/02/palin-iraq-god/
- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080903/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_palin_iraq_war

We've just seen the effects of 8 years of ignorant/evangelistic leadership... is it a good idea to have someone like this behind a rather elderly presidential candidate?

Summer

Lack of posting has been due to the wonderful temperate August weather out here. It's been sunny and mid 70's for the last week or two - brilliant! Lots of walking around the city - headed to Mt. Rainier this weekend for some hiking/camping and to give the new camera a good workout.