Sain't Christopher

Yule be glad you did

Mrs. Bridget once summed up Christmas gifting this way-  I will not be buying presents this year, nor do I expect any. You all know that I love you and you don't need a new pasta machine to prove it. And, more importantly, there are people out there that would use the money I might spend on a dvd for something more worthwhile. They need the money to give a life saving meal, buy medicine for an abandoned dog, or
to help teach a child to read.

In the years since, we've all been donating instead of buying gifts.  My ducats have been going to Glide and their grocery bag program.  Here, read all about it. The first year I signed up didn't go so smoothly.  The volunteer I called kept having me repeat info over and over.  Two weeks later I got a call telling me I'd been approved and could come pick up my grocery bag anytime that Thursday.

I still buy gifts for the little one's in my life, for my folks, my sister, and for my staff . . . otherwise I think that giving burns off a little of the guilt from living so well the rest of the year.  And isn't that the real meaning of christmas.

Go in Peace

A New Plateau

Looking for cool x-mas presents, I instead came across this.   Ho. Ho. Ho.

Go in Peace

Keep you feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars

You out there who are forty, plus or minus a few, might get a kick out of this.  KFRC has started running old American Top 40's on Saturday nights. No re-editing, just some random show from 30 odd years ago.  Tonight I was out trying to buy a power tool for the gingerbread castle I'm building (more later) and stumbled across Wayne State alumni Casey Kassem saying and now 26 year old Bruce Springsteen coming in at 26, his fifth week on the chart, with Born To Run. 

And bless Casey, smooth as silk he moved into some disco song without a trace of the hateful irony that is Ryan Seacrest.

Go in Peace

Thanking Her For The Spam Casserole We Ate As Children

Got a call from The Mom yesterday, she asked about using frozen porcini mushrooms for our family's traditional Christmas soup.  The local store now has frozen mushrooms and this is great.  For years the soup was made with these dried polish porcinis that were magically able to give off dirt no matter how many times you rinsed them.  So, off she went and I'm curious to hear how it turns out.

Last spring, using fresh porcinis, I made a mushroom soup that I wanted to eat- a first.  Like many of you, my experience growing up with mushroom soup was to have it as an ingredient in a dinner dish.  The Mom used to cook pork chops in it, which was good and all, but most every other mushroom soup I've ever had was just a better or worse version of the Campbell's stuff.  So, for The Mom, here is my mushroom soup recipe:

Porcini Mushroom Soup with Dill and Roasted Garlic Sour Cream
6 Servings

6 tbsp  butter
1 large onion, thinly sliced
6 ounces button mushrooms (wiped)
6 ounces porcinis (save the juice from the thawing, give a quick wipe)
4 cups light chicken stock
1 bunch dill
3 cloves roasted garlic
1/4 cup sour cream
Salt and pepper

1.  Roast off the garlic in aluminum foil ahead of time.  Let cool
2.  Rough chop onion (keep separate)
3.  Rough chop both mushrooms
4.  In pot, melt butter over medium heat.
5.  Add onions and sweat, but do not brown.
6.  Add stock and mushrooms, bring to a boil.
7.  Turn to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes
8.  While soup is simmering, on a cutting board, use the flat of your knife to make the garlic into a paste.  Add this to the sour cream.
9.  Chop dill, set aside.
10. Now, here it gets interesting. You have a choice. 
Most soups are better the second day and this one falls under that category.  You can let the soup cool, fridge it over night, run it thru the blender and heat it the next day.  Or.  You can use an immersion blender and puree it right then.  An immersion blender is a useful tool.  It also makes a lovely Christmas gift for, maybe, some retiree who has shown an interest in cooking during his later years.  Someone who is usually a pain in the butt to shop for.  Someone who loves kitchen toys.
11.  Season bravely with Salt and pepper
12.  Ladle soup and right before serving, put a dollop of the roasted garlic sour cream into the soup.
13.  Liberally sprinkle the dill on top and serve.

Go in Peace

The following is a test

Playing around with emailed photo sizes.

Go in Peace

Empathy

Luckily, the kids are very forgiving and understanding of my failings.

While going over books with the kids, Vincent pulled out the jungle sticker book I'd bought him a few weeks back.  Most of the stickers have been used, he went immediatley to a "futterbly" that was a bit mangled and pointed.  "Rocky do it," he said.  I tried several different edges and couldn't get the thing to peel.  Vincent put his hand on mine, looked up and consoled me, "It's tricky."  He felt like being kind because I'd bought him his new favoritest toy, a green chevron car.

This was much more successful than the crayola colorless coloring book thingy.  The markers are clear, but the special paper makes the liquid turn into pastel colors.  Very.  Slowly.  Zoe was not impressed at all.  I apologized to Zoe for the coloring set not working very well. And very sweetly she said, "That's okay, Rocky."

Which is why we can always fall back on Television to make us heros.  Putting the diaper on backward, not knowing whose socks are whose, wearing shoes inside the house, not being able to read the German children's books, failing to pull stickers, buying a sucky coloring book . . . all are forgiven once you put the Jungle Book dvd.

Go in Peace

Yes, we've all wondered . . .

An elastic band and inflatable tunnel like thing???  Gonna think about this at work all day.

Astronauts test sex in space - but did the earth move?

US and Russian astronauts have had sex in space for separate research programmes on how human beings might survive years in orbit, according to a book published yesterday.

Pierre Kohler, a respected French scientific writer, says in The Final Mission: Mir, The Human Adventure that the subject is taboo both at Nasa and at mission control in Moscow, but that cosmic couplings have taken place.

"The issue of sex in space is a serious one," he says. "The experiments carried out so far relate to missions planned for married couples on the future International Space Station, the successor to Mir. Scientists need to know how far sexual relations are possible without gravity."

He cites a confidential Nasa report on a space shuttle mission in 1996. A project codenamed STS-XX was to explore sexual positions possible in a weightless atmosphere.

Twenty positions were tested by computer simulation to obtain the best 10, he says. "Two guinea pigs then tested them in real zero-gravity conditions. The results were videotaped but are considered so sensitive that even Nasa was only given a censored version."

Only four positions were found possible without "mechanical assistance". The other six needed a special elastic belt and inflatable tunnel, like an open-ended sleeping bag.

Mr Kohler says: "One of the principal findings was that the classic so-called missionary position, which is so easy on earth when gravity pushes one downwards, is simply not possible."

Go in Peace