All Things in Moderation

So this is a mostly non-political “Bits and Pieces” post…something that is not too controversial or taxing as I prepare for my Thanksgiving Day Drive to Pittsburgh. Below are several items that i came across today – some of which made me laugh and some of which made me just shake my head.

Item 1) You will need to wish me well on my travels to Pittsburgh as I will be riding the PA Turnpike. In good times it’s God’s gift to horrible roads…during high travel days it’s the stuff of legend…But I guess just to try something new, it has been blessed with a 40 mile coating of a Sticky Goo that disabled about 150 cars.

Item 2) A typo has led to the election of the wrong man to a finance board in Derby, Conn. James J. Butler was elected over his father, James R. Butler, who was the person actually runninng. The son would not comment on whether he wants the job. But he calls city officials incompetent for confusing him with his father. So did the father and son both vote for the son? Inquiring minds want to know…

Item 3) Just in time for the Christmas shopping season, Sharp has an 80 inch affordable HDTV, assuming that $5,500 is your idea of affordable. This, a Blu Ray and a big enough room means you never have to visit a movie theater again. I think the government should subsidize this – it would be like paying you to stay at home and save gas…

Item 4) I realize there are actually victims but I could not help but chuckle when I read the story about 7 Charged With Hate Crimes In Amish Hair Attacks. Several members of the group carried out the attacks in September and October by forcefully cutting the beards and hair of Amish men and women, authorities said. Cutting the hair is a highly offensive act to the Amish, who believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards and stop shaving once they marry. The perpetrators were a breakaway Amish group that was lead by one Sam Mullet..that’s right – Mullet. In any case, the Sheriff said “We’ve received hundreds and hundreds of calls from people living in fear,” he said. “They are buying Mace, some are sitting with shotguns, getting locks on their doors because of Sam Mullet.” Amish with Mace, shotguns and telephones…who da thunk it?

Item 5) And finally, Rolling Stone put forth their 100 greatest Guitarist of all time. Which has naturally sparked the debate on its merits. He bemoans the fact that Frank Zappa and Springsteen are not higher and that Clapton is too high. Although his argument for that is “We’ve never met anyone who picked up a guitar because they loved “I Shot the Sheriff.” No but there are people who have because of Layla… George Harrison comes in at 11 – that would make my overrated list. List is missing Nancy Wilson…

For the record, here are the top 10:
1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Eric Clapton
3. Jimmy Page
4. Keith Richards
5. Jeff Beck
6. B.B. King
7. Chuck Berry
8. Eddie Van Halen
9. Duane Allman
10. Pete Townshend

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Hi all,

My annual Thanksgiving preparations are ongoing. I’ve learned that starting on Monday means I can actually enjoy Thursday. We generally invite a few friends over to our place for Thanksgiving meal. Most folks bring a side or an appetizer (and wine!) Complicating the annual preparations is that two of our friends are vegetarians. Stuffing is a high light of the meal for me, so it’s gotta be made. I like to have all my guests able to enjoy it, so that means two batches. One turkey flavored and the other not.

Likewise, gravy. I made a mushroom gravy one year. Good, but a little complicated. This year I had an interesting idea. Mashed potatoes made with roasted garlic are tasty, so why not make a roasted garlic gravy? I have an Indian recipe for a garlic curry (cook garlic, onion and chiles in clarified butter until brown, add spices and coconut milk). I toned down the heat a bit and pureed the mixture.

I’ll have to think about the turkey alternative. It seems a shame to just eat sides and I’m sure fish has graced more than one holiday table. I roasted a rock fish one year, which turned out well. It’s fairly easy to do (salt and paper inside out out, toss herbs in the cavity and roast in a hot oven). It is, however, something that requires attention right when everything else is coming together. I actually made a lobster risotto another year. I’m tempted by the lobsters as they were $5/pound at the market and looked pretty frisky. Problem being that risotto is relatively time intensive. I might just try a makhni sauce (used for Indian butter chicken). Cook the lobsters, take the meat off the shell and toss into the sauce. I can make the sauce ahead of time and it’ll be tasty.

So, Monday night was stock night. I made a turkey stock from roasted neck bones. Well, it was a hybrid stock as turkey necks are $2.20 per pound and chicken necks are $0.69/pound. While that was going on, I also made the absurdly complicated vegetarian stock from Cooks Illustrated. The first time I made it, I swore I’d never do it again. In addition to the usual suspects, there’s a pound of collard greens and a cauliflower. All that work to produce a quart of stock. I’ve found that the recipe doubles just fine and makes a quite tasty stock. Still, I’d rather just use chicken stock.

Not much to do yesterday. I made the roasted garlic gravy and roasted some beats. I dice them up for a salad with yogurt, some spices, and some cilantro. Thanksgiving with a side of Mumbai. I took the bird out of the fridge this morning and put it in the brine. I’ll take it out of the brine this afternoon and leave it in the fridge to air dry. Life is also easier for myself if I do a lot of chopping tonight. Carrots, onions, and celery are pretty hard and it’ll save me time tomorrow.

Well, I’d best get to work, go home, and get to work.

BB

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The WSJ editorail page has some excellent pre-Thanksgiving Day reads today. First up is a chronicle of the Pilgrims arrival at Plymouth, as recounted by William Bradford, “sometime governor thereof”:

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

Next, while not explicitly a T-day piece, an interesting take on the state of the nation, and why we should be thankful for it:

Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.

But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

Finally, Thomas Fleming recounts an English Thanksgiving from 1942:

The most dramatic ceremony was in London’s Westminster Abbey, where English kings and queens have been crowned for centuries. No British government had ever permitted any ritual on its altar except the prescribed devotions of the Church of England. But on Nov. 26, 1942, they made an exception for their American cousins.

No orders were issued to guarantee a large audience. There was only a brief announcement in the newspapers. But when the Abbey’s doors opened, 3,000 uniformed men and women poured down the aisles. In 10 minutes there was not a single empty seat and crowds were standing in the side aisles. One reporter said there was a veritable “hedge of khaki” around the tomb of Britain’s unknown soldier of World War I.

Cpl. Heinz Arnold of Patchogue, N.Y., played “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the mighty coronation organ. With stately strides, Sgt. Francis Bohannan of Philadelphia advanced up the center aisle carrying a huge American flag. Behind him came three chaplains, the dean of the Abbey, and a Who’s Who of top American admirals, generals and diplomats. On the high altar, other soldiers draped an even larger American flag.

Their faces “plainly reflected what lay in their heart,” one reporter noted, as the visitors sang “America the Beautiful” and “Lead On O King Eternal.” The U.S. ambassador to Britain, John G. Winant, read a brief message from President Franklin D. Roosevelt: “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. Across the uncertain ways of space and time our hearts echo those words.” The Dean of Westminster and one of the Abbey’s chaplains also spoke. “God has dealt mercifully and bountifully with us,” the chaplain said. “True, we have had our difficulties . . . but all of these trials have made us stronger to do the great tasks which have fallen to us.”

This last one reminds me a bit of London following 9/11. I was living there at the time, and a few days after 9/11 they held a ceremony in St. Paul’s Cathedral in honor of the victims. My office was close by to St. Paul’s, so I went over. I couldn’t get within 200 feet of the front doors, it was so packed both inside and outside, but they had set up speakers outside so everyone could hear. During the ceremony, the Queen spoke briefly, and then the Star Spangled Banner was played while the US flag hung outside the cathedral, the first and only time that a foreign national anthem had ever been heard inside the walls of St. Paul’s. I’m not a religious guy in the slightest, but I have to admit it was pretty moving.

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