Nov 21 2012
Our regular featured content-
And these featured articles-
Write more and often. This is an Open Thread.
Nov 21 2012
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Drew Christie is an animator, filmmaker and illustrator who lives in Seattle. His previous Op-Docs are “Hi! I’m a Nutria” and “Allergy to Originality.”
The main purpose of this Op-Doc video is to look at the supremacy of one Thanksgiving dish (turkey) over another (eel) and to examine people’s reactions and thoughts on the issue. Sadly, because I live on the West Coast of North America, where there are no native freshwater eels, I will not be eating eel or eel-stuffed turkey on Thanksgiving.
AS the story goes, Squanto – a Patuxet Indian who had learned English – took pity on the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony who had managed to survive that first brutal winter, and showed them how to plant corn, putting a dead fish in each hole where a seed was planted. But before that, before the ground had even fully thawed, he taught them a perhaps more valuable skill: how to catch a fatty, nutritious fish that would sustain them in the worst of winters. And this food item, likely on the table of that first Thanksgiving, would have carried special significance to those remaining colonists. Eels – a forgotten staple of our forefathers. [..]
Eels don’t like cold water, and spend the winter balled up, bodies twisted together in the mud. In the frigid months they were usually caught with fork-like spears, the eels pinned between the tines. The fish proved essential to the endurance of the Pilgrims, and it is fitting that a river near Plymouth Colony was named Eel River. [..]
But the eel is also disappearing, thanks largely to a multibillion dollar market driven by Japan’s appetite for the fish. Juveniles caught in river mouths are shipped to farms in China, where they are raised to edible size and then flown to sushi restaurants around the world – giving eels one of the least sustainable routes to market of any fish, wild or farmed. What’s more, global warming, dams and pollution have taken a heavy toll on eel populations in North America and Europe. [..]
Let’s be thankful, then, for the beautiful but forgotten Thanksgiving eel. And let’s accept responsibility for preserving the fish that did so much to sustain the newcomers to these shores so many years ago.
James Prosek is the author of “Eels: An Exploration, From New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish.”
White meat? Or eel?
Nov 21 2012
One Interesting Thing About Paula Broadwell’s Petraeus Biography
Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
POSTED: November 21, 1:50 PM ET
The book is so one-sided that it is almost supernaturally dull, and I was forgetting about it just minutes after I put it down.
Then it hit me – it was an interesting book, after all! Because if you read All In carefully, the book’s tone will remind you of pretty much any other authorized bio of any major figure in business or politics (particularly in business), and it will most particularly remind you of almost any Time or Newsweek famous-statesperson profile.
Which means: it’s impossible to tell the difference between the tone of a reporter who we now know was literally sucking the dick of her subject and the tone of just about any other modern American reporter who is given access to a powerful person for a biography or feature-length profile.
…
The real scandal in the Petraeus episode isn’t that a would-be journalist was sleeping with her subject, it’s that lots and lots of other journalists are doing the same thing – metaphorically, anyway.Decades ago, when people like Sy Hersh were the go-to-profilers of influential people, journalists reflexively distrusted power, and any reporter, male or female, who wrote a blowjob profile (that’s what we call them) of a politician or tycoon was looked down upon as a hack and a traitor. But these days, you can’t tell the difference between your average profile of a Senator or CEO or a four-star general and an ESPN feature about a day in the life of Lebron James.
Nov 21 2012
Us Scandinavian Bachelor Chefs (h/t CompoundF) frequently find ourselves in the position of needing a last minute substitute for real food because planning ahead is not one of our strengths (if it were we probably wouldn’t be Bachelors anymore).
Here’s a recipe that is not too fussy and can be thrown together at the last minute and great expense as a cheap imitation of inferior quality.
You will need-
Optional (of course the more you add the better it will taste)-
The goal is simple, to create a reasonable taste facsimile of a Turkey dinner with stuffing and gravy without days of defrosting and hours of cooking time. It is somewhat pricey as ground Turkey often costs as much as ground beef or more.
The primary problems to overcome are cohesion and dryness. I’m going to recommend what seems like a lot of fat but Turkey is quite a lean meat. I’ll be working with approximately 2 pounds of Turkey as a base (that’s how much the local Super Market puts in a package), you adjust the other ingredients for taste and volume.
The most labor intensive part of preparation is chopping the onion(s). Depending on how strong the flavor (in decreasing order- yellow, red, sweet) you’ll want to prepare about half the volume of your meat. If you use yellow and are sensitive to onions (I am) you may want to saute them a little to take some of the harshness out.
The most time consuming part is the bread. Toast it a bit (hey, if you have enough time to stale it you most likely don’t need this recipe), smear generously with butter and shake quite a bit of garlic powder on top. Cube. You need about 3/4 of the volume of your meat (6 slices or a little more). Crusty European breads work much better than Balloon breads because the goal (as with meat balls) is to lighten the texture of your finished dish.
Mixing–
I put the other ingredients in the bottom of the bowl with the meat on top but I don’t think it makes any difference. The important thing is not to over mix because the loaf will get gummy and dense.
A cup or more of Dried Cranberries (I like them), Onion, Garlic Toast, 4 Tbls Butter (chopped), Ground Turkey, 1 – 3 Tbls Bell’s Poultry Seasoning (the primary flavor is Sage in case you can’t find it), an Egg or 2 to bind.
Mix gently, completely, and not too long with your fingers. Now is the time to add your optional ingredients, if using Mushrooms include the liquid too.
Cooking–
I like loaf pans, others mound on a sheet. Grease for clean release. It leaks a bit so you’ll want a lip to catch the drip. In any event at least an hour at 325 – 350 until the internal temperature reaches the recommended level for poultry or brown on the top and gray through the thickest part.
Rest 5 – 10 minutes while you prepare the gravy, slice and serve.
Thanksgiving on a stick.
Nov 21 2012
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Naomi Klein, author of Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,, joined Bill Moyers to discuss how the the destructive force of Hurricane Sandy and climate change can alter politics and the economy.
The full transcript can be read here.
Lambert Strether, posting at naked capitalism, thought this part of the interview particularly interesting.
NAOMI KLEIN: So one of the things that you find out in a disaster is you really do need a public sector. It really important. And coming back to what we were talking about earlier, why is climate change so threatening to people on the conservative end of the political spectrum? One of the things it makes an argument for is the public sphere. You need public transit to prevent climate change. But you also need a public health care system to respond to it. It can’t just be ad hoc. It can’t just be charity and goodwill.
BILL MOYERS: When you use terms like “collective action,” “central planning,” you scare corporate executive and the American Enterprise Institute and The Heritage Foundation because they say you want to do away with capitalism.
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, first of all, I don’t use a phrase like “central planning.” I talk about planning, but I don’t think it should be central. And one of the things that one must admit when looking at climate change is that the only thing just as bad or maybe even worse for the climate than capitalism was communism. And when we look at the carbon emissions for the eastern bloc countries, they were actually, in some cases, worse than countries like Australia or Canada. So, let’s just call it a tie. So we need to look for other models. And I think there needs to be much more decentralization and a much deeper definition of democracy than we have right now.
BILL MOYERS: Decentralization of what, Naomi?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, for instance, you know, if we think about renewable energy, well, one of the things that’s happened is that when you try to get wind farms set up, really big wind farms, there’s usually a lot of community resistance that’s happened in the United States. It’s happened in Britain. Where it hasn’t happened is Germany and Denmark. And the reason for that is that in those places you have movements that have demanded that the renewable energy be community controlled, not centrally planned, but community controlled. So that there’s a sense of ownership, not by some big, faceless state, but by the people who actually live in the community that is impacted.
What Yves said: “These pesky issues of governance, the nature of the state, and legitimacy seem to popping up all over these days.”
Nov 21 2012
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
November 21 is the 325th day of the year (326th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 40 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1934, Ella Fitzgerald wins Amateur Night at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. A young and gangly would-be dancer took to the stage of Harlem’s Apollo Theater to participate in a harrowing tradition known as Amateur Night. Finding herself onstage as a result of pure chance after her name was drawn out of a hat, the aspiring dancer spontaneously decided to turn singer instead-a change of heart that would prove momentous not only for herself personally, but also for the future course of American popular music. The performer in question was a teenaged Ella Fitzgerald, whose decision to sing rather than dance on this day in 1934 set her on a course toward becoming a musical legend. It also led her to victory at Amateur Night at the Apollo, a weekly event that was then just a little more than a year old but still thrives today
Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996), also known as the “First Lady of Song” and “Lady Ella,” was an American jazz and song vocalist. With a vocal range spanning three octaves (Db3 to Db6), she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a “horn-like” improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
She is considered to be a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Over a recording career that lasted 59 years, she was the winner of 14 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Art by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush.
Nov 21 2012
Gobble, gobble.
Too soon?
Now I’ll admit that most of what drives this particular post is my New England skin flintiness and it’s hard to find meat cheaper than Turkey even when it’s not on special. Indeed the problem for most people is its abundance as in, what do you do with the 15 pounds of it you’re too sleepy to eat?
I have an easy and tasty solution that will tide you over until the briskets of spring are available.
Pulled Turkey (sometimes called Turkey Hash) is easy to prepare and freezes well. Basically you take all the bits and scraps you can pull off the bone (or shred larger pieces by hand) and remove all the tendons and cartilage and fat and uncrispy skin so that you’re left with a pile of pure stringy meat.
Now you can freeze it right at this point in individual recipe size portions in case you’re a big fan of Turkey salad or other treatments that don’t require visually attractive slices. I do it to save freezer space.
My ultimate destination is a pot of gravy which I make in my typical fashion from a dried mix heated and whisked for a few minutes before dumping the meat (frosted or defrosted) into it for warming to serving temperature.
If it is shortly after Thanksgiving there is usually some leftover stuffing around but it works equally well over egg noodles or rice. In a pinch or a hurry just a slice of bread will do and you can call it an open face Turkey sandwich.
The simplicity belies the taste (if you happen to like Turkey) and last time I checked 2 cups of gravy mix (prepared) went for $1.50.
Hard to beat.
Tomorrow- Turkey Loaf.
Nov 21 2012
It was the autumn of 1998, late November. The previous month Matthew Shepard was found, barely alive and in a coma, having been tortured and tied to a fence near Laramie, Wyoming. The person who found the body thought at first it was a scarecrow.
Hester had just returned from entertainment engagements in Europe. She was a statuesque (over 6 feet tall and around 225 pounds) drag performer. She is said to have had an overwhelming stage presence. She was also reported to be very kind and well-liked by everyone in the community.
She was always nice to everyone. She was very, very, very liked by the whole community, so what happened to her was like a real shock.
–Charito Suarez
Around 6:15pm on November 28 Rita Hester’s neighbors heard loud banging coming from inside her Allston, MA apartment. One neighbor later reported that someone inside had yelled for help. Police were called and arrived around 6:30pm. They found Rita’s lifeless body in the apartment. It had multiple stab wounds.
