My cooking is becoming even more creative (desperate?) as my time here in Buenos Aires progresses.
It started with me buying vegetarian milanesas. Milanesa is a very popular meat product here in the B.A. It's like chicken fried steak, but flatter. And they sell them on the street in sandwiches. (I can sense Joey's mouth watering across all these miles.)
Anyway, I bought some "milanesas soyas" and was trying to think of a way to choke them down. I remembered in elementary school how much I LOVED Chicken Fried Steak Mondays, the entree accompanied by instant mashed potatoes, and everything slathered in gravy.
Of course, one can't head to the local mercado and pick up a jar of gravy here in B.A. So I perused some recipes online for HOMEMADE GRAVY, and finding my pantry lacking key ingredients, just decided to whip up my own version of vegetarian gravy.
I won't bore you with the recipe, because it was nowhere near the deliciousness of vegetarian gravy from a jar. Sorry, sometimes homemade recipes are just subpar. It even congealed into a gelatinous substance once it cooled. But to my starved palatte, it was delicious. I fried up the milanesas, made mashed potatoes, and heated up peas (with onions). On a related note, from now on I'd like to be called Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
I am learning to be a proper house wife
Friday, September 14, 2007
Putin Pretends to Fish, Takes Shirt Off to Wow Voters
How has no one posted about this? The sports writer at the Independent blogged about how he's clearly not fishing. The CBC reports (and provides an extra picture) that Russian media is worried this is an attempt to woo voters instead of stepping down at the end of his term. Others say it makes him more of a lame duck. All I want to know is why no one else here saw fit to post a half-naked picture of Putin. You politicos fell down on me.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Happiness in a Little Yellow Ball (or Two)
You may have seen this already. I just finished reading a Wired article about them, but it's worth re-viewing if you're more in the know than me. They're BeatBots. Little robot blobs designed, supposedly, to study "dance-oriented nonverbal play with between children and the robot Keepon." Know how the scientists are promoting it? With videos of KeepOn rocking to some Spoon, now with high production values:
It's inspired a wave of remixes and people creating their own videos with fake Keepons. My favorite remix is set to Lil' Jon's "Get Low." Nothing like a little yellow robot dancing to (and I'm imagining it shouting in a cute, robot voice) "Ah, skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet, skeet. Ah, skeet, skeet."
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Outrages of the day
Short summary, then rant below the jump: Mariya Fatima, a 10th grader from Jamaica, Queens, had a stroke at school (as an interesting aside, this is the neighborhood where my mom grew up, and Tommy and I were born). The principal had initiated a ban on 911 calls in an attempt to make the school appear safer. So, no one does anything, and help arrives 90 minutes later. Mariya now has trouble walking, can't use her right hand, and went from being a great student to reading on a 5th grade level.
Oh, and the military can't count to six. Which wouldn't matter, if we weren't talking about nuclear weapons.
I have taught on high school and college campuses for most of my adult(ish) life. I've seen any number of insane and mind boggling rules and regulations and bureaucratic bullshit. I have NEVER in my life heard of a ban on 911 calls for kids experiencing a medical emergency.
What teacher is so desperate to keep her job, or so inured by the protection bureaucracy provides, or so numbed from the violence she sees everyday, that she chooses to do nothing? It is a teacher's job, above all else, to protect the lives and health of children. When in conflict, you choose children's lives over memos and policies, even if it means official reprimands or losing your job. If you have a kid collapsed on the floor in front of you for NINETY MINUTES, you think "fuck this principal and his statistics," and you act to save her life. Every time.
Complete and utter insanity.
In other news, and I sincerely hope this man is wrong, we appear to have "lost" a nuclear warhead, and mainstream media continues to appear not to care.
I might be more willing to dismiss the post I just linked to as pure conspiracy, if not for the fact that the Military Times, who I can only presume is a) on the military's side and b) knows what they're talking about and c) wants to minimize any sort of story, rather than exacerbate it, hadn't originally reported that there were six nukes on board that plane. Check out the byline on this story published today - why is Michael Hoffman from The Military Times now saying 5 nukes? There are lots of blog posts floating around about this, and I'm no expert, but seriously --- where'd the other one go? Up until September 10, they were reporting 6. Even stranger chronology: apparently, The Military Times originally thought it was 5, then updated it to 6, and now it's back down to 5 again?
If we were talking about, say, the number of billions of dollars Halliburton embezzles per week in Iraq. Or whether the Rockets lost by 5 or 6 points in their last game. Or whether I had 5 or 6 hot dates in the next week. Any of those would be puzzling, but OK. But it matters to me, kind of a lot actually, if there is actually an unaccounted number of nuclear warheads that we lost and then found and then maybe lost again.
I read a few DOD briefings, just for fun. Interestingly, on Sept. 5 the press secretary for the Pentagon was asked about the "six nuclear warheads." In his answer, the press secretary refrained from using any numbers. After two questions, the issue was dropped. Probably for the best. It's not mentioned, that I can find, in any other briefings or press releases -- but rest assured, once we realized, four hours later, that the warheads were missing, someone woke up Robert Gates to let him know.
Can someone clear this up for me? What am I missing? Did 5 or 6 warheads originally leave North Dakota? If it was 6, and we still have 6, then not great but ok. But if 6 left, and 5 arrived, then where is the other one and why is no one asking questions?
OK. I feel like a conspiracy theorist, and need to stop googling "nuclear warheads" on a government computer before someone gets suspicious, so I'm going to go read poli-gossip blogs for a while.
Interesting stuff
Lots of neat stuff today!
As always, HON is inadvertently ahead of the curve; most of you remember our insightful review retrospective of The Graduate from a few weeks back. The movie turned 40 yesterday! Everyone's "revisiting" the movie... just make sure to tell 'em you read it here first. Between that and On the Road turning 50, stuff's getting pretty old.
Russia's doing all kinds of crazy stuff to simultaneously save and destroy civilization. First, we have Russia testing the biggest non-nuclear explosive device in the world: an "air fuel bomb."
But while test ranges are getting bombed, other Russians are gettin' it on in honor of "Conception Day," also known as "If you have sex you don't have to work" day or give-birth-to-a-patriot-win-a-prize-day. Can you imagine what a state-condoned day of sex would look like here? Oh, maybe like Mardi Gras. Never mind.
Moving around the globe to my people, the Irish are proving once again that they can take our life, but they can never take our Guinness. In a rare show of bipartisanship, Ireland and the UK throw down with the EU in a battle to keep the pint as a unit of delicious, delicious measurement(oh, and the mile...and the Troy ounce...and something about bananas). I say, right on.
And, sadly, Alex the talking parrot, who we infantilized and anthropomorphisized to put an adorable face on animal testing, is dead at 31. I do, admittedly, like the fact he would scold the other parrots into talking better. Intellectual bird elitism...my favorite.
Depressing end to the night
Mathgimp's been reading up on Japanese war crimes lately - something he may post about later, and in the meantime you can see his del.icio.us links to the right. When we were talking yesterday I made the (admittedly naive and overly idealistic) comment that I thought we were better as a human race now than we were 60 years ago. Even though articles that I've posted in the past, like this one, turn my stomach, I've been lulled into a false sense of complacency. Anyway, I thought I was wrong once I said it, and after reading this my comment is rescinded in its entirety.
There's still work to do.
Love
me
PS - I do have things to say about GMOs, and about my classes at MC, but they might have to keep for a few days.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Do people have nothing else to worry about?
Dearest Bloggers,
I ask you, does the sight of a woman in a short skirt offend you to the point where you feel you can't be in the same vicinity as her? Well, supposedly the idiots that answered yes to that question were on a Southwest flight to Arizona a couple days ago. I want you to check out the link and tell me how on earth this is ok. This poor girl wants only an apology from the asshole airline... I say clean them out sister!!! http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20638479/from/ET/
Monday, September 10, 2007
Quesadillas: They're not just for breakfast anymore.
I know that all of you, good Texans (Marylandians?) that you are, know how to make a quesadilla. However, I leave you with the quesadilla recipe I used at my dinner party last week. I hope it will rekindle the quesadilla love in all of you. It was a hit, and its tastiness far overshadowed the main course of soft tacos.
MUSHROOM AND SPINACH QUESADILLAS:
Ingredients:
1. 1 unit of mushrooms (It doesn't matter how many mushrooms you use. If you really like mushrooms, get a lot. If you are lazy, get them already chopped and washed. Lazy bum.)
2. Half a bag of spinach
3. a block of monterey jack cheese
4. tortillas
5. olive oil
Put 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan, and toss in the chopped of mushrooms and torn up spinach (tip: it is easy to cook spinach when it is damp from the water you just rinsed it in). Toss this around for a while until the spinach wilts and the mushrooms are brown. yummm...
Take a tortilla and shred a bunch of cheese on it until it is deliciously cheesy. Nuke the tortillas for 20 seconds so the cheese is a bit melty (That's right; get off your high horse and use the damn microwave). Oil another pan, toss the cheesy tortilla on it, and then spread the spinach-mushroom combo all over it. Top it off with another tortilla, and turn it over when it starts to brown (probably 3 minutes a side). Heavenly tex-mex goodness.
Can you sue the president?
We're watching the West Wing. Mathgimp (who would be referred to as "I" if nuraido wasn't posting this) stopped the episode for the past 20 minutes so we can Google whether the following claim is accurate: "It is unlawful for a citizen to sue a sitting president." Please, for the love of the Constitution, can someone answer this question so that we can resume mindless tv watching?
Love
HON
ps: mathgimp's contention is that there is nothing in the constitution itself that directly precludes a civil suit against the president. If there exists a SC decision saying it's precluded, that's different, and I'm still right. hahahahaha.
pps: nuraido doesn't actually care, hates law school, and just wants to watch TV and go to bed. hahahahahhaha.
West Wing claimed it, not I, says the turtle.
Update: nuraido needs to explain to me (mathgimp) how GM food will extinct humans. A couple of notes: I think GM food is likely to be risky, particularly considering the farming system and lack of oversight in the US. Extinction is, however, a very strong word. Second, she wanted this reminder in this post, so I'm not being a jerk. Really.