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Monthly Archives: October 2018

Pie, from a heroic little pumpkin

Y’all knew this was coming, didn’t you? What’s remarkable, though, is that the pumpkin I used for this pie was just over one year old. I was hoarding the last of the little pumpkins from the 2017 pumpkin crop, which was much smaller than the 2018 pumpkin crop, which is now stored under the stairs […]

October magic

Click here for high-resolution version. Lots of things that come from the garden are magical, but First Prize for magic goes to the little pumpkins. This year’s crop is in, with a total haul of 90 pounds. The friend who first gave me these seeds called it “the Kraken vine.” That’s because the vine is […]

The authoritarian lust for scapegoats

Transgender teenager Ally Steinfield, who was murdered last year in Missouri. Her body was mutilated and set on fire. We live in a strange society in which a rather sad, vulnerable, harmless teenager like Ally Steinfield is seen as sick and dangerous. Whereas the people who have a mysterious need to scapegoat people like Ally […]

Sprout season begins, with an eye on the election

Good kitchens roll with the seasons. When fall sets in, and the summer tomatoes and basil have been mourned, greens and sweet potatoes appear as compensation. Peppers will keep going until the first frost. Come winter, we’ll have nothing fresh other than what is shipped in. So sprouts are a winter thing, especially if you […]

Sweet potatoes again

After all, it’s high season for sweet potatoes. I was trying to figure out what to do with a sweet potato for breakfast. The only thing that seemed appealing was a sweet potato cake. It’s just like the potato cakes you might make from white potatoes. There is diced onion, with an egg, some wheat […]

Buffalo: Who knew?

Quorn cutlets in Buffalo sauce with mozzarella I was Googling for ideas for what to do with Quorn faux-chicken cutlets. I came across chicken breasts in Buffalo sauce with mozzarella. Hmmm. But what the heck is Buffalo sauce? A little Googling revealed Buffalo sauce to be a zesty sauce served with chicken wings. It originated […]

Chicken pot pie, Quorn version

Click here for high-resolution version. The Quorn chicken nuggets make a very fine chicken pot pie. I previously wrote about Quorn here, and Scottish meat pies here. I am acquiring the opinion that crusts for pot pies and meat pies don’t need to be flaky, and that lower-fat hot-water crusts work just fine. The 4-inch […]

Scottish meat pie — Quorn version

Click here for high-resolution version. In Oban in the west of Scotland, I got a good look at a Scottish meat pie. Unfortunately, I neglected to get a photo of it. But what I noticed about the meat pie was that it stands alone, that the sides are straight, and that the top crust was […]

Heathen enchantment … and Alexander Borodin

Don’t click to listen yet! Maybe we could use a little music right now to take our minds off of politics. A few days ago, I was writing here about the project of the re-enchantment of the land. And then tonight, while YouTubing to hear the voice of a Russian mezzo-soprano recently mentioned in a […]

Privilege and humiliation

The American people are getting some excellent — and I suspect lasting — new insights into the ugliness of unearned privilege. But unearned privilege is only half of the problem that requires fixing. The flip side of that coin is undeserved humiliation. The two things together — the increasing humiliation of the many and the […]