At last we see the tip of the iceberg

For those of us who have been paying careful attention to the crimes and treason of Donald Trump and connecting the dots as best we can, this morning was a milestone. When Gordon Sondland, in his opening statement to the House Intelligence Committee, threw everyone under the bus — Trump, Pence, Pompeo and all — we moved from the dot-connecting stage to at last seeing the tip of the iceberg.

If the American democracy remains strong enough to do its job, then just the tip of that iceberg is sufficient to remove Trump from office, along with his vice president (Mike Pence), secretary of energy (Mike Pompeo), chief of staff (Mick Mulvaney), secretary of state (Rick Perry), and personal lawyer (Rudy Giuliani), all of whom Sondland forcefully threw under the bus this morning.

But as disgusting as the tip-of-the-iceberg crimes are that Sondland described, it’s the still-hidden crimes down in the iceberg itself that really matter and that are truly dangerous. Those crimes revolve around the fact that this whole Ukraine affair is not really Donald Trump’s foreign policy. It’s Russia’s foreign policy. It’s not as though Trump and friends have been conspiring to bully some small country far outside Russia’s orbit. They’ve been conspiring to bully Ukraine, which is of critical strategic importance as a firewall between Russia and the western alliance. Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are petty and provincial American crime figures with no particular knowledge of or interest in foreign affairs other than where there is money to be skimmed and payola to be grifted. Trump and Giuliani have no motives for being concerned about Ukraine, other than whatever money they or their cronies might be skimming. But who is concerned about Ukraine? Vladimir Putin, of course. Who other than Putin could have designed this little plot? Who benefits? As Nancy Pelosi said, all roads lead to Putin.

It follows that the urgent questions now are: How did Putin communicate this plan to Trump? Why was Trump obligated to attempt to execute Putin’s plan?

Another angle that is (for now, anyway) being ignored by the media is: Trump and friends, by crushing the Mueller investigation, thought that they had gotten away with stealing the 2016 election, with help from Russia. The plan for stealing the 2020 election involved exactly the same modus operandi — lies and conspiracy theories about the Democratic opponent. Rudimentary dot-connecting shows that catching them in the act of treason involving the 2020 election pretty much convicts them of their treason in the 2016 election.

Even when Trump and friends go down for the Ukraine affair, we’ll be nowhere near getting to the bottom of their crimes and treason. It’s not just that the executive branch of the American government has fallen into the hands of a crime syndicate. It’s that it’s an international crime syndicate in which Vladimir Putin is the big boss and Donald J. Trump is just another goon.

Barley twist

I recently came into possession of this strange table, which belonged to my grandparents. Frankly I find the table somewhat ugly. But I’m amused by the eccentricity and whimsy. To try to find out about the style, I Googled for “double helix furniture.” That turned up lots of images of antique furniture and revealed that the style is called “barley twist.”

Judging from online photos, most barley twist is found in the legs of a table or the posts of a bed. The central double helix post of this table is less common. Barley twist furniture is not as hard to find as I thought it might be. According to online sources such as this one, barley twist first showed up in France in the 1600s. It apparently was popular in the 1800’s, and some custom furniture makers are still doing it. I’m still confused, though, about how it’s done. My guess is that it’s started on a lathe and then carved. There may even be some twisting involved for all I know.

This table is walnut, including the balls in the claw feet. It now sits by a north-facing window and supports a globe.

Beyond Sausage vegan bratwurst


Beyond Sausage bratwurst, sweet and sour Brussels sprouts, and potato salad

Beyond Meat’s bratwurst was on sale at a grocery store in Madison, so I decided to try it.

Was it awesome? Not really. In taste and bite and texture, it was a lot like vegan cold cuts that have been on the market for a long time. Still, it was good, with a nice meaty bite. And, at the right price, it’s a good high-protein meal, with 22 grams of protein and only 190 calories per brat.

It surprises me how quickly these new meat alternatives have become available, even in provincial grocery stores. Most provincial shoppers won’t buy it, which is why it goes on sale. Their thinking is entirely reasonable, I think. Why pay more for pea protein than for animal sausage?

I would like to think that these meat substitutes will be less expensive than meat before long, as they ought to be. Then we’ll be making progress. A day will come, I think — maybe sooner than we expect — when children will be horrified to hear that people used to kill and eat animals.

Fried barley?


Good-bye garden stir fry with fried barley

For the longest time, I had been planning to see if fried barley can compete with fried rice. Yes it can.

The chewy texture of barley makes great fried rice. The grains are sturdy and are not at risk of turning to mush when thrown around in the wok. The grains love a thin coating of sauce, but they don’t drink it up the way rice does. You’ll eat less, because barley takes longer to chew.

The stir fry above contains lots of green peppers and green tomatoes given to me by a neighbor. They had picked the last remaining parts of their garden (which was a lot) before the first freeze. Green tomatoes are brilliant in a stir fry or curry.

They’ll move right in if you let them


Mrs. Squirrel’s nest in my attic

For a year or two, I have been chasing a pesky squirrel off the deck. My argument with it (she turned out to be a she) was that she had plenty of space in the woods, so go home. She also loved climbing on the house. She would often sit on the deck railing and scratch, and I blame her for the case of fleas that Lily — a house cat — acquired last fall. Some months ago she started gnawing on a ventilator grill about twenty feet up the back of the house. I chased her away and threw potatoes at her more than once.

Then I heard a scratching noise in the attic. She had gotten in. I tried to plug the hole as a temporary fix. She gnawed around it. Two weeks ago, I went up to investigate the scratching and found four baby squirrels. Mommy left when she heard me coming, but the babies were sound asleep. They were several weeks old, I’m sure, because they had plenty of fur and were the size of two-week-old kittens. I was defeated. What choice do I have but to let them live there until the babies are grown?

I checked on the babies today after seeing Mrs. Squirrel in the front yard eating leaves of some sort. She had brought in litter and had built a very snug squirrel’s nest, because the weather has turned cold. I heard rustling inside the nest but didn’t disturb the babies.

Mrs. Squirrel has become shameless, though I have not tried to tame her. I scold her, and she just looks at me and barks. She’s also curious about the grill on the deck. Either she’s trying to get inside it, or she smells food. She gets close enough to me that I can see her wet little teats.

Living up against the woods as I do, it would be easy to be too lenient with all the creatures needing safe homes and a handout. It’s a forest, really, and there are coyotes and an occasional bear. Mrs. Squirrel wouldn’t mind the deer, but there are plenty of owls and hawks. If it’s safety that she’s looking for here, then she’s less afraid of me than what’s in the woods. I’m flattered. But if the doors here stayed open for too long, I’d soon have opossums, raccoons, and skunks, all expecting supper, and a warm fire, and bedtime stories. The voles, at least, stay in the basement. A few weeks ago I discovered that Mrs. Raccoon was bringing her three children to eat the leftovers that I put out in the backyard for the possum. She’d be among the first to arrive.

I can imagine worse neighbors, though.


Mrs. Squirrel, eating for five

Kefir

Kefir-lovers swear that kefir has even more probiotic virtue than yogurt. I have read that kefir culture persists in our digestive systems but that yogurt culture is transient. I have no idea if that is true. But personally I find that I like kefir better. And kefir is easier to make than yogurt.

Yogurt needs to incubate at a bit higher than room temperature. Hence we use yogurt makers to keep the culture warm. Kefir, on the other hand, works its magic at room temperature. You don’t need anything to make kefir other than a culture to start with, some glass jars, a coarse strainer, and some good milk.

Yogurt is easy to find. Kefir is not as common. Store-bought kefir, though you can buy it plain, is usually heavily sweetened and fruit flavored, increasing the calories by at least 50 percent. If you’re new to kefir, it’s something you drink rather than eat with a spoon. Kefir thickens as it cultures. It looks — and tastes — a lot like buttermilk. But if the information one Googles up can be believed, kefir is a more complex colony of bacteria than buttermilk.

I love the taste of plain kefir. It “sparkles” in the mouth like champagne. The freshly fermented flavor gets up your nose. When you drink fresh kefir, you know it’s alive.

To get started with kefir, you need a starter culture, which is called “kefir grains.” Kefir grains look to me like cottage cheese. You can order them from Amazon. It will take a week or so to re-invigorate kefir grains. They survive being mailed, but they don’t like it. After your kefir grains are healthy and happy and you start your kefir routine, you strain the grains from the finished kefir and put the grains into a new batch of fresh milk. I plan to experiment with vegan kefirs made from coconut milk (which I understand works fine) and almond milk, though I believe kefir is healthiest and happiest in cow’s milk or goat’s milk. You can put your kefir culture on hold — for a while — by putting it into the refrigerator. But like all cultures such as sourdough bread cultures, kefir needs to be periodically fed.

Those of you who were health nuts back in the 1970s will remember the nutritionist Adele Davis. In those days, the emphasis was on vitamins and minerals and protein. As a hippy who also had a copy of Jethro Kloss’ Back to Eden, I realized even then that the mystery of good health was more complicated than just vitamins, minerals, and protein. Since then, we’ve learned a great deal more about the importance of our internal flora. I don’t use a lot of milk. Too much milk causes me to gain weight. But I think that a good policy would be, when one drink’s milk, to drink only a cultured milk such as kefir.

Here’s a hat tip to one of this blog’s readers (she knows who she is) who counseled me on getting started with kefir.


Kefir grains

A road trip to the real Mayberry

Here is a video from today’s road trip into the Blue Ridge Mountains. American readers will be aware of the “Mayberry” angle from the classic American television show with Andy Griffith. Those of you in Europe may not be aware of the cultural complications, which relate to the fact that Andy Griffith the actor was a liberal but that most of those who idolize Griffith, and the television show, are make-America-great-again deplorables.

But never mind all that. It was a nice road trip with some autumnal Blue Ridge Mountain scenery, a wonderful local historian who has had a book of science fiction open every time I’ve been in her store, and scenes from the kitchen of the chef who made my lunch.

Catherine the Great


Helen Mirren in HBO’s Catherine the Great

The sets and costumes and colors are lavish. Helen Mirren is, as always, a remarkable actress. But one episode of Catherine the Great was all I can take.

Just as every story with a classical structure needs a villain, so every story needs at least one decent human being. In this story, there aren’t any. There’s no one to like, including Catherine the Great. It’s all debauchery and treachery and cruelty, all the time.

It has never mattered to me whether a story is “true to life.” I prefer the opposite, actually, because to me stories are about escape and imagination. Life itself is true to life, and that’s enough. HBO’s mini-series about Catherine the Great may be true to life, and true to history, for all I know. If I cared enough, I’d read a history. But, as a story, there was no one in it worth caring about — except, maybe, the Russian people, who, at least in episode 1, never appear.

Recently I wrote a book review here on the history of tyrants. Of the three types of tyrants that Waller Newell describes, Catherine the Great was a “reforming tyrant.” She did Russia proud. Is there something about the Russian people that they can be led only by tyrants? Or is it that tyrants are all the Russian people have ever known? I don’t know enough Russian history to try to answer the question. But I think I’m glad that I’m not Russian.

A fresh take on pimento cheese


Pimento cheese made from fresh roasted green peppers, served with my homemade borscht

I was reflecting today on the history of pimento cheese, which, since my earliest childhood, has been a Southern American favorite. It seemed oddly Mediterranean, because nobody around here has ever grown pimiento peppers, nor does anybody can peppers, as far as I know. Luckily, the story of the history of pimento cheese has already been written, and I came across this article from Southern Living: You Will Not Believe the History of Pimento Cheese.

It turns out that my speculation was right. According to the article, it was back in the 1870s that Spain started sending canned red peppers to the United States. America supplied the cheese. Pimento cheese was born.

When I was a young’un, there was often a little glass jar of pimento peppers in my mother’s cabinets for making pimento cheese. If you make it at home (I’m thinking that nobody ever does anymore), the ingredients would be cream cheese, some cheddar, and some mayonnaise. All groceries stores here have it, though, in plastic tubs. If you read the ingredients, you’ll faint, because store-bought pimento cheese is usually made from cheap, artificial ingredients such as “cheese food.”

Last time I was at Trader Joe’s, I bought too much Wisconsin cheddar, and I’ve been hard pressed to use it all. Pimento cheese seemed like a good idea. Cream cheese is not something I normally buy. But Greek yogurt was a good substitute. And I never run out of mayonnaise.

You could use any kind of pepper, red or green, even mildly hot ones, if you like the idea. I roasted a sweet green pepper on the grill. Let it cool, then peel it and chop it. I marinated my green pepper for an hour or so in some of the marinade from a jar of marinated artichoke hearts. Stir the chopped peppers into the grated cheddar, plus the cream cheese (or Greek yogurt) and a dollop of mayonnaise.

Update: A vintage can of tinned pimentos that was for sale on eBay.