Biggest single-day loss of life for US military in Afghanistan: NATO Chinook helicopter is shot down, killing seven Afghans and thirty-one Americans.
Gmail makes you lazy. There, I said it.
Seems I’ve gotten into the habit lately of staring bleakly at some pantry item and asking it – yes, aloud – What the hell am I to do with you? I never receive a reply – because food doesn’t talk, silly – so I often turn to my younger, smarter symbiote called the intarwebz for dinner guidance. A couple of days ago, the food item was a pound of fingering potatoes; the answer, courtesy of FineCooking.com, was ‘Fingerling Potato Galettes with Chive Crème Fraîche and Smoked Trout.’ Yeah, I thought, let’s get on that… with some exceptions which I will now proceed to relate.
First, about the crème fraîche: no, not happening. I’ve used it in recipes before and I’m just not a fan. Whatever it does for many other people, it never did for me. It always tasted like a pale (heh, funny because it’s true) wannabe to its country cousin, sour cream. So this time around, sour cream was in fact what I used.
Second, the doneness of the potatoes. As intended, this dish was to be a crispy experience, but if recursiveLoop wants crisp in his spuds, he’ll buy a bag of Lay’s. I baked the potatoes to suit – definitely done, but not breakable – and called it a success.
Third, the terminology. The title of the recipe calls this dish a ‘galette,’ to which I must respond: No, it is not. No, ma’am; no, sir. A galette is a kind of cake, or pie, or tart. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sweet or savory; it is, however, required to be more or less flat. This potato dish is also flat (indeed, the recipe instructs you to place a cookie sheet atop the potatoes to insure that they stay flat as they cook)…but my goodness, if flatness is all that is required to call something a galette, then we might as stick that label on the state of Kansas.
What’s that? You want to know how the dish actually tasted? Well, sure, fine. It was delicious. Also, it gave me an excuse to use the mandolin that M bought me. She loves it when I do that. If you lack a mandolin but have good knife skills (which I don’t), that’s fine too. The recipe serves four and is intended as an appetizer, but two people can make a satisfying meal out of it, which we cheerfully did.
I must say I’m not entirely comfortable with the relatively new layout of The Morning News. In a sense, though, that storied site is a stylistic antecedent to this one – so we’ll be respectful, and wait, and reason it all out.
It’s pretty much guaranteed that whenever John Edwards is in the news now, it will be for an awful reason. Now he’s been indicted on charges of having used illegal campaign funds to cover up his infamous affair. If Edwards indeed committed that crime, it would surprise exactly no one at this stage. And that – the automatic and largely deserved absence of a presumption of innocence – isn’t even the saddest thing about Edwards’ failing as a public figure (we are setting aside his failings as a husband for purposes of this entry). No, not even close.
The actually tragic aspect of John Edwards the public figure is…well, Melissa McEwan said what I was going to, and better. Take the floor, Liss:
You know, I’m angry at Edwards for a lot of things, but none so much as the fact that he was the most prominent credible commentator about the increasing divide between the poor and the wealthy in this country. He could have been the guy to eventually lead us out of this economic quagmire with compassionate rhetoric about a divided nation and progressive economic policies, and he pissed it all away.
We needed someone like you, John Edwards. We still do.
Yeah. What she said.
“It’s a fundamentally flawed idea for Microsoft to build their next-generation OS and interface on top of the existing Windows. The idea is that you get the new stuff right alongside Windows as we know it. Microsoft is obviously trying to learn from Apple, but they clearly don’t understand why the iPad runs iOS, and not Mac OS X.”
Independence police unleash deadly force against…a lawn ornament.
Yes, it’s a five-foot thistle plant. A member in good (and tall) standing of the family Asteraceae, taking up a lot of space in our back yard. This botanical intruder came seemingly out of nowhere, much as a front yard predecessor had a couple of years ago. The new thistle was easily twice the height of the previous one.
We let the thing grow out of sheer amusement; God alone knows how tall it would have gotten had we not finally taken the axe to it. We had a recent house inspection, and even prickly freaks of nature must give way when property values are on the line. I have no doubt, however, that some close relative of The Thistle That Stood Like a Man will grace our lawn one day.