Catharsis of sorts

Before we get back to more food related ramblings (have to make a field trip yet for data), a couple of short rants maybe to fill the void.  And I know some of the readership kind of disapproves of these, but it does make me feel better.  So if you’re “rant averse” this one’s not for you..  and there's no pictures!

And the lead rant will be a repeat of something I complain about every two years, summer and winter games.  As most folks know, the winter Olympics games from Pyeong Chang, South Korea are going on.  Of course as usual with some of my gripes, it is directed more at “the media”, not the athletes nor the games themselves.  But, our only window to them is through the magic of television, which is controlled by….. the Media, who decide what and how we see.

Olympic Gripe Number One:  Time zones.  The games are being played in Korea which is 14 hours removed from us.  So that creates the usual problem that live stuff is going on mostly when we’re not.  I like to watch sports “real time”, but the time difference makes it difficult.  I realize and mostly accept that. But what gets me going is the network pretending I’m too stupid to realize that and I will think they’re showing real time.  Case in point, Opening Ceremonies.  We watch the DC NBC outlet here at the digs, and generally watch the (local) news in the am.  So the morning of the opening of the games, Channel 4 cut to Eun Yang their anchor who was over there.  The first thing she said was:  “The opening ceremonies which have just concluded were fantastic” and talked a little about the American team, etc.  Fine.  True.  So then at 7am, The Today Show comes on the air with Samantha Guthrie leading off with “Tonight is the opening ceremonies of the Olympics which you can see right here on NBC, it should be a wonderful show”.  Not: “the opening ceremony was gorgeous and you can see the replay tonight… etc.”.   And before I tuned away after taking as much as Samantha as I can, there was “only a few hours to the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Winter Olympics!”

Olympic Gripe Number Two:   Medals.  Originally (I’m told) the Olympic games were a celebration of amateur athletes engaging in competition to challenge their ownabilities, and measure personal performance against the most talented people in the world.  Emphasis on giving your best, and mostly your opponent was yourself.  I don’t know the evolution here, but now it is country against country, proving that “My Country” is better than yours as measured by trinkets around your neck.   Again, I’m not sure that’s how the contestants view it, but it seems that the American’s fascination with “Who’s Number ONE” is all that matters.  A sports report this morning said “the US only trails Norway (?) by 4 medals and hopes to have a big push today”.  Obviously the objective is to have more toys than the other guy.  Never mind the personal sacrifices these athletes have made for years just to compete, only question for them is not “did you do your best?”.  It’s “what medal did you get?”

Okay, sorry, that’s enough for at least two years!  I do like watching the curling!

On a happier note, the Westminster Dog show was/is yesterday and today.  Over 2000 dogs compete for champions of their breed, then group, and so are qualified for tonight’s “Best of Show” (okay, okay, who’s number one).   It seems that there are more newly recognized breeds every year.   We thoroughly enjoy watching them.  I was surprised to see Shannon Sharpe appear on the broadcast team.  Apparently he is an ardent dog lover and knows a lot about them.  Today we watched the judging of the Wirehaired Pointing Griffons (to which our grand dog Stanley belongs).  It was streamed live on Facebook by one of the group members. 

And okay, I’ll descend a little bit.  Almost as much fun as watching the dogs trot around is watching their “handlers” who lead them around, pose them for the judges (move that rear right foot three inches) and try to make the best showing for their charges as possible.  While they are absorbed in putting the best paw forward, all the pup seems to be interested in is “treats”, which are used to lead them around, make them hold their head up, look this way, look that way, and so on.  And there are several techniques for the handler to store and dispense said “treats” (which apparently are mainly liver).  Some have little bags on their waist, but some seem to hold them IN THEIR MOUTH, and with all due respect, there was a lady today that reached under her top, and that’s all I will say.

Tonight we finish the last of the “Sea To Table” dishes, by doing something with the Northwest Pacific Cod (report to follow).  Good luck MFO

I’ll be
DFD

something is Fishy here....

As alert readers will remember, we are signed up for Blue Apron food delivery service; and as those alerts will also remember, I am on a reduced sodium regimen.  Which means that we don’t add salt to anything, but some of their proteins are more rich in salt than others.  So I have temporarily (?) ceased their deliveries, and instead have signed up for

They are similar to BA, but deliver the seafood with no other ingredients, and it’s up to you what you do with them, although their web site does have “suggestions” as to prep and dishes.  They have a nice variety of products, some usual and some not.  Salmon, Cod, and shrimp appear but so does Maine Redfish, Winter Skate, and Spiny Dogfish  . 

They club you with reminders that they are “wild caught, sustainable, and traceable”, trendy but not unusual terms these days.  Being our first time, we got a “such a deal” starter pack consisting of

A nice touch is that it is packed in dry ice, eliminating the problem of floppy unfrozen ice bags that often arrive with the BA.   I was surprised to see that they did follow through on their “traceable” claim, which you can find if you turn over the little bags

Dutch Harbor, AK?  Google maps will show you the location.  

Anyway, we decided to jump in the water (get it??) by starting with the Coho Salmon. Which had beautiful color and texture

We decided to prepare it with a variation (if I were a trendy foodie, I’d say “riff”) of “en papillote”.  Beginning with doing it “en aluminum foil” while the classic would use parchment.  There is a very nice recipe in the “Stone Soup Cottage (Missouri) cook book”, but it calls for tomatoes, leeks and so forth.  Worthwhile if you have the time, but we did the “what’s in the fridge?” technique.   So MFO buttered up some foil squares, sliced some carrots and lemons, pepper, and made up a bed for the Salmon.

put the fish on it, added some flakes along with a few capers

sealed it up, popped it in the oven along with some slices of little red potatoes that were tossed with oil and some smoked paprika, and after a bit

Viola!

We plated it, added a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, and had a very nice meal!   

We both thought it was some of the best salmon we’ve had lately, terrific flavor, nice texture.  I am eager to try some of the rest of their products…

Incidentally although “en papillote” sounds swishy, it is a very easy and rewarding way to prepare seafood.  In the packet it stays moist, absorbs flavors of whatever stuff you put with it and no worries about burning or drying it out.  Try it sometime..

And while we were preparing the dish we saw the Gary Chouest come under the bridge and head for Norfolk.  It had been moored up by Myrtle point for a couple of days after arriving in the mist and fog.

Anyway, while not turning to a pescatarian diet I am looking forward to exploring Sea to Table further. 

And next time we’ll find out what in the world is that thing adorning the roof of the Feeder’s digs?

Meanwhile don’t forget to

DFD (with limited sodium!)

A drive through history (and okay, a small rant)

Well, not to bombard you, but I like to keep up..

Last week when my visiting nurse was here, she mentioned she was probably going to buy a lot and build, and it was on Colton Point Road, in the legendary “7^th”.   We talked a little bit about it and she said it “has an old church on it”, which of course caused MFO’s antennae to raise.  We kind of located it with the help of Google, and MFO opined that it might have been associated with All Saints Episcopal Church in Oakley.

We consulted a local history expert and he checked into it and found that the land was indeed acquired by the vestry of the All Saints (Episcopal) Church in Oakley, which is quite a few miles up the road.  Sure enough, after borrowing from that excellent resource: “I’m Goin’ Down County” by Kirk Ranzetta, we found a few more facts.  There it was reported that due to the influx of summer visitors and local watermen, that the church found it needed to establish a mission to minister to the residents of Colton Point, who lacked transportation to get to the main Church in Oakley.  Members of the vestry purchased the land in 1900 from a Mr. Robert Yates, and erected a Gothic Style Church adorned with a projecting tower.  Called St. Agnes Chapel of Ease, it was used as the main place of worship when the original Church in Oakley built in 1846 underwent repairs, and the congregation had to move the Chapel in 1906. Eventually maintaining two churches proved too costly, and the parish sold the property in 1962 to a Mr. John Choporis, a surname known to some county residents..   You never know what a conversation with your home health nurse will lead to..

So this morning we decided to kill time until “the Game” by taking a little road trip to check out the place.   It’s always fun to drive around the county, you never know what you will run across.   We started out on a rainy morning and soon discovered a local hawk embarrassing him/herself by eating worms from a lawn

  

Continued on through Leonardtown, down 234 and turned circuitous left at the new traffic circle in Clements, and headed into the 7^th on Rte. 242.

Always something interesting and picture worthy to see along the way

Turned left on Oakley Road and saw the All Saints church, oddly enough once again undergoing repairs

Despite the renovations it has a historical charm, kind of nice on the gray day.

Then continued on down through Avenue passing Holy Angels (Catholic) Church (where services were just concluding)

And eventually found the St. Agnes Chapel of Ease, or what remains.

Still standing after over a hundred years and change.  Love our county. 

On the way home, as we were going back through Leonardtown, I spied an odd cargo in the back of a pickup

Hey!!  what's that???!!  but there were those giveaway orange buckets

Only in SOMD do you stand to see (manual) Oyster Tongs going along the road.  Love our County,

So was a nice way to pass the time before the “game”..

And I was going to stop here, but damn it, I have to get in a small rant.

Rant begins NOW!

A few years ago we sort of stumbled on some pregame programming called the Puppy Bowl.   Cute little pups doing cute little puppy things, chasing, nipping, yapping, and so forth.  Who doesn’t love a puppy?

So we decided to tune in to Animal Planet this year and watch again.  What a disgusting display of gratuitous crap.  They actually had a “Sports Desk” like the networks have with three talking heads, who feigned to be serious and talked about the little dogs like they were people.  “Wags is a tenacious player; we look for him to try to end around…”  blah, blah blah.  Didn’t even crack a smile, just acted dead serious.   They introduced the Lineups from Team Ruff and Team Fluff with more silly descriptions.  “a fast competitor, looking to score touchdowns”.  Even more disgusting was The National Anthem, with bunny cheerleaders, dogs looking doped, and even a parrot pecking at a smart phone “Putting out Tweets”.

Oh, this year there were “Stands” cardboard cut outs, with silhouette flat profiles of “Fans” who were wiggled up and down (The fans are going nuts!)  As for the action “on the field” the pooches ran around aimlessly nipping, chasing, and every once in a while picked up a toy and happened to run to the end of the “field”, where the announcer shouted “touchdown”.  We were nauseated by this time and turned it off.  Embarrassing treatment of the animals and idiotic behavior by the humans.  The only good thing that might be gleaned is that most of the canines were rescue..

Never again. 

Well, almost time for the ultimate sporting event of the year.  And I ain’t going to

DFD

Go...... whoever!

Errata and et cetera

The ways of the internet are crazy indeed.  some rule was apparently violated yesterday in the second paragraph of the "Hummus" blog, which turned it into gibberish, only perhaps understood by the machine itself..  Maybe it was the "less than" symbol.   For clear thinking readers, I hope this will come through and reveal my intended text.  Apologies

As we enter the world of “restricted” Sodium, less than 2300 milligrams per day, we are on the search for lower sodium dishes, and so I read the “nutritional” labels a lot.   One of our finds through a friend is a salt substitute made from Kelp granules.  Go figure.  Trying to keep the cocktail hour a civil exercise, we’re always on the lookout for things to replace (sigh) cheese for instance, although we do allow me an ounce or so depending on the variety of said fromage. 

Since I'm typing, a few random thoughts to fill the white space:

That obnoxious adolescent little twerp in the "Fios" commercials that preaches to the ignorant adults or smirks his way through his gaming friends is, well, obnoxious.

In the same league as the other little twerp who apparently has his Ipad glued to his nose asking his mother (after she asks him a civil question) "what's a computer?"  Wonder how he'd like his device shoved up that nose...

Tomorrow is the Superbowl, I suppose I'll watch, although I don't have much of a dog (or Eagle or Patriot) in the fight.  I guess I can use the old "I'm only watching for the commercials" excuse.

In years past we used to either host or attend a "party" with many of our dearest friends.  time passes, and most of them have scattered to various coasts or cities.  So tomorrow we're going to have a "virtual" party, probably texting and trading pictures as we go.  MFO is preparing (reduced Sodium) snacks for us.  Superbowl is a time where you can wallow in lovely, but not so healthy food like Gumbos, Nachos, and Jambalaya things which are pretty much off limits for the Feeder now.  There will not be Kale chips..

enjoy, and maybe

DFF(ootball)

a quote from MFO trying to copy some recipes out of our expanding library of "Healty Eating" and "Low Sodium Delights" books: "there ought to be a law that all cookbooks have to lie flat!!"

Humming along..

Now that I can get around a bit without having to sit every two minutes, I have begun to mess around in the kitchen some.

As we enter the world of “restricted” Sodium, <2500 a="" allow="" although="" always="" an="" and="" are="" cheese="" civil="" cocktail="" day="" depending="" dishes="" do="" exercise="" figure.="" finds="" for="" friend="" from="" fromage.="" go="" granules.="" hour="" i="" instance="" is="" keep="" kelp="" labels="" lookout="" lot.="" lower="" made="" me="" mg="" nbsp="" nutritional="" o:p="" of="" on="" one="" or="" ounce="" our="" re="" read="" replace="" said="" salt="" search="" sigh="" so="" sodium="" substitute="" the="" things="" through="" to="" trying="" variety="" we="">

We’ve found is that Hummus is pretty low sodium, in amounts that still provide some satisfaction.  Same with Whitley’s Deluxe Nut Mix, an ounce or so of that is surprisingly more than one or two nuts.  Anyway, I got it in my head to make my own Hummus.  There are a million recipes out there, with only slight variations.  So I came across one I thought would be good, set out to duplicate that.   Ingredients for basic Hummus are fairly few and easily obtainable in our local grocery outlets (No, haven’t been to Harris Tweeter yet).  So I assembled them (with my house made roasted Garlic)

And did my Mise en Place

And chucked everything into the food processor, and “processed” until smooth.

And turned it out into a bowl, put into the fridge to let the flavors get happy (as Emeril might say)

So we dished it up last night along with some stoned wheat thins.

As with any recipe I think it needs some tweaking.  I cut back on the cumin, and only used three of the roasted garlic cloves, and of course eliminated the “Salt to taste” line.   The result was kind of a bland, pretty stiff mixture that you had to know contained roasted garlic for instance. 

So, I added some more oil, more cayenne, and a bit of lemon juice

and i'm going to punch up the roasted garlic more..

Of course, Hummus is pretty bland so needs some help.  we'll see, update later!  more research needed at cocktail hour when we are maybe

DFD