Apples, Apples Everywhere

Yesterday provided lots of entertainment options. Many folks headed over to Taste of Madison while others to the Capital Brewery for Firefest and the inaugural tapping of the year's Autumnal Fire. Being on-call for work until tomorrow morning, I didn't want to be near any beer-soaked festival because my will is weak. Instead The Dulcinea and I headed nort for a return visit to Lapacek Orchard. Their newsletter said that the mysterious Wolf River apples were ready a bit early and I just had to see them for myself.



Pulling up, we found the driveway rather crowded with a few cars, most of which were SUVs from Illinois. Stepping out of the car, we were greeted by the hound! He's just so big and fury and cuddly.



We moseyed to the store and saw walls lined with gourds galore along with pumpkins, and watermelon.





There was also a mean-eyed putty tat hanging out in the lawn.



Inside Kim was minding the store and she remembered up from our last visit. With September upon us, apple season is in full bloom and they were offering some pre-hoolied apple mixes such as for apple spice bread and apple streusel muffins. Plus there were canned apples and make-your-own caramel apple kits. The words "hot pepper" attract me like a moth to the flame and so I just couldn't resist buying a jar of the hot pepper mustard which, Kim informed us, was made by her mother-in-law.



In addition to food, the Lapaceks also sell craft items such as quilts and jewelry that they make. The Dulcinea makes necklaces and bracelets so she and Kim hit it off really well and chatted for a bit. Kim divulged that she is a "retired" engineer. With a youthful face that places her in her late 20s, she must have left the lab or drawing board quite early in her career for a life on an orchard. Meanwhile I continued to wander around and leave a trail of drool wherever I did go. Those red onions stared at me long and hard as did some of the Spanish variety. So we got a bit of both. And red potatoes too! Actually, I'll bet that the first things I took off of a table or shelf and put near the register was a couple caramel apples. They are addictive.

Were the Wolf River apples in? You betcha! Just take a look at these babies: (The apples, that is.)



Now compare the Wolf River to a Gala:



They're not quite the one-to-a-pie size, but they're still enormous. Kim was kind enough to let us sample 2 or 3 apples and we ended up buying bags of Wolf Rivers, Galas, and Wealthies. She even asked about my medieval apple fritters. Kim is a total sweetheart. She apologized much too much for having to change her daughter's diapers. No biggie. We can keep ourselves busy ogling apples and contemplating how many onions to purchase.

I really enjoy heading out there. It's nice to be able to purchase food directly from the folks who grow/produce the stuff. Plus the farm is just a relaxing atmosphere when contrasted with a big sterile square box that is the grocery store. I used a couple apples yesterday for dinner and am planning on making applesauce and apple butter to can. We also bought a bunch of corn which is going to end up in our freezers for a taste of warmer times when the chill descends upon us. We will probably head back next weekend for more. Kim told us that they'll have the first cider of the year ready by then.



On the way back to Madison we stopped in at Schultz's Market in DeForest. We'd both made the mistake of not having eaten before heading to the orchard and by this time we were famished. The D bought some pistachio fluff and a couple hot sticks while I bought some Italian and Hungarian sausage links as well as some incredibly thick bacon. I fried up the bacon this morning to break our fasts along with some hot rice cereal. I ran out of maple syrup recently so we put barley malt on the cereal. It tastes just like wort smells and this explains why I love Grape Nuts. The bacon too was delicious. Each slice was a bit less than a quarter inch thick and very narrow. It was smoked to perfection and it again made me realize just how sick & twisted religious prohibitions on pork are. For someone to deprive themselves of the culinary equivalent of orgasm because of some lunatic in the desert thousands of years is truly ridiculous.

Once into town, we made a final stop at Alex Polish American Deli at its new location on E. Wash and Alex himself was behind the counter with his trademark Highland moustache. Their new digs are smaller than their old ones on Monroe Street and I think a shelf was missing from the equation. Still, the sweets are still there along with the stuff that appeals to me. They had a variety or two of kielbasa that I don't recall seeing at the old store. There were Parówki Wieprzowe or pork wieners and I believe Starowiejska. Still no Jałowcowa (juniper berry sausage) though. That garlic ham and peppered pork loin are going to end up on my sandwiches for lunch next week if I don't eat it all by tomorrow.

Bobby Bryan @ The Brink Lounge

Friday night saw local bluesman Bobby Bryan and the Original Downtown Players performing at The Brink Lounge. It was the first time that either The Dulcinea or myself had been there and we both found it to be a nice place. The couches looked comfortable and it was dimly lit giving a nice mellow atmosphere. However, the establishment was not meant for the likes of your humble narrator. An extensive wine list warranted its own menu while the more general drink list included abundant fine spirits including lengthy columns of scotch and tequila. The lounge was dead when we arrived and I was the only person donning a t-shirt. I was on-call for work and was, much to my chagrin, unable to drink and I the bartender was visibly unamused at my order of their finest 7-UP. Bryan could be heard tuning up in an adjacent room.

Shortly before the show was set to begin, a large group of middle-aged folks came down the stairs as I was heading up. My fears that the show would be severely under-attended were allayed. Indeed, the venue filled up shortly after the performance began. The room featured a goodly sized stage flanked by an ornate spiral staircase with a dance floor before it. The lights were down low, which I appreciated, but the joint was, in my opinion, just too fancy for a night of gritty music. There was just something wrong with the scene. The audience consisted mostly of graying folk with the majority of men still clad in their business casual uniforms accessorized by the obligatory cell phone holster. However, when Bryan got down to business, the odd juxtaposition of music born of the hard times of Delta life and a mostly white audience which bespoke of at least a modicum of affluence, dissipated.

The band was in fine form. Bryan his trademark funky shirt and vest and The Dulcinea opined that such a shirt in a color more suitable for my melanin-deprived skin would look good on me. Drummer Rick Flowers had a Gustav Klimt t-shirt on and he spent his time behind the kit with a big toothy grin plastered on his face as he always does. Bassist Lon Walker's lanky frame didn't move much but his fluid playing was solid. Steve Skaggs' was off at the side of the stage hidden by shadows like Robert Fripp. He may be the least appreciated member of the band but his organ work is more than that of a mere yeoman. His playing fills out band's sound perfectly and his solos are always great.

I don't recall the set but "Forty Days" and Jimmy Reed's "Baby What You Want Me To Do" were aired as were tunes by Robert Cray and Johnny Copeland. Listening to them, it was easy to understand why they won the Wisconsin Blues Challenge – they are tight. I don't have to tell you that Bryan has the chops but I will say that one of the great pleasures of the show was how seamlessly the guys were able to move from blues to funk. One second Bryan is hammering out some classic blues solo and then next thing you know his foot has gravitated towards a wah-wah pedal and the beat has subtlety changed for the funkier.

As with the band's performance at the Madison Blues picnic, the atmosphere on stage was light-hearted with between song banter and Flowers alternately being congratulated for recently lost his bachelorhood and being given grief. During a set break, I was outside having a smoke and was joined by a younger woman who was also enjoying the show. Flowers came out for a smoke himself and the woman commented on how much she loves his playing and watching him with that big grin he always seems to have. Clyde Stubblefield may get all the press, but Flowers is still brilliant.

The crowd enjoyed every minute. By the second set, folks began to migrate onto the dance floor. Some younger folks had wandered in and joined the older members of the crowd but the dance floor was all-ages.

Bryan's next appearance is on the 8th at The Harmony.

Keep Those Wraps

Alderwoman Brenda Konkel has a post called "Mixed Messages" at her blog today about the now infamous "beer bus", i.e. – a Metro bus with a full wrap add for Miller Genuine Draft. Ms. Konkel observed:

While the UW is so focused on the drinking habits of UW Students and how to change the culture of drinking on campus; the City is talking about limiting alcohol licenses downtown; the public and periphery alders are up in arms about the drag on police resources we have in the downtown area due to drinking on campus; and the police are warning students to be careful when drinking late night because Kelly Nolans[sic] killer is still on the lose[sic]; at the same time we have this "beer bus" circulating around downtown sending a much different message.

What message is the ad relaying? Obviously for Ms. Konkel, who was (gasp!) drinking beer at the time she made her observation, the ad means "go out and drink until you puke". If you follow the "beer bus" link above, you can read about Kevin Hinckley who apparently thinks public spaces should be sterilized for that perennial favorite of moral crusaders everywhere – to protect the children. In objecting to ads for De Jope Bingo Hall, Hinckley said, "We don't need 'a little bit of Vegas' in Madison. This is where we raise children, not a place where we gamble." I hate to break this to Mr. Hinckley but gambling and child raising are not mutually exclusive. He would apparently be surprised to find that there are, in fact, families in Las Vegas. The city has a population of nearly 500,000 men, women, and children who are parts of – you guessed it – families. Just ask Heather Skyler.

Ads for beer appear on billboards as well as on another vehicle called a beer truck. These trucks can be seen parked near taverns, restaurants, and other facilities that serve suds in full view of children! OH MY FUCK! We are truly a depraved society if we let these trucks with their caustic ads for beer on the outside idle on our city streets in plain view. I mean, how else would a youth get the idea that intoxicating beverages exist? What, do you think there's such a thing as peer pressure? The situation with the bus is a mere ad on the outside but, to make matters worse, with the trucks, children on the street might find themselves in close proximity to and see actual beer! Imagine the young mind of a child that sees a barrel being hauled across the sidewalk. It is truly ruined forever.

We now have a mini-temperance movement here in Madison which is being fed by the likes of Mr. Hinckley who apparently can't walk around in public without finding a million things that strike fear into him. One of Hinckley's co-whiners is Susan De Vos was quoted as saying, "If kids are seeing alcohol and gambling and whatever being advertized on busses, that's contrary to the idea that people have of what the community stands for." Well, speaking as a community member, I don't think our community stands for wiping out everything in public that would let kids on to the fact that the world really isn't like a Disney movie. It is not a mixed message to tell children that there are foods adults can consume and activities in which adults can engage that they cannot.

Kill da Wabbit!

I noted earlier this month that Marcus' Westgate Theatre showed Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with Spanish subtitles and Spider-Man 3 dubbed in Spanish and with English subtitles. Channel 3000 reports that the theatre chain "will begin showing movies in Spanish at theaters in southeastern Wisconsin, according to company officials." While I don't know for certain, I would imagine that this move was made, not only to appeal to the growing Latino population here in Madison, but also as a bit of counter-programming against Sundance 608. The shiny new art house not only gave Westgate competition for films, but it also moved in just down the road. Westgate must have felt pressure and seems to be adjusting.

Well, tomorrow they will delve into an area that Sundance has, so far, been unwilling to go – revivals. To that end, a Looney Toons Festival begins tomorrow. Quite frankly, it appeals to me more blatantly than anything that will be at Sundance next week. (Though I do want to catch No End in Sight and Gypsy Caravan looks to be interesting.) I suspect that seeing "What's Opera Doc?" on the big screen where it was meant to be seen would be a joy beyond words. Thankfully, Sicko will no longer be at Sundance but Waitress shall remain. Hasn't it been playing there since the theatre opened back in May?

Moving towards campus, the UW Cinematheque has announced its fall season. The legendary Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi will be featured along with post-1968 films by Jean-Luc Godard. Hail Mary, a favorite of mine, will be among them. Also look for a 6-film jaunt through the history of Russian science fiction cinema.

Me and My Favorite DPs

I read this morning that Oliver Stone has has cast Bruce Willis for his next project, a film about the My Lai Massacre. I'm a fan of Oliver Stone though I must admit that his post-U-Turn films have left me a bit cold. Neither Any Given Sunday nor Alexander really grabbed me and I've not yet seen World Trade Center. Concomitant to my waning interest in Stone's films was the dissolution of his working relationship with his long-time cinematographer Bob Richardson.



Together they made some truly great cinema with engaging plots told with spectacular technical prowess. The cramped radio booth in Talk Radio was enlarged with a perpetually moving camera; harsh lighting, use of varying film stocks, and more camera movement (and editing too) helped make JFK, Natural Born Killers, and Nixon feasts for the eyes as well as heart and brain. I just got hooked on those stories and how the cinematography, editing, and sound all colluded to tell them. Just thinking of his work makes me want to dust off my Super8 cameras and start shooting.

So, what's Bob Richardson doing now?

I am just giddy to read that he has teamed up again with this country's greatest documentarian, Errol Morris, for S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure, an examination of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Previously they had done Fast, Cheap & Out of Control and the shots of the topiary gardener at work with the incredibly harsh backlighting are iconic Richardson to my mind.

Another one of my favorite cinematographers is Janusz Kaminski who is now Steven Spielberg's DP.



They first collaborated on Schindler's List and I count that along with Amistad, Saving Private Ryan, and Minority Report as among their best work. The use of color – mainly washing it out – and Kaminski's tinkering with shutters has created some of the most visceral storytelling ever, in my humble opinion. He is currently shooting the fourth Indian Jones film but recently returned to his native Poland to shoot and direct Hania. His directorial debut, Lost Souls, wasn't great but I am still looking forward to his second go at it.

Darius Khondji is also one of my favorite cinematographers. He shot Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children before making his American debut with Se7en. This was followed by gorgeous work in Stealing Beauty and Evita before he returned to his trademark browns and grays in Alien: Resurrection.



Later this year will see the release of Funny Games, a remake of a film of the same name which is being directed by Michael Haneke, who also helmed the 1997 original. (Haneke's last film was Caché.) It will be interesting to see Khondji's return to horror/thriller as well as how the same director will remake his own work for the Hollywood moneymen.

A new addition to my list of favorite DPs is Emmanuel Lubezki. He shot Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow in the late 1990s and then had the amazing trifecta of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The New World, and Children of Men in the middle of this decade. I need to start viewing his back catalog.



Currently he is doing the Coen Brothers' latest, Burn After Reading. But I still adore the work of Roger Deakins.

Lastly I want to make a nod to Joel Ransom. I saw his name pop up a week or two ago when I watched the first episode of ABC's Masters of Science Fiction. Ransom worked on The X-Files for a spell where he caught the attention of me and my film-geek friends. He stayed in television and went on to the Band of Brothers mini-series and the Battlestar Galactica TV movie for the Sci-Fi Channel. (Don't laugh – Vittorio Storaro shot their Dune mini-series.) Well, Ransom has finally made the move to the big screen with the fantasy epic The Dark is Rising.



Do you, dear reader, have favorite directors of photography?

A Wisconsin Story

We Cheeseheads love to flaunt our great natural expanses, our great beer, and, of course, our tasty cheeses. But tales of life here in the Dairyland go beyond Ole and Lena all the way to Harvey and Edwin:

Police stopped a truck in Abbotsford recently and found Harvey Miller, 43, was steering the truck. Miller has no legs.

Officers said that Edwin Marzinske, 55, was operating the gas pedals and brake.

The police report said Miller admitted he was too drunk to drive, but argued he wasn't actually operating the truck because he couldn't push the gas pedal.

Chicagoans Are Lucky to Have Us Cheeseheads

Beer drinkers down in Chitown now have a new brew - Half Acre Lager. It is the product of Half Acre Beer Company of Chicago and started shipping last week.



But as this article in the Chicago Reader points out, the beer is contract brewed by Sand Creek up in Black River Falls. First we gave them places to go and things to do during the summer and now we brew their beer. Cofounder Gabriel Magliaro notes that "opening a brewery in the city of Chicago is notoriously difficult and notoriously expensive". I suppose there are a lot of city officials to pay off. If you should find yourself in Bucktown or Wicker Park, stop in at the following locations to sample: Jerry’s, Pint, the Charleston, the Always Open convenience store at Milwaukee and Wabansia, and the 7-Eleven on Damen across from the park. If you're a Cheesehead visiting Chitown, it allows you to drink local and support a Wisconsin brewer all at the same time.

Review: Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash by Pat Gilbert

Rock bios are a hit or miss affair. Sometimes they're hastily published to capitalize on the new-found success of a band or musician and contain little substance. However, books about established artists can be equally as worthless. All too often such texts are strict chronological records which never try to justify their existence by telling the reader why the artist being profiled is important. I've long admired Dave Marsh's account of The Who in his Before I Get Old. He imposed a narrative on the events he chronicled and cast Pete Townshend as the hero with Keith Moon as his foil. Whatever you may think of Marsh's tale, he constructed a nimble tale which was also an argument for the importance of The Who and their legacy which makes for much more interesting reading than "first this happened and then that and then something else".

As a former editor at the English music magazine, MOJO, Pat Gilbert has the credentials to write a rock bio. This, combined with his unabashed love of The Clash, gives the reader every expectation that Passion is a Fashion will be a great read and Gilbert delivers. He makes a critical and nuanced case for The Clash as a very important band in the rock pantheon. In addition, Gilbert uses his story to examine rock music as populist art and art as commerce.

The late Joe Strummer is clearly the hero here as his background is the subject of the book's first chapter, though those of Mick Jones and Paul Simonon subsequently follow. Strummer is portrayed as a troubled genius who, through fits and starts, finally finds his identity and voice in The Clash. In fact, the book links the formative years of all the band's members to their days as rock stars. Being an American, some of Gilbert's slang and English cultural and place references went over my head, but he did a good job of explaining the malaise of mid-1970s England which gave birth to the punk movement. With a mission statement of "We're anti-Fascist, anti-violence, we're anti-racist, and we're pro-creative", the band's eponymous debut arrived in the spring of 1977. Besides being a seminal punk album, it also contained the seed of what would give The Clash their legacy and make them important: a cover of the reggae song "Police and Thieves" which was an international hit in 1976 for Junior Murvin.

The book patiently shows how this first murmur of combining rock with reggae led to further cross-breeding with dub and eventually saw the band perform and record with Jamaican reggae/dub artist Mikey Dread. When The Clash went to New York City, they picked up on rap and incorporated it into their sound. Gilbert points out that this ability to infuse the music of disaffected minorities, of the street, with rock'n'roll was their greatest asset. It may have led them away from punk, but it also allowed them to transcend it as well and become something other than a short-lived burst of anger and nihilism like their contemporaries, the Sex Pistols. And it is this legacy, as Gilbert asserts, which countless musicians have picked up on over the years.

While the author is clearly enamored of his subject, he gives criticism when it's due. For instance, he exposes the hypocrisy of the band and their anti-violence stance by recounting several instances of band members getting into brawls both onstage and off. And Gilbert's case for The Clash as musical innovators isn't damped by his acknowledgment that they recorded some real duds in their time. Plus he notes how the callousness of the band as they publicly denounced members of its entourage who were expelled.

Just as with The Who in Before I Get Old, the idealism of The Clash runs headlong into commercialism and the Big Bad Record Company. While it's not fair to place all the blame at the doorstep of CBS Records, the absolutely ridiculous contract they had with the band created lots of friction. Living up to all of one's ideals is difficult with a record company on your back demanding product and bills to be paid. But unlike his fellow writer, Gilbert sees the story of The Clash through to the bitter end. Marsh declared The Who dead in 1978 when Keith Moon died and paid only lip service to the following four years. Gilbert, on the other hand, retains his level of analysis in detailing the last couple years of The Clash's existence after Mick Jones and Topper Headon were gone. Those days were not pretty but they're part of the story.

That fans of The Clash will enjoy Passion is a Fashion is a no-brainer. But even I as a less than die-hard enthusiast of the band found it to be a great read and so will anyone who is passionate about rock music. This is because the book is about more than chronicling the nine or so years of The Clash's existence. It's a great tribute to the malleability of rock music which makes it so powerful to musicians and fans alike. In its page is also a look at the intersection of art and commerce as well as a more personal tale about imperfect people who were never quite able to live up to their ideals.

Review: The Treats - Reservoir Tales

The Treats are a power trio hailing from right here in Madison. Reservoir Tales is the band's sophomore effort and it mysteriously appeared in my mailbox over the weekend. Unsolicited but quite welcome.

Formed at the tail end of the last millennium, the group features brothers Andrew and Don Isham on guitar and percussion, respectively, with Tim Payne on bass. Andrew provides lead vocals but everyone contributes their voices. The term "power trio" conjures up Cream to my mind and they're not a wholly bad starting point because Reservoir Tales has plenty of bluesy riffing and the occasional nod to psychedelia. And the sonic improvement here over their debut album, Paint Your Blood (2004) means that Don's drums don't sound like Ginger Baker's as they did on that album, i.e. – recorded in a cardboard box. The sound here is expansive with each member given plenty of breathing room yet it can't be accused of being overly-polished. Lo-fi garage rock aesthetics have perhaps been transmogrified into medium-fi but the rawness and immediacy remain.

The chunky riffing on songs like the opener, "Second Hand Reserve", may bring The White Stripes to mind but, when "Cuchillo" starts south of the border only to speed north and come crashing into a finale of Blue Cheer pandemonium, it beggars comparison. "Ever Been Down" is perhaps as close to the blues as a group of engineering majors can get with its neo-boogie that gives the North Mississippi All-Stars a run for their money.

Reservoir Tales, like its predecessor, is committed to dynamics. Just as with Jethro Tull's Aqualung, in between the riff-laden heavier tunes are mostly acoustic ditties. "Blind and Undying" is a comforting bit of ragged acoustic pop that is colored with sitar. Andrew Isham won't go down as the heir to Ravi Shankar's legacy but it's effective and the short raga jam which closes the song pays nice tribute to late 1960s psychedelia. If lullabies could have lines like "You'll do what it is that killed you", then I suppose "Without a Word" would indeed be one. Instead the gently plucked acoustic evokes Genesis from their brief pastoral period with such pieces as "Dusk".

While it's easy to spot a nod here and a stolen riff there, Reservoir Tales comes off, not as derivative, but as a billet-doux to great rock music through the ages. The brothers Isham and Mr. Payne are solid players. And from the short, incisive phrases on "Cuchillo" to the manic screaming on "Like an Animal", Andrew has a great rock voice. My favorite song at the moment is "Eve's Playground" which has a surf rock beat underneath but is all Link Wray on top. Even the vocals aren't that far removed from what Wray did on songs like his cover of "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby". When Andrew sings "You never lick my wounds when I've been cut", you know he means it. I'm not sure what that means, but I believe him just the same. It is probably the catchiest rock song anyone in Madison has recorded since Mad Trucker Gone Mad committed "Cows in the Pasture" to CD.

Reservoir Tales will be released on 7 September with a CD release show to follow that evening at the King Club. Joining them will be two other great local bands - Cash Box Kings and The Selfish Gene.

She Should Work for the Bush Administration

Her ability to give a complete non sequitur as as answer should assure her of a place in government.


Brilliant Answer From Ms South Carolina - Watch more free videos

Gonzales Takes Off, Eh

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. Now, does anyone really think the Dems will actually try to get someone in their who is concerned more with applying the laws of our land than towing party lines? Personally I think we're gonna get stuck with more of the same.

The Winner Is...Dane101!

Congratulations to Dane101 for having been voted Best Local-Content Blog in this year's Isthmus poll. I'll submit a memo to the beer desk anon. Now if the Breakfast Links could stop adhering to the "if it bleeds, it leads" thing. The section is turning into the front page of the WSJ/TCT.

Fretoure of Fayre Applys

Upon getting home from work this evening, I immediately began cooking. It was time to do something with some of the goodies from the garden. One obvious tasty treat to make would be pico de gallo.

Tomatoes. We've got tomatoes. My pico ended up with the trifecta of cherry, Roma, and beefsteak toms. On the pepper side I had picked green Bells and Hungarian wax(?) and several ended up on the chopping block. Lastly there was that red onion which I had bought at Lapacek's Orchard. To finish it off, I put in lots of garlic, lime juice, and no cilantro because I didn't have any despite thinking that I did. It turned out rather colorfully and it sits in the refrigerator as the marriage of the flavors is consummated.



With that being done, I set out to recreate yet another medieval recipe – Apply Fretoure. Here is the original:

Take whete floure, Ale 3est, Safroun, & Salt, & bete alle to-gederys as þikke as þou schuldyst make oþer bature in fleyssche tyme; & þan take fayre Applys, & kut hem in maner of Fretourys, & wete hem in þe bature vp on downne, & frye hem in fayre Oyle, & caste hem in a dyssche; & caste Sugre þer-on, & serue forth.

I'm not sure of the date but hails from sometime in the first half of the 15th century and is, as you can see, an English recipe.

To start, heat a bit of beer (Viking Weathertop Wheat, in this case) so it's just warm and add your yeast. Just look at the wee yeasties in their bath!



Here's the beer and saffron. Bruise the saffron in a small amount of hot beer.



Throw all your beer in a bowl along with flour, salt, and sugar. Mix it up and you've have a smooth, wonderfully aromatic batter. Let it rise for a spell.



With the batter doing its thing, I reached into our magic pantry and grabbed the first bag of apples I saw – Zestars. Dip your apple bits in it, and fry. I cut my fruit into bite-size chunks – finger food.



I topped them off with powdered sugar & cinnamon.



They were really tasty! I called The Dulcinea, who was out with a friend, to tell her just how good they were. The batter fried up nice'n'crispy yet fluffy and the flavors of the apples melded incredibly well with the saffron.

The recipe was certainly not 100% authentic. Fried in vegetable oil? Perhaps next time I'll use a mixture of oil and lard. The Zestars are a very new variety of apple as they were developed, methinks, in the early 1990s. Lastly, a wheat beer most certainly wouldn't have been used. Hops was introduced to England around the same time this recipe was transcribed so it's likely that an ale flavored with herbs was used. As Wikipedia notes:

In the past, other plants have been used for similar purposes; for instance, Glechoma hederacea. Combinations of various aromatic herbs, berries, and even ingredients like wormwood would be combined into a mixture known as gruit and used as hops are now used.

The recipe notes that the batter is the same as that made on meat days ("in fleyssche tyme") so these fritters were likely meant to be eaten during Lent or, at least, on Fridays. Being a godless heathen, I say they're good anytime.

Do The Jerk

Earlier this week I spent some time out in the garden getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and picking vegetables. Peppers are not something that we're short on.



Somehow we (i.e. - Stevie) neglected to plant any jalapenos or cayennes ergo any plans for making jelly or hot sauce from the fruits of the garden are lost. However, we do have a couple habenera plants and, despite the fact that they're drowning now, they did enjoy the hot temperatures earlier this month.



So what does one do with lots of habeneras? Make jerk paste, of course!



I cried and sniffled the whole way through. Chopping the onion with my shiny, new, and highly sharp knife got the waterworks going first. (And I managed to cut myself too!) Then I cleaned the chilies. With a lack of latex gloves and against my better judgment, I did so with bare hands. Even though the process took place under a stream of cold water, the toxic capsaicin vapors still penetrated my nasal cavity. Uff da! My hands burned well into the next day forcing me to use tissue paper for handling my tender parts when using the commode. I crushed the allspice berries with my mortar & pestle (thanks, grandma!) and added the result along with goodly doses of thyme, molasses, salt, freshly ground black pepper, etc. The result?



Some got thrown in the freezer while the jar is in the frig. I suspect this stuff can adequately substitute for paint stripper and, if Rachel Carson were still around, she'd no doubt inveigh against it. So it should be tasty.

I think tonight I'll plunder the garden a bit more, if I don't drown. We've got 80 tons of cherry tomatoes so they're not going to get canned. Perhaps I'll whip up a batch of pico de gallo of the gods. I am also keen on making some medieval apple fritters. The recipe isn't overly specific and calls for a batter just like any one would make "in fleyssche tyme", i.e. - on days when folks we're allowed to eat meat. I found some unpasteurized beer in the form of Viking's Weathertop Wheat which I think will do the trick. If my plan goes according to plan, I'll be changing employers soon and will attempt to use up my vacation time before I bail. I'd like to drag The Dulcinea up nort and visit the brewery, amongst other pleasures.

Buy My Rug!

People who know me know that I prefer carpeting to tile but this rug has got to go.



It's 7.5'x9.5' and made of 100% wool. Bought in 1985. Needs a cleaning but otherwise in good condition. It's nice and soft and warm and in a style which has no appeal to me. Any locals looking to accent their Midwestern home in a Southwestern style?

"Drunk Astronauts" Story is Bullshit

You may remember the story about drunken astronauts that appeared in the news last month which brought up mental images of the space shuttle being manned by a bunch of lushes who were all tanked up. Well, James Oberg has a few things to say about this.

Crime Scene Investigator Busted

Crime Scene Investigator Busted - Watch more free videos

It's Happiness Returns to Madison

The polka documentary It's Happiness, which screened earlier this year at the Wisconsin Film Festival, will be returning to Madison next month. (My review of the film is here.) Details of the return:

Orpheum Theatre
Wednesday, September 26th at 7pm and 9:30pm

Expect some live polka before the screenings and an after party at The Essen Haus.

Nemesis

My drives to and from work have had a shadow fall over them recently. It started when I began listening to the audiobook of Chalmers Johnson's Nemesis in my car. On one hand, it's an utterly fascinating look at our government and various elements of our foreign policy since the end of World War II. On the other, it is a chronicle of horror with, among other things, the CIA acting as a tentacle of the Executive Branch with a secret budget and no oversight. I am currently in media res of the sorry story of how two Marines and a sailor abducted, beat and raped a twelve-year-old girl on the island of Okinawa where we have no less than 37 military bases. Prior to this, Johnson gave overviews of the Roman and British empires, a look at the CIA including an in-depth explanation of my country's role in the overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973, and lots of discussion about the concentration of executive power & the military-industrial complex. Every morning and afternoon I feel like Kevin Kostner's Jim Garrison being lectured to by Mr. X.



It's not that Johnson is L. Fletcher Prouty but the reader has my rapt attention as I listen and I find the words enlightening, if sad and angering as well. There is a lot of history and arguments in Nemesis to which I cannot do justice and, besides, I'm not even three quarters of the way through it. The broadest lesson is that America is an empire. Different from those of Rome and Britain, but an empire nonetheless. Johnson sites the Pentagon's Base Structure Report which lists 737 military bases scattered across every continent on the globe in some 130 countries. He cites this and continues to note what's missing from the report before giving his own tally of 1000+ bases. Our military budget is similarly scrutinized and assigned a total of somewhere around $750,000,000,000. That's a lot of zeroes. With 1000+ bases as part of a total military budget of three quarters of a trillion dollars, the suitability of the word "empire" can be in little doubt.

It was bad enough to listen to accounts of the CIA as a rogue arm of the presidency and a description of the military-industrial complex, but perhaps the worst blow came as I heard about the military bases that are currently in and the ones we're building in Iraq. By "we" I mean American taxpayers essentially giving corporate welfare to one subsidiary of Haliburton or another. And then there's the Orwellian misuse of language when the military refers to these outposts as "enduring" instead of "permanent". It made me realize that the question "When are we going to get out of Iraq?" is fraught with ambiguities despite it being rather straightforward on it face. To the average American citizen, the question no doubt conjures up images of our fighting men & women and all of their equipment being loaded onto C-130s and transport ships which take off or leave port. On the other hand, I highly suspect that the question to our politicos and captains of industry means something a bit different. I think that, to these people, "getting out of Iraq" means handing over the routine duties of law enforcement over to the Iraqis and sending the majority of our troops home while the 3 or 4 bases that the Pentagon wants to keep come hell or high water are populated by the remaining troops. In the political sense, getting out of Iraq means retreating to our multi-billion dollar bases, not actually leaving the borders of the country. Our embassy there is to be the biggest one in the world and we're spending billions of dollars to build military bases there that are to endure. Strictly speaking, we're not going to leave Iraq. Even if the Iraqis stood up tomorrow and took over all policing duties and assembled as army for national defense and drove out all the terrorists – we'd still have a presence there. Even if the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shiites miraculously all found a way to live in harmony, we'd still have our military bases there. To average Joes and Janes, getting out of Iraq is about leaving. By contrast, to those in power, it is about what we leave behind.

There is an ongoing intra-lefty debate about the lesser of two evils. Just mention the name of Ralph Nader when you're in a room of lefties and you'll see what I mean. Nader asserts that there's no real differences between the two major parties in this country. While progressives might agree, your more garden variety liberal is likely to take issue with this. A common retort is to point out abortion. Dems are generally pro-choice while Republicans are generally in favor of having Roe v Wade overturned. The point is taken but I would note that most liberals who refute Nader's statement look to domestic policies when arguing in opposition. Listening to Nemesis and attempting to take a broader view which is inclusive of our foreign policy, I think that Nader is, at least partially, redeemed. Presidents of both parties have eagerly used the power of the CIA for decidedly undemocratic purposes; and no President nor seemingly any Congressperson of either party has ever tried to restrain our country's militarism or the military industrial complex of the past 60 years. Eisenhower's warning has gone unheeded.



I'm not advocating that those on the left side of the political spectrum ought to stop voting for Democrats. But I do think we should consider Johnson's warnings and what one can draw from them: merely putting a Dem in the White House in 2008 doesn't mean that all American troops will be brought home or that America will cede its authority on the world stage. Even anti-war Congresspeople fight tooth and nail to keep the military bases in their districts from closing. My roommate Stevie blames Nader and advocates for progressive candidates on the local level. While having them serve on our school boards, in our state legislatures, etc. is certainly a good thing, conceding to the lesser of two evils in national offices is to concede to militarism, which is, according to Johnson, why the terrorists hate us.

EDIT: You can watch a recent interview with Chalmers Johnson at the Conversations With History site at the UC Berkeley.

Lingerie and Pajama Party