23 posts from January 2008

Ratatouille

Graphics, storyline, dialogue, everything is perfect. We all loved it, every one of us. I think most people who've seen the movie have done a search for a recipe for Ratatouille. Here is one I have found:

Ratatouille

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
• 1 large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
• 1 small eggplant, cubed
• 2 green bell peppers, coarsely chopped
• 4 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped, or 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) diced tomatoes
• 3 to 4 small zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch slices
• 1 teaspoon dried leaf basil
• 1/2 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon dried leaf thyme
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

 

In a 4-quart Dutch oven or saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add garlic and onions and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 6 to 7 minutes. Add eggplant; stir until coated with oil. Add peppers; stir to combine.

Cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep vegetables from sticking.

Add tomatoes, zucchini, and herbs; mix well. Cover and cook over low heat about 15 minutes, or until eggplant is tender but not too soft.
Serves 4.

I had purchased a six pack of 1oz boxes of Sun Maid vanilla yogurt-covered raisins for my children's school lunches. Getting a little hungry and wanting a snack, I swiped one from the pantry. I was surprised and repulsed to find dead bugs in the little box!

So, I took many pictures, packaged it up in a plastic ziplock bag, and sent a message to Sun Maid. YUCK!

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, Wednesday, February 6, 2008. The Lenten season will last until Easter Sunday, Sunday, March 23, 2008, which is the greatest feast day of all the Christian-Catholic calendar.

Lent is a season of fasting and abstaining. Fast days are Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, where rules have become very lax and Catholics are expected to meet at least the bare minimum of limiting themselves to only one meal (or two smaller ones). Every Friday, we are to abstain from eating meat in a way that doesn't indulge in classism. For example, abstaining from meat is pointless if you eat expensive lobster or sushi as the fish requirement. It's a time to be humble. To this end, Catholics are also instructed to pick something to sacrifice during Lent. Many Catholics choose sweets, chocolate, smoking, livejournal, alcohol or other behaviors they consider non-essential indulges. Unfortunately, sometimes these commitments last about as long as New Years Resolutions about the same items.

We abstain from things that we will notice when they are gone.

Next Wednesday, I will begin the lenten season with my commitment to abstain from fast food and all other restaurants. I enjoy cooking but I tend to get busy and too often will rely on a quick pizza order or fried chicken from the grocery store to get us through that meal. For my family, I offer up that laziness to God and dedicate to making sure my family has healthy, homemade meals every evening. No short cuts!

Poor Rudy. He'd put all his eggs in a Florida basket, only to have Florida Republicans abandon him. Guiliani will be dropping out of the race and throwing his support behind McCain, who won Florida 5% over Romney. Huckabee doesn't seem like a factor anymore and did anyone sane really take Ron Paul seriously? The votes don't seem to reflect any consideration for the candidate that I started to refer to as Huckabee Lite.

The media reports that Romney has enough money in the bank to keep himself in the race, which is an interesting idea to me. If most of Romney's campaign is funded by himself and he's only in the race because of his own money, that's a good indication that the votes won't culminate for him as much as they will for McCain, for whom many people are giving him their money. This makes me feel better about the GOP, because Romney does still scare the hell out of me. Between Romney and McCain, McCain is the lesser evil.

Don't think for a moment that we missed the classless, smug celebration of Governor Charlie Crist when McCain referred to last night as "an entirely Republican Primary." We saw what you did there, Crist. Crist had put his support behind McCain, which isn't surprising since both Republicans are huge on unnecessary, permanent, damaging tax cuts.

Clinton took Florida with 50%, which means nothing more than show because Florida has no delegates thanks to Crist. She vows to make the delegates count at the Nomination but I can't figure why she would put up such a fuss against the DNC now when she fully complied with all their requests to ignore Florida before the primary... oh, right, it's because she won.

I feel a bit disconnected from Obama after this primary due to his lack of response in Florida. If there was a response equal to or greater than the fantastic, eloquent, articulate and poignant responses he's been delivering this entire campaign, I haven't seen any evidence of it. I have caught coverage of a response to some idiotic idea that while at the State of the Union Address, Clinton and Obama were snubbing each other, or one was snubbing the other, or whatever it was. In the past 18 hours, I've heard much ado about nothing and nothing about what matters.

I have heard that Edwards will be dropping out of the race. My response is, "Was he still running?"

When Jenny sent me her old Canon PowerShot S1 IS, I gave my ancient Sony Cybershot to Tom, who gave his Kodak EasyShare CX4310, who gave his 35mm to Eddie, who gave his 110 to Bailey. This weekend we went to Harbor Heights Park in Harbor Heights to take some pictures, repair a geocache hide and let the kids play.

Most of the weekend was spent cleaning, although I had originally wanted to go to Sarasota for my own private photo trip, especially with the deadline on the Sarasota Magazine photo contest coming up soon. Maybe next weekend.

We got the taxes done and our return, which is unfortunately a few thousand less than I thought it would be this year, should be here in a couple weeks.

Tennessee keeps looking better and better, but we'll see what's in the plan.

Here's a picture of my dog:

Indiana

I liked Romney's performance.
I liked Guiliani's answers.
I liked McCain's attitude.
Huckabee and Paul just scare the crap out of me.

Don't get me wrong, Romney scares me, too, but he performed well tonight. He's concise and clear, even though his ideas are repulsive and will kill the poor.

I'll only feel comfortable with Guiliani or McCain winning the GOP Nomination and McCain gave a defeatest closing statement so we know he won't be it. He really kissed up to Guiliani so if Rudy does get the Nom, McCain's made a good starting pitch for the ticket.

I don't know how many times I have to say it, but I'll say it again: Tax Cuts Kill Local Government!

They all seem to assume Clinton will get the DNC Nomination. I'm not convinced that's true. Maybe they're just attacking her because she's an easier target than Obama?

Hey, female singletons, Drew Peterson is back on the market!

Does anybody actually believe Stacy Peterson ran off with another man, abandoning her children without a single word for over eight months, and cannot be found by law enforcement, FBI or anyone who's watched the news and be able to ID her? If she's left the country with someone, wouldn't someone have an idea who it would be? Why doesn't Drew Peterson have an idea who she ran off with if he's so sure that's what she did? Wouldn't law enforcement and FBI be able to find him?

Seriously. Anybody buy any of his story against what the sister has said?

On a related note, if it weren't for Heath Ledger, our news would have been entirely about killed or missing white women. If I were to trust Florida news, I'd believe that POC never get hurt unless they're a famous sports celebrity or doing something wrong. It's always white women who end up in trouble, even when they lie about it. With the emphasis on white women, it's understandable why some quip, "Won't somebody think of the white women!" as a satire of "Won't somebody think of the children!", but can we ever analyse why white women are equated and treated like children in so many circumstances instead of mocking this exercise of sexism as if it's something that white women benefit from?

One of those white women was a North Port mom was kidnapped and killed, dumped just down the road at our I-75 exit (this was after police failed to locate her from her 911 call and nobody who saw her clawing at the Camaro windows and calling for help picking up their phones to call 911). There's been no motive so far for why Michael King abducted and murdered Denise Amber Lee. I really hate when shit happens in my backyard, especially when it's so close that "backyard" seem less figurative and more literal.

Squirrel

Squirrels just don't sit still for a picture!

The kids came home with their second quarter progress reports (aka. report cards) today and I'm happy to say that all three have performed admirably! I have to make calls to Eddie's and Michael's teachers tomorrow to ask a couple questions and respond to a request for conference. I've touched base already with Bailey's teacher via email on a single concern I've had.

While Bailey was in CCD, I happened to find Charlotte County Fire/EMS Station No. 15 in North Port Charlotte. I grabbed some images and coords for waymarking. I have several fire stations to waymark but cannot complete the Waymark applications without information that Tom has. I may have to email Station No. 15 for the information, anyway, since it seems relatively new. I also captured the following image of a secluded residential area that wasn't developed much:

Secluded

Dinner was a slow-cooked pot roast that I'd cooked for eight hours since 10am this morning. My slow-cooker pot roasts always turn out flavourless so this time I tried something beyond tossing in beef stock, spices and veggies. I fried some cured pork in a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan, removed the cooked pork, then browned the sides of the roast in then butter/pork fat before adding it to the crockpot. Then, I added the remaining frying mixture from the pan, tossed in the bacon, and added the remainder of the veggies. It turned out to make a big difference in flavour and I received many compliments. I added an additional side of brussle sprouts, which Michael and Ed can't get enough of.

Tomorrow is an alternatively scheduled day of rest for me, because of medical reasons. I have a few calls to make and then to drop off an electric payment but other than that, I'm keeping my day limited to tending to Tommy and maintaining the necessities.

Bailey shows off her family drawing

The teacher labeled the people, including several non-existent pets that were included at the bottom of the picture that weren't in frame of the photograph. Bailey added her father as an after-thought, which is why he doesn't have a label. Seeing him as an after-thought for her when asked to create a family picture, and seeing how she'd deliberately left him off her Family Tree project, makes me wonder what she is responding to. I've had continuing problems with him and his wife doing the whole ugly parent alienation thing and, what's more is he's paranoid about what I'm saying about him to a point where he's accusing me of things I've never said or done. Apparently, asking my daughter how her weekend was is a horrible, awful thing that's done for the sole purpose of hurting him... not because I missed my daughter and want to hear about her weekend away from home or anything. I'm telling ya.

Bailey's father's inability to act responsibly has become a problem. Every simple matter is complicated for the sake of creating an argument until it becomes absolutely necessary for me to just make a decision rather than consult with him and reach a compromise through mature discussion. I offered him Christmas 2007 because the travel during the holidays had postponed our Christmas celebration. Instead of taking it, he argued with me, made a lot of unnecessary conditions, and then accused me recently of never allowing him to have extra time with our daughter. His lack of financial responsibility was supposed to end when he signed the Income Deduction Order but then has refused to hand the IDO to his employer, prefering to pay child support mid-month at less than the ordered amount. Every issue is an argument where he wants to include a dozen or more irrelevant and bizarrely misinterpreted issues, and it just becomes a big, unproductive headache.

Parking lot line

Our visitation pick-up/drop-off is exactly in between the two residences, because he claimed he couldn't spare the fuel or time expense to pick her up from or drop her off at her home, but continuously comes up to my home, or meets at her school which only a mile away for extra, unnecessary things that he decides have to be discussed face-to-face. Their popular recreational spot is South Venice Beach, which requires going past my home. He refuses to take her to CCD on Sunday so she must go on Wednesday, making it impossible for Michael and Eddie to participate in Scouts, because he has his own church functions, but has stopped going to church since the agreed order was entered and appearances were no longer necessary. She's often dressed inappropriately, given worn handmedowns and used toys from her step-sister while her step-sister receives new, left unwatched and unattended, he neglects to comply with the telephone visitation that's been ordered, and her hair is cut unevenly by her step-mother to "get even with" me over some photo album that's not even here (but apparently I've hidden it). It gets more and more insane.

I just don't agree with having Shared Parental Responsibility, which is called Joint Legal Custody everywhere else, because of the sheer impossibility of dealing with this man about any issue. He seems so preoccupied with making sure he gets his, or that everything is cut down the middle according to his perception, that he completely misses what's best for Bailey. And if Bailey's considers him outside of her family... what am I fighting to accomplish?

And to lighten the mood, here's a picture of my dog:

Indiana

Brown Soda Bread

Brown Soda Bread

• 4 cups wholemeal flour
• 4 cups white flour
• 2 ts salt
• 2 ts baking soda
• 3 cups buttermilk

Mix all dry indegredients together. Make a well in the center and gradually stir in the buttermilk, mixing the dry ingredients carefully, adding just enough buttermilk to make a soft dough. Do this as quickly as you can do it thoroughly. Turn dough onto a floured surface and divide into two loaves, shaping each into a circle. Place each loaf into a 7" greased pie plate to keep the bread's shape and cut a deep cross into the top of each loaf. Bake at 450°F for 15 minutes and then reduce to 400°F for 25 minutes, until the bread is done. It'll make a hollow sound when you tap it. Put on a rack for cooling.