Fausta’s Blog

Yes, it’s that time of year again.
Since I don’t tolerate food with sugar added, here’s the sum total of my baking:

Apple and pecan pie:
The day before: marinade 1/2 cup of raisins in a glass dish and add enough bourbon to cover the raisins. Cover the dish and set aside overnight (no need to refrigerate).

The day you’re serving the pie:
Heat oven to 400F.

In a very large bowl, mix:
8 large apples, peeled and cored, and cut into large (1/4″ thick) pieces
(You might want to caramelize the apples slightly, by sauteing in butter and a dash of freshly-grated nutmeg)
the raisins marinated in bourbon
1 tbs cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 cup pecan pieces. You can also use chopped walnuts.
Mix all ingredients until well coated.

Line a deep pie dish with one Pillsbury pie crust (or you can make your own crust).

Pour the apples, raisins and pecans into the pie plate. Cut 1/4 lb (one bar) of refrigerated butter into chunks and dot the apples with the butter. Please use butter. Cover the apples with the other pie crust, seal the edges and perforate the top with a fork.

Bake at 400F for 45 minutes.

Serve warm with Vermont cheddar cheese, or with Edy’s No Sugar Added vanilla ice cream. I prefer the cheddar.

Note: While I add no sugar, if you use sweet apples the pie will be sweet. Bear that in mind if you must watch your blood sugars.
Additionally, this is not a low calorie dessert.

UPDATE, Thursday 26 November
Today’s pie:

Hamburgers are the Hummers of food in global warming

When it comes to global warming, hamburgers are the Hummers of food, scientists say.

Simply switching from steak to salad could cut as much carbon as leaving the car at home a couple days a week.

That’s because beef is such an incredibly inefficient food to produce and cows release so much harmful methane into the atmosphere, said Nathan Pelletier of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Well folks, let me lay it on line:

I am allergic to soy. I found out after suffering from a chronic stomach ache that lasted three months. You don’t really want to know what that was like. As a result, I have to avoid every thing that contains soy, including lotions, shampoos and cosmetics, but particularly tofu, miso and soybeans.

Adding to that, I am severely hypoglycemic. What that means is that I have very low tolerance for carbohydrates, which in turn means I must get most of my calories from proteins and fats. I tried living on salads and lost so much weight my doctor was worried.

And what foods contain proteins and fats?

Meat, fish, poultry.

Which means I’ll gladly remain at the top of the food chain, thank you.

Now that we established that, I’ll let you have my fries.

(If you must ask, my cholesterol is excellent, thank you.)

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Doug Ross

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Via Maria, Newly released files detail early US spy network

Before Julia Child became known to the world as a leading chef, she admitted at least one failing when applying for a job as a spy: impulsiveness.

Details about Child’s background as a government agent come into the public spotlight Thursday with the National Archives’ release of more than 35,000 top-secret personnel files of World War II-era spies. The CIA held this information for decades.

The 750,000 documents identify the vast spy network managed by the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA. President Franklin Roosevelt created the OSS, the country’s first centralized intelligence operation.

Child’s file shows that in her OSS application, she included a note expressing regret she left an earlier department store job hastily because she did not get along with her boss, said William Cunliffe, an archivist who has worked extensively with the OSS records at the National Archives.

You probably always thought she was a great cook with a falsetto voice, but now you know she was also a spy.

Here she is making two of my favorite foods, steak and chocolate cake, in 1978:

Now excuse me while I finish breakfast.

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Here’s the Doody family who in spite of their last name, which would have brought chuckles from every preschooler in our area, look very nice:

So nice, they’ve been crowned The Faggot Family, and

to kick off their reign they will launch National Faggot Week.

which is sponsored by Mr. Brain’s faggots.

No, not this Mr. Brain.

Fred Doody, the dad, basks in his enthusiasm for the great British faggot:

“The great British faggot is full of flavour and a great belly warmer at this time of year.”

I’ll make a mental note of that, since I’ve never had a great British faggot (at least not to the best of my knowledge), but I really liked spotted dick.

Mr. Doody’s not alone; the Beeb article states, “Fans have published the Good Faggot Guide“.

Go on…grab some faggots for tea tonight

Update, Sunday 15 April: A friend sent two recipes for spotted dick:
the The Foody’s, and the Beeb’s which has two parts, the dick and the custard.

No, I didn’t need to make any of this up.

Technorati tags faggots, food

Britain Was Once Great Britain

But today, the sun not only literally sets on an extinct British empire; it is figuratively setting on Britain itself.

Two recent examples provide evidence:

One is the way Britain handled the recent act of war against it by Iran. Everything about the British reaction revealed a civilization in decline.

Whether the British sailors and marines should have put up more resistance — i.e., any resistance — to the unprovoked Iranian military attack is something for military and other experts to decide. Whether the captured sailors and marines offered more information and more cooperation, and more smiles than was necessary to the leader of their kidnappers, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will also be determined in ongoing investigations. Whether the British government engaged in appeasement of Iran or ineffective diplomacy will also have to be judged.

What does seem clear, however, is that the British government did not confront the Iranians in any way reminiscent of a great country, let alone of Britain’s great past. If we judge the British government’s reaction alone — without any reference to the behavior of the British sailors and marines — Iran was the feared power, not Great Britain, which acted like the supplicant.

But what really makes one weep for Britain’s lost greatness is what has happened since the sailors and marines were released.

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The NY Sun has an interesting series of editorials on Antiquities and Patrimony; The New Yorker has more.
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There’s a fatwa against the Jawa Report.
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News Flash: People Get Nasty on the Blogosphere!
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Last Fall Harrods was throwing out soldiers in uniform on Veteran’s Day. Now the trend’s crossed the Atlantic and we have Marines in Dress Uniforms Kicked Out of Target Store
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Obama doesn’t know that Congressional ethics rules forbid the use of federal office space for political and campaign activity.

Thank you, Larwyn.

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In a lighter mode, after last Friday’s item on bamboo and kudzu – where Siggy said that bamboo is polically correct kudzu – Obi’s Sister sent a link to this:

from the author of

I’m sure Ms Balwin will never run out of kudzu to write about, but if she does, she can move North and write about bamboo.

It turns out there are TWO more books on kudzu cooking:

I don’t think that even my friend who loves spinach would go for the kudzu.

We’ve all heard The Girl from Ipanema,

Well, Mark Steyn’s singing about the boy with carbon offsets,
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the boy with carbon offsets goes walking and when he passes each one he passes goes aaaiiieeeeeeeee!

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Today’s podcast is now archived. Go listen to Steve Graham of Hog on Ice, Layla and I discuss lard and Ann Coulter.

Everybody might be talking about Coulter but we’re the only ones to inject lard into the conversation.
PS, I laughed so hard one of Steve’s commenters asked,

Does she have a speech impediment?

Yes.

Steve Graham of Hog on Ice will be talking about his new book,
The Good, the Spam, and the Ugly

The call in number is (646) 652-2639

… and Lucianne has it.

It’s titled The Good, the Spam and the Ugly

And if you didn’t get his first book, what are you waiting for?

It has the best pie crust recipe on Earth.

Steve’s going to be on Fox. His fans eagerly await for details.

That is, if you can find tofu!

Because you sure won’t be having any empanadas de carne:

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise stores that sell meat above a government-set price.

The government says supermarkets have been artificially boosting prices of basic foods by manipulating stockpiles.

But critics blame regular food shortages on prices imposed four years ago, forcing shops to sell at a loss.

Many privately-owned supermarkets have suspended sales of beef, milk and sugar after one chain was temporarily closed for pricing meat above allowed levels.

The government has already seized goods that it says are being hoarded to drive up prices.

Chavez controls the courts, the legislature, all branches of governemnt, the media, and now the food supply:

President Chavez told a gathering of pensioners in the capital, Caracas, that he was waiting for the “first excuse” to take over privately-owned outlets that manipulate prices.

Just another day in Cubazuela.

Update: Round-up at Publius Pundit

As I’ve mentioned before, I normally spend twenty minutes or less making dinner. I’m the one making dinner most evenings here at casa de Fausta, but The Husband’s in charge when pressure cookers are involved.

Back when I was in my teens I was sitting at my parents’ kitchen doing homework when the unattended pressure cooker blew up and, even when I was physically unscathed by the explosion, I don’t ever want to handle a pressure cooker.

The Husband’s a lot braver than I. My mother’s a lot braver than I. Anyone who uses a pressure cooker is a lot braver than I.

My mother is a really good cook – so good that she makes it look completely effortless. But even she has a limit: when we were little she decided to make homemade pasteles, and it was so much work she’s purchased them from people who specialize ever since.

While my sister shares my simplified approach to cooking, our brother’s a great cook. He loves to make really good meals, and he actually loves the process of cooking. On special occasions he spends hours slaving at the stove.

I remember one year I asked him how he makes his pork roast, which he was planning to make the next day. He was seasoning with olive oil, oregano and garlic a leg from what once must have been a gigantic pig, so it would marinade overnight. It was getting late at night and I was in the kitchen having a glass of milk before going to bed, so he said he’d explain the next morning, if I could be up by seven AM.

Seven AM is a little early, but I’m an early riser and since we were both on vacation I figured he’d be heading to the beach ahead of the crowds and the hot sun, and after a morning at the beach he’d be working on the roast later in the afternoon.

The next morning the two of us were in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast while everybody else was still sleeping, and the conversation went like,

(Brother) B: You have to start now so it’ll be ready by 5PM.

(Fausta) F: But it’s seven in the morning. So you mean it’s going to take ten hours of working in the kitchen?

B: Yeah, that’s about right. And it has to sit for half an hour after it’s done.

F: I thought you were just going to give me the recipe, get the pork roasting in the oven, and then go out and have some fun.

B: This is fun.

I carefully tip-toed away from the kitchen, but my brother spent the whole day at it and did a wonderful job. He would feel right at home at ManCamp with Val and Steve. (I can’t wait for Steve’s next cookbook to come out.)

I’m thinking of this because I’m considering trying Darren’s chili recipe. My quick chili recipe goes like this:
Heat in a medium flame 2 tbs olive oil in a cast-iron skillet
and add 1 lb ground chuck.
Once the beef is almost brown, add 1 pkg Bearitos Chili Seasoning, stir well.
Add 1 can (14.5 oz) Hunt’s diced tomatoes
and 1 15 oz can of Westbrae chili beans. Stir.
Lower the flame to low, and simmer for at least 40 minutes.
Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.
I serve it over a wild rice/brown rice blend, but Darren’s spaghetti looks good, too.

Darren, like Val and Steve and my brother, likes to cook.

So the question is, will the new recipe be worth it, or will it be too much work? After all, there is no Chipotle in the area.

Update: Cooking for engineers – I like!

Later… forget the chili – Scott made chicken, shrimp and sausage gumbo!

Technorati tags men and women, cooking, chili, food