Author: Philip Weiss

Empire Builder

Amtrak train (by skyler miller)
Amtrak train (by skyler miller)

I leave this evening for Madison, Wisconsin. I’ll be taking Amtrak’s Empire Builder train to Chicago, after which they’ll bus me to Madison. I have a flurry of last minute preparations to accomplish. I’m not freaking out over stuff to get done at the last minute, I’m just not the type who packs and gets everything ready a week in advance. Clean the cat box. Do a couple loads of laundry. Change my reservation to drop me at the right station in Madison (actually just finished that). Get some snacks. Pack.

The one thing I have done is pick out my reading material for the trip. My MP3 player is loaded up with audiobooks. I have four physical books I’m bringing with. I won’t read them all, but since my reading choices generally go with my mood I want options. However, I brought small paperbacks for space. Since I’m going to a literary convention, I suspect I’ll pick up a book or two while there.

The convention is Wiscon, a feminist science fiction convention. Although I’m a feminist, I don’t study feminism. I have no idea what kind of feminist I am, and I have no idea what kind of feminism predominates at the convention. (How very privileged of me to not have to declare!) So I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there’ll be enough that I find interesting.

I’m going because some of the most inventive science fiction and fantasy writers call themselves feminists, and I’m hoping to find undiscovered (by me) literature that doesn’t fit the mold. In particular, I’m looking forward to hearing Tiptree co-winner Nisi Shawl read.

Photo Amtrak train by skyler miller used under a Creative Commons By-Nc-Sa 2.0 license.

Pastitsio

A couple of months ago, I tried out a pastitsio recipe in the Better Homes & Gardens Biggest Book of Casseroles. Looking at the index, I realized the cookbook had a different recipe for pastitsio 60 pages earlier. That’s my one gripe about the cookbook; it doesn’t group similar recipes very well. There’s five or six mac and cheese recipes scattered throughout. Why not put them all together? Anyhow, the other pastitsio recipe had fewer pre-made ingredients, so I decided I would try it. It’s better.

The following is my attempt.

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 large onion
  • 8 ounce can tomato sauce
  • ¼ cup sherry
  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
  • 8 ounces uncooked penne pasta
  • 4 eggs
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1½ cups milk
  • 1 cup shredded Romano cheese
  1. Chop onion
  2. Cook beef and onion until meat is browned and onion is tender
  3. Drain
  4. Add tomato sauce, sherry, and cinnamon to meat and onions
  5. Heat until bubbling
  6. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 30 minutes
  7. Cook penne pasta according to directions
  8. Lightly beat 2 eggs
  9. Toss cooked pasta with eggs and 2 tablespoons of butter
  10. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat
  11. Stir in flour, salt and pepper until smooth
  12. Add milk (slowly)
  13. Cook until mixture is thick
  14. Lightly beat 2 eggs
  15. Stir mixture into the eggs
  16. (make sure meat, pasta, and sauce are all finished)
  17. Preheat oven to 350°
  18. Grease a 3 quart casserole dish
  19. Spread half the pasta in dish
  20. Spread half the meat sauce over the pasta
  21. Spread 1/3 of the cheese over the pasta
  22. Spread remaining pasta on top of cheese
  23. Spread remaining meat sauce over the pasta
  24. Spread 1/3 of the cheese over the pasta
  25. Pour white sauce evenly over cheese
  26. Spread remaining cheese on top
  27. Cover and bake for 20 minutes
  28. Remove cover and bake for additional 15 minutes
  29. Let stand for 15 minutes to cool and set

pastitsio

Personals sites

One of my long term goals is to get married. I quote that because I am not hooked to the idea of a legal marriage or the ceremony itself. What I’d like to do is be in my old age and have been with the same person for decades. I look at my grandparents and think I want that.

I signed up earlier this week for a personals web site. I’ve had accounts on these things in the past, but I’ve used the free versions. Never with good results. I sprung for a paid version this time. That was a tough mental bump to get over. The mental logic is: I should be able to meet people on my own god given personality and ability. Paying for a personals site is giving up. It’s moral failure. That’s my instant reaction anyway.

The thing is: the dating pool in my social group is pretty small. If you don’t believe me, I have a diagram I can show you. I need to expand my possibilities. New groups of people. New activities. New sources.

Anyway, I’ve decided that I shouldn’t close off possibilities. So I sucked it up and pulled the debit card out of the wallet. Maybe it works. Maybe something else I do works.

Why Twitter is awesome

It seems to be in vogue among my friends to complain about the uselessness of Twitter. To those who say this, I give you the following exchange:

  • scalzi (award-winning author John Scalzi): Breakfast: Claritin, Diet Sunkist and a multivitamin. Now I’m ready to face the day.
  • nalohopkinson (award-winning author Nalo Hopkinson): Breakfast: ripe plantain rounds fried in olive oil, lightly salted; sage n spinach wilted in butter n olive oil; bacon.
  • kingrat (award-winning, if you count my Seattle P-I newspaper carrier of the month deal in 1983): @scalzi @nalohopkinson ‘s breakfast sounds much tastier.
  • scalzi: @kingrat I don’t think it’s a huge surprise to discover @nalohopkinson OR her breakfast are cooler than me or mine, do you?
  • nalohopkinson: @scalzi @kingrat A lot of it is in the description. Keeping my writerly hand in.
  • scalzi: @nalohopkinson Well, and the fact that unlike my breakfast, your breakfast consists of actual, you know, FOOD.
  • nalohopkinson: @kingrat @scalzi scalzi’s breakfast this morning is definitely…picturesque.
  • nalohopkinson: @scalzi I’ve found that food is generally better to eat than non-food.

Need a simple universal remote

Hello lazyweb!

My stepfather is functionally illiterate. Normally he can get by with help from my brother and I without too much difficulty, as we handle his mail for him. However, we’ve run into a situation where we’re kind of stuck: his television.

He has satellite television because the cable company wanted large amounts of money to run cable from the highway to the house. As seems to be the case lots of times with cable/satellite/television setups, this requires two remotes: the television remote for power and volume, and the cable/satellite remote for channels. The problem we’ve run into is that dad sometimes hits the wrong button and changes the channel, or the source, or something else on the TV or satellite and then only gets a blank screen or static. If he lived next door, we could walk over and fix it. It’s a two hour drive.

tekpal-remoteWhat we’d like to find is a simple universal remote. In other words, one that has only a few buttons and doesn’t require switching from “device” to “television” to use properly. Volume and power operate on the television; channel changing operates on the satellite receiver. Automatically. You’d think something like that would be out there. I’ve wanted something like that myself but never found it, though I haven’t looked particularly hard. It’s necessary for dad, or he’s going to go weeks without TV sometimes when neither my brother or I can get there right away. Before mom died, this wasn’t a problem; she’d fix things.

sony-remote

What would be ideal in appearance is this Tek Pal Remote Control. But that operates only on a TV. A basic two device remote
like Sony’s is a little more complicated, but would work if it didn’t require switching back and forth between the two devices. Unfortunately, it does require switching as far as I can tell.

I’ve found a couple that will lock the volume to the television, but none that lock the channel changing to the other device.

So, anyone got any suggestions?

Sausage, leek and apple pie

On a whim, I decided to search for sausage pie on Flickr. I wanted to see how high up the list the photos of my sausage pie would be. I was kinda surprised at how many sausage pie photos appeared. My sausage pie photos appear fairly high in the list now. Score! Anyhoo, I saw a photo of a Sausage, apple and leek pie in the list and said to myself, I must have this pie!. Fortunately, the photographer linked to the recipe at Making Light. This morning, I attempted to make it myself. It is good.

So here’s the recipe as I’ve adapted it. In particular, I left out the saffron because that stuff is expensive. For the original, follow the link. Pictures follow.

Ingredients
  • 2 large leeks
  • 2 large Granny Smith apples
  • ¼ pound celery root
  • 1½ pounds bulk sausage (mixture of bulk breakfast sausage and leftover mild Italian bulk)
  • 4 tablespoons fine gauge tapioca
  • dry sherry
  • 4 tablespoons butter
  • all purpose flour
  • salt
  • top and bottom crusts for pie (however you like to make/buy these)
Prep work
  • Peel and core apples
  • Slice apples to even ¼ inch thickness
  • Wash leeks (I actually found it easier to wash the leek after cutting lengthwise in next steps)
  • Cut leeks lengthwise, then into ⅓ inch pieces
  • Pare celery root
  • Slice finely
Cooking
  1. Preheat oven to 425 °
  2. Brown sausage, breaking it apart into small pieces
  3. Set aside
  4. Put leek and celery root in just enough water to cover the vegetables
  5. Bring to a boil and cook just until vegetables are wilted
  6. Drain, reserving broth
  7. Toss 3 tablespoons of tapioca with vegetables
  8. Melt 4 tablespoons butter in a saucepan
  9. Add 4 tablespoons flour
  10. Stir until thick/done (i.e., make a roux)
  11. Add in vegetable broth, a splash of sherry, and salt to taste
  12. Give it a quick stir
  13. Add in vegetables
  14. Set aside to cool a bit
Assembling the pie
  1. Lay bottom crust in pie plate
  2. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons tapioca on bottom crust
  3. Dredge apples in flour
  4. Layer apples in compact circles, two levels for my deep pie
  5. Layer half the leek mixture on top
  6. Put in the sausage next
  7. Put remaining leek mixture on top
  8. Add top crust
  9. Vent the crust
Baking
  1. Bake at 425° for 15 minutes
  2. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or it appears done
  3. Let cool to solidify a bit

Thomas Ricks on Iraq

I read Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco earlier this year. That was all about the invasion and bungling of the war in Iraq. He has a new book out, The Gamble, about the surge. Despite being frustrated by the book, I thought it was illuminating. I may pick up The Gamble because I don’t think I’ve got nearly the same coverage of information on the surge as I did on earlier efforts in Iraq. I haven’t decided yet.

I did take the opportunity to attend a speaking event he did at the Seattle Public Library on Thursday. It’s kind of the 20 minute version of his book. Here’s the points I took away from it (some of these came from the Q&A):

  • Ricks sees Obama’s approach as somewhat similar to Bush’s, pre-surge days. At the time, Bush’s policy was to turn as much stuff over to the Iraqis and get the hell out. They weren’t ready, and the things we did were counter-productive. Obama’s policy is to get out by middle of next year. Which means we’d have to turn as much stuff over to the Iraqis as possible and get the hell out. It could be doomed to as much failure as Bush’s attempt.
  • There’s no good options anymore. It’s trying to figure out the least bad option.
  • The surge failed. Security is better, but there’s been no political compromise. The point was to improve security so political compromise could be made.
  • Shiites believe they won, so they don’t want to compromise. Sunnis believe they are linked to Sunnis in the region and so should have more clout. Kurds will attempt to be as separate as possible de facto, no matter the result. None have any proclivity to compromise.
  • He sees Pakistan as the real danger. Iraq won’t be solved, but they don’t have the infrastructure to be dangerous. Afghanistan might be solved, and they don’t have the infrastructure either. Pakistan might fall apart, and they have nuclear weapons.

Pea soup with bacon

I’ve attempted a green pea soup once before. It was decent, but was missing something. Yesterday I tried out the pea soup recipe in Greg Atkinson’s West Coast Cooking.

As always, what I did is somewhat adapted from the cookbook. If you want the official recipe, buy the book.

  • ½ stick unsalted butter
  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 head iceberg lettuce
  • 2+ cups chicken broth
  • 1½ pounds frozen green peas
  • 6 ounces bacon
  • ½ cup breadcrumbs
  1. Cut bacon into small pieces
  2. Fry bacon until crispy
  3. Drain fat and dampen bacon on a paper towel
  4. Mix bacon and breadcrumbs
  5. Peel and thinly slice onion
  6. Wash and shred lettuce
  7. Heat butter in large soup pot over medium high heat
  8. Cook the onion until tender
  9. Add lettuce
  10. Cook just until wilted
  11. Add chicken broth
  12. Wait for boiling
  13. Add peas
  14. Cook about 10 to 15 minutes until peas are tender
  15. Purée soup in blender a couple cupfuls at a time
  16. Salt and pepper soup to taste
  17. Sprinkle breadcrumb/bacon stuff on top of served soup

This time the soup was pretty tasty. I think the addition of onion and bacon helped quite a bit. I don’t remember exactly what was in the last recipe, but I’m pretty sure those weren’t in it.

Pea Soup
Pea Soup

Net losers with “free trade”

Container Ship
Container Ship

I’m currently reading The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition) (watch for a review over at Rat’s Reading eventually). While I love reading about economics, too often economists simplify things when arguing.

One area that frequently comes up is free trade. Libertarian and market-religion economists love to push free trade over all. I’m generally a fan of free trade, but one argument in favor of it bothers me: free trade improves everyone’s wealth/income/economic standing. This is not true. A better phrasing is that free trade improves a nation’s net wealth. But within the nation, some individuals will become net winners and some will be net losers. Under free trade over the long run, the gains from the net winners will be more than the losses for the net losers. But there will be net losers, particularly in the short run.

To illustrate, I shall pick a commodity. I’ll call the commodity airplanes. We might have one maker of planes in the country. For this illustration I’ll call that manufacturer Boeing, and I’m going to assume it has one owner. We might have one manufacturer because of protectionism from the government. (And in reality, Boeing receives significant subsidies from the U.S. government in several forms.) The protectionism will result in higher costs for airlines and thus higher prices for consumers, both for personal travel as well as for good shipped via airplanes.

If the U.S. were to eliminate the favored status for Boeing, as a whole we’d be better off. Foreign competition (and perhaps domestic as well) would lower the prices of airplanes. Travel would become cheaper and goods shipped via airplane would as well. We’d save a lot of money in small amounts that add up.

There would be one big loser though: the owner of Boeing. He’d lose lots of money.

Overall, the U.S. would be better off because the savings from all those cheaper goods and travel would (more than likely) be more than what the owner of Boeing lost. As a whole, we’re better off. But not everyone sees the same benefit and in particular the Boeing owner sees a huge loss relative to his former position.

Too often I read economists glossing over this fact that some folks are net losers from free trade. We are not all better off because of free trade. A better phrasing would be that most of us are better off because of free trade. There’s lots of different ways that can be framed. It could be looked at as protected industries stealing from the public and deserving nothing. It could be that the public should compensate the formerly protected in return for removing protection. But there isn’t any magic that turns everyone into winners.

Some economists believe that this distinction shouldn’t be made publicly. If free trade isn’t promoted as being a winner for everyone, the losers will band together and become special interests and could convince voters to be protectionist. In order to keep us on the march towards libertarian free trade with gains for most of us, we have to ignore the losers. One clue that an economist believes the distinction shouldn’t be made is if the economist has a position with the American Enterprise Institute or the Cato Institute. Often folks making such arguments aren’t economists at all, but pundits with some economic knowledge. (Yes, I fully realize I am a non-economist making economic arguments.)

In the early parts of the book, Bryan Caplan uses some phrasing that falls into this trap. I don’t think he’s one of the everyone’s a winner crowd. He’s a professor at George Mason University where folks like Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok also teach (they run Marginal Revolution, an excellent econ blog). My view of GMU is that it is a home for non-dogmatic economic libertarians. Which is kind of where I find myself on the economic political spectrum. Kind of.

Now, back to The Myth of the Rational Voter.

Image Container Ship by Nedster78 used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Greg Atkinson’s Meat Loaf

A few years ago when I worked at Ye Olde Chaine Bookstore, Sasquatch Books pimped out Greg Atkinson’s West Coast Cooking to us. Or had us pimp it out. The deal was, whichever store sold the most copies would get a prize. Or something. That’s how the book came to my attention. I did buy a copy using my employee discount at some point. I haven’t been inspired to use it all that much, though I’m not sure why. I don’t recall getting any bad results from using it, other than his version of rice pilaf which I thought was pretty bland.

One recipe I did like was his meat loaf recipe, and I got a hankering for meat loaf this week. So I made it last night.

This is my adapted version. For the real version, you’ll need to find your own copy.

  • 1 pound ground beef
  • 1 pound mild Italian style bulk pork sausage
  • 1 onion
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • ¼ cup mushroom broth
  • ¼ cup ketchup
  • 1 tablespoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon pepper
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • ½ teaspoon nutmeg
  • bacon
  1. Preheat oven to 375°
  2. Grease a 2 quart casserole pan
  3. Chop the onion in a food processor
  4. Add eggs, bread crumbs, broth, ketchup, salt, pepper, thyme, and nutmeg.
  5. Pulse food processor until everything is mixed well
  6. Combine beef, sausage, and onion mixture in a mixing bowl
  7. Mix meat and onion by hand (spoon sucks for this)
  8. Press into an (artisan bread) shape in the casserole pan
  9. Lay bacon slices over the top
  10. Bake for approximately 1 hour

What really makes this is the addition of sausage as well as the abundance of onion. Also, it’s very easy, though that’s not unusual for a meat loaf.