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When the Last Law was Down

24 Apr 2013 by KRAG

The Boston bombings brought out great emotions among my acquaintances, and understandably so. They brought out great emotions in me, as well. One thing I try to avoid, though, is letting my emotions cloud my judgment.

Occasionally, in regard to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I hear people say, “We didn’t learn anything from him,” and “Great; now we have to pay for his room and board for the next 50 years,” and “We should have killed him on the spot.” Their rhetoric feeds their frenzy, bolstering their own anger. My calm and reasoned responses to these views are refuted by ad hominem attacks, calling me a hand-wringing bleeding-heart Liberal (and other, crispier descriptions, that I’m sure you can imagine). Continue Reading »

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Another Mint?

23 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’ve made some additions to my household’s list of neologisms.

Newly remembered/added words are:

  • feep
  • gleep
  • slooby

I was going to add “squiffers,” a word meaning tipsy or drunk (intensified as “squiffer-doodles”) but I learned that “squiffy” is a word in current use, so it isn’t a true neologism. We obviously just bastardized it.

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Posted in Culture | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

Lion’s Tooth

23 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Doc Maynard had a wife. Two of them, actually, and simultaneously, some say.

David S. “Doc” Maynard, one of Seattle’s more colorful founders, married Catherine Simmons Broshear Maynard, a widow he had met along the Oregon Trail. He married her almost immediately upon divorcing Lydia, his first wife, a decree granted via questionable–and later, contestable–conditions. (Doc may have implied that Lydia was…deceased….)

Catherine Maynard proved to be as legendary as her husband, helping thwart an attack on the settlers of Seattle, accepting for a time her husband’s first wife under her own roof, and traveling the state on horseback, riding from Seattle across the Cascades to Ellensburg, well into her 70s.

But she did one other thing which, 150 years later, affects every single Seattle homeowner.

Catherine Maynard brought the dandelion to Seattle. Continue Reading »

Posted in Seattle, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Buddy Buddy

22 Apr 2013 by KRAG

We picked up two “buddy” films this weekend. One was a buddy/fish-out-of-water mashup, and the other was a classic buddy/caper film.

Both were a lot of fun. Continue Reading »

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Chicken Noodle a la David Chang

21 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Simple Living

There has been a ton of interest for this recipe, and with good reason; it’s a great show and a good recipe. If you’ve landed here from a web-search, please, enjoy the recipe. Please also check out my books. You can read excerpts here, or find the books in the banner to the right and on my Author Page at Amazon.

Now, to the recipe:

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The other day I happened across an episode of “The Mind of a Chef.” (How did I miss this show before?) In this episode (“Simplicity”), host and chef David Chang finds places where the chefs have pared everything back to its most simplistic.

While the episode was great, at one point Chang frustrated me entirely. He gives instructions on how to make a simple chicken noodle soup, but blasts through the process with no detail. Example: at one point he instructs us to “boil the shit out of [the broth].” Not very helpful.

But, always on the lookout for good recipes, I spent some time this weekend reconstructing (or deconstructing) Chang’s method from the brief clip. One innovation is to cook the chicken and vegetables separately. A common problem with chicken broth is that the vegetables can overpower the chicken, but by separating the two, Chang makes it possible for us to adjust the mixture according to personal preference and to account for, say, a particularly strong onion or exceptionally sweet carrot.

The result was, in all humbleness, nothing short of excellent.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Recipes | Tagged , , , , , , , | 23 Comments »

Maintain an Even Strain

19 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiIt’s been a difficult week for us all, and continues to be so–nowhere more so this morning than in Boston. In reaction I’ve tried to “Keep calm and carry on” by doing normal things and moving forward with projects. I’ve been able to push the line forward a little in some areas: with this blog, with my gardens, and with the new novel. Continue Reading »

Posted in Culture, Writing | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Going _There_

18 Apr 2013 by KRAG

Blue SunThere’s never an egg timer around when you need one.

As details began to emerge in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, one of my Facebook ephemera went toxic on our collective hrm-hrms, asking us all if now Obama was going to require background checks for purchase of cooking vessels. Yes. He went there, and in record time. We hadn’t even finished counting the wounded and he’d already turned this tragedy into a Second Amendment diatribe.

My mind–being the thing it is–immediately went to the satirical end state. I imagined this fellow on paramilitary maneuvers in the upstate backwoods, pressure-cooker at the ready. I imagined him protesting the proposed ban on all pressure-cookers of greater than an 8-quart capacity. I saw him applying for a carry permit, so he could bring his pressure-cooker with him on his travels. I envisioned him, standing proudly before his arrayed collection of WWII pressure-cookers, including his favorite, a Japanese rice-cooker manufactured in Manchukuo. I pictured him as the charismatic leader in a new front against the War on Liberty, ready to lay down his life for the Amendment that read:

A well fed Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Large Cooking Vessels, shall not be infringed.

To him, background checks to purchase pressure cookers were just the thin edge of the wedge.

Then I came back to reality. Continue Reading »

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