I also made cheesecake, and my sister brought sugar cookies, and my mother made Christmas fudge. The wife made these sausage and cheese balls that she only does this one time every year, as otherwise we might eat nothing else.
The Feast of Christmas
The steaks are ribeyes, some two inches thick, served medium rare. The croissants are filled with many things, from chocolate to ginger to orange marmalade.
I also made cheesecake, and my sister brought sugar cookies, and my mother made Christmas fudge. The wife made these sausage and cheese balls that she only does this one time every year, as otherwise we might eat nothing else.
I also made cheesecake, and my sister brought sugar cookies, and my mother made Christmas fudge. The wife made these sausage and cheese balls that she only does this one time every year, as otherwise we might eat nothing else.
Victorian Parlor Games
Since so many of our Christmas stories are rough-speaking Victorian, especially A Christmas Carol, you might enjoy some appropriate games for family and friends.
Traditionally played on Christmas Eve, players of Snapdragon must find themselves a broad, shallow bowl, and then prepare to risk their health. Into this bowl should be poured two dozen raisins. If raisins are hard to come by, almonds, grapes or plums will suffice. You should then pour a bottle of brandy into the bowl so that the raisins bob up and down like drowning flies. Place the bowl on a sturdy table, turn the lights down low, and then, with appropriate panache, ignite the brandy.
To play Snapdragon, arrange your family and friends around the blazing bowl so that their faces are lit in a demonic fashion and then, one by one, take turns plunging your hands into the flames in order to try and grab a raisin. If you can accomplish this, promptly extinguish the flaming raisin by popping it into your mouth and eating it.
Christmas Eve
This is worth a second viewing, if you watched it here last year.
All the family has shown up now, and some early light feasting is happening. There is plenty of cheer, including the Christmas mead I made for last year -- which we did not drink, at that time, because my sister announced she was pregnant. Now I have a beautiful niece, and the mead is all the finer for a year's extra aging.
Happy Holidays With Bing and Frank (Classic) from Dill Bates on Vimeo.
All the family has shown up now, and some early light feasting is happening. There is plenty of cheer, including the Christmas mead I made for last year -- which we did not drink, at that time, because my sister announced she was pregnant. Now I have a beautiful niece, and the mead is all the finer for a year's extra aging.
Trumpocalype
Grim mentioned that he got a bunch of post-election inquiries from left-leaning friends with a sudden interest in arming themselves. Apparently it's generally a thing.
A Medieval Christmas Delicacy
NPR on bread sauce, which was thickened with day-old bread or toasted crumbs instead of flour.
Ground almonds and other nuts were also used as thickeners, as were eggs and animal fat, but the availability — and versatility — of leftover bread made it a medieval kitchen staple. It offered a good tempered and flexible way to create a variety of consistencies. And in the Middle Ages, being able to whip up a wide variety of soups and sauces was an essential part of the culinary skill set. Want a hearty stew? How about the recipe for Beef Soup (Beef- y-Stywyd ), written in 1420. It gives instructions to soak a loaf of bread in broth and vinegar, push it through a strainer, and then use this sourdough slurry to thicken a pot of simmering beef.Sounds pretty good, really.
For something a little more piquant for the venison, the 14th century cook could make a batch of cinnamon sauce according to directions in the Forme of Cury, a manuscript roll of recipes attributed to the Master Cooks of King Richard II. The recipe required grinding up cardamom, clove, nutmeg, pepper and ginger with five times as much cinnamon, twice as much toasted bread as everything else, and stirring the lot into some vinegar. Stored in a cask, this made "a lordly sauce" that was "good for half a year."
Christmas Eve
We’ll be driving up for a quick day-trip with my mother-in-law and whatever other family can be there, which is quite a few given that my brother-in-law has four kids and eight grandkids. That means just a brunch with the family after presents and then a drive home, no big Christmas dinner, but we had Christmas dinner with neighbors last night (Oyster pan roast! yum!) and will do it again tonight, this time next door.
Today I’m making a big loaf of French bread for my mother-in-law, her special Christmas request. I’m out of practice, not trusting myself around fresh bread this year, so I did a trial run day before yesterday that suffered from my dingbat inattention during the final proofing. It tastes fine but looks funny. Today’s loaf needs to be pretty. Below is the beading project that distracted me until well after midnight, when I suddenly remembered, “You can’t go to bed yet! You haven’t even warmed up the oven yet! And what is this bizarre mound of dough that has giant bubbles coming out of it?” It was 3 a.m. before I got it out of the oven, but I made huge progress on the rainbow trout. I have a taxidermy-style glass fisheye coming in the mail, so the eye won't always be just a vague hole with Marxalot.
We’ve just finished having the downstairs public areas painted and chased the workers out of the house until after the holidays. I love fresh clean paint. How old are we getting, that we would actually hire people to do it for us? My husband expressed the strongest possible preference for having guys come in, get it done, and get out. Apparently he thought I was likely to get started, drift around, get interested in other projects, and leave it 90% complete for a long time. Men can be so unfair.
Today I’m making a big loaf of French bread for my mother-in-law, her special Christmas request. I’m out of practice, not trusting myself around fresh bread this year, so I did a trial run day before yesterday that suffered from my dingbat inattention during the final proofing. It tastes fine but looks funny. Today’s loaf needs to be pretty. Below is the beading project that distracted me until well after midnight, when I suddenly remembered, “You can’t go to bed yet! You haven’t even warmed up the oven yet! And what is this bizarre mound of dough that has giant bubbles coming out of it?” It was 3 a.m. before I got it out of the oven, but I made huge progress on the rainbow trout. I have a taxidermy-style glass fisheye coming in the mail, so the eye won't always be just a vague hole with Marxalot.
We’ve just finished having the downstairs public areas painted and chased the workers out of the house until after the holidays. I love fresh clean paint. How old are we getting, that we would actually hire people to do it for us? My husband expressed the strongest possible preference for having guys come in, get it done, and get out. Apparently he thought I was likely to get started, drift around, get interested in other projects, and leave it 90% complete for a long time. Men can be so unfair.
Yuletide
A heartwarming Yuletide story from the Saga of Hrolf Kraki.
The name they give at the end is Hjalti, which means, "Hilt." Thus, he was honored by being named after the hilt of the sword he used.
The name they give at the end is Hjalti, which means, "Hilt." Thus, he was honored by being named after the hilt of the sword he used.
Resistance in America
Two pieces on preparations by Left-leaning Americans for the forthcoming Trump administration:
On political preparations.
On kinetic preparations.
The Tenth Amendment option is still on the table. I mean, it's actually in the Constitution. All we'd have to do is quit pretending it doesn't exist.
On political preparations.
On kinetic preparations.
The Tenth Amendment option is still on the table. I mean, it's actually in the Constitution. All we'd have to do is quit pretending it doesn't exist.
Save the Snowflakes
It's sad that it's come to this. Do your part this holiday season to save the snowflakes. It's the right thing to do.
Star Wars: Rogue One
This is not a secret ISIS plan. There really are Star Wars spoilers below the jump.
(Of course, that's just what ISIS would say, isn't it?)
(Of course, that's just what ISIS would say, isn't it?)
Chrismons
I've been working away steadily at Chrismons in various media, but this week I stumbled on one that's absorbed me entirely: a fish that started out in cartoon form with beaded outlines but ended up in solid beads. The iridescent colors on the scales were too pretty to stop until I'd filled the space. Now I see fields of beads before my eyes waking and sleeping like the ring of Sauron. It's a bit like working on a mosaic, I suspect. I may have to try that, always meant to.
I'm going to do another one, a rainbow trout this time.
I'm going to do another one, a rainbow trout this time.
This One Won't Fly
Donald Trump can't pardon his way out of nepotism.
Maybe Newt’s right that the public would go to bat for Trump on [pardoning his kids for violating the law]. (Nothing would surprise me anymore.) But this sort of thing should be done, if it’s to be done, by repealing the anti-nepotism law properly so that our new pro-nepotist legal regime applies to everyone equally, not just the Trump royal family. If we’re going to let federal officials start staffing up with their kids banana-republic-style, let’s at least have the people’s representatives sign off on that on the record.A major reason to oppose both the Bush and Clinton campaigns was the idea of an imperial presidency. I am happy to give the guy a chance, and I understand the reason to trust family more than others. All the same, this isn't going to work out.
Mr. "AR-15 Broke My Shoulder" Wants You To Celebrate the Murder of a Diplomat
When last we met Gersh Kuntzman, he was trolling to be called names by claiming that an AR-15 was sort of like a man-portable howitzer. He then turned the names he was called into another column on how proud he was to embrace his feminine side.
Now he's hit upon a new trolling technique: celebrating the murder of a Russian diplomat.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Putin ordered the hit himself, in order to justify Erdogan's further purge of Turkey's military/police apparatus and Turkey coming in on Russia's side in the war. Matter of fact, how convenient that the thing happened on live television, at an art exhibit dedicated to Russian-Turkish friendship. Someone should check to see if the diplomat in question owed anybody money, or had been sleeping with anyone important's wife, or had somehow gotten crosswise with his boss.
On the other hand, we don't kill diplomats for the same reason we don't gun down soldiers acting as heralds under a flag of truce. There's a basic civilizational norm: if we can't talk to each other, we can't stop fighting until one side is all dead. If one has any interest in even the possibility of peace, one has to put up with diplomats. Even John Kerry, for a while.
UPDATE:
Now he's hit upon a new trolling technique: celebrating the murder of a Russian diplomat.
I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Putin ordered the hit himself, in order to justify Erdogan's further purge of Turkey's military/police apparatus and Turkey coming in on Russia's side in the war. Matter of fact, how convenient that the thing happened on live television, at an art exhibit dedicated to Russian-Turkish friendship. Someone should check to see if the diplomat in question owed anybody money, or had been sleeping with anyone important's wife, or had somehow gotten crosswise with his boss.
On the other hand, we don't kill diplomats for the same reason we don't gun down soldiers acting as heralds under a flag of truce. There's a basic civilizational norm: if we can't talk to each other, we can't stop fighting until one side is all dead. If one has any interest in even the possibility of peace, one has to put up with diplomats. Even John Kerry, for a while.
UPDATE:
They really don't teach much anymore, do they?
So, this item, "How to be a Stoic" showed up in the latest New Yorker magazine, (hat tip to Instapundit), and in reading it, I am just sort of awestruck at the poverty of the woman's education.
I mean, she's got a PHD in comparative literature from Stanford.
Never heard of Epictetus until 2011? Really? I got a BA in history over 30 years ago, and while I freely admit my interests run much more toward de Brack's "Cavalry Outpost Duties" than Wittgenstein's "The Blue and Brown Books" or even Descartes "Discourse on Method", at least I know they existed, like Kant, or Rorty, or Shopenauer.
In the one philosophy course I took (sorry Grim), I actually read Aristotle and Plato, and we discussed some of the other Ancient schools like the Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Pythagoreans etc...which is probably where I heard of Epictetus, and picked up a used copy of the Enchridion, just to have it, but, like Frederick the Great, I ended up taking it with me everywhere for the rest of my life.
I guess what is bothering me is that I see this lady as a symptom of modern academia, where they seem to know and write more and more about less and less.
I mean, she's got a PHD in comparative literature from Stanford.
Never heard of Epictetus until 2011? Really? I got a BA in history over 30 years ago, and while I freely admit my interests run much more toward de Brack's "Cavalry Outpost Duties" than Wittgenstein's "The Blue and Brown Books" or even Descartes "Discourse on Method", at least I know they existed, like Kant, or Rorty, or Shopenauer.
In the one philosophy course I took (sorry Grim), I actually read Aristotle and Plato, and we discussed some of the other Ancient schools like the Cynics, Stoics, Epicureans, Pythagoreans etc...which is probably where I heard of Epictetus, and picked up a used copy of the Enchridion, just to have it, but, like Frederick the Great, I ended up taking it with me everywhere for the rest of my life.
I guess what is bothering me is that I see this lady as a symptom of modern academia, where they seem to know and write more and more about less and less.
To Stutter
A philosopher with a significant stutter considers the problems it creates in his everyday life.
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