Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Mixed grill: too many vampires and vegetables

A mixed grill today,along with hearty thank you for the inquiries as to the status of the missus and RR.
It has been a hot unhealthy spring. I am looking forward to a hotter but healthier summer. Cancer has been discovered in mother-in-law, so we will be dealing with that. As to what is on the grill, this must be brief as once again my computer is down and I am stealing time---

Work-- working with 65,000 new volumes in a new branch is swell for this bibliophile. The plethora of vampire novels, zombies, and manga, the insidious Japanese reading level destroying book form which is killing fiction for teenagers, is not swell. More on this trend in the future. Unfortunately, my energy levels do not match my hopes for service.

Reading-- as an antidote to all this supernatural fiction, I have returned to an early interest, American realist and naturalist novels. I am currently reading Upton Sinclair's Oil! , a novel which served as the "inspiration" for the (unseen) film "There will be blood", starring Daniel Day Lewis, whose work I enjoy. Frank Norris's McTeague, never read I am ashamed to say, is in the batter's box. His Octopus, the first of a proposed trilogy on wheat which Norris did not live to complete, was read many years ago, and will be read again. So much for fiction: I find as I get older I am less interested in it, preferring non-fiction for my casual reading. I am also doing much re-reading except Thomas Wolfe: no one over the age of 19 can re-read Thomas Wolfe.Do your reading habits mirror these?

CSA/veg challenge-- the greenery is winning, even with my preparation for the challenge. Kohlrabi, a heretofore unknown and unused veg was the first gauntlet. I made empanadas with it and squash, also on offer with our share.They are easy to make, even for a tyro like me. Here is the recipe.On the bright side,I have re-discovered the smoker. Sap that I am, I bought a 4-plus pound brisket of grass fed beef. Grass fed meat demands slow, low cooking because of the lower fat content; otherwise one might as well be gnawing on a boot. Smoking it is the way to go. My last smoker adventure, because of technical difficulties, made me gun shy on using it.The beef came out well, and missus RR and I will be finishing it up this weekend. Just in time for my next protein adventure: smoking a chicken which I plan to purchase when we next pick up our CSA.