perfidy

Chew on this, y'all. Tonight's menu:

Ham steak with pear, ginger and maple glaze
Potatoes Anna
Maple-whipped winter squash
Pois au Provence (a pea and herb concoction of my own devise with lavender, fennel, thyme and sea salt)
American-style pasta salad with the mayo and boiled eggs

Ham steak with pear, ginger and maple glaze (serves 2-4)
1 1-pound cured ham steak. A good one. Niman Ranch at the very minimum. None of that generic water-filled crap.
1 very hot skillet
1 tablespoon oil
1/4 cup pear and ginger marmelade
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons maple liqueur

But wait, John. Not everyone has pear and ginger marmelade and weird Canadian hooch lying about.... Not to worry! Lacking the marmelade and liqueur, substitute:
1 smallish pear, peeled, cored and finely diced
1/4 tsp grated fresh ginger or 1/4 tsp dried ginger
a trace each nutmeg, allspice, clove
1 tablespoon American whiskey (Bourbon or Tennessee)
1 tablespoon got-damned real maple syrup, grade B or A ONLY.

Film the very hot skillet with the oil. Place steak therein. Let get very brown and crusty in spots on both sides over medium to medium-high heat, about 7 minutes per side.

Remove steak from pan and set aside to cool. Add butter and once melted add either the marmelade and liqueur or the subsitutes. Scrape browned bits off bottom of pan as you go. If using the substitues, add a splash of water and let the pear cook for a few minutes until quite soft. If using the real deal, just heat through and pour over your steak. Serve and swoon.

Maple-whipped winter squash

1 butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced into 1-inch dice
2 tablespoons butter
salt
pepper
1/8 tsp cinnamon
a few gratings (or 1 dash) nutmeg
2 tablespoons maple syrup, grade B or A

Steam the squash until tender. Mash and force through a food mill or fine-meshed strainer.
Stir in other ingredients, and charge $10 for a number 8 ice cream scoopful of the stuff. Seriously, this will knock the pants right off you.

To everyone, a merry Christmas.

It is just Christmas now, the little Bucketheads are all asleep. I've just laid out all the presents under the tree, and nothing is stirring, except for me and Willoughby, my Aunt Susie's puppy. We're going to hang out a bit, enjoy the quiet and see if we can bag us some reindeer.

It's strange, now, to see the frustrated anticipation, excitement and impatience on my son's face and remember how I felt. I know I won't be getting the Lego galaxy cruiser, or the Millenium Falcon I once wanted. But watching my children open their gifts will be better still.

My only Christmas regret is this: my mom has decorated her bathroom in a presidential theme. We tease her mercilessly for this, because even though she knows it's silly, she makes her decisions about what should or should not gain a place in the presidential bathroom with great seriosness.

I saw the picture at the top of this post yesterday, and didn't buy it.

I wish all of our remaining readers, and my fellow ministers the best of Christmases, joy, friendship, family and a happy new year.

Oh, and some change and hope.

...nothing will.

"Microsoft says next Windows won't be as annoying"

Too, too funny. This election, I'm feeling like the GM.

I've decided that rather than worry about the current economic crisis, I'm going to enjoy it. Not because I enjoy seeing people suffer, but because I have great respect for the concept of chaos, and undoings of any sort intrigue me. I love giant snowstorms, for example, not because I like snow, but because nothing thrills me more than watching Ma Nature incapacitate Cleveland as if to serve a bitch-slap reminder that she is still in charge, godammit.

So, yes, chaos, and I keep looking up at CNN to watch the Dow drop lower and lower and lower. As I type this, it's thinking about dropping below 8,000. Fascinating. This makes me wonder. If the market, say, drops to zero, what happens? Will all the bespectacled brokers on the market floor snap entirely and turn on each other, feasting on each other's flesh and triumphantly waving human femurs in the air as the big electronic screens rain sparks on the bedlam below? That might be fun.

When we hit the zero mark, does that mean we just bag money entirely and go back to being agrarian? I've given this substantial thought, and I'm considering that the best investment any smart American could make right now is in the Sheep Industry. You know, for barter. I have a rather substantial backyard that I believe could accommodate a head of sheep, assuming that a "head" constitutes a number less than 50. Mapgirl has already agreed to help with shearing and wool processing. I think I'd also plant stuff so we could eat.

Ministers, I have your backs. At the culmination of the decline of the American infrastructure, you shall all be welcome here in Cleveland Heights. I'll feed you, keep you warm, and make sure the WiFi stays churning. You bring the booze and guns.

I meant to share this one earlier. Yes, I'm pimping my strip here but this one is pretty perfidious in its nature.

Read the entire strip from infancy to present day right here. The Adventures of the S-Team...bringing teh funnay every weekday for like two and a half years 'nshit!

The only detail I remember from that night's dream was watching CNN. Tells you what kind of hair-raising shenanigans I was up to in my unconscious that Saturday night, when friggin' CNN was the most memorable piece of it.

The dream basically ended with me reading CNN's ticker. The last item I saw said something along the lines of, "Fans shocked by Howard Stern's apparent suicide". I had just enough time to be surprised and puzzled by this news before I woke up and realized it hadn't really happened.

The next day, Sunday, a friend was over. As we were enjoying potent coffee and putting a dent in my son's absurdly oversized birthday cake from the day before, we were talking about the usual topics- military policy, foreign policy, non-fiction books we were reading, politics, and chicks- and CNN was on in the room. I happened to be looking at the tv when I saw the words "Howard Stern..." start to creep across the screen on the ticker, and I about fell out of my chair.

Holy shit!, I thought, did he really kill himself? Did Howard really kill himself?! And I frakking dreamed about it just a few hours before?! I'm a psychic! A precog! And how do I parlay this into a payday?

And then the rest of it came over "...weds his girlfriend in NYC".

Ah.

Well, suicide after a fashion, I suppose.

I gave myself half-credit and a little more cake.

So, the economy is in the pits, and if I listen to the media, I will be lead to believe that at any second, the earth will split open and suck us all into a vortex of poverty and anarchy.

Here's the thing ...

My kneejerk reaction to the massive bailout is "Hell no! Screw those companies! Where's the help for the middle class?"

However ...

I realize that, as is the case of most kneejerk reactions, my feelings only scratch the surface of a much larger issue. I'm 32. My husband and I do not possess large 401Ks or IRAs whose continued existence depends on the performance of the markets. No one's taking away my retirement fund at the moment. My parents, however, are nervous, as they're sitting on quite a few pension/retirement bucks that they're worried could disintegrate in the wake of a spectacular economic implosion.

I'm aware that my parents' retirement could very well be contingent upon the success of a bailout. Yet, on the other hand, I despise that our economic livelihood is largely debt-driven. Some debt is inevitable, yes, but is it smart practice to provide a solution that simply enables business as usual?

Part of me wants to watch Wall Street burn and let our economy rebuild itself by forcing us all to become more fiscally responsible. Everyone gets screwed in the short-term, sure, but at the end of what will certainly be a long recession no matter how Congress decides to vote, would we find ourselves among a nation of people who only buy what they can afford without the help of extraneous credit and without the need for a subprime market? I'm not necessarily saying we should all start paying cash for huge purchases like homes and cars, but what about those who charge plasma TVs when their old tube set could easily suffice?

Talk to me, smart people! Educate me, people-who-understand-economics-better-than-I-do! What's the answer? Is there a right answer?

Among her many sterling qualities, Republican veep candidate has a charmingly uh, let's say, eccentric way with the baby names.

If you want to get in on that action, Politics Tsk Tsk Tsk has helpfully provided this handy dandy Sarah Palin baby name generator.

If Sarah had been charged with naming me instead of my dear own mom, I would have this rockin' monicker:

Knife Pile Buckethead

And if I asked her to name my kids, they'd be Strangle Thicket, Quarter Pipe, and Sack Panther. (In descending order of age.)

My next kid would be Meat Notgay, which really makes a statement, I think. That kid wouldn't grow up to use 9mm like GeekLethal.