Month: December 2016

What the Boss Likes – much better lyrics for Deck the Halls

The original lyrics and much more fun. Thank you, Wikipedia!

Deck the hall with boughs of holly,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
‘‘Tis the season to be jolly,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Fill the meadcup, drain the barrel,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Troul the ancient Christmas carol,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

See the flowing bowl before us,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Strike the harp and join the chorus.
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Follow me in merry measure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
While I sing of beauty’s treasure,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Fast away the old year passes,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Hail the new, ye lads and lasses!
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Laughing, quaffing all together,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Heedless of the wind and weather,
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la!

What the Boss likes – Holiday nonsense

poor Mog:

One of my favorite charities:

 

and a classic, Cthulhu style:

 

and more chtullhu carols

and what was my favorite stop motion Christmas story, which is full of the sniffles (the angels are creepy) and the star is even more ridiculous.

So, if you were a Christian at some point or are now, what’s your favorite Christmas carol?  I think mine is “Can you hear what I hear?”

 

 

 

 

What the Boss Likes – Brothers Bright, Whitestone Motion Pictures – Appalachian gothic

I’m very fond of American myths dealing with our own monsters and magic.  This started with reading stories about Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan,  a strange turn when I read “The Lottery” and the Cthulhu mythos, the stories about “Silver John” by Manly Wade Wellman, and into role-playing games like “Deadlands“.    Southern gothic is a subset.

Very cool applachian gothic music and videos from Whitestone Motion Pictures and Brothers Bright (they are apparently the same thing):

If you watch the movie below, you’ll see the kind of forests I grew up around, sans monsters of course  🙂

and a curious little animated video about the west.  I may have posted this sometime in the past.

Delta Rae’s Bottom of the River (note the lady in the mirror)

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – a star in the east…. wait a minute…

christmas-star-failI think I’ve mentioned here on this blog somewhere that I ran the planetarium when I was in college as a work-study job. Every November and December, we ran a Christmas star show, which showed that the story was a lot of nonsense. But people still flocked to it because they didn’t pay attention and were sure that it was about them and their religion (rather like Christians being sure that the song “Take me to church” is flattering to religion. Hint: it isn’t).

One thing that I recently read about the Christmas nativity story struck me as something rather new (I got this from my FFRF newspaper and the article was by Barbara Walker, an author). It’s just one more in the pile of bizarreness, contradiction and nonsense that is the nativity story (the story everyone knows is a mash of Matt and Luke), but this point satisfies my love of astronomy and geography. Let’s look at a few verses (I’m using the KJV because the more extreme of Christians seem to favor it:

“2 2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

And then:

“9 9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.”

Now, some versions have footnotes that say that this “really” means that the magi saw the star while *they* were in the east, but the translations, ostensibly all guided by God, don’t say this. What they actually say is that the magi (a Persian term) saw this star as it rose. Stars rise in the east. Oh and Luke doesn’t mention a star at all, something that would be pretty obvious to shepherds (who aren’t out in the fields in December…) Sigh.

It’s a bit hard to follow a star that is in the east, to find someplace west of you, unless you go the loooong way around. There is an obscure prophecy in Numbers that mentions a star out of Jacob and it seems that this star had to make and appearance to validate the story.

As for the “war on Christmas”, I think it’s best done by idiot preachers screaming that Santa isn’t real to children (of course it was in the US). Seems like someone isn’t getting the attention he thinks he deserves, tsk.

In case you’re curious, a couple of older holiday posts:

https://clubschadenfreude.com/2012/12/26/not-so-polite-dinner-conversation-the-war-on-christmas-complete-with-friendly-fire/

https://clubschadenfreude.com/2015/11/11/not-so-polite-dinner-conversation-tis-the-season/

https://clubschadenfreude.com/2014/12/25/not-so-polite-dinner-conversation-the-thought-that-counts-requires-some-thinking/

 

From the Kitchen and the backyard – crispy sticky rice, cheesecake, a mutant challah, plus a possum

rice-cakeAfter cooking the Thai flavored pork shoulder for Thanksgiving, we decided we needed another side dish for it since there was about 8 pounds of pork to eat.   The December 2016 Food & Wine magazine presented yet another Thai flavored recipe and that’s what was made as a side to accompany the rest of the pork. This recipe, Crispy Coconut Sticky Rice, is great, and could serve as a meal on its own with perhaps a nice salad. I used a cheap 10” non-stick skillet to make this in; my cast iron skillet is a bit of a monster and far too big to use for the amount of rice. You just need to watch it, and it doesn’t take that long to get a nice golden, with a few darker spots, crust on the rice. It is soft in the inside, a bit crispy outside and has a lovely coconut curry flavor with a fair amount of heat. It also nukes up very nicely.

The cheesecake was a bit of serendipity. I had been craving a crustless cheesecake like I used to get when I was on my internship in Washington DC all of those year ago (no, not the White House). I would go to the local Giant grocery store and they would have lots of items that were for single folks. You could buy a slice of cheesecake and I could make it last a week, nibbling on it. (that’s when I also discovered Frusen Gladje praline ice cream which I also crave and which is no longer produced).

cheesecakeThen, at weekend before Thanksgiving, my mom hands me this yellowed slip of newspaper. “Do you remember this?” she asks.   It was a clipping of Father Guido Sarducci’s cheesecake recipe. Now, for those of you who perhaps were too young, non-existent, or not from the US, Father Guido Sarducci was a character most known from Saturday Night Live, the Vatican’s gossip columnist and rock critic, played by Don Novello (who also did a character on the Disney Atlantis, Vinny Santorini, an explosives expert).

This is the recipe which has been around for at least a couple of decades now.. I haven’t the slightest idea why it is named for him:

1 lb. ricotta cheese
2 c. sour cream
16 oz. cream cheese
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter, melted and cooled,
3 extra lg. eggs
3 tbsp. flour
3 tbsp. cornstarch
5 tsp. vanilla
5 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Makes 1 (10 inch) cheese cake. Let all ingredients come to room temperature. First process ricotta in food processer to make smoother (this doesn’t have to be done but I like sinfully smooth cheesecake). Then, combine ricotta cheese and sour cream in a mixing bowl. Beating slowly, add cream cheese, sugar and butter. Increase speed to medium and add eggs, flour, cornstarch, vanilla and lemon juice. Beat on highest speed possible without splattering for 5 more minutes. Pour mixture into a 10 inch springform pan.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree (F) oven for 1 hour. Turn heat off and leave in oven with door closed for 1 more hour. Cool on rack.

I had a standard spring-form pan of about 9 inches that you get in the sets of three that are commonly seen around the holidays. I did put about two teaspoons of micro-planed lemon zest in since I had a whole lemon right there. I think if I made this again, I would cut the temp to 325 degrees F and up the active bake time to 1 ½ hours. That might cut the browning just around the edge and make it more even. The batter did not escape the pan (I did put a layer of aluminum foil around the pan in case) though at the time and temp indicated on the recipe, it did rise like a soufflé about an inch and a half out of the pan much to my consternation (it sinks as it cools). I would also make the batter and stir to release more air, and then let it sit overnight, then let the batter come back to room temperature to make a denser cake.

As you see, there is a big crack in it. Oh well. That would be easily covered by sweetened sour cream/crème fraiche or some fruit. Or both!

The two of us ate the entire thing in a week; it makes a lovely breakfast. I’d also like to try it with less sugar and some sweetener in it, like Splenda. Continue reading “From the Kitchen and the backyard – crispy sticky rice, cheesecake, a mutant challah, plus a possum” →

Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – fundamentalist white rural America

burialWhite, rural fundamentalist America is where I grew up.  This article on Raw Story (which seems to have come from Alter Net) gets it very much right.

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/the-dark-rigidity-of-fundamentalist-rural-america-a-view-from-the-inside/

“When you have a belief system that is built on fundamentalism, it isn’t open to outside criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a position of power. The problem isn’t “coastal elites don’t understand rural Americans.” The problem is rural America doesn’t understand itself and will NEVER listen to anyone outside their bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how well you listen, what language you use…if you are viewed as an outsider, your views are automatically discounted. I’ve had hundreds of discussions with rural white Americans and whenever I present them any information that contradicts their entrenched beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they WILL NOT even entertain the possibility it might be true. ”

Is this true for everyone in white rural America? Nope, but unfortunately it’s become the way to bet. Sometimes you can get free of such nonsense, sometimes you can’t and sometimes you choose not to.  We have had people, friends and relatives, we thought were humane people who supported the ideal of America, of the lady with the lamp beside the golden door, that where everyone deserved to be considered equal and to have the same rights.  We never thought they would decide that they could ignore racism, misogyny, lies, cheating employees, xenophobia, etc, for the promise that someone will fulfill “every dream they ever dreamed“.  I don’t think even a three year old child would believe this.  But they did.

I’ve read where some people have said it has felt like someone died when Trump won.  I think that is pretty accurate.  The people we thought we knew “died” that day, and their places were taken by people we didn’t recognize anymore.