It's One Of Those Days

warm but cloudy, so you can smell the air. Much to my surprise, butterflies actually come out even when the sun does not, and I have a recipe for bacon jam!
Now you have it, too. Try it with celery. Bwahahahah.

IRL EXPERIMENTAL BACON JAM

Ingredients:

... (this part I'm super sure of)
bacon (any kind, I used applewood smoked, but whatever) - 1 lb
yellow onion - 1 large - peel and thinly slice
garlic - 3-4 cloves - peeled and chopped (I just did them in a julienne)

... (the rest... well... the amounts are kind of variable. To quote my
grandma, "How much? However much you want!")
strongly brewed coffee - 1/2 cup?
maple syrup - 1/4 cup + I think I tossed in another glug later
brown sugar - 1/3 cup, sort of lightly packed
apple cider vinegar - 1/3 cup
bourbon (totally optional but I mean COME ON) - 1/4 cup - I used Maker's Mark
black pepper - 1/2 teaspoon (maybe? I just put in a bunch, I could have put in way more)
chili powder - 1/3 tsp - mine was ancho but I don't think it matters
smoked paprika - 1/4 tsp - I think I could have added more of this, it smelled great when cooking but I'm not sure you could taste it
cayenne - I might have put in a pinch of it but I was scared to put in too much

Instructions:

1. Cook the bacon. You want it fully done but not tooooo crispy. Do it in batches so it has lots of room. Once it's done, put it aside on a paper-lined plate. Keep about 2-3 tbsp of the fat and discard the rest (into a container you WILL keep in the fridge to cook other awesomely flavoured things!).

2. In the bacon fat you've kept, cook the onions and garlic. You want to do it on medium low, so as to keep the onions translucent - you don't really want to brown them.

3. So maybe 8-10 minutes later, the onions should be done. Throw in all the rest of the ingredients, EXCEPT the bacon. Drop the heat down to low and mix it all up.

4. From low, bring it to a boil and let it boil for 2 minutes or so.

5. Meanwhile, chop up the bacon into 1/2 inch or so pieces. You could also have done this earlier and cook it in pieces, but I'd have done that with slightly larger pieces.

6. Once it's boiled, throw in the bacon. Stir it up and drop the heat again.

7. Let is simmer, uncovered for about 2 hours. You can adjust seasonings throughout this, but remember that it will cook down and concentrate flavours. Check it every once in a while (20 minutes maybe?), stir a bit and if it starts to dry out you can add a bit of water. I did that once, but probably out of paranoia than actual necessity.

8. It's done once the onions are basically melting almost away and the liquid is left as a syrup. Take it off the stove and let it cool for 5-10 minutes.

9. Throw it into a food processor (which I don't have, so I used an immersion blender, which worked okay but man, that is one of the more disgusting culinary things I've done and, remember, I have a recipe I often make that includes jello, cool whip, cabbage and mayo so I know what I'm talking about) and chop it up. You want it spreadable but still chunky and you want the bacon still recognizable.

That's it! This made 1 and 1/3 jars of the stuff. I'm sure you could easily scale this up. It should keep in the fridge for about a month, based on what I've read.

I've also seen recipes that included adobo and/or siracha and other things. So whatever flavours you want you can probably achieve in the mix.

It's Been Awhile Since They Sent Me A Poem

I really like. I really like this one. I know, it's crazy.

Q & A
by Terence Winch

Q. How important is theory in this poem? It seems as though
it just starts, goes nowhere, tells us nothing we need to know.

A. The concern here is with necessity, not fact. The poem could tell
you everything you wanted to know, but doesn't.
Some poems begin in the rinse cycle. This one goes right to spin.

Q. We noticed how marvelous the upper strata of the poem is. It suggests
the appeal of authoritarian faith in the old-fashioned
middle class. Did you write it on a train?

A. One day I heard laughter coming from some mysterious source. First
I thought
it came from several people who were stuck at the bottom of a well.
Then I speculated it could be a group of teenagers on the level right above me.
After a while, however, I wondered if it might actually be weeping.
I got out my address book and started calling around. In fact, people
were crying when I managed to get in touch with them. Where are
your social contracts now, I snarled, your precious theses on the absolute?
I averted my gaze as their beliefs unraveled.

Q. We can't help but notice how you seem to be suppressing what you
really mean. Are you naked in this poem?

A. I have these pastes and mud packs that I smear all over me, so I'm
never really naked, even when I have no clothes on.
The same thing goes for this poem.
It's beautiful, stark, totally blank, yet colorful, like a sin
you're considering but haven't yet committed.

Because I Can

Some of these are not funny. Oh, wait, yes they are.

I Want To Believe

That when guys like this start pumping for a big stimulus (see Summers earlier, but primarily about payroll), there's some behind-the-scenes Kabuki at work, a build-up that eventually will turn into enough of a consensus to turn the economy around before it's too late.
Spoke to a knowledgeable woman yesterday still in her 40s who believes she will not have Medicare at retirement. She probably believes she won't have Social Security either.
In other words, I want to believe there's a long game.

Science Humor Is Not An Oxymoron

Spongiforum squarepantsii, for instance.

There apparently are some slime-mold beetles named

• Agathidium bushi
• Agathidium cheneyi
• Agathidium rumsfeldi
• They, however, have never held public office.
• More at Mefi.

Spanish Grrrls!

Carving the Mountains from Juan Rayos on Vimeo.

Note: I have found the load slow and frustrating on Vimeo, but worth it. Just click to start, then pause. It continues to load. Just put your cursor back on the video to check progress, then play when fully loaded. Maybe there's an easier way. And maybe I'll try to find it some day.

I Would Like To Go Somewhere Foreign And Tropical

before I die of this fungal infection we're calling summer. Sullivan featured Maputo, Mozambique on his View today. It looks nice. Sigh.

When I'm Desperate For More Distraction

I also read these. I'm not saying they're always great, but they tend to calm anxieties.
1. http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/

2. http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/

3. http://www.metafilter.com/

4. http://www.aldaily.com/

UPDATE: Oh, hell, I forgot to link. Guess I got rusty. Just go to the (Mostly) Daily Reads at right. Sorry.

If You Missed The Tony's

Links to most of it is here along with discussion.
I am totally impressed with the talent, starting — and ending — with Neil Patrick Harris.
I wish I could see every show.
Just try a little taste, I guarantee you'll like it.

Hi

I've been away awhile. Well, not away, just otherwise occupied although not productively unless you count twisting my foot while mowing the lawn and diddling in the garden productive. I count it as entertainment.
So I too often put things I think are cool on my FB page, but few of my friends read Contrarienne and few of you are on FB so I will try to crosspost more often because I don't want to let Connie die just yet.
Anyhoo, everybody's saying Larry Summers is for more stimulus but that isn't really what he said apparently. I tried to link to his new Financial Times column in which he supposedly said it but FT doesn't like me. It says I'm registered and then it says I'm not and I'm too cranky to resolve it.
Now Summers is what Krugman calls a Very Serious Person (VSP) and he's partly to blame for this economic mess, so I gotta figure he's putting one up the flag pole or throwing some at the wall to see if it's sticky and if there's real Kabuki here, then we'll see some more stimulus at some point because even Cantor is backtracking on the debt ceiling now and I'd love to be a mouse in Obama's golf bag when he's out on the course with Boehner, because I don't think that insta-tan holds up well when your blood pressure suddenly falls into anaphalactic shock territory. At least I'm hoping Obama will just make a threat that can't be ignored and even help Johnno cover his ass during the retreat, because that's what it will have to be. I should have gone into politics. It all seems so clear to me.
But out of the TPM discussion I got this great Comment O' Teh Day:

The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.

Later today I will post two cool new web sites you should know about, but I hafta go graduate from respiratory therapy. Let's see, shall I wear the crown or the purple graduation cap. Maybe both.
Cheers, Cnne

Viral Today

 

From Michael Ferry at First Draft. Krugman posted it today, maybe because it linked to his pessimistic post yesterday.

I Thought The Weekend Was Going Well

too. Then the weedeater broke. And the dryer. And my glasses fell apart.
I tried the internet, but there is no consolation apparently.
Thanks, Andrew Sullivan, you brighten my day.
Remember, I read it (once in a while) so you don't have to.
Oh, and Palin's not running. So there's that.
Just stay away from TV news.
Thanks, Lawrence O'Donnell (MSNBC) and Jonathan Miller (Politico, it's not what he said, but what he didn't say.)


'Too Big to Fail' in 80 Seconds from Joe Mande on Vimeo.

Climate change, you know you want it.

Honorary Contrarienne

My fitness mentor, Hilary Metzger, celebrates Rhody Fest each year by walking in the 7.5-mile marathon.
This year, she won the coveted "Words Per Mile" trophy, an honor she devised and awarded to herself. I believe the established record is something in the neighborhood of 7,000 words total.

Inspired, I attempted to top my personal best record of most baby carrots miniature Tootsie Rolls consumed on the 4-mile drive home from the grocery store and, of course, beat myself. As usual.

DNA

UPDATE: Apparantly I left out the links when I originally posted. They're added now, and worth following.

Some folks over at MeFi really miss Douglas Adams, whose initials are DNA and who was born in Cambridge the same year ... well, you know the rest.

Anyway, this is the anniversary of one of the Adams accomplishments, his death or the publication of one of the books or somethings and someone found one of his speeches that was, like him, a lot of fun, and this quote popped out. For your entertainment and enrichment.

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions. Curiously enough, quite a lot of these have come from sand, so let's talk about the four ages of sand.

The Trouble With Psychopaths

is that they can gang up on you. I say that in all seriousness. I believed then and I believe now that I once worked for two psychopaths at the same time. How did I survive?
They don't cooperate well with others, even others like themselves.
That should be question #21 on the test.

Jane Mayer vs. The World

Mayer may be the best journalist working today. One of her highest skills is good sourcing, which means she's trusted by people who probably don't trust anyone.
She's trusted because she has not only good intentions, but good judgment. I love that. In my silly, small way, it was also my professional goal.
This story on an N.S.A. renegade is such good leg work it seems almost mundane.

Binney says that an N.S.A. e-mail database can be searched with “dictionary selection,” in the manner of Google. After 9/11, he says, “General Hayden reassured everyone that the N.S.A. didn’t put out dragnets, and that was true. It had no need—it was getting every fish in the sea.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer#ixzz1N0fhwkmn

Newt Gingrich Is Crazy

And we've known that since at least 1997. Here's the proof.

Do No Harm

Someone I admire, respect and love angered and disappointed me today.
But I had to go to the library. Not only did I find all the poetry books I've been craving, the Montaigne biography I'd ordered, but...Also. Life is good.

I'm Starting A File Tagged Presidential Election 2012

Item #1

Comment O' Teh Day

Over at a fairly technical discussion of type face criticism on MeFi, is a good example why I love MeFi. (That and the enlightening discussion of iconic font designer Eric Gill, who had an incestuous relationship with his sister, sexuallyy abused his children and had "an experimental connection to his dog.")

On a rainy day, what could be better?

This is probably the whitest thing I've seen in years. Talk about your first-world problems.

(I actually found the article reasonably interesting, but then I fit the criteria given above)
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:04 PM on May 15 [1 favorite]