Bashana haba'ah

I completely missed Rosh Hashannah this year. I might have not even known except so many people reminded me (too late) that it fell on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Ahoy Vey & Arrrrrrr Vey to you all.

I would be more embarrassed if we actually celebrated any christian holidays, but we seem to be falling out of the habit of them, too. Which is a shame because there is a lot food & music faling by the wayside on both sides.

I promise to (try &) do better in the coming year. I could not find any pirates singing this song, so you will just have to settle for Steve & Edyie. Besides, if you play six degrees: Steve & Edye = Vegas = mob = pirates. So I think I am within reasonable limits.

One less rooster

A number of people already know but we were less-than-pleased with this year's order from the hatchery we have used for years. Although I have been told that their business has ka-BOOMed over the past few years, between slow food & the economy, I am unhappy enough that I can say I will never do business with them again.

Among the many snafus we received several roosters when we should not have received any. Well, as of this morning we have one less.

I think I know how the ?possum?raccoon? got him out. That white piece is a flap in the bottom of the door although it is closed with a chain it does swing open enough that something with very small hands could pull something without the sense to keep his head in the pen out, stripping him of many of his feathers along the way.

We do still have one last rooster: a good natured, good sized ameraucana boy. If someone would like him to keep their ladies in chicks, let me know.

A knight, a miller & a reeve walk into a bar

So we have been working our way through The Canterbury Tales (that is not a royal 'we'; A***** is reading them, too) & I have been struck by the alignment with current events. Specifically Senator What's-his-face from South Carolina & the whole conversation about civility in public discourse. Do not get me wrong, I am not suggesting we are not uncivil. My argument is we never were civil.

Let me start with Senator What's-his face. This is not actually the first time this particular jackass (or would he prefer the more Republican bull elephant?) has crossed my radar. After the interruption during the speech I asked myself "why is that name familiar?". So I looked up Senators from South Carolina & came up with that most civilized of Southern Gentleman Strom Thurmond. Right there in the archive was the story of how Senator What's-his-face was sure a black woman claiming to be Thurmond's daughter was 1) making it up & 2) smearing a good man's name. He ended up apologizing then, too. If you wish to look it up, save yourself some time: go directly to the NPR website as they seem to be the only news outlet that made the same connection.

There is a Canterbury Tales tie in, I promise. The Miller's Tale is a vivid account of one man's outrageous scheme to sleep with the wife of another man, her complicity & a third man's deliberate sodomizing of the schemer with a hot iron bar (because he was thwarted with same wife). But don't worry, everyone gets what they deserve in the end: the husband is viewed as insane, the wife & her lover get each other & the sodomizer gets no credit at all. It is all very uncivilized. The Reeve's Tale is not worse exactly: a miller steals grain from two customers who have sex with his wife & daughter for revenge.

Before these two is the Knight's Tale. It is a story of chivalry & order, where men lock each other up & throw away the key because they are battle field enemies, all the while acknowledging that former foes are now married to each other. Men fight to the death for love of a woman neither has ever met. & this woman is a shining example of white christian beauty, not something that would ordinarily have caught my attention as uncivilized if Emily were not the blonde blue-eyed sister of the Queen of the Amazons. All the other propaganda aside, inserting characters into other peoples religions/mythologies no matter how ancient, to emphasize how much more civilized your people are falls under the heading of uncivilized. I am certain the Knight failed to realize that & I think it is safe to say Chaucer wanted us to know he failed to realize that.

Being civil is not just not jumping up & down & shouting when you feel you are not being heard, although to do so is to be uncivil. Saying & doing disruptive, misleading & even untruthful or unethical things because you are sure the other guy cannot be right because of his skin color/religion/sexual orientation/car he drives/school he attends/food he eats & excusing it in the name of "I was sure he was wrong & this is what it took to show the world" is also not civil. In short, civilized people address their arguments to facts not characters. Most people do not know this because most people do not know any civilized people; they only know people who say they are civilized.

Musta been muscadine

A week ago Sunday it was cooler at 1ish than it had been in a long time & A suggested we go pick grapes. There are a slew of U-Pik-Em farms around here, but we went to Loftus Family Farms. It took about 15 minutes (less really) to pick 2 buckets worth (one for us & one for W*****; she mowed our big pasture again later that same day).

We pulled up, almost no other cars there, but the cows had been moved to the field in front of the shed they operate out of (it really is pink, you cannot miss it). The bugs were minimal, the vines easy to get to. Two other families were in there; we could here them talking but everything was pleasant.

Once we were done, we went to the very end & saw the elderly cow that had recently given birth to twin calves. She looked tired. Back at the pink shed, we paid for our grapes, made small talk & watched the goat-that-got-away, & was now staked at the back door, head-butt the fan.

They have buckets for you to use, one bucket is about $7 worth of grapes & even if you just lie around staring at the clouds it is worth the trip. I don't have any pictures because I was using both hands to cram all the grapes I could eat into my mou....bucket. I did pull this one from their on-line album & that really is how abundant they are. The farmer says they will be officially open until the end of the month & probably casually a few weeks after that.

It-can-wait chicken

There have been passing references to my go-to cooler-weather favorite casserole, it-can-wait chicken. First let me say I do not slaughter my own chickens. Second, I do buy chicken at the grocery store. & third, I know that makes me a hypocrite.

This is the basic it-can-wait chicken recipe. You will need carrots, potatoes & chicken. & a large casserole dish with a cover. & an oven, although accurate temperature settings are optional.

- wash the potatoes & then cut them into bite-sized pieces. Layer them unpeeled & uncooked in the bottom of the casserole dish, about 1/4 of the way up the side.

- wash the carrots & cut them into bite sized pieces. Layer them unpeeled & uncooked on top of the potatoes, about 1/2 way up the side of the casserole dish.

- remove the skin from the the chicken thighs, wash them in cold water & trim the fat. Spread them out across the top of the vegetable layers, covering as much of the carrots as you can.

- cover the casserole dish & put it in the oven at about 375F for not less than 45 minutes. If you are running late, turn it down to 350F & add another 20 minutes. If the chicken is done & you still are not ready to go to the table, turn the oven off & leave it alone. Turn the oven back on to 350 about 12-15 minutes before serving. The only hard&fast rule is do not uncover until you are ready to serve.

There are many ways to jazz up it-can-wait chicken. You can make as above & then pour red wine or white wine over the whole mess. You can saute onions or apples or apples & onions & layer them on top of the chicken before you cover it all. You can throw cloves of garlic into the potatoes. You can mix random herbs in a small tea cup with little olive oil & brush it on the chicken. You can do all sorts of things. What you cannot do is screw this up. It is unscrew-up-able.

Leftover it-can-wait chicken can go on to have a long & fruitful career. You can stuff it into pastry dough. You can mix it with eggs & bisquick & make a passable chicken pie. Add some stock, celery salt & rice & you have soup. The only rule is if you did not buy boneless chicken, please remove the bones before you send the chicken on to its next destination.

& that is it. Add your own favorite twists & it can become bachelor chicken, second-hand chicken, or whatever your name for it might be.