Asian stir fry with chicken

Leslie and I had lunch at Yumi one day last week, we hadn't been out together in a while and it was nice to share a meal. 

We ordered a medium sashimi plate, lamb dumplings and something I had never tried before, the garlic chicken.

It turned out that we were so full that we couldn't even eat the chicken but had it the next night for leftovers and it was wonderful.

But then I got to thinking. "I can do that."

I started looking at garlic chicken recipes, settled on this one but then realized that it could be a lot better, it was a little too one dimensional.

So I decided to incorporate everything into a stir fry and landed on this one.

I often combine recipes, grab what I like and omit what I don't. 

Both of these called for a sauce but they were very similar so I only made one.

The dish was delicious.

Here is what I did:

I bought a tray of skinless boneless chicken thighs and another of skinless boneless breasts. I cut them into smallish bite sizes.

I dredged them in two tablespoons of corn starch, white pepper and a little salt and laid them on a plate.

I then started my sauce. I took a half cup of water, 1/3 cup of soy sauce, a tablespoon of brown sugar, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, one thai chile, whole, a dash of aji mirrin, two teaspoons hot chile sesame oil, red pepper flakes, chile strips, a tablespoon of corn starch, four cloves of garlic and a shake of ground ginger and whisked it all up in a mixing bowl.

The original recipe called for Shaoxing rice wine but I looked in two stores and couldn't find it and went with the rice vinegar instead. The aji mirren is sort of a fake substitute which I added for good measure.

I would have used fresh ginger but we had run out.

I put the bowl aside and prepped my vegetables. I used what was left of the other night's green beans, two carrots, mushrooms, broccoli florets and the last of the celery and cut them all up into uniform pieces. 

That is what stir fry is good for, cleaning out the fridge.

I then took my Le Creuset skillet and started the arduous job of shallow frying. I am so happy that my wife was not home as as much as I tried to contain the grease splatter it was impossible, even with the splatter guard. I tried my best.

We have an electric ceramic cooktop and woks don't work well on them.

It took me a while to brown and cook the four individual batches of chicken but it finally came out great.

I put the protein aside. I have a small kitchen and there were plates and bread boards hanging out everywhere, as you can imagine.

I grabbed a big non stick skillet and after adding avo oil, started browning the vegetables at high heat, for about three or four minutes. I added four more cloves of garlic, just to make sure. I then poured my sauce in, gave everything a good stir and turned it down at which point I added the chicken back in. Cooked it about three more minutes.

I also added cashews at the last minute, a little salt for taste and we were good to go.

Leslie got home just as the rice was ready to fluff, having sat for ten minutes.

We sprinkled sesame furikake on top and were good to go.

She loved it, we are going to add water chestnuts tomorrow and she wants more mushrooms.

I was the lucky guy that got the thai chile and it definitely opened my eyes and my sinuses too!

This dish takes some work and a lot of clean up but is definitely worth the effort.

Give it a try!

Visuals

 

Oh, brother...

Comfortably Dumb

I was not really too familiar with the Mercator controversy but it goes something like this: 

If you were to look at the normal map of the world that we use you would be under the impression that Greenland was as big as Africa and dwarfs South America. In reality Africa is 14 times larger. You could fit the United States, China, India, Japan, Mexico and much of Europe into Africa and still have land to spare,

The Mercator layout was introduced by the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569 to help sailors with navigation. Almost five centuries later, it somehow remains the global standard. 

But it has immense failings. Regions near the equator appear significantly smaller than they are, whereas high-latitude areas look much larger. This tends to minimize low latitude areas, which tend to be poorer. This is being called "Cartographic Colonialism."

Some argue that the map has subtly shaped international power dynamics by minimising the physical presence of the global south and visually inflating northern hemisphere nations while shrinking equatorial regions. This is said to have reinforced systemic biases in international trade, development priorities and educational frameworks.

There is a new cartography push for a map called Equal Earth where continents are laid out in true size and proportionality.

The United Nations has voted to adopt a resolution for the world to formally phase out the traditional Mercator map of the globe in favor of one that more accurately displays Africa’s size. A true orthographic view of the continent is even more startling.

In a session at its headquarters in New York, the UN general assembly officially retired the 16th-century Mercator projection in favor of one based on the more accurate 2018 Equal Earth design.

At the session, 164 countries voted in favor of the resolution. Only the US voted no, with its representative saying the resolution was “superfluous”. There were six abstentions.

Once again we are looking in from the outside and bucking world opinion. Note the tone from our representative:

Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said the resolution was presented as "an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions" but was, in her view, part of a "much larger and more radical ideological project." 

"Instead of focusing on genuine problems of international peace, prosperity or good relations, this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice," Ferencevych said Friday during the 114th Plenary meeting.

Rather than be seen for what it is, a common sense move into the 21st century, it is instead a "radical ideological project." How embarrassing it is to be an American sometimes.

Rain, take 5

 

 Rip it, Ringo

You have no right to safe drinking water...

...and it is okay for your government to lie to you. 

Typical Trump judge in Mississippi. God help us.

On Friday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against the city of Jackson, Mississippi, which alleged the city knowingly let residents drink lead-contaminated water. 

The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, says the contamination violated Jacksonians’ constitutional right to bodily integrity. Donald Trump-appointed judge Kurt Engelhardt disagreed. “The Constitution does not provide redress for every governmental wrongdoing,” Engelhardt said. “Defendants’ actions allegedly deprived Plaintiffs of clean water and guileless information. These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right.” 

That may be true in Mississippi—but on the state level in at least nine US states, and in more than a dozen other countries, clean drinking water is in fact a protected right. In countries including Uruguay and South Africa, a right to clean water is enshrined in the constitution. New York’s state constitution, as of a 2021 amendment, states that “each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” So too in Massachusetts, where “the right to clean air and water” has been constitutionally protected since 1972.

But according to the Fifth Circuit ruling, the US constitution is too narrow for such a claim. The Jackson plaintiffs alleged that their city government deliberately withheld information about the water’s toxicity, and exacerbated the problem through a series of boil-water notices—a practice that can eliminate some bacterial contamination, but also concentrates lead in water. Engelhardt stated there is no “constitutional right to truthful information from officials during a public health crisis.” 

Gypsies from Bonsall

Old Fallbrook

My friend Steve found an old Fallbrook yearbook in an estate sale in Santa Fe, New Mexico. 

He thinks that the late owner was a Brigadier Marine General.

It included an old map of Camp Pendleton.

He sent me a couple pages.

Nothing earth shattering.

A promo of the 1962 Warrior Bowl against Army Navy.

My late brother Buzz went to Army Navy in Carlsbad.

My old roommate Bob Teague might have played in this game.

Nope. 62, too early.

He was a running back.

Played rhythm guitar in the Nobles.

This insert caught my eye. 

I didn't arrive here for another sixteen years but I remember Jane's Smart Shop.

I remember Bud Swearingen too and Stu Marshall.

Port's, the owner was a dear friend. 

I knew Leighton too but not well.

Don't remember the Coffee Mill or the others.

Don't even remember the rural telephone pre-fix.

I was driving in to town this morning and was thinking about my last blogpost and some of the things that have gone downhill around here since I have been around.

It's not a huge list, I am still very up on my town.

But I drive by the old Nickerson's Nursery and have to say, "Why?"

It was a booming place, a great nursery and they lost their lease.

For what?

For this? Place gone to seed, fences falling down.

How long has it been, thirty five years?

It was so vibrant and beautiful.

Ditto Las Brisas. Have you driven by lately?

Rubble everywhere, trash, crap. I thought that it was going to be a car wash.

Why did they knock it down again?

It's not a long list. I see a barbed wire fence around the empty McDaniels building and think, hey that would be a good spot for a pizza restaurant. We can call it Fallbrook Pizza!

Wait, it's been done?

Shoot.

What am I missing?  

Are all those industrial trucks parked on the giant lot on South Mission going to stay there forever?

I miss Dennis's nursery on Fallbrook Street. The current owners certainly have a different vision than he did.

Time marches on!

Mean Old World

Too far gone

I was sitting on a bench outside my shop the other day when the young man approached me. He looked relatively normal. But when he started talking I knew that there was something very wrong.

"Tell the cops and FBI to stop watching me. They think I am abusing my parents, I am not. I'm a nuclear physicist you know..."

He continued to ramble. The paranoid schizophrenic conversation went downhill from there and I tried to extricate myself as quickly as possible. But it was sobering. Looking at the guy from the outside you would not have had a clue as to the demons he was wrestling internally.

We are getting more and more young people like this on our streets. 

Some say they are getting bused in from other municipalities, I don't know. 

The old Fallbrook hospital treats the psychologically damaged from Riverside County, not sure that they don't get out and join the crazy multitude from time to time, the answer is out of my pay grade.

I was talking to my friend Tony, the P.I. about this the other day. Tony has been around here a lot longer than my forty six years in town.

He was bemoaning the state of the town, the open hard drug use, violence, crime and homelessness. We agreed that it has never been this bad. How do we get back to the good old days?

He showed me a video of a fentanyl user that was stomach turning. 

Too large to post on my blast but this guy was in full junkie lean out of his mind.

People are seriously whacked. 

Tony posted pictures on Friends of Fallbrook and took some grief from people who thought that it was hurting the town's image. Or so he says, I am not on Facebook but will take him at his word.

Tony wants them to shut down the Pico Promenade until they get a little more control of the rampant crime happening there on a daily basis and at Heynemann Park.

When was the last time you walked down Pico Promenade? I haven't for over ten years and I wouldn't, it looks far too scary. It is an open sewer of deprivation. Don't go unless you are heavily armed.

One of the complaints I hear is that the cops do nothing, they know who the dealers are and do nothing. They give the junkies narcan and go on their merry way. 

Tony said that well meaning church goers come to the park and bring the homeless pizza and pray for them regularly, enabling them in the worst way. What a country we live in!

I had a conversation with a friend who regularly gives food to the needy at the library. I asked him if he sees these faces and he said rarely. He mostly sees people who fell through the cracks and really need help.

Not alcoholic, psycho drug addicts that are never going to be anything else and who would never even consider rehabilitation, let alone work. The too far gone.

He said that the majority of the people that congregate at Heynemann are latino yet the no drinking signs are in english. Time to fix that.

I tried to be nice, the street people used to sleep behind my store. And then they shit by my back door repeatedly and told me to clean it up if I didn't like it. I had the block walls that gave them shelter demolished within a day. My empathy is hereby gone. A few were continually harassing merchants and customers. Cops rarely did anything, if they were picked up it was usually for a day or two at most and then back at it.

I will never forget when Maggie, the millionaire in the chauffeured Bentley, rolled up on the  coffee shop and gave us all a stern lecture on how we had to do more to help the homeless. Rich man's guilt, no doubt.

I don't think that the people feeding them pizza and enabling them are helping them or the rest of us either. Help the truly unfortunate, not the drug addled sponges who will never rehabilitate. Are we helping them or punishing the rest of us with our well intentioned but possibly misguided efforts??

Glad my friend Tony had the guts to speak up. Close Pico Promenade until it is safe for the public again. It is clearly out of control. What other parts of town are we willing to cede and give up? Let's be a friendly village but let's not be a bunch of saps.

Leaving Trunk

Air Drop

Well, I had good news and bad news yesterday and today. Let's get the bad news out of the way first, shall we? 

I am sitting on the bench outside my shop, pleasantly enjoying the morning, waiting for a client to arrive, maybe whistling a little tune when a large crow or small raven ensconced in the cape chestnut tree above me launched a prodigious fusillade of poo out of nowhere that managed to hit me like a scat missile from hell.

Splat.

This gift from the avian heavens was beyond disgusting.

I ran into the shop, wiped it off with paper towels and gave my arm a quick rinse.

I swear the bird was aiming.

Little bastard.

My client came and I put on a good game face, considering the ignominy of my morning.

Got a very nice collection of works by San Diego modernists, including sculptures by James T. Hubbell and Jack Boyd.

Later I did a little work on my shop, slowly but surely carving pathways and making things operqtional.

Yesterday I started unpacking my native basket collection, which has some real beauties, if I am permitted to say that in all humility.

I love Native American baskets, especially those made in California and Nevada.

Shop is still not exactly navigable but I am making a little progress every day and I am good with that.

I have been working diligently on a report for a client that is now into its second week and umpteenth revision.

Very difficult and not something I care to do again for a while. 

I hope it is finished soon but it seemingly goes on and on.

Back to the health report. 

My knee is killing me, I have tripped about four times in the last 24 hour. 

Luckily there was a cancellation at Scripps and I get to meet the Doctor Thursday that will do my replacement.

Scheduling is difficult because I am bound to miss a show or three, Prescott, Santa Barbara and maybe Palm Springs Moderrnism.

Need to assemble a little war chest and curtail the buying.

Right.

Today I got good news. My oncologist says that she does not want me to go back on the chemo, considering the bad reactions I have had. She believes that I have had enough of the new drug.

Hooray!

This should make everything a lot easier for me.

Maybe the bird shit was good luck...

Curtis Mayfield

Whitefish salad time

My wife Leslie is quite the shopper, she finds the great stuff and deals all the time. 

She was at a local market last week and found two packages of Acme smoked whitefish at giveaway prices.

Hot damn! $3.99. She stole it!

It was on a closeout sale endcap. I wish she had bought all seven packages. Wonder if any are left?

Whitefish is a delicious and traditional fare for our ashkenazim tribe.  It has always been a pricey treat!

It just so happens that the Lake Superior whitefish coregonus clupeaformis, not to be confused with the quite lesser Lake America whitefish, was very similar to the prized whitefish that could be found in the cold freshwater lakes of our post diaspora ancestral homelands of Poland and the Ukraine. 

It became a major part of the Jewish American tradition, especially around special holidays like Yom Kippur.

The fish is found in deep icy waters, usually at a depth of 200' or more.

"The humble, silvery-brown fish has quietly sustained people in the Great Lakes for thousands of years — and continues to. Early Native Americans would make a powder of smoked Great Lakes Whitefish for use in stew, soups, and fish pies; they would also mix the powder with fresh blueberries. The Ojibwe word for Great Lakes whitefish is Atikamig."

Early explorers were introduced to the whitefish and lauded it as a great food source. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac wrote, circa 1695: “Moreover, better fish can not be eaten, and they are bathed and nourished in the purest water, the clearest and the most pellucid you could see anywhere. That is the most delicate fish of the lakes.” (quote from The Indians of the Western Great Lakes 1615-1760 by Vernon Kinietz, University of Michigan Press, 1940).

The fish is brined and smoked until it gets a golden color. It is usually then made into a yummy salad. 

In New York you find it at places like my favorite Barney Greengrass, the Sturgeon King and Russ and Daughters. In Los Angeles I have found the best whitefish at Nate and Al's delicatessen.

I love the stuff and rarely find it around here. 

My friend Scott tells me that Acme smokes their fish in Canarsie. I read somewhere that most whitefish, sable and chub is still smoked in New York. Thank you, Brooklyn.

I decided to make a salad today.

There are various recipes, some use horseradish. I went pretty basic, followed Acme's own recipe, which calls for a hint of dijon mustard.

Mine is now chilling in the fridge for an hour at which time it will go on a sesame bagel from Albertsons, which are actually pretty good. Maybe a slice of tomato.

Here is my recipe:

7 oz. Acme Whitefish - Be cautious to remove all the tiny pin bones when breaking it apart with your fingers. Go over it a second time to make sure. They can ruin a great knosh.

Whisk up a 1/3 cup mayo
2 tablespoons sour cream
hint of dijon mustard
1 minced celery stalk
1/2 teaspoon fresh dill, chopped
juice from half a lemon
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

The recipe called for white pepper, couldn't find ours, used black instead. Called for fresh parsley, I shook in a dash of dried. It is already salty, do not add salt! Give it a good mix with a fork, cover it with saran and let it chill for an hour.

Will let you know how it turns out!

Verdict? Yes! And note the underlying cream cheese layer which I forgot to mention...

Hop Joint

I love Mississippi John Hurt. 

I think he was as good an acoustic delta blues player as anybody. He played so sweetly and lyrically. 

I never got to see him live unfortunately but have listened to a lot of his work. 

I did get to see Elizabeth Cotton, Lightning Hopkins and Fred McDowell as well as well as a lot of other luminaries so I consider myself very fortunate. 

He may have been the best.

Hurt was the son of slaves and had an interesting bio.

I once asked Jorma why he emulated Rev. Gary Davis rather than Hurt and he said that he thought that Davis was more multi dimensional.

And on one level at least I think he was. 

Not musically but topically. 

Hurt wrote a lot about heaven and Jesus and not so much about the other stuff and some times you can only take so much bible banging. 

Life has its ups and downs.

When I heard this song the other day I took notice. Hurt writing about a hop joint, looking for his stray woman. 

 Cool.

Knee Job

 

The doctor was quite frank. "For many people joint replacement is a close call. Yours is not a close call. You have no space between your patella and tibia. Your patella has scalloped into the lower portion."

I had a major knee injury in 1979 which caused major tears to meniscus, anterior cruciate and medial collateral. Was in a cast for six months. Had an arthroscope a couple years later to clean things up. 

The upshot is that I have been bone on bone for over four decades and the arthritis is starting to make things unbearable. I have had a terrible limp for the last three months, can't continue like this. Might have been triggered by chemo, I think the neuropathy in my right foot has.

He gave me a cortisone shot and a handout on recovery instructions.

So I am trying to schedule a surgery for early December. It is a three month recuperation and so will probably wipe out two important shows in late February unless I am a miracle healer. I do cycle through things pretty quickly but the doctor says I can screw around with this rehab or risk serious future problems.

I foresee all kinds of problems, not the least of which is the fact that I live in a two story home and am not sure how I will swing three months out of commission and a dwindling bank account. And I start back on chemo Tuesday.

Will figure it out.

I do the rock

 

I am not sure when we actually met the late Tim Curry but it was a long time ago. Leslie says the Rose Bowl but I think it was maybe in Burbank. One of our early shows.

All I remember is that Leslie and he had an impromptu duet from Rocky Horror his solo album that cracked everybody up, including Tim.

Later we would see him in Santa Fe from time to time.

Super nice guy, great actor.

Will be missed in our house, even more than Dolly Parton.

Iggy

Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters

One of the toughest things to do for me when I am on the road is finding suitable parking to load in and out of shows, especially in more urban areas. It can be a serious pain.

In places like Santa Fe, I am forced to park my large van blocks away up at the Bishop's Lodge parking lot, which requires a very long walk down a hill on my very bad knee.

Many times I have to park near the courthouse or Post Office and I have received tickets before when I was not able to leave my booth and feed the meter.

I was fumbling for change last month to do just that when a man in a gray Sprinter asked me if I knew about the Park Mobile App?

He said it would be the answer to all my parking problems. I quickly went to the appstore and downloaded it.

He was right.

Park Mobile quickly zoomed in on my meter, it has every meter in the entire nation in its database I think. I paid for what I thought I would need and entered the show to do business.

It gives you a running countdown on time and I extended from my booth, a quick Applepay double tap.

I'm definitely a luddite but this app is worth its weight in gold. Has already helped me immensely. And you end up with a handy readout of parking expenditures for your taxes later.

I wish that I had known about this app ages ago.

Dolly Parton

Two left feet

So I get a text from Wagman today, something is wrong, only getting a ten day old cached copy of your blast. 

Settle down Steve, everything is okay, the reason you are seeing that is that I actually have not written for ten days. 

Truth be told, I have been extremely busy. 

Sorry.

Actually I haven't taken a day off in about three months,  

So let's look at the wayback machine. 

I stopped chemo in early July, knowing I would not be able to function in Santa Barbara, Albuquerque and Santa Fe if I was still throwing up every day in the trashcan.

Shows went well, I end up getting home last Wednesday afternoon but get a call Thursday, the client I flew to Jackson Hole in the Lear Jet with has sold her lodge and needs an emergency content inventory appraisal.

Like right now.

I have to drive up to her digs in Los Angeles, spend two days forensic accounting and then an additional five days preparing a report, which shipped out Sunday. Painstaking work but financially rewarding. Stayed in Joseph and Linda's beautiful Casita for a night. She made a lovely chilean sea bass. 

Unbelievable flurry, would have crushed a lesser man. 

But now I am home, totally whipped.

Leslie said that we had visitors over the weekend while I was gone. A raccoon stopped by one night with two cubs. Next night she came back to our upper porch with five of them, she said they were awfully cute although our cats didn't necessarily think so.

Sunday was Leslie's birthday and she wanted to go out to soak in the hot springs. We booked a new place for us, the Onsen, a Japanese spa. 112° out there, should be lovely. 

We leave Sunday afternoon and as we are getting on the 15 north I hear a thump, which is followed by four beeps from my dashboard and then a tire light signal.

We drove to the Sinclair Gas in Temecula and I put money in the air machine before realizing that it had no tire fitting at the end, someone had cut it off. 

Tire is dead flat at this point but we nursed it to another gas station.

I filled the right front tire and rolled the car back slowly as Leslie inspected it. 

Lo and behold, there was a rock stuck in the tire, sort of like it had melted in. 

We could hear the air whooshing around it.

Have never seen anything like it but it has been really hot here.

We managed to find an open tire store on a Sunday afternoon, the Firestone on Margarita and Steven replaced our old tire, which could not be fixed. 

We drove the next hour and a half to our destination, only to find the Onsen was shut tighter than a drum.

Leslie yelled and another guest, a sort of beaten up looking roadie for a death metal band, let us in. 

Said the customer service there was lousy. 

Had to keep the door shut because homeless people kept trying to sneak in. 

Was glad at that point that I had my concealed carry. 

DHS has always been a bit dicey.

We spent a half hour calling the manager and she finally called us back. 

Gave us a key to a room with no air conditioner remote. 

Leslie complained and we got a new room but the a.c. had not been turned on and the room was well over a hundred degrees. Nothing like a hot room in the desert.

Rooms and grounds were honestly quite nice but the service was atrocious.

Manager sort of apologized and said that she had a problem getting decent help out there.

We finally got the a.c. unit turned on but it did not cool down until four in the morning. 

I jumped in the pool, which helped a little bit and we finally ate birthday dinner in our warm bed. 

I got up early the next day and saw that there were foreclosure papers newly taped to the pool gate.

Place was lovely really, someone put a lot of money into it but obviously poorly managed or maybe somebody was just having a really bad day. Will never return, to be certain.

We left fairly early the next day, stopped by and saw Kaplan, bought a beautiful monumental Rookwood vase painted by the early artist Matt Daily that he had found the day before in Indio..

We then went to the Belgian restaurant Leslie likes in Ranch Mirage, Si Bon. 

I had lobster crepes, hers were duck confit in a Mexican truffle sauce. 

I thought it was delicious, Leslie's mushrooms were a bit sweet, hopefully we can give them another try.

We then continued home up the mountain, now safely back with our two cats Nico and Tiger.

I was back at it today, buying paintings and selling paintings. 

It has been a whirlwind of late. 

Got my teeth cleaned today by my dentist herself. 

You want a great dentist in Fallbrook, try Robin Mells. 

I paid a guy for some scrap gold and sent a painting to the Postal Annex for shipping tomorrow.

This afternoon I had a meeting with a cancer resource center in Temecula. 

I want to volunteer to talk to new cancer patients about my forty one year experience dealing with the disease. 

Told them that I would be happy to man a phone. Will see what, if anything, comes of it.

I don't know if you have seen me walking lately but I have had a serious limp for three months and it ain't pretty. I had a meniscus, anterior cruciate and medial collateral tear in 1979 and I have been bone on bone ever since. And now the arthritis has taken over. Probably need a new knee but going to see if I can get an x-ray and shot at Scripps Green on Friday to keep me going.

My last three chemo infusions start September 2. Wish me luck. I am still not unpacked from New Mexico and at this rate it might be October before my house and shop is in order. Can't work when I feel terrible, especially in the extreme heat.

See the shot at the very top? Put my shoes on in the van and something didn't feel right. Remember Eugene Levy in Best in Show with his two left feet? That was me. Helps to put them on the right foot, or in this case the left one. What a shmegegg.