Feb 4, 2007

Dateline: the Ice Station Zero Chicago Style, but no fire in the moors!

I made a fine stew, you know its kind of cold here. Zero now and then below zero; and a wind chll of -15 – 30 now and then. So stew, made in a slow cooker a devoted friend sent me for my birthday. I still have the Walt Whitman she sent me in 1997 sitting right here. GREAT birthday momentos. Recipe below.



That is a fine WESTBEND SLOW COOKER, a delectable stew with little to do (stay in bed covered up). By the time I snapped this we had eaten half.


The recent birthday: well momentos of that day have not stoppped: AARP sent a membership offer, now that’s a cheery piece of mail.

So, Saturday, Paul and I were watching Perry Mason in his room. Snug as bugs in rugs with bowls of stew. Then the fire alarm schrieked: Stay in Your Apartment until the Fire Department advises you to leave. Yes, stay in, we knew that, 46 floors, we are on 26 everyone 84 years old . . . . a single unit disaster most likely if anything.

Ok, zero, wind chills. We got dressed up, Paul put on his best watch, I put the book of the moment in my bag. Lined up our prescriptions to grab last. We watched the lobby camera. NO FIRE (no announcement of safety either tho); seems a motor in a heating fan started to smoke. On the floor below us. On the 25th floor.

Do not be alarmed, the planet is ending was on the evening news.

Ah so cold, and global warming seems to exist (but not in Chicago in February). Long ago I read The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilisation by Brian Fagan
284pp, Granta, £20 (review that got me interested: http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/scienceandnature/0,,1226990,00.html )

a charming book on what sudden climate shifts did to people in the past 20,000 years – most died or moved – think Katrina, or have you seen THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW? Change long ago was so gradual, now . . . . well . . .

Of course modern man will breed a super potato that can grow in the desert and a 10 foot tall asparagus too - by then the food POLICE WILL have BANned HOLLANDAISE I AM SURE—I think there already is a self basting turkey in DC. Smile and be calm: Pangloss says we will be safe –wait, Pangloss’s smile is knotting up, my god it’s a just a happy mask, ITS ITS : Dick Darth Vader Cheney in an Exxon sweatshirt!

Imagine an unimaginable change in the jet streams that would leave the southeast or the southwest arid deserts. Of course that would never happen, how could it (solar flares, sun spots, man made nuclear devices detonated by some James Bond villain, giant forest fires . . . .). Nah, never happen.

Get out the bagpipes, instrument of choices for dirges . . . . What if Scotland vanished, here today, gone tomorrow? Nah, never happen.

What are those reserved Scots themselves saying?

The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland (UK), and established in 1783)
February
4, 2007

RISING SEA LEVELS THAT POSE THREAT TO
SCOTLAND


Rising sea levels could cause huge damage to low-lying
areas of Scotland, including its major cities, scientists warned
yesterday.

Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perthshire and Dundee, as well as
numerous coastal and river areas, are all under threat, they said, as they
issued their bleakest warning yet about the threat from climate
change.

And:

Agriculture could be particularly hard
hit, with warmer temperatures leading to the possibility of new diseases and
pests and decreased water supplies. Climate change is also likely to affect
tourism hot spots, causing greater erosion in Scottish hills and a rising risk
of fire in the moorlands in hotter, drier summers.

Entire clips: http://www.theherald.co.uk/display.var.1167886.0.0.php?utag=27754


[[ Cheney also defended U.S. opposition to a global warming pact in his comments. He said the accord would have "devastating economic consequences" for this country and cited unresolved scientific questions about the causes of global warming. (Cheney spoke Wednesday afternoon at the National Press Club. The gathering was co-hosted by Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Wisconsin)
June 14, 2001 ]]

A terror free environment with wealthy oil companies and no life on the planet…

++

More stew? Oh, time for hot chocolate……

Try it:

SLOW COOKER BEEF STEW

2 1/2 lbs. beef stew meat
5
lg. potatoes, cut in chunks
1 med. onion, chopped (not fine)
4 lg carrots,
chopped in chunks
3 lg. ribs celery
1 1/2 c. tomato juice
1/2 c. dry
red wine or water
1/4 c. quick cooking tapioca
2 tsp. salt
2 sm. bay
leaves
1 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. pepper

Mix all ingredients
in 4 or 6 quart slow cooker. Cover and cook at setting #3 (low) for 7 to 9 hours
or at setting #5 (high) for 3 to 4 hours until meat and vegetables are tender.
(Stir stew several times throughout cooking time.)

OH, the COLD, the TRIBUNE, the cold:










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