Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Where Should We Invade Next

Scott woke me around 7 a.m. and we left our house about 10 to drive to Calgary, where we would spend the night with Gunnar and Melissa. The state of crops on either side of the highway was visually inspected by Farmbeau all the way there. Verdict: There is a lot more crop still in the fields than the agricultural reports are claiming.

That night Gunnar put on Michael Moore's documentary titled Where Should We Invade Next.  I assumed it was about U.S. military incursions into other nations around the world, and was pleasantly surprised to learn that instead that Moore had visited countries to highlight ways they do things far better for their population than the U.S. does for its own. Even, as Dad suggested when I told him about it the next day, if Moore cherry-picked people and places that exemplified his messages, the film is still well worth watching and I'm here to recommend it. Apparently Italian workers get eight weeks of paid holidays each year, and receive an extra month's salary in December. French children eat chef-prepared, healthy gourmet food instead of cafeteria slop, and for the same cost. Finnish students have the highest marks of any in the world, yet they aren't assigned homework and only attend classes about three hours per day. There's more. Much more! Don't tell me Moore isn't your cup of tea; watch the film and tell me what you think of what you saw.

After a night in Calgary I left Scott there to visit with his family and hopped a Westjet plane to Kelowna to visit some of mine.
Two days after I arrived in Kelowna, Joan's 14-yr-old daughter Jordan and her friend sat in the yacht club restaurant as far from we two old ladies as they could get. Joan and I sipped sangria in the lounge while waiting for a very fine chicken and quinoa salad containing candied pecans. To Die For. Although I suspect those nuts, followed by a Thai supper that included peanut sauce and cashews, caused an outbreak of cold sores that evening before I went to bed. 
Joan tells me that too-short entries disappoint her and she likes me to ramble on longer.  So I'll try.

 So Far Today list:
1. made six loaves of sunflower bread for a paying customer who will pick them up in the morning.
2. cleaned the kitchen.
3. scrubbed a sinkful of garden carrots given to us; they are drying on the counter.
4. put two loads of laundry into the machines in the basement

Now it's lunchtime and I'm going to warm up last night's supper, which was delicious, if I say so myself. I made LENTIL-HERB SOUP (the basic recipe, without paprika and olives, but I added sautéed celery, some leftover wild and brown rice, and about four cups more water; the end result was more like stew than soup). When the soup was ready, I added MEATBALLS that were first baked in the oven.

You may presume (by looking at the meat section in the Stubblejumpers recipe collection so far) that hamburger is my favourite when it comes to eating dead animal flesh. You'd be right, but pork chops and bacon are also high on the list although eaten more rarely, and so is marinated beef steak grilled to medium-rare. I don't consume any of these particularly often as I don't prepare dead animals every day, but I did grow up with this diet and have my preferred recipes. Scott will eat meat every day if he can, and for every meal if he can get it. Keeping our deep freeze full of organic beef including roasts and stew meat and ribs and such is one of his rewards for all the labour involved in raising cattle. He is one serious meat-and-potatoes man.