JUNE 2020

Sunday 2020.6.28

Bargain Beef

It seems like only once a year, during the summebenr, a local grocery store has a really good bargain on beef. I'm not much of a beef eater, but I do love my Texas Beef Chili or Beef and Bean Chili made in an Instant Pot.

Summer isn't the season for chili, at least not for me. I like it in winter. So when I see beef at a really good price at the store, I stock up the freezer. This week they are selling "USDA Choice Boneless Beef Chuck Steak," regularly $10.99 per pound for $2.99 per pound. That's a bargain — or is it?

Something Smells Fishy in the Meat Department

The bargain beef wasn't much of a bargain after all. Well, it was, after the errors were found.

I went back the following day to buy more steaks. Thankfully, the person at the register was paying attention. He looked at the prices on the package and the register tape. They didn't match. He deducted the overage so that I got my steaks at the correct price.

Then I checked the prices of the steaks I bought the previous day. I still had the register tape. Those, too, were inaccurate, by about $5. I returned to the store and they kindly refunded the difference. In both cases, the actual price was 37% above the labeled price.

Next I went to the Smart & Final web site and sent a feedback message about my experience. I included a scan of the register receipt and the labels from the packages.

I mentioned in my comment to Smart & Final the disparity of the numbers. Besides the actual price at the register, the original price on the label is $10.99, but the register receipt says that price was $7.99. I don't want to accuse anyone of dishonesty, but this looks fishy to me. As the saying goes, numbers don't lie. Was someone in the store hiking the price to reduce the discount, hoping customers wouldn't notice? How many people check their register receipt? I don't. Or maybe it was simply an error in the computer that generates the bar code.

Smart & Final Customer Service responded to my feedback on Friday (the next day). That was encouraging. They apologized for the inconvenience and said they would share my dissatisfaction "with respective stake holders." I assume that means the store. I'm tempted to visit the store again and maybe buy another package or two of the steaks to see what, if anything, changed.

However, the good news is that I portioned the steaks into (roughly) 1-pound lots and vacuum sealed them. I now have enough beef chuck in the freezer for eight pots of chili if I make it with beans. That should last me all winter. And now I know to always check my register receipt to make sure the sale item prices are honest.

Maybe Amusing

It's no secret I haven't felt like shooting cooking videos lately. I'm slowing down. So I wondered how I might feature my older recipes on this web site. Which ones?

You might not know, but every recipe on this web site is numbered. If you want to see the number, look at the PDF; it's in the lower left corner. That offered a simple way to select a recipe to feature.

I Googled "random number generator" and chose a web site. I generated a number between 1 and 358 (the total numbered recipes) and came up with number 58, Pasta Bentoni. So that is how this old (9/2/2011) recipe made the Home Page of this web site.

It amused me because it was so easy.

Wednesday 2020.6.24

Coronavirus

I can admit to being worried about COVID-19 here in California. This state seems poised to eventually overtake New York as having the most infections in the nation. It's the rate of growth that disturbs me.

New Jersey has the third largest population of infected persons here in the USA, but the growth rate is fairly low, about 300 people per day. California is in second place, but the growth rate is more than 6,000 per day. What are we doing wrong?

Where I live people are conscientious, thankfully. When I go to the grocery store, which is seldom now, everyone is wearing a mask. The number of infections here is relatively small, but it is still rising.

I can be thankful of one thing: California is a deep blue Democratic state. Trump won't hold a rally here and make things worse.

The Room Where it Happened

John Bolton's book was released yesterday, despite attempts by the Trump administration to suppress it. As I mentioned in Sunday's blog, I got my copy on Saturday afternoon, a few days early.

I've read seven chapters so far. Without giving anything away, I can say it is arranged topically by chapter.

1. Bolton's path to becoming National Security Advisor
2. Foreign policy regarding Assad's use of chemical weapons in Syria
3. US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran
4. North Korea and Kim Jong Un
5. Summits in Brussels, London, and Helsinki
6. Getting out of the USA-Russia INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty
7. Efforts to remove troops from Syria and Afghanistan

There are 15 chapters; so I'm about halfway through the book.

The biggest "reveals" were already discussed in the media. So, for example, in chapter 5 Bolton reveals Trump is no master of geography. He thought Finland was part of Russia rather than a sovereign nation. In chapter 7 Bolton describes the challenges of working inside a White House with ever-changing priorities: "It was like making and executing policy inside a pinball machine." If you follow the news you heard those already.

I haven't yet read anything that overshadows Trump's quid pro quo with Ukraine as an impeachable offense. As such, the only reason I've seen, so far, why Trump would want to keep the book out of the public's hands is that it makes him look stupid a few months before the election. I doubt enough voters will read the book to make a difference. Probably the most important reason for trying to block the book's release is that Trump is obsessed with his image and he vehemently opposes anything that might tarnish it, as we clearly saw with his response to the poor turnout at his Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, where less than a third of the arena seats were filled and there was no overflow crowd.

The best response I saw of that rally was a short video by the Lincoln Project. There are no words, only music. As Trump walks across the White House lawn to the helicopter, on his way to the rally, a majestic, almost regal, orchestral soundtrack plays. It sounds a little like a Star Wars theme. Then, as he steps off the helicopter on his return from Tulsa, the same tune is heard, but this time by a badly played harmonica. It comes across as a raspberry, the sound made with the lips and tongue.

Boys and Their Toys

In this case, not a new toy, but one that just got better (sort of).

I mentioned in a previous blog a new, free, utility I downloaded from the Microsoft Store — Text to Speech. It's a simple little app that converts, as the name makes clear, text to speech using one of the voices that comes with Windows 10.

When possible, I like having a voice I can follow along with as I read a book. The speech helps to keep me focused on the content. When I can follow along with an audiobook, especially one recorded by the author, that is best because the author gives the text the appropriate emphasis. A computer voice simply reads the words. However, it's good enough.

The books I read are in digital format, ebooks, as EPUB files. That is how I started reading in the digital age using the Barnes and Noble NOOK ebook reader. In time, I downloaded the free Sigil EPUB editor. That lets me open a book's inner files, which in the case of EPUBs are HTML files, just like this web site. In fact, like this web site, they even use CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) files.

So, it's a simple matter of opening a book, selecting a chapter, then using copy and paste to load the text into a simple Notepad file, and then loading that into Text to Speech. I prefer to do a little cleanup, which I mentioned in the earlier blog, to make the text a little easier to listen to. There is also a pronunciation editor that lets me adjust how some words, usually names, are pronounced so that Erdogan is heard as er•doh•wahn rather than er•dew•gan and the WHO (World Health Organization) is pronounced as its full name rather than as "who".

So what got better? I discovered there is an export facility that allows me to save a voice file in one of several formats, such as MP3. I can export chapters, copy them to my little MP3 player, and then read outside on my deck using headphones. Since I started using the Text to Speech app I've been glued to my computer inside my home office. Now I can read on my deck again. The weather has certainly been pleasant enough for that.

Sunday 2020.6.21

Happy Summer

Yesterday was the summer solstice. It's the longest day of the year — still 24 hours, but the most time between sunup and sundown. From here the days will start getting shorter again. It will continue to get warmer because the sun will shine more than it won't. Day and night won't even out until well into September, September 24 to be exact.

Meanwhile, we are in a weather pattern we refer to here as June Gloom. Every morning the sky is overcast and it remains that way until the afternoon. Some days the sun never shines at all. It causes depression in some people, but I don't mind the cloudy mornings. It helps keep the temperature down.

And Happy Father's Day

Do something nice today for your dad. Or do something positive in his memory if he, like my dad, is no longer in this world. I haven't figured out what I might do. I'm trying to figure out which of his pastimes, such as watch television, was his favorite.

Trade One Infestation for Another

The flies are gone, thank goodness. Now it's ants in my kitchen. I try to keep my kitchen clean, but sometimes something unexpected happens.

On Friday I made New England Clam Cakes again. I had the ingredients; so why not? The plan is usually to make about 40. Ten are a pleasant treat in the afternoon. The others go into ziplock bags, ten each, and then into the freezer. While I was enjoying my snack the others were cooling on the counter. When I returned to them to freeze, the ants had gotten there first. They were swarming. There was nothing I could do but spray the lot with 409 cleaner, along with all the kitchen counter, and toss everything into the trash. Bummer.

Thankfully, ants are easy to deal with. I scramble an egg, eat most of it, and mix the remaining with boric acid powder. Put that in a jar with a lid that has holes in it and place the jar where the ants will find it. Find it they did. It takes a day or two, but the ants bring the poisoned bait back to the nest and that eradicates them all.

And in case you're wondering, "Why a jar?" The jar helps prevent the bait from drying out too soon. It's a lot more effective if it's moist.

I should mention these are protein ants. Sugar ants won't bother with scrambled egg. For them, mix some boric acid powder with a little honey or jelly and leave it where the ants can find it.

When it Rains, it Pours

I'm not writing about the weather. It's summer here in Southern California. We probably won't see rain again until November. I'm writing about the news.

Many who read this blog — all two of you — know I participate in a news discussion group with friends every other Saturday. During the pandemic we are meeting via web conferencing. Yesterday was our latest meeting.

We do our research in advance, bringing to the discussion any articles in print or captured from the internet or broadcast news, any articles we feel like discussing. I usually have at least three, rarely as many as six. This week I had 14, including one three-page story by Maggie Haberman in The New York Times, in which she wondered if Trump even wanted to be president for a second term. She argued he appears to be doing all the can to sabotage his campaign. The president's defense is: "I gotta be me." Fine, be a reality TV show host, or be presidential if you want to be re-elected. You can't have it both ways.

Saturday morning the news was still hitting the fan as Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman was fired by Trump. Why? We know the Southern District of New York has been investigating Trump and his associates. Some, like Michael Cohen, have gone to prison. I have no doubt the District has indictments ready for Trump, just waiting for him to step out of the White House on January 20th.

Rick Wilson, in his book Running Against the Devil, warned of the "October Surprise" — some revelation released at the last moment to damage the prospects of the opposition prior to the election. I would not at all be surprised if in coming months a manilla envelope with copies of Trump's tax returns from the years prior to his presidency don't suddenly fly through the transom at The Washington Post or The New York Times. I fully expect one of Burman's colleagues is already preparing the documents.

And Speaking of Which…

I learned something new this week. Since I started attending these news discussion groups, I've been copying and pasting excerpts from news stories into my notes using Adobe InDesign, a page layout application. I came into possession of the program many years ago when I had a job. I worked from home occasionally and therefore the department let me borrow their installation discs and use their installation code to put the software on my home computers.

InDesign does not have a feature to highlight text with color, such as you might do with a book and a yellow highlighter. Maybe newer versions have that feature, but my old version does not. However, by using the underline feature and then modifying the underline, it can be used as a highlighter. It works great.

And, Finally, John Bolton

During this past week I either read or heard: "Hate Bolton, but read his book."

On Friday lawyers for the president presented to a federal judge their arguments why they believe the book should not be released to the public. The judge prefaced the hearing by saying he didn't see much he could do. "The horse is already out of the barn." Yesterday morning he announced his judgment in a ten-page decision, concluding with "DENIED." The book will be released on Tuesday, barring any last-ditch appeal by Barr or the president, to halt it.

If you know where to look.…

Late Saturday afternoon, three days before the release date, the e-book appeared in a place known as Usenet. It's kind of like another internet. Naturally, I grabbed a copy. As of this writing, I read only the first chapter. Besides the usual insider information about Trump, the book tells us a lot about Bolton. He's an ultra-conservative war hawk whose foreign policy when dealing with difficult countries like North Korea or Iran is simple: "Drop nuclear weapons on them first. If anyone survives, negotiate with them."

Wednesday 2020.6.17

Splitting Wood

Summer is almost here. I'm getting itchy to fire up the barbecue grill again. So I spent some time outdoors on Sunday afternoon splitting a few more pieces of white oak.

One year ago, a neighbor gave me his oak firewood. It consists of split logs about 18 inches in length. Those are fine for a fireplace — or an outdoor fire pit, which is how he uses firewood. They're too big for a Weber grill. So I cut each log into slices, about four inches thick, and then split each slice into two pieces for large blocks or into four pieces for chips. I like the chips. They work well on the grill. But a couple of larger blocks in the back helps keep the fire going.

Currently, I have one five-gallon bucket filled to overflowing with blocks and another filled with chips. I'm ready for BBQ season, and there is still plenty of firewood on the rack.

I suspect I'll be 70 years old when I use the last of that wood. (I turn 69 next month.) It doesn't seem like a good age to be cutting up firewood with a chainsaw and then splitting it with a hatchet and sledge hammer. So the plan is to use charcoal briquettes when the firewood is gone.

I looked for an ideal solution — a conversion kit to use a propane burner in the bottom of the kettle grill. Alas, no such kit exists. There are some that require modification of the grill, such as cutting a hole with a circular saw, but those look like too much work, and what if something goes wrong? If you're an inventor, you might make a lot of money by coming up with a simple converter that uses one of the existing holes in the bottom of the grill and therefore requires no modifications.

And Then There Were (almost) None

Sunday was a good day for flies. Monday was good too. I didn't see any. Yesterday, however, I caught only one. Whatever the source — a dead animal somewhere or rotting meat in someone's garbage — it appears to be gone now.

Not Much Else Going On

It has been rather quiet around here lately. I'm waiting for John Bolton's book, The Room Where it Happened, to be released next week on Tuesday. The Trump administration has been doing all it can, legally and otherwise, to stop it. The book is printed. It is distributed to stores. Probably Costco has a million of them. About the only thing Trump can do is pressure Bolton to withdraw it, and I don't know if his contract with the publisher, Simon & Schuster, has provisions for that.

Regardless of the contract, Simon & Schuster has responded to Trump's objections, saying they fully intend to uphold Bolton's First Amendment rights and go forward with distribution. They contend the president's only complaint is that the book contains information that is not flattering to Trump and that objection is not grounds to withhold the book for any reasons of national security. According to one passage in the book, all of Trump's domestic and foreign policy decisions were made only with his re-election prospects in mind.

People familiar with the uproar say the book will very likely be distributed as planned. All the controversy swirling around it will assuredly increase sales. Initially, I had no interest in it because I thought Bolton should have testified before the Democrat-controlled House during the impeachment hearings. He only agreed to be interviewed by the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. That's partisan. He was never asked to appear. There was speculation at the time that he was refusing to reveal any of his secrets because he wanted to improve future sales of his upcoming book.

Then there is the book written by Trump's niece, another tell-all about the family's unscrupulous and illegal business dealings. That book is currently scheduled for release on July 28. Summer and fall appear to be difficult times for Trump's re-election campaign, which is already on shaky ground. The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise, the economy continues to decline, and if the number of coronavirus infections in Oklahoma rises dramatically as a result of his campaign rally on Saturday, that could put the kibosh on future rallies.

Sunday 2020.6.14

Raid Fly Ribbon (10 Pack)

You've seen them, perhaps hanging in restaurants decades ago. Today, no one likes to see a sticky ribbon with lots of dead flies on it. I remember them. So earlier last week I rode my bike to Home Depot to buy a package. They're really inexpensive, $3.12 for a package of ten.

There are two areas where the flies like to congregate in my home. One is my kitchen skylight. It has a screen in it, so I leave it open most of the time during the warmer months. Another area, oddly, is a small ficus tree in a pot on my dining room table. I hung a fly strip in each area.

The following day only one fly was trapped. However, there were 30 of them buzzing around. I know how many because one at a time I eventually caught them all using the water glass method I explained in Wednesday's blog. I kept track of the count.

And as if matters couldn't get any worse: I tracked one fly as it headed for the skylight. It landed on the fly strip and got stuck, momentarily. It broke free. I eventually got it and disposed of it, but I'm glad I only spent about $3 on those fly strips.

The following day I caught and disposed of 23. And there were eight on Friday. Yesterday there were five. I feel confident I won't see any very soon.

I don't know what the source might have been. I did look inside my trash bin. It was empty. Trash can be a source of flies. I live in a trailer park with small spaces and therefore my neighbors' trash bins aren't very far away. The flies could have come from a neighbor's trash. Pickup was on Friday; so if it was a source, it's gone now.

About This Week's Feature Recipe

I occasionally make a No-Oven Skillet Pizza, but I hadn't thought about featuring it. They're so easy to make, I think of them as cheating. However, with summer coming, and the very warm days we had last week, those pizzas seemed like a better way to make pizza. No need to heat up the oven, and the home. Simply fry the pizza in a skillet.

Total prep time is about the same, and the amount of hands-on effort is really no different than making a regular conventional-oven Pizza. If I use the stand mixer to knead the dough, which I've done, they're even easier. However, for the video, I chose to do the kneading by hand because it seems like people in tiny apartments without an oven might not have a stand mixer either. I wanted to keep it basic.

Getting a Spare

Some things are simply too important to have only one. A little more than a year ago I wrote about my search for a trackball mouse for my computer. The best one I ever owned was made by Microsoft, even though it suffered from some very weak plastic parts. I went through a few of them, until they were no longer available. And then I suffered with one that barely worked until I could find a suitable substitute.

At last, I found one, manufactured by Elecom. I love it.

This week I wondered: "How much longer before the wired model is no longer available?" I looked on Amazon and it was no longer listed; however, there was one "used" trackball available from an Amazon warehouse. The description said it is in like-new condition in original packaging. The package has some damage.

I'll admit to a little twinge of panic. No longer listed as available from Amazon? Only one used? I didn't hesitate. I ordered it. It's a fairly substantial trackball, rather heavy for its size. I suspect the two I already have might last a long time. But the spare wasn't expensive and I'll feel a little more confident having that spare tucked away in my computer accessories box out in the shed.

Wednesday 2020.6.10

What Died?

I rarely see a fly in my home. Maybe one every two or three years. I don't live near a farm or trash landfill. Flies are rare. However, lately I've been seeing at least one every day. At least. On Monday there were three. Yesterday there were seven. Seven! And I caught my first one of today this morning when I was making my coffee, and then another one when I sat down at this computer to work on this blog. And then a third. It's going to be bountiful day. Okay, it isn't exactly one of the ten plagues of Egypt, but I'm not happy.

Something must have died beneath my mobile home. Perhaps it was a gopher that maybe got to some of the bait I've been placing in their tunnels. I can be thankful of one thing: I can't smell anything dead. And (this is a bit morbid) the thought did occur to me that perhaps one of my neighbors, living alone, succumbed to COVID-19 and hasn't been found yet. It happens. My grandmother passed away from a heart attack while lying on her sofa and she wasn't found until nearly a week later.

How to Catch a Fly

You'll need a glass, a clear one, like a water glass (a wine goblet would do), preferable something tall to hold at one end to keep your hand away from the fly. And you'll need something stiff, like a thin piece of cardboard. A laminated card works nicely. Make sure it's large enough to completely cover the top of the glass.

It's really rather easy and it's better if the fly is on a flat surface, like a window. A little slowly, but not too slowly, place the glass over the fly. Being glass, the fly won't notice it coming. Once trapped between the water glass and the window, place the cardboard against the window near the glass. Then slide the glass onto the cardboard, not providing any opening for the fly to escape. Carefully remove the glass and the cardboard all as one piece, trapping the fly inside.

Now Kill the Fly

Then, with the fly trapped, get ready with a spray bottle of any soapy cleaner, like Windex or 409. When the fly is down near the bottom of the glass, carefully lift one edge of the cardboard and splay the cleaner into the glass and replace the cardboard again. One squirt is usually enough.

Flies breathe through their shell, or exoskeleton. Water beads up on the shell, but soap spreads all over the shell, blocking the pores through which the fly breathes. No air; so the fly quickly asphyxiates.

Mother Nature

Besides the flies, I kill at least one spider in my home everyday. And this morning I saw a few ants in my kitchen. I don't know what Mother Nature is up to at the moment, but she's obviously very busy.

The Weather Future

Maybe I'm reading too much into the weather, but I suspect a hot July/August/September. The forecast for yesterday predicted a high of 88°F. We surpassed that by 10:00 in the morning. At 11:00 the white light inside my computer changed to red, indicating overheating. I put on the office air conditioner. And today the forecast says 85°F. At 9:00 we surpassed that. It's going to be another hot one.

Last year I rarely used the AC at all. It isn't even summer yet and I probably used it more this season than in all of last year.

Also, this being June, we normally see a weather phenomenon we call June Gloom. It's cloudy, sometimes all day. We might not see the sun at all for several days. The skies are clear and blue now. No clouds.

And, Finally, a Statistic

I read recently some foods are now in short supply at many Costco stores. Frozen dinners, chicken, pork and flour.

Frozen dinners are understandable. With most restaurants closed, prepared frozen meals might be an alternative. Some chicken and pork processing plants closed due to high numbers of workers testing positive for COVID-19. Flour? The reason given was that many people are stuck at home; so they've taken up baking. Here are a few bread recipes: Basic White Bread, French Bread and Portuguese Sweet Bread. I have plenty of flour.

Sunday 2020.6.7

Caramelizing Onions

Late last month I mentioned the boxes of produce a neighbor pushed onto me. I'm thankful, in a way. Thursday was onion day. I cut up six large onions and divided them among two skillets. Then I cooked them for about an hour, reducing the temperature as the water cooked off. If you have a good ear, you can hear them go through the stages of cooking. In the beginning they'll his because the water is being boiled off. Then they start to make a crackling sound as they begin to brown, and you need to stir them more often. Toward the end of the cooking time the flame is at or near low.

Many years ago I used to buy the large bag of onions at Costco and do the same. When the onions are a rich golden brown, let them cool and then package them in packets of about half an onion each for freezing.

I probably should have videoed the process and added the procedure to the Basics section of the Recipe Archive. However, I thought about it when it was too late. Maybe another time.

Toward the end, when they were really cooked down, I combined them all in one skillet. Originally, they nearly filled two skillets. The onions cook down a lot. Onions are mostly water. When reduced, they are easy to store. I like these onions on top of pizza.

And that led to something a little amusing. I happened to see one of my neighbors walking by with her niece. I went outside to say hello and was told the niece had said, "Something smells good." The windows were open and the fans were running. I wondered if people could smell my cooking onions outside. Now I know.

I ended up with 12 packets. They all fit in a 1-quart ziplock bag. Try that with six big onions. The weight scale is how I divided them. 58 grams each. Each packet is the equivalent of half a large onion. I wish I had weighed the whole onions in advance so that I could calculate the water I boiled off.

Meanwhile…

While the onions were cooking I sous vide cooked more pork ribs. Rather than cooking them for 20 hours, which seemed a little excessive, I started them at around 8:00 in the morning, to be done around 5:00. Nine hours seemed adequate. I finished them in the air fryer to brown them before serving. There was only me at the table, but it was a worthwhile experiment. I'd like to do this same process someday, but finish them on the grill when inviting guests to dinner. I think it would work well as a presentation to see sous vide ribs going onto the grill to be finished in about 10 minutes per side.

It Has Been a While

I hadn't done a Kitchen Vlog in a while. I just didn't feel like it. Maybe I'm getting old. Maybe I feel a little depressed because of conditions in the country right now. I decided it might do me some good to release some of what I'm feeling by talking about it in a vlog — sort of like therapy.

I'm writing a new script for another vlog. It's about the polls and my opinions of them. I'm thinking I might produce that one as we get nearer the election.

Wednesday 2020.6.3

New England Clam Cakes

I love Clam Cakes. I grew up with them in, of all places, Connecticut. You could get them in hamburger joints, the concession stand at the beach, the snack bar at the drive-in, actually, in most places that served quick and easy foods. Maybe a few high-end seafood restaurants served them too.

It took me a long time to learn how to make them. I knew they were batter, clams, leavening, salt and pepper. However, my attempts with water as the liquid were a miserable failure. I couldn't capture the flavor of the cakes I enjoyed in Connecticut. It wasn't until I figured out the liquid was not water but clam juice that I found the right flavor.

Leavening was another issue. I assumed baking powder. However, the cakes, scooped out of a bowl of batter with a small ice cream scoop, would cook brittle around the outside; then, as the inside would expand and cook, extrusions would break out and form lumps or legs. They tasted okay, but they looked awful.

I turned to using yeast, which gave the outside some elasticity, allowing the inner part to expand while cooking, without breaking out in legs.

Technically, they might be called "clam fritters," although I think of fritters as more of a flat cake. Some people insist they be made with baking powder, so I added a recipe for those too, which I call Clam Fritters.

If you Google "clam fritters" and look at the images, you'll see plenty that look lumpy. I prefer the smooth round cakes that not only taste like the clam cakes I enjoyed in Connecticut while I was growing up, but look like them too.

There is one difference though; I make mine with plenty of clams. Also, I call mine "New England Clam Cakes," but they are better known by some as "Rocky Point Clam Cakes." Rocky Point Park was an amusement park for many years. We went there when I was a child. Then the owners, sensing the business was losing too much money, "borrowed" on the park's value and never paid back what they owed. The park was forced to sell its rides to help pay its debts when it fell into bankruptcy. The state took over the property and recently restored it somewhat as a public park. There are no rides, but it's a pleasant park for the people to enjoy.

I bring all this up because this week I thought it was time to make them again. I felt like I needed some comfort food. It had probably been more than a year ago that I enjoyed them. I made them yesterday, three dozen of them. Yum. About half I ate. The others went into the freezer.

My Kitchen Vlog

I tried to do a Kitchen Vlog this week. In my previous vlog I discussed a book I was reading, A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump by David Plouffe. I said I would talk more about it as I continued to read. I wrote my teleprompter script. I was ready. Then things changed.

It quickly became apparent the book was out of date. Some of the discussion was based upon premises that are no longer true: That Trump wouldn't face a crisis, the nation's economy would remain strong, and unemployment would remain very low in the lead-up to the elections in November.

COVID-19 saddled Trump with the first of the crises he is ill-prepared to handle, or, better yet, not at all prepared. Although he was warned as early as January that this novel coronavirus might spread and become a pandemic, he brushed away the warning and insisted it would go away by mid-April, as if by a miracle. Now more than 100,000 Americans are dead and there is still no cure and no vaccine. The USA is among the nations with the worst response to the pandemic — poor testing and scarce equipment for hospitals.

Although the murder of George Floyd, which resulted in rioting and looting, was not a direct result of the virus, they are connected. How else can you explain the social unrest in other cities and in other countries, not just Minneapolis, Minnesota?

As has been said in the news several times, the killing of Floyd was the fuse to a much bigger bomb. People are stressed. They've been hunkered down in their homes, afraid, trying to stay safe from COVID-19. Stores, restaurants, movie theaters, churches, barber shops and beauty salons, etc. were closed. In many places you can't walk into a grocery store without wearing a mask. Social distancing is the "new normal." We've been living under siege conditions.

And that provided Trump with another crisis, social disorder. How did he deal with it? By standing in front of a church holding a Bible for a photo op. Thank you Mr. president. And when it was reported he fled like a frightened rat to his bunker while there were protesters in front of the White House, he later claimed it was only to do an inspection. Lies don't solve problems; they make them worse.

As a result, unsuspected by Plouffe, the economy tumbled. The stock market is doing okay, but most Americans don't own stock. And now many people can barely afford to buy food because they're out of work, which gave Trump yet another crisis.

The nation's unemployment is at near record levels. I read yesterday that more than 41 million workers applied for unemployment benefits. According to Fortune magazine, about 24% of the nation's workforce is out of a job. What is Trump doing? He's speaking to his base, as are the Republicans in congress, because their most pressing issue is re-election. I can't help picturing many Republican politicians sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table this November 26th feeling thankful they were not up for re-election this year.

And so maybe I have my script for a new Kitchen Vlog now. Thanks for putting up with me.

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