Salad Is Slaughter

If I had seen Penn & Teller’s Bullshit episode on gun control a couple of weeks ago, I probably would have said something like, “you guys make some interesting arguments, but does a civilized society really need to be armed? Come on now, the government is elected, we can just vote the scoundrels out of office if need be. I agree that there are legitimate uses for guns – hunting, target shooting and so on. But really, aren’t you going a bit overboard with the whole armed citizen thing? Let’s get back to reality.” I’m pretty sure I would have said something like that.

Not anymore. Things have changed in the last week or so. Or maybe they’ve always been like this and I didn’t want to notice. The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that developers can bribe corrupt local governments make sizeable campaign contributions to politicians who will gladly steal your home (legally under eminent domain, of course) even though the loss of your property benefits no one but the developer and the politicians.

I used to think that some form of gun control was needed, that automatic weapons should be limited to those who really need them and I was a bit distressed at all the laws being passed that allowed regular citizens to carry firearms. I’ve changed my opinion and I now agree with Penn & Teller. As long as there are people in government who sell themselves to the highest bidder, the citizenry needs the second amendment. Guns can protect us from all kinds of criminals, not just the ones wearing gang colors. We need less gun control, not more.

I made Beef Wellington for the first time last night from a recipe that Chimney Rock winery sent us.  I had to bake it longer than they said so that the crust would come out right.  The recipe says to preheat the oven to 425, put the pastry-covered beef in the oven, then lower the temperature to 350 and cook for 20 minutes.  I suspect that when I did, instead of allowing the temperature to naturally cool, the oven was too smart and blew the hot air out until it reached the new temperature.

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I made baby back ribs on Monday and they were really good.  I started with a dry rub of paprika, cayenne pepper, onion salt, celery salt, brown sugar, pepper, and dry mustard.  Since I don’t have a smoker, I had to use the oven and slow cook them at 250 for a couple of hours.  Then I finished them off on the grill and covered them with some Everett and Jones hot BBQ sauce.  Delicious.

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We got a bunch of peas from the garden this weekend, and they were really good.  There’s nothing like fresh peas right off the plant.

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Chef Wangs closes its doors for the last time on June 15 until they kind find a new building.  Their current place is being torn down for apartments.  They’re catering the California reception on July 16, so I’ll get a chance at their Mandarin-style dim sum one more time.

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I think we’re at the end of lettuce season.  As soon as the temperature shot up, they went to seed.  Still, we got some good salads out of those plants.

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I made salmon with watercress sauce this past weekend and it was really good.  The fish was seared then baked.  Then sauce was watercress, spinach, cream and some spices.  It would have been a healthy dinner if it hadn’t been for that cream.

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The tomato plants look great, better than they ever did last year.  The only difference between the two years is that last year they were planted directly in the beds, and this year I transferred them to pots.  I need to raise the beds by at least two feet and fill them with good dirt next year.