So that baseball star, Mark McGwire has admitted what apparently most people suspected for years, that he cheated by taking steroids and steadfastly lied about it over and over again.
I just wish the sports people would make up their minds. I think there is great pressure for these guys to cheat, to be a little bit better, to break records, to sell ads, to bring in the fans and so on. Either allow everybody to take all the drugs they want (the guy with the best pharmacist wins) or get serious about not tolerating players juicing up.
What do I mean by not tolerating that behaviour? I mean making all the records of cheating players disappear….not an asterisk, a disappearance. I mean firing guys who get caught and really trying to catch them. Pile on the shame and embarrassment. If it’s a bad thing, treat it like a bad thing.
Today I heard a radio commentator suggest that now that Mr. McGuire has “come clean” they might let him in the hall of fame. Geez, that’s the same as saying its OK. If you believe it’s OK, lets not pretend it isn’t. Let them pump themselves full of the stuff and say who cares. I just don’t want to see the sports establishment claim it is against doping but encourage it by allowing it to be profitable to cheat.
Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien have been all over the news lately because – well, because their popularity seems to be tanking. NBC tried Leno earlier and that didn’t work, and Conan in Leno’s spot apparently didn’t work either. I say apparently because I gave up watching these guys years ago. Don’t you think that old format is tired and maybe now is the time to put it out to pasture. In fact I think the late night talk show has been dead for sometime. It just hasn’t realized it yet.
Ho hum, it’s another “monologue”. More Tiger Woods jokes, how boring. And tonight there’s a selection of second-string actors plugging their movies and tv shows, and maybe a performer playing with the house band. The world has changed. Time to give it up and get another idea.
I made some corn bread in a cast iron fry pan the other day to have with gumbo. It’s been years since I’ve made it that way. It’s easy and the texture is the payoff.
There are a lot of recipes floating around for this, each a little different from the other. Here’s how I made it.
You need:
Corn meal, about a cup and a half
1/4 cup butter…I used ordinary salted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/4 cup corn….it can be from the cob, from a can, frozen, whatever
Put a 10″ cast iron fry pan into a 400F oven and heat it up.
Stir together the corn meal, sugar, salt and baking powder in a bowl.
In another bowl, add the buttermilk, baking soda and whisk in the eggs.
Add the corn to the wet ingredients.
Take the hot fry pan from the oven and add the butter. Let the butter melt, swirling it around in the pan, then pour the butter into the wet ingredients, whisking it all together. Put the pan, with residue butter, back in the oven.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and stir together just enough to combine.
Take the pan from the oven and, using a spatula, pour/scrape the batter into the hot pan. Put the pan in a 400F oven for about 15 minutes, then check to see if it’s done by poking with a skewer. If the skewer comes out clean, you’re in business. If not, give it a little more time. Be careful not to let the edges burn. You’ll see the edges have come away from the pan.
Let the pan with the cornbread cool on your stovetop for a few minutes. Then carefully remove the cornbread from the pan. If your pan is well-seasoned, it should come up off the bottom without any trouble.
At this point, cut the cornbread into chunks, whatever size you like. Immediately test a piece just to make sure it tastes as good as it looks and smells. You may find yourself in stunned disbelief. If so, sample another piece.
There is a school of thought that says use bacon fat instead of butter, and mix in a small handful of bacon bits to the batter. I didn’t do that, but I thought about it.
Note that this recipe doesn’t use any regular white flour. If you use a portion of white flour, your bread will be less grainy. People who do that usually add more sugar too. I say, try it both ways and decide for yourself what you like best.
Here’s the Carolina Chocolate Drops performing Cornbread and Butterbeans
And here’s Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee performing Cornbread Peas Black Molasses
Finally, let’s go out with Cornbread, performed by the Zydeco Flames
I stumbled across this excellent performance on YouTube.
I’ve never seen an accordion quite like this one. It looks like it’s a Club System accordion. See on the melody side there are two rows plus 5 additional “helper” buttons to enable the player to get into additional keys. More unusual though are the 4 additional buttons on the bass side. I don’t think I’ve seen that before. I wonder if they’re switches or additional valves?
The battle continued last night as Vox and I played five games of go.
Game 1
Mister Anchovy: White Vox: Black White wins
Off to a good start.
Game 2
Mister Anchovy: White Vox: Black White wins
I trapped his group up on the top left smartly.
Game 3
Mister Anchovy: White Vox: Black Black wins
I can hardly bear to look at this one. Although I trapped three of Vox’s groups, he destroyed my large group on the lower right side, cutting off their eye shape and cruelly strangling them. Scurvy dog.
Game 4
Mister Anchovy: Black Vox: White White wins
Vox beat me handily this game. I couldn’t create weaknesses in his positions and I needed to do some business somewhere to win.
Game 5
Mister Anchovy: Black Vox: White Black wins
This was the rubber game after a split in the first two. It was a hard fought game too. Vox’s large group at the bottom right is dead. I was able to create an internal ko. His best ko threat was against my smaller group along the top edge on the left. I let them die and destroyed Vox’s group for the win.
There was a report the other day of another dog getting shocked after walking over a metal plate in a sidewalk, here in Toronto. I recall a number of reports of similar incidents a while back. It seems to me that the folks who manage our electricity spent a pile of money, nearly $4 Million, finding and repairing “hotspots” around the city. Now we’re told that street shocks will always be a problem.
Isn’t it reasonable to expect our pets (and people!) won’t get zapped when they go for a walk?
Rocco Rossi has declared. George Smitherman is in. The Globe and Mail has speculated that John Tory will be in, and Joe Pantalone too. And now I understand Georgio Mammoliti has declared. Add Councillors Adrian Heaps, John Parker and Michael Del Grande, and already the field is getting crowded. I’m sure we’ll get a fine selection of fringe candidates, and maybe a surprise or two along the way. Who is the best candidate for Mayor of Toronto?
I think it would be healthy this time out to see a lot more turnover of City Councillors. It’s unfortunate that it is so difficult for a candidate to unseat a sitting Councillor in Toronto. To Torontonians I say, PARTICIPATE. Get to know who is running in your ward, form an opinion and get out to vote when the election rolls around!
I just watched the gold medal game of the World Junior Hockey Championships on television. The USA team defeated Canada 6-5 in overtime. I’m not a big hockey fan. I was when I was a little kid, but more recently the last time I was charged up by a hockey game I think the Canadian Women’s team was involved. I stumbled onto tonight’s game by accident, on my way to the food network.
Even though the home team lost, I thought this was tremendously fun and exciting hockey. The Canadians tied it up with a pair of goals late in the third period, setting up the overtime. I’m sure there will be plenty of hockey fans to take exception to this but to me, by comparison, pro hockey seems clumsy and slow and dull – especially those brutal mid-season games. I’ll watch these juniors play anytime.
27th Street 