PolitiCook.net

Purple Lizard Lounge

Party’s over; time to be purple again.

9.2 billion by 2050. Will We Have Enough Food & Water?

The answer is no. Since 1950, the earth’s population has risen by more than four billion people, to 6.6 billion and UN projections put world population at 9.2 billion by 2050. The world currently faces a food crisis before the full impact of climate change and a 42% rise in population. The Malthusian vision may yet be vindicated. Most economists today are lucky that their predictions don’t even have a shelf life. In this modern age of punditry, brass balls are a lot more important than prescience.

Food and water are essential elements that all human beings should have access to in order to live. Access to the minimum essential food & water are considered human rights. All else pales in significance. Read more »

AAF’s Recipe of the Day

Real men don’t eat quiche! I’m not crazy about them, but if it’s well made, sure, I’d eat it.

 And if it’s made with Gruyere cheese & proper bacon lardons, then I devour it! Read more »

Diet War Story

I abhor diets. The reality is, however, that I need to knock off a good 15-20 pounds, weight that’s crept up on me over the past few years due to any number of things: quitting smoking, eating like a little piggie, decreasing activity levels, stress and, I suspect, not enough sleep, at least over the last year.

So at the beginning of the year, I vowed I would knock it off and, shortly thereafter, I joined Weight Watchers.

What a freaking disaster that turned out to be.
Read more »

Culinary Ephemera: A New Series

One of my favorite pastime is reading and looking at a range of culinary books from the scholarly and esoteric to the mundane and even military manuals on how to prepare food for say, an army of 6,000 soldiers. I remember reading, with great interest, the Chicago Police Food Manual, circa 1937 (I think), a book I found gathering dust on the shelves of a house I was renting in L.A.

And if I’m found in the waiting room of a doctor or a dentist, the first thing I look for is a digest on recipes or a magazine that features food stories and photographs. That’s my kind of porn, food porn!

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Tomato Chili Relish and Other Condiments

I love spicy food, can never get enough of it. I make my own chili sauce, and other condiments such as tomato chili relish, spicy onion marmalade, mango & papaya chutney, and just yesterday I tried my hand at a curried eggplant relish.

Salsa is another plus, and an endless source of combinations: green tomato, cucumber & mango; papaya, red onion & avocado; black-eyed beans, corn & sun-dried tomato; peach, avocado & tomatillos…the list, as I said, can be endless.

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Porridge, the Food, not the TV series!

Ms AAF cooks porridge once or twice a week, for the girls, before they set off to school. She maintains that it’s incredibly healthy, reasonably priced and filling. I personally hate it though I love Scottish oatcakes. Porridge is a dish which has become associated with Scotland somehow. It is made of oats stewed with either milk or water, and is served with salt or sugar and milk. Our girls love to eat it with maple syrup. Perhaps I should try. However, the porridge history interests me.

The first evidence for dishes resembling porridge is prehistoric. Neolithic farmers cultivated oats along with other crops. Various types of grains and grain meals could be stewed in water to form a thick porridge-like dish.

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Basic Crepes

Crepes are wonders for a multitude of dishes. I like to eat them plain, too, with coffee or milk. They are easy to make, but are one of the few things that I cook using exact measurements. If the proportions are wrong, they are either too tough or too cakelike, so follow the recipe closely.

Here is it:

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Late Nite Humor

Who doesn’t watch late night shows? Me! That’s who. I’m watching cable news or toiling on a certain website. But I do go to a couple of sites to extract some of the funniest jokes.

Hillary Clinton told People magazine that she has never had cosmetic surgery. It is not for her. You know how politicians hate anything that’s fake.” — Jay Leno

“Amy Winehouse was arrested for assaulting a guy in a bar. In all fairness, she didn’t do anything. The guy was sucker-punched by her hair.” — David Letterman

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Purple Lizard Lounge

Shhhhhhhhh. I’m in disguise.