22 March 2020

recipe: FRENCH ONION SOUP

Isn't this a convenient spot? What follows has nothing to do with what I was doing here before. But let's use it anyway.

Here's how to make easy French Onion Soup  that's comforting & kinda healthful, too
from the annoying Mama, with love.

The RECIPE (but mess with it freely)
    4 onions :: 4 garlic cloves :: 3 tbs oil :: +/- 4 cups veg broth ::  4 pieces “good” bread :: slices “good” cheese (it’s fine if bread or cheese are a bit stale)

    1. Chop onions & garlic. 
    2. On very low heat, sauté onions & garlic in oil. Stir often. Maybe 20 minutes, onions should be brownish. 
    3. Add broth. Keeping heat low until it’s simmering for a while.
    4. Ladle soup into oven-safe bowls, half full, or a bit more. 
    5. Top w/ ‘good’ bread & ‘good’ thinly-sliced cheese. 
    6. Bake +/-325 degree oven or broiler. 

    notes: 
    a. Most any hard, or semi-hard cheese works. My current fav is Racklette (sp?). Since I can’t spell, you’ll have to call for more cheesy thoughts.
    b. Bake vs. broil? I can't broil here, so baking works fine. If you can broil
    conveniently, everything in your bowl must be nice and toasty because that wonderful broiler can brown the cheese topping quickly. Ideally, I'd bake until soup is slightly bubbly & cheese is melted, then finish off in the broiler, but I can't. Experiment in your kitchen. I hope you'll enjoy all the outcomes.
    c. ‘Good’ bread & ‘good’ cheese makes it better, even if a little stale. Of course, slice any moldy bits from the cheese.
    d. This recipe is for Pipa’s soup (i.e., low-salt, low-fat, not spicy, blah blah). But, for us who appreciate flavor, add salt, pepper & cooking sherry. How much? Till it tastes yummy.
    e. Lastly, you should know that everyone but me uses beef broth.

    Heh, we all can use some comfort food now.  (But we'll keep it kinda healthful, please.)

    Just in case you're wondering, I've got no numbers on this soup. And, believe it or not, I'm collecting zero onion soup data.


    01 May 2013

    Amazingly Beautiful, but Entirely Unusable Apple iMac

    My beautiful, yet very-ill, not-at-all-functional Apple iMac:
    This is my computer this morning.



    It's entirely useless, and I'm terribly frustrated.  Can't work at all!  Yet, if one's primary computer must fail, it ought to do so in an unusually beautifully way, shouldn't it?

    25 March 2013

    Protect Children Now


    Investigate what happened then. 
    Learn.
    Make sure it doesn't happen again.

    Magna est veritas? Yes. Time to prevail, eh?

    30 January 2013

    Feeling Inspired: Ain't Gonna Study War No More!


    Again, I am inspired by the work of Aaron Freeman.  Check out his new blog,  Ain't Gonna Study War No More!, plus two (perhaps more that I missed) discussions on WBEZ's Worldview:
    Things are looking up - and have been for some time. Just check the data. Oh, yeah. That's my job. I better get busy, eh?


    10 August 2012

    Institution Don't Get It

    I've written previously about my horror at the revelations of systematic sexual abuse of students at the Horace Mann School in New York City.  My heart breaks for the victims.  My stomach retches at the response from the institution, Horace Mann School.

    After two months of silence, save three empty letters from the Head Master, the Board of Trustees Chair wrote an entirely unsatisfying reply. All is in the past, he says. The past isn't the responsibility of the Board today. Are you kidding?!

    Horace Mann School's Board of Trustees doesn't get it.

    Once again, the leaders are the victims.  I don't know who they are, but a group of men and women who were sexually abused as children at Horace Mann School have come forward with unbelievable intelligence and grace.

    Their general comment to the public:
    The survivors of sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School welcome any and all initiatives that individuals are willing to undertake on our behalf. We ask that people who want to support us consult with us first, since we can help guide these initiatives to make sure they best support our needs. We note that no individual act can substitute for action by the school itself. We continue to ask that the Horace Mann School administration and Board of Trustees honor our request for an apology, compensation and an independent investigation.
    That is a statement I can respect.  Steven Friedman's letter, crafted by the institution's PR firm and lawyers, doesn't garner respect.  It wreaks of institutional-ass-covering. (Please excuse my language. This is so very upsetting.)

    Replying to the Horace Mann School Board of Trustees only formal response, the Survivors' Group, with it's usual aplomb.
    The survivors of sexual abuse at the Horace Mann School welcome outreach by the Board of Trustees, although we are disappointed in the amount of time it took the Board to generate a response to our requests, which we first made on June 21, 2012.

    While any gesture of outreach is positive, we are disappointed as well that this response does not address the requests we made in June and have repeated since: an apology from the institution, compensation for the survivors, and an independent investigation.

    The investigation by the Bronx District Attorney’s office does not constitute an independent investigation according to established best practices. Nor does the NYPD investigation, also in progress. These investigations are not voluntary. The model for an independent investigation is the Freeh Report conducted by Penn State, which was voluntary, was funded by the school itself, and was not restricted by any constraints, such as the statute of limitations, on its ability to see its inquiry through to its conclusions. An independent investigation conducted by special outside counsel retained by the School for that purpose is especially appropriate and necessary in light of the facts that have come to light concerning the involvement of predecessor School Heads and Boards of Trustees in failing to respond to and/or suppressing reports of sexual abuse. These failures and suppressions would not necessarily be the subject of the DA’s or NYPD investigation.

    We are disappointed as we have been in the past that the School and the Board choose to communicate in detail with the community as a whole before communicating in any substantive way with us.

    We continue to assert our requests, and hope that a fully satisfactory response will be forthcoming from the School and the Board in future.
    My admiration for the Survivors' Group, their strength,  their eloquence, their dignity, is great. In this situation, healing should be lead by the institution in which criminal abuse took place.  In their absence, who leads the cause? The same children who were victimized.

    To the Survivors' Group: You have my admiration, my respect, my thanks.