Private Mars Rocket II

Dinner last night was a modification of this Hillshire Farms recipe - Easy Smoked Sausage Skillet. The original recipe called for red peppers which I don't like, and so I substituted a can of diced tomatoes. I also made only half the rice.

Smoked Sausage Skillet ala Gerrib as made:

1 package Smoked Sausage (14oz) chopped into bite sizes
1/4 cup Olive Oil
2 Cloves of Garlic, crushed
1 can diced tomatoes
1 Small Yellow Onion, sliced thin
1/2 package Frozen Broccoli, thawed
1/2 cup Chicken Broth
1 cup Rice
1/2 cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Directions:

Heat olive oil in skillet, add onions, garlic and sausage and cook until sausage is brown and onions are soft. While this is cooking, make rice as per package directions.

Once sausage mix is browned, add tomatoes, broccoli and broth. Cook for 10 minutes or until vegetables are done. Add rice and cheese to skillet, stir and serve. Makes 3 hearty servings.

I'm sitting here in the hotel bar at Kaunas confusing the waitresses. (I think that when a Lithuanian orders vodka he does so like an American with bourbon - ice or neat.) Anyway, I've toured the highly walkable city of Kaunas, the Pittsburgh of Lithuania.

I say Pittsburgh because the city is at a river junction (two, not three rivers) and because of location it's been a trade and military hub since people moved into the area. Also because it's between two rivers, the streets tend to flow parallel to the river, making a hash of a grid system.

Kaunas is a very walkable city. They took two semi-major streets and made them pedestrian only, and said streets flow into the very car-unfriendly Old Town. My hotel is a block from the eastern (modern) end of that walkway, which is about a kilometer long. I've walked it both ways.

The old town is quaint and old, and I've visited all of the sites to see. Unlike Pittsburgh, Kaunas was a capital at various points in its history, but it largely retained its "down home" feel.

Getting here was a bit interesting. First, I messed up my ticket, buying something from Lufthansa that didn't allow me to check baggage. 100 Euro later, I'm in business. Then the flight from Frankfurt to Kaunas involved two buses - one in Frankfurt taking us to the ass end of the tarmac to walk up the stairs to the jet and another bus in Kaunas taking us to a temporary terminal in a tent. All the while, I'm stuck in the middle of an Italian tour group. (Read, a bunch of pushy retirees who speak no relevant languages and insist in talking loudly enough to prevent one from hearing any announcements.)

At Kaunas, my hotel had a taxi waiting for me. The driver, a kid in his early twenties, got me to the hotel, although I was amused at his musical tastes - American Top 40 via a local FM station.

I had dinner at the "Zalias Ratas" restaurant in Kaunas Lithuania. First, please note grammar cops - in Lithuanian, one uses quotes where in English we would use italics.

In any event, one walks down a very unpromising alley to a little wooden house sandwiched between various more modern buildings. Inside, its cozy and rustic, but, per Travelocity and my stomach, it's the best traditional food in town. It's also damn cheap - I ate and drank for 20 Euros. You have to know to look for it, but it's worth it.

Posted here for archival purposes:

1) preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2) Take a Pyrex pie pan or other small baking pan and line the bottom with aluminum foil.
3) Take two thawed chicken breasts, lightly coat with olive oil (both sides - about a teaspoon per breast) and sprinkle on some Cajun seasoning (both sides).
4) Bake the breasts. For typical ones, 16 minutes. For larger ones, 20. For Pam Anderson Specials, 24 minutes.
5) Halfway through baking, pull the breasts and flip them. If you have bacon, put half a strip (raw) on each breast. If you have cheese, toss some of that on. If not, just flip and bake.
6) When the chicken is done, put it on a plate and eat it.

Because you lined the pan with foil, cleanup is a snap. Also as you can see above, you can dress up or down the bird to make several variations on a theme.

Let's get right to it.

1) On July 28, 1932, the U.S. Army 12th Infantry regiment commanded by Douglas MacArthur and the 3rd Calvary Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Major George Patton violently evicted the Bonus Army from their Washington, D.C. encampment. The Bonus Army, composed of unemployed and desperate WWI vets, wanted payment of around $600. It's a reminder that we got the New Deal because it was that or Fascism.

2) The Russians Are Bullying Our Diplomats Too. Remember that when Trump asks his friend Putin for help.

3) Calling American breakfasts what it often is: dessert. Much of American breakfasts, from yogurt to muffins, has the same sugar content as equivalent amounts of ice cream or cake. Please note, South Beach Diet followers, that traditional bacon-and-eggs breakfasts don't have that problem.

Don't worry about loosing weight - you'll eventually find it. Speaking personally, this has always been my experience.

There are a number of causes of this "feature" largely related to eating too much and exercising not enough, but one of the causes is portion control. This Saturday, I make my standard recipe of spaghetti, which I ate with a salad. I had leftovers, so this week I had two meals of spaghetti and salad.

Except my recipe makes enough for 4 people - 4 hungry people. In short, I ate 33% more than 1 serving of spaghetti.

This is in part because I like my recipe, and in part because, when looking at the 3rd spaghetti dinner of the week, a 4th dinner is not that appealing. There is a solution - namely freeze say half of whatever I cook, thus allowing me to eat the other half in a more portion-controlled manner.

I've been reluctant to do this, in part because it's what old people do. Then I noticed the gray hair in the mirror (it's above the size 2X gut). Hello, freezer.

Today is my last regular Rotary meeting of the year. In honor of that, have a couple of links.

A) You may have heard of Airbnb, a service that allows you to rent out spare rooms via the Internet. Well, this guy's dad died because of an Airbnb rental, and he notes, " The irony is that amateur innkeepers who couldn’t be trusted with the banal task of photographing and marketing their properties are expected to excel at hospitality’s most important rule: keeping guests safe and alive."

B) An interesting article on how technology drives culture: Friday Food Post: The Economics Behind Grandma's Tuna Casseroles.

C) In the "the globe isn't warming department, really" comes this: The city of Miami Beach floods on such a predictable basis that if, out of curiosity or sheer perversity, a person wants to she can plan a visit to coincide with an inundation.

D) The publisher Angry Robots is having an open submission period.

I'm not going to Rotary today due to Daye Jobbe events, but I will be off-site. Have some links:

A) An interesting thought as to why US voter turnout is so low.

B) Supposedly, it's here transparent aluminum.

C) Presented without endorsement - the long con of Republican party "activists".

D) Rabbit starvation, or starving to death because of a lack of fat in your diet.

E) in the "picture worth a thousand words department:"

Been saving this up...

A) An interesting thought on police misconduct. The author compares fear of police as equivalent to the fear of terrorism. Both are random events that could happen to anybody anywhere, where as other forms of violence can in theory be avoided.

B) What do you eat in Antarctica? The hot dog soup actually looks pretty good, but then one does not get to be my size by being a picky eater.

C) The title says it all Yes, Virginia, people of color do fucking read SF/F.

D) Speaking of science fiction, an interesting anthology having a Kickstarter.

E) Here's a video on the cause of the Civil War:

For some reason, yesterday LiveJournal wouldn't let me post. Today (so far) it is, so have a few thoughts.

Thought, Trivial

I, like most people, have a manual can opener at home. It was lousy, and when it broke I bought an OXO Good Grips. Wow! The improvement between my el-cheapo and the (less than $20) OXO was like night and day! The new can opener is like cutting butter.

Thought, Writing-Related

Posted on Jim Hines' blog As a black writer, my talents, skills, and credentials are always under suspicion. Simply because Noah Scott, the narrator in my YA novel, Hollowstone, was a black teenager, I was accused of author insert by white colleagues and readers alike. On the flipside of that, I caught heat from other white critics because Noah wasn’t gay and I failed my people. And because the publisher traditionally markets to blacks and audiences of color, white critics were the first to claim that said publisher was not a legitimate operation.

Thought, Picture Worth a Thousand Words Edition

Like the label on the tin says:

A) A depressing article on the sickest town in America.

B) An interesting old picture - Ladies of the Revolution!

C) A pilot and his co-pilot, the cat.

D) Here's a detailed breakdown of male and female Hugo award winners by year.

E) From IO9, a visual illustration on the amount of meat we eat. The amount has doubled from 1960 to now.