If one has a surplus of fresh fish, decisions must be made: give it away, cook it and eat it until gone; freeze it for another day, or salt it and make gravlax, that expensive salmon(fish) filet so often found at the deli counter at 50 euro/ kilogram.
The Mayor decided that gravlax sounded like a solution. Grab the salt, sprinkle a mixture of salt, pepper, sugar, and fresh dill on the bottom of a glass baking dish. Lay the filet in the dish, skin side down. Sprinkle the remaining mixture on the piece with the dill the last ingredient.
Now cover the fish with plastic wrap; then lay some weight on top( a few 303 cans of veggies will do). Refrigerate.
Every 12 hours, flip the piece(s) over, reweight, and place back in the frig. How long is the process?
Now it's a matter of taste: 24 hours is a usual minimum. Some folks go 48-60 hours. The Mayor has his at 24 hours. More time to go.
We'll have a look and a taste tonight. Report to follow.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Movie Review: Documentary- States of Grace, Mark Lipman, director
The Mayor and Deputy attended a one time showing of an independent film documentary that followed the life of a doctor in San Francisco whose life was changed dramatically after a head on collision on the Golden Gate Bridge in 2008. A south bound driver had a heart attack and crossed the yellow line into north bound traffic, colliding with Dr. Grace' car that she was driving. Her daughter and pet dog were passengers. Dr. Grace incurred multiple injuries, breaking numerous bones in her arms and legs, and suffered a skull fracture; all were followed by internal injuries to her organs. her daughter survived with only minor injuries and the pet was Ok, too.
After months of hospitalization, 10 surgical interventions, she entered rehab at San Francisco General. Dr. Grace had been a staff physician at Laguna Honda Hospital AIDs ward. Now she was a patient herself. Mark Lipman, a noted film maker heard of her plight and at the suggestion of a friend of Dr. Grace, sought permission to document her rehabilitation efforts. Her partner, Fu S., would assist and also provide at home care in Marin County(Muir Beach) where they lived in a communal setting at Green Dragon Zen Center.
What followed is an extraordinary story of strength, dedication, perseverance, and love that carried the family through this intense period of learning to live with permanent disability and to adapt to a new life that placed restrictions on activities and on the future. Over 200 hours of film were edited down to an hour and one half. Film editor Kenji Kasamoto did a most remarkable job to blend this record into a compelling story.
After the film was shown, a Q&A period followed with the film maker and his assistant and Dr. Grace and Fu S. In halting words, tinged with emotion, these amazing people explained their feelings then and now. It was truly a remarkable evening and a remarkable story.
After months of hospitalization, 10 surgical interventions, she entered rehab at San Francisco General. Dr. Grace had been a staff physician at Laguna Honda Hospital AIDs ward. Now she was a patient herself. Mark Lipman, a noted film maker heard of her plight and at the suggestion of a friend of Dr. Grace, sought permission to document her rehabilitation efforts. Her partner, Fu S., would assist and also provide at home care in Marin County(Muir Beach) where they lived in a communal setting at Green Dragon Zen Center.
What followed is an extraordinary story of strength, dedication, perseverance, and love that carried the family through this intense period of learning to live with permanent disability and to adapt to a new life that placed restrictions on activities and on the future. Over 200 hours of film were edited down to an hour and one half. Film editor Kenji Kasamoto did a most remarkable job to blend this record into a compelling story.
After the film was shown, a Q&A period followed with the film maker and his assistant and Dr. Grace and Fu S. In halting words, tinged with emotion, these amazing people explained their feelings then and now. It was truly a remarkable evening and a remarkable story.
New Offensive in Donbas?
Russyan backed rebels in eastern Ukraine shelled the outskirts of the city of Donetsk yesterday. This supported reports of more supplies arriving from across the border in Russya. Governments called on the Kremlin to follow the agreements signed in Minsk to cease fighting and artillery firing into civilian areas of the Donbas region. Officials in Kiev reported that Ukraine troops had come under artillery fire while conducting security operations in the area.
No comments were forth coming from Mr. Ras Putin or his spokesman in Moscova. Perhaps Vlad and the FSB are home counting out roubles they plan to use to bail out another failing bank. The price of oil has stayed near $50/barrel, sending shock waves through the economy of the Russyan state. Fitch Rating services downgraded Russyan bonds to Bbb-, or almost junk status. If another rating service changes the rating to something close, Russya will essentially be shut out of international financing opportunities and with it any possibility of preventing a long recession.
Sanctions imposed by the West continue to sting business and finance across the Russyan economy. Is anybody in the Kremlin listening? Maybe the FSB.
No comments were forth coming from Mr. Ras Putin or his spokesman in Moscova. Perhaps Vlad and the FSB are home counting out roubles they plan to use to bail out another failing bank. The price of oil has stayed near $50/barrel, sending shock waves through the economy of the Russyan state. Fitch Rating services downgraded Russyan bonds to Bbb-, or almost junk status. If another rating service changes the rating to something close, Russya will essentially be shut out of international financing opportunities and with it any possibility of preventing a long recession.
Sanctions imposed by the West continue to sting business and finance across the Russyan economy. Is anybody in the Kremlin listening? Maybe the FSB.
Golden Gate Bridge: Closed
In the longest closure in its history, San Francisco residents must find an alternative to the famous rust red colored bridge- a symbol of the City. Shutdown at midnight last night, the bridge will be closed to through traffic until Monday morning, 4 am. A new, engineered, moveable center traffic barrier will be installed. This system has been a subject of debate for almost 20 years. It is now here.
As an undivided thoroughfare, the thousands of commuters who transited the bridge daily were always subject to the anxieties of 2-way traffic moving at high speed just a few feet away. All drivers held out hope they would pass unscathed during the 1 mile journey.
While rare, the threat of another vehicle crossing the double yellow line was never far from a driver's thoughts.
On Monday, drivers will confront a new, safer bridge. Finally.
Stay alert if you drive over on Monday, and for the next few weeks as people become familiar with its properties.
As an undivided thoroughfare, the thousands of commuters who transited the bridge daily were always subject to the anxieties of 2-way traffic moving at high speed just a few feet away. All drivers held out hope they would pass unscathed during the 1 mile journey.
While rare, the threat of another vehicle crossing the double yellow line was never far from a driver's thoughts.
On Monday, drivers will confront a new, safer bridge. Finally.
Stay alert if you drive over on Monday, and for the next few weeks as people become familiar with its properties.
Book Review: Georgetown Set-Part II
Looking closely at the list of Georgetown neighbors, one can easily recognize familiar names: Kennedy, Frankfurter, Bradlee, Acheson, Graham, Alsop(2), and Dulles. The other named residents don't necessarily stand out, but they, nonetheless, were part of the group.
Author/ historian Gregg weaves these names together throughout the book as he astutely examines the period through letters, memoirs, official documents, and news reports of their activities as America stumbled forward as the leader of the new post war world order. It becomes clear in a short time, that the influence of the Alsop brothers and their thrice weekly newspaper columns on America was profound. These brothers, similar but quite different, told stories and expressed opinions that reverberated down the halls of federal institutions that established policy for the entire nation. To say their position(s) were conservative is understatement.
The author begins with the development of Joe Alsop as a writer /correspondent who had served in WW II. He was a WASP, well connected through family ties, and of course, by virtue of his Harvard education that placed him among the most privileged WASP's. After graduation, he went to work for the Herald Tribune at the behest of his mother, Corinne Robinson, the daughter of grandmother, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Teddy Roosevelt's sister.
Joe's wartime experiences were different: while a Navy officer, he was interned by the Japanese at the outbreak of hostilities, repatriated to the US in a 1942 prisoner exchange, and then he promptly returned to China to serve with Gen. Claire Chennault and his group of Allied airmen operating with Gen. Chiang Kai Shek and the Nationalists.
Historian Herken proceeds along a familiar timeline: postwar relations with Stalin's Russia, the Korean War, the atomic bomb, the space race, elections of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. We become witnesses to late 20th century American history as baby boomers come into their own and the old generation passes on.
His writing of this story that focuses on diplomatic history is fascinating in every respect, and sheds light on how America became what she is today.
5 *****'s
Author/ historian Gregg weaves these names together throughout the book as he astutely examines the period through letters, memoirs, official documents, and news reports of their activities as America stumbled forward as the leader of the new post war world order. It becomes clear in a short time, that the influence of the Alsop brothers and their thrice weekly newspaper columns on America was profound. These brothers, similar but quite different, told stories and expressed opinions that reverberated down the halls of federal institutions that established policy for the entire nation. To say their position(s) were conservative is understatement.
The author begins with the development of Joe Alsop as a writer /correspondent who had served in WW II. He was a WASP, well connected through family ties, and of course, by virtue of his Harvard education that placed him among the most privileged WASP's. After graduation, he went to work for the Herald Tribune at the behest of his mother, Corinne Robinson, the daughter of grandmother, Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Teddy Roosevelt's sister.
Joe's wartime experiences were different: while a Navy officer, he was interned by the Japanese at the outbreak of hostilities, repatriated to the US in a 1942 prisoner exchange, and then he promptly returned to China to serve with Gen. Claire Chennault and his group of Allied airmen operating with Gen. Chiang Kai Shek and the Nationalists.
Historian Herken proceeds along a familiar timeline: postwar relations with Stalin's Russia, the Korean War, the atomic bomb, the space race, elections of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. We become witnesses to late 20th century American history as baby boomers come into their own and the old generation passes on.
His writing of this story that focuses on diplomatic history is fascinating in every respect, and sheds light on how America became what she is today.
5 *****'s
Friday, January 9, 2015
Book Review: The Georgetown Set: Friends and Rivals in Cold War Washington, by Gregg Herken
The Cold War. Who remembers? When was it? What happened? Why was it "cold"? What is a "hot" war? Author Gregg Herken is a professor emeritus of American diplomatic history at Univ. of California. He is the author of four other histories of the period. What period?
Historians place the 'Cold War' as that period after WW II and it ended at the cessation of America's involvement in Vietnam in 1975. While not all agree on the time frame, most will say that it ended with the end of the Soviet Union in 1989.
Who was included in the Georgetown Set? Where is Georgetown, really? Georgetown is a very old neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the Potomac River as it bends its way to Chesapeake Bay. It became a fashionable place to live among politicians, literati, academicians, and a few wealthy socialite families, and diplomats in the dept. of State. The brick townhouses were situated on zero lot line plots with narrow fronts and can be seen today with little changes. Maybe the prices would leave some of the old "set" breathless.
The list of local residents is impressive: the movers and shakers of a generation of power brokers, power seekers, and those enamored of that power. For a good many years, and which may seem quaint, the high priest of Georgetown was a newspaper columnist: Joe Alsop. He lived at 2720 Dumbarton. This area is found north of the C & O Canal, north of the Potomac R., and west of Rock Creek Park. Also it was framed by M Street on the south and R Street on the north, to 34th St. on the west.
The list of individuals, couples, and families included the following:
Dean Acheson
Historians place the 'Cold War' as that period after WW II and it ended at the cessation of America's involvement in Vietnam in 1975. While not all agree on the time frame, most will say that it ended with the end of the Soviet Union in 1989.
Who was included in the Georgetown Set? Where is Georgetown, really? Georgetown is a very old neighborhood of Washington, DC, adjacent to the Potomac River as it bends its way to Chesapeake Bay. It became a fashionable place to live among politicians, literati, academicians, and a few wealthy socialite families, and diplomats in the dept. of State. The brick townhouses were situated on zero lot line plots with narrow fronts and can be seen today with little changes. Maybe the prices would leave some of the old "set" breathless.
The list of local residents is impressive: the movers and shakers of a generation of power brokers, power seekers, and those enamored of that power. For a good many years, and which may seem quaint, the high priest of Georgetown was a newspaper columnist: Joe Alsop. He lived at 2720 Dumbarton. This area is found north of the C & O Canal, north of the Potomac R., and west of Rock Creek Park. Also it was framed by M Street on the south and R Street on the north, to 34th St. on the west.
The list of individuals, couples, and families included the following:
Dean Acheson
- Joe Alsop Felix Frankfurter
- Stewart Alsop(the younger brother) Phil Graham
- Chip Bohlen Averell Harriman
- Ben Bradlee Bob Joyce
- David Bruce John and Jackie Kennedy
- Allen Dulles Llewellyn Thompson
- Desmond Fitzgerald Frank Wisner
Paris: Where the Lights Went Out
News this week of a mass murder incident in the city of Paris stunned the world. The targets were staff members of a satirical magazine which published cartoons offensive to a religious group of fanatical muslims. After the killings, the three killers escaped into the city. This morning, they were found, and killed as they resisted French police.
The media of all types has gorged on the events, dominating their reporting as escalating events unfolded. Sadly, these innocent victims, although protected with limited resources, were not able to defend themselves from the attack by the killers who may have trained in Yemen by Al Queda fanatics.
This tragedy will have a long term impact on immigration in Europe, security measures, and public opinion as to national laws. Politicians will have much to answer for, especially when it becomes common knowledge that "no go" zones within France are a reality.
The media of all types has gorged on the events, dominating their reporting as escalating events unfolded. Sadly, these innocent victims, although protected with limited resources, were not able to defend themselves from the attack by the killers who may have trained in Yemen by Al Queda fanatics.
This tragedy will have a long term impact on immigration in Europe, security measures, and public opinion as to national laws. Politicians will have much to answer for, especially when it becomes common knowledge that "no go" zones within France are a reality.
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