Pood

One of my dearest dojo friends has launched a project that is simple and brilliant. One of the reasons I like it so much is that it’s based on her recognition that the marketplace is about relationships—and I for one am increasingly weary of how many of those relationships are with corporate entities that don’t seem to give a shit about much beyond profits and stockholder satisfaction.

As well as more reason for me not to sell candy any more ...

I have been too much a post–and–run Snake these days; and for that I apologize. It will get worse—or this place will fall entirely silent, mayhaps—before it gets better; but before those days descend, I would like to share some joy—a recipe for a celebratory frugal indulgence. Don’t believe me? Step into my kitchen and behold!

I’m as close to settled on the recipe as I’ll ever be; and if I wait for pictures, I’ll probably never post the recipe. Those who like the crunchy–style granola bars will probably like these ... and they’re easy and inexpensive to make, to boot.

David Gumpert has become something of a hero to me—not because his blog focuses on the healthful properties of raw milk, but rather because he actively seeks to understand, and to present, all the players’ perspectives in the complicated regulatory dance that has developed around it. Recently, he’s focused on challenges in Wisconsin—an area that doesn’t make the news frequently, but which is suffering economically along with much of this country.

Yesterday evening, I finally cracked. The pressure has been building since ... well, I don’t even remember when Wolfie and I first started talking about it.

Finally, at LONG last I have the grain mill mounted on a sturdy table and in operation! I bought the mill in the fall of '07, but could never use it because it had to be mounted somewhere - and I didn't have a somewhere for it!

Anyway, the first day I milled two cups of my white wheat berries, coming up with about 2 1/2 cups of fine meal, not really yet "flour" after running it through a second time. It will take a little experimentation to come up with the ideal texture, but for a first effort this seemed fine.

Or, as it was formerly titled when Mama Liberty ran this at Sierra Times several years ago, The Great Tortilla–Making Caper. It is republished here at her request. It’s been lightly modified from that version.

Many people seem to be turning to gardening in anticipation of hard times and/or increasing state interference in what one is permitted to eat. Lila asked about good places to buy seeds the other day, and a friend’s answer was so good that it deserves more attention than it’s likely to get buried as a comment. So, Plug Nickel Outfit’s response is elevated to guest post, with some extra links and commentary added by yours truly. If you have good resources and/or ideas to add, please do.

A friend sent me a link to the Locallectual web site, along with a suggestion (or was that a hint?) that I blog about it. I’ll admit that upon seeing the term, I wasn’t very inclined to agree with my friend, but after poking around the site for a bit ... well, here I am.

It can be very tempting—especially for those just testing the waters of political resistance in support of freedom—after considering the tangle of laws and regulations, the penalties for violating them, and those who serve the state in administering and enforcing them, to rethink one’s course. I can understand the urge to back down, to some degree: trying to conceptualize all of that sprawling power is daunting; and between steady streams of bad news [thanks, Joel] and stories of thug brutality both neophytes and seasoned activists might find it hard to draw a deep breath, and summon the will for another round. I don’t mean to play Pollyanna here, nor to pretend that such treatment only happens in other places, and to other people—but it is vitally important to understand that when we adopt this perspective of the state and its agents, we are too often falling right into their hands.

Encouraged by Sunni, I thought I'd share some good memories and recipes for dumplings. Not many people make them anymore, that I've noticed anyway. They are definitely NOT diet food, but they can make a wonderful and nutrient filled meal for hungry children, hunters or anyone else who will likely work off the calories. And besides, they are just plain good.

It’s been a couple of days since the story first hit the news, so I imagine most folks who pay attention have seen at least a headline shouting that there’s a “death link” to red meat. As is typical, the headlines obscure the findings in order to be as fear-mongering as possible. WebMD’s article, disappointingly, is little better.

Similar to the last time I touched on this subject, sources one might reasonably expect to be more balanced in their reporting have fallen far short. Here’s the first paragraph from the second link above, to a site called eFitness Now [all emphasis mine]:

Research shows that a person who eats a quarter pound of red meat per day faces substantial chance of getting cancer, ulcers, Alzheimer’s disease and other medical illnesses that can cut a life span.

Whoa! How have humans survived this long, eating such a toxic substance? A quarter pound is just 4 ounces ... that paragraph makes it sound as though red meat is much more harmful than nutritious. But let’s look at the details of the study, shall we? The full study is available online. It is very disappointing that not even the EurekAlert article mentions the extensive efforts to control for convariates, as that is crucial to assessing any study like this.

This study, looking for an association between meat-eating habits and risk of death, is correlational research. I expect y’all know the warning on that: “Correlation does not mean causation!” And in general, that’s true; some unaddressed variable might be more responsible for the association than the variables under study. However, with sound methodology, sufficient statistical power, and appropriate statistical analyses, a researcher may be justified in speculating about a causative relationship ... but that is largely the stuff of dreams—a sort of Holy Grail statisticians talk about, but researchers rarely see.

So yeah, if you’re suspecting that I have issues with this study, you’re right. With over half a million participants, and an impressive covariate list, what can I gripe about? Let me roll up my sleeves ...

This is a fairly easy cake to make, especially if one is willing to invest some time into the mise en place; that really helps speed the mixing process. Oh, and this cake is not my idea. I spied the recipe at Simply Recipes, and have streamlined the process a bit and also made some substitutions that improved the cake—at least in the opinion of the cake’s fans here.

This is a bourbon cake; if you don’t like bourbon you may try substituting other alcohols for it, such as rum, coffee liqueur, or maybe a nice vanilla brandy. But alcohol is an essential component of this cake; if you want a regular chocolate cake, there are many splendiferous recipes out there for your discovery and enjoyment.

As we were, just the other day ... I never thought I’d say this, but I actually agree with something The Anointed One is credited with saying.