We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
This is a rather remarkable admission from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Have they merged with the Socialist-Worker's Party? Or with the Leisure/Artist Party?
I am, of course, opposed to "job-lock", but there is no job-lock, aka indentured servitude, in America today. America is seen as the land of opportunity for people all around the world who dream of getting here. What the heck are these Dems talking about? To whom are they pandering now?
We barely made it out of Yankeeland in a blizzard last week (thanks to our fine drive service with 4 WD Lexi limos), and barely made it home last night in another snowstorm (thanks, fine driver).
I will post some of my travelogue pics and fun info from the only Caribbean island and the only elite boutique hotel (35 rooms) there that Mrs. BD likes (no computers, no WiFi, no TV, no cell service, no pool, no lifeguards, no clocks, no A/C, no windows - all open to the tropical breeze - no phones, no salespeople, no elevators because all the totally-private and jungle-surrounded little villas are one-floor, the best diving and snorkeling in the New World - and you can leave all of your valuables on the beach - wallet, watch, cameras, etc all day without any concern, for hours) when I get organized.
In fact, this pic is a mid-1700s French sugar cane plantation manager's house, now embedded in jungle a 45-minute jungle hike from one of the resort's two little private beaches. Thanks to the mountainous volcanic terrain (unlike most of the flat coral-based Lesser Antilles), St. Lucia has a rain forest habitat but it happily has mostly sunny days with occasional spitting light showers which you ignore.
We're having 30 friends over here at Maggie's Farm HQ for a casual wild game dinner tomorrow night. Perfect for a 10 degree (F) winter night. I'll have all three fireplaces burning.
Three of us guys now do the cooking for these events, and lucky are the invitees.
Hor's doevres: Slices of rare charcoal-grilled wild venison filet mignon and slices of rare Canada goose breast, en croute, with a dab of horseradish.
Entrees: One hunting pal is making his favorite venison curry with rice. My Louisiana-born and bred hunting buddy is making wild duck gumbo. I am making wild duck breast with dried cherry sauce, with cheese grits. Or maybe a warm duck breast salad. Can't decide.
Somebody offered to bring a big salad, and somebody else graciously offered to bring home-made desserts. I supply the beer, and everybody will bring a bottle or three of red wine.
I'll provide pretty good cigars too, for them what wants 'em. In my experience, women never complain about guys and cigars when men do the cooking and party planning. We'll have to set up a few extra tables in the living room to do this, because this ain't no palace (but not a trailer either). The persnickety Mrs. BD just hates it when a plate of gumbo or a tankard of Pinot Noir gets spilled on her furniture.
A pal who read my piece about humidors in winter was thoughtful enough to deliver me an Opus X along with two 72% Boveda gel-packs. Those packs are news to me.
He promised that putting two Boveda packs in there will get your humidor through three months in the winter up here, where our humidity can be quite low in winter. The packs don't activate until opened.
If kids don't absorb the fundamentals, they will have difficulty going further. "New Math" set me back by years. The piece begins:
We need “new ways to measure how well our kids think, not how well they can fill in a bubble on a test,” President Obama told the nation during his State of the Union last week. To which a clever tweeter responded, “There’s a high correlation between filling in bubbles on a test and knowing the right answer.”
... any extra energy you put into an object does not make it move faster but just increases its mass. Mass and energy are the same thing – this is a profoundly important result. But that is another story.
Everybody likes pancakes, especially with a side of bacon, sausage, and/or fried eggs.
Readers know that I like to throw a handful of frozen cranberries into the batter, and that I am particular about Maple Syrup - Grade B, not Grade A.
I also like to make cornmeal pancakes (as in photo). I tend to overweight the cornmeal/flour ratio, and I like to throw some canned corn or frozen corn into the batter. Good stuff.
Kids love it. They will grow strong, healthy, average or above-average, and attractive on this feed.
By the way, have you ever used molasses on pancakes? It's delicious, especially on cornmeal pancakes.
5:13 "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
5:14 "You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.
5:15 No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.
5:18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.
5:19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
I'm looking forward to visiting there this Spring.
Sicily has had its native tribes, then the Greeks, the Phoenecians/Carthaginians, the Romans, the Muslims, the Normans, and is currently occupied by European powers. What next?
Gourmet pizza nowadays often comes without tomatoes and with all sorts of other toppings, but it was the basic tomato-mozzarella mix that made pizza so popular, beginning in the 1950s, in the US. It was made for beer.
That basic format relied on the importation of the tomato - originally a yellow fruit, the "pomi d'oro," from Mexico to Europe in the 1500s. Cortez brought more than gold to Europe.
From its Greek origins to Chicago's Pizza Uno, the story of pizza is about immigration, entrepreneurialism, and invention. Now, "93 percent of Americans eat pizza at least once a month."
Modern pizza originated in Italy, although the style favored by Americans is more a friend than a relative of the traditional Neapolitan pie. Residents of Naples took the idea of using bread as a blank slate for relishes from the Greeks, whose bakers had been dressing their wares with oils, herbs, and cheese since the time of Plato. The Romans refined the recipe, developing a delicacy known as placenta, a sheet of fine flour topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves. Neapolitans earned the right to claim pizza as their own by inserting a tomato into the equation. Europeans had long shied away from the New World fruit, fearing it was plump with poison. But the intrepid citizens of Naples discovered the tomato was not only harmless but delicious, particularly when paired with pizza.
Cheese, the crowning ingredient, was not added until 1889, when the Royal Palace commissioned the Neapolitan pizzaiolo Raffaele Esposito to create a pizza in honor of the visiting Queen Margherita. Of the three contenders he created, the Queen strongly preferred a pie swathed in the colors of the Italian flag: red (tomato), green (basil), and white (mozzarella).
Read the whole American Pie at Am. Heritage. 1960s image of Miss Rheingold (a bigger deal in NY than Miss America) from the article. Extra-dry Rheingold Beer - the beer of New York baseball, brewed on the east side of Manhattan until the 1970s.
Thankfully, much is being made of Heather Mac Donald’s recent piece, “The Humanities and Us,” in the City Journal. She illustrates the decline of college English departments, where “gender, sexuality, race, and class” have taken over Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare. The radicals of the 60s and 70s are firmly in charge; their diktats have attacked the hallmarks of literary study; and Mac Donald rightly calls for a return to standards at colleges. But standards won’t do any good if incoming freshmen are incapable of reading, thinking independently, and using logic. That has already begun to be the case, and it is going to get worse thanks to new “standards” known as Common Core.
An annual re-post, but re-posted again because we seemed to help a number of people with this:
Forget the "Obesity Crisis." That's a crock. Abundant, good food is a blessing and a rarity in human history so it is a great privilege and luxury to be overweight. It certainly is true that, when tasty food is cheap, people will eat a lot of it and their bodies will kindly store what they don't need to survive today, to the detriment of our knees, hips, appearance, comfort, and general vigor. Trouble is, we won't need that storage tomorrow - or ever. It's like hoarding.
We can all be as fat or fit as we wish to be. It's a free country, and being fat (but not obese) isn't terrible for your health unless you are diabetic or want to be able to get around energetically. But don't listen to the Dieticians and Nutritionists. They will want you to get in shape slowly and in a "sustainable" way. In your heart, you know that will never happen. If you are bothering to read this, you just want to get in shape as quickly as you can without liposuction or use of the vomitorium.
Eliminating carbs reduces or eliminates carb craving in most overweight people over several weeks.
This can be a one- to three-month program as desired. Maintenance is another topic.
Thanks to a reader for that pic of Massachusetts this weekend.
Will Nicotine 
We're having 30 friends over here at Maggie's Farm HQ for a casual wild game dinner tomorrow night. Perfect for a 10 degree (F) winter night. I'll have all three fireplaces burning.
A pal who read my piece about humidors in winter was thoughtful enough to deliver me an 
Everybody likes pancakes, especially with a side of bacon, sausage, and/or fried eggs.
Gourmet pizza nowadays often comes without tomatoes and with all sorts of other toppings, but it was the basic tomato-mozzarella mix that made pizza so popular, beginning in the 1950s, in the US. It was made for beer.
On His Blindness
