Alkahest my heroes have always died at the end

I just saw and took the American Accent online quiz and got a result that surprised me (sorry, i can’t get the results blob working in wordpress). It claims that my result is “The Inland North:”

You may think you speak “Standard English straight out of the dictionary” but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like “Are you from Wisconsin?” or “Are you from Chicago?” Chances are you call carbonated drinks “pop.”

frankly, I had a hard time buying this at first. I’ve *never* been asked if I’m from Chicago. The closest anyone’s ever come to guessing my accent is “somewhere in the south.” Then I realized that the top bar is at 85% for the Inland North, the Midland is 80% and the South is 77%. Since my parents are from Rhode Island and Iowa, they went to college in Illinois and I was born and raised in Louisiana, I suppose this makes sense.

Oh, and for the record, I’ve never called a soft drink a “pop,” they go by the generic term “coke.”

I keep meaning to try National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), but once again forget to do the prep work.  I suppose that’s the whole point, give yourself a deadline and just do it.  Well, maybe next year.

K’s mom suggested “Sierra” as a name for the new dog.  That works for both of us, so Sierra it is.

We’ve been needing to get another dog as a friend for Darwin.  Today we drove out to Wake Forrest to meet a rescue dog that needed a home.  She and Darwin hit it off and so we’ve brought her home with us.  Her name is currently Holloway, but she doesn’t know it and we don’t really care for it.  We need to come up with something different.  We thought about “Goodall,” but it doesn’t really roll of the tongue.  I’m sure we’ll come up with something, but we’re open to suggestions if anyone has any.
 

Statistically speaking, there are apparently 171 people with my name:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 171 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

That sounds like 170 too many to me. On the other hand, K statistically doesn’t seem to exist. Once again demonstrating the problem with statistics:

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

For HeatherS…

First you make a roux [1]:

• ~1/2 cup oil
• ~1/2 cup flour

Mix the flour and oil into a large pot and turn the heat on low to medium, depending on how often you want to stir. Stir while on heat until a dark brown.

While the roux is browning, finely chop:

• one onion
• a couple of stalks of celery
• 1/2 bell pepper

You can use a cuisinart, but don’t puree the trinity (inside Louisiana joke). Once the roux is dark brown, add the vegetable mixture and stir for about a minute. Then add:

• ~6 cups of stock (vegetable, chicken, turkey, beef, etc.)

While bringing stock and vegetables to a boil, slice (1/4 inch width):

• 1-2 cups of okra (to taste)

Add okra to stock and prepare meat (or meat substitute 🙂 ). Cut into bite size chunks, 3 or 4 cups of:

• Chicken; or
• Quorn; or
• Turkey; *and*
• Suasage; or
• Boca Suasage

You can also add shrimp or crawfish or crab or pretty much whatever you want (nutria anyone?). If necessary, mix the meat in flour to prevent sticking. Brown the meat in a separate skillet and season – we tend to use SeasonAll, but anything else will work.

Add the browned meat to the stock. Add a little worcheshire sauce and if you have it some browning sauce. Simmer for a couple of hours and serve over rice.

[1] I read a cookbook once that advised using a half a cup of peanut butter instead of making a roux. This is evil and wrong. If you ever see this, please leave a note for the next person warning him/her not to trust the cookbook.

My father once told me about a military training exercise that took place for a month in Egypt. The only available food was early generation MREs. Everyone lost weight except for the cajuns – who all put on 10-15 pounds. Their secret was combining their MREs into a communal pot, add the seasonings they brought from home and produce something that you wanted to eat. Since MREs have 4000-6000 calories, eating the whole thing could easily make you gain weight.

I’m always reminded of this story when I make gumbo which I learned from my mother-in-law, one of the best gumbo cooks I’ve known. My family was transplanted to Louisiana and so we don’t have a traditional gumbo recipe, but my mother-in-laws works pretty well. Unfortunately, when K and I first started leaning vegetarian, gumbo got harder to make. At first, we would still eat chicken and turkey, so a chicken and turkey-sausage gumbo was okay. Unfortunately, turkey sausage is pretty bland. When we stopped eating chicken, it looked like our gumbo days were over (K doesn’t like seafood gumbo).

Two (relatively) new meatless products saved the gumbo. “Quorn” is a very passable chicken substitute made from mycoprotein (fungus) and Boca now has a meatless Italian sausage that works very well. With those two meat substitutes we made a very nice vegetarian gumbo tonight, that may have been close to healthy.

If folks want the recipe (meatless or with meat), just let me know.