K and I don’t eat much meat - no red meat, no poultry, etc. Theoretically, we still eat fish, but since I won’t cook it… This weekend, we experimented with a couple of new recipes that, in hindsight, were even vegan: Vegetarian Mac and Cheese. Like a lot of people (I suppose), I love macaroni and cheese. Not the Kraft, out of the box, kind, but one made with onion, garlic, mustard powder in a homemade cheese sauce. Unfortunately, K (okay, me too) isn’t supposed to eat that much high-fat cheese. I’ve been making it with low-fat cheese, but well, that’s a little lame. Last week, a guy at my office gave me a recipe that eliminated the cheese sauce and turned out to be (possibly) tastier than the original. Start by sautéing an onion in a little olive oil. Add a drained, rinsed can of cannellini (other beans work, but cannellini are wonderfully creamy), 1.75 cups of water (or vege broth), 1 tbsp of miso paste (I used soy sauce), a little dry mustard and a half cup of raw cashews. Puree, then add a package of cooked spinach and use as the cheese sauce. It’s wonderful. We also made seitan which, as near as I can figure, is pronounced satan. It’s wheat meat - wheat gluten (which means it’s also pronounced “death to etselec and hlf”) and water (or broth) which is cooked and then used as if it was regular meat. We made ours with water, soy sauce and some Italian seasonings. Once it was cooked, we sliced it up, braised it and served it with a wine/mushroom sauce. It was great and a *lot* easier than I thought it would be.

One of the phrases that bothered me the most during last year’s election (indeed, during all elections), is “small town values.” That elevation of the mores of small communities that make them better than the rest of us who, by virtue of living in larger metro areas, apparently don’t have any values. I’ve never lived in a small town. Currently, we live in a rural-ish area on the outskirts of a medium sized metropolitan area. Prior to that, I’ve lived in medium sized cities (maybe 150-300,000 people). That said, I’ve known people who lived in small towns and overall, I wasn’t too impressed by the values of those small towns. On an individual level, the people in small towns don’t really seem all that different from anyone else, they certainly aren’t bastions of moral virtue. That said, there is one thing that is different about small towns, and which is that they are small [ tautology for the win!]. ...

So K just asks me if it’s raining. My response was to go online instead of going outside. I’m such a

Last week (on Inauguration Day no less), we got about 7" of snow out at the house. I just uploaded the pictures this morning. Some of my favorites are below, the rest are in the gallery. If nothing else, the dogs sure did seem to enjoy the snow. :-)

Can anyone please explain to me, what the hell is John Boener doing on my TV and in my newspapers talking about the stimulus plan? For 8 years, we liberal types were told that “elections had consequences” and that we should STFU and clap louder. Fine, now that republicans have been repudiated in a full election cycle, suffering major losses in both 2006 and 2008 after running on the same policies that they now advocate will save us from the mess that their policies got us into, will they please STFU? ...

It’s noon - congratulations to President Obama!!

It looks like we’re going to get our first real snowfall in about five years. “Real” if you count 2-4 inches, which I do since K and I are from Louisiana. Unfortunately, while I was grocery shopping this weekend, I forgot a few things and needed to go pick ’em up on my way home from work. Even more unfortunately, among the things I forgot were a quart of milk for tea at the office and a dozen eggs. So there I am, the evening before the snow falls buying milk and eggs. Hell, if I had forgotten bread this weekend I would have hit the Southern snowfall French Toast

A couple of weeks ago at a Geek Beer, we were discussing Roland Burris and the likelihood of him being seated by the senate. My take was that of course he would be seated. No one has ever paid a price for going against Harry Reid. Told ya so.

Using a bit of leftover birthday money, I bought some new camera equipment. Nothing particularly sexy like a big long lens (what do you mean by homoerotic?). I bought a set of carbon fiber tripod legs that weigh about 3 pounds instead of the 6 pounds of my old tripod legs - that should make hiking easier. They can also hold more weight which is good since my biggest lens tops out what you should put on the old legs. I also bought a new tripod head. Instead of a ball head (ahem), I got a gimbal head that balances the weight of the camera so that you can easily point it anywhere and it stays put. Moreover, the new head is far more stable than the old one when using long lenses. ...

Okay, commenting on global finance is really not my usual shtick, but I’ve got to agree with Barry Ritholtz that there’s something odd in this NY Times article on China’s role in the U.S. housing bubble. The article describes Ben Bernanke’s 2005 theory that a savings “glut” is driving up the demand for American to borrow from foreign countries. The article extends the theory to suggest that the financial mess that we are currently in the middle of was, essentially, caused by the Chinese. ...