Eggplant Parmesan

Since I only cook about once a year I thought I should document it. A friend of mine gave me a whole grocery bag of vegetable including several eggplants and some wonderful tomatoes so I decided to make Eggplant Parmesan. I bought some seasoned breadcrumbs from Whole Foods and used Parmesan and Romano cheese. First I breaded the eggplant slices in eggs, breadcrumbs and Parmesan and then I fried them in olive oil. After this was done I made a nice tomato sauce out of the fresh tomatoes, several cloves of garlic, basil and some other spices. Then I layered the eggplant in a Pyrex dish with cheese in between the layers. After that I poured the tomato sauce on top, and topped it off with some of the breadcrumbs and more cheese. I then baked it for 30 minutes. The dogs were very eager to help so I gave them the leftover eggs with a little cheese. It turned out really great and I made about 5 meals out of it.

Sleeping pug

Ignoring Bush video

I love this video. I first saw it on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
George Bush arrives in Raleigh, N.C. waves at spectators, they don't wave back. Waves again, still no wave back. At least they didn't give him the finger. Ignoring him is probably a better insult anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O42muyE2Wqc

The USPS has issued a commemorative sheet of stamps honoring Charles and Ray Eames, the husband and wife design team probably best know for their Eames lounge chair and ottoman. I would love to have one of these chairs but will have to settle for the stamps.

Encyclopedia Baracktannica

On Saturday, McCain met with former supporters of Hillary Clinton in an attempt to get their votes. One of the key organizers of the meeting was Paula Abeles. In 2003, Paula Abeles along with her husband Nat Abeles led an attempt to keep the descendants of Sally Hemmings from attending a gathering at the Monticello Association, an organization made up of descendants of Thomas Jefferson.
Here is the AP report about the incident from 2003:

The wife of a Thomas Jefferson family association official said Friday that she masqueraded as a 67-year-old black woman on an Internet chat room in a bid to keep descendants of a reputed Jefferson mistress out of this weekend's family reunion."It might have been somewhat unethical," said Paulie Abeles of Washington, D.C., who participated for eight months in the Yahoo! message board created for relatives of Jefferson slave Sally Hemings."It might have been childish, but I really think I was working in the best interest of the majority of the family members to make the reunion a calm and civilized gathering," she said.

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies

In the last 4 presidential elections, readers of Family Circle Magazine have successfully predicted who the winner will be based on the winning recipe submitted by the spouses of the candidates. This year Cindy McCain has submitted a recipe for Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies and Michell Obama has submitted a recipe for Shortbread cookies. Because I'm an Obama supporter I'll include her recipe here. If you want to see McCain's you can go to the Family Circle Magazine website http://www.familycircle.com/

You can also register and vote on your favorite and look at recipes from past campaigns

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1-1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons Amaretto (almond liqueur)
1 teaspoon each orange and lemon zest
3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg white
Chopped nuts or dried fruit (optional)

Directions
1. Heat oven to 325 degree F. Line a 17 x 12 x 1-inch baking pan with nonstick foil. In large bowl, cream together butter and 1-1/2 cups of the sugar.
2. Slowly add egg yolks, and beat well until smooth. Beat in Amaretto and zest.
3. Stir in flour and salt until combined.
4. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan, flattening as smoothly as possible.
5. Brush top of dough with egg white; sprinkle with nuts or fruit (if using) and with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.
6. Bake at 325 degree F for 25 minutes or until brown, turn off oven and allow cookies to sit in oven (with door ajar) for 15 minutes. Cut while slightly warm.

How rich are you?

Here is a pretty interesting website where you enter the amount of money you make and it tells you and shows you on a graph where you rank in the work in terms of wealth. I was pretty surprised by my ranking (the 277,391,305 richest person in the world) since I don't consider myself particularly rich.
http://globalrichlist.com/

The reason for the website:
"We are obsessed with wealth. But we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.
We wanted to do something which would help people understand, in real terms, where they stand globally. And make us realise that in fact most of us (who are able to view this web page) are in the privileged minority.
We want people to feel rich. And give some of their extra money to a worthwhile charity."

Thanks to NV for sending me the link to this website.

Another Dad Picture

Here is another picture I took of my dad sleeping in his favorite recliner with my daughter Tam and Smokey

My Dad, Bill LeGrand

My dad was born in Houston, Texas on May 5, 1916. His mother was Sarah Effie Meads and his father was Henry Fain LeGrand. He spent his childhood in Houston and Bryan and after graduating from high school enrolled at Texas A & M where he received a B.S. in Petroleum Engineering. In 1940 he started working for Gulf Oil and he continued to work for them until he retired in 1978.
I didn't have a really close relationship with him as a child but we became closer after my mother died, and had a really good relationship when I became an adult, especially after my daughter Tamara was born. He really adored her and they spent a lot of time together when she had breaks from school. Today she works in the same industry he worked in and I think that would have made him very happy. He would have been really happy if any of his grandchildren had gone to A & M
but none of them did. He absolutely loved A & M and attended all of their football games with his friends Joe and Jesse.
After my mom died he had to start cooking for us and became a wonderful cook. Everybody in my family remembers how wonderful some of his meals were especially his spaghetti and meatballs.
He loved water and fishing and after he retired built a house on Lake Livingston. He also built a lot of the furniture that was in the house. He could build just about anything . He enjoyed taking his boat out on the water at sunset or sitting on his deck sipping his scotch and soda.
He also loved cats and always had at least one. When I was in high school we adopted a gray kitten named Smokey from the SPCA and he kept her for many years and even had an oil painting done of her which I still have. He also had several strays who adopted him over the years including a black cat he named Shadow, because she followed him everywhere, and a gray Tom who called my dad meow (that was his joke).
He died on June 6, 1998 from complications from a stroke he had had over a year earlier. The stroke left him partially paralyzed and he was very unhappy, so his death was a relief, but I still miss him, especially on Father Day.

Michelle Obama

Pictures of Michelle Obama were recently displayed on Fox News or Fixed News as Keith Olbermann calls them, referring to her as Obama's Baby Mama. When I first saw this I figured it had to be derogatory since it was on Fox but I didn't know what it meant. According to urbandictionary.com "baby mama" is an unmarried woman with whom you had children and are not otherwise involved with. This is not what you call a man's wife, or even a girlfriend.

Joan Walsh writes in Salon "Are they racist, or just clueless? Isn't there racism even in their cluelessness, if somebody didn't know what "baby mama" means, but used it anyway? Even at Fox, won't somebody have to apologize?"

No one will apologize or lose their job over this and Fox will continue to slander the Obama's. They can't come up with any real criticism so have to stoop to racism.

Latest Poll Numbers

These numbers were taken from polls conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal and reported last night on Countdown with Keith Olberman.



Overall Obama is leading McCain 47% to 41%.

Obama is also leading in all of these groups:

Independents 41 to 36

Blue Collar 47 to 42

Catholics 47 to 40

Women 52 to 33

Latinos 62 to 28



I'm feeling hopeful. It will be so wonderful to have an intelligent, articulate person in the White House.

Bush's Farewell Trip to Yurp

Steve Bell, a cartoonist for the British paper The Guardian, is one of my favorites, especially when his subject is GWB.

Bush is on a week-long farewell tour to Slovenia, Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain. I'm sure they are happy this is his last trip.

John McCain -- Lost in Space

Here is a link to a video of John McCain done by Brasscheck TV:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/325.html

I don't think McCain is an evil person like bush but can we stand another 4 years with a president who can't keep his lies straight?

Games

Here is a link to an addicting game: http://oos.moxiecode.com/examples/reflex/

And another one called Note Pad Invaders: http://www2.b3ta.com/notepadinvaders/

Here's one called Save Fred the Bunny: http://www.10mg.nl/

If anyone can figure the last one out let me know.

Another cute picture of Rosie and Ginger

National Donut Day

The first Friday in June is National Donut Day. It was officially established in 1938 by the Chicago Salvation Army to raise much needed funds because of the depression.
Donut trivia:
More than 10 billion donuts are produced in the US every year and it is a 3.6 billion dollar industry.
Canada has more donut shops per capita than any other country in the world.
The hole appeared in the center in the 1st half of the 19th century. The purpose of the hole is to help it cook move evenly.
Adolph Levitt invented the 1st donut machine in 1920.

The official Library of Congress heading is Doughnuts and the call number is 641.865 (Dewey) or TX770.D67 (LC)

The pictures are of the cataloging and processing departments at HCPL celebrating National Donut Day.

Pictures

Here are some pictures I took of my new car and my really cute pups. There is an Obama bumper sticker on the car.

Libraries and Wireless Internet

After complaints of headaches, weakness, stress, balance, and eye problems by the staff, four libraries in Paris have turned off their wireless Internet access. Library workers in the U.S. and Canada have also expressed concern about wireless networks. The director of the library at Southwestern College in Santa Fe left her job last year because of insomnia which she attributes to the wireless network in the library, and the president of Lakehead University in Ontario has prohibited his university from installing a wireless network on campus because of concerns over the health of the students. I have heard about the dangers of living near power lines for years and the dangers of constant cell phone use so this doesn't really surprise me.
This information comes from The Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com/and The Connection http://www.connectionfrance.com

Acai

I became aware of Acai (ah-sigh-ee) a few years ago when I noticed it as an ingredient in the mango tea I drink by Honest Tea. Acai berries, which are grown in the Amazon, have more antioxidants than blueberries and pomegranates and more anthocyanins (good for the heart) than red wine. They’re also rich in protein and dietary fiber and have high levels of Omega-3, 6, and 9 fatty acids. Of course, the less processing the better and today I found a company that sells the berries as unprocessed as possible. The company is http://www.ezoetic.com/

There is a lot on information on their web site about Acai, including how to order, why it's good for the Amazon, and some yummy recipes. I may check with Whole Foods to see if they are selling the product or will sell it as that would be a lot easier.

A Painless Root Canal!

On Friday I went to my dentist to have a root canal. After 2 hours of unsuccessful drilling, he sent me to a specialist. I was supposed to see the specialist on Wednesday but called Saturday morning to see if I could get an earlier appointment. Anyway, yesterday a wonderful endodontist, James C. Morrison, Jr., DMD at Greater Houston Endodontics on Woodway was able to do the root canal and I had no pain. I was totally relaxed and was surprised when it was over because I never felt a thing. His office staff was great too. He reminded me a little of Michael Knight from season 3 of Project Runway. I could be all wrong about this because it's all a fog and I couldn't find a picture of him online but that's the impression I have. It doesn't really matter what he looks like anyway because he is a dental genius but of course looking good never hurts. I still have a lot more work to do but this was the worst of it. All of my fillings are 20-40+ years old and need to be replaced. The total will be about 4,000 but my insurance will pay about 1700.
While all of this was going on I was watching MSNBC with the volume turned up really loud so as not to hear the drill. There was a lot of speculation about HRC dropping out of the race, finally. Bill C. had made some comments hinting at that earlier in the day and so had HRC to her staff. BREAKING NEWS: She will concede tonight! Anyone who knows me or reads this blog will know how happy this makes me.

Move On www.moveon.org started a petition in response to Scott McClellan's book that reads: "People who helped lie this country into an unnecessary war should not be rewarded for it. Scott McClellan should donate all the proceeds from his book to a group that helps Iraq veterans--like Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America."
Today on Meet the Press, Scott announced that a portion of the profits from his book will go to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

55

Here is some trivia about the number 55 from Wikipedia:


55 delegates attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
There are 55 gallons in a drum containing liquid.
55 was the highest speed limit allowed in the US between 1974 and 1986.
In years of marriage, 55 is the emerald wedding anniversary.
55 is restaurant slang for root beer.
In 1973, Spiro Agnew, resigned the Vice Presidency at age 55.
55 is the atomic number of caesium.
The number 55 is also know as double-nickles in the gambling world.



The number 55 can also be written as fifty-five (Cardinal), LV (Roman) and 110111 (Binary)

Famous people who will turn 55 this month: John Edwards, Tim Allen, Cyndi Lauper, and fourdogmom.