The Very First for 2024

 

Coming up amid the dead leaves of day lilies.  The green leaves of the crocus are barely out of the ground  and yet the buds opened to bloom.

Homemade Pizza

It's been a very long time since I've posted something I've cooked.  I've thought of it several times but then didn't try to document with photos which is of course necessary on a blog.

I've had a hankering for pizza since Saturday but didn't follow up on that until today.

Here's the recipe for the crust copied years ago from a Jane Brody cookbook long since let go.  If you're not familiar with Jane she was a health guru in the 70s and 80s I think.  The only recipe I consistently made from her cook book was for pizza dough so I copied it and let the book go.

I used King Arthur bleached flour.  The white whole wheat I had was rancid so it went into the compost bin.  Bake time was a lot less on the pizza stone.  It was done in less than 15 minutes.

Here are the other ingredients.

The dough - half.  This one went into the refrigerator for another time.

In the past I've tried to spread the dough on a cutting board with cornmeal underneath while the pizza stone heated in the oven.  I've never been very successful at making the move to the stone, so this time I let the stone warm over the oven vent and then spread the dough on it and built the pizza.

The half I used spread out on a greased pizza stone.

I used a very small can of tomato paste adding sugar, basil and garlic powder.  I used roughly half on the pizza as first layer.

I tried carmelizing onions.

Sauteed mushrooms and red pepper slices.

Cubed some Canadian bacon.

I never remember to put the cheese on first and made that mistake again with bacon and some of the onions.  The rest of the veggies went on top.

Into the oven and here it is out.

A slice with sauteed spinach.

The crust was super crispy just like good restaurant pizza.

I had three pieces and Dan had 5!  I really thought we may have leftovers but Dan devoured it.

Clean plate club!

From This to This

 Thursday I took a walk around the house to find signs of spring. I had to look carefully but they were there.

crocus

daffodil

greening grass

Oops fallen over stones from rain saturated soil

iris

weeds and daffodil

Now Sunday morning it looks like this out the windows.

You may have noticed the car tracks in our driveway.  Dan got a fire call very early this morning.  I'm not sure if it was even 3:00 am for downed wires.  The car was in the barn so he had to get it out and close the doors before he departed. He was the first to respond to the fire house and thought he may have to go by himself to investigate until the captain arrived.

Shortly after he left I noticed how windy it was and then our power went out.  I knew I had to call it in on my cell phone so I fumbled for light.  First the emergency light which should have gone on in the hall.  I found it but my fingers couldn't find the switch to turn it on.  I then went to the hall bookcase where I knew Dan had a slim flashlight and fumbled in the dark to put that on. I finally got it then looked at the emergency light (also a flash light) to find the switch.  I came down to my cell phone and called our electric company.  There was a litany of already called in locations I had to listen to before I reported our outage. Obviously they hadn't heard about the need in our area yet because everyone else was probably asleep in bed.

At 5:00 am Dan returned.  I heard the car and he left it on so he'd have light to shovel some of the roof and steps.  He brought in wood knowing if the power stayed off we'd need the warmth.  We both went fast asleep.  I hadn't been able to sleep while he was out on the call.

He's still fast asleep as I write.  The power came on shortly after 8:00 am. Thank goodness.

But what a strange storm.  It can't decide if it's snowing or raining. We have inches of slush.

So much for the start of spring.

Some Words from Jennifer Rubin

 From The Washington Post

March 8, 2024 

by Jennifer Rubin

What caught my eye Biden has known for months he would face four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump in the general election. But with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s departure from the raceand the Supreme Court keeping Trump on the ballot, the general election now begins in earnest. That means Biden, Republicans and the media face critical decisions. First, Biden must decide if he wants to ignore Trump’s criminal cases. He certainly should not comment on the specifics of those cases (for fear of giving Trump grounds to appeal). However, while Trump spends weeks in courtrooms, Biden has the opportunity to make the election into a referendum: Do voters want to let Trump escape prosecution? If Trump wins, he likely will either pardon himself or simply instruct the Justice Department to drop federal cases. He no doubt also will demand state courts halt their cases while he is in office. That would be antithetical to the rule of law, an outlandish effort to put himself above the law. The Trump campaign itself is a scheme to avoid the criminal justice system. Biden can present the stark choice: Do we rescue Trump from 91 criminal charges by putting him in the White House? Moreover, Biden can remind voters that Trump thinks the presidency empowers him to act without fear of criminal liability. Trump’s counsel explicitly argued there are no consequences for a president’s overtly criminal acts (e.g., assassinating opponents). Biden should bring the argument to the country (and implicitly to the Supreme Court, which is considering Trump’s immunity case) that a president with this imperial outlook will upend our democracy. Second, Republicans have reached a moment of truth. If Haley, former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) and former president George W. Bush recognize the threat Trump poses to democracy, the rule of law and America’s national security, they cannot merely withhold support. Do they continue to speak out against his election — or even endorse Biden, the only person who can prevent Trump from regaining power and sinking our democracy? They can enlist supporters under the banner of something along the lines of “One Election.” (If Trump wins, there might be no others!) As Cheney has said, We “can survive bad policies. We can’t survive a president who goes to war with the Constitution.” Now it’s time for these Republicans to make that endorsement decision. Third, mainstream news outlets must decide how to cover the general election. Do they finally cover Trump’s obvious defects, zero in on the implications of installing a Vladimir Putin sympathizer and confront the danger of another Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection if Trump loses? To date, the traditional print and TV news operations have refused to cover the race as they would a foreign contest between a democratic candidate and an authoritarian bent on overturning democracy. Some insist Trump’s campaign is pivoting from grievances to serious “policy”! However, traditional media still have time to reveal the true nature of the MAGA movement, its leader and its cult followers. News outlets at any time can drop the false equivalence and educate themselves and voters. The brilliant Democratic strategist Michael Podhorzer, for example, puts the MAGA movement in the context of the old Confederacy (which geographically overlaps GOP electoral strongholds): You can think of MAGA as a fascist movement or as the “legitimate” expression of a theocratic Red Nation that is in a cold war with the Blue Nation, or both. (In the 21st century, the Red Nation has also been making inroads in the purple states.) Either way, the MAGA movement is an enemy of liberal democracy and has taken over the Republican Party. Its and MAGA’s continued success in building its preferred version of America depends on the political class’s stubborn refusal to call out the Republican Party for what it has become. No matter how many times the Confederate Faction signals that it does not accept the legitimacy of the American project, we refuse to believe them. We reflexively reinterpret attacks against America as mere disagreements or empty rhetoric aimed at their MAGA base, even as our attackers lack no clarity about their own intentions.  . . . In reality, our choice in November is whether to keep giving the benefit of the doubt to rebels who believe that theirs, not ours, is the legitimate cause. The mainstream news can reach out to any of the numerous expert historians on authoritarianism and the Lost Cause mind-set that still drives MAGA politicians. (E.g., Texas insists it can nullify federal immigration policy.) There is still time to explain to voters that the election will determine if we enter a fascist era that rejects democratic pluralism and cedes power to a dangerous strongman. (While news organizations are looking for experts, they should consult some candid mental health professionals to explain Trump’s mental state and seeming linguistic deterioration).