Posted on

Weekend report

So, another DragonCon is under the bridge. This year we helped out our pals from Florida, Echo and Lazarus Chernik. They drive a big ole RV to cons all summer and you just can’t park that thing in downtown Atlanta, so they parked it here at Casa Mizgala and we shuttled the booth + art back and forth in the Ranger.

We put on an art reception for Echo on Saturday night at the Courtyard Marriott that is tucked away next to the Westin on Carnegie St. The room was perfect for an art reception and Echo was pleased with my quickie catering. It was VERY fun and VERY tiring! Echo debuted her exclusive DragonCon print at the reception and we intend to do that again next year. Hopefully it will be a DCon tradition!

Overall, I have to say that I really do prefer working cons to just attending/partying. You meet many more people that way.

Echo gave me a giclée print (Seafood, part of her 12 food pieces) for helping out with the reception and made me cry. It’s really too much!! But I adore it and can’t wait to get it hung. THANK YOU seems inadequate for such a lovely gift! We can’t wait to do it again next year – it will be AWESOME!

I got the house cleaned, groceries procured and the laundry caught up yesterday so today I’m futzing on the intertubes and generally just laying around. :)

Gotta get my thank-yous done, too. Ah, I love organising stuff. Maybe I’ll find a job doing it!

Posted on

Apple of my Eye

[In the 10 years since Steve resigned, Apple has, indeed, lost the innovation and become a company that makes appliances. There are no professional level Macs under $4-5k. The new units (MB and iMacs) run on PHONE chips. Nothing is upgradeable or even fixable. Apple is a sad remnant of what it was, as far as I’m concerned. I still love Mac, the iPhone and the Watch, but I’m using a 12 yr old Mac Pro because I can’t afford $4-5k for a new one. I refuse to use a trashcan Mac. I am also not interested in a non upgradeable iMac that runs on a PHONE processor. So, here I sit, with old equipment because Apple has stopped making real computers. I am disappointed in Apple as a user, but they do a good job paying the stockholders, so yay? That is really what has happened. Apple is all about stock prices, which making appliances keeps HIGH, not being the best computer company in the world. Hence the name change from Apple Computer, to just Apple. Sigh. – Aug 2021]

So, Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple. It is the end of an era. I know as long as Steve is alive, he’ll be there, laying plans for more innovations and surprises. But when he finally succumbs to the various illnesses he has, I think that will be the end of Apple as we know it.

Yes, Tim Cook has been Steve’s right hand man for years. Yes, Jonathan Ive is the brilliant designer who took Steve’s ideas and made them real. BUT. Neither of these guys are the ones who THINK UP the mad schemes in the first place. Tim Cook has a reputation as a quiet, rather staid man. That does not make me think of INNOVATION. It makes me think of Microsoft.

Which is where Apple will end up when Steve’s ideas have been plumbed and there’s no more Steve to come up with a computer that “looks like a flower” (iMac circa 2002) or an iPod, iPhone, iPad… You get the picture. Yes, I’m sure Steve’s got plenty of innovations in channel and will keep it that way as long as he is able. But when he’s gone, he’s gone.

It makes me a bit sad to know that I will most likely see Apple grind slowly to a halt and become a useless behemoth like Microsoft. But I’m pretty sure it’ll happen.

I just hope it happens slowly enough that by the time Apple is dead, I won’t care because I’ll be too old to use a computer anyway.

In the meantime, Apple is still my brand and I wouldn’t dream of using anything else.

Viva la Apple! And long live Steve Jobs! :)

Posted on

Quick Boeuf Bourguignon

Print

Easy Boeuf Bourguignon

Marinading the stew beef is highly recommended - even if it's just a couple of hours. The wine helps break down the connective tissue that is typical of chuck. There are a good number of ingredients, but nothing exotic. This recipe is quite easy, just follow the steps! Bon appétit!
Course Main Course
Cuisine French
Keyword beef braise, beef stew, Boeuf Bourguignon
Prep Time 3 hours
Cook Time 1 hour
Servings 10 servings
Author misangela

Equipment

  • 1 Dutch oven

Ingredients

  • 3 Tbl EVOO
  • 5 slices bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces sub pancetta
  • 2 pounds beef chuck, 1" dice aka stew beef
  • 2 Tbl S/P equal parts
  • 1 cup flour for beef dredge
  • 1 Lg onion, large 1" dice about 1.5 cups
  • 3 stalks celery, 1/2" slices on the bias about 1 cup
  • 3 med carrots, 1/2" slices on the bias about 1 cup
  • 4 cloves garlic, rough chop
  • 1 pound cremini mushrooms, stemmed, 1/2" slices cut in half if they are large
  • 2 Tbl butter I use salted always, doesn't matter
  • 1/2 cup brandy or cognac optional, but adds depth
  • 2 Tbl tomato paste
  • 3 whole bay leaves
  • 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves 5-6 stems tied together whole or 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/2 pound frozen pearl onions about half a bag
  • 2 cups dry red wine pinot noir or a light cabernet
  • 2 cups beef stock start with one cup and add to taste/thickness of stew is to your liking
  • 1/4 cup fresh parsley, rough chopped leaves only

Marinade for Beef

  • 1 cup dry red wine you can put this marinade in the stew, just strain out peppercorns and bay leaf, then measure liquid and add fresh wine to 2 cups
  • 2 Tbl Lea & Perrins Worcestershire L&P is the best
  • 1 Tbl EVOO
  • 2 Tbl whole black peppercorns or you use the mixed ones
  • 2 whole bay leaves

Instructions

  • Marinate the beef! Put beef in a ziplock bag with marinade in the morning and let sit all day. Or even just a couple of hours would be fine. It really helps with the flavour of the beef and it softens the sometimes chewy bits of stew beef.
  • Preheat the oven to 300F.
  • Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven. Add the bacon and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the bacon is lightly browned. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon to a large plate.
  • Dry the beef cubes with paper towels and then dredge them in flour, salt and pepper. In batches in single layers, sear the beef in the hot oil for 3 to 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Remove the seared cubes to the plate with the bacon and continue searing until all the beef is browned. Set aside.
  • Toss the onions, celery, carrots and mushrooms, a good pinch of salt and 2 good pinches of pepper into the fat in the pan, along with the butter and cook for 10 to 15 minutes over med flame, stirring occasionally, until the veg is lightly browned. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.
  • Add the pearl onions, tomato paste, bay leaves and thyme. Stir for a minute.
  • Add the Cognac and scrape any bits from the bottom of the pot. Put the meat and bacon back into the pot with the juices.
  • Add the wine plus enough beef broth to almost cover the meat. Bring to a simmer, cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid and place it in the oven for about 1 hour or until the meat and vegetables are very tender when pierced with a fork.
  • Remove stew from oven and add fresh parsley. Check your S/P.
  • Serve with baguette.

Notes

This dish has a reputation for being difficult, mainly because Julia Child's recipe is soooo long! It is really not hard, there are just a few steps to follow. Drying the beef, dredging and searing it, is really the key to good boeuf bourguignon. 
Posted on

Responsibility IS a choice!

And again, today I’m reminded that responsibility is the core issue for SO many things. The hole that the government has dug itself is, at its root, caused by irresponsibility – that mirrors the complete lack of responsibility its citizens feel about, well, everything.

The word “trifling” has come up a couple of times recently and I think it’s safe to say that Americans have become disturbingly trifling in the last decade. The government is increasingly expected to nanny the populace with food laws, smoking laws, stupid warnings on everything and more. And the populace is demanding more, more, more. More entitlements, more laws “for safety”, more invasive behaviour monitoring. It never stops!

The populace elected a young, inexperienced man because he looks good, is black and can talk some good shit. ADMIT IT, he was elected for his skin colour and his pandering promises that have just about all evaporated – but the populace doesn’t want to hear that. No, way! It’s just the Evil Republicans messing everything up. And if Omama was a Republican, it’d be the Evil Democrats messing everything up. Americans have come to the sad place where there is no middle and it’s always someone else’s fault. It’s Evil Right or Evil Left. It is because that irresponsibility is easier than being responsible citizens and READING UP on what these asshats are actually doing on Capital Hill.

Which is nothing. Your elected officials do as little as is humanly possible with as much shit talking as possible to make it SEEM like something is happening. Sheeple buy it every time. Hence our current circumstance.
Continue reading “Responsibility IS a choice!”

Posted on

Hingeheads Review

So, someone on Twitter mentioned “hingeheads” the other day. I was curious, so I looked them up. A HingeHead is a little metal sculpture that attaches to your door hinge.

Sounds weird, right? Well it is! And it’s brilliant! What Kai and company have created are little pieces of art that add just a touch of “wow” to the most unsuspected place: door hinges!

I found a typo on their site, so I sent an email informing them and Kai VERY kindly sent me a sample HingeHead for my help. I decided to return the favour with a review of the HingeHead. I don’t review stuff often – other than restaurants – so this is a rare treat for me. :)

Kai sent me a HingeHead I would’ve picked myself: Moon and Star! Looky:

HingeHead in Brass
Moon and Star HingeHead in Brass

This piece is in brass, but they offer several different types of metal including pewter and copper. I have to say, the magnet is VERY strong! I chose to hang mine upside down (yay for the sculpture being either/or!) at the kitchen so I could admire it easily. There are metal holes that used to hold a swinging door – way before we ever got the place – but no door is there now, just the metal hole. You can vaguely see the hole in the pic. Our door hinges are very old and have round balls on top [see pic below], but even on those, the HingeHeads piece held on nicely.

Since there seems to be some confusion, here is a pic of an old ass hinge with the round top that I am not using, but I could if I wish since the strong magnet of the HingeHead will hold:

Old ass hinge
Old ass hinge with round top.

These little sculptures vary in price from $6-15 and they do lots of limited editions. Head on over to HingeHeads and check out the stock. These would be awesome stocking stuffers or little surprise gifts. Love ’em!