Basic Pesto

• 1 close garlic, peeled
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 cup packed fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1Tbsp grated pecorino Romano cheese

Mash garlic to a paste. Put paste and other ingredients into a Cuisinart. Blend until smooth. Poor into plastic ice cube trays. Cover with plastic – bind with rubber band. Shove in freeze. “Viola!”  Makes about 1/2 cup.

Sun-Dried-Tomato Pesto

Same as above, but include :

• 4 oil-packed sun-dried-tomato halves (Make your own. Don’t ask me how.).
• 1/4 cup fresh oregano leaves
• 1 plum tomato (about 4 ounces) blanched, peeled, and seeded

Parsley and Mint Pesto

If you don’t grow mint, someone you know does and would be delighted to get rid of some.

• 1/2 cup blanched whole almonds
• 1 small clove garlic, peeled
• 1/2 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 cup packed fresh Italian parsley leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
• 1/2 cup fresh basil leaves
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. crumbled ricotta salata
• 1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper

Blanch almonds (look it up, I can’t do EVERYTHING for you). Let cool. Grind garlic and salt into a paste. Add 1/3 almonds, parsley, mint, basil, and olive oil. Grind to a paste. Add another 1/3 of ingredients. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Stir in ricotta salata and pepper. Makes 3/4 cup.  Freeze in ice trays as above.

Now don’t you feel like Ma in “Little House on the Prairie” storing food for the winter? Enjoy.  CalGal

Bill Maher’s  joke on Hardball that “because the problem for too long is Puerto Rican women have had their boot on the neck of white men” adds a bit of humor to the obvious bs bone picking questioning by the likes of white boys Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), brain trust Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). By the way, Orrin Hatch fell all over himself to kiss Judge “Uncle” Thomas’ ass when he was accused (with sound documentation- “Anita Hill Speaking Truth to Power”) of sexually harassing Anita Hill . But hey, Thomas is a Republican male. Sorry Anita, women didn’t get the vote until the 19th Amendment in 1920. The vote was bestowed on African American men (again, by the white boys club) with the 15th Amendment in 1870.

The white boys have in the past, and still do, maintain a majority of seats of power in government and business. The Republican white boys, especially in the South, are determined to hold on to every little scrap of power they can. The suitability of women to hold office, be astronauts, firefighters, corporation leaders, soldiers, practically every position that men hold, has been and still is argued. The resistance is a little more tacit, a little more cleverly couched in a civil tone of concern, but alive and well just the same. White boys, especially Southern white boys, have the power and they like it. Like the average toddler asked to share a toy, these boys aren’t sharing without kicking and screaming.

The lack of substantive questioning by the likes of Sessions, Graham, and Hatch  is unworthy of the positions they hold. Come on boys ask the girl something tough. She can obviously take it.  CalGal

• 1 lb Ground ham (I use turkey ham – I’m from California)
• 4 or 5 Tbs of chow chow (Mom used Sweet Hots – that spicy veggie combo in a jar. She would add sugar to the jar for sweet)
• 5 or 6 dashes Worcestershire
• 4 or5 dashes of mace
• 3 or 4 Tbs Hot catsup
• BIG scoop of Mayo (I use the low cholesterol stuff)

Grind and mix all up. Add whatever you like to taste. I added pepper and a homemade peppery spice mixture. Top container with sliced green olives with pimentos (if you like them. I do.)

Now doesn’t that sound nice?  CalGal

The countryside in various parts of the South East is ravishingly gorgeous. I have been stunned by it as a newcomer. I am also stunned by the unending trash strewn all over the roads by the local brain trust. What’s with that?

Our town organizes clean up days. Many of us go out in our orange vests to hobnob with the lesser miscreants (check kiters, DUIs, etc.) to “adopt a road.” We shuffle down the country roads, snatching up litter, like depressed Santas, dragging our laden black plastic bags behind us.  

I’ve never seen caviar tins, Brie wrappers, or Champagne bottles. It’s always fast food trash, beer cans and/or bottles, cigarette butts, and sometimes diapers. What’s with these people? What possesses them to throw their trash out the car window? Can’t they see the lovely countryside? Are they too preoccupied pondering where else they might be able bully the legislature to allow them to tote their guns?

This is their home, you know, fight with “the Boys in Grey” for our land, states rights, and Southern womanhood. Did the boys in grey march out for the right to throw trash all over the landscape? I don’t get it.

I’m not much into God and such, but having lived in California, I KNOW that if I littered, if there IS a God, she would strike me dead. California has its own litter God.

Can someone explain this unending defilement of the Southern landscape to me?  CalGal

A compadre from Tennessee just called me with this little bit of “I told you so” news. It seems that a woman entered a restaurant, tossed her purse – containing her GUN - down on a table  and accidentally shot a woman sitting at the next table. 

It’s starting.  And you wonder why I’m against all this gun totin’ crap.  CalGal

Fish, ducks, and basketball?

Remember the ASSUME thing – “When you assume you make an ASS of U and Me”? Let’s explore how the AK Gov tried to make an ass of us and made one of herself.

• Why does La Palin assume completing her job as Governor is “going with the flow? Can’t she do the job she promised to the Alaskan electorate then trot off to skin moose or wink and point at the lower 48? With what “flow” is she going? I think her logic smells of “dead fish.”
• Why does she assume her duck is lame? Who knew she was planning to skeedadle out of the Governor’s mansion, never to return? She could have kept her lameness to herself and, again, done the job she pledged to do.
• Why does La Palin assume she was targeted because she was mavericky, or a spunky woman, or whatever? Didn’t she listen to herself on the campaign trail? She ASSUMED she could get away with not training for the “big league” game she was frothing to play. She’s targeted because she jumped into the world arena with only her hair and makeup done.
• Why does the “Pit Bull with lipstick” ASSUME she can call the rest of us less than true Americans and accuse then candidate Obama of “palling around with terrorists” and not expect to be to be held accountable? Don’t give it if you can’t take it.
• In what stretch of the imagination is quitting mid-term not quitting? She assumes that unlike the average third grader, the American public doesn’t know that if you stomp off the field in mid game, you are a quitter.

 Gov. Palin is an embarrassing example of what men use (wrongly, BTW) against women striving for power. In reality she showed herself to be a lightweight and then whined when she couldn’t measure up. Self-aggrandizing, pin curl logic doesn’t make her a maverick or a fighter. She proved, once again, why she was and is ill suited for the national and international arena.

 The American public got a heaping plate of Republican twisted logic and “blame- speak” with La Palin. Strategist, Mary Matalin’s added a second course with her spin on La Palin. In fact, Matalin is a master at Republican pretzel logic.

 Just give it to us straight, Sarah. You quit for the money. She might truly be “mavericky” if she had owned up to that. I’d even respect it if she admitted she was in over her head. All that crap about ducks, fish, basketball, and whatever – she’s just another frustrated Republican who twisted reality and logic to suit her purpose. 

 I welcome anyone in blog-land who wishes to set me straight on this. Please make your argument simple, point A to point B logic.  CalGal

Laundry or Cocktails

•  A Mission Jar
•  Lavender buds
•  VODKA?!

Use: Spritz on skin, freshen clothes or in the rinse cycle of your washing machine when washing bedding and linens!

I kid you not. The following recipe was posted in The Tennessean on June 29, 2009.

1. Fill the jar with lavender and cover completely with VODKA. Seal jar.
2. Place jar in a sunny location for about 18 days, rotate and shake the jar each day, morning and night.
3. Strain the lavender from the vodka and seal liquid in a clean glass jar.
4. Use as needed as a spray to spritz on skin, freshen clothes or in the rinse cycle of your washing machine when washing bedding and linens!

Gotta love that. So that’s how Southern women achieve that gorgeous, dewy skin and easy manner.

Can someone assure me that this is a typo or is this suggested use of the lovely concoction a wonderful Southern invention?

Now, the question is, can you carry a gun while spritzing your skin and/or sleeping in lavender vodka sheets? CalGal

You had stood before the display case riveted and salivating. The patient shop clerk in pristine white waited as you struggled between the butterscotch square and the raspberry cream. You splurged with TWO bordeaux this time. Yes, you chose with care. More thought than went into your last boyfriend?

Forget the high taxes; step over the sleeping homeless; you’ve divied up the kibble between you and the dog in order to pay the school tuition for the kids – you deserve the go-bag of See’s candy. See’s is a right in California.

 No, See’s is not available in shops in the South. Suggestions for procurement:

• Move west
• Get a friend to treat you to a box
• Take matters into your own hands http://www.sees.com/index.cfm

Enjoy. CalGal

And there are roasted green beans which are truly marvelous!   Take fresh green bean and snap the ends off.  Try to get the smaller, more tender ones if at all possible.   Spread on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and herbs.  I like to use something with garlic even if it’s only garlic salt.   Put in a 400 degree oven for apx 20 minutes and enjoy.  If they are larger green beans, you may need to cook them longer than 20 minutes.

Magnolia

The Washington Post ran a piece (6/21/2009) on the comment made by a Republican activist (and former chairman of the state Elections Commission) from South Carolina, Rusty DePass. He apparently joked that the escaped zoo gorilla was likely an ancestor of Michelle Obama. Now isn’t that special?

The author of the piece, Kathleen Parker, states that she noticed such occurrences are not unusual in the 20 years she has lived in South Carolina. I agree. I have heard what I consider to be the most offensive statements just tossed out like “howdy do.”  ”I ain’t votin’ for no n***** was spewed (in response to my Obama bumper sticker) in the grocery store parking lot. This was  to the speaker’s teen daughter. Carefully nurturing another racist. What’s with that?

Now, the Governor, thinking with his little head rather than the big one, goes AWOL for a little Do Si Dos with his honey in Argentina. This from the party that claims the market on Family Values.  His peccadilloes are his wife’s business. Disappearing on “company time” and at “company expense” is the taxpayers’ business.

Hey, South Carolina, what’s going on out there?   More to the point - Hey Republican in South Carolina, what gives? CalGal