Text 17418, 119 rader
Skriven 2008-12-06 22:33:16 av Nancy Backus (1:3634/12.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Michael Loo
Ärende: do I hear an Echo 308
=============================
-=> Quoting MICHAEL LOO to NANCY BACKUS on 12-04-08 02:51 <=-

 NB>> Oh, I wish, too...  and a duck's not quite the same, in some ways
 NB>> better than a turkey... ;)

 ML> For me the issue with duck is the price. For a long time, the
 ML> cost of a duck was prohibitive for anything but the speciallest
 ML> of occasions, but then the prices sort of went down to where
 ML> one might be a small splurge but not a trial and tribulation,
 ML> but now they seem to be back up again.

Wegmans sells boxed duck in the meat department, either a cooked half
duck for $8 or 9 (with a little packet of orange sauce), or 2.99 for a
raw leg/thigh quarter.  Sealed in plastic, both of them, from Canada
(Maple Leaf brand)...  Decent stuff.   But not the whole duck, to be
done up like a turkey.  I think that there's sometimes whole frozen duck
available, but I don't recall how much that costs... :)  Every so often
I do get the leg/thigh quarters, one for each of us, when the urge for
duck comes... :)  Recently I did it, using some of the Seville marmelade
for a glaze, and served with some stuffing mixed with Delicata squash.

 ML>> doubting his connection to the real world, as I fed him some pork
 ML>> cracklings off a butt roast that we had bought together, and he
 ML>> thought they were beef. 
 NB>> I thought that his lack of connection to the real world was a given
 NB>> already...?  :)

 ML> Not much of a grinnie there. The kitchen table when I got there
 ML> was full with many days' dishes caked in food; it's almost as
 ML> though his brain functions like a wild animal's, and if something
 ML> isn't moving it doesn't exist.

No, I guess I agree that that is rather sad...  I'm sure that some
aspects of it can be taken in a rather lighter way, but going to that
degree isn't to grin at... maybe ruefully smile, if only to keep from
crying or screaming...  Especially if there's no helping it or changing
things, just having to live with it.

 ML>> been a leg man myself. Often, when I crave poultry, I'll get the
 ML>> cheapest thing available (whole chicken or turkey), carve off the
 ML>> breast meat to use in scalloppini or stir-fry, and roast the
 ML>> carcass and legs.
 NB>> Now that's a solution, too...  although I'd probably end up not
 NB>> using the reserved breast meat...

 ML> You could mince it up and use it as a lean and semi-unsatisfactory
 ML> substitute for ground pork. Meatloaf is one possible use, if you
 ML> cut it enough with breadcrumbs soaked in butter.

'Twould need mucho butter, and lots of spicing... Actually, sounds
rather unappetizing even so...

Oh, I'd have good intentions... and then, months (and months, probably)
later, discover something that might be recognizeable, in only in
retrospect... even if it were tucked into the freezer, wrapped
properly...  (she says, from long experience... [g])   If I happened to
'member to use it in good time, I suppose I might use it for chicken
salad, or tossed into some sort of casserole thing...  but I'd have to
remember to think about it... not always a given...  (G)

 ML> ==
 
 NB>> Besides, I'm still in DOS, and have no intentions to move to any
 NB>> form of Windows or other OS just to have the irritation.

 ML> I wish. I had to have Windows early on because I used the
 ML> computer professionally: creating Word-compatible documents
 ML> and so on. DOS would still be way preferable. As soon as
 ML> Microsoft came up with a fairly bulletproof product, which
 ML> I believe was DOS 6.2, they killed it. Sigh.

While I hardly ever use it, might as well say never, I do have Win95
available on this machine.  It boots directly into DOS, but if there is
something for which I need it, like Word-compatibility, large fonts for
posters, fixing something with graphics for a talk or presentation, I
can call up Win95 with the "win" command.  My wizard suggests that you
might still be able to go back to Win98 and Open Office... his machine,
using Win98, also boots directly into DOS, and needs to have Windows
called up when required.  It's DOS 7.1 for both of us, the one that
undergirds Win95 and Win98...

 NB>> sometimes I think that my turbo gear is mostly missing, nowadays...

 ML> I thought for a while that mine would be gone, too, after they
 ML> sucked part of my brain out of my head, but most of the facilities
 ML> seem to have come back mostly intact. The sense of direction,
 ML> though, is kind of missing, though, which is a pain when I find
 ML> myself in a foreign city like Indianapolis with no frame of
 ML> reference whatever and an intermittent fuzziness and oubliation
 ML> of whether the sun sets in the east or west.

I think I'd miss that even more than turbo gear.  Ramping up to
accomplish stuff was something that has saved me a time or two... but
knowing where I am, even (usually) in a strange place, has become to
depend on... especially with all the solo driving I do.  Now, I might
get left and right confused, even east/west or north/south... but I can
generally make the proper turns despite that... (G)  Germantown PA, with
it's diagonal grid, got me, though.. until I saw what was happening on a
map the next day... 

 ML> East-West Stir Fry

 ML> 6 Tb olive oil
 ML> 1 lb flank steak, thinly sliced
 ML> 1/2 ts seasoned salt
 ML> 1/2 ts garlic salt
 ML> 4 Tb oyster sauce
 ML> 1/2 c Chinese wine
 ML> 1 lb Shanghai bok choy
 ML> - cut bottoms and separate leaves

What's the West part of this, the flank steak?  or the olive oil?  Seems
East enough to me... (G)

ttyl       neb

... He blows his horn loudest who is lost in the fog.

 * Origin:  (1:3634/12)