Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Sundry and various?
I’ve been thinking a lot about how our educational system sets children up for a lifetime of disappointment. Think about it: for 12 years, 16 if you go to college and don’t take summer school, you work something like 37 weeks out of the year and vacation for the remaining 15. Then you join the work force and you’re stuck with two measly weeks of vacation a year. Four if you’re really lucky.
And now they’re talking about boosting the retirement age to 70, and of course one “benefit” of the current recession is that those of us with jobs are, of course, very grateful for that fact, and not too inclined to question the status quo that has us working like oxen.
I like to imagine a world where we didn’t have to spend half our budget on defense and where corporations paid their fair share of taxes. In that world, I suspect we could all work four-day weeks and have at least four weeks’ vacation per year. Sigh.
I think I’ve finally perfected pad thai. So often, my pad thai comes out soggy or soupy. This time, I decided to prepare things in four separate batches, which I would bring together in the end.
First, I made a salad of bean sprouts, green onion, cilantro, and radicchio (red cabbage is more traditional). I tossed it with a little sriracha sauce (that sweet – garlicky – red pepper sauce you find sometimes in Thai restaurants). Second: I sliced up part of a cucumber and also a carrot. Third: I sauteed shrimp, mushrooms, and the white parts of green onions, along with some garlic, tofu, and pad thai sauce. Once that was cooked, I put it in the oven to keep it warm. Finally, I made some wide rice noodles and then sauteed them in the same wok along with extra pad thai sauce. And then I put it all together.
Yes, kind of a production, but I think it worked out well. The noodles had the right chewiness and weren’t overly soggy, which is what usually happens when I make pad thai. Plus I was able to keep the flavors distinctive. Jake only liked the noodles and the tofu, but Karen and I thought it was all decent.
Tonight, Keith Olbermann railed against the Obama Administration’s spinelessness in light of the recent Shirley Sherrod brouhaha. In his Special Comment, he made reference to a bit of French history I’d heard of but never bothered to learn about: the Dreyfus Affair. Go to that link, read the Wiki, and explain to me why no one has ever made an English language movie about this bit of history.
It has everything: Treachery! Prejudice! Spineless bureaucrats! Noble, heroic authors! Devil’s Island! And ultimate exoneration!
No sex, not that I could see, but any competent screenwriter could fix that omission in a heartbeat.
D.
I think there is an English language film about the Dreyfus affair that I remember seeing on TV. This could be it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Accuse! Not sure, but I know I saw a film about it in English. Maybe there is a made for TV version somewhere.
Yeah, that’s it, though WordPress kindly omitted the “!” from the URL. No “!” takes you to a 2003 movie that’s not about the Dreyfus Affair. So – 1958’s ‘I Accuse!’ it is.
That pad thai recipe sounds like how a local Thai place makes theirs – only they use, uh, banana blossoms (I think) in their ‘salad’ part.
Sadly, Netflix only has the exclamationless version about the Canadian doctor. They do have I accuse my parents!, an old B-movie about a kid gone bad, and the MST 3K look at that same movie. And Jodie Foster’s Accused, of course.
Never had a banana blossom . . .
Move to France for shorter work weeks and more vacation. 35 hours/week and six weeks of vacation. We in the Confederation Helvetique are in the middle of the vacation period. I’ve learned over the last two years that if something isn’t done by mid-June, the odds are quite good you won’t be able to get it done until late September, and sometimes things go backwards after having been tossed around from back-up to back-up.
The French wouldn’t have me. They can’t speak my language.