Author: Mark Linton

Somehow I didn’t think it was just me.

Does Google want to incur the wrath of the blogosphere?

It’s a utility. It had better keep the lights on. Or else.

Wired News: Bloggers Pitch Fits Over Glitches

Yes. I am still here. Many events have been conspiring to keep me from posting. Not the lease of which was an inability to load anything from blogger.com. After some correspondence with support@blogger.com, clearing of cache, and deleting of blogger.com cookies I was able to get going again.

Last time I posted I was talking about starting my vegetable garden plants indoors. There was progress after that.

This is what they looked like after three days…

…and after eight days…

…and after fourteen days.

Gretchen and I have decided to try starting our vegetable garden plants from seed this year. We borrowed some grow lights from Gretchen’s Dad and bought some trays, seeds, and planting mix.

We started out by moistening the planting mix. We just used an old (cleaned out) soda bottle as a watering can.

We filled up all the little partitions in our planting tray without compressing the soil too much.

We used a pen with a little piece of masking tape on it to make holes of the desired depth for each type of seed.

These are Leek seeds. They’re pretty small, but ended up being just about the largest seeds we started.

With seeds that small you have to be careful about how many you plant in each hole. For the most part, we planted more than one seed per hole. We’ll come back and prune later, leaving just the healthiest plant.

Since they just look like dirt until the sprout — and even then aren’t too easy to distinguish — we made sure to carefully label each of the blocks of seeds.

We went ahead and put the newly planted seeds under the grow light on a timer so they’ll have good light as soon as they come up.

I just got back from a business trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. I did not have a car, so I ate at the hotel most of the time, which was not too interesting. However, I did fly out via the Cincinnati, Ohio airport. It turns out that they have pretty good food selections.

On the way out, I had to have a bowl of Cincinnati 5-way Chili — spaghetti, chili con carne, kidney beans, chopped onions, and grated Cheddar cheese — from Gold Star Chili.

On the way back through I had a Pizza Margherita at the Wolfgang Puck Airport Cafe.

WSJ.com – Herd Instinct: Will Rogers: “If you’re riding ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.”

Gretchen and I had the last glass of our own cider this morning. What we weren’t drinking, we kept frozen in plastic one-gallon jugs.

Re the tag line in a Beck’s Beer commercial:

Philadelphia Daily News | 01/21/2005 | Joe Sixpack | Mr. Sixpack’s 3rd annual ‘State of the Sleaze’: “Friends and beer. The trick is never confusing the two.

“What ‘trick’? It’s easy to tell the two apart. Beer is always by your side, joining you in life’s best moments, comforting you when you’re down. Friends, on the other hand, steal your beer.”

Grilled Shrimp with Sonoran Lime Chipotle Marinade

• 1–2 pounds Jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, and put on skewers
• Sonoran Lime Chipotle Marinade (If making a large batch, double recipe)

Drizzle marinade over jumbo shrimp and grill over medium heat, approximately 2 minutes per side. Use more marinade when you turn the shrimp.

To test whether the shrimp are done, wait until they change color and cut one in half. Center should be hot and white, not translucent.

Sonoran Lime-Chipotle Marinade

If you start the meal with dessert you can certainly celebrate this as your second course. Juicy, spicy, shrimp on the grill with a Lime and Chile Marinade baste. It’s would be hard to pass this one up.

• Juice of 4 Key Limes
• ½ bottle Dark Mexican beer
• 1½ tablespoons Extra Virgin olive oil
• 3 Chipotle chiles, canned, mashed well, with 1 tablespoon of adobo sauce from the can
• ¼ teaspoons Kosher salt
• 2 cloves Minced garlic
• ½ teaspoons Mexican oregano
• Paprika

Whisk all ingredients together, except the paprika. Drizzle the sauce over fish, shrimp, or vegetables while grilling. Sprinkle with paprika and serve.

Makes ½ cup.

---

Quick and Easy: Grilled Shrimp with Sonoran Chipotle Marinade (here, here, and here)

Rather than overwhelm grilled shrimp with a spicy rub or a sticky glaze, we chose a simple marinade that imparts a slight tang and a subdued heat. And the marinade takes hold in less time than it takes to peel the shrimp. Adapted from a recipe by AJ’s Purveyors of Fine Foods in Phoenix.

• Juice from 4 limes
• ⅔ cup beer, such as Corona or pale ale
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 to 3 canned chipotle chili peppers, mashed
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh cilantro, or to taste
• About 2 pounds extra-large shrimp

Preheat the grill or broiler.

In a bowl or blender, whisk or combine the lime juice, beer, oil, chipotle peppers, salt, garlic and cilantro. Pour the marinade into a large bowl.

Peel and devein the shrimp, adding the shrimp to the bowl as they are cleaned. Toss to coat the shrimp with the marinade. Drain the shrimp and, if desired, skewer them.

Grill or broil the shrimp, turning as necessary, just until pink and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes per side, depending on the size. Serve immediately. Four servings.

Per serving: 254 calories, 46 gm protein, 3 gm carbohydrates, 5 gm fat, 345 mg cholesterol, 1 gm saturated fat, 406 sodium, trace dietary fiber.

The Quotations Page: “It doesn’t make a difference what temperature a room is, it’s always room temperature. — Steven Wright, US comedian and actor (1955– )”

The Compleat Cook: “Take one strike of Malt, and one of Rye ground, and mash them together, and take (if they be good) three pound of Hops, if not four pound; make two Hogs-heads of the best of that Malt and Rye, then lay the Hogs-head where the Sunne may have power over them, and when it is ready to Tun, fill your hogs-heads where they lye, then let them purge cleer and cover them with two flate stones, and within a week after when you bake, take two wheat loaves hot out of the Oven, and put into each hogs-head a loaf, you must use this foure times, you must brew this in Aprill, and let it stand till June, then draw them clearer, then wash the Hogs-heads cleane, and put the beer in again; if you will have it Rose-vinegar, you must put in a strike and a half of Roses; if Elder-vinegar, a peck of the flowers; if you will have it white, put no thing in it after it is drawn, and so let it stand till Michaelmas; if you will have it coloured red, take four gallons of strong Ale as you can get, and Elder berries picked a few full clear, and put them in your pan with the Ale, set them ouer the fire till you guesse that a pottle is wasted, then take if off the fire, and let it stand till it be store cold, and the next day strain it into the Hogs-head, then lay them in a Cellar or buttery which you please.”