Tom Slaughter’s Posterous Blog

Garage - the Movie

So, you go to the Sundance Channel and a movie is coming on. You click the Info Button on the remote and read:

Title: Garage

Description: Irish garage attendant craves intimacy.

Not too enticing, right? Wrong. This is a great movie. I see a movie every night and this is the best I have seen in a while. Acting, cinematography, script - all, great. Really, a low-key classic.

Now, I am completely aware of the dangers of 'pierogi inflation'. I'm not really sure that one can usefully rate a movie like 'Garage' and the latest 'Terminator' in the same currency.

However, with those dangers in mind, I am still going to give 'Garage' : 9 pierogis.

Jalapeno Cornbread

Mac & Cheese

Krystyna, our neighbor, told us that she was getting a new stove and would be happy to give us hers. So, it happened - today. A working stove for the first time in like 12 years.

So, in celebration, I dusted off my copy of Simple Cooking by John Thorne and dug up the recipe for Mac and Cheese.

Came out great.

Now, if someone would give us a bathtub.

Oh, the recipe, you say?

1/2lb elbow pasta

1/2 stick butter

1lb cheddar cheese (next time I'm going go half and half cheddar and spicy Monterey Jack)

1 12oz can evaporated milk.

1 teaspoon mustard powder.

dash of tabasco (i used some hot sauce).

two eggs

1/2 stick of butter

1) Pre-heat the oven to 350

2) Do the pasta ( really al dente - about 7 minutes)

3) While the pasta is cooking, grate the cheese and beat the eggs.

4) Stir in the butter with the cooked pasta.

5) drop a few dashes of hot sause to the milk.

6) mix the milk, eggs, and 3/4 of the cheese with the pasta. (Thorne recommends keeping 1/4 cup of milk in reserve.).

7) Put the mixture into the middle of the oven and cook for about 20-25 minutes. (Thorne recommends pulling it out every five minutes and adding more cheese (the 1/4 in reserve) and milk if necessary). This, in my opinion, is tedious - but I did it THIS TIME.

Take it out and enjoy. Thorne recommends crushing 'plain crackers' over it and chowing down.

But as Katie Kleopatra would say : De Gustibus Non Disputandum

Liberals Are Useless

Chris Hedges outdoes himself this week:

Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama—as if he reads them—asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision.

Liberals are Useless

Lust, Caution

When this arrived from netflix with the weird title, I was not optimistic.

However, this is a great movie. Set in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the earlier years of WWII, it really put me in the mind of Jewel in the Crown and L'amant. Indeed, Tony Leung stars in both. It's a kind of cross between both movies. However, the its the actress Wei Tang who gives the standout performance..

Ang Lee directs and the cinemotography and set design are perfect.

No doubts whatsoever, 10 pierogies for this one.

Addicted to Nonsense

My favorite political commentator is Chris Hedges. I am going start linking to all his columns so that it's easier for me to look them up.

Will Tiger Woods finally talk to the police? Who will replace Oprah? (Not that Oprah can ever be replaced, of course.) And will Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the couple who crashed President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, command the hundreds of thousands of dollars they want for an exclusive television interview? Can Levi Johnston, father of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s grandson, get his wish to be a contestant on “Dancing With the Stars”?

Addicted to Nonsense

Post Thanksgiving Chilling

Tom, George, Tina, Andy and Turk. At George and Tina's home in Harrington Park, Jersey

       

Click here to download:

Post_Thanksgiving_Chilling.zip (1176 KB)

Firefox Problems

I occasionally have a problem with Firefox on Ubuntu. When it opens, the window takes up the entire screen hiding the panels at the top and bottom.

I have found two fixes.

1) Hit F11

2) Open a terminal and open Firefox in safe mode - firefox -safe-mode and choose reset default settings.

Installing Coldfusion 9 on Snow Leopard in MAMP

What a nightmare this was, until I found the problem and solution.

I wanted to set up a development environment on my new intel mac mini quick. So, I chose Mamp.

Mamp installed and worked out of the box immediately - php, mysql etc., worked fine.

Then I downloaded Coldfusion 9 and the hours long battle began. There are many posts on the internet outlining how to set up the Apache connector with Coldfusion in Mamp. Some even described fixes for various problems.

However, none worked for me - the Apache error logs indicating that there was a syntax error on line 1123 of httpd.conf a line where Apache tries to load 'mod_jrun20.so

I checked it and could not find a syntax error. Hours pass - uninstall, reinstall Coldfusion in various versions - single server, multi-server, backing up httpd.conf and the same problem persists - after which Apache in Mamp won't start.

Finally, finally I found something that indicated that the problem was a 32-64 bit thing. Mamp is 32-bit and cannot load the 64-bit version of mod_jrun20.so causing the syntax error.

This video explained the fix - download the installer for 32-bit Coldfusion locate mod_jrun20.so in the installer and copy it to wsconfig (or whatever) in Coldfusion.

After a bit of restarting Apache and Coldfusion craziness, it worked. I was able to work with it all day yesterday with no problem.

In the last year, I have installed Coldfusion 8 on both Fedora 7 and Unbuntu boxes with small problems but nothing compared to this experience which cost my time and money.

Now Your Talking - Kasha Varnishkes w/Mushroom Gravy

Ingredients

   1. 3 1/2 cups water
   2. 1/2 cup coarse kasha (buckwheat groats)
   3. Salt
   4. 1 1/2 cups bow-tie pasta
   5. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
   6. 1 medium onion, finely chopped
   7. 1 garlic clove, minced
   8. 1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
   9. 2 teaspoons chopped thyme
  10. 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  11. 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  12. Freshly ground pepper

Directions

   1. In a small saucepan, bring 1 cup of the water to a boil. Add the kasha and 1/2 teaspoon salt, cover and cook over low heat until the water has been absorbed, about 10 minutes. Stir well, cover and set aside.
   2. In a saucepan of boiling salted water, cook the bow-tie pasta until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking water. Return the bow-ties to the saucepan.
   3. Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, creminis and thyme and cook over high heat, stirring occasionally, until the onions are softened and caramelized, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, then add the remaining 2 1/2 cups of water and the soy sauce and stir constantly until a smooth sauce forms. Simmer over moderate heat, stirring a few times, until thickened, about 3 minutes; season with salt and pepper.
   4. Reheat the kasha, stirring in some of the reserved cooking water to loosen it. Stir the kasha into the bow-ties; spoon into bowls. Top with the mushroom gravy; serve.