Mmm... Sweet Potatoes

webpetals Brought This Up

2004 Clarion classmate Marjorie M. Liu wanted sweet potato recipes, so here goes:

This came from a friend in the U.P. of Michigan and now our relations insist it be made with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and any other excuse to have a big meal -- goes great with turkey, ham, lamb, whatever...

Sweet Potato Casserole

Serves 8-10

1 T olive oil
3 large onions, sliced
1 large clove garlic

Heat oil, sauté onions.  Add garlic, sauté 2 minutes.

3 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled sliced
1 cup chicken broth
salt & pepper

Stir into sauté, cover, simmer until tender.
Put mixture in greased 2-quart casserole.

Coat 1/4 cup bread crumbs with 1 t olive oil, spread on top.
Broil 2-3 minutes til brown.

No Longer Just One Recipe

Sweet potatoes and yams have made a certain renaissance the last couple of years, after being confined in the North to "Candied Yams With Marshmallows" and Sweet Potato Pie in the South. Completely unrelated to this post, we had baked sweet potatoes last night with salmon loaf. I eat the skins, too, Mrs. Dr. Phil does not. To each their own.

Dr. Phil

So Much For The Ides Of February **

Nothing Says Valentine's Day Like...

Hey, I'm romantic -- it's the rest of the world that doesn't seem to get it.

The Boat Show

I guess the Grand Rapids Boat Show is underway -- it may've even started today. Yeah, I can see where this is going to be a big draw for a lot of couples, especially with the big fishing tank and the live crocodile wrestling demonstrations, or whatever it was they were advertising on the radio.

The Valentine's Day Massacre

What? You're worried your corporation might be considered insensitive by laying off employees and announcing restructuring at the end of the year? All that Christmas in Despair crap? Why not announce big wipe outs on the Day of Love, Daimler-Chrysler?

The Valentine's Day Blizzard

While it didn't do much here in this part of West Michigan, parts of the southern edge of Michigan and a big swath across Indiana, Ohio and a bunch of states east and west from there got clobbered. Do they still do that horrible everyone-exchange-to-everyone Valentines in the lowest grades in school? Unpopular kids either got way fewer than everyone else despite the rules or they got all the Valentines in the big multipacks which had monkeys on them. One unpopular kid getting two dozen monkey Valentines is going to gain a lot of confidence and self-esteem out of that little business.

Alas, no trauma for anyone as schools were closed all along the blizzard route. Leaving...

Piles of Unsold Merchandise

Hey, I didn't tell everyone to make this a commercial holiday, filled with cards, candy and flowers. Oh, and diamonds. Since so many guys, and you know they're mostly guys, buy these items at the last minute, being snowed in and the roads shut leaves these things on the shelf. They'll be on sale tomorrow. Will we see Valentine's bargain hunting?

Love Is In The Air...

... every damn day of the year! So don't just save it up for a commercial holiday. And for you curmudgeons out there, there is a worse commercial holiday: Sweetest Day.

Dr. Phil

** NOTE: Most people misinterpret "the ides" to mean "the 15th", as in the Ides of March. And indeed, some dictionaries make it the 15th of some of the long months and the 13th of the other months. But I recall being taught once that the ides represents the middle fortnight of the month, i.e. the week before and after the middle of the month. Thus Caesar had two weeks to look over his shoulder, which is why he missed the guys ganging up on him with knives. (grin)

The End Of Time As We Know It

Finally...

... people are beginning to talk about the impending absurdity which is the change in the Daylight Savings Time start and end dates for 2007-8. This was a bad idea when it was proposed, it's still a bad idea, and I understand that the bill authorizing this change is only for two years, so who knows if this is going to be permanent or whether more rational minds will finally prevail.

The Crux of the Problem

Moving clocks forward and backward by one hour is not really the issue here. The idea that we might save some energy is not really the issue here.

The problem is that 2007 is a very different era than say 1918 when Military Summer Time was first established during the Great War, i.e., World War I. Today we have computers and devices which have embedded computers. Some devices, like cell phones, get the time from the network and so will change without problem. Others have the rules for Daylight Savings Time built-in. If they can be updated AND someone has written a software patch AND you can download and install it, then the great March Time Debacle will not be a problem. Otherwise... you will have to manually spring forward once, then manually spring back to negate the automatic spring forward for the "wrong" date. In the fall, you'll have to manually fall forward to negate the automatic fall backward on the newly "wrong" date, then manually fall backward later to handle the "real" updated end of DST.

Clear?

For Whom The Patch Tolls

If you use Microsoft Windows, there is probably good news if you are installing or deploying a machine with the new Windows Vista. Surely MS isn't too stupid to put the wrong Daylight Savings Time code in the new OS. Windows XP Service Pack 2 users and Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4 users will be able to download an install a patch from MS to fix their computers.

Users of Microsoft Windows 95, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Second Edition, Microsoft Windows Me and Microsoft Windows NT 4 -- you're S.O.L. No patch for you, despite the fact there are still some people using any and all of these operating systems.

To be fair, I don't know if there are patches from Apple for System 6, 7, 8 or 9.

I Apologize

I think I recall that a Michigan legislator is partly responsible for this nonsense. I apologize -- but I didn't vote for the man. And I'm truly sorry for all the fools in Congress who thought this was a good idea and voted for it.

They shall hear all about it from their constituents shortly.

I wish I could predict that this nonsense will be reset in 2007, even before the bill comes in to make the changes permanent. We don't need a year which is mainly DST. What we need is a world where we don't spend so much damned time at work and so little time at home with out kids and husbands and wives and dogs and kitties that we need to force extra time in daylight hours.

I will predict that somewhere, children will be going to school in the dark or someone will be snow shoveling in the dark after we go early to DST -- and whether injured or killed, their blood will be on the hands of the idiots in Congress. Science literacy is really important, folks. Really. These things matter.

Dr. Phil