Stuff.

1) Synedochic is organising a brilliant, loving, amazing thing for Texas Planned Parenthood.

If you have a few of your local currency unit to spare you should drop over and get in on it. As arliss says, it's good for soothing down your rage fatigue.

2) Meanwhile, I'm going to be going to this:



Because if there's one thing I have learned from the Canadian hobby of gazing fixedly south it's that if you can catch this sort of stuff while it is still small enough to kill with your shoe, start undoing your laces immediately.

3) This is my final WisCon schedule.

Peace Studies: Sat, 9:00–10:15 pm
Choice Feminism: Sun, 1:00–2:15 pm
Sex Ed: Sun, 2:30–3:45 pm

I undoubtedly ought to have thought of this sooner, but I am having eleventh-hour doubts about the Sunday panels. It strikes me as entirely possible that I may end up coming out of the Choice Feminism panel in an utterly foul mood, which isn't really how I want to go into the Sex Ed one, which I care about approximately 100 percent more.

4) For a variety of reasons my mentally and physical internal weather forecast at the moment is "unsettled weather patterns, mixed sun and cloud, high chance of thunderstorms".

I don't really want to talk about it.

5) Have a calming manatee. Have several.

Science!

Poll #10221 Feets?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 64

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Feets?

View Answers

Feets.
7 (10.9%)

Feets!
6 (9.4%)

FEETS!
15 (23.4%)

FEETS OMG.
21 (32.8%)

*gurgle*
6 (9.4%)

*diez and iz ded*
9 (14.1%)

Somewhat Southwestern Soup

I am fairly sure that a version of this exists in every kitchen in the Southwest US that does cooking for large groups, especially vegetarian or part vegetarian groups. I learnt it at Royal in 2000 or so and have made it periodically ever since. It is somewhere between reasonably inexpensive and dirt cheap, it is easy, it is fast (if made with canned beans or once the beans are dealt with), it is remarkably adaptable, and it is, in my opinion, very good.

With a salad, it's a good lunch or light supper. It can easily be doubled, quadrupled, or halved on the fly, once you're familiar with the basic desired results.

Base:

Two cans of black turtle beans with liquid or 250 ml dry, soaked and cooked until tender, liquid retained.
Three large cans of diced tomatoes
One tetra pack vegetable broth
Two cooking onions, diced
Six cloves garlic, diced.

Optional: 1/2 to 1 lb stew beef or stew pork (or ground beef or ground pork, if need be), marinated overnight in the salsa of your choice. I like to use verde. Can also be simmered in the salsa separately and added to bowls at the table, if feeding vegetarians and omnivores.

Spice:
Adobo seasoning, 2T or to taste.
Ancho pepper, 1 T or to taste.
Cumin, 1 T or to taste.
Mexican Oregano, 2T or to taste.
Salt, to taste.

(Measurements as given will make a medium spicy soup. If making more or less soup season cautiously and taste your results a lot: it is almost never a good idea to casually double spices or salt. Try half as much again and then edge up higher. Other peppers and other chili mixes can also be used if you don't have or like adobo/ancho.)

Vegetables: (omit any which are unavailable or disliked, though if you have to omit more than two this may not be the recipe for you; at some point it gets kind of thin and bland without veggies)
One bunch collard greens or chard or kale, ribbon cut or chopped finely.
2-4 C frozen corn
2-4 C cooked diced squash
2-4 stalks chopped celery
2-4 chopped carrots

Simmer until all ingredients are tender and flavours are well-mixed: 1 hour if starting with tender, cooked beans and no meat, 2-3 hours if starting with soaked beans and raw meat.

Toppings: (to be added to each bowl at the table)

Red, yellow or green bell pepper, raw, sliced or chopped.
Queso, crumbled
Cilantro, chopped
Tortillas, flour or corn, or cornchips, for dipping. You can also put the cornchips or corn tortillas, ripped into bite-sized pieces, into the soup about half an hour before serving; they will take on the consistency of pasta, and keep a very good flavour.