drink down Dunedin

This all happened last weekend.  We took the sunshine home from Florida, but dropped about 45 degrees.  I hope you’ll feel as warm after reading through this as I still do.  Remember, flights to TPA are cheap.

Our adventure actually began at least a day before, maybe two.  We departed TPA Friday morning after an early Spirit arrival from DTW in our rental Jeep, facing a cool (for FL) cloudy day.  The clouds fulfilled their promise as we got to the causeway, causing us to pull over and put up the roof panels.  Without the sunshine in FL, you can still eat and drink, so we had some beers and lovely fish at Badfin’s https://www.badfins.com/ on Clearwater Beach.  After a snooze, we felt the need for a little more and walked four blocks to the beach to Palm Pavillion.

It is constructed to have big open windows to the beach, now closed in the cool rain.  No matter, the beer was good, we had gator bites, and a young duo in the corner belted out 70s hits, all at least two decades older than they were, to the mainly boomer crowd.  Kathy and I got into ”unsubscribing” and spent much of the evening with our noses in our phones, all to great musical accompaniment https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/1155.

Saturday brought bright sunshine and the promise of warmth.  As we sipped our coffees from the nearby Caffeinated Bakery, I perused the rent-a-car maps of the area and noticed tip of the long spit on which Clearwater Beach is located, there were patches of green: “Caladesi Park” and “Honeymoon Island”.  We’d done the shops of Clearwater, and the unbeatable beach, January before last, so off we went to find some undeveloped green, probably 6-7 miles away.  The trip carried us through Dunedin, which seemed like a nice little town, on Mandalay Bay.  Honeymoon Island was Hog Island before a developer got hold of it in the 20s and constructed thatched huts, pitching them to northerners through organs as big as Life and Post as great places to come for an idyllic honeymoon.  The enterprise failed in the Depression, and the land reverted to the state, which kept the name. Not much out here now, except for some parking lots, beaches, and convenience centers with bathrooms and bad beer.  The beaches go from sand to stones size of cobblestones and chunky shells, calling for hiking boots rather than bare feet.

After we’d had enough beach and Gulf (can that even happen?), we were off back to the mainland.  The causeway barely had a chance to start before it presented us with High and Dry Grille, looking like something the Gilligan’s Island crew might have thrown up: all timbers and thatch.  But they mustered up beer (Reef Donkey, from Tampa), and some shrimp tacos.  You could tell from the nearby beach structures what these dudes were into.

There were some surfers at the beaches, wearing wet suits of course.  We didn’t dip our toes in the water.  While sitting there, we consulted our phones for beer options on the trip back to Clearwater and were, as Jennifer Granholm would say, blown away.  Here see what Yelp told us (these screenshots are from inside Dunedin, but you get the idea)

Once the causeway hit land, it would stop at Frenchy’s, a lively looking spot with a full parking lot.

A low open structure with wide open windows, it was easy to see how location plus a modicum  of competence with food and drink engendered great success, now being commercialized with t-shirts, tchotchkes, and such.  We put our names on the cell phone driven waiting list and slithered into to the “tiki bar”, where beer and basketball could be had. To “the Other West Coast IPA” and a “Hazy River” we watched my good friend’s Hoosiers blow a lead to the Spartoons. From there, we chose to go a little north, to a spot we’d not likely encounter when we came back to Dunedin tomorrow, with an intriguing name

We got up Bay Shore Boulevard a bit and saw it in a small strip mall, immediately stripped of the romance of that name.  But we were about to be charmed in many ways.  First the beer was excellent and varied

The real action was in the back, where locals were gathered for a weekend performance by Greg West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH5m75Yc19g&list=PL0ELQBIX9vlZnMjKA_PC4QfIs7JK5748G.

Made for a great atmosphere, and we got to talk to the locals, helped out by one guy who insisted on introducing us around.

The turquoise VW microbus had taps for those who didn’t want to venture back inside

There was even a Girl Scout cookie concession

After all that, we wandered back to our Clearwater Beach condo, where brother John visited us with wine, seafood, and cigars, which we consumed into the night on our deck by the water.

We awoke Sunday with the mission afore us.  I’d found there was a water taxi from a dock near us over to Dunedin.  Sounded like a perfect ploy, a little time on the water and no driving

I booked the ticket to the wrong landing and we were forced back to the Jeep.  We still chose to park in the Dunedin marina parking lot, where all needs would be taken care of.

But inland we went, our destination the Dunedin beer trail.  There are 8 breweries in Dunedin, all located within 4797 feet of each other (https://breweriesofdunedin.com/)

We headed to the oldest microbrewery in Florida, the Dunedin Brewery itself.  It announced  itself at the curb with ample aplomp

But the shield on the side of the bar was far more impressive

No bagpipes played during our visit. The board provided ample choice.

We picked the “American Classic” and “Piper’s Session”, packing up and moving on from their friendly outdoor tables with miles to go before we sleep.  Turns out everyone was outdoors in the sun.  Oh, Florida.

Next, just around the corner, was HOB “House of beer”, I suspect.

Their board did not make for a great picture, as it was a screen, much as our hometown favorite Rappourt displays.  A camera shot reflects the photographer, much as the Vietnam Memorial does

We had a “Cool Cucumber IPA” and “Splashin’ Around IPA”. Kathy said she could taste the cucumber, and she liked it.

HOB has a mobile unit, which I hear they can deploy to disaster areas.

Man does not live by beer alone, and some sustenance is sometimes in order.  Wouldn’t you know what’s right next to HOB on the Pinellas (bike) trail.

Wouldn’t you know, there are lobsters in the gulf! https://www.floridagofishing.com/species/lobsters-south-atlantic-and-gulf.html#:~:text=Lobsters%20of%20the%20South%20Atlantic%20%26%20Gulf%20of%20Mexico&text=There%20are%20many%20species%20of,%2C%20you%20are%20%22Bug%20Hunting%22

And in Florida, lobsters are often called “bugs” and going out for lobsters is called “bug fishing”.   Well, we were salivating for some of them “bugs”.   Lucky Lobster offered a full array of delights.

But Kathy and I were fully satisfied with our lobster rolls, served hot with butter, a sacrilege to any New Englander.

 The “Shade Tree IPAs” we had washed it down just fine.

Wouldn’t you know what’s right next door?  I got shouted down by several bicyclists as I stood in their path to take this picture.

Cueni was next.

The monkey skull and paddles suggest some sort of strange frat house hazing, but I didn’t ask.

Perhaps the most complicated beer board of the tour, with all the colored asterisks for pricing. Helped Kathy to cut back a little, taking on just 8 oz for this stop. 16 oz still the best price per volume deal.

We tried “T’Rye my IPA” and “MoCitra”. We weren’t ready for “Nap Time” yet, although I’m sure it was delicious.

Bar walls can contain wisdom, especially in the men’s rooms.  At Cueno, they had this on the wall.  I have a good friend who is a genius scientist but also a beer aficionado.  I suggested to him this would be a good hanging for his lab:

Next was a bit of a walk up to Douglas, a main drag, half mile down from Dunedin Brewery.  There was an alpine building, the beer end of a functioning woodwright  business.

Once inside, the place was quite charming. Honey, we’re in Frankenmuth!

Beers were o.k., with the most creative board on the tour

We had the IPA and the NE Hazy IPA.

Next was back to Main Street.  We approached Soggy Bottom from the back.

Notice the BBQ shack next door.  Getting food on these beer tours can be difficult, as few of the breweries devote much of their efforts to food service.  Soggy Bottom offered a couple pizzas, but I could tell their heart wasn’t in it. Beer was varied and good at Soggy Bottom.

We went with the”Two-face”.  Plus, they contributed some bar wisdom.

En route to Soggy Bottom, we got word my brother John, wife Karen and son Ian wanted to meet us for late lunch.  They’re in Clearwater and we’d been working all weekend for a time to get us all together.  While they all thought BBQ was excellent, the place next door had run out of its two main items, including ribs.  Fortunately, right next door, was Clear Sky Draught Haus.  With a name like that, beer would not get short shrift.

That’s John and Karen, Kathy with her back to us. No, that heater wasn’t fired up.

Plus, they were good for some more bar philosophy

And they remembered when times were tough in this country.

Food and conversation were good, and we finally parted.  From there, it was a walk back to the parking lot at the marina.  What should be on the way?

We may have saved the best for last, as the beer at Caledonia was terrific.  “Hoptacular IPA” we chose, and it was.

Not sure who was being protected by those orange plastic barriers, but they sure weren’t going to get any smash and go beer thieves!

Since they were protected by a rampant unicorn, it’s hard to imagine any ill befalling them.

In a day of impressive beer boards, they may have had the best, even if they devoted nearly a third of it to wine:

From there, it was the matter of negotiating the 7 miles down Ft. Harrison to the causeway and over to 607 Bay Esplanade.  We did, but neither of us recalls much of the ensuing evening.  We talked of walking the beach at sunset and heading back to Palm Pavillion, but none of that happened.  I guess we’d had our ample share of fun in Dunedin, and would do it again in a second, perhaps with the discipline of a water taxi departure bearing on us next time.  So much to love about the Gulf Coast, and this little Scottish town (home of the spring training Blue Jays) is one of them. “In God we trust” (Florida’s state motto).

Can be yours. Like I wrote at the start, flights to TPA are cheap.

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It was a scene you’d expect from a millennial bar: two denizens at the corner with their noses intently in their phones oblivious to their surroundings.  But the Palm Pavillion at Clearwater Beach was clearly a boomer bar, complete with a young duo in the corner faithfully belting out hits of the 70s at least 2 decades older than they were.  It was their music that got Kathy and me to linger beyond our first few beers and gator bites.  We were in Clearwater Beach to visit my brother and escape Michigan’s cold.  We’d already had a wonderful early dinner at Badfin’s, settling in to the evening when I got an e-mail that my letter to Arthroscopy had been accepted.  Finding the teas in our room meager substitutes for libations of celebration, off we went the 4 blocks to Palm.  Great open atmosphere, even if the barriers to the beach weren’t open on this cold (for Florida) night.  At our choice seats at the bar we of course checked our phones for this and that.  I bitched about all the emails I had to wade through and Kathy explained about how her problem was so much worse, but that she was taking action.  It turns out for each email not of a personal source, somewhere in the e-mail – usually at the bottom in very small print – is the option to “unsubscribe”.  It can take some close scrutiny to find these releases of freedom, but they’re always there, maybe on top and even sometimes in the middle. They don’t always say unsubscribe, and a click often directs you to a second page to complete the transaction, sometimes with some check off justifications for your move. For CBS.com, I had to go to their FAQs to figure out how to unsubscribe from them. And resubscription is always just an easy click away. But we were cold, cruel, and thorough, and went at our mission with relish.  Hence the millennial imitation.  We realized that our job was not finished, and were at it the next morning. Eternal vigilance is the price of an uncluttered inbox.  You can have one, too.  Just have at it.

garlic* paste

My love of Allium sativum* isn’t lifelong, but it will surely last till the end of my days.   In my Dutch and German-English grandparents’ and parents’ days, eaters of the bulb were of the lower immigrant classes, identified by their reeking, something my always-clean folks wished to avoid.  Not till my widowed dad began taking me to Italian restaurants for food he learned to love in Rome during the war did I begin to taste the wonders I’d been missing, especially of garlic bread.  On my own in college, especially cooking with roommate Wayne who managed a restaurant in summers, I began to throw the bulb in most everything I cooked.  Things only went from bad to worse, and I was fortunate to meet a woman who shared my passion for the stinking rose (as well as much else).

So how can it be that only last week I learned about garlic paste?  I learned about it as something Indian women use as a kitchen shortcut.  It’s easy to make, although you have to be both persistent and encouraging, as those cloves do not go gentle into that good paste.  Take a pound of peeled garlic cloves, put ‘em in a blender with 2 T oil and buzz.  Here’s all you need (plus a spatula):

The shotglass in the middle contains 2 T of vegetable oil, not whiskey. But such is permitted on the side for the chef, given the wonderful thing you’re doing. A teaspoon of the resultant paste equals one large clove of garlic.  Saves all that time spent peeling and chopping.  Plus the garlic infuses much more efficiently, since the surface area to mass ratio of each particle is so much greater.  The good-sized heads of garlic Busch’s sells me at 4 for 5 bucks weigh about 3 ounces each, or about 42¢/ounce.  The pound jar of peeled cloves from Bombay grocery sells for $6.95, or a little over 43¢/ounce.  Bombay Grocers on Packard south of town is 5 ½ miles away whereas Busch’s is just 2.3 miles away.  I think I can afford the gas.  Garlic paste is to bulb as hash oil is to leaf, crack is to cocaine, fentanyl is to morphine. Just as the cokehead snorts from a mirror to make sure no granule of product goes unconsumed, the pastemaker of course might be frustrated that no matter how hard you try, you just can’t get all the paste out of the blender. Here’s my solution: pour 1 C each red wine vinegar and soy sauce into the vessel and throw the switch. You’ll be rewarded with with a brown foamy liquid that almost fills the blender. When you pour it into a jar to save as a start-up for some future marinade, the inside of the vessel is clean except for a little brown foam. I like it for mushrooms (see my simple recipe below).

Our latest discovery of the wonders of paste came when Kathy used it to make our usual Sunday brunch drink, vampire marys.  I posted about these over a year ago https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/203.  There you can find the original recipe out of The Stinking Cookook and our own ramp-up to make 64 ounces of mix just to have handy whenever you get that hankerin’.  In our original recipe, the strainer of the shaker we use to mix each drink would get clogged with chunks of garlic.  No more with paste.  Smoove!

I’m sure we’ll be finding more uses for paste.  I hope Bombay Grocers doesn’t run out of peeled cloves.  Walmart used to offer bags of peeled garlic and would even deliver, but I haven’t been able to find it on their website for some time.  I’ve heard Costco often has ‘em, but we let our membership lapse a few years ago.  No doubt our already substantial consumption of the bulb will increase.  Not only will our taste buds be happier, but I expect there will be other benefits.  It seems it’s not just vampires garlic wards off.   As the doctors Donma of Terkidag and Instanbul (Turkey) concluded in their article published online in June and in print last November**  “Allium sativum may be an acceptable preventive measure against COVID-19 infection to boost immune system cells and to repress the production and secretion of proinflammatory cytokines as well as an adipose tissue derived hormone leptin having the proinflammatory nature.”  Hey, it’ll probably help with the social distancing thing, too.

Be well.

Reference

**Donma MM and Donma O.  The effects of allium sativum on immunity within the scope of COVID-19 infection. Med Hypotheses. 2020 Nov; 144: 109934. Published online 2020 Jun 2. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2020.109934

Recipe

some addenda as of 3/14/21

the garlic paste transformation works much better with a Cuisinart food processor. which can do 2 pounds at a time, with patience. But way better than my Waring blendor. You just have to put that extra 1/4 cup that can’t go back into the garlic jar.into the next marinade.

The same principal of maximizing the surface area to mass ratio of each particle. can be applied to the chili peppers. In our latest iteration, we took took the half cup of chili peppers we’d usually throw in, buzzed ’em in our spice grinder, leaving less than a 1/4 cup of stuff we threw in, starting with 1/2 C. We both thought the marinade looked much better, and loved the consequences.

One last tip, don’t marinate too long. After 4 hours or so, the ‘shrooms get a little mushy. They’ll still be very tasty, but they’re better al dente.

Fauci’s feeble-minded fear-filled followers.

Let’s call ‘em 5-F.  That’s one more than 4-F, and we all know what that used to mean: you weren’t going to ‘Nam, but there was something wrong with the designee that rendered him pinch a’ shit unfit for military service, a low bar in those days given the war’s need for cannon fodder.  But these types are everywhere.  I guess if St. Anthony really had a 72% approval rating at the time of the election, such would stand to reason.  Not that reason permeates the behavior of these folks.  The fury of their fire is best exemplified by their magic talisman, the face mask.  Just begrudgingly donning one upon entering a store as required by law is hardly enough.  You can spot one when they trudge from store to car, mask still on, usually to keep the thing on as they drive away in their hermetically sealed vehicle.  That’d be one mean virus that could penetrate such a thing. Mr. Corona ain’t one of ‘em.  Yet you see them driving along everywhere, especially in Priuses laden with bumper stickers. Then there are those out for a stroll in the cold, breezy open air.  Or running!  Or on bicycles!  That’d be a trick worthy of a Navy pilot snagging a trap to nail a carrier landing were Mr. Corona to latch on to a moving object in the open air.  And how about when one of ’em wears a mask into a bar or restaurant, leaves it on even after food and drink arrive then takes it partway off just briefly for each sip or bite, replacing it quickly after? 5-Fs impose this insanity on any they can reach, even their masked up little children, who would turn coronaviruses into mild colds at worst.  But that’s the other way to tell a 5-F.  They’re never shy in pointing out your shortcomings as a human being should they perceive your action, or lack of same, as somehow perpetuating the pandemic.  It could be as subtle as a little finger tap to the side of a masked face, pointing out you should be wearing yours.  It can get physical, with the not always friendly shove to make you get back when you’ve ventured closer than 6 feet.  This can come from complete strangers but even from a person you thought was a best friend.  But nowhere is the 5-F’s fury more evident than when they’re yelling.  I got into an altercation with one today.  I was walking a trail in the woods by the river, coming home from walking Kathy in.  Some chubby middle aged balding dude probably out bird watching (binocs and expensive camera around his neck) coming toward me, stopped, fumbled to put his mask on and held out his hand asking me to stop while he got masked.  Not wanting any part of that nonsense, I just kept walking while telling him I’d not be spewing anything his way so not to worry.  I got way closer than six feet as I walked past.  Boy, did that trigger him!  He pulled out the most powerful weapon on his person – his camera – and clicked away while shouting out things like “don’t ever come back here!” and “you’re not too bright are you?”.  I told him I was a retired professor of medicine. Then he took out on a run to get ahead of me. I hollered “yeah. run!  I think I’m gonna sneeze!”  But he wasn’t running to get away, but to get position for a face on shot of me!  I smiled and waved.  I wonder where those are going to end up?  I think I’m safe as I was wearing my sunglasses.   Ann Arbor, yeah, but I fear such idiocy isn’t confined to tree town.   While I chuckled at the encounter, the dark side in which such types believe so strongly in the righteousness of their views and actions, they long for the power to impose them on you, and some achieve it.  I’m sure my frightened bird-watcher thinks pictures of me can somehow bring me to justice as what he sees as a Covidiot.  I think it goes the other way.  5-Fs are generally miserable people, depressed by the fate that St. Anthony says COVID has befallen them.  I guess we should be pleased that their constant mask wearing means we only have to look at half their faces, their looks mostly improved in the process.  As they’re not given to spontaneously smiling, we’re not deprived from sharing that human pleasure.

But COVID numbers are plummeting all over, certainly in the states I follow like sports scores on the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus site: Michigan, Illinois (scoping that Chicago visit), New Mexico (brother-in-law Bob), Colorado (Sam’s widow June), and California (so many).  Whether the drops are a consequence of more stringent PCR testing, use of less sensitive detection methods (like saliva tests), effects of vaccination, redefinition of what constitutes a COVID death, or real declines in infection, they’re drops nonetheless, and what our betters are basing decisions about reopening our economies.  It’s beginning to happen here in my state, and leftist leaders in places like Chicago and New York are also pushing for a return to normalcy.  Should this trend continue, and normal life as we once knew it re-emerges, I worry what will happen to the 5Fs.  So much of their energy and reason for existence is bound up in dealing with the pandemic, what happens next?  I hope they won’t be like the WW II GIs who never could reintegrate into a civilian existence.  Well, the committees on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will need enforcers.  Whatever happens, I have one request to the 5-Fers, delivered by my friend the late John Prine, tragically taken from us by coronavirus last March.  I don’t think a mask would have saved him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy1UOeAMhEs

‘squeat*!

Heard on 4th floor, Chicago House, West Quad circa 1970, every day around 5:30: “d’jeat?” “no d’jew?” “’squeat!”.   And on this momentous day in Michigan “squeat” out! is possible, and I don’t mean “outside dining”!  In honor of this day, which it seems we’ve awaited for an eternity, I’d like to recount the finest meal I had out before the latest lockdown.  It was at a place I wrote about here about a year ago, little Albena, in the back of the Siren Hotel on Broadway in downtown Detroit https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/44. The meal was in late October.

 Their website https://albenadetroit.com/ is so minimalist, it doesn’t even list a phone number.  “Contact” gets their e-mail, a click on “reservations” gets a message that they aren’t currently taking them on Tock.  They were practicing “social distancing” before it was required, never seating more than 4 at their 8 stool bar, keeping dining parties as far from each other as possible.  Of course, if they’re restricted to 25% capacity, that’s one couple at a time.  Even at their prices, it might be tough to keep the lights on with that kind of traffic.  We’ll see what kind of answer my e-mail gets.

As you depart they give you a little tiny scroll.  I thought it was the menu.  I just unrolled mine hoping it would jog my memory.  Alas it is just some inspirational crap.  Now I have a pretty good memory, though not up to Mr. John Prine’s (God rest his soul) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww1SenQwaMg. So here’s what I recollect.

I’m afraid I can’t remember all the courses we wolfed down at Albena that day.  All I can provide are pictures, taken like a good millennial at his/her food.  Our millenial shutterbugs got all 8 courses.  It seemed those 3 behind the bar were always just preparing our next delicacy behind the counter.  Of course, there were also the wine pairings, which I did not capture.  So here goes

Course #1.  Something beany

Course #2.  A little salad sort of thing. Locally grown, of course. Probably picked from out back, grown in the grit of Woodward. I trust they washed it off first.

Course #3.  More colorful tastiness.  Yes, of course we ate the flowers.

Course #4.  I believe those were little fishes.  Scrumptious. Cooked too. The dabs of sauce between were essential.

Course #5.  Lookit that lovely lamb chop, and of course the innocuous sauce next to it.  They did’t mind if you just grabbed the bone and gnawed away.  No bibs necessary.

Course#6.  I totally forgot what this was.  Probably in a swoon after the lamb.  I’m sure it was delicious

Course #7. So you need a dessert to lead you to the dessert?  How about a little yogurt atop raspberries topped with pignoles?

Course #8.  Now they didn’t whip up this behind the counter as we watched.  Probably yesterday.  But a nice slice off nonetheless.

I can’t imagine a more pleasing dining experience than having these kids tend to you.  Save up your $$$ and go if you get a chance.  You’ll have no regrets.

*Translation from Quaddese

d’jeat?: did you eat?

d’jew?:  no, did you?

‘squeat!: let’s go eat!

good for your heart

What good is a new recipe if you can’t tell someone about it?  It was Donna, my red-headed Dixie chick girlfriend from North Carolina who got me cooking and eating black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread for New Year’s (boy, do I feel lucky) that I had to tell about this latest concoction.   So yesterday I wrote her:

“Oh, dear, it’s so sad you can’t stop by 1611 Harbal to eat from time to time.  I just put onto simmer a Dutch oven full of something that could be quite spectacular.  It all started Saturday as Kathy and I decided to clean out and organize our pantries.  I came across a lot of different dried beans in small amounts (1/2 -3/4C), thinking none would make a dish but what if they were mixed all together?  I had more substantial amounts of some other varieties (great northern, garbanzo, soy) that could keep them company.  We then went on our marathon Saturday afternoon foray through Meijer’s, Busch’s, and Plum. Hey, wine was on sale at Meijer’s and Busch’s, and we had to pick up from Plum the subjects for Thursday’s tasting. The “smoked turkey tails” at Meijer’s caught my eye as something that could help out beans.  Last night I threw all those beans in to soak – black, red kidney, black eyed peas, soy, garbanzos, white kidney, great northern – while I devised a recipe.  I took as a template the black-eyed peas recipe we had for New Year’s.  It turned out pretty good.  But I had to embellish it a bit. This one has 2 C onion, 1 C shallots, a whole head of garlic peeled (left whole), a half pound of pearled onions (I love to peel those suckers), peppers (red, Aloha, jalapeno, even a little can of Hatch’s green chilis), celery, and carrots.  Now the wimpy black-eyed peas recipe said to fry up their vegetables in 2 T olive oil.  Now I’ve got way more vegetables, so will need more fat.  And I’ve got way better fat in my fridge.  So my vegetables got fried up in 2T lard and 2T bacon grease.  Probably lost my heart healthy designation right there (you know what they say about beans: “beans, beans, good for your heart…” you can fill in the rest).  The turkey tails were only half enough meat, so I thawed out the rest of my ham hocks.  Variety.  The 4 C of chicken stock seemed to cover everything o.k., leaving unemployed the nice 2 C of bean water I had left over.  Don’t need much spice with a concoction like this, but I threw in 2 bay leaves, a T of ground red chilis, and a T of a weird spice I’ve been experimenting with: red annatto.  And now it cooks.  It’ll sit overnight in the cold garage, and be dinner tomorrow.  Wish you were here.”

So, now it’s the next morning and I haven’t tasted it, but it sure looks good.  Getting the meat off the bones is next.

Here’s the recipe:

legume medley
¼ C white kidneys                                  1 C carrots, chopped                
¾ C red kidneys                         1 C celery, chopped                     
½ C black beans                        2 bell peppers (red, aloha), chopped
½ C garbonzos                                       1 jalapeno, chopped                 
½ C black-eyed peas                              fry vegetables in 2 T lard, 2 T bacon
1 C great northerns                                  grease, in Dutch oven, 6’ till soft
½ C soybeans                                        drain beans, add to vegetables 
cover beans with water, bring to boil  add 1# smoked turkey tails       
turn heat off, cover, let soak 2 hr      add 2 ham hocks (1.25#)
8 oz pearled onions, peeled              add 4 C chicken stock
1 head garlic, peeled, leave whole   2 bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped (2C)               1 T ground red chilis                 
1 C shallots, chopped                         1 T red annatto                      
4 oz can Hatch’s green chilis                 bring to boil, then simmer X 2 hr           

And here’s what it looks like in the pot, after putting back the meat:

Wanna see Donna?

Now there’s a dish! Very good for your heart!

fam

Donna asked that I fill in the blank with my family (ies) so she could keep things straight. Like Paul sang in “She came in through the bathroom window” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVv7IzEVf3M “oh, look out!”


So we need to start with the family I grew up with.  I’ve been unable to unearth the photobooks of mine from those times, so you’ll be spared a bit.  See here Dad and me outside the Cleveland Indians Winter Haven winter facility in March ’02 where we took the short drive from Cocoa Beach to see our Tigers visit.  Yes, he was a short fellow.  Whenever others asked, and he didn’t want to get into the whole adoption thing, he’d just say “vitamins”.  This pic comes from a trip Kathy basically arranged.  Part of her NASA job was to arrange groupings at launches.  This time, she picked her family.  Besides Dad, she invited down one Bo Schembechler, with whom Dad got to bond.  That was March of ’02.  He’d be dead the next March after 9 years of metastatic colon cancer.  His own dad, my dear Dutch grandpa, had his colon cancer cut totally out – no bag – in his late 80s and lived to 104, titillating all the girls in the Holland Home. 

Hard to beat a Spring Training game

Two old fellas killin’ time before the launch


My mom’s side deserves mention. As I said before, I can’t find my old picture books so you’re spare many pictures of little Bobby. Mom’s family.the Slaters, came from farm stock on both sides. Even though Grandpa became a Grand Rapids fireman, he helped his 8 strapping brothers as they provided threshing services to local farmers, fed profusely by the farm wives at the sites they serviced. Here’s the Slater clan sometime in the Great Depression.

Mom’s the perky one at the top. To the side with the bow was Doris. The family decided she was not marriageable, so off to nursing school she went. A bout with TB kept her out of the med-surg nursing she loved, so she became a psych nurse. The little guy is my Uncle Jim, who died last year. He played trumpet in the MSU marching band at the ’54 Rose Bowl, got a PhD from Ohio State, married social worker Joan, and together they had kids in double figures, all but a couple theirs. He spent his career as an upper level bureaucrat at the Department of the Interior and retired to a farm in Kings County, where he was a regular vendor at the local farmer’s market. His apples and peaches were prized.

Here’s Mom when she was young and pretty:

She was everything a mom could be. She died suddenly 5/17/63. I was 10. I was the first to find her as I came home for lunch. No, I’ll never get over it.

After Aunt Dorie put in a decade or so at an insane asylum (Kalamazoo State Hospital) one of her mentors suggested she had something more in her, so she enrolled at Wayne State. Two degrees and a little time later she was head of the department. All along, she was able to spoil me rotten. She’s the most responsible for nudging me into medicine, and probably most proud for what I’ve accomplished. She died day after Halloween ’03, a holiday she loved for all the little kids it brought to her house. My inheritance from her substantial estate funded much of the wonderful refurbishing of the house my wife and I enjoy now.

But what about this other family?  I’d known from earliest times I was adopted, and it didn’t matter.  In dad’s last year, he tossed an envelope of papers onto my bed “here are your adoption papers”.  There in great detail on yellow legal paper were handwritten descriptions of both my adoptive family and my birth family.  I let it sit for quite a while, dabbling on the net seeking some of them.  I think I found Uncle Don but later learned from my mom he was already dead.  Finally, on Memorial Day week ’09, I took the packet to a local private investigator I’d picked out of the phonebook.  Boy, did I get results.  Within 2 days I was on the phone to my birth mom and my birth dad.  Both were affable sorts, and we made plans to meet up.  Mom’s was more dramatic, as my wife Kathy rented a plane and flew to Canadian Lakes airstrip, near Mom’s house. Mom pulled up in a red sports car with the top down, so we both made an entrance.

For Dad it took a train to Toronto, a trip to a Blue Jays game, and of course dinner at one of his favorite restaurants.  I made up a tryptych to see about family resemblances.  I guess I have his nose.  I hope I have her eyes.


Let me introduce you.   First the Speis.  Here are Dad and the kids outside of one of their northern Michigan haunts ~summer ’07. 

My beautiful picture

Of course, I’m not in there.   Going across, there’s Marty, the artist. (https://martinspei.com/). Much of his work is based on figures that look suspiciously like Dad. Elise, the sweetheart, died 2 summers ago of non-smoker’s lung cancer.   Her husband, Dan, is president of the Detroit area Parrotheads, so he’s still fun.  Then comes Cari, who lives in her plain clothes in upstate New York where she and husband Dan founded a very successful natural supplements business, now run by their son Tom in Kidron Ohio (https://natureswarehouse.net/).  Then Suzanne, the eldest girl, who settled in Hudson, near Cedar Point.  She and husband Mike made a killing in Northern Ohio telecommunications.  They’re both avid hunters.  Then there’s Nick.  He came 11 months after me, so Dad wasted no time.  Nick owns and operates his own truck, as does his oldest son Jake.  He’s a hunter and gun aficionado, who says he’d help me get an AK-47 if I wanted.  He had COVID earlier this year and came out clean, no hospital. Last there’s my baby sister Jazz (Jasmine), daughter of Dick’s 3rd (Chinese) wife, Grace. Jazz has a law degree from McGill and works in the entertainment industry.

Then there’s Mom’s side.  See this pic of us in the thumb ~’15 to get our characters straight. 

That’s John, MSU law now a wheeler dealer and Scientenologist,  Di is a CPA working for the state and also volunteer coach of the MSU women’s rowing team (she was an Olympic caliber rower screwed by Carter’s withdrawal from the ’80 Olympics), me (of course), Jolene (a pharmacist, next eldest after me), then Mom and Ian, John’s son, now 6’2″.  He’s an avid Wolverine fan, much to the chagrin of his Spartan dad, an inclination Kathy and I do our best to nurture. Missing is baby sister Amy, who basically lived as a ski bum in CO till her mate of many years dropped dead.  Here’s a pic of all of us last October as we celebrated Mom’s annual escape to Mazatlán Mexico for the winter.

Amy’s moved back, gotten certification as a surveyor at Ferris, and now has her own place in Grand Rapids. In the a pic of all of us celebrating her push off last October – rough babes, eh? – Amy is the one in the middle with the Ireland sweatshirt.


There you have my family, such as it is.  I’m happy to have a couple of those.  More Ike the lucky dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJLIgIv0NM

rational drinking

Since my first taste of beer in view of the White House in March ’69, me an innocent 16 year old junior, I have not met an alcoholic beverage I didn’t like.  This would seem to be incongruent with my supposedly high powered brain, but man I loved those weekend evenings with a car full of buddies and a case in the back.  It got bad enough my assistant principal, Johnny Mac, called me in to ask me why I was going on drunks every weekend.  As was ever my wont, I kept right on doing it, getting straight As so they’d shut up.  I spent quite a bit of time in the back of chemistry class calculating what would be the best deal for our upcoming weekend, based on cost and relative alcohol content.  Was a good mental exercise, sort of like baseball stats.  No wonder my math SATs were through the roof.

I sort of slipped away from this in the ensuing years.  The calculations, not the drinking.  That’s continued.  I can count one DUI, in Maryland, which even included a few hours in jail.  There’s been no AA, though I’ve seen a few “alcohol counselors” at the U who provide cheerful suggestions how to monitor and hopefully reduce my drinking.  I deleted their apps from my phone last year.  The most serious stretch saw me in a program for disciplinary purposes because of opioid prescribing.  Total abstinence was required, enforced by random pee tests. I’d have to call a number each morning to see if it was “my day”.  The pee tests could detect any alcohol within 5 days, so this was serious.   I found a way around it when I travelled, and thoroughly enjoyed my beer and oysters in Half Moon Bay.  Seven months into the program, my coordinator called me to say her committee had judged that alcohol was not one of my problems and I could quit that nonsense (not her words).  Now Kathy says I overcompensated after.  My weight began to climb and who knows how many more alcohol asshole moments I provided.  To this day, I recommend against total abstinence for those who wish to cut back, citing the rebound effect.

I gained a lot of weight utilizing Traverse City Whiskey as self medication for my brachial plexus injury and have managed to shed most of it having apples for lunch.  COVID has brought its own challenges, and alcohol consumption is definitely up at 1611 Harbal.  For a while, we were keeping the caloric consequences in check by daily 4 mile round trip walks to Kathy’s office.  With the campus shutdown, we do almost none of those, and are left to our own designs to getting in what walkies that we can.  Apparently, these are not enough say my 501s.  I have acquired some comfy sweatpants, bit those are way too accommodating.  I’ve observed for years that health care professionals, mainly nurses, who wear scrubs all the time get ever fatter as they have no feedback from their clothes.

I’ve decided to face my enemy head on.  But of course he is also my dear friend.  In the spirit of Mr. Peach’s chemistry class, here is how these libations figure:

drinkserving size% alcoholCalories/servingcost/servingGm alcohol/servingCost/gm alcoholcalories/gm alcohol
beer12 oz/355 mL7.6*228$3.502713¢8.4
Red wine5 oz/150 mL13.5125$420.2520¢6.2
whiskey1.5 oz/45 mL51.7***135$223.279¢5.8
whiskey1.5 oz/45 mL43110$219.3510.5¢5.7
vodka1.5 oz/45 mL40****97$1.20186.6¢5.4

* Founders Harvest Ale; $13.99/4 pack

** based on $20/750 mL bottle

*** based on Traverse City Whiskey, $34/750 mL bottle

**** Ugly Dog $19.99/750 mL bottle

These are all Michigan products, on purpose.  We just observed our 184th birthday yesterday.  You can for sure find cheaper sources for all of these products.  Some results will confirm suspicions you probably already had.  Beer definitely gives you the fatter buzz, with all those extra calories per gram of alcohol.  Distilled spirits are cheaper than their fermented cousins in getting you off.  And the bargain basement is clearly occupied by the Ugly Dog, whose clear spirits get you off cheaper and more leanly than anyone else.  How about that.  As Frank Sinatra said: “Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but the bible says love your enemy.”

“All you need is love” say our Beatles

Ray

Ray Kamalay and I are about the same age. Except he has talent. He took his ’74 philosophy degree from U of D and did who knows what, but on the side became quite an accomplished singer and jazz guitarist http://www.raykamalay.com/. I met him November before last when he came to perform for one of the freebie Thursday noon concerts at U-hospital in the open area on the first floor. His spare guitar-bass-drums jazz was just what I like, and he threw in some of his own compositions, which had a nice caustic edge, just like an old philosophy major might do. Jump to January, when he played at a library, in West Bloomfield. Nobody shushed, and the same wonderful stuff flowed forth. I took Kathy, and she was taken also. ‘Twas to be the last concert we would see in Michigan in 2020. I never paid a dime for any of his concerts, but I did mail him checks for some of his CDs.

Not to let his creative juices be stinted by the COVID lockdown, he instead turned himself to writing about it. Here’s the tune he produced, with a message for us all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFz5XbQWK-o

I sent this to my high school English teacher Mrs.Pharriss, who is keeping an e-scrapbook of things COVID. She loved the song and of course parked it in her scrapbook

I wrote him recently to thank him for telling me about a cassette of Michigan songs he had produced for the sequecentennial (1987), “Michigan in Song” https://www.discogs.com/Various-Michigan-In-Song-Traditional-And-Contemporary-Songs-Of-Michigan/release/11567551, available from the Michigan State museum shop 517-355-2370 https://www.museum.msu.edu/museum-store/. Although Ray produced it, it is decidedly folky rather than jazzy, and Ray appears on just one track. I asked him how his “hit” was doing, and he thought it probably wasn’t, citing one YouTuber’s comment “I hate this”, not sure if that meant the song or the situation. I offered he just needed to bring it to the attention of the right people, giving him Fauci’s e-mails: faucia@od.nih.gov, faucia@mail.nih.gov. Since his song promotes responsible behaviour, surely it should get wider play. Spread the word.

how about that Plaquenil?

That much maligned cinchona bark extract derivative got a little boost recently. On January 14, a group out of Hackensack (New Jersey) Meridian Health Network published their findings on the effect of Plaquenil on keeping COVID-infected patients out of the hospital*. They looked at all the patients diagnosed with COVID in their ERs or clinics from March 1st to April 22nd, then saw what happened to them through May 22nd. Since they were looking back, and treatment decisions were up to individual doctors, this was a retrospective uncontrolled study, pretty weak in the eyes of science types. Still, what they found was pretty interesting.

Among 1274 outpatients with documented COVID infection 7.6% were prescribed hydroxychloroquine (Plaquenil). In a 1067 patient propensity matched cohort, 21.6% with outpatient exposure to Plaquenil were hospitalized, and 31.4% without exposure were hospitalized. Propensity score matching is a quasi-experimental method in which the researcher uses statistical techniques to construct an artificial control group by matching each treated patient with a non-treated patient having similar characteristics. Using these matches, the researcher can estimate the impact of an intervention. So using these stats, they showed that the reduced rate of hospitalization for the patients who received Plaquenil was statistically significant. It looks even better graphically

Looks like something you might wanna take if your COVID test comes back positive, eh? The stuff is very safe, especially in short term, and quite cheap. I used to prescribe it by the buckets full to patients with mild rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, and those treatment courses were long term. Except for having to see an eye doctor annually (Plaquenil can build up in the retina long term), patients didn’t run into trouble as long as we minded the dose, adjusting for body weight. Controlled studies have shown Plaquenil doesn’t have much of an effect on COVID patients who are already quite sick and in the hospital, or in protecting health care workers at high risk of exposure from getting it themselves. President Trump was taking Plaquenil when he came down with COVID, but he had a pretty mild course, and maybe that was the Plaquenil in part (although most who catch COVID have a pretty mild course).

None of our betters seemed to like Plaquenil very much, although that opposition is being quietly rolled back, like the AMA’s cave last month https://wordpress.com/post/theviewfromharbal.com/899. Who knows how many could have been saved from the hospital or maybe even from death had more liberal use of Plaquenil been the thing from the get go? Well, COVID is still with us and the vaccines aren’t going to do everything. If you’re unfortunate enough to test positive, do what they tell you to do on the TV adds: “ask your doctor”.

Here’s the reference. If you click on the link, you can see the paper itself, maybe print it out to have in your back pocket when you go to your doctor’s office.

*Ip, A., Ahn, J., Zhou, Y. et al. Hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of outpatients with mildly symptomatic COVID-19: a multi-center observational study. BMC Infect Dis 21, 72 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-021-05773-w