Stuffing a bird in a bird in a bird then roasting it probably goes back to Merry Olde, although the stuffing of three boned fowl – chicken into duck into turkey – was probably born in Louisiana, popularized by Cajun superstar chef Paul Prudhomme (1), who copyrighted the name. It really went mainstream when the late and much beloved John Madden, a multi-legged turkey aficionado, brought a turducken onto his table for a Thanksgiving Lions game broadcast (2). The video of John explaining the turducken is blocked in the article, so here it is (3). Since deboning a whole bird is an arduous process (4), deboning 3 and stuffing the results into each other is more than any but the most dedicated chef would want to take on. Specialty meat vendors will do that for you, but their products are pricey, with a 15 pounder (which will feed 20-25 people) running close to $100 or more (5). Expertise in constructing these may be pretty widespread, as I see my buddy ace butcher Bob Sparrow of Kerrytown made it to the Google search. They don’t come tiny, though I’ve seen some as small as 5 pounds (but not with a commensurate drop in price).
In tidying up my Thanksgiving feast (6), I think I’ve stumbled onto a much easier way to create this blended fowl taste, the results of which I can heartily recommend (and Kathy seconds the emotion). You might recall how excited we were for the soup that would follow from the carcass of our devoured duck. Then I came across a swimming partner for it.
Kathy’s been craving cold cuts as protein rich snacks to help with her low glycemic index diet. In our last ditch run to the grocery store Wednesday before Thanksgiving, taking a peek at the prices of cold cuts, I realized I could produce something similar. Turkey breasts were on sale, so I bought one, took it home and brined it, then hung it in my Pit-Barrel smoker for 2 ½ hours till it was done. Just delicious. Here’s the recipe.
It’s not hard to roll off the breast meat into two boneless wonders, leaving behind a pretty good size carcass. I already had the Instapot loaded with duck carcass and remaining bones, so chopped up the turkey carcass, doubled up the non-bird components of the recipe, and proceeded. It’s a two-stage affair, with creation of the broth then adding vegetables and other spices. Started on Friday morning and by evening, it was soup. Here’s that recipe.
Going fast, but still had a little to photograph before I downed some for lunch today. You don’t have to serve it on a bed of snow, it’s just that the light was better on the deck.
My title suggests a 3rd bird could enter the soup pot. For sure, if you have a chicken carcass or 2, toss ‘em in. The ramp up on the non-meat items would be less than what I undertook for the turkey addition, as chickens are much smaller. But it’s soup, not some science experiment, so just guestimate.
“Thanksgiving is Friday!’ Our Thanksgiving came on Friday this year. O.k., I’m late. TG was Thursday, our nation’s most unique and wonderful holiday when we express the gift of gratitude while stuffing our faces before or after watching the Lions lose. Oh, that waxing gibbous moon, can’t beat the heavens!
Our Thanksgiving Day began sprightly enough. I’d been working on the menu for several days and had it in hand. Our duck was swimming in its brine. Just the two of us this year, so no bigger bird necessary. I’d done the chop-chop-chopping prep for the sides Wednesday, so just a couple hours in the kitchen and the sides were ready. The goal was to get a meal to warm up after the Lions game. But something must have happened. Faced with another gorgeous sunny November day, we thought a little hike through Cedar Bend Park and North Campus might be in order. I’d really slacked off on my walking routine, so Kathy was happy for anything that got my ass out of the house. We picked quite a hilly path (we do live on top of a glacial moraine). The old man negotiated it ably, with no falls, slips, or even stubs, and only a few pauses to rest. Much of the path went by the flowing Huron River, very soothing. Home, my activity tracker said I’d done 2.8 miles. Not bad. Do that every day for the next year and maybe I really will get back into my 501s. When Kathy offered a glass of sparkling water, our usual post-hike beverage, I instead opted for a Wolverine Brewing Massacre, the wonderful potent dark lager they put out this season every year (1). With all that red wax on top of the bottle, you have to work to drink one, but it’s worth the effort. Then I had a few nips making those sides. All great chefs are alcoholics, which I guess I become facing the stove. My red cabbage dish called for Calvados, a French apple liqueur (2). I couldn’t find that, but did find a Michigan product “Spirit of Apple” from Black Star Farms in Traverse City, an 80 proof apple brandy (3). Michigan apple growers, second largest producers in the nation (4), have finally figured out when you turn your product to booze, you really go to town. I pulled down one of my túath glasses (5), meant for Irish Uisce Beatha, and splashed a little of that apple juice in. Pretty tasty! Don’t know how many refills I had, but when I put the 375 ml bottle away after my kitchen morning, it was half empty! And there might have been another Massacre in there, too. But I figured the fresh air, and a good walk would burn that all off. The walk came after the morning kitchen chores.
Once home, I managed snacks of roasted Brussels sprouts and Indian-rub grilled chicken breast to have for the football game. I stayed up long enough to watch the Lions suck and to snarf up my share of the snacks. But Morpheus was upon me, and I slithered off to bed. The duck was in the oven with plans to emerge about 5. I slept through the entire game, which Kathy assured me was no loss, and when I finally got up, hardly chipper, the duck was done, and it was time to swing into action for Thanksgiving dinner. I still felt stuffed from the game snacks and was in no mood for a feast. Kathy was very understanding, and all courses sat in our 350garage awaiting a rewarming for Friday.
Come Friday, I was facing a pretty easy Thanksgiving dinner prep. Can you call them leftovers if no one’s touched them yet? My giblet stock had had a chance to cook. I didn’t put it up yesterday until I emerged from my nap, about the same time the duck-is-done timer was going off. That stuff should go at least an hour, and is critical to the gravy, so I was looking at a shortchange right there. Sleeping on this meal was the right thing to do. And why not extend the feeling of Thanksgiving? I know the day after has been given over to rapacious capitalism and often violent combative pursuit of bargains, but the only shopping we ever do this day is for our Christmas tree, and maybe some more beer. That morning outing at Braun’s Tree Farm, a mere 4 miles from here, seeking out and cutting down the perfect tree in the brisk late fall air provided us with something we lacked yesterday: an appetite! See us arriving home with our 9’ concolor fir bounty. Our 2-dr ’16 Wrangler is the only of our 2 cars that can handle a big tree (the 4 dr Wrangler is also a soft top, but lacks the buttresses on which to bind a tree). 340 and sunny is fine convertible weather. As our Norwegian ancestors said “there is no bad weather, only bad clothes”.
So, once we got that tree in a bucket in our garage, we were ready to heat up them leftovers!
Friday after TG is also the day we break the seal on all things Christmas. Decorations make their way up from the storage room and we start playing CDs from our big shoebox of Christmas favorites, even a few LPs. What else we do depends on our ambition and the weather. Sometimes even the outdoor blue lights go up. With Kathy finding ever more things to string lights on, the effort becomes more extensive every year. I turn a few thoughts to our Christmas letter. I know highly organized people get their Christmas cards out day after TG – and that letter is our Christmas card – but I’m not quite in that club yet. So, you can see here some activities needing a little fuel! Please see here our station.
Here’s our modest table. Kathy’s congratulated me on my portion discipline. The cutbacks were mostly dictated by supply issues.
Still wearing the Lions’ gear to show we’re not fair weather fans. If you want to try to make any of these things yourself, here ya go.
The main course: the duck. We like a duck over a turkey if it’s just the two of us. Even the smallest turkey inundates with leftovers. We got our duck at Meijer’s, even though my former colleague Michelle and her farmer husband Mark raise them (6). But those free-range ducks are muscular and lean, and you want your duck flabby and fat (translates to tender and tasty). I’m hoping Kathy has the same opinion about husbands. The brining experiment was new this year, and well worth the effort.
The sides. Here came the biggest challenge. Like Fats Waller sang, nothing worse than seeing “all that meat and no potatoes” (7). But my Kathy’s been on the low glycemic index train all year, with excellent results. We’ve found you can cheat a lot with cauliflower, and sure enough there’s a faux mashed potatoes recipe. Not quite Yukon golds and turnips, but it soaked up my gravy fine.
Red cabbage. Both the Dutch and German-English sides of my adoptive family were big fans of red cabbage. I always ate some dutifully but was disappointed it didn’t taste near as good as it looked. Some years ago, I acquired a recipe in response to a radio announcement (I forget the program), and it’s been a hit ever since. Feels good to place it on the table and think about all those family dinners of my youth.
Sprouts. The Ikes loved these little cabbages. Once I discovered the wonders of garlic and chicken stock, they became our favorites, too. Since we had some purple pearl onions lying around – such great fun to prep – the sprouts came out this way this TG.
Dessert. Here I cheated. Since Kathy lost her sweet tooth several years ago, she’s not much for desserts of any kind. But that box of Walker’s mincemeat mini tarts caught my eye.
The Slaters used to shriek with joy whenever anyone made or brought a mincemeat pie to the table. I don’t think they ever fed me any. Clearly an adult taste. I enjoyed the few Walker’s I sampled pre-TG and even got Kathy to take a bite. Still too sweet.
When I wrote up our TG dinner 3 years ago, I included the wine list (8). We’re a little less fancy about it these days, since we’ve found that with our Vivino apps (9), we can get some pretty good wine at Busch’s, which has some amazing discounts in addition to their 10% off if you buy 6. Duck and pinot noir pair well. We had a bottle of The Prisoner 2021 with some Crossbarn 2019 waiting in the wings.
Leftovers were few. Carcass and bones were carefully gathered for the always much anticipated duck soup (10,11). The cook was beat and gathered himself to an early bed, the better to rest up for Saturday’s contest. Go Blue!
We’ve been having stuffed jalapenos so often lately at our place they’re starting to feel like a staple. And why not? That delicious bite into hot, zippy, creamy, crunchy, and rich is pretty sublime. While they’re pretty fussy to prepare, the ritual can be entertaining, and so rewarding! Now, there are many versions of these treats. What we’re making here at 1611 Harbal aren’t those peppers stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped with bacon like you might get in a bar. Our protocol came from a family Christmas gift. My birth father’s offspring are all gourmet/gourmand foodies, having followed his dictum “approach each meal as if it could be your last.” This crazy bunch holds their Christmas get together in February, so each member can attend to individual needs around Christmas. It works out fine, and 2 months delay doesn’t seem to dampen our Christmas spirit (1). At these gatherings, we give each other little food-related presents, with the identity of the giver often a mystery. Several years ago, we emerged with a black metal contraption with some paperwork attached that included a recipe and a strange implement. It was a metal rack with holes for jalapenos, to be hollowed out with the implement and stuffed according to the recipe. It sat unused for several years till I came across it looking for something else and decided to give it a try. The recipe was demanding. Jalapenos had to be the right size to fit into the 7/8” holes in the rack without falling through but still managing to fit. I recognized the names of the Italian ingredients but had never worked with them much: fontina cheese, prosciutto, and pancetta. It took two grocery stores to get the ingredients. Busch’s but not Plum had the fontina while Plum had the fancy thin-sliced Italian hams. Fortunately, the two stores are right across the street from each other. The peppers can be got most anywhere, but we had to take the rack along to make sure we got some of the right size.
I thought I’d take you for a ride on the latest preparation.
It starts by preparing the peppers. Cut off the top (and save it) then hollow each out with the corer. See here 16 setup for duty (2 had rotted and had to be discarded). See them here in their rack, with corer in front.
Next is making little ½” X ½” sticks of fontina.
The sticks go into the peppers. They’re usually too long, to be cut off and put into the remaining empty peppers, the rest making excellent snacks.
Next the meat. Pancetta, on left, is fattier and gets sliced longitudinally in thirds. The leaner prosciutto gets sliced in half lengthwise.
For each pepper, pull out the cheese stick and wrap one layer each of the meat, stuffing the assemblage back into the pepper. Now the poppers are all ready to pop into the oven. But they can sit for a while. I put up today’s batch at 7 AM after finishing the dishes. Only problem was when Kathy saw them, she was urging me to make them for breakfast.
When you’re finally all ready for them, preheat oven to 3500 and cook for 20’. Let ‘em cool for a few minutes, and pop away!
Here’s the recipe I’ve used.
Equipment is easy to come by. While I’ve lost the ordering info for my curvy rack, entering “jalapeno poppers grill rack” in Amazon with get you an ample list of racks, most coming with the essential corer. The name suggests this dish is one for the grill, although I’ve never done it that way. I suppose the advantage of the grill is your guests can ooh and ahh over the coming treat for those minutes in cooking. Of course, then you have to be ready to whack away hands aiming to pick one out before its ready. They’re plenty tasty after the mundane oven prep, and you can do it when it’s snowing, especially since jalapenos are available in the grocery store year-round.
For those of you who haven’t yet sidled up to Delbert (1), here’s a booster. I was annoyed that a track from “One of the Fortunate Few” was skipping and not playing, no matter how clean I got that disc. With the choice of buying a new disc versus leaning on the Ann Arbor District Library, I chose the latter. I’d copy their disc then burn it to a new one and volià! But that required a dive into their “card catalogue” and lookie at all the other Delbert CDs! I’ve got 6, but that’s way short of his output per discogs (2). The AADL didn’t offer enough to fill this deficit but there were 4 CDs I didn’t have and 2 more “Don Imus Ranch” CDs with a pretty interesting mix. So I picked them all with intention of copying and burning. Plus, there’s all the “software”, getting the CD inserts and booklets so what you’re left with looks very much like the article off the shelf. Copying those insert booklets can be pretty eye opening. Just look at the firepower Delbert assembled for his 2002 Room to Breathe album.
It’s a who’s who of Texas superstars! Steve Earle, Emmy Lou Harris, (a young) Rodney Crowell, (now the late) Guy Clark, Joe Ely, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore. Oh my! What a concert that would be with all them on the bill! Delbert doesn’t go at this alone.
Here’s the track I wanted to fix. Check out the guests (3)
Come next month, I’ll have not seen a patient for 5 years. But those questions coming in from friends and relatives can still jog this old medical brain. A couple weeks back, Ron, who’s a distant cousin, good friend, and husband of much missed Barb (1), a nurse who used to field most of his medical queries, sent me his latest. Writing for his brother, still having quite a bit of trouble after a stroke, came a link to a recent paper addressing the use of etanercept (Enbrel) in post-stroke pain (2). While very familiar with Enbrel, I was not aware of this application. To quote the South Park kids, “I learned something today” (3) and want to pass it on.
A stroke is a horrible thing. Stroke is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States and a leading cause of long-term disability. The annual incidence of stroke in the U.S. is about 795,000 (4). Whether embolic, thrombotic, or hemorrhagic (I’ll explain), that segment of brain suddenly deprived of blood flow stops sending signals to the portion of the body it controls, and there goes function. That sudden loss was so striking to the ancients who observed it, they considered it a strike from the hand of God, possibly a punishment. Several Brazilian neurologists published their contention that a clear description of stroke symptoms appears in the Old Testament, Psalm 137:5,6 (5). David writes (RSV)” 5– If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right-hand wither! 6 – Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy!”. The authors provide their neurologic version “If I forget you, oh Jerusalem, I will suffer a stroke of the left middle cerebral artery, causing motor aphasia and right hemiplegia, if I do not remember you, if I do not keep Jerusalem as my greatest joy.” They comment “Psalm 137 is a relevant contribution from Hebrew culture to the history of neurology.” Is this description of a punishment corresponding to the symptoms found in cerebrovascular stroke of the middle cerebral artery a coincidence? Or did the Hebrews know at that time that left hemiplegia may occur without aphasia, did they know of cerebral dominance about 600 years before Christ?” Interesting, to be sure, but maybe a bit too much inside baseball for what I want to communicate here. But just a few more basics. The sudden cessation of blood flow to a portion of the brain can come about from a plugging material arriving from another part of the body, like the heart in atrial fibrillation (embolic), from a clot forming in a feeding blood vessel (thrombotic), or from bleeding into the brain (hemorrhagic). “Clot-busting” interventions are fraught with hazard as they do nothing to those thrown plugs and can worsen the bleeding of a hemorrhagic. Some recovery is usually possible due to the brain’s incredible plasticity (ability to take in one part over functions handled by another). But post-stroke care still consists mainly of physical therapy. Recently, it has been understood that a stroke was followed by a fairly intense inflammatory response in the brain. Not a surprise, as our bodies respond to damage and death anywhere with inflammation to clean up the mess and start to effect repair. The brain response included high doses of tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a prime inflammatory mediator. Similar high levels of TNF in inflamed joints led to development of an agent to block its attachment to cells: etanercept, a compound that transformed my rheumatology practice (6). Getting this agent into the brain and seeing if it made a difference in poststroke patients was the focus of the paper Ron sent me. I’m glad I finally read it. Here’s my reply to Ron.
Well, Ron, getting stuck in the back of the plane for the ATL-DTW last leg of our Mexico trip last night finally gave me a chance to look this over. Had it been a manuscript sent to me for review, I would have scrawled red ink all over it and sent it back to the editor to have the authors make some major revision, but they got it into Cereus, which is not a bad journal. What they describe are the effects of injecting Enbrel (etanercept) deep enough into spine to get it into blood vessels that run right up to the brain. The justification for this is the fact that strokes bring out an inflammatory process, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) is a major mediator in this process. Enbrel blocks the attachment of TNF to cells, and is something I used since 1998, when it first became available. It was the first “biologic” (an agent grown in living tissue rather than made in a test tube) and is remarkably effective in rheumatoid arthritis. It really transformed my practice, as patients came back happy instead of just enduring their burden ever so slightly modified by my ministrations. Many other biologics followed, all very expensive ($1000/mo and up) with a few peculiar side effects and conferring an enhanced susceptibility to infections. RA patients just inject themselves in the leg once a week. That wouldn’t work for post stroke inflammation, as TNF is too big to leave the central nervous system and Enbrel won’t cross that barrier. Hence the perispinal injection (7). That must be delivered by a doc, and I’m guessing this is a thing now. When I Googled to find difference between perispinal and intrathecal injections (intrathecal injections are a spinal tap where the drug is delivered right into the cerebrospinal fluid – some chemotherapies go this way), up popped a choice “perispinal etanercept near me”. The author’s very sloppy table did describe 4 studies where this treatment seemed to have an effect.
I even found a YouTube describing the whole process (8).
Thanks for making me dive into something I really knew very little about. Hope this helps.
Bob
My bottom line, stroke patients having troubles with pain or slow return of function should consider this therapy.
Joseph AM, Karas M, Jara Silva CE, Leyva M, Salam A, Sinha M, Asfaw YA, Fonseca A, Cordova S, Reyes M, Quinonez J, Ruxmohan S. The Potential Role of Etanercept in the Management of Post-stroke Pain: A Literature Review. Cureus. 2023 Mar 15;15(3):e36185. doi: 10.7759/cureus.36185.
5. Resende LA, Weber SA, Bertotti MF, Agapejev S. Stroke in ancient times: a reinterpretation of Psalms 137:5,6. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2008 Sep;66(3A):581-3. doi: 10.1590/s0004-282×2008000400033.
6. Burness CB, Duggan ST. Etanercept (SB4): A Review in Autoimmune Inflammatory Diseases. BioDrugs. 2016 Aug;30(4):371-8. doi: 10.1007/s40259-016-0188-z. Erratum in: BioDrugs. 2016 Oct;30(5):481.
7. Tobinick EL. Perispinal Delivery of CNS Drugs. CNS Drugs. 2016 Jun;30(6):469-80. doi: 10.1007/s40263-016-0339-2.
O.k., it’s a hard “g” and not much different from what French cooks call beurreclarifié (clarified butter), but where’s the fun in that?
I’ve learned a lot in my foray into Indian cooking. Besides some incredibly tasty dishes, I’ve learned some of the tricks Indian cooks employ to make their fussy recipes less complicated. Chief thus far has been that incredible stuff, garlic paste (1), plus pastes of ginger and turmeric. I never thought ghee was such a big deal. Isn’t it just what Julia would call clarified butter (2)? Then I started to make my own and use it, and oh my! It’s a beautiful cooking fat, stable at room temperature with a smoke point of 4820F! This is well above that of most cooking oils and certainly way beyond what you can expect from butter (3500F)(3). Ghee is prepared at lower temperature than clarified butter, which is brought to a boil in its preparation (4). This preserves more nutrients. Indeed, the stuff is a nutritional powerhouse (5). Much of the lipid (fat) is in the form of medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), which are absorbed far more easily that regular lipids, used medically to supplement patients with GI disorders impairing fat absorption. While ghee is a milk product, it contains no lactose, good for those intolerants out there. It’s high in vitamin A, omega-3 fatty acids, butyric acid (which boosts T-cells), and vitamin K2 (good for bones).
The person who taught me about ghee, Madhur Jaffrey, says it’s not widely used by Indian cooks, as dairy products are a luxury in India (at least in the 70s when Madhur write her books) (6). The stuff was saved for special occasions and religious rituals. Wikipedia contains a nice delineation of the many rituals for which it is used (7).
But as a white culturally appropriating colonialist, I can use the stuff for whatever I want, right?! For me, that’s mainly as a cooking fat. It’s a little too thin to spread on anything. It congeals a bit at room temperature, but never gets thicker than tomato paste.
But how do you make it? It’s pretty simple.
Start with a pound of regular butter in a small saucepan on low heat.
The butter will melt to a liquid. If you have a clear pan like I have, you can see the milk solids settle out.
Then you’ll see some foam forming on the top. Different butters make different amounts of foam. The “Challenge” I used last week put up lots of foam, whereas the fancy imported Irish butter I used yesterday – Kerrygold – made almost none. Meijer had it on sale to where it was about the same price as “regular” butter. Why not splurge? Mom swore by Kerrygold.
Once you see big bubbles “blooping” up, you’re done. Skim off the foam with a spoon and set aside. The skim isn’t ghee but it’s tasty and you’ll surely find something to dip into it or spread.
Then it’s time to pour the ghee into a jar, through a strainer and some cheesecloth. Just the clear stuff please, leaving the solids behind in the pan.
Save the solids, too, as these are especially tasty (my wife’s favorite product of ghee making). The yield is surprisingly inefficient, as a pound of butter makes about 11 oz of ghee. (my last batch yielded 11.2 oz ghee and 3.9 oz solids and foam). The yield isn’t unexpected considering most butter sold is 80% or more butterfat (8). The rest is proteinaceous solids (mostly casein) and water. So what you’ve got left is gold.
Here in the tail end of green bean season, we like to blanch our catch, iced down of course, then warm ‘em up in 2-3 T of ghee in the wok. I don’t think it would go as smoothly with plain butter. You don’t need an Indian recipe to use the stuff. We go through most of ours with eggs and vegetables. Go ahead and try it then and try to think how you got by without that jar of yellow stuff on your counter.
For you slackers, you can just visit your local Indian grocery. Here’s the rack at Bombay Grocery, my favorite local Indian place. You can get 800 gm ready prepared ghee for about 12 bucks. I got about 320 gm out of a pound of butter I bought for about 5 bucks. So making ghee at home is more a labor of love than an effort to achieve great savings. But you get to eat the solids!
Delbert McClinton is a Lubbock Texas boy who made records and enthralled audiences for 50 years before retiring last year. He’ll turn 83 on November 4th. I got to know him when he was a regular on Don Imus’ morning TV show in the 90s, which had grown out of his radio show that stretched to back to the 70s (1).
Don had begun his career as a DJ and knew music. But he held his spots for those who conformed to his twisted sarcastic view of the world. It was on his MSNBC TV show I was re-introduced to the Kinkster (2) and also saw the lovely sharp-mouthed Laura Ingraham for the first time. Just a bunch of pissed-off funny people talking around a table. it was great entertainment and I never missed it.
MSNBC dropped the show in 2007 after Don’s remarks about the “nappy-headed hoes” of the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. He picked up back in radio shortly thereafter and continued on, unchanged. Don died in 2019, a year after Cumulus Media decided to stop paying him the year pervious. God, how I miss that old bastard.
But this is about Delbert, not Don. He started as a side man in 1962 and has led his own bands since 1972. His first album – ”Victim of Life’s Circumstances” – came out in 1975. He’s put out 20 since, and many more singles, EPs and compilations (4). No, I don’t have them all. He’s won 6 Grammys (Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, 1992; Country collaboration with vocals,1993; Contemporary Blues Album, 2002; Contemporary Blues Album, 2006; Male Country Vocal Performance, 2006; Traditional Blues Album, 2020). He writes most of his stuff and his songs are soulful, sweet, wise, and humorous, always backed by excellent Texas blues and swing. Delbert plays harp and a little guitar, but relies on his excellent sidemen to set the groove. And lots of very good people want to play with Delbert.
As I write all this, so many songs come to mind I want to recommend, but let me stick with the album I put on this afternoon that got me to want to post this blog. This is one I look on as a community service for those who don’t know who Delbert is and/or have never heard his music. Your life is less than it could be if that’s the case.
“One of the Fortunate Few” is Delbert’s 13th album, coming out in 1997. I’m sure he pushed it on Imus. Curiously, the title is the same as a great song of his which does not happen to be on the album! (5). It would have to wait 8 years till it showed up as the first track on “Cost of Living”. The song is a rollicking Cajun number describing challenging girlfriends of the sort I had in St. Louis before I left for Ann Arbor. Kathy wasn’t near so difficult.
But every song on this album is a gem
Old weakness (coming on strong) (6). The older we get, the more old girlfriends we have out there. Sometimes this pops up, one way or another
2:55
Leap Of Faith (7). Sometimes ya gotta go out and just do
3:37
Somebody To Love You (8) Delbert spells out what you need for a good life. A lover is right up there with jumper cables
4:31
Sending me Angels (9) My treasured song about the heavenly intervention that gave me my Kathy
3:45
Too Much Stuff (10) An anthem for decluttering boomers. Check out the guest vocalists!
4:14
Monkey Around (11) A man to a woman set to become the simian she’s turned him into
3:09
Lie No Better (12) A retort to a woman who should discard her lies in favor of the truth
4:27
You Were Never Mine (13) A sad song to the partner in a one-sided affair
4:02
Better Off With The Blues (14) A dumped guy wonders if he might be better off now “I still love you baby, but I don’t want you back”.
I can’t resist recommending a few of Delbert’s other performances
I’m with you (16). Best song to sing to your girlfriend ever.
I’ve got dreams to remember (17). A somber reminiscence of a man lost in his past. A change of pace from his usual upbeat stuff.
Sandy beaches (18). Delbert’s foray into Jimmy Buffett territory. The name of this song became the tag for a Caribbean cruise Delbert would run with some of his friend s every year (19). Aren’t you sorry you’re not gonna be on the boat? I sure am.
Read me my rights (20). Faced with a breakup, he goes legalistic, soulfully..
Have a little faith in me (21). Many have sung this John Hiatt song, but Delbert’s is especially moving. Sometimes a man must say this to those around him, and I did. I still hold it in reserve should I see faith flagging.
When Rita leaves (22). A hard breakup song with automotive desecration
I just renewed my license to practice medicine in the state of Michigan. Confirmation came right after my $562.50 AmEx cleared. Now I can continue to see patients and bill for my services, should I see fit, right up to the end of 2026. Now, right now I have no desire to do such a thing, but should Uncle Joe keep chopping away at my retirement pile, it might become important. Plus, there’s an ego thing with the medical license. This is the second renewal I’ve faced in my retirement, always motivated by seeing that expiry date on the medical license that hangs on my wall, now just another decoration. My whole identity for the past 44 years has been as a doctor. How can I shed the piece of paper that says I’m a legit one? So, for three more years at least, I can be the guy that listens to you, places my stethescope on your chest, pokes at your belly, squeezes your joints, and offers advice. Sure, there are other things licensed MDs can do, but all I’ve ever wanted is to be is a a doctor.
I thought it would be a lot harder getting to this point. Shortly after I decided to renew, I checked the LARA (Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) website for guidelines. I knew CME (continuing medical education) was a big part of qualification. When I was still active at the U, that was so easy, as there were conferences left and right. Now, I was on my own. Early on in my retirement, I was dialing in regularly to my division’s conferences, sometimes even giving them. The came January 6th. Yes, that January 6th. My department chair issued a politically charged e-mail to all his charges on the happenings, and I responded with 4 words that indicated my displeasure with him using his forum in that manner “shut up and sing”. These derived from Laura Ingraham’s book on how entertainers, athletes, media types, public speakers, and academics misuse their platforms to dispense political messages (1). Needless to say, my chief didn’t like my comment and set about punishment that included severance from any communication with my department or division. He tried to strip me of my emeritus status but found he’d have to go through the Regents for that. But ever since, there were no Rheumatology Grand Rounds or Core Curriculum Conferences. Fortunately, the way to U of M grand rounds was still open. I also sought out other institutions with virtual conferences, finding Case Western Reserve for their medical grand rounds and my old home, Barnes (Wash U), both for a Grand Rounds and a Friday CPC. I found some other freebie CME oppt’ys here and there. I marched steadily to the 150 hours LARA said I would need. My requirements would be reduced as I’d authored papers in peer-reviewed journals and also a book chapter. Of course, I kept track of all this, waiting for the day of reckoning. My first inkling that this would be less than I anticipated was when I re-read LARA’s requirements which said certain CME requirements would be “subject to audit”. I thought that as a 4 year retiree away from a med center, that would surely be me. But all they wanted was for that AmEx to clear. Talk about a disappointment! Well, I’ve learned a lot with all that CME and plan to keep doing it. Who knows when the audit will come, and meanwhile keep filling me up with knowledge!
And about that CME, Emily Litella said it best.(2)
Medicine at Michigan is the glossy quarterly published by the U highlighting happenings at “Michigan Medicine”, the latest marketing term trotted out to “brand” all the things that happen at the MECCA (sure don’t call it that anymore!). Last week, someone there sent out an e-mail to everyone with some conceivable tie to the med school or medical center, past or present:
“Hi med school alums!
We know you’re doing extraordinary things. We also know you have exciting hobbies, new family members, fun adventures, great stories about meeting up with other alums, experiences at Michigan football games, and more. Please share your story with us so we can share it with your classmates. Photos welcome!.”
I thought, what the heck, and sent out a little blurb at what’s been the surprising highlight of my retirement.
“My UofM ties began as a undergrad ’70-‘4 with a 1-year MS tacked on, and my time as a “Michigan Medicine” (we didn’t use that term then) trainee was brief, as a post-doc ’83-5. Fortunately, that included a job offer which led to 34 years on faculty, from which I retired 4 Junes ago. Not having to see all those patients left time for other things. An invitation from a “predatory” journal to write about arthroscopy, a procedure I helped pioneer for the rheumatologist, got me writing about some of the unique things I used to do, generating 20 peer-reviewed publications, a book chapter, and 2 instructional videos, so far. Deciding to share other parts of my life, I started a blog (theviewfromharbal.com) and have posted 385 items thus far. The there’s those 7 books (with more to come). My dad always said I should be a writer. Maybe it took 41 years of seasoning at UofM (and 8 at some other institutions) for me to realize that.
I’m breaking my self imposed proscription on writing about COVID. Dr. Robert Malone invented (and patented), with colleagues at the Salk Institute, the molecular techniques that led to the use of injected mRNA as a means to make a susceptible host make components of a virus that would induce an immune response. Uh, huh, the very same strategy employed by Pfizer and Moderna to make the vaxx that was supposed to save the world from COVID. Had the Nobel committee at the Karolinska not been so influenced by politics and Pfizer’s huge contributions to that institution, Dr. Malone would have shared that Medicine and Physiology Prize with Drs. Karikó and Weissman (1). But the miracle of that vaxx didn’t happen as the vaxxed still got sick, more than the unvaxxed, and transmitted the virus. In addition, recipients continue to get sick from having in them little factories making spike protein, promoting clotting and heart inflammation, among other things. The original SARS-COV-2 Wuhan product has mutated into a mere cold virus, just as it was before all those manipulations. Anyone with a basic grad school knowledge of virology (like mine) could tell you that was what was going to happen.
Dr. Malone has remained a beacon of truth before, during, and after the pandemic. His latest post included this 12 minute video of nonsense we should never forget.
Bob Ike's blog 