• Share something about Labor Day – what’s it mean to you?
• It’s the end of summer – share something that symbolizes the end of the season, or the beginning of autumn;
• And a WILDCARD – share something unexpected to mix things up a bit.

1. Reminder: Three Things Project for Labor Day
2. Labor Day Weekend Preview: What’s ahead for Art Saturday, Food Sunday, and Labor Day
3. Saturday Art: Leo Reynolds’ Photography

1. Food Sunday: Strawberries with Balsamic and Mint
2. Food Sunday: Food News You Can Use
3. Food Sunday: Food News You Can Use

1. Food Sunday: Baked Chili Verde Enchilada
2. Food Sunday – Pizza Dough, Deep Dish And Thin Crust
3. Food Sunday: Shirred Eggs with Fresh Herbs

• Bechamel Sauce (basic white sauce)
• Veloute Sauce (basic blond sauce of unroasted bones of beef, veal, chicken, or fish)
• Brown (demi-glace) or Espagnole Sauce
• Hollandaise Sauce (butter/emusifications)
• Tomato Sauce (red)

• Saute in a two quart sauce pot 1 tablespoon of garlic and 1 tablespoon of shallots with about two tablespoons of non-salted butter.
• Add 5 black peppercorns, and 5 cloves, and one/half teaspoon of nutmeg.
• Add one quart of clear chicken stock (it will be a gelatin as you get it from the walk-in).
• Reduce it by half.
• Add two cups of white wine. Sauvignon Blanc for a dryer taste, Reisling for a sweeter taste depending on the dish.
• Reduce that till the volume is one quart again.
• Add two cups of heavy cream, or manufacturing cream.
• Reduce that volume until it is one quart again.
• Add splash white wine Worcestershire and splash of hot sauce for a kick (optional).
• If necessary whisk in some light roux to tighten sauce (flour and butter cooked slow but not burnt, we’ll get into burnt butter sauces later on down the line).
• Strain thru fine mesh strainer.
• Reserve into a container in the steam table.
• Or, at home, hold at 160F in a water bath till used.

• Pound thin one 8 oz boneless/skinless breast of chicken.
• Brush lightly with Italian dressing, from a bottle, it’s ok!
• Season with sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.
• Smear layer of pesto to cover.
• Lay some kind of ham, smoked if possible (prosciuto), to cover.
• Shave thin pieces of Parmesan Reggiano, Asagio, or your cheese of choice.
• Top with thin layer of ricotta. (Put ricotta into food processor with basil leaves and clove of garlic)
• Roll chicken breast up (see *tip below!)
• Brush with egg wash to seal.
• Lightly flour with sea salt and black pepper.
• Brown in saute pan using extra virgin olive oil or light olive oil.
• When browned all over, drain oil and put pan in 425F oven for 5-10 minutes.
• Check for doneness (firm to the touch, fully browned).
• Set aside to rest.
• If there are pan juices, reserve and add to sauce.

• Use a sushi roller laid out flat on your work surface.
• Lay plastic wrap down on sushi roller.
• Lightly oil plastic wrap.
• Put pounded chicken breast down on plastic wrap.
• Assemble/layer per above.

• Half cup red wine (Merlot/Zin/Cab Sav)
• One 8 oz glass same for the chef
• Half cup cranberry juice (lo cal)
• Half cup diet ginger ale (yes, diet ginger ale)
• Teaspoon fresh minced garlic
• Teaspoon fresh minced shallot (or red onion)
• Squeeze half lemon juice.
• Cut half lemon you juiced into small bits, skin and all, add to sauce pot
• Teaspoon minced fennel
• Teaspoon chopped basil
• Teaspoon diced fresh ginger
• 1/4 cup Teriyaki sauce or marinade
• Reduce by half
• Add two table spoons low cal sour cream
• Reduce till thickens
• Strain out solids.
• Reduce more if necessary.

1. Foodie Sunday! I NEVER Thought Of This. Should Have!
2. Food Sunday: Of Stocks And Sauces, Them Tiny Bubbles!
3. Food Sunday: Baked Chili Verde Enchilada

1. Food Sunday: Melanzana Parmigiana
2. Food Sunday: Flat Bread with Basil
3. Food Sunday: Baked Chili Verde Enchilada

I write in anger. Not blind rage, mind you. A cool, searing, steady anger. I think it is a righteous anger. It is not consequential, but it is my reality. I am angry about the 1,172 US troops dead in the Afghanistan War, and all the other brave NATO and Afghan soldiers who gave their lives for a new Afghanistan. Because they haven’t gotten a new Afghanistan. They have paid the ultimate sacrifice for a ponzi scheme masquerading as a reformist government. And, as usual, you and I may well get stuck with the bill for the economic damage done by the fraud.



The house of cards that is the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul may be falling before our eyes, as vast, globe-spanning webs of corruption, formerly hidden in shadows, have suddenly had a spotlight thrown on them. The crisis raises the severest questions about whether the Obama administration can plausibly hope to stand up a stable government in Afghanistan before US troops depart.



As with the second phase of the Great Depression in the United States, the crisis begins with a run on Da Kabul Bank. Depositors took out $85 million on Wednesday, after a (*)(*)(*)(*)ing story appeared in the Washington Post. They took out another $70 million on Thursday. The bank, which owes $300 million, may now have as little as $120 million left in the kitty, though it had once been worth over a billion. But the problem is not just a run on one bank. Can Afghanistan’s whole financial system and economy emerge unscathed?



[...]



The same world-wide real estate crisis that abruptly revealed the ponzi scheme of Bernie Madoff has undone Da Bank Kabul. But imagine if Madoff had not merely been a criminal who preyed on the wealthy, but had bankrolled a president’s political campaign with his ill-gotten gains and had brought the president’s brother and the brother of the vice-president into his inner circle. And imagine if he had been only one of a handful of financiers in New York with substantial capital.



The story begins with Sherkhan Farnood, a financier who founded Da Kabul Bank after the fall of the Taliban. Over the years he appears to have used the institution for patronage for politicians and their families. Farnood gave millions to the presidential campaign of Hamid Karzai last summer, a campaign that Karzai was accused of only winning through substantial ballot fraud. (Hint: a vote wouldn’t cost much to buy in Afghanistan, and ‘millions’ would buy a lot). The other top executive at the bank, Khalilu’llah Frozi, was a campaign adviser to Karzai. Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmoud has a 9% share in the bank.



Instead of wiring money overseas, as banks typically do, Farnood used a traditional money-transfer or hawala service, the New Ansari, which is also alleged to have been resorted to by drug smugglers, some of whose proceeds go to the Taliban and other insurgents that kill US troops. Money transferred by hawala cannot be traced electronically. The New Ansari itself is under investigation by US authorities. Persistent news reports suggest that billions of dollars in cash are being flown out of Afghanistan to Dubai, and that, let us say, irregularities are involved.



[...]



President Hamid Karzai is notorious for running interference for his corrupt cronies, and that Farnood and Frozi were out of control appears to have been known for some time but nothing was allowed to be done about it. The two have now been forced out, but the question is whether it is in time to save not only the bank (doubtful) but also the entire Afghan financial system, rebuilt after the fall of the Taliban.



The Karzai government is corrupt and rotten to the core. Not a single US soldier should die to prop it up. The lie that we are fighting “al-Qaeda” in Afghanistan needs to be exposed. The US and NATO are fighting four or five groups of Pashtun insurgents, some of them until fairly recently US allies. The goal of the fighting is to keep the Karzai government from falling to the guerrillas and to train up an army and police force that could go on defending Kabul. The Afghanistan National Army from all accounts has poor morale. No wonder. What Afghan soldier or policeman would die for a ponzi scheme?



NATO should not have allowed Karzai to steal the presidential election. (At least now we have more of an idea how the theft was accomplished). It should not have allowed him to block corruption investigations.



You have to wonder if the Afghanistan parliament is up to impeaching Karzai. One thing is certain. He is part of the problem, not the solution, and as long as he is at the helm, the situation is highly unlikely to get better.



And our troops will go on dying for a vague and probably unattainable goal that the politicians dress up in idealistic flourishes, and worse, dying for a lie.

1. Food Sunday: Greens To My Taste
2. Food Sunday – Sourdough Pumpernickel
3. Food Sunday – Pizza Dough, Deep Dish And Thin Crust

[T]he rationalization offered by the Western official — that Afghans are happy to tolerate a certain level of bribery and theft — seems to have turned out terribly wrong. It now seems clear that public corruption is roundly despised by ordinary Afghans, and that it may constitute the single largest factor driving them into the arms of the Taliban.



You don’t have to look very hard to find an Afghan, whether in the government or out, who is repelled by the illegal doings of his leaders. Ahmed Shah Hakimi, who runs a currency exchange in Kabul, had just finished explaining some of the shadowy dealings of the business and political elite when he stopped in disgust.



“There are 50 of them,” Mr. Hakimi said. “The corrupt ones. All the Afghans know who they are.”



“Why do the Americans support them?” he asked.



Mr. Hakimi, a shrewd businessman, seemed genuinely perplexed



[...]



American officers and anti-corruption teams have drawn up intricate charts outlining the criminal syndicates that entwine the Afghan business and political elites. They’ve even given the charts a name: “Malign Actor Networks.” A k a MAN.



Looking at some of these charts—with their crisscrossed lines connecting politicians, drug traffickers and insurgents — it’s easy to conclude that this country is ruled neither by the government, nor NATO, nor the Taliban, but by the MAN.



It turns out, of course, that some of the same “malign actors” the diplomats and officers are railing against are on the payroll of the C.I.A. At least until recently, American officials say, one of them was Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s brother. Mr. Karzai has long been suspected of facilitating the country’s booming drug trade.



Ahmed Wali Karzai denies taking any money from the C.I.A. or helping any drug traffickers. But consider, for a second, the other brother: President Karzai. When he receives that stern lecture from the American diplomat about ridding his government of corruption — and he receives a lot of them — what must President Karzai be thinking?



One possibility: That the Americans aren’t really serious.

1. Food Sunday – Sourdough Pumpernickel
2. Food Sunday – French Chocolate Sourdough
3. Food Sunday: Italian Batter Bread

It seems Better Off Dead icon Cusack was idly tweeting yesterday and he rattled off this thing proposing the construction of a “Satanic death cult center” outside the Fox News building. The full tweet:

I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS

In no time at all there were serious news stories blasting Cusack for going on a “rampage” and calling for the “Satanic death” of Newt and Dick Armey. “John Cusack Calls for ‘Satanic Death’ of Fox News, GOP Leaders,” blared the Fox News headline. In a flash Fox was calling up academic experts who were taking this tweet that could not possibly be more obviously a joke and seriously calling it an incitement to violence. From the piece:

“His provocative tweets could easily incite a rabid fan to commit violent acts against Fox News Headquarters and others he names," said Dr. Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills-based psychiatrist and author of "Coping With Terrorism: Dreams Interrupted."

And like magic, mere minutes later, the tweets from the internet peanut gallery rolled in, with conservative readers unironically ripping Cusack for advocating violence. “Remember lefties warn that Glen B was inciting violence with his rhetoric,” tweeted “Uniqname.” “Didn’t know he was a jihadist,” wrote “Taylor Nichols.”

“Calling for violence is never the answer to a disagreement, Mr. Cusack,” wrote “reaperzilla.” And “isn’t this incitement?” wondered “Harleybubba” (I swear, I didn’t make up that name).
(snip)
…I get that some of these folks are dying to find an example of a “liberal” inciting people to violence in the manner of oft-criticized right-wing heroes like Glenn Beck, but even taking that anxiousness into consideration, you’d have to be in virtual brain-death to take something like this seriously.

1. Stephen Colbert Eviscerates Newt Gingrich For His Narcissistic Hypocrisy
2. Newt Gingrich Sees Saudi Arabia As Guide For Religious Liberty–How About on Womens’ Rights, Gruesome Public Executions?