I Will Not Eat My Greens

Posted on 30/10/2020 by Grumpa Joe

In many movies and comedy sketches I have often heard the line “eat your greens.” I had to look up what greens were. My source labeled greens as collard greens. They are in the same source of greens as kale and broccoli. I found them disgusting. I suspect the vegans in the world think they are delicious, not me. A week ago I wrote about my virgin experience with kale. I love kale, especially when it is drizzled with salad dressing. The collard greens supplied in my Green Chef dinner package turned me off. Maybe they will grow on me if I eat enough of them, fat chance of that happening.

Collard
Kale
Close up of a bowl of Italian boiled spinach

Each time I cruise through the vegetable aisle at my local grocery store I am amazed at the quantity of green leafy lettuces and other strange looking eatables from around the world. On a good day I will pick something I have never tried before just for the sake of experimentation. I can tolerate the lettuces, but when it comes to the heavier leaved darker green things like collard I pass by. As a kid I hated spinach. That is because my mother had only one way to prepare it, by boiling. Boiled spinach leaves are the world’s worst resembling some very old and wet sea weed. On the other hand fresh spinach leaves are excellent in a salad. The best is baby spinach drizzled with poppyseed dressing and with sliced strawberries on top. The chef who invented that combination should be in the Chef Hall of Fame.

Baby spinach with strawberries and poppy seed dressing

I find that the Green Chef meal plan is making me a better cook, and making me develop a more refined pallete. I hate waste and will never throw anything away, I’d much rather make it the way they instruct me to and try it. So far I am batting 5/6, only the collard greens have been a loser. In major league baseball a batting average of 5/6, (0.8333) would command a hundred million dollar contract. I’ll stick to keeping score with my selections from Green Chef.

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Kale? Who Eats Kale?

Posted on 22/10/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Last evening I made and ATE a Caesar salad from kale. Never in my life have I knowingly eaten kale. You know what? I loved it. When sprinkled with a salad dressing the leafy dark green kale made a wonderful substitute for Romaine lettuce. What it didn’t’t have was lemon, and red wine vinegar. Instead of onions it had sautéed yellow squash. Yellow squash is another vegetable that I am not too familiar with. Probably because removing the skin is a major job, and dicing the meat was work. In combination with shrimp, it was a filling meal with plenty of calories to fuel this old body. I’ll have the second portion for lunch this afternoon.

I was reminded of another question that has rolled through my mind for years regarding politicians. Why would any sane person spend millions of dollars to win a job that pays a meager $178,000. Although the money being spent is not coming from said candidates personal pocket he is no less spending an inordinate amount for so little return.
What I haven’t been able to uncover is all the hidden ways money is channelled into a politicians coffers in ways that is not traceable or illegal.

The latest news item involving ex-VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter has cracked open the door on one way ill-gotten money happens. I’m sure it is all a very large mistake as it always is when someone gets caught with his hands in my pocket. The accused always escapes indictment and trial. To my knowledge only Bernie Madoff has been caught and prosecuted, but he wasn’t a politician.

The U.S. budget is so large that the pilfering of a few million dollars is a mere drop in the bucket of government. If my math is right a million dollars is one-ten thousandth of a percent of a trillion dollars (.0001%); hardly noticeable to a government accounting office, but significant to the common man.

Draining the swamp by eliminating bureaucracies is one way to go. The problem is that it isn’t easy, and was tried by Ronald Reagan who could not pull it off. It is not impossible, but it is hard becasuse so many people are involved in getting it done. They all have to be on the same page. It turns out that in government there is always someone who has a vested interest within a bureau from his state. Getting consensus takes time and most presidents don’t have enough time in office to accomplish the task. Perhaps if the American people initiated a petition and got three hundred and fifty million signatures on it, something could be made to happen. I am afraid it is too late to drain the swamp, it is too big, and will take too many years to accomplish. Anyway, it won’t be done in my lifetime. In the meantime we are faced with politicians who will mis-behave and get away with their mis-deeds.

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