SHORT RIBS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS, July 9 2018

Safeway extended the sale on short ribs through tomorrow and on Friday actually  knocked them down to $5 /lb.  I’ll be curious to see  their Tuesday ad.  I haven’t bought hamburger for months;  everything else is cheaper. HOW TO COOK SHORT RIBS: brown 2-3 lbs ribs on all sides, and place in baking dish with enough red wine and beef broth to cover halfway up. Add garlic and thyme as desired.  Bake at 300˚ for two and a half hours.  Can’t beat it for ease and deliciousness.

THE EVER-RECEDING RAILROAD-   I guess I’m the only human left alive who still mourns the destruction of any hope for passenger rail for the North Coast.  Once they get involved with railbanking,  it’s all over.  Nothing ever comes back. For a billion dollars (too bad we don’t have any rich people around here) we could replace the rail through the Eel River Canyon with environmentally sound construction and have a world-class tourist attraction that would also come in damn handy for those of us who live here.  The Harbor group is wasting time touting cruise ships and  an east-west train that has no cargo.  Wish I were rich.

TRUMP’S LOW NATURE-  has been pretty well exposed by now but  never on display as blatantly as in his remarks in Montana the other day when he attacked 93-year old George HW Bush-  who just lost his wife- by making fun of the call to public service that was part of his inaugural address.  Trump IS so ignorant he may not have understood  the “Thousand points of light” ( but why bring it up ?) One thing is sure- Donald Trump has never  been concerned for one instant with anything other than his own well-being.  How such a vacant human being ever got elected will be a conundrum for the ages. Oh,  I forgot.  He had help.

ROLLING STONE-  I couldn’t believe how heavy the mail was the other day.  Rolling Stone, which for the past few years has been about the size and  weight of a comic book  IS NOW HUGE and weighs a couple of pounds. They did have a killer trash job on Johnny Depp, but my God, bigger is not always better.  One mag I am discontinuing is Condé Nast Traveler.  It used to be more useful but now it only features luxury resorts and lots of fashion layouts.

RALIBERTO’S IS NOW TAKING CREDIT CARDS!!!!   Stand still my heart!  Cheap, delicious AND you can charge it! Love that place.

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On The Cover Of Rolling Stone

Last Christmas my present to myself was a subscription to Rolling Stone. I hadn’t had a subscription to it since 1967 when the first issue came out. My then-roommate and I were early adopters.  We’d sit in the Coop at the UC Davis campus, ostentatiously flashing our copies of RS. I kind of gave up on them when they moved to New York but I was wrong. They have since become a major force in American journalism, with a million and a half subscribers.

So, a year later, here’s my notice to resubscribe.  Will I?  Oh hell yeah.  In recent months, along with the now-discredited story about the rape culture at UV, they’ve covered climate change in depth.  Bernie Sanders is on the cover this week and the last issue had in-depth coverage of Adele, Buddy Guy and Martin O’Malley.  Matt Taibbi is a noted pundit who frequently shows up on CNN or MSNBC.  But what I enjoy most is the trivia.  Here’s an example: Johnny Cash,  Willlie Nelson and Merle Haggard were best friends for years. Did you know that Johnny Cash’s friends never called him “Johnny’? It was always “John”.

To me that’s worth a few bucks.  Actually, the intro rate is usually $20 a year; for renewals you pay about $30 but you get a second subscription for free.  YMMV. Study hard.

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