So someone saw a recipe for buttermilk biscuits. Let me say one thing I’ve discovered on my cooking journey it’s been precision in measurement. I cannot abide just scooping out an ingredient and eye balling it because that’s the way your grandmother did it.

This recipe calls for shortening – aka Crisco. Then cream that with buttermilk, add some self rising flour (Approx. 2 cups) and 3tsp baking powder. The recipe the woman in the video showed didn’t show any salt being used. Um, how do I explain this, salt is a flavor enhancer.

But give me a recipe with ingredients properly measured and we’re good.

So today a name came up – former Republican Governor of Rhode Island Lincoln Almond. He’s now 81 years old. We were saying how things weren’t bad when he was governor.

What started the conversation was about the UHIP program in Rhode Island on how now Democratic Governor Gina Raimondo stocked it up with political hacks so the whole thing is a Charlie Foxtrot right now.

Raimondo did though get highways projects right – they’re tearing up part of I-95 now, parts of RI-6 and RI-10 and so on. Plus come fall the southern section of I-95 gets torn up and replaced.

Let’s see – other governors. There is of course former Governor Lincoln Chafee – he’s also known by the pejorative Governor Gump. The only thing notable was his signing of the marriage equality legislation. Oh and he also replaced the Welcome to RI signs on the border of MA and CT. They’re pretty tasteful.

Then of course there’s Republican Donald Carcieri. He was  a  horses ass. Christian fundamentalist of course. He was anti-equality and I wasn’t sad to see his ass go.

 

So I had posted that I love the H.P. Hood product – Bailey’s Coffee Creamer. That was until I looked into the ingredients. 20g of sugar per tablespoon. Umm nope. Trying to control the amount of sugar we eat that’s a non -starter.

So I got some half and half, added a bit of vanilla and cocoa powder to it. Works, but it’ missing something. So I looked into natural emulsifiers and thickeners. I’ll have the carrageenin a seaweed derivative, and agar agar – which is a thickener. It think those two might make the mouth feel a little better. And I have resisted adding sugar to it. But there is some research that says carrageenin is a little bit damaging to humans. And it’s a thickener/emulsifier. In fact it’s present in the Bailey’s Coffee Creamer.

Next I have to figure out the caramel coloring – maybe if I caramelize some sugar – not much say 5g for the whole bottle.

I’m now past the half way point on the game. Here’s Level 10:

This level is difficult. Note the 99 lives. It never goes down now.

So it hit 68F today. Almost at the point where this is becoming the norm. Good – it’s nearly May already.

In fact two times this week I could leave the house in sneakers, t-shirt and jeans.

And in fact I realized we hit Mr. Lemon today too. It’s a Frozen Lemonade stand that’s been around since I was a kid. And every year around this time it opens up for the spring/summer season.

And I must say it, I prefer warmer to colder. I despise snow and I think a lot of it is the ignorant mother fuckers who don’t clear sidewalks and the shitty job the city does clearing snow from the roadways. But this year we got very little snow – mostly just a light dust of snow despite the chicken little stuff on Facebook – always cawing the sky was falling – or the White Death From The Sky.

And we did have a few snow events where the amount was between 3 and 7 inches. But those were the exception and not the rule. Even the piles of snow plowed out from big parking lots are starting to melt away at an accelerating rate.

Now if the stupid trees would put leaves out. I hate that stark look they have when the leaves drop off in Fall.

This one is going be my desktop wallpaper for a time.

Sitting atop a Falcon-9 rocket. Awesome.

 

Now the key difference between say the Kepler telescope and this baby – there’s a couple key factors.

First – Kepler only looked at a small slice of the universe. TESS on the other hand will be capable of scanning the entirety looking for transit dips that indicate planets. But better this telescope has the ability to detect the atmosphere of said planets and figure out what’s going on.

Kind of like how if you looked at the Earth from a distance, spectography would tell you there’s Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon-Dioxide, and other gases that would show up.

And the acronym TESS stands for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

 

 

So I was on RI-10 today and the ITS board said “3 minutes to go 3 miles t get to I-95. Now the speed limit on RI-10 is 50MPH. For those who don’t know, 60MPH is one mile per minute hence 3 miles would take 3 minutes. So they’re telling a big old fib on those boards.

And the same is on I-95 – 14 miles 14 minutes – that’s 60MPH. But the limits on that highway are 45, 50, 55. So they’re lying.

So I learned the lesson – never grab the handle of a hot cast iron pan. Fortunately I didn’t grab it with my right hand, but my left instead. A small blister on my thumb, index finger, middle finger and ring finger.

I was doing another spatchcocked chicken – this one I figured I’d try the America’s Test Kitchen technique. Get a cast iron pan ripping hot and dump some oil and the chicken in.

Here’s the chicken all spatchcocked. Getting better at doing a straight line.

 

Ok, I have to admit the ATK recipe failed. I had to resort to other methods.

Chicken was delicious. And we had a nice Chardonnay with the meal. That’s the way to drink wine – with a meal. i think it’s what explains the French Paradox – if you’re not familiar they eat a lot of heavy fat laden dishes and yet suffer lower rates of heart disease than we in the U.S. the only difference I see is they have wine with every meal right down the preparation of the dish.

As the late Julia Child and numerous other chefs have said, never cook with a wine you wouldn’t want to drink.