Researching peaches for a project, and came across these recipes. Thought I'd note them for future reference. From this article on Saturn peaches.
Old-time Chinese orchardists treated peaches with such reverence that they could be planted only within the royal precincts of the emperor. Their peaches were classified in one of two ways: golden (yellow flesh) or silver (white flesh). To the tribe of rare silver peaches belongs the mouthwatering peento (originally pan tao), the intensely flavored and odd-shaped peach we now know in the United States as the ‘Saturn’ peach. (Most U.S. peaches are yellow-fleshed varieties.) Low in acidity, much sweeter than yellow peaches and with almond overtones, ‘Saturn’ peaches simply taste better than other varieties. Plus, they’re easier to eat out of hand. The tiny pit doesn’t cling to the white flesh — you can pop it out with your thumb. Furthermore, ‘Saturn’ peach trees produce an abundant harvest, and the fruit’s thin red skin has little or no fuzz so it doesn’t have to be peeled.
Chinese Peach Soup
While it may seem criminal to cook ‘Saturn’ peaches*, this 18th century Chinese recipe (from the court of the Ch’ing Dynasty) takes full advantage of their delicate flavor. It makes a great starter course either hot or cold. The following is an adaptation.
6 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
2 cups peach juice (or water)
2 tbsp butter (the Chinese use lard)
1 pound peaches, pared, seeded and chopped into small pieces
1 tbsp rose water
Combine the sugar, cornstarch and juice or water in a work bowl, whisking until the starch is completely dissolved. Heat the butter in a deep saucepan until it melts, then add the sugar mixture. Add the peaches and cook over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes, or until soft. Pour this mixture into a blender or food processor and purée until smooth and creamy. Return the soup to the saucepan and bring it to a gentle boil. Remove from heat and add the rose water. Serve immediately or chill to serve cold.
Serves 4 to 6 as a starter.
Here's a page with a bunch of French peach dessert recipes. They have a peach soup recipe too, but it's quite different. They add peach ice cream, that ought to do it.
French Peach Soup
INGREDIENTS:
* 1 white peach
* 1 yellow peach
* 2-1/2 cups water
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 bag peach tea
* 1/4 teaspoon lime zest
* peach ice cream, homemade or purchased (see homemade recipe link above)
PREPARATION:
1. Simmer the water and sugar together, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add the tea bag and the zest and steep for 5 minutes. Discard the tea bag. Chill until cold.
Just before serving, peel and cut the peaches into 1/4-inch dice. Stir into the chilled syrup.
To serve: Divide the soup among 4 shallow bowls and top each with a scoop of peach ice cream.
Two clips of Dylan doing Like A Rolling Stone. A classic one from 1966 backed by the Hawks (the Band), and one over 30 years later, with the Rolling Stones. Both historical clips, the first is as wild and intense as any music ever laid down, Dylan is in a zone, way out there, but totally on top of the music. And the second is just awesome, Bob and the Stones rocking out in Rio in front of 650,000 fans, a great performance, they really nail it and Mick even gets Bob to laugh. Watch them here, or better click on them to go to YouTube and then watch them on the full screen.
I've been on a Dylan kick lately, especially since I've found what a gold mine of Dylan performances there is over at YouTube. The power of the music helps balance out the horrors of the war and politics.
Although I don't usually like linking to Counterpunch because of their blatant anti-semitism, they occasionally publish some useful articles, as this one by an American Vietnam vet, "An Open Letter to America's Soldiers from the Ranks: The Looming Shadow of Nuremberg". He makes a number of good points, about the idiocies of trying to win a counter-insurgency in a country where you don't speak the language and everyone hates you, and others, which are excellent but which have been made before. But I was particularly intrigued by his point that the so-called "surge" is in actuality a plan to reinforce the protection around the Green Zone before an attack on Iran. Interesting idea.
Let me tell you a little secret about the plan to parcel you out in small groups and isolate you in Iraqi units. This was tried in Vietnam with disastrous results, with adjectives like suicidal. And that was before we had really gotten serious about killing people over there. How can you tell who the enemy is? Do you speak the Iraqi language and understand the culture? That friendly Iraqi kid or little girl in a burka may be taking reams of mental notes about your unit strength, equipment, and movement patterns to relay to their big brothers with the IEDs, RPGs and AKs. They may even be humping bags of ammo or ordnance and running commo for insurgents.
Count your fingers for the number of new insurgents every dead civilian creates. Rape a girl and murder her family to cover it up, and you'll need a computer. Don't forget to factor in the damage from 50,000 armed-to-the-teeth mercenaries, many of whom not only don't speak Iraqi, they don't even speak English. Always remember that none of these people invited you there to blow their country apart. Imagine how you'd feel if some friendly invaders and a bunch of their salaried thugs had wasted New York City and killed the entire population.
I can tell you from experience that it's impossible to win any kind of guerilla war without the support of the population and while soldiering from a defensive position. Have your missions turned from search and clear to search and avoid like ours did? Do you have a mentality of "the day is yours, the night is theirs"? If that's true, the situation has disintegrated into a war of attrition and you've lost.
Put aside from the moral conundrum of nuking a non-nuke country that has signed the non-proliferation treaty to keep that country from maybe getting nukes of its own, and all on behalf of another country that already has hundreds of nukes and refuses to sign any such treaties. An attack on Iran means you will be trapped between a rock and a hard place. Make no mistake: the real reason for the "surge" into Bagdad is to reinforce security around the laptop warriors and bureaucrats in the Green Zone. You'll find yourselves in the curious position of playing bodyguard for the hired guns. How ironic will that be?
Think about your families and loved ones. A large number of you are serving multiple tours, with many involuntarily extended. For the latter, your country has violated the contract it signed with you, but just try breaking your end of it. Meanwhile, military families suffer at home, a significant number of you will not have jobs to return to, and unbelievably, your government is doing its best to slash or delay veteran's benefits. For those of you who come home wounded, it will take years to get a VA disability claim processed if you succeed at all.
It's a powerful, emotional article, well worth reading. But note the little bit in the second paragraph of the quote he gives at the beginning, about "Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Fallujah, the rape of Lebanon, the concentration camps in the West Bank and Gaza." Even though Israel and the US are separate countries, involved in separate actions (no Israelis are serving in Iraq, no Americans are in the West Bank and Gaza), the anti-Semites try to distort the facts to tie them together. Observe the way the propaganda works. And note the use of the term "concentration camps" to refer to prisons in Israel, but not to Abu Ghraib and others run by the Americans, although its known throughout the world how much worse conditions are in Iraqi prisons these days.
It's part of the ongoing attempt by some Aemricans to blame Israel and the Jews for the major war crimes Americans are committing. You'll nearly always find nasty little bits of anti-Semitism in Counterppunch articles about the mideast, always, always, always. They're simply incapable of objectivity about the Jews. Part of it of course is just that the folks at Counterpunch are Americans, and like virtually all Americans these days, left and right it makes no difference, they are desperately trying to cover up the extent of the war crimes that all Americans are responsible for. But they're liberals, and liberals never accept responsibility for anything since it's always somebody else's fault, and so they need to find someone such as the Jews to blame.
Finally. A major world leader stands up in public and openly accuses the US of beginninig a new arms race, undermining global stability, and a number of other things. Russian President Putin made an important speech at a major security conference in Munich.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.
In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration. Among them were the expansion of NATO into the Baltics and the perception in Russia that the West has supported groups that have toppled other governments in Moscow’s former sphere of influence.
“The process of NATO expansion has nothing to do with modernization of the alliance,” Mr. Putin said. “We have the right to ask, against whom is this expansion directed.”
He said that the United States had turned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sends international monitors to elections in the former Soviet sphere, “into a vulgar instrument of insuring the foreign policy interests of one country.”
The comments were the sternest yet from Mr. Putin, who has long bristled over criticism from the United States and its European allies as he and his cadre of former Soviet intelligence officials have consolidated their hold on Russia’s government, energy reserves and arms-manufacturing and trading complexes.
Slowly but surely the world is preparing to confront America's never-ending war crimes and attempts to dominate the world. It's a problem that simply will continue to get worse until it's dealt with. Putin's speech is an important landmark. I wonder what moves he has planned for his last year or so in office.
But you wouldn't know it from the NY Times or the rest of the so-called media, who remain as trapped in their American bubble as ever. Why don't we ever see the terms "cadre" or "cartel" used to refer to the cadres of American and European officials who have "consolidated their hold" on their own governments. Blair and Brown and the corrupt Labor party leadership aren't a cadre? Not to mention the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties.
More: Another article on this from the Guardian. They say "He did not have a good word to say about Washington's policies." Some rough talk.
In a blistering assault that reflected the Kremlin chief's self-confidence and conviction that he has restored Russia's international clout after years of decline, Putin told a security conference in Munich that America was destroying the international system and seeking to eliminate nuclear deterrence through the uncontained use of its power. 'One state, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way,' he told dozens of Western ministers and policy-makers including the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and a likely Republican presidential contender, Senator John McCain.
'This is very dangerous. Nobody feels secure any more because nobody can hide behind international law,' Putin said. 'This is nourishing an arms race with countries seeking to obtain nuclear weapons... We're witnessing the untrammelled use of the military in international affairs... Why is it necessary to bomb and to shoot at every opportunity?'
The Russian leader accused Washington of plotting to evade its commitments to cut nuclear arsenals - already made through US-Russian arms treaties - and raged against the Pentagon's plans to site parts of its missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic. 'I don't want to suspect anyone of aggressiveness,' said Putin. 'But if the anti-missile defence is not targeted at us, then our new missiles will not be directed at you.'
The tirade indicated that the Kremlin is gearing up for confrontation with the Americans. He did not have a good word to say about Washington's policies.
McCain told The Observer the speech was 'the most aggressive from a Russian leader since the end of the cold war', adding that it was confrontational, with some of the observations bordering on paranoia. The US Defence Secretary sat stony-faced throughout Putin's words.
"Why is it necessary to bomb and to shoot at every opportunity?" Good question, and one not just Russians are asking. I like the fact the Russians are developing their own policies to deal with security problems, any alternatives to American unilitateralism are welcome.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dimitry Peskov, denied that his leader had intended to be aggressive or confrontational, but said that the time was right for Putin to throw down the gauntlet.
On several key disputes dominating the international agenda, Putin came out in flat opposition to the Americans. Russia was supplying Iran with air defence equipment, for example, so that Tehran did not feel surrounded by enemies. ...
He reserved his bitterest complaints, however, for the US drive to expand Nato into former Soviet eastern Europe and for the plans to deploy parts of the missile shield in central Europe. 'Why do you need to move your military infrastructure to our borders?' he declared.
McCain insisted that the missile shield was defensive and did not threaten anyone.
There's no way that Russia and China can accept having American bases and forces right on their borders. Their politicians may have different opinions, but their military people will all agree about this, it's simply unacceptable from a rational security standpoint. And since the US doesn't seem capable of backing down and, in fact, seems intent on further expansion (into Iran), it's inevitable that these countries will come into conflict.
More: LA Times article. Adding this extra articles because this is a big story. Note the attitude of the Euro-American elite, blithely dismissing any of Putin's concerns, and simply stating that the Russians (and the rest of the world) have nothing to worry about. Note this comment in response to Putin's quite legitimate complaints that NATO is expanding right up to Russia's borders.
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, secretary-general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, told the conference later in the day that he was "disappointed" by Putin's statements, noting that NATO had for a decade held regular security consultations with Moscow through a formalized, legally binding agreement.
"Who can be worried that democracy and the rule of law are coming closer to somebody's border?" Scheffer asked.
If by "democracy" he means the US and the EU, then anyone with any sense should be worried. And to simply ignore the massive violations of "law" that the US, the UK and their corporate buddies have been perpetuating throughout the world at this point is so dishonest and hypocritical those words are simply inadequate.
Note that NATO stands for "NORTH ATLANTIC Treaty Organization." Afghanistan and Bulgaria sure are a long, long way from the Atlantic. Exactly what is NATO for now, who runs it, what is its purposes, and why is it attempting to encircle Russia? Putin's asking some good questions, and rather than simply dismissing them out of hand, Euro-American leaders would be well to consider them, and come up with some answers that are somethingm more than platitudes.
The Asia Times also has a nice overview of the American air war in Iraq by the experienced Nick Turse. He talks about the fact that the Pentagon is extremely secretive about the amount of bombs, ammunition and other munitions that are being used in the air war, and about the air war and its casualities itself. But bombing is nearly constant, with over 10,000 air "missions" in 2006 alone. But they're not releasing the real figures, especially on things like the amount of cannon fire, the amounts of ammunition and other such information. There are lots of details in this lengthy report, as there often are in Asia Times articles.
A secret air war is being waged in Iraq - often in and around that country's population centers - about which we can find out little. The US military keeps information on the munitions expended in its air efforts under tight wraps, refusing to offer details on the scale of use and so minimizing the importance of air power in Iraq. But expert opinion holds that the forms of aerial assault being employed in that country, though hardly covered in the US media, may account for most of the Iraqi civilian deaths attributed to the US-led coalition since the 2003 invasion.
While some aspects of the air war remain a total mystery, US Air Force (USAF) officials do acknowledge that US military and coalition aircraft dropped at least 50,000 kilograms of bombs on targets in Iraq in 2006. This figure, 177 bombs in all, does not include guided missiles and unguided rockets fired, or cannon rounds expended; nor, according to a US Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) spokesman, does it take into account the munitions used by some Marine Corps and other coalition aircraft or any of the US Army's helicopter gunships. Moreover, it does not include munitions used by the armed helicopters of the many private security contractors flying their own missions in Iraq.
In statistics provided to Tomdispatch, CENTAF reported a total of 10,519 "close-air-support missions" in Iraq in 2006, during which its aircraft dropped 177 bombs and fired 52 "Hellfire/Maverick missiles". These air strikes presumably included numerous highly publicized missions ranging from the January 2006 air strike outside the town of Baiji that reportedly "killed a family of 12", including at least three women and three young children, to the December attack on an insurgent safe house in the Garma area, near Fallujah, that reportedly killed "two women and a child" in addition to five guerrillas.
Some of these figures don't make sense. 10,519 air missions and only 177 bombs dropped and only 52 missiles fired? That has to be a lie. That would account for less than 500 missions. Then what were the other 10,000 flights for? Just strafing and providing air support? That's hard to believe, especially in the light of many reports from the Iraqis and the rest of the international community that the bombing is constant.
The vicious American air wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has received virtually no new coverage within the US, yet it is quite major and has killed many, many thousands of civilians. And they have increased bombing of Baghdad recently as part of the so-called "surge" which is really just an excuse for Americans to kill more people.
10,000 missions, by the way, works out to about 27 a day, just over one an hour, 24 hours a day. And that's been abuot the rate since the war started, 4 years now. And that's on top of the extensive and illegal bombing during the Clinton-Gore administration as they laid the groundwork for the invasion, which the Democrats and Republicans were planning even then.
This is a major part of the war that the American media aren't reporting at all, and something every American needs to know about. These years of heartless and illegal bombing will come back to haunt America, big-big-time.
Good analysis of the utterly ridiculous new US war budget.
There's a good roundup of the proposed new American military budget in Asia Times. Lots of detail.
"What's remarkable about this year's military budget is that it's the largest budget since World War II, but, of course, we're not fighting World War II," noted William Hartung, a defense expert at the World Policy Institute in New York.
"We're fighting terrorist networks armed with explosives and AK-47s. This has to be considered a triumph of an arms lobby that can obviously sell us things we don't need at a time that the president claims we're in mortal danger."
To put a different perspective on the figure, $623 billion is about $10 billion more than the total gross domestic product (GDP) of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa and oil giants Nigeria and Angola, in 2005, according to the World Bank. ...
With the additional spending in Iraq and Afghanistan, total US military spending appears to be well above that of all of the rest of the world's combined.
In addition, the administration has announced it will push for expanding the size of the army from 482,000 to 547,000 troops by 2012 and the Marine Corps from 174,000 to 202,000 over the next four to five years.
"At a time when public opinion polls show strong support for a less militarized, less unilateral foreign policy, this budget clearly takes us in the wrong direction," according to Miriam Pemberton, an analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies.
In case you're keeping track, this is now more than double the war budget when Bush got into office. And this is just the official, unclassified section, there's more we aren't allowed to know about.
Wood s Lot. Maybe the most consistently interesting weblog out there. Superb selections on all sorts of topics, especially art and literature. Tons of links too.
Fairvue Central hosts the Bloggies, awards for best weblogs in different categories from all over the world. See the nominees for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 (in progress).
