droool…So I went to 5 different stores Saturday assembling the list of groceries for the Sunday feast. I suppose I was just being picky about my ingredients and had some time before Mandy got off work. That and I couldn’t find fiddlehead ferns. Apparently those greedy east coast cooks have kept them all for themselves this season.

Anyways, I was watching FoodTV last week, thinking about what to cook when I saw a lamb chop presentation on Emeril. Come to find out my dad was watching the same show, had the same idea and we cooked a very similar dinner while 1800 miles apart. Eerie.

The lamb was seasoned with Tony’s (one of the best seasonings in the world) and then seared and cooled. Goat cheese and garlic was stuffed in the center of each chop, then it was smeared with dijon mustard and coated in bread crumbs and olive oil and baked for 15 minutes. Along with the provencial garlic mashed potatoes, asapargus and baked tomatoes topped with bread crumbs, garlic, parsley and olive oil, the entire meal turned out to be incredibly delicious.

And then there was dessert. Mandy baked a fantastic lemon cake with lemon icing and coconut shavings on top. We ate at 2pm and I didn’t get hungry for almost 24 hours. Not an everyday meal, but well worth the preparation time.

I’m not saying that this easter bunny deserved such a beating (especially in front of the kids), but maybe this was just another shopping mall easter bunny gone wild who couldn’t take criticism and needed to repaid for Brodie.

Really? In this day and age they are still stoning individuals for witchcraft? Far be it from me to take away from anyone’s belief system especially in a part of the world that seems, so far, “uncorrupted” by civilization. Who knows, if I had found a bottle dressed up like me in his cave I might be wondering about that cold I started to come down with last week. Then again, maybe I would just let things be and wait for Zeus to sick one of the other gods on good ol’ Domingo. That would show him.

As the war wages on and there is at least some general consensus that we want the middle east to be better off (debate what that means later) when the conflicts and politics are finished, I feel it beneficial to take the time and dig back in the brain, to that high school textbook with a world map in it, and place the countries that we are involved with at the moment into a geographical context.

“When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.”

– Voltaire

San Francisco protests are hardcore. More than 1400 people were arrested yesterday, for reasons from civil disobedience to violence. The award for the most inventive protest process must go to the puke for peace contingent, who really feel that heaving their lunch onto government property makes a statement against the war. I’m not sure about that but I’ve got their new motto all ready to go – “Bulemics, help fight the war in Iraq!”

The local Walgreen’s in Baghdad has now run out of earplugs, it seems. “An Iraqi correspondent in Baghdad says everyone there is trying to buy earplugs, so as not to lose too much sleep, but the shops have run out.” They’re more worried about losing sleep than the more obvious side effect of military invasion of their city?! What am I missing….oh well, at least they have the good sense to protect their ears.