Open Thread Friday 6-12-2020
As we move forward through the seasons this year our food supply is being further disrupted with Covid-19.
A rising number of sick farm and packing house workers comes after thousands of meat plant employees contracted the virus and could lead to more labor shortages and a fresh wave of disruption to U.S. food production.
...
While social distancing can be more easily implemented for workers harvesting fruits and vegetables in fields and working outside may reduce some risks for virus spread, plants that package foods such as apples and carrots resemble the elbow-to-elbow conditions that contributed to outbreaks at U.S. meat packing plants.By late May, there were more than 600 cases of COVID-19 among agricultural workers in Yakima County, Washington. Of those, 62% were workers in the apple industry and other packing operations or warehouses, according to a Reuters review of data from county health officials.
With 4,834 known cases as of June 10, the county had the highest per-capita infection rate on the West Coast.
...
U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview with Reuters farm workers face increased risks as fruits like apples and cherries enter harvest season.Stabenow, ranking member on the Senate Agriculture Committee, introduced legislation on May 27 that would offer companies grants and loans to upgrade machinery and purchase personal protective equipment, fund COVID-19 testing and facility cleaning.
“You can get ahead of this, which is what didn’t happen in the meatpacking situation,” she said. “The best way to protect our supply chain is to keep workers safe.”
There is still time to start a garden in the soil or containers. I usually place a few herbs in a container to bring into the house in the fall before the frost arrives.
The weather has been unusually cool and rainy this week. I have been busy in the kitchen making cheese and cooking a few dishes for the freezer. Rarely buy spice mixes just combine the single spices to any combination desired. Included a couple of my recipes.
Chili Powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp oregano
1/8-1/2 tsp garlic
pinch cayenne pepper
Taco Seasoning
2 Tbs Cumin
2 Tbs Oregano
1 Tbs cilantro
1 Tbs parsley
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
For Taco filling
Saute a 1/2 onion with pound of ground, shredded meat or tofu add 1 Tbs Taco mixture. Adjust to your taste.
Easy Crepe for One
1 egg
1 Tbs water or milk
1 Tbs flour
Whisk smooth. Pour into the center of a heated 10 inch skillet with 1 to 2 teaspoonful bubbling melted butter (not browned). Lift skillet swirl batter to spread. Flip to finish cooking.
Often use leftovers as a filling or homemade Cottage cheese with fresh picked strawberries.
Open thread all discussions are welcome.
Comments
food disruptions
guess the USDA lost it's teeth along with all of the other federal agencies charged with helping the people. I like your crepe recipe, will try it. Also, heard the Dalai Lama is releasing his first Album on July 6th, his 85th birthday. Inspirational music?
[video:https://youtu.be/84Fe-2ezVsc]
Have a good one.
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
Good morning
Sorry to read about the farm packing house workers. More proof we need local production. I do buy avocados usually from Mexico, but otherwise most of our food is local sourced. Our garden has been very productive this year. I put out a good bit of composted horse manure last fall and mulched it all. Everything has really taken off. Spring crops are about spent. Still have a few cabbages, broccoli, and collards going. Lettuce, surprisingly, is still doing well (not bitter) this late in the season.
Tomatoes are in cages now and blooming, and other summer crops doing well. Had some vole problems this year. Spraying with castor oil and soap to repel them.
Between the garden, mowing, weedeating, road improvements, keeping up with house work I've been busy just keeping my head above water. The tractor was down for over 3 weeks and really threw me behind. When the COVID lockdown was underway time was dragging. Now it flies by.
Well, hope all is well on your farm. Thanks for the recipes. I got an instantpot last year and love cooking in it...everything from yogurt to roasts to chili.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Somehow now 3 weeks behind
myself and did not have an equipment failure. Weather has been more erratic than usual. Too cold or too hot plant. Frost got the fruit trees blooms. Strawberries producing well and cane berries just starting to bloom.
Took a look at the Instantpot when you first mentioned purchasing. When I am ready to do more pressure cooking techniques going to get one.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Good morning soe. I've been worried about the ag workers
and now it looks like I was correct to do so. Hope that steps can be taken to enable them to continue to be employed but to be safe while so doing.Maybe this could spur the kind of progress and change in the industry that's been needed all along, but I doubt it. I fear it will go in the wrong direction. I'll maybe expand on that later, but I have to get it together and get up to Berkeley for a dental appointment today. It will be interesting to see how this all goes down with masks and C-19 safety measures up wazoo.
I like your recipes. None of my crepe recipes have worked that well to date, so I can't wait to try yours. Wish I had a 10" omelet pan, my 10" fry pans have 90 angles where the sides meet the bottom which make flipping and such a PITA. I once had a miracle stand of Italian Parsley, but it died and I haven't had any luck with it ever since. We grow garlic chives, rosemary, Italian Bay, and thyme outdoors all year, and my parsley patch kept reseeding, so it was always there too. I'm cleaning out a raised bed, maybe I should devote it to herbs, or else plant carrots while I wait for winter and grow spuds.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
It's worth it to invest in a crepe pan.
iirc, that and a wire wisk were my first purchases after watching Julia Child on PBS. (At a kitchen specialty store in Sausalito before such imported equipment (Germany, France, Italy) was widely available and it's possible that such heavy-weight crepe pans weren't made much after that.) Recently helped my sister buy one. (As she'd never asked, I never knew that she'd spent decades trying and failing to make crepes and had ended up ditching several "easy to use" crepe pans.) Similar to what is carried Williams Sonoma. If you decide to buy one, I'll give you several tips on how to use it. (My sister needed a cooking class to get it down, but generally she's rather pathetic in the kitchen.) None of the non-stick or coated pans properly brown crepes. And they aren't easier to use.
this is what I use
something similar, the edges do not curl up as this on mine
works great for heating up tortillas
btw, your crepe is great with strawberry jam a slice of bacon !!
your recipe makes two crepes
yum
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
That looks like a good one.
-- btw that isn't my crepe recipe. It's far eggier than any I make.
oops
meant that for soe.
is a bit eggy, but I don't mind.
the cast iron tortilla pan works great
about $16, mine is made by Wagner's 1891
USA
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
Price is right and available at Target,
but now that I've looked more closely at it, it's larger than what I'd want to use.
The proportions for an eggy crepe that I often use for blintzes, is 1 egg, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup milk. (Not that I've ever made such a small batch.) Blend and refrigerate for two to twenty-four hours before cooking. More versatile (and as good for blintzes) is 3 eggs, 1 c flour, 1 c milk.
The best dessert crepes (and also the most difficult to make) are in The Mastering the Art of French Cooking. So good, that a dinner guest that never, ever eats desserts asked for seconds when I filled it with spiced apples and custard and drizzled caramel sauce and chopped walnuts on top.
sounds yummy
who needs dinner when you can go straight to dessert?
thanks
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare
Or dessert first and then dinner as
-- my neighbor often does. The other day it was an ice cream cone followed with a large plate of Kung Pao chicken and vegetables. Don't know how she does it as it sort of grosses me out. Perhaps it's her key to staying thin.
Caste iron griddle is always on the stove
ready to cook eggs, pancakes, toasted sandwiches, tortillas, nan bread, crepes. Also use as a lid to trap heat in a skillet to melt cheese or brown the top of what I am cooking.
Marie's recipe is a good ratio of liquid to flour if fixing for a group and remember to get started early to provide time for it to rest.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Thinking Big Ag is going to ask for Govt money for automation
The state has had outbreaks in seafood processing, vegetable processing and meat packing. Company line are care and concern for workers. Actual actions and procedural changes to reduce infection risk and spread does not seem to actually a top priority. It is more written and verbal policies to shift blame to worker actions for any infection upsurge.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I haven't had
fresh fruit or veggies in years. I have no place to store them. I have no way to cook them. I miss having real meals, ya know, prepared by hand, fresh and all that. I wish I had enough teeth to eat apples.
When I did have a house and a wife, she made her own garden, planted all kinds of herbs and spices, the smell of which wafted around the house like fresh incense. She also loved planting flowers and gardening in general. I miss all the crazy recipes she used to try out on me, ie her guinea pig.
the good ole days...
Now it's microwave city or WhatABurger...
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Certain dishes remind me of people who have come and gone
during my life.
Only having a microwaves to cook was my Mom's problem when Dad bought an old yacht converted to a commercial salmon troller. She found The Microwave Gourmet by Barbara Kafka and continued to have amazing dishes come out of her kitchen. I still make a few recipes from it today in her memory.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Thanks for the book link
I'll check it out and see if I can something good to eat!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Harvard Med goes all Bellingcrap:
Doctors reject 'error-filled' Harvard paper.
Sure are a lot of western medical professionals and politicians working hard to find excuses for their pathetic performance in tackling the coronavirus. Official reports from China in January were good enough for them to get a much better running start than China had to work with.
My granddaughter had flu in mid to late
January in another province in China. Her mom and dad had to take her to the hospital twice to rehydrate her. More cars may just have meant the beginning of flu season. BTW, family is now back in the US.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Always a concern when someone you care about
is sick so far away. With the current travel restrictions is probably a relief to have them stateside.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
I’m glad they are home although medical care here
was underwhelming compared to expectations.
I’m not sure that Covid19 was roaring across China that early. The occurrence of flu may have disguised the early cases of Covid19. And I know of one anecdotal case where a sick person had flu rather than Covid19 in January. We kept thinking that one or more of the family would get it. I can’t say that none has tested positive, because none has been tested. My daughter tested positive for flu, so they wouldn’t test her for Covid19.
China was reluctant to admit the problem as the censured the ophthalmologist who noted the disease shows, but satellite photos of parking lots is really reaching.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
China was NOT reluctant to admit anything.
They reported on what they had in a timely fashion to WHO and other countries, including the US. Sure wish this false claim would go away in favor of the facts.
Li Wenliang wasn't a whistleblower -- he merely shared reports by doctors in Wuhan that were trying to figure out what they were seeing. This was outside his specialty and erroneously passed along that it was a SARS outbreak. A virus that impacted China and still scares them. With that very early information, he wasn't astute enough to figure out how to protect himself. Li as a whistleblower is the story that westerners want to tell themselves and use as evidence that China covered-up the outbreak to better insulate them from criticism for their pathetic handling of the pandemic.
Our Scientific Journals and Institutions are showing
how they are influenced by more than scientific method and quality research. Influencers appear to be getting desperate to control the narrative. The Harvard study was sloppy, yet showed up as a major headline in multiple news venues.
The Lancet retracted their recent article on recent article on hydroxychloroquine
The New England Journal of Medicine an article on blood pressure medications in Covid-19 submitted by the same company, Surgisphere.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
Sad state of affairs -- at one time
- not providing the date was a giant red flag. Bad data, generally unverified or unreplicated, is what fueled the anti-vaxxer movement. How much time and how many research dollars were squandered on the non-existent link between autism and vaccines? My guess is that HCQ for treatment of COVID-19 will end up in that same trash bin.
China has 83,064 COVID-19 cases and 4,634 deaths. TCM was administered to almost all of those patients. Not seeing/hearing any demands from the public or health care professionals to import TCM for COVID-19 patients or even to investigate it for effectiveness. Why is that?
It's time for some country to invade the United States -
[video:https://youtu.be/wlrUbLcUQqQ]
Canadian racism with a smile, you wouldn't like that
I love this guy, Trevor Noah. Have fun.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Why would we want British Crown to have more control?
Or the country sending Tar Sand oil across our lands in pipelines? TC Energy (Calgary, based company) could complete the Keystone XL pipeline to send even more Tar Sand oil to Texas refineries and ports.
We need to take care of our own health and health care system. It is always trying to shift the responsibility to another entity is part of our problem.
edited: added link
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
heh, relax, Noah is a comedian, and you tell me
you fear the British Crown? That's sounds funny to me.I can't say anything in response. And then you could always call the Spanish Armada for help...
Relax if you can. In all seriousness, you are a sweetheart and I hope you take no offense.
Since I am caged in through that damn virus and the politicians, who love to use it for all wicked things, I can't be serious anymore and all that comes out of my mouth has to be spit out.
I saw a documentary about Churchill recently. He was a man one could have feared. But the Crown?
https://www.euronews.com/live
Political humor can be used to diffuse momentum,
redirect focus or introduce new paths of thought. During the the Obama administration The Daily Show creative team were occasionally used to create public speeches. They shifted from using humor to expose truths to using humor to shape opinions for political agendas.
Conservatives will often use "Can't you take a Joke" as a common deflection technique when conversation shifts in an unintended direction.
My grandmother, whose first language was German, would say "I am an eccentric artist, and can say what I want"
Churchill, half American, was allowed to wielded the power of the Crown for a short period of time.
My use of The Crown was in its power structure context. Not the caricature of a poor, misfit dysfunctional family unit who has a hard time fitting into the modern world.
I could call on the Spanish Armada if The Crown's navy had not sunk most of the ships in 1588 and used the following years to become actual and symbolic head of the 54 member states of The Commonwealth.
Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.
True:
And became humorless in the process. It's why George Carlin declined to vote (or pick a side of the duopoly), and never gets old and remains funny long after his passing.
sorry, I shouldn"t have made this comment,
apologies. you are way beyond my pay grade and mine is especially low. I won't try again.
Actually I sense quite a bit of change on C99p. Probably best to retreat.
https://www.euronews.com/live