A Great Leg of Lamb Recipe

Melissa Clark shows off her marinated, butterflied leg of lamb! We here at Sheepy Hollow know great lamb when we see it.
by Charlie Leck

I’ve raved to you before (probably too often) about the wonders of the NY Times. For me, it would be difficult to live without this remarkable newspaper. It’s simply the greatest newspaper I’ve ever encountered. I no longer can get a real, paper edition delivered way out here to our rural address (the NY Times stopped doing that over two years ago), so I must rely on an Internet subscription to its on-line paper. It’s not as wonderful as turning the pages and getting my fingers ink-stained, but boy, oh boy are those videos you can look at on line spectacular.

For instance, yesterday morning Melissa Clark, who does elegant, elegant food and writes about it for the paper, posted a video of her preparation of a butterflied leg of lamb that looked absolutely spectacular. If you are a lamb lover and you want to try a spectacular grilling recipe, I recommended you click here and go watch this wonderful video. You’ll also learn how to do a very creative cocktail to go with it.

To check out a bunch of Melissa Clark’s absolutely beautiful NY Times videos and recipe ideas, go here! There you’ll find video clips of wonderful sounding things like…

Smoky Eggplant Dip with Pita Chips

Steak with Tomatillo-Pineapple Salsa

Bean Salad with Tomato Vinaigrette

Zucchini Tian with Curried Bread Crumbs

Porchetta-Style Pork Chops

Grilled Sausages and Radicchio

Shakshuka (baked egg dish)

Beans with Bacon

And, by the way, if you try Ms. Clark’s wonderful lamb grilling recipe you may indeed include me on your invitation list.

If you wish to learn more about Sheep Hollow at Native Oaks Farm you may visit its web site!

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Best Newspaper in America

As I sat waiting for my train, I realized I had the New York Times from yesterday in my backpack. What a great way to kill some time.
by Charlie Leck

What a great read the NY Times was this morning (even though it was yesterday’s paper). I read a half-dozen good pieces in half-an-hour and it felt like I’d had a civilized conversation with someone with patience and a willingness to make sure I understood. (I’ll give you links where I can.)

David Brooks, not exactly on the left and not often complimentary of Democrats, had nothing but good things to say about President Obama’s foreign policy (Where Obama Shines).

“It won’t help him win many votes this year, but it should be noted that Barack Obama has been a good foreign policy president. He, Vice President Joseph Biden and Secretary Hillary Clinton and the rest of his team have created a style of policy making that is flexible, incremental and well adapted to the specific circumstances of this moment.”

Brooks goes on to generally heap praise on the way Obama has carefully measured situations and not shot from the hip.

I’ve written the same thing about Obama here and I remain extremely impressed with the work of Secretary of State Clinton. The woman is danged good.

Paul Krugman had a good column called “The Pathos of the Plutocrat.” My wife has been arguing for some time that we’ve become a plutocracy in America. Krugman says we’re close. He builds his column off of an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

Krugman does a good job of explaining why the candidate, Mitt Romney, doesn’t get it about the American economy. Most of the rich, he says, don’t fit this quick, little estimate by Fitzgerald; however, Krugman seems to think that Romney does.

“Clearly, Mr. Romney believed that he could run for president while remaining safe inside the plutocratic bubble and is both shocked and angry at the discovery that the rules that apply to others also apply to people like him. Fitzgerald again, about the very rich: ‘They think, deep down, that they are better than we are.’”

Let’s see those tax returns, Mr. Romney! Let’s see them!

Mark Edmundson wrote a good column about “the trouble with online education.” It boils down to this… “Internet courses are monologues. True learning is a dialogue.”

I guess Edmundson is correct, but I’ve had a lot of fun taking some of those online Yale University Courses and now Stanford is putting a wad of their courses online for us to take a look at – FREE!

An editorial needles the Republicans for not being able to understand a Democrat threat to hold the Congress hostage until the current tax cuts run out and taxes all go up. Democrats are willing to postpone this little deadline if Republicans will only agree to allow taxes to rise for the wealthy. The editorial says that the Democrats might be learning about power games from the Republicans themselves.

But what hit me the hardest were a number of letters castigating the Boy Scouts of America for their position that disallows gays to be scouts. One short letter really nailed it.

“Alas, gay boys who want to wear uniforms and engage in all sorts of outdoor activities will have to wait until they can join the military.” [Kathy Heggemeier, Portsmouth VA]

A front page story covered a number of the legal challenges that are arising over the current voter identity laws that so many states are passing. The piece was written by Ethan Bronner and I’m sure you can find it if you google both his name and “voter id.”

I’ve written here about my opposition to voter id laws. They’re a phony attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise the very, very poor. Republicans simply want to control the nation and they don’t care how they do it. Voter fraud is a really minor problem in America – a very miniscule one at the worst. They’re bad asses, these Republicans in control right now! [Read my blog about the Voter I.D. movement and Poll Taxes.]

There are some really good newspapers in America, like the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, but the best newspaper in America is, hands-down, the New York Times.

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P.S. On his blog, former Minnesota Governor, Arne Carlson, says Jeb Bush would be the best man for the V.P. slot for the Republicans. Arne is probably correct, but I don't think Jeb wants to dirty his hands with the current Republican Party. If he can stay active, and Obama wins in November, Jeb could be a possible leading candidate in 2016. Really! The GOP needs someone with common sense and a more moderate approach to bring old Republicans back in the fold.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Lamb Again

It just so happens I had rack of lamb again
by Charlie Leck [15 May 2007]

Dined with my daughter, Cynthia, at the Hamilton Inn tonight. The inn is in Hamilton, New York, the home of Colgate University, but out in the country a bit. The specialities du jour included mussels maraneire for a starter and a rack of lamb for an entrée. I was unable to resist.

This little blog is an appendage to what I posted here yesterday, in which I wrote about my love for dining on lamb, rated some spots for good lamb in the area where we live, and concluded with a review of the wonderful rack of lamb from the Bernards Inn in New Jersey.

Now I’m told the Hamilton Inn is one of the fine restaurants in the area. They get only a B or B+ from me. The sommelier spilled the wine on opening it and didn’t try to wipe it up from the base of my glass at all; nor did he offer any sort of grunt or apology. Our waitress was genuine and tried, but she was really quite unprofessional. The lamb was good, but not great. Someone failed seasoning 101 when they went to chef school. All of the incredible delectableness of the rack in New Jersey was missing in this rack in New York. The inn provides a lovely setting, however, and it was very comfortable and everything was unhurried and quiet – a perfect place for a productive conversation with one’s grown-up daughter. The setting gets an A for sure.

Just keep scrolling down to read the earlier blog about dining on lamb and, at the end of that blog, you’ll find my restaurant review of my smashing and accidental success in New Jersey.

If Only There Were But Three Stooges

Or, observe the circular firing squad!
by Charlie Leck

Writing with as much wisdom, logic and perception as any writer in America right now, Frank Rich is a pleasure to read. In addition to his solid intelligence, he is a darned good word-smith. He’s a New York Times columnist and those of you who have him available in your local newspapers, and don’t boycott his employer because you think that newspaper is far too liberal, ought to read him regularly. I find him infuriating sometimes because he holds opinions contrary to mine. If you think he leans left, I think you are wrong. The man is a true moderate.

If I were someone trying to understand what is really happening in Washington politics and in this administration and its foreign policy, Rich is the writer I would read. When he says something, he almost always backs it up with clear evidence and/or supporting documentation.

This Sunday morning I followed my usual procedure of sitting for an hour or so with the Internet version of the New York Times. It’s a pleasure I have to pay for since most of the on-line Times is restricted to their paying subscribers. It’s a treat I consider well worth it and I rise very early in the morning so I will have plenty of quiet time to work my way through this massive publication.

Rich wanted to call his column “The Three Stooges;” however he couldn’t limit the number of idiots within the administration to just three.

Bremer, Paul
Bush, George W. (President)
Cheney, Richard (Vice President)
Feith, Douglas
Franks, Tommy (General)
Rice, Condoleezza
Rumsfeld, Donald
Tennant, George
Wolfowitz, Paul

Rich calls it a “circular firing squad of the war’s enablers.” I can’t tell if he includes Condi Rice, our esteemed Secretary of State, in this circle of goof-balls. His standard seems to be that these guys all finally figured out that the war in Iraq was a great, catastrophic mistake, but they are too spineless to admit it. He points out that the only member of the inner circle to show such courage was Matthew Dowd, a Dick Cheny aide, “who in March expressed remorse for furthering a war he now deems a mistake.” For his admission, Dowd was characterized by the administration as a mental case who couldn’t stand the pressure of war.

Somehow Colin Powell escapes inclusion in the circle of fools. There’s no doubt that Powell was so admired, as both a General and as Secretary of State, that we all want to believe he was simply used by the idiots to make a case for this war. Rich, however, saves a poignant, deserving comment about Powell

“Nonetheless, Mr. Powell should summon the guts to do so [take some responsibility for the mistakes that led to this war]. Until there is accountability for the major architects and perpetrators of the Iraq war, the quagmire will deepen. A tragedy of this scale demands a full accounting, not to mention a catharsis.”

Rich mines deeply in this column. He includes references and citations to everything he says.

The columnist saves his heavy guns for Condoleezza Rice. She tries to escape the truth of her involvement in promoting this war as just and necessary. She can’t. There are too many statements of record out there. In January this year, Rice was promising us that "over the next two to three months" Iraq will move forward on several significant fronts, including approving an oil revenue-sharing law; reversing the de-Baathificaion laws;... and reforming the country's constitution." Uh? What? None of these has been achieved or is close to being achieved 4 months later. As National Security Advisor, Rice helped sell this war and she needs to be held responsible as much as anyone.

And only this past week did President Bush continue the appeal that the war was against "the perpetrators of our 9/11 disaster." There is hardly anyone left in America foolish enough to believe that canard.

“The decision we face in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said Wednesday, “is not whether we ought to take sides in a civil war, it’s whether we stay in the fight against the same international terrorist network that attacked us on 9/11.”

"Such statements about the present in Iraq are no less deceptive — and no less damaging to our national interest — than the lies about uranium and Qaeda- 9/11 connections told in 2002-3. This country needs facts, not fiction, to make its decisions about the endgame of the war, just as it needed (but didn’t get) facts when we went to war in the first place. To settle for less is to make the same tragic error twice."

I find it amazing – utterly astonishing – that members of the administration don’t understand that they have a responsibility to present a full accounting to Congress, and thus to the American people, of the steps that led up to this war. Instead, they continue to stonewall and utter nonsense about “Separation of Powers.”

As Rich wrote:

“If former or incumbent national security advisers like Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski could testify before Congress without defiling the Constitution, so can she.”

In another column in the Sunday New York Times, a guest columnist, George Prochnik, wrote:

“Near the conclusion of “Civilization and Its Discontents,” Freud wrote, 'One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man’s judgments of value follow directly his wishes for happiness — that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments.' Be afraid of the leader who refuses to look in the mirror, Freud argued — or, he might have added, the one who says he won’t 'go on the couch' to reflect upon earlier policy decisions, as President Bush memorably declared in 2004.”

That, my friends, says it all about these incredible stooges.