Gunsmoke and Knitting

I find it difficult to believe that men last walked on the moon over 35 years ago. And now the space shuttle program is ending. It seems a whole lot of the gee whiz has gone out of the United States’ consciousness, and I miss it.

We have been mired in a dark age beset the plagues of war and terrorism, H1N1, AIDS, health care (can’t seem to find an answer) reform, global climate stuff, economic greed and mismanagement, etc.

When we felt we were on the forefront of scientific discovery, it was an exciting time.

Anyway, here’s kind of a cool thing. This story was in the paper today about a new design for a supersonic airplane (we can rebuild it – bigger, faster, quieter, greener) that will be tested in the NASA wind tunnels in Cleveland.

I keep hoping that warp technology is also being worked on and that it will appear in this timeline, not some alternative one.

Dr. Zefram Cochrane: So you’re all astronauts on some sort of… star trek?

From the UK this green post:
Cops based near Oxford in the UK have revealed that they are unable to to use flashing blue lights on their new electric car – in case it drains too much power from the battery.

Since this blog is Gunsmoke and Knitting here’s a little knitting giggle from Extermaknit.

Please – go to Sparrow’s blog and vote for my haiku:

What am I doing
Without books, schedule, map, clothes
Anxiety dream!

Sparrow’s topic was sleep, but mine has been hampered this week by the haiku punch line above.

. . . are carbohydrates. However, I am off them for a while. Operating on the principle that someone else’s diet has all the fascination of a – hmm, there are really a lot of things that are not the least bit fascinating and some that can make me go screaming out of the room – so I will not mention the word d**t again.

Instead, I am offering up The Best Cookie You Have Ever Eaten.

I am not kidding.

Anytime I make these everyone says, “this is the best cookie I have ever eaten.”

Here goes:
3/4 cup shortening – I use Crisco, NOT butter or margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
3 cups regular, long-cooking rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chunks – chopped up Easter bunnies work well
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cherries

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the shortening and sugars. When well blended, add the egg. Mix in the egg, then add the water and vanilla. Add the salt, soda and flour all together and mix. Add one cup of oats – mix. Add the chocolate chunks – mix. Add the second cup of oats – mix. Add the white chocolate chips – mix. Add the third cup of oats – mix. Add the dried cherries and mix them in.

I bake them on heavy baking pans lined with parchment paper.

I roll the cookies into big balls with my hands. The unbaked cookies are probably bigger than a golf ball, but smaller than a tennis ball.

Place them a couple of inches apart on the baking pan and bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Cool on the pan for a few minutes then place on a cooling rack.

I don’t have a problem giving out the recipe. It is based on the original Quaker Oats recipe that they have now changed.

Often, after someone tastes these cookies and says these are the best, etc., they ask for the recipe. Occasionally, after I give out the recipe the recipient will say, “Oh, do you think these will taste the same if I,” pick one:
a. don’t use shortening
b. cut back on the sugar
c. make them smaller

No! They will not taste the same and, in my opinion, they will not be The Best Cookie You Have Ever Eaten. But go – improvise away. These cookies, however, really are the best.

I came across this New York Times article today about some of the neolithic artifacts that are found in southwestern England. When taking a driving tour through the area several years ago, I came upon Avebury and was similarly impressed by the ancient standing stones sitting right in the middle of the little village. Had lunch in a pub across the road from the standing stones (mac and cheese and mushy peas).

For such a small country, it still has numerous relatively wild areas that evoke strong allusions to literature and history. On the same trip I drove past Lorna Doone’s family church on a narrow strip of road bounded closely with thick hedgerows, and I was thankful that no one was coming the other way.

I walked Glastonbury Tor and was fooled by the sheep on the hillside – real sheep, faux standing stones.

Isn’t that a nice photo of the Tor. Even without all of the ghosts and mysticism people impose on this area, the weight of history really is impressive.

1. Really cool geeky science animation from the University of Utah.

2. When I was a kid and was learning to sew we would go buy “material.” At some point the same stuff became “fabric.” When did that happen and how come?

3. I can think of a lot of things that would be nice to have in a car, but what the one thing that would probably make me the most happy is a place to put a kleenex box. That shouldn’t be too hard.

4. Can someone tell me . . . . Let me start again. I don’t often read popular magazines, but last time I was in the library, a copy of Vogue, or something like that was on the table in front of me. So I looked at it and I found a lot of advertisements (mostly advertisements), but one caught my attention. It was for a fragrance called Jack Black. I have heard of the actor, and although he may be a peach of a fellow, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to smell like any of the characters he has portrayed. Or is there another person by the same name who doesn’t conjure up the image of eau de sweat socks? I am so clueless in these matters.

Was coming home from the shooting range at about 10:00 the other evening and stopped to get fuel. I noticed that the rear tire was low and pulled over to the machine to put in some air. It turns out that the tire wasn’t low; it was flat.

I called road service and the agent said that someone would be there in about an hour. I was about to settle in for the wait when I realized that not only was my spare tire in the trunk, so were 4 hand guns, 3 long guns, several hundred rounds of ammunition, and 80 pounds of kitty litter.

Oh well. My task was to get the guns out of the trunk and under cover in the back seat without anyone getting too curious about what I was doing.

Bottom line, road service came quickly, no one called the cops, and I found out I had a brand new, full sized spare (who knew). Like I said, it could ‘a been worse.