Available exclusively at the Silver Lake Café, Silver Lake, Minnesota
Volume II, Issue 3
*****The Green, Green Grass of Home
I must be getting cranky in my old age, because I feel like airing out another pet peeve today. This time it’s about lawns. I’m about to go out and mow mine and I’m sure that my neighbors think that it’s about time. There are a few dandelions that have gone to seed in the back yard. Some people around here think that is nearly as grievous an offense as armed robbery. However, I believe that my reasons for having a more natural yard are at least as valid as those for keeping a weed-free expanse of uniform well-watered grass. Please allow me to explain.
My back yard is frequented by squirrels, birds, chipmunks, butterflies and the occasional raccoon or possum. These beautiful animals lived here hundreds and thousands of years before this house was built. There’s a big mound of ants out by the fence. Their colony works hard to survive. Earthworms and pillbugs live under the woodpile. My daughter finds four-leafers in the clover patches that are scattered in patches among the bluegrass. The oak trees seem to actually discourage grass from growing around the base of their trunks. I love all of these things, and I don’t see any way that a grass monoculture would be an improvement.
A creek runs nearby. Every time it rains, pesticides and fertilizers run off into it. The fertilizers encourage weed growth, changing the habitat from its natural state and encouraging invasive species at the expense of the natives. By the fall, the creek is choked with rotting vegetation. Pesticides are even worse, because they persist a lot longer. They accumulate in fish, so that it is unwise to eat the fish. They disperse into the environment, invisible to the eye but wreaking subtle havoc in a million ways. Companies selling these products promote them as being environmentally safe, supporting their absurd claim with the notion that the new products are not nearly as bad as the old ones used to be. I don’t buy that BS and I don’t want to contribute to polluting the creek.
However, I don’t condemn those who keep a neat lawn. I just wish that they’d reconsider their lawn chemical use, and also consider that we natural lawn people have our own reasons for doing what we do. -- Larry Yost
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*****Spuds
Helen didn’t like my column in the last issue – said that she would write something more wholesome this time to make up for it. So we made a deal. She’ll write a column and I’ll limit myself to cooking tips. Here goes. I like potatoes, because they have no bones. Dan Quayle had a hard time spelling patatoe, and so do I. You say poe-ta-toe and I’ll say pah-tah-toe. When grilling, I used to make Retrum podatoes all the time: slice a bunch of washed spuds, microwave them until mostly cooked, roll in aluminum foil with onions and butter, grill until crispy next to the foil, eat. Now I usually make the much simpler Garrigan potatoews: boil a bunch of washed potatoes, place directly on grill for about ten minutes, eat. Garrigan potadoes are much less work and the leftovers are great for hash browns. Speaking of hash browns, me and my old buddy Pete have been having hash brown cooking contests for at least thirty years. I always tell him that mine are better than his, but I know in my heart that his are better. You’re the greatest, Pete! --Patrick McMahon
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*****Chocolate Soft Tacos / Chocolate Tortillas:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa 1/4 cup milk 2 egg whites 1/4 cup mild olive oil 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract 1/4 tsp salt Beat all ingredients until smooth. Cover and chill at least 2 hours, or overnight. Heat a non stick skillet over medium-high heat. Add a pat of butter to hot skillet if desired. Pour in a little less than 1/4 cup of batter and tilt pan quickly to spread batter into an even circle. Once the edges look dry (2 or 3 minutes), flip it and cook another minute or two on the other side. Drape the chocolate soft taco over a rack. Serve with fresh fruit for the filling, the best being sliced strawberries or raspberries and a scoop of coordinated fruit sorbet. (Personally I prefer a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, a drizzling of chocolate syrup, and a small scoop of chocolate almond ice-cream. Yum!) Garnish with a spring of mint. Serves 10. -- Lisa A. Dauscher
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*****Stop the War
Usually I try to keep the Gazette focused on light and uplifting topics. That’s a good idea when you run a restaurant – controversy is generally bad for the digestion. However, I can no longer keep quiet about the war in Iraq. I’ve tried ignoring it and going about my daily business, as if it was a fairy tale about starving children in India. But, the fact of the matter is that our actions have purposely killed thousands of Iraqi’s (aka insurgents, aka brothers and sons, aka Iraqi patriots) and accidentally led to the death of tens of thousands more (aka collateral damage, aka women and children). As a citizen of the United States, the evil that is being done there is being done in my name.
Part of the problem is that there is a political-economic line of thinking that would like to keep the U.S. military in Iraq for an indefinite period. Right now, the government is building many large permanent bases in Iraq to pursue this policy. They say that we will leave when Iraq is safe and stable. However, there probably hasn’t been a safe and stable Iraq in the eight centuries since the capital was moved from Babylon to Baghdad.
It’s sad to have to point this out, but the Iraq war is not the same as the war on terror. It never was. We were lied to before it started and we are being lied to now.
“How many deaths will it take ’til we know that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.”
The reality is that we will leave at some point. The days of overt military colonialism are gone. The Iraqis will force us out like Afganistan did to the USSR, like Vietnam did to us, like we did to the British, like Algeria did to the French, like the Arabs did to the Crusaders, and so on and so on. The only question is when. The facts on the ground say that things are not getting better. Americans and Iraqis keep killing each other at a steady rate. I say the time to get out is now. -- Larry Yost
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Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
--Jesus
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*****From The Past -- Historical news items gleened from the morgue of the defunct Silver Lake Pioneer-Commercial
August 13, 1931 – 75 years ago Three bandits with guns held up the Poplar River-Greyhound bus between Silver Lake and Brownton on its last trip Tuesday night and took 21 pouches of first class mail. Mr. and Mrs. L.M. Kittleson who stopped their car in passing to see if the bus had broken down, were compelled to get into the bus and wait until the mail pouches had been transferred from the bus to the bandit car. The feel of the cold muzzle of a revolver on the back of his neck was the first intimation Herbert Beechcraft, the bus driver, received that anything was wrong. Two of the bandits had gotten on the bus in Glen Falls; another one waited in a car parked two miles east of Silver Lake. There was one other passenger. They did not rob or harm the passenger or Mr. and Mrs. Kittleson. Postal authorities working in connection with Sheriff Noble Petron and representatives of the bus line endeavored Wednesday to ascertain the number of registered letters containing any money in the pouches. It is generally believed that the purpose of the bandits was to get at express shipments, not the mail. The express was carried on a truck that drove by the bus while the hold-up was in progress. Oops! -- compiled by Mrs. Trygve Strindberg
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*****My Daughter’s Bedroom
One of the things I miss most about our old house since moving into a smaller place is my daughter’s bedroom. She’s 25 now, and nearly independent. Still, I miss the days when she and I would sit in her room and talk. Some people think that parents should not be friends with their children, because it gets in the way of being parents. Whatever the case, my daughter Laura is my best friend. When she first moved out on her own we’d talk on the telephone everyday, and usually several times a day. Until we moved to Silver Lake almost two years ago, we lived nearby to her apartment in La Jolla so we’d see her almost every week. Now we’re 2,000 miles apart and down to one phone call each week: Sunday nights at eight. We talk about everything, but mostly about her. She has a new boyfriend (Jason), her car was in the shop this week, she Jason are driving up to L.A. this weekend to see a concert and lie on the beach at Santa Monica, her company is flying her to Austin for computer training, she’s been to three weddings already this summer with three more to go, she went with her brother to see Pirates of the Caribbean, and so on, and so on. As good as these telephone conversations are, I missed lying side by side with her on her twin bed and laughing about Dustin’s duct-taped shoes in junior high, hearing about how much she liked and admired her female algebra teacher, and comforting her when she missed the bus trip to the regional soccer tournament when she had the flu. I use these memories for self therapy. If I’m uptight or having a bad day, I just find a comfortable place to sit. Then I close my eyes and takes a few deep breathes. Pretty soon I’m mentally transported next to my barefoot daughter, who is laying on her back giggling. --- Helen Yost