MUSSELS FOR LUNCH

Many staples of my youth are epicurean delights today. Snails and mussels, for example.

We were an Italian family. My mother had been born in Italy. The cooking definitely Italian.

The snails are now known as escargot. Fancy!

At home, prepared differently than today. My mother would boil the snails in a large pan. The pan had to be large. The snails would try to climb up the sides to get out. The cooked snails were then placed in a huge spaghetti bowl. Sauce poured over. Toothpicks used to snare the snail from the shell.

Mussels. The mussels of today the same as the mussels of yesterday. Boiled. Covered with a tomato or buttery sauce. Bread dunking to clean the plate.

There was a third dish. Tripe. I hated tripe. Most must have. You rarely if ever see it on a menu today. Tripe is a cow’s stomach wall.

My Mother loved tripe. She cooked it. I had to eat it. Ugh!

I enjoyed mussels yesterday at lunch. At Salute’s. Best mussels in town!

I do not eat at Salute’s enough. Don’t know why. Food outstanding. Located on the beach, the view spectacular. Especially of the bikini clad ladies. At my age, the best that can be.

Last night a Chart Room one. Sat at the corner of the bar. Chatted with John.

Two ladies from Des Moines, Iowa seated at the round table. John, I and the ladies chatted away.

Laura and Lisa. Sixtyish. Attractive. One a widow, one divorced. Staying at the Pier House. Leave this morning.

Laura works for an insurance company as a workmen’s comp adjuster. Lisa in logistics for a trucking company.

Everyone expects to enjoy a little deviance in Key West. The ladies were interested where on Pier House property could they have sun bathe topless. I advised not on the main beach. Just to the right, however. under the overhang.

Next year, they will!

This morning’s Key West Citizen ran an article advising that the Navy is training four bottlenose dolphins in Key West waters for a month. The dolphins being trained in underwater detection. Apparently, dolphins are natural discovers of certain type weaponry buried underwater beneath the sand.

I have a dolphin family living in the waters off my house. Used to be four. Down to two now. If I am out on the deck as the sun rises, they will be all of 50 feet away looping up and down in the water.

Big night tomorrow! Don’t forget! The Big Sea Battle. The Conch Republic taking on the forces of the United States. Seven from Mallory Square to Schooner Wharf.

Thirty one years ago yesterday on April 26, 1986, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine suffered a chemical explosion. Big time bad time. Fifty tons of radioactive material released into the atmosphere.

In 2000, a mother came to me with her baby girl. Eight months old. Lovely. Bubbly. The child had been born with half an arm on one side. The left arm ended just above where the elbow would have been.

Turned out her husband had been working 15 miles from Chernobyl at the time of the event. I did a little digging. The baby was born with one arm missing as a result of the Chernobyl incident.

The mother was not in the area. The father was. It had been established medically that male semen for years thereafter had been affected.

A situation! The father refused to accept it was his semen that was responsible. The mother always crying as her husband beat on her and in her desire to protect/help their daughter.

I tried to put the case together. Beyond my experience and capabilities. Worked with experts in New York, London and Milan.

Sadly, we could not do it. For a number of reasons not pertinent to this portion of the story.

The Trump tax cut that is being bandied about the past 24 hours confuses me. Republicans for years have been decrying the national debt. Has to come down!!! All they would say. No, not say. Shout!

The proposed plan will increase the national debt anywhere from $3-10 trillion over the next ten years.

The Republicans are quiet.

Enjoy your day!

11 comments on “MUSSELS FOR LUNCH

  1. The Navy has used/trained Dolphins for decades for warfare purposes. They are very sensitive to radiation and magnetic changes. I[and others] believe its why they and whales get their navigation systems screwed up and end up where they shouldn’t be at times. Many groups over the years have thought this use of them by the Navy was cruel and unusual.

    I agree about the Tripe. Mussels and Squid in sauce is great, but, I draw the line at eating anything that walks on its own slime.

    There seems to be a lot of speculation about our President’s budget and tax cuts or anything else. What else do talking heads do but speculate.

    I guess its been proven that radiation can cause deformities and is not a good thing, but, it is increasingly used to cure certain ailments. Trying to prove a specific deformity was caused by specific source of radiation, let alone any form of radiation, I would think would be impossible.

  2. Louis, that was delightful to blog read about your mom and the mussels cooking. I recall in the 60s going clam digging on Cape Cod though the locals called them cohogs…?? Then cooking them in a very big pot full of salt water. Those were the days…

  3. “The proposed plan will increase the national debt anywhere from $3-10 trillion over the next ten years.

    The Republicans are quiet.”

    It will save Trump millions personally, need I say more….really?

      • OK! the tax cut is geared to the top 1% so they profit further at the expense of the Middle Class. I say this as they prepare to terminate the Employer provided health care exemption at the same time they are watering down health care regulations to allow insurers to profit more from lesser service. Ending the Estate tax only benefits multi-millionaires.

        Yes, Trump and his billionaires do very well. But show me exactly how a middle class family now in the 25% tax bracket ends up either the same (at best) or paying MORE damn taxes under TrumpTax? The doubling of the standard deduction is LESS reduction than current itemizing in that bracket and the bracket does NOT change under TrumpTax.

        Now you explain:

  4. No explaination needed. All I read is more speculation from the left play book.

    I’ll just wait and see which is all one can do. Nothing yet has been finalized with health care or taxes, but, I like what I’ve seen so far. I’m happy to pay less for health care and taxes but it hasn’t happened yet and won’t for awhile. But, ending the estate tax does not only help the wealthy.
    And, wow, its just amazing to me how dirty the air and water have become during the past 100 days. Yep, I don’t dare go for a swim or breathe without my respirator today. I actually see more work trying to be done to help the fossil fuel and coal industry stay alive in this country while continuing to reduce emissions and attempts to get other nations that actually have the highest emissions to reduce theirs. Its not just about our country.

    I’ve already gone on too far.

    • I agree climate change is as much about India and China today as the US. But for Trump to deny the science and scrub environmental regulations meant to keep the air and water clean, even regulations based on what BP did to the Gulf is incredibly stupid and shortsighted and an obvious sell-out to the Koch Brothers and fossil fuel industry to allow them to profit more.

      Take your right-wing blinders off for a minute, mute Fox & Friends and explain to me, based on Trump’s ONE page tax sheet (hardly a plan) where the average Joe saves anything? And btw, Trump has had months and months to come -up with a tax plan so where is it? Just like the Republicans and a real HUGH and great alternative to the ACA, they literally had EIGHT years to produce their plan, where is that?

      What few cards they have shown will quadruple health insurance premiums for people who are sick and ill, the elderly and throw 24 million people into no insurance at all. How is that progress?

      And how is the proposal to TAX employer-sponsored health care not a major NEW tax on the working stiff who luckily had health insurance? I don’t think the average Joe has figured that one out yet and I am sure Trump will immediately blame Obama as a smoke screen.

      But you gotta pay for those 7 million dollar plus estates going tax free don’t you? So why not dump those costs on the dumb working masses, they vote for you anyway so stick it to them.

  5. Some environmental regulations are over restrictive, but, I’ve not seen any that were discarded. There comes a time when enough is enough. Our environment was far dirtier millions of years ago than today, science has proven that. Our environment is far cleaner than it was 40-50 years ago. Nixon saw to that with the creation of the EPA. The EPA has just become a monster over the decades. There is a point of far demising returns. Our climate will change no matter what, it always has.
    Mr Trump understands the climate will change. It has to, thats its job. It has been changing since the big bang and will continue to do so.
    ACA was deemed a tax. A tax that hasn’t worked. There is nothing yet to replace it and I blame both sides.
    Nothing has been done with a tax revision. Just talking heads doing what they do best, talking. Cuomo claiming the new revisions will increase the taxes on the NYC wealthy by 40%. Schumer claiming they will destroy the middle class. I’m waiting to see what might go for a vote before condemning anything.
    Of course the left will complain about anything this man wants to do.

    • Last time I checked last year the right was complaining about anything the man (then Obama) wants to do. So it appears your party obfuscates just as much as the Democrats.

      I do not have the space nor time just to list all the environmental protections Trump wants to nix for big business. I concur, we probably do have more regulations than necessary and some overreach. But now with the hard right in control we will swing way to far to deregulation both environmentally and financially, setting-up the future BP Gulf Disasters and 2008 Great Recessions of our future.

      One example, Trump eliminated the rule that kept coal mining companies from dumping their polluted sludge and slag into streams and waterways. Such dumping is stupid and dumb as it ultimately pollutes both surface and groundwater. But the miners saw a chance to avoid some costs and dump and Trump obliged. The well water downstream of the big mines is gonna start to smell funny real soon.

      And all for an industry that employs 22,000 people. Where is his solar and wind initiatives? Industries that employ 400,000 people with good jobs of the future? Don;t see any as he is in the pocket of fossil fuel, just as his Secretary of State.

  6. So it appears your party obfuscates just as much as the Democrats.
    end quote

    Well, we have something we can certainly agree on !

    I’ve never been a fan of politics or politicians, they, like lawyers, have made themselves a necessary evil. Hmm, seems like most politicians are lawyers. so, they must have an eye or 2 or 3 kept on them at all times.

    I think some EPA regs should be relaxed, but, I doubt the ones that are will cause harm. i doubt the water or air will be allowed to be more polluted. To my thinking some of the greatest pollution comes from farming and I think some are just starting to realize that.

    Certain areas of our country rely on the coal industry. Finding ways to keep it viable I think are good. Coal can be made to burn clean, or, cleaner. Plus, we need oil and coal for the next 20-30 years until other sources are viable. I’m not a big fan of wind until bladeless generators are put use. Millions of migratory birds are killed by them each year. Solar is becoming viable but still has a long payoff period and by then the panels need replacing. Remember Solindra ? About the only way solar is viable for homeowners is with the federal incentive. To my thinking why should you’re tax dollars help pay for my solar panels.

    At this point I believe natural gas is the best fuel we have. Even the trucking companies that have converted from diesel to NG are glad they did. Drilling for it is as safe as any drilling can be when done by a responsible company. All the complaints of water contamination I looked at turned out to be unfounded and I was involved in a couple. NYS [ liberal democratic] has determined it to be safe as has the EPA, yet some states have still kept moratoriums in place. The ‘dangerous chemicals’ are no longer used as advancements have made.

    In the end, I’m not going to convince you and you’re not going to change my mind. I prefer to deal with facts. But, I’m sure you believe you’re dealing with facts also. So we could probably have more fun sitting and arguing, err, discussing, these over a few beers.

    • Agreed Patrick. And the sun is going to out tomorrow and you and I will be enjoying it.

      When I’m down the Keys way I’ll look you up for the few beers. You pick the place as a local :).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *