gritty musings...Bright Shiny Pennies

so i read...bunches of stuff...cookbooks, novels, travel, photo, music and literature mags by the metric ton...i read about our world...all of it not just the city...the state...the region ...the nation i live in...i read stuff i don't agree with...i read stuff that's flat out untrue...but i read...i force myself through stuff that's absolute crap so i understand what is motivating people to think the way they do...i am not the sharpest pencil in the pack...more likely a very sharp spoon ...but...i wonder daily why so many of us are so willing to form an opinion from someone Else's mouth...or television appearance...if you read you can also read between the lines...you understand that when G.W. said that he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction...he meant but there were more important reasons to destabilize and control another country...oil...i also know that this group that is blindly slashing the size of government and programs that effect the least of us...

we cannot avoid mother natures little hiccups...earthquakes and the subsequent tsunamis are as unavoidable as they are horrific...but the man made fallout is what is truly frightening...if you are old enough to remember three mile island and Chernobyl...you know that we run the risk of irreparably changing our planet forever with an unchecked nuclear reactor...japan is admittedly years ahead of the U.S. in preparation for the worst case scenario...and we got to see first hand how a certain set of circumstances can create the perfect storm for radiation destruction of a large area...and then to listen to the talking heads say that we are too close to this horrible event to really look at our precautions and preparations...is to say the least ridiculous...years ago when i was a wee lad we fought hard against nuclear reactors...they built one in my backyard...there was no n.i.m.b.y. then ...not in my backyard...but we were fighting against a source of energy that brings with it an unacce

so i don't write that much about the whole chef thing...and by now i hope you get the "mis en place" thing is a veiled reference to the important bits and pieces of our lives...but i still love my profession... that being said i just finished a great article about sustainable seafood...it made me realize that most people don't have any idea what that means to you as a diner in a restaurant...personally i stopped serving "wild seafood" gradually over the past fifteen years...here in florida what became increasingly clear was that the wild fish that people eat were becoming scarcer and more expensive as our appetite for fish grew...coming from philly to florida...the whole fresh fish thing was screwed up anyway...fish came iced in boxes...most was harvested( meaning filleted or steaked and mostly boned)...it came with dock dates which honestly meant very little to me... as long as the fish didn't smell like fish... i took it in and served it...then i got

Its hard to cheer for America these days...i mean i want to, really i do...but the idiots are in charge again...fixated on solving that darn deficit...they gotta cut spending...PBS... see ya...infrastructure maintenance and up keep...vios con dios...that's roads and bridges to you tea potters...i can't put enough pictures up to keep you interested...but what i can cheer for...what is really exciting is that the ignorant and willing... are about to train wreck our nation...scott and rubio in florida turn down a multibillion dollar fast track bullet train...guartenteed to not cost ther tax payers a nickel and provide jobs for the next ten years...but like scott...the racist christian conservatives middle Americans...garbed in the costume of crusading fiscal realists are headed straight into a train wreck with the not so conservative...but we need "our" earmark republicans...they courted these miscreants to take over the house...and now realize they are fucking uninform