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Wednesday, July 08, 2009

My dinner with me.

So, this is tonight's supper. Tuna was on sale ($4.99/lb) and I got a mucca slab. I sliced a zuke and a summer squish into thirds--lengthwise--sprinkled on some salt, pepper and italian seasoning, spritzed 'em with olive oil and put 'em on the Forman. I took the tuna out of the fridge, mopped up the leftover olive oil and seasonings on the veggie plate and put that on the grill as well. I'm sure I overcooked the tuna (I want to make sure if I get sick from eating undercooked fish that it happens in a restaurant, so's I can sue somebody!)--it was better than delucious. The veggies were gooey-crisp and fab-U-licious. If I hadn't seen "Big Night" a few years back, I woulda put a few shavings of Parmegiano on the veggies AND the tuna, but as per Tony Shaloub's crazy chef from the aforementioned fillum, no cheese with seafood. I threw a lump of butter on the fish, veggies and rice (I loves me some brown rice that has overcooked just enough to have a nice little crust on the bottom--yum,yum) and then poured the olive oil and red pepper flakes, what had been bathing the olives I had for an appie, over the veggies and rice. A nice glass of Aniston Bay, Cabernet (the one I mentioned last week) and I was a happy guy.

8 comments:

Mr. Mack said...

No cheese on seafood indeed. Wise choice. I, on the other hand, hand some Thai chicken, grilled to perfection after basted with lime, oil,cilantro,garlic,roasted red pepper and so forth. then, me and cricket's boyfriend decided to try our hand at kung Pao, and it rocked!

democommie said...

Did you have "Kung Fu Fightin" goin on in the background?

Richard said...

I met Mrs. Richard for dinner at Wendy's and she enjoyed a jr bacon cheeseburger as I supped on a sumptuous double with cheese, fries and a diet coke. (I know. Why screw around with the diet coke, right?) We split the fries. I didn't take any pictures, though.

democommie said...

Richard that is amazing! I too ate at Wendy's yesterday, for lunch, and I TOO had a jr. bacon cheesburgerz (and some of their chili). I get the seniors discount, without asking, so I guess a date with the 17something serviceperson is out of the question.

Anne Johnson said...

Looks damn good.

Bukko Boomeranger said...

Hey Demo -- May I interject with a comment about your last post on illegal immigrants? I've been on holidays, so I didn't check it out in a timely fashion, and I wanted to put this where you could see it.

I am a migrant labourer. A highly paid, technically skilled one, but still doing what Mexicans do -- going to another country to work there.

I played by the rules to do what I did. I got my paperwork in order so I can legally roam about this country without fear of being deported. And I'm jumping through the hoops to do it again when we immigrate to Canada later this year.

I had a dodgy time Down Under in November of 2006, because my work visa had expired and I didn't know I had to renew it annually. I thought that simply signing a new work contract with my hospital was enough. The personnel person who deals with furrinurses knew better, and the same week that my government work permission slip ran out, she called me and said "Don't come to work until you're legal."

Why did she do that? Because workplaces like my hospital have respect for the law. And because the Aussie government wants to protect its workers, so that government enforces the laws it has about migrant labourers like me. That's fair -- I got my work permit straightened out fast (luckily Mrs. Bukko was on a trip back to the U.S. at the time, or I would never have heard the end of it) and I didn't even miss a day's pay.

I'm not saying all this because I dislike Meskins. When I was in the U.S., I was one of the few Anglo nurses who bothered to learn even a little Espanol, and I bent over backwards to treat every patient nicely. (Same reason I've learned to speak some "medical Italian" here to deal with all the aging paisanos who came to Oz after the war.)

What I dislike is greedy bastard bosses who use illegal immigrant labour to bust American workers' wages. Just like they use cheap imported products to bust American workers' jobs. It's no different here with importing stuff, but at least the Aussies don't import all sorts of labourers to bust the pay scale. I earn as much as the natives do (more than many of 'em, actually, because I've got years more experience).

You mention how illegal immigrants are needed to do the scutwork Americans won't. I say it's not a matter of "won't", it's more like "won't for the shitty wages that the bosses try to get away with paying."

If bosses were offering $100 an hour flat rate to clean toilets or pick strawberries, you'd have lawyers lining up to apply. But if you're offering $1 an hour, you're not going to get anybody but an illegal.

And yeah, if there was enforcement to make sure that Americans got paid living wages to do the work that Mexicans now do, things would cost more. (Same for paying American workers to build cheap plastic crap that now comes from China.) And maybe we'd have to get by with less food 'n stuff, and be more careful with the stuff we have. But on a planet that's running out of everything except humans, using less stuff is not such a bad thing.

People might even start doing some of their own stuff, like trimming their own damn hedges. What a concept!

I'm not saying this because I'm a racist jerkoff like the Minidickman skewered in Teh Gen'l's latest missive. I don't think the U.S. government should go after individual Mexicans as it did under the Bushreich. A few hundred publicised hangings of illegal labour-hiring bosses would make sure they self-police. The Mexicans, and Guatemalans and Irish etc. would find their own ways home when the work dried up.

If the U.S. wants to invite new people in, set a number for each year. Bring in refugees from countries that America has screwed up via invasions. But do it according to the rules, not a slapdash under-the-table sneaky system.

I hate to spout all this, because it puts me on the same side as some ugly fuckers. But if a society is to exist as a cohesive unit, instead of a rabble occupying a designated plot of ground, it can't be free-for-all.

democommie said...

Bukko from Oz:

While I disagree with some or what you wrote, I don't disagree with a lot of it. I think you're correct in saying that "greedy bosses" (I know, I know, it's a generalization) are to blame for a lot of the problem.

I think it's a safe bet that Australia--if it should suddenly find itself with a long, porous land border with a nation of folks who think that they can live like kings if they sneak in--would be dealing with something very similar to what the U.S. is dealing with now.

When I worked in Boston I used to see a lot of immigrants from Ireland, living their lives. There were also a lot of latinos doing the same thing. I never heard anyone talking about "those filthy micks" or complaining that they couldn't speak english (at least not in any way that most americans would be able decipher most of it). Every day, someone would say something to me about the lazy, thieving, leaching sortabrowns.

I know you're not that kind of person. I also know that a lot of people who say that they have nothing against immigrants, as long as they're legal, are just flat out xenophobes.

I'm not a fan of throwing open our borders to anyone who wants to come in but I'm also totally against the knee-jerk jerkoffs whose simplistic solution to problems always involves dispossessing the disenfranchised of their livelihoods.

I gotta go have a pint.

No Blood for Hubris said...

; )