Hallelujah!

Asked to resign were Senior Vice President Betsy West, who supervised CBS News primetime programs; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and HowardÂ’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was terminated. [emphasis mine]

. . . once serious questions were raised, the defense of the segment became more rigid and emphatic, and . . . virtually no attempt was made to determine whether the questions raised had merit

'Had this directive been followed promptly, the panel does not believe that 60 Minutes Wednesday would have publicly defended the segment for another 10 days,' the report said.

i wonder if the words "blog" or "Powerline" appear anywhere.

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Brad and Jen have finally split.

i called it months ago. Didn't i call it?

Hollywood's dream couple, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, are breaking up after just 4-1/2 years of marriage.

The hunky star of 'Troy' and the most popular of television's 'Friends' now say they'll remain - you guessed it -'friends.'

. . .

'We would like to announce that after seven years together we have decided to formally separate,' they said in a joint statement issued to People Magazine.

'For those who follow these sorts of things, we would like to explain that our separation is not the result of any of the speculation reported by the tabloid media.["]

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If today isn't a day for the comfort lunch, i don't know what is. Dark clouds, cold rain, wind, hangovers, and the unspoken subtext of impending grade announcements have quieted our little house of mirth here in the Big Valley. Times like this call for - no require - a grilled cheese and tomato soup lunch.

i still remember the afternoon my grandmother (on the German side, the midwestern side) disclosed to me to the secrets of her famous grilled cheese sandwich. She had a big house in the country, with chickens, ducks and bunnies in the back yard, and a big pyramid-shaped strawberry planter in the front.

(A short aside. My grandmother had a vegetable garden too. Besides the usual carrots, cabbage, potatoes, green onions, tomatoes and broccoli, she grew a thing called kohlrabi. It's a relative of the brussels sprout and cabbage family, with a fine German heritage. i must have been about six or seven when she cooked it for me and my brother during one of our weeklong rustic summer holidays (our parents would drop us off to get us out of their hair). i've never had or seen kohlrabi since, but the memory of it is bound tightly with my memories of Grandma and that garden. Now that's a comfort food.)

She also made the best italian salad dressing. But my grandmother's take on the classic grilled cheese was simple, which is as it should be. i've tinkered with it over the years, but the essentials are still there. Assemble these items:

• two slices of sharp cheddar or muenster cheese


• two slices of bread, wheat or white or my favorite: dill rye


• dash of fresh ground pepper


• dash of cayenne pepper


• margarine or butter


• about four thin slices of ham, or bacon

It's not about the ingredients, it's about technique.

First spread a thin coat of margarine over one side of each slice of bread. (Grandma always used real butter, of course.) Make sure to spread the margarine out to the edges of the crust. There should be no bare spots. You want the entire side of the bread covered because this will be the side of the bread that gets grilled.

Next lay the bread out, margarine side down, and cover each piece of bread with enough cheese that you can't see any bread underneath. If you're slicing the cheese, it should be medium thickness. Not too thick, but thick enough so some of it will melt out of the sandwich. the cheese will be doing two things here: enveloping the meat, and occasionally dripping onto the grill to create bits of fried cheesy crusty goodness.

Arrange whatever meat you're using on top of one piece of bread. The proper technique at this step is to create air pockets in the meat (if you're using thin sliced ham) for the cheese to melt into. i bunch up the ham into little flowerets to achieve this purpose. The ham should never be laid flat, because that just makes for a boring sandwich.

Now heat a nonstick pan until little drops of water splashed from your fingertips dance happily for a moment before evaporating. Keep the pan on medium heat. This recipe is not recommended for electric stovetops, because temperature control is the key to a perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

You might want to start the soup now. Campbell's tomato soup should be heated to a simmer, but never boiled. i like to add a half can of water only, although the instructions call for a whole can. Sometimes i'll mix in a dash of white pepper, and i garnish it with a sprinkle of dried oregano.

Back to the sandwich: sprinkle fresh ground pepper and cayenne pepper over the slice of bread with cheese on it, then carefully flip that slice over onto the slice with the ham. When the pan is ready, slap the sandwich down onto it making a "thwump" sound. It should immediately start to sizzle. The "thwump" and the sizzle are important; it's part of the whole comfort thing.

Do not leave the stove, while cooking. You need to peek under the sandwich and check its color constantly. A side is done when it's golden brown and speckled, never black. The pan should be hot enough to melt the cheese thoroughly, but not burn the bread. Too low, and you get a soggy sandwich. Too hot and it gets black on the outside before the cheese in the middle melts. Adjust the flame as needed.

Grilling the sandwich right is a slow and loving process. The perfect medium temperature is achieved with practice, when the globs of cheese reach down and begin frying on the pan at the exact moment that the first side is the perfect color, you have mastered the art of the grilled cheese.

After flipping, grill the other side until it's golden color matches the first side. Now for the fun part. Slide that baby onto a plate and, before eating, spread a thin coat of real horseradish (not cream sauce) over one side. Slice diagonally, park yourself on your favorite couch near your favorite coffee table, cuddling in your favorite comfort blanket, flip on the TV tuned to HGTV or some other favorite comfort program, and enjoy with soup.

Update: Here's a switch; i post a recipe, while the multi-talented Candace posts a poem!

Update 2: SWG brings us another grilled comfort food, for Elvis Day.

Posted by: annika at 10:06 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Sweet. I can't really think of a specific comfort food I pull out for official occasions, but I can think of a specific comfort food instance: 5th grade. Football game on a cold, wet, windy, miserable day. We got beat pretty good, and I got into a fight just after the final whistle(totally wasn't my fault!). The opposing coach ran out and body slammed me away from his kid(who I was fighting), and I rolled onto the wet ground(again, for about the 50th time that day). As I lay in the mud, I was completely cold, wet, muddied, grass-stained, miserable, defeated, adrenalized from the fight, and generally rattled from being body slammed by a full-grown adult-- to the point where the tears were freely flowing. First, my Mom charged off the sidelines and gave that Coach the what-for. This was notable, as this was not her usual behavior. Second, when we got home, by the time I got showered and into some dry clothes, she had cooked me a steak(such a treat!), which I enjoyed at the table in our toasy warm kitchen. That was a COMFORTING meal. She was my hero for that day.

Posted by: gcotharn at January 08, 2005 11:49 AM (+7VNs)

2 One more thing-- which is the fun thing about memory: If you've every paid attention to a football fight, you know its hard for either participant to really hurt the other guy, due to the equipment each is wearing. As I wrote the above, I thought about the brief fight after that 5th grade game. Whether its true or not, in my memory: I WAS KICKING THAT GUY'S ASS!

Posted by: gcotharn at January 08, 2005 11:53 AM (+7VNs)

3 Fuck, that's an entire cooking channel episode. My variations are slight. I love Orowheat's Rosemary and Garlic bread. There are real chunks of garlic in it. And, NOTHING, NOTHING, can be substituted for butter. Kohlrabi? Visit the vegtable section of almost any grocery store.

Posted by: Casca at January 08, 2005 12:43 PM (cdv3B)

4 MAN. I just finished dinner and was feeling completely sated 'till I read this. Now I really want a grilled cheese sandwich. THANKS A LOT! No, seriously, maybe that'll be lunch tomorrow. This recipe looks really good.

Posted by: lorie at January 08, 2005 06:02 PM (kH2V3)

5 Are you competing for best food blog?

Posted by: Ontario Emperor at January 08, 2005 10:16 PM (QcVcB)

6 That is just perfect! You've got me salivating for a grilled cheese sandwich and Campbells tomato soup in a big way. I have to try that sometime. That's the fanciest grilled cheese sandwich I've heard of.

Posted by: Desert Cat at January 08, 2005 11:31 PM (c8BHE)

7 Oh, even with my cold, I am hungry now...

Posted by: Hugo at January 09, 2005 06:04 PM (VqTF3)

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My hits have more than tripled from people googling for information about Ashley Simpson getting booed at the Orange Bowl. People really don't like her. Of course, her career will go on; the powers that be will continue to force her product on an unwilling public. Just like the WNBA.

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From USMC.mil:

Sgt. Herbert B. Hancock, chief scout sniper, sniper platoon, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, is credited with the longest confirmed kill in Iraq, hitting enemy terrorists from 1,050 yards in Fallujah Nov. 11, 2004. Hancock, a 35-year-old activated reservist and police officer from Bryan, Texas, has been a Marine Corps sniper since 1992.

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Jennifer skewers haute-couture over at Demure Thoughts. Good stuff.

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Matt Laueur is interviewing Amber Frey... again?! Dude, if she's worth a half dozen interviews, do ya think you could have mixed in at least one swiftboat veteran interview last year?

For cryin out loud, Laouer just teased yet another segment with Frey and Allred later on in the show. After Kiki interviews Michael More, of course.

This is why i never watch the Today Show.

Update: My God, he's huuuuuge! They're avoiding any long shots that expose the gigantic-ness of his body, but i think his seat is about to collapse.

Update 2: First he explains the Democratic loss by admitting that the Republicans got out the vote better. Then later he complains that Congressional debate about alleged Ohio vote irregularities will be stifled today. Inconsistency? If so, Kiki didn't notice.

Update 3: Tim Graham at The Corner watched it too.

Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore was awarded seven and a half minutes of air time in the 7:30 half hour of ThursdayÂ’s 'Today' show to offer his political analysis of why the Democrats failed to oust Bush. Katie Couric felt that wasnÂ’t enough, so she invited him back an hour later for another eight minutes and forty seconds of air time, or 16 minutes, 10 seconds overall. While Couric tried to suggest that maybe Hollywood liberalism hurt the Democrats (and even noted the 'vitriol...you seem to embody'), she also inaccurately promoted MooreÂ’s latest book as 'new' and 'currently on many bestseller lists' when it came out in October and is ranked #1,547 on Amazon.com.

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The exterior shot of the tunnel in Rio De Janeiro, where Sidney went to meet Tomazaki with the samurai sword, is actually the tunnel underneath Grand Avenue between the Los Angeles Music Center and the Los Angeles County Courthouse.

Bonus trivia: i think the mausoleum in Moscow, where Sidney's mother is buried, is actually the Westwood Cemetery, where Marilyn Monroe and Natalie Wood are buried.

Can you believe i only lived in LA for one year?

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Here's the final results for the poll. Not much i can say except that there is something wrong with the way we teach American history in this country.

The reason i came up with this poll was because i've heard more than once from Clinton admirers that he's "the smartest president we ever had." That's just silly.

Sure, Bill Clinton is a smart guy. But i was trying to make a point by putting him on the list just above Thomas Jefferson. Besides having written the most important founding document in the history of the world, TJ was also an architect, naturalist, founder of the University of Virginia and designer of its campus and curriculum, Latin and Greek literate, etc. etc. etc.

Yet, inexplicably, 15% of voters thought Thomas Jefferson was not as smart as Bill Clinton. How is that possible? And what about the other presidents whom those 15% also rank lower?

Theodore Roosevelt wrote a four volume history of the American West, a history of the Naval War of 1812, biographies of two American statesmen, and many other books. What has Clinton written? A memoir.

Woodrow Wilson wrote a five volume history of the American people, a biography of George Washington, and an important work on congressional government among many other books. Besides his law degree, he had a Ph.D. in history and political science.

James Madison? Father of the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln? Self-taught, and have you ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates? Could you imagine language like that coming out of Clinton's mouth?

Who's the smartest president? That's a subject for legitimate debate. But given the competition, Clinton shouldn't make anyone's cut.

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Still thinking about the tsunami, the victims, the incomprehensible destruction. So many missing. So many broken lives.

These are the words of Bob Dylan.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

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And in the "aren't there too many lawyers already?" department, we have this story:

An assistant Broward County public defender who was forced to quit after charges of sexual misbehavior was cleared, reinstated and promoted on Monday.

Jayme Cassidy, who was forced to quit Nov. 28 by former Public Defender Alan Schreiber, was rehired on the first workday of new Public Defender Howard Finkelstein.

. . .

She was accused by Schreiber of harassing two male lawyers in the office, slapping a private lawyer at a Halloween party and dancing nude at a conference on sex cases in Orlando.

Finkelstein said Cassidy never danced nude but may have acted inappropriately on other occasions. He said any incidents happened outside the office and did not meet the definition of sexual harassment or creating a hostile workplace.

He blamed Cassidy's misbehavior on the breakup of her marriage.

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(Stupider even than allowing Ashley Simpson to sing live on television again.)

Renaming the Los Angeles California Anaheim Angels the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Not only does it sound stupid, but it alienates their fan base. People in OC hate LA, they get pissed if you say they're from LA and they never go to LA unless it's absolutely unavoidable.

As usual, Humbug is the place to go for the latest baseball news, in meter.

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i feel i must make an effort to comment about Amber Frey's interview by the very annoying Matt Laueur of NBC.

i'm somewhat impressed by Amber Frey. She was a brave girl. But i'm also amazed at how naive she was before that crucial telephone conversation with the Modesto PD, which opened her eyes.

The Dateline Special did a pretty good job of capsulizing the circumstantial case against Scott Pederson. i would have convicted him too. There were just too many lies and too many eerie coincidences. Justice was done.

And as long as i'm feeling generous: i have to say that i can't not like Gloria Allred. Sure, she's a wacko feminist and a grandstander, but she was on the right side of the Clinton fiasco, and she represented Amber Frey amazingly well throughout the ordeal.

Now can we please close the book on this whole story? It'll soon be time to obsess about the next Trial of the Century: Jocko.

Posted by: annika at 11:15 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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The best part of the game so far has been listening to the crowd boo Ashley Simpson. That was fucking awesome!

Memo to Ashley: You make me wanna uh uh uh uh too. Then i flush the toilet.

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We're out of wine. The Orange Bowl already looks like a blow-out. (Shelly's right, USC is a pro team.) And i'm too pissed to even come up with a coherent rant about the Columbia Journalism Review's huge insult of a lie.

Volokh and Wizbang have dissected the truth best on this one. Shit like this makes me so spittin' mad, i could just... uh... spit. Just know that the name Corey Pein is easy to remember and i will be watching his career. Any organization that hires him will immediately stain its own credibility. A fucking hack in training. They'll just adore him at big media.

Time to go smoke and watch some more of 24.

Pein résumé via LGF.

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This one belongs in The "Huh" Files.

Teri Hatcher has revealed she hasn't had sex in four years.

The beautiful actress, famous for her role as Lois Lane in '90s hit TV series 'The New Adventures of Superman', has confessed she hasn't had any fun between the sheets since splitting from actor husband Jon Tenney in 2000.

The star, who also plays a frustrated single mum in the acclaimed US series 'Desperate Housewives' told Britain's The Sun newspaper: 'There just isn't any space for it.

'I don't have a boyfriend because I don't go out on dates.

But it's okay - I'm not sad because of it.'

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From RatherBiased.com [quoting Broadcasting and Cable magazine]:

. . . CBS News president Andrew Heyward, along with Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, recently met with White House communications director Dan Bartlett, in part to repair chilly relations with the Bush administration.

CBS News's popularity at the White House—never high to begin with—plunged further in the wake of Dan Rather's discredited '60 Minutes [Wednesday]' story on George Bush's [Air] National Guard service.

An incentive for making nice is the impending report from the two-member panel investigating CBS's use of now-infamous documents for the '60 Minutes' piece.

Heyward was 'working overtime to convince Bartlett that neither CBS News nor Rather had a vendetta against the White House,' our source says, 'and from here on out would do everything it could to be fair and balanced.' CBS declined to comment.

More than likely, one of the most prominent topics at the alleged meeting was some CBS begging to let Dan Rather, who has been banned from the Bush White House, interview President Bush before the older Texan retires from the CBS News anchor desk.

Does anyone remember the Simpsons episode where the news anchor Kent Brockman mistakenly thinks giant ants from space are going to invade earth, so he begins his broadcast in front of a banner that says: "All hail our new ant overlords!"

In their hubris, CBS really thought they would have a president Kerry by now. Instead, much to their chagrin, they have to go kiss up to their ant overlords.

Grovel away you bastards!

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To bring you the most important news of the day.

This just in...

Ashley Simpson can burp the alphabet.

No word yet on whether she's lip-synching that too.

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The great bandleader and clarinetist Artie Shaw died last Thursday. i just read about it today and it reminded me of this old Poetry Wednesday post, where we discussed Artie Shaw in the comments section.

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Mom: "Hey, I can say fuckers now, it's not a bad word anymore."

Daughter: stunned silence.

Mom: "No really, I saw it on a bus. But they misspelled it."

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