• Russian Gourmet: Another Eggplant Recipe

    This recipe is really easy and results in a spread or a dip, name it as you wish. Eggplant is delicious and good for you in a variety of ways including weight loss:

    Don’t include too many eggplants in your diet if you’re interested in: Weight gain.

    In other words, if you stay with the eggplant diet you will finally be able to attain that figure you were dreaming about, all the while consuming tasty eggplant recipes.

    This recipe contains 2 eggplants, dill, garlic and mayonnaise – if you don’t like these ingredients separately or in combination, please move along.

    Remove green ends from the eggplants and place them in a pot of boiling salted water.

    Sometime during the cooking process try to turn the eggplants over, they will resist and try to flip back, one of you will eventually win, hopefully not the eggplant. You may want to use the lid for that purpose. Check periodically,when a toothpick goes through the eggplant without much effort, they are done. Time depends on the size and shape of your eggplant (if you know what I mean) but definitely over 20 minutes. Just keep checking. Remove from the pot. The next step is to press the eggplant. Place a cooling rack into the sink. Cut multiple slits into the skin of the eggplant lengthwise.

    You need some weight to extract as much moisture out of the eggplant as you can. One possible way to do it is to place a cutting board on top of the eggplant and weigh it down with a pot of water.

    Two hours later the eggplant should look fairly flat.

    I use the meat grinder to chop the eggplant, you can use the food processor, just don’t pulverize it, you are not making toothpaste, it should retain texture. Add plenty of chopped dill, a little mayonnaise and as much garlic as you deem appropriate. Some salt and pepper to taste.

    The final product looks like this and can be consumed with crackers or bread, in sandwiches, or on its own.

    Warning: In case of extreme weight loss please discontinue.

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  • Old Newspapers: The End of the Iran Hostage Crisis in Headlines

    This post is brought to you by the Johnson County Central Resource Library’s new awesome microfilm reader.
    Also brought to you by the library’s outstanding raise-deserving personnel.

    On January 20, 1981, at the moment Reagan completed his 20-minute inaugural address after being sworn in as President, 52 American hostages were released by Iran into U.S. custody, having spent 444 days in captivity.

    The Iran Hostage Crisis was well-covered in the media, with reports and dispatches published and broadcast on a daily basis during the 444 day ordeal, but in the last few days before the Algiers Accords were brokered, the hostage news were back on the front pages of every newspaper.
    *all the images should be readable, if you care to do so just click to enlarge.

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  • Behind the Iron Curtain: Happy Veterans’ Day

    Somewhere in this picture there is a lot younger me
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  • Everyone Runs!

    Couple of weeks ago we went out to Woodlands to see the dog races. If you’d never been there before, it’s actually fun and inexpensive way to enjoy a day off. My daughter actually won about 7 or 8 dollars – enough to make her happy. You don’t have to know anything about betting or the rules and you can bet on dogs….

    ….or their handlers…

    Two dollars on the fat kid to show…

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  • Behind The Iron Curtain: How To Recognize a Foreign Spy

    Recently an old Soviet spy-identification aid has come to my attention. I don’t know if it’s authentic, but it looks, feels and reads as such. The surprising part is that according to this memo I would now be easily outed as a spy. Not because of quality work (god forbid!), good posture and neat clothes, but mostly due to the habit of putting my feet up and love of cocktails. If you read carefully, the text is not of the highest opinion about an average Soviet citizen – a slouchy impolite slob, with simple food tastes, who eats a lot of bread, slams his drinks and has inferior work ethic.

    Free translation mine.

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