We’ll get to MFMB in a minute – it’s my should-be patented secret to marital bliss.  But let’s start with the BBQ part since that takes less explaining.

This year’s competition started a week or so back, when Elaine’s son Brandon, who lives up in Tacoma, lit off his wood-fire BBQ and sent us the most delicious looking plate of ribs we’d seen either in a picture, or real life for that matter, in years.

So this past weekend we got out the BBQ here and started firing off the summer’s best.

As you can see in the top picture, Elaine likes breasts (don’t go there, we’re talking the damn chicken!) which has been rubbed with a mix of lemon-pepper marinade and K.C. Masterpiece seasoning.  On top of this goes some Jack Daniel’s  BBQ Sauce from the store and yessir, damn fine ‘Q.

My approach, off to the right here, is a little different.  Ure’s taste runs more to Asian so when I’m lazy I mix up a 50-50 of Very Teriyaki (which has enough garlic in it to be Italian/Asia) and mixed about 50-50 or whatever feels right with Kikkoman pre-made Teriyaki sauce.

This is poured over the chicken about six-hours before grilling.  First step is to toast it up on all sides, basting as you go.  A shot of tequila (warmed) will do a nice flaming glaze if you put some sugar and a teaspoon of Everclear in it…depends on if your home owners insurance is current).

After browning up, you set them to one side of the grill and then roast for about 30-40 minutes at 350’ish.  Experience teaches that the thermometer on a BBQ is useful.  So is a timer.

The next big BBQ plan this week is for my Chinese-flavored country style ribs.  Then we will send the Tacoma division of family a couple of pictures so they can have to wash the slobber of their monitors; like we did when the kids rib pictures showed up.

The recipe isn’t terribly difficult.  Try it – it’s to die for.

The sauce/marinade:

About 1 cup of brown sugar.

About 1/2 to 3/4 cup of soy sauce  (adjust to your desired salt/sweet taste)

About 4 tablespoons of mushed up Maraschino cherries with some of the juice to boot.  No, no pits or stems…

A heaping teaspoon, or better, maybe two teaspoons of ground ginger.

A half-dozen ground up garlic cloves

Several solid shakes of Cayenne pepper.  No…make it a bit more…lot’s more, depending on your fortitude and whether you like spicy or mild pork.

The lazy way to do this?  Take all these ingredients, and throw them in the Vitamix.  Hit high a few times (things will warm up, and melt since my chainsaw doesn’t have the power of the Vitamix.  Let it sit overnight so flavors blend.

Next morning toss the trimmed, fat-free ribs into a bowl, toss with about 3/4’s of the mix and wander off for 8-hours.  Work on something else.

When you are famished:  Heat the BBQ, quick brown on a hot flame, basting lightly with some sauce to get a nice glaze going.  Then kill heat on one side, slide the ribs over there, and turn the other burners down to maintain 350-400 degrees and have an adult beverages.

When you run out of things to talk about, or begin to stumble, or the chips and salsa aren’t enough, the ribs should be done.

Remove, cover with foil (keeps insects off them) and haul out the dipping sauce.  Made of…

1/4 cup catsup (or ketchup of however you spell it)

1/4 cup of  freshly ground prepared horseradish.

Long-time readers will remember this as our shrimp cocktail sauce, too.  Yes, dual purpose sauce and it does well with Chinese/Asian foods.  Heavier on the horsey, or not.  Depends how close the fire department is.

A purist would go to Tai Tung in Seattle and have real Chinese food, but it’s a 2,130 mile drive from here…so we make-do at home, instead.

Having grown up in Seattle’s Asian community, I am partial to “blow the roof of your mouth off, freshly made Chinese hot mustard.  The right way to do it is to mix up dry powder, give it 10-minutes to hot-up and then serve in a three-tray with sesame seeds and ketchup with a dash of honey and/or cherry juice it in.  That would be the RIGHT  thing to do.  Plum sauce, too, or Hoisin.  Nice dipping assortment.

Seems absurd in Texas to have to order a whole case of  Dynasty Mustard Powder, 2-Ounce Jars (Pack of 12) for $29-bucks, so I make do with the fresh prepared horseradish (just the horseradish, not bunch of wimpy sauce crap with it).  Anyone who buys premixed Chinese mustard probably likes frozen piazza, too.

All of these BBQ treats taste really good cold, or just barely warmed.  That’s one of the real tests of good BBQ – how is it cold?

Fine, so now I’ve got you thinking of BBQ – so what is MFMB?

Matching Food, Matching Breath.

Mr. Ure’s lone contribution to marital bliss.  Eat the same foods as your partner/spouse/whatever they are nowadays, and since body chemistry should roughly synch up over time, you will have similar breath!

(My other contribution to marital bliss [“whatever you say dear…”] hasn’t be adopted by large enough numbers to be statistically measurable.)

Gee, I don’t know which would more rewarding…being a cook or a marriage counselor, but I’ll go with cooking and whatever is behind Door Number 3.

Hell of a Woo-Woo Story

We were speculatin’ Monday on the possibilities of timelines, time jumps, thinking CERNtain thoughts and such in in popped this amazing report about the Woo being out and about this weekend:

“…oh yes, temporal reality -there-is-a-portal-in-my-bedroom- is alive and well.

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Not sure it’s a word, but….After showing signs Friday that someone in the financial world (besides Ures truly) had brains, the market this morning is set to bounce hard and high while reality sinks in.

And the reality is what?

Well, in case you missed it this weekend, the IMF movers were warning us all that they are going to print more and pump just like we are, so the global printing festival – driving markets higher  – will continue at least a while longer.

What is some of the “sand in the Vaseline?”

To start with, the IMF is scared that Greece will stiff them on payments.  So our favorite financial dom is pre-scolding the petulant Greeks.

Filed under “50-shades of Euro” we can almost hear the Bankster’s telling the Greeks “Vee are go-ink to vip you and you vill like it!”  Uh-huh…sure. Greeks aren’t buying it.  Why should they be screwed so a banker gets a payday?

Since public opinion is easily spun, the next ham sandwich of distraction will be delivered in the form of boats of immigrants who are pouring in from Africa and points east…Sorry to hear about the dead in the capsizing of a ship this weekend, but it’s an ongoing problem because not many people want to live in war zones

Meantime, one of our well-informed readers suggests:

“Turkey and the Saudis will show their power.

This coming week Obama is having a meeting with Middle east leaders to discuss his Iran deal.The Turks and Saudi’s are as worried about Iran getting a nuke as Israel. If they come away from this meeting. Feeling betrayed by Obama. They may well make some preemptive power moves against Syria or Iran themselves.”

And that moves our scan of the World Messuation along to the Middle East. Saudi officials are just waiting and defending against a homeland oil processing or mall attack, because that is the likely blowback from going into Yemen.

The Houthi’s are thumbing their noses, and we await the arrival of the Iranian supply ships for the next outburst of break dancing on the military front.

Oh, and lighten up on your lib/dream bet on an Iran Deal:  The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards isn’t biting on any kind of inspection plan.  Is our imperial what’s his name gonna buy off on blind faith?  Nothing surprises us, anymore.  But congress?  Not frigging likely.

Our sage reader is right:  If the Obama administration doesn’t get their Iran deal, the whole thing could “go Chihuly.”  (If the reference doesn’t make sense, click here and put Ure thinking cap on.  Puddles of glass…OMG, are you like NOT on the bean yet, today?)

(cue some transition music)

Continuing our morning travel/news/log eastward, we find the Chinese have cut key reserve requirements, but as this CNBC report says, it sure looks like a desperation move.

The reason is simple:  In just over a month, the Hang Seng has gone up almost 14%. Go ahead, annualize that…I dare you.   And that would be a classic market bubble.

Globally, the (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) competing banks are all worried about what happens if something blows out the top end like this – and then collapses. 

Or, (going a bit more east) something like Japan re-implodes into another bout of deflation since they are having a real bitch of a time with hitting inflation targets.

There’s an interesting bet here:  The gnomes of Credit Suisse think Japan could fall back into deflation – and there’s good reason to think that.  But, the head of the JA central bank says “Naw…nothing to worry about – we got this…” or words to that effect.  I’ll take the gnomes and 10.

Fun little trip around the world this morning, huh?  All circular references because in a complex but still-closed system, anything blow up here will lead to a ripple or a nuke there.

As my deflationist pal Jas Jain writes (and he has been impeccably right about deflation so far, and sees much more to come…)

What is going to happen this time around is going to be lot different than the Crisis of 2008. I will shut up if the global depression doesn’t begin during 2016-18. China would be a big contributor to the coming crisis and would take the house (the global economy) down.

During the worst depression in centuries, democracies would fall one by one and many countries would disintegrate.

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First things first:  The latest Consumer Prices report is hot off the wire from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.2 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over the last 12 months, the all items index declined 0.1 percent before seasonal adjustment. Increases in the energy and shelter indexes more than offset a decline in the food index and were the main factors in the rise of the seasonally adjusted all items index.

The energy index rose 1.1 percent as advances in the gasoline and fuel oil indexes outweighed declines in the electricity and natural gas indexes. In contrast, the food index declined 0.2 percent, with the food at home index posting its largest decline since April 2009.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in March, the same increase as in January and February. Along with the shelter index, a broad array of indexes rose in March, including medical care, used cars and trucks, apparel, new vehicles, household furnishings and operations, and recreation.

The index for airline fares, in contrast, declined for the fourth time in the last 5 months. The all items index declined 0.1 percent for the 12 months ending March.

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Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve mentioned our latest “adventure in odd/transporting home design.”

Our latest project has been to transform the area between the house and t’other building which houses the shop/office/Panama’s apartment into something different.

The hard part was figuring out the right thought model.

There are a couple of large trees on hand.  while it would be tempting to hack them down and turn the area into a huge greenhouse, that seemed like too much work.  Putting in a pool (and using it as a heat sink, crossed my mind, too.

But in the end, a couple of pea gravel loads from John the Dump Truck Guy, seemed best, so we (mostly Elaine) tore out the odd plant that had taken root and in came the landscape cloth and then 3-4 inches of pea gravel.

And it looked OK, except something was missing.  What might that be?

The answer was some research into Japanese rock gardens.  They are NOT maintenance-free.  But damn they look good.

So I’ve spent some time over on this site, looking at the various approaches.  And, unbeknownst to me, Panama built a big wooden rake – about 2 1/2 fee wide – with teeth about every 3-inches or so.

Turns out our space was suitable for hiraniwa – flat Japanese rock garden. Although in size and sense of place, it’s more like the karesansui description (of dry rock gardens).

We may change it up a bit:  The Japanese rock gardens usually have a very few large rocks which act as visual focal points…but we’ve decide to use an old stump-root, or something like that which might be round on the property.  Or, I might weld up an oilrig sculpture and stick it in the gravel – a kind of statement about oil and what’s pending in the South China See where Japan and China have competing claims over oil resource under water.

Panama has a pretty nice “balanced art piece” out in front of his windows made out of balanced cedar logs.  Kind of like a big mobile jutting up from the ground. 

Elaine’s drifted into the spirit of this too; she’s carefully raking circles around the bases of the trees.

In a more controlled environment (like a city) we would have used sand (traditional) but because of the size of the area (35×50, roughly) we used pea gravel.  The other reason on the pea gravel is because I can take a leaf blower to it; something you can’t do with sand.

Visually, the effect of seeing pea gravel at 30-feet feels like sand at 10…so we shall see how it works over time.

Fun to rake and play in…sort of like an adult sandbox.  Not terribly expensive and it doesn’t kick up dirt and dust from the mower. 

Rocks don’t generally need fertilizer and special handling…but this being where we are in human history, I’m sure one of these days a specialized tool (besides a few rakes) will show up on the net.  We’ll be either buyers or toolmakers when they do.

Membership in the North American Japanese Garden Association is something we’re pondering, too.  Their website (here)  is worth looking at as some really wonderful gardens go scrolling by on their header.

Membership is $85 for a basic/basic but $150 to get their Journal.  Depending on how important your “outdoor vibe” is, it’s better than just tossing a few railroad times and sod in and calling that landscaping.

Japan Woodworker has a good assortment of green and white pruning paste and other garden supplies over here.  Training wires for your Bonsai, perhaps?

More practically, our best regards to Frank Tashiro of Tashiro Hardware in Seattle who turned 93 in January.  A few of us early Seattleites (who were there before California moved north) can remember Tashiro Hardware’s early days, just south of “Muscatel Meadows” south of the King County Courthouse.

Japanese Economics

Reader asked this one:

“with the strong dollar, is it time to buy a Japanese car?

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But first, an off topic remark or three…

My consigliore,  just back from a hard week of skiing in Montana, bashed me good on the phone yesterday by pointing out that a major decline of exports doesn’t necessarily mean collapse of the GDP…and he was a) better rested, b) more caffeinated, and c) right.

After we kicked around the likely date for the Big West Coast earthquake I dreamed about back in January, he let on that in his scans of the net, there’s been an uptick in tsunami talk.  Showing up in prophecy and dream boards and worth noting.  And you do know what happens Saturday, right?

109th anniversary of the major quake in 1906 that devastated the city by the bay.  My pal then reminded me that there was also an 8.2 that year in Valparaiso, Chile.

So keep an eye on the volcanoes which are in uptick mode:  Causing smoke and ash at increased levels on the Russian Kamchatka Peninsula now, and last month the one down in Chile that seems to percolate as a quake precedent, popped off, as well.

Yet another possible precursor:  150 dolphins that beached in the past week in Japan have mostly died.  Australia pilot whales worth watching, too.

Just something to be aware of while you make a fortune on Wall St.  Or, holding up banks if you’re ethically inclined.

—

Which gets us to this morning’s data sets:

PPI first because it’s boring – but if you can read these far, you’ll make it through the rest of the column:

“The Producer Price Index for final demand increased 0.2 percent in March, seasonally adjusted, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Final demand prices moved down 0.5 percent in February and 0.8 percent in January. On an unadjusted basis, the index for final demand decreased 0.8 percent for the 12 months ended in March. (See table A.) In March, more than half of the rise in final demand prices can be attributed to a 0.3-percent advance in the index for final demand goods. Prices for final demand services moved up 0.1 percent. Within intermediate demand, prices for processed goods edged down 0.1 percent, the index for unprocessed goods dropped 1.7 percent, and prices for services rose 0.2 percent.

Final demand goods: The index for final demand goods moved up 0.3 percent in March following eight consecutive decreases. A major factor in the advance was prices for final demand energy, which rose 1.5 percent. The index for final demand goods less foods and energy increased 0.2 percent in March.

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First: I won’t dignify the candidate’s run for the White House by repeating her name.  From here to the end of primary season, I’ll refer only to “She of whom we don’t speak.”  [SOWWDS}

If SOWWDS wants an ad. she can buy it.

But I will offer some free campaign advice:  Change ad logos.

The one rolled out Sunday – which showed up uninvited in my email – begging for money, no less – is a fine example  of political spam.

What’s more, it’s easily spoofed by anyone with PowerPoint handy – as you can see.

An arrow pointed sideways?  Isn’t America supposed to be “up”?  Maybe our lone remaining democratic reader will disagree and can explain it to us.  But the majority around here (you and me) are tired of sideways, same-old, and do-over richy-rich aristocrats who should have been put out to pasture long ago.

The second bit of free advice is double-check your work.

Says over in this report that “Clinton’s press office left an embarrassing typo in its press announcement, saying that she had ‘fought children and families all her career’. 

Nice move.  Around here we call that “truth in advertising.”  Take it from the world leader in typos.  Can’t run a campaign?  Then can’t run a country, I figure.

Third – and final suggestion for this morning:  Any time a multigazillionaire lawyer uses phrases like “everyday Americans” sit on your wallet.

Related:

From our news analyst in Winnipeg, which may be the last remaining rational spot on the planet:

Dear Mr.

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Best I can remember, the first time I heard the phrase was at the kitchen/dinner table at about age 8, or so.

My mom had some question or other, and pappy didn’t have an answer.  “I’ll ask the Board of Directors tonight at work.”

We were eating at 10-minutes to five so pappy could leave the house by 5:15 and drive the 20 minutes, or so, up to the fire house in West Seattle.  Engine 37 is at the highest point in the city.

A little trivia here:  The reason fire houses were always built at the tops of hills if possible, was so the horses could have an easy – and fast – run downhill to a fire.  Most people don’t know that one – not sure if it’s in Trivial Pursuit, or not.

Anyway, pappy was almost always early for roll-call, but he always scheduled enough time for a bridge opening.  The high level West Seattle Bridge hadn’t been built yet.

The board of directors were the other firemen on his crew.  Fire departments in big cities had different shift, but they followed a paramilitary org chart; platoons, battalions, and such.  And pappy’s “board of directors” was the crew he worked with.  There wasn’t a lot of turnover in platoons.

Gather any three or four firemen, you could get an answer to just about anything, and while washing hose, cleaning up after drills or training, it was always good to have a fresh topic to kick around. Made the work go faster.

My mother’s question – and don’t hold me to this – was about some obscure aspect of gardening, if memory holds.      

Joe had come up a street-smart Italian, Dave was the high-roller who owned a 50-foot boat, and I forget some of the other fellas.  But they all referred to pappy as “the encyclopedia.” He just didn’t know gardening well, having advised me from birth “Never put in a bigger garden than your wife can take care of…”

It wasn’t the answer that mattered in this case.  It was the form of decision-making that mattered.  One I’ve never forgotten.  Everyone needs a “board of directors.”

The concept has been around forever.  Some called it a “master mind group” in the early days of the PMA (positive mental attitude) movement, which was in some ways a precursor to the prepper movement.

When you look at most successful people, you’ll find most of them have a “board of directors” or master mind group.  Some, especially in politics, just get called the “inner circle.” If you’re a drug dealer, it’s your posse, and so on.

Without further delay, I have an important announcement to make.

YOU have just been appointed to my personal board of directors. 

As luck would have it, there’s a thorny problem that is bugging me (in a literal sense as you’ll see):  We are being over-run by June bugs down at the hangar this year.

Oh, I’ve sprayed.  Even got the security light turned off.  But there’s some magic about my hangar in particular that had become incredibly attractive to June bugs. 

Since I spray the place religiously – and since we don’t live in the space – I took the electric leaf blower down Sunday and dispatched 5,000 of them – carcasses-  back out onto the grass from whence they came.

But they keep coming back.

In fact, by the time I was done on one side of the taxiway, the hardy (*Boston marathoner type) bugs were already headed back to the finish line inside the hangar.  Invisible to Ures truly.

So your first problem has a Board Member for you is to figure out how to solve the problem.  Selling the airplane or moving to a different hangar are off the table.  The poisons work, but the smell of dead June bugs is not particularly nice.

It eats about 80-minutes a week says my time log. Get the blower, drive to airport, blow out hangar, lock up, 10-minutes for social chit-chat at the airport office, and then back out to our place..

The mechanic, who’s doing the annual maintenance check in the hangar presently complains about running over them with this creeper.  I expect he’ll ding me a bit on the bill, too, since it’s no fun to pick up a June bug instead of the 10-40 screw for an inspection cover. 

Ideally, someone would come up with a simple answer for something to repel them.  I’ve thought about a mothball at opposite corners of the hangar, but I don’t know if they’re legal anymore.

No trap suggestions, though.  I don’t want to have another project like emptying traps every day or three.

Send me an email – and ask all your friends, too, since I assume you already have an informal board of directors yourself. 

“What repels June bugs?”

By the way, Wikipedia reports mothballs do, indeed, have some risk to them:

The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that 1,4-dichlorobenzene “may reasonably be anticipated to be a carcinogen“. This has been indicated by animal studies, although a full-scale human study has not been done.^[8] The National Toxicology Program (NTP), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and the state of California consider 1,4-dichlorobenzene to be a carcinogen.^[9]

Exposure to naphthalene mothballs can cause acute haemolysis (anemia) in people with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.^[10] IARC classifies naphthalene as possibly carcinogenic to humans and animals (see also Group 2B).^[11] IARC points out that acute exposure causes cataracts in humans, rats, rabbits, and mice. Chronic exposure to naphthalene vapors is reported to also cause cataracts and retinal hemorrhage.^[12] Under California’s Proposition 65, naphthalene is listed as “known to the State to cause cancer”.^[13]

Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder revealed a probable mechanism for the carcinogenic effects of mothballs and some types of air fresheners.^[14][15]

Mothballs are a neurotoxin – especially those made of 1,4-dichlorobenzene – and need to be treated as such. They have been used for solvent abuse, causing a variety of neurotoxic effects.^[16][17]

Mothballs and other products containing naphthalene have been banned within the EU since 2008.^[18][3]

Toxin-free alternatives to control clothes moths include freezing, dry cleaning, washing in hot water, or thorough vacuum cleaning.^[19][20] Camphor is no longer recommended as a moth repellent, due to its toxicity.

I’ve thought about cedar oil as an alternative, but I’m not sure if that wouldn’t just mask the smell of dead bugs better. And, it ain’t cheap.

So send them answer along pronto.  Operators are standing by, this is a free call, this is a special offer, ends soon.

Oh, and congrats on your appointment to the Board of Directors.  I did mention, I hope, that this is a non-profit and no liability protection for board members is offered?

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