...there'll be one child born and a world to carry on...

You may not realize this but when you visit an Internet site, you leave certain information. You leave your I.P. address. At the very least I have a good idea of where you live - at least, the town and the country.

Often I know the Internet site you visited before mine, and sometime I know the Internet site that you head off to after hitting me. If you hit more than one item on my blog, I have a vague idea of how long you stayed.

Recently, one visitor to my blog was cruising the Web searching references to Laura Nyro and stumbled upon this post. They stayed awhile. They must have liked what they found. When they left, they went to YouTube and watched the following video.

They unwittingly shared their search with me. Now I am going to share what they found with you. My wife thinks this song is a bit morbid. I don't. I think it is uplifting - filled with mature hope, a positive take on this adventure we call life - living.

The post that inspired all of this follows the embedded song.

Cheers,
Rockinon


________________________________________________________

I just have to learn to read the fine print. I am now submitting news stories to Digital Journal. One part of the contractual agreement stipulates that stories posted to their site must be digitally unique.

So, please click here to read my little piece inspired by my new granddaughter and memories of Laura Nyro. It is worth linking over. This piece has been popular.


Check out the Digital Journal site, while you are there. It is an interesting concept and I believe it is Canadian.


Cheers,
Rockinon.

This is food?

The story in the New York Times about ground beef is shocking and disgusting.

After eating hamburger contaminated by a potent strain of E. coli, a young woman is left paralysed. The Times takes an in-depth look at ground beef production in the United States.

Living in Canada,it is easy to read this as a story about conditions in the meat industry to the south. Yet just a few months ago, we had our own meat contamination story centred around a plant in Toronto, and a few years back we had a story about lax meat plant procedures in an Aylmer operation.

I wouldn't be too smug.

SoHo - South of Horton - Part 1

It's known as SoHo: South of Horton. In the giant scheme of things it was, until recently, a forgotten part of London Ontario. Why an area as attractive and as centrally located as Soho should have fallen from favour is a long and complex story.

Many Londoners would argue about the beauty of SoHo. I spent a recent afternoon taking pictures in SoHo. One resident told me he didn't think it was a beautiful part of town. "No good lookin' homes in this neighbourhood," he said. His girlfriend nodded in agreement.

Until my daughter and her husband rented a home in the central part of SoHo, I would have agreed with that young girl's assessment. Seeing my daughter's rental apartment changed my mind. Although her building dates from about 1880, it retains a lot of the original elegance from that period. My daughter understands the building has a strong connection to Labatt's as the original residents worked at the nearby brewery.

I decided to check out the SoHo neighbourhood. I started on Adelaide St. which is the far eastern end of the area. I moved west shooting the homes bordering the Thames River in the southern part of the area. The western end of the neighbourhood is defined by the river bending north towards the forks.

The west end of SoHo is a sad sight, or should I say site. Many of the remaining homes are historic, going back to 1880 or earlier, but for the most part their importance to the fabric of the city is not appreciated.

A home that breaks the pattern is the one shown which was owned by John Sheehy, an engineer with the Grand Trunk Railroad in 1888. The northern boundary of SoHo is actually not Horton Street but the railroad tracks so familiar to Sheehy. The engineer did not have far to walk to get to work.

The exterior of the home is missing some of the fancy wood detailing popular when the home was built but it has aged remarkably well. The original front door still has the bell. Such bells were once common but are rare today. The present owners, a young couple, are quite enamoured with their home and neighbourhood. It shows.

Citizen Journalists, Citizen Editors

I've started following Digital Journal. For a news junkie, it has lots of interesting stories and links — some links are even Canadian! (It's posted there on my Digital Journal blog.)

Yesterday I read an opinion piece on citizen journalists. The writer, John Rickman, was thoughtful and the following comments read like a conversation between adults. There was a little flaming, but no major fires.

On the downside, I felt citizen journalists were being belittled while professional journalists were being held up as almost a standard. I bristled. This is no big deal as I bristle a lot. I'm a bristly person.

Oddly enough, I didn't bristle at the positive stuff John Rickman wrote about editors. These people are important players on the news gathering team, and not always given the credit they deserve.

I agree with a great deal written by Rickman and with a number of those making comments. What I disagree with is the distinction made between citizen journalists and working journalists, those journalists lucky enough to be on staff at some media concern.

I got into the business back in 1971 when my car refused to leave Ontario for Vancouver on Canada's west coast. Stuck in northern Ontario, my travelling companion and I both got jobs with the local daily. Neither one of us had training in journalism. I had gone to art school and taken photography. My friend had a degree in English. I became a staff photojournalist and my friend a reporter.

I used to think of myself as a professional — a professional photojournalist. And I was. Then one day I had to fill in a form that asked if I was a professional, a member of a profession. It stipulated that I must be licenced or registered or have met some legal requirement to claim I was a professional.

It was clear, that as far as these people were concerned, I had a job and not a profession. My job performance benefited from my education, skill, and experience. It even paid well. Photojournalists working at the peak of their job range earned good money. Pay, skill, experience, and education all counted for nothing. The form was firm; one must have met a true standard, a measurable standard, and have a piece of paper to prove it.

Looking back on my years in the business, I realize that many of the best reporters I have known were not trained journalists and some of the best editors were not even English majors. One of the best editors I've had the pleasure of knowing had a degree in engineering. (If this editor were to read this, I believe he might be calling me over to discuss my use of the word "pleasure".)

One of the most interesting heads of an editorial department that I ever met started his career as a crank; you might even say a professional crank if you aren't hard nosed and demanding a certification document. This man was an educated, skillful crank.

The fellow, whose experience was as a factory floor worker, wrote so many letters to the editor, wrote them so well, and with such solid arguments that, when there was an opening in the editorial department, the newspaper hired him. Soon, he  headed the department.

I've met a lot of graduates of journalism programs and many are first rate. The programs act as filters and yet I have met some frighteningly poor grads. What makes them frightening is that armed with a degree, they think they know what they are doing. They don't have the wisdom to respect an engineer-editor or factory-floor expert.

I am uncomfortable with the division between citizen journalists and working journalists. Working journalists can be citizen journalists who got lucky, like my factory floor worker or my friend entering the business because of car problems.

With so many journalists losing their jobs, there are a great number of unpaid or underpaid bloggers who are both citizen journalists and experienced old hands.

I like to think that, thanks to the Internet, what we are developing is group of citizen editors. If a paper gives us a glowing special report on a new urbanism community — a story written to meet a clear agenda — a citizen journalist may correct the paper, complete with pictures.

Whatever is written today must meet a high standard or soon be taken down by an alert citizen editor. When the editor-in-chief of our local paper claimed one thing he had learned from being a journalist was that one could not fry an egg without an element in Canada, it did not take 24-hours for a citizen journalist to prove him wrong.

It is interesting to note that the paper was offered photos of the event but refused them. To the best of my knowledge no one at the paper ever acknowledged in print that their editor-in-chief had made a factual error. They stood by his silly statement. If professionals can't deal with a fried egg error, what do they do when confronted by real errors?

In the future I hope citizen editors spike any error riddled stories.

Three older posts being moved to Rockinon Blogger from WordPress

The three buzzword of the day posts, all on new urbanism, are in the process of being moved over from another site that I am closing. The should be moved by the weekend.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Pear pies, Mike Nomad and the Internet

I fear superlatives. If I use a superlative, I usually use it with caution. Claiming something is the most, the least, the greatest is always asking to be corrected. Yet, I am going to crawl cautiously out on the superlative limb and say that the Internet is the most amazing development of my lifetime.

In just a few short decades the Internet has burrowed deeply into almost every aspect of our lives. I lost my job partially as a result of the Internet and I owe a great deal of my pleasure in retirement to the Internet.

And now, I owe the dessert which I enjoyed with my wife Sunday to the Internet, and that dessert is intertwined with memories of a dear friend with whom I once worked.

I have an occasional feature I call "Buzzword of the Day." It wasn't too long ago that I would have tossed "social networking" onto the buzzword heap.

I'm glad that I didn't get the chance to write that essay; I wouldn't be eating pears but crow tonight.

A friend left a me a package of halloumi cheese with instructions on serving this "national cheese of Cyprus." The halloumi was delicious and inspired me to search the Internet for information on other goat and sheep cheeses from the eastern Mediterranean. Soon I was deep into the virtual world. (Oh, another one of those words I've got to reclaim from the buzzword heap - virtual. This is getting downright embarrassing.)

I appreciated my friend introducing me to halloumi but now, thanks to the Internet, I was learning about saganaki, the famous, flaming Greek cheese that isn't actually Greek - at least not the flames. Soon, I was a member of a foodies group sharing recipes over the Internet. I was flooded with new food ideas being served up by my new virtual friends.

One that caught my eye, and palate, was a recipe for autumn pear pie. I mentioned this in a post and almost immediately heard from an old friend - he, too, was intrigued by the idea of a pear pie. He even had a backyard pear tree kindly offer fruit. He and his wife made the pie and liked it.

I was off to Thomas Bros. south of the city for some ripe but not soft pears. My wife and I made the pie together; it became a small, pleasurable event. Our home filled with the aroma of baking pears, cloves and cinnamon.

Our opinion: good. A nice break from the traditional apple. Personally, I would cut back on the cloves and this might mean cutting back on the cinnamon, too. Without all the cloves, the cinnamon could be too strong. I'd play with these ingredients.

The big change that I would make is in the presentation. When I make this again, I'm going to put a dollop of whipped cream in the centre of the slice and then place a small, pealed, very ripe pear half right on top of the whipped cream. White, whipped cream should ooze out all around the pear half. It should look spectacular and the fresh pear will enhance the pie's pear flavour which is muted by the cooking.

Oh, don't be overly generous with the squeeze of lemon. I was and my pie had undertones of citrus. This is fine with a Sauvignon Blanc but not so good with a pear pie.

Cheers,
Rockinon

p.s. Thanks Mike for the encouragement. We all knew you were at ease around motorcycles, Italian roadsters and tanks but who would have guessed that Mike Nomad had the guts to wear an apron? And say hi to Steve.

Keeping to a Food Budget

This past spring my wife and I suffered some unexpected expenses. Retired and living on a limited income, we cut our food spending to balance our books. My wife managed to spend just under $150 feeding the two of us for a month.

Now, we do have a pantry and whenever we see an incredible buy, we stock up. For instance, when Primo pasta went on sale at 99-cents for a 900 g package, I bought a dozen packages in a variety of shapes.

We're starting to hurt again and my wife is tightening the food budget screws. Last weekend I bought two packages of boneless, skinless chicken thighs at $2.94 a pound. It is important to watch the food flyers as these were on sale at another store at $4.99 a pound.

We also picked up two packages of boneless, sirloin pork chops at 99-cents a pound. Each package held three chops and my wife cut these in half. We will get 12 individual  meat servings for about 33-cents a serving.

I noticed a young couple debating whether or not to buy the chicken thighs. I encouraged them, promising them I would post my wife's recipe by Tuesday night. As promised, my wife's recipe ends this post.

Each piece of chicken cost about 53-cents and if you are a healthy, not heavy eater (there is no reason to eat anywhere near as much meat as we do) one and a half pieces make a serving. Compared to some of my wife's other suggestions, this seems expensive at 80-cents a serving.

But, you can stretch out the chicken by unrolling a couple, cutting them into strips, and quickly frying them in a hot skillet. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the strips to some cooked pasta, tossed with a basil pesto mix and a some walnut pieces toasted in a hot pan. Serve with tomato on the side and you have a main course that will have set you back  just more than a dollar. 

These boneless, skinless, chicken thighs are versatile.

Recipe - preheat oven to 375 degrees
1 cup bread crumbs
2 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup white flour
2 tbsp olive oil
12-15 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1. Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, parsley flakes and Italian seasoning with your hands. Pour them into a pile on a sheet of waxed paper. Sprinkle with garlic powder (you can be generous), salt and black pepper.
2. Pour 1 cup of white flour onto the waxed paper, away from the bread crumbs.
3. In a small bowl whisk 2 large eggs.
4. Trim any excess fat from the chicken thighs. (You're looking for large full strips of fat. Some fat will add moisture during the cooking.)
5. Unroll one chicken thigh at a time and dust on both sides with flour. Dip it into the egg and drop the chicken onto the seasoned pile of bread crumbs. Coat both sides with bread crumb mix and roll the chicken back up and place on a plate. These should be rolled with the smooth side up. Coat each piece of chicken in this manner.
6. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan on top of the stove.
7. Place chicken in pan, smooth side up — this will seal the bottom seam — quickly brown, turning the pieces to brown all sides. As each piece is browned, place smooth side up in an oven proof dish or pan with a tight fitting lid.
8. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and serve. Leftovers can be frozen and microwaved for later use.