By the way, kudos to City Pages’ Rachel Hutton who’s really turned the dining section around. Much less pretentious and much less time spent deifying chefs who cannot even run a professional kitchen.
Last week’s issue had a fascinating article on Long Cheng, St. Paul’s custom butchery. Basically, you go there, choose your animal (or bring in your own animal) and get it butchered.
Meat sold commercially in supermarkets or restaurants must be inspected by either federal or state Department of Agriculture employees who act as representatives for the consumer. But if an individual buys a live animal at a custom slaughterhouse (or brings his own animal) and pays someone to slaughter it (or slaughters it himself), the individual can take responsibility for the butchering process. While commercial slaughterhouses are subject to continuous inspection, their custom brethren are checked periodically to ensure they’re following Humane Slaughter Act guidelines and proper sanitation procedures. As the owner of a live animal, the individual is categorized similar to a farmer, who has the right to kill and eat his livestock without government intervention.
“Because of what? Some ice? We’re going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town,” Obama said this morning. “I’m saying that when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don’t seem to be able to handle things.”
As you can see with the infrequent posting, I’ll be on break for the next week or two. Enjoy your family and friends, if you’re lucky to have them. Curl with a nice pint of Summit Winter Ale and a snifter of your favorite whiskey to warm your spirits even further.
The FBI is hoping to enlist the parents, especially mothers, of young Somali men who live in Minneapolis, because agents believe the men are being recruited to conduct suicide bomb attacks in Somalia.
Successful recruitment in the U.S. of suicide bombers obviously concerns U.S. officials, even though, for now, there’s no indication that the interest among this group is focused on anything but conducting attacks overseas.
Law enforcement officials say a young man from Minneapolis, Shirwa Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen, returned to Somalia in October and killed himself in a suicide bombing. He had attended high school in Minneapolis after coming to the U.S. 12 years ago.
Investigators believe as many as a dozen young men from the Twin Cities have been recruited to conduct similar attacks in Somalia. An investigation is now underway to find out who is recruiting them.
“There’s clearly a recruiting cell there,” one U.S. official said.
A Homeland Security official said similar initiatives, to enlist community cooperation in countering potential recruitment propaganda, have been undertaken in other U.S. cities.
I have to say that the New York Times has been on quite a roll lately.., and not just with their recent coverage of the financial meltdown.
NYT’s Andrew Martin talks about the current economic times being a potential boon for such retail items like SPAM from Austin, Minnesota.
Invented during the Great Depression by Jay Hormel, the son of the company’s founder, Spam is a combination of ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, potato starch and a “hint” of sodium nitrite “to help Spam keep its gorgeous pink color,” according to Hormel’s Web site for the product.
Because it is vacuum-sealed in a can and does not require refrigeration, Spam can last for years. Hormel says “it’s like meat with a pause button.”
During World War II, Spam became a staple for Allied troops overseas. They introduced it to local residents, and it remains popular in many parts of the world where the troops were stationed.
Grand Marais is one of the most beautiful cities. Also one of the nicest (people-wise). It is a community that celebrates diversity of personality and is welcoming. It supports and is inhabited by artists, hunters, craftsmen, fishermen, writers, …you name it. I doubt that this town would be a part of Sarah Palin’s “Real America”, but so what. It is one of the best places in the US of A…
The Star Tribune has a cool story about Minneapolis resident and Iraqi War veteran, Gwen Beberg, bringing home a puppy she befriended while serving in Iraq. Beberg says “she couldn’t have made it through her 13-month deployment without the affectionate mutt”.
Before the dregs of winter arive, this is a great time to be in Minnesota. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has anexcellent pagethat gives you a map of the current fall color conditions:
One of the great things about living in Minneapolis is the annual Halloween time “Zombie Pub Crawl”. For the uninitiated, it’s simply a celebration of zombies who like to drink (from bar to bar to bar to bar to….). So if you’re interested, get gussied up and join in the festivities. Here is a link to the official Zombie Pub Crawl site,
Answer: “About 1.5 miles. We will be walking like zombies, so it will take longer to get from one bar to the next. Also, you may need to stop to feast on human brains.”
Christopher Hitchens on the current economic calamity:
“I hope you read the findings of the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration that followed the plunge of Interstate 35W in Minneapolis into the Mississippi River last August. Sixteen states, after inspecting their own bridges, were compelled to close some, lower the weight limits of others, and make emergency repairs. Of the nation’s 600,000 bridges, 12 percent were found to be structurally deficient. This is an almost perfect metaphor for Third World conditions: a money class fleeces the banking system while the very trunk of the national tree is permitted to rot and crash.”
