I am amused to find that my socio-political views lay closer to anarchist-communist than I'd ever imagined. Anarchist? Really? Me? Take the political compass test to find out more about your social as well as political leanings. Then you get to see fun charts like these:

The red dot indicates where my beliefs lay.


A simplified explanation of the graph.


Famous contemporary leaders and their socio-political leanings.

white bean turkey chili

Sometimes when I can't fall asleep at night, I think about a sweater that I want to knit or a dress I want to sew. Somehow, this mental problem solving exercise does the trick of lulling me to sleep. And when I don't have a craft project to worry with my brain-teeth, I visualize cooking something that I've never cooked before.

The other night it was a white bean turkey chili. At least I don't believe I've cooked one before. I wanted to make a turkey chili, but I didn't want it to have a tomato sauce base. And I pictured it studded with bits of carrots and celery and served with a square of homemade cornbread. I really like the way it came out and I want to remember what I did.

White Bean Turkey Chili
1 lb ground turkey meat
1/4 lb of bacon (I found chunks of bacon ends at my local grocery store so I used that) chopped
1 med sized carrot chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped
1/2 smallish onion (I used yellow) chopped
1 medium Anaheim-type chili pepper
1 15oz can of white beans (I used navy beans, but I wonder if they were just a mite too small) drained
1 tbsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of chili powder (my chili didn't come out terrribly chili-flavoured, so maybe a good idea to use more)
2-3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

grated cheese for garnish (I used goat's milk white cheddar)

Roast the Anaheim chili pepper over a burner until blackened spots appear, turning pepper to roast evenly. Lay pepper in a medium sized bowl and cover with a plate so that it's mostly sealed. Set aside for about 15-20 minutes. The heat from roast will steam the skin off of the pepper. After it's sat in the bowl for 15-20 minutes, peel off the skin and discard. Slice and chop the pepper reserving the seeds if you want a kick-ier chili.

In a saucepan cook bacon until almost crispy and the fat has rendered. Add onions, carrots and celery and cook in the bacon grease scraping up the browned bits with a wooden spoon. When the vegetables have softened, add the ground turkey breaking up the meat so that it browns evenly and there aren't any large clumps of turkey meat.

When the turkey is more or less cooked through, add the beans and incorporate carefully so that the beans don't get smashed up with the stirring. Add the chopped roasted pepper. Add about half a can of water to the mix and then the herbs and spices. Stir well and cover letting the flavors and ingredients marry over a low heat. Stir occasionally checking to see that the water has mostly evaporated and a thicker stew has been left behind.

Serve with grated cheese and a square of cornbread.

Do you think closeup photos of my food is obscene?

well this absence will certainly do nothing for my analytics stats

Wowsers. I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post.

And usually I have so much to say...

The main reason for my prolonged absence is that M and I packed the cats in the car and took a road trip across the country. We left March 2 and drove a middlish route over Interstate 40. The trip was part vacation and part relocation means. We love living in L.A. but we wanted to be closer to his family and also buy a house. And L.A.'s real estate market for the neighborhoods we're interested in are simply out of our range.

So now we are on the east coast. When we left L.A. we were headed to New Hampshire to hunker down for a spell while we looked for work and tried to figure out the best neighborhood for us to live in the Boston area. But since we got here a week and a half ago we're run into the possibility that we could end up living in the southern part of Connecticut. M's there now for work while I'm holed up at his parents seaside cottage.

But the trip. Oh, the trip was awesome. I think everyone should take a trip like this at least once in their lives. M's already done it once before with his college buddies. They meandered across Interstate 10 which cuts through the south. I'd love to check out that route and also the one that cuts through the nothern states.

We saw lots of very interesting things. I took loads of photos (most of them are on M's laptop which is with him in CT) which I must go through and organize before I can share any of them. I'm looking forward to going through them again since I didn't take as good as notes as I'd thought I'd do on our trip. It was far too interesting to sit and watch the country roll pass and when we stopped for the day and hung out in our motel room, I was just too darned tired to try and express it all. Hopefully I took enough photos to jog my memory.

Until I have a chance to get to blogging about my trip, next up are my notes on a white bean turkey chili I made the other night. Back soon.