Trina reviews a new cookbook.
Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day
Let's start out with some recipes.
This is Breakfast Taco Recipe:
6 large eggs
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon butter
1 poblano or aneheim pepper, seeded and diced
Salt and pepper, to taste
4 tortillas, your choice
1 large avocado, cubed
Roasted salsa
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2 ounces cotija cheese, crumbled
Warm pan on medium heat. Vigorously whisk eggs with water and cayenne pepper; set aside.
Melt butter in pan. Once foam subsides, add diced peppers and season with salt and black pepper to taste. Saute until soft, about 5 minutes.
Add egg mixture to pan with the pepper and scramble until almost done. Remove pan from heat and scramble another minute until cooked through.
Divide egg and pepper mixture among 4 warmed tortillas. Garnish each taco with 1/4 of the avocado, roasted salsa, chopped cilantro and cotija cheese.
This is Simple Sausage, Egg and Cheese Taquitos
1 roll of sausage (I like Jimmy Dean All-Natural or Maple Pork Sausage, but any kind works fine)
5-6 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
8 corn or flour tortillas
Salsa or hot sauce of your choice
1/2 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, American or any Mexican style you prefer)
Liberate about half of the sausage roll from its container and roll it into small, 1/2-inch balls or crumbles and cook on a skillet over medium heat until browned. Put aside.
Crack eggs in a bowl and add salt, pepper and paprika. I like lots of paprika, but you may prefer a little less. Scramble the eggs and begin cooking on a sprayed or oiled pan over medium heat.
Add the sausage to the eggs once they've cooked, and mix well.
Cook the tortillas until they're brown and firm and fill them with your eggs/sausage mix. Add salsa and cheese and enjoy!
This is Miga Con Todo Taco:
1 teaspoon oil in frying pan
3/4 ounce onions
3/4 ounce tomatoes
3/4 ounce green jalapeno peppers
1/2 handful of corn tortilla chips
1 egg
1 tortilla of your choice
3/4 ounce shredded cheddar cheese
Cook onions, tomatoes, green jalapeno peppers and corn chips in the oiled frying pan for 1 minute. Add eggs, mixing and cooking well with the veggies and corn chips. Add migas to hot tortilla, add cheese and fold.
These -- and many more -- recipes can be found in Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Story of the Most Important Taco of the Day.
I read it via AMAZON KINDLE UNLIMITED.
Could a book on breakfast tacos really work? By that I mean, could you do a whole cookbook on breakfast tacos? Yes, if you do it out of the breakfast taco capitol of the nation -- Austin, Texas. There is a wide variety of recipes in the book. There are ones with vegetables, ones with meat, ones with beans and egg, there is just a wide variety. And there are so many tips on cooking them. Some wait to add the eggs until the end, some start with the eggs and then add meat. There are tips regarding mingas -- like putting them in flour or using old tortilla chips and not fresh ones. There are so many things you can pick up from this book.
And there are narratives, like Diana Valera of Tamale House East whose grandfather came to Austin and started Tony's Tortilla Factory and whose parents opened Tamale House in 1959. She and her brother went on open food places. She got out the business for awhile but then her five children wanted to get in the business so she joined them in opening Tamale House East. Here she is speaking about what it's all about:
It's like a mini home-cooked meal in a tortilla. It takes a lot of effort and love to put the ingredients that go into it. It's not like flipping burgers. The more ingredients it has, the more care and love it has. But I think in addition to that is the evolution of the appreciation of our culture. And part of a culture is their food, their music, their language. There have been a lot of people who have traveled to Austin and discovered what wonderful tacos we have and have written about it and done stories about it. For the longest time, our own community didn't know what a gem they had, which was our whole culture and our food. Mexican food is so varied. Every taco is a little piece of art. I get into the kitchen, and a customer might ask me how much are you going to put of that ingredient? And I say, well, put on some music and lemme see. That's how I personally do it. I'll remember recipes from my mother or that I've seen elsewhere. It's a creative endeavor. When someone comes in, they can tell that. They can look at a taco, the greens, the reds. It's colorful like a Mexican flag or a Mexican costume. Then people visually see the presentation of the taco, they get excited, and when they put it in their mouth, they say, "Wow, I've discovered something." And every time someone tries it, I can tell people enjoy it. It's a very rewarding experience to make someone happy. It's a vey basic instinct in all of us that if you satisfy someone's hunger or a craving for delicious food, you make them happy. And they want to come back. And they want to share that with their friends.''
Pauline Avila of Joe's Bakery and Restaurant explains:
Tacos were the standard food for Mexican people. I remember making the tacos and taking them to lunch, and we would take them to my dad and my brothers working in the field. And we would take tacos to school since they didn't have any money to give us for lunch. But we had to hide them so the other kids wouldn't laugh at us. It was only a nickel for the lunch, but my mom didn't even have that. A lot of the kids who didn't have enough money to buy lunch would also have tacos, and we would eat them behind the burning alley where they would burn the trash. Now everybody eats tacos. Back then, there was a lot of discrimination against Mexican people. When Joe went to a restaurant, they would have a sign that this section if for white and the other section was black and Mexican people. I'd say maybe even in the '60s you would start to see white people/black people eating tortillas. The breakfast tacos, bean and egg, chorizo -- all those were popular even in the '60s.
It's a really good book that holds your attention and provides numerous reasons why breakfast tacos are not just for breakfast and why they are so popular. I highly recommend the book.
Now I want to note this video.
Ava and C.I. noted that ABC news documentary in "Media: Why did Max Blumenthal targeted Rachel Maddow?" (this Sunday or Monday, at The Third Estate Sunday Review, they'll be taking on the myth of Tucker Carlson's audience of 'millions').
Eric London (WSWS) reports on Donald Trump's latest charges:
Thursday’s filing of a 38-count federal criminal indictment against former President Donald Trump marks a new and unprecedented stage in the crisis of the American political system. At a critical juncture in the escalating US-NATO war against Russia and with the first Republican presidential primary only seven months away, an explosive conflict between the two main factions of the ruling class has burst to the surface.
This is the first time in US history that the Department of Justice has charged a former president with breaking federal law. Even in 1974, at the peak of the Watergate crisis, Gerald Ford sacrificed his political credibility and ultimately his presidency by pardoning Nixon in order to prevent a trial that the ruling class feared would destabilize the political system and weaken the world position of US imperialism.
In contrast to the ongoing state prosecutions and civil suits against Trump that are based on his sexual improprieties, the DOJ indictment, unsealed Friday, is far more consequential.
The indictment asserts that Trump usurped core state powers by retaining top secret military documents related to US war plans for personal political use. It details how Trump and his cronies stole top secret documents obtained during his time in the White House and hid them at Trump’s mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. It includes transcripts of audio recordings and text messages in which Trump and his employees essentially admit that they were aware the conduct was illegal.
The detailed character of the indictment indicates that a section of the state apparatus has decided that the time has come to try to remove Trump from the political arena once and for all.
The document concludes by charging Trump with 38 counts of criminal activity, including 31 counts of violating the Espionage Act, each of which carries a potential 10-year sentence for “gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.” The remaining counts assert that Trump and his valet, Waltine Nauta, conspired, lied and withheld information during a federal investigation over the handling of classified documents. The conspiracy count has a maximum sentence of 20 years.
From the standpoint of the working class, there is no “democratic” side in the prosecution. The brutal imperialist politician Trump is not a victim or opponent of the war machine, and the Democratic Party-led prosecution is only interested in challenging Trump on the most right-wing basis possible: to advance its war aims against Russia.
This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for Friday:
Pat Robertson has died. He said gay people caused hurricanes and wore special rings which spread AIDS, and that gay marriage was worse than murder. He's survived by this poster on the wall of Mike Pence's bedroom pic.twitter.com/Shf5NThGZk
— Paul Rudnick (@PaulRudnickNY) June 8, 2023Let's note whistle-blower Chelsea Manning as we turn to Iraq. Monday April 5th, WIKILEAKS released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Chelsea Manning and she stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported in August 2010 that Manning had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to [her] personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning had been convicted in the public square despite the fact that she's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, she had made no public statements. Manning was now at Quantico in Virginia, under military lock and key and still not allowed to speak to the press. Paul Courson (CNN) noted [Chelsea] is a suspect and, "He has not admitted guilt in either incident, his supporters say." She was attacked repeatedly and then convicted and then pardoned. Alonso Matinez (EL PAIS) notes today:
In an interview with the Financial Times, Manning revealed that she rarely faces hecklers regarding the intelligence leaks, but occasionally experiences attacks related to her transgender identity. She expressed her resilience, stating that she has become accustomed to such criticism and that it no longer greatly affects her.
A former Miss Iraq, Sarah Idan, has officially announced her run as a Democrat for US Congress in California’s 30th District in November 2024.
Idan currently lives in Los Angeles and is the founder of Humanity Forward, a nonprofit bipartisan organisation “committed to building bridges among Muslims and Jews in order to surpass borders and promote reconciliation, tolerance, mutual understanding, and peace”.
The seat is currently held by Adam Schiff, who will be leaving to run for the Senate. Schiff, who was the House Intelligence Committee chair in 2021, had welcomed the US administration's pledge to release a declassified report on who killed Jamal Khashoggi, calling for the document to be made public "without delay".
Western oil companies are exacerbating water shortages and causing pollution in Iraq as they race to profit from rising oil prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Water scarcity has already displaced thousands and increased instability, according to international experts, while Iraq is now considered the fifth most vulnerable country to the climate crisis by the UN. In the oil-rich but extremely dry south, wetlands that used to feed entire communities are now muddy canals.
Mahdi Mutir, 57, worked as a fisher his entire life. For years, Mutir and his wife woke at dusk, sailing along a thick network of canals in Al Khora, a few kilometres north of Basra. The harvest was meagre but enough to provide food for the family of seven.
That changed last year. Now, at the height of the rainy season, Mutir’s boat lies stranded in the mud.
“It is the water station the Italian company built: they need water for their oilfields,” Mutir said, pointing at the black smoke rising from the Zubayr oilfield on the horizon.
To help extract oil, companies pump large quantities of water into the ground. For each barrel of oil, many of which are later exported to Europe, up to three barrels of water are pumped into the ground. And as Iraq’s oil exports rise, its water has dramatically fallen.
The whole world is facing drastic climate change but climate models suggest that Iraq will be among the worst effected. Back in March, Amr Salem (IRAQI NEWS) reported:
The
United Nations stressed that Iraq is suffering from a real water
crisis, calling for collective action to find solutions to this crisis,
the Iraqi News Agency (INA) reported.
The statement was made on Sunday by the Special Representative of the
Secretary-General for Iraq and Head of the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, during her
participation in Iraq Climate Conference held in the southern Iraqi city
of Basra.
“There is an urgent need to find solutions to the water crisis in Iraq,” Plasschaert stated.
Urgent and it only gets more urgent each day. Already problems are evident. January 10th, Yale's School of Environment published Wil Crisp's article which opened:
For their biodiversity and cultural significance, the United Nations in 2016 named the Mesopotamian Marshes — which historically stretched between 15,000 and 20,000 square kilometers in the floodplain of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers — a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The marshes comprised one of the world’s largest inland delta systems, a startling oasis in an extremely hot and arid environment, home to 22 species of globally endangered species and 66 at-risk bird species.
But now this ecosystem — which includes alluvial salt marshes, swamps, and freshwater lakes — is collapsing due to a combination of factors meteorological, hydrological, and political. Rivers are rapidly shrinking, and agricultural soil that once grew bounties of barley and wheat, pomegranates, and dates is blowing away. The environmental disaster is harming wildlife and driving tens of thousands of Marsh Arabs, who have occupied this area for 5,000 years, to seek livelihoods elsewhere.
Experts warn that unless radical action is taken to ensure the region receives adequate water — and better manages what remains — southern Iraq’s marshlands will disappear, with sweeping consequences for the entire nation as farmers and pastoralists abandon their land for already crowded urban areas and loss of production leads to rising food prices.
The Mesopotamian marshlands are often referred to as the cradle of civilization, as anthropologists believe that this is where humankind, some 12,000 years ago, started its wide-scale transition from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement. Encompassing four separate marshes, the region has historically been home to a unique range of fish and birdlife, serving as winter habitat for migratory birds and sustaining a productive shrimp and finfish fishery.
AP has observed, "Climate change for years has compounded the woes of the troubled country. Droughts and increased water salinity have destroyed crops, animals and farms and dried up entire bodies of water. Hospitals have faced waves of patients with respiratory illnesses caused by rampant sandstorms. Climate change has also played a role in Iraq’s ongoing struggle to combat cholera." And now action? Or what might pass for it. Khalid Al Ansary (BLOOMBERG NEWS) reported:
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on Sunday kicked off an initiative to plant 5 million trees and palms across the country in an attempt to alleviate some of the deleterious impacts of climate change, a statement from his office said.
Iraq has suffered years of drought, and more than 7 million people have been effected or lost their incomes from agriculture and fishing, Al-Sudani’s office said. The war-torn, oil rich country has experienced higher temperatures, persistent drought, an increase in dust storms and a crop area cut by half, all impacts of extreme weather caused by climate change.
Real action would be addressing the use of water by the oil industry -- water that's not going to the people.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. delivered remarks during today’s hearing on examining veterans’ access to long term care.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today to discuss how we can ensure veterans have access to the long-term care and support they need.
Our veterans sacrificed for us, so we owe it to them to work to identify gaps in care and find ways to improve the experience they receive when they work with VA to fulfill their long-term care needs.
Access to quality long-term care is an important part of honoring our commitment to our veterans.
It’s an issue that affects the veteran, their families, the caregiver, and the community around them.
We must improve coordination between the VA, community providers, and other stakeholders so that veterans and their families do not have to struggle to access the support they earned.
As the population of aging and disabled veterans increases, VA will need to ensure high-quality and adequate staffing for VA medical facilities, clinics, and community living centers, while also expanding its footprint in the community.
I support VA’s efforts to honor veterans’ preferences for when, where, and how they receive long-term care. Veterans should have ultimate control over their health care decisions from VA.
We must also focus on caregiver support and recognize the vital role caregivers play in the well-being of our veterans. We must provide caregivers with the necessary resources, training, and support to ensure they deliver the best care.
Our hope is that your testimony will help us figure out how to do that.
I thank you again for your testimony.
Let us honor our veterans' service and sacrifice by making sure they get the best care we can give them.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
Watch his remarks here.
Baldwin Successfully Pushes VA to Reexamine & Pay Earned Benefits to 600 Veterans After Doctor Misdiagnosed Conditions
Doctor who misdiagnosed veterans was terminated from Tomah VA Baldwin has been advocating for new exams, proper compensation, and an investigation into doctor for 1.5 years
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After more than a year and a half of advocating on behalf of Wisconsin veterans, Senator Tammy Baldwin successfully pushed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to identify and reexamine approximately 600 veterans whose neurological conditions were misdiagnosed by a doctor at the Tomah VA Medical Center. As a result of the misdiagnoses, these veterans had been denied proper benefits, compensation, and treatment. The VA will now work to complete reexaminations and grant equitable relief for impacted veterans. The doctor responsible for the misdiagnosis, Dr. Mary Jo Lanska, MD, has been terminated from the Tomah VA.
Since 2021, Senator Baldwin has been working with multiple Wisconsin veterans who reported that their traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and other conditions were misdiagnosed by Dr. Lanska. Senator Baldwin had been calling on the VA to investigate the pattern of misdiagnoses, ensure misdiagnosed veterans get a new exam, and get the veterans the proper compensation and benefits they are deserved.
After Senator Baldwin successfully pushed the VA
to review all of the compensation and pension exams that were done by
Dr. Lanska and reach out to impacted veterans, the VA announced today
that they identified approximately 600 veterans who received an exam
from Dr. Lanska that they plan to order reexaminations of and grant
equitable relief.
“Our veterans served us and we have an
obligation to serve them when they come back home. Unfortunately, many
of our Wisconsin heroes did not get the care at the VA that they
deserved," said Senator Baldwin. “I am glad to see that
after years of working alongside some of our veterans, hundreds of
Wisconsinites who have been wronged by the VA will be getting the care
and benefits that they earned.”
In a March meeting, Senator Baldwin pressed VA Secretary Denis McDonough to investigate the pattern of misdiagnosis and shared the Wisconsin veterans’ concerns. In August 2022, Senators Baldwin and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) sent a letter to Secretary McDonough highlighting their concerns about TBI misdiagnosis at the Tomah VA and pushing for answers about the process for veterans who may have been improperly diagnosed and not receiving the benefits they deserve. After hearing from additional veterans, in September 2022, Senator Baldwin called on the VA to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the practices of this doctor to determine whether there is a broader pattern of her misdiagnosing patients’ neurological disorders that are preventing veterans from receiving care or benefits they earned.
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