Eureka!

As alert readers will have noticed, I am a great fan of Tove Jansson's Moomin trolls. Among my earliest literary loves were the comic strips she did with her brother Lars, which were coming out in Sweden in hardback collections around the time I was born. Thanks to my mother, I am possesed of all of my childhood copies --felt-marker hand-coloring and all-- but they're not a complete run, and for years I have been pining to complete the set.

On trips home, I haunted used & antiquary book stores and thrift shops in hopes of finding some of the others. I tried and failed to use Swedish online booksellers to get the reprinted series. I continue to wonder when there will be a goddam Amazon.se (bloody stupid boutique language anyway). But today, today, having unexpectedly found a couple of the collections on eBay, I tried abebooks.com for the heck of it. Hah! Bingo! Eureka! There are now Swedish booksellers listing through ABE. Four different Moomin strip collections for sale there right now. The trick was searching on Lars as author instead of Tove. Whee! For prices in the $30 range which, while not super cheap, is not Top Out of Sight either. Tonight I must check which numbers I have, to compare against what's available. O, Brave New Web!

Red Beans & Rice

In a largish dutch oven, brown two slices smoked bacon, diced up fairly small, and perhaps a third of a smoked sausage, diced ditto.

When the bacon is limp, and the sausage bits are browning, add three cans red beans, with their liquor.

Season to taste with white pepper, liquid smoke, savory, garlic powder, and parsley flakes. Discover you have no lard -- unsurprising since you never buy it -- and substitute 2 T bacon grease and 1 T butter.

Allow to simmer together for about an hour on low heat. Taste, and adjust spices, adding white pepper, more parsley, and several dashes of the McIlheny sauce. Discover the bacon grease has added too much salt. Return to simmering while you hunt up the pieces of the food processor.

Saving aside 1/3 of the bean mixture, run the rest through the food processor until smooth. Swear silently under your breath about the safety-conscious bleeding Germans and their unfathomable damned interlocking safety closure mechanism which expansion steam-locks the Braun food processor lid to the bowl to the base when hot foods are run through it. Eventually unscrew the sodding thing by a series of sharp blows delivered with the back of your Chinese cleaver, after utterly failing to find a less dangerous implement to do the deed. Do not maim self with cleaver.

Return the processed batch to the dutch oven, mix in with unprocessed reserve, and resume simmering, while putting on the rice that you should have started thirty minutes ago. When the rice is done, dump it into the red bean mixture, stir the whole gloppy thing together, and eat, discovering that the addition of rice has restored the salt balance.

The result is very tolerably like unto Popeye's red beans and rice, which, if your nearest Popeye's outlet is in South Tacoma, is a very fine thing indeed.

June Second Sunday

Time again for the Seattle Tun; if you'll be in Seattle on Sunday, you're welcome to come join us.

What: Seattle Tun - Fans with Beers
When: Sunday, June 12; 3:30-6:30 p.m. (or so)
Where:
Blue Star Cafe & Pub
4512 Stoneway Ave North
Seattle, WA 98102
206-548-0345

We continue to meet in the back room; please place food as well as drink orders with the barman.