Stu News and Photos

A fantastic short film featuring jazz greats including Lester Young, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones, Illinois Jacquet, and others. A brilliant moment of sharing from the great folks at BoingBoing:

We've been having some weather here in SoCal these past few weeks. Interesting to get weather here, as we normally have a steady 72º and Sunny. This new weather consists of gentle rain, with the occasional gusts of wind. The past 24 hours brought us more of this new weather, expanded, with heavier rain and gusts up to 35mph or so. Mostly a neato experience, especially for our daughter, who loves, loves, loves the rain.

However, there was a slight hiccough: Sunday, mid-day, as the winds picked up, a large bit of storm debris brought down a nearby power line, and our neighborhood was thrust into darkness. Well, it was mid-day, so maybe not darkness. But the house sure went quiet, with all our electronic gizmos asleep.

So there we were, four humans in search of path out of the boredom. Enter: The "Family Guy" version of Monopoly. Many, many hours later, Noe was declared the winner, after we all did the math and realized that no matter what numbers the dice produced, none of us would survive her Donald Trump-like grasp.

It was absolutely lovely. And when the power came back on, we kept playing, laughing, chatting... Best part: We called a brief break so I could start dinner, and during the break, I overheard Nich and Noelle forming an alliance, creating a strategy to beat us. That was a pleasure indeed.

More weather is coming, and we may lose power again over the next day or so. I won't mind.

“Every little bit helps, said the old woman as she pissed into the sea” - Neil Gaiman

Watching the footage of the catastrophe in Haiti, I am compelled to do something. Are you feeling that same pull? If so, I'd like to remind you of a statistical reality: Every little bit helps. Every person you help, every bit of charity stems the tide of suffering in the world. Even if you don't feel connected to what's happening in Haiti, if you give food to a local homeless shelter, each person granted a meal walks a step closer towards a life that benefits others, creating a wave of productivity and grace and generosity that will spread across the globe.

As such, I implore you to click on this link, which will bring you to, arguably, the world's most trusted charity watch: Charity Navigator - They perform research on American charitable organizations, based largely on publicly available tax returns. The research gives Charity Navigator the ability to determine the charities' organizational efficiency and organizational capacity. This determination becomes a rating, enabling you, the source of charity, to pick a charity or charities that you can trust.

Even in this economy, even with your current situation, I'm sure that you can afford to put one of your dollars in the hands of someone who is having a worse day.

Thanks for listening, thanks for your generous spirit, thanks for your love of others,

Peace In Our Time,

Stu

Here's my recipe for Chicken Etouffee, a permutation of a standard Shrimp Etouffee recipe:

Ingredients

1 Stick Butter (or Margarine if you keep kosher)
¼ cup flour
1 cup sliced green onions
1 cup chopped yellow or brown onion
1 green pepper, chopped
½ cup celery, halved and sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
Some basil
Some thyme
Some marjoram
Some white or black pepper
8 ounces of plain tomato sauce
2 cups water (or replace 1 cup with white wine)
1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon/tablespoon/bucket Tabasco sauce
2 to 3 chicken breasts, maybe 4 if you're hungry
Enough cooked rice to feed the assembled

Instructions

First, let's talk about the chicken. For me, convenience comes into play sometimes, so if I need to cut back on my cooking time, I buy a couple of packs of Tyson's diced and cooked chicken. These are seriously awesome time-savers. Obviously not quite as tasty as home-cooked, but when the chicken is gonna sit in a pot full of tasty stuff for a while, it's hard to tell the difference.

If you want to cook your own chicken, take a few breasts, dice them, throw them in a pan with some oil and sauté them until lightly browned. Set aside.

Chop up your veggies. Thinly slice your green onions, rough chop your onion, halve/slice your celery. Rough chop your green pepper. Mince your garlic. Next, get out a favorite pot, medium-sized, maybe 6-quarts or so. Set a medium flame under the pot and toss in the stick of butter. Let it melt slowly - burnt butter will cause points to be deducted from your final grade.

When the butter is melted, slowly add the flour until thick and bubbly. Then add your veggies. Stir in the garlic, thyme, basil, marjoram, the single bay leaf, and black/white pepper. You know yourself best, so season accordingly. Pat down the veggies so they can soak in the butter. Let that cook on a low flame for 15-20 minutes, enough time for the celery and green pepper to get soft.

Next, pour in the 8-ounce can of plain tomato sauce. Then add the water, wine (if you're using wine), worcestershire sauce, and Tabasco sauce. With regard to this last item, let your tastes guide you. I use varied hot sauces when I cook, not just Tabasco. Last time I made this I used a Louisiana hot sauce that my son got as a present from his mother, bless her heart. And how much hot sauce? You can start with a tablespoon, but I end up using two or three, and that's only if I'm cooking mild. When it's just my son and me, I'll use almost half a cup.

Ok, you've added all that. Now bring it to a boil, tossing in the chicken as you go. Stir until everything is evenly blended. When it gets to boilin', lower the flame to its most gentle, and let it simmer on the stove for 45 minutes to an hour. Stir it every five minutes or so, which counts towards your daily exercise regimen.

When you're ready to eat, heat up your rice, then either add the rice straight into the etouffee or put the rice on each plate and ladle the etouffee onto the rice. Serve with a crusty bread.

For those of you who are bored with technology or Hollywood, feel free to move on with your day. Maybe the lawn needs attention. As for the rest of you, it's possible that the following will not prove dull.

Y'all heard about Twitter, right? If you haven't, it's a web-page that acts as a public billboard - Anyone can go to the page and type out a message, then have it go out to everyone else in the world. A truly remarkable piece of technology that effects society in a variety of ways.

Ok, so I'm on Twitter the other day, maybe a week ago, and I was getting my mom's latke recipe out to the world, publishing it on my blog and my FaceBook page and such. One place I mentioned it was on Twitter. And as I was tweeting, it occurred to me that I should send it to Joshua Malina.

Right, so who's Josh Malina? A fair question. He was a featured actor in the last few seasons of The West Wing, he was part of the cast of Sports Night, and he appeared as supporting cast for a bunch of great films, like A Few Good Men, From The Earth To The Moon, In The Line Of Fire, The American President. He's also done single episodes of some solid television programs, like House M.D. and Numb3rs and C.S.I. and Grey's Anatomy.

I'm a big fan of Mr. Malina. He brings a certain vibe to his roles that I find instantly connectable - He's like my imaginary version of me, cool, super-smart, and charming. He also provides an expert level ability to deliver a funny line. So I dig him quite a bit. What follows is a bit of Josh as Will on The West Wing, where his character first meets The President Of The United States:



Let us go back in time for a moment. Way back when, when I joined Twitter, back in April of '07, y'know, like last decade, I spent a month or so on a serious star-stalking jag, finding out what celebrities used Twitter, following them, reading their tweets in the hopes of interesting tidbits or passable moments of entertainment. In searching for famous tweeters, I discovered that Josh Malina used Twitter. I began following him, reveling in his real-world commentary. (I get how facile this appears, and yeah, I'm ok with that.)

So I'm reading Twitter a few months later, when I notice that, among the other folks I follow on Twitter (like family and friends and the occasional astronaut and movie star), there is a tweet from Mr. Malina that reminds me of one of my favorite Malina roles, which was Will Bailey on The West Wing. In a moment of false bravado, I replied to his tweet with a quote from Will Bailey. He read it and replied back to me, something apropos, but I forget the words right this second. Regardless, it was a cool moment, like running into Phil Jackson at the local movie theater, except in this case I could hide behind the internet and be brave - with Mr. Jackson, I just gawked reverently.

Ok, so now we come to the finish line - A few days ago, I posted a link to my blog entry for mom's latkes on Twitter. Feeling brave, I sent a tweet to Josh Malina, which read: "@JoshMalina Seriously, this is my latke recipe, based on my mom's. Made 'em tonight, very much the yum. - http://tinyurl.com/y93r3vx " - And, to my amusement and delight, he wrote back, saying " @stumark Looks good. All respect to your mom, but I deeply believe that you'll get a far superior latke by hand grating. Try it!"

Yes, i'm a geek, I admit it. It's a label I wear with pride. Why? 'Cause Josh Malina gave me some Twitter love.