Kaimusailing

My foray into the MIND diet hit a little snag as I dove headfirst into mexican cooking. The guacamole has been flowing steadily, mash the avocados with juice of a lime and a small jar of salsa. The red mole sauce that I made firstly with just water added tasted good enough, but I gave the package of mole paste to Geoff, the chemist, and he made pork loin with the sauce properly mixed with stock and tomato puree. He gave it a thumbs up and I suggested he keep the paste, I had two other paste packages, negro and coloradito. I suggested making red mole sauce for the Thanksgiving Feast in the Fall, the paste can be frozen indefinitely.
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I decided to try another portion of my pork with red mole and rice, and add tomato puree, now that I had some. I added a couple spoonfuls of the puree out of its 28 oz. can, and then tried to pour the remainder into a zip lok bag. The bag collapsed and I had the major portion of the 28 ounces land in my lap and onto the galley floor. What a mess. Nautical language followed.
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The sauce was much better with the tomato puree. The next day I was very sore from overdoing it the day before. I decided to make a batch of coloradito mole sauce. It translates as “little red” and is similar to the red mole, maybe spicier and sweeter. After research I found the recommended ingredients to reconstitute the mole: ¼ cup mole paste, ½ cup chicken stock, and 1/3 cup tomato puree. It tasted very good and I let it simmer for a while. When it would thicken no further I turned off the flame.
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Later I decided to cook the remaining loin chops in the sauce, simmer them for a long time. I also added a bunch of leftover spinach and half an onion. This concoction will rest in the fridge for a day or so, it does improve with time.
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It rested till the next day when I made another batch of rice and microwaved the pork mole with the rice and ate it. The coloradito mole is sweeter and maybe spicier than the red mole. I realized that mole is like a magnificent steamroller of taste that mows down whatever it is involved with. Something strong tasting, like goat or spoiled meat, would stand up to it. Pork, chicken, turkey, bland, bland, bland, but not the meats in Mexico, robust, tasty, full of flavor, and full of fat, not so here in America, pork bred to be almost free of fat, and flavor, chicken, turkey, you know what you get in the grocers, bland protein, and not that cheap anymore. So I got the mole sauces, swarthy and sweaty, ready for anything, but in the other corner is wimpy American meat, no contest. I like the sauces and I think they need protein worthy of them. When you have a sauce that gets your attention, very positive, it can work well with anything else, but when you have a potent sauce and pair it with some bland meat, the sauce takes center stage. I like overpowering with spices, but also I like simple recipes with less competing flavors.
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The recent mass shootings seem to mount up and compel one to become active in the anti-gun lobby. On the other hand it also compels one to step away, recede, try to get away from disturbing events. We have no solace. We can’t cope. The pandemic has taught us to keep our distance, no hugging, no close contact. The society at large is a society of estranged persons who have no comfort, no close contact with others, any anxiety is held within. Everything is stand off, polite conversation at a distance. No wonder people are buying guns, fearful of others. I suspect, of course, outside operatives, gleefully getting us to blast away at each other.
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While scrolling through the Google News lineup, in the Technology section, an article caught my interest. It was about a new more affordable smart watch. In the article was a link to purchase the watch at a huge discount. It ended up costing $86.50 via PayPal, but while reviewing the purchase the delivery address appeared as “Paypal Paypal”. I went to my PayPal account to investigate and the charge showed up there as subscription, payable monthly. Holy Heck, I canceled the subscription payment, but the initial payment had already gone through in just a matter of minutes. No acknowledgment from the seller. PayPal seemed to want me to contact the seller to get a refund, but since there was no contact, it was Catch 22. Eventually the seller responded and I was refunded. There are many smart watch scams out there, this may or may not have been one.
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I was now looking at available smart watches. I was mainly interested in blood oxygen monitoring and blood pressure. I looked at a review of the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 and one of the negatives was that it did not have the rotating bezel. I found the rotating bezel was dropped after the Watch 3 model. But wait, the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic did have the rotating bezel. I found one on eBay for about the same price as the scam watch. Now I am excited, it will be here in a couple days. Dick Tracy would approve. His image is from: https://centraljersey.com/2017/12/05/dick-tracy/, a site well worth visiting.