Beef and a Beef

Last weekend, the result of many weeks of negotiating, hard work (none of it mine...) and coordination of various trailers, farm hands and meshing of schedules, came to fruition.

A portion of my friend, Cynthia's, Randall cattle have moved onto my other friend's beautiful farm.  Everyone is thrilled - especially the cows!  To learn more about this lovely, endangered breed and Cynthia's 20+ year journey to bring them back from the edge of extinction, go here. 


Now, onto a beef(s) of another stripe.  As background - almost totally unrelated because, well, I tend to ramble on - I do not watch television (my small screen is used only for DVD viewing - I have no dish, satellite or other connection), have refused to listen to the radio since last November and do not get a daily paper.  A few weeks ago, while out with my sister, I managed to get myself strong-armed into signing up for four-day delivery of our largest local newspaper.  They hit me at a weak point - in JoAnn Fabrics, of all places - with the offer of a $20 gift card and a limited subscription.  Since we live in the sticks, they have to hire someone to deliver the newspapers in the wee, early hours of the morning.  This is how my very limited subscription rolled out - Thursday: a paper delivered.  Friday:  no paper delivered.  Saturday:  see Friday.  Sunday:  paper delivered.  I called customer service and advised them of the missing papers.  I was credited.  Next week - wash, rinse, repeat.  Third week - I made it to Friday morning and then called customer service and cancelled.  It was then I was informed that my 'credits' meant that they extended my subscription by the number of papers not delivered.  Wonderful.  Not only would the Thursday and Sunday - apparently, the only two days where a live brain cell connected with conscious thought - be stretched out forever, there was so little of the newspaper to read that it was not worth the effort.  I kid you not when I say that a good 65% of the paper was advertisements.


Another beef - actually the original beef that got lost in the random beefs above - is the food editor of this paper and her latest local 'star' chef.  We may live in the capitol of the state, but there is very little of the sophistication (and money) of the unofficial capitol downstate, no matter how hard they try.  I am assuming that the food editor - her little blurb contains many references to her British-ness - was looking for something to do to fill her days, or else a good way to get tax-deductible meals.  She is so verbose and tiresome, that you long for a pair of scissors about two-paragraphs in (and she takes up most of the front section page and part of an inside page!)  I digress - again.  It may just be me, but this description of a four-star dish, really rankled me:  Veal cutlet, Marsala mushrooms, soft polenta, a sunnyside egg, and arugula.  In a heap.  I may not be a gourmand, but veal is pretty mild in the first place, let alone buried under wined mushrooms, a bland glob of mush and a runny egg.  I suppose the arugula is so that it has some color, other than tan, yellow and white, and a bit of flavor.


It seems apparent, even to me, that I need another latte to offset the onset of crankypants.