Armstrong, Bowling, TV and Politics.

Yesterday I was reading about Lance Armstrong and the doping case. He has been stripped of his titles and for the sever years the various agencies involved have declared that there was no winner. I have never been particularly interested in cycling, but I have friends to whom Armstrong was something of a hero and who must be desperately disappointed in everything which has now been discovered. It is such a shame that he and other sportsmen feel the need to cheat in order to win at any cost. I guess its taken a long time to catch him, and maybe he figured he never would be caught, but he was. It also casts a shadow over the Livestrong Cancer programme he founded although I gather he has resigned the chairmanship. But why; why do these well known sportsmen who become heroes to the world, do this? A well known English school, Eton, have a saying “it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game” which is something these guys don’t take to heart, its win, win, win. To me it is ineffably sad.

Yesterday I bowled a bit better, but not much. My first game stank though. We have two more games this week as its our Travel League on Thursday. Some of us are not very happy that the proprietors have put up the fees by 22%. Only $2 a head but nevertheless its one hell of an increase and when there are two of you, it makes it somewhat expensive. One friend has quit – as he also points out, he neither drinks coffee nor eats donuts which is one of the treats of the Travel League, so why should he pay an extra $2?

Recently there was a Hallowe’en Dog Parade and one of the popular entries was Mutt Romney. Many Canadians are fed up to the back teeth with US elections, unfortunately lots of our TV programmes are American ones and so all the advertising, political or otherwise, is American too. If you don’t live in this part of the world, you have no idea what its like to see American political advertising for a whole year prior to their Presidential election. We do have all Canadian channels but I have to confess that a lot of the best programmes are not on them. Although this season, I am pleased to say, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (the latter is my favourite programme) have been moved to a Hamilton, ON channel so at least the ads we are bombarded with are Canadian ones. We do have a public TV channel with no ads during programmes, but they don’t show a heck of a lot that we would watch, plus there are at least two American stations with no ads, but they too don’t always show anything we want to see either. In fact I have got to the stage, presently, if something is on a channel with ads, I mostly won’t watch it.

Anything based on Spanish cooking usually perks up my interest.

Spanish Monkfish

Source: The South Beach Diet Quick & Easy Cookbook

Home cooks in Spain know that it’s easy to put a quick and tasty meal on the table by using flavorful basics — garlic, tomatoes, parsley, and saffron — and simple technique. Following their philosophy and style, we created this delicious, no-fuss dish. serve it over brown rice.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon oil, olive, extra-virgin plus 2 teaspoons, divided
• 2 clove(s) garlic thinly sliced
• 14 ounce(s) tomatoes, diced(1 can)
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron powdered

• 1 pinch salt plus more to taste
• 1 pinch pepper, black ground plus more to taste
• 1 1/2 pounds fish, monkfish or halibut fillets
• 2 tablespoon parsley, freshly chopped

Instructions

• Heat oven to 425°F.
• Heat 2 teaspoon of the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 2 minutes. Add tomatoes with juice, saffron, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Simmer 20 minutes.
• While sauce is cooking, brush fish with remaining oil and season well with salt and pepper. Bake until just opaque in the center, 12 to 15 minutes.
• Add parsley to sauce, season to taste with salt and pepper, and remove from heat. Spoon over fish and serve.

Have a great day