Blue Whales, Gun Running, Movies,

There was a segment on GMA this morning and there will be a full programme on National Geographic TV later this week, about the blue whale. Apparently they are threatened with extinction - scientists are now trying to find ways of protecting them. I didn't realise so little was known about them, it surprised me. There is an interesting article here with some video. It is the biggest mammal ever to inhabit the earth, including all those dinosaurs we hear about. Its tongue weighs the same as a whole elephant. They have recently found a nursery which I assume will be covered in the National Geographic segment. I don't think we get that programme, but it is also covered in the magazine. I have written about the blue whale before click here to see what I wrote. That blog discussed noise pollution, but I heard today that a Blue Whale makes as much noise as a jet engine which won't stop our noise and sonar from frightening them and distorting their perceptions. One thing they are trying to do is to discover migration paths in order to keep giant freighters away from those paths as they can run down a Blue Whale very easily. Do you remember the Star Trek movie The Voyage Home where they discovered some thing from outer space was threatening the planet and the Enterprise and crew had to go back in time to get a couple of whales to respond to the space ship, in this case it was Hump Back Whales, but the concept was fascinating. Whales are certainly very intelligent mammals and maybe more so than we yet realise. I just saw a statistic saying the Japanese kill 1,000 whales a year. How horrible. At least whale hunting has been stopped in this part of the world. We watched another movie on TV plus a documentary about gun running. The movie was Lord of War with Nicholas Cage. Good movie, but the whole thing is pretty frightening. When the Iron Curtain fell, hundreds of armaments were sold to arms dealers they smuggled them to various African countries who then promptly turned round and killed millions. This is not the only thing that happened, but it is a pretty good example. One of the problems is that governments use these dealers (legally or otherwise) to ship arms they cannot openly dispose of themselves. One of the biggest arms dealers in the world is the United States. Talking of movies, Australia goes on sale today which means I will be able to rent it. I wanted to see the movie and didn't manage it. I then heard Nicole Kidman didn't think much of her own performance anyway. I sure won't buy the movie until I have seen it. It certainly didn't do very well in the box office but I still want to rent it. I am hoping we will be going out for dinner tonight. There is a restaurant close by to us which is called the Metro (I have wanted to try it for years) and which advertises itself as having the best schnitzel in town. A friend recently confirmed this and said their schnitzels are great. He also pointed out that there was a coupon in the paper which gives you one entrée and a second for half price. Why does North America call it an entrée for goodness sake, the word means entry, nothing to do with main course. I digress. I am assuming these schnitzels are not veal which used to be the norm in Germany, but pork which is more usual here. I will let you know tomorrow, assuming we make it. Trouble is there is a very cold wind and it discourages us from going out if we don't have to. We were planning to go yesterday, but having gone bowling, that was enough cold, icy wind for us. Having talked about schnitzel, I decided I had better post a classic Wiener Schnitzel recipe. Wiener Schnitzel (Vienna Schnitzel) Source: The Black Forest Inn. 4 Veal or Pork cutlets (250 g each) 2 med eggs flour fine white breadcrumbs 250 g lard or vegetable oil 4 lemon wedges salt Pound Schnitzel to about 1/2 cm in thickness. Make a few cuts around the edges, so the meat will not curl up when fried. Season with salt on both sides. Dip the Schnitzel in flour on both sides, then in beaten and slightly salted eggs ( egg wash ), and then in breadcrumbs. Shake off excess crumbs. Heat lard or oil in large frying pan, add Schnitzel and fry quickly for about 3 - 4 minutes or until golden brown. Turn and cook the other side for a few more minutes. Remove from frying pan and serve immediately with wedges of lemon. Have a great day.

Dinner on Saturday, Blue Whale, Friendship Bread

Saturday night's dinner was Asparagus Phyllo Bundles (these friends hadn't tried them) unfortunately we had to buy Mexican asparagus which isn't nearly as good as Tim Barrie's. Nevertheless, our guests enjoyed them. Following that we served Saltinbocca with Chicken which is similar to Saltinbocca ala Romana only that is veal. The chicken dish has rice cooked with it, so the only other thing we served with it was the Italian Beans which were in my Saturday's blog. For the dessert, I cheated, I bought Crème Caramels from our local supermarket, Zehrs, they are very good and I certainly can't make better. Because one of our visitors is nuts about raspberries, I garnished with a few of those. Matt and I had wine, Pinot Grigio, our friends don't drink. I am not sure of the spelling, I have seen Saltinbocca and Saltimbocca used equally. I should check with an Italian friend. Yesterday I was reading (with a little difficulty, my French is rusty) about a beached Blue Whale off the Finistèrre coast in France. They didn't manage to save it unfortunately. This is the article if you can read French Blue Whale The article was brought to my attention by Gynie who's blog is Once Upon a Time in France (see this page). We were watching a programme about whales and dolphins the other day. Apparently they have now discovered that all the noise we humans make in the water with our engines, our sonars and so forth, is causing havoc with these sea mammals. Sonar in particular is very bad for them and causes panic amongst other problems which is why they are ending up beached, they basically go nuts. I believe this also causes them to be unable to feed themselves properly as they are confused and cannot hunt. We just don't think enough about the damage we cause. I have heard, but don't know if its true, that navies have been banned from using sonar in areas where whales are known to congregate or breed. This helps, but we are still polluting the seas with waste products and we still make a lot of noise. A comment on the programme was "Cousteau called it (the ocean) the silent world, it is anything but silent". I had an unusual present given to me on Saturday, by our guests, it was Amish Cinnamon Friendship Bread. It was a little jar of starter and instructions on what to do each day. I have to look after it for about 10 days, stirring it, adding flour sugar and milk periodically, and then I have to take two 1/3 cup helpings out to pass on to friends before I add more things like eggs and sugar etc. and cook two loaves of bread for us. Today I stirred. The picture is called Amish Friendship Bread, Day 6. Those are the ingredients we have to add twice, milk, sugar, flour. Of course you didn't guess I was going to give you the Saltinbocca recipe did you? Saltinbocca with Chicken Serves: 4 Source: The Record (local paper) 2 large cloves garlic peeled 1 tsp salt 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 4 - 8 long slices of prosciutto ham 4- 12 fresh sage leaves (do use fresh sage, dried isn't the same at all) 4 tbs butter 4 C chicken stock 2 C long grain rice (if you use flavoured rice use water instead of stock) With the tip of a blunt knife scrape the peeled garlic cloves with the salt until you have a thick paste. Spread this over the chicken breasts. If the breasts have a pocket or cavity inside, stuff a little prosciutto and sage inside. Wrap the chicken breast with the prosciutto, tucking the sage leaves between the ham and the chicken and secure with a toothpick. Heat butter on med. high and carefully brown chicken bundles on all sides. When done, turn the chicken sage side up and gently pour in the stock and rice. Cover the pan, (make sure you don't submerge the chicken) and lower the heat to a simmer. Forget about it for 20 mins or so while you do something else. When rice has absorbed all the broth, (test for doneness remove the lid and serve. Have a great day.