A small welcome home party

One of the ladies that play cards here every night had to make a visit to the hospital. They replaced two heart valves and gave her a pacemaker. So we are planning a little “welcome home” for her. Nothing big, just some taquitos , guacamole dip and chips. This proves to be a great go to snack for impromptu get togethers. 

 

Since most of our guests will be seniors, this recipe will be on the bland side. Feel free to spice it up as you wish for your guests. Did you know: On the Ellipse of President's Park in Washington D.C. There stands a phallic fountain honoring a gay couple who drowned together on the Titanic. Read their story after the recipes!

Cinco de mayo is Battle of Puebla day! When a relatively small number of Mexican soldiers defeated Napoleon III's troops at Puebla. Eventually the French were driven from Mexico, but not until they left behind their tradition of Mariachi bands. I believe the definition of "Mariachi"... means instruments that cannot play in tune! LOL! Who Cares – a great excuse to have fun!

Taquitos or Mini Tacos

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

½ yellow onion, diced 

1 lbs ground beef 

½ teaspoon chili powder 

½ tsp paprika + ½ tsp. salt 

½ tsp pepper + ¼ tsp crushed red pepper

2 roma tomatoes diced finely – no seeds

1 pkg shredded lettuce

1 pkg shredded Mexican blend cheese

1 pkg Egg Roll wraps

1 egg yolk

Directions:

Chop up the onion. Chop the Roma tomatoes in a fine dice. 

 

In a skillet, heat oil and brown the ground beef along with the onion – about 8 minutes stirring well. 

 

Drain the fat.

Add the chili powder, paprika, salt, pepper and crushed red pepper and stir to combine. Stir in the tomatoes and add ½ cup hot water and stir. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.

 

Take off heat and let cool.

Assemble:

Lay out some waxed paper.

Beat 1 egg yolk into a small bowl with 1 tbs water. Get out your pastry brush.

Set up a rack to hold the rolls before cooking.

Put the wraps with point towards you.

Place 2 tablespoons of meat down the center of each. Sprinkle with a tiny bit of lettuce to give each a crunch. Add a half a spoon full of tomato and about a ½ tsp cheese.
Roll the point that is towards you up over the filling.
Now fold over each side and hold with a touch of egg water.
Brush up to the upper point with a drop of egg water and roll this up. Place seam side down and continue until mixture is used up. 
 

Heat oil in a large skillet. Fry each for only about 1 – 2 minutes to give it a crunchy brown coating. Turning once and only frying about 4 at a time.
Place on a baking sheet in a 200 degree oven to keep warm as you finish the frying.

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Guacamole

The trick to perfect guacamole is using ripe avocados. Check by  

gently pressing the skin. If there is no give, the avocado is not 

ripe yet. A little give is OK. If it starts to feel mushy, it may be 

passed its prime and the insides be a gray-brown mess.

 All you really need for guacamole is ripe avocados, salt, and a 

little lime juice. Then the fun begins with varying amounts of 

chopped cilantro, chiles, onion, and even tomato.

Ingredients:

4 ripe Haas avocados - Use large ones, about 8oz each

Juice of a lime and a bit of its zest.

½ cup small -diced red onion

1 large garlic clove, either mashed or minced

1 Tbs chopped cilantro

1 tsp salt + ½ teaspoon pepper

6 medium Roma tomatoes, seeded, and diced

Directions:

Cut up the tomato and cover for latter.

In a large bowl, cut up the onion, and mash the garlic clove.

Cut the lime in half, do these steps first.

Now cut the avocados in half and remove the pit.

Run the knife down into the avocado till it hits the pit, then roll so that the piece is cut all the way around. 

 

Twist the two halves and one will come off.

Now lightly chop the knife down into the pit, just enough to hold it and twist that. It will come right out.

Run a table knife through the flesh of the avocado making a grid in both directions with the knife going down to the peel. Now these sections will scoop right out into the waiting bowl.

Squeezing some lime juice over this, as you finish retrieving all of the flesh. Finish squeezing the limes to cover. This keeps the avocados from turning brown with oxygen. 

Before throwing out the lime, zest some of the dark green skin into the bowl.

Sprinkle with the cilantro.

Please do not mush this. It is NOT mashed potatoes! 

Instead use two table knives to “cut” it together, like you would a pastry. Just keep running them through the mix until it is chunky and blended.

Place plastic wrap down onto the surface of the guacamole and up the insides of the bowl. This will help keep it from turning brown.

 

Let it sit on the counter (not in refrigerator) for about an hour to meld the flavors!

When ready to serve, remove the plastic and arrange the diced tomatoes

around the outside edge.

Serve with corn chips and the taquitos. Having fun IS mandatory!

So happy to have Angie back with new heart valves and a pace maker. Now maybe she will let someone else win a few games, LOL!

For our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQIPdHMpjc

socialslave

To satisfy and restore.

To nourish, support and maintain.

To gratify, spoil, comfort and please,

to nurture, assist, and sustain

…..I cook!

Please buy slave's cookbook:

The Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon

 

 

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Francis Davis Millet was born in Massachusetts in 1848. At age fifteen, Millet entered the Massachusetts regiment, first as a drummer boy and then a surgical assistant (helping his father, a surgeon) in the American Civil War.

He graduated from Harvard with a Master of Arts degree. He worked as a reporter and editor for the Boston Courier and then as a correspondent for the Advertiser at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.

Millet had a studio in Rome in the early 1870s and Venice in the mid-1870s, where he lived with Charles Warren Stoddard, a well-known American travel journalist who had an active sexual interest in men.

Historian Jonathan Ned Katz presents letters from Millet to Stoddard that suggest they had a romantic and intimate affair while living a “bohemian life” together.

============

Archibald Butt was a Captain in the United States Army Quartermaster Corps. Theodore Roosevelt had become acquainted with Butt's logistics and animal husbandry work in the Philippines and was impressed. William Taft had served as chair of the Second Philippine Commission from 1900 to 1901. Taft knew Butt well from their time together overseas. Roosevelt asked Butt to serve as his military aide in April 1908. 

When Taft became president in March 1909, he asked Butt to stay on as military aide. Butt proved to have strong negotiating skills and a good head for numbers, which enabled him to become Taft's de facto chief negotiator on federal budget issues.

Butt lived in a large mansion at 2000 G Street NW (now demolished). Since about 1910, Butt and Millet had lived together in the house. (Millet's wife, Lily, resided in the Millet home in Italy.) "Millet, my artist friend who lives with me" was Butt's designation for his companion. 

They were known for large parties that were attended by members of Congress, justices of the Supreme Court, and President Taft himself. Newspapers characterized the intense, deep friendship the men shared as a "Damon and Pythias" relationship.

By 1912, Taft's first term was coming to an end. Roosevelt, who had fallen out with Taft, was known to be considering a run for president against him. Close to both men and fiercely loyal, Butt began to suffer from depression and exhaustion. Millet (himself one of Taft's circle) asked Taft to give him a leave of absence to recuperate before the presidential primaries began.

Taft agreed and ordered Butt to go on vacation. Butt and Millet left on a six-week vacation to Europe on March 1, 1912. They booked passage on the RMS Titanic for their return to the United States.

Butt and Millet were playing cards on the night of April 14 in the first-class smoking room when the Titanic struck an iceberg. The ship sank two and half hours later, with a loss of over 1,500 lives. Both Butt and Millet went down with the Titanic. Butt's remains were never found. Millet's body was recovered on April 27, and he was buried in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

Taft was devastated by Butt's death. When he learned Butt had not survived, he "broke down and wept, 'his whole body was shaken with convulsive sobs'."

On May 2, 1912, a memorial service was held in the Butt family home in Atlanta, Georgia. Taft spoke at the service, almost breaking down twice as he said:

If Archie could have selected a time to die he would have chosen the one God gave him. His life was spent in self–sacrifice, serving others. His forgetfulness of self had become a part of his nature. Everybody who knew him called him Archie. I couldn't prepare anything in advance to say here. I tried, but couldn't. He was too near me. He was loyal to my predecessor, Mr. Roosevelt, who selected him to be military aide, and to me he had become as a son or a brother.

A second ceremony was held in Washington, D.C., on May 5, during which Taft broke down and wept—bringing his eulogy to an abrupt end.

In 1913, the Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain was erected in Washington, D.C., in memory of Millet and his long-time companion Archibald W. Butt.

On May 16, 1912, Senator Augustus Octavius Bacon of Georgia submitted a resolution in the U.S. Senate authorizing private persons to construct a memorial to Butt and Millet on federally owned land somewhere in the District of Columbia. Bacon argued that Butt (who was an aide to the president) and Millet (who was vice chair of the United States Commission of Fine Arts at the time of his death) were both public servants who deserved to be memorialized.

Plans for erecting a memorial to Butt and Millet began shortly after the introduction of the Senate resolution. Taft agreed to chair the memorial committee. Taft's personal secretary, Charles D. Hilles, and his military aide, Colonel Spencer Cosby, led the fund-raising on behalf of the committee. Taft himself had made the first contribution. At this point in time, The Ellipse (the southern part of President's Park) was chosen for the site of the memorial.

During work on the congressional legislation, plans for the memorial were altered several times. The memorial commission had also settled on Thomas Hastings and Daniel Chester French as the memorial's designers. By April 1913, the memorial commission had added a shaft with two bas-relief figures—one representing chivalry (Butt) and one representing art (Millet).

The Butt-Millet Memorial Fountain was dedicated without ceremony on October 25, 1913. Thus our nations capital was fitted with a phallic fountain honoring two gay lovers who drowned together, over a hundred years ago.

LGBT History is everywhere!