JamesSavik

Key Lime Pie is a classic of the Old South. Although it is called a lime, the Key Lime is a slightly different species from most limes- its natural color when ripe is a golden-brown color which some people don't associate with lime. Some cooks use a touch of green food coloring can make it appear more "lime-like" but true aficionados consider this heresy. ________________________________________________________________________________ Key Lime Pie This makes a 9" pie. Ingredients: 9-inch graham cracker piecrust 2 14-ounce cans sweetened condensed milk 6 egg yolks (Saved the egg whites to make the meringue!) 1/2-cup Key Lime Juice Preparation: Blend milk and egg yolks at slow speed until smooth. Add Key Lime juice and finish blending. Pour into piecrust. Bake in preheated 300-degree oven for 15 minutes. Cool pie 20 minutes before refrigerating. Serve chilled Key Lime pie with whipped cream topping or meringue. Serving suggestions: Traditionally, Key Lime pie is enjoyed plain, with a whipped cream topping, or with a meringue topping. For an interesting variation, drizzle chocolate sauce, mango sauce, and/or raspberry sauce over a slice of Key Lime pie. The complimentary flavors are sure to please. ________________________________________________________________________________ Optional: [cool-whip works just as well] Meringue Ingredients: 6 egg whites 6 Tablespoons sugar Pinch Cream of Tartar 1-teaspoon vanilla extract Preparation: Beat egg whites, sugar, vanilla extract, and Cream of Tartar at high speed. Continue beating mixture until egg whites are stiff. Top baked pie with the meringue. Bake until Meringue is golden brown. Careful! It burns easily. Cool pie. ________________________________________________________________________________ Strawberry Key Lime Pie a popular variation This makes a 9" pie. Ingredients: 9-inch graham cracker piecrust 2 14-ounce cans sweetened condensed milk 6 egg yolks (The egg whites can be saved to make a meringue topping, if desired. See recipe.) 1/2-cup Key Lime Juice 1/2-cup strawberries blended with 1/8-cup sugar 4 drops red food coloring Preparation: Blend milk and egg yolks at slow speed until smooth. Add Key Lime juice and finish blending. Add strawberries and food coloring and mix until just blended. Pour into piecrust. Bake in preheated 300-degree oven for 15 minutes. Cool pie 20 minutes before refrigerating. Serving suggestion: Serve chilled strawberry Key Lime pie with a slice of fresh strawberry, strawberry sauce and whipped cream. Enjoy.

Shrimp Creole ala Hebert Y'all try this one: 2 tablespoons butter + 2 tablespoons olive oil 2 medium sweet white onions, small dice 2 medium red onions, small dice 1 green bell pepper, small dice 1 red bell pepper, small dice 1 yellow bell pepper, small dice 2 jalepino peppers, small dice 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 quarts shrimp stock 6 cups crushed tomatoes (if using fresh tomatoes, run them through a food mill) 2 8-ounce tomato sauce 3 6-ounce cans tomato paste 1/2 teaspoon white pepper 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 2 tablespoons Creole seasoning (I suggest Tony Chachere's seasoning) 3 tablespoons Tiger Sauce (if you can find it) 3 cloves of roasted garlic 1 teaspoon Crystal hot sauce 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce 1 teaspoon salt 4 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme (or 1-1/2 teaspoons dried thyme) 2 bay leaves 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice 3 pounds medium shrimp, peeled and deveined About 15 cups cooked long-grain or converted rice (about 5 cups raw) To make a simple, quickie shrimp stock, reserve the shells and heads from the peeled shrimp, add to 2 quarts cold water, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain thoroughly. Sweat the onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic in oil and/or butter in a large covered pot until tender, about 15 minutes. Add all of the remaining ingredients except the shrimp. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer the sauce for 30 minutes. Add the shrimp. Simmer an additional 15 minutes. To serve, heap about 1 cup of rice in the center of the plate, and ladle a generous amount of the sauce around it. Garnish with fresh chopped parsley. Serves 15 regular people, or about 2 Cajuns.

When it comes to writing, I don't write "gay" stories. I write stories in which some characters may or may not be gay. I would hope that anyone, regardless of gender or orientation could read one of my stories. Sex in a story for the sake of sex doesn't make a good story. The traditional elements make a good story: characterization, scene, plot, setting, craft and so on. NO- I'm not anti-sex. Sex occassionally does belong in a story but there's a big difference in doing a play-by-play and a more subtle approach which leaves the messy details up to the readers imagination. Too many writers of "gay-fiction" have sex driving the plot rather than being a logical part of it. Nifty is full of that sort of writing but how much of it do you really remember two weeks after reading it? Just my 2 cents, JS

Take it from a more senior geezer: we ARE NOT getting older. We are just getting more experienced. Have a great year LB!

Oven Fried Lemon Chicken Chicken breasts- with or without bones. Clean and wash. Place chicken in a bowl and sprinkle both sides with an excessive amount of lemon pepper (LOTS). Barely cover with skimmed or whole milk, then cover liberally with flour. Pam the bottom of a shallow baking dish. Place floured chicken in pan. Place 3 or 4 slices of margarine on each piece of chicken. (For good measure- you can put thin slices of lemon) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Turn heat up to 425 degrees until brown and crisp.

I'd be thrown out of the South if I couldn't cook. My pizzia is legendary, if not a tad odd to some people. I cook a thick crust with layers of sausage, onions, pepper, pepperoni all covered with motzerella cheese. Usually it is between 3/4 to an inch thick and is served in squares. I feel a craving coming on. Our day to day food is pretty good: if you can find it, try some Jalepino corn bread. There some secrets that we don't let out- like key lime pie, Red Velvet cake and a whole flock of things that you only see during the holidays. Vegatarians are not allowed in the South. Sure- we've got vegatables but with all the good things that we can do to cow, pig, fish, shrimp, turkey and so on, they don't last very long.

Naw- hell just had some sleet. If the Saints win the title game saturday and go to the Super Bowl, that's when it will get down to some serious sign of the apocalypse type stuff. Razor, being a fellow Mississippian, only living here do you really understand how crazy, volitile, and even dangerous our weather can be. Last week it was in the 70s- people were wearing shorts. Sunday, it was almost eighty. Sunday night it all feel apart and now we're in danger of an ice storm. Who knows- warm moist Gulf air can blow in from the Gulf and hit this cold air then it gets really exciting with big funnel clouds and flying cows. I think for my next house I'll go for the Cold War retro look and build an underground bomb shelter.

Shadows, Hope things are looking up for you and the year ahead is the best yet. Best wishes, James

You'll enjoy your twenties: you are old enough to do whatever you want but still young enough to enjoy it. Have a good birthday and a great year!

29? Bah. I've got cats older than that. Have a good birthday and a better 2007! I'm looking forward to more stories.

Dom- there's nothing selfish about it. Katrina taught a whole lot of people in my neck of the woods that bad luck doesn't just happen to other people.

Ooops, wrong hobbits. New 'Hobbit' Galaxies Discovered Around Milky Way By Ker Than, Staff Writer for Space.com January 15, 2007 Source Link Researchers from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) announced the discovery of eight new dwarf galaxies, seven of them satellites orbiting the Milky Way. They resemble systems cannibalized by the Milky Way billions of years ago and help close the gap between the observed number of dwarf satellites and theoretical predictions. Credit: Vasily Belokurov, SDSS-II, Astronomy magazine, Kalmbach Publishing Co. A recent sky survey has turned up eight new members in our Local Group of galaxies, including a new class of ultra-faint "hobbit" galaxies and what might be the smallest galaxy ever discovered. The Local Group is a collection of about 40 galaxies, of which the Milky Way and Andromeda are the dominant members. The rest of the galaxies are mostly small satellites known as

From Todays headlines: Saints Advance to NFC Title Game Hell Braces for its Worst Ice Storm of the Millennium

If you listen carefully to talking ads, you'll hear them saying: I suck, I suck, I suck

How about: "The Many Faces of Alex Gagnon". Often times law enforcement circles are very homophobic- so much so that it is possible that Alex has become dissociative (or has multiple personalities). There is the cop ALex and then the person ALex is when he is off duty. As the gap widens between who and what these two facets of his personality are, they become less aware of each other.

This is why we get Dan Quayle's and George W Bush's: dim, low-brow breeders who aren't smart enough to do anything scandalous and are lead around by backroom power brokers. Considering the media protological examination that goes with running for office, who else would want the job?

Yes, maybe. But make sure that the picture is congruent with the story. This is far trickier than you might think and a topic with hidden dimensions. I once had an excellent picture of a red-winged blackbird that I wanted to use but it did nothing for the story nor did the story suggest its use. be careful not to fall in love with an image and decide to use it come hell or high-water. Some authors want to use pictures of people, actors or models to give their story a "face". I don't think this is a very good idea. First- that picture belongs to someone- which may cause a legal problem over the rights to that photo. Second, that picture of a person; someone who might object to being linked to the story or its content. Finally- if the author has done his work, the reader's imagination will do a far better job of giving the story a "face". If you do use a picture, consider using a landscape or building to give the story flavor or context and contributes to the setting. This is a very deep well with many tricks & traps. Consider the following: OK- this house is just plain creepy. It's the Bates house from the "Psyco" movies. It would still be creepy despite its links to the Psyco movies because of some subtlties- sharp angles, shadows and so forth. Would you really be surprised if one of Com's vampires lived there? The image of sand dunes can mean a lot to people- happy memories from vacations, desolation, natural beauty and so on. Deserts are a very complex symbol with all sorts of possible meanings. To some it may be primordial and unspoiled. To others it can be stark and sterile. Contrast the jungle to the desert. When the gears turn in your mind, what do you see? Lush, green beauty or danger lurking in the strangeness? When you decide to use a picture to illustrate a story, it becomes a part of the story and requires as much thought as any other part of the writing process. Using images adds another dynamic that authors are usually unfamiliar with- the image, its sublties and symbolism. If you choose poorly, you can inadvertantly confuse or mislead the reader.

I think most people prefer a happy ending but I want to qualify that with if it makes sense. A happy ending to Dr. Faust or Julius Ceaser would make those classics completely different. From an authors standpoint, a happy ending isn't nearly as important as one that is cohesive.

you come home from taking your son to school and discover the cat has closed all the windows on your computer with her ass (why is it cats INSIST on sitting on keyboards?) kitty porn?

good for you Razor. Sounds like you are ready for the real thing, Best of luck

FYI for the uninitiated: Mardi Gras is in late February. In the states it is celebrated with vigor in New Orleans and to a lesser extent up and down the Gulf Coast. Because of its timing, it is not the spring break destination that you might think. A lot of college students in the SE take off Wednesday after class and go through Sunday- skipping Thursday & Friday. It is such a tradition at some schools that teachers don't schedule tests for those days. [university of Southern Mississippi, LSU, Tulane, Univ of Houston, etc]

for fall or spring, What about gays in sports? I was the first out gay ever in my high school to play and letter in footbrawl. It was painful and difficult but I eventually proved to my teammates and coaches that I was a good team mate. I'm sure there are lots of good drama in sports stories.

My cougar is hungry.

India is one of many countries where being gay is very difficult. Perhaps a high profile person like a royal being openly gay can make life easier for the average Joe and Jane.

Happy birthday and remember badly worn implies character.