Empanada Day

Here are some photos from yesterday's Empanada Day.


The filling was made from mashed potatoes, corn, black beans, habanero peppers and cheese.







The dough was made from cream cheese, butter and flour. A large tuna can sufficed as the cookie cutter. The Tuna Can can.







Here's a happy pocket ready for the oven.







Here's the finished product. The cream cheese based dough is surprisingly light and flaky and tastes great.

Good job Applejack.

Habanero Mango Salsa

Today is Jackie's empanada day. As a side project she decided to make me a Habanero Mango Salsa.

The ingredients are pretty simple:
1 Habanero Pepper
Juice of one Lime
Cilantro
2 Mangos
Some Salt

Jackie added a can of Black Beans and I added a little extra Habanero Sauce to add a little kick of vinegar.

Needless to say our tongues are scorched and I'm a happy man.

Sore Throat Cure Update

If the cayenne pepper gargle doesn't work and your sore throat is 8 days old, it's probably a good time to go see the doctor. After not being able to sleep for 4 nights, I finally got some antibiotics. This is now day 11 of the sore throat, but 3 days of Amoxicillen are finally bringing it under control. I don't doubt that the cayenne gargle works for minor sore throats, but sometimes a licensed professional is needed in place of the hippies and their natural wonder cures on the internet.

Sore Throat Cure

So I've been dogged for days by a severe sore throat. After trying various analgesics and anesthetics with very limited success, I turned to the Internet.

Here's the cure that people absolutely swear by, and why would I doubt them? The cure is basically a gargle made from Cayenne pepper and water. Now, if I would have just gone to the Internet first, I might have been able to get on top of the throat before it got the best of me.

Not only that, I had recently fallen off my strict hot pepper regimen which is the reason I ended up with this cold in the first place. Oh, that and the stupid girl sitting next to me on the bus that kept coughing all the way from downtown to Addison on the Clark Street bus. Had I been on the chiles I probably could have fought off her germs.

Hot and Spicy Gargle:

• The most amazing and effective treatment is using 5 shakes of Cayenne Pepper (Capsicum frutescens) Powder in a cup of hot water (or herbal tea or saline solution or lemon juice) and gargle every 15 minutes with the spicy elixir. May swallow each time a tiny bit. Gargling with cayenne can cause a strong burning sensation of lips and tongue. Therefore it is good keep milk or yogurt in your mouth after gargling until the burning disappears.

• If you do not have Cayenne pepper use 10-20 drops of Tabasco sauce in a glass of warm water, the effect will be the same.

• If you do not have access to Cayenne or Tabasco, chili peppers, hot paprika or white pepper are similarly useful. All these pungent spices contain capsaicin, which dulls the pain and has anti-viral properties.

Another Dubious Distinction for Chicago

Not only does Chicago have the honor of having the highest sales tax (10.25%) in the nation, it now has the honor of the highest level of taxation on gasoline of nearly 20%!

Truth In Politics: Illinois Gas Prices And Taxes

Reporting
Mike Flannery

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Tired of seeing the price at the pump jump every time you need to buy gasoline? Well, the record-high price of gasoline in the Chicago area is linked to a record-high rate of taxation: nearly 20 percent of the Chicago price.

As CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports, tax refugees wait in long lines on Indianapolis Boulevard in Northwest Indiana. They jockey for position at a pump, lured by prices that are 20 cents a gallon or more cheaper than just a few blocks away back in Illinois.

"It was $4.20. I can come over here and get it for $3.93," said Tikvah Wadley, one of the many fleeing Illinois taxes.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin complained to oil company bosses at a hearing on Capitol Hill about Chicago having the highest gasoline prices in the United States. Largely ignored was the role taxes are playing -- an astounding 10 levels of taxation.

"Does it trouble any of you when you see what you're doing to us?" Durbin asked..

In the city, Motor Fuel Taxes originally for building roads currently go to the Feds, Illinois, Cook County and Chicago. The 9.25 percent sales tax is split among Illinois, Chicago and Cook County's share of the state sales tax; a county home rule tax; RTA transit tax and a Chicago home rule levy.

The watchdog Civic Federation says that on a $4 gallon of gas, the total tax is 79.2 cents. That compares to 77 cents in Los Angeles and 65 cents in New York City.

"Every time the price of gas goes up, the tax goes up with it," said one motorist.

And that, of course, is exactly the point for the politicians. Gov. Blagojevich, for example, is counting on the high price of gasoline to bring at least an extra $220 million in the State Treasury in the fiscal year that begins this July. Most of that will be used to balance the way-out-of-balance budget.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Jackie and I made a trip down to St. Louis to visit our friends Todd and Katrina and their kids Jackson and Vivian. Armed with two new Cubs bottle cozies we were ready for the Cubs v. Cardinals rivalry.






Here is Vivian with tiara. She made sure we all had an opportunity to have our pictures taken wearing it. Hmm, the picture of me wearing it seems to have gotten lost.

Justices Scalia and Ginsburg Riding an Elephant

For anybody who missed the 60 Minutes interview with Justice Antonin Scalia Sunday night, there was a great photo of the Justices riding an elephant.