What is Best in Life

I’m a pretty big pancake fan.  I’ll often ignore the age old adage “you can’t have breakfast for dinner” and make up a big mess o’ pancakes after a hard day at work.  As foods go, pancakes aren’t necessarily unhealthy to begin with, but the standard processed bleached refined white flour syrup sponge that you will typically encounter (a side note here: all you can eat pancakes at IHOP…not as good as advertised) is decidedly less healthy.

So in today’s post I’ll be taking an in depth look at pancakes starting with a good basic pancake recipe (no mixes for this post!) from the Joy of Cooking:

Joy of Cooking Pancakes
1½ cups all purpose flour
3 Tablespoons sugar
1¾ tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1½ cups milk
3 tablespoons melted butter
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla

I’ll go over each part of the recipe and see what can be changed to make this griddle fried ambrosia just a bit healthier based on my years of experience and careful study in the art of pancake making.

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World War II has always fascinated me. There are all kinds of interesting things about “The War of Nazi Aggression”, but I think the thing that really appeals to me is that it was the first war to truly utilize modern “combined arms” tactics. The proper integrated use of armor, air-power, artillery and infantry was developed and perfected in WWII making the tactical side of things a far different beast than the “storm the trenches” slaughter of WWI (not that there weren’t plenty of senseless tactical decisions in WWII).

This emphasis on combat tactics along with the overall strategic thinking has endless appeal for that part of every young man that secretly just wants to come up with a brilliant plan to win anything from a snowball fight to the capture of a bridge. War is no game, and I’d never want to risk my neck even if it was, but looked at with hindsight, the military decisions made at all levels of battle in World War II offer a wealth of fascinating tactical and strategic dilemmas if you are into that kind of thing.

With that in mind, I wanted to take a moment to look at one of my favorite WWII operations, Operation Market-Garden. Perhaps most well known from the book and movie A Bridge too Far, Operation Market-Garden was the code name for the plan to send 30,000 paratroopers along a 60 mile corridor of highway in the Netherlands to capture key bridges in order to remove the last of the major natural barriers (namely, the Maas, Waal and Rhine rivers) into Germany. The paratroopers were to hold the bridges while a massive concentration of armor would break through the German front lines and race up the narrow highway to reach the Rhine bridge at Arnhem. The plan hoped to end the war in a matter of months, but as was bound to happen with a plan of such complexity…a few things went wrong. (more…)

So, Christmas came and went and I saw my usual random assortment of films over the holiday break. Some of them were great, some not so much, but the chosen few (ie the ones I could think to put into logical pairs for the eight man bracket) have gathered here for the second annual “Kristmas movie-watchin’ Kumite!

This year the Kumite started with a mini tournament of actual “Christmas Movies” (Holiday Inn, White Christmas, Elf & Christmas Vacation) to determine who would face last year’s champion It’s a Wonderful Life in first round.  Other first round matches were the entertainment vehicles After the Thin Man vs Torn Curtain, the westerns Shane vs The Tin Star, and finally the dysfunctional relationship dramas Cat on a Hot Tin Roof vs Shortcuts.

Will It’s a Wonderful Life win by brutal soul reaping for a second year in a row? Can that scrappy new kid Shortcuts take it all the way? Will After the Thin Man manage to shake off the sequel curse and fight as well as its big brother The Thin Man? All these questions and more will be answered at the Kristmas Kumite! (more…)

Being a rambunctious sort, my past is full of tales of derring-do and mischievous insubordination. In this series I will examine specific instances of orneriness from my past so that you, the reader, might understand Isley’s special relationship with authority just a little bit better.

In today’s rousing tale I will finish my “Float of Doom – The High School Years” saga. Junior year we didn’t make it into the parade…Senior year our float got admitted and Hell got admitted with it. Anarchy reigns in the epic conclusion that shows just exactly why I can’t have nice things…and why Valley Center High School cancelled their homecoming parade the following year. (more…)