With the holiday season now upon us, I thought it was finally time to get to a subject that I have long wanted to start into on this site — food and recipes.  It is somewhat difficult for me to post a lot of the things I have been cooking all the way back to when I was a child (yes, I started early) because many of them are just slight alterations of recipes I found elsewhere.  Thus, they are not really “mine” and, in most cases, not worthy of note.  However, in this particular case, this is a recipe that I along with “Onyx” (my sweetie) developed ourselves.  It is also special in that, much to my amazement, she and I came up with something that was perfect the first time out with not even the slightest adjustment of spice necessary.

This particular recipe is for something that I have found troublesome for my entire life — stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey (or, “dressing” depending on one’s verbal preference — for this article, I’m going with “stuffing”).  As a child, I was forced to suffer through one of the most disgusting things known to humankind — oyster and cornbread stuffing, my father’s favorite and thus leaving me no way to ever get out of having it destroy our yearly Thanksgiving feast (at least in the opinion of my taste buds).  The problem was not just the icky oysters in and of themselves but how they made the cornbread into a fishy-tasting mush and, even worse, how their bitter flavor permeated much of the turkey making every bite a chore to get down without the addition of tons of gravy or buttered bread to smother it (things that should compliment the flavor of the bird instead of being used to drown it out).

Of course, I swore to never again let an oyster anywhere near a turkey that I would cook myself.  On those occasions between when I left my parents’ control and last year, I had tried a few different stuffing recipes plus even gave in a couple of times and just made Stove Top (yeah, I know…eww) out of desperation to find something that would stand up both inside and outside of the bird without becoming painfully dry or disgustingly soggy and be flavorful without overwhelming the meat.

So…to be able to finally — finally — come up with something perfect for the tastes of myself and my sweetie, have it be highly complimented by our guests, and do it all on the very first try was extremely gratifying especially for something that only gets cooked a very few times a year (thus not giving one many opportunities for practice or adjustments).

Named in honor of that all-time great holiday television moment, the “Turkeys Away” episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, I present this fabulous Onyx & KoHoSo concoction…

As God As My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly Stuffing

• 32 ounces sage-flavored pork sausage
• 8 ounces fresh mushrooms, sliced
• 1½ cups diced onion (white or yellow)
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 bundle fresh spinach, chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh parsley leaves (about 4 to 6 sprigs), chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves (about 4 sprigs), chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• ½ tablespoon fresh marjoram, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 15 ounces dry breadcrumbs with herbs or salad croûtons with herbs
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In a large saucepan or stockpot, cook sausage over medium-high heat, stirring frequently until thoroughly cooked and no longer pink. Add mushrooms, onion, garlic; cook 10-12 minutes or until onion is translucent, stirring frequently. Transfer mixture to a large bowl; add remaining ingredients and stir well. Pour into a buttered 4-quart casserole. Bake covered for 60 minutes. Serve on the side or stuff your bird.

Serving size: Makes 10-12 servings

For a printable or simply more-easy-to-keep version of the recipe, save this PDF (Adobe) file:

As God As My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly Stuffing

For my readers outside of the United States of America that are on the metric system of measurement, I recommend OnlineConversion.com to get everything in the correct proportions.

And, remember…Happy…Thanks…giving…from…W…K…R…P! :-D

The Pinedale Shopping Mall has just been BOMBED with live turkeys! Film at 11.

No Facebook allowed beyond this point!

As most people probably know by now, the social networking plague website known as Facebook is going to be introducing its own version of e-mail.  It will not be a fully-featured version of e-mail as most people know it (at least not at the beginning) but it will work probably as often as its chat feature does which is almost never well enough.  Basically, if one has a Facebook account, I could send messages to it from my KoHoSo.us e-mail account and receive messages in turn and delete them read them.

Sure, I know that all of the other major free e-mail providers — Google’s Gmail, Yahoo!/Rocketmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail/MSN/Live.com, AOL/America Online — all have their privacy concerns and various violations of what normal people would consider to be good corporate citizenship.  I also know that not everybody has the money to get their own Web domain and receive e-mail through it as I do via KoHoSo.us.

However, there comes a time when an Internet-based company goes too far and, worse yet, allows its users to literally infect the Internet with their ignorance.  With up to 90% of all traffic going over the World Wide Web being spam already, I see absolutely no reason for anybody to support Facebook e-mail when they are now the leading target of spammers…and that’s what would be classified as actual spam from outside sources latching onto Facebook e-mails and not even counting how much more bandwidth is going to be taken up when every Facebook goober starts mailing out to his/her entire contacts list every time he/she sells a fucking chicken on FarmVille.*

* Do be aware that, at first, Facebook users will not be able to send out mass e-mails but it is sure to come in future updates as enough users will end up demanding it on their silly little Facebook protest pages and through incessant polls.  In addition, Facebook itself will not be able to resist the temptation to try and outdo Google’s Gmail service as the two are already having a public prick-waving dick fight over which one is better at protecting users’ privacy (a hissy-fit directly related to Facebook’s introduction of e-mail and Google’s continuing inability to bring out its own successful social networking service).

Up until now, I have not been terribly concerned with Facebook’s effect upon the Internet community as it at least kept all of the goobers that use it to excess locked up in its own little world.  With the introduction of Facebook e-mail, the World Wide Web now faces a situation possibly as dire as what ended up happening when Microsoft used to bundle AOL with Windows.  To put it plainly, this could result in another major introduction of complete stupidity where the amount of malware spread across the Net skyrockets because Facebook users, by and large, tend to be completely uneducated about things such as realizing that not every link or picture posted on the Web is friendly and can be passed on without any thought of danger.  Just like AOL when it became so popular in the late 1990′s, Facebook does nothing outright to inform its users of proper Netiquette much less issues regarding safety and privacy.  All Facebook cares about is keeping everybody clicking all those links and playing all of those inane, unstable games (which again reinforce the habit of clicking on everything because that’s all any Facebook game requires one to do — don’t think, just click).

Finally, there is the absolute fact that Facebook is the worst transgressor of any major website when it comes to protecting one’s privacy — worse than Microsoft, worse than even Google.  They are under constant attack from both Internet watchdog groups and government attorneys for not giving its users the proper means and education to make sure that information they do not want to be shared is kept hidden from unwanted eyes.

I have resisted calling for any boycotts on my blog especially after I blew up the old version of this website, started fresh, and tried to be a little bit nicer in my overall tone.  In today’s world, it is impossible to boycott everything that is bad because we are so hemmed in by lack of choice no matter how much The Man tries to fool us by creating more brand names and TV channels that make it seem like we have more choice even though all of these “new” brands have the same old manufacturers and owners.  Thus, I just try to report, advise, and then let people decide for themselves if they can, for two examples, afford to avoid Wal-Mart or drive a little further to not buy fuel from BP.  I won’t even call for a boycott of Facebook because, for many, it is already too late and they are addicted to it even worse than heroin or they are required to use it for work purposes (for which any manager requiring his employees to do such a thing should have his testicles flailed with a white-hot spatula for endangering his company information in such an insecure environment and wasting time on such a poorly-coded, unstable platform).  Even I still occasionally login to Facebook as it is the only way I can follow in a timely and fully functional manner what “Red Green” (Steve Smith) is up to these days.

However, I will tell my readers what I am going to do for myself and everybody can decide for themselves if they want to do something similar and take the risk of missing out on an oh-so-important message from a fourth-cousin twice removed that you always hated because he always smelled like spoiled bacon and locked you in a closet when you were only six-years-old and it gave you nightmares for the next ten years but, years later, he tracks you down on Facebook in order to reminisce about the “good times” but ends up doing nothing but sending you incessant invitations to start playing Mafia Wars.

Instead of waiting until I just cannot stand something anymore like the crazy uncle almost everybody has these days that sends out incessant forwarded mass e-mails about (depending on his political stance) how George W. Bush planned 9/11 or Barack Obama is actually a member of al Qaeda, I am going to act beforehand to do my part to either force Facebook (or my friends using it to excess) to become a better corporate citizen when it comes to privacy, spam, and Netiquette or simply not deal with it.

To put it bluntly, I have already placed a filter on all of my e-mail accounts directing them to delete anything that comes with an address of @facebook.com.  Let me stress this again so that nobody misunderstands.  This filter will not simply move such messages to “Spam” or “Bulk” nor any special folder I have created myself where I might actually read them eventually.  They will be immediately deleted upon receipt and never seen by me…period.

If anybody reading this thinks that’s awful or too reactionary, I in return say that it’s time to grow up.  Invest a little time reading up on such issues and realize that, just like in any large city anywhere in the world, it is time to learn it is not wise to swing one’s wallet or purse around out in the open in a bad neighborhood.  Despite what Facebook might lead one to believe where they almost out-and-out encourage people to share their full identities and give their credit card information out to companies with no true privacy policies in exchange for items in their absolutely lame-ass games, it along with the entire Internet is pretty much nothing but one huge bad neighborhood as it requires no effort or real cost of any type to get from the bad side of town to where all of the nicer houses are in order to rip them off.  I will simply no longer allow this cancer on the Internet to spread beyond its current limits, at least not into my e-mail in-box.  As for everybody else, the choice is theirs especially since all of the needed information is just an easy Internet search away.  Just know that those choosing to use an e-mail address of ImaGoober@facebook.com should never expect an answer from KoHoSo.us.

Yes, despite the “cool” reputation of Facebook’s still young founder, Mark Zuckerberg, he is indeed The Man…and I don’t mean, “Hey, bro, you da man,” I mean The Man as in just the same as any member of a powerful entity that looks out solely for itself without ever considering the general welfare.  As everybody that has been reading KoHoSo.us for any length of time knows, I am always up for sticking it to The Man.  In this specific case, if anybody reading this also gets it stuck to them whether it be an unread e-mail or the raping of their personal information and privacy, they cannot say they were not warned.

Long-time American television newsman Ted Koppel wrote a great opinion piece this past Sunday.  He used the recent two-day suspension of Keith Olbermann from MSNBC for his political contributions to sharply point out how our republic is continually being hurt by its citizens flocking to “news” sources that will never tell its viewers anything with which they disagree.  Koppel’s words make a fabulous little essay but I do want to disagree with one omission that either Mr. Koppel forgot or was edited out in the name of space as this did also appear in an actual, archaic, printed-with-ink newspaper.  Ironically enough, the big point that I believe was left out is very similar to the one turning point that Koppel did bring up in how something very positive for the USA turned into a negative.

Koppel’s assertion is that it was the surprising profitability of 60 Minutes that led us down the path we are on now.  I absolutely do not disagree as that was indeed a point where news began to be looked upon by the three major networks at the time (along with all of their local affiliates) as something that could make money (and, worse yet for the news industry, be made to make even more money) rather than being a big part of any network’s or station’s obligation to “serve the public interest” as was then strongly mandated and enforced by law.

However, that in and of itself would not have put us where we are now in an era when all three of the old-guard networks continue to slash their news budgets and many smaller local market stations are giving up news entirely or even outsourcing it to other channels.  If “serving the public interest” had remained part of what it took to get a broadcasting license, news would have continued on for much longer as it was but perhaps only with a faster rotation of anchors, reporters, and magazine shows as owners looked for more profits (which, in and of itself is not a bad thing).

I believe there were two shoes that dropped here to send us to this day and age where not only can everybody ignore the views of the other side of the political fence but, worse yet, begin to allow themselves to be fed wildly inaccurate “facts” and recirculate them as gospel.  That second thud on the floor was the deregulation of the US broadcasting industry in the 1980′s and beyond that greatly relaxed what it took to “serve the public interest” and dismantled what was called the “Fairness Doctrine” where stations had to allow opposing views on the air to balance out any type of opinion piece.

Released from their previous obligations, it did not take long for broadcasting entities large and small to begin slashing budgets.  Furthermore, with no common sense regulations placed upon the then relatively new cable industry to serve the greater good other than by carrying C-SPAN (basically), nobody of any note other than CNN stepped in to fill the void…well, until Rupert Murdoch and the radical element of the GOP and corporate America decided to create the Fox News Channel which, eventually, spawned the almost equally disgusting programming bent of MSNBC.  I say “almost” because, in what might surprise many of my readers, I do greatly enjoy Morning Joe when I am up early enough here on the west coast to watch it as, even though he is an avowed Republican (yes, MSNBC does have a show with a conservative on it!), I find Joe Scarborough to be fair and not mean-spirited when he criticizes the Democrats in addition to the fact that he never hesitates to criticize the GOP (plus agrees with me that this country is going to remain stuck in the mud if we don’t stop automatically saying “no” to everything each other’s parties want to do and generally begin to have respect for people with views that differ from our own).

Of course, without some form of deregulation in the broadcasting industry, we would have never seen the explosion of choice and options to finally take us away from the time when all of the networks and local stations usually played it safe in order to not offend anybody and possibly lose their license.  However, just like Koppel’s assertion about 60 Minutes — a program that resulted in a great era of investigative journalism especially in the areas of consumer protection — the good side came with an extremely bad one that was never tempered either by the government or the “free market.”

Despite all of that stuff I just wrote to fill people in on Koppel’s very important and influential missing point, I strongly urge everybody to read his opinion piece especially if anybody reading this gets their “news” from either MSNBC or the Fox News Channel…because it’s high time that those of you supporting either of these channels realize that neither conservatives or progressives are ever going to go away in this country and that, by continuing to take in the absolute lies that these entities churn out about the opposing political party, all that is accomplished is division, stagnation, ignorance, and increasing hatred for one’s fellow man which, in turn, will only lead to the further unraveling of our once mighty and always-improving republic.

Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O’Reilly, and the death of real news – The Washington Post