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Cucina Mia Farm-to-Table

Winter Stew

A perfect accompaniment to a rainy day, this hearty stew will warm you up from the inside out.

Yield

8 servings

Ingredients

1 large yellow onion, diced

1 lb. beef for stew (usually chuck cubes)

6 Italian (pork) sausages, casing removed and cut into cubes

8-12 ounces of strong beer, dry white or red wine

8 cups of beef stock

Two sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 T fennel seeds

2 t ground cumin

1 bay leaf

1 cup of dried pearled barley, washed thoroughly

Generous handful of Cremini mushrooms, sliced

4 C raw spinach, washed (optional)

Salt, pepper and crushed red pepper to taste

Instructions

In a large soup pot, sauté the beef, sausage and onion over medium-high heat (keeping the alcohol and broth open, ready and nearby) for about five minutes, or until the onions are browned and the meats seared, but not cooked through.

Deglaze the pan with the alcohol, scraping the sides and bottom with a wooden spoon. Next add the broth, turn the heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. While you’re waiting, add the rosemary, fennel, cumin, and bay leaf.

When the mixture reaches a boil, stir in the barely. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 60 minutes, or until the beef can be easily separated with a fork, adding water if needed to keep everything covered.

Fifteen minutes before serving, remove the rosemary sprigs and stir in the mushrooms and spinach.

Serve all by itself or with a fresh sprig of rosemary, a pinch of crushed red pepper and some crusty bread. (The photo above features my home-cultured sourdough ciabatta, a recipe which I’ll be sure to share in the near future.)

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Activism & Politics Elections 2016 Featured Posts

The Best (Only?) Way to Defeat Trump

Disclosure: I’m no politician and I’m no political scientist. (What little I know about politics I learned by running the tech stack for the Larry Lessig campaign.)

That being said, it seems like there’s an obvious tactic that could be deployed to stop Trump from turning the Oval Office into a reality TV set and Idiocracy into a documentary. It’s so obvious that I can’t believe it hasn’t been done already.

We simply need a moderate-leaning conservative with good name recognition (e.g. John McCain, Mit Romney, a younger version of Bob Dole — or someone of that ilk) to ditch the ruinous GOP and run on an Independent ticket. This gives die-hard conservatives — at least the sensible ones who can’t see themselves voting for Trump and won’t switch parties to vote for Clinton or Sanders — a viable option that isn’t a Democrat or a Fascist.

This will produce one of two outcomes. In the less likely scenario, we get record moderate-conservative and independent voter turnout (as a reaction to Trump) and the conservative Independent former-(R) candidate wins. In the more likely scenario, this 3rd party candidate splits the conservative vote, securing a win for Clinton or Sanders.

Either outcome is a win — if for nothing else, then at least for common decency.

Either outcome will end the mockery Trump has made of American politics.

Either outcome also spells the end of the Republican party as we know it. Donald Trump, for all his faults, has given the world a great gift. He is the final nail in the coffin for the GOP as we know it today. Finally, the Republican Party — ironically, the party of Lincoln — will reap the seeds of homophobia, racism, xenophobia, religious hatred, bellicosity and belligerence they have sown for the past several decades.

But this only happens if Trump loses. Which is why we need a moderate conservative to step up, “take one for the team” and run as an Independent.

And by “team” I mean the one consisting of every sensible person on this planet.