The Good Plate

Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category

This morning, the television happened to be on to my local PBS station, and being Saturday, there was a cooking show. This one caught my attention because the chef was using an open hearth instead of a stove. This was eighteenth century cooking! It reminded me of cooking with Berta because she does not have any temperature controls other than me.

I was intrigued and decided to check out the web site, A Taste of History. Well, I would be happy to report back what I found, except that I can’t read any of it.

As some of you know, I am a web developer, and I have always been a champion of accessibility. In the United States, we have the Americans with Disabilities Act, specifically section 508, and if you violate that, you and your website can get into a lot of financial trouble.

I called the restaurant this morning, and then I sent an email to Chef. Here’s what I said:

Chef, I spoke with your wonderful wife this morning, June 25, 2011 about visiting your web sites.

I called because I wanted to make sure that you were made aware that the sites are not accessible. The font size is way too small, and there is not enough contrast between the text and background color.

Your wife said that the designers of the web sites say this follows an 18th century theme. Well, text in the eighteenth century was not tiny. Look at the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It’s large black letters on a buff background. Even printing presses in those days did not have itsy bitsy letters, they could not make the letters that small. Do a Google Image search for 18th century books <http:/tinyurl.com/69d8xfe> and you will see what I mean.

The websites would not pass Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and since A Taste of History appears on PBS stations, and PBS stations are funded in part by the Federal Government, you could face problems.

Even my son, who is seven years old, with perfect vision, says “You have to change the color, Mommy, I can’t read it with that color”. If he can’t read it, no one else can either.

–
Adrienne Boswell
Arbpen Designs
http:/cavalcade-of-coding.info/

Well, we shall see what happens and if any of the web sites are changed. It’s a pity, they look like they might be interesting, but it’s a little too distracting to turn CSS off, or where there are images/flash up the size to 130% in order to see. I’ll be reporting back soon.

Update: June 27, 2011
I got an email! Here’s what the email said:

Ms. Boswell:

We are very sorry the “A Taste of History” Website was not displaying in a clear manner for you to read. We are currently designing an updated website, and we will keep your suggestions in mind as we make these revisions.

Please don’t let your experience with the website color your opinion of our series. We’re thrilled that you are enjoying watching “A Taste of History,” and hope you will continue to watch.

Best Regards,

Ariel Schwartz
Producer
Multi Media Productions

Update: July 18, 2011 – No changes yet!

Peaches Raleigh

Recipes in This Post

• Peaches Raleigh

Last night, May 24, 2011, was the last night of Dancing with the Stars. I’m not that much of a TV fan, but there are a few shows that I watch, and I do try to watch this one – especially the final show.

So, I thought since we were going to be watching in the living room of TV trays, that it would be nice to have a fabulous dessert to go with the show. I created Peaches Raleigh, and they were great!

Rant

Just a note about how I feel about television. When I was growing up, we had one television, and it was in the living room. The only time that it was ever in the bedroom was when you were sick.

It’s important to spend time at the table with your family and friends, television is too much of a distraction. Meals are the time to share the ups and downs, joys and comedies of the day, throw ideas around, and give thanks to the Lord our God for making the meal possible. It is not a time to the sucked into the television – unless it’s a special occasion, like the Academy Awards or Dancing with the Stars.

Okay, back from Rant, the local Armenian stores are full of wonderful fresh fruits organically grown in Fresno. The fruits may not say organic on them, but for all intents and purposes, they are organic. I have found that the big chain markets get organic fruits and vegetables, but they are not nearly as nice as the stuff grown in Fresno and brought into Glendale early every morning.

My local store had some lovely white stone peaches, and I had ice cream, boysenberry and rose preserves at home.

White flesh peaches are not like their cousins the Free stone peach, so you have to remove the pits with a knife if you want to do anything with them other than eat them out of hand.

I served the peaches on nice glass dishes with a fork, and they were a great hit. Of course, the battery in the camera died, so not pictures, but I’ll make it again, and have pictures.

My friends, Amber and Stevie invited me over for barbecue this evening. I love it when Stevie barbecues – he has a great big drum barbecue and he has my Weber until I drag it home some day.

He said “I have a lot of meat, do you girls want to make potato salad?” and I said I would be happy to.

Usually, when you think about potato salad, you think about russets. They had red potatoes, and not too many of them, I had some, so I said I would go home, make the salad there and include my potatoes.

When I got home, I started pulling things out of the refrigerator I thought I might need – red potatoes, mayonnaise, carrot, onion – and then I spied with my little eye, a half a red cabbage and an apple.

I thought to myself, that would be good, red cabbage and apple, and how about some bacon, kind of like a spinach salad! Ah ha! Genius!

While I was making the red cabbage salad, I started water boiling for my red potato salad so I could steam the potatoes just like I regularly do. My intention was steamed red potatoes, only cold.

When I brought the salads back to Stevie, he lifted the lid on the red cabbage salad, I told him what it was, and he said “Sounds good, looks ugly”.

By the end of the night, he said “I loved that cabbage salad. That was really good!”

I went home very happy, and now, I’ll share my success with you:

Red Cabbage Salad

You can make this with the ready made Hormel Real Bacon Bits, or you can cook bacon and use the fat and crumble the bacon yourself.

Ingredients

• 1/2 head of red cabbage, large shred
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bacon fat
• 2 tablespoons Balsamic vinegar
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
• 1/4 cup crumbled bacon
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1 apple sliced into match sticks

Directions

Melt the bacon fat in a large skillet. Add the cabbage and onions. Sauté until the onion is slightly translucent, then add the vinegar, reduce the heat and cover. Let the cabbage steam for about 5 to 10, then check it. If it is still very crisp, continue cooking it until it is tender, but not soft.

Add the sugar, water, caraway seeds, bacon and raisins, cover and steam for another minute or so.

Remove from the heat and put in a large bowl, then toss in the apple sticks.

Serve at room temperature.

Serves 6

Steamed Red Potato Salad

I love steamed red potatoes with plenty of butter and sour cream. This will remind you of that, but it’s a little healthier.

Ingredients

• 1 dozen red potatoes, halved and quartered
• 1/2 onion, chopped very finely
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon sour cream ¹
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 tablespoon parsley (fresh is best, but dried will do in a pinch)

Directions

Steam the potatoes until they are fork tender. Remove from the heat, drain and put into a large bowl.
Combine the remaining ingredients, pour over the potatoes, and toss to mix. Take the salad and put it in a nice serving dish.

Serves 6

Rant!

I do not understand why people buy that stuff that says it is sour cream, but it has all this other stuff in it like whey, modified food starch, sodium phosphate, sodium citrate, guar gum, carageenan, calcium sulface, potassium sorbate (preservative) and locust bean gum.

Sour cream does not need all those extra ingredients, just cultured cream is necessary. Alta Dena, Daisy and Knudsen brands are just cultured cream.

I am ashamed. With 105 teachers getting their pink slips from GUSD, and K through 3rd grade class sizes increasing, I was one of only 4 parents of children from our school who showed up at the walk to GUSD this afternoon, May 4, 2010. There were more teachers at the walk than parents, and that’s a shame.

Our children need their teachers, especially the young ones. Classrooms are already splitting at the seams, and yet, five more children are to be added to each class this September. Right now, my child has 22 children – with an additional 5, that will be 27.

In 1996, the California legislature passed SB 1777, a reform measure aimed at cutting class size in the early school grades from what had been an average of 29 students to a maximum of 20. As a result, our students have had higher test scores, and more students are graduating high school to go on to college. Glendale is doing better than LAUSD, and better than statewide – see Standardized Achievement Test Performance.

Well, maybe the $16.8M GUSD received can go to building bigger classrooms, or failing that, the kids can be stacked on “bunk chairs”.

I realize that a lot of parents work. The event was not publicized very much, but there were parents out in front of our school passing out flyers. I was one of them, and I know I got commitments from at least 10 parents.

I say to you that could have come and helped support our teachers, don’t come whining when little Johnny can’t read. If you want things to change, you have to take action.

Sorry, no recipe today – we had In & Out because we felt it was more important to support the teachers, and ultimately, the community.