Nov. 13, 2023 - ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS
It started out with all the leftover tomatoes, the last picking from the garden. They were sitting in the refrigerator and I had to do something with them. I chopped a fine mixture of vegetables and sautéed them in olive oil until there was just a paste. I added the tomatoes and cooked it all in a large Dutch oven for about six hours, and then strain the whole mixture to take out the seeds and skins and then cooked it again for three more hours.
The vegetables were purchased at the local Mennonite store, all grown in the local soil
The venison on the left, of course is local, but the pancetta is from Italy
The final product this is the best thing I think I’ve ever made. Venison Bolognese. This dish took all of a week to prepare….it was worth the effort. Now I’m about a 90% vegetarian but occasionally I will indulge in the food of a carnivore. This was an opportunity as we were given some locally harvested venison.
Accompanied by homemade fettuccine and wine from Ravines.
The table for two….and a second bottle of Dr. Konstantin Frank Riesling.
ALL THE NEWS THAT FITS
November 13th, 2023
Hello Folks,
I used to be a news junkie. Growing up in the 50s and 60s my parents watched the news every night. We held the belief that in this way we could stay informed on what was happening in our local community as well as the larger world. We could see the events of the day first hand. We trusted Walter Cronkite and Harry Reasoner. We thought this was the way to stay informed, to stay intelligent, to make good decisions and choices.
Although I’m in recovery, I’m still addicted to the news but I am starting to gradually wean off the tube. The simple is reason…there really is no more news being broadcasted….there is just emotion driven snippets and sound bites with absolutely no depth to the reporting. A typical broadcast will interview relatives of a victim of a murder asking questions like, "how did you feel when your son was killed?" or "where will you go now that your house has been destroyed?". This is not news. It is drama…it is competing with fiction in the struggle for ratings.
So in a world where things are broken and seem irreparable where does one go to stay informed? On our recent road trip Julie and I were searching for something to make the time go by so we turned to some history podcasts. I have to admit, I never took a history course the entire time I was in college. I wanted to get my history from reading literature rather than reading what I felt was boring text books. So there’s a gap in my learning…. I don’t have enough context. We started listening to a podcast that I can highly recommend. It is entitled Wiser World and is presented by Ali Roper, a well traveled high school teacher. The segments are 30-40 minutes long. They are factual and very basic BUT they help put today’s events in an honest, historical context. Now we scan the news for the headlines….and go to history to find out WHY things are happening. Rather than getting both sides of the story, I just want to get the factual story. Over the course of our 20 hours of driving the round trip to Bristol, VA we were able to listen and absorb podcasts on Russia, China and the Middle East. There is so much information I think I need to listen to them again, and maybe take some notes or start branching out on my own. My advice is to arm yourself with as much knowledge as you can from independent sources, and then make your decisions on how you view this complicated world we live in.
Best Regards,
John Bernunzio
This past Thursday, we received two more S. S. Stewart Presentation banjos. They were hand-delivered to us by Yoko Nogami and her partner, Randy Wilson. Yoko splits her time between Japan and Eastern Kentucky where she works with various groups involved in preserving Southern Appalachian music and art. She told us that the love for this music has spread across Japan and now even in South Korea!
On the other hand, Randy turned me and said by any chance, do you know my friend from Knott County, Kentucky….George Gibson. I smiled and said I’ve known George for nearly 50 years. Connnections are so interesting.
Gavin Rice displays an 1890s Stewart catalog featuring the grand Presentation banjos.
"Hey kid, are you selling all our great, old American instruments to other countries? …sending them to Japan? We will never see them again! You’re robbing our American treasures."…. I cannot tell you how many times that sentence was said to me 30 and 40 years ago. All of our good American instruments were going overseas. Well folks, now they’re back and it’s time to step up to the plate. We just got two more S. S. Stewart presentation grade banjos from the Tsumura collection. Here are some details but we won’t be listing these until they are in good, playing condition.
This past Saturday we connected with lots of old friends. It was great to see Dr. Mike Melnick, one of our first employees with his son, and to see our old friend, Jed Curran who is recording a new CD this week, and of course no Saturday would be complete without a visit from Mike Keyes.