Remembering Thanksgiving

Editor’s Note: I thought that Jerry’s readers might be interested in a Thanksgiving post from November 22, 2012. We wish all a happy Thanksgiving holiday, even to those that may not observe this tradition.

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View 751 Thursday, November 22, 2012

Wishing you well on Thanksgiving Day.

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And despite the election we have much to be thankful for. God reigns and the government at Washington still lives. We endure.

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Part of my day was taken up with a vain attempt to make a good brown gravy from gluten free baking flour. There are many varieties of gluten free flour. The one I tried would not brown after considerable time in a fryng pan with Imperial margarine; then started to turn black. I got all that out of it and decided to try again, this time without an attempt to brown it. It ended up a mass of grey when, when I put the pater in, made for lumps. I got rid of the lumps with a blender, but the result tasted a bit like caramel; apparently gluten-free general purpose baking flour contains some kind of sweetener. After about an hour of this I threw the whole mess away.

We saved an appropriate amount of the turkey drippings for Roberta and I used Wonder flour to make a regular roué brown gravy, which the rest of us could eat. If anyone knows a good gluten free turkey gravy recipe I’d be grateful to have it.

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Alex and his wife Dana were over for Thanksgiving. The other kids are fine with their families. I seem to be recovering from a not too severe cold. Felt rotten yesterday but in the recovering feeling state today. Tomorrow I’ll go down to LOSCON, the LASFS proprietary convention down by the airport. I should be over being contagious by then.

And happy Thanksgiving Day.

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Just an idea, my grandmother used to brown flour for roux in the oven before she added it to the fat/oil. Of course it was regular flour, might work for gluten free, worth a try anyhow, just throw a layer of flour in a pie pan or something and toss it in the oven for awhile (I’d guess 350 degrees) and check it every once in awhile. Or if you want you could try browning it on the stove top, again just put the flour in a pan over a moderate heat, you might need to stir it from time to time.

I don’t know if cornstarch has gluten in it, but that can also be used as a thickener. Tapioca flour as well, but again, no idea on gluten content for those.

Hope that helps.

-p

Cornstarch thickens nicely but doesn’t brown and has no flavor. But if you make a gravy with lots of the juice from baking a turkey, and it comes out thin, then a teaspoon of cornstarch in a small amount of cold water added to the gravy will thicken it nicely. It will also make it a bit less salty if somehow you added too much salt anywhere along the line. It’s certainly gluten free. But alas it won’t brown.

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re: It’s Time For A New (Old) Kind Of University

I read the blog you referenced with interest. I noticed in it that the author stated that costs at some universities had increased at a rate of 3X inflation for the past 20 years.

I was laid up for a week of post-op recovery in a hotel far from home earlier this year and I became (extremely) bored. At one point I went online and researched the student handbooks from Georgia Tech (my alma mater – IE ’78)) and I plotted out the costs of tuition and fees from 1976 to 2010. I made normal adjustments for the switchover from quarters (which I thought were highly sensible) to semesters that the institution made in the 90’s. I also plotted the annual costs versus inflation across that period.

My findings were that annualized tuition/fee costs across that period actually have increased at 6X inflation. At the same time, they actually (it seems to me) cover less core ground in their engineering curriculums than they did in my day.

This can’t go on.

Happy Thanksgiving

John

And the number of administrators and staff has risen exponentially as well. As well as the number of new courses and departments, most of which do not seem to teach anything useful for getting a job or adding to the economy. And it continues unabated.

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22 Responses to Remembering Thanksgiving

  1. Will Cochran says:

    I learned a great deal in the short time I knew of Jerry’s postings. Please do keep his thinking alive!

  2. Stacy stanley says:

    Thanks for the repost. Insightful man. Miss him.

  3. Bud Pritchard says:

    I agree with Mike Flynn. Re-reading Jerry’s posts would be beneficial. Things he talked about can apply to current times. Such as this snippet from the Thanksgiving 2012 post:
    “And despite the election we have much to be thankful for. God reigns and the government at Washington still lives. We endure.”

  4. Chuck Sliter says:

    Thank you for the re post. The Doctor’s old posts are always worth re-reading. Please feel free to do more. Jerry’s writings were always of interest.
    Chuck

  5. Douglas M. Colbary says:

    Welcome indeed, Jerry is very much missed in my house.

  6. Ed Brault says:

    Thank you for the post. I loved the Doctors posts, books and columns. I will miss them. Please keep up the re-posts, there is still much we can learn from Jerry’s work

  7. R Droste says:

    Thanks. Please send more as time allows.

  8. Bob Arrington says:

    I would like to see more also.

  9. Greg says:

    Thanks!

  10. brian adams says:

    I appreciate receiving this post and very much would like it to continue in whatever manner is deemed acceptable. Thank you.

  11. Rob M says:

    Thank you, it’s appreciated!

  12. Safariman says:

    Jerry was the best. Missed!

  13. Chuck Stuart says:

    Thanksgiving indeed – it’s great to read an old post, and I’ve been coming back to do so frequently.

  14. David Smith says:

    What a treat, if a bit of a shock, to see that once-familiar email promising a new post here at Chaos Manor! I’ll chime in as one more for repeat performances whenever you have the urge. Heavens, I miss him!

  15. Greg Trent says:

    I’ll have to chime in also – I still drop by frequently, now mostly to read the well wishing posts. However, please continue the “Best of Jerry” posts. I think Dr. Pournelle would be heartened to see his ideas still getting out there. Lord knows we need more like him.

  16. Herb Mueller says:

    Thank you so much for this. As I was browsing a few blogs I follow I was reflecting on Jerry’s posts and how much I missed him. I flipped over to email and saw this. One more thing to be thankful for today.

  17. Dave Porter says:

    I agree with the others, and would be happy to see more ‘Best of Jerry’ posts.
    Best wishes to the Pournelle family as they head into their first holiday season without Jerry. We all miss him too, but surely not so much as they do.

  18. Marc Hess says:

    Thank you for re-posting. Dr. Pournelle was a great man and is missed.

  19. Mike Flynn says:

    Yes; more Best of Jerry posts. So much of what he wrote was timeless. And some of it can be beneficial for hindsight.

  20. Tom Brosz says:

    Thank you for putting this up! Many of us still click here out of habit, remembering all the great content. Mr. Pournelle and his insights are greatly missed. I would be very happy to see many more “Best of Jerry” posts here.

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