Carol Rutz’s Annexe

From the Consumerist and the nanny-riffic bowels of the Center of Science in the Public Interest, here is a video on how eating a Quarter Pounder is much better than eating at Olive Garden. Then again, anything is better than the Olive Garden.

Now a special story: It was months after my deaconess internship did not pan out, and I got an invite from my former classmates to dine at the Olive Garden. Yes, the Phoebes still love me. So I went and we ordered our food. One ordered a steak rare…but it was well done, and with lots of oil. It looks like grey carcass. How hard can it be to sear steak and cook it rare?! The food tasted like a pre-cooked microwave meal. I went home with a stomach full of FAIL.

One thing that I treasured is my Dad’s spaghetti sauce recipe. This Mexican-born man who has lived in the States more than half his life knows how to cook. He learned it when he was a cook at an mom-n-pop restaurant. The man who taught my dad has a penchant for horse racing and the Rat Pack. And my dad taught me that recipe. It was that dish that I first cooked for my Prediger whilst courting. He told me that he had not have spaghetti that good since his boyhood in Denver. Decades-old childhood memories, before my own existence!

Now…here is something to consider. I used very lean ground beef and made my stuff from scratch. What type of ingredients and preparation methods do these chains use before serving? The cost of my materials could be bought for under 10 bux and serves 6-8 servings.

Do yourselves a favor…learn to cook pasta with your own sauce.

It has been 10 years since attending my first Reformation Day service at Concordia-Irvine. I told Professor Hartmann on that day that I need to learn more about the Lutheran faith, as it means many changes in how I view the Christian faith, the Law, the Gospel, Church and State matters, and what role the Christian plays to keep holy.

My word, how much things happened within 10 years!

It used to be What Would Jesus Do? Today, it’s What Jesus Has Done!

It used to be “What does this Scripture mean to me?” Today, it’s “What does this Scripture say?”

It was “I must pray more, must do this less.” Today, “It is finished!”

It used to be following the Theology of Glory. Today, it is about the Theology of the Cross.

From Fark and the Daily Kos…an article from Fast Company about a guy that made the automakers in Detroit hoppin’ mad.

Johnathan Goodwin has hacked his cars to be more gas-efficient than what the automakers has set up. Ya know that there is this site that featured people flipping off Hummers for its wasteful uglyness. If you see what Goodwin had done, you’d be giving his biodiesel H2 two thumbs up.

And here is his souped-up Impala, pwning a Lamborghini.