Tonight, You Can!

Classic reminders to set your clocks back 1 hour!!

Queen Ginger Waxes Politic....

The Queen is finding herself to be alarmingly political this year... much more so than ever before.  She thinks it a bit odd, really, to be so interested in things political. In college, she found the poli-sci majors to be the most boring of the nerds, and did her best not to invite them to parties lest they spoil the fun and bring their downer views around to cancel out everyone's excellent "mood stabilizers".  But this year, for some reason, she kinda smells what they were stepping in!

Maybe it's the parade of mormons morons coming from the far right....

Maybe it's the horribly ill-fated attempt by the worthless Governor of my own bankrupt state to gain a spot on the ballot:

Maybe it's the "we're not gonna take it anymore" spirit of  my friends on the left who are making their voices heard:

And maybe it's Queen Ginger's newfound confidence in her own personal spirituality...

Regardless of the cause, Queen Ginger has become more and more irritated by people who will not think for themselves, and insist on aligning with a movement, or defining themselves as a member of a party, without thinking about what they are saying!


Case in point: "tea party" acquaintances who want to support the Republican party's stance on government regulation, and scorn the "Occupy" movements as extremist.  Queen G wants to scream at them: "BITCH! You work at Wal-mart- you are NOT part of their 1%!!"


Another one that floors the Queen: people who want to label themselves as "fiscally conservative, socially liberal".  Honey, that's like labeling yourself a "Jewish-Christian"- it ain't gonna work!!  The fact that Republicans want to paint liberals as fiscally irresponsible just burns Queen G's biscuit! Those of us who want social liberty don't expect to gain it by bouncing checks all over the world- we just want to spend the wealth of our country, still the richest nation in the world, on things that will benefit ALL people in our nation, not just the ones living on Park Avenue or Boardwalk!


Queen Ginger has said all along that she will do just about anything to keep Rick Perry out of the White House, and it's looking more and more like she's going to make good on that promise. Even with Obama's popularity at a relatively low position, the Republicans may make this the easiest reelection any Democrat has ever seen!

How About a Nice Slice Of....

October 22nd is National Pie Hole Day!  You'd better make sure your comments have the phrase "pie hole" in them!

GingerSnaps: Meet Fiona!!

If you've not heard of Fiona, Queen Ginger is working hard to change that!  As you may have read here, her friend Fiona Dawson entered a contest to get her own show on a little known, relatively unwatched new network. (Just kidding, Momma O!) That attempt was ill-fated, but Fiona's determination to make it happen was not, and she soldiered on to find a way to celebrate diversity and open the world's eyes to everyday miracles that people are accomplishing  to end discrimination! So moved was the Queen by Fiona's pitch and passion that she made a small donation to her campaign on Kickstarter to help her find a way to produce the show herself, and with that seed money, Fiona was able to travel to India to visit a hostel for women who are rescued from the red-light district in Mumbai, where they had been sold into prostitution.  She filmed miles of footage, and is ready to pitch the show to production companies and television executives to find a partner to produce the episodes.  Take a look at her pitch reel:
Fiona Sizzle Reel from Fiona Dawson on Vimeo.

So, whaddya say, GingerSnaps?  Does this look like a show that would interest you?  Queen Ginger thinks Fiona's positive, fresh take on the GOOD things people are doing to END the oppression of discrimination is what sets this show apart from any others on the air!

So, in support of Fiona's efforts, the Queen herself is throwing open the gates of the palace to host a little cocktail party in Fiona's honor! At the party, Fiona will explain what she is accomplished so far, what still needs to be done, and what her friends and supporters can do to help her make this lifelong dream a reality!  Being new to the American television scene,  she looking for advice, contacts, leads, introductions, or any other "insider tips" she can get to help move the project forward.  Since she probably will need to produce a full episode up front in order to pitch the series, she will also be making an offer to potential investors who may wish to support her endeavor.

If you are interested in attending the party, hit up Queen G for an invite!  And if you've got advice, contacts,or just words of encouragement for Fiona's efforts,  leave them in the comments or email them here and we'll get them into the proper hands!

Take care, and love to all!

When Is a Blender not a Blender?

When it is a SOUPMAKER!  When Queen Ginger first saw the Cuisinart® Blend and Cook® Soup Maker, she knew it was perfect for a Consumer Product Review®!  At $200, would a blender with heating elements REALLY be worth the money?  Inquiring GingerSnaps want to know, and so does Queen G, so she bought it and headed home to test it out!


You may ask "Queen Ginger, why not just open a can of soup and pop it in the microwave?"  Well, dear 'Snaps, I suppose you could, but have you read the nutrition label on most canned soups?  They are mostly salt, with some fat stirred in, and enough little cubes of ingredients to give the soup a name.  They are delicious, but terrible for you!  And the so called "healthy" soups just taste, well, healthy.  Homemade soups are relatively easy to make at home, but can be a bit of a mess by the time you use a blender, and perhaps a food processor, and a pot on the stove- that pretty much leaves you cleaning the whole kitchen!  Wouldn't it be nice if you could do it all in one unit that can just pop into the dishwasher?


First, a little about the machine itself.  It looks for all the world like a regular blender, although when you compare it to a regular blender, it's a bit taller, and the bottom of the jar is somewhat wider than most. There is a knob to control the blend functions, buttons to control the cooking temperature, and a timer that must be set in order for the elements to heat.  The blending and cooking functions cannot be operated at the same time, but there is a "stir" function that will turn the blades at a slow speed while cooking to mix the ingredients.  The jar and lid can go into the dishwasher, and the blade unit with the heating plate is easy enough to rinse clean in the sink. Used without the heating elements, it can be used just like a regular blender to make margaritas. Or margaritas. You could even make a pitcher of margaritas!  Aside from that, Queen Ginger has found most blenders to be relatively useless... until now!


Queen Ginger had not sent a waif to the grocery store in ages, but she managed to find a recipe right there in the book to make with ingredients she had on hand!  She had an onion, some dried lentils, and a couple of carrots that were just beginning to get a bit flabby, but hey, that's another great thing about making soup: you can use vegetables that are a bit too ripe to serve raw or whole, but no quite putrid enough for the compost heap!  Queen G just loves a chance to be green!

The process for most soups starts, like all things delicious, with a bit of fat and some onions.  Here you can see the butter cholesterol-free margarine sizzling in the bottom of the jar as it melts, which only takes a couple of minutes.  

Once the margarine melts, the onions go in.  Cut them into 1/2" pieces, and drop them in.  A few pulses of the "stir" button breaks them up a bit more and distributes the butter.

The lentils are added, with some of the Queens delicious and healthful homemade stock that she put away last spring, and seasonings over which Queen G has complete control! She used Tony Cachere's Lite:  Nothing unhealthy in this bowl!  


After about 30 minutes cooking and a few "stirs", the soup was just the way the Queen likes it: rich, with a bit of spice, and recognizable lentils.  The stirring process broke them up enough to make the soup creamy, but no so much that the soup was smooth.  If one prefers smooth soup, a few whirls in the "blend" mode and that's what they'd have!


The soup turned out delicious!  It made about 4 cups of soup, and since that was the main part of Queen G's meal, she had 2 cups for dinner, and saved 2 cups for lunch the next day. It was just as good the next day, and the machine makes it so easy, she could see herself making several batches of different soups on Sunday to have a week's worth of lunches at the ready! Next on her list of recipes to try:  Asparagus and Leek Soup, and Cream of Broccolli.  Don't think it only makes cream soups, however!  There are recipes for Pasta e Fagioli, and Chicken Noodle, too;  the texture of the soup is all according to the order in which you add the ingredients and when you blend the "base".


Queen Ginger is going to give the Cuisinart® Blend and Cook® Soupmaker 4 lipsticks!  While it certainly is an appliance once could survive without, it does make it easy to take control over your own nutritional destiny.  It's easy to use, easy to clean, and does what the package says it will do!

Ah, Youth!

When one of us would say something with youthful exuberance or naivete, Momma G would say "Ah, youth!  It's wasted on the young!"  She probably would not have sad that about this sign; she, like many posters on facebook, would probably congratulate this young person, and herald them as exemplary among today's youth. If Queen Ginger had remained in the small southern town where she was raised, she might think the same thing!


But lucky for Queen G, she moved to the big city!  She has seen a little bit of the world outside the US.  And she has met many friends and acquaintances who have opened her eyes to such naivete!








Queen Ginger would love the opportunity to pose a few questions to this smug, overconfident young graduate:


1. Do you suppose you would be so smug if you had contracted a debilitating disease or developed a devastating handicap?  Do you think you could work 30 hours and week and carry all that course load if you came down with mono?  Hepatitis?  Pneumonia?  All three are common in the tight environment of college campuses and take you out for an entire semester.


2. How do you think you would handle 30 hours a week and all of that course load with a child to raise?  Along with bathing, feeding, educating, nurturing, studying, working, and trying to get a few winks of sleep, do you supposed you would have time to pen signs to post on the internet?


3. What would you do if your parents, a sibling, or another loved one took gravely ill and needed your care and attention?  Would you be by your families side in their time of need, and perhaps their last days on earth, or would your midnight shift at IHOP be more important to you?


4. What do you think would happen if the companies who funded those scholarships you covet had a financial crisis and failed?  Do you think fulfilling their scholarships would be their first priority? 


You've been very lucky, you little shit- and don't you EVER take that for granted!!  Otherwise, the sign you are holding may look more like this:

A Royal Observation....

As Boy G was going through drawers and closets trying to make some sense of the Palace, Queen G came across the set of plugs that go with her cell phone, and they got her to thinking.  Scary when that happens, huh?

So here they are, for comparison.  The one on the left, with it's heavy-duty looks and ample design, is the British standard.  To Queen Ginger, it seems kind of fitting, really.  Almost orthopedic looking, like QE II's footwear! It looks like it could withstand a bombing, which may be why the Brits built it to be so substantial!

In the center is the rather delicate "Europlug", used extensively across the United States of Europe the European Union.  Rather demure in design, this plug has surely been the bane of every American tourist who has ever tried to use it with a converter to charge a cell phone, read their email, or dry their hair!  The outlets are slightly recessed to provide some slight hope to Europeans that their appliance will actually stay plugged in, and this makes it even harder to try to plug in a voltage converter, an adapter plug, and then the big block plug that charges whatever it is you've depleted.  And don't EVEN get Queen G started on what it's like to try to keep all of that connected on a smelly Italian train!  She's pretty sure this design was developed by the French, as a way to discourage American tourism across the Continent! 

Finally, on the right is the familiar plug used in North America.  Rather small and diminutive by comparison, this plug appears to be designed for cheap manufacture and throw-away design. Interestingly enough, this is also the outlet that Japan adopted, which seems to prove the Queens point, don't you think?  The best feature of the American plug, however, is the 2 little divots on each side of the blade, which mate with matching bumps inside outlet, which will keep your appliance firmly plugged until it's time to replace it in, say, a year or 2!

Queen Ginger leaves you, as always, with a question to ponder.  How is it that Australia got their own plug, instead of the British one? And why did her cell phone not come with a plug for there?