Author Archives: Brenda Bell

Bloody Caesar

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I’ll take one of these over a Bloody Mary any day of the year.

The Vodka

1 liter good vodka
2 cups grated horseradish
1/2 cup black peppercorns

Pour the vodka in a large jug, add the horseradish and peppercorns and shake it up. Let it sit for 10-12 hours, but give it a shake every couple of hours. When it’s done, strain it through a coffee filter and pour it back in the bottle. Don’t worry about the color… that just means it’s absorbed all that horseradish and pepper.

The Mixer

48 ounce bottle of tomato juice
3 8 ounce bottles of clam juice
1 tablespoon Montreal Steak seasoning
1/4 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon prepared horseradish

Pour it all in a jug and shake it. Refrigerate for several hours until it’s good and cold.

The Drink

Fill a glass with ice. Give the mixer a good shake. Add the spicy vodka and mixer to the glass according to your tastes — 1 part vodka to 3 parts mixer works well. Stir and garnish with a celery stick or wedge of lime.

Managing dot-qmail files

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I’ve been using qmail as my MTA for as long as I can remember. The feature I like most is being able to have one-off email addresses I can use across the web that can easily be disabled if I start getting spammed.

For folks who aren’t familiar with qmail, that means I can set up a prefix foo with the extension – and have email sent to foo-anytext@mydomain.com without having to reconfigure the server every time I want to create a new temporary email address.

At some point, that address will start getting spam. The bonus is that by using an extension that identifies the site where I used it, I immediately know where the leak started. When the spam shows up, I create a dot-qmail file to bounce email to that address. Over the years, I’ve accumulated a lot of dot-qmail files, so I’ve started using soft-links to manage them. On my server, I set up three dot-qmail files for my account:

.qmail-default controls normal delivery:

./Maildir/

.qmail-bounce will bounce an email:

|/var/qmail/bin/bouncesaying 'Mail is no longer accepted at this address.'

.qmail-bounce-and-deliver will bounce an email as far as the sender is concerned, but the email will still be delivered. This gives me time to slowly retire an email address that may still occasionally receive legitimate email:

|/var/qmail/bin/bouncesaying 'Mail is no longer accepted at this address.'

Once these three files are configured, I can immediately toggle delivery for a specific email address with a single command:

ln -s .qmail-bounce .qmail-anytext

Crock Pot Beef Stew

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Ingredients

  • 1 pounds stew beef
  • 1 cup flour
  • oil, for browning meat
  • 1 package Crockery Gourmet Seasoning For Beef
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 can Condensed French Onion Soup
  • 1 can Condensed Beef Consommé
  • 1 tablespoon granulated garlic
  • 2 cans diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 4 potatoes, cut into 1 1/2″ chunks
  • 3 carrots, cut into 1″ chunks
  • 2 celery, cut into 1/4 ” chunks

Directions

  1. Coat stew beef with flour and brown in hot oil over medium high heat 2 minutes per side. Do not crowd pan.
  2. Transfer beef to bottom of slow cooker.
  3. Combine beef seasoning and water. Add soups, water, garlic and tomatoes. Pour over meat.
  4. Spread potatoes, carrots and celery on top of meat.
  5. Cook on high 6 hours or low 10 hours.

An Open Letter To The Residents Of Ferguson, Missouri

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I ask you to recall two powerful quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

My thoughts, prayers and support are with the good people of Ferguson who chose to take the hard and high road after last night’s grand jury announcement. The media may have been focused on your counterparts, but you are the ones with the real power to bring about positive change in your community.

Please don’t let the opportunity pass.

Natalia Vasilieva’s Boola Sweater

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I think this sweater is absolutely stunning:

Boola Sweater

I haven’t chosen a yarn, but it’s definitely in the cards if I can ever figure out how to keep work from getting in the way of my knitting.

You’ll find the pattern on Ravelry… and since Ravelry doesn’t support DAK files, Natalia has graciously given me permission to host it here.

Happy Knitting!

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