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Wacko Topic of the Month

Rhubarb

Answered By Dan Wilder, Ben Okopnik, Don Marti, Heather Stern, Iron

How do you clean and cook rhubard for making a pie or other uses?

[Dan] No doubt you mean "rhubarb". I cut off the leaves, wash in cold water, slice, and parblanch it, if freezing for later use. From my childhood in Michigan, I learned that tender young stems are a nice snack fresh, washed and dipped in sugar.

[Ben] Bessie, I'd suggest that you take a look at http://groups.google.com, and search for "rhubarb" (not "rhubard") in the rec.cooking group. My quick search has turned up 189 recipes, including the following:

CARRAGEEN PUDDING WITH RHUBARB & ROSEHIP JELLY

ORIENTAL RHUBARB JAM

CHEF FREDDY'S APPLE RHUBARB PIE

CHEF FREDDY'S APPLE-RHUBARB CAKE

CHEF FREDDY'S RHUBARB CAKE

PASSOVER RHUBARB COBBLER

PAUL MARTIN'S RHUBARB MERINGUE PIE

PEACH RHUBARB JAM

PEACH-RHUBARB CRISP

PEAR-RHUBARB COBBLER

CHILLED RHUBARB SOUP

PINEAPPLE RHUBARB MARMALADE

PORK CHOPS WITH RHUBARB ONION & RAISIN CHUTNE

PORK WITH RHUBARB SAUCE

COLD RHUBARB SOUFFLE

QUICK RHUBARB CRISP

RASPBERRY RHUBARB GELATO - MARTHA STEWART LIVING

RED CURRANT RHUBARB SAUCE WITH PORT WINE

RHUBARB & ALMOND TARTLETS

RHUBARB & BANANA FOOL

RHUBARB & FIG JAM

RHUBARB & FIG PRESERVES

RHUBARB & MELON SALAD

RHUBARB & NUT STREUSEL CAKE

RHUBARB & PINEAPPLE CONSERVE

RHUBARB & PINEAPPLE JAM

RHUBARB & RASPBERRY PIE

RHUBARB & RASPBERRY TART

RHUBARB & STRAWBERRY TART

Yum. Wonder if I can find any rhubarb pie for lunch... :) Cleaning it is pretty much like cleaning celery, nothing special; cooking is as per any of the above recipes, depending on what you want to make.

[Don] Either the leaves or the stems are poisonous, so you shouldn't eat whichever one is the poisonous part. And whatever you do, don't eat the top part of the stem where it meets the leaves -- no matter which part of the plant is poisonous, there will be some poison where they meet. At least if you pick leaves or stems you have a 50/50 chance.

And how do you "parblanch"? There's no definition of that term in the Rhubarb-HOWTO.

I don't think rhubarb is ready for the desktop yet, at least until you techie type people straighten out the poison issue and make it parblanch itself.

[Ben]

Don, the GNU version of rhubarb is due out in just a few days; not only does it parblanch itself, it will also frizz, wargle, blatter, *and* mangulate everyone and everything in a 7,000-mile radius. Instead of just a small part of it being poisonous, the entire plant consists of pure potassium cyanide, thus saving you time, money and effort. Not only _that,_ but it also comes with an attractive set of Ginsu knives, and - if you order within the next thirty minutes - our combination orange peeler, toilet disassembler, Fortran debugger, and spaceship detector. Best of all, the source code is included.

Just say "no" to all those proprietary commercial versions of rhubarb! Open Source rules!

[Heather]

At least you won't have to debug the garden anymore.

[Ben] <snerch> Or the rest of Terra, either.

[Heather] Say, can you just send me the source to that combination orange peeler, toilet disassembler, fortran debugger, and spaceship detector? I want to compile a local version that detects orange spaceships, and peels them if they have buggy Fortran code installed.

[Ben] That's disabled by default, but it's easy enough to fix:

make --with-orange-spaceships-and-buggy-Fortran-autopeel

Loooove those "make" options...

[Don] It also comes with an attractive set of Ginsu knives...

[Iron] ...known to those in the know as GiNsU knives. (Bet you didn't know there's a GNU in every Ginsu.)

[Dan] And to some others as G1n5u kn1v35.

News You Can Use

Linux accommodations in Prague

Toto je zpráva ve formátu MIME obsahující více částí.
Oggetto: Super offer
Messaggio: I offer SUPER accomodeation in Prague. Only for Linux users. Only 12 EUR/night/room ( 2 pers.) !!

For those with password amnesia...

[I'm giving the real address for this site because it's so hilarious. Buy your boss one. -Iron.]

www.mylogonmaster.com

This the ultimate lo-tech way to remember your passwords in style! It'ss a blank book in which you can write in the username and password of all the web sites you visit. It's multi-platform, so you can use it with any Operating System. There are special pages to record important system information, such as the model number of your printer cartridge. There's a page for always-forgotten e-mail addresses, and even a pages for Scribbles and Doodles!

Detailed help includes icons showing where to write the site address, your username and your password, and there are even two pages of examples!

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Testimonials from satisfied customers.

Tak a look at the St Bernard on the cover.

Article about designing a space elevator. [Space Daily, courtesy Slashdot.]

Not The Answer Gang

Those were the days

[Ben] <laugh> That "folk song to the tune of" 'Those Were the Days' is the "Dorogoi Dlinnoyu".

[Iron] How did "Dear Longs" (whatever that means) get translated as "Those Were the Days"? Is it a reference to the 24-hour summer days in St Pete?

[Ben] Wrong accent. "do-ro-GOI" would be "dear"; "do-RO-goi" is "<along the> road". It's "[Along|By] the Long Road", and Raskin managed (very well, too) to keep the sense of the song... if not the traditionally morbid /fin-de-siecle/ ending.

[Iron] I just remembered there are two "Those Were the Days" songs in English. One has the same tune as the Russian song and starts off, "Those were the days, my friend. We don't know where nor when..."

[Breen Mullins]

Those were the days, my friend,
We thought they'd never end.
We'd sing and dance forever and a day.
We'd live the life we'd choose,
We'd fight and never lose,
Those were the days,
Oh yes those were the days.

[Iron] Then there's the "All in the Family" theme that goes something like, "When girls were girls and men were men." Perhaps the two songs are related, but they sound awfully different.

[Breen]

[who?] wrote and Miller played,
Songs that made the Hit Parade.
Guys like us we had it made,
Those were the days.

And you knew when you were then,
Girls were girls and men were men.
Mister, we could use a man like
Herbert Hoover again.

Didn't need no welfare state,
Everybody pulls his weight.
[umty umty umty...]
Those were the days.

I think the second was inspired by the first, but as Mike says the tunes are completely different.

PC speaker

Answered By Iron

Is there a command in MS-Dos to diable the PC Speaker?

[Iron]

$ dosemu
C:\> halloween.exe
Welcome to Halloween, version 1.2
!!! The diabolical speaker program !!!
Have you ever heard a computer scream?

Would You Like To Be On A TV Commercial?

Answered By Heather Stern, Ben Okopnik

We are looking for new faces for TV & Movie productions. It might be your face we are trying to find. For more information, Please fax us your:

Name
Age
Country
City
email address
Please do so only if TV, movie or modeling is of an interest to you.

[Heather] We asked Tux but it seems that he already has enough appearance engagements. We've considered TeX the lion but he won't come unless we also sign his girlfriend - negotiations are still underway. The l'il Daemon in Tennis Shoes says we're not related to BSD and declined to comment further.

We hope you understand that we are trying to get ONLY serious people who really want to try and like the camera.

Anybody who makes the camera unhappy will be let go without further notice. He's our star, and you're just a new actor. If we really like your work we might call you back on another set, sometime.

There is absolutely no payment of any form required from your side. On the oposite, all jobs we offers are well paid.

We hope you like peanuts, because you'll get a lot of them.

This email is sent to you in full compliance with all existing and proposed email legislation.

We have a legal telepath on staff who is able to delete all our outbound email the moment any countering legislation is proposed in the House or Senate. We think. We often worry about whether we pay him enough.

Note: You are not on a mailing list, and this is a one-time email. If we don't get an answer, you'll never hear from us any more. You are removed by default. You can still reply with the word Remove in the subject. This right is yours by law.

Mr. Mailbox, you have the right to remain full. You may state "Remove" but it may be used against you and you won't be able to tell who did it. You have the right to mail filters. If you can't afford one then articles about procmail may be provided by the Linux Gazette. Please do not resist while I put on these "delete" handcuffs.

Use Fax nr 1-###-###-####

We'd fax you, but our legal telepath advises against it. I'm not really sure why he winced when he said that, but anyways, you know the number now.

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[Ben]

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Hello I visited your web site and I noticed that you did not have a message board.. So I just wanted to say that you should add one, because it will allow your visitors to interact with each other.. and also allows you to interact with them too..

[Great idea. In fact, we already have it! Click the "Talkback" link on the bottom of any article except the columns. -Iron.]

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Happy Linuxing!

Mike ("Iron") Orr
Editor, Linux Gazette, gazette@linuxgazette.net