Save the postage, give the rebates to Al Lord instead

I read a few comments that President Bush could save a lot of postage by direct depositing the economic stimulus checks in the oil companies' bank accounts instead of sending them to taxpayers. Well, I cut back my driving, but there's no escaping Sallie Mae for my son. So, despite having a meager paycheck, his 3 month "forbearance" period ends this month and he's up for over $800 a month in loan payments to that evil company that owns so many Congress members. And I can't let him go into financial disaster because of it, so we're on the hook to help out. (I almost said, "I can't let him go into bankruptcy over it," but then I remembered that the evil giant got the law changed so that if you're bankrupt - hell, even if you're dead, probably - you still have to pay Sallie Mae. Forever. And in ever-increasing amounts that make Payday Loans look like a good deal.

Or, maybe more accurately, you still have to pay former chief robber Al Lord, at least until he dropped the F-bomb at a meeting and had to resign. But I doubt he's given up all the spoils of his CEO-ship. As CBS News' Leslie Stahl reported last year:

'"It would be very hard for me to tell you that what I make is not a lot of money," Lord said. Said to be worth a quarter of a billion dollars, Al Lord is building his own private golf course and made a bid to buy a professional baseball team. During the past 13 years taxpayers have spent $40 billion on guaranteed student loans. Sallie Mae would not tell 60 Minutes how much of that went to them.'

So I'll suggest that Bush just transfer the rebates for anyone who has Sallie Mae loans directly to Al Lord's (probably offshore) bank account. He can pay his golf course landscapers a few hundred bucks, and so help out some of their relatives back home, and he can spend the rest on whatever rich people spend money on. Trickle down economics, you know. As in, Al (and all the Congressmen he's bought) stand there and piss on regular people like us, and it trickles down our throats, after we asked the Federal government for finanical aid and filled out all those FAFSA forms that did nothing but give Sallie Mae all our private information. I love this country.

Care for some gopher?

Friday evening we had my work "holiday" party. Yeah, it was six months late. It was an OK party, at a place that used to be a fish market in Chicago buit is now a trendy bistro bar with a Hispanic flair. They served us a bunch of appetizers, starting with guacamole, then shrimp ceviche on tortilla chils, the some spicy stuff on fried plantain, then some chicken grilled on skewers, with green stuff on them (tasted pretty good -cilantro). I ate one. So we're chatting, my co-workers were drinking wine or sangria, I was drinking iced tea, and I'm pacing myself for the main course.

The next thing they brought was dessert - some fudgelike stuff, and little fruit cups, and espresso cream puffs. So no main course. I guess it was a tapas bar. So I said to my co=worker, "If I'd known that there was only appetizers, I would've eaten more gopher." So I had to try to explain how the skewers looked just like the gopher on a stick in "O, Brother, Where Art Thou?" Which even when I explained it, no one got.

So the next nught at home we were going to make a Weber recipe for carne asada, and I modified ot to be more like the "gopher" I'd missed the night before. And it came out pretty good. So here's my recipe. I had to give it a Mexican sounding name, and the Internet translator I found gave me a term that apparently means, literally, "Ground squirrel." MAybe they don't have gophers in Mexico. But rest assured, this isn't Chip and Dale. It's not even gopher. Just mock gopher.

Ardillas Terrestres

8-10 servings

Marinade
1/2 C Lime Juice
1/2 C Tequila
1/2 Medium Jalapeno Pepper, seeds removed, minced fine
1/4 C Onion, minced fine
2 cloves garlic, minced fine
2 Tbsp Fresh Cilantro leaves, minced fine
1/4 tsp ground pepper

Meat
2 lb Sirloin Steak or flank steak, fat trimmed, cut in strips
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in strips

Vegetables
1 red pepper and 1 green pepper, seeds and ribs removed, cut in strips
2/3 of a medium onion (the rest of what you used for the minced onion), sliced thin
2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Soak enough wooden skewers to hold all the meat, in water for at least 30 min.

Mix all marinade ingredients. Place meat in two large Ziploc bags, pour half of marinade in each bag, and marinate for 2-4 hours in refrigerator.

Place vegetables on a large (15 inch) piece of wide heavy duty foil. Dot with butter. Wrap in a packet.

Prepare coals in grill for direct heat.

Thread meat onto skewers.

Spread coals and place foil packet off to the side to steam while meat cooks. When coals are ready for direct grilling, place skewers of meat on grill over coals. Grill, turning several times, until juices run clear in chicken and until steak is done to your liking.

Remove foil packet from grill, place steamed vegetables in a nonstick skillet, and brown until desired doneness.

Remove meat from skewers. (or, offer a skewer to your dining companions and ask, "Care for some gopher?")

Serve meat and vegetables with unsalted corn tortillas, cheese, avocados, and Trader Joe's low sodium salsa.

The whole thing was done to be consistent with my low-sodium diet, but it's tasty enough not to be bland.