trump has been clear enough that his shift towards tariffs is a shift away from taxing profit or income and towards taxing consumption. he likes this precisely because it incentivizes saving over spending, which is a typical conservative fiscal position, and one that most economists today think is recessionary and regressive. it's less that class-focused old timey conservatives like trump disagree, and more that they don't care. it's class war. it helps those with inherited wealth at the expense of those that need to work.

this is why he doesn't like the digital services tax in canada.

but, trump was not elected as president of canada. he has no mandate. he should back off.

this is also a last-chance salad soup, as i'm using up various things that are at their ends. i will need to get groceries in the next few days, after i deal with my hair, which is overdue.

so, i used up the last bit of olive oil margarine in a big sauce pan by melting it, then chopping up the rest of the kale stalks and frying them in the margarine on medium for three minutes, covered. the recipe calls for celery; i generally sub kale stalks for celery. i the added an entire bulb of chopped garlic and let it go another three minutes, covered.

then, i added the chopped broccoli stalks and a full box of vegetable broth [946 ml]. i let this come to a boil (covered). i then cooked it (covered) on reduced heat for fifteen minutes, and for another fifteen minutes on increased heat.

i did not blend anything, i just transferred it to a bowl and added

- 100 g of old cheddar

- 100 g of mozarella

(this uses up the cheese)

- chopped fresh dill

- nutritional yeast

- frank's

- pepper

- cayenne

- oregano

- cumin

- paprika

- hemp seeds

- ceasar

again, this is a big bowl of soup and i don't think i need toast, or an orange.

cooking the broccoli makes it edible, but it's broccoli. recall. the broth would benefit from a beef cube next time, i think.

i mentioned i've been in a holding pattern since monday. 

i did finish organizing the living room early on sunday and early on monday, and spent a large amount of time on these days exfoliating, culminating in a shower on monday. i meant to get out to get some groceries, but didn't; i had an rx delivered on tuesday. this had to do with the condition of my hair, which has had conditioner in it since monday evening.

it's been the same thing day over day on tuesday, wednesday, thursday and now friday - wake up in the afternoon, exfoliate in the evening, eat around midnight, clean all night and and then sleep in the morning, all while listening to cds in the kitchen. at this point, i've got everything organized into the space it should be in, i've got everything off the ground and i've got the floors and general space relatively clean. i've had some plumbers and drywall workers here as well and they're still not done, but almost. i still have a large amount of organizing to do and am going to need to do things like buy new tables for the kitchen, but that can wait. i am overdue on that shower, which i should take this morning. i need to do laundry, i need to get groceries and i need to catch up on email in here.

after having the leftover gravy as soup on sunday night, i ate up the rest of the beets, which i should have had in the previous leftover salad but missed the existence of. it was five beets in ceasar and frank's, with yeast and hemp. this gave me brutal beeturia. i then had my monday meal early on tuesday morning, which was the ceasar without subs, except white bread for brown bread. this happened again on wednesday morning, for my tuesday meal. i then doubled up on thursday morning by having wednesday and thursday together, which amounted to 10 medium sized eggs, four pieces of toast and four slices of bacon. see, i normally but extra large eggs, but the food bank gave me medium eggs, so i made five instead of four, over two meals together. it was a good meal.

my friday meal was a little different. one of the things remaining from the last food bank run was a frozen pack of white things that i wasn't sure about but thought might be noodles and a frozen pack of red sauce that said "pad thai". i had to google this. they were rice noodles, with a fish sauce - like the tamarind i used to make sweet and sour soup. what do i do with this? do i cook it? nuke it?

i decided to microwave it in one minute bursts and stir it until it was warm all the way through. again, i don't eat microwave dinners, but i know how it is. frozen in the middle. i was not letting that happen.

when it came out, it was a big meal - the entire bowl. i added cumin, paprika, hemp seed, cheddar cheese, oregano and nutritional yeast, plus a can of chick peas. this was done to add vitamins, minerals and protein, as i didn't feel like this giant pile of rice noodles was very substantive, and wasn't even sure it would fill me up. indeed, i was hungry before noon, which is unusual.

the noodles came out chewy and al dente and i decided that can't be right, but i googled it and it is actually how they're supposed to be. the sauce was pretty bland.

so, i have to admit i didn't enjoy the frozen (store bought?) pad thai and will probably leave it for somebody else next time. i'd be tempted to use the sauce for something else and just make baked spaghetti out of the noodles. it would be a weird spaghetti, but probably better.

if i start going to the food bank more frequently, i'll teach myself a bit more about these rice noodles and what to do with them.

tonight, i'm making that broccoli soup i've been talking about. recipe in next post.