That being said, it’s extremely easy to create a much more flavorful dish from such an humble slice of pork.  All you’ll need are three ingredients:

• 1 Gammon / Ham steak, 1/4 – 3/8″ thick, bone-in
• 2 Tbsp black peppercorns, cracked
• 12 oz hard cider (dry brands like Strongbow work wonderfully, but fruitier ciders such as pear cider will add a completely different sort of flavor) .

Preparation is incredibly simple.  All you’ll need to do is set the meat in a non-stick skillet, pour on the cider, add the peppercorns, and cook over medium heat until the cider has been near completely reduced, turning the meat at least once during cooking (7-8 minutes per side should be adequate, as pork only needs to reach 140*F internal temperature to be safe for consumption).

One recent offering caught my eye:  Picture Show: You Are What You Eat, which showcase the photographic endeavor of Mark Menjivar to showcase USAmerican culture through the contents of our refrigerators.  The notes about the household occupancy and personal facts add an even more humanizing anchor to the subject of one of our most basic needs: nutrition.

Whether the subject of the camera’s gaze is the near empty fridge of a person on fixed income which holds little more than a single condiment and what appears to be a handbag, or the rich red bounty of the deer hunter’s freezer, these simple photographs really make a point.  It may not be sublime, it may not be even be artistic, but the series of shots certainly has a punch to it, if you’re willing to look.

The group have been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, and a fine of 3.6 million $USD in damages.  For the record, that’s about 30 million SEK by today’s exchange rate, one of the highest fines ever imposed in a Swedish court.

It’s a sad day for filesharers, and just goes to show how far out of touch governments and the entertainment industry are with the effects of filesharing.  When will they ever get the point that they’re overcharging for content, underpaying their artists, and strangling a situation that has been proven to actually INCREASE their sales?

Interestingly enough, the trial has not lessened traffic to the site, but rather greatly increased, swelling membership numbers to new heights, and fueling huge membership in the political Pirate Party which seeks reform of copyright laws.

Fly your pirate flags at half staff and have a look at the guilty party’s press conference on the ruling.

Sure, it has covers performed by big names like Johnny Cash (Hurt from NiN) and Marilyn Manson (Sweet Dreams), but more importantly, it has Jonathan Coulton (of Still Alive from Portal fame) performing Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back.  Rock on.

Look them up if you haven’t heard of them though.  There’s something here for most.

The Basement Boys
The Decemberists
Devotchka
Everlast
Gotan Project
Jedi Mind Tricks
Jem
MC Chris
Panic! At the Disco
Silversun Pickups
Third Eye Blind
Verve Pipe
Weezer
Zero 7

“Across the Universe” Soundtrack

Tons of stuff from AdultSwim…Because they actually know what hiphop is, and that it’s not just gangsta rap.

(via)

That’s right.  Mr. Deeds was a remake of a classic.  A Frank Capra classic of all things.  Mr. Frank “It’s a Wonderful Life” Capra.

I was almost as shocked as when I learned that Bob Barker is an accomplished martial artist, holding belts in multiple disciplines including a black in karate, and could have laid even more of a beating on Happy Gilmore. 

Everyone forms their view of life differently.  Each individual’s opinion and standing point is shaped and molded based on that person’s unique, or sometimes non-unique experiences in life.  We are all different, but one thing binds us together; we are the graduating class of 2002 from Henry County High School in McDonough, Georgia.

Of course, this is probably far from the most significant life-changing experience for the majority of us.  It is, however, the common bond that unifies us.  Not everyone was at that “killer field party,” and not everyone was there when the football team defeated Eagle’s Landing and tore down the goalpost.  Every single student in the school didn’t take Anatomy and Physiology, but there are very few of us who don’t recognize the odors drifting from the science hall during second semester’s cat dissections. 

As a class, we have seen events unfold in our lives that few would ever suspect.  Around our nation, other students’ senior years have been marred by such tragedies as the events at Columbine, and more locally, Heritage High School.  Sadly, the one world event we will most likely remember for the rest of our lives from our school years, will be the events of September 11, 2001.  I remember the looks of shock on my friends faces as I worked on gathering opinions, quotes, hopes, and fears for my first real article in The Wingspan. I saw an underlying current of camaraderie that I never would have believed could exist between so many different people.  Everyone had the same fears; Fears of the draft, fears of what would happen next, fears for friends or relatives who were traveling or in the military.  On some level, we are all the same, I suppose, in many ways.

Tragedies aren’t the only things that have formed our personalities.  Each year, many people have spent their time looking for “that special someone,” or in the case that that person had already been found, spending time with them.  The social lives of those around us have formed a model for many people of what we are, what we want to be, or what we don’t want to be. 

We’ve grown together.  I look back, and remember my freshmen year, and like so many that have come before me, I wonder how in the world I made it this far.  On the first day of my senior year, I made my way slowly into the parking lot, hesitating to park in my space.  I was listening to the song “The Freshmen,” by Verve Pipe.  As I listened to the words “When I was young I knew everything…I can’t believe for the life me that we would ever die for these sins.  We were merely freshmen.”  The song wasn’t new, it wasn’t the first time I had ever heard it.  It was completely intentional.  For some reason, it meant a lot to me then.  I wrote a description of that morning down later in the day.  It read something like this:  “I arrived that morning, with a song in my head, and a girl in my heart, and not really knowing quite which meant more to me just then.”  Life hasn’t been simple for us, as students, but we’ve made it through the storm.

We are the graduating class of 2002 from Henry County High School.  We are just another step in the long procession of graduates.  But we are each our own person.  We’ve made ourselves that way.  We have hopes and dreams for the future, whether we admit them to one another or ourselves or not.

It is with those hopes and dreams that each of us holds dear that I wish you luck.  This year, I have ranted about etiquette, nit-picked about courtesy, and hinted at changes in attitude in my editorials.  Now, as I look back with only a few days left in my high school career, I realize that I wouldn’t change a single thing.  I wouldn’t take away a single moment with any of my friends; they all mean too much to me.  I wouldn’t even take away a single time someone ran into me in the hallway.  It would change the whole scene.  I only hope that the last few years of our lives have meant as much for everyone else in the class of 2002 as they have for me.

I’m sorry if I have rambled in writing this.  Sometimes it’s just hard to say goodbye to everything you know, and everyone you love.  It’s just one of those things.  Perhaps Lord Byron phrased it best: “Farewell! A word that must be, and hath been,- A sound which makes us linger; yet-farewell!”  Fare you each well, seniors.  Fare you well, Henry County High School, and the underclassmen yet to graduate.  Fare you well.

Buckners’ Family Restaurant
1168 Bucksnort Road, Jackson, GA
770-775-6150