Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 08:28 am
msolga wrote:
Oh, I do hope I get an invite to your scrumptious dinner, Piffka! <hint, hint> :wink:


Ah, Olga. I am sorry to say we had our dinner early, last Sunday evening, which is what made me start this thread. Mr.P and I will be going away for Thanksgiving weekend this year so we can be closer to our kids. They work at an inn on the other side of the state and we'll be paying guests there. (See the link in the post I made to D'artagnan.) We plan to take three days off... taste wine there, walk their trails and relax in the chilly air of eastern Washington.

However, I made some very tasty hot turkey sandwiches last night for dinner and there are still plenty of leftovers. I can make some for you in a jiffy. Very Happy
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 09:17 am
The new twist on bird flu link -
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/08/science/08flu.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

------------------------------------------------------------------------
November 8, 2005
NYTIMES

Hazard in Hunt for New Flu: Looking for Bugs in All the Wrong Places
By GINA KOLATA

Science moves in mysterious ways, and sometimes what seems like the end of the story is really just the beginning. Or, at least, that is what some researchers are thinking as they scratch their heads over the weird genetic sequence of the 1918 flu virus.

Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, a molecular pathologist at the Armed Forces Institute of Technology who led the research team that reconstructed the long-extinct virus, said that a few things seemed clear.

The 1918 virus appears to be a bird flu virus. But if it is from a bird, it is not a bird anyone has studied before. It is not like the A(H5N1) strain of bird flus in Asia, which has sickened at least 116 people, and killed 60. It is not like the influenza viruses that infect fowl in North America.

Yet many researchers believe that the 1918 virus, which caused the worst infectious disease epidemic in human history, is a bird flu virus. And if so, it is the only one that has ever been known to cause a human pandemic.

That, Dr. Taubenberger said, gives rise to a question. Are scientists looking for the next pandemic flu virus in all the wrong places? Is there a bird that no one ever thought about that harbors the next 1918-like flu? And if so, what bird is it, and where does it live?


SKIPPING MUCH OF THE ARTICLE, THEN

Despite that, and the fact that those viruses have been circulating in China more than a dozen years, almost no human-to-human spread has occurred. "The virus has been around for more than a dozen years, but it hasn't jumped into the human population," Dr. Palese said. "I don't think it has the capability of doing it."

Dr. Taubenberger said he could argue it either way.

"It's a nasty virus," he said. "It is highly virulent in domestic birds and wild birds. The fact that it has killed half the humans it has infected makes it of concern, and the fact that it shares some features with the 1918 virus makes it of concern.

"But the fact that it has circulated in Asia for years and hasn't caused a pandemic argues against it. Maybe there are some biological barriers we don't understand."

So where will the next pandemic come from? Dr. Taubenberger says he wonders if it may be from a bird no one has thought of, a bird with a flu virus that has the same funny coding of amino acids that he saw in the 1918 flu.

END OF QUOTE BUT NOT OF THE ARTICLE
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 10:22 am
farmerman wrote:
2 bushels of chestnuts and about a bathtub of bread cubes (which we will start making next weeK). Its got onions potatoes celery, about 50 lb of cornbread, lots of sage and pepper


Very interesting, not just the quantitites -- which are truly startling!! -- but the recipe itself. I have never served chestnuts and know little about them. I looked up some chestnut stuffing recipes since they are considered so traditional; I feel embarassed that I know nothing about them. Some are very plain. Yours sounds like it has some good variations going with the vegetables, the sage and the cornbread. Celery adds something wonderful to any stuffing but it is the bread that really makes the stuffing great.

Do you "Shell, skin, and boil the chestnuts in salted water until tender" or do you "make cuts in sides of chestnuts. Heat shortening and chestnuts in shallow pan for 15 minutes in moderate oven"?
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 10:26 am
Interesting, Ossobuco. I guess I'll have to read the article since it just sounds creepy -- "a bird that no one has thought of." The turkey???

Or the Dodo? THose have always seemed mysterious to me and I think there are reports that they were very tasty. Very Happy
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 10:31 am
It also poses that the pandemic scare may not be... I can't find a word to explain - it might be all for naught, at least as immediate concern. Then again, maybe.. re some unknown bird. It goes into checking out various birds...

At this point you may have to pay to read the full article - it may be more than a week old or some such.
0 Replies
 
DrewDad
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 10:47 am
Say, Piffka, can we get a copy of or link to that Italian Stuffing? Sounded great...

My wife and her family are big fans of the cornbread/sage style of dressing (and I've converted), but they never make it with chestnuts. I'm punting on that one this year. We're making the turkey, but MIL is making the dressing.

As the only cohesive family unit in town, we've become the preferred destination for holidays. My dad and his lady friend, my mom, FIL and lady friend, MIL and new husband, new step-brothers-in-law, etc....

Makes for some interesting dynamics, to say the least.
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 10:50 am
It was still there! Here's more from the middle of that article. I wasn't sure if I'd be cutting out something important if I tried to just snip a bit, so I didn't. This begins with their looking for a match to the "strange" genetic sequence....

Quote:
Dr. Thomas Fanning, a scientist in Dr. Taubenberger's group, mentioned that he had a friend at the Smithsonian who worked at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. It had several thousand preserved birds from the early 20th century that were floating in Mason jars of alcohol.

From there, they reached James P. Dean, a supervisor in the division of birds at the museum, who sent Dr. Taubenberger a computer printout of the birds in the museum's collection - hundreds of birds, with notes telling the species and the exact times and places where they were collected. But which to choose?

Dr. Taubenberger consulted with one of the leading experts on bird flus, Richard Slemons of Ohio State, who chose 40 birds on the museum's list, all waterfowl collected around 1918. The museum found 25 of them.

The scientists took tiny pinches of tissue from passages of the birds' excretory tracts, or cloacas, and Dr. Taubenberger looked for flu viruses in the tissue. Six of the birds had a flu virus. The genetic coding for the amino acids in those viruses was exactly like that in bird flu viruses today, Dr. Taubenberger found.

In fact, the viruses had not even evolved. Human influenza viruses change every year, mutating slightly so they can reinfect people who had just had the flu and developed antibodies against it. But birds, Dr. Slemons said, do not have much of an immune response to influenza, and so there is no particular pressure for the virus to mutate.

Another reason the viruses stay the same, he said, is that some birds live for only a couple of years and so, every year, the viruses have a new bird population to infect. Finally, he said, birds are chronically infected with lots of flu viruses at once, and all the viruses coexist peacefully.

"There are so many that there is no selective pressure on any virus," he said.

But if bird viruses do not evolve and if the waterfowl viruses in 1915 and 1916 look just like bird viruses today, where did the 1918 virus come from? Or was it really a bird virus?

After all, at the time that he looked at the Smithsonian birds, Dr. Taubenberger had reconstructed only part of the virus's genetic sequence. Maybe when he had the whole thing, the picture would change.

It did not. The entire sequence, published last month in Nature, had the distinctive protein structures of a bird virus, he said. And it had that same peculiar way of spelling its amino acids.

When he compared the 1918 virus with today's human flu viruses, Dr. Taubenberger noticed that it had alterations in just 25 to 30 of the virus's 4,400 amino acids. Those few changes turned a bird virus into a killer than could spread from person to person.

Dr. Taubenberger noticed that, so far, the A(H5N1) viruses in Asia have just a few of those changes. They do not, however, have the unusual ways of coding the amino acid instructions that the 1918 virus had.


It is creepy to think that the migrating birds may be carrying something deadly. I guess the fact that the flu was found in an Inupiat woman who died in 1918 sort of underscores that point of a world-wide epidemic.

And... hah... this IS a sort of a gross tangent. I wonder how many folks will be eating Turkey a week from Thursday and have a nice table discussion about the BIRD FLU!!!
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 11:33 am
Mebbe all the birds with that particular unusual virus died in 1918...

all very interesting..

pass the gravy!
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 07:56 pm
That makes sense... a mass die-off. (How long has that sausage stuffing been sitting out anyway?)
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 08:29 pm
Hey, you're in the northwest, no problemo.. (what I say when I leave the butter out).
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Tue 15 Nov, 2005 09:00 pm
Very Happy At least during November.....
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Nov, 2005 03:47 am
Piffka wrote:
msolga wrote:
Oh, I do hope I get an invite to your scrumptious dinner, Piffka! <hint, hint> :wink:


Ah, Olga. I am sorry to say we had our dinner early, last Sunday evening, which is what made me start this thread. Mr.P and I will be going away for Thanksgiving weekend this year so we can be closer to our kids. They work at an inn on the other side of the state and we'll be paying guests there. (See the link in the post I made to D'artagnan.) We plan to take three days off... taste wine there, walk their trails and relax in the chilly air of eastern Washington.

However, I made some very tasty hot turkey sandwiches last night for dinner and there are still plenty of leftovers. I can make some for you in a jiffy. Very Happy


Aw! I missed it! Wahhhhhhhhh! Crying or Very sad
But <sniff> I'll accept that offer of a sandwich, Piffka. I knew you'd be missing the real day, but didn't realize the alternative celebration would be over & gone so quickly. I should read more carefully, yes?
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Nov, 2005 11:04 am
Naaah... I babble away, it would too much to do more than scan.

The sandwich is here. Actually, I made two, one on very healthy brown bread with loads of fibre (see, even spelt it correctly for you) and the other on white "Farmer's" bread which Mr.Piffka prefers. They have a teeny bit of mayo on each slice of bread, loads of sliced dark and white meat, a big spoonful of cranberry sauce and some organic baby greens. Very Happy
0 Replies
 
Wy
 
  1  
Reply Wed 16 Nov, 2005 03:43 pm
As far as flu strains, I think they weaken as they pass from person to person (or bird to bird), and eventually become harmless. Meanwhile, other strains are gaining in virulence and lurking in the background, just waiting for an opportunity to travel the world...

...oooo, turkey sammich time! I make mine with good white bread (if I'm ambitions I might bake some), dark meat mostly, a little lettuce (organic baby greens would be fine), a thin coat of butter on one slice, and on the other slice of bread (here comes the inflammatory statement) Miracle Whip. No mayo, no cranberry sauce (that's pretty much a Northwest thing, as far as I can tell) and no stuffing.

I'll be happy to share (and you can put your own cranberries in there if you like).
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Thu 17 Nov, 2005 08:56 am
Wy! I thought you'd left a2k! I tried a Search for you last week... got nothing. And yesterday, I tried to find your latest posts... also nothing. It is a mystery!

I grew up with "Miracle Whip" and never understood the difference until I went to college. I always knew I liked my friends' tunafish sandwiches better than what my mum made... it was the mayo!

The cranberry sauce on a turkey sandwich is something I learned from a friend who grew up in Vancouver B.C.... so it is very Northwest. <grin>

My preference is also for white bread but I'm pushing the whole wheat for health reasons. Wink
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Thu 17 Nov, 2005 09:16 am
I have a problem with ordinary old whole wheat sort of beige-y bread. Like the many grains and nuts type bread instead, in the if your going to be good, go ahead and eat the multigrain... but still like a good white sourdough/hearth bread best even though I buy it less and less. The italians make something called "integrale" which uses whole wheat and white flours (as do many whole wheat bread recipes) but somehow I like theirs best. Brio bakery down here makes it...
0 Replies
 
Piffka
 
  1  
Reply Thu 17 Nov, 2005 09:29 am
Yep. I'm with you, Osso. The whole wheat we have in the cupboard this day is called Milton's Whole Grain Bread "with Whole Wheat Flour and a hint of honey" -- it has 5g fiber in every 16g of carbohydrates.

I don't think I've heard of integrale... but I'm <grin> not surprised that you'd like Italian best. Wink
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Thu 17 Nov, 2005 09:33 am
There's also something in our stores here called Oregon bread - that has hazelnut bits in it, not bad for a typical sandwich loaf..
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Thu 17 Nov, 2005 02:27 pm
Piffka wrote:
The sandwich is here. Actually, I made two, one on very healthy brown bread with loads of fibre (see, even spelt it correctly for you) and the other on white "Farmer's" bread which Mr.Piffka prefers. They have a teeny bit of mayo on each slice of bread, loads of sliced dark and white meat, a big spoonful of cranberry sauce and some organic baby greens. Very Happy


<chomp!>

Delicious!
Yum!
Thank you! Very Happy

I'm afraid, Piffka, that when the subject of food comes up, it appears that I focus on the delectable edible details at the expense of the rest! :wink:
0 Replies
 
 

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