Mon 4th December 2000

The Pie is pleased to announce its first online reccipe from The Pie Community (That's "community" as in "care in"). It comes from a nice wee lassie known as The Mad Bag. One of the stalwarts of Flaming Pie, The Mad Bag has studiously collected all the recipes I've e-mailed to her over the years. Such dedication! You might call her one of Flaming Pie's "old lags." (At least, I think that's what they call her.). Anyway, big up an massive etc. to The Mad Bag

The Mad Bag's Spaghetti with Garlic, Oil & Chilli Spaghetti

1 or 2 crushed cloves of garlic 2 tablespoons chopped flat leaf parsley half or 1 red chilli, finely chopped (to your taste) lots of good extra virgin olive oil Salt & Pepper Easy peasy. Boil pasta & drain. A few good glugs of oil (as much as you like really, I always add far too much as I love olive oil) in a saucepan, add garlic, chilli and parsley. Fry off for a minute or two. Add spaghetti to pan, mix through to coat pasta, season and serve with salad and bread and a lovely bottle of Italian wine. I sometimes add a few chopped vine tomatoes just at the end of the cooking for a wee change.

*** The state of the union ***

The Pie has decided to declare war on the United States of America. Now, I'm not fond of the sort of routine yank-bashing that sometimes goes on around here, After all, any nation that gave us Elvis, Kurt Vonnegut, Muhammed Ali and The Sopranos is OK by me. No. It;s simply a matter of territory. See, as the icecaps melt, many countries - including some with which The Peoples' Republic of Pieland has treaty obligations - will be getting smaller. Now, anyone in the 1st world is maybe as guilty as one another in terms of their contribution to global warming. (Factoid - if everyone on the planet were given a per-capita annual carbon allowance, based on current outputs shared across the world population, you'd have used yours on this week's trip to the supermarket). However, one nation is blocking efforts to reduce emissions. That nation acounts for 4% of the world population but 15% of its CO2 output. The idea of the Kyoto Agreement was to get an overall reduction. You're not really meant to look for countries who have reduced their outputs due to economic decline (e.g. Russia) and buy "carbon credits" from them. The US recently blocked further treaty action by insisting that it would rather plant a couple more trees than ask its citizens to use less fuel.

Until things change, The Pie will hold the US president personally accountable. No...wait a minute....err....

I 'ad that Ralph Nader in the back of me cab. once.