Winter horse racing in North America means many different things to many people. To those in the southern states, Gulfstream, Fair Grounds, Santa Anita and Hollywood, mean some of the finest racing despite the inclement weather up North. But for those of us who also play the Big A (Aqueduct) and other northern tracks, it means adjusting and re-adjusting according to weather and conditions.

One thing that comes up quite often is track bias. I admit I have chased this elusive bird a time or two. Sometimes I’ve made a profit but other times I have zigged when I should have zagged and any profits from previous efforts were gobbled up. My advice regarding track bias is that you proceed very carefully and don’t bet the farm on anything no matter how convincing the evidence may seem.

I try to play the southern tracks as much as possible, but do have a soft spot in my head for Aqueduct and do manage to eek out a little there. No matter what I may think or know about the track, there are people who make their living running horses there and I rely on their judgment when it comes to a horses worthiness. In other words, I watch the pools. There are some very astute players at the Big A.

There are people who only bet on either dogs or horses, and then there are other people who bet both on thoroughbreds and greyhounds, and of course, let’s not forget the other races, such as harness horses, Arabians, quarter horses, mules(?), etc. I once bet on a lobster race in Bar Harbor, Maine. (some people will bet on anything)

Most of the time I am pretty careful about getting what I consider good value for my money, no matter what I am betting on. I will admit there have been times in my life when I bought lottery tickets, but that was mostly just because I figured the government needed money. Unfortunately, they wasted most of what I gave them, so I went back to betting on horses and dogs. Hey, those ponies and puppies have to eat, too.

One nice thing about betting on the races is that almost everybody gets a piece of the pie. The race track, which employs local people and uses local services, gets money to continue operating. The people who invest in the runners get something back in purse money, though they seldom make a financial profit. The state and local government get something towards running their operations, too.

A lot of people get something out of racing, whether they bet or not. If you don’t like paying higher property taxes to support local education, then you might be a fan of racing, too, because some of the race track’s taxes go to support local education. What I am saying is that while the horse racing or dog racing community may seem insular at times, its impact is felt throughout the surrounding community.

There is a lot of controversy about the breeding of greyhounds and horses for racing purposes. Many people think that so many greyhounds or horses shouldn’t be bred and that their lives are short and unhappy. I’ve never seen a greyhound who didn’t seem happy chasing a lure and running with a pack of dogs. I think if we could ask those greyhounds whether they would rather have a chance to live and race or whether they would want to have never been born, they would choose life, wouldn’t you?

One of the arguments that the anti greyhound racing crowd are fond of is that the greyhounds spend a lot of time in a crate, and that is cruel. Ironically, many books on dog training suggest crate training a dog and leaving a dog in the crate overnight or while you go to work during the day.

It would be interesting to know how many of the people who are against greyhound racing, because it is supposedly cruel, keep their own pets in a crate, perhaps while they are working or sleeping or maybe when they are protesting at their local dog track, or any time when it is inconvenient for them to deal with their pet. There is a lot of hypocrisy in this old world and usually, when someone decides it is their duty to tell other people what they can do and what is right or wrong, you will find a hypocrite.

I have owned race horses and spent quite a bit of time on the backstretch. Not everyone who owns race horses is a horse lover and there are times when animals, thoroughbreds and greyhounds, are mistreated. On the other hand, there are times when domestic pets are mistreated, too. Most of the pople you will find caring for thoroughbreds or greyhounds are decent people with a genuine concern for the well being of their charges. Human nature what it is, there are always going to be a few bad apples and they should be weeded out.

We don’t need more laws, we just need to enforce the ones we have. We don’t need to outlaw anything else, we’ve got enough restrictions on our freedom and pursuit of happiness now. I have bet on races from countries all over the world and I have visited race tracks from Venezuela to Canada. Betting on horse races and betting on dog races is just something I do and that I love. Fortunately, there are still millions of people all over the world who enjoy a good race.

I know what you’re thinking, “What does pie crust have to do with horse racing and handicapping and gambling and most of all, Willie?”

Truth is, I love pie and every year, my New Year’s resolution is, “Eat more pie.”

By Wil Langford

It’s that time of year again, when our thoughts turn to holiday decorating and cooking. There are many recipes for the holidays, but one food item above all others seems to symbolize the fall, holiday season and that is pie. There are recipes for no crust pie, but for many people a pie without a crust is like a day without sunshine.

While pastry shells and packaged crust mixes are convenient, nothing beats a home made crust. On the other hand, for some people, making pie crust is an anxiety producing thought right up there with parallel parking and left hand turns. Never fear, there are a few basic suggestions and steps that will have you making your own great pie crust in no time.

There are four basic ingredients in any pie crust. They are, flour, that adds the bulk to the crust, shortening (fat), that makes the crust flaky and adds flavor, liquid that binds the dough and makes it workable, and salt for seasoning and to make it brown. That’s it, just four simple ingredients. You can make some substitutions, in the interest of personal taste or health, as you’ll see below.

The tricky thing about pie crust is that it is just so diabolically simple. Just a few ingredients and little preparation time make it seem so easy, but like many simple things, it still takes some attention to detail to get it right. Here are some instructions for two different pie crusts. The first one is really easy and doesn’t even require rolling. It is ideal for a single crust pie, like pumpkin pie.

Easy One Crust Pie Dough

INGREDIENTS:
(makes two large pies)
4 cups all-purpose flour ( I prefer King Arthur unbleached flour and have been using it for years)
2 cups butter or shortening (you can also use butter flavored shortening, margarine, or lard*)
*Before we go any farther, let’s talk about lard. I know it is not as popular or politically correct as it once was, but in my opinion it makes the best crust. On the other hand, you can still make a very good crust with any of the alternatives and perhaps you won’t ruffle any feathers if you share your pie with other people who may have strong feelings about the source of lard or its health effects.

I also recommend chilling the shortening or whatever you use as a fat. Chilling the shortening and liquid is one of those suggestions I mentioned that make crust so much easier.

1 tablespoon white sugar (once again, you can substitute a more healthful sugar like raw cane sugar or organic sugar)
1 teaspoon salt (sea salt works well, too)
1/2 cup ice water
1 egg
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, mix flour, shortening, sugar and salt.
Add ice water, vinegar and egg. Beat to combine but don’t overdo it.
There is no need to roll this dough out, it can easily be pushed into a pie plate and flattened to fit inside the pan and conform to the sides of the pan. That makes it ideal for a holiday favorite like one crust pumpkin pie.

Our second pie crust is a basic pie crust that can be rolled out to form flat pieces of dough that can then be placed in a pan and pushed into shape to make the bottom layer of a crust as well as being placed on top of the pie. If you use it as a top layer, be sure to vent with a few slits near the center of the pie.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup water

Once gain, I prefer unbleached flour like King Arthur and please be sure to chill the fat and liquid. Another good idea is to chill your rolling pin. I put mine right in the freezer for half an hour. You may also use a glass wine or soda bottle and chill it or even fill it with ice water. If you use a glass bottle, DO NOT PUT IT IN THE FREEZER because it may burst if the water freezes. Just refrigerate it or fill with chilled water.

A chilled rolling pin or bottle is much less likely to stick to the crust. Sifting a light layer of flour onto the crust as you roll it out will also help to keep it from sticking.

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (You can cut it in with a knife or spatula. Some people like to work it with two butter knives.)
Stir in water until mixture forms a ball. (A little flour on your hands will help to keep the dough from sticking to them.) Divide dough in half, and shape into balls. Wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight. If you don’t have the time to wait for the dough to chill overnight, place it in the refrigerator as long as you can and use chilled utensils to roll it out.

Next, roll out your dough on a floured counter or cutting board. Don’t over work it. Place a thin layer of flour on the dough and work it from the center rolling in all directions to form a flat round layer of dough like a large pancake. You can then shape it into the bottom of the pan and repeat the process on the second ball of dough for the top crust. Put a little flour on your hands and lift the dough gently and place on top of the pie. Be sure to make a few slits for vents. You may also pinch the dough together all along the edge to seal the top and bottom crust together. You may use a fork or knife to give it a nice finished look.

Some people place foil around the outside edge of the crusts to prevent burning of the edges.
That’s it, two recipes for crust that take very little time to prepare and will have you creating homemade masterpieces in your kitchen. For more holiday dessert ideas including pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin seeds and other recipes, go to Favorite Things.

Wil Langford, is a pie lover who enjoys holiday desserts and family time.

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This is one of those stream of barely consciousness posts that came to me this morning as I was meditating.  According to my bio-rhythms and numerology this may not be a good time to go public with my ideas or even to have ideas, but that has never stopped me yet, so why change now?

I have been pretty worried about being eaten by a snake since, while I was staying in a motel room, I caught part of a television show about a guy in a foreign country who had been  crushed and swallowed by a snake while walking in the forest.  The guy was walking, not the snake.  Then I saw a picture of that huge snake that exploded in the everglades after eating an alligator and I spent the winter in Florida, so that made it even worse.  Every night I surrounded myself with universal white light protection so the damned snakes and aliens wouldn’t get me.  I wonder if an alien was ever eaten by a snake?  My grandfather ate rattlesnakes when he was a cowboy in Montana.  See how my mind just wheels along from thing to thing?  The thing is that it really feels like I’m thinking about the same thing even though, technically speaking, I’m not.

So I told my friend, Debi, that I was afraid of being eaten alive while sleeping in the trailer but felt safe while living in Maine because there are no dangerous snakes in Maine.  Then there were two stories in Maine about reticulated pythons suddenly appearing out of nowhere.  One was in a lady’s washing machine and another was under the hood of a guy’s truck.  So that really shook me up and now I don’t feel safe in Maine.  On top of that I don’t know what reticulated means and keep forgetting to look it up.  I know articulated means jointed like the articulated lorries in England, but reticulated sounds like something to do with the eyes.  Maybe there is something called a reticula in the eye?  I don’t know.

Well, anyway, Debi said if I kept thinking about snakes I would draw them to me.  I replied that I thought about winning the lottery and having sex a lot and didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of drawing them to me so why the hell would it work with snakes?  A few days after that I found a damned green snake hiding in the moulding around my door!  It was kind of sticking out a little and when I touched it the damned thing stuck its head out and stuck its tongue out at me.  Debi said, see!

Then yesterday I opened the door and there was a striped garter snake on the flagstone outside the door.  Now this is getting rediculous.  If I can draw snakes to me why can’t I draw the damned powerball number?  All this is going through my head while I am meditating as well as the nothingness of putting my thoughts and awareness in the four parallel dimensions of reciprocal space where my own higher self exists as a principle and creates this four dimensional world.

Which brings us to the idea that we do not create our world from this domain of four dimensions we call reality or the conscious world.  It happens in the reciprocal domain so we are just going along following the motions of the urges our higher self subtley puts into our subconscious minds.  Therefore, like smoking, its not my fault.

I went into the tobacco shop yesterday to buy some of my favorite Nicaraguan hand rolled doobies and there were candy cigarettes on the counter.  I haven’t seen candy cigarettes since I was a kid and smoking was in vogue and especially embraced by my own parents, two of the vogue-iest people you’d ever want to meet, but you can’t because they are both dead, but before you say aha! Let me inform you that only one died from the effects of smoking and not necessarily directly. Still with me? Good.

I asked the clerk what they had candy cigarettes for since kids couldn’t come into the store.  He said that adults buy them to help them quit smoking and that sometimes they buy them for their kids.  Now that is interesting. My parents bought them for me, but not to help me quit smoking, even though I started when I was six and there were actually days in my life when I used both the candy and real kind of cigarettes. Therefore, in a way, candy cigarettes helped me to become a smoker and could, I said could, possibly help me to quit the cigar habit providing I wanted to, which I don’t at the moment, though I do when I walk up the steep hills of Dixmont, which I have been doing a lot lately.

So apparently, if you’re trying to quit smoking, sucking on a candy cigarette that you take from a pack that is much like the real thing, will help you to quit.  This intrigues me since I used to be a clinical hypnotherapist and helped a lot of people quit smoking, though I myself went back to smoking cigars because I really do enjoy it.  Candy cigarettes naturally led me to thinking about sex,  like most things do.

I worked with a few sex addicts when I was a therapist, though it wasn’t my specialty and I usually refered them to someone else.  I also worked with a few of the women who worked in the “massage parlor” that also was in the building where my office was when I was a hypnotherapist.  Some of them had issues about some of the things they were expected to do as part of their job, but once again you’re getting off the subject.

I thought to myself, if candy cigarettes can help you to quit smoking, would candy condoms help a sex addict?  I mean they already have edible panties, why not edible condoms, in fact, for all I know, they already do.  Let’s say a sex addict got the urge to have sex at an inappropriate time or place, but instead of acting on that impulse just reached into his or her pocket and pulled out a little condom package and opened it and popped a spearmint flavored or cherry flavored condom into his or her mouth, and started to chew.  Would that help? Huh?  I mean for a person like you?

It is hard to say, since I’m not a sex addict, but it seems it would help.  You just never know though, because we are all individuals, which of course, segues nicely into my thoughts on Michele Obama.  Apparently she gave a speech last night and assured everyone she was just plain folks, that’s nice, but she isn’t.  Why the hell do politicians and their wives seem to think they have to be like us?  I wouldn’t want me running the country, would you?  Yes, biologically she is like us and yes, she is a mother and wife and daughter, etc.  But her life is a million light years removed from the average American’s daily life.

Furthermore, we don’t want our leaders to be like us, we want them to be leaders, and to be great and do great things and to know more than the average schmuck.  Don’t try to be us, be you.  No wonder the State of the Onion stinks.  Next thing we know we’ll have Obama telling us he was born in a log cabin and McCain will tell us that though his daddy or granddaddy was an admiral, he started out as a mere cabin boy on Old Ironsides. Stop it!  Quit trying to bullshit us, quit trying to spin everything from adopting kids to dodging bullets, etc and tell us what your damned plan is, if you have one.

I don’t really know who the hell M. Obama is but I sure as hell know she isn’t just some average Jane Doe who happens to be married to someone who has led an unordinary life and is now prancing around on the World Stage a few hanging chads away from the White House. So cut the crap, all of you.  If you really want to impress me, do something about the reticulated python problem in America and invent an affordable edible condom.

I promise I will now go back to writing about horse racing, horseracing.

Thanks for your support.