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Tip of the Day: Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights
The power has gone out and Mimi is freaking out so she got John a some blackout items. One of these are these cool Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights. They come in a 3-pack for about $20 from Amazon. You plug them into an outlet so they’re always ready for a power outage.
Shop for Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights on Amazon.
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Tip of the Day: Colgin Liquid Smoke
John can’t believe he hasn’t recommended this Tip of the Day yet, Colgin Liquid Smoke. It’s terrific to make pulled pork or add it other your spaghetti!
Colgin brand is a little tricky to find on the West Coast, so here’s a link for the four-flavor pack on Amazon.
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Tip of the Day: Handmade Alpaca Blankets
John’s tip this week are these gorgeous, handmade Alpaca blankets. ‘they’re not expensive considering they’re made out of alpaca wool. They can be light or heavy. They are beautiful!’
Amazon has a large selection of brands, sizes and colors. Shop for them here!
John: I wanted to do this. I should have done this tip a long time ago. I discovered this product when I went to Peru once. You can get them from Amazon. They’re made in Ecuador. They’re handmade in Ecuador and Peru and maybe some other South American countries. These are alpaca blankets. Handmade alpaca blankets.
Adam: Wait a minute. Can’t you just get those from John Doerr’s wife?
John: You wouldn’t get them. They wouldn’t be as good.
Adam: Oh, okay.
John: So they’re not expensive considering they’re made out of alpaca wool. They can be light or heavy. They are beautiful. And I would just advise one thing. Don’t get any of them that have a lot of black color.
Adam: Oh, why is that?
John: You know, I bought a sweater in the Andes. ‘You know, when I was a kid, I bought a sweater in the Andes.’
Adam: You should just start off every conversation. You know, when I bought a sweater in the Andes, on my way to Doha.
John: And so it was like what they use for black dye is not compatible with Western civilization. Let’s put it that way.
Adam: Okay. All right.
John: So get the colors. The colors are fine. But these blankets are available. They have them on Amazon. There’s a couple of companies that make them. Make sure they’re handmade alpaca blanket. It’s the greatest! And they also, you can use them as a spread, a bed spread. They’re dynamite! Dynamite! They’re super warm. They’re just a fabulous product. And I’m going to now push it, promote the alpaca blanket.
Adam: And where do we get the alpaca blankets?
John: You can get them. You can just, well, you can go to Amazon and find some there. And they have the brands there. You can also look up the brands. You can buy them directly from various sources. You can put alpaca blanket, Peru, alpaca blanket, Ecuador, and you’ll find some online sites that sell them. They’re all over the place. They’re actually very available.
Adam: It would be very nice if you promoted an American product once in a while. I mean, it’s always junk from China. It’s always rugs from
John: All the cleaning products have been American.
Adam: Really? Oh, yeah, of course. Chemicals. We’re your guy!
John: We’re good with the chemical.
Adam: We’re a chemical country!
[No Agenda #1778]
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Tip of the Day: Kirkland Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley
John Dvorak has found another winning Costco wine buy. This time it’s the Kirkland Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley (a terrific wine growing region to visit by the way) for less than ten bucks!
John: Normally, I don’t do wine tips often, but occasionally I do. I don’t do as many from Costco because, except for those Bordeaux boxes, the distribution is sketchy. But once in a while, they have a cheap wine that everybody has, I think, in most of the stores, and I’m recommending one. I was actually stunned by the quality of this product. It’s a California wine,
Adam: and wait, this is available at Costco?
John: Yeah, I was actually stunned, more stunned
Adam: before you even tell us. So, how did you discover this? I mean, you saw a bottle at Costco that looks like crap, but I’ll try it anyway.?
John: Well, it goes like this. Here’s my methodology for buying random wines.
Adam: Random wines?
Yeah, well, I said, going by, and I’m looking. I say, well, that label’s screwy. That looks like, in fact, it looks like an old-fashioned Geyser Peak label. It just has a different look for a Kirkland wine. It’s a Kirkland wine, I’m looking. Oh, it’s $9.90.
Adam: In the pocket, baby. That’s right in your price range.
Let me look at it. Eh, you know, that’s a cheap California Cabernet. I’m thinking, this can’t be any good, but it’s only $9, let me check it out. It’s a stunner! I mean, I was taken aback. This is the Kirkland Cabernet Sauvignon from Alexander Valley, which is a great little Cabernet-growing area. Alexander Valley 2022.
Adam: Oh, that’s a good year for Cabernet.
John: It’s a good year for a lot of things, and Bordeaux is a really good year. And so this wine, for $9.90 or whatever it was, it’s ridiculously–structured beautifully! Normally for that kind of money, California wines are flabby, they’re not balanced correctly, they don’t have the right flavors, the profiles are off. This is a stunner, I’m telling you! Maybe I got just a good bottle, it’s possible, but I would recommend giving this a shot.
Adam: Wow, well I would say maybe you should try Aldi from time to time, see if you can find something there. I mean, you’re just finding all the good stuff at all the craziest places. Yes, yes. He said, hey, now that’s a very valuable tip, and there’s many more to be found at Tipofthe Day.net or NoAgendaFun.com.
[No Agenda #1777]
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‘The Recruit’ Playing on Netflix
John Dvorak has a new show to recommend, The Recruit on Netflix. Adam is going to pass because he thinks its too violent. It’s about a schmuck that joins the CIA. And he gets beat up a lot because he’s an idiot. But the thing that’s remarkable about the show is the portrayal of the bureaucracy…
Watch The Recruit it on Netflix.
JD: Have you started watching The Recruit?
AC: No, no, no. I can’t take any more violence. I can’t take the violence.
JD: It’s not that violent.
AC: I don’t like the violence. It’s too much. I’m tired of violence.
JD: Just for anyone out there, it’s on Netflix. And it’s about a schmuck that joins the CIA. And he gets beat up a lot because he’s an idiot. And, but the thing that’s remarkable about the show is the portrayal of the bureaucracy. And the backbiting, backstabbing, creepy. And anyone’s worked in a big bureaucracy, whether and Mimi says, yeah, the corporate same way because she worked at a couple of big banks when she was younger. And I worked at an administrative state operation.
AC: You were a Democrat. I can’t even believe that you converted. It’s amazing. You got saved.
JD: No common sense. And so but just to watch the scenes in the office are the ones that make that show work.
[No Agenda #1772]
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Tip of the Day: Learn How to Cook Basmati Rice
Basmati rice is an Outstanding Product, exclaims John Dvorak! His first pick is Pakistani Basmati rice, it’s superior and cleaner compared to Indian rice. Especially Baby Basmati. Fawn and Zebra are terrific brands if they’re from Pakistan. Remember it’s boiled rice. You boil it in a pile of water, lots of water!
Shop for Pakistani Basmati Rice on Amazon.
Here’s John Dvorak’s promised Basmati Rice Recipe from the recent newsletter…
The methodology is unlike normal rice cooking and produces a superior product. This is based on a recipe used in Iran, a country which also produces high-end basmati rice itself.
As mentioned on the show, start with a good Pakistani-based product. Fawn is particularly good.
There are a lot of ways to cook rice, few recipes tell you how to cook basmati rice properly – the Iranian way.
METHODOLOGY
The way good basmati is cooked is as follows: Wash a cup of basmati rice until the water runs clear. With most rices it takes 4-6 rinses.
Let the rice soak for 10-30 minutes. There should 3X-5X more water than rice. Bring pot to a boil. This is a boiled rice. Nobody talks about boiled rice much, but this is how it’s done. You boil the rice for about 8 minutes depending on the rice itself. You can salt the water or add chicken stock.
You have to keep an eye on this rice and watch how the cooking progresses. It takes making rice this way about 5 times before you get it right. It’s a touchy-feelie kind of thing. The rice starts to expand, and the white inner grain can be seen. When the rice is about 4/5 cooked (a slightly firm inner core, eventually you can tell by merely looking at the rice when this point is reached) you dump it out of the water through a strainer or sieve. Before all the water runs off the rice you toss it back into the pot, cover the pot with a lid with a towel under the lid to capture the steam so it does not fall back on the rice.
Leave the burner on for 30 seconds. Then shut it down and let the rice steam to completion. This is all finicky and you’ll have to do it a few times to get the hang of it. The variables are: boiling time, how much water is drained off, burner reheat time, retained heat of pot.After about a few minutes you can put in a large chunk of butter to let it melt during the slow steaming process. Do not stir in right away or it will coat the still steaming rice retarding the moisture absorption. After about 10-15 minutes you give the rice one quick stir with a fork to fluff it up and you have perfect basmati rice cooked properly. Each grain should be separate, and the rice should not be mushy or rock hard.
[No Agenda #1776]
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Tip of the Day: Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights
The power has gone out and Mimi is freaking out so she got John a some blackout items. One of these are these cool Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights. They come in a 3-pack for about $20 from Amazon. You plug them into an outlet so they’re always ready for a power outage. Shop for Energizer…
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Tip of the Day: Colgin Liquid Smoke
John can’t believe he hasn’t recommended this Tip of the Day yet, Colgin Liquid Smoke. It’s terrific to make pulled pork or add it other your spaghetti! Colgin brand is a little tricky to find on the West Coast, so here’s a link for the four-flavor pack on Amazon.
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Tip of the Day: Handmade Alpaca Blankets
John’s tip this week are these gorgeous, handmade Alpaca blankets. ‘they’re not expensive considering they’re made out of alpaca wool. They can be light or heavy. They are beautiful!’ Amazon has a large selection of brands, sizes and colors. Shop for them here! John: I wanted to do this. I should have done this tip…
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Tip of the Day: Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights
The power has gone out and Mimi is freaking out so she got John a some blackout items. One of these are these cool Energizer Weatheready Rechargeable Flashlights. They come in a 3-pack for about $20 from Amazon. You plug them into an outlet so they’re always ready for a power outage. Shop for Energizer…
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Tip of the Day: Colgin Liquid Smoke
John can’t believe he hasn’t recommended this Tip of the Day yet, Colgin Liquid Smoke. It’s terrific to make pulled pork or add it other your spaghetti! Colgin brand is a little tricky to find on the West Coast, so here’s a link for the four-flavor pack on Amazon.
-
Tip of the Day: Handmade Alpaca Blankets
John’s tip this week are these gorgeous, handmade Alpaca blankets. ‘they’re not expensive considering they’re made out of alpaca wool. They can be light or heavy. They are beautiful!’ Amazon has a large selection of brands, sizes and colors. Shop for them here! John: I wanted to do this. I should have done this tip…