Task Force for the Family

I sent this to the president, Donald J. Trump today...

Dear Mr. President,

President David O. McKay, president of the LDS Church (serving from 1951-1970) taught that our most precious possession is our family and that home is the chief school of human virtues. Of the home, he declared: No other success can compensate for failure in the home. (This quote was on our family wall when I was a child.)

Home, its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, and solicitudes form the chief interest of human life. When one puts business or pleasure above his home, he that moment starts on the downgrade to soul-weakness. When the club becomes more attractive to any man than his home, it is time for him to confess in bitter shame that he has failed to measure up to the supreme opportunity of his life and flunked in the final test of true manhood. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of far greater value to God and future humanity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles.

Our country is being torn apart from its very roots (the family unit) upward. We see it in increased crime, mass shootings, the opioid epidemic, disdain for human life, common decency and upheaval in our schools.

Please create a Task Force for the Family, which could be called The Parent Commission, to encourage mothers and fathers, grand parents and relatives to step up and raise our precious young children in American with values of kindness, generosity, and decency. This task force would be lead by clergy, major service organizations and academia to help American families to reinvigorate our youth with positive values in and from the home. This would be an investment in America, that will save the country billions of future dollars.  It would reduce crime, creating honest, healthy of mind, body and spirit the youngest of our citizens, which are our most impressionable today. 

I would be honored to lead this committee. Please contact me for my resume and references.

With deepest respect,

Gus Koerner

Matzah 2016

I really have an appreciation for Jewish people. I'll never understand what they've been through, or the discrimination they've faced or face today. However, I have a deep respect for their traditions, therefore the following recipe, an adaptation from recipe Matzah.

Matzah - the bread made by the Jews during the Passover...I know Wiki is not the best source for information. I am only including this link as a reference for general knowledge...

In preparation for the Passover this year, April 22-30, this is how I made my Matzah, and it is a superior recipe to previous years...

Move an oven rack near the top of oven and preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose, unbleached kosher flour
about 1/3 cup water (more/less if needed)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour for dusting on the counter and the roller

Yields: about 4 – 5 inch diameter pieces of unleavened bread. In a religious ceremony, this amount would serve approximately 100 people.

Add in all ingredients to mixer bowl.

Move an oven rack near the top of oven and preheat oven to 475 degrees F.

Preheat a heavy baking sheet or baking stone in the oven. Dust a clean work surface and a rolling pin with 1 teaspoon flour, or as needed. Place 1 cup of flour into a mixing bowl; set a timer for about 16 minutes (18 minutes maximum). Start the timer; pour the water, about 1 tablespoon at a time, into the flour. Stir the water and flour together with a fork until the dough forms a rough ball, remove the dough to the prepared work surface, knead rapidly and firmly until smooth, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Divide the dough into four equal pieces. Swiftly roll each piece into a ball. Roll each piece of dough out into a 5-inch pancake and it will be about ¼ inch thick, dusting the top and rolling pin with flour as needed. Gradually roll the pancakes out to a size of about 5 inches  Roll from the center out. The bread rounds should be thin about 1/4 inch thick. Using a fork, quickly pierce each bread about 20 times, all over, to prevent rising. The holes should go completely through the bread. Flip the bread over, and pierce each piece another 20 times or so.

Place the rounds onto the baking sheet. Place the baking sheet onto the rack near the top of the oven, and bake for 5 minutes; turn the breads over and bake an additional 4 minutes, until the Matzah are lightly browned and crisp.

Recipe Modification! - April 2, 2016 - Today I didn't want to mess with a rolling pin and flouring the cabinet today so I mixed it in a bowl and made it flat like a thick tortilla, then popped it in the oven.  Bake @ 475 for 8 minutes, flip then 8 more minutes.  A longer baking time.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Lightly anoint each Matzah with olive oil, using a brush, and sprinkle generously with salt.

Footnotes:

• Making Matzah breads kosher for Passover requires using special Kosher flour that has been guarded from contact with liquids. I used Gold Medal, Kosher, unbleached all-purpose flour.
• The cook is allowed no longer than 18 minutes from the point they combine the flour and water to when they remove the Matzah from the oven in order for it to be considered fit for Passover.