The Vatican View of Women

Tiring of Hallmark movies and horrible COVID-19 news, several days ago I tuned into my local PBS station where they were re-running a special called "Inside the Vatican". This episode concerned the preparations for Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday within the Vatican.

They showed how the groundskeepers and maintenance men worked overtime to prep various venues for celebrations for these two pivotal events in the Catholic calendar. From dusting the tippy-top of the sculptures over the altar to sweeping Vatican Square for bombs. From grooming the shrubs which would be in front of His Holiness to testing the TV equipment which would carry the Pope's voice around the world. How the administrators oversaw those preparations. How various bishops and cardinals prepared themselves spiritually for the Great Day.

As I watched in fascination the extraordinary access the film makers were given, I was struck by a blaring (at least for me) hole in the personnel covered. Is their coverage "holy"? Or is their coverage exactly as the situation appears in the Vatican?

• No female journalists who cover the Vatican for global papers
• No female groundskeepers, whose job it was, among others, to cut branches for Palm Sunday
• No female choir singers (boys sang the soprano parts)
• No female administrators
• No female security personnel
• No statuary of female saints
• No female ambassadors from any nation

There was the brief scene of nuns, preparing meals for the poor and downtrodden. (Women's work, I guess.) There was a female assistant to the assistant ambassador, to be fair. And one solitary female translator. But zero female person in any role of import and zero female person in a role of consequence.

The retinue of inmates from a local prison who came to offer the Pope their feet to wash (a piece of theatre worthy of a PR person's wet dream) were all male. Even the clerical tailor shop is a run by guy. Wonder how many seamstresses he has in his employ?


One journalist who covers the Vatican said "Pope Francis isn't a liberal nor a conservative but a radical" and proceeded to tout all the "changes" the Pope has made to the way things are run in the Vatican.




Except the "changes" aren't really changes at all. He hasn't changed one damn thing, whether it is regarding the way child abuse charges are handled by the Vatican, nor by allowing women to follow their consciences when it comes to birth control or divorce, nor has anything changed in allowing women to serve as priests. And if women cannot become priests, they cannot climb the corporate ladder to become bishops or cardinals or even Pope.

So where is the so-called "radicalism" of the Pope? Status quo doesn't seem to me to be all that radical. Twenty-six hundred people work at the Vatican. Maybe 2% of those workers are female. "Radical"?

                                         
Until the Catholics (and other lesser-known Christian sects) change their views on women, they will continue to lose membership. Surely women have proven that they are as well prepared as men to take leadership roles and that they are worthy of more than being members of the altar society and embroidering vestments?

I guess Mary, a female saint who was privileged to carry the Christ Child, is so much chopped liver? Because even images of Mary were few and far between. This is the crux. Until the Church stops looking at women as wombs, capable of holding the Divine but not worthy of anything more important than their embroidery skills would dictate, religion will continue to decline. You cannot ignore 51% of the population.

I'm reminded of a sermon I heard way back when. "The Seven Last Words of the Church--'We never did it that way before.'"

The Gift of the Magi

It hangs next to my fireplace and chimes the hour and half hour. My antique wall clock. I suppose since it is only a reproduction from the New England Clock Company and was purchased sometime in the mid 60's, it doesn't really qualify as a true antique.
The body is of wood, its design reminiscent of a Swiss chalet, with a brass pendulum and two heavy weights hanging from chains which periodically have to be raised. Their weight is what gives the clock its movement.
The face of the clock is hand-painted, with the rather sobering sermon "Hark, what's the cry, Prepare to meet thy God today." Now that I think of it, it is a little creepy. Kinda like when we teach little children the prayer "If I should die before I wake..."

I discovered a little while back when googling the New England Clock Company that they use that very clock for their web page. I also discovered that it is supposed to have a little weather vane on top. Long gone. Its twin is currently on eBay.
This clock is especially dear to me. A little back story:
My parents were looking around an Ethan Allen store back in the 60's. It was Mom's favorite store. Ever. They both almost simultaneously saw this wall clock. Mom had pined for years for a grandfather clock but A) they are expensive and B) she had five kids.
So they spot this clock and speak briefly to the salesman on the floor. They wander off in different directions and Mom sneaks around to the salesman and says quietly "Put that clock back in and I'll pay you later." Did I mention it was close to Christmas?
Mom wanders off and pretty soon, Dad comes up to the same salesman and quietly says "Put that clock back in the back and I'll pay for it later."
What is a salesman to do? He evidently dithered about it for a minute or two, then went up to Mom and quietly told her that both of them had asked for the clock to be put back. Obviously, they didn't want two clocks that looked the same, did they? Mom quietly tells him to remove her name from the order and to not say anything to Daddy.
I imagine it would be difficult for couples as close as my folks to surprise each other with their Christmas gifts. I mean, they were practically of one mind, truly 'mind melded'. So it was something of a miracle that Daddy frequently was able to fool Mom so she had no idea what her gift from him was.
Not that Christmas. She was holding the box containing the clock in her lap and prior to opening it, she turned to Daddy and told him she knew what it was. He was totally shocked. So she told us the story that was so sweet. So deep was their love, they had both chosen to give the other the same exact same gift.
I love my clock. Except twice a year. You know, when Daylight Savings time comes and when it goes. Especially when it goes. You see, the way you 'reset' this clock involves manually turning the minute hand around the face and waiting at the half hour for a single chime, then moving it to the o'clock position and waiting for it to chime however many times it is. Nine o'clock, ten o'clock, eleven o'clock...you get my drift. If you don't take the time to wait for it to chime before moving on, the clock becomes disoriented and will chime twice at nine, eight times at four. It literally loses its mind, kinda like a somewhat-dim pet who wants to please but can't figure out what you want of it. This process can sometimes take a half hour or more, depending on if you screw it up and have to start over.
Another family story about this clock:
When we were all married and having kids and going home for Christmas, Mom made sure that every single couple had a place to sleep. She had only one extra bedroom, with Daddy's study the third bedroom. That was where grandkids slept on the floor. Her living room and family room both had sleeper sofas so they doubled as bedrooms when we were home for the holidays. Margery and Daniel frequently ended up in the living room. Where the chiming clock hung. Daniel would stop the pendulum so the clock would stop and not chime all through the night.
The following morning, Daddy would laborously reset the clock, moving it through its paces hour by hour. (Daniel was always the rebel...when he was dating Margery, and he'd bring her home for a goodnight kiss, he'd unscrew all the Christmas lights on the front porch, the better to have a little privacy.)
I guess that is why I have so many precious things. A tray I got as wedding gift from a dear professor, the blue glass collection I got from my mom, and the Clock. All having been in the family long enough to be imbued with memories. Deep in the very materials these things are constructed of, in the very atoms that form these objects, are memories.
My family's own "Gift of the Magi" story, soaked into a wooden wall clock, with weights and a pendulum.

No Way to Run a Government

I watch a lot of news during the day. I became curious lately, hearing about this caucus or that caucus, as to what these numerous groups have to do with actually governing. You know, making laws and compromising with The Loyal Opposition to get things done. Governing.

I recently counted and the 435 members of Congress are involved in 220 caucuses. I did, I counted them. Let's see, let's do the math. Four hundred thirty five members divided by 220, carry the 1 (I know, mixed math) means that each member is a member of 1.97 caucuses. Presumably, we can round up and make it an even 2. Caucuses have way more than 2 members each so members of Congress are probably involved in way more than 2 apiece.

There is, I kid you not, a Cement Caucus. (It's true...look it up.) A Bike Caucus (presumably bicycles, though one can never tell. Perhaps they are bipartisan enough to include motorcycles). Does this include only members of Congress who bike to work? Doubtful. They mostly get to work being driven individually in limos. If we have another gas crisis like in the '70's, could they at least carpool? Again, doubtful.

                              - Editor's Note: The above is a rare example of what happens
                                 when the joint committee on Printing gets its teeth into a
                                                project... trains start to run upside down.

 What with caucuses and committee meetings, one wonders how they ever get ANYTHING done. It is a miracle, really. I didn't have the courage to look up the caucuses in the Senate at this time. I'm guessing here, but I doubt there is a Black Caucus in the Senate, since there's only one black senator and who's he going to caucus with, really?

It is easy to imagine that some caucuses overlap in their mission statements. The Cement Caucus might be a subset of the Construction Caucus. There is no caucus for skateboards, which might be included in the Bike Caucus. Or perhaps there could be a Recreational Vehicles Caucus or even a Things That Go on Two/Four Wheels Caucus. Of course then we'd need a caucus for unicycles and tricycles.

Then there are committees. (Not to mention "Joint" Committees where members of both bodies meet together, held for the really important stuff like Printing and the Library.) Several committees have similar names...Homeland Security in the House vs. Homeland Security and Government Affairs in the Senate, Small Business in the House vs. Small Business and Entrepreneurship in the Senate. I guess those topics aren't important enough to have Joint Committees. One can excuse the Rules and Administration Committee in the Senate and the Rules Committee in the House--commonly known as the Speaker's committee--as those two bodies have vastly different ways of conducting their affairs, more's the pity.

Don't get me started on informal groups, like the Tuesday Morning group in the Senate.

In an era of division, perhaps there should be fewer caucuses and committees. More talking to people you disagree with, and finding common purpose. But I ain't holding my breath.

Victimless Crimes

Last night, while watching a DVD (yes, I'm old-school...can't figure out how to "live-stream" or whatever), the usual official warning came on. You know, the FBI's seal and the statement "Piracy is not a victimless crime"...


It got me to thinking about the phrase "victimless crime". There is no such thing. I mean, if there's no victim, there's no crime, right? If there's a victim, there is a crime, sometimes a horrendous crime, sometimes a more minor one.


Which brings me to the attitude of many voters having put into office a Groper-in-Chief. "No one was hurt, right?" Millions of voters believed that what they thought he'd do as President outweighed his behavior toward women, toward minorities, toward the disabled, toward war heroes.


True story: When I was in my 40's, having attained a BA in English and Communications and a Master's in Public Administration and had several decades of career in the non-profit sector, I was looking for a change of scenery. So I enrolled in the Horticulture program at Warrensburg's Central Missouri State, the only such program within driving distance of my home in Kansas City. At first, it was great. I got a graduate assistantship and my job was caring for the University's greenhouse. I had many years of experience in home gardening and looked forward to learning the ways of the greenhouse (which is a different kettle of fish from taking care of plants in the garden).


The Horticulture program had a single professor and was a sub-set of the Agriculture department. I loved and learned a lot in Soil Science, I learned a lot in Plant Identification. I struggled through Calculus, all the while wondering what Calculus had to do with Horticulture. It was a totally different world from my previous BA in studying literature, being steeped in science and math. But I prevailed and got good grades. I also had a summer internship at Powell Display Gardens in King. All in all, a great experience.


Except, of course, for that Horticulture prof being a groper. I was a, ahem, "mature" student so I thought I could keep it inside, fend him off and deal with it. Until I found out that he was doing the same to younger, more impressionable women who were, in many cases, fresh off the farm and unable to deal with it. I found that I was not alone in keeping it from my significant other, for fear he would take matters into his own hands. I found out that he was teaching young male students how to grope and not get caught.


Another "mature" student and I started talking to present and past female students and found that he was doing it a lot. Had been for years. To dozens of female students. All from his position of authority over us. So we gathered ourselves together and a group of four of us (the rest, fearing retaliation, couldn't go) went to the Dean and lodged a complaint. Oddly, he'd never been reported before, or so they said. The Dean made all the right noises and promised to look into it.


Which she did. The prof was "counseled" to not do it again and I was removed from all the classes I had under him. I guess I was allowed to continue my work in the greenhouse (the one place where he and I were frequently alone) because the thought was I was on my own there. No witnesses. I was enrolled in alternate classes like "Agriculture in Third World Countries", a subject which wasn't required for my Hort degree and which I had no interest in.


(I will say I learned a lot and it was interesting from the standpoint that the seminar-style class had a total of 6 students, I being the only female. There was a student from Kenya and one from Afghanistan who argued that Afghanistan shouldn't be considered a third-world country just because they ignore half their population in terms of education and productivity, but that's another day.)


The upshot of all of this was, I couldn't avoid being in a class with the groper without drastically altering my educational experience. I left the University when it became clear that nothing was going to be done to him and that I was going to be penalized for having reported him


I've said all this to say that groping isn't a victimless crime. I regret to this day that I didn't go into Horticulture as a profession. His seemingly innocuous groping altered the course of my career life.
I awakened on Nov. 9, 2016 to the news that our voting population (well, at least the Electoral College) had voted for a Groper-in-Chief, KNOWING that he was a groper and potentially an assaulter of teenage girls.


I have no words to describe how that made me feel. It brought up all those moments with my groper again and all the feelings of helplessness and outrage that come with groping. Not only did he grope, he made lewd jokes during class, made comments about female students' endowments, and trained young males that, not only is it okay (who is hurt by groping, huh?) but how to get away with it.



Victimless crime, indeed.

I Am a Business Man

(I have been looking for this in my files for several years, but finally found it.  I think Daddy must have written it soon after coming back from a trip to Bethlehem and seeing how an "inn with no room" would have looked. Merry Christmas to all! )

I AM A BUSINESS MAN

A Christmas Story

by Carl Goodson

I am first of all a business man. My caravanseri or travelers' rest is my life. Whatever of the events of town or country or empire affects my business is all that I've ever been interested in; nothing else has before concerned me.


Yet, the things that happened in my inn a few years ago have given me pause and wonder at the smallness of my world and the greatness of one tiny babe.


I run the largest and best guest house in Bethlehem--as fine as any you will find even in the capital city of Jerusalem. I'm a native of our town--and proud of it. Our community is important out of all proportion to its physical size.  It has a glorious history, being the natal town of our great King David, who made Jerusalem the great capital of our nation, but Bethlehem forever the home town of his people.


Our town and country have both known better days. We are a people under the heel of the Roman soldier. He is everywhere. He tells us what we may do and we reluctantly do it, whether it be to carry his soldier's pack for the legal mile or to stand wordlessly while he conscripts whatever or whomever of ours he fancies. And I know I must take his insolence or I wouldn't be in business.


Yes, we have a king who is supposed to be our own. But he is Herod, a hated Idumean with not a drop of Jewish blood in his veins. His only legal claim to our glorious throne is his marriage to Mariamne, the loveliest flower of the Asmonaean warrior-priests who had ruled us for five generations before Herod. It is whispered behind doors that Herod murdered Mariamne and their two sons to protect his own position, but the Romans who are interested only in keeping the letter of their laws have made no investigation. We are convinced that under Herod, justice will never be done.


But I started to tell you about my inn, and the strange events which have taken place there. The outside walls of my establishment are thick and stout and high. No guest of mine has ever lost a denarius from a thief climbing up and dropping into the enclosure. The large central court will accommodate at least a hundred head of camels or half again as many asses.


Around the outside wall of the compound are the stalls for my customers, high off the ground to give the merchant a view of his beasts and wares and deep enough against the wall to protect the weary traveler from the chill winter winds or the hot desert blasts that seasonally sweep up from the Dead Sea country. The overhanging roofs project far enough toward the court that my clients are comforted against the cold rains or the summer's brassy sun.


I shall never forget that day. It was in the early part of our year of the census. We had heard for months before that it was coming. It was justified, said the Romans, because only so could they regulate the military needs of the various parts of the empire. But we businessmen knew that it was only the Roman way of prodding into every corner of our lives both private and public for purposes of taxing us to the limit of any profit our industry and ingenuity might produce. Still, because so many Jews considered this home, it had brought the crowds to Bethlehem and was good for business.


The whole day long the streets teemed with increasing crowds of travelers and their animals. I fully believe that my compartments began to fill early by those who left the streets so they could escape the press of the throngs. One admitted that he came in just so he could breath. Two hours before the sun went down the inn, was already full of traveling merchants, many of them my regular customers. Then the Romans came, soldiers who shoved my best friends out of their places to take the choice spots and insisted that their horses be given the leeward shelter of the court. Every animal already tethered had to be moved to accommodate them.


Feeling good that so many coins had fallen into my pouch for one day's traffic, I went at sunset to close the gate of the stockade for the night. The second great leaf was almost shut when I saw them.


He was running and shouting for me to wait. I was inclined to pretend not to notice him and bang closed the gate when I spied her, seated on a seedy little donkey, both rider and beast so travel worn that they looked as if they could not go another step. Some urgency in the voice of the man arrested my hand and I felt without wanting to that I must do something. The woman was with child. Although ordinarily I could turn anyone away without a qualm, I was powerless to push the gate further.


He was from Galilee, you could tell it by his northern burr. He told of several days of hard travel from Nazareth, an insignificant hill town on the Capernaeum-Joppa road. He begged for shelter for the woman, who by this time had drawn near enough or me to see the mask of maternity which softened the lines of concern and pain in her face.


I was explaining that the compartments were full to overflowing, and there wasn't room for a single person, much less a couple wanting privacy, when the donkey interrupted by slowly and resignedly collapsing under his load. The man had time only to catch the woman in his strong capable arms and save her from sliding completely to the ground.


What could I do? I am no sentimentalist, and still was seeking an excuse to shut out the problem, when a simple solution occurred to me. I offered the man room in the court yard where the animals were stabled, for the woman, himself and his beast. They would have no roof, but they would have the comparative safety of the walls and some warmth from the screen of animal bodies. He accepted with the resignation of one who knew not what else he might do.


So I swung the door wide and he carried the woman across the threshold with all the tenderness of a gallant groom bringing his bride into his palace. He took her into the mass of the beasts and laid her gently down in a small clearing on a pile of hay. Returning he coaxed the tired burro to its feet and into the gate, tethering him within reach of a trough of hay and another of water. I closed the gate and shot the bolt and went to my own cubicle to spend a sleepless night.


The crowd within the walls was restive and noisy. In one quarter I could hear some camel drivers arguing loudly and cursing one another. Elsewhere there was a game of dice in progress among the soldiers. Some merchants were bargaining loudly and fruitlessly. Even the beasts seemed that they would never quiet down. And the noise of the street took ever so long in subsiding.

It wasn't till near midnight that the crowd began to prepare for sleep. Gradually the noises of the compound were replaced with the sleepy murmur of compartment mates, with the less frequent swish of hay, and the snores of the sleepers.


Finally all sounds seemed to stop together. It must have been at the midnight hour itself that a calm and peace lay over the town that felt as though it extended to the end of the world.


Then a baby cried. A baby! At once I knew. The woman had been delivered of her child. There, with only God's sky over her and with no more privacy than the bodies of weary pack animals and the unconcern of men could afford, she had silently labored and borne a new life into this troubled. world. I did not go to see, feeling that no one could attend her more faithfully or capably than the man.


The night was not an hour older when there cam a knock at the compound gate. I hastened to see who might want attention so late. At the entry were some local shepherds--no friends of mine since I had never had any of them within my walls before. But I knew them as simple men whose trade worked loneliness into the fabric of their lives but who were not without a local reputation of steadfastness and basic honesty.


They brought an incredible tale. They had been tending their sheep, they said, in nearby fields, when a light as bright as noonday had blinded their eyes. A messenger out of the brilliance had spoken a message to arrest the most stolid heart and set it throbbing with hope.


They said they came seeking a child, newborn, and already swathed in the baby-bands, but--and on this point they were most insistent--the child must be sleeping in a feed trough! That they were here was a miracle. By what instinct they came I know not, but here they were at the one place in all the world where the wonder of a human birth would be most humbled by the locale, by the unconcern of men, by the ignorance of beasts, by my own unwillingness to inconvenience myself.


I admitted the shepherds, and quietly we made our way to the spot where the Galileans had bedded down. Breathlessly the shepherds approached and when they got near enough to see with their keen eyes in the night's soft light, they knelt!


Then I saw. The stalwart man standing guard, the patient woman, reclining, yet relieved and relaxed, and the child. Oh, the feeling that swept over me, dashing away my worry of Rome and her soldiers, of Jerusalem and its tyrant, of all men and their greed, and of my own daily driving concern for things--things which now seemed so petty. And I began to hope with the hope of generations of my people, that here in this wondrous night, a child's birth would bring God's peace.

Road Trip

I just got back from a road trip with my 2 year-old granddaughter, our first ever. I sincerely hope it isn't our last. I also sincerely hope that she will be older when we do it again. Because 1) she will hopefully remember it better and 2) it won't be so physically exhausting. The exhaustion part was as much about the weather as about her energy.
You see, we were stuck in a condo with little outdoor time due to rainy, gloomy, icky weather. The many games and toys I had brought got old really quickly. I had coloring books, markers, magnetic letters, books, animal card games ad nauseum. The most favorite game? Her Leap Frog. I was very grateful to her mom for packing it. She is, after all, a child of the 21st century and is more facile with it than I am with my laptop.
We had maybe two minor meltdowns. I don't think she was feeling well after a long car trip. We sang the Itsy-Bitsy Spider and I'm a Little Teapot and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star like 60 times. I didn't feel so hot after that either. But singing in the car was one way my family passed the time when on long car trips, so in a way it was carrying on a tradition.
I did get to give her some new experiences.
We saw mountains and added that word to her vocabulary. We drove through the Smokies and saw "fog", which she conflated with "frog" and said "ribbit, ribbit". (You should try it sometime...try to describe and point to fog, in a way that a 2 yo can understand!) We saw different colored trees. (It was October along the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smokey Mountains, a trip everyone should have on their bucket list) We went through not one but two TUNNELS!!!Another vocab addition. She kept asking for more tunnels, as if in her mind, Grammer had conjured up the other ones and could easy build another tunnel with her mind power. It is lovely to think of myself as a super hero in her eyes.
On the way there, she asked "Back to Grammer's house?" I replied that we were going someplace different. She started to whine "Jumping on the bed"...an activity she greatly enjoys at my house. I assured her that, while we weren't going to Grammer's house, there were beds to be jumped on at the condo. Okay, then...fine by her.
There are few attractions in the wilds of Tennessee. We spent most of an afternoon looking for the "World's Largest Tree House". When we finally found it, it was no longer open to the public and frankly, one couldn't tell from a distance that it WAS a tree house. Sure, there were trees growing up through it, but the foundations was very much grounded on the ground. We had to rearrange, due to nap timing, a trip to a restored Homestead WPA-built house/museum, only to arrive after it was closed.
She didn't cry for her mom or dad but she talked to her mom on the phone about tunnels and mountains and swimming. (She adores swimming and the complex where we stayed sported an indoor pool.) She has patience I would not expect of a Terrible Two...and that is both a good thing and a bad thing. She was patient, spending many hours in the car with a few breaks. She was patient in asking for M&M's which, for some strange reason, she called "beans". She asked patiently for "beans" a lot. She also patiently asked for "cereal" over and over again until I gave her some, despite the fact that I was trying to pack the car and we were going to Shoney's for breakfast buffet before hitting the road. Miracle of miracles, they had "fairy cakes" (her word for mini cupcakes) at the breakfast buffet.
I tried not to fulfill all her requests for sweets, having had a few battles with my mother-in-law over the amount of sweets she gave my two sons. I try to balance spoiling her, which is after all the prerogative of grandparents, with following her parents' guidance over what they allow and what they disallow. They ARE her parents when all is said and done.
Mostly, she and Aunt Lynn and I spent the time just hanging out in the condo, musing about the golfers parading past our window in a steady drizzle and using sidewalk chalk on the wet deck and chatting about how brilliant my granddaughter is. I have envied my sister for YEARS, envied her her smart, beautiful grandchildren and the fact that she has lived with 2 of the 4 grandchildren she has. I must confess, I really enjoyed showing off MY smart, beautiful grandchild and letting Auntie to get to know her just a little. And I am oh, so grateful for my son and daughter-in-law, that they loved me and loved her enough to trust me with their treasure.
I have memories now, of seeing the Fall put on a show for us and watching her sleep and trying not to give her too many "beans" and jumping on the bed (of course, I HAD to fulfill that promise) and playing with Playdoh on the coffee table and making numerous trips up and down the stairs to rescue Bear and get diapers. (I never seemed to have everything I needed on the level we were on, probably because I live in a one-story house and don't usually have to plan trips up and down stairs. It was a good workout for me.)
I hope, oh, I so hope, she will have memories too...of mountains in full color and rain for the trees to drink and tunnels and time spent with me. And I hope they are all good.

To Choose or Not to Choose

I just watched an interview with a couple of authors who have both written about the myth of choice in our country. This is a subject I haven't necessarily studied at great length, but I've spent a good deal of my life thinking in terms of my own choices...or non-choices.

I remember vividly in my late 20's suddenly coming to the realization that there were some major life choices I didn't really make consciously. That is, I didn't know there were other options.

An example: I don't remember making the conscious choice about whether or not to marry. I made choices about when and who and where, just not ever making the choice to not stay single. Or, having children. I remember deciding how many kids I would have and when I would have them, but I don't remember making the choice to have them or not.

Don't get me wrong...I think I would have made the same choices anyway, and with the same result. I'm just not sure one can call it a "choice" if you don't see any other options.

The guy author, whose book is "The Myth of Choice", pointed out that perhaps we have far too many choices in our culture. Not the big ones, but the small ones. We expend way too much time and energy and capital on making choices that aren't earthshaking. It takes me far too long to do my grocery shopping, as an example, because there's like 300 different types of coffee on the shelves, with 200 different prices and  100 different ecological ramifications. It would take me far less time to complete my shopping list if there were only 10. Or 8.

In college, in a sociology class, I remember reading that we think we have choices in this country for our life mate, but really, we are so hemmed in by societal strictures about which race would be an appropriate husband material, and age and socio-economic status and education level and geographical location and...the list is endless which limits our "choice" of even whom to date, let alone whom to marry.

A man I met and dated in high school came to my college my freshman year and proposed marriage to me. Yet he was enrolled in another college located a state away and I couldn't see how a long-distance relationship would work. So, despite the fact that I loved him greatly, I sadly had to say no.

But back to the coffee analogy, maybe we are better off not having 150 million men to choose from. How would we EVER make a choice? Would we all die single and alone if we had to choose one life mate out of all the men in the world?

Not to get too political, but the Anti-Abortion folks think that, given a "choice", pregnant women would ALWAYS choose abortion over adoption or keeping the baby. They haven't a clue that sometimes, there is no other choice. If the father is absent and not wanting to be involved, if the woman is compromised by her health, if the fetus is no longer viable...the list is endless about why abortion would be a sad choice. If you do away with abortion altogether (an impossibility, but that's what they think) and one's only "option" is to carry the baby to term, regardless of the baby's health, that's really not a choice.

Or the anti-abortion folks who had a choice themselves, they just don't trust anyone else to make the "moral" choice they did. Sarah Palin once famously said  (I'm paraphrasing here) that she had made the difficult choice to carry her Down's Syndrome baby and she was glad she had. Reading between the lines, she made a conscious decision to have her baby, but other women wouldn't have the same courage to make that choice as well. Ergo, they shouldn't have a choice.

I heard somewhere that we make an average of 70 choices per day. Now, most of those are trivia: what should I wear to work, should I go out to lunch or carry it, what will I have for dinner? But some of them are life-changing. Sometimes our "choices" are the result of dithering and not making a choice, which is in itself a choice.

This week's Time Magazine has an article about people who choose not to have children. I remember leaving my kids' with a childless couple up my street while on a work-related trip. When I returned home, Terry confided in me that they saw this as an opportunity to decide for good whether or not to have children and they had confirmed their latent desire to remain childless.

I was horrified, thinking that the boys had been so bad, they had perhaps pushed Terry and Dan over the childless edge. No, she hastened to reassure me, they hadn't been bad. It was just that they had taken so much time from her home-based business. She had had no idea that she couldn't just park my kids in front of a TV and go about her business.

Many childless couples receive the label of "selfish" when they say that they have chosen to be childless. Sympathies abound for those sad couples who don't choose to be childless but who nevertheless are. But perish the thought that some couples choose for whatever reason to not have kids. They are truly being selfless, not bringing a baby into this world, overpopulated as it is, to a family that doesn't want them, or wants them just to keep Grandma happy or due to societal pressure or because all their friends are doing it. (We all remember our mothers' answer to that excuse. Some variation of "If all your friends jump off a cliff...")

I moved to North  Carolina on a split second decision, thinking as I did so that many of my life-changing decisions, made with a lot of thought and prayer, turned out to be so abysmal, so I should try making a life-changing decision on a whim.

I haven't yet decided whether this post makes any sense, so I'll just post it anyway. Maybe all of us should make decisions with the clear understanding that we really don't have unlimited choices and sometimes, it's a mere choice between two evils. And never, ever judge anyone else's choice.

Snooty Foodies

I'm watching Food Network and I honestly just heard Giada claim that she learned this mah-velous trick at cooking school in Paris. Sooner or later, you hear every chef subtly slip in phrase like this. "When I was in Paris last time" or "I'm 'classically trained'" or "When I was studying under Chef Georges in the south of France" which is code for "I spent a butt-load of money going to Paris to study under other snooty chefs who have inflated egos and it gave me an ego the size of Detroit."

You know, Giada, who makes pasta every other episode, who uses lemon zest in everything and who lives on the beach in California. Which viewers know because the intro footage features Giada walking on the beach with her oh-so-handsome husband and her so-cute daughter. (Except she has a pseudo-Italian pronunciation for everything Italian and she refers to it as "pa'-stuh" and not "pah-stuh'" like the rest of us.) . Giada, the one where the cameras are always focused on her cleavage.

She actually told viewers last week that allspice comes from the Med, and "exotic" spice. You mean allspice? That berry that grows on spice bushes all over the Ozarks and probably northern Arkansas??? What a snob!

So the trick that was shared by a top chef in Paris was: removing the tomato seeds from the meat of the tomato doesn't water down the dish as much.

Really? You mean that trick that I learned from my Detroit-raised mother at the tender age of four? You mean that trick that I thought everyone knew and we didn't have to go to Paris, France to learn it? That trick?

Honestly, as a wanna-be foodie, I watch a lot of cooking shows and I'm amazed at how truly stupid these great chefs think the rest of us are.

The latest episode of Food Network Star touts that during the last episode, America gets to vote for the winner. Wow! Like, we haven't tasted a single dish these contestants are offering and we have to take the Judges' word for it that their dish was the best they've ever had or tasted like dog food or whatever.

Judges on these competitions tend to have very elevated views of their own palates...as in, they alone have the trained taste buds to discern the grain of cinnamon the contestant used in her ice cream and of course, they alone know that cinnamon doesn't EVER, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES belong in ice cream. Or that he doesn't think raw onions belong in ANY dish, EVER. Snooty, I must say.

At least Ina, the Barefoot Contessa, while she has a lot of very good reasons for being snooty, isn't the snootiest. She lives in the Hamptons, for Chrissake, and her husband has a very well-paying job in the City, so she can afford to serve lobster at a beach party or not one but two ducks for her little dinner party of 30. (I couldn't fit 10 people in my dining room, let alone 30) The reason she isn't as snooty is, she explains things, not in a knowing, "I learned this in Parie" attitude, but in a straightforward, educating tone of voice. And she explains that for years she did something one way and then she learned another way which is much easier. As in, it wasn't wrong, it is just a better way to do it.

These TV chefs have an unnamed butcher and fish monger and baker in their hip pocket that they frequent (I know this because, they frequently say things like "Have your fishmonger do thus and so" or "your butcher should be able to find you a side of Argentian bison" or "my deli carries a rare, soft cheese made only in the mountains of Peru from llama milk").

What they don't tell you is the cheese is $50/ounce and the fish is only available to select customers on alternating Wednesday which are even not odd. In large cities, where you don't have a job outside of TV Land, so you have a whole day to wander around the City, looking in shops and having the fishmonger fillet your fish and the butcher butterfly your chicken. I imagine me trying to find a butcher anywhere in Food Lion and demand that he butterfly my chicken. That would go over real well.

They also make gobs and gobs of whatever dish they are preparing. As a single person household, even if I prepared a dish as practice (because you should never try a new dish on company, a sad fact I learned the hard way), I would be eating it for 3 months. And then you don't need a whole bottle of wine to deglaze the pan, you just need 2 tablespoons and what are you going to do with the rest of the $60 bottle?

I do appreciate it when they say, "If you can't find xyz, you can substitute abc." At least, I think that's what they are saying. Maybe, just maybe, they are saying "If you are too poor to buy this wild cod caught off the shores of Borneo, then you can cheap out and serve white fish."

I well remember the first time I ever tasted caviar. It wasn't exactly a staple on my family's table, what with having 5 kids and my dad's professor's salary. So I was an adult before I ever tasted it. It seemed to me at the time that it was the ultimate in sophistication, the epitome of glamour and suave-i-tay. (see how I made up a French word) I took one very sophisticated small bite and then had to delicately spit it into my napkin, the way Mrs. Morehead taught us in Manners class. I don't think her example was for caviar, I think it had something to do with "what if you ever put a too-soft berry in your mouth" or something.

Anyway, I had to gulp some champagne to wash the rotten fish/salty taste out of my mouth. The taste was reminiscent of the docks down in Houston where we would go to buy shrimp. Not the shrimp, the actual dock water. And this is what goes for $100/pound, I thought to myself. Some things are obviously an acquired taste and some things are just downright inedible. Some fishmonger, with too much roe on his hands, saw them coming and made it out to be the latest and greatest in epicureanism.

Snooty, I'd say.

She Got Grit(s)

My favorite niece (I'm calling her that in order to get the other favorite nieces' attention) recently posted the fact that she was in South Carolina eating shrimp and grits. And here I thought she was a very sophisticated, cultured and intelligent person. Guess I was wrong if she's actually admitting to eating Grits!

Now, I've done time ('scuse me, spent time) in the South and I know they love their grits. The thing is...I can't abide them. I've eaten wall paper paste with more flavor. Which might explain why I never, ever felt at home in the South. The rest of my family thinks of it as their home, but the Southern inoculation never took on me. I am unrepentantly a Yankee. I fully expect to be struck off a few Facebook pages because of this statement. Whenever a die-hard Southerner hears me say that I hate grits, they assure me I just haven't had them prepared properly. (gag)

Because aside from the flavorless, colorless blah gritty texture (at least they are aptly named), it's the preparation that puts me off. Grits, for the uninformed, are made from hominy. And hominy is made from corn kernels that have been soaked like 52 years in lye. You heard me. Lye.
The same stuff which is poisonous when ingested. The same stuff that you don't dare handle with bare hands, on account of it eats your skin off. You know, LYE.

And since grits are so colorless and flavorless, all the cooking shows are adding flavor and color like crazy in order to make the crap palatable. Evidently grits are the new sushi...I've discussed at length in a prior blog how I feel about raw fish. The hoity-toity chefs, proving that they are all about slumming it these days, prepare grits a hundred different ways. They add tons of butter, they add milk (gives all that grit at least some creaminess, purportedly), they add shrimp, they add peppers, they add cheese. A waste of good cheese and shrimp if you ask me.

If a food has so little flavor that it requires Herculean efforts to give it taste, why not take some shrimp and cheese and peppers and just make a dish out of that? Why ruin good food with grits?

The South is all about claiming grits as their staple food. Georgia (as in the State of) has declared grits to be their "state prepared food". (Don't get me started on states, including mine, having a State this and State that and State the other. Not content with just a State flower, they have State amphibians and insects and autumn trees and spring trees and dogs and microbe.)

Trouble is, the Native Americans were the first to manufacture the stuff and it was their dish, not the South's. Yet another contribution Native Americans have given European culture that goes unacknowledged.

So, while I know I will offend quite a few of my Southern friends and family with this unmasking of the unholy origin of grits, maybe there are others out there, like me, who can't stand the stuff and have been too embarrassed or shy or polite to say so. Never let it be said that I was too polite to say I hate grits. I say we start a support group.

Yar-Dart (Or "Is that a Flamingo in Your Garden?")

The title of this blog comes from the summer I interned at Powell Gardens in Kansas City. The highly trained horticulturalists there came from several different schools of Hort but they all agreed that there is a difference between garden chatchkas (flamingos, outlines of a cowboy leaning on a tree, a wooden cut-out of a fat lady's bloomers showing...you get the idea) and garden statuary. The former they termed "yard art" but pronounced it "yar-dart."

I must confess, I have both the highly esoteric garden statuary (St. Fiacre, the patron saint of gardeners; a laughing Buddha; a gargoyle reading a book; a wistful garden fairy, a cardinal {not the guys in Rome, but the bird}). And then there are the more low-brow items (metal sculptures of a very large ant and a mosquito; a lightening rod taken from an old farmhouse, complete with China blue ceramic insulator; a blue reflecting ball; a trio of stylized cattails).

This diverse collection just about sums up my eclectic tastes. I love the Buddha, who smilingly watches over the vegetable garden. Last year, he was at the top of the stair on the front porch when an unfortunate accident with a dog straining at a leash resulted in Buddha doing a full gainer down the stairs and losing part of his nose. He's much safer in the veggie garden.

The reading gargoyle seems particularly appropriate, due to my love of Medieval architecture and reading. He greets visitors at the front stair to the porch. St. Fiacre once stood there, but he is so contemplative that he's happier in the side yard shade garden, which is quiet and peaceful.

Most of my yar-dart has been given over the years by my kids. My step-daughter was the one to find the lightening rod. My son relates to frogs, so he is the one who gave me both the gargoyle and the very self-satisfied looking frog. He also found the St. Fiacre...you wouldn't believe how many garden centers there are selling St. Francis as St. Fiacre. Sacrilege! The big difference is, St. Francis has birds lighting on his outstretched hands, while St. Fiacre cradles a plant with exposed roots and a small shovel. He obviously is in the process of transplanting the delicate shrub.

Each one means something very special to me. I got the metal bugs ('scuse me, "insects") while married to a entomologist. THAT was a big mistake, but the insects aren't. Every few years, I spray paint them to match my mood and the garden they are going to that year. This year, the ant is a lovely day-glo pink and the mosquito a fire-engine red. I used to have a bumble bee as well, until he got lost in the bowels of my shed. Also from that era, I gained a sprinkler sculpted as a preying mantis from a dear friend.

 And yes, they move around, depending on where I think they might show the best. They sometimes change colors, 'tho some of them just get a clear coat to protect them from weather.

 

The very esoteric gazing globe sits on a truck spring, which was a dern sight cheaper than some of the structures they have to put a globe on in the garden stores. And I like the whimsey of the light and airy globe contrasting to the industrial weight of the spring.

 

And that's not even counting the number of whirly-gigs, wind socks, pinwheels and wind chimes I have in the vegetable garden. I call them "scare-rabbits" because the crows seem to mind not at all that they are there, but the rabbits don't chow down on my lettuce, peas and tender beans with that much movement and sound in the garden.

Every few years, I add to the collection and I have to renew the pinwheels in particular because the hops vine seems to want to eat them. I don't think they're actually designed for outdoor use.

I'm thinking next year, I'll get some pink flamingoes, but I don't want just a pair, I want a whole flock. Which might make it difficult for my son, who mows, trims and blows my yard, to maneuver his riding mower around.

Maybe I need a garden gnome.

 

Cardinal is His Color

"Cardinal is her color,
Jewell is her name.
High upon a hill she stands
And we will fight to keep her fame.
Loyalty, allegiance
Alma mater true.
We will love thee, serve thee forever.
William Jewell."
-William Jewell College anthem

My dad and I shared a common alma mater, unlike the 5 other members of our family, who graduated from Ouachita Baptist University (then college). Four of my siblings are alums of OBU and my mom went back to school after the last of us started kindergarten and got both her BA and MA from there. Home for the holidays during my college years, we would "honor" the rest of the family with a duet of the above song. Back then, I even had a decent singing voice.

The cardinal was the school mascot as it was the St. Louis MLB team, where Daddy grew up and where I graduated from  high school. I have always loved the Cardinals, the WJC Cardinals and the bird. While the male is a vibrant red (and I think that's where the Catholic cardinals got their name, with their brilliant red robes) while the female cardinal is a beautiful tawny browny/light green with orange accents. She too is beautiful...while not as flashy as her hubby, she has an understated elegance.

Daddy was just a little guy when he started going to St. Louis Card games in the 1920's. He and his friends, not having much in the way of pocket money, used to travel by trolley car to the stadium and hang out outside the tall wooden fence, watching the game through the knotholes in the planks.

Sooner or later, the Cardinal marketing folks got the clever idea of starting a club called "the Knothole Gang". For a fraction of the price of regular seats (and presumably wherever there were empty seats going begging), St. Louis youngsters would be admitted to the stadium and see the whole game, not just a 2-inch view. Thus, Daddy became a founding member of the "Knothole Gang" with all the rights and privileges thereto.

Years later, somehow, the St. Louis organization tracked him down in Arkansas and honored him as a founding member, and as they were moving stadiums, with an etched brick in the concourse around the stadium. He got a plaque and everything.

So for his entire life, Daddy was the ultimate Cardinal fan, both for his hometeam and for his college team.

The St. Louis Cardinals made the playoffs while I was a student in high school there and played the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. The PA system was sync'd with the radio commentary and we would mightily strive to concentrate on Honors English or World Civ as we listened with one ear to the game. If you took your ticket stubs to the office, you could even get an excused absence, which was a BIG DEAL. Unfortunately, the Tigers were ultimately victorious, although I have always claimed that it was rigged...we were robbed, robbed I tell you.

For years, Daddy had a statue of a cardinal in his garden and I inherited it, along with a graceful mourning dove. To this day, the cardinal watches over my shade garden. So it was with a great deal of pleasure that I had cardinal gangs all winter and they hung around through the spring. Cardinals are very territorial during mating season, but during the winter, they 'gang' together for protection and warmth.

I once got a cardinal stuck in my house. He flew frantically around, banging against the skylights in my great room, seeing sky and not able to get through to it. I have a little device designed for birders which has birdcalls on it. I opened all the windows and doors, stood outside and hit the button for "cardinal call". He came out in a hurry, sure that an interloper had come to scavage his territory.

When I'm gardening, I sometimes talk to Daddy. He was a fabulous gardener and until his later years when he wasn't able to garden anymore, his garden was the talk of the town. There were people at his funeral who said, "I used to drive out of my way to drive by Carl's garden." So today, as I was sitting on my deck and missing my Daddy, I whispered to the male cardinal who lit a mere 10 feet from me, "Are you my Daddy?" His reply was to hop another 2 feet towards me.

I am blessed.

Blood is Thicker Than Water, Part B

I'm continually amazed, being the cynical-yet-naive optimist that I am, when I hear references to Barack Obama's race.

The man, unlike many African-Americans, is truly one half African and one half "white". (I used to wonder about this designation when I was a kid because I'm not "white", I'm pinky-tanny-freckledy. Most "black" people I know are not "black", they are toasty brown.) Anyway, so what if Obama is one half "black"...he's also one half "white". Rejected by his African father, he was raised by a white mother and white grandparents. I think they did pretty well by him, raising-wise.

Which is to say, those same white people who hate him for being black, must hate themselves in equal parts. We all came from the same woman, found buried in sub-Saharan Africa. Anthropologists call her "Eve" because she is literally the mother of us all. Undoubtedly, she must be somewhat black, since the sun in that part of the world caused that evolutionary adaptation.

Blood should mean nothing to any of us. Half my nieces and nephews are adopted and they are every shade of the rainbow except "yellow", that skin-tone representated by Asians. Sadly, we have no Asians in my family. But our family is enriched by the niece who is half Hispanic/half white who has two children who are half Black/one quarter Hispanic/one quarter white.  And the half black/half white nephew. And the three-quarter Native American/one quarter white niece. And the "who knows what" niece, who is the most loving, funniest, prettiest niece you'd ever want to have.

And yet, they are my Blood.

I'm reminded of the climax on the musical "Showboat"...a "mulatto" lady who is one 16th black is accused of being married to a white guy. (Inter-racial marriage being a big no-no in that time and place.) In the presence of several witnesses, the husband pricks her finger, sucks the blood and later, when the sheriff comes to call, he swears, along with witnesses, that he has "Negro" blood in him as well.

Blood is blood is blood. Black people's bodies don't reject donor's blood from someome white. Red blood cells, plasma, white blood cells, all are the same regardless of the race. White people who need kidney transplants (I hope) don't refuse a kidney donation simply because it comes from a Hispanic.

I think, in another several generations, we'll all be a nice tanny/toasty brown. And won't it be grand!

Corn Meal Mush by Any Other Name...

So, those of you who have been paying attention have heard that I'm trying a new hobby. I'm gonna be a foodie.

I realize that from the dyed-in-the-wool foodies' perspective, it isn't a hobby...more of a calling. Many are called but few are chosen. Now if I just had a foodie dictionary, I'd be all set. Honestly, when on "Chopped", one of the contestant's decides she's going to fix "pain perdue", it seems a little condescending and snooty. "Pain perdue", thanks to several years of grade-school French, I understand is literally "bread lost"...French toast for all those of you who don't aspire to such lofty heights.

Because, when bread became too stale for human consumption, the French, being all about fresh bread, decided to dip it in egg and milk and fry it. Southern blacks called it "lost bread"...wonder where they found the foodie dictionary to come up with that name?

In my family, when we were very small, it was called "Yellow Toast" or "Lallo Toast" for those of us too young to pronounce the "Y" sound. Perhaps because the egg turned the toast yellow? But I think that's probably just a family thing, not known in loftier culinary circles. Bet it wouldn't be in any foodie dictionary.

And don't get me started on all the weirdo fish they have in those mystery baskets on "Chopped"...some fish one serves raw (more on raw fish later) and some are cooked with skin on and some are cooked with skin on and then the skin is removed  prior to "plating" (one doesn't serve on snooty cooking shows, one "plates" the food). Once it's all explained by the judges, snoots all, it turns out that the fish in question is really just a halibut or a cod, found only in one small inlet in Nova Scotia or in some North Sea bay near Norway. If it had been caught off the coast of Maine, it would be called "cod".

Or the "protein" (as the snoots call it) is calf brain or octopus or the testicles of South American buffalo. Or something equally unappealing. The judges then pronouce it to be inedible ("Why didn't you know that it has to be boiled for 3 hours before braising?") or they pronounce "This is the best sheep arm pit I've ever had!" One wonders how many sheep arm pits they've actually tasted in their lifetimes.

I'm trying to be more adventurous, but honestly, sushi should be considered an abomination. RAW FISH??? If God had intended for us to eat raw fish, s/he wouldn't have given man the gift of Fire. Raw fish makes me think one should just inject the salmonella directly into a vein and be done with it. Why is it that pork chops are considered overcooked if they aren't pink inside. In high school, Mrs. Morehead's Home Economic class, I distinctly remember learning about trichinosis. Raw pork of any kind was to be avoided at all costs. And as for fish, I'd sooner put a piece of raw chicken in my mouth than a piece of raw fish, whether it's from Nova Scotia or not.

Last night's episode of "Chopped" featured chicken feet, not for the first time. I always thought chicken feet were kinda like pig's knuckles...parts of the animal that only poor people ate because they were cheap protein. Or like chitlins, which for the uninitiated, are deep fried pig intestines. Presumably, someone has washed them thoroughly and I mean thoroughly. So these trained chefs, who came from prestigious restaurants in New York and Las Vegas, didn't know to trim the toenails from the chicken feet. Do they really serve chicken feet at the Ritz?

Now, I've never been trained on proper preparation of chicken feet, but I would at least have the presence of mind to perform a pedicure on the damn toenail, if for no other reason than I wouldn't want to look at chicken toenails. I mean, REALLY! Yet three of the four contestants didn't do that and of course the judges were all snooty and said stuff like they should have known to trim the nails. Maybe, snooty judges, they've never had to eat chicken feet so they didn't know.

If I had a nickel for the number of times I've seen otherwise sane chefs prepare shrimp, leaving the tails on and serving them swimming into a creamy sauce of some nature, I'd be a millionaire. Especially, for some strange reason. when they are preparing an appetizer. I guess everyone gets to sit down with knife and fork during the appetizer round at their house.

I just envision myself at a stand-up buffet, having to pick up the shrimp with my fingers dripping with the creamy sauce, dripping it all the way down my blouse and having to lick the sauce off my fingers while trying to find someplace to stash the tail. Please, I plead silently, if you are going to throw shrimp into ANY sauce, take the damn tails off!

Which brings me to corn meal mush, a dish my mom served fried for breakfast, with butter and syrup on it. A nice, cheap, stick-to-your-ribs kind of breakfast. When there was nothing else in the house to serve for breakfast, Mom brought out the mush. Had it for years. Adored the flavors and textures of this simple breakfast. Directions on how to make corn meal mush are even in my red-and-white-checked cookbook that I've had forever.

I only recently realized that polenta is THE EXACT SAME THING. My mom learned to cook first by her English-born stepmother, then by the seat of her pants. As a "mother's helper" at the tender age of 13, my Mom supported herself and put herself through college cooking for families and tending the kids in exchange for a bed and a roof over her head. In Detroit, Michigan. So I guess we are forgiven if we had a different name for it. Like "lallo toast" for the much more expensive and snooty "pain perdue". You change the name, you change the price.

Here I've been thinking that polenta was all snooty Italian food and I've been eating it for years. And none of that store-bought polenta for me. I make it at home, from scratch. Because, you see, it's a bout a million cups of water and one cup of cornmeal and you cook it on the stove for 15 minutes and you're done. It costs much less to make, pennies on the dollar, too. I've seen it on the pasta aisle at the supermarket in little tiny packages costing $8. Just as long as it says "polenta" on the package. If it said "corn meal mush", it would be 95 cents.

I've seen the chefs on the Food Network use polenta to make chilled salads (kinda like couscous) and bake it (always with mushrooms that cost $100/lb.)...there's always one chef on "Chopped" who thinks that, despite all evidence to the contrary, they will be able to cook polenta or rice (and not just any rice, but rice that is grown wild in the mountains of Borneo) in the limited time they have. I've never seen one succeed, so I'm somewhat puzzled as to why they would think they alone could do it. I guess because they, being snooty chefs, can somehow bend the time/space continuum and stretch 20 minutes into 2 hours. Or something.

Foodies are becoming ever more global, borrowing from cultures around the world and using the native language's name for dishes. Maybe that's why my Mom's English influence called it mush, whereas if she'd been taught by an Italian-born stepmother, it would've been polenta. But really, I don't believe for one second that those chefs have been to some tribal village in east India to sample the local foods and bring them back to America. They just had it in some snooty restaurant in Paris and placed small samples in their handbags and brought it back to be chemically analyzed so they could steal the recipe.

Have you ever noticed how imported vegetables, always more expensive than locally grown, are much preferred on those cooking shows? None of the lowly cucumber or tomato for THEIR recipes. It's English cucumbers and imported greenhouse German potatos and Egyptian tomatoes for them. Because, as they are quick to explain, you CAN make this dish with common vegetables from your own garden, but it won't TASTE the same. Snooty city.

They always make HUGE quantities on those cooking shows. I hope that they have some nearby soup kitchen that they donate the leftovers to. Because, although they are only serving 3-4 judges and they could use a silver dollar as a cover for the small amount of food they actually plate, they seem to have pots and pans full of food leftover. My Mom, who grew up terribly impoverished, is spinning in her grave at the amount of waste. There are starving children in China who could eat that food!

And yet, contrarian that I am, I aspire to be in this group. Why? Beats me. Maybe because I want to travel and see the world and I can't afford that so I stay in my little old-fashioned kitchen and travel through cooking. But I promise never to be snooty. If I get snooty, just slap me up side of my head with a cod.

The Bible Tells Me So

I'm having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Perhaps it's because the news is so bad. Little children shot in their classroom, while gun nuts defend their right to own Howitzers and tanks and grenade launchers. Fake-o Christians getting their dander up about a fake-o "War on Christmas" ginned up by a fake-o "news" organization.

I actually feel guilty about passing on the posts by well-meaning individuals who post pictures of the Bible and tell their friends to "like" if they believe in it. (And don't get me started on the totally phantasmic, anachronistic Kincaid-style paintings of Santa Claus kneeling before a manger with a beatific swaddled child and the legend "Jesus is the reason for the season."!) Being a little OCD and a lot Grammar Nazi, I always ask myself, "What does that mean?" Are you asking me if I believe that book exists? Yep, I'm pretty sure I've seen several hundred of them in my lifetime.

Are you asking me if I believe its teachings? Well, that depends on which teachings. I believe we should be more loving. I believe we shouldn't judge each other, 'tho that's probably my greatest sin. I don't believe that we should stone people who touch pigskin on the Sabbath, or whatever. And I certainly cut my hair and eat pork and in general break quite a few of the more strict teachings. I wouldn't dream of forcing a widow to marry her husband's brother, regardless of what the Bible says about that.

Are you asking me if I believe it's literally true? Once again, the Grammar Nazi in me comes out. I believe the Bible has some "literal" Truths-with-a-capital-T to teach us, like the aforementioned being more loving and less judgemental. But do I believe that all the events which are reported in that book really, seriously,  happened? Uh, nope. Or at least not most of them. And, to me, it doesn't really matter whether they happened or not.

It has nothing to do with our ability to use the Bible as an moral guide. Some people seem to use the Bible as a bludgeon, beating the crap out of anyone who disagrees with their interpretation, and only certain passages but not others, at that.

The events described in the Bible were part of an oral history, first told by the Jews, then by the early Christians. Oral historians were also called "storytellers". It was many centuries before literature even distinguished between "fiction" and "nonfiction"...the listeners didn't care. While they were listening, they believed it actually happened, whether or not it did.

I had this conversation with my sister this summer, while we were driving along the road to a family wedding. She, who believes that everything in the Bible is literally true (despite some contradictions), became quite upset when I tried to explain that it is a more important book, a more influential book, if one believes that it contains certain Truths, just not stories that may or may not be "true".

I used the example of the parables. "Do you believe that the parables actually happened," I asked. Well, no she didn't. But we can still glean Truths about how to live our lives and treat our families through those parables, right? Right. So why couldn't the entire Bible be suggestions on how we treat each other and live our lives?

Of course, the strictures against killing each other or cheating on your spouse, I consider to be more than just "suggestions". But did you know that in some translations, the Commandment "thou shalt not kill" is expressed "thou shalt not murder"? The ancient Jews rightly felt there was a difference between accidental killing, mercy killing, etc.and the outright purposeful murder of another in order to gain something he had. A different kettle of fish altogether.

Equally hard to pass by are those posts by well-meaning friends who wouldn't understand my system of morality if I talked to them for three days, let alone understand a Facebook quip which might be taken the wrong way. But it is tempting to reply, when you see someone railing against the innocuous greeting "Happy Holidays" and claiming that we are declaring war on Christmas and trying to take Jesus out of the season and for all they know, we eat little children for breakfast.

I've tried to explain that I began saying "Happy Holidays" years ago when I was dating a Jewish man whose family celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas. My best friend from college celebrates Kwanzaa and Christmas. Some of my friends celebrate Christmas only. But I really don't want to question my mailman about what holidays, if any, he celebrates. Some social interactions are much too brief to be able to sit down with the check-out clerk and determine which holidays her family celebrates, so as not to offend with the wrong greeting. So, by insisting on "Merry Christmas", those folks are actually insisting that everyone celebrate their holiday and no other.

When I was in high school in St. Louis County, we lived across the street from a Reformed Jewish family who had a son my brother's age. Tim and Gary were inseparable and Gary happened to be at our house when our Christmas tree was brought in and decorated. Never having had a tree, he wanted to experience that particular tradition. (Which, let's face it, has nothing whatsoever to do with Jesus' birth). My parents first called to check with his parents to see if it was okay, then allowed him to help. We even nicknamed it a "Hanukkah bush" in Gary's honor.

(Parenthetically, my mom used to say that the Prestons were the most "Christian" [as in "Christ-like"] people she knew. The day we moved in, Ann was at our door with a pot of hot coffee [always a plus with my caffine-addicted parents] and a plate of hot rolls. The first Sunday it snowed, there was Joe, out shoveling our driveway so we could get to church. When my dad asked Joe what the heck he was doing, he said we shouldn't have to work on Sunday and since it wasn't his Sabbath, he would do the work for us. Naturally, the next Sabbath it snowed, Daddy went out to shovel Joe's driveway so they could get to Temple.)

Those who claim that Christmas has been co-opted should perhaps take a look at Christian history. Because the Winter Solstice, celebrated by pagans for millenia, was co-opted by early Christian missionaries to the British Isles. That's why Christmas is celebrated in December, to dissuade the horrible pagans from practicing their heathen rituals and get them into church. Because most biblical scholars (including the Pope) believe Jesus' birth might have been in late spring or early summer.

(I'm also sure that it's no coincidence that Hanukkah occupies the same month...come to think of it, Jesus would've celebrated Hanukkah, right?)

The Christmas tree is also a pagan symbol, since pagans believe that spirits live in trees and plants as well as in animals. The evergreen, since it didn't "die" and lose its leaves in the fall, was a symbol of eternal life and rebirth, just as the Solstice was a celebration of the rebirth of the Sun.

So don't get your panties in a twist, folks. Axial tilt is the reason for the season and we can all respect and honor others' religions and traditions without being disrespectful of our own. And that's the Truth!

Thanks Mrs. Holt

In a continuence of my blog, Technology 1.0, where I talk about my Kindle and the demise of real books, I have to address something I heard the other day. While subbing for 4th graders, I was writing a note to their regular teacher, something I always do. (The kids are informed at the beginning of the day that their behavior, both good and bad, will be recorded for posterity...or at least for their teacher to deal with as s/he sees fit. It's remarkable how much that changes their behavior for the better!)

Anyway, this kid was watching me write my note and said, rather wistfully, "You know how to write cursive? My mom said she'd teach me cursive but it looks hard." Let me repeat...this was 4th grade!

At that particular moment, students were lining up to go to Tech class (one of the "specials", along with music, art, PE) where, presumably, they would learn to touch-type (or more correctly, "touch-keyboard") and sail through the World Wide Webs with the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger. Sigh!

Because, you see, when we were kids, we couldn't wait to learn cursive writing. It was so grown-up, so advanced from the block letters painfully printed. Tongue hanging out in concentration, we labored between three pale blue lines with the tall letters and caps rising all the way to the top line, while the short letters made it only to the middle line. We learned cursive in 3rd grade. In 4th grade, Mrs. Holt painstakingly taught us "penmanship". ( have no idea where she got the patience!) We knew how to laboriously make the letters, but we practiced our "hand", making the ends of words "smile" with a flourish.

I remember spending hours practicing her meticulous handwriting and getting good marks for the roundness of my a's and o's, the straightness of my t's and l's and k's. I never had a teacher, after Mrs. Holt, squint at my book reports and say, "I can't read this...what does it say?"

And to this day, the few times I sign a check (mostly debit card now) or a note to a teacher, I frequently am told that "it's amazing...I can read your signature!" (Side note: I wrote "Nana's Wardrobe" about a thousand times in order to use it in my logo, wanting it to look like what used to be called "copperplate", not to be confused with the typeface you'll find on your computer called "copperplate"...a different kettle of fish altogether.)

I heard recently that some school districts aren't teaching cursive anymore, since no one writes letters or book reports by hand any more. Evidently Forsyth County Schools is one of those districts. These kids seem to want to learn it, like we used to want to learn calligraphy or Chinese pictographs.

Mind you, these children are the future of our medicine and space industries, the future designers and inventors of new forms of energy. And since they really have to learn to interface with a computer, (not to mention all the other stuff they have to know to navigate in the world) it isn't surprising that cursive handwriting would have to go away. I mean, all that instruction time spent on something none of them will ever use? I get it.

But I repeat. Sigh! Are we going to lose the eye-hand coordination that is taught along with rounded o's and a's, the practice skills that it takes to learn to write well? The slowing down of the brain to think about what we are writing?

Ever since I learned to type in high school (on an old manual machine bigger than a laptop which broke fingernails on a regular basis and developed finger muscles  you never knew you had, since the keys were so hard to push down), I've used mechanical means to record my thoughts because I could type or key as fast as my brain could go.

I still write the occasional letter or notecard...a thank you to the lovely man who did the flowers at Dad's funeral, a note of encouragement to a nephew who is struggling with his own place in the world, a letter to a teacher about how badly Johnny behaved but what a great help Sean was, a jot to my neighbor saying I've stolen his dogs for a playdate with my dogs, to keep them out of his hair while he struggles with a kitchen remodel. Cursive causes me to be polite and thoughtful and thought-full.

I'm glad I have a good "hand", sorry that that skill isn't seen as important any more, but aware of all the other, more important things that children these days have to learn. I'm not suggesting that we bring back cursive handwriting...just that its passing should be noted and mourned.

God bless you, Mrs. Holt.

Ritual

Just attended my second family wedding of the year and I have to say, my family knows how to do this ritual right.

Having said that, I was sitting in the beautiful San Antonio Botanical Gardens, trying not to cry (I always cry at weddings, but at family weddings, it's a torrent).  The words to "Sunrise, Sunset" float through my mind along with my own little slide show of these grown women as babies, as kids, as teens. Where do the years go?

So, in order to distract myself, I try to think of other things. On Sunday, I pondered where we get some of our most cherished wedding rituals. I mean, who's the genius who thought of seating the bride's friends and family on the same side that the bride stands so they can't see her face? Ditto for the groom's family and friends.

And why flowers? Flowers are practically a sacred object for me, since my church is nature, but who was the first couple to jazz up their local parish church with flowers. (In the case of churches in general, I think they add a great deal. I mean, most churches are more of the somber and awe-some and awe-full architecture and decor, so they really need some joyful elements.) But why is that? Shouldn't our churches be as full of light and joy as a botanical garden?

I have to say that the flowers on Sunday were brilliant! A single large trough-shaped vase with the same flowers spilling onto and weaving into the grass. As I said, brilliant!

And I certainly understand the origin of gift ritual (taken from the days when a couple setting up their own  houshold). Similar to the old-fashioned "pounding", it was a way for a community to support the youngsters, who no doubt didn't have a spoon or a kettle to their names. Nowadays, with so many people delaying marriage until they are older and already having a household set up, one needs to be more creative than the toasters and fondue pots of my generation. I hope I was creative with the picnic basket for two, a reminder that romance belongs in marriage more perhaps than it belongs in courtship.

More brides are foregoing the veil and the promise to obey, which in my mind is all to the better. The veil in particular seems to suggest those long-ago days when brides were purchased and the groom didn't get to see her face until well into the ceremony, when it was too late to back out. Remember Jacob marrying the wrong sister in the Bible...he had to work 7 more years to purchase the chick he was really in love with.

And as for the obey pledge...I always wondered why the brides were required to pledge obedience when the grooms weren't. I mean, don't successful modern marriages compromise on stuff?

And don't get me started on the pledge to "remain faithful"! Just heard the statistic that 75% of the American people see nothing wrong with an extramarital affair, as long as they don't get caught.

Candles at this particular wedding were out, which made sense since there was a pretty stiff breeze the whole evening. (Although I know there would have been a fight at our table over who got to sit closest to the candle for the heat it might produce!)

A new (to me, anyway) tradition was born with mani/pedis for the wedding party women and they included aunts, sisters and cousins. I know it wasn't the real cause for our gathering, but to me it was the most significant. Three generations of women, all together after burying our matriarch in February, all sharing moments.

I brought out our grandmother's rosary and missal, offering it to my niece's soon-to-be husband for their vows in the Catholic church in a few weeks. Sweet tears. Stories of their growing up. Sweet laughter. My funny niece keeping us in stitches. Raucus laughter. The rhythm, ebb and flow of remembering, choosing a nail color, being pampered, and sharing it with women I'd be proud to know, even if they weren't my blood. Let's hear it for new rituals!

I'm still a little iffy about the ritual of "giving away" the bride by the parents. Once again, it smacks of bride price. But it survives, perhaps, because it signifies the family's acceptance of the groom. I just wish they'd give the groom away too! That would make it more equitable.

A relatively new ritual is the officiant's admonition to the congregation and getting them to pledge their support of this marriage that is beginning this day. This is good ritual.

I remember one of my co-workers a while ago, who was embroiled in the planning for a "pull out all the stops"  wedding. He asked for my advice and strangely, some actual words of wisdom popped out of my mouth (didn't know I was that smart!). Without thinking, I blurted out, "Just make sure you spend at least as much time planning your marriage as you have spent planning your wedding."

Brilliant, if I do say so myself. Because, despite the comfort of ritual and the community's acceptance of the new family begun, that's the crux of why we gather to celebrate. We hope that, despite all the pressures to the contrary, this union will be one that lasts.

I envy my two sisters who have been married for forty plus years. Our parents were married for 60 plus years, literally "till death did them part." But I'm hopeful every time I attend a wedding. I used to not attend if I didn't think the marriage would last, after attending an abyssmal wedding years ago where a full 3/4 of the congregation knew it wouldn't last. It lasted all of 8 months.

But now, having grown older and wiser, I attend every wedding I'm invited to that I can arrange to attend. Because the ritual is more important than I ever realized. (And also because I've occasionally been wrong about how long a particular marriage might last. Mea culpa.)

The very last part of the wedding is what put me over the edge, crying-wise. Because, you see, we have a ritual in our family. Mother's favorite piece of music EVER was Debussy's Claire de Lune. She had Uncle Bill (a masterful musician) play it every time we got together. Uncle Bill played at our weddings. Uncle Bill played it at our parents' funerals. So Claire de Lune was the last piece of music played at Leah's and Sara's weddings. Sob City. I didn't cry delicately into a lace handkerchief. I soddened at least three tissues.

But it was comforting too. Like the session at the spa, it cemented our family and assured me, at any rate, that despite now being the oldest generation in my family, ritual will go on. Our parents' deaths were sad, but not the end of our history, our rituals. Ritual is still important.

One of my rituals is baking bread and making soup on the first cold day of the Fall season. I feel some soup coming on.

Food to Gag You, Part Deux

So, in my previous post by the same title, I opined that Mole, that supposedly luscious sauce used in Mexican cuisine, wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

I decided that I really shouldn't judge the book by its cover (in this case, tomatoes and chocolate in the same dish) until I tried personally to make it and eat it. I'm trying to expand my horizons by cooking more gourmet. You have to understand that my baking and cooking skills have tended to draw heavily from crockpots, church basement suppers and hospital auxiliary cookbooks. Recipes that include a lot of Jello and catsup.

I've been embarked on an attempt to cook more things the Food Network might feature, or at least not turn its collective nose up at. So far, my successes have included pate and onion marmalade. The pate was so-so...the marmalade divine!

So how did the mole turn out? In a word, blechhhh! Okay, so now I've tried it and I have to say, I was right the first time. Tomatoes and chocolate don't belong together. I can't say I can really taste the chocolate, but I'm of the opinion that, if you can't taste it, why add it in the first place? Same applies to the whole almonds and whole cinnamon sticks...peppers tend to overpower EVERYTHING so if you're not a big fan of hot and spicy, what's the point?

(Plus, I also secretly believe that people who like spicy food have so burned out their taste buds that they can't appreciate the subtleties of almonds or chocolate or cinnamon or lemon.)

This dish took about 4 hours to make and dirtied every pot and pan and bowl I own (and I own quite a few). I had to run the dishwasher a couple of times and still had a half a dishwasher full left over of knives and whisks and spoons and saucepans.

But that's not the real judgement. If this dish had turned out like I've heard other people wax eloquent over, the four hours would be well worth my time. It didn't. It wasn't.

My mole tastes almost exactly like the sauce you get when you buy those El Paso frozen Mexican dinners...you know the sauce that's supposed to be over the chicken enchiladas but somehow ends up over the beans and rice?

I could've just bought a can of that El Paso enchilada sauce (I know, 'cause I buy it for my chicken enchilada casserole)! And if it didn't taste chocolate enough, I could always add some Hershey's syrup to the sauce!

I wasted some perfectly good chicken by pouring this sauce over it and braising it in the oven. Now the chicken is enfused/confused with that sauce and I can't say I like it.

For starters, I had to buy several different types of peppers, only one of which was readily available so I went to like three different stores and ended up substituting. Then I had to buy tomatoes because my vines have kinda petered out this late in the season and my late season stuff hasn't begun to produce. THEN I had to buy about a hundred different spices whch aren't in my very well-stocked spice cabinet. This whole sauce must've cost about $60, not counting the chicken. And NOW I have all these weird spices I'll have to figure out some use for.

I have whole fennel seed. I have whole cumin. I have whole anise. I have several ounces of dried peppers. This recipe called for whole everything on account of it wants you to toast all the seeds prior to grinding them. In fact, you toast or burn practically everything in the recipe.

I did at least reserve about a quart of the damn sauce so I could give it away. I've decided that my new culinary adventures will be confined to stuff I personally like. I hear a lot of TV chefs talk about blending of savory and sweet. Okay, I'll buy that in an onion marmalade but no more mole for me!