Like a Tattoo
Usually I would wake up listening to some news bit on NPR. The NPR affiliate, KQED, has a short maybe 3 to 5 minute bit called Perspectives where the speaker talks about some current event or topic and their particular view on it. KQED has this disclaimer about the speakers on Perspectives do not necessarily view the programming or funders or listeners of KQED.This morning had a third grade teacher in San Francisco talk about his friend Maurice and his tattoo. Now before you think that it's going to be some spiel about hipsters and their tattoos, Maurice didn't recieve his tattoo from some drunken debachle or lapse of reason according to the speaker. Maurice is a survivor of Auschwitz.Auschwitz, the dreaded concentration camp in Eastern Europe. One of the camps where six million Jewish people as well as countless gypsies, gays, lesibians, and others that the Germans decided to get the world rid of during World War II. Dead. Gone. Either from starvation, disease, the gas chambers better known as the showers (because they were taken to an area that was set up like a shower like area), overwork, etc. As I hear this story, I suddenly think about my lunch break the other day where I stepped into Cody's Books in downtown. I wanted to see what the latest sudoku books were on stock. On my way downstairs where most of the books were held, one of the displays on the featured books was Elie Wisel's Night, his account of Auschwitz when he was a teenager. One of the few that was able to live to tell about it. Today marks the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Allies. I stopped in my tracks and took a deep breath as I walked towards the display with Wiesel's work. I instantly thought of Mrs. Dviern, my ninth grade English teacher. She was a dreaded English teacher who was strict yet was the only one who taught college prepatory English. When I enrolled in Clement Junior High School after graduating from Catholic school (doing my time in Catholic school I joke), I didn't feel confident in enrolling in college prep English. My studies in English in Catholic school were rather limited. I spent the first semester at Clement with another English teacher in the intermediate ninth grade English class with another teacher. I ended up with Mrs. Dviern for English the second semester. After realizing how bonehead and slow the English class I was enrolled in as well as finding out that this wasn't the class that would prepare me for my university bound ambitions, I asked my counselor and Mrs. Dviern if I could be transferred into the college prep class. Surely enough, there was space in my schedule and a space in her class for one more warm body. She warned me that it would be difficult but I was up to the challenge.Mrs. Dviern drilled us with endless essays and compositions. She made us read and analyze books. Night happened to be one of those books. I wondered why she held such a fervent passion for this work that won the Nobel Peace Prize. It wasn't until many years later during a conversation with my friend Zion. He and I first met each other at Clement and went to Redlands High School afterwards. We went our separate ways and met up a couple times. We saw each other again a few years back at a rider's expo for California AIDS Ride participants. We were signed up to do California AIDS Ride 8. However, I ended up riding while Zion wasn't able to fundraise the minimum requirement to participate. We didn't see each other again until a few years later at a chance meeting at 24 Hour Fitness in the Castro. We met up for coffee and chatted about our lives in the Inland Empire, how we felt so isolated. Zion was one of the few African Americans at Clement Junior High School and Redlands High School. In fact, Zion was one of the few African Americans in college prep classes I knew. I was one of the few Filipinos in my school. It was then that Zion told me why Mrs. Dviern was so passionate about Night.Mrs. Dviern was one of those that remembers that time very well. I am not sure if she was able to be one of those to bear witness to the horrors of the concerntration camps and live to tell about it or was she one of those whose loved ones were left behind and were later told of the details from surviving relatives and loved ones about the camps. Mrs. Dviern also taught French 1 at Clement Junior High School. Zion took French from her. When Zion and I went on to Redlands High School, Mrs. Dviern was hoping that Zion would continue with French. He ended up enrolling in German. To a Jewish woman that was a witness of one of the darkest periods of her time and her people, it was like a knife to her heart. She and Zion ended up keeping touch, running errands for her to make some side money. They still kept up their friendship. When Zion came out to Mrs. Dviern in college, Zion told me how she cried and feared for Zion, remembering that gays and lesbians faced the same cruel and fatal fate that Jews in Europe did during World War II. They too were carted off to concentration camps, an inverted pink triangle sewn on their uniforms to mark that they were gays and lesbians. That same pink triangle is now a symbol of empowerment for the LGTB community. Like me and Zion, Mrs. Dviern was also isolated in Redlands. She was one of the few Jewish people in a rather anti-Semetic town. Redlands was one of those places that had a large population of evangelical Christians and Mormons. I was a minority, not only racially but religiously, being one of the few I knew that was Catholic. I wonder if Mrs. Dviern has a tattoo reminding her about that time. I wonder if she is still alive. I'm not sure how old she is now, perhaps in her 60s or 70s, maybe her 80s. Maurice, the person of focus in the Perspectives story is 92. I look at my pile of books and tell myself that I will borrow Night. I already have a copy of it but it is in my bookshelf in Southern California where my parents are. I also thought about the other atrocities, genocides that has also happened during the Ottoman Empire with the Turks, Cambodians during the time of Pot Pol in the 1970s and Rwanda in the 1990s. I think of Mrs. Dviern when someone talks about the Holocaust. I also remember my visit to the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC where I saw artifacts from the Holocaust: suitcases that held the items from concentration camp detainees and an actual boxcar that crammed Jews and others from their homes in Europe to the concentration camps. To imagine one being in that boxcar, so scared for your life, your fate. All because you were Jewish. Or a gypsy. Or loved someone of your own sex. On my most recent visit home, my cousin A.J. told me that his class was planning a trip to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Like the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of Tolerance taeches visitors about the Holocaust but it also tells them about other times in history where man has acted in a hurtful and discriminatory way towards others. I smile that my eight grade cousin is learning about this period in history and hope he gleans the lessons I've learned from reading Night and Mrs. Dviern's teaching about it. Who knows, A.J. might be one of those that end up getting a tattoo to the dismay of his parents. Perhaps I will tell him the story of Mrs. Dviern and the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust during World War II and Maurice's tattoo.
The Jump Up and Down Rant and Rave
No, this is not a joyful jumping up and down like Tom Cruise did when he professed his love for Katie Holmes on Oprah last summer (God help those two, especially Katie). It's more of an angry up and down rant and rave. This occurred as I was watching the news last night on Judge Samuel Alito's upcoming vote on his confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Now why is it that those who do not support abortion, the ones who want to do away with it and to make it rare are the same ones that cut funding for poor women to have access to birth control and health care?
Why is it that those who do not support abortion are the same ones who cut funding for child care programs, government programs that provide low cost pre-natal care for low income women, after school programs that keep kids off the streets, etc.?
Why is it that those that do not support abortion are the same ones that support the death penalty?
Why is it that those that do not support abortion are the same ones preaching that abstience from sex is the best and only form of birth control yet when surveyed recently, those teens practicing abstinence end up having a high teen pregnancy rate?
Why is that those that do not support abortion who believe in the sancatiy of life and the love of one another are the same ones bombing clinics, shooting doctors and scarring young women with their taunts and jeers and stares, making these women feel like the lowest of low?
Why is it that those that do not support abortion are the same ones who think that if you give a young single mother diapers and formula and a free carseat to help her out with her baby, a pregnancy she may not even want, would make her feel better? Remember, diapers and formula and carseats are good for so long?
Why is it that those who do not support abortion want to do away with public assistance programs, force single mothers to work in jobs that are barely enough to pay the bills, jobs that are far from where they live where they have to spend a good deal of their wages on child care and these jobs do not even provide health care or employees of these jobs do not even qualify for health care?
NOW WHY IS IT?"Condoms are easier to change than diapers." -quote from a bumper sticker
Put Some South In Your Mouth- Sweet Potato Pie
At last, a pie that wasn't apple.
I've always wanted to make sweet potato pie. Daniel, Catherine's boyfriend, made some for a Thanksgiving shindig last year and it was pretty good. Both Catherine and I agreed that he couldn't do without the marshmallows. However, Daniel, hailing from North Carolina, insisted on them.
But tonight, I went with my own version of sweet potato pie. The recipie comes from The Joy of Cooking All About Pies and Tarts.
crust: lard crust following the recipie from the same book where I got the sweet potato pie recipe. It held up very well and I refrigerated the dough for about two hours. This one asked for some sugar and no vinegar. I might end up using it.
This is the first time I had pretty good luck with a one crust pie. I was wondering about the recipie for the pie and the recipie on how to prepare a one crust. You had to brush egg yolk on the crust. The instructions were different on the recipies. It seemed like with the pie version, you brush the egg yolk then bake for 20 minutes (which is what I did). However, the crust version says to bake for 20 minutes, brush on egg yolk then bake for 5 minutes. The pie weight worked well. Still getting used to the whole pie weight thing.
The best thing about the crust was that I was able to build a nice high rim. The crust was easy to handle and roll. I even fluted the edge pretty nicely. Fluting will take some practice I will admit.
Filling: I used sweet potatoes from Eatwell Farm in Davis. Peeling them was a pain because you have to peel deeper than just the peel. There is a white sheath under the peel. After a little bit of work, steaming them wasn't too bad. You came out with a nice batch of sweet potatoes. They have this nice pale orange color. Yams have a deeper orange color.
The pie baked like a dream. Now it's chilling like a villan in the fridge. Can't wait to try it.
There are some folks I would like for them to give me their comments. Daniel being one of them. A few of my co-workers as well I need their feedback. If I can, I might be able to get my protoge Steve to try it out. He's the only Vietnamese guy I know that was born in Kentucky, raised in Louisiana before moving to California for high school. He's a rather interesting mix.
Before I had the sweet potato pie that Daniel made, it has been years since I have had a slice. There was this one place in East Oakland near the Coliseum where I would go for BBQ. Along with either BBQ ribs or chicken or pulled pork, I would always have two sides to go with it- collard greens and sweet potato pie.
Ah, sweet potato pie. Ain't life grand?
Real Desparate Housewives
This morning as I was doing my laundry, I happen to find an old issue of Family Circle lying around. As I waited for my wash to finish, I was cursing that I didn't bring a pencil to edit my resumes and cover letters. I also couldn't solve the sudoku puzzle in the paper today. So, to pass the time, I flipped through the magazine. It was the only things worth reading.
An old friend Dale once said that fashion magazines are like crack for women. They just need a fix each time and some women are just slaves to fashion and treat Vogue and Cosmopolitan like the Bible. I honestly think that some of these glamor magazines have some standard format of making a woman feel like crap in her relationships, her career and her beauty. Family magazines such as Women's Day or Family Circle take that one step further. They add the family and the kids to make you feel like shit and how much you lack.
As I was flipping through the magazine, I did admit that I tore out the recipies for easy dinners and one for mini apple pies. However, when I read the ingredients for some of these easy dinners, I shudder because it asks you to get the ready made, processed stuff that is loaded with chemicals, calories and such. Then again, who has time to be Martha Stewart when you are busy conquering the world and juggling that with a family.
In the midst of all these recipies, there was a survey of the status of housewives. One thing that struck me is that women that live in the burbs have this crazy assed pressure to make it look like they have it all down, all perfect. Where it comes down to competition of how I can balance my career, my kids and being on numerous boards of non profits and have great sex with my handsome husband. Makes me more not want to settle down and marry and move to the burbs.
I realized my distdain for the burbs not only on my visits home to my family in Southern Cali but one time, my friend Bob and I had to stick around at some suburban mall while he was getting his tire changed. We just finished a training ride in the East Bay and Bob found a screw stuck on one of his tires. We had to stay for a bit and we grabbed lunch. We settled on Mongolian BBQ where you get to put how much meat, veggies and noodles and sauce you wanted in your bowl. There were these two Asian males, elementary school age, that were really annoying. They would hold up the line and they made the woman serving the sauces nuts because they would change their mind on what they wanted on the sauces. I swear Bob and I wanted to bop them over the head. What really concerned me was that there was no parent in sight to look after these children. Bob and I theorized that their parents were probably sick of them and dropped them off and took a valium.
I do worry that being a suburban housewife and mother would reduce you to some woman that is only able to speak in baby talk and not have adult conversations. I wonder if your reading habits would change too. Would you not be able to listen to NPR because your kids are demanding that you put on The Wiggles all the time? Do you suddenly revert to your girlhood pleasure of playing dress up with dolls but this time blowing the grocery budget on designer clothes for the kids that they would outgrow in six months? I kind of feel sorry for one of my co-workers. She works part time and her husband is the one pulling in the bucks. She's always shopping. One time she looked at me and said, "Why can't I be like you and just be simple?" I honestly don't care for shopping. I like food shopping and getting things that I need but not shopping because it's on sale and most likely I won't wear it. I kind of feel sorry for her because she had to drop out of college when she had her first child. The only things we can talk about are clothes and kids. Very empty for me.
However, I do like the thrill of challenges. I like my singlehood. I like going on a bike ride when I want to or working on my latest running challenge. I'm ready to tackle the career challenge on moving ahead of dingy retail. Yet, do I want to be living out of a suitcase and eating out every night? Do I want to have a life where I can't even do my laundry and the only way I can get clean clothes is hopping into the nearest Target or Mervyns on my lunch hour to get clean undies? Hmmmm...
I really do want to have a kid eventually. I want to experience birth but there is that part of me that wonders can I really make this hybrid of a person, the hipster mother. Is that possible? Can I raise kids and still be a fabulous woman all around?
Yet Another Fun Apple Pie
Honestly, making apple pie is starting to vex me. I think it's because it's so repetitive and that's all I've been doing, making one apple pie after another.
However, I'm not going to complain. Making any kind of pie is fun and each time is a unique experience, an experiment, a work in progress.
This particular pie has all Golden Delicious apples which I have read from one of my books are rather bland in nature but a good cooking of the apples in butter and sugar makes them especially yummy.
I had to start all over with the crust because the crust that I had in the freezer and had it thawed in the fridge was old and spoiled. Funny with this crust was that it was a little on the dry side and somewhat crumbly when I mixed it. The last few times, it was wet and sticky. But the refrigerating does wonders letting the gluten in the flour settle. I usually chill it for at least half an hour. It stays good in the fridge for 3 days and in the freezer for several months. Now you see why I chucked out the other crust. Probably I also used my generic Ralph's brand unbleached bread flour for the last crust while this time I used unbleached Gold Medal flour. The first time I did this lard crust, I used bleached all purpose Gold Medal flour. Can't really say for sure if it's the flour or the lard that gave the crust the dry composition. But, who knows.
I did a lattice top but a more intricate design where I laid out 10 stips by 10 strips. I tried it by doing it on a flat surface (my cookie sheet I use when I bake pie) and then hopefully easily transfering it onto the pie but the transition from the sheet to the pie was a bit tricky and it was mis-aligned on the pie. However, with a few adjustments and fixes, it was like new. I was hoping to do a basketweave type of top with the strips close together. Didn't have enough strips. Next time, next project.
Because of the drier dough, had a hard time edging the pie. I'll see what's going on and make adjustments accordingly. I did a somewhat rounded edge using my fingers to shape it. Would have been nice for me to have that extra dough like I had with past pies.
Recipie used: The one from the Farmhand's Favorite Pies book. I actually want to try a pie where I don't have to cook the apples. Too much work.
Pictures coming soon. On my wish list is a digital camera where I can upload photos ASAP so you know what I'm talking about.
The Urban Fund
Awhile back during my DC days, I used to read the New York Times on a regular basis. Now I pick it up for the occasional Sunday pages (I have a guilty pleasure of looking at the wedding pages) and if a breaking story comes out, I would like to get the Times perspective on it. During the spring months, the Fresh Air Fund, an organization that gets urban kids exposed to life in the country, would start its fundraising campaigns.
You hear these stories of children whose jungle is mostly concrete and metal and gunshots and sirens are the calls of the wild. You find out that a week in the country exposes them to clean air and wildlife. Heck, even Mariah Carrey was a Fresh Air Fund kid and look where it got her. OK, I'll discard that. Spending time in the country does not make you loony.
Yet, we see so many kids now living in the suburbs. They live on streets named after trees that were torn down to make the developments and the wildlife that use to inhabat that land before the stucco monocolored track houses. And when suburban folks come out to the City, I swear, they act like fools. This behavior is better witnessed during the holiday season when the bridge and tunnel crowds come out in force. So I figured, well, why don't you start something where you send suburban kids and show them how to behave in the big city.
With the Urban Fund, suburban kids can know how to ride public transit properly (not hanging on the stairwells on buses, knowing when to pull the cord for a stop and having correct change...doesn't help when you have a twenty dollar bill on you). They can also learn identify certain smells such as certain ethnic foods and folks that forget to shave and for humid climates, the stench that hangs around with the humidity that is a mix of exhaust and sewage. Kids can also learn defend themselves against panhandlers, crazed protesters, and aggressive public tranisit passengers (please do not engage in those activities at all...just walk on by). A good example is that this morning on the 30 Stockton, a crazed woman got on the bus, started saying all these racial slurs (we just passed Chinatown and were heading into Union Square) and started shoving and pushing people. She nearly wacked an elderly Asian gentleman on the head with her roll on suitcase.
At least suburban kids won't act like boneheads after some time with the urban fund. In fact, they might want to leave those nice suburban streets and actually live in the urban jungle. I swear it's more fun than a strip mall or big box store. And think about it. Yes, it's a stretch not to have a car but walking everywhere promotes great cardiovasuclar health. Add on schleping groceries a few steps and some hills and stairwells and you got a complete workout there!
So sponsor a suburban kid today! All donations are tax deductable. Operators are standing by!
Test Driving Pie Books
It's true. I probably checked out a good portion of the San Francisco Public Library's collection of pie and pastry cookbooks. I literally had to make two trips to the Anza branch to pick them up. Some of these books were pretty thick where they literally towered over me when I piled them on my arms and attempted to walk home. For the first trip, I took the bus to walk downhill 5 blocks. The next time, I remembered to bring a bookbag to store the books. You might scoff and say, "Yeah, 5 blocks downhill. Easy." But remember that my apartment is on the second floor, up four flights of stairs. Enough said.
It gives me a chance to look at ideas for pies. Different crusts. Tips on handling dough. Which varieties of apples to buy. Giving me good tips on how many key limes it takes to make 1/2 cup of joice (about one dozen). And tarts...that brings me to another level of pastrydom. I thought about doing tarts to expand my baking repertiore but that would be too complicated. I think pie is nice, simple, Middle America.
Funny how I would find a pie recipie in one of my Filipino cookbooks. It was one that was specific for Filipinos living abroad in the States and Canada and what ingredients would replace native things found in the Philippines. Funny thing is that I don't recall seeing an oven in any of the houses in the Philippines. Maybe Autie Helen's place but I wasn't sure. Gas is such a premium because we are talking about getting gas from butane cans which I figure they don't come cheap.
Maybe one time I should try baking pie old school provincial style- over an open fire like Ma's provincial home in Ilocos Norte. That is on my list of things to do in the Philippines next to surfing with Filipino movie stars in San Juan, La Union and wondering if I will end up in the Philippines' version of Page Six (the New York Post gossip column).
I figured once I look through these books, there might be some I would like to buy and put in my library. Two I am looking at very closely is
The Pie and Pastry Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and
Pie by Ken (I can't think of the last name for a moment). Fun stuff.
Gymnastics
For the first time in about two weeks, I've finally gotten up early to go running. I miss getting up and going for a run. First it was a cold that prevented me from seeing Rachel and her boyfriend Jorge's band play when they were up from LA. Then it was an abcessed wound near by buttock that had to be drained and hurt like hell when I even tried to run. Now that those two things subsided, it was time to get out of bed and lace up the running shoes once again. Hopefully the rain will key at bay this weekend. Last weekend, it just poured down and I didn't even want to get out of the house to even return a library book.
There is something about exercise that makes you just wake up and be more aware of things. Being aware of your body, your surroundings. I frown upon those who plug into their iPods or MP3 players or radios to provide muscial diversion to avert their pain. First of all, it's dangerous. You don't know when there's a car or a criminal there to pounce upon you. Second of all, it just dulls your senses of the beauty around you. I love hearing my footfall, seeing the fog rise up from the park looking like a scene from Lord of the Rings. I love smelling the crisp air and listening to the dialogue of people you pass in their native tongue.
If one sense is dulled, the others are hightened. If one sense is overstimulated, the other senses are dulled. The second observation seems to come into play when one plugs into an audio device to make exercise fun. For me, just having the chance to empty myself, to look at things that I wouldn't even pay attention to. Like if I can see Twin Peaks clearly today. Or how blue the sky is. Or the ducks swimming around Stow Lake that remind me of my godbrother Brian who was killed earlier last year. (His nickname was "Pato" which meant duck in Tagalog and Spanish).
I just finished Dean Kazares' autobiography, Ultramarathon Man. By the way, he's one guy that does ultramaratons, running events that are longer than the usual 26.2 mile fare. It was one of those books that I couldn't put down. Maybe because as a fellow marathon running, I just want to see what makes this guy tick. Honestly, I don't think I could do one. Maybe not at this time. Maybe later on in my life. Maybe never. I'm wondering what to dow with myself for 100 miles of running. I can certainly cycle 100 miles. But run?
Anyways, Dean was talking about how running renewed him, revived him from a ho hum life of corporate America and helped him grieve the loss of his younger sister who died in a car accident on the eve of her 18th birthday. How running gave him a bigger purpose, a bigger goal. Frankly I like running for the challenge and the exercise and the stress relief and the fact that I can explore an unfamiliar place on my own two feet. Also I like to eat and I don't want that to make me gain too much weight. Yeah, I will admit, vanity is a factor in why I run.
But running this morning gave my body that surge of gymnastics that I have been hungering for. How my body was totally engaged, every nerve, every cell. All these chemical reactions that were on dry paper in biochemistry class coming alive. It was almost like the day I went to the deYoung Museum and perused at art. How I engaged all my senses and what I know to look at a piece of art whether it was sculpture, video, acrylic, oil, etc. and find my own interpretation and to engage with others about our various opinions. The gymnastics that is so missing from my job which I go back in a few days.
Yuck.
Can't I just go running once more?
Sex In My City
Housekeeping Note: I think I should change the title. I was trying to do a play on words of the James Joyce Book, "Tales of An Artist As A Young Man". I think I didn't get the title right with my first series of this journal. Oh well.
Anyways, off to my rant of the day.
Libraries are great things. Where else can you test drive books, magazines, DVDs, CDs and videos before even buying them. Being a bibiliophile like myself, I will borrow and attempt to read lots and lots and lots of books. Sometimes that results in me forgetting when they are due and spending some change on overdue fines.
One thing I just borrowed from the library recently is the second series of "Sex and the City". If I can recall correctly, I think I have seen almost every episode thus far of "Sex and the City" except season six, the final season. It would be nice to get the complete DVD set that costs about 300 bucks for twenty something DVDs. I read in a review that one must be a fan to splurge that much for something like that. Believe me, I am a fan. I've had one person I know that said that the series was insipid. She was the same person who told me to stop being a fag hag. Like being gay, you can't turn off being a fag hag. Therefore, we are no longer friends.
It was great seeing Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda and their adventures of life and men, unedited. The last few months, my "Sex and the City" fix has come from showings on TBS and KRON 4 which have been nicely edited not only by censors to take out bad words, overly graphic sex scenes and in one episode, anything relating to drugs (it was the ending scene of an episode where Carrie and Samantha were sharing a choice bag of weed while Miranda was busting out the beer). Of course, we want to keep mainstream television and the cable channels that most homes would have as part of the basic package like TBS as squeaky clean as we can not to mention have some air time for the commercials thought up cleverly by Madison Avenue executives, the same commercials that TiVo and in-demand cable has been filtering out.
On the subject of censors and an experience I had this week with a guy, why we as Americans are so prudish about sex. I mean, here we are, censoring everything sexual left and right. In our public schools, the only sexual education that is taught, if any, focuses on abstience. NO SEX. People would figure that if you don't talk about sex, people won't do it. Teens wouldn't engage in it. Funny how some surveys have found out that most abstience only programs fail and there is a really high teenage pregancy rate for those who come from families that stress abstinece. Some people don't get that if you don't talk about sex or if it is taboo, people would go around and experiment then get in trouble.
I just wish people were honest about sex and talking about it and not be so prudish and shameful. I mean, we talk about eating and drinking and peeing and taking a shit in the toilet, basic biological functions. Sex is a biological function. Sex is a means to reproduce, to perpetuate the species. I mean, if we censor who Samantha has her latest blow with, how come on Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel we see animals, mammals even (because we as humans are mammals) go all out fucking? Isn't that considered animal porn? Quick honey, the bars across the genitals!
Seriously, if people talked about sex honestly and frankly, maybe there wouldn't be a need for abortions. Then if there were no abortions, there would be no need for crazy right winged zealots acting like jihad terrorists and bombing clinics and shooting abortion providers and harassing clinic staff. I mean, most of the people going into Planned Parenthood and these other clincs are just picking up birth control pills and getting pap semars for god sakes. At least congratuate them for taking care of their health.
Honestly, maybe if some of the folks my family knows would have talked to their sons and daugthers honestly and candidly about sex, they wouldn't have the fact that they have become lolos and lolas too soon. I'm referring to several family friends who ended up having an unplanned pregnancy by a single parent. I just wished they would have been honest about sex. Not to hide it around the bush so to speak.
Seriously, the folks that don't want abortion are the same ones who don't want birth control accessable and to keep sex some mysterious thing and leave it up to peoples' imagination and curiosity that would end up in an unplanned pregnancy or worse yet, a sexually transmitted disease.
Former President Bill Clinton during his term vowed to make abortion "safe, legal, and rare." By that last word, he meant have access to birth control and there would be no need for an abortion.
My pro-choice rant for the day.
Oh, by the way, saving up to get a t-shirt that says, "This is what a pro-choice Catholic looks like." Figured that would put a few more grey hairs on Ma's head. Heheheh.
Senate Confirmation Bean Soup
OK, this isn't the real title of the recipie. I found this on the Rancho Gordo website.
Rancho Gordo is a small shop up in Napa that sells heirloom beans, great fresh corn tortillas and really good corn tortilla chips. Steve usually is at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market on Saturdays with his wares. He was the one who told me about real
manteca from the
carneceria as opposed to the gross hydrogenated, trans-fat ladened bleached lard you would find at the supermarket.
I have been meaing to make Senate Bean Soup for a long time. No joke, you will find this dish in the cafeteria of the US Senate every single day, rain or shine, freedom fries or French fries (some Repuklican wacko congressional member demanded that the cafeterias for the House and the Senate change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries to protest the French not getting in on bringing troops to Iraq. Nutso!). Finally, with winter dawning and me not doing much of anything due to a cold and having a wound drained near my buttocks (yes, pleasant sounding), I decided to get some beans from Steve and make good old Senate Bean Soup.
Luckily Steve had a few packages of his Garbancito beans when I went there last Saturday. After getting some smoked ham hocks, I was all set. The recipie was rather simple but very flavorful. I will admit that it takes half a day to prepare but you feel so wonderful and full after eating it.
Add a bowl of the soup and some bread and some good old NPR's coverage of Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation hearing and it feels like you're there in the Senate Chambers with some good old Senators grilling someone if they are qualified to be the next Supreme Court justice. I figured that one of these days, I will be some old senator grilling crazy neo-cons and driving them up the wall with liberal legislation and making passes at young male pages and interns and eating Senate Bean Soup.
Here's the
recipie. Enjoy!
Yet Another Apple Pie
Norhing against this, but I'm really gettins sick of making apple pie.
Originally, I was going to make two pies last week- one for Rachel who was up here with her boyfriend's band and another for the Hudson sisters since the pie I orignally made for them I gave to MHR for the Christmas celebrations (the coffee hours after the Masses). However, a nasty cold kept me at home so I didn't see Rachel. I decided to give the Hudson sisters their pie when we have our Cat 2 Kick-Off ride at the end of this month where we will serve punch and pie after the ride.
I decided to mix things up a little bit. I went to the Heart of the City Farmer's Market at Civic Center last Wednesday. One of the stands I usually go to, Rainbow Orchards, was there. Yet, the yield of Winesap apples were low this year that the owner decided to hoard them for himself and not ship them to market. It seems like a bad year for them as well because they are only there on Wednesdays. Nevertheless, I decided to experiment and try a new apple pie recipie and see how the Golden Delicious apple variety faired out.
The recipie was from "How To Bake" by Nick Malgieri. I picked up this book from the library. It is an all purpose book of generic baking recipies for cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, breads, pizzas, muffins both sweet and savory.
So here goes:
Recipie for Double Crust Apple Pie
Apples used: A 1 to 1 ratio of golden delicious apples and granny smith apples from Rainbow Orchards.
Crust used: Never Fail Pie crust from my recipies from the heartland pie book, the one where I got the last two pies from. This one had butter and vegetable shorting as the fats. I used the Trader Joe's brand of unsalted, grade AA butter for this one.
Filling: no nutmeg in this one. Cooked the apples in butter and added lemon juice. When I cooked the apples, the granny smiths were still firm while the Golden Delcious apples were a bit grainy yet firm. Had to make sure that the apples didn't turn into mush when I cooked them. You just cook them enough to soften them up.
New tricks: Egg wash on the crust. Brushing an beaten egg then sprinkling with sugar instead of topping it with butter like I usually do. Gives it a nice sheen and gloss.
Frustrations: OK, tried the crust cut out trim this time putting foil around the edges. However, when I took off the foil for the last 15 minutes of baking time, the trimmings came off as well. Maybe I should fold the pie crust then put the trimmings
under the folded crust.
Turnout: We'll see the results. This will be served at the Punch and Pie ride in a few weeks.
Changing of the Seasons
These days, we as an American society are just used to all fruits and vegetables being available all times of the year. So what if the fruit comes from thousands of miles away. As long as it tastes like cardboard, it's all good.
The days of me shopping at the supermarket for produce is over. Because I live in the Bay Area with an abundance of Farmer's Markets, I've actually gotten spoiled over real good, fresh, seasonal produce. I'm not sure how long I've been eating seasonally but my body has gotten adjusted to the point where certain seasons are meant for certain foods.
For instance, Spring means green garlic, young strawberries and tart cherries. I smell fresh pea blossoms and the peas are soon coming. Blueberries, raspberries, oallieberries and all kind of berries are coming about. Even green almonds crop up as well. Dafodils show a sign of spring and hope.
Summer- peaches and stone fruits galore. This is when I go into high gear pie season, making a lot of things from scratch. Summer also is the time for chinese long beans, basil, eggplants, zucchini and yes, tomoatoes. Not tomatoes that taste like cardboard but really really good sweet tomatoes. Tomatoes for sauce and salsa and tapenade and gaspacho and oh on and on and on. Oh and corn. Yum yum corn! Fresh lavender and mature strawberries. Sunflowers to shine their lovely faces upon me.
Fall- that is when days start getting crisp and cold and short. When you bust out the sweaters, roll up the sleeves and haul big assed squashes and pumpkins. Butternut squash (I actually was craving it this fall) and apples galore with their crispness and tartness. Tomatoes are still kicking around though and the citrus is somewhat peeking their heads around.
Winter- the time for staying in and chilling. For soups and baked goods. Where root vegetables such as potatoes and turnips and carrots make their appearance. Hearty greens such as chard and mustard and dandelion fill the soul. Bright yummy citrus fills our wet winter days with sunshine of our cousins down in Southern Cali. I read somehwere that cold air makes lettuce oh so sweet but it feels so counter-intuitive to eat salad in the winter. Hmmm...
Oh and I am counting the days when I can see sweet pea blossoms and green garlic grace the Famer's Market once more. I wonder how the seasons will play out if I end up moving back East? Same cycle? Different products?
Souper Days
Winter started off with solstice which is on December 21st. That day, I finally finished my law school applications and sent them off. Winter solstice is the time when the days grow shorter until around the first of the year. This was the time when you went deep within, when spirits of the underworld would celebrate. All this was what I remembered when I took a yoga class with winter solstice themes with my former yoga instructor before I headed off for Southern Cal for the holidays.Here in the Bay Area, winter has been nothing but wet. Luckily I wasn't around for the big floods and such but the areas such as Gurenville and parts of Napa were underwater. Even Manang Julie sent a few of us cyclists photos of downtown San Anselmo where she lives. We usually pass by there on our way to cycle through Marin. I instantly thought of the restaurant where Shelly and I one time stopped by and ate fried green tomatoes and breakfast during one of our cycling jaunts. Winter is the time for baking. It's the time for citrus and root vegetables. It's the time for soups. I managed to go by the Farmer's Market today to get some good produce. I was a little sad that I didn't see my usual citrus grower Vicky at Bernard's Farms and Gary and his nuts and dried fruit from Alfieri Farms (I think he's taking a very nice and well deserved vacation; rumor has it that he hasn't had a day off in a long assed time!) and the folks at Downtown Bakery from Healdsberg with my all time favorite donut muffins. I don't start my Farmer's Market sprees at the Ferry Plaza on Saturdays with out a donut muffin. But alas, I managed fine. I got some great carrots at Heirloom Organics and some sweet potatoes at Eatwell Farms. Steve managed to have a few packages of garboncito beans over at Rancho Gordo. Instead of me thinking of what pie to make, I was having visions of soup. I got enough carrots for some a kick ass carrot soup that I found in Runner's World last month. I made it tonight and it tastes soooooo good! My next cooking project will be Rancho Gordo's version of Senate Bean Soup. I'm not sure which Senator started having bean soup prepared in the cafeteria daily but I can envision myself as some kick assed senator having my bean soup, grilling neo-conservative Supreme Court candidates and making them pee in their pants and picking up young men like old farty senators like the late Strom Thurom on South Carolina would pick up on young beauty queen chicks. I will admit that I will be so looking forward to spring. That will be the time for berries and cherries and later on in the spring, the start of stone fruits like peaches and apricots. I'm sure for now, I can still make apple pie but I'm getting sick of making apple pie. I got a few extra sweet potatoes to make a sweet potato pie. I was hoping Vicky would be there to give me some key limes for key lime pie. I didn't make a pie for Rachel since I've been battling a cold. I managed to at least make some lemon bars. Finally I got around to getting some cough syrup and it's helped. No coughing or hacking for quite some time. Ah!
The First Pie of 2006
I will admit that during my time down at my parents' place in suburban Southern California was a rather nice and subdued time. I guess my latest hobby of pie baking has gotten me to look at books on pie and try new recipies and even search out new vendors to try out their fruits and wares.
Ma being superstitious as she is, made things that were round and promoted long life. She made beans on New Years' Eve and panict to promote long life. Round beans showing prosperity and money. So in that vein of round things, I decided to start on a pie.
Actually, two pies.
Two apple pies- one was a regular apple pie and the other being a deep dish apple pie. Both pies were from the
Farmhand's Favorite Pies by Amy and David Butler. I also used the recipies for crust from this book and here are my musings and thoughts.
Blue Ribbon Apple PieApples used: a mix of half granny smith and half pink lady from an apple stand in Santa Monica (shit I wished I knew what the name of the stand was). The vendor there was very nice and when he told me that I was making a batch of pies, he busted out the number two box. For those who aren't familiar with Farmer's Markets, some vendors will have a number two box where they have bruised and slightly imprefect produce. It's mostly used if you are going to use the produce right away, within one to two days. Number twos are usually a fraction cheaper than the regular price and can save you a shit load.
Crust: super flaky lard dough
Now this particular crust, at first, frustrated the hell out of me. I thought I added way too much liquid. The addition of an ice water and cider vinegar mixure made the dough really really sticky. Almost like the constincy of paste.
Another thing that freaked me out was that, upon the recommendation of the authors, to make sure the lard is ice cold. After I put my lard or
manteca from the
supermacado from a huge Mexican grocery on Ninth Street and Waterman in San Bernardino, I had a bitch of a time trying to cut it into little pieces and measuring it. The
mateca from the
supermercado is different from the small
carnicerias I find in the Mission because the one from the
supermercado is sold solid. It's not super hydrogenated and white and bleached like the stuff you would find. It's nice and fresh, usually the stuff you find when the meat section fries up the pork. The
carniceria is in a more liquidy, kind of looks like a cup of flan. The guy at Val 16 market always asks me if I know what the stuff is when I pick up a tub of
manteca. He would say that a number of people would think they are buying a nice flan because it has the cream solid at the bottom and the clear golden brown drippings on the top. Manteca is one of those things that I use. I swear by it. It makes your pie crust very very very flaky. Yet, I guess my vegan, Muslim, orthodox Jewish friends and other people that shun pork cannot eat. Oh well.
Aside from making sure the lard is ice cold as well as the water and vinegar mixture being new methods that I found out from this recipie, refrigerating the crust was another thing that was new to me as well. I actually froze the crust because I wanted to make the pie a few days later. When it came time for me to bake, I put the crust in the fridge. Made sure that the crust was cold when I worked with it. It rolled like a dream and it was nice and smooth to work with. Oh and it baked like a dream too! Nice and flaky!
Filling: I commented on the apples. This recipie called me to slightly cook the apples which was something new. I sliced the apples into small pieces instead of wedges which I did for a previous pie. This pie asked me to put in cornstarch whic gives it some nice juice. Another recipie that I used for a pie also asked for cornstarch. This one asked for more cinnamon and less nutmeg than usual.
Trim and top: With the leftover pie crust, I made it into balls and pushed them down, making a nice rounded side. The top, I pricked star patterns with a fork. Topped it off with Challenge European style butter and sprinkled sugar. One boo boo: I did not put foil onto the edges making the balls fall off the pie. I didn't throughly prick the pie therefore a lot of juice coming out from the sides. So I ended up with glazed crust balls. It was great for my brother who took one of my pies where I made a lattice top and just ate the crust. I'm sure this new treat would placate my brother's taste for pie crust. In fact, the book has a recipie for crust scraps where you dust the scraps with cinnamon and sugar and bake them like cookies.
Overall, a very good pie! I will use this recpie again!
Dig-Down Deep-Dish Apple PieApples used: Granny Smith apples. This recipie asked for McIntosh apples. This was from the same farm where I got the apples for the other pie.
Crust
Extra Flaky Pie Dough: This one used all butter as the fat. The butter used was Challenge European style butter made with grade AA cream and less water. The book recommends European style butter for baking. I have used several brands. One I like is Strauss Family Farms based here in the Bay Area. The crust too was also refrigerated and frozen. It took a little work to roll out the crust.
Trim
A fork tine pattern. Deep dish pies do not have a top crust but this one had a strudel topping.
Filling
Sour cream. Hmmm...
Overall results: It takes a little longer to bake because you also have to factor in baking the studel topping. This time I made sure that I put foil on the edges so it won't brown too fast.
I didn't taste this pie but my cousin Anthony liked it. He said the crust was very buttery.
Also a note on the butter- make sure it's unsalted.
I did take photos of the pies. Those will come soon. Another wish list item- a digital camera.
Kix For Two-Thousand Six
Ah yes, two zero zero six is here and finally good riddance to that old rag, 2005.
I decided to come back to this nice space with some new things. Yes, I stopped posting at my old blog just to mark the fact that I moved from my old neighborhood where I was in the last few years. Here are some new things that I will try my best to post.
1) First of all, I want to be a little more editorial, a little more critical, a little more thoughtful. I know I tend to put a lot on the page, especially my heart on my sleeve and emotions. Try to reading my AIDS/ LifeCycle 1 journal. Kind of a little soap opera-ish and a little more raw.
Here are the things I do want to be a little more thoughtful of and put more in my journal:
- Political ramblings
- A pie journal- yes, I will document about my latest pie projects, what went well, what went wrong
- Reviews of books, movies, television shows, museum exhibits, places, events, etc.
- Peeves- things that make me scratch my head and wonder at times
Well, fun for all. And here we go...
