Taste Explosions

Oh, my, oh, my, oh my! We just shared a delightful dinner. Sometimes it just WORKS, you know?
Marinated chicken breasts in olive oil and lemon juice (2:1) with garlic and parsley, then grilled and served with our own greens and nasturtiums with Ann Marie's vinaigrette to which I added agave syrup, parsley, and marjoram. That all went with new red fingerlings and Valley peas in a cream sauce (2T butter; 2T flour: 1.5 C milk) that I seasoned GENTLY w/ salt, white pepper, marjoram, and culinary lavender.
The combination of lemon and lavender was truly lovely. We THOROUGHLY enjoyed ourselves. Need to remember that one!

Improvisational Sarah

I am so tired of the whole Sarah-thing, but, like so many others, I am transfixed by the soap opera elements of the story. I sometimes feel like I'm back in the costume shop in college, hemming someone's tunic while I watch "As the World Turns." Only, it's "As Sarah Goes On and On," instead.
The scary thing is, I think I have some insight into her catastrophic responses to questions. She just doesn't REMEMBER what she said. You see, the down side to being a drama queen is that you are swept away as you give yourself totally to whatever character you are creating at the moment. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I'm trained as an actor because that was what I did most of my life anyway.
Unfortunately, if you create that character as an improv, instead of following a script, you are not able to accurately recreate the moment, ever again. So, she's not actually LYING - she just doesn't remember how she played it the first time. She should probably stick to a script....
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.fom/the_daily_dish/2008/11/the-odd-lies--7.htmle

Can't Stand the Heat

What is it with cooking as battle? I just saw a promo for some new program called "The Chopping Block," where the visuals are all young cook-lets in tears and a blowy-haired guy in a chef's jacket intoning threating one-liners like, "The only time I want to be around sheep is when I'm eating them." And, of course, he has some sort of generic Anglo accent, which seems to be de rigeur for these things. Are they all Simon wanna-be's?

I'm a pretty good cook, and I honed my skills in my own kitchen, which tends to be pretty friendly, I think. I doubt that I could win one of these stupid food wars, but I think my guests will digest their food better than the people who have to endure these dressed-up food fights.

I don't want to go all feminista here, but, what is it with these guys? I don't see a lot of women hosting programs that specialize in destroying egos for dinner. (The closest I can come is those cute little British ladies on the Clean Team who gently chide families for failing to clean their bathrooms for years at a time and who then teach them how to do it properly and without destroying the environment.)

I'm just saying that cooking is not supposed to be hostile, any more than dinner is supposed to be "manufactured." If you run a nasty kitchen then I guess that reflects poorly on your own managerial skills and you should be ashamed. I know that I only get tense in the kitchen if I have failed to plan carefully or start early enough or have bitten off more than I can chew, in a manner of speaking.

So, get over it, television kitchen guys. You're ruining our digestion.

Thoughts on the Inauguration of Barack Obama

I have been close to tears many times today, and I am too old to just wallow in my emotions on this important occasion. I keep telling myself that I must have something intelligent to say.
I started to figure this out when speaking with Charlie, the young training guy at the Ironworkers' local where we rent office space. Charlie and I have attended some AFL-CIO functions together and I like him. I think I might remind him of his mother.
I confessed to Charlie today that I have been unable to fully embrace any candidate since MLK was assasinated. I was devastated by the assasination of JFK, but at the age of 12 I was too young to really understand the depth of that loss.
Later, though, I gave my heart to Bobby Kennedy and to Martin Luther King and their murders took me out at the knees. I could not fathom living in a culture that would allow such good men to be slaughtered. The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago struck a huge blow against my idealism, and Kent State pretty much nailed the coffin shut on my political passion in 1970.
To put this in perspective: John Kennedy was assasinated 1 month before my 13th birthday and the National Guard killed those four Kent State students when I was 19. In those six years we lost JFK, RFK, MLK, innocent college kids, thousands of GI's in VietNam, and trust in our government. We acquired Tricky Dick and Watergate.
Talk about formative years...it just gets better and better. Take into account my hugely un-original baby boomer demographic and multiply me by hundreds of thousands. No wonder we have problems with commitment.
At the same time, you have to remember that we started out as the most idealistic of the dreamers. My whole high school graduation speech was based on the opening lines of "The Age of Aquarius" from "Hair," for crying out loud. You remember, "When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars." I can't speak for the whole generation, but my personal intent was certainly to change the world.
Anyway, since 1970 I have remained committed to a liberal, labor-and-family-friendly political agenda, but I have held back from true commitment to any candidate.
Until today. I gave Barack Obama my support in July, when Hillary told me I had to. I gave him my money and my rally presence shortly after, and I gave him my vote in November.
Today, I gave him my heart. I did it fearfully. There are many angry and violent people out there and I somehow fear that if we embrace him we also endanger him.
I now realize that my personal investment will not doom our new president. I cannot share in the triumphs if I don't take the chances.
So, President Obama, here I am. I will do my share with enthusiasm if you will lead with dedication and vision. There are many thousands of us who have been waiting for a long, long time...

Letter to Lisa

Okay, I did better after I left here earlier. I used my limited energy to email Lisa a brief letter about the Big 3 "Bailout," i.e., loans. Here's the text:

Senator Murkowski -

I write in support of loans to the domestic auto industry. I am appalled at the job loss we have suffered in the last quarter and at the numbers (rumored to be well in excess of half a million) of American workers who have given up looking for work. Cutting off the "Big 3" at this point will only add tens of thousands more hard-working middle-class homeowners and taxpayers to those rolls.

I believe that the administration's response to the economic situation is completely misdirected and inadequate. Pumping billions of dollars into the financial sector that has driven the losses in every other sector has been, at this point, a miserable failure.

The auto industry, despite its recalcitrance and refusal to look ahead, has been responding to market demand in the past couple of years - I was delighted to park my compact import (bought used!) between two hybrids here in Anchorage just this week!- but it is now suffering mostly because of the loss of jobs and credit freeze that can be laid squarely on the shoulders of the financial industry, to which the Treasury is handing money like it was breath mints.

Those auto workers are the middle class. They are the citizens who pay their mortgages and their taxes and we need their jobs. They support tens of thousands more jobs in the service sector; jobs we cannot afford to lose.

In my perfect world Congress would approve the loans without any stipulation other than a dramatic increase in the gasoline tax, thereby accomplishing two goals; a market drive for more fuel-efficient vehicles, resulting in lower prices and greater availability, and a pool of money to be used for much-needed infrastructure improvements, which will generate thousands of well-paid, much-needed jobs.

Sincerely,
Susan Reilly

Brain Dead

I'm only here today because I promised myself that I would attempt to post more regularly. I have no ideas at all and don't want to get hung up for hours tonight so this is a placeholder post, in the hope that the act of touching the keys will get me to come back tomorrow. Maybe by then I will have something intelligent to say. Then again, maybe not....

Chickens

I just found this in my drafts (22 February). Not sure why I didn't post it originally, so I'm going to throw it out there now.

Alaskans showed their true cowardice in this election. What a bunch of weenies. All over the rest of the country, Americans took a chance. They looked around and saw that things are not right and they took a chance on a charismatic young man who had the gumption to say, "Yes, we CAN."



Alaskans, on the other hand, acted like a bunch of provincials. We take the US dole, we want the US attention, but when the US asks us to act like grownups we thumb our noses and stick out our tongues and say, "We don't need to pay any attention to you because we're better than you are."



What a crock. It takes, "We don't give a damn how they do it outside," to a whole new level. And that isn't UP to a whole new level.



I had a brief visit with MLB tonight when, across the generation, we shared the realization that, when Michele Obama made that comment about being proud of America for the first time, each of us had understood what she said, and tonight, each of us FELT what she had felt.