Posts
I added chopped cabbage, red onion and carrots in with the potatoes to pressure cook and it was delicious. The original recipe was Presto German Potato Salad that came with my pressure cooker. I love to use russet potatoes but all kinds of potatoes are delicious. (I omit bacon and use olive oil)
Monday, March 31, 2025
The Air Kiss Sister
She never wants to know how I am doing and won't tell me a thing about her husband or grown children. Even when I ask. What I get is sarcasm and snark. Eye contact is out of the question. We both were taught the lesson: Reveal nothing! Everything you say will be held against you. I know. I had the same parents.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
I'm not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare -- or, if not, it's some equally brainy lad -- who says that it's always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. P.G. Wodehouse, My Man Jeeves
Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty. P.G. Wodehouse , The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology
I have written it before and am not ashamed to write it again.
Without Wodehouse I am not sure that I would be a tenth of what I am
today -- whatever that may be. In my teenage years, his writings awoke
me to the possibilities of language. His rhythms, tropes, tricks and
mannerisms are deep within me.
But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.
― Stephen Fry
But more than that, he taught me something about good nature. It is enough to be benign, to be gentle, to be funny, to be kind.
― Stephen Fry
The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest.
I will defend the absolute value of Mozart over Miley Cyrus, of
course I will, but we should be wary of false dichotomies. You do not
have to choose between one or the other. You can have both. The human
cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian
rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a
puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree
that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each.
“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by
that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing
more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has
no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am
offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."
[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”
―
[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”
―
“Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person
can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the
cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion
anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase
what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of
self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything
around it, except itself '.
Self pity will destroy
relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all
the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to
imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that
one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this,
only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you
would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things.
And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result
of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice.
I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.”
―
I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about.”
―
“Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my
check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented
cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of
God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls
into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a
forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine
on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday
party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane,
the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred
Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on
the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an
old Wellington boot.”
―
I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I am going to do next.
Oscar Wilde said that if you know what you want to be, then you
inevitably become it - that is your punishment, but if you never know,
then you can be anything. There is a truth to that. We are not nouns, we
are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who
does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I am going to do
next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.
―
Stephen Fry
“It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an
inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all
bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have
disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the
mad intensities that made and unmade me.”
―
Moab Is My Washpot
“Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery,
any depression, since after all you don't know what work these
conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself
with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is
going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of
transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is
anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness
is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so
one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to
break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”
―
Letters to a Young Poet
Pool Poem
Swimming in a vast rectangle of chicken soup, I see
Bodies of all shapes floating with the carrots and onions.
Swimmers eye each other from adjacent lanes, while
the 75-year-old struts on the deck in his Speedo.
I admire my ripples of thigh skin as I do the side stroke.
We are ageless in the water and weightless on the moon.
“If you know someone who’s depressed, please resolve never to ask them
why. Depression isn’t a straightforward response to a bad situation;
depression just is, like the weather.
Try to understand the
blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness they’re going through.
Be there for them when they come through the other side. It’s hard to
be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it is one of the kindest,
noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
―
Look what a lot of things there are to learn
“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at
night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only
love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or
know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only
one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags
it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never
alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream
of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of
things there are to learn.”
―
The Once and Future King
Always be reading. Go to the library. There’s magic in being surrounded by books. Get lost in the stacks. Read bibliographies. It’s not the book you start with, it’s the book that book leads you to. Collect books, even if you don’t plan on reading them right away. Filmmaker John Waters has said, “Nothing is more important than an unread library.” Don’t worry about doing research. Just search.
―
limitations mean freedom
The way to get over creative block is to simply place some constraints on yourself. It seems contradictory, but when it comes to creative work, limitations mean freedom. Write a song on your lunch break. Paint a painting with only one color. Start a business without any start-up capital. Shoot a movie with your iPhone and a few of your friends. Build a machine out of spare parts. Don't make excuses for not working -- make things with the time, space, and materials you have, right now.
AUSTIN KLEON
Friday, March 28, 2025
The Trees by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Poem © From The Complete Poems of Philip Larkin (2012) published by Faber and Faber Ltd
Animation of the poem
Spectacular Supper: Chick Pea Kale Red Onion Saute over Brown Basmati Rice
Rinse and soak chick peas overnight and pressure cook.
Chop two large red onions with freshly cored and chopped garlic and saute in olive oil. Add the cooked chick peas and sprinkle with Adobo seasoning. The red onions contribute a lovely color.
Rinse kale (keep the leaves and stems whole for now) and pressure cook for 2 minutes. After they are cooked, snip kale with scissors (into 2 inch bites) and add to the chick pea onion garlic mixture. Add splashes of jug Chianti and soy sauce for sweet/salt UMAMI.
Pressure cook brown basmati rice to go with the vegetables. We love Royal brand basmati rice.
Enjoy!
Go Big or Go Small
During these trying times I tell myself GO BIG! Listen to the French radio broadcasts or GO SMALL and get out and talk to people on the street.
Thursday, March 27, 2025
A narrative voice allows you to say things you couldn’t otherwise. It frees you from the prison of the ego and the limitations of habitual thinking. One of the great mysteries of writing fiction, and one of the greatest pleasures, is the discovery of a voice that opens up a channel to impersonal, but specific, knowledge.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Monday, March 24, 2025
Radio France Internationale (RFI) is foreign service department of French radio stations.
https://www.radio.net/s/rfimonde Some days of the week broadcasts are in German.
Good Dialogue
“There is no such thing as realistic dialogue. If you [simply recorded]
the real conversation of any people and played it back from the stage,
it would be impossible to listen to. It would be redundant . . . . The
good dialogue writer is the one who can give you the impression of real
speech.”
―
Life, every now and then, behaves as though it had seen too many bad movies,
when everything fits too well - the beginning, the middle, the end - from fade-in to fade-out.
―
Sunday, March 23, 2025
If we empty ourselves of ourselves
A writer is like a tuning fork: We respond when we’re struck by something. The thing is to pay attention, to be ready for radical empathy. If we empty ourselves of ourselves we’ll be able to vibrate in synchrony with something deep and powerful. If we’re lucky we’ll transmit a strong pure note, one that isn’t ours, but which passes through us. If we’re lucky, it will be a note that reverberates and expands, one that other people will hear and understand.
ROXANA ROBINSON
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Mexican Casserole
One pound of pressure-cooked kidney beans (previously soaked overnight), with Adobo added after cooking. One inch stack of corn tortillas. Cholula hot sauce, half a dozen eggs beaten with a splash of buttermilk, one 4-ounce chunk of sharp cheddar, grated.
Directions: in one large or two (oiled) small casserole dishes layer the kidney beans and corn tortillas like a lasagna. I cut the extra tortillas with scissors to shred them and add them. Then beat the eggs, add the buttermilk, divide and pour into the dishes with the beans & tortillas. Poke your fingers into the mess to distribute the egg. Top lightly with cheese and Cholula hot sauce. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes to an hour depending on what it needs to set the eggs. I used a square Pyrex dish and a round casserole dish. The square pan cooked in 30 minutes and the deeper round dish required an hour.
Enjoy!
I was so excited about how this turned out. It was a sheer accident that I had leftover tortillas and decided to make this with my new batch of beans. I'm glad I had eggs, buttermilk, cheddar and Cholula on hand.
Dreams
I dreamed of Maynard and Mary Louise. I dreamed of my old art studio in the CIC building. I dreamed there was a diorama of a small pink room and a miniature whiskey bottle and a light bulb that lit up when we thought of the dead person. I dreamed I was swimming with frogs and snakes in a pond in Vermont.
Friday, March 21, 2025
Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Olive Oil Olives Spinach and Garlic (variation on Aglio e Olio)
I added a pound of (defrosted) spinach, chopped olives, chopped red onion, sauteed garlic in olive oil, Sriracha + soy sauce (for umami) Chianti, pesto and Asiago cheese.
Magnifique!
Why Define Teaching by William H Calhoun
If teachers don't define teaching for themselves, others will, and quite likely to the detriment of teachers. The problem is that the "wrong" definition of teaching can harm and interfere with a teacher's ability to really teach. What is a "wrong" description of teaching? Here are just a few examples: babysitting, coaching, facilitating, managing, providing services, delivering curriculum, the inverse of learning. Why are these descriptions wrong? Because the focus is either on behavior control or delivery of instruction, but not at all on what can be described as engagement.
There are two problems. Delivery of instruction includes designing instructional materials and designing tests. Both of these activities can be done on a corporate or academic level by experts, with an eye toward monopolizing, automating, and monetizing such activity. Teachers are just expected to deliver the canned curriculum to students. And much of what could be thought of as engagement is instead thought of as classroom management, often resulting in, at worst, moralistic or belittling approaches to control and discipline. Behavior modification approaches are an improvement, but best would be a sociological approach to adjusting student behavior, directly and indirectly, in the service of engagement.
Teachers need to engage to be effective. The key to this is understanding how a teacher's stagecraft and presence can help students interact with instructional materials. While discipline first, instruction second is a common recipe, it results unfortunately in poor outcomes. Instructional materials cannot teach themselves. Without an engaging teacher, any student is simply self-taught, for better or worse.
https://www.whcalhoun.com/
On the Street
The report showed up on the front page. One sister tried to strangle the other in a fit of rage on the city sidewalk at the neighborhood convenience store. There's a chance the aggressor will go to the women's prison. The sisters and another woman have been my neighbors for about 6 years.
When they first arrived they were feral, no eye contact, virtually mute. They were homeless before coming here. The sister who had been attacked was disabled. The sisters are also twins. Over the course of a few years they all became more comfortable and adopted a few dogs and found jobs and bought a car. They seemed happy and would chat over the fence. They had become part of the community.
The report continued. The care-giving sister had gone on a tirade and choked the other in public for
being caught stealing from the local convenience store. I assume the twin by now has been placed in a
group home or institution. The whole story is tragic and it unfolded
right here in our backyard. Perhaps they will get the help they
need. I hope so.
I grew up in the tony suburbs where it was all concealed behind manicured lawns and Gothic doors. When things happened we heard about it later, sometimes decades later but rarely in real time. The suicides, the key parties, the beatings, the child-molesting parents, neighbors and teachers. A blacked-out drunk who thought he was murdering his parents killed a new couple that had moved into his childhood home. Powerful emotions have no class boundaries.
A Strip of Siding
A strip of aluminum siding came off the roof of the apartment house behind us and landed in our yard. I told that building's landlord about it. Then I moved the strip of aluminum into the alley so my dog would not cut himself when walking around the yard.
The recent rainstorm caused a racket. It was the aluminum piece catching the downpour from the house next door, keeping the neighbors awake. This morning I went out in the rain and moved it again to the edge of the shared parking lot. I hope to give it to the recycling man.
I feel helpless about the toxic political climate but I can move a piece of aluminum out of the rain so my neighbors can have a good night's sleep.
Jennifer Finney Boylan
Opinion
What is a trans woman, really?
“Scooby-Doo” offers a lesson about the riddle of gender identity.
By Jennifer Finney Boylan
The key word in this revelation is “really,” the adverb that means “what something is in actual fact, as opposed to what it might have been appearing, or pretending, to be.”
I’m willing to accept the fact that Mr. Withers was not who he had been pretending to be. But in other instances, “really” has (as the “Scooby-Doo” theme song goes) “some work to do now.” Is Clark Kent “really” Superman? Is Bob Dylan “really” Robert Zimmerman? Was Mark Twain “really” Samuel Clemens?
Is a butterfly “really” a caterpillar?
These questions matter to me, as a transgender woman, because the Trump administration’s attacks on us are, in some ways, founded on the supposition that women like me are “really” men. Whenever I hear, for instance, the simplistic edict that there should be “no men in women’s sports,” my first instinct is to agree. Because transgender women are not “really” men. We are women. We may have different histories than other women, but then, every woman has her own history.
Donald Trump’s election has released a tide of vitriol against transgender people (and women in particular; most of our nemeses seem oblivious to the existence of trans men). The silence of our alleged allies this last month has been stunning to me, and some of our allies have even volunteered to throw us under the bus in hopes of rebranding themselves as mainstream. Does Gavin Newsom — who came out against trans women in sports last week — really think that the MAGA base will embrace him now? Or is it possible that conservatives will see him as “really” a liberal? Hmm, let’s think.
This last week, a House subcommittee hearing on arms control went off the rails when its chair, Rep. Keith Self, (R-Texas) introduced Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Delaware) as “Mr. McBride.” Rep. Bill Keating, the ranking Democrat, asked, “Mr. Chairman, have you no decency?” Rather than addressing Congresswoman McBride by her proper title, Self adjourned the hearing.
Presumably, calling the congresswoman from Delaware “Mister” was more important to Self than arms control, international security or American support for Europe, which had been the issues the committee had been scheduled to address.
At one time, the phrase used to describe trans women like me was “a woman trapped in a man’s body.” There were all sorts of issues with that formulation, but in its simplicity, it made a clean case: Trans women were women in spirit and soul and sensibility (and, many would argue, brain structure and function); they suffered from a medical condition, like multiple sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease, a condition that anyone might be born with — even Republicans! — and which could be treated by medical intervention, leaving the woman post-transition as a woman very much like other women, with the exception of her remarkable history.
The current blowback against trans women holds the opposite view — that people like me are “really” men, and no matter what sorts of surgical interventions take place, nothing can alter the fundamental assignment of sex at birth. That’s what’s behind the oddly phrased executive order declaring sex immutable and fixed at conception. “God doesn’t make mistakes,” is a phrase often aimed at people like me, as if to accuse me of being the gender equivalent of old man Withers.
It is worth observing that many of the people scolding me about God not making mistakes are wearing glasses. Or hearing aids. Or have pacemakers. So far as I know, no one accuses someone wearing glasses or hearing aids of fraudulence, or sees the existence of someone saved by a heart-monitoring implant as an affront to divine intentions.
The challenge for trans people, and our allies, is that many of our antagonists cannot imagine what it might be like to be wired the way we are. I still remember when I came out, 25 years ago, telling a friend that I’d had a lifelong sense of myself as female — that this impulse had dominated my waking life for 40 years — and her response was to dismissively shrug and say, “Well, I can’t imagine that,” as if her inability to imagine the life of someone like me was my problem rather than hers.
Our problem is that “No men in women’s sports” or “There are only two sexes” make great bumper stickers. In such simple phrases they seem to capture an inarguable truth. “Common sense” is what the president calls it. But just because arguments against trans people’s right to exist are easy to make, that does not make them any less wrong. What is difficult is that understanding how folks like me experience the world takes time and thoughtfulness. Not to mention decency.
The greatest obstacle to trans equality is not Donald Trump or even Elon Musk — whose inability to love his own transgender child may well be part of what has driven him to fight what he calls the “woke mind virus.” Whenever I hear Musk berating trans people, my first thought is to have pity: This is a man, above all, with a broken heart, a man hurting because he wrongly thinks that something valuable — a son — has been taken from him.
No, none of these are the greatest obstacles for acceptance. The greatest obstacle for us is a lack of imagination.
By which I mean, only a person without imagination could think that Superman is “really” Clark Kent. Only a person without imagination could think that a butterfly is “really” a caterpillar. Or that a trans woman is “really” a man.
Without imagination, it is easy to believe in things that are simple, and superficial, and wrong.
With it, we can begin to understand the lives of those who are different from ourselves — and respond to their struggles with compassion, and kindness and grace.
Boston has stood up for the people we love and the country we built, and we’re not stopping now
She returned from her performance riding a wave of support from residents, many of who expressed pride in her defense of Boston. She heavily leaned into the message she shared with Congress in her speech on Wednesday night, proclaiming that “the state of our city is strong, and we have to be.”
Wu emphasized that the federal administration’s policies are harming many people who are central to the city’s fabric, including the LGBTQ+ community, academics and scientists, and researchers and innovators.
“Boston is the target in this fight for our future, because we are the cradle of democracy, pioneers of the public good, the stewards and keepers of the American dream,” she said. “We were built on the values this federal administration seeks to tear down.”
“But for 395 years, come high water or hell, no matter who threatens to bring it, Boston has stood up for the people we love and the country we built, and we’re not stopping now,” she continued. “No one tells Boston how to take care of our own, not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings.”
She ended her speech with a bold statement: “God save whoever messes with Boston.”
concocting fictions with utter seriousness
I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on The System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories—stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Wednesday, March 19, 2025
“Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we
imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become
it.”
“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.”
― The War of Art
― The War of Art
“We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.”
― The War of Art
― The War of Art
Yesterday writing in my notebook I was falling asleep so I
went to bed I had another 2 hour nap! CRAZY. I felt cut off and
bewildered when I woke up. So I walked to Stop and Shop and bought
bananas and cornmeal. I ran into 3 people on my walk home. I had real
visits with 2 of the three. Matt the mailman and Lucille's husband Bob
(a former school principal). Just what I needed!!
Then
I made corn pancakes for dinner. We recently restored our pancake maker
the 1960 electric Frying pan made by Hoover that needed a new cord. The
pancakes are buttermilk whole wheat pancakes. Fabulous. Bon Appetit had
the recipe and I made a few adaptions (whole wheat flour and corn oil
in place of butter). The recipe said it serves 10. Bill and I laughed and ate the
whole batch.
I had a
fabulous 2 swim classes and was able to swim for a half hour afterwards
since my shoulder felt good being used. I stayed in the water--until
8:45. (The pool stays open until 9PM now) Then I couldn't sleep because I
was so HUNGRY!! So at 10 :30 I warmed a bowl of my Portuguese kale soup
and had soup and tahini on toast sandwich.
This
morning is the make up day for testing. I can only think of one or two
who might show up. Then I have to meet with the council woman
and the dog park lady about the dog poop problem in our city.
I am just
relieved that my shoulder is recovering. My low threshold of pain is a
lucky thing because I usually can stop and recover before there's a big problem. My friend
Suzy swam on Cape Cod last summer and had no idea she went beyond her
limits. She tore her rotator cuff and had to have surgery for it. One of
the problems of swimming out your most intense and crazed ya-ya's is you
can injure yourself.
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Cornmeal Buttermilk Pancakes
These are so good we ate the whole batch for dinner!
Ingredients
¾ cup unbleached all purpose flour (I use whole wheat)
¾ cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1¼ cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, cooled (I use corn oil)
vegetable oil
Step 1
Sift first 6 ingredients into large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, eggs and melted butter in medium bowl to blend. Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and whisk until blended and smooth.
Step 2
Preheat oven to 300°. Lightly coat bottom of heavy large skillet with oil. Heat over medium heat. Working in batches, pour ¼ cup batter into skillet for each pancake. Cook until bottoms are golden, about 1½ minutes. Turn pancakes and cook until second sides are golden, about 1 minute. Transfer to baking sheet; place in oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining batter, adding more oil to skillet as necessary.
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/cornmeal-buttermilk-pancakes
August Wilson
When I first started writing plays I couldn’t write good dialogue because I didn’t respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
August Wilson
Monday, March 17, 2025
The Illusion
I just give the illusion of exposing myself, but really, I'm not exposed at all. There's a real me that's inside my diary, and then there's a character of me. Whenever you write about yourself, real people live in the world, and characters live on the page, and you become a character.
David Sedaris
Sunday, March 16, 2025
Portuguese Kale Soup
The kale was gorgeous so I bought two bunches on Friday. Last night I soaked a pound of Dominican red beans and I just pressure cooked them this morning.
Rain is coming so I decided to make a huge vat of Portuguese kale soup. We bought 4 chourico and I chopped 4 large onions and a bulb and a half of garlic and 3/4 of a pound of carrots* and I added water and Chianti and 2 chicken bullion cubes and olive oil. I added the beans and kale and it pressure cooked for a bit. I had to scoop out a quart of the liquid to make room for the vegetables and I added it later after everything cooked.
It's delicious!
*carrots were my addition because I did not have potatoes.
Taking a Walk
Yesterday after all the chores had been cleared I decided to take a walk. I crave space for my brain to breathe. Aside from doing there has to be being.
the moral tone of giants with swollen heads, fat fingers pressed over the atom bomb, staring at each other across the forests of the world, is monstrously comic.
“But then everybody who has been in the Soviet Union for any length of
time has noticed their concern with the United States: we may be the
enemy, but we are the admired enemy, and the so-called good life for us
is the to-be-good life for them. During the war, the Russian combination
of dislike and grudging admiration for us, and ours for them, seemed to
me like the innocent rivalry of two men proud of being large, handsome
and successful. But I was wrong. They have chosen to imitate and compete
with the most vulgar aspects of American life, and we have chosen, as
in the revelations of the CIA bribery of intellectuals and scholars, to
say, "But the Russians do the same thing," as if honor were a mask that
you put on and took off at a costume ball. They condemn Vietnam, we
condemn Hungary. But the moral tone of giants with swollen heads, fat
fingers pressed over the atom bomb, staring at each other across the
forests of the world, is monstrously comic.”
―
An Unfinished Woman: A Memoir
“Most people coming out of a war feel lost and resentful. What had
been a minute-to-minute confrontation with yourself, your struggle with
what courage you have against discomfort, at the least, and death at
the other end, ties you to the people you have known in the war and
makes, for a time, all others seem alien and frivolous. Friends are glad
to see you again, but you know immediately that most of them have put
you to one side, and while it is easy enough to say that you should have
known that before, most of us don't, and it is painful. You are face to
face with what will happen to you after death.”
“Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent.
When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original
lines: a tree will how through a woman's dress, a child makes way for a
dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento
because the painter "repented," changed his mind. Perhaps it would be
as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a
way of seeing and then seeing again.
That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.”
―
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Friday, March 14, 2025
Roald Dahl
One of the vital things for a writer who’s writing a book, which is a lengthy project and is going to take about a year, is how to keep the momentum going. It is the same with a young person writing an essay. They have got to write four or five or six pages. But when you are writing it for a year, you go away and you have to come back. I never come back to a blank page; I always finish about halfway through. To be confronted with a blank page is not very nice. But Hemingway, a great American writer, taught me the finest trick when you are doing a long book, which is, he simply said in his own words, “When you are going good, stop writing.” And that means that if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing and writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next? And you get up and you walk away and you don’t want to come back because you don’t know where you want to go. But if you stop when you are going good, as Hemingway said…then you know what you are going to say next. You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and everything, and you walk away. And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next and that’s lovely and you have to try and do that. Every time, every day all the way through the year. If you stop when you are stuck, then you are in trouble!
ROALD DAHL
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Aimee G's Quiche
Last Saturday my friend Aimee made this and it was magnificent. Here's her recipe.
I don't have a written recipe for the quiche, but I initially used one from the Joy of Cooking. So here is what I do:6 eggs1 cup of milkJarlsberg cheese gratedSpinach cooked the some diced onion, salt to tasteAbout 1/4 tsp salt in the egg mixtureAbout 1/4 tsp nutmeg.About 1/4 tsp dried mustard.Since I used a large pie plate on Saturday, I added an egg, but kept the milk the same. For six eggs, I might reduce the milk a bit and I used whole milk. I don't measure the cheese but it should cover the bottom of the pan. I use the store bought pre-made rolled pie shells. So I line the pie pan with that, then the grated cheese and then the spinach layered on top of that. I also added some fresh basil to the spinach. Then you mix the eggs, milk and spices, pour over the spinach and bake at 350 for about 45min - 1hour.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Write to Your Senators!! We're Down to the Wire!!
Write to your senators!! I just did and it feels good. We're down to the wire! Vote against the continuing resolution and Stop the Crime DOGE spree.
Dear Senator Whitehouse and Senator Reed,Please vote against the continuing resolution and stop the DOGE crime spree, which is an attack on the sovereignty of the American people. This is our big and most important chance as Democrats and I hope you take it.
Sunday, March 09, 2025
Sourdough Dark Rye Whole Wheat Cornmeal Pancakes
We fixed our 1960's Presto electric frying pan by replacing the cord. I immediately made sourdough multigrain pancakes. They were delicious. I read a recipe and did my own thing using corn oil buttermilk baking powder and soda and sourdough wholemeal rye and wheat discard cornmeal and 2 eggs sugar and salt. Delicious!
Saturday, March 08, 2025
What did Keats mean by negative capability? He demanded that the poet be receptive rather than searching for fact or reason, and to not seek absolute knowledge of every truth, mystery, or doubt. Keat's concept of negative capability can be understood as an author's ability to enter fully and imaginatively into the characters, objects, and actions he represents.
Friday, March 07, 2025
Tuesday, March 04, 2025
Each of us is precious, and our actions are vital, everything we do and say matters. We can speak beauty into the world or poison it with our words; we can build things up or tear them down; we can dream of a world that is vast, alive, and interesting, or reason it to be small, hard, and empty.
Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files ISSUE #315 / March 2025
Sunday, March 02, 2025
The Library
“I see the library as a little Switzerland,” said Sylvie Boudreau, the volunteer president of the Haskell board of trustees, who lives in Stanstead. “Kind of a little neutral place, where we welcome.”
4 Dogs, 5 Years, 10 Square Feet: The Feces Farm
Our neighbors have created an environmental and animal health hazard. I blame the absentee landlord. It's like living two feet from a pig farm.
Middle of the Night Worries about the fate of our Democracy
I end every night (election season or not!) by listing my gratitude out loud. I do this with my partner, but you can do it alone as well. It’s nice to ground myself in the parts of the day that were enjoyable and positive! If a day is particularly horrendous, saying, “I’m grateful this day is over” is acceptable and cathartic. If I’m really wide awake and spiraling, I let myself sit in the anxiety and allow the feelings to move as they need to—forcing myself to “resolve” an unresolvable stressor doesn’t help much, if at all. Sometimes I’ll move into the living room and see if a change of scene helps. Accepting that I’ll be sleep-deprived weirdly helps. Being upset at myself for being, well, upset only makes everything worse. —Arminda Downey-Mavromatis, associate engagement editor
There’s some good research on warm showers or baths before bed because they help simulate a natural nighttime temperature drop!
“Rituals of any kind are good, so my sleepy bedtime beverages are, if nothing else, an excellent soothing placebo.”
—Rachel Feltman, host of the Science Quickly podcast, Scientific American
I make sure I get at least some kind of exercise every day. And I listen to podcasts to fall asleep. It keeps me from reciting endless to-do lists or focusing on worries. —Andrea Thompson, associate editor, sustainability
I hate to say it because booze is fun and possibly kick-started human agrarian civilization, but I quit drinking. One of the several reasons I’ve cut out alcohol was how annoying it was to wake up feeling like I hadn’t slept at all. Instead, recently, I’ve been attempting to drown my stress about our dysfunctional democracy in the new wave of flavorful nonalcoholic beers. With just a little self-deception, some of the hazier varieties taste almost as good as the real thing. I might feel crummy about the U.S. after Election Day, but I won’t be hung over! —Ben Guarino, associate editor, technology
When I can’t sleep, I like listening to the podcast Nothing Much Happens, in which the host, Kathryn Nicolai, tells bedtime stories. The Calm app also has bedtime stories, sometimes read by celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey. It’s very soothing! —Tanya Lewis, senior editor, health and medicine
I don’t get to do this enough at night, but I do go for a walk during the day with no music or podcast—just me and the sounds of my local environment. It lets my brain focus on what is tangible and in front of me rather than all the abstracts about news. —Megha Satyanarayana, chief opinion editor
I pick a category of things I know a bit about, and then I go through the alphabet and think of examples from that category that start with each letter—for instance, birds (avocet, bluebird, chickadee …) Lately I’ve been trying positive adjectives: Amazing! Beautiful! Clever! Delightful! —Laura Helmuth, editor in chief https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-election-anxiety-keeping-you-awake-sleep-experts-share-advice/
Saturday, March 01, 2025
grieving the living
She was grieving the living more than the dead. The blind and addicted friends and family.
The Onion is my source of news now
tachycardia (made up definition)
Rhinestones and white Naugahyde on your heart.
Naugahyde is an American brand of artificial leather. Naugahyde is a composite knit fabric backing and expanded polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coating. It was developed by Byron A. Hunter, a senior chemist at the United States Rubber Company, and is now manufactured and sold by the corporate spin-off Uniroyal Engineered Products LLC.
Its name, first used as a trademark in 1936, comes from the name of Naugatuck, Connecticut, where it was first produced
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