Buen provecho

Just two summers ago we were eating award-winning paella at a horse show in Provence. This summer we’re still enjoying paella, but in the less exotic setting of our back yard deck.

Our neighbors who travel extensively just returned from a trip to Spain. A small jar of prize saffron bought on their trip served as the catalyst for tonight’s Spanish menu.

Our families have a long history of cooking and eating together. So once again, my friend made the cold salmorejo soup, a tomato based soup that also contains onion, garlic, and bread.



She also showed up to help cook the paella, a dish always worth the expense and effort to assemble it. The first steps of frying bacon, chicken, onions, and garlic seem to take forever. But then it’s fun to watch the rice turn yellow as the saffron is added and poke various shellfish into every crevice.

We sat out back eating for what seemed like hours, with our now adult children able to enjoy the red and white wine we shared. We polished off a Martha Stewart blueberry crisp just as the final light was disappearing from the sky.

When you can’t go to Europe on vacation, the next best thing is bringing the tastes of Europe here!

Food and Family

We became a family foursome again today when I picked my daughter up at 6:15 a.m. at Dulles. It was a wonderful day of reconnecting.



We went to Lickety Split at Restaurant Eve for lunch, where for $13.50 you can sit at the bar and choose ANY two items on the very extensive menu. We all ordered something different and shared with each other. My favorites were the home made gnocchi and the Irish BLT.



My daughter offered to go read at the shelter with me tonight. She quickly fell in love with the 10 kids who showed up to read books about books and libraries. The little 4-year-old troublemaker with a mouth sat in my lap for much of the hour, telling me I should have named my daughter “Brown Eyes” instead of Rachel. The kids decorated notebooks so they could use summer time to write their own books.



Tonight we had an impromptu dinner that my daughter and I cooked with whatever we found in the refrigerator. I made lentils with carrots and Balsamic vinegar and zucchini with mint. My daughter made roasted carrots and lemony pasta sauce served over penne with freshly grated Parmesan. I remembered how much fun it is to cook with someone. As I write this, my husband is making fruit smoothies for dessert.



My daughter has already made a valiant effort to go through a lifetime of collected stuff in her room. I hope her efforts are contagious and my son takes the hint.

But meanwhile, we’re taking a movie break to watch Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Jake is exhausted from an early morning trip to Dulles and dividing his attention between his various family members.

On the fast track

As I came out of the local rec center where I swim, I couldn’t help noticing the discarded food containers around my car. They were certainly in keeping with the trends we learned about in Food Inc. last week.

But a rec center is supposed to be a place where people go to get healthy and stay fit. Instead one would think people come there to eat fast food in the parking lot.

This is a large contributor to obesity in children and the propensity to contract diabetes at any age. The numbers on both of these should be a wake-up call to the youth of this country, but instead they are still focused on nuggets and pizza.

Not a black and white issue

The question of race is again at the forefront as the Supreme Court finds for the white New Haven firefighters. It’s obviously not a straightforward case, but I seem to be allied with the plaintiffs in this case.

In 2003 New Haven subjected its firefighters to an exam that was intended to determine promotion. No blacks and only two Hispanics passed the exam and it was therefore subsequently thrown out. A group of white firefighters subsequently alleged discrimination and they have finally been vindicated by the Supreme Court decision.

My lawyer son pointed out that there are questions as to whether the test in any way addressed a firefighter’s ability to do his job. My response to that was that this question should have been raised BEFORE the test was given and not after the results were in.

This historic decision sets a precedent for hiring and promotion practices across the country, where reverse race discrimination is currently being claimed. It may also potentially affect the confirmation of Sotomayor. The liberal justices on the Supreme Count came out strongly against the decision, claiming that it completely deflates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

It would seem the important impact of this case should be to affirm that the CORRECT screening is being done for hiring and promotion. Perhaps changes need to be made to achieve that and to more fairly consider those in the running.

I would love to think there will be a day in this country when the race card will not be played one way or the other. But we still struggle with when to notice and when not.

Out damn spot (reprise)

Why is it we always want to find someone to blame for every bad thing that happens? Mysterious black ink is the latest unwanted addition to my house.

I noticed it this morning on the door frame to the bathroom. Then I noticed it in the grout of the bathroom floor. It seemed like indelible black ink as I tried unsuccessfully to remove it.

The cleaning people were here again. My son had been using a black pen. My husband forgets to put the top on pens. Jake occasionally eats pens lying around on the floor.

Who was the culprit? Did I dare ask for a show of hands (to look for black evidence)?

No one seemed to have any knowledge of how the black ink made its way into the downstairs bathroom, all claiming total ignorance. Jake continued to sleep peacefully.

So I scrubbed and stewed, as much at the inexplicability as at the ink spots themselves.

I’m sure there are people who for a fee will replace your old worn-out discolored grout. For a price anything can be fixed. But it hardly seems worth it to replace the grout just because of two black stains.

It’s just one of those mysteries I will probably never solve. And like the tiny flecks of scarlet dye that still adorn the upstairs carpeting, I will probably get used to the black ink on the bathroom floor. It’s just a matter of time.

Personalizing Disaster

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to distance yourself from a tragedy when you don’t know anyone involved? A tsunami halfway around the world. An earthquake in China. A car bomb in Iraq. A plane flying into the Pentagon. A train wreck in Silver Spring.

It’s almost a relief to say, “But I didn’t know anyone.” And that’s usually true.

But tonight at our book club meeting, we learned that our neighbors’ daughter had been in the train that recently crashed in Silver Spring. She was coming home from her summer internship on the Red Line. She was in the 3rd car. Her parents were in Spain.

She was slammed into the seat, but she wasn’t hurt other than being left in a state of shock. The people in her car knew others had died because they had phones and iPhones and Blackberries and any manner of other devices that connected them electronically to what the world was saying about they disaster they found themselves in.

The response efforts to those affected but not injured was not at all adequate. They told them they could leave. But where could they go and how? It was two hours later that they sent buses to pick them up.

Meanwhile this young woman whose birth we well remember had called her parents in Spain to let them know she was one of the survivors.

I suddenly felt a new connection to a disaster I had almost brushed aside because I didn’t know anyone involved. Why should that be?

A movie to watch AFTER dinner

Wow -- what a powerful movie! Food Inc. is the sad truth about our national food industry.

It featured some familiar faces, people like Michael Pollen and Joel Salatin whom I have met through reading over the past year as I devoured The Omnivore’s Dilemma and visited Polyface Farm. In addition, there was Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm and so many others with a story to tell.

I winced as I saw cruelty to animals beyond belief at places like the Smithfield packing house in Tar Heel, North Carolina; when I saw commercially grown chickens being fattened so fast they couldn’t stand up; when I saw cows standing in shit halfway up their legs.

My heart repeatedly went out to the little guy who is getting squeezed by the large conglomerates. This would include the illegal aliens recruited to work in the meat packing plants and then forceably deported. It would include the farmers who are being prosecuted for saving their seed instead of having to buy genetically engineered seed from Monsanto each year. It would include the mother of 2-year-old Kevin, who was killed by e-coli, as she struggles to get legislation passed to add control to the food industry.

One of the scariest things I learned was that our food industry is dominated by just a handful of extremely powerful companies, who control everything and have infiltrated government at the highest levels.

It’s a movie that fires you up and makes you want to bring about change. The movie makes the point that consumers are responsible for the removal of milk containing human growth hormone from the shelves of Walmart, proving that people do have a voice. Check out the simple things that we can do to make a difference, starting with “Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.”

I’m not big on the missionary approach to anything, but with the future of our planet and our species ultimately at stake, I’m ready to try to win some hearts and minds to this cause.