Tik Tok Tomato Feta Pasta

This couldn't be easier, and if you are working from home, it can be on the table within about 15 minutes of the rest of your family arriving home, and only takes minutes of preparation. Plus, it tastes great, and if you are either in a summer abundance of cherry tomatoes or you have a Costco sized box that are less than beautiful, this is also a great option. 2 pints (17 1/2 ounces / 500 grams) cherry or grape tomatoes 4 cloves garlic, halved lengthwise 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided Kosher salt 1 block (7 ounces / 200 grams) Greek feta cheese 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes Freshly ground black pepper 12 ounces medium-length dried pasta, such as campanelle, rigatoni or rotini Fresh basil leaves, for serving Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. In a 9-by-13-inch baking dish, combine the tomatoes, garlic and 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Sprinkle with some salt and toss to coat. Place the feta cheese in the center of the tomatoes and garlic, top with the remaining olive oil, and sprinkle the entire dish with red pepper flakes and a little black pepper. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the garlic has softened and the tomatoes have burst their skins. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the pasta according to package directions until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta water and then drain the pasta. Mash the feta and tomatoes with a fork and mix until evenly combined. Mix the sauce with pasta, adding the reserved pasta water as needed if it looks a little dry. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper, if desired. To serve, divide among bowls and top with plenty of basil leaves.

Nights When Nothing Happened by Simon Han

This is an Asian immigrant story that resonates especially as we are seeing angry white men attack people at will. I encourage those of us who are white ourselves to do a deep dive into what we can do, speak up about, bear witness, and be vocal and present to combat race based abuse around us. Now to the book. On the surface, the Cheng's are doing well. Liang Cheng and his wife, Patty, who moved from China to the United States in the 1990s, by all appearances, have attained exactly what they wanted. Patty came first, leaving her husband and son behind, and since her name was hard for Americans, she changed it. Liang followed, they had a daughter, and then later brought their son over as well. The problem is that all is not well, the book fairly vibrates with tension from beginning to end. There is a lot to be worried about, but even when it is quiescent, the sense of foreboding is present and strong. Liang endured a childhood of abuse and seems to have trouble with affection. The daughter is a sleep walker and her brother takes it upon himself to follow her, but doesn't manage to avert problems. That's because there is peril everywhere--what do people think, what do they say about them, and are they really part of their community? It is a turbo charge of raw emotion.

Mulan (2020)

It is a risk to remake a movie that is beloved, and certainly the animated version of Mulan was loved in our household. I was in the minority in my family in that I really enjoyed this version. The culture of China is not widely known in the United States, and at this very moment opening our minds and our experiences to cultures that are rich and longstanding, yet completely different than western cultures that we are more familiar with is very important. When elderly Asian women are being physically attacked in public places solely based on the way they look, we have a very serious problem. Watching an updated version of Mulan is not going to make you culturally competent, but a willingness to open up to foreign ideas and traditions can help. So, think of this as an action movie rather than one with a plot line that is nuanced and unfolded. It is a live-action take on the classic story of a young Chinese woman who disguises herself as a man to become a warrior is thrilling from start to finish. It’s steeped in traditional cultural locales and details, yet feels bracingly modern with the help of dazzling special effects and innovative action sequences. You want gravity-defying aerial work and elaborately choreographed martial arts battles and horse stunts, I think you will enjoy this. It is nominated for an Oscar in both visual effects and costumes, so there is a lot to see here.

Pieces of a Woman (2020)

There are so many people who will struggle with this movie, and if you are thinking about having a home birth you should definitely delay watching it until afterwards.It has been a very long time since I had my last baby, and I would never ever in a million years never have my baby in anything but a hospital, and this was still pretty tough to watch. The bottom line is that the movie is very emotionally relatable and very intense, and if you have triggers of any kind they are likely to be set off. A child is lost and a couple tries to recover, but that proves to be very hard indeed. The grief is crushing and they very likely wouldn't have made it without the interference of a mother, but that becomes the straw that breaks the camel's back. A parent who cannot keep their hands out of interfering in their adult child's life and who makes their own grief their child's problem is at that point unfixable, and all of that is on stark display. This is so well done, with all three of the main characters putting in convincing performances.

Sephardic Haroset

We begin this Passover season with the COVID pandemic still in full swing, despite the limited availability of vaccines. At our table we have fully and partially vaccinated people, gathered for a mask free event of more than one bubble for the first time in over a year. While there are still plenty of reasons to be cautious, there is a reay of hope this year, and we are celebrating with two types of haroset this year, maximizing the sweetness over the bitterness. Chag Sameach! 1 1/2 cups red wine (recommended: cabernet sauvignon or Manischewitz) 1 pound (2 1/2 cups) red raisins 8 ounces (1 1/2 cups) dried dates, chopped fine 4 ounces (3/4 cup) dried apricots, chopped fine 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste 8 ounces (1 1/2 cups) roasted almonds 1 teaspoon orange blossom water (optional) Bring wine to a light simmer on medium heat, then stir in fruit and spices. Cook uncovered until fruit is well hydrated and wine has reduced to a thick syrup, about 15 minutes. Add salt to taste and set aside. In a food processor, roughly chop almonds in short pulses. There should be no whole almonds remaining; a mix of large chunks and small crumbs is preferable. Remove almonds from food processor and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Add fruit mixture to food processor and pulse until fruit just begins to come together into a paste, 2 to 3 one-second pulses. Do not overprocess—large chunks of fruit should be intact. Transfer fruit to mixing bowl and combine well with almonds. Stir in orange blossom water and additional salt if needed. Flavor of haroset will improve over time. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Love and Monsters (2020)

When the Oscar nominees were announced last week there were only two categories that I had seen absolutely nothing in, and one of them was visual effects, which is where this nominee receives it's well deserved nomination. My spouse and I were watching movies separately but simultaneously and we knocked out four of the five nominees in a week. Bam. The movie is a vivid post-apocalypse in which humans are not the cause of the end times (well, sort of. An asteroid is heading for earth, and as is so often the case, the cure is pretty much as bad as the disease)and we are the ones in danger of being squished, as towering centipedes, snails, and slugs and more have wiped out 95% of the human population. These larger than life creations are at the center of the nomination, and they are really impressively well done. The surface became a quite dangerous place and so humans moved underground an are living in colonies who work together to survive. Joel is our hero. He is a little neurotic with endearing self-deprecation in the style of Jessie Eisenberg. He decides to travel over land 85 miles to meet up with his last girlfriend before the asteroid fiasco, and while he was completely underpowered to survive at the start, that changes over time, and he becomes part of the solution. This is a fun watch, even if you aren't trying to see all the nominated movies this year,

Crip Camp (2020)

This is a really interesting documentary, and also an intensely interesting way to tell a story. The film opens with children with sever mobility as well as intellectual disabilities being offered an overnight camp in upstate New York in the 1960's. These kids were almost 100% confined to wheelchairs for a variety of reasons (spina bifida, cerebral palsy, polio to name a few), almost none of them allowed to go to school in mainstream classrooms, and voerall severely marginalized. This camp, Jened, provided them with a sense of normalcy a look at how formative experiences can really shape the future. Some of the alumni of camp Jened go forward to be leaders in the disability rights movement of the ‘70s, which brought about real change for people with mobility impairments. The ending is a demonstration of just how much wheelcahir ramps and widened doorways can open up a world to those who would be otherwise unable to participate. The film is really a commentary on how to change the world. It’s not just common human decency that should lead to equality for disabled people, but that empowerment for everyone is the path to true progress for anyone. So inspiring, I highly recommend it, and it is on the list of nominees for Best Documentary for the Academy Awards.

Dick Johnson is Dead (2020)

This is a sweet intimate documentary made by a daughter about her father's death. In it he dies a sudden and horrible death over and over again, and the point is to help the filmmaker deal with her father's death, as well as her own, and to help everyone else think about and deal with their own. The aegis for the project is that after watching her mother go through a long and drawn out decline from Alzheimer's disease, which was very traumatic for everyone because she lost everything, even knowing who she was, but certainly having no memory of her family, her father is diagnosed with dementia. He is forced to give up his practice, sell his home, and come to live with her in her tiny New York City apartment. The film is both very funny and very serious, and fortunately also very enjoyable. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Oscars, but did not make the cut for the final five, but is still very much worth watching.

Oak Flat: The Fight For Sacred Lands by Lauren Redness

This is a book about a long and drawn out fight over something that has been going on for a very long time. For decades, a plot of federal land in southeastern Arizona called Oak Flat has been at the center of a fight over resource extraction. Since 2005, a mining venture has been pushing the U.S. government to let it excavate the site’s copper ore, which was discovered in 1995. The potential consequences of the mine go far beyond the estimated 1.5 billion tons of waste it would produce: it would destroy land that has been sacred to the San Carlos Apache tribe for generations. Oak Flat, called Chich’il Bildagoteel in the Apache language, would quite literally collapse into a void if the copper beneath it is mined. If thatwere to be allowed to happen, an important spiritual place will be destroyed. The author tells this sory in a unique way--she talks to the people who live there, whose culture is being threatened, and she does extensive illustrations of them and the land to bring home points about the story. It is a fun book to read, even though the story that is being told is a sad one. Highly recommended.

A Promising Young Woman (2020)

The movie opens with a woman we are later introduced to as Cassie looking falling down drunk in a bar. There is a group of young men talking in a very sexualized and disparaging way about women in general and Cassie in particular. The least offensive amongst them, a guy who seems like a nice guy, goes over and tries to help her, but no, she doesn't have a phone, she has misplaced it. He offers to get her home, and all is going well until he has the cab stop at his place, where we find out that Cassie is not drunk and he is not a nice guy. People are not who they seem to be in this movie, which is essentially a really clver and well done revenge movie set in our rape culture.

So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

I found this book to be the introduction to how to look at, think about, approach, and talk about race in the post George Floyd still COVID America that we live in. The divide has not been wider and the conversations are fewer and harder to have. The quickness of those who clearly have racial bias to shut down in any conversation about race because of their sensitivity to being seen as racist is real, and it certainly meets the definitiion of white fragility, but somehow the book of that title doesn't quite address how to talk about it quite a well. So if you haven't started to read and think about the problem, this is a good place to start. The author, who is biracial with a white mother who raised her and a black father who is not in the picture, is well aware of how utterly exhausting it is to be “the black friend” or to have to coexist in a majority-white environment. Even in her own home there was a lack of an ally, in that her mother did not see the myriad of ways in which her daughter was being assualted on a daily basis. There are some very hard things to read in this book, and I think there will be something for everyone in terms of what happens, what to do, what to expect as a result of what you do, and it is different advice depending on the color of your skin. The author is smart and funny and insightful, and I learned a lot reading this that I hope I can operationalize going forward.

Mank (2020)

This movie is 45 minutes too long, and that makes it hard to watch for all but the hard-core Hollywood fans to watch, and while its camera work and the black and white format might seem like it is a love letter to old time movie making, it is not that either. It is a well acted but rather unromantic look at the man who is credited with writing the screenplay for Citizen Kane. Herman Mankiewicz, known as Mank, was apparently a talented writer back in the day when a screenplay wirter would be expected to produce a number of works a year, on the payroll of one major studio or another, and not at liberty to do something that was less than commercially viable. It was the Depression, after all. Mank is also a raging alcoholic, and he is in the midst of a protracted and laregly unsuccessful intervention through out much of the film. He is salted away with a nurse and a minder to write this great masterpiece, while he looks back on his squandered career and gets himself into a bit more trouble. This is an almost entirely fictional account in the play by play sense, but Mank was famously a self-destructive alcoholic who drank himself to death at 55 and Orson Welles clearly took credit for a work that was probably produced by another man, that much seems to be the truth. This is both beautifully done and painful to watch.

1 in 620 Americans Dead

I made this meme a few days ago, so it is worse now. To figure out the running total is very simple math. The numerator, which is the number of Americans, remains pretty stable (I used 332,309,730) and the denominator, which is number of people dead from COVID, keeps growing at over a thousand people a day, every day, week in and week out, sometimes surging far highter than that, seldom dropping, and all the while we continue to not stay apart, not wear masks, and not keep each other safe. In Iowa, where the governor has done one of the worst jobs of protecting residents, the number is 1 in 568 dead. The young go out, they get COVID, they may or may not get sick, some of them very sick but most of them will be fine, and then they give it to older people, who get very sick, some die, some lose kidney function, some are permanently scarred in other ways, and no one escapes the misery. Everyone knows someone who has died. There are families that have lost many members because they congregated together. We are no better at responding to a pandemic than we were in the Middle Ages. All the informationin the world, all the tools to beat it are now known and yet we still ignore them and preventable deaths continue to rise. The math is simple, the misery is far reaching, and the GOP has blood on its hands.

MLK-FBI (2020)

This is the year, when George Floyd was killed in front of three other police officers who did nothing to stop him and an onlooker who filmed the whole thing so that the rest of us, particularly white America could see irrefutable evidence that the police brutalize black Americans and sometimes do not stop at humiliating them, but go all the way to killing them in cold blood on the street. This year we are also reckoning with other abuses of law enforcement from the past. Hoover sees MLK as a threat, and he also probably sees the civil rights movement as a threat. He attacks King on two fronts. One is his association with Stanley Levison, a white Jewish lawyer and CPA who had a history of association with Communist groups. The FBI, still embroiled in the war against Communism, saw the presence of Levison as a red flag, a sign that the Communist menace was embedded in the struggle for Civil Rights. We see a fascinating clip of King, in a television interview with Dan Rather, saying that he thinks it’s one of the miracles of the 20th century that so few African-Americans have turned to Communism, given their history of desperation and oppression. Nonetheless, King is warned off Levison at the highest level of government. Then there is the wiretapping and the bugging of King's hotel rooms. Through this activity the FBI learns that King is not monogamous, and they seek to humiliate him using this information. They alert church leaders and other influential people, including his wife, in the hopes that he would retreat. Through it all, King marches on, and is living with the daily anxiety that he’ll be exposed. Yet in no way does it tamp down on his activism. The film captures how radical the stand King took in 1967 against the war in Vietnam really was. He was willing to make enemies and to risk his personal reputation for his beliefs. In the end, it is hard not to see a role for the FBI in the end game. The FBI killed Fred Hubbard, the head of the Black Panthers, and they may also have led to the assasination of MLK.

Cream Scones

My spouse decided that he wanted to recapture a travel experience we had had long ago. We were traveling in Cornwall after attending a wedding in Ireland and we stopped at a small seaside town and had tea with scones and clotted cream and jam that were so delicious as to make your mouth water for them a quarter century later. We have had egregiously over-priced high tea both in London and in San Francisco but the scones and clotted cream of that day were not to be recaptured. These scones, from the King Arthur web site, are exactly that. Sadly I ruined the clotted cream by not getting cream, but the scones held up none-the-less. 3 cups (361g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 to 1/3 cup (50g to 67g) granulated sugar, to taste 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 1/3 to 1 1/2 cups (301g to 340g) heavy or whipping cream additional heavy cream, for brushing on scones coarse sparkling sugar, for topping Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or not; it helps with cleanup, but isn't necessary to prevent sticking). Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Combine the vanilla with 1 1/3 cups cream. Drizzle the liquid mixture over the dry ingredients, tossing and stirring gently all the while. Add enough cream to make a cohesive dough, using up to 3 additional tablespoons if necessary. There shouldn't be any dry flour in the bottom of the bowl, but the dough shouldn't be particularly sticky, either. Lightly flour a clean work surface. Divide the dough in half, and gently pat each half into a 5 1/2" circle about 3/4" thick. We made ours smaller, but still triangles.

American Indian Drumbeat

Let us turn the government land over to one of the first Americans to manage, now that we we have decimated not just the United States but also the whole planet. Deb Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico, and if confirmed as the Secretary of the Interior, would be the first Indigenous person to manage the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Bureau of Indian Education. Both are part of the Department of the Interior. She would also oversee more than 480 million acres of public lands and nearly a dozen federal agencies, including the National Park Service. Her nomination has been contentious, austensibly because of the fear that she will not be a friend to Big Oil, but that will be the case for any Biden nominee, so the next thought is that there is a racially motivated resistance to her nomination in the guise of protecting business interests. The Senate has forwarded her nomination onward, and there is hope that America will take steps in the direction of healing, which does not come with bipartisanship, because the McConnell directed GOP is firmly opposed to it, but with an eye towards history.

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

I am working my way through the documentaries that have been short listed for the Academy Awards, and this one, which has been on my radar for quite some time, finally got a screening in our home theater. No popcorn, but rapt attention. I had read Sy Montgomery's memoir about her realationship with an octopus at the Boston Aquarium, so I was prepared for several things, including the idea that octopus are smart and that they are capable of forming relationships with humans. The filmmaker is also the star of the story. He is in a self-described depression when he takes to the ocean near his home on the Atlantic coast of South Africa. There is a kelp bed there that houses a myriad of sea life, and it is there that he meets the octopus. The photography of the underwater world that he spends a year filming and telling us about it stunning, and the story is tender and beautiful. It is an homage not just to octopus and the concept that they are worthy of our attention, but also that the world around us deserves that kind of attention as well. It is both subtle and obvious in its message that conserving and honoring the animals and their habitat is worthy of human attention.

Scallion Pancakes

These are a favorite of our youngest son, and I get them frozen from one of our nearby Asian markets. Recently we did a Zoom cooking class with Stephanie Izard (of The Girl and the Goat fame) and while there was enough food for four, often 5 people, there were only 2 scallion pancakes, and of course, we had none on hand and couldn't find them at the market, so my spouse made this recipe, and the rest is history, because they are easy peasy and quite good. The frozen version is very affordable, but let's just say we are not likely to order these again in a restaurant, should we return to eating out in the future. In the class, we used these as taco like shells to put some marinated flank steak then top with lettuce, fresh herds, and pickled vegetables, along with a tablespoon of a 2:1 mixture of Kewpie Mayo (or Helmann's if you don't have access to Kewpie at an Asian grocery store) and Hoison sauce for the condiment. 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting work surface 1 cup boiling water Up to 1/4 cup toasted sesame seed oil 2 cups thinly sliced scallion greens For the Dipping Sauce: 2 tablespoons soy sauce 2 tablespoons Chinkiang or rice wine vinegar 1 tablespoon finely sliced scallion greens 1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger 2 teaspoons sugar To Cook: 1/4 cup vegetable oil Kosher salt Place flour in bowl of food processor (see note). With processor running, slowly drizzle in about 3/4 of boiling water. Process for 15 seconds. If dough does not come together and ride around the blade, drizzle in more water a tablespoon at a time until it just comes together. Transfer to a floured work surface and knead a few times to form a smooth ball. Transfer to a bowl, cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap, and allow to rest for 30 minutes at room temperature, or up to overnight in the fridge. 2. Divide dough into four even pieces and roll each into a smooth ball. Working one ball at a time, roll out into a disk roughly 8-inches in diameter on a lightly floured surface. Using a pastry brush, paint a very thin layer of sesame oil over the top of the disk. Roll disk up like a jelly roll, then twist roll into a tight spiral, tucking the end underneath. Flatten gently with your hand, then re-roll into an 8-inch disk. Paint with another layer of sesame oil, sprinkle with 1/2 cup scallions, and roll up like a jelly roll again. Twist into a spiral, flatten gently, and re-roll into a 7-inch disk. Repeat steps two and three with remaining pancakes. Combine all the sauce ingredients and set aside at room temperature. 5. Heat oil in an 8-inch nonstick or cast-iron over medium-high heat until shimmering and carefully slip pancake into the hot oil. Cook, shaking the pan gently until first side is an even golden brown, about 2 minutes. Carefully flip with a spatula or tongs (be careful not to splash the oil), and continue to cook, shaking pan gently, until second side is even golden brown, about 2 minutes longer. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Season with salt, cut into 6 wedges. Serve immediately with sauce for dipping. Repeat with remaining 3 pancakes.

Time (2020)

This is a documentary about Sibil Richardson’s 20-year battle to get parole for her incarcerated husband. I would say it is about 15-20 minutes longer than it needs to be, but then, there is something about the subject matter and the message that makes whiling away time within the movie somehow appropriate. This is not a film about a black man incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, but rather a black man incarcerated for a ridiculous length of time for the crime he committed. The injustices are many for people of color, and this seeks to humanize that problem. The film has many layers, and the title itself is open to many interpretations: It could stand for the term describing a jail sentence, or the notion that all a prisoner has in a cell is time or, most devastatingly, how the incarcerated person’s life remains in a holding pattern while time carries life’s events forward on the outside. Kids grow up without parents, spouses endure without better halves, and parents grow older without their children bearing witness. Whatever the director’s symbolic intentions for naming the film, this beautiful and haunting documentary reminds us that there’s a human being behind those prison identification numbers, someone who is loved and is missed. The film is lovingly done, and well worth watching.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This is a comic novel set in the projects in Brooklyn in the 1960's that I had a hard time seeing what was so funny about it all, and I am not entirely sure that I completely get it. It is not the least bit focused on civil rights or the quantum changes bubbling up and being quelled, but rather on the reality of life for blacks every day. The story opens with Cuffy “Sportcoat” Lambkin is an elderly African American man, a deacon of the Five Ends Church in South Brooklyn that serves a project known as the Cause Houses. On a warm September morning in 1969, Sportcoat, addled by moonshine known as “King Kong,” slowly makes his way to a communal courtyard and shoots 19-year-old drug kingpin Deems Clemens in the face. It is a shocking beginning that we come to better understand by the time it all ends. Clemens lives, but in some ways this opening scene is recapitulated over and over again. Beneath the characters and comedy this is a story about how a community and its religious institutions can provide a center to keep things from falling apart completely. Sportscoat is a flawed church man and hero in a flawed country and they both need healing.

Pomegranate Shrimp

There are 4 new to me cookbooks from the past year where I have made 25 or more recipes out of in the pandemic, and Vietnamese Food Any Day is still yielding new recipes and great meals. I have really appreciated the inspiration that cooking out of cookbooks has afforded me while cooped up at home, and I highly recommend this particular one. I had three of the other cookbooks before getting this one, and it is by far the most user friendly. 1-1/2 lbs. shrimp, peeled Fine sea Salt 2 teaspoons sriracha, plus more as needed 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses 2 tablespoons fish sauce 3-1/2 tablespoons water ½ teaspoons to ½ tablespoons packed light or dark brown sugar 1 teaspoon cornstarch 2 tablespoons canola or other neutral oil 1 shallot, finely chopped 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 3 or 4 sprigs fresh cilantro In a small bowl, combine the sriracha, pomegranate molasses, fish Sauce, and 3 tablespoons of the water. Taste and add the brown sugar, starting with 1-1/2 teaspoons, to create a tart sweetness; the amount you need depends on the tartness of the pomegranate molasses and your palate. For extra heat, add more sriracha, 1/2 teaspoon at a time. (I typically end up with 1 tablespoon total. Make a note after settling on your preferred heat level.) Aim for a tangy, savory, spicy finish. Set the sauce aside. In a small bowl or cup, stir the cornstarch with the remaining 1-1/2 teaspoons water, then set the slurry aside. In a large skillet over high heat, warm the canola oil until hot but not smoking. Add the shallot and garlic and stir-fry for about 30 seconds, until fragrant. Add the shrimp and stir-fry for about 1 minute, until most of them have turned pinkish orange and are slightly curled. Give the sauce a stir, then add to the pan, stirring to combine. Let the sauce come to a vigorous boil, stirring occasionally to keep things moving. When the shrimp are cooked through, about 2 minutes, give the cornstarch slurry a stir and add to the pan. Cook, stirring, To slightly thicken the sauce and coat the shrimp. Transfer the shrimp to a serving bowl and garnish with the cilantro.

Boy's State (2020)

The American Legion has run Boys State, a week-long exercise in self-governance using the political system on the state government level, since 1935. High school students are accepted into the program, where they are split into two parties that run political campaigns for several positions, including the top spot of Governor. There are some big name people who have participated in this program, and while not everyone who attends goes on to be a household name, it will definitely prepare one for the highs and lows of the American political system. This is not a documentary that demonstrates that there is good in all people or that left to their own devices people will do the decent thing. Far from it. Since the program is only a week long, the ability to use sensationalism and flat out lying to ones advantage is a temptation too great to ignore. The parties here are the Federalists and the Nationalists, and while they define their own platforms, there are definitely kids who see this as a win at any cost scenario, and with only two parties there is definitely a winner and a loser, and there is none of the "may the best man win" at the end of the day.

A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

This book is one of two books on the New York Times Best Books of 202 list that I am not entirely sure that I completely understand. The allegory aspect becomes clear, but there is very dark humor afoot in this novel. The book opens with a reunion of parents who knew each other in college, renting a big house on the beach in a seemingly idyllic setting. Evie is the narrator, and she and her little brother, Jack are among the many children who are subjected to the group of grown-ups who spend most of their time drinking and behaving in ways that inspire shame and dread in their children, which leads to them trying to keep their distance. The adults are “a cautionary tale,” observes Evie. On this, we can all agree. It is cringe worthy. Then along comes a big storm, a storm to end all storms. The parents do move to action, but it is all too little too late. Rather than running for their lives, they are boarding up the windows. They fail to grasp that the world is changing in dangerous and fundamental ways and that in order to survive, they too are going to have to change dramatically. The kids realize this and flee, but they are ill equipped to manage on their own, and a serious of unfortunate events occur. The bottom line is that there are many incomvenient truths to be faced and dealt with, or the next generation is going to be left with more than they can be reasonably expected to cope with. Powerful, frightening, and occasionally sweet.

A Moose on the Loose

In the past year I have gone on three trips, and all of them included spending time on the estern side of the Tetons. I have always loved this part of the country. I first went when I was quite young, back in the days when there were black bears everywhere in Yellowstone, and it imprinted on my mind. In later years, after the garbage had been locked up in national parks and bears had retreated to less populated areas (either by choice or y forced removal) I fell in love with the mountains themselves. Do not get me wrong, I still love the wild life and the thermal pools that make Yellowstone so unique, but the Tetons have long been a favorite.

So in this pandemic year, that is where I have spent my time away from home. There are a lot of factors that play into this, but one is hard to quantify, and that is the peace of heart that I feel when I am there. Part of it is surely the house and home and friendships that I find so satisfying. It is then quite fitting that when we were about to leave our newly acquired home there, trying to beat a snow storm before it closed the mountain pass between us and the airport, my very last glimpse was of this guy, who marries the mountain with the lives that live there, in my backyard.

The Mole Agent (2020)

This is a documentary that takes place largely within the confines of a Chilean skilled nursing facility, where residents are not allowed to leave the premises. The mission is to investigate whether or not there is wrong doing afoot there. The question is who to beleive, the resident, who may or may not have her wits about her, and the story told by the facility. The uniqueness comes from the reporter. Sergio, and 83 year old who has just lost his wife of many years, applies for the job of undercover agent to go in and investigate the claims. He is armed with a pen and a pair of glasses that he can film with, but he starts off not knowing how to work his iPhone properly. This is warm and disarming. Not all is perfect in the facility, but it is not bad. Sergio's reporting gives some context to what might explain some of the complaints, but he is also giving the residents an audience to speak to. The film viewer who also gets to learn about various residents, including Perdita’s poetry, Bertita’s love of autonomy, and Marta’s kleptomania. The documentary does not rely on a talking head interview format, and yet it has the same effect when it comes to what the viewer takes away from the film—-here are the thoughts and anxieties of different residents, thanks to Sergio's conversations with them. This is short listed for the Academy Award in both International film as well as documentary film.

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

In giving a rating to this book, I am solidly in a four out of five star rating, although at the same time I feel like I might be being a little bit harsh. The reasons are two-fold. One is that the book has an unfinished story quality to it, which is there is a sequel or a trilogy to be had, that might excuse the book ending with all the dangling threads left unwoven. The other is that the story is so rich with depth and yet is so lightly told, that I find myself days later still thinking about the themes that it has raised in my head. Desiree and Stella are identical twins born in a predominantly black town in Louisiana where very pale skin is highly valued. It is unthinkable to marry someone with darker skin that you. Such paleness does not save their father, who they see lynched before them by a group of white men while they hunker down hidden in a closet while he is dragged away. They know to fear white fury. They leave home after their mother takes them out of school and puts them to work in a white home. The unattractive man of the house has no trouble helping himself to groping them, and they have to go or risk even more trouble. And so they go their separate ways, Desiree choosing to live as a very black woman and Stella adopting the role of a white woman. It is a rich, absorbing tale well told.

Tuna and Potato Salami

This is a Marcella Hazan recipe that we made over 390 years ago for the first time, but haven't made in at least a decade until just recently. It is simple, not much to look at, but delicious. Use tuna in oil if you can get it. 1 medium potato 14 oz. tuna in oil 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese 1 egg plus 1 egg white salt and pepper to taste Poaching Broth 1/2 onion sliced 1 stalk celery 1 carrot handful of parseley 1 c white wine salt Aoili 1/2 c. mayonnaise 1/2 lemon zested and squeezed 2 Tbs. crushed and chopped capers splash of fish sauce or 1/2 anchovy shredded sliced black olives salt and pepper to taste Boil the potato until soft through and rice through a potato ricer. Flake the tuna, and add the egg, cheese, salt, and pepper. Divide into 2 equal amounts and form into logs. Moisten 2 pieces of cheesecloth to wrap up the tuna logs (about 1/4 of a store bought package of cheesecloth for each log). Roll up and tie the ends with twine. Put in the poaching broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 45 minutes, then drain and cool the logs in the fridge. Best after 24 hours. Unroll and discard cheesecloth. Slice 1/4-1/2 inch and top with the mayo sauce.

All In :The Fight For Democracy (2020)

I am working my way through the 2021 Best Documentary short list for the Oscars this year. If the past repeats itself some of my very favorite documentaries for the year are on the narrowed list of fifteen movies out of which the final five will be chosen. So I have made an effort to see many of them before the final picks are known. That way I have an opinion. Stacey Abrams is the star of this story, and also of thise election cycle. Her steadfast devotion to access for all people to vote is inspirational, and in this film she gets to highlight her backgrouend, where she is from and what made her into the effective activist that she is today. It is scary story well told. It slowly builds and enforces its thesis that history is repeating itself. THE GOP believes it cannot win a fair election. They have to cheat. Gone are the days of blatantly unpassable literary tests and poll taxes prohibiting non-White people from the ballot box. Instead, the new voting prerequisites come wrapped in concerns about fraud. These new requirements—extra identification, removal from voter rolls for supposed inactivity and closing of polling places—were for your own good, we are told, so that democracy can function fairly and correctly. The Republican thesis is without facts, plays on fears, and is bound together by lies. The only way to fight them is to treat this as what it is, the new civil rights frontier, and in Georgia this year we got a chance to see what the future could hold, which is a democracy where all votes count. Scary and inpiring at the same time.

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

I did not find this book to be exceptionally well written, although it is organized and concise, but it is the book that made me really really angry about structural racism up to and including the present day. Rather than just exploring with the history of racism in America and exploring it's roots, as in Isabel Wilkerson's brilliantly written 'Caste', this book demonstrates the systematic racism preventing African Americans from participating in economic and social growth through the regulation of where they can live. This is the book that made me feel once and for all that reparations are the only way to start, just start, not end, but to start the process of healing the deep, entrenched wounds of slavery. Enough is enough. The country needs to say that we were terribly terrible wrong, that over the last 400 years we have been an oppressive regime for the offspring of former slaves. And it is not just your ancestors that did this, it is going on today. Those of us who say nothing and do nothing bear the blame as well. This book once and for all puts to rest the myth that racial segregation of our neighborhoods has long been viewed as a manifestation of unscrupulous real estate agents, unethical mortgage lenders, and exclusionary covenants working outside the law. No, it is the law and explicit public policy at work. The author breaks down, in case after case, that the truth is private activity could not have imposed segregation without explicit government policies (de jure segregation rather than de facto) designed to ensure the separation of African Americans from whites. The impact has been devastating for generations of African-Americans who were denied the right to live where they wanted to live, and raise and school their children where they could flourish most successfully. The author convincingly argues that the government and our courts, all the way up to the Roberts court, have upheld racist policies to maintain the separation of whites and blacks—leading to the powder keg that has defined Ferguson, Baltimore, Minneapolis, and Chicago. Black Lives Matter.

Green Mango Salad

We had this wonderful salad as part of a Vietnamese feast. It is bright and fresh and crunchy. It is balanced in terms of sweet, salty, spicy, and acidic. 1 large green mango (very firm) matchsticked 1/2 jicama, matchsticked 2 c. green cabbage thinly sliced 1/2 cup cilantro leaves whole or chopped 3-5 large mint leaves chopped FOR THE DRESSING 1 medium garlic clove minced 1 lime juiced and zested 1 1/2 Tbsp. fish sauce 1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar 1 serrano chile thinly sliced Instructions Prepare the dressing first for the flavors to sit and blend. Mix the garlic, lime juice, sugar, fish sauce,and chile together. The lime flavor should be noticeable, but not sour and the fish sauce should be noticeable but not overbearing. Do not over-sweeten since there will be some sweetness from the mango. Add sriracha slowly to taste. Peel the mango and cut the fruit into strings. Peel and cut jicama into matchsticks, thinly slice the green cabbage. Place in the bowl with the mango and with the other prepared salad ingredients. Pour about half of the dressing in and toss. If you need more dressing to fully coat the ingredients, add until satisfied. Allow the salad to sit for about 5 minutes for the dressing to set, then serve.

76 Days (2020)

COVID in Wuhan in the early days, this documentary chronicles the staff and patients in one ward on one floor of a hospital in the 76 days that the city was locked down. There are so many things to say about this disorganized and yet telling movie. The first is the reflection on China. From the way patients are talked to and treated to the extreme commitment of the country to staffing the hospital with people from around the country, you can see from the opening of the movie to the end when people are going home that this is an entirely different culture in every aspect. There is a respect for the elderly and a gentleness in how they are cared for in life and in death. There is also a system of care, even though it is a new disease, they are the first to deal with it and they do not know many critical aspects of caring for patients and preventing spread, but the uniformity of care is impressive. China bungled the beginning badly, but they managed the end game successfully. Contrast this with the US response to COVID. As we come up on our second year the daily numbers of new cases continue to be in the high five figure range and more than half a million people are dead from the disease. The danger of making an infectious disease a political football rather than what it is, a disease that cares not what you think of it, have cost so many families so many losses and for nothing gained.