The Baby Journey

One of my friends, a woman who had one child when I met her, with one on the way, and who now has five, calls parenting the baby journey and I like to think of it this way. I like her too, and I love her attitude, and this is one thing I am borrowing from her and making something that matters to me from something that matters to her. Today is the anniversary of my becoming a parent. It comes in the midst of a surprisingly busy part of the summer, even though it is full on COVID again, and I just want to briefly put the brakes on and think about that fateful moment, where I went from being childless to being a parent. When I was pregnant with my first born a small glitch occurred at the end which delayed my delivery. It was a very hot month, and I was ready to be done with it. Then one of my attendings said to me that I should enjoy these last few moments of not having any children because I would be a parent for the rest of my life. I did not really understand it then, but I do now. So a big happy birthday to my eldest, who is himself a life long parent now.

Tandoori Chicken

This is the recipe to use with BLSL chicken breasts to make Chicken Tikka Massala, but it can be also used to make a tandoori chicken with chicken quarters. 1 lb. (0.4 kg) chicken Oil, for basting 1 lime, cut into wedges MARINADE: 1/2 cup Greek yogurt 1 teaspoon ginger, finely minced 1 teaspoon garlic, finely minced 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper 2 tablespoons lime juice 1 tablespoons oil 1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste, optional 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder Red coloring, optional Clean and pat dry the chicken with paper towels. Mix all the ingredients of the Marinade in a bowl. Stir to combine well. Add the chicken to the Marinade and marinate for at least 2 hours, or best 4 hours. Preheat the oven to 400°F (207°C). Line the baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a wire rack over it. Place the chicken on the wire rack. Bake for 20 minutes, then turn the chicken over and bake for another 20 minutes. Using a small brush, baste both surfaces of the chicken with the oil a couple of times during baking. Broil the chicken for 1 minute or until the skin is slightly charred. Remove from the oven and serve immediately with lime wedges. NOTES

Delta Dawn

Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on Could it be a faded rose from days gone by? And did I hear you say he was a-meeting you here today To take you to his mansion in the sky? And so on and so on it goes. The delta variant of COVID is rampaging through the country, worst in places where there are no mask mandates and fewer people are vaccinated, but it is everywhere. We are now well over 100K people testing positive a day and we are starting to inch back up to a thousand people a day dying. And the real numbers of people who have the virus is likely to be well above that. The Provincetown outbreak taught us a lot. The first is that while for most of us this is our first epidemic, for gay Americans, this is the second round, and they learned a hard fought lesson that knowledge is power. We owe the largely vaccinated vacationers on Cape Cod who underwent testing for the knowledge we have going forward. But what good is it doing? The vast majority of those who are dying and severely ill are unvaccinated, but we now know that vaccinated people get sick with the delta variant and that they can definitely spread it. There are two thing that really break my heart about this. Besides just how insanely stupid it all is. The first is that there are more and more children who are hospitalized--many of them too young to be vaccinated. Just at the moment that they are trying to reopen schools. We cannot even for a moment prioritize children. The other is that for healthcare workers who have spent the whole pandemic watching people die are now watching senseless preventable deaths. It just has to take a toll on their mental as well as physical health. So mask up!

Charred Summer Squash Salad

This is a great recipe if you have lots of summer squash! It is great on it's own, but you can add some fresh uncooked juliened or mandolined squash to the salad, or a can of chickpeas, or char up some corn to toss in. A bunch of fresh chopped tomatoes would be good. It is flexible and it screams of summer. Neutral vegetable oil 4 pounds assorted summer squash, ends trimmed 2 medium Vidalia onions Sea salt Black peppercorn in a pepper grinder 1 lemon (for juicing) Extra-virgin olive oil 12 fresh basil leaves 1/4 cup mint leaves 1/2 cup fresh Italian flat-leaf parsley leaves Preheat a grill and grease the grates. Slice the squash in half, lengthwise (or pole to pole). Slice the onions in half, across the equator (keeping the root end attached to hold the onion together). Place the vegetables, cut side down, on the grates. Let cook until the cut surfaces of the vegetables are darkly charred. The vegetables should still be crispy (al dente) at the core. Flip to the other side for one minute, and then transfer the vegetables to a sheet tray. Let rest on the sheet tray until they cool down to room temperature. Slice the squash and onions (being sure to remove the root end of the onion) into bite-sized pieces. In a mixing bowl, season the squash with sea salt, cracked pepper, fresh lemon juice, and extra virgin olive oil (to coat). Tear all of the fresh herbs, and mix them in.

Moist Cornbread

I had this amazing cornbread, served with butter (more butter, I should say) and spectacularly delicious honey, and I can honestly say I have been thinking about it off and on since then. The combination of a low cornmeal to white flour ratio, a high butter to everything else ratio, and the moistness that corn adds all add up to a winner. 1 Cup Cornmeal 3 Cups All-Purpose Flour 2-3 c. corn off the cob 1 Cup Sugar 2 Tablespoons Baking Powder 1 TeaspoonSalt 2/3 Cup Vegetable or Canola Oil 1/2 Cup Butter, melted 2 Tablespoons Honey 4 Eggs 2 1/2 Cups Milk First, grease a 9×13 dish. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Measure out the dry ingredients and add them to a large mixing bowl. Sift or mix them together with a whisk. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, melted butter, oil, butter, milk, and honey. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir together, just until moistened. Pour the sweet cornbread batter into the 9×13 pan and place it in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Cover the cornbread loosely with foil for the last 10-15 minutes of baking time so the top doesn’t brown too much Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool slightly before serving.

It Is Patriotic To Be Vaccinated

Everything about this poster I agree with, just so long as you remove the "stop". To be vaccinated is to be patriotic. Vaccines allow the economy to run again. They allow children to have in person school. They allow us to go indoors together. All of these freedoms will be taken away from us by those who refuse to get vaccinated. When I first read about the backlash against those who refuse to vaccinate, I didn't get it, but now that we are back up to days where there are 100,000 positive COVID tests every day, even when most people who are vaccinated are no longer getting tested for every symptoms of COVID that they might have, which means wee are about to see another rise in the death toll as well. Yes, it is largely people who are not vaccinated who are dead and dying these days. But the latest finding from the Prvincetown outbreak is chilling. When you are vaccinated and you are exposed to COVID, you get it, and you also spread it. Which means that until we have less COVID, we are back to masking. So please, all you anti-vaxxers, for the sake of the country you say you love, show it. Get vaccinated so we can all go back to some semblance of normal. And stop killing each other while you are at it.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Very much in the style of some Ishiguro books, this is a very trippy book, one that might put some people off or even way off. I am not one of them, and for me, it gives a context within which to think about artifical intelligence that is both realistic and sisturbing at the same time. It is not so much scary as it is thought-provoking. I am enough of a realist to see that no matter what I think about AI and robotics, the computer tech and the technology will march along without caring all that much what I think. Klara is an artifical friend, a robot for sale in a store. She has what seem to be emotions and the ability to think and learn, but she also imbues the sun with supernatural powers and abilities. In the beginning it looks as though she moght be overlooked, left to remain on the shelf, unbought and unappreciated. She is an outdated model, afterall. Think what your 2013 computer is worth today. One day a girl who caught her eye returns and it seems that she might be just the thing for a family with a sick child and she goes home with them. What follows is the part that the reader needs to contemplate what we might and might not do in the future, and how we might react to it. I highly recommend this writer and this book.

Mask Up!

Today is the birthday of one of my parents, and both of them are quite elderly. They followed all the recommendations to a tee. They barely left their house all through the pandemic, I did not see them without a mask and I did not eat with them for over a year. Today I want to remind you all that today, right now, in the case of COVID, it is the unvaccinated who are getting sick and dying. Almost to a one. So the lies being told about the vaccine are killing people and COVID is the vector. So no matter what, in a health care setting, where there are people who have compromised immune systems, it is mandatory that we all wear mask. Do it for the people who you care about. And stop harrassing health care workers. Health care should be a right, but acting any way you want is not.

Naan

I had this recipe at a friend's house recently and it was blow you out of the water incredible. It will be hard to not eat it all before the food is ready. 1 teaspoon sugar 1/2 cup warm water 1/4 oz. (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup plain yogurt 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon oil some oil, for greasing the skillet 3 tablespoons melted butter In a small bowl, add the sugar, warm water, and yeast together. Stir to combine well. The yeast should be activated when it becomes foamy, about 10 minutes. Transfer the flour to a flat surface and make a well in the middle. Add the yeast mixture, yoghurt, salt and oil, knead the dough until the surface becomes smooth and shiny, about 10 minutes. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let it rise in a warm place (for example: beside the stovetop or warm oven). The dough should double in size, about 1 hour. Divide the dough into 8 equal portions. Roll the dough to a 8” circle using a rolling spin. Heat up a skillet (cast-iron preferred) over high heat and lightly grease the surface with some oil to avoid the dough from sticking to the skillet. Place the dough on the skillet. When it puffs up and bubbles and burnt spots appear, flip it over and cook the other side. Repeat the same until all dough are done. Brush the naan with the melted butter, serve warm.

Memorial Drive by Natacha Trethewey

This is a powerful read, something that I found because it is on Obama's 2020 reading list, but it is also on the New York Times 100 Notable Books. I have not read the author's poetry, which is what she is known for, but apparently it deals with the murder of her mother by her stepfather, and the overall content of this memoir will not be as shocking. The book is filled with descriptions of old photographs that reveal family history and mythology, the snapshots allowing us to see what these people couldn’t anticipate, the omens and grim premonitions they missed. Throughout the memoir, Trethewey explores the role that wilful forgetting has played in her life. After her mother’s murder on June 5, 1985, Trethewey spends many years attempting to ignore or silence the past. She becomes estranged from herself, but her memories of trauma keep circling back. This is so true for trauma, regardless of the source. In this case, she saw it coming, her mother saw it coming, it just wasn't prevented. The story is all the more compelling because of the supporting documentation. News footage. Cassette tape recordings. Transcripts of telephone conversations between her mother and the murderer. These documents perform a similar function in the book, working to fill blanks in the author’s memory and to create a fuller picture of a beloved mother. One of the most gripping moments in the memoir is when Trethewey presents the contents of a twelve-page document that her mother had been writing at the time of her death. Twenty-five years after the murder, Trethewey finally reads these words and hears her mother speak about her abuse, her escape from the marriage, and her hopes for a new life. It is heart breaking and probably alot more common than we know. The majority of women who are murdered are killed by men who profess to love them. This lays all that out.