Including Eeyore

As a psychiatrist I see my fair share of Eeyores. I think that the denizens of the Hundred Acre Woods are somewhere between a family and a neighborhood, and the way they allow Eeyore to be part of the gang is a pretty good example that the rest of us could learn from. Much like clinically depressed humans, Eeyore sees the world all too clearly. He is right more often than he is wrong and while what he predicts is not what the rest of them are hoping for, he is not villified for his clear eyed thinking. He is the friend who will tell you what they think, the unvarnished truth, and the glass is definitely half empty, maybe on the brink of running out completely, but you will not be blindsided when things go south, because you have been properly warned. The funny thing is that I am probably more like Eeyore than any other character in the Winnie the Pooh ouevre in my personal life, but in my work life I have a sometimes unsuitably rosy outlook, and that needs a coutner balance. I lost my work Eeyore when I switched jobs recently, and it strikes me that I need to find a new one.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake with Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

My spouse made this for our son's graduation party and it was so popular he has made it again, and wants to be sure we have it handy when he wants to make it next. It is from Simply Julia, which is a cookbook revolving around making things that taste good but do not reuire tons of time to accomplish. For me, that is what amounts to week night cooking. He doubles this, cooks it in two 11 x 15 pans, and makes it a party sized cake. The cake: 1 cup (125 g) flour 1 cup (125 g) whole wheat flour 1 cup (200 g) sugar 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1 tsp. kosher salt 4 very ripe bananas 2 large eggs 1 cup (227 g) sour cream 1/2 cup (120 g) canola oil 6 oz. (170 g) chocolate chips (~1 cup) The Frosting: 6 oz. (170 g) chocolate chips (~1 cup) 1 cup (227 g) sour cream 1 Tbsp. maple syrup Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8" round pans. Combine dry ingredients and stir together, Smash the bananas in a separate bowl, and add wet ingredients and stir. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and then add the chocolate chips. Divide batter into the 2 pans, and bake until the center is firm, about 35 minutes. Cool cakes and make the frosting by microwaving the chocolate chips until melted. It will probably take a minute, but do in 30 second bursts--stir after each because the chips retain their shape but can be melted inside. Add the sour cream and maple syrup. This is a very wet frosting so refrigerate before using. Frost the cakes the way you usually would and serve!

This Will Make It Taste Good by Vivian Howard

This is the follow up cookbook by the author of one of the best southern cookbooks I have seen, Deep Run Roots, which has a chapter on collard greens, one on watermelon, and one on blueberries, to name a few. It is straight ahead, written without either humor or nonsense. This one is another story entirely. The concept is great--spend some time making some master ingredients, and then use them to make a multitude of dishes that are flavor packed because you have spent time punching it up, so it can be then diluted into something else. I have made the two green sauces, and will make a few others. The outcome is really good, but the thing that I have trouble getting past is how cutsie all the names are. It is particularly irksome when posting on social media about the recipe, because while the end result is delicious, it sounds so sill y that I want to avoid it all together. It is a shame, because the end results are innovative and taste good. If you can overlook this, or better yet, if you can enjoy it, then I recoomend this cookbook.

Super Spreaders

Heather Cox Richardson touched on the subject of disinformation and it's spread. The algorhythms that are used on social media to feed you information that is tailored to your beliefs and interests are being manipulated in such a way to promote the development of deeply felt beliefs, some of which are founded on lies. The vaccine lies have been traced back to 12 liars, the super spreaders. The motives they might hold, be they nefarious or immature, matters less than the effect they have. I get that if they are designed to weaken America, like the Russian disinformation campaign that led to Trump being elected, the motive matters, but I think it matters less than what in fact happens. In this case, the combination of people who are deeply afraid of the vaccine and the spread of a COVID variant that is highly infectious is leading to pockets of infection that are overwhelming rural communities where not being vaccinated is a point of prideand mask wearing was never in vogue. So there is a direct link between the lies and people dying. It is hard to see how this helps conservatives. but much like all the other lies, it is hard to let go of, even when it is hurting them.

Flipped (2010)

I love the YA book that the movie is based on. It is a story, mostly the same story, but told from two different perspectives, a boy and a girl who are on the cusp of adolescence. It is the time when boys and girls are probably the furthest apart from each other in terms of maturity and perspective. The girl comes from a compicated family, where her father is supporting his disabled sibling in a private facility but leaves his family with very little in the way of money, so they live in poverty as a result. The boy has an uncomplicated family, but mid-story, his grieving grandfather moves in with the family, and he takes a liking to the neighbor girl. She is lit from inside, passionate and energetic, and she reminds him of his now deceased wife and he wants to help her. The book is a bit better I think but this is a story well worth watching, and family friendly as well.

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

This is one of the things on Obama's 2020 reading list that I would not have read if not for him. Or at least not this soon, because this is a voice that will be heard again, I have no doubt. It is chronicles of the author's own undocumented life and that of her parents, but also of scores more, who live in and around the margins. There is so much here that I did not know and need to hear. The first is something that I learned at a lecture I went to last week, which is that undocumented is the way to talk about this. They are Americans, but they lack documents. The other is that while I would have guess there were a lot of undocumented workers at Ground Zero, this is a good account of that. I did not know that there are a fair number of undocumented people living in places like Flint, failed communities that were abaondoned by the state as well as the federal government, and that their isolation and fear of deportation put them at a higher risk from the lead poisoning than others because they did not have the knowledge or the resources that even other poor citizens had. The bottom line is that there are a lot of people who are part of the fabirc of our everyday lives who are undocumented and yet necessary, and that until we get serious about solving the working poor issue, we will never make a dent in the immigration issue. It is sn issue as old as the country itself, and with no concensus on the path to take. This book humanizes the issues.

Cherry Crush

My husband always enjoyed making cocktails, but during the pandemic, a time when we could not go out for a drink at all, was a growth season for his bartending skills. He has always had a deep and wide spirits, liquor and bitters collection, and I have made a flavored simple syrup or two in my time, but we took the opportunity to really expand our horizons. In May we had to go to a big city for a car exchange and we did a curb side pick up at an extraordinarily large liquor warehouse, and we have now gotten to the point wherre there really is no reason to go out for a drink because what we have going on at home is really top notch. This is just one example, utilizing the fresh cherries we have going on. My spouse thought this was a bit too sweet but I thought it was just right. You could back down on the agave syrup if you like a less sweet beverage. 2 oz bourbon 3 pitted cherries 2 T lemon juice 1 T agave syrup 2 dashes cherry bitters Blend with 1 cup ice; garnish with mint sprig and a cherry.

Summer in the Tetons

Our pandemic purchase, if you do not count moving up the date of our outdoor remodel from someday to this summer, was a house in the Tetons. The timing was right in a lot of ways. We were selling the house in town that we had for our kids who were students. The last of them has left a year before and our youngest was so unlikely to want to live there that despite really loving it, it was time to let it go. We had only gone one place the whole year of COVID, which was to visit our only child who lives away. And while we were there we visited the Tetons. It was so peaceful and beautiful, how were we to resist? We did not, as it turns out. We were not the only ones to think that it might be nice to live in such a gorgeous setting, and it was hard to get something that would suit, but in the end we did and this summer we are doing the thing that is great fun. We are bringing the next generation to the mountains. We still have to go to Vermont with them but they will be able to enjoy the West this year.

Spinach and Pancetta Meatballs

You can make this with turkey, but when you have half a cow, you have lots of ground beef and many different meatball recipes. The thing I like about this one is that it has some greens in it and it adds pancetta, so you get some pork flavor without resorting to ground pork (which is desirable if you are using up beef, but if you also have a pig, then you can afford to use a different recipe). 1 pound ground meat 1 ounce thinly sliced pancetta, finely chopped (1/4 cup) 1/2 onion, finely chopped (about 3/4 cup) 8 oz of chopped spinach, blanched and drained of all water 1 garlic clove, minced 1 cup fresh breadcrumbs Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper 1 large whole egg 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsely Gently mix tmeat, pancetta, onion, garlic, and breadcrumbs in a large bowl; season with 1 teaspoon salt and a pinch of pepper. Stir in the egg and yolk, herbsd and spinach. Form mixture into 1-inch meatballs. Heat 1 to 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat until hot but not smoking. Cook the meatballs in a single layer (work in two batches, if necessary), turning as needed, until browned on all sides and cooked through, about 7 minutes. Transfer to a plate, serve with sauce of your choice--I prefer marinara. These are very good in meatball sandwiches.

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

This book is riding a wave of popularity and when I saw it on the shelf at my local library, I caught that wave and rode it. Ironic, because the American Library in Paris is the central figure in the book. It is true that storiess set in occupied territory during WWII are not inherently light, but this one somehow is. I woke up early one morning, started it because the style is light enough to be read on a short night of sleep, and by the end of the day I was finishing it up. The hook is that all the characters love books and reading, and many of them are bound together by the love of the written word-=-just like we are as readers. This one tells of two women, sepatated by many decades, who are young and seeking love. They are blind to things, they hurt people unthinkingly, and they come to see the errors of their ways, a bit later than ideal but also completely understandably. The backdrop of war is the one difference, and it might have been a more powerful juxtaposition if the story was told in the pandemic, because while this has not been great, it is nothing like what was faced in the time of war. The issue of communities and what binds them together is touched upon, but not too deeply. You can definitely read this on vacation and it will give you a little to think about, but not too much.