Tingarri Dreaming, by Dini Cambel Tjampitjinpa (Pintupi)

I love the designs and the geometry of Australian aboriginal painting.
Before Indigenous Australian art was ever put onto canvas the Aboriginal people would smooth over the soil to draw sacred designs which belonged to that particular ceremony.
Body paint was also applied which held meanings connected to sacred rituals.  These designs were outlined with circles and encircled with dots.
  Uninitiated people never got to see these sacred designs since the soil would be smoothed over again and painted bodies would be washed. This was not possible with paintings.  Aboriginal artists abstracted their paintings to disguise the sacred designs so the real meanings could not be understood by outsiders.
Dot painting originated 40 years ago back in 1971.  Geoffrey Bardon was assigned as an art teacher for the children of the Aboriginal people  in Papunya, near Alice Springs.  He noticed whilst the Aboriginal men were telling stories they would draw symbols in the sand.   Bardon encouraged his students to paint a mural based on traditional dreamings on the school walls. The murals sparked incredible interest in the community. He incited them to paint the stories onto canvas and board.  Soon many of the men began painting as well.

Gangster Squad (2013)

This is at heart a shoot them up movie with an all star cast.  So raised a bit above the fray by the talent there in, but contrained by the quality of the script.  It's late 1949, and as the holidays approach, former-boxer-turned-Chicago-mobster Micky Cohen (played in pretty unpleasant fashion by Sean Penn) has expanded Meyer Lansky's Jewish mafia to Los Angeles, where's he's planning to monopolize drugs and gambling and squeeze his bosses out of the equation. He means business, and is killing everything in his way to prove it.  The cops are largely on the take, as are the judges, but there is one, John O'Mara (played by Josh Brolin), who is not.  He tries to rally up a posse of cops to take him down before they have to strong a toe hold in the city.  Emma Stone is playing a dangerous game as Micky's bought and paid for girl but also the girlfriend of  Ryan Gosling, a cop with some ambiguity as to whether he is all in on the plan, at least at the beginning.  The good guys try to round up the bad guys and the shooting begins.

Napa Cabbage Salad with Miso Dressing

We have been getting oodles of Napa cabbage from our CSA this summer, and so I have been experimenting with different flavor profiles to serve it with.
This is really more of an eggplant salad from Ottolenghi that I have paired down to the cabbage and dressing component, removed the sesame seeds because I was having them in a pea salad to go with this meal (but you could put them back in), and used the vegetables that I had.
Kohlrabi, carrots, radishes, teeny tiny broccoli sprigs, snow peas, red onion, it all could go in.

Shred cabbage, and make the other vegetables similarly bite sized.

The Dressing:

• 3 tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons red miso paste
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons reduced-sodium soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced

Blend ingredients--may have to heat them up a bit if the miso is stiff to get it fully blended, which  is important.  Mix with the salad vegetables and cabbage to taste.

The Female Persuation by Meg Wolitzer

This is a story that largely focuses on women as they move through a business world that has been inhabited almost solely by men--up until now. It is set in the not too distant past, so there is none of what is shaping the landscape today.  Not a president who has five children by three different women, a man who has bragged about sexually harassing women, and been buoyed up by those who too wish they could be what he is.  This is back when the veneer that we might all share values under one nation was something we could believe in.  That time is gone for the foreseeable future.
The book is not rendered irrelevant by those developments; rather its subtle, powerfully ambivalent forays into what has been called second-wave feminism, the nature and limits of co-operative action and the intersection between the political and the personal can function as depth charges whose ripples continue to rock our unstable little boats.  This is about mentorship, relationships, where they take us and how we get there.  Very enjoyable read.

Closed Circuit (2013)

The interest of government to keep the extent of their surveillance out of the public eye, and the perceived need to quell the mistakes made are well played out here, and a bit more unsettling in the era of a President who wants to be a totalitarian leader.
There is a bombing at the start of the movie,  a suspect is in custody, and a trial set.  Some of the evidence in the case is so potentially explosive that not even the defendant himself is allowed to see it for himself. In such cases, defendants are allowed two lawyers—one who will defend him in public and a special advocate who defends him during the closed sessions. The two lawyers are not to talk to each other, but in this case they do, because they see a government conspiracy underneath the surface, and a government willing to commit murder to get the outcomes it wants.  They have been chosen exactly because of their weakness and not because of their brilliant lawyering.  If you fear your own government is out to get you, this will be a good reminder that it could be so.

Tomato, Strawberry, and Basil Salad

Now that it is well and truly summer, we have had more than enough days over 90 degrees with steamy humidity that if we had no more it would still have been a hot summer, and the garden is starting to produce at an exponential pace when compared to a month ago.
So that means it is time to turn back to Ottolenghi in a big way.

1½ tbsp white-wine vinegar

1 lemon – finely pare off 3 wide strips of peel; then juice, to get 1 tbsp

1 tsp caster sugar

Salt and black pepper

½ large red onion, peeled and finely sliced on a mandoline

350g medium vine tomatoes, roughly cut into 4cm pieces 

150g strawberries, hulled, cut in half lengthways, then into 5mm-thick slices

5g basil leaves, roughly torn

2½ tbsp olive oil

The only time involved here is in the marinating of the onion in lemon and vinegar to create the most brilliant dressing. After that, all you have to do is toss everything together at the last minute (this salad doesn’t take kindly to being left to sit around) and serve with grilled fish or a range of similarly summery snacks.

Whisk the vinegar, lemon juice, sugar and a quarter-teaspoon of salt in a small bowl, then add the onion and lemon peel, and leave to pickle for at least an hour, preferably two or longer, stirring a couple of times. 

Make the salad just before you’re ready to serve. Put the tomatoes in a sieve set over a large bowl and leave to drain for five minutes. Meanwhile, drain the pickled onions, reserving the pickling liquid to use in the dressing. Remove and finely chop the lemon peel.

Put the strawberries in a bowl with the drained tomatoes and add three-quarters of the onions, three-quarters of the basil, two tablespoons of pickling liquid, the oil and a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Stir gently, then transfer to a large, shallow bowl. Arrange the remaining pickled onions and basil on top, then scatter with the chopped lemon peel. Finish with a good grind of black pepper and serve at once.

Declaration of Independence

Today we celebrate the beginning of one of the few truly successful revolutions for independence in modern history.  Those brave men and women fought to not be ruled by kings, and they got the vast majority of it right.  We continue to have a cleft about what is right and wrong, which transcends political administrations.  The thing is, at the very beginning there was thought given to denouncing slavery.  Thomas Jefferson wrote:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another."  That would have been a game changer, but it did not make the final version.

What We Had (2018)

This film relates to all of us who live in the modern way, disconnected from our past, and lacking in close family ties or prescribed ways of growing old.  The story is also about the kind of undying love of a man for his wife, even as her memory of their life together cruelly slips away from her because of dementia. It is further complicated by the fact that they had is not what either of their children have had, both of whom are struggling with connection and happiness in various ways. 
The exact pieces of the story are not so important as the emotions that underlie the whole situation.  Ruth (played pitch perfect by Blythe Danner) is slowly losing her memories.  She doesn't always remember even her husband or children, and while there are moments when she can see what is happening to her, her grasp on her own history is so tenuous that she isn't even that upset.  And she is wandering in a dangerous way.  Her husband doesn't want to move or to be apart, but the sibling who lives nearby (played by Michael Shannon) is at the end of his rope, so angry all the time about what he sees happening and his powerlessness to combat it.  The one who lives away (Hilary Swank) slowly tumbles to the stress they are all under.  The unpleasantness of the end is laid out in spectacular detail and is beautifully acted.

Momofuko Seiobo, Sydney, Australia

In what proved to be a very celebratory month around my birthday, this meal in Sydney was a real highlight.  It was Caribbean inspired food that had wonderful and spicy flavors.  The seafood rich Australian continent provided the substrait with which to work that kind of magic.  There are a number of things that I love about this place.  The first is that we were seated at the bar that surrounded the prep cooking, and as we were literally the first reservation, we literally got to watch our food being prepared.  That is fun, although it will complete convince you that you are never making this at home. The second thing is that while the beverage pairings (for while most of them were wine, some were not) is always a bit of a sticker shock, that when it is done well (and you do not need to drive) it can enhance the experience with a synergy that is wonderful, so long as it doesn't break your banK.

So if you get a chance, this is a restaurant and a chef that is well worth seeking out if Down Under.

O Canada!

And now for a little Canadian history lesson.  The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, was officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act on July 1, 1987.

During the 19th century, colonial dependence gave way to increasing autonomy for a growing Canada. In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada–now known as Ontario and Quebec–were made a single province by the Act of Union. In the 1860s, a movement for a greater Canadian federation grew out of the need for a common defense, the desire for a national railroad system, and the necessity of finding a solution to the problem of French and British conflict. When the Maritime provinces, which sought union among themselves, called a conference in 1864, delegates from the other provinces of Canada attended. Later in the year, another conference was held in Quebec, and in 1866 Canadian representatives traveled to London to meet with the British government.
On July 1, 1867, with passage of the British North America Act, the Dominion of Canada was officially established as a self-governing entity within the British Empire. Two years later, Canada acquired the vast possessions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and within a decade the provinces of Manitoba and Prince Edward Island had joined the Canadian federation. In 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, making mass settlement across the vast territory of Canada possible.