Bruschetta on the banquet at Lois’s surprise party while we were hiding.
Let us say you are experiencing a context shift, by which I mean you suddenly are not where you usually are, under circumstances that are out of your control. Perhaps you’re stuck in this new place for your own good; perhaps you find yourself lost and awaiting rescue. Be patient, if you can, with those who seek to comfort you. An hour will come when lightness arrives. Do not forget that someone is longing for you.
I do three stupid things before breakfast every day, which makes me an authority on the forehead slap, a world class practitioner of Let Me Rephrase That Last Dumbass Remark, and a gold medal winner in the all-around I Meant To Do That. Thus, I can spot a talented fuckup from a safe distance. Ladies and gentlemen, someone at Mexico – One Plate At A Time – some writer, producer, guest or star – has gone pro. From season 5, the episode called Modern Mayan:
Rick finds wandering through the ancient Mayan ruins of Uxmal a humbling and inspiring experience. The Mayans built a great civilization with pyramids, temples, plazas and breathtaking expanses. And their spirit lives on—and it’s experiencing a rebirth in the Yucatan today—in revitalized food, art and architecture. We get a glimpse of the rebirth at Los Dos, a cooking school in Merida, run by David Sterling, which specializes in classic Mayan food updated for this century. Rick joins David at his beautiful school as he teaches his chilled version of Sopa de Lima topped with a panucho of lime-marinated chicken salad. Then we look at the high-style of the Riviera Maya from the rooftop of the ultra-modern Hotel Básico in Playa del Carmen. Back on the ground in Merida, the cuisine of Nectar Restaurant soars. This ultra-modern dining room with its open-air kitchen is run by two chefs that study with some of the most inventive rule-breaking chefs in the world. Rick samples their Consommé of Cochinita Pibil and Oat Risotto with Recado Negro. Energized by Mexico, Rick takes us behind the scenes at his fine-dining restaurant, Topolobampo, to show us his own thrilling modern Mayan dish, Cilantro Salmon with Smoky Tomato-Habanero Lasagne.
I shut off this episode and flounced around my living room in a flamboyant huff. Now: this may come as a shock to you because it has often come as one to me, but every minute of every day, I live in a woman’s body. I have to think about what that means every day, all the time. I can mostly understand the cultural experience of certain kinds of men – not men of color and not gay men – because the dominant culture forces that default white male perspective on those of us who are along for the dominant culture’s ride, but I am always aware that woman-ness is a filter that picks out big honking chunks of cultural detritus that might fuck me up. That filter translates the words classic…updated for this century into a white man is about to appropriate the work of indigenous women and turn it into a paycheck and a high-end reputation. Fuck that guy! Words aside, the images were even worse.
This is what the cooking school guy saw. They’re very nice pictures full of beautiful fruit. I saw this:
Wrought iron window guards on the outside of the cooking school, which after I saw them covered in ground glass in Ecuador, read as If you break into my house you will die. Inside: a cooking class taught by a transplanted white American man of white American students and the show’s white American host, while two indigenous women dressed in what the TV viewer must assume is native costume make panuchos. The teacher rambles a bit about how this preparation is thousands of years old, then escorts the whole class into the kitchen to learn his updated way. The teacher describes his method for making his sopa di lima, which sounds like it might be tasty, if the prep sounds arcane. In the shadows, the two women hand him lima juice, other ingredients. The students assemble soup plates and updated panuchos and are seen heading toward a dining room.
The next shot: teacher, students and show host are seated at a long dining room table, toasting their sopa while the two women stand in the doorway with hands clasped humbly.
In art school, you learn stuff like Whose eyes am I seeing this scene through? and What is happening in this picture? Goddamnit, I hate when I’m forced to join someone else’s war on the poor, which is exactly what happens in this final shot. It’s one thing to hire a capable staff you treat decently and trust not to spit in your chicken stock. It’s quite another to employ people so you can rub their faces in their servitude. Those clasped hands told me the whole story. Those women could have been somewhere else, doing something else, but no. They are a set decoration, there to visually reinforce for the American viewing audience that the appropriation of their work and their culture is right and just. Rick Bayless is often tone deaf about class, imperialism and economics, but this is freaking ridiculous.
Crap. I feel like I have to break up with my supercute new boyfriend before French class because he said the superstupid words freedom fries and I knew what he meant.
Earlier today, Dr. Mark Hyman’s bleakly titled article at the Huffington Post caught my eye. Haiti Journal: Hacksaws and Vodka was everything you might expect about the grimness of the field hospitals, but also gently heartening. The situation is slowly improving. The coverage of the crisis has been bugging the shit out of me, and at the bottom of Hyman’s page, we find a striking image of why.
Four sage white dudes. I feel safer already.
In the first days, I noticed two stories: black people trapped, injured, starving and white people shaken but unharmed. Black people looting. White people, well-fed and healthy, clucking about horror. Black bodies are loaded onto dumptrucks with bulldozers. White missionaries in Connecticut tell Haitians they’ll be back. Bill Clinton keeps a straight face. Wyclef Jean is in tears. It couldn’t be more obvious, but nobody says a word, and the media seems not to realize it runs this script over and over again, every few years, somewhere in the world.
The tiny town in which I live, like other tiny towns all over the country, maintains a food pantry. Twice in the last year, calls went out that the pantry was empty and our neighbors were in trouble. The first time was startling. I didn’t know we had a food pantry. Volunteers and donations turned up; the pantry shelves filled up nicely and overflowed into a storage closet in the senior center. Today on the second day of the second food drive, when I pushed open the door, the room was full of smiling, eager volunteers, many of whom I’d seen before. The shelves were clean and carefully organized, but there were empty spaces.
The town is holding a meeting about teaching children to garden. Do you suppose gardening gloves come in opera length?
Yesterday, I got a survey and solicitation from the DNC, and those asslicking pigfuckers have a lot of nerve asking me for a list of my priorities and a wad of money after they spent the last year fucking pigs, licking asses and punching hippies like me. So I sent back a mostly completed survey and a paint-peeling description of why I will never give the party another red cent. If you receive a survey and solicitation, I urge you not to discard it. The DNC’s list of 2009 accomplishments is a real knee-slapper, deserving of a hot retort or two. Answer the questions, tell the asslicking pigfuckers how you really feel and tell them why you’re keeping your pin money. If you’ve been reading PIC for more than a few minutes, you know exactly why despite the fact that I am married to a man I wrote in black marker: The GayTM is closed.
I am no longer hostage to idea that I have nowhere else to go. I found somewhere else and went there. And I won’t be back while the corporatists control the party. When the Democrats remember they are the party of labor, women, minorities, LGBTQs and seniors, the party of social justice and a strong safety net, we may talk again. Maybe. But don’t count on it.
Not this time.
As aid trickles into Port-au-Prince, I feel as if I am watching a horror show I’ve seen before. In the days after the levies broke in New Orleans, one of my co-workers quietly asked if I thought help was slow to arrive. I said I was sure of it. Her son who had flown many rescue missions with the Air Force, had told her it took time to coordinate a large operation. I told her she should not expect to see President Bush exert himself on behalf of black people, even Americans, so imagine my surprise when I read this:
Obama enlisted the help of former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat who is already a U.N. special envoy for Haiti, and former President George W. Bush, the Republican who preceded Obama in the White House.
They agreed to a request from Obama to lead private-sector fundraising efforts, issuing a joint statement expressing deep sadness at the devastation and suffering in Haiti.
“In the days and weeks ahead, we will draw attention to the many ways American citizens and businesses can help meet the urgent needs of the Haitian people,” Bush and Clinton said.
Their effort will be similar to that performed by Clinton and Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, when they led an international relief effort to help the recovery from the 2004 tsunami that swept South Asia and killed 226,000 in 13 countries.
Verrrrrrry interesting. Says Marcus Toussaint at Jack & Jill Politics:
A heady move on President Obama’s part. Clinton is having to slip the multiple jabs coming his way over his alleged “coffee” comments and, knowing politics as he does, had no choice but to say yes.
But the real coup de grace is getting the support of George W. Bush. Whether or not he feels he needs a mulligan, he needs one. Moreover, those who oppose Obama on Haiti and anything he wants to do regardless of whether it is actually good or not will have to do so knowing they are also throwing salt on one of their own. They’ll either have to call him a turncoat or find some way to justify his thug, which can’t be done without acknowledging Obama’s hand in it, though I’m sure they’ll try their darnedest to find a way.
If George W. Bush rescued kittens from a burning building I’d assume he force-fed them gold coins first and plans to use their carcasses as bedroom slippers. There’s not an altruistic bone in his body, and he would only do a service mission like this because even he knows he fucked up so badly history has shut the book on him.
On the other hand, a survey of comments on news sites shows that Limbaugh’s disgusting tirade has taken root. I won’t link to that. Scores of human weeping fistulas have turned up everywhere, urging Americans to turn our backs on Haiti. I won’t link to them either. However, as Toussaint says, the appointment of Bush to a relief mission in the face of crazy-racist wingnut disapproval is fascinating.
Bush cannot redeem himself. Watching him try against his every selfish instinct will be interesting. Absolutely riveting will be conservative response.
I’m making popcorn as we speak.
The footage from Haiti is heartbreaking. The blogosphere is full of advice about donating to relief efforts, but just in case you happen to find yourself here at a decisive moment:
Someone I trust recommended Partners In Health, though I can’t personally vouch for them.
For the long road ahead:
Let us hope today is a better day for the Haitian people than yesterday was, and tomorrow is better than today.
Last Saturday, the family and half the tiny town threw – flung, perhaps – a surprise party for my niece Lois’s seventeenth birthday. Pete turned out beautiful, sculptural platters laden with bright fruit, cheeses and crisp vegetables and an abundant variety of dips, breads and crackers. My sister Daria arranged the tables. She told me later, “Pete put down a platter and I said, ‘Nice. But not there.'” My cousin Sandy contributed an elegant display of striking cupcakes in the party’s black and white theme. We’ve developed the confidence to throw – fling, really – a party anytime, anywhere.
It’s also at these moments I remember our parents have always been batty.
Do not adjust your monitor.
Somewhere in 1950s America, Mom learned that significant teen occasions must include layered or rolled pink and green sandwiches with a creamy olive filling made by professional bakers. Psychiatrists refer to this as an idée fixe. Every time a member of the increasingly large family reaches a milestone, out come these completely tasty and mildly psychedelic sandwiches. Then those of us not thriving on diets of Frankenberry and Count Chocula detox for months.
Seriously: the ingredients are cream cheese, olives, bread and two vats of food coloring at truly dubious points on the color wheel. I’m sorry I’m not eating one of these sandwiches right now.
In an unrelated and equally inexplicable development, I seem to be able to try stuff and generally succeed at it again. Last week, I decided I could make the pierogies I wanted to eat. With Pete’s help and Siobhan’s favorite dough recipe, it worked! I was flabbergasted, and I mean completely flabbergasted when not only did the dough come together in my hands after chilling overnight, but the filling was brilliant: sweet potato, a bit of andouille sausage, vitamin greens and homemade yogurt, drained and herbed. The pierogies served with more yogurt and homemade apple butter were so good we could barely summon words to describe our joy. The next day, I made the desperate decision to make tamales. Somehow. Because I really, really, really want to eat those. Really.
While we all know better than to shake babies, science has yet to deliver a verdict on how many forehead slapping moments a brain can stand. For quite a while now, I’ve been looking for banana leaves in the produce aisle of the Asian market I love. Sunday morning, Rick Bayless was talking tamales on Mexico One Plate At A Time and he held up a bag of frozen banana leaves, saying they’re everywhere these days. I slapped my forehead and probably lost five I.Q. points I might need someday. Banana leaves, with their rich, verdant aroma reminiscent of my grandmother’s artichokes, have been in my grocer’s freezer all along.
Yesterday, I awoke from my nap anxious to make tamales. All I had to do was decide I could, and then I could! I moved fast but everything I wanted to do as prep took about an hour longer than I planned for. Result: with better planning, not only can I make tamales on week nights –
– but we can eat them as well. Poor banana leaves! Without their scrumptious corn, chicken and achiote filling, they look so sad! And yet, I am so happy!
Tomorrow, between jobs, we will have the pierogies we made with yogurt we made and apple butter we made and green beans someone with a tractor made. I love this idea so much I want to buy a small tractor. Tonka makes them. I’m almost sure.
Though I awoke an hour before the alarm this morning thinking about it, I neglected to take chicken out of the freezer. I’m all in bits and pieces. Last week, an email arrived, and I was delighted to see these words in this order:
I am told that the truck is now placed in such a manner that we can squeeze by.
Yes, that’s true. We are all hoping to squeeze by.
This sounds simple enough:
The Department of Sexual Assault Services and Crime Victim Assistance, New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, and AmeriCorps are sponsoring a clothing drive for survivors of sexual violence. All donations will benefit female and male survivors of sexual assault whose clothing is collected as evidence. Items most needed include any size new or gently used pants, shirts, flip flops, and new underwear, socks, and general hygiene items, such as toothbrushes and paste, mouthwash, soap, deodorant, brushes, combs, and women’s sanitary items.
The wording seems odd, doesn’t it?
All donations will benefit female and male survivors of sexual assault whose clothing is collected as evidence.
Why doesn’t that announcement skip mention of gender – we often function on the assumption there are two, both are described – and go straight to the survivors? Must be because we also assume only women suffer the pain and humiliation of assault, followed by confiscation of clothing by the police. We try not to think much about those women but we know they exist. We don’t think of those men at all. The world is wide, though, and we are so small.
Last night, I made yogurt and polished my nails. These are small tasks, unremarkable in any picture large enough to squeeze shoulders through the frame. Just after Christmas, two people of my acquaintance went to the hospital for what are projected to be lengthy stays. Pete’s lifelong friend neglected an abcessed tooth until infection coursed through his blood to his heart and brain. The ten year old daughter of my lifelong friend has a rare leukemia the family has seen before. Neither is local, or the casserole dishes would pile up in my kitchen, so my nails are red and my fridge is filled with fresh yogurt.
Now is the time to sit quietly and meditate on gardens we can plant come spring.
Dear Exo-Pro:
Just saw your TV commercial for the first time. Perhaps your neoprene cold weather face mask plays really well in the Midwest, but here in New Jersey, your products are just fucking dangerous. Wonder why?
This model, which you had the good taste to title EFFNBLACK, would certainly cause the wearer, unless he was effing white, a world of trouble. This mask is practically a signed confession if worn by a person with a tan, let alone an African-American, who would be safer in Klan robes in Milltown than in this while shoveling his driveway. But that’s not the worst of it.
Picture a college-educated gentleman –
You know what? Forget it. If you sell these in New Jersey, they might as well come with the phone number of a licensed undertaker.
I’d ask if you held stock in Taser, International but there’s not a cop within state lines that’s getting close enough tase. No. The wearer of your garment will skip the hospital and head straight to the morgue.
And speaking of effing white, this is your EFFHNWHITE model, which is guaranteed to cause local police departments to think burn patients are on the loose. I’m guessing you think by default, people are supposed to be white, but even white people aren’t white – unless they have pink eyes, which will definitely cause the local gendarmie to go all bang-bangy.
In conclusion, your product, while it may be efficient, logical and possibly supercool, is going to get my neighbors killed. Please rethink this in a wild hurry.
Kisses,
Princess Ta
Poor Impulse Control 