Food, Glorious Food

Last night, a friend sent me an e-mail decrying the fact that the U.S. spends billions in foreign aide while people in this country go to bed hungry. His point was clearly political.

My response was chiding. I pointed out that I and another person he knows WORK at our local food bank. I capitalize the word work. It is no fun session. I basically challenged my friend to DO something. He is elderly and unwell. He would not be able to physically assist. BUT he most certainly has the resources to assist in a financial manner.

If 100 people each donated $5 per month to the food bank, we would be able to buy that much more food to help feed the hungry families of Valencia County.

What do we buy? Staples -- tuna, peanut butter, dried beans, rice, pasta, canned vegtables, canned fruit. The selection varies based on availablility. The Belen Area Food Pantry buys fod from RoadRunner Food Bank in Albuquerque. The food bank delivers. We also get bread, produce and frozen foods from Road Runner. Those are provided at no cost, they are part of the Government's commodities program. The catch? Availability.

Availability is the catch with most of the products. We have been unable to buy one or two pound bags of dried beans. The only way we can buy dried beans is in bulk - ONE TON bulk. In Belen, we have neither the storage facility nor the ability to package for distribution one ton of dried beans.

For the last two or three months, we have not had either dried beans or rice to distribute.

At times, the bread we have gotten has been infested with mold. We are unable to give it out. The produce is usually past it's prime, but as long as it is not actually decaying, we give it out.

Sometimes, there is no bread or no produce.

The Food Bank is not the only source of food for our clients. They qualify for food stamps. They come to the food bank before they do the rest of their food shopping so that they will have an idea of what they have, and what they will need.

Famlies may only obtain food from the food bank every other month. They do not receive ennough food to last two months. We don't have enough to give them that much.

I look at myself and know that I need to loose weight. How to do that? Eat less! Then I look for new, gourmet recipes to try. Great example, right?

At least I do give of my time.

But I challenge you - can YOU afford to give $5 per month to your local food bank? They say charity begins at home. Who do you help?

Art, For Art's Sake

To fulfill an obligation to an aquaintance, I went to the Belen Art League Art Show at the Harvey House.

I am amazed.

In Southern Californis, "art" shows featured pieces with price tags starting at $100 and most, from there, going UP.

In So Cal, the art seemed to be divided into two categorise -- the painfully amatuerish and the $5K+ level

Here, the art, and much of what I saw WAS art, was mostly LESS than $500.

There were some FACINATING items.

Someone is using the Ukrainian wax dying method with native american designs on eggs.

FACINATING!!

Decorator water-colors, evocative of Georgia O'Keefe, for less than $500. BEAUTIFUL decorative pieces.

One or two pieces that take your breath away as being ART!! Gallery-quality pieces.

I have noticed this before here, in New Mexico. There is extremely good art produced by local individuals who do it for the love of the form, not to create a tax loss or to make an 'image' for themselves.

A note to those who would collect current art; especially 'folk' art: do not bother with the cities. Look to the local art guilds, and you will find some real treasures, and find them for a pittance.

What are the odds?

I am not a statistician. I have never taken so much as a class in basic statistical theory. I know NOTHING about the subject.

However, I lived the first 54 years of my life in Southern California. Every two years, there was an election. That happens all over this country. EVERY TWO YEARS.

In all the time I lived in California, I could probably count on the fingers on one hand the number of times that a political polling entity called me to ask my opinion on an issue. The closest to any such thing were the "surveys" prepared by the local representative regarding issues he cared about. Those "surveys" were usually worded in a way to elicit a response favorable to the Congressman's opinion or position on the issue.

I have lived in new Mexico for approximately five years. During election season, it seems as though at least once a week, I receive a call from a "polling organization". Some of these are clearly blatent plugs for one candidate or the other. However, at least once a month in the period from July through October, we receive a call that appears to be a legitimate polling inquiry.

Once a month? New Mexico is a SMALL state. We have THREE, count them THREE Congressional districts. We have five electoral votes. True, that's not at the bottom of the numbers, but it isn't very far up.

My question is simple-- Why are pollsters more concerned with the political opinions of a voter living in a small state than they were with the opinions of a person living in one of the largest (population-wise) states in the Country? And yes, in both locations, my telephone number has been listed and available.

What are the statistical odds of my receiving a legitimate poll inquiry once a month in New Mexico and yet only once every five years in California?

I have not looked (in the Almanac of American Politics) at the voting percentages of my old California district and my New Mexico district. Perhaps New Mexico citizens vote at a much higher percentage than Californians. That could be a partial explanation.

It's not because in California I was working, and now I am retired. The calls generally come after six p.m. I was home in California by then.

Why am I more important now when I am living in a MUCH smaller state? My experience makes me question the validity of the polls.

But as I said at the beginning, I have never studied statistics.

The Eye of the Beholder

I’m a baby-boomer-- a fucking baby-boomer. Looks are the sine qua non. Brains are merely the icing on the cake.

I have a dream a dream of a day when a woman will not be judged on the measure of her bust, but on the content of her BRAIN.

Yes, I have had cerebral affairs, when I fucked with a guy’s brain. But would he have been attracted to my brain if it had been inside of a 300 pound, bucked-toothed body??

Perhaps that will be the ultimate blessing of the internet. A couple can meet on-line, without ever seeing a picture of each other, and fall in love with the PERSON. Once they meet IRL, they might have to make some adjustments to their ideals.

I Like Food

I like food, I like cooking, I like trying new things. I've blogged about this before.

So, once again I sit down with my notebook of clipped recipies and try to decide what to put on next week's menu. I've been collecting recipies for years, and have a lot of them I have never tried. What shall I go with this time?

Baked pasta with spinach and sausage -- shell pasta with spinach and hot italian sausage in a cheese-heavy alfredo-like sauce

Sausage Ragout - smoked sausage in a sort of Italian stew - Italian green beans, cannellini beans, tomatoes, bell pepper (red and green) and italian spices

Crab and Avocado enchiladas - you cook some of the avocado into the enchiladas

Crab and Asparagus Bread Pudding - what it sounds like - (sounds yummy!)

Those are the four dishes I have never fixed that I am debating. As I think, the bread pudding and the ragout may just be a little too heavy. (I know, I know, Alfedo sauce isn't?) It's still warm out, and I may want to go for dishes that seem less wintery.

I refuse to limit myself only to things I know how to cook. After all, where's the excitement in that?

If it sounded good enough to cut out of a paper or magazine years and years ago, it should still be good enough to cook and eat today.

Pop Corn and Margaritas

Let's admit it, doesn't that sound good?

I'm trying to plan a menu for the week. I'm looking at things I have fixed, asking myself "What sounds good?"

Coq au vin and Cassoulet both sound too heavy for the heat of summer. Seafood-stuffed manicotti? Chicken fried steak? Both are possibilities, although the manicotti IS a lot of work.

What if, instead of buying the manicotti pasta, I make crepes? Haven't done THAT in a good many years. But if I make a full recipe of crepes, then I can put other things in them for another meal---chicken in a light sauce, maybe?

Mac & cheese (actually rigatoni in a fontina sauce with prosciutto and mushrooms)? That has the advantage of tasting even better a day or two later.

I'm making myself hungry. Microwave popcorn and pre-made margarita. I'm set!

So, I open my cook book of main dishes --I place recipes I cut out of magazines and newspapers in a loose-leaf binder-- and there is an estouffade bernaise. I've never made that. Reading through, it looks DELICIOUS!! and also a very WINTER dish. That one will wait.

An EASY chicken cacciatore -- haven't made that in YEARS!! Flag that for a meal!

Looking at fish dishes. Crab and asparagus bread pudding (agin, might be a winter dish) and one called "Pasta with Mushrooms and Scallops" A variation on scampi! Uses cream in the sauce....FLAG THAT!!

Well, I've got my menu started -- Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and peas; Chicken cacciatore with pasta and a salad; Tuscan steak with creamed spinach (fairly easy, just sounds complicated)(add a tossed salad to this too); Pasta with mushrooms and scallops (and a salad); I may just add in Burritos for two reasons - 1. they're EASY.
2. George LOVES them.

And if I golf Tuesday, and George and I golf Friday, those two nights I don't have to fix dinner!

OK, who is coming over which nights for dinner??

A Silent Solution?

I came across an article that appeared in the New Your Times on July 9, 2010. It was written by Julia Preston, and reports on what she calls "Silent Raids" by immigration. Her article indicates that these raids are carried out against large employers who are in industries where hiring illegal workers is frequently a regular practice.

The raids are not carried out in the traditional manner. Rather than rounding up and removing employees, the immigration agent inspects the I-9's the employees fill out and the employers maintain. By auditing the records, the agents can determine which employees are not in this country legally. The employer then fires the illegal workers.

The illegal workers are not deported. HOWEVER, they are very unlikely to find work with any large employer in that particular industry.

Under the traditional scenario, a large group of agents would have rounded up all of the illegal workers and (eventually) returned them to Mexico. This new method uses only one agent to audit the employer's records. Under this new version, the illegal parties are not forcibly deported. The cost savings to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are large.

And the worker who is in this country illegally, who can no longer find work in the industry they have been working in, and possibly cannot find ANY job? He does not qualify for unemployment, or for welfare. He may very well choose to re-partiate himself back to his country of origen.

The article was picked up by various news services and portions of it were repeated in national news outlets during the next two or three days. However, no further "in-depth" coverage was done.

Simple searches show that there HAS been a major change in immigration law. Or rather, there has been a major change in penalties for hiring illegal immigrants.

It appears that perhaps the current administration has implemented a "silent solution" to the immigration crises. By examining the payrolls of the large employers, by fining the employers and forcing them to fire the illegal employees, it appears that a program is underway to make jobs less plentiful for the illegal immigrant -- whether he is from Mexico, Poland, or China.