On Syria

As far as I understand, there is a little something called the Arab Spring that is happening right now. It is a noble movement, sparked by the educated and revolutionary spirit of the Iranian people; a populace that has always been very leery about imperial power both within and most importantly, from outside their country. The protest of 2009, following the re-election of President Ahmadinejad, saw tremendous bloodshed, a great flexing of military might that sought to protect what it claimed to be a fair election. I am afraid that the military response that Iran's Revolutionary Guard took to its protesters is itself a great irony of the Arab Spring. The cruelty that the Revolutionary Guard engaged in was not unusual, but it was excessive, and perhaps there is a lesson to be learned in this sad fact, and the reason why so many American soldiers are coming back with Post Traumatic Stress disorder from the Middle East; these thugs don't give a fuck. They have the eye of the sniper, and the bite of the tiger, and are not afraid to kill whoever may have the tenacity/audacity to stand up to them. Syria has adopted this strategy on their dissidents in the very same manner as the Revolutionary Guard, and as a result we have what Wikipedia is now referring to as the Syrian Civil War; a 2 year skirmish in which the military has slaughtered several thousand people, half of whom are said to be civilians, and 6 million people have been displaced (2 mil out of the country), for a multitude of reasons I do not dare to imagine.
On Syria.
On Syria.
This is Syria right now. Over one hundred thousand dead, and all the world's eyes turned to see what will come of this great Arabian nation. I for one would like to see Assad deposed for War Crimes the way Hussein should have been. That is the future I want to see RIGHT NOW for this exploited, war torn, yet absolutely beautiful and still very "Fertile" part of the misbegotten "Crescent".
Amen.

Emily Dickinson is Beautiful

I say is, and not was, for as I read her words upon the page, her beauty comes alive to me evermore. I am not really in the habit of reading so much these days, but as I have been up since 4 am, I somehow found myself eager to glance upon my old writing, specifically my papers from college, 10 years ago, and was pleasantly surprised by the beauty I found in the writing of the glorious women I included in an anthology I compiled, entitled "Transcendence of the Spirit: Flight & Liberation". Adrienne Rich's brilliant and complex images and evermore dazzling logics, Nikki Giovanni's tremendously incisive metaphors matched only by her keen interventions on a painfully static social order, and of course Emily's beautiful voice, painting great intellectual expanses upon which we may wander in delight. And to do her a little tribute, it is my great pleasure to share with you one of her poems, called "Two Butterflies go out at Noon".


Two butterflies went out at noon
And waltzed above a stream,
Then stepped straight through the firmament
And rested on a beam;

And then together bore away
Upon a shining sea,--
Though never yet, in any port
Their coming mentioned be.

If spoken by the distant bird,
If met in ether sea
By frigate or by merchantman,
Report was not to me.

Such a little poem, but so semantically voluminous. I am in awe of Madame Dickinson, and the oceans of beauty tucked under her alabaster breast.

Shabnam & Daniel's Wedding

Was absolutely beautiful, but at the bride's request, I am not going to be featuring any of the wedding photos because she is fiercely private. But it was amazing. Despite her private and professional face to the world, and most of her co-worker's, my new sister-in-law has an incredibly warm and glowing spirit that radiated from the dance floor into everyone's hearts. It was marvelous. A beautiful affair I can not begin to relay the beauty of, you simply had to be there.

Tomorrow

Boasts the beginning of a whole new world. My family is setting out for Boston in the morning, where we are to attend my brother's wedding. The wedding is on Sunday, and then we have seven nights of seven parties hosted by different friends and family of, in this case, the bride, which is in the Jewish tradition of Sheva Brachot, "seven blessings". So 10 days in Boston; an elaborate celebration of love that I cant wait to be a part of. Im so happy for my little brother, and really looking forward to this wonderful journey he is embarking on. I will keep you posted, dear reader, and hopefully have some beautiful pictures to share with you.

Happy Sweet

Those are some delicious happy feet, arent they? Courtesy of a Facebook friend who shall remain nameless.

God is leaving the building

The firing squad is being mobilized for something I said to a friend recently, so I feel the need to argue it logically, from beginning to end. We were talking about Middle Eastern society, and I said that "religion is the basest unifier of people", and I qualified my statement with special regard to Islam that I consider to be a horrible religion, both brutish and binding, with dark truths that prey on people's hearts. Upon arriving home, I could feel the whiplash of my statement pulsing through my family, observant Jews who are very unified through their faith, and crashing their hearts. And it dawns upon me, there is still something intrinsically true to my statement; above and beyond the beauty and joy their congregations feed them, religion is a private relationship between oneself and the world. It is a meditative relationship which hinges upon a harmonious flow between oneself, and all of creation. That being said, there are social celebrations centered upon this relationship which are worthy of congregation, study to be done that works best in groups, but the heart of the matter, the point of my statement, is that there is so much more for human beings to come together around than religion, within their respective ethnicities and cultural identities. As a Jew, I find so much more to come together around within Judaism than seasonal holidays, however much I do enjoy the company of friends and family, however routine the ceremony may be, year after year. Yes, the ceremony and literature IS fundamental and valuable, but there is so much more. To put it simply; CULTURE, and it needn't be codified, but can be individually structured, just like faith ideally should be, from the vast assemblage of cultural foods, language arts, fashions, and all the other vast cultural arts, which some religious people shun due to their prohibitive lifestyles and mores.
Is religion base? Only when it is destructive, otherwise it can be an illuminating blessing for those who follow, and very noble, but my statement reverberates in my heart that it is still not the best basis for social interaction, for union amongst people. It is but one fruit of the great tree that is CULTURE, and I for one, want to see a full, and bountiful tree, lush with the beauty of my ancestors, which I seek to perpetuate. And to take the argument one step further, trees. Cultural springs from which we all may benefit and grow. One of the great benefits of being an American; take advantage people.
Finally, religion becomes base when it is abused. My mother says, everything in moderation, and this applies to religion as well. Besides for the great assumptions we make about the creator's intentions for us and this world, in religious observance, these practices may make robots of people, who, in extremity, adopt a mob attitude, and that is not a noble thing at all. God does not need arbitrarily disciplined armies; I can say in all certainty, that God just wants us to be a good and happy. Let's have a party over that. I'll make some really delicious, healthy food. Come. And let God watch. I bet he likes to watch us LIVE LIFE.

Spring in New Jersey

Our beautiful red tree, the graceful queen of our front yard, has blossomed her dazzling array of leaves. I can not begin to describe the feeling one gets when her grace blesses us with her bounty each spring, but I can try to show you. Ignite!
I grew up climbing this pretty tree, so it was only appropriate to take some pics from inside, cradled in her branches.
A little scene of graceful foliage above my branch.

Her canopy, with the sun and a nearby friend saying hello.
And look at this! When you jump down the ground is always a revelation, and look at what I noticed this time. We have tons of sprouts growing about her trunk. She's a momma!

Leaving the Pleasure Dome.....

.....and entering a whole new world of senses, tastes, and culinary delights, that are real!
As promised, it is time to delve into the next chapter of Forks over Knives, and tackle another important issue the film opens up for us, food as addiction. I am very familiar with this problem, I think we all are to some extent (be they good or bad dependencies), with gluten, specifically via pasta. When I eat a nice plate of pasta (always loaded with veggies, btw), I am good for hours, because the gluten is an incredibly thick, dense, and generally hearty protein found in all varieties of wheat and barley, and some other cereal grains (but those glutens, like those found in corn, are altogether different). This process of satiation from nutrient dense foods is one of the red flags for poor eating habits that people have with the standard American diet that is heavy (no pun intended) in processed foods like bread, pasta (gluten), meats, oils and dairy. We are filling up on these foods, mostly processed carbs, instead of eating a variety of vegetables which are less attractive, and frankly, less accessible. Meat and dairy are great examples of nutrient dense foods that we are over-eating because we like them so much, in fact, our brains are idiotically drawn to them, the video explains, precisely because they are dense and rich, and will fill us up. Cheese is the best example I can think of. How much do we all love cheese? Because it is rich, nutrient dense, and texturally heavenly. But is it really feeding us the protein, fats and minerals it boasts? The brain in our stomach seems to think so. Worse yet, is how poorly we are consuming and denaturing what was once a luxury food. When we eat animal flesh, that which is now an agro-industrial commodity devoid of its original, pastoral integrity, many of us, all over the world, actually, are cooking it up and burning the bio-availability right out of it, and even making this sustenance carcinogenic (browning your meat is caramelizing it, creating cancer causing compounds from the sugars). To put it simply, in principle, when meat, or anything, is OVERCOOKED, it becomes hydrophobic, which means it becomes such a tight, contractive mass that it actually repels water; how well do you think the nutrients from such a product are absorbed into our cells and body tissue? Furthermore, when you cook anything, you cook its digestive enzymes out of it when your cooking heat exceeds 118 (that is barely hot enough to melt butter), thereby making it that much harder for our body to digest it in general. The body likes raw animal protein, that which has digestive enzymes intact, but if you cant stomach it, be sure you are not burning your meat. Braising, boiling, poaching, and what my teacher, Chef Celine, called swateeing (saute-ig with water), are ways to ensure your food does not burn. Finally, there is "well done" food. Food that has the vitality literally cooked right out of it. This is most readily observable in starches that are prized when they are "golden". Dr. Oz explains this process on his website:
"Certain natural sugars and certain natural protein building blocks become fused together to form acrylamide when temperatures top 250°F.The substance...acrylamide...It’s an industrial chemical known to increase infertility and neurological problems at high doses...And, the browner the toast or cereal or potato, the more acrylamide it likely contains"(http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/toxic-toast-411-acrylamide)
It is recently being discovered that these acrylamides are actually carcinogenic, so why do we like these compounds,the dark products of fire roasted foods? Can our instinctual wiring for food be so senseless, and even self-destructive? The documentary explains that it is not our nature, but our nurture that is damning us. The standard American diet has predisposed us to foods that pop! How does a plate of steamed broccoli stand a chance? That plate of broccoli, eaten with some healthy starches, fats, and some animal protein, like a rice pilaf with beans, and a poached egg, is a great meal that will fill up your stomach, and trigger your stomach's sensors for a full, adequately dense meal. The video explains that 500 calories of vegetable foods fills up the stomach quite nicely, and tells your brain you have had enough. Rice and beans, a meal that provides complete protein, is quite filling! And you can load that with all kinds of vegetables in the bean stew, in the rice, and served alongside both (various salsas, chutneys, guacamole, pickled vegetables, raw onions, scallions, radishes, etc.). On the other hand, 500 calories of nutrient dense food is a snack; it barely fills up half the stomach, and while that may temporarily sate us, and literally triggers happy hormones in our brains, it does not give us the nutrients, fiber, and real meal feeling that we need to feel that we have had enough. So we eat more, and more poor calories is the recipe for disease this film warns us about.
We are all of us in the American pleasure dome, and until that cycle is broken, we are doomed to repeat poor eating habits that fill us up without giving us what we really need.

PS. One more IMPORTANT point: when our body eats too much protein or sugar (from an excess of carbs) it goes into an acid shock, known as metabolic acidosis, and our cells and tissues begin to suffer, sometimes irreversibly. It is what happens when our bloods pH goes below a certain level, and becomes acidic. Leafy greens, low sugar citrus, such as grapefruits and lemons, and other ALKALIZING foods balance the acids in our bodies. Look 'em up, and enjoy, to your health!
PPS. Look it! I got this for my kids someday. Those crusts are burned, and kids are right for not wanting to eat them! Dont encourage them!

Everyman's soup

I went to work last night to use their kitchen which lays sad and fallow during the week. I have been fighting with my mother, and I didn't want to occupy her space, so I asked James, our kitchen manager, if I could come over, and make some brownies, pretty please. He gave me a very unexpected "sure, of course", which is a welcome change in my world. But that is not why I am writing you, dear reader, I am writing you to share my last minute bravura, a great soup that I made last night which was also unexpected, and very delicious. It is the last bit of my mother's matzah ball soup with some chickpeas I added (I hadn't had any all weekend, and when I saw the tupperware full of matzah balls, a few carrots, and only a few ounces of chicken stock, I knew I could make something of it). So I stopped at the market to pick up some cilantro, always an excellent addition to most any soup, and got some shrimps and enoki mushrooms at the last minute. First thing I did when I got to the restaurant, was to peel the exoskeletons off the shrimp to make a quick stock which would simmer for a good 40 minutes. I put the meat aside in a hotel pan filled with ice, and set off to make my brownies. When they were in the oven, I prepped the rest of my soup, cleaned the cilantro, shrimps, and mushrooms, and cooked it all together (actually, I rough chopped the cilantro and placed it into the serving bowl, and when the soup was ready I poured it over it, to preserve the fresh taste of the herb) in the two stock mixture. What a delight! I tossed some red pepper flakes, and of course some salt, into the final product, and I really enjoyed this masterpiece, a pan-Asian delight if you will, that I hope to make again.


Look Ma, I really am the devil! But I prefer to think that shrimp and matzah ball can coexist. I dont expect her to agree.

A close up of all the varietal goodness.

Forks Over Knives

As part of my educational entertainment phase, I just finished watching Forks Over Knives, a super jam packed wake up call for people who are addicted to the standard American diet of processed foods and animal proteins. I should say alarmist, but not without cause. The way millions of Americans eat in this country is atrocious, and a real problem that this documetary is tackling head on, illustrating the consequences of the standard American diet.

What is the standard American diet? It is "My Pyramid", it is cheese burgers and fries with a milkshake, it is canned vegetables and TV dinners, it is candy bars and soda, it is sliced bread and lunch meats, processed sugars and grains. In 100 years, from the 20th to the 21st century, Americans have almost doubled, and sometimes tripled the consumption of these foods. In the early 1900's Americans were eating 120 lbs of meats, 40 lbs of processed sugar, and 294 lbs of dairy annually. In 2000, Americans are now eating, 222 lbs of meat, 147 lbs of all processed sweeteners, 605 lbs of dairy annually. And these figures most accurately reflect children's breakfast and lunches at school, where these industries reign due to government subsidies of dairy and the like. What the movie advocates as an alternative is a plant based diet, with whole grains and legumes as the major protein source, and minimal animal protein. What is minimal? I really don't know. I had two organic eggs with my breakfast of potatoes and a bowl of fresh cilantro, which I think is pretty healthy, but maybe I am wrong. Each egg is 50 grams, and two eggs would be 100 grams, just under 4 ounces. According to the film, that is a lot for one meal! And they are right, but how do we put their theories into action (maybe just one egg in the future, like my mom does)? They criticize the standard American diet which is about 10 ounces of meats a day (eggs is included in that category I suppose). So, considering what I ate this morning, can I have any more meat today? Probably not, but who knows! Much less confusing, I think is dairy, as almost 2 pounds of dairy a day is definitely over the limit, and I will tell you why. On top of all the industrial concerns over dairy, the growth hormones present, the poor lipid profile due to a mostly grain diet, and the anti-biotics administered to keep inflammation down in this undignified animal, all mammal dairy has a protein called casein, which up to now I only understood to be one of the toughest proteins to digest, especially after pasteurization when its digestive enzyme is destroyed by heat (casein found in goat and sheep dairy is not as tough, and easier to digest, as are their fats, which are shorter chain fatty acids, which carry a host of additional health benefits). Turns out, it is much worse than I thought. Casein should never be eaten with fruits, vegetables, chocolate, tea, even coffee, because of the way it blocks the anti-oxidants called polyphenols from doing their job of healing the body. It binds to polyphenols, and renders them helpless to pass through our system, a prisoner of casein's chemical bond. Casein is a bitter rogue, and I for one, am frightened by him now. One would do better to eat dairy products without casein (cream based dairy, that which is entirely milkfat) in combination, or to eat dairy products containing casein by themselves, in moderation. So that solo cup of milk at night once in a while might not be such a bad idea after all (considering that it is whole milk, grass fed, hormone free, and preferably non-homogenized). There is the larger concern that casein is causing cancer. That is something I know very little about, but theoretically, it is possible that cancer cells can be fed from the casein which our body can not digest without its proper digestive enzyme, which would only be found in raw dairy, pre-pasteurization. Cancer cells love all animal protein, perhaps especially that wich they have free reign over. But with raw dairy, our body would digest the protein instead of simply passing it through our system, and then we would be fighting with the cancer cells for the food. I'm still not sure how raw dairy paired with foods rich in anti-oxidant polyphenols would affect polyphenol absorption, but it would be logical to assume that if it has its digestive enzyme, the casein molecule wont be looking roguishly for anything else to link up with; it will already have its match, and catalyze from there into digestible food for our cells.
The main, and most preventable, consequence of the standard American diet is heart disease, specifically athersoclerosis, the clogging of our veins and arteries. Dr. Esselstyn (one of the pioneering doctors), says that heart disease is a "toothless paper tiger", which as the film explains, arose in the 60's as a direct result of all the newfangled processed foods of the 50's, and widespread meat consumption. Essentially, as I understand it, plaque is building up in our veins cells, the endothelial cells, compromising their health due to an excess of low density lipids from too much (poor quality) animal foods. Then there is the carb and sugar contribution (which are also stored as fats when eaten in excess, and create more plaque in our veins and arteries). Along with these deleterious fats, sugars provide ample food for bacteria to wreak havoc on our veins, the result of which is the lining of our arteries first being built-up with plaque, then inflamed to the point of bursting, causing blood blockage which is when the heart breaks down due to incapacitation. I actually got to see a bypass surgery in the video, when they take a vein from your leg, and connect it to your heart, to "bypass" a blocked artery. Fucking wondrous. Want to know what's even more wondrous? The graphic they made of the endothelial cells health being reversed and restored back to youthful beauty with a reform in diet to plant foods and whole grains. You truly are what you eat, and it is so important that the healing power of plants play an active role in the life of your body.
There is much more I would like to write about, but I would like to keep the work topical, and dare I say, digestable. My next blog post will be about food as drugs, and how Americans are truly and literally addicted to the plethora of delicious garbage we adorably call food.

Gasland

I recently watched the documentary Gasland about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing, fracking, in the US for natural gas. I had seen some clips about the film from "The Daily Show", so I was expecting to see some tapwater set a flame with nothing more than a lighter beneath the running faucet, but I was horrified by the human, animal, and general environmental toll this practice is wreaking on our fair country. Most interesting is the loss of taste and smell in some of the victims. It can be expected that people are dying from cancers, animals are suffocating instantaneously, and streams are bubbling with natural gas like the US has been transformed into Willy Wonka's natural gasland. Two women featured in the documentary looked woefully into the camera as they described how food to them was now only texture. This is of course, an absurdist lament, atop the migraines and real sickness the natural gas is causing, but in the absurd, we are given an insight into the landscape of this very real menace big business has recently thrust upon us. And this is no propaganda damning big business arbitrarily; in 2005, as the movie describes, Dick Cheney passed an energy bill, The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which exempts the oil and natural gas industries from 30 years of environmental regulations, under the guise of an effort to move away from greenhouse gases (natural gas is a much cleaner source of energy than oil and coal). But it was all for Halliburton, because by easing these restrictions, big companies such as Encana, Williams, Cabot Oil & Gas, and others were now able to use the new Halliburton technologies to undergo "the largest and most extensive domestic gas drilling in history". These technologies are currently being undergone in 34 states. The product of which is most likely powering my computer right now.
The film begins in media res, in the middle of this hullaballo, with our auteur, Josh Fox, the documentarian, receiving a letter from some big company, proposing a lease of his 20 acres of land in Milanville, NY, for fracking along the Marcellus Shale, a large swath of mineral sediment, which houses what he calls "an Iraq of natural gas". These shale basins all over the US are our great sources of natural gas, which, sadly, we have decided to rape in a half-assed haste which I do not fully comprehend. The rape is as such: a host of chemicals are pumped 8000 feet underground into the sediment to cause a mini-earthquake with several tons of water, to create wells, which release the natural gas into great reactors. These chemicals are a great mix of toxins and carcinogens the likes of which we should be running from, not producing and pumping into mother earth. Then, when the gas is reaped, it is full of all of the toxins, which they simply burn off, and emit freely into the air. If this isn't the dirtiest desecration of our beautiful America, I dont know what is. Fox's concern is for where he lives, here, on the East coast, along the Marcellus Formation/shale, which is housed in the Appalachian mountains, and is no small part. If we lose this area to fracking, the devestation will be so wide-spread, there is no way to compute it simply. In a nutshell, say goodbye to our clean drinking water, the water NY prides itself on, which also serves parts of NJ and Pennsylvania. Even the most sophisticated filtration systems dont stand a chance against the corrosive chemicals that eat the filters of the systems. You can slowly say goodbye to the grassfed dairy and livestock of the catskills, as the air and water will slowly kill the vibrant pride of that small beacon of light in this dark, American foodscape. Oh, and say goodbye to hiking and camping, as the streams will be bubbling with natural gas, and the rocks may be hissing a wealth of that good stuff! But who cares, right? This is all hippie shit.

For giggles

I like to play with the foil from candies that I eat. I have been making these little boxes out of hershey kisses for years, this isn't even one of my best ones, but this time, I gave it friends. A little package from the peanut butter cup foil, which I stuffed with the foil from my dark chocolate squares and wrapped with the kiss sash. Aint they pretty? I made a little fan from the peanut butter cup to adorn them, and featured them on some miniature display items. I love them :)

Breakfast

This morning, I remade something I combined on a fabulous whim, which was excellent. I periodically roast squashes, and the occasional root vegetable, to have in my fridge for a reliable, nutritious starch. This time around, I roasted a Japanese white yam, and a very pale acorn squash. The winning combination I came up with and enjoyed for breakfast this morning is chopped fresh chives, an old school favorite, with a tamarind chutney, an even older school favorite for fried and/or starchy entrees. On a whim, I added some tindora (Indian baby gourds, which I refer to as nutritionally perfect baby cucumbers, given my Middle Eastern predilection for the green fruit). Tindora are great because the contain much less cellulose, which is fiber, but how much fiber do you need when you are eating such nutrient dense foods as chives and salad? With out further ado, observe the masterpiece that was my breakfast:

Here is a close up of the tindora. Ain't she precious?

I balanced out the breakfast with doogh (pronounced like dog, with a long vowel, and a guttural hard gh, it is a Middle Eastern fermented yogurt drink, much more watery than kefir, and naturally carbonated). However, the doogh didnt go well with the acidity of the tamarind, and so I had my protein with a wince, and saved most of it for after the acid finish of the chutney. That being said, I can't begin to describe what a delicious combination this is. It reminds me of aloo papri, a famous Indian dish I used to get all the time, truly a masterpiece of Indian standards and flavors, which is chickpea fritters, smothered in a tamarind chutney. Mine is definitely healthier, and beyond yum. A symphony, I am happy to have reworked, quite accidentally, and am happy to pass along. Enjoy!

Michael Kerzner

This is untitled. It will always be a beautiful moment for me. A shoulder to lean on when the world is baring down on you. I wish I had a shoulder to lean on right about now. To lean, to cuddle, and to generally be with. I want nothing more.

For Two

I made these today on a whim with some less than yummy winter blueberries that I thought would taste a great deal better if they were cooked. So I pan steamed them in a pool of water, with 2 teaspoons of fresh grated ginger, and a tablespoon of honey. I covered it for the first few minutes so the blueberries would cook, then took the lid off for the liquid to reduce into a syrup. I laid them on a bed of mascarpone cheese, then put a generous dollop of mascarpone in the center, and put my second layer of fruit around the mound of mascarpone like a doughnut; diced apples and a little bit of dried, but still fiery, ginger in a tamarind sauce, with cinnamon. Then I put a very thin layer of mascarpone on the top. Can't wait to try them. Just wish I had someone to share the second one with. And the duo was picture 1,120 on my mom's iPhone, so hopefully we live that long together, eating my yummy, healthy food!

Why?

Today is Martin Luther King's birthday, and in honor of that fact, President Obama, or rather, the person who handles his twitter account, has asked the twitterers to express why they think community service is important. I think community service is an integral part of civic republicanism (in a nutshell, being a citizen of a democracy of elected officials), for a wide multitude of reasons, the most important being to engage in the world and make an impact instead of being part of the problem. This can be as simple as taking the lead in your own home to organize your household's recycling. But it can be as robust as contacting your local officials, and getting the ball rolling on more robust recycling practices if needed. Anyways, that is not what I want to write about here, today, as important as it is to inspire. I write today to ask Why? To shout to the heavens with a great wail as for all to hear the sound of pain that comes from deep down in my soul. Why, America? Why did you savagely murder your beautiful, peaceful, benevolent son? Not a fighter, but a true lover of mankind, and a dove who's outstretched hand was violently broken with the dark rage of white power. This was someone who spoke from deep within the American subconscious to cast out her demons with light and love, and he was silenced. Why? Why do some Americans fear change so extremely? Why is the messenger of that change demonized, when in fact, that is the very creature they wish to eradicate from the American matrix of identity? Now, I can't speak so much on the matter, because frankly, I am no MLK scholar. But I know that he was a peaceful loving man, a pillar of his community, a great source of light, and for all those reasons, I wonder why? With deep anguish, this question resonates in my mind.

Love, love, love......

.......this look on the freshly pixilated Anne Hathaway. The short hair is one thing, and definitely contributes to the look, but only in the sharpest ways, as to refine the bravado inherent in this wildly luscious ensemble. Masculine? Feminine? Fabulous.

Sweet and Sour Roasted Chicken

This past week I finally did what I had been planning to do for a very long while; make a chicken dish with some beautiful dried fruit I bought at an Arabic grocery in Brooklyn. I bought dried plums and cherries from Sahadi's , in Brooklyn Heights on Atlantic avenue. They specialize in dried fruits, as 1/3 rd of the store is devoted to dried fruits and nuts, and they do it very well. Anyways, I made a marinade for the chicken out of these dried fruits with a tomato paste (about 2 1/2 tablespoons) and garlic base (2 tablespoons of minced garlic), 1 teaspoon of turmeric, sour cherry syrup (which has sugar in it, about 2 tablespoons), 3 cinnamon sticks, and just shy of a tablespoon of tamarind paste (be careful using tamarind paste, it is very strong), an 1/3 cup of filtered water. I stewed the marinade for 40 minutes or so, just until one of the cinnamon sticks opened up and released its fragrance. Once it cooled, I smothered the chicken with it, filled the chicken's cavity with the three cinnamon sticks, some rough chopped onion, and some preserved lemon, and let it marinate for 36 hours (I would have made it after 24, but I was busy). right before cooking, I drizzled the whole chicken with olive oil to lock in moisture. Here is my finished product!

One caveat: I roasted this at 450 like all the internet recipes had instructed me to, but with all this fruit, I really should have done it at 350 like my mom does. It made no difference for the chicken, it was moist and amazing, but I lost some fruit which was burnt black, and it was really a shame because some of those cherries plumped up to almost their original size like a dried mushroom does when soaked. Filled with olive oil, and chicken jus, it was an exquisite delight.
I made myself a plate before work one day, to fill myself before my service at the restaurant. I made a little salad to go with it, of chives, thai basil, and some red kidney beans, dressed simply in salt, and the olive oil and chicken jus from the roast (I should have added just a touch of black pepper or sour cherry syrup to the salad for more flavor, but I just didn't. Lazy, blazy, crazy, before work, and just wanting to eat.) Notice, the conspicuous lack of carbs on the plate, with the exception of the small amount of beans. I did this precisely, and deliberately, to avoid food slumber before my evening service.

I loved it, but next time, I have to premarinade my chicken with salt and additional turmeric to prime the bird for the second layer of marinade. You live, you learn.

Royal Bitch

Here is the sister poem for the previous one. I wrote this in a moment of capsizing fear to bring some order to the world, to my life, to it all. It also isn't perfect, but it is quite the explication. Enjoy!

Royal Bitch

Dedication: For all the It-girls of privilege that have entered popular culture as of late. I wish you would be more like this.

She makes fun of the girl who looks a mess
When everyone is wearing their Sunday best
For she is flawless
Not lawless
Pretty in pink
Perhaps, some day, tallest
Perfect and it pains her so
Because beauty is pain
And don't she know

Mother attended Institut Alpin Videmanette
She was the prim and proper coquette
Schooled in the arts of etiquette
She demands the same of her daughters
For those poor in society bore her
And she will not breed insolent indolence for their father
He won’t have it either

So we return to our lady of class
She isn't quite Mother yet, but our virtuous lass
Reluctant to be a daughter of phallocentric privilege
Her eyes have absorbed much
And she is assessing the spillage

Yet
She is a good daughter of tradition
And she will wear it well
That is her joi de vivre
To be both lady, and belle

Educated and refined
Her taste not quite set
She is growing to the praise that her station will beget

But first,
Our thoughtful beauty has some lessons to pass
Feminism
Misogyny
Objectification
She understands these constructs?
Understands their past?
She is learning
Learning how to lift the veil
To see
The androcentrism in old fairy tales
It is not an easy task
For she richly inherits a tradition whose joys she may question
This tried and true
Expanding the dimensions
of her mind
And the reflections
of her heart

For the self she aims to be
Her own objet d'arte

Her mind grows to examine the folly she sees
She is troubled by them who she is subjected to regularly
Even the rejects
The unruly few
For them
She demonstrates with beauty
The virtue
Of delicacy

Male and Female alike she instructs
With hesitancy
She scolds
Isn’t quick
May be bold
But she isn’t cold
And ultimately
In the end
Even she knows

Truth is peripatetic
The middle is excluded
The necessary dialectic

For our Pynchon schooled her
As she cried for her lot
He teaches the masses
What is nasty
What is hot
Our writers
Designers
Leaders
Artists
Those who think in private
But who live in the public
They understand the value of this American diet
They are of it
For
Our Royal bitch who wins it all
Who
Shines
Beams
Glows
At the debutante’s ball

Inventing Bitch

This poem is not perfect. I wrote it a few years ago on a silly whim of feminist pride in my own fabulous self. I forget what prompted it; the world baring down on me! So here it is. It is both too much and not enough at the same time. Yet, due to the urging of my muse, I am posting it for you all. Enjoy!
ps. This is actually a language poem, as are many of my poems, following in the Beat tradition best exemplified by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I am sorry that blogger does not allow for the breaks, pauses, and artful placement of words and phrases, but I think you can still get the beat, it just isn't as pronounced as it would be on the well punctuated page.

Inventing Bitch

Dedication: For all the (would-be) feminists who understand the joys of beauty, and shamelessly revel in them, unabashedly partaking in one of life's greatest pleasures, beauty.


Bitch
Witch
A very high pitch
A scratch you cant itch
No matter which
Hand you employ
I will toy
Cause I'm coy
No ploy
I have to be
In this world of ours
This world so foul
I am a bitch
Beware
I may growl

You may howl
You may writhe
As I wriggle in delight
As I bask in my bitchiness
And invent this sight
For the world that we live in rewards this might
As it squeezes us all to a pulp, nice and tight
I write
May
Fight
On this subject
Of
Gender

Oh, how you penned her
(and him)
Oh how to mend her…..
I will be Bitch
For my gender
A place to begin
I’m not trying to bend her
I’m not trying to “win”
But be her
See her
The happy lady of the land
And as I try to imagine, like a wand in my hand
Her bitchiness
Bitchessa
La Bitch arrives
She shakes her tail
And into the world she dives
She has only one life, and she will live it well
She will dance
She will prance
The puritans can go to hell
For she is W-O-M-A-N
Capital Construct said D
Who will revel in herself
She may allow you to see
What a beautiful Woman she can truly be
She may be a fox
She may fox trot foxy

She will giggle
May wiggle
As you squiggle of her beauty
You don’t do it justice
Don’t honor it
Just do your “duty”
As you shell her
As you sell her
With your ever gazing eyes
You inhumanely swell her
You turn her into lies

She lives it through
She tries to be herself
But at the end of the day
She is not candy on a shelf
Perfectly wrapped
Waiting to be bought

Nor is she a pupil
Apt to be taught
On the functions of beauty
A gilded statue
Painfully over-wrought

Furthermore,
She won’t cater to your vision
Dressing like a senseless whore
With dyed blonde hair and clothes that wear her
Making her a trashy bore

If she is to bare herself she does it to express
To express the divine creature that she is
Who loves that sexy dress
And the way it makes her feel

As for how you draw her
Bitch will tell you that it smells
She’ll burn it up in anger
She sends it straight to hell
She can see the smoke rise
She must be herself
She is the phoenix from the ashes
She will write it well

But in the meantime, as she stumbles down the yellow brick road
Not quite Dorothy, nor green as the jaded……you know
She lives in/as the construct
Made inside and out
Blow-dried
Waxed
Lips ready to pout
She is bitch
Hear her shout

Breakfast

Poached eggs which I broke over my turmeric smothered cauliflower.

I also added two tablespoons of labne (it's a yogurt spread from the Middle East, much like sour cream) for the the pieces of cauliflower that didn't get egg (and some of them that did). It was so delicious, that I licked my plate clean! I love my crazy, albeit solitary, ways! In the future, in mixed company, I will politely use a piece of pita bread to soak up all the extra egg yolk, or better yet, lay all of it down upon the pita, so that the pita catches every little bit of the oh-so-nutritous runny, raw, and organic, egg yolk.

Welcome

Could I be anymore grand? I suppose I could have created my serious, quasi-academic, blog on the first of January, and been truly grandiose, but I was busy ;). Anyways, here I am, fresh in 2013, and missing you dear reader. The Elegant Word was a great blog, and in its demise I find myself lacking its spacious expanse for the words and thoughts my mind wishes to release and create. So I am back, with verve, and Lady's Love Letters has been born. They are various as I am, an infinitude of springs my heart summons my brain to create to complete the wishes of my soul in these oh-so-important moments of my life I chose to share with you. A mouthful, I know but so is any kind of real love. Real love is fleshy and luscious, grand and conspicuous, wanting to be shared and made manifest, justified, edified, deified even. So I share with you, dear reader, and hope that I tickle your brain, touch your heart, and move your soul a little. Or, on an average day, just give you something interesting to read or look at, that, I promise, always comes from love :)