All Hat, No Cattle

Okay, I admit it, I wrote this on FaceB and then realized I should have written it here. I was reminded of the old Texas description of a dumb cowboy: All Hat, No Cattle. So here goes:
Last few days I've gotten several pics of President Barack Obama and his wife with the general title of: "Only 15 more months till they're gone. Like if you agree. Let's get a good Republican in there."
My response is to write HAHAHAHA! Lincoln and Roosevelt (Teddy), are long gone. And even Goldwater would not be accepted by the current crew of zanies. Who do they want? Dimwitted Carson who looks to be on so many meds you WANT to forgive him from being so completely stupid on every stinking issue; You want Trump? The New York loudmouth who functions well in NYC but would have this country in hot water with 30 countries in a week if president, and then would try to send national guard into the homes where suspected illegals live. Wow. Or completely crazy Cruz, who is proof positive that affirmative action occasionally fails with his Harvard presence; Rubio? The little Cubano whose father fought WITH Castro but talks about how his father escaped Castro in order to capture the Miami Cuban votes? Maybe Fiorina, whose claim to fame is running two companies into the dirt, killing tens of thousand of jobs, and walking away with a pile of money the companies gave her to disappear before she did more damage. Or Santorum, whose name on the internet perfectly describes this utterly phony Catholic; Or do they want Christie, who has never resisted an impulse in his life, to have the red phone at 3 AM if someone calls to interrupt him while he's eating a bacon and mayo sandwich? Let's go with Jeb Bush, who destroyed Florida and is trying to convince us that his brother kept us safe by invading Iraq at the behest of Dick Cheney and Haliburton? 
I would not invite any of these people to a block party, much less to a presidential debate. Hell, Lindsay "I'm not gay, just effeminate" Graham, is better than all of those people. And effeminate is his best feature! Hell, even Kasich, if you don't look at his religious-right belief, sounds better than all of them. YIKES! What the hell are republicans thinking with this motley crew of absolute dumb ass losers? They are certainly not thinking about the well-being of this country!

Crazy World

So I was thinking about some things today, some serious stuff, when the cover of my book, Sapo in My Soul, popped into my head. It probably popped into my head because an Italian publisher is going to print a copy in Italian and he'd asked for the photo files.
    When this thought popped into my head, I had to write to Morgan Maher, the designer of the book and a guy who has several of his photos in the book, including the cover picture. (To see it, go to amazon dot com and punch in Peter Gorman in books and the cover will pop up.) And this is what I wrote him:
Morgan: Crazy, right? Some things just pop into my head insanely. Like this: You are probably the first person in the history of the world as we know it who has ever put a picture of a stretched out frog while it was being milked for its venom on the cover of a book. 

   First person in the history of the world. Whew! We waited 6-8-40 billion years for you to come along and do that. And there you were and did it. Another first in a world where people don't think there is anything new under the sun. HA!

Gor

   There is lots of new stuff under the sun. Go out and be part of it everybody. It's a damned exhilarating feeling!

Saying Goodbye to My Surgeon

This might seem silly to most of you, but yesterday my surgeon and I said goodbye. We both didn't like it. Neither one of us was looking forward to it. Here's the deal. When I first met Dr. Ronny Ford from Huguley Hospital it was shortly before surgery on my right calf, which was being absolutely destroyed by four flesh-eating viruses—basically, I think, a staph cocktail that was out of control. He took care of that in July, 2013, with two operations. By luck, and with his help, and the help of the staff, my leg and life were saved.
    In January or Feb of 2014, Dr. Ford gave me a skin graft from flesh he took off my upper right thigh. That measured about 6" by 10 ". During most of those months, I was seeing him as I got better every week or two. After the skin graft I also saw him every week or two. He's nice and his assistant Anne is nice and I always enjoyed the visits. Evette at the front desk is also nice: Everybody gets 5-Star ratings from me.
   We started spacing the visits to once a month about six months after the graft, but one year later, in Feb of 2015, the leg reinfected and I've been seeing him every week since then, except for my time in Peru.
   But yesterday, we both had to admit, it's better. Nothing to be done. And you know what? That was sort of sad. I love my visits to Dr. Ford. I'll miss Annie's Irish elfin sense of humor as she tells me my blood pressure isn't so bad, but that I should take it easy on the wine. I'll miss the couple of minutes a week when Dr. Ford scraped the Sh.t out of my leg and I had to bite my tongue sometimes to keep from screaming.
   Crazy, right? I mean, just a habit, right?
   Yes, both of those. But it was also a connection with a few very special healers, who heal in a very immediate world of surgery. And they did it with style and substance and character and fun and that is a great combination. And that's why I was sad when we had to say goodbye yesterday. My leg doesn't need him anymore. But my spirit still does! Damnit!

Another Glorious Food Leftovers Piece

Ah, so this is going to be another food blog? Another leftover food blog? Why does this guy keep writing stuff like this? Can't he stick to politics or ayahuasca or even his family? How are his damned dogs anyway?
    Thanks for asking. The dogs are find. Boots got joined by Blackie a couple of months ago. He came, he stayed, we fed him. Now a younger version of Blackie has come along--so alike that I think she may be Blackie's daughter--out of nowhere and appears likely to stay awhile as well. So now I have to cook a lot of chicken legs daily.
   But those are not the leftovers here. What happened was a friend came in Thursday for several days. From Arizona, I think. Then another friend flew in on Friday from New York, just about the time that Madeleina got home from college for the weekend.
   Not sure what people would want considering the hour, I made a batch of good taco ground beef--yeah, I'm making a lot of that lately to make up for all the years I never did--and got a good head of organic iceberg lettuce, a nice avocado, some shredded cheddar, taco sauce, and hard taco shells. That would cover me if Chepa and the girls came over, if Italo came over, or Marco, or whomever. To go with that, I made a spaghetti squash. Baked it with a bit of butter, and when it was done put it in a saute pan that had lots of garlic and diced red pepper in it, added a bit more butter and voila!
   Then I made a large pan of Uncle Clem's Chicken--Madeleina's favorite treat. You take chicken breasts, cut them into smallish--siingle bite--pieces, flour them and sear them in olive oil with a bit of garlic, good cracked black pepper and pink sea salt. Then you get an absurd amount of broccoli and cut that into a couple of hundred bite-sized florets. You steam or par boil those. Then you put the broccoli on the bottom of a good baking pan, put the chicken on that, add the secret sauce to cover all, then top with sliced fresh mozzarella. Bake till the cheese is golden brown, serve over rice.
   Now on Saturday, the out of town friends were going to do medicine, and we were joined by a third friend, from Texas. They could only have one meal of the day, then had to fast (and do lots of yard work to get rid of the food in their systems) and it had to be fairly light, so I made them a large salmon filet. Stove top in olive oil, skin up, high heat, till the meat side was a beautiful dark brown. Flipped it so skin side was down, then put thin sliced zuccini, yellow squash, diced Roma tomatoes and chopped scallions all around the fish in the pan and let it cook away. It was a large piece of fish, good and thick, so that was probably 15 minutes. Then I took out the fish and put it aside. Added some organic vegetable stock to the veggies and pan juices, stirred em up, put them in a bowl. I put a bunch, big bunch, of spinach in the pan with what little pan juice was left until it wilted. Put the spinach as a bed on the plates, put a nice slice of salmon on that, put the veggies next to the salmon, with some of them just falling over the thin end of the meat, then put rice next to those. Good meal.
    No food for anyone for dinner that night, just ceremony.
    The next morning all were ravished, so I made home fries with onions, cooked up a mess of scrambled eggs with cheese, and fried some good ham slices for breakfast for them.
   But then, see, two more friends were coming over in the afternoon. What to make them? And what if Chepa and the kids came over? So I put eight chicken thighs in the oven after searing them stove, then tossed in three boneless beef ribs in a homemade barbeque sauce and got them baking. Put together a nice guacamole and then sliced a beautiful papaya and drenched it in fresh lime juice.
   We wound up using a little of everything and since the Giants were playing I didn't put anything away before the game ended and I went to sleep.
    So I woke up to a table filled with left overs: There was a small bowl of taco beef and a couple of taco shells and nearby some shredded cheddar. The guacamole sat near the plate of ribs, which was next to the remaining chicken thighs, and Uncle Clem's Chicken, and not far from the last of the spaghetti squash, which shared a plate with a bit of the home fries. Rice was on the stove; a plate with a tiny bit of salmon was still wrapped in the oven.
   The ice cream hadn't been touched. I guess the food was good. And I think the dogs are going to have a great mosh of a meal later!

Small Perks of Small Town Living

I loved living in New York. I loved my tenement apartments, even, and especially the first, which had a bathtub in the kitchen and no sink in the toilet-only bathroom. But I moved to Texas after a stint in Peru, and it was pretty country out here. You always smelled skunk when you came close to Joshua, a town of about 4,000 at the time, between the county seat of Cleburne and Burleson, the last suburb of Fort Worth.
    I never made friends here. The neighbors all had pretty good plots: The guy next to me, Ty, had an acre; to my left, the guy had about 3.5 acres. Across the street, the guy had about 40 acres. Next to him a woman had 55 acres but didn't live on the property. So it wasn't like just running into people. And it wasn't like New York: Johnson County was a dry town, so if you wanted a drink you had to go to Fort Worth, and what's the fun of driving 20 miles for a drink if you have to leave after having two because you have to drive another 20 miles to go home? So I didn't make those drinking buddy friends, either.
   Now I did like my neighbors, and we often said hello, and if I was doing a project they might come to check it out and have a beer, and vice-versa, but I don't think I was ever in any of their houses and I know they were never in mine. No matter. I had my friend Lynn, over in Irving, and we'd talk on the phone and see one another every couple of weeks. And over the years I've made friends with Mike and Dian and they come over every couple of weeks; and Pat comes over now and then. And then I've got lots of former guests from the jungle who stop by for a few days, and some people who want a little healing--so I end up with lots of company, even though that company is not normally nearby. This week I've got two friends, one from Oregon, one from New York, coming in for a few days. And then Mike and Dian are coming on Sunday for dinner. So I don't lack for company, I just don't have friends nearby like I did in New York.
   But now and then, I get surprised at people who know me. Now I know some people in the police department, and the crew at the jail and a couple of judges know me, because I've written about the corruption in this town and county quite a bit and gotten some jailers fired and clipped the wings of a constable what was doing bad shit to single women late at night, and helped get a few state laws changed along the way with regards to criminalizing school truancy and such. But then that kind of being known isn't always the best, because it means you have to be so clean, so straight, that you don't give anyone the chance to come at you--knowing that some people would love to do just that.
   Okay, all of that preamble is much longer than the real story. The story was that yesterday, while in the Post Office, the guy behind the counter greeted me with: "Hello, Mr. Gorman, what can I help you with?" and then helped tape up a package I was sending while we talked a little about an upcoming surgery he's facing at the VA. Good guy. I once bought him and one of the women who work there a couple of Dairy Queen ice creams and I guess they didn't forget that. But they'd earned them, putting up with me sending a lot of books out when my books first got published.
    While I was talking with the Post Office man, Madeleina's piano teacher came in and said: "Why, hello, Peter Gorman! I haven't seen you for some time? How's my Madeleina? Off to college?"
    Nice, right?
    Then this morning I was doing the manly job of taking the garbage to the dump. There was a line of cars maybe 12 deep waiting for a space to get to dump their garbage. But the guy who registers you in and weighs your truck before and after you dump to know how much to charge you, told me to skip the line and put my garbage in a big metal container off to the side instead. "You don't need to be waiting in line. You've probably got better things to do." He's a nice guy. We've talked about his blood pressure and how sometimes the blood pressure pills just make you have to pee like crazy right after you take them.
    So I went over to the big dumpster and got out of the truck and tossed the first bag high into the air to get over its 8' walls. Then I heard a beep behind me. I turned. It was the neighbor with the 3.5 acres who works at the dump. He was in a good sized Caterpillar right behind my truck and indicated that I should just toss my trash into the huge machine's maw. That meant I didn't have to toss the garbage into the air. When I was done, he lifted the arm and dumped the mess into the dumpster. Cool.
   Then I went around to the scale, waited on line and when it was my turn the high blood pressure guy said: "I'm not gonna charge you today. Free. Have a good one!" And then I rode off.
   There are some perks to living out here in a small town. For a day or two it felt like I was a mafia don, people being so nice to me for no reason. Yo! Where's my crew?

Left Over Heaven

So I had people come in last week. Several of them. Some came for a visit, some came for medicine and a visit, some just needed to know they were not alone in the universe. Then Madeleina showed up unexpectedly on Friday and hung out till Monday morning when I drove her back to school.
   Most of the people gave scant warning and I didn't know if they were coming for an hour or overnight--except for one old friend who came for a couple of nights with plenty of warning. So I did what I do: I erred on the side of precaution with food and made enough each night to cover several people. Which left me a lot of left overs. I didn't realize how many left overs I had until my oldest son, Italo, said he wanted me to cook him something great for breakfast. So I looked in the fridge. Low and behold: I had a large bowl of pasta--thin spaghetti--with a shrimp and clam white sauce. I had a nice bowl of well-seasoned taco beef I made for Chepa and the kids one night. I had lime chicken, about three pieces. Lime chicken is one of my old dishes: Take a half of a chicken breast, slice it in two and then open each one of those halves-of-halves up so that they are thin pieces of breast. Bread them in a mix of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese, saute till golden brown on one side, transfer to an oven dish, put more parmesan on the chicken and squeeze the juice of a whole lime on each, then bake till glistening at 325--about 8-10 minutes. Man, that is good stuff.
   Then there were the ribs I made that no one ate. I pulled the meat from the baby back ribs and put it in a bowl. Heated up garlic and olive oil in a saute pan, tossed in a diced onion, threw in three diced Roma tomatoes, put the pulled pork into that, added a good quality spicy barbeque sauce (I was too lazy to make my own that day) and wound up with wonderful pulled pork left over. Then there was the sausage and peppers and onions I made the night before Italo wanted breakfast. Good hot Italian sausages, first stabbed then boiled (the stabbing allows the fat to escape into the water); then baked till brown, then sliced into pieces and cooked with garlic, olive oil, onions (sliced, not diced), and red and green sliced peppers. Lots of good cracked black pepper. Just like you get in Little Italy in the old days in New York City.
   So Italo had a freaking feast for breakfast. He skipped the pasta, which I eventually served the dogs, but had some of each of the rest. He went back for seconds. And while he was eating he asked why we couldn't go to a restaurant that would serve food this good that was left over. Or this good when it was first made. I told him we could if we opened another restaurant. But until then, if he wants my style cooking, well, he's got to come to my house to eat.

This Pope is Dope!

Pope Francis has had people reeling since he arrived on U.S. soil. He’s pushed love, forgiveness, decency, and climate change awareness,. He’s discussed corporate greed and economic inequality, calling out those who ignore the poorest among us. He’s reprimanded bishops who have swept pedophilia among their priests under the rug. He’s got some people saying he’s talking like a leftie, and others accusing him of being a socialist. Good for him. He’s just talking common sense stuff.

No, he hasn’t been perfect. He has not called for women to be allowed to become priests. No, he has not said that over-population is a serious problem and it’s time that Catholics worldwide embrace birth control. And no, he’s not come out pro-choice.

But he’s been on the money most of the time, and has shown great courage in not just being a religious leader, but a political leader as well.

On Sunday, he went one better, when he visited a prison in Philadelphia and immediately decried our prison system and any other prison system like ours. After embracing a prisoner, Francis called it, “painful when we see prison systems which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities. It is painful when we see people who think that only others need to be cleansed, purified, and do not recognize that their weariness, pain and wounds are also the weariness, pain and wounds of society.”

That sentiment echoed what he told the U.S. Congress on Thursday, when he said: “just and necessary punishment must never exclude the dimension of hope and the goal of rehabilitation.”

That’s the sort of courage every politician ought to have, but few do, and the sort of courage that great statesmen always have. Good for you, Pope Francis.

Story About Moi! in Roads and Kingdoms

I thought I'd posted this but apparently I have not. This is a story about me, of all the damned things, that a writer named Jared Johnson wrote for RoadsandKingdoms.com, a fantastic on line magazine of travel stories. Not your normal travel stories, these are interesting enough that now that I know it exists, I shoot over to roadsandkingdoms.com once a week to see what new material they've put up. Do it, you won't be disappointed.
    But just for the ego/ego-smashing of it all, here's a link to Jared Johnson's Under the Texas Sun.

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/under-the-texan-sun/

My Kid, Italo, is the Greatest!

Not to besmirch my other kids, cause they're all the greatest, but right now I'm thinking about my oldest son, Italo, and thinking that he's the greatest. The other kids are the greatest too, but this second it's Italo's turn. Why? Because he can fix anything I break. I break every freaking thing that has electricity associated with it. $900 ovens burn out in 6 months with me. $300 Microwaves burst into flames after 3 months with me. I spent 20 minutes trying to start my damned electrical push mower yesterday and it wouldn't turn over and he shows up today and it roared into action on the first pull of the toggle! Then he borrowed my Home Depot card to buy something for his mother, the beautiful Chepa, my wife/ex-wife who always seems to need to borrow my cards to get things or pay bills, and he also bought a new battery for my riding lawn mower.
    So I called him to invite him to take home some baby back ribs for dinner. He was on the way to the dentist with my granddaughter, Taylor Rain, so I told him just to stop by on the way back and pick up the ribs because they'll be ready. And he laughed and asked me what jobs needed doing at my house. And I said I wasn't going to start crying just because I loved him, and then I told him to pick up the damned ribs and a couple of baked potatoes and that was that. And he laughed again and said, "thanks, pops, see you in a while," and then I wrote this and right now I think he's the greatest ally a person could have. Just saying. And I feel the same about Marco and Madeleina and Chepa and Sierra and Alexa and Taylor Rain. But right now, it's Italo's turn. I love you, buddy. Thanks for being my kid. How lucky I got!

Raking Leaves, Eating Shrimp

So yesterday I was pulling into the Two Bucks liquor store parking lot to get two mini-bottles (airplane bottles) of James Beam and just before I entered I had the sickening revelation that before I left the parking lot--about two minutes total, including the store time--I was going to have a flat tire. And dammit, as I started to drive off, I felt the rear left thumping along. I turned around and went back into the lot and sure enough, there was the flat I knew was coming.
   The people at the store know me so it was no problem to use the phone to call Chepa to have her text Italo to come and save me. I wouldn't have needed to phone if the spare was in the car along with a jack, but there was neither. And since I just bought this car from Italo and he's so meticulous about those sorts of things, it never occurred to me to double check. [Note to self: Even though your son Italo is fantastic, check things like spare tires when you buy another car from him cause he ain't perfect.]
   Anyway, the work I was going to get done didn't get done with the loss of a couple of hours, as I wound up getting home at 7ish rather than 5ish. Which meant it was dinner time. What to make?
   I looked through the stores. Two hours twiddling my thumbs--and I was really, really glad when Italo showed up, brought me to a meeting place where his wife, Sarah, was waiting to take me home--and I was in the mood for red meat. I had none.
   So I took out some fresh (formerly frozen) shrimp, maybe 16-25s (16-to-25 to a pound), from the fridge, pulled out 11 of them, cleaned them, cut them open. In a nice sauté pan I put olive oil with garlic. When that was hot I put in the shrimp and salted and peppered them with good pink sea salt and cracked black pepper. While they sizzled, I cut and trimmed five scallions and diced one Roma tomato. When I pulled the shrimp I put the scallions and tomato into the sizzling hot pan, added a touch of a good light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of butter (that was to replace my meat fix for available fat). Veggies cooked I pulled them, then put a huge handful of organic spinach in the pot with a bit of white vinegar to pull out any pan bits, sauteed that till just done, put that on a plate, covered it with the shrimp, then tossed on the veggies. No starch as it was too late in the evening.
   Man, that meal took all of 10 minutes but was really good. Every bite a epicurian delight. Try it. I'm not lying.
   Then today, after we got the wheel with the flat from the car at Two Bucks, brought it back to Joshua and had a new tire put on and then brought that back to Fort Worth and got the car in running shape, I stopped at the store. I was still dying for that red meat I wanted yesterday. So I bought a good full-inch-thick rib eye for tonight. But I also bought some chicken drumsticks just in case--and hoping--that Chepa and the girls would come for dinner. They did. So I quickly put on good Jasmine rice, put the dogs' food--chicken backs and necks today--in the oven, put on a large sauté pan--a rock solid pan I've used almost daily for more than 20 years as it was a wedding present back in 1994--put in vegetable oil and got that good and hot--about 8 1/2 on my hottest burner with 10 being the hottest. While that was warming up, I washed the drumsticks then dredged them in organic flour, then sauteed them till a lovely brown. When I got all 12 drumsticks done--made the whole flat because Chepa might want to bring a couple home for Marco and Sarah might want to bring a couple home to Italo--I put them in a good glass Corningware pan and put that into the oven at 350. They should be done in 20 minutes. All the flavor of fried chicken without the grease. Rice should be done at the same time. Kids can eat early. I've lost my appetite from the cooking so I can skip a meal tonight--or just have a good salad--and I can stand to lose a meal now and then.
    So life's perfect, right? I mean, one night it's shrimp, one night chicken drumsticks, one night skip food. I try to remember to thank the universe every day that in this incarnation I came here poor but middle-class poor, not poor, poor, and I came here smart and I came with a good set of parents and a great brother and four great sisters, the whole shebang. Not everybody gets that by a long shot. I know I won the Earth Being Lottery and I'm very thankful. A couple of billion of us did not win that lottery. I hope they find enough to eat. I hope I put in my fair share to help make that a reality. Because my kids eat and a lot of parents cannot say that, and it's not their fault. They just did not have the same beginnings I had. Dammit, this was a story about a busted tire and food, and now it's taken the right hand fork in the road into something else. But that's okay. Everytime we eat, and eat what we choose to eat, not what we can find, we ought to remember that someone else doesn't have that choice and that's not generally because that's their choice. That's what they were dealt. Thanks Universe. And I will try to keep remembering to share what I've got.
 

Braised Short Ribs

On the continuing quest for interesting things to eat while I eat alone because Madeleina's away at college--Tarleton State U--and having a blast, tonight I just put short ribs in the oven. Normally I just sear them and put them in with some sea salt and cracked black pepper with garlic and olive oil, but tonight I'm going differently because I have some lawn to cut and won't be in the house for an hour or so.
     So first thing after I bought the short ribs was to pick up a decent ($30) dutch oven. Not the best, but a pretty good one. Funny that I could not find mine. I'll bet I could if I looked in Chepa's cabinets, but I've given up on that sort of thing. It doesn't make anyone happy. Hell, last week I raided her garage, took two shovels, a good branch parer, a sledge hammer, my sythe and several other tools she's borrowed, or my sons have borrowed on her behalf, in the not too distant past and the next thing you know I'm being asked why I'm stealing all her stuff? I said, what stuff? It's all mine. She said, I'm still your wife. Everything you own is mine, so it's my stuff and you're stealing it, trying to make me look like a poor lady.
   So I'm not looking for missing pots, bowls, cups, silverware. Because she's right, in a crazy way: She owns me till I'm dead, and I work more than her, and if she needs stuff she takes it and if I need that stuff again I should go buy it.
   So I did.
   Home, I heated up my fantastic large saute pan, put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil into it, floured the short ribs, then browned them on all sides with good salt and pepper. Then I took out the ribs, added a diced onion, five sliced scallions, lots of garlic in not-so-much olive oil, and when that was all done, tossed in two over-ripe diced tomatoes.
   When that was all scalding and smelling like dinner, I poured in two glasses of decent cabernet sauvignon and scraped all the pan material, then added two cups of organic vegetable broth and let that boil and let the flavors marry for a few minutes.
   Then I put a touch of olive oil in the new dutch oven, put in the meat, and covered it all with the wine and veggies. Then I tossed in some organic baby carrots, two diced organic celery stalks, a couple of rosemary stems I had in my freezer, added a bit more pepper, covered that baby, and put her in the oven at 315 degrees. I won't even look at her for two hours--now one hour and 30 minutes. And when I do, I'll be looking at a few bites of the ripest meat in the world. I know it's horrible to eat meat, but short ribs, done right, are something else. And I swear I'll let the cows eat me when I'm dying. Or kill me and eat me. Promise.
   So I'm gonna have that with a nice salad, as usual, and broccoli and cauliflower florets, par-boiled then seared in olive oil with garlic--the olive oil drained before serving. No rice, no potato, no bread, no starch. Meal's rich enough without that. (Besides, I had that last night when I made myself a nice hot Virginia ham and baby Swiss cheese sandwich on super fresh French bread.)
   I hope all of you have a few minutes to plan and execute a fantastic meal for yourselves tonight and every night. Try to make the time. It beats fast food and doesn't cost much more. And if anybody's hungry, come on over, I'm sure there is enough to share.
 

Yes, I'm a taco virgin...

Ridiculous as this might be, considering I was a chef for a long time in Manhattan, then had my own restaurant in Peru, and have fed my family daily--with help from my wife/ex-wife Chepa--since 1994, I don't think I've ever made or eaten a taco. So somehow I woke up with the idea of making tacos today. I'm not gonna look up recipes, I'm just gonna do it based on what I've seen in ads and how Mexican meat is frequently seasoned.
I bought some crunchy shells, number one.
I just par seared about 1 1/2 pounds of good quality chuck meat. It's draining. I'm about to dice a fat red onion and maybe five organic scallions, a nice red Bell pepper, and three or four good organic Roma tomatoes, also diced. I'm gonna put a couple of good tablespoons of my fresh garlic in olive oil in the pan in which the meat was seared, then add the onion and scallions and pepper till everything is see-through. Then I'll toss in the tomatoes. Then I'll toss in the meat. When it gets hot I'm planning on putting in some pink sea salt, cracked black pepper, a little chile powder, some good cumin, a couple of ounces of white vinegar, a spoon of red pepper flakes, and, if need be, a couple of spoons of Peruvian tomato paste.
When it simmers and the flavors marry, I'll check it. When it's good, I'll probably put in a couple of slices of really good, sharp cheddar, and when that's disappeared into the pan, I'll top with a head of minced fresh cilantro.
I'll put that into the Taco shells I bought, top with shredded romaine and raddicchio, a slice of avocado, minced cheddar cheese and a smash of some Taco sauce I bought.
I hope that's something like a taco. I could probably check the internet but I don't want to be disappointed and have to change my plan if I'm wrong.
Sixty-four and having my first--I think--taco. I hope it won't kill me.

PS: Turned out pretty good. 

The Vampires at Kim Davis' Neck

Born again Kim Davis is probably in over her head, and certainly in it up to her neck. The Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for several days for contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to anyone since the U.S. Supreme Court declared that same-sex marriages were legal throughout the country, has become a star/darling of the radical Christian Right. At her release-from-jail fest (it was originally a protest until U.S. District Judge David Bunning surprised the crowd gathered in front of the local jail and released her) both Mike Huckabee and Texas’ own, Ted Cruz were there to greet her. Huckabee pulled a fast one and blocked Cruz from air time, which was classic but is off point here.

   What’s on point is that Davis probably does not realize that the vampires are already at her neck and by the time they’re through with her, there might not be much left. An email was sent out by the American Family Association yesterday in support of not only Davis but a call to arms for “states to make accommodations for all Christians like Kim Davis.” The AFA didn’t specifically ask for money, but did point toward where a person might be able to reach the non-profit. The fundamentalist group was labeled a hate-group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010 for demonizing false propaganda against LGBT people.

   Davis’ legal team belong to another group labeled a hate-group by the SPLC. The Liberty Counsel, which claims its work is devoted to First Amendment rights focused on religious liberty, like Huckabee, Cruz, and the AFA are all hoping that Davis’ situation brings in the big bucks. And it probably will. But to keep Davis in the spotlight long enough for that to happen, Davis will probably need to get jailed again–which will probably happen if she defies the court’s order not to interfere with any of her Rowan County assistant clerks handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis might feel like a vindicated star, but she will be played like a fiddle by the professional leeches surrounding her if she doesn’t watch her step. She’s in the water with sharks and someone needs to tell her that she’s the meal. And then someone ought to school her on what the separation of church and state means when it comes to doing her job.

What the heck am I to eat??????

With Madeleina away at university all week--and for three weeks at the moment--I'm sort of alone except on nights when Chepa asks for a fast barbeque or Italo and Sarah say they're coming over, or when friends come over on the weekend. And when I'm alone, I don't like to cook a lot. I almost resent having to cook the dogs their chicken legs and backs, much less want to bother with anything for me. So yesterday I bought two sushi rolls and that was dinner, along with a seaweed salad. Tonight I'm making duck breast. I'll score the fat, sear it in a touch of olive oil, add minced garlic and olive oil to the pink sea-salted/crack black-peppered breasts and put them in a low oven, maybe 320 degrees for 8 minutes or so. Then I'll pull them, turn the oven to 400 and when it's ready, put those babies back in for three minutes to crisp the skin. Then I'll pull them again and set them aside.
    While they're cooking, I'll toss diced red onion, sliced mushrooms, minced organic scallions into the pan juices. When the onions begin to clear, I'm tossing in a small handful of organic raspberries and I'll stir things up so that they sort of melt into the mix. I'll finish it off with a good shot of nice balsamic vinegar. Then I'll put that sauce aside and put a huge handful of spinach into the remains of the pan sauce and reduce that. Put that on a plate as a bed, slice the duck breasts--two of them don't weigh 11 ounces before cooking--and pour the raspberry glaze on them and the spinach.
   I'll have that with a nice salad of radicchio and romaine with a touch of bleu cheese, organic cherub tomatoes and my shallot vinagrette (thank you again, Christie!).
   And that is it. Gonna take 15 minutes top to bottom, maybe 20 by the time I'm actually served and the saute' pan has been washed (always wash as I go). And it is gonna be good.
   Then tomorrow I'll worry about that 10 ounces of swordfish I picked up today...
   So what the heck am I gonna eat if I'm alone? The very best quick stuff I can think of.

Oh, and now that my book Ayahuasca in My Blood has been published in Italy, a second Italian publisher, the name of which I forget this minute but I looked them up and they're legit--asked for the Italian rights to Sapo in My Soul. Cool, I think, right? Pretty cool.

Last Minute Barbeque

So the heat finally broke here in Joshua, Texas, dropping down from over 100 daily to about 85 today with some rain and continually overcast skies. Chepa surprised me this morning with a call to say that one of her mother's sister's boys was in town and I should make a barbeque. But I have someone coming who needs some frog sweat medicine, so that meant, after I wrote a short piece for the Fort Worth Weekly, that I had to race to the store. I got 1 1/2 pounds of shrimp, eight chicken thighs, and a rack of baby back ribs.
   Race home. Person coming is a little late. Put the dogs' chicken legs in the oven, wash dishes, clean kitchen, vaccuum, cut thighs and put them in the oven to partially cook them so that the barbeque will be just 15 minutes and they will still be juicy.
   Cut two heads of garlic and a large onion. Put in bowl. Add oil, vinegar, other secret liquids and spices and have marinade for everything ready.
   Skin the shrimp, put in bowl.
   Cook potatoes and eggs for potato and egg salad.
   Cut broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini and yellow squash for later use. Put in pot of cool water. Don't cook till later.
   When the time is right, I'll take out the chicken thighs and put in marinade. Wash glass Corning Ware pan and put a little olive oil and garlic and pepper on the ribs, then put them in the oven, slow cook.
   When the chicken goes out to the grill later--which will be manned by Chepa--I'll toss the shrimp and by then cooked veggies into the marinade. When chicken is near done, I'll finish potato and egg salad, skewer shrimp and remove them and veggies from marinade for Chepa to grill, then I'll turn up heat on ribs to brown after I drizzle some tangy barbeque sauce on them.
   Somewhere in there I'll make good basmati rice.
It's touch and go, especially since I'll have someone puking from the frog sweat medicine during the main events, but should wind up just about perfect.
   I love a challenge. Gets my blood going.
   And if you're in the neighborhood, come on over. I'm sure there will be enough for everybody.

Dinner for One, Please

So my beautiful Madeleina went off to college on the 12th of August, or the 13th. She didn't go far, just too far to commute at about 60 miles. So I was going to be alone. But my friend Hector came into town and stayed till Monday afternoon, maybe 17 days. During that time he completely redid my web page/pages. So it's all good. And while he was here, some other people came as well, so I was never alone at dinner and actually had to make good meals daily, plus a few breakfasts. And when Madeleina came home for a night or two on the weekend, well, I cooked normally, which means I cooked for maybe 6-8 people a night, knowing that Chepa and the babies might show up, or Italo and Sarah and Taylor Rain, or friends or whatnot. And if nobody ate the food, they might stop by the next day and have some for lunch. Last resort? It went into the dogs' bowls.
     But Hector left Monday, and so I've had three nights of being alone. The first night I cheated: I bought some sushi--just a couple of rolls--and a great seaweed salad and that was dinner. Last night I treated myself to a ribeye, sauteed screaming hot so that it would be a sort of black and red, topped with a bit of good quality crumbled bleu cheese and served with a nice romaine salad--with organic cherub tomatoes and a good balsamic vinagrette (thank you again, Christie E), and spinach with garlic. No need for starch with all that meat.
    Today I wasn't sure, but finally settled on the hidden guinea--New York Italian, all respect--part of me, even though I'm Irish. I bought 12 ounces of the hottest sausages I could find. They're in a pot of water now, stabbed with a sharp knive several times to allow the excess fat to be eliminated. Then I got one large organic red bell pepper and two organic greens. They are cleaned and cut lengthwise. I have a beautiful sweet purple onion, chopped garlic in olive oil and three nice Roma tomatoes.
    When the fat is rendered from the sausage, I'll drain them, then cut them into circles, put them in a very hot saute pan with olive oil and garlic and brown them. Then I'll add the onions, peppers, and finally the tomatoes, cut into thin wedges, lengthwise. Stir, add some pepper, and voila: You got Mike the Hat's recipe for Sausage and Peppers. Now Mike would have put all that on Italian bread, but considering I'm feeling fat, I'll put mine on a bed of sauteed spinach and eat it with a nice salad. I'll have a glas of wine: I'm drinking a Cabernet blend called Rare Red Grape 4 Blend, from California which is out of this world for $8 bucks.
   Then I'll turn on a movie. One I like because no one is arguing with me or having better suggestions. Last night I watched Fletch, with Chevy Chase as the off-beat detective Fletcher. Tonight? Who knows. Maybe an Ingmar Bergman.
   But that's living alone: You have to decide on your food, make your food, serve yourself, clean up and nobody says thanks. I mean, I say thanks to the universe that I can afford to eat. Thanks that I have choices and breath and a few teeth to chew with, but nobody is saying "Gorman, this was freaking incredible" unless me looking into a mirror counts.
   I hope you all eat well tonight. Prepare your food with focus, cook it well, enjoy it, let it make you strong.

Christians and that Damned Non-Christian Old Testament

Okay, so I'm not gonna go completely nuts here, but on Facebook the other day, some blooming nut was talking about homosexuality and claiming that "the Lord" whom he followed as a Christian, had spoken about it, condemning it. Backing up his argument he quoted from Leviticus in the Old Testament. Sort of sent the hair on the back of my head curling and I had to respond. This was my very simple point:
I'm always surprised when people who call themselves Christians drag out the Old Testament, which is not in any way Christian. It ends when Christ was born--assuming that happened and so forth. And Christ, as we are told through the various gospels--stories--written about him over the years, never said anything about homosexuality. He did discuss and condemn greed and hatred, among other things, preached forgiveness, acceptance, and love, among other things, but never discussed homosexuality or said anything about abortion or prostitution or any of the other things that so many people who call themselves Christians appear to condemn. For those perspectives they have to cherry-pick that old testament, which, again, has nothing to do with Christianity or Christ. Just pointing out the obvious, I know.

Ceiling down!!!

So I went out for a little while today and when I returned, Madeleina met me at the door and said: "Dad, don't freak out, but something bad happened while you were gone..."
    "You okay?" I asked.
    "Yes, dad. It's nothing like that...."
    "Then what is it?"
    "I think you better come see for yourself. But don't flip out, okay? It's bad but not the end of the world."
     With that I knew it was the end of something and decided to have a glass of wine before I went to see whatever it was.
     What it was was this: A huge chunk of the ceiling in the hallway that connects the kitchen to the three bedrooms and the bathroom had fallen. Just got waterlogged from condensation on the pipes connected to the air conditioner. It's happened before at the end of the summer, but never like this. This was hundreds of pounds of waterlogged dry wall that had become soaked wall.
    What could I do? I started singing, "This house is falling apart..." ("Anna Sun" by Walk the Moon), "This house is falling apart, we got no money but we got got heart. We're gonna rattle this ghost town, we rattle this scene, oh Anna Sun..." And then I pulled out some garbage bags, filled 'em, had Madeleina take them to the truck where they'll sit till I go to the dump, and in half an hour it was clean. And if you don't look up, ever, you won't even see that there's a huge chunk of empty where there ought to be a ceiling.
    See how easy it is if you accept things like that as regular occurrances? No need to go nuts. Just clean it up. Oh, and then call your son, Italo, and tell him he ought to come over and fix it.....

What's cooking?

Well, there seem to be lots of plans afoot. Most of them I cannot talk about. In fact I've had to sign a slew of "non-disclosure agreements" lately related to television shows, restaurant ideas, medicines and other stuff. For a minute it feels like you're (I'm) important, but then I know as well as all of you, that it's only very infrequently that someone else's ideas come to fruition. Or my own ideas. But at least I have some control over my own ideas. I fail sometimes for lack of funds, but generally knew that was going to happen going in, so I don't consider it a failure, just a lack of knowhow in terms of materializing the funds necessary to turn my pie-in-the-sky ideas into reality.
    I'll tell you one idea of mine that should have been jumped on years ago: When you were a little kid, and perhaps even today, we had camping cups. Camping cups were aluminum cups that were built by having several 3/4 inch pieces of aluminum on top of each other. Each was a bit bigger than the one below, and a bit smaller than the one above. So they crushed down on each other. The cup, when crushed, was just 3/4 of an inch tall. Snap it open and it was a full eight-ounce cup.
   My idea was to have a similar but much larger cup that you could use as the base for a hot air balloon. Something that folded up small enough to carry in a back pack, very light weight. But when opened up would be the right size for a single person to ascend heights via hot air. Now if that came with a small gas balloon made of super strong, super lightweight mylar, and if that balloon could be filled with a gas that could be held in a 10-15 pound tank: the balloon could be filled, then emptied back into the tank, allowing the tank and balloon to be used multiple times on a single trip, well, with something like that I could soar to several thousand feet and investigate some buttes and mountain tops in the Andes Mountains that are otherwise inaccessible and have never been photographed because of 24/7 cloud cover. The Matses, for instance, claim they came from a butte that is known to be about 40 miles long, 20 miles wide and never been photographed. They claim their fathers left it because there were monsters there that attacked them. Is that true? I have no idea. But I've been hoping to investigate the story for 20 years. And I can't until some damned machinest out there makes me my single person, lightweight, aluminum-cup/mylar gas balloon.
    Okay, so that's one of my ideas that hasn't panned out yet. But when other people have ideas and have me get all hyped up about them, have me invest time and energy in them...well, I'm old enough to know that most of them won't pan out for one reason or another. Might be lack of funds. Might be lack of enthusiasm, or waning enthusiasm. Might be someone in their family negates the idea. Might be a million things.
   So while I'd love to tell you all what's been swirling about, thinks I'm supposed to be included in, well, I can't. I signed those agreements. And once in a while someone's dream does come true. And when that happens, well, it's the most fantastical thing. So I'm rooting for them all, but still getting my stories in on time to make sure I've got a paycheck coming my way.

Project Done

Well, I got back and then didn't stay in touch. Why? Because I've had a guest here for two weeks. Hector, whom I know from Peru but who has also previously visited my home here in Texas, has been redoing my website/websites into one gigantic bundle of magic. He's decided to push my profile a little, using the covers of some magazines I've been printed in, lots of art, a couple of new sections and so forth. I'm a little nervous because it seems a bit grandiose for me, but then those who have seen it are impressed. He's actually done a great job. And there is more to come. But I think most of you will be able to see it at pgorman.com--it seems to be up over most of the known world already, though not here in Joshua, Texas. I've gotten notes from Bali, from several countries in Europe and so forth. So that's what I've been doing. Providing new material, hunting down old magazine covers, writing new text in several places. And there is even an "influences" section at the bottom of the Biography page. That was a great idea of his: I got to salute a lot of the things that occurred at just the right time in my life to have a huge impact on me. And some of them will no doubt resonate with most of you.
    Okay, now I'm behind on a couple of stories for work. I think I can catch up by the end of the weekend. And then I'll be in a position to tell you all a few new and good stories. Thanks for your patience.