Cooking and Killing

Talking about food. I do a lot of that. And I do it in a world that is filled with anger, hatred, selfishness, fear, cruelty, pain, anguish, and every other word you can use to describe people being hopeless and helpless against marching armies, over-armed police forces, entrenched enemies, insane ideologies, natural disasters, and a host of other pests and biblical pestilence.

Why do I talk about cooking dead animals and dead vegetables and tearing fruits apart in the midst of all that tragedy? I ask myself that. It's a recurring theme in my life. How can I take such joy in inflicting pain on animals, fruits, vegetables while railing against the pain inflicted on humans. I don't know if I have a good answer. I'm 66. Maybe I will have one when I'm 70, or 75, if I last that long. What I do know is that I love the food I cook. I know I'm responsible for it's death, whether it's a cow or a goat or a carrot or a cucumber. None of those wanted to be grown to die for me. And so I know to try to honor them as best I can: To use sparingly, to sing, to apologize because I don't know how to live, how to stay alive, without killing those things. I do not know how to keep my friends and family from starvation without feeding them, yet I know that every thing I cook is sentient, has a soul, has a personality, has desires, has fears, just like we humans do. No carrot ever jumped onto my table and asked me to cut them. But I know that every cut hurt. So I try, and have always tried, to cut swiftly and with assurance, so that the pain did not last too long, nor linger, nor was scoffed at.

Idiotic as it is, cooking, killing, is a meditation for me. It starts with getting into the car to go to the store. What will make my family and friends healthy? What should I prepare? I might run through 20 things in the 20 minutes it takes to get to the store. And once there, I might go through 20 other meals based on what is available and what I can afford.

Tonight I planned on making shrimp and salmon, because I had both. I thought I'd make them simply, with a Chinese bent, and bought bok choy, scallions, red pepper, some hot peppers, green beans, broccoli, daikon radish. I already have cilantro and a organic zucchini and yellow squash and spinach and garlic and ginger and the right spices. So I thought I'd make the fish and shrimp I had killed at my behest and put them on a bed of vegetables I'd killed. I would sing to them while I worked. I would thank them, not for the sacrifice they never volunteered for but for the pain they endured at my hand, and still ask them to make me and my family strong--if that would be possible, because it would demand a lot of forgiveness on their part.

And I bought those things, then got home and discovered that Madeleina would not be here for dinner because she has a class 60 miles away that won't end till 10 PM, and so I veered off course and decided to make hot sausages in a tomato sauce and serve a couple of them simply, over sauted spinach with a side salad. The other veggies were happy, the salad was not. So I've sung to try to ameliorate the pain, but I know I can never really do that. Nobody, nothing wants to suffer.

I will enjoy a couple of hot sausages that were once fantastic pigs with bright eyes and wonderful smiles and who trusted humans till we killed them. I will enjoy sauce made from tomatoes, garlic, oregano, majoram, vegetable stock, and a bit of cow milk parmesan cheese. I will keep singing and try to make that simple dish the best it can be so that I will be able to sleep despite the killing I caused and did.

I will try not to make it needless death and pain. And that is the difference between cooking and war: In war, the aggressors kill and do not have to care. I am sure that some do and I'm pretty sure--though I never had the courage to go to war so I cannot say for certain--that a lot of people who have killed in war have suffered for that later. But there is a difference, somehow, though it's pretty subtle, in killing to stay alive and killing to kill because someone said those people are your enemies. At the time, there cannot be much thought: You either kill or die. But the puppet masters are the ones deciding the fates of millions, whether it be the civil war, ww1, ww2, vietnam, syria, iraq, the upcoming war with Iran or North Korea or both.

I don't know if I'm making any sense here. I hate that we need to kill to stay alive. At the same time I hate it more that we live in a world where people kill and hurt other humans not to stay alive, but for selfish reasons. Somewhere in there there is a difference. I think, anyway.
PS: For those who want to know: I get really good hot and mild sausages. I poke about 10 holes with a sharp knife in each sausage, both sides, then put in water and boil to eliminate a lot of fat, which comes out as thick white scum. Then I drain and put them in the oven in a heavy skillet at low temp to brown. While I do that I make my tomato sauce: Fresh garlic, onions, scallions, tomatoes in olive oil. To that I add, when ready, a 32 ounce jar of organic tomato sauce--Just a marinara--then add my salt/pep/spices and cook. When the sausage is done in the oven--45 minutes at 250, very low, the tomato sauce is coming together (sorry to all the Italian grandmas out there who slaved for 5 hours!!!!! I've done that too but I'm just cooking for myself here!!!!), and I put the sausages in the tomato sauce. I add good quality parmesan cheese, and let it simmer half-an-hour. Then I will pull it off the fire, saute spinach in garlic and olive oil (just a touch), put that like a bed on the plate, pull two sausages and put them on that spinach, then put a couple of good spoonfuls of tomato sauce on that. Top with more parm and serve with a salad with simple lime juice--fresh--and I think you're done!
It's still killing things, no matter how good I make it sound and taste. Damnit!

Finally Alone, but not gonna love it

First off, I hope the people of Houston and Rockport and the other affected areas are okay. That is the major concern of the day. Along with other natural and man-made tragedies around the world. God, I wish you would fix this shit. You're all powerful, well, then show it, goddamn it! Cause if you are not all powerful, or if you just like seeing us suffer, then a big FU cause you are not helping here. We have anger and hatred. We are bombing civilians with my money, and I don't want to bomb anyone. I don't want limbs taken off babies or teens or grownups or grandmas. I do not want people suffering and starving and dying of dehydration. I want us all to share, like the story of the loaves and fishes, just share what we have and we will discover we have more than enough for everyone if we do not hoard, do not keep extra for ourselves because we fear we won't get more. Damn, I am so tired of human greed!!!!!!
Now second, I am alone. I came back from Peru a month ago, nearly to the day. Since then I had one client in for a 10 day course in being a Sapo (the Matsés frog sweat medicine0 practitioner, and she, Corey D. was great. She has a real gift of giving if she will work to bring it to potential. It was my pleasure to be her teacher in that medicine and in the sister Matsés medicine, nü-nü, a snuff. It is a short, hard, intense, difficult course and Corey was not only game but wonderful. She's going to heal a lot of people.
On about her eighth day here, my friend Dave came in from Australia and he stayed 10 days, just left 30 minutes ago. What a great guest he was. The pleasure was all mine and my daughter Madeleina's.
During their time here, my wife/ex-wife Chepa came over almost daily with her new kids Sierra and Alexa. My son Italo brought his daughter Taylor Rain. My son Marco came over for a visit. So we all ate well, all did medicines. all had a wonderful time.
And now Dave is gone and I am finally alone. I am fine now, but with Madeleina going back to college tomorrow it's gonna get lonesome around here.
Ah, Gorman, quit yer bitchin. You just had lots and lots of company, and in about 6 weeks you have nearly a dozen people coming over for several days.
Okay, I'll quit. Life is generous to me. I hope you are all having a wonderful day. And for those caught in the horrible natural or man-made crossfire, I hope your lives ease up and allow you go get past the suffering.

Differences Between Sapo and Kambo

Sapo and Kambo are medicines used by indigenous groups in some areas of the northwest Amazon. Both are the collected secretions from the Phyllomedusa bicolor tree frog, or the Giant Waxy Tree Frog. Those secretions are what the frogs puts out through its skin when frightened/attacked by a predator. They have the ability to "freeze" a predator who tries to eat the frog, giving the frog a chance to back out of the predator's mouth--generally constrictor tree snakes--and make its escape. In human use, the secretions are collected and dried on a hardwood stick. When it's time for use, the material is liquified with either saliva or water, and placed on the subcutaneous layers of skin which has been burned with a piece of vine. The medicine quickly enters the blood stream and the user goes into a 15 minute period of a kind of agony, during which the peptides in the medicine clean out toxins from the body that have been stored, sometimes for years. The 15 minutes is painful and agonizing; the aftermath is wonderful: Your senses are heightened, and your strength and stamina improved. Regular use of the medicine can prevent disease, improve organ function, clear out arterial plaque and do a host of other positive things for the body.
   But there are subtle differences between the use of Sapo and the use of Kambo that should be noted. It should also be noted that the use of Sapo originates, as far as we can tell, with the indigenous Matses of Peru, while the use of Kambo originates with Brazilian indigenous.
     There are a couple of differences between sapo and kambo. While Kambo is liquified with water, Sapo is liquified with the server's saliva, which not only imparts the spirit of the server with the medicine, but the enzymes in the saliva quickly break down the peptides in the medicine, making them more available, so that the effect is generally stronger. Sapo is also generally given in larger points (burn marks), so that 2-3 points is a full serving, while Kambo is used on very tiny burn marks, allowing for a much higher number of points to be used.
   The second primary difference is while most Kambo users ascribe to the theory that you should drink a liter or two of water a half-an-hour or so prior to Kambo use, you don't drink water prior to sapo. You might have a cup of coffee or a bottle of water, but that would be incidental. (Yes, you can have it 10 minutes after eating lunch as well). The Matses, in my experience, did it when it was time to do it: Sometimes that was in the middle of eating, sometimes in the morning, often in the morning, afternoon and evening of several days in succession. By NOT drinking a lot of water, as is generally done with Kambo, the medicine does not concentrate on the stomach, but rather roams more throughout the body. Which I think gives a more well-rounded body reset. (My opinion only).
    A third difference, though new, is the edict about only doing Kambo three times during a moon cycle and then waiting a few more moon cycles prior to doing it again. I think this has only appeared in the last year or two.
    With Sapo, if you just do it once, that's okay; three days in a row goes much deeper; seven or 10 days in a row goes much deeper than three. I've never been able to do more than 10 but I'm sure it would be great. In the Sapo course that I teach, people do Sapo 7 days in succession, during the last three of which they do it twice a day.
   Small but important differences between Kambo and Sapo use, despite it being the same medicine.

Melancholia

Well, I might have been missing my mom today, or my family, or friends who passed on. Maybe I was just missing the Mooch, or Spicer. Hell, I don't know, but I felt like a little kid and so I wanted to eat like I was a little kid. You know, when we were poor and the best dirt to eat was always the cool dirt under the parked car. Man, and grub worms they told us were tiny fish, and mice on a stick they said went so well with marshmallows....if only we had marshmallows....
With those emotions running through me--and realizing that nobody has called me a Mik as a curse word since that guinea Antonio did it nearly 54 years ago, well, I was melancholy. So I decided to make franks and beans.
Took a head-and-a-half of chopped garlic in olive oil and started to saute that. Added three slices of salt pork, diced, a red onion, diced, three sticks of celery, diced, then let it steep for a few minutes. Then added 10 Ballpark beef franks, sliced to 1/2 inch pieces and three good Roma tomatoes, also diced. Fifteen minutes later, added good cracked black pepper.
About a glass of wine later, I added two cans of Bush's original baked beans and two cups of organic vegetable broth. I'm letting that cook for a while, letting the flavors get to know each other for at least another glass of wine, then add Heinz ketchup and let it sit another hour. Then I'll add a head of minced cilantro, serve it over good rice, top it with shredded smoked cheddar and stone ground mustard.
Won't be as good as dirt, but then it's hard for me to crawl under cars these days. Bon Appetite!

Once more with food and feeling

One more with food and feeling. Today was the baby shower for my incoming granddaughter Tiegan, presented by my daughter-in law, the lovely Sarah Gorman, and my boy Italo. I stopped in for a visit, saw some people I have not seen in some time but whom I like to see now and then, and then snuck out to come home and get food ready. I spent the morning cleaning out and scrubbing the fridge (not the freezer yet), and got rid of a lot of stuff that we didn't need, then went to the store and restocked what I'd tossed.

Tonight, with Madeleina coming home early--at about 6 PM, an hour or so from now--I'm keeping it simple: Making a little spicy chopped meat with black beans, more or less.

I'll cook about a pound of chopped chuck in garlic and a bit of olive oil with diced onions, scallions and tomato. I'll add organic black beans--a 1 pound can--when the meat is done and I've eliminated excess fat. To that mix I'll add fresh cilantro and achiote (the red colorant used by indigenous to paint their faces and used by cooks to make yellow rice in South America), and a little white vinegar for a good bite. I'll lay down a bed of mixed greens, put the meat/beans on that, top with freshly grated cheddar, top that with a dollop of sour cream and three slices--about a quarter--of avocado, top that with homemade pico de gallo (cilantro, onion, tomato in lime juice with salt and a bit of garlic oil). And then we'll eat. I'll have sliced cucumber in lime with salt on the side, and serve watermelon and organic black plums for desert. In the neighborhood, stop by. It's gonna be good.

Living in the Now

A friend of mine was feeling a bit uneasy about her choice to devote her life--at least this period of it--to healing people, rather than getting along on a more typical path. I did not want to push too much, but did say this, because it's how I feel:
Living in the moment takes a lot of self-starting. It can get overwhelming, at least for me, but beats the heck out of 9-5, again, at least for me. But yeah, sometimes you have to sit down and say "25 slow, deep breaths, long as they take, till I am on solid ground again." And then you are and as long as you are thinking about helping others, even if you're not always sure you have enough juice to do it, well, you'll only get stronger the more you work. And then you have the juice--at least till the next time doubt creeps in....Good luck. You're a strong human. Be that.

Back from Peru and Hungry for My Own Cooking

So I got back from Peru and two trips to the jungle with lots of good medicine and good people and now I am home and pooped. Caught in that week between the two worlds I generally inhabit. I cannot think straight, so I wind up cleaning the house, trimming the ivy that invaded the front porch and could be hiding a couple of copperheads, and read the news. The news was as depressing as when I left six weeks ago: Trump this, Trump that, Trump the complete idiot, Mooch screws the pooch and gets in, Prebus gets the shaft and is kicked out, taking away more of Obama's good work because Trump can't stand him; two embarrassing talks to the Boy Scouts and Long Island police officers (the first one encouraging the scouts to boo Obama; the latter encouraing police brutality). And then the failure to repeal Obamacare. Dang, that baffoon in the White House is sure keeping busy being crazy, ain't he?

Well, to keep my own sanity I cleaned and stocked the fridge. Madeleina and her friend Adrian are staying here while off from college, so I had someone to cook for. First night I made pork chops with saurkraut and onions, with a peach tossed into the kraut to give it a sweet aftertaste.

Second night I made lime chicken, a signature dish of mine.

Third night: Sliders with the works.

Fourth night: Huge (U-10) shrimp sauteed with a vegetable medley, leaning toward Chinese with bok choy, peppers, ginger, sesame oil.

Fifth night, cold chicken salad with mayo, celery, scallions, shallots, diced red pepper stuffed into perfec avocado halves. Side of sliced, peeled apples.

Last night, hot sausage/tomato sauce/mozzarella cheese heroes.

Tonight, Uncle Clem's Chicken, made Clare Waugh style: Cooked chicken breast in a bit of garlic and olive oil, diced. Put three cooked and diced half chicken breasts in deep baking dish with four heads of broccoli, parboiled and trimmed to bite-sized pieces. Cover with a sauce of mushrooms cream and top with fresh mozzarella. Bake at 325 till the cheese bubbles and browns. Serve over good jasmine rice.

Yeah, The news sucks, but I got to get an hour or two away from it and cooking is where I tend to go to get that.

Remembering the Bonghitters Softball Team

Years ago at High Times magazine we had a softball team and entered the journalism league of softball. Now everybody wanted to play High Times because they thought we would be a joke: Just stoners out there and an easy win. Our schedule would include Penthouse, Playboy, Forbes, WBAI radio and a host of other magazines, many of them politically opposite High Times.
   Anyway, I wound up playing shortstop for a few years and was thinking about that--and about how other teams, when they discovered we were good, began bringing in ringers, former minor leaguers or college baseball players, and it was sometimes tough to stare them down knowing how hard they were going to hit the ball to me on the short softball field.
   And a few of us were reminiscing and I wrote this:
Sometimes those balls hit by big guys paid by Playboy were so fast they came like knuckleballs to shortstop. And if I drank some of the LSD before the game I was sitting there on short stop wondering which ball was the real one as it came to me. Then I would think: Hey, if you don't have the balls to play shortstop, don't play it. And I would step in two steps and say to myself: If this is the game on the line, who else should get it? Send it my way, MF's. If we lose and it is my fault, at least I will own it. You can't just give it to someone who isn't good enough to own it. And I think I attracted a lot of balls my way with that sort of prayer/invocation.I was still scared that I was not good enough, but dared myself to be there on point. And then we had a perfect season. We were great. I mean you, Bloom, I mean you, Steve, who must have turned eight double plays with me with the most awkward turn, but it was still efficient. I mean Donja, I mean Rick, the steadiest of us all, and 7 in left field, I mean Malcolm who made some great cut off throws to me. And Nate or Darryl, both of you had that dive to the right, straight down the line that still amazes me. And all the rest of you. WE WERE THE CHAMPS! They threw everything they had at us—semi-pro players and all– and we still came up strong with Dave at First Base, saving my errant throws. We WERE UNDEFEATED!!!!! That was us at our very best, both in the field and in the magazine. We kicked ass and I was and am proud to have been associated with every one of you in those years. You made my life easy and fun! You pushed me to write great stories. Thank you all. You are not forgotten in my book.

Dance a Little Faster...

Well, I'm in a bit of a pickle, and while I love pickles, I'm not sure if sinking in the brine is what I love. I had an incredible month last month, taking in about $6,500 with sapo, social security, pay, book sales. But then I needed $500 plus for Madeleina's car; $500 plus for my car; $400 legal fees to help Chepa my wife/ex-wife out of a bind; $400 to Chepa for general sustenance for the kids because she had a little op and couldn't go to work for a week. Then a total of about $500 on fixing cats, getting Boots, the wonder dog's shots and a haircut and flea medicine; then $687 or so for my quarterly home insurance. Then tires for two cars, then $1500 for 15 sapo sticks, then, then, then. So I'm now down to $1200. Not bad, except I owe $1400 for bills this month, darnit. And then I leave in 12 days to Peru. I have a cover story due on Friday--I promised it a week early so we could edit before I leave--and of the 22 phone calls I've made I have had two returned. Of the 9 emails sent I have had 1 returned. And these have been repeatedly made. So I'm a bit skimpy on specifics for that. I did manage to write most of my 100th Skunk Magazine Drug War Follies Column today, but I won't know if it's good till I look at it tomorrow. I had 8 people for my June trip but 5 copped out. I have 11 for July, but only deposits so far--and I have spent nearly $10,000 more than their deposits already on the trip, so I hope they are all coming. So dang, this is getting scary out here on the ledge. Wind is howling and my sneakers have no traction. HAHAHAHA! It will all work out, sometimes for better sometimes for worse. But the cover story will either get turned in or I am no longer a viable journalist. The column will be great or I no longer have that income stream. The two new books in the hands of editors will either sell or I'm screwed. I'll get on the plane a week from Sunday and have two great trips, even if the first one is going to cost me $4000 because of the quitters. Ain't life grand? Just dance a little faster I guess, and then I will think I'm on key.

Animal Parts, veggies, fruits...

Animal Parts, Veggies, Beans, Fruit...What to eat, considering all of it is going to hate me for eating it...

It's Sunday afternoon. It's been storming here in Joshua, TX for hours, so no lawnwork today. I already advanced a couple of stories I'm working on and finished compiling my Drug War Follies columns--the best of them--to be able to get out to my first editor, who can tell me which 20 percent do not belong in the book.

I showered, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed my office, and went to the store early. Having my first glass of wine, a Noble Vines cabernet named simply 337. It's good.

I am not hungry, but it is still time to think about dinner after spending hours thinking about the drug war and the state of the world for most of the day. There are lots of choices. Should I just make a couple of Ballpark Beef Franks on toasted Ballpark buns with crispy saurkraut and good mustard? Sounds good to me.

But I have a nice piece of salmon that I could saute with garlic and a bit of olive oil, then add capers and ginger and scallions and when it's near done a little teriyaki and sesame oil to candy-that skin.

Or should i throw in the 1/2 pork butt I just bought: Brown it on all sides, baste with plenty of garlic and black pepper, lay it on a bed of onions, celery, with sliced anjou pears for sweetness, and let that baby sit for 3 hours?

Then again, I have a few left over chicken thighs which might go very well in burritos. I've got good beans, cheese, avocado, sour cream, and can make a nice pico de gallo. Not a bad idea.

Thinking of the avocado, what about if i chopped the chicken thigh meat and added sauted onion and garlic, diced celery, and mayonaise to make a good chicken salad, then stuffed it into avocado halves to make Royal Stuffed Avocados?

Then there is the fresh corn, the red potatoes, a beautiful sweet potato i could boil up and slice with fresh boiled beets. And there is spinach, of course, and broccoli, and salad I could make and top with my special dressing. Or I could steam asparagus, then saute them up with a bit of garlic and olive oil with jowel bacon bits and balsamic vinegar and top with a little finely grated good blue cheese.

I'm full just thinking about all this. I guess i don't really need to make anything since I just gained 5 pounds writing this.

I hope everyone, everywhere, gets to make these kinds of decisions one day. That I get to choose among several possible meals of fresh food--none of which is very expensive--while millions are starving to death, and millions are going to bed hungry right here in the US is a crime. If I ever get some money, I will have several food trucks outfitted and scouring the poorest neighborhoods here in Fort Worth and surrounding areas and we will give away fantastic food to anyone who wants it. That's a dream I've had since I started working in kitchens in New York restaurants and realized we were throwing away enough food nightly--at the small places I ran--to feed 100 hungry people. I really am not a fan of the unequal hands people have been dealt. Dammit. Now I really don't feel like eating.

NOT PC but TRUE

.On 21st Ave in Whitestone, Queens, in 1959, when I was 8, we had Mics, Spics, Pollacks, Guineas, Jews, Gypsies, a couple of Greeks, a Ruskie family, and gumbas from Sicily (very different from Guineas from northern Italy). That's how we called each other and that;s how we identified and it was all very cool. Then a black family moved in and we called them Afrikaners, and nobody got upset. I was proud to be called a Mic. And I think everybody else was proud to be called shorthand from where their families came from. We had great sports, everybody ate at everybody else's house, and it was wonderful growing up in that soup. I know it's not PC right now, but nearly 60 years ago, it worked and nobody got mad. Ah, idyllic youth.....

Madeleina learning about cars....

Madeleina learning about cars...

So my daughter Madeleina got a used Mustang last summer. She was warned it had a small oil leak. Well, the oil leak blew up the engine when the engine went dry and the "check engine" light didn't come on. So my son Italo bought a new--used--engine, then bought a new block and put the car back together, but there seems to be an unrelated problem with the transmission. Well, I paid about $2 grand for the car with everything, put near another $2 grand into the engine and block, and that about tapped me out. So Italo gave Madeleina his wife's old Neon to drive and will probably make the trade final once Madeleina's 2003 Mustang is running smoothly again.

Two weeks ago Madeleina was supposed to get a new inspection. She didn't because she was at school most days, and so got stopped three days ago for the inspection being out by two weeks. The officer was going to give her a warning on that but then noticed she wasn't wearing her glasses--it's on the license--so he gave her a ticket for that.

She came home sobbing, acting like the universe was against her. "I was going to get the inspection, dad! I didn't need a ticket to remind me!"

As for glasses, she doesn't need them. No eye doc can figure out anything wrong with her eyes, and she wore plain clear plastic glasses to pass the eye test at the driver's place after she failed without them.

So I told her to buy $10 plain glasses from a local store and leave them in the car. Then we went for the inspection. She failed because of a bald back tire. So I took her to our local tire place and asked the guy to put two good used tires on the rear. Madeleina suggested she needed brake pads as well because her brakes were squealing. So I asked him to put on brake pads.

Now the failed inspection was only $27. The two tires and brake pads were $175. The ticket turned out to be $174.50. When she passed inspection, we got an oil change for $59, with a new air filter. But in Texas you bring the notice of passing inspection to the local tax office and pay your annual registration at the same time. That was $82.25.

I think we're done. But boy, that was a quick $500+ gone in a hot flash!

On the positive: Madeleina now knows how to get an oil change, how to get an inspection, how to get tires and a whole lot of car stuff she didn't know three days ago. So there you go.

Happy Mothers' Day!

I just want to say a thank you to mother earth, my mom, my grandma's, Momma Lydia, my sisters, my sister-in-law, my nieces, my brother's daughter-in-law, the mother of my kids, your moms and grandmas and all the women who have born the children that have been the people of the earth. And I would like to add that not one of those women ever wanted her kid to grow up poor, sick, afraid, stuck in a war they didn't make, hungry, or hurt in any fashion. Not one of them. And yet, that's is what we allow, and sometimes encourage, to happen. Can we pause for a minute and fix that? Could we really give the moms of the world a great present and start treating their children the way you want your kids treated, and the way your mom wanted you treated? That would be a grand present indeed. Here's looking at you, Moms of the World!

Respect in small things

With all the problems we have in this world, from starving kids, to people stuck in wars they have nothing to do with, to loneliness, to joblessness, to physical illness and relentless pain, my issue of the moment is so trivial that it's meaningless. Still, it got my blood boiling.
I use att for phone, internet, television. Couple of months ago my bill for all three started climbing from $155 monthly until it hit $223 a couple of months ago. I called and told them I quit. They quickly made a deal: Would I be willing to pay $109 a month for everything? Yes, I would. First bill came in April and it was pro-rated and very inexpensive. Today's bill came in at $171. I called and was told that four premium channels had been added to the account. I asked by whom, and when? That info was not available. Took nearly 40 minutes to get them to take off the channels I had never ordered, which will bring my monthly bills down to the promised $109. Or should, until att decides to add something else to my bill.
I recognize that this is not very important. It is dwarfed by real problems. But if it has any importance beyond my wallet, it has to do with dignity, with not allowing people to run roughshod over me/over us. We deserve respect in all things great and small.

Hungry Tonight!

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Sometimes it's so simple, but scary good. Have no idea, but after making chicken parmesan for my family last night with a good hearts of romaine salad, asparagus and a nice shallotl-balsamic vinegar dressing, tonight I was going crazy for franks and beans. But sometimes it's so good you go crazy. Fresh garlic, two heads, with two diced slices of salt pork, a diced onion, four diced plum tomatoes, a pound of sliced BallPark beef franks--if you are from New York it can be Nathans or BallPark, or Hebrew National, but everything else is fake--then two cans of good Bush's original baked beans, cracked black pepper, good sea salt, three or four ounces of a biting bar-be-que sauce, a couple of ounces of good mustard, and then, after an hour, a full portion of cilantro. If it gets tight, add vegetable stock, preferably organic, and then finish with diced sharp cheddar. Now that is franks and beans. And even people from Boston, including Agurkis, are going to agree that it smells and tastes like heaven on a fork.

Malaise!

Malaise
Don't mean to get all touchy-feely, sorry-for-myself here, but I am having one of those days. I go from real highs to kind-of-lows. Last week, I knew I had six or eight people coming in for a medicine weekend and I cleaned the house wildly. I rented the rug shampooers, put clorox on the cement front porch, killed bugs, cleaned windows, toilets, floors. They came and it was fantastic. But on Sunday, the first couple left. Then on Monday two more left. Tuesday, two more, Wednesday one and Sunday past, the last. I was teaching, I was learning. I was focused. I made good food, I watched myself to be cool, I took care of people and they took care of me.
Yesterday, Madeleina and her boyfriend Adrian left. That left me alone. I cleaned and worked my ass off to get a 1500 word story ready for the Fort Worth Weekly, the fantastic alternative press here that pays my salary. I finished it this morning, getting up at 5 AM after going to bed, without dinner, at 10 PM.
My son Marco came by at 7 AM to say hello. He has been the only human contact I have had today, other than saying hello to the check-out person at HEB where I bought groceries and wine. I called my friend Larry and we spoke for a while--he's my brother so speaking with him is really easy--and then I spoke to one of my wife's new kids, Sierra, who said she thought I should be happy they were not here making a mess. I told her I would rather she and Alexa and Taylor Rain, my grandbaby, were making a mess than than I was alone with a clean house.
I've used my time well. I have several people to call on a list I made in the last few hours for another story. I made another list of things to do tomorrow. But I grew up in a house with a brother and four sisters. So I am used to having people around. And when there is sudden silence--well, in Manhattan that was okay because of the white noise on the street--here in Texas, it is really silence. So while I bought several prime rib steaks in hopes Chepa, Madeleina, Italo, Sarah, Taylor Rain, Sierra, and Alexa were coming over, the prospect of cooking one or one half of one for me, with garlic, onions and mushrooms, with sides of spinach, cucumber with lime and sliced tomatoes cooked in steak grease with parmesan just does not sound as good when I am alone as it did when I imagined all, or some, coming over.
So I don't mean to be maudlin, but I hate this. I will probably go to sleep in an hour, without food for the 4th time this week. Darnit!

Guests came in, this is what I served them

So, let's see: I had eight people come in last weekend for a weekend of medicine. All of them have been on trips to the Amazon with me. One came in Thurs., most came Friday, one or two showed up Sat. That's a lot of cooking. So I made couscous with lamb tajine on Thursday night, because I knew it would hold. On Friday, with the full crew, I had good hummus with white and blue corn chips, three or four cheeses, homemade guacamole, and then I made chicken parmesan with thin spaghetti. Fruit for dessert, though someone brought in ice cream, so that got eaten as well. My friends are slightly piggish, of course, so they ate copius amounts of magic shrooms that appeared out of who knows where, as well as a good spoonful of blue honey that materialized (honey infused with magic shrooms). Heck of a night.

On Sat, first Medicine day, I served sapo and nu-nu, then sent them out for breakfast, then had them clean the huge--26' by 38' garage--then served them lime tea, then aya. After medicine there was fresh, cold papaya and watermelon, apples, oranges, lime water and little else.

Sunday morning, I made scrambled eggs with garlic, onion, diced tomatoes and good cheese, and served that with bacon (a once a year experience around here) and cheese bread and fruit, if I remember rightly.

Sunday evening we did a bar-be-que: Marinated chicken thighs, shrimp on sticks, brats in beer, and marinated and barbequed broccoli, cauliflower, onions, and asparagus. With BBQ fresh corn, of course. The marinade is oil, teriyaki, white vinegar, lots of achote, garlic, onions, cracked black pepper, sea salt. Man that was good.

Monday, I think I made omelets but I forget.

Monday night was burritos: Fresh chicken thigh meat, good red beans, homemade pico de gallo, sour cream, a bit of garlic in olive oil, cheddar cheese.

Tuesday morning, one of the guests made really good oatmeal with honey, raspberries and blackberries, with a bit of organic milk.

Tuesday afternoon I made sliders: Tiny burgers topped with good cheddar, pickles, lettuce, sliced tomato, a bit of onion and mustard and ketchup. Three bites each, but worth it. Mouth watering.

Tuesday evening, with the crowd dwindling, it was lime chicken: One of my own dishes from years ago. Chicken breasts breaded in a mix of seasoned breadcrumbs and good quality parmesan cheese, sauted, then covered in fresh lime juice and baked. I think I served that with jasmine rice and spinach.

Wednesday I was down to two people. I made moussaka: I used very seasoned ground beef (with garlic, onions, parsley, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg in an organic tomato sauce) served between seasoned and browned eggplant, and thin-sliced new potatoes, covered in a good parmesan bechemel sauce. It's Greek to me, but still delish.

Thursday, I was down to one. I made seared/sliced chuck steak with onions and mushrooms and garlic, with a side of sauteed spinach in garlic and olive oil and Brussel sprouts with garlic and a little salt pork (boil first, cut in half, then saute in the olive oil, salt pork and garlic) with sea salt and cracked black pepper.

Friday, simple salmon, I think, with veggies, though I cannot for the life of me be sure.

Saturday, I made a roast chicken with hot sausages. Baked, perfect. I made rice and spinach and a really good pan gravy--no packets, just the real deal.

Tonight, I am here and my daughter and her boyfriend are coming over. Before I took the last sufferer to the airport he had watermelon, papaya, blackberries, chips, an avocado and leftover rice, chicken, gravy. In the oven now is a pork butt roast. It's been cooking for nearly 3 hours. It will be ready at nine. No sweat because Madeleina isn't here yet.

Two of those days I did not eat a single bite for 24 hours, preferring to cook and fast.

Oh, and somewhere in there, my friends were offered San Pedro, more shrooms, nice pot candies. Since I don't have any of that stuff, I just have to thank heaven it materialized.

I think it was a good weekend and a good week. At least for food and medicine.....and cleaning out that freaking garage!

If only Trump knew anything about anything!

If only Trump knew anything about anything. In the last couple of days, Trump has decided that we do not need to get out of or renegotiate NAFTA. I never liked NAFTA, because of the jobs it took from the US, but then I never ran for president with one of my key promises being to get out of or renegotiate NAFTA. Trump did. Then he spoke with Mexico and Canada and changed his mind.
Today, furious that he cannot get his way on defunding federal grants to what he calls sanctuary cities, he is calling for the breakup of the US Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit. Two problems there. The first is that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did not hear the case on sanctuary cities. The second is that the president has no authority to break up--whatever the heck he means by that--and US Court of Appeals.
But wait! There is more! If you order now...Trump obviously has no idea what sanctuary cities actually are. They are cities in which the local police are told not to help federal authorities with catching and detaining illegal aliens. But local police have no legal authority to do that, anywhere. That is a federal responsibility, and laying it on localities to enforce those federal laws is not even legal. So there is that.
Trump went even further to expose his complete lack of knowledge of how things work when he declared that both his Muslim travel ban (which was heard by the 9th Circuit Court) and the Sanctuary Cities funding ruling (heard by a district court in San Francisco) were opposed by judges because lawyers suing to stop his executive orders "judge shopped" [actual phrase "judge shopping"] to find judges sympathetic to their cause. This did not happen. The lawsuit against sanctuary cities' defunding was filed in San Francisco, so it was heard by the district federal court there; the 9th Circuit heard the Muslim-travel-ban case because that was initially heard in Hawaii, and automatically went to the 9th Circuit on appeal by the US Government.
Trump went even one step further than that when he declared "...Ninth Circuit, which has a terrible record of being overturned (close to 80%..." SHEER LUNACY. According to the Washington Post, while it is true that 80 percent of the 9th Circuit cases taken up by the US Supreme Court in 2015-2016 were overturned, the Supreme Court only heard one-tenth of 1 percent of their cases for 2015-2016.
There is more, but if I keep thinking about Trump and his complete lack of understanding of any and everything in the world, my head will explode.

Trumpanini again

Keeping the Trump score. Man, I feel like I'm gonna be doing this daily till that boy is impeached. Why? Because every darned day something so stupid happens it makes my eyes roll. On Sunday, during the singing of the Anthem, his wife Melania had to nudge him visibly to put his hand over his heart. He probably thought he didn't need to do that because the song was being sung for him.
Then at the Easter Egg Roll, a kid asked him to sign his hat. President Trump obliged, then tossed the hat into the crowd, instead of giving it back to the kid.
This morning on Fox and Friends, (according to an article on Huffington Post) Trump said that both Clinton and Obama had been outplayed by "this gentleman," when referring to North Korea's dictatorial leader. "They've been talking with this gentleman for a long time. If you read Clinton's book, he said 'Oh, we made such a great peace deal,' and it was a joke.
"You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody over the years has been outplayed, they've all been outplayed by this gentleman, and well see what happens."
Problem, of course, is that Kim Jong Un has been ruling North Korea (insanely) since the death of his father, Kim Jong II in 2011. Kim Jong II took over from his father in 1994. So Clinton dealt with the current NK dictator's grandfather and father, while Obama dealt with the both Kim Jong Un and his dad. All three of those men cannot be the same "this gentleman" that Trump referred to, leading to the suspicion that Trump, once again, has no clue as to what the heck he's talking about. I mean, given that he's threatening to start a nuclear war with NK--as is Kim Jong Un with us--you would think he at least knows the name of the person ruling the country you're threatening to bomb, wouldn't you? Tell you what: I'll bet Kim Jong Un at least knows that Donald Trump is the president of the US.
Dang, and you know there will be something else just as idiotic by noon.

Keeping up with Trump

Okay, so now not only did Trump step all over his feet not knowing what Easter represents yesterday, but the man just refused to release the visitor logs from the White House, claiming they were presidential papers, not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Then he immediately began to issue ethics waivers to people he's putting in positions of power in his administration--and you know that if you have to issue an ethics waiver there is probably an ethics problem there.
Plus, he damned near started WW 3 over the weekend and has VP Pence telling N Korea to back the heck down because you don't want to upset Trump.
How, how, how is any of this a benefit to you, your family, my family or anyone? It does not, and that is not okay. The president works for us, supposedly on our behalf. Trump does not even recognize that there is an "us" here, and he certainly does not recognize that he works for that "us". This needs addressing.