Hecho en Park Slope

As far as epithets go it is far more common to come across a “made in china” label these days than anything else. It lends itself to a particular connotation of course. Made in china can mean anything from pass up this crap to this is the cheapest one you can find or even authentic and high quality if you happen to be searching for a good bamboo steamer or some hand-pulled rice vermicelli. Much less common amongst merchandise these days is the insignia Hecho En Mexico.
So when I found a package of very simple corn tortillas that bore this dotage I threw my local sustainability principles to the wind (which I do every now and again) and threw down a dollar and change for a pound of the little corn discs.
Well I could hardly sit on my couch watching sitcom reruns and mindlessly popping these tortillas in my mouth – that would be a silly way to ingest a little piece of Southern North American culture. I knew what had to be done. Home-made Enchiladas!
For all the Mexican charm of the dish enchiladas are simple and cheap as far as ethnic cuisine goes. The basic components are refried beans, pan fried tortillas and a good, creamy enchilada sauce.
For the beans:
Soak black or pinto beans overnight in water then change the water and bring to a boil. Once boiling lower flame and simmer for about 15. Drain and use.
OR
Take out a can or two of black or pinto beans from the cupboard.
Dice an onion and a jalapeno pepper and throw it in a pan over medium heat with a bit of cooking oil.
When the onions looks like they ‘sweat’ and reduced a little bit sprinkle in some salt and chili powder and throw in the beans. Mash in the pan as they fry and when everything is nice and hot remove from the heat.
At this point you can cook with them, eat them plain or save them in the fridge for a few days.
When you are ready for enchiladas!
Put a few drips of oil in a small pan and pan fry each tortilla for 20 – 30 seconds on each side then lay down on a plate.
When all the tortillas are smelling delish start dishing a spoon or two of the re-fried beans into the tortilla and roll it up like a cigarette (if you’re into that sort of thing.)
Line the bean filled tortillas (it doesn’t become an enchilada until it gets some sauce) on a big baking tray and pre-heat the oven to 350.
Now throw together a sauce!
There are a million different ways to do this but the basic idea of an enchilada sauce is something tomato-based but with a cream factor to it. Spiciness varies.
I took a cup of plain tomato sauce and mixed in a half cup of sour cream and some red chili flakes, chili powder and a very subtle sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar (you’d be surprised)
I mixed it all together and poured haphazardly over my tightly packed tortillas and then I threw the lovely mess into the oven.
20 minutes later I whipped out the tray and sprinkle a drop of goat’s milk Queso fresco over the top and put it back in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes. Note: any cheese will do but I find cheddar or Monterey jack to be conducive to Mexican cooking if you can’t get your hands on a queso fresco which is just a very young, crumbly cheese. If you want to keep the recipe vegan you can leave the cheese off and replace the sour cream with a little non-dairy milk of choice or some silken tofu.
DO NOT FORGET TO TOP YOUR ENCHILADAS WITH SOME HOME GROWN CILANTRO! Freshly cut from my garden and not a minute too soon as a frost warning is en route to Brooklyn.
This kind of dish pairs nicely with simple sides like slow-sauteed peppers and onions or a avocado and tomato quick salad. A cold beer doesn’t hurt either. Saludos Amigos!

How long has it been?

Too long!

Sorry for the infrequent posting. i think this is the downfall of most personal blogs. Life gets in the way. It isn't as if I haven't been cooking, writing, hiking and traveling. Because I have. (In fact, you can check out my Village voice blog posting linked to the title above!)

But I guess, in some way, living and writing are antithetical practices. It isn't as if Hemingway composed the sun also rises in the interim between the climax of one bull fight and the beginning of the next, tucked away amidst a crowd of riled up Spaniards guzzling Tinto de Verona and passing Chicharrones through the rows.

I am still perplexed by the way that journalists manage to experience things and then put them to print so quickly, without any internalization of the experience. That is still a bit too much for me.

I am thinking about restructuring this blog or maybe just moving on to a new one. Something a bit more focused, more angular. A place where I can focus more on writing. Let me know if you have any thoughts on that. This sort of vague HTML Frankenstein creation that stitches together unrelated parts of my life seems to drag a little. Alas

Price Check on the Liberal Arts Education

[An article I wrote about some recent difficulty at King's College of London, where I am studying a semester abroad]

It has been passed down like an old time decree from inside the walls of 10 Downing Street to the office of the Board of Directors and then, less formally, trickling through the halls and classrooms of King’s College – funds are drastically low, redundancies must be corrected.To be more precise the “redundancies” are, in fact, members of the King’s College staff and the “correcting” is going to be carried out through a sacking of roughly 10 percent of the professors and administrators that make up the King’s College staff. More frightening still, the board of directors overseeing the budget cuts has suddenly decided that this is the perfect opportunity to rethink this strange college curriculum referred to as the liberal arts education.
When Peter Mandelson, First Secretary of State, announced the 12.5% budget cut for the funding of higher education the blow was absorbed by King’s staff and students alike with gritted teeth but steely resolve. After all, what else could be expected? For over a year now the financial markets worldwide have been characterized by down-turning lines and governments from the United States to China have been struggling to find the money necessary to continue on with at least some of the business as usual. But for the United Kingdom, one of the strongest economies in the world, the strain is everyday becoming more apparent as many areas are forced to make do with less funding. King’s College along with the other eighteen members of the university of London system are being put to the test – can a school that regularly makes it into the rankings of the top 25 universities in the world still make the cut after being put on this fiscal diet?
The higher-ups, namely the board of trustees and the board of governors, seem to think that a massive restructuring is what is called for. When the re-apportioned King’s College budget was released it was a blow to everyone. The lost money would not be, as many thought, distributed evenly over every department but rather the entire liberal arts curriculum would be called into question. The new idea being volleyed around: reduce or eliminate the subjects that don’t have a direct and evident correlation to post-graduation areas of employment. Say Auf Weidersehen to the German literature department, Au Revoir to the French equivalent and as for the King’s paleography department, the only one of its kind in all of London, it can go the way of most of its reference material – the history section. At the same time the economics department and the school of business remain untouched.
The decimation of choice departments might help tighten the school’s belt in the short run but will also have a much longer lasting effect on the well-rounded quality of the education that King’s students receive. Despite the relatively small percentage of students who will be directly affected by these cuts there has been a backlash that has united the campus in a way that few other issues have. The feeling around the campus is one of great anger. Students who appear apathetic as they day dream in their morning Medieval Book lecture are alight with indignation as they rally and petition for the subjects they chose to study and the professors who continue to inspire them.
What the board of directors do not seem to understand is that the liberal arts education has an intrinsic role in the forming and nurturing of many social and intellectual skills; skills that are crucial to the workforce and cannot be manifested in students in any other setting. A student of comparative literature doesn’t simply study the semiotics of great and impractical literature but also how to read, write and think critically about any topic that should present itself. Students in the Africana studies department don’t just sit and chronicle a history but learn to decipher social codes that help us to better understand the world we live in.
We are all becoming painfully accustomed to tightening our belts as the world economy trudges up slowly from its steep fall. We must all make sacrifices both superficial and significant. But in a time when we are continually let down by the status quo, when we are brought face to face with the harsh realization that the perfect system was in fact imperfect, doesn’t it make sense to, at the very least, not put all of our eggs into one basket again? The workforce may demand recruits with particularly relevant skill sets but the world demands the creativity, free-thinking and dexterous intelligence born of a liberal arts education. Here is a useful thought exercise for the well-educated men and women who sit on the King’s college board of directors: if you eliminate the classes that study metaphor and the never-ending epistemological dialogue, if you downsize departments dealing in the subtle distinctions of language, if you deem unworthy the classes that help us understand being, then what will we have to look forward to once we meet our precious bottom line?

Wanted: A Nostalgic imagining of the Job Market

Well, it's that time of year again. The last chilly days are quickly dwindling and some of the more petulant flowers are forcing their way open as Spring begins. For me and most college students what that really means is another mad dash for a summer job.

If you will allow me to wax poetic for a few lines about a better time that I only know about through skewed representations on old Nick-at-Night re-runs of the classic television canon like Happy Days or Saved by the Bell. And still, I feel like I do remember the good old days just outside of my grasp when jobs were plentiful and the resume and cover letter were foreign documents replaced instead by an affirming grin and an eager look in your eye. Why can't I step into a restaurant and ask for a job in the kitchen? How else am I supposed to learn? How can I overcome this closed circle of flawed logic that insists on years of experience for even the dingiest of food joints? And what exactly is this NYC food certificate that I keep hearing about, like an initiation tattoo I don't have. Surely it is just another bureaucratic 5-hour class where no one learns a thing they didn't already know.

And where are all the jobs picking up empty glass bottles of milk from people's doorstep to replace them with their filled counterparts, rich and creamy thick at the top. Don't golf courses need caddies? Is anyone still looking for a pool boy?

Suddenly i'm lost in a world of job websites and endless facsimiles of the same cover letter being printed and sent off to every corner of the earth for jobs where you don't have to move a limb past your knuckle joints which flitter about all day on keyboards exchanging endless sets of information with other working drones. How can an entire anthro-centric world exist if all of the people refuse to be unseated?

Like I said this might be useless nostalgia - the kind of superfluous information I just readily criticized - but it leaves me unsettled nonetheless. Particularly because I feel as if I do understand how things are meant to work on a more fundamental level. It takes months to accumulate enough biomass for rich soil. Hours on your knees to spread the seeds and cover them in earth and water. Anywhere from two weeks to three months of near daily attention to reach the time of harvest when you can reap the benefits of all of that work. And that is just one aspect of the most simplified existence I can imagine.

Maybe I am just thinking in the wrong terms. maybe this argument has a lot less to do with the mystic disappearance of daily toil and everything to do with the oddities of economics, the difficulties of absorbing immigrants into our society, the use and abuse of fossil fuels and the determined blindness we force upon ourselves to the immense difficulty of others. All that I know for sure is that students are encouraged to go out unto the world and gain experience, to temper their education and round out their cognitive growth, but the only lesson I seem to be able to learn is that work is outdated, antiquated, a relic to be left in the past alongside Fonz and his Jukebox.

Another reason not to like pork!

The United States passed its healthcare reform bill today. Unsurprisingly, it seems to have its ups and downs. Obviously the actual bill was made public and can be viewed online at http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.3200: but let's take a minute to step back and consider what has been given to the public to be viewed. At 1018 pages and with so much cross-referencing you could go googly-eyed it isn't exactly an accessible piece of legislation. It reminds me a little of the Jim Crow law literacy tests that put the power right into the citizens hands - assuming the citizens have the ability to access that power (and we know they don't!)

The Bill grants healthcare to millions of people - and if you don't think this is a good thing, at least on the fundamental level, then you needn't read on at all. If we are going to live in a unified country certain things have to be somewhat socialized and medical treatment is one of those things. I can't argue that the quality of care won't go down - it very well may. I can't argue that this will cost the average citizen more - I don't see any way to avoid that. But when a conservative pundit makes these arguments he or she is simply laying a thin veil over their real belief: I want the best care for myself and my loved ones no matter who else must suffer. The response, much too late in the country's history, is finally to say that every citizen, regardless of social status, deserves the same opportunities to be healthy and safe.



What is upsetting to me about this bill is the sheer amount of pork that gets tied into the 1000+ pages of this bill. The 100 million dollars being sectioned off for Nebraska to buy one senator's vote is unacceptable. Referred to now as the "cornhusker kickback" this money is stuck in the bill simply because it was shoved in by a few senators making moves and then kept in because no one had the energy to do anything about it. Something is wrong with the way we do legislation if 100 million dollars gets lost in a 1000 page bill. That same 100 million could certainly be put to better use addressing health issues in a more pro-active way. Which brings me to my final point:

The healthcare bill seems like a step forward but I can't help but wonder if the nation isn't dragging a few toes when it should be making a real leap by addressing the many issues that cause sickness in the first place. Attack smoking. Attack the American diet, heavy in red meat and dairy products, high salt foods and overly sweet drinks. Attack the entire military-industrial system that encourages people to drive when they could walk, snack on the couch when they could read in the park and hit the drive-thru when they could be picking fresh fruit from a home garden. The government can pretend that these are the free choices of every individual and thus part of our inalienable rights but if that was the case then why are companies like Wal-Mart and McDonald's, ConAgra and Monsanto pouring billions of dollars into advertising this unnatural lifestyle and keeping the individual or the odd politician from exercising their legal rights.

Geodesics - the fountain of youth

I was reading this NY Times article on Geodesics - a differential geometry term for the line that finds the most direct path between two points when compared to paths nearby. Not being a student of math or an admirer for that matter this explanation sent my mind in many other directions thinking about time and space as simple concepts and the innate (in-nate, as in the latin nasci to be born with it) mathematical knowledge humans seem to share.

We all try to move in the most economical of ways. Without really considering why (some of us could certainly use a bit more exercise) we all walk similar footpaths to our destination. "The Spaniaad [sic], if on foot, always travels as the crow flies, which the openness and dryness of the country permits; neither rivers nor the steepest mountains stop his course, he swims over the one and scales the other." - The London Review Of English And Foreign Liturature, by W. Kenrick - 1767 The Geodesic, a human mathematical discovery, is really just a relabeling of the natural instinct to fight time; An evolutionary trait acknowledging the greatest motivation of our self aware society: death.

It also makes me consider the human perspective in relation to the broader, albeit purely theoretical, world perspective. The local and the global. This is most easily evidenced by our use of two-dimensional maps. When we want to cross a field to sit under a tree we center the tree in our line of sight and walk towards it. This is because our perspective suggests the path is on a flat plane. To get from New York City to Rome we turn to a map and try to draw a similar straight line but that route would prove extremely out of the way because of the spherical shape of the earth. We scoff at the fly who bumps hopelessly against the window pane searching vainly for the point at which it entered, but are we any more adept?

2 recipes - no hassle

Scrumptious! Hmm well i suppose it's debatable. Personally I have a thing for healthy, hearty food. you know the kind you can eat until your well full and not feel like your organs are straining to digest everything. If you grew up on a steady diet of Doritos and Mountain Dew (sometimes i wish i had) then you might not actually taste this food as you eat it but I find the more I incorporate healthy, veggie-filled vegan meals into my diet the more i appreciate the rich and subtle flavors of a proverbial cornucopia of vegetables, legumes and grains!

On the left: A sweet potato star - basically just threw four small potatoes into the microwave with a paper towel over them and microwaved on high for 5, flipped them and another 5! Don't forget to poke a few holes so it looks like you actually did some cooking (haha, i don't know if it's even necessary but i did it).
Kale, Red and Green Peppers and Onions Sauteed with Cashews - Basically throw in the chopped onions with a little olive or canola oil and then cut the peppers and throw them in and then after 5 minutes on high heat rinse, rip and toss in the moist kale and throw a lid on the pot for another 5. Finsih with a spritz of soy sauce and a pinch of basil and sugar. top with crushed cashews.

On the right: Throw some pearled barley in a pot and cover with water plus half an inch and a drop of oil and salt. Bring to a boil and then let simmer for about an hour (don't fret this is when you start the other dish)
Another onion diced in a pot with a drop of oil on high heat. Cut up the carrots like they do in cartoons (little coin shapes) and throw those in and halve a bunch of brussel sprouts and toss those in. pour in about an eighth of a glass of water and cover so everything steams. 5 minutes later lose the cover and throw in some balsamic vinegar and a pinch of pepper, basil and sugar. saute another 5 and your set!

Well i liked it anyway!