Livingston, I Presume

Favorite Food Friday: Dan's "Kick-Ass" Hummus

Dan and Audrey are friends we met in Prague. Audrey contacted me via email after seeing an article I had written in Transitions Abroad (back when it was a print magazine, RIP). When they were checking out new places to live, they met up with us in a Prague pub for dinner. As I remember it, we had a great time, even though I spilled beer all over Dan. When they chose Prague as their new home, they stayed in our flat for a while, cat-sitting Sotek and hunting for their own flat while Chip and I traveled home for Christmas.

Within a couple of months, they had found one place and then another, and they already knew way more people than we did. They both have a way about them that encourages easy friendship and good companionship. We spent many an enjoyable evening at their place or ours or at one of Prague's many fine restaurants for brunch or dinner. And they didn't even drop us when we complicated our life by having a child. Instead, they made continued fellowship easy for us by coming to our flat and cooking for us. What a sweet deal! Oh, and they once made me eat anchovies, and I liked it.

Dan and Audrey remained in Prague for a couple of years after we left but then embarked on an amazing adventure that they are still experiencing. As of today, they have been on the road for 843 days, bringing their special brand of citizen diplomacy everywhere from Turkmenistan to China to, most recently, Guatemala. They are truly exceptional people, and I'm proud to call them friends. (And I now realize that I totally should have written this post last week to drive traffic for their nomination as the Lonely Planet's Best Travelogue, which they should have won but were robbed of. Sorry, D&A!)

Here's Dan's Hummus, the recipe for which they shared with us and many other friends in a little cookbooklet they sent out at Christmas in 2004:

Dan's Hummus

They write in their cookbook, "Affectionately referred to by a friend as "kick-ass" hummus. This is quick and easy to make, especially if you have a hand blender."

2 c. canned garbanzo beans/chickpeas (keep juice in a separate bowl)
1/3 c. tahini
1/4 c. lemon juice
1 tsp. salt
3 cloves garlic, halved
1 T. olive oil
1/2 t. cumin
1/2 t. cayenne pepper
1/2 t. paprika
1 t. minced fresh parsley

1. Place the garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, garlic and spices in either a blender or a deep bowl (to use with a hand blender). Blend until smooth. To adjust the thickness of the dip, add 1/2 the juice from the first garbanzo bean can to the dip mixture and continue to blend.
2. Scoop the resulting dip into the smaller bowl, drizzle olive oil on top and sprinkle with a pinch of paprika and the parsley. Serve with triangles of pita bread.

Hints:

• If you don't want it spicy, don't add the cayenne pepper.
• If you are lazy, just blend everything, including the fresh parsley, right into the dip. No one will mind.

We discuss paleontology

"Oh, look!" I say, spying an article in the Bozeman Chronicle describing MSU paleontologist (and model for the Jurassic Park main character) Jack Horner's work on creating dinosaurs out of chickens. Chickenosaurs, if you will. I read the first couple of paragraphs to Connery and remind him that Jack Horner was the scientist who spoke at the Bozeman Symphony's Kids' Concert we went to last month.

Connery's interested, so I keep skimming for interesting tibdits.

"Uh-oh, we could be in for some kind of Cylon chicken problem, though," I opine, reading that scientists in Wisconsin have already created chicken with teeth. "I don't think I want my chicken having teeth."

"Mom," Connery says, unconcerned. "We don't have a chicken."

Why Alice Waters is not my hero

I'm a total believer in slow food, whole food, good food--for everyone. My guiding nutritional principals are eating foods as close as possible to their natural state and knowing what is in what I eat. In other words, hell yes, I eat cookies, but I make them myself and know exactly what's in them. I am also a fanatical meal planner, and we cook and eat "family dinner" at least six nights out of seven in a week.

All of which should mean that I totally worship at the alter of Alice Waters, right?

I'd really like to, but I just can't get over the privilege inherent in her work and the movement she founded. The fact is that not everyone has the luxury of eating that way. Not everyone lives in California, where "local foods" offer more variety than potatoes and turnips for eight months of the year. Not everyone has the money to buy organic food (especially not in Montana, where the WIC program has sharply limited the ability of needy women to buy such things). Not everyone has the time to plan, shop for, and cook homemade meals.

I've been thinking about this for a while, but this post on Feministing (HT to Shapely Prose) put into words exactly what's been bothering me. In response to an interview with Waters on 60 Minutes last week (in which she said that people should simply not buy those "two pair of NIke shoes" to be able to afford to buy better food), Shark-fu says,

When I started teaching life skill classes at a transitional housing shelter for homeless pregnant teens in St. Louis Missouri, I quickly realized that many of my students could teach a master class on making a dollar stretch. A good place to witness their resourcefulness was in the kitchen - trust me, making $160 in food assistance last a month takes serious skill.

As grocery prices overall have risen, I know that we have had to make a lot more food choices based less on ethics and more on affordability. I would love to buy all our meat at the local butcher's, and I do when I can, but when chicken breasts are $1.88 a pound at Albertson's, I'm going to head over there and stock up.

Writing about Shark-fu's post, Kate Harding adds:

Shark-Fu focuses on the blatant class aspect here (”Promoting healthy food is a must-try recipe, but folks should skip that extra tablespoon of privilege if they want it to nourish the masses”), but I also want to make explicit what she only implies: that the “two pairs of Nikes” thing is racist, as well as classist bullshit. “Poor white people spend all their money on fancy gym shoes instead of bills and nutritious food” is not a big meme among right wing assholes. Poor black people, on the other hand? Hey, that sounds familiar.

My point isn’t to trash Waters, who — as Shark-Fu also points out — does a lot of good work trying to increase the availability of fresh, nutritious food for everyone. But that statement had more than one extra tablespoon of privilege in the mix, and that’s without even getting into the idea that people are choosing not to “nourish themselves” properly, a thought process that almost inevitably leads to “people choose to be fat.”  Man, I hate articles like this, where someone is saying so many good things, then blows it with something completely ignorant. Sigh.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the slow food movement really plays into this, and into the idea that food is either good or bad, moral or immoral. That kind of thinking only works when you get to worry more about what you eat, not whether you're going to be able to feed your family tonight at all. That's practically the definition of privilege, right there.

Come for the water, stay for the salvation

There was a fifteen-year period of time when I would not go swimming for fear of being seen in public in a bathing suit. I think it's not much of an exaggeration to say that I put on a bathing suit on the last day of sophomore swimming and didn't put on another one until I was pregnant with Connery. Since then I've gotten over myself and gotten back in the water. Even so, I was not prepared when I walked out of our room at the Spa Hot Springs Motel in White Sulphur Springs to see the pool deck crowded with people in street clothes, evidently waiting for something while ogling the pool.

Turns out there was a real, full-immersion baptism in the pool yesterday.

The spectators were church members, gathered to witness the baptism of a man who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties. He was accompanied, I surmised, by his father. The preacher gave a little sermon and a guitar player appeared out of nowhere to lead a couple of songs. I never really imagined that I would be singing "Amazing Grace" in a swimming pool, but there we were.

While everyone in the pool area was singing, my father walked out of the dressing room. He had this look of mingled surprise and confusion that captured perfectly the sentiments of our little family group of wayward Lutherans, a recovering Catholic, and a five-year-old who is still pretty unclear about the connection between Jesus and the Easter Bunny. Who would take the baptismal for us?

The Simpsons - Homer Baptism Season: 7 - The funniest home videos are here

In the end, the preacher came out in his swimsuit and dunked the man and that was that. Did some of the salvation drift over to our side of the pool? Hard to know. But the next time someone asks me if I've been saved, I am going to say, "Yes, but only from the neck down."

Favorite Food Friday: Black Bean Salad

It's the first day of Spring, which means that awkward season when I no longer want to make things like beef stew but I'm not ready to start grilling and eating gazpacho. Nevertheless, I'm willing to pull out this essential summer recipe--a Chip original--just a little early because it's one of the things I look forward to most when we make the transition to "summer food". It goes very well with any number of grilled meats or on its own with some chips, and it's delicious left over. Just make sure to take it out of the fridge a little before you want to serve it, otherwise the oil and vinegar dressing can be a little clumpy.

Black Bean Salad

2 16-oz. cans black beans, drained and rinsed
2 fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 colored bell pepper, chopped
1 red onion, diced (unless you're me and hate raw onions, in which case these are optional)
1 can corn, drained
1 can diced green chiles
4 oz. monterey jack or pepper jack cheese, cubed
1/4 c. olive oil
1/4 c. balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Put beans, fresh vegies, corn, green chiles, and cheese in a bowl, preferably one with a lid. In a separate bowl or Pyrex measuring cup, combine oil and vinegar with garlic and salt and pepper. Whisk until well mixed. Add to bean mixture and mix well. Chill. Before serving, stir well.

Ready

My new MacBook arrived yesterday, and it is--as promised--quite beautiful and sleek, right down to the packaging. Alas, the movement of data from the old iBook G4 workhorse to the new MacBook mustang has not gone to plan. Apple has this theoretically great software, Migration Assistant, that is supposed to allow you to take your old data and put it on the new machine with a minimum of fuss. Do you think I can make my machines talk to each other? No. I've spent more than two hours today on tech support with no fewer than four people, and none of them was able to solve my problem.

Ultimately the "product specialist" advised me to network the computers and drag and drop what I want to transfer. When I tried that, my most important folder (the one with five+ years of my work in it) disappeared and caused me to faint dead and have to be revived. Luckily I was able to find it again, but it didn't exactly make me want to continue the process.

I know we'll get it sorted eventually, but it does highlight one of the reasons that I tend to use old technology--whether that's cars, cell phones, or computers--until it just can't be used anymore. The hassle involved in learning the new system almost always outweighs the pleasure of the shiny new thing I have. So far I haven't reached that point with the new computer, but a few more days on tech support could push me there.

I'm at such a patient point anyway, given that I'm home on day two of Connery flu watch. My family needs to get well. Now. Sooner than now. One of us has been sick for more than three weeks, and that just sucks. I'm ready for everyone to get well and for Migration Assistant to, well, assist in some migration.

Going pro

I'm launching my professional site bit by bit. Yesterday I posted a downloadable version of my story on Walter Breuning from the most recent issue of Montana Quarterly. Check it out.

Favorite Food Friday: Chicken & Noodles

I can't even tell you how long our family resisted the siren song of this dish. When my father told us that his mother had served chicken noodle soup over mashed potatoes, every nutritional flag in my head flew up and all I could think was "bad carbs! bad carbs!". That was before I legalized all foods in moderation--and before my mother found an actual recipe in an actual cookbook for the dish, which legitimized it in her mind. I won't say which cookbook she found it in, though, because that would just be embarrassing.

The cookbook isn't important anyway, because my father doesn't use a recipe to make the most delicious chicken soup ever. His soup is delicious mainly because he makes the stock from scratch and then shamelessly indulges my weird meat problem* by using only boneless chicken breast in the final product. He also makes his own My mom makes the homemade noodles. Mmmmmm. The following is my interpretation of his their classic dish:

Chicken & Noodles

(Soup)

5-6 large carrots, sliced
1 onion, chopped
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
1 tbsp. butter
1 lb. boneless, skinless, chicken breast (whole)
64 oz. chicken broth (I use one regular Swanson carton and one fancy Organic carton, but it probably doesn't matter)
1 bay leaf
Salt, pepper, dried parsley to taste

In a large soup pot, saute onions, celery, and carrots in butter until tender. Add salt, pepper, and parsley. Add broth and bay leaf and bring to a boil. Add chicken breasts and turn down heat to medium low. While the chicken is poaching, make the noodles.

(Noodles)

2-3 eggs
Pinch salt
Flour

Lightly beat eggs with salt. Add flour until dough is stiff. You will need a lot of flour! Sprinkle board with flour and coat hands with flour. Again: You will need a lot of flour! Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut into thin strips, about 2 inches long. Allow to dry while soup continues to cook and you prepare the mashed potatoes.

(Mashed potatoes)

1 lb. russet potatoes, cut in medium chunks
Salt
Butter

In a pot, cover potatoes with cold water. Bring to a boil, back off the heat, and cook potatoes until tender. Mash with a little butter and salt. They won't need much of either because they will basically dissolve in the soup.

Check to make sure chicken breasts are cooked. Remove and cut into chunks. Return to soup. Add noodles about 5 minutes before you want to eat. When the noodles are cooked, ladle the soup into bowls containing freshly made mashed potatoes.

Oh, yeah.

*My weird meat problem is that I am utterly repulsed by dark meat, meat with bones, organ meat, wild game meat, meat from baby animals...Um, honestly, pretty much any meat besides boneless, skinless chicken, pork, beef, or turkey. And tuna fish, as long as it's in a sandwich with mayo. But no pickles! And I am not picky at all. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I would be hopeless in Asia.

No winners in 'biggest loser' competitions

This month marks the endpoint of many a workplace-sponsored weight loss competition. Twelve weeks seems to be the magic number when it comes to encouraging competitive dieting in the name of health, and such competitions always have to begin in January, to coincide with the national post-holiday shaming season.

For those of you whose workplaces have not adopted “biggest loser” competitions or who have not watched the NBC “reality” show from after which the contests are modeled, let me clue you in: The “winner” is the won who loses the most weight during the span of the contest. How you do it is unimportant. And therein lies the problem with these contests as an encouragement of “workplace wellness”—rapid, unsupervised weight loss is no ticket to health.

I know of one local company where the “biggest loser”—a man who was, by the way, barely ‘overweight’ by BMI standards before the contest started—literally starved himself for the two weeks prior to the final weigh-in so that he could win the cash . How productive do you suppose he was in those two weeks? And how healthy?

It’s no wonder that employers are launching such programs, though. Health insurance premiums continue to climb, and encouraging employee weight loss is often presented as one way of containing costs. Unfortunately, there is no evidence for these kinds of interventions.

Some argue that weight loss contests even present dangers to employers and employees. Employees who choose not to participate—for whatever reason, including not having any actual need to lose weight—can argue that such incentives are discriminatory. Peer pressure can lead to behaviors—like the abovementioned biggest loser’s—that are ultimately counterproductive not only to health but also to morale. Not to mention that anyone recovering from an eating disorder could find a company-wide emphasis on weight loss to be triggering, possibly touching off a relapse of his or her dangerous condition.

To these very serious consequences I’ll add one less grave: People obsessed with dieting become very boring. Forget discussing current events or even the weekend ski conditions: Everyone participating in the contest is going to be discussing their fat grams and how many calories they can burn on the slopes. Not exactly fodder for sparking creativity.

There are ways to encourage employees to be healthier that don’t involve weekly weigh-ins. I heard about one Bozeman company that sponsors gym memberships for its employees—but only pays for those memberships if each employee can show that he or she is actually using it. That makes sense. On-site exercise options are another great helper for busy employees. Having healthy snack options available makes a lot of sense as well, especially because quality foods like nuts, vegetables and fruits provide much better energy for stamina and brainpower than do such office staples as doughnuts. Oh, and don’t forget insurance coverage that encourages preventative health screenings such as well-child visits, mammograms and pap smears, and regular physicals.

Of course, all of those options involve considerably more of an investment in terms of time and money than sponsoring a weight loss contest. On the other hand, they also give everyone an equal chance to be a winner—with no losers in sight.

A version of this column appeared in the March 10th issue of Business to Business.

Guest post: Letter to the Editor

Chip's letter to the editor decrying the ridiculousness of recent Chronicle letters regarding homosexuality ran today. Here it is:

I wondered how long it would take for the Biblical “scholars” out there to trot out the passages of the Bible that supposedly justify their hatred of homosexuality. Predictably, we’ve seen mention of Leviticus, Genesis, and Exodus, sometimes even with quotations from the passages that “prove” their assertion that homosexuality is an abomination.

I can’t argue that those verses don’t exist, and I’m surely not in a position to offer my own interpretations of someone else’s holy book, but I can say that it seems just a tiny bit strange that these passages are presented as God’s own immutable law, while commandments elsewhere in the same books of the Bible are routinely ignored.

Just in Leviticus, for example, followers are told that it is their duty to kill any child who curses his or her parent and to partake in ritual animal killings. Not allowed according to Leviticus? Tattoos, harvesting the corners of a field, and charging interest on loans. Where is the outrage at our society’s utter lack of ritual sacrifice and its rampant usury? Exodus, meanwhile, sets forth detailed guidelines for the proper ways of conducting slavery, including how to sell one’s own children. I don’t see anyone clamoring for a return to those Biblical values.

In fact, of the 613 commandments that God is supposed to have given to Moses, only a handful remain in force today, even among the most fervent. Meanwhile, the handful of laws that some interpret to condemn homosexuality are used as a cudgel to deny equal protection under the law.

Furthermore, interesting though these forays into Biblical studies may be, they should ultimately be of no consequence whatsoever to the current debate. Last time I checked, our country was ruled by the tenets set forth in the U.S. Constitution, not the Bible. And that’s not open for interpretation.