Sometimes about food. Always random.
From the monthly archives:
It’s all in here — the problems that surround many children of color. Overrepresentation of minority populations in the prison system. Broken communities. Broken schools.
Most importantly, this 20-minute video of Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, talks about how we must think about these issues in new ways. Why the same kind of thinking that created these problems won’t fix them. And where to begin.
Video of Geoffrey Canada is from the 2006 Gel Conference.
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Apples are one of the few fruits my kids both agree on, so we go through a lot of them here. For the first few years of the 9yo’s life, I just used store-bought applesauce — which no one but her wanted to eat, of course. Even when you spend the money to buy a premium brand, it’s typically no more than one step above runny and flavorless.
One day, I happened to make homemade applesauce on a whim, and I reminded myself how delicious this treat is. It’s one of those magic foods that’s ridiculously simple to make, doesn’t take too long, and tastes so much better than store-bought that it’s like a different food.
The other thing about applesauce is that there’s not really a recipe for it. Here, I’ve basically written up some notes about how I often make it, but I’m also including options you may want to consider.
Homemade Applesauce Recipe
Makes 4 or so cups
6 large apples*
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. allspice
Water
Peel and slice the apples. Here we get into one of your first choices. If you want quick-cooking, fine-textured applesauce, just dice the apples finely. Here, we like chunky applesauce, so I cut the apples into 1/8″-1/4″ slices and let them cook down a bit.
Put the apples in a heavy saucepan — they should no more than half-fill the pan. Just barely cover the apples with water. Dump in the other ingredients. Cover. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer.
Basically, all you have to do now is cook the apples til they look and taste done to you. This takes no more than 30 minutes for me, but your cooking time will vary based on how you’ve chopped the apples. Check the apples every 5-10 minutes, more frequently the longer they’ve cooked. You may need to add water after they’ve cooked a while. They should remain “saucy” — if you let them dry out completely, they’ll burn and stick to the pan. Keeping them covered reduces the need for water, but you may still need to add some.
Once the apples seem very close to being done, have a taste. You may want more sugar or spice. Different apples [even among the same cultivar] will have different levels of sweetness and flavor, based on the time of year and how fresh they are. Always start low on the sugar and spice, and add more toward the end if need be.
Variations
I sometimes add butter. I’m from the South, and everything tastes better with butter. [Really.] I never add more than a couple of tablespoons. But it will make your applesauce richer and smoother.
You can certainly experiment with different spices, too. I recommend sticking with small amounts, and one or two spices total, however. It’s easy to muddle up the flavor. Other spice possibilities:
Also delicious: Serve applesauce warm with chopped, roasted nuts on top [or even better: with nuts you've coated in butter, sugar, a tad of salt and then roasted]. My kids typically don’t like nuts in things, so I rarely do this at home.
While the method I describe here will give you delicious homemade applesauce pretty quickly, I also find Edna Lewis‘ theory on cooking to be so true: Cooking long and slow draws out a deeper, richer flavor. So when I think about it, I’ll put apples on very low in the morning and tend them while I go about other tasks in the kitchen.
* The kind of apples you use for applesauce makes a big difference. Please, whatever you do, do NOT use Red Delicious apples for applesauce. As far as I’m concerned, these tasteless, often mealy blobs should be banned from the earth. Oddly, Golden Delicious apples can make a very nice sauce, and they’re good to use if kids are your primary audience: They’re pretty mellow, even though they are significantly more flavorful than Reds. Granny Smiths make a nice tart applesauce, though I prefer them in pie.
My favorite apples for applesauce are Jonathans. I also use Jonagolds when I find them. I’ve used Galas many times for applesauce, though they are a touch too sweet for me personally [but delicious for eating raw for that very reason].
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Got this recipe last year from my aunt Judy. She is an awesome cook and specializes in things that taste amazing but don’t require much effort.
Orange Ball Candy
1 lb. orange slice candy
7 oz. coconut
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1 c. chopped nuts
1 t. orange extract
1 t. vanilla extract
Chop the candy into small pieces. This is actually hard because the candy is so sticky. This year I sprayed my knife with cooking spray and it seemed to help somewhat.
Mix all ingredients. Spread in a 9×13 Pyrex dish. Bake at 275 degrees for 45 minutes. The milk will start to caramelize. Remove from the oven, and stir the candy. Let it cool until you can handle it comfortably.
Drop candy by teaspoonfuls onto a plate of powdered sugar. Roll into balls in the sugar. Place on waxed paper and refrigerate. Once the candy firms up a bit, you can stack in layers, separated by wax paper. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator. Not that you’ll be storing it for long.
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It happens every year at some point during the holidays. I wake up one morning, typically with no previous plans, and I am seized with the idea that Today We Must Make The Christmas Candy.
Today is that day.
In most years, I make the candy I grew up making:
Over the past 10-15 years, I’ve added one or two candies a year to my repertoire. I made chocolate covered cherries last week — delicious and SO worth the effort — but today, I’ve decided to make some newer additions to the rotation.
Coming later today:
Maybe more, we’ll see. I’ll steal Ashby’s camera for pix — mine has been missing for a week and it’s about to kill me. One of the best parts: Ashby just went to the grocery for me. The hardest work is done already!
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The daily nap, that is. The 3yo has grown more and more obstinate about his daily nap. Truth be told, he’s been obstinate about it for months, but I’m only now moving toward acceptance of his changing routine. The 3yo still often naps at school, where the day is more rigid [and often more active] than it is here at home. But I’m pretty strict about routine myself. On days when the 3yo is here, we eat lunch about the same time he does at school, then head right for naptime. Dinner is about the same time every night. He goes to bed religiously at 7:30 each night.
But for at least two months, he’s fought that afternoon nap tooth and nail. I really can’t judge his timing based on his sister’s history–never mind that they’re not biological siblings. Her napping was always more erratic, from infancy onward. When she gave up her nap, she hadn’t been napping regularly for months, even at school. Then once every couple of weeks, she’d sleep for 4 hours on a weekend afternoon — always on a day you had something planned, of course. The 3yo isn’t ever erratic, about anything. He just doesn’t need the nap every day anymore.
Of course, I’m just being selfish about this. I’m now working out of my home, and in January, the 3yo will only be in nursery school 2 days a week. That’s on purpose — I’m looking forward to spending more time with him. But I was really hoping for a little time to myself on the weekdays we’d be mostly home together. Silly me, I even had illusions I’d still have him napping when the baby is due in May. I know; I’m just delirious.
So today is the 3yo’s first official day without a nap. He really did pretty well, considering. One small meltdown, one 5-minute batch of crankiness. You could get both of those on a day with a good nap. And I know he’ll still be napping some in the future. I’m just no longer kidding myself that I can count on 2 quiet hours mid-day any longer.
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I was a fan of Boston Legal from the time it launched. I’ve always been a sap for James Spader. I don’t care what you put him in. To me, he just exudes intelligence and sex appeal. He usually plays tortured characters, but ones with redeeming qualities.
The many other actors who’ve been a part of BL are equally stellar in their own ways — René Auberjonois, Candice Bergen, John Laroquette, William Shatner and many others have come and gone.
But I’ll confess I’d grown tired of Boston Legal this year. It jumped the shark last season as far as I’m concerned. The plots, cases and personal situations just grew so far-fetched as to defy all suspension of disbelief. But I never took the show off my DVR, and I’m so glad. The show was at its best when Spader was in all-out tirade, whether in front of a jury or with other lawyers in the Crane, Poole and Schmidt firm. Over the last few episodes, the writers wrote some doozies for him. I watched the last four episodes of the show over two days earlier this week. Each show was more outrageous than the last, but each one featured better writing than the one before, as well.
The tour de force fittingly came in the series finale. In fact, much of the rest of the show seemed a vehicle to arrive at this triumphant speech. The premise of the episode is that a Chinese firm has purchased Crane, Poole and Schmidt. They quickly fire the entire litigation staff — obviously discerning what the rest of us have known for years: These folks are prickly and untamed. But, as Spader’s character Alan Shore displays here, they’re also a lot of fun to watch and listen to. (The relevant part begins at about 1:25.)
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I’ve been an interested observer of the Nashville schools for many years. Long before I ever had children, I volunteered in the East Nashville schools. [Actually, even before I lived in East Nashville. But that's another story.]
I believe wholeheartedly in the concept of public education — that we should be educating everyone to the best of their abilities, and that part of the education is learning about people who aren’t just like you. Nashville has so many private schools it’s crazy [again, another story], but in most of the ones I know, you won’t find much diversity. In the few [typically either the really expensive or the really cheap ones] that do have diversity, you find ethnic/cultural diversity but not socioeconomic diversity, though that’s not universally true.
I continue to believe what I learned growing up in a public school system, though. My county had two high schools, one large one covering most of the county [which I attended] and one small, covering one small town. My high school was about as ethnically and economically mixed as you can be in a small rural county. I came from an upper middle class home — my dad owned a business in town — and I went to school with a few kids far wealthier than I, and many other middle class kids, and lots of poor kids. About half the kids were black, half white. A few kids from other ethnic backgrounds. Mostly but not all Christian.
And I learned far more than math, science, literature and history. I learned a lot about how poverty affects people. Had I gone to a private school in the next county over, I could have easily lived my entire childhood in a small town without really seeing poverty close up. Instead, I went to school with kids who didn’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. I remember my shock at learning about a classmate’s humble living conditions, and how it changed my perspective on her.
Well I could ramble on all day about that sort of thing, but the main point is, I think having a great public education system makes it easier for us to understand each other — never mind the benefits of an educated citizenry and workforce.
But when an educational system isn’t actually educating — well, that’s a problem, no? When the 9yo was ready for kindergarten, we looked seriously at several private schools, unwilling to sacrifice her education for our principles. But we were lucky to have a wonderful, new public school open in our own neighborhood that year. She’s been well educated the past several years in a warm, loving environment, surrounded by kids from most any ethnic and economic background you could name. Absolute perfection.
Would that I could say the same for the rest of the Metro schools. Test scores are abysmal in much of our public system, but particularly in several of our large high schools. Speaking of large, our high schools tend toward the enormous side. Never mind large class sizes — when you put 2000 students together in one building, it makes it very difficult to serve the needs of individual students.
I believe many of the problems of the Nashville schools to be the result of years of disinterest on the part of the middle and upper classes. Nashville itself has around a 13% poverty rate. Nashville public schools have 70% of their students on free or reduced lunch. Even if we accept that the Census definition for poverty is a somewhat different measure than qualifications for free/reduced lunch, the disparity is clear. Our public schools today are largely educating only the poor. And they have the political clout and resources that go along with that.
Not to say they don’t have money. The school budget for the current year is $621 million, out of a $1.6 billion Metro budget — almost 40% of what Nashville government spends. In 2006, the Census reports that Tennessee school districts on the whole spent about $6,900 per pupil — 48th in the nation in per-pupil spending. In the current year, Nashville is spending more than $8000 a student — much closer to the national average than the rest of the state.
Now, I can tell you all kinds of reasons why I think we should be spending even more, but I think we could also be doing much better with what we have. I’m most disappointed in the lack of leadership from our school administration and our school board over the past few years. Here’s what I’m waiting to see:
What is our school board doing? I’m not really sure. There’s a lot of focus on hiring a new director. I think part of the problem is the school board works on a policy governance model — meaning, they approve new policies and set goals but don’t actually do anything about day-to-day running of the schools. That’s the director’s job. While I agree that in general, this may be a sound operating principle for a board, I see the Metro school board often hiding behind this paradigm in practice. It seems to me that the way the Nashville school board views policy governance, it’s easy to shuffle responsibility from one party to another.
I want someone to stand up and take responsibility for the students in this district, and for giving the community a reason to support the schools. If our city continues to believe our schools are failing, they most certainly will continue to fail.
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Here’s what we in Davidson County get to vote on Jan. 22, 2009 — up or down:
“English is the official language of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Official actions which bind or commit the government shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English. No person shall have a right to government services in any other language. All meetings of the Metro Council, Boards, and Commissions of the Metropolitan Government shall be conducted in English. The Metro Council may make specific exceptions to protect public health and safety. Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law.”
The shell-game part of this is that all official government communications are already in English. The beer board hasn’t suddenly started conducting its meetings in French. The key provision here is the word “only” in the second sentence. Meaning, the government won’t provide for any translation of, well, anything.
I love the last sentence: Nothing shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law. Well, it does conflict — for instance, federal law requires voting assistance in other languages if your language minority population reaches a certain percentage. [It's complex, but find the details here. But do note, the DOJ page is out of date -- according to it, you might assume this provision expired in 2007. However, Congress renewed the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 for 25 more years.] In the 2000 census, 10.1% of Nashville residents didn’t speak English at home. The last document I can find from the census listing areas covered by the federal requirement to provide ballots in other languages [PDF] is from 2002, and no counties in Tennessee were covered. However, you’d think it’s likely Nashville/Davidson County is close to the threshold [detailed in the PDF]. Can I start by saying that a charter amendment that has to contradict itself to comply with federal or state law is, on its face, a bad idea?
I’m assuming that if this amendment passes, the Metro Council will pass requisite “health and safety” provisions as indicated. So that cops and Metro General Hospital employees will still be able to speak to people in Spanish or any other language they see fit. Isn’t that crazy, though? We have to pass legislation to allow cops to speak to people in their own language? So that your doctor can talk to you about your medical history? When we have to make exceptions to our new charter amendment to protect public health and safety, it’s a bad idea.
My great concern is what will happen in the courts. Will the public defender’s office and Metro Courts be prohibited from paying translators? Or prohibited from allowing already-bilingual attorneys to speak Spanish to their clients? Or will this be determined to be a constitutional requirement? And again, if our amendment violates the U.S. Constitution, isn’t that a bad sign?
The issues above would no doubt be sorted out by the courts, should this amendment pass. Here’s a practical issue: Why on earth would we pass an amendment that we know will immediately draw lawsuits the government will have to pay to defend?
But still. If this were the right thing to do, we could justify all the above issues, right? Maybe we’re just on the leading edge of civilization and understanding of human rights. Maybe everywhere, people will shortly be passing English-only provisions.
Let me make the bold suggestion that provisions that serve to divide us are wrong. This provision doesn’t protect anyone. It creates two groups: English-speakers and others. Last time I checked, God didn’t check your passport at heaven’s gate. We are all just people here on this earth. No one better nor worse than their neighbors. Because many of us had the great fortune to be born in the United States, we have the keys to incredible wealth and opportunity unavailable to the vast majority of the world’s population. But we aren’t better than anyone else. How dare we make arbitrary rules that will — in an almost certainty — even prevent other U.S. citizens from receiving health care, an adequate defense in court, or from living in a safe neighborhood, right here in our own city? This amendment would also prevent international tourists from certain access to basic human services. The economy sucks, and we’re thinking about turning away tourists? Never mind them — what about international businesses? I can’t wait to see how Mayor Dean will pitch this to the next carmaker who’s considering Tennessee. “Sure, if your international employees are arrested, or end up in General, we won’t actually talk to them in your native language. But did you see our one light-rail line? Pretty impressive, huh?”
Now, I think proponents of this amendment mean for it to do two things:
No argument from me on the intent of #1. If someone wants to succeed in this country, they will speak English. We won’t have to make them. We could certainly make it easier to learn, but that gets us into a philosophical argument about how welcoming we want to be, exactly, and I’m sure I fall on the opposite end of the spectrum from English-only advocates.
But the second point — well, here’s where I start to get angry. [All this heretofore has just been a warmup. :) ] Nashville is already inhospitable to illegal immigrants. We arrest pregnant women on minor traffic violations and make them labor and deliver a child while shackled to a hospital bed. [Can you imagine the uproar if such a thing happened to a U.S. citizen in Mexico? Honestly.] We make our police officers de facto immigration agents via our participation in the 287g program, giving all immigrants a reason to fear the police, instead of viewing them as public safety officers.
But look what’s happened in 2008. Immigrants are not coming to the U.S. in the great numbers they have been, and in fact, many have even returned home. Why? Again, the economy sucks. There’s no longer such a substantial economic benefit to someone to come here illegally. Sadly for English-only proponents, the economy sucks for regular Americans, too. I know programs like 287g and all the workplace-interventions we’ve seen by the federal government — never mind that massive wall they’re building on our Southern border — are all to protect the spoils of this economy for citizens. News flash: It doesn’t work. Our immigration policy is broken, and until we fix it, no wall or government program, not even an English-only mandate, will stop people from coming here illegally, if the economic opportunity is greater than in their home countries.
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I asked the 3yo this morning at breakfast what he’d like Santa to bring him for Christmas. His answers:
Somehow, I think Santa can handle that.
Let this be a lesson to all you aunts, uncles, and grandparents [no one related to me, of course] who are prone to buying the latest, greatest, loudest, most complex toys: Children really do want cardboard boxes.
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Because the whole point of the last post was originally going to be the dream I had last night. But after all that TMI about my medical history, I couldn’t remember last night’s dream. So I stopped with the painted baby dream from the night before.
But I’ve just remembered! OK, here we go.
Like many other people, we’re trying to economize this year for Christmas. I’m starting a business [more on this topic very shortly!!] to consult with organizations on their web strategy. I’m really thrilled about this new venture, but suffice it to say, Two weeks into starting your own business, and you shouldn’t expect to be making $1 million a day. So we’re being careful. And I’m more than content with that. In years past, I’ve had a very hard time balancing what I assumed were my kids’ outsized expectations about gifts, and my own internal clock that said, Really, if you get more than one present, isn’t that Christmas automatically? And what’s the point here, after all? And I always erred on the side of my kids’ expectations. This year, I’m leaning much more toward my own inclinations.
So Ashby and I agreed we’d be low-key with our gifts for each other. Maybe not get any, even. [OK, OK, I have a few things hidden back for him. But none are what I would have defined as Christmas-present-worthy in previous years. Just some small things I think he'll appreciate.]
But the WPLN newsletter arrived the other day, and there it was, on the cover — Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion would be at the Ryman in early May. My love of Garrison Keillor knows few bounds. So I handed the newsletter to Ashby and said, This is all I want for Christmas. He agreed, and so this morning, I’ll be online right when the member ticket presale begins.
We have no reason to expect we won’t make the show…but. The baby is due May 20, nearly 3 weeks after the show. So I guess there is a really outside chance that the baby could come early, like, the day of the show. We have absolutely no reason to suspect this will happen. Everything appears perfectly normal so far. But I guess there’s a small chance.
So, last night, I dreamed that Garrison Keillor called me up just before leaving to come to Nashville in May. And he was asking how I was feeling, if I was sure we’d make it to the show. It was quite a long conversation, with him offering some advice about babies and kids. But mostly, he was concerned that we’d be at the show.
I was quite flattered, even in my dream.
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What I’m reading
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