Eclectique|916

A quiche hot out of the oven, a salad, and a cool bottle of white wine–there’s the perfect light meal.

– Julia Child, The French Chef Cookbook

It seemed only natural that our group of foodies would come together around Julia Child’s birthday once again (which is actually August 15). She would’ve been 98 this year. Vacation and work schedules have imposed limitations for attendance, but like Julia, we all felt the need to march on or, in my case, tumble in.

Last year I posted the happenings of the $200 Coq au Vin. This year, we decided to do lunch from Julia Child’s kitchen. I thought, why not make the first Julia Child recipe I ever attempted - quiche! I’ve done this before with some variation. I’ve got all the ingredients. The heat wave has let up. This should be a piece of quiche. No problem right?

Well….

The recipe I’m using is from Julia’s The French Chef cookbook. I still have my sister’s paperback version she bought in the 70s. The cover has fallen off. The pages are sepia colored and break off when you bend them. And the book is now divided in two as the binding has dissolved from years as well as the heat in the kitchen. Handle with care. Over the years, Julia’s varied the fillings but pretty much stuck to the foundation of quiche - the pastry dough.

Julia’s Pate Brisee Fine (French pastry dough) has been my standard pie crust for years. Yes, I even use it for apple pie. I like my crusts buttery and my apple filling slightly tart which gives me the excuse to enjoy pie for breakfast with a wedge of cheese on the side. It was Julia who introduced me to the technique of blending the flour, butter, and vegetable shortening using the tips of my fingers until it becomes course meal. What! No spoon. This is actually my favorite part of making the crust.

For this pastry, I’m not using the recipe with the egg. Where I slip is –according to Julia, a quiche must be prepared in a pre-baked crust meaning one free-standing crust on a baking sheet. The crusts are for 8″ - 10″ quiches. My pie pans are 9 1/2″ with no false bottom for me to pop out. Off to mall again (just like the $200 coq au vin - is this going to be a repeat). Apparently, your regular home store doesn’t sell 8″ pie pans anymore; and the tart or quiche pan with the false bottom only comes in 11″.

Has everything been super-sized over the last 20 years?!?! I have located one on Amazon.com. But since I have a time crunch, that’s not going to work out, so it looks like I’m going to have to pre-bake as if I was making a regular ol’ pie. Do I like the bottom slightly doughy?

When I was baking quiche more regularly, I always loaded it up with Swiss cheese which made them a huge success with the family. Julia’s quiche Lorraine only has the bacon. For the sake of authenticity, do I do it her way, or mine? This is posing a dilemma. I bought extra cheese, just in case I cave into my basic instincts.

But my instincts on adding Swiss cheese to the quiche Lorraine are no different than Julia’s assessment of McDonald’s french fries when they went “nutritional.”

And I have to admit, the best french fries I’ve ever had were cooked in beef fat; and yes, I was in a bistro in Paris at the time.

Here’s how our Julia Child Birthday menu’s shaping up:
Ratatouille and green beans
Plate of French cheese
Roasted chicken with watercress
Quiche Lorraine (2nd quiche TBD)
Baguettes and dessert (TBD)
Lemonade, Iced Herb Tea

Time hasn’t been on my side this summer or for Julia’s birthday. To be honest, the minute I click on the “publish” button for this post, it’s off to the kitchen.

Bon Appetit!

HBO closed out the season of “Treme” with a special tribute to producer/writer David Eugene Mills, aka “Undercover Blackman” who passed away at the end of March of this year.

Hat tip Camille Mosley-Pasley.

Note: “Treme” received two Emmy nominations: Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Original Music and Lyric for Steve Earle (”This City”).

I actually took some time today to see how stocks were performing. Last week, the President signed the Wall Street reform legislation into law. One thing that’s interesting about Wall Street, uncertainty and the unknown creeps them out more so than reform and regulation etc. Once they know what it is, put a dollar figure on it, they can jump back into action to figure out a way to game the system and still turn out a profit.

But the problem has been those who can’t or don’t play the game. People who depend on paychecks and not dividends and capital gains to keep the lights on at home. The next thing we have to keep our eye on are futures especially the ones connect to food supplies. Just recently Anthony Ward, a hedge fund manager in the UK, cornered a sizable chunk of the world’s cocoa market — that’s chocolate for the rest of us. The purchase drove prices up. Profits for Mr. Ward; prices increases for the rest of us. This has sent ripples of fear about a supply crunch. Sure we may say “it’s just chocolate” now; but what about corn, wheat, rice? After the damage hedge fund managers did to the world economy, imagine what disasters can happen when they start playing with the food supply.

Ward’s move has earned him the nickname “Chocolate Finger” in the British press; as in the James Bond villain Goldfinger. Imagine Bond on a chocolate mission or would this be a more Austin Powers assignment.

Gee, chocolate always distracts. The President’s message is about a plan to help “small business, clean energy industry, and America’s middle class.” But this plan could be thwarted by another villain, who is not called out by name, but anyone paying attention can guess (Minority leader John Boehner, R-OH)…

This week, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives offered his plan to create jobs. It’s a plan that’s surprisingly short, and sadly familiar….First, he would repeal health insurance reform, which would take away tax credits from millions of small business owners, and take us back to the days when insurance companies had free rein to drop coverage and jack up premiums. Second, he would say no to new investments in clean energy, after his party already voted against the clean energy tax credits and loans that are creating thousands of new jobs and hundreds of new businesses. And third, even though his party voted against tax cuts for middle-class families, he would permanently keep in place the tax cuts for the very wealthiest Americans – the same tax cuts that have added hundreds of billions to our debt.

I’m sure the loyal opposition has a good explanation.

Transcript here.

BP’s BOARD GIVES CEO TONY HAYWARD HIS LIFE BACK
Be prepared for an announcement about a golden parachute for BP CEO Tony Hayward. According to AP, Bloomberg, and other news wires, the BP board and Hayward are at work this weekend ironing out the details of Hayward’s departure and severance. It’s being speculated that Robert Dudley, the director of the oil spill response unit, will take Hayward’s place. Since Dudley is from the US, I guess he’s seen as better suited to break the language barrier that’s been plaguing Hayward in the handling of the situation on this side of the pond. (duh)

Though the cap is on the underwater gusher in the Gulf, due to the number of distractions this week, we shouldn’t say this story is over. There’s damage assessment to be done, and a clean up over many years if not decades.

At the same time I do see opportunity for BP. Let’s go back to the “wisdom of failure.” This is an opportunity for the company to take the lead — for real — in terms of technology and process for containing and controlling an oil catastrophe and in minimizing the damage to and restoring the environment. Say “We’ve learned from our mistakes experience.” BP could make this a part of their operations because we really need to move away from oil and look to alternative energy sources (they should too). Besides, if they offer honest, effective and efficient containment and clean up services, they’ll still have business and investors will feel better about the company. Call me optimistic.

Surely China could use some help right now. sigh.

Associated Press/Greenpeace

Van Jones was one of my Community Organizer Hall of Famers. Still is. Van Jones spoke at Netroots Nation Friday morning in Las Vegas. Jones was another Obama administration casualty of “gotcha” right wing media. He resigned from his post as White House Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation after his signature was found on a 9/11 “Truther” petition. In this speech, Jones admits he held his pity party and it’s been a year of “hope” and “heartbreak” for him; but Jones never forgets how to love. He never forgets to keep pushing for those green jobs. The work had just begun in November 2008.

I hope the transcript for this will be posted soon. This video is about an hour and a few minutes. Introduction by Howard Dean, former DNC chairman. Interview with Van Jones follows his speech.

Today, I read a post on TPM suggesting that the Pigford Settlement could’ve been a second target for right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart and his like in addition to the NAACP (for their criticism of the Tea Party leadership for tolerating racism within their ranks).

…Andrew Breitbart’s timing of the release of the grossly distorted video of Sherrod, which he admits having had for weeks, may not be entirely random. Congress will soon vote on whether to fund part of a settlement between the USDA and African-American farmers who faced acknowledged discrimination — farmers like Sherrod and her husband used to be…..

They say there are no coincidences in politics.

The Pigford Settlement awards $1.25 billion to African American farmers who were discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture for loans and subsidies for decades. The case was filed in 1999. The first time I heard about the plight of African American farmers was through a documentary by Charlene Gilbert titled “Homecoming …Sometimes I am Haunted by Memories of Red Dirt and Clay.” Charlene is professor and director of the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women at the University of Toledo. “Homecoming…” is the story of her family farm in Georgia and investigates the social and political backdrop of land lost among African Americans in the South.

The Shirley Sherrod firing/doh!/rehiring story is being spun back into the same race goop where media outlets, politicians, and pundits still haven’t found an articulate voice or credible vocabulary for any kind of forward discussion — What is “reverse racism????” The opposite of “forward”? (ref. Nikki Giovanni)

Shirley Sherrod was obviously the wrong lady to finger.

For me Shirley Sherrod’s firing/doh!/rehiring story has two parts:
PART I: An example of poor employee and crisis management on the part of USDA. Basic procedures were not followed:
- If there is an employee in question, call a meeting with the employee first and get his/her side of the story — and especially for an employee who has a good track record.
- Review everything in question in its entirety.
- Don’t make public statements until you’ve done all of the above.
- Never fire someone in the middle of the night or while he/she is driving a moving vehicle. That’s reckless management.

Giving oxygen to a big fat lie.
PART II: Andrew Breitbart’s post on BigGovernment.com of a 2 min. video selectively edited from a 43 minute speech by Sherrod at an NAACP banquet in March that got the ball rolling.
- The press didn’t do their fact checking and ran with it; even the intended target, the NAACP, tripped on it.
- Members of the press are now blaming the Obama administration more than Breitbart for potentially destroying Sherrod’s life. Breitbart’s either off the hook or welcomed to the club.

But even Glenn Beck called this one:

Now if she is relating a story from1986 to make a point about how her racial perceptions have changed, this woman deserves her job back.

Gotta give him credit for checking out the whole story when his pending broadcast was being factored into the decision to fire Sherrod.

Sherrod now has an impressive list of sincere public apologies going all the way up the chain that include regrets from the NAACP (who retracted their admonishment and posted Sherrod’s full speech), Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, to WH press secretary Robert Gibbs. A chat with the President of the United States by phone topped it. For the media, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and some of his colleagues have made on-air apologies. The only one who hasn’t is Andrew Breitbart.

Why? Because they’re reloading, and this time it is about Shirley Sherrod and the Pigford Settlement according to a post on Media Matters. According to MM, Ben Shapiro is suggesting that Sherrod “fraudulently” received compensation from the settlement. Just for the record, it was Republican Senator Chuck Grassley who introduced the legislation to reopen the Pigford case. Grassley wasn’t the only Republican who agreed that the USDA discriminated in this case.

My guess is Britbart’s someone’s “lawyered up.” Rather than admit blame/fault with an apology, it’s best to go rapid fire in the hope that something will stick or drive the rest of us to total insanity distraction.

Sherrilyn Ifill, professor of law at the University of Maryland, has a poignant reminder:

Every claim they make should be regarded with suspicion and fully verified before comment. Their motives are not irrelevant to how skeptically their charges should be reviewed. Their rhetoric is too often deliberately divisive and hateful. And sloppy. And the entire country suffers for the distractions created by these individuals who are committed to turning America backward on race. Lost in today’s news focus on the Sherrod affair, for example, is the fact that the Congress finally voted yesterday to extend unemployment benefits for millions of out-of-work Americans. Our country cannot move forward unless we stand down the racial manipulation that keeps our eyes off the prize.

Nuf said.

John T. Edge’s Fried Chicken: An American Story has to be one of the best pleasure reads I’ve had all year. Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, educator and contributor to the New York Times, Savour, Gourmet, Oxford American. For Fried Chicken, Edged traveled the country (north AND south) collecting stories and configuring recipes for infamous fried chicken. Some recipes will go to the grave.

I knew this book would be a kick just from the dedication alone…

FOR MY SON, JESSE CLIFTON EVANS EDGE.
MAY YOU NEVER KNOW A MCNUGGET

Fried Chicken… was published in 2002. I’m not sure how many New Orleans establishments in the book are still standing after Katrina. Willie Mae Seaton’s Willie Mae’s Scotch House restaurant was damaged by the flood the same year she won the James Beard America ’s Classics designation award. Joe York and the Center for Documentary Projects produced “Above the Line: Saving Willie Mae’s Scotch House” in 2008. You can view it here.

Edge’s Fried Chicken is part of a series of books about popular American “comfort” foods including Donuts (2004), Hamburger & Fries (2003), and Apple Pie (2002).

Fried Chicken: An American Story is a short book that will keep a long shelf life among the cookbooks and literature. For now, I keep it with the literature.

Now in the past, Presidents and Congresses of both parties have treated unemployment insurance for what it is – an emergency expenditure. That’s because an economic disaster can devastate families and communities just as surely as a flood or tornado.

Suddenly, Republican leaders want to change that. They say we shouldn’t provide unemployment insurance because it costs money. So after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, including a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, they’ve finally decided to make their stand on the backs of the unemployed. They’ve got no problem spending money on tax breaks for folks at the top who don’t need them and didn’t even ask for them; but they object to helping folks laid off in this recession who really do need help. And every day this goes on, another 50,000 Americans lose that badly needed lifeline.

– President Barack Obama

I have a warning for Republicans: Don’t underestimate Barack Obama.

– Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, July 16, 2010

Before leaving for a weekend retreat with the family, the President dropped a political message calling out Republicans for “filibustering recovery and obstructing progress.”

Transcript here.

Just for laughs, I thought I’d try out this on-line writing analysis program created by 27-year-old software developer Dmitry Chestnykh. BTW Chestnykh speaks English as a second language. He is Russian and lives in Montenegro.

Seems both Margaret Atwood and I write like Stephen King. Though I haven’t read King because I don’t like being scared to pieces when reading a book, he is one of the few authors I hear praises for by readers of all ages and writers across the map.

Am I disappointed? No. Am I skeptical? Hmmmm. I do intend to creep into a few of King’s works. Maybe start with some short stories. Recommendations anyone?

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Yesterday, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the racist acts of Tea Party protesters. The backlash from the Tea Party has been furious.

But we are not an organization that shies away from controversy. The NAACP was founded on hope, not hate — and we will not stand idly by as racists work to divide our nation.

— Letter from Ben Jealous, President/CEO of the NAACP

To be unjustly accused of association with what Reagan so aptly called that “legacy of evil” is a traumatizing experience, and one of which the honest, freedom-loving patriots of the Tea Party movement are truly undeserving.

–Facebook post by Sarah Palin, fmr. Gov. of Alaska and Republican VP candidate

Since I’ve been among the Tea Party throngs here in DC during the height of the healthcare debate, I can say from that experience there’s enough to support the NAACP’s argument on face value. Not everyone would fit the bill, but just enough to make the “R” word stand out.

This music video “What If the Tea Party Was Black” by Pittsburgh’s Jasiri X is part of his weekly hip hop news updates on the Real Talk Xpress website. Anyone familiar with the timeline of African American social and political activism in the United States (check out “Eyes On the Prize ” and bios/writings of Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., Al Hajj Malik El Shabazz/Malcolm X among others), will get this. Also fans of Tim Wise, whose antiracist writings are the basis for Jasiri X’s video, will give a nod. Will Aries Petra Consulting Sarah Palin respond to Jasiri X by busting a rainbow tribe rhyme on her Facebook page? You betcha!

Hat tip to Todd McFadden at WVU.

Anyone who knows me know I’m not a sports fan in the sense of spending Sundays glued to the tube, checking stats or scores unless it’s a championship final. I do get into the culture and theatrical elements of the game. Sunday, I attended my first baseball game in many moons at Nationals stadium. The Washington Nationals lost to the San Francisco Giants miserably. But game outcome did have any effect on my enjoyment of the ambiance and ballpark food. My Ben’s Chili Bowl hot dog and beer really hit the spot. The debate still continues or what was lost and gained for DC residents in bringing major league baseball back to the city with taxpayer money. But I have to say, that Nationals Stadium sure is real pretty!

My field trip was all in preparation for a project I’m working on with WHUT-TV Howard University Television — to collect Washington, DC baseball stories for an oral history to be included in Howard University’s American Archive repository. I’ve got my Zora hat on (photo: Zora Neale Hurston in NC at football game - credit Alex Rivera). I’m learning DC has a very unique baseball history (Negro Leagues, college and little leagues, the majors, the hearings) that’s had an impact on baseball as we know it today. But the only way to find out is to ask around.

WHUT’s oral history project is one of the outreach activities leading up to the WHUT broadcast of The Tenth Inning, Ken Burns’ follow up to the 9 inning/partBaseball series that aired on PBS in 1994. In other words, The Tenth Inning picks up where BASEBALL left off.

But for Washington, DC, our tenth inning marks a new beginning for baseball. How did we get here? You tell us. Bring your baseball story…
- Thursday, July 15 from 4 - 6 PM at the BatterUp Foundation/RBI event - Banneker Field (Georgia Ave. across from Howard University), or
- Saturday, July 31 from 10 AM to 1 PM, WHUT studios (email info.whut@gmail.com or call 202-806-3059)