Eclectique|916

New Orleans Saints 31; Indianapolis Colts 17. Super Bowl XLIV (2010)

Amid all the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras madness, there seems to be one story that didn’t get as much attention outside New Orleans: The Mayoral election on Saturday. Yes, Nagin is out (term over) and Mitch Landrieu is in receiving over 60% of the vote. More attention has been paid to the shift in hue of the mayor than the shift in direction of the electorate, i.e. just saying “chocolate city” isn’t cutting it with NOLA’s African American voters - at least the ones who stayed. Take a cue from the Janet Jackson hit - “What have you done for me lately?” So “Who dat” Mitch Landrieu? Undercoverblackman has a hat tip. He’s the son of New Orleans last white mayor (since 1978), Moon Landrieu who integrated city hall. Mitch Landrieu will be sworn in May 6. People forget, New Orleans politics is just as fascinating as its party culture.

Here’s Michel Martin’s report on today’s “Tell Me More.”

For those of you dropping by who are not from DC and are curious as to what an average DC resident thinks of the snow storm, let me just show you where we are as of noonish today:

And we haven’t reached the grand finale yet. Trees are getting heavy with a mixture of wet and dry snow. This leads to power outages, a huge problem because road crews can’t get out to fix them. The city promises to have us up and running by Monday. There’s new vocabulary floating about - “Snowmageddon” “Snowpocalypse.” The unofficial snow ball fight in December that rowed up an off-duty policy officer has now gone legit and official in Dupont Circle. The Washington Post reported that Mayor Fenty showed up of course not to take a lickin’ or to show off a pitching arm. (Taking the advise of Loose Lips to be seen as the out-and-about on-the-scene guy in his early campaign days). I wonder if the organizers realize 5,000 doesn’t make a good snowball fight in a city circle. Hopefully only two to three hundred actually showed up. The National Mall should be better for the crowds. Meridian Park even better for a neighborhood crowd. Here’s a schedule. They’ve started already.

I made sure I charged my batteries on the laptop and the cell phone. I always keep a ground phone for emergencies though one friend reported that the Verizon service is down in his home. I’m also stocked with a flashlight and candles. The refilling of the ice trays is a “just in case” the power goes out and I need to put something on ice to prevent spoilage. There’s always the snow outside the window (an old college trick for those of us too strapped to afford refrigerators).

Oddly, I don’t feel the need to make this a catch-up-on-work day. I’m playing Sting’s “If On a Winter’s Night” even though Christmas is over. He says winter is his favorite season. Maybe I can appreciate the situation more from his perspective. A neighbor stopped by to borrow milk. Fortunately I got in the Safeway lines early yesterday for an extra half gallon. Snow emergencies in DC make for great grocery cart theater. You sort of get a picture or narrative of shoppers or you can make one up. I’m milk and butter - indicates a baker, someone who does cook and needs the staples. Pop tarts - someone who doesn’t cook or eat a decent breakfast (I’m commenting there). The most interesting check out was a packet of ham hocks, a 6 pack of Milwaukee beer, and a bouquet of lilies. Oddly, the blizzard is clashing with the Super Bowl, so I saw a lot of tortilla chips, beer and other munchies in the check out lines.

There’s an odd quiet, but lots of delicious smells in the hallways. The network affiliates seem to think everyone’s interested in watching snow covered reporters dip their measuring sticks into the mound and point to stuck vehicles while delivering the message “Don’t go out if you don’t have to.” Oddly after the digital switch, I thought the local news outlets would move these special reports to one of their extra digital channels like the one that broadcasts the weather radar report. The world hasn’t stopped turning because it’s snowing here. DC is a lot like LA in the way we handle weather.

I think this snow exceeds even President Obama’s Chicago expectations. But the White House doesn’t have to worry about a thing. Life goes on. The President recorded his weekly on the topic of small business, and a White House Super Bowl party is still on the schedule. All part of doing the nation’s business. Could the Super Bowl party turn into a slumber party? After all members of the Congress and Senate have been invited. For some reason I find it hard to concentrate on the nation’s business today. And I do want to touch the new snow before it’s tainted by business as usual.

In Freetown, fried chicken was a very special dish.
– Edna Lewis, The Taste of Country Cooking 1976

This week’s Black History month moment appears to be the flap over the menu in NBC’s cafeteria at the Rock in New York City. Questlove, a member of The Roots (Jimmy Fallon’s house band), took a pic of the menu and posted it on his Twitter feed. Apparently, Questlove took offense with the menu prepared by another NBC employee, Leslie Calhoun, whom, like Questlove, is black and works as a chef in the kitchen.

I just wish Questlove had talked with Calhoun before he tweeted his followers. [This is where all food conversations begin.] This video with Leslie Calhoun, posted on the NBC hosted site the Grio (an African American news and entertainment zine) explains her thinking behind the menu…and it’s personal:

I may have said this before on this blog. “Talking about somebody’s food is like talking about their mamma.” I wouldn’t call this black-on-black crime, but I definitely can say the dividing line between north and south still stands out in the African American community when it comes to culture especially food. And we thought it was the east coast/west coast thing. That’s called rivalry. This one seems to have its roots in shame.

Even in the film Precious, which garnered 6 Oscar nominations including Best Picture, we see the main character stealing a bucket of chicken and binge eating it before throwing it up in a trash can. Is she purging the shame of the fried chicken; or does eating fried chicken lead to criminal and erratic behavior? Precious’ story (based on the novel Push by Sapphire) takes place in 1980s Harlem, one of the stops of the Great Migration of African Americans in the early 20th century from the rural or small town segregated south to the industrial north. Surely there were chicken boxes in their laps to make the journey. Even coming back home, you had that chicken box in your lap because few restaurants welcomed black customers in those days. I’m sure the southern migrants had no clue their fried chicken eating would lead to criminal behavior among their descendants. I guess the glasses of wine Precious’ tutor enjoys in the evening wouldn’t lead anyone on the road to ruin as fried chicken would. There’s more I could say about this film’s class and north/south issues just on the handling of the food alone.

Both Questlove and “Precious” director Lee Daniels are from Philadelphia. That’s considered north. They are not the first to translate southern cuisine (which became “soul food” in African American urban communities in the 1960s) or culture into racial stereotyping. I blame it on fast food. No one eats homemade chicken the way they eat it from the fast food chains. Who’s hands prepare it? The NBC moment came right on the heals of the Australian “KFC Cricket Survival Guide” commercial featuring a white man who makes friends with drum rocking black people when he pulls out a bucket of fried chicken pieces. This is how fast food corrupts.

If the only fried chicken you’ve eaten was from a box or bucket, you’ve probably missed that labor intensive process for Sunday only dinner, family reunions, 4th of July picnics, or the repast after a funeral. You missed people claiming their favorite pieces, i.e. one piece per person. Frying chicken is work; work that must be appreciated. You couldn’t and didn’t sit on it to have it. Edna Lewis, in her landmark book The Taste of Country Cooking writes:

The first fried chickens were served at Sunday morning breakfast when the outside work was finished. It was leisurely enjoyed with hot biscuits and delicious browned gravy.

Lewis was born in Freetown, Virginia in 1916, a farming community whose first residents were free persons after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Lincoln. Frying chicken was a time consuming task, as well as seasonal in Lewis’ Freetown. Lewis also migrated to the north where she was the chef at the Cafe Nicholson in Manhattan, frequented by southern writers Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, and other writer and artists in search of real Southern food. You can watch Lewis in action in “Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie” by Bailey Barash featuring Edna Lewis and Alabama chef Scott Peacock here. Alert - there’s a whole pig prepared for cooking in this film. Lewis spent her last years with Peacock who became her close friend and culinary collaborator. She died in 2006.

Food always has a story, and memory gives it breath. Let me be clear. Fried chicken’s been around for a long time in the USA. It travels well and it tastes good hot or cold. Who wouldn’t like it. It’s a labor of love in Ernest J. Gaines A Lesson Before Dying. Miss Emma sends food to her godson, Jefferson on death row for a murder he didn’t commit. Grant, the teacher, brings the food to him and hopefully will teach Jefferson to read at Miss Emma’s request. Jefferson has been unresponsive to the teaching and the food. Grant tells him:

I’m going to tell her that you and I sat on the bunk and ate, and you said how good the food was. I won’t tell her what you did. She is already sick, and that would kill her. So I’m going to lie. I’m going to tell her how much you liked the food. Especially the pralines.

Ms. Calhoun reminds me of Miss Emma or even Grant’s Tante in A Lesson Before Dying. You can hear the hurt in her voice having her food rejected by “one of her own.” I remember my aunt who looked after me as a child, asked me to visit her when I got home from college. She made me fried chicken wings from Murrays in a stainless steel pot.

Camille Akeju, director of the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum and former director of the Harlem School of the Arts, shared her stories about growing up and having fried chicken for Christmas or other special occasions with her family in Virginia during Eatonville Restaurant’s Food and Folklore event on African American holiday celebrations and traditions. Part of the prix fixe meal included…you guessed it… “fried chicken.” I was also one of the panel judges to choose Eatonville’s chef. The entree for that competition was fried chicken.

Zora Neale Hurston, who had a talent for raising the ire of a few New Negroes and black intellectuals of her time, collected stories that became part of her folklore collections. In Mules and Men she describes a dance she’s taken to in a Florida town not far from her childhood home in Eatonville. Fried chicken is the life of the party:

Then the men would stick their arms out with a flourish and ask their ladies: “You lak chicken? Well, then, take a wing. ” And the ladies would take the proffered “wings” and parade up to the long table and be served. Of course most of them had brought baskets in which were heaps of jointed and fried chicken, two or three kinds of pies, cakes, potato pone and chicken purlo. The hall would separate into happy groups about the baskets until time for more dancing.

The NBC incident is probably about more than just food. The fact that it took Ms. Calhoun and her colleagues several years to have a Black History Month menu says something about the organization and perhaps deeper employee tensions that may have a tight lid on for now. Other than that, make me a plate with Ms. Calhoun’s fried chicken, black eyed peas and rice, collard greens with smoked turkey (the healthier alternative to ham hocks), cornbread, or any food made by loving hands. I think Ms. Calhoun is owed or at least deserving of some kind of appreciation for her effort, and an opportunity to tell the story of why she chose these foods. There’s no need to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Note: The Big Read DC will conduct a city read of A Lesson Before Dying in April/May. More information in a future post or update.

Update: In all fairness, I’m posting this clip with Questlove (from Gawker.com) who says the twitpic he posted was intended to be a joke. I’m still confused as to where the joke lands. Was it supposed to be funny to feature a menu like this for Black History month (which is still a put down)? Or was the menu a fake (still a put down). But I’ll let the brotha have his say. He also treated Ms. Calhoun to a bouquet of flowers and a spa certificate.

I’m glad Questlove and Ms. Calhoun are cool. But I still stand that there was nothing wrong, funny or ironic about the menu from the beginning.

A few of my readers are aware that the blogroll on this site has been shrinking. Since launching eclectique|916 I removed two links from my Sites, Sounds, and Bytes roll and placed them on a line-by-line “editorial merit” basis. I still read them, but rather than take the whole bunch, I’ll pull out a few good apples or link to specific useful, relevant, and interesting perspectives as they catch my attention. Amusing gets some play too. I haven’t had time to articulate the specifics of my decisions, but Jon Stewart comes close:

I’m still baking chocolate chip cookies from the Christmas batch. Great idea to scoop the cookie dough, plop the balls into a plastic bag, then toss them in the freezer. I bake as the craving hits me.

This year I hope I can indulge in the National Museum of the American Indian’s annual “Power of Chocolate“ Valentines Weekend (February 13 and 14). Let’s face it, the world would be a dull place if it weren’t for the Americas.

Here’s a little factoid blurb from the website:

Theobroma cacao was for the Maya and the Aztec peoples, as its Latin name indicates, a “food of the gods.” .

Here’s some video from last year:

REALITY RESTAURANT AUDITIONS
This was in the Slow Food DC newsletter (February). I sent it to my sister. We had this idea of opening a cafe featuring homemade cakes, desserts, with something savory on the side. We don’t do food fights.

24 Hour Restaurant Battle-OPEN CASTING CALL

Food Network’s new restaurant competition series from the producers of The Next Food Network Star is currently casting the very first season and is holding an open casting call
on Monday, February 22, 10am - 3pm
Zentan Restaurant/Donovan House Hotel
1155 14th Street NW, Washington, DC

They are looking for:
Two to five person teams with pre-existing relationships (brother and sister, mother and son, husband and wife, etc.) who would love the chance to prove that they can run a restaurant.
A dynamic front of house and back of house duo. One person on the team will run the front of the house and the other person on the team will be the chef and run the kitchen. All levels of experience (culinary school trained to home cook, little or no restaurant experience to a lifelong career in restaurants) will be considered.
Lots of energy and charisma, personalities that pop!
If you have any questions or need further information, please feel free to contact:
Alena Jemas, Casting Producer,24 Hour Restaurant Battle
Food Network/CBS News Productions
Office: 212-975-4125
Mobile: 201-415-8843
Email: jemasa@cbsnews.com
or visit www.24hourrestaurantbattle.com.

If most people have never heard of the brand of vodka or rum you drink, then you’d enjoy reading Dori Bryant’s The Polished Palate newsletter. Polished Palate readers are not amateurs when it comes to fine and refined spirits and cocktails. There’s a lot of history in a glass of rum as we learned at the January Food and Folklore event at Eatonville Restaurant (mentioned in the recent issue). Hat tip to Daphne Muse, our Zojito mixologist who hipped us to Dori’s newsletter. Polished Palate’s 5th Annual International Rum Festival in St. Petersburg, FL is March 27th.

This is one year I wish I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The city’s already pumped about the Saints being in the Super Bowl. And as UndercoverBlackman told me “The city really needs this.”

But I’m working Fat Tuesday on another Mardi Gras celebration at Eatonville Restaurant for Food and Folklore. I asked John Franklin from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and a culinary griot in his own right (someone I just love to hear talk), to be our guide through the foods of the Americas that somehow found their way on the Mardi Gras supper table; that’s where Nona Martin takes over, a native of New Orleans and also a member of the Smithsonian team (like John) at the American Art Museum. She’s going to give the real deal about the Mardi Gras meal. And of course there will be food and Hurricanes to drink. Mardi Gras attire encouraged.

I’ll update this post with the final menu. Price still $45 (plus tax and tip) and includes a 4-course prix fixed themed menu. Reservations required. Email foodandfolklore@gmail.com or call 202-332-3264 (ask for Michael C.)

How ’bout this graphic? That’s Zora Neale Hurston. She wears the mask.

Update: The President’s Budget for FY 2011 is available here (192 pages total). The total is $3.2 trillion. I’ve never typed or written that many zeros in my life. Overviews and introductions by the White House Office of Management and Budget are available here. Critiques are available everywhere, but there’s a decent chart of where the money’s coming and going on Washington Post.com.

Update 2: And an excellent chart on the NY Times website. Hat tip: JackandJillPolitics.

The President is about to submit his FY 2010 budget to Congress. The pop out characteristic of the budget is reining in the deficit through freeze on discretionary spending in certain non-defense and homeland security areas, phasing out ineffective or redundant programs (some National Park Service preservation programs will take a hit), and top it off with an offering to the American god of “tax cuts” for the middle class, and more support to programs for education and job creation. There’s more but the grand total of the budget proposal is $3.8 trillion.

Here’s a segment of the weekly address that pops out for me:

There are certain core principles our families and businesses follow when they sit down to do their own budgets. They accept that they can’t get everything they want and focus on what they really need. They make tough decisions and sacrifice for their kids. They don’t spend what they don’t have, and they make do with what they’ve got.

It’s time their government did the same. That’s why I’m pleased that the Senate has just restored the pay-as-you-go law that was in place back in the 1990s. It’s no coincidence that we ended that decade with a $236 billion surplus. But then we did away with PAYGO – and we ended the next decade with a $1.3 trillion deficit. Reinstating this law will help get us back on track, ensuring that every time we spend, we find somewhere else to cut.

This week my debit card fell out of my jacket pocket at a gas station (probably while going for my car keys). It took no time for someone to pick it up and go shopping at that same gas station. Fortunately, my next stop was the bank and that’s when I put the stop on the card. I was lucky. Only one illegal charge was made on the card - $75 - which has been removed from my balance. (How many lottery tickets did that person buy?) But the incident put me on a cash-only basis, i.e. pay as I go. I have to admit, I spend less without the card. Perhaps for me it’s a “cash in hand” basis. I do want to note that the old card was not signed and question the gas station staff’s process for not requesting an i.d. which is required when a credit card is not signed. What do we risk for convenience and speed?

There’s plenty of blame and responsibility to spread around for fiscal inconsistencies and malpractice. The President’s budget freezes will be debated on the grounds of whether they will be effective for better or worse. Some critics call it political theater; others don’t think they go far enough.

I’m ready and eager to work with anyone who’s serious about solving the real problems facing our people and our country. I welcome anyone who comes to the table in good faith to help get our economy moving again and fulfill this country’s promise. That’s why we were elected in the first place. That’s what the American people expect and deserve. And that’s what we must deliver.

That’s what I’m sayin’!

Castera Bazile

Anyone who keeps up with the artifact and art market or have seen at least one “Indiana Jones” movie, is familiar with the underground and sophisticated ring of curatorial thieves waiting for an opportunity (natural or man-made) to pounce on valuable artifacts for very wealthy clients. Oh, let me not forget - to feature on Ebay. UNESCO released the following statement about its campaign to protect Haiti’s cultural heritage from pillaging:

The Director-General of the Organization, Irina Bokova, on Wednesday wrote to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, asking for his support in preventing the dispersion of Haiti’s cultural heritage.

UNESCO has already helped salvage the exceptionally rich historical archives of George Corvington, the historian of Haiti. It is also contributing to attempts to rescue whatever panels or significant fragments remain of the remarkable painted murals that decorated the Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Port-au-Prince.

This isn’t limited to museum and art gallery stuff, but libraries as well. According to an email I received from a friend, Haiti’s major libraries and collections are either buried or in danger of being lost in damaged structures. This is based on a report by Patrick Tardieau, an archivist from the Bibliotheque des Peres du Saint Espirit, Port au Prince’s oldest library. [Tardieau gave the report in Canada.]

Dear all,

Most of the university libraries collapsed too. Those libraries gathered very old collections (from the 16th centuries). Several manuscripts were brought by the missionaries who came from Europe.
Other have been collected in the Caraibs (notably, publications on the haitian revolutions, transcriptions of vaudou oral traditions, personal documents from the 18th centuries).

Bibliotheques Sans Frontieres (Libraries Without Borders) and other organizations in Europe and the U.S. are attempting to salvage the libraries through various efforts including fundraising. If you can read French, you can find more information about Bibliotheques Sans Frontiereshere. The International Federation of Library Associations and FOKAL (based in Port-au-Prince, part of the Open Society Institute supported by George Soros) are monitoring the situation and hope to move towards recovering items from the libraries and reopening facilities. Friends of FOKAL in the U.S. have launched a fundraising campaign.

In the meantime, I believe it’s crucial if possible for survivors and Haitian Americans to begin talking to one another and documenting stories from family andfriends. Pull out what ever photographs you have, music, recipes, or the rhum you managed to save for a special occasion. That occasion may be now. Break it open February 16. Will Haiti’s Karnaval be cancelled? At this time, the people who remain may be the best hope for saving Haiti’s cultural heritage. Cherche la vie! (trans. “To Look for Life.”)

President Obama’s appearance at the House Republican Conference retreat in Baltimore today was political PR at its best. Apparently, the White House insisted on bringing cameras. Good move. Obama has a talent for “playing the dozens” in a way that you’re slightly shamed into being your better self. Perhaps it’s that amiable demeanor. Perhaps it’s the “President as parent” posture. It’s the kind of exchange that doesn’t leave anyone destroyed. This was a talent share by men of my father’s generation. If they didn’t tease you or challenge you, that was a bad sign. You could be left speechless by the best of them, but came away knowing they cared because they knew you could be better. IMHO, this topped the State of the Union. And based on this event, maybe the President needs to have a little chat with the Speaker of the House.

UPDATE: There will be a tribute to Howard Zinn, Monday, February 15 from 6 - 11 PM at Busboys and Poets (2021 14th Street, NW) with Amy Goodman and other special guests; musical performance by Bernice Johnson Reagon (Sweet Honey in the Rock), David Zirin and other friends of Howard Zinn

HOWARD ZINN, historian (1922 - 2010)
The first time I read A Peoples’ History of the United States by Howard Zinn, I thought, “here’s the Studs Terkel of American history.” These were the stories of the people on the streets and in the streets during monumental events in U.S. history. It confirmed my belief that the best way to learn from history is to know the stories of the people who are on the ground and affected by the powers that be.

Only a few news outlets carried a head line that Howard Zinn died Wednesday at the age of 87. Right now the death of the reclusive novelist J.D. Salinger is the news of the day. Many Americans have a love affair with adolescence. It’s rebellion without responsibility. Zinn challenged us to come of age into our full adulthood as a nation. A Peoples’ History honored the narrative spoken while cuttin’ heads, the family history repeated at the Thanksgiving table, the body language of the laborer after a 10 hour shift.

A celebration of Howard Zinn’s life and work is in the works in Washington, DC. To be continued.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION
Enough opinions have been said and written about President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address last night before the divided U.S. Congress and Senate. Just like we used to sit girl/boy/girl/boy in school assemblies, Congress should sit Republican/Democrat/etc.

Just before the State of the Union, the Washington Post called me for a poll. Lots of questions about Mayor Fenty’s job performance, the school Chancellor, crime, and one question about President Obama’s job performance. “Personally,” I said, “I’m looking at the Congress.” I asked, “Is the next question about the Congress [and Senate]?” “No,” the pollster said. “Taxis. That’s the next question.” Nuf said, here’s the text from the State of the Union. I give it a thumbs up. Let’s see what happens next.

TREME gets the green light from HBO
I’m late to the punch, but HBO is still building the site for the new David Simon drama “Treme.” Simon is in New Orleans now filming additional episodes. UndercoverBlackman is also on the scene and blogging when he has the time. I’ve got a Mardi Gras party to plan at Eatonville Restaurant for the Fat Tuesday Food and Folklore. We packed the joint (the entire downstairs) Tuesday for the Rum! Food and Folklore event. If the Saints win the Super Bowl, New Orleans will have a Mardi Gras like none other. But still lots of work to be done in the Crescent City. Pour another libation.