Daily Cup of Jo

Bun Bun and Miss T with sourdough teddy.

So here’s the deal.  I got out of town with the girls as a last hurrah before school starts next week.  We’re in San Francisco for a few days in a hotel without a kitchen (thankfully) so I can’t cook.  Whatever these children eat, it’s gotta come from someone else’s kitchen, and that includes those stainless steel rotisserie rods that cook the hot dogs at 7-11.  Puts a kink in my weekly Thursday recipes, but I can’t just let a week go by without talking about some culinary delight, so here’s what I have to offer: go out and get yourself a loaf of sourdough.

There are a lot of reasons to visit San Francisco.  It oozes charm, with the sounds and smells of the big city that it is.  It also has sourdough bread.  The Boudin Bakery at Fisherman’s Wharf was our first stop before we even checked into our hotel.  Bun Bun is preoccupied with dough that is sour, and we’re all happy to accommodate her.  We picked up two loaves, one shaped like a teddy bear, the other a one pound round.  After requesting several pats of their salted butter and a couple of plastic knives, we sat down and started our San Fran ritual of devouring the bread right there on the spot.  They serve Peet’s coffee, so naturally I got a half-caff with room.  Had the city been shrouded in fog like it’s normally been this summer (and every summer, fall, winter and spring), and not the freakishly warm 84°, the moment would have been perfect.  As it was, we poked and pulled at our crispy-on-the-outside, squishy-on-the-inside masterpieces, and had little to complain about.  San Francisco sourdough, for us, is the be all and end all in the manna realm.

I’ll admit I’ve never made a “real” bread – one that includes a starter, the nurturing of the dough, the rising, the fancy baking methods.  But like the tomato plants I finally have growing in my backyard in my attempt to turn my black thumb green, I’d like to make a go at it someday.  If Boudin Bakery was around the corner from my house, maybe I wouldn’t bother, but it’s not.  Sometime in the next six months, I hope to take you all on my journey through the baking of a sourdough loaf.  You heard it here.

In the meantime, you can Google “sourdough starter” and find entire websites and blogs devoted to this type of bread.  A man by the name of Joe Jaworski obviously spent a lot of time putting his recipe together, and his name is Joe, so I’m sending you to his site if you just have to try baking your own.  Or if not, Boudin ships for a tidy sum.  You can also head to your grocery store, buy a loaf, toast it, slather it with salted butter and see how that works out.  You won’t be sorry.

We’ve all heard complaints about the increasing political polarization of our country: Republicans vs. Democrats with Independents holding the deciding votes.  Glenn Beck vs. Keith Olbermann.  The Drudge Report vs. The Huffington Post.  Fox News vs. everybody else.  The common denominator?  Versus.  It’s us against them.  It’s a contest.  Who’s winning?  That all depends on whom you ask.

But is that how it has to be?  On an individual basis, is that how it really is?  When I’m with my Republican friends (yes, I have a few), do we immediately launch into our differences?  Of course not.  We generally avoid talking politics because it’s not why we come together.  We share a meal or a vacation (seriously) because we like each other, our kids are friends and no one is pro-abortion or wants the government to take over our lives.  In almost every way, we want the same things.

Does that shock you?  It shouldn’t, but the media and the yahoos want to paint everyone as an extremist.  You know what?  I’m sick of it.  I’m having my Howard Beale moment.  I’m mad as hell at how I’m being portrayed as a Democrat and I’m not going to take it anymore.  I won’t pretend to know how my Republican friends view me and my opinions, but I do know how House Republican John Boehner and ex-governor Sarah Palin want to portray me and my fellow liberals.  It’s not pretty.  I’d like to set a few things straight.

I don’t want big government.  I don’t want government creeping into areas of my life in which they have no business being.  I didn’t want the stimulus because I like big government.  I thought TARP was a necessary evil to help individuals and small businesses get back on their feet, or at least back on one foot.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Private enterprise wasn’t stepping up, but Washington was.  So okay.  The deficit is icky, sure, and I know little of serious money matters, but the theory behind Keynesian economics makes sense to me and to many other VERY SMART individuals who do know about such things.  I’m going with it because I believe it will eventually work.  Does it make me uncomfortable?  Sure, but not nearly as uncomfortable as doing nothing.

Boehner speaks pejoratively about the administration’s efforts to stimulate the economy and lower the unemployment rate by making Democrats sound like we love debt and adore higher taxes.  We don’t.  Not at all.  Rich Democrats don’t want Bush’s tax cuts to be phased out but understand why it should happen.  Middle class Democrats understand that our tax rate will stay the same should Bush’s cuts be allowed to expire, so stop trying to scare us.  We want to keep as much of our money as the next guy because it helps us pay bills which we have just like everyone else, and it helps us buy things occasionally which we need.  Every now and then, we even like to buy things we don’t need because it makes us feel good.  And we wish we didn’t have to pay tax on all of it – goods, services, paychecks – but we understand that the roads we drive on and the police we count on and the street lamps that light our way at night only work if we pay for them.  So no, we don’t want to pay any more taxes than we have to but we also don’t want to pave our own streets.  Also, we know that too much of our money is wasted in the name of bureaucracy and incompetence and it makes us just as mad as Republicans.  We hate waste.

Boehner, let’s talk about joblessness.  If you and your cronies have a magic wand that can *poof* get individuals employed, we would totally be with you.  My Democratic friends and I, many of whom have lost jobs, wring our hands over the unemployment rate.  If Minnie Mouse stepped up with the solution to this problem, she’d get our vote.  We are so completely uncomplicated that way.  We know jobs are the numero uno issue facing this country right now (and many of us speak Spanish) so when the administration offers up an idea that seems to have kept us from falling into the abyss, we support it.  Got something better?  The problem is, John, you offer nothing.

Oh dear.  I can’t write a paper tonight.  I’m just disgusted that, because of November, politicians are trying to create differences where they don’t exist, particularly in the areas of jobs and taxes.  The ideology isn’t big government versus small government.  My Democratic friends and I would be perfectly happy having less government if that could solve our problems right now.  The disagreement stems from the belief that we think government’s deep pockets give us an oddly better chance than that of the private sector alone in getting people back to work.  We understand that the enormity of the situation requires an enormous solution.  It took years for us to get into the mess.  It just may take a few more years to get out of it.  But just like Republicans, we want out, and we so wish it wouldn’t cost us a dime.

It’s late.  There will be a part two.

I like to sing.  I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.  Sometimes, I’ve felt good enough to warble in front of people, though nowadays those opportunities need not be seized.  When I was a kid, I listened to John Denver and sang “Rocky Mountain High” whenever I could.  But it was the women who really worked my vocal chords and taught me pitch and how to hold a note – Carly Simon, Melissa Manchester, Joni Mitchell, Roberta Flack and oh, Barbra Streisand.  Babs – she was IT.  Our “Funny Girl” album had scratches by the time I got my hands on it, so I learned “People” with skips.

“People…are the luck – peep – the world…”

I didn’t care.  “Don’t Rain on My Parade” was the greatest song I’d ever heard and if I sang it at the top of my lungs with the bedroom door closed, I believed I could conquer the world.

“Don’t tell me not to live, just sit and putter…”

The girls and I are “Gleeks”.  For those living in a cave, it refers to anyone obsessed with the television show “Glee”.  If you were thinking I’m a bad mother for letting my 7 and 9-year-olds watch it, you’d be correct.  Sometimes I’m a bad, lazy mother.  Storylines deal with teen pregnancy and general high school awfulness.  My 11-year-old gets it.  She’s arrived.  Goldie knows about the birds and the bees and thinks the idea of sex is appropriately horrifying.  But Bun Bun and Miss T didn’t know much before “Glee”.  Now, they have all kinds of questions, which I’m more than happy to ignore.  Remember – bad, lazy mother.  I’ve done inappropriate already, why stop now?

But here’s the thing: none of them watch the show for the plots.  They LOVE the singing and the dancing – and there’s lots of it.  If you’ve never seen it, in the second half of last year’s first season, the creators surrendered to what worked and basically put on a Broadway show every week.  Jane Lynch’s Sue Sylvester pulls it back into deliciously camp story stuff when necessary, but overall, it’s about the music and these amazing actors who can SING.  Lea Michele is arguably the star of the show (though to claim it’s an ensemble would be accurate also) and halfway through the season belted out a rendition of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” that I dare say rivaled Streisand’s.

The girls have bought and downloaded episodes of the show to various electronic devices we own, in addition to having all episodes saved on the DVR.  Like “Gilligan’s Island” or “The Brady Bunch” from my childhood, they’ve now seen each episode 27 times each (there are a lot of hours to fill in the summer, okay?!) – but “Sectionals” is their favorite.  All throughout the house, Lea Michele and the girls sing “Don’t Rain on My Parade” at the top of their lungs and oh, how it makes me smile.

In the car last Friday, Bun Bun was watching the episode on an iTouch with headphones in.  All I could hear was her magnificent squeaky tween voice, no accompaniment.

“But whether I’m the rose of sheer perfection, or freckle on the nose of life’s complexion…”

The husband and I decided they should see the movie so we rented “Funny Girl” Friday night.  It’s longer than I remember but the girls stayed with it (mostly) and it does my heart good to know they know who Barbra Streisand is and why the fuss.  It beats watching “New Moon” for the fifth time.  (Talk about inappropriate.)

Just when I’m about to drop them all off at school a week early because I’m done with this summer nonsense (who cares if the gates are locked – here’s some trail mix, girls), one of them can be heard from somewhere in the house, “Hey Mister Arnstein, here I aaaaaaaaaaaam…”

They’re funny girls.  I guess I’ll keep ‘em around another eight days.  Wait, eight days?!

Is it over yet?

Haitian born musician and former Fugees front man Wyclef Jean is not giving up on his desire to become Haiti’s president, even though he was considered ineligible to run because he hasn’t lived in the country over the past five years (lucky for him).  I was thinking this week how much Obama wanted to be president of the U.S. at a time when the country was falling apart economically, we were fighting two wars, and there was a general feeling of malaise and disenchantment among the natives.  He got his wish.  To Wyclef Jean, looking to lead one of the poorest countries on the planet, a year after a devastating earthquake, I say be careful what you wish for.  I wonder if Jean read James Dobbins’ recent article, “A to-do list for shoring up Haiti“?

Thirty-three miners were found alive after seventeen days following a cave-in August 5th in Chile.  Trapped in an area about 540 square feet and over 2000 feet into the earth, it was originally thought the miners could be rescued sometime near Christmas.  What the heck?!  Christmas?  Four inch diameter bore holes have been used to pass the miners supplies through a “tunnel”, including food, letters and clean clothes, but Christmas?!  It sounds like a new reality show, “Extreme Big Brother”.  Today, however, mine engineers believe they’ve come up with a Plan B that may halve the amount of time the miners will be trapped.  So maybe Halloween?  Oh, the stories that will come out of this…

China this week reportedly has decided to revisit their death penalty policies.  Considering the country puts more people to death each year (around 5000 in 2009) than the rest of the world’s governments combined, the reevaluation sounds a bit overdue.  Caught cheating on your taxes in China?  Stealing fossils, damaging public property?  You’re dead.  Seriously.

Former president Jimmy Carter helped secure the release of American Aijalon Mahli Gomes from North Korea and was bringing him home to Boston on Friday.  Gomes was arrested in January after illegally entering the country from China for unknown reasons and sentenced to eight years hard labor.  After Euna Lee and Laura Ling obtained their release via Bill Clinton a year ago from North Korea, shouldn’t we more strongly discourage our citizens from getting anywhere near there?  In terms of ex-presidents able to come to the rescue now, we’ve got George H.W. and his son.  I wouldn’t take my chances.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman has come out as a homosexual, after “arriving at this conclusion…fairly recently”.  Mehlman, who headed the RNC from 2005-2007, just after  George Bush and his administration pushed an anti-gay marriage amendment, still believes there’s a place in the Republic party for homosexuals.  I disagree.  I don’t get the Log Cabin Republicans.

Glenn Beck was at the Lincoln Memorial today with friend Sarah Palin, on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech delivered at the same location 47 years ago, addressing thousands upon thousands of tea partiers eager to “restore honor” to this great country and deliver us from “wandering in darkness”.  Glenn Beck, you are no Martin Luther King Jr., not by a million miles.

A judge in Washington D.C. on Monday stopped federal funding for President Obama’s expanded stem cell research policies, effectively reverting to the intent and language of the 1995 Dickey-Wicker amendment.  Read my post about it from Tuesday and don’t be ashamed for smiling after reading “Dickey-Wicker”.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan jumped into the fray caused by the Los Angeles Times release two weeks ago of teacher evaluations as they pertained to student test scores and achievement.  It should come as no surprise to anyone in the state of California, specifically the LAUSD, that the teachers’ union doesn’t want any part of a teacher’s “grade” to be tied in with a student’s “grade” (my quotation marks).  The discussion isn’t about making a test score the definitive indicator of whether or not a teacher is effective but rather one of several factors indicating an instructor’s success.  United Teachers Union Los Angeles president, A.J. Duffy (sounds like an NFL quarterback), says the union is willing to sit down with the LAUSD and talk but won’t make any commitment about what he’ll talk about.  So again, the children suffer and on Tuesday, California lost out on federal funds from the Race to the Top initiative.  All is well.

I heard a rumor some Muslims are thinking about building an Islamic community center near ground zero.  Have you heard about that?

“Avatar” was released again this past weekend with an additional eight minutes of footage.  Is it just me, or wasn’t the original version long enough?  Too long?  I will say though that of the seven-thousand movies released in 2010 using 3D technology, “Avatar” was the only one worth the trouble, and the extra price.

Tiger Woods finally did well golfing, shooting a 6-under 65 on Thursday at The Barclays in Jersey.  Today, however, he hit a triple bogey, among other bogeys.  Oh, and his divorce was final this week.

Twelve days to the season opener of the NFL, Thursday September 9^th, the Minnesota Vikings vs. the New Orleans Saints on NBC.  And yes, before then there’s a lot of baseball going on.  I like baseball.

And I think I like all of you, although I’m not sure.

Today, I felt like a berry cobbler or an apple crisp.  Yesterday, I simply felt like the burdened mother of three children who can’t stop annoying each other.  The day before that, I was a flea catching dog owner.  My life is fascinating day after day, and purposeful.

After Miss T’s first soccer practice was over this evening and I threw some dinner on the table for everyone, I set about making this.  Sadly, the girls were in bed before it came out of the oven.  Happily, I got to taste it first.

A few things I would change now after having made it: I would increase the amount of butter added to the crumble part so it wasn’t so, well, crumbly.  And I’d up the amount of ginger I put in, because I didn’t taste it at all in this version.  I’ve already adjusted it here, so make this and tell me what you think.  It’s a berry crisp with vanilla ice cream on top.  What’s not to like?

Basic, Tasty Berry Crisp

1 lb. mixed berries (I bought a bag of frozen at Trader Joe’s and thawed it)

1 T. sugar

1 cup whole wheat flour (‘cause I’m trying to be healthy)

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup brown sugar

½ t. cinnamon

½ t. ground ginger

¼ t. ground nutmeg

1 cup butter

Preheat oven to 350°.  Mix berries and sugar in a bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together flour, rolled oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  Cube the butter and cut it into the flour mixture until well combined.  Lightly butter an 8×8 baking dish.  Press half of the flour/oats mixture into the bottom of the dish.  Pour the berries over this and spread.  Sprinkle the rest of the flour mixture over the top.  Bake for approximately 35-40 minutes or until the crumble is golden brown on top.  Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

I could’ve finished the whole dish tonight but my jeans don’t fit as it is so…