The Followspot

Pasta cookery: experimenting with less water

The New York Times suggests a "revolutionary" method.

Digging out of the rubble, instantly

President Obama has told us he will be truthful with us -- and apparently, when it comes to the economy, that's not change we want to believe in. Remember, T.S. Eliot told us that "Humankind cannot stand very much reality" and so did Jack Nicholson. After thirty years of being told we could have something for nothing, and could have it NOW!, we don't want to hear that we can't...and never really could.

Bill Clinton says Obama should be doing more cheerleading on the economy. (Compare and contrast John McCain, jerking around his pom-poms while telling us the "fundamentals are sound." ) And vying for the title of cable news' #1 Neanderthal -- see Chris Matthews, below -- Lou Dobbs calls Obama a fearmonger.

Does a tornedo spinning toward a house on the desolate plain monger fear? Or does it signal an event, indeed a frightening one, that one would be wise to acknowledge?

By not minimizing the peril we're in, Obama has become a whipping boy. The stock market's ongoing slide is his fault. What is with that?

During the campaign and since, Obama has told us that he'd keep working to find solutions to our pressing problems -- of which he gives full evidence of having a secure grasp -- and that if one thing didn't work, he'd try something else. I heard him say that. But I guess the Villagers didn't. They're yelping that he hasn't fixed things yet! Gee, he's already been in the White House for a month -- whaddya mean, the market hasn't gone all bullish? (Couldn't have anything to do with the deafening naysaying of the wingnuts, could it? Doesn't seem to occur to them.)

Chris Matthews has even suggested that Obama looks as though he doesn't know what he's doing because he's setting up study panels. Matthews suggests that Obama would inspire more confidence (in whom? in the instant-gratification gnomes of Wall Street?) if he went into hiding somewhere and studied these things for himself. Yup, he actually said that, just now on Hardball. Yup. Chris, you might consider spending some time to learn a thing or two yourself. At the least, how not to foam at the mouth as you spew your incoherence on the rest of us.

Back to that tornado. It had been growing and growing, part of a massive storm system heading our way for a long time. Why did nobody warn us, at the very least give us time to get to the storm cellar? When the funnel finally touched down it took only a moment to reduce our house to rubble.

Where oh where were the weathermen? Lou? Chris?

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Update: Nate Silver says

One of the more unapologetically idiotic notions being advanced by certain conservative commentators is the idea that the poor performance of the stock markets represents a negative reaction to Barack Obama's stimulus package.

I love his title: "Sun rises, market falls" --

Ronald Reagan's stock market drop -- and fascinating DJIA history

Did you know that the DJIA dropped significantly immediately after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, and didn't return to its Inauguration Day level for twenty months?!!

When I heard that a little while ago on CNN, I thought it might be interesting to dig a bit deeper into the relationship of the Inauguration Day Dow to the end-of-term Dow. (The Dow isn't the way most stock analysts judge market health -- they more normally refer to the S & P -- but it is the popular and familiar metric out here among us ordinary folk.)

These are the most valuable pages I found:

Here is the single most informative guide to DJIA activity over the years: The niftiest, most information-rich graph -- with milestones, presidential terms, sidebar articles -- intelligently designed interactivity

Greatest gains and losses, in point and percentage terms

Graph of Dow and presidential terms

It should come as no surprise that Republican presidents aren't the best stewards!

Chunky, deep-flavored tomato sauce with guanciale

This is a follow-on to the recent Ellen/Chiaroscuro conversations about the magnificent pig. (See the "Food & Drink" category for previous porky posts.)

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My order from Murray's arrived, and I couldn't wait to use the guanciale. Oh my, what depth of flavor that bit of pig jowl adds. Mille grazie, Mario Batali -- as with so much else, I learned about guanciale from slavishly watching Molto Mario.

Sharing the recipe is a bit difficult -- but I'll give it a try -- because I used what I had on hand, and as usual, worked more by eye and taste than by measurement.

Makes enough sauce for 8 generous portions of spaghetti. Well, that's a pretty good guess, based on the amount I've used so far. (It freezes well.)

Ingredients:

• Diced carrot, onion and celery. I buy the Trader Joe's 15 oz. combo, their Mirepoix. This works out to about 2/3 cup of each element [See Note 1, below]
• 4 garlic cloves, put through a garlic press or chopped very fine. This amount will add flavor, but not produce a specific garlicky taste. If you really want to taste the garlic, use more
• 1/4 lb. guanciale. It comes from Murray's thin-sliced, in 1/2 lb. packages. It's packed in two layers, so use one layer. If you can find guanciale in a chunk (I've used this in the past, but can't remember my source), you can cut it into batons, about 1" x 1/4" [See Note 2, below]
• 2 x 28 oz. cans of peeled, whole plum tomatoes, San Marzano provenance preferred. I can usually find the Cento brand in my supermarket and it's fine, though if you see the can shown below, grab it! It's the realest deal there is.

• Herbs, fresh if you have 'em, dried if you haven't: oregano, thyme, rosemary. Fresh: 1 tablespoon each, finely chopped; dried, 1 teaspoon each. Add more to taste later if you feel the need  
• Salt (Morton's Kosher salt preferred) and fresh-ground pepper 


• Dried red pepper flakes, a pinch or two 

And of course a good chunk of imported Parmigiano Reggiano or Pecorino Romano for grating over all.

[1] This is the classic French mirepoix, the base for so many soups and sauces. Substituting sweet pepper for the carrot, Italian cooks call it a soffrito. Carrot, however, cuts the acidity of the tomatoes.

[2] Yes, you can use pancetta instead. It has the virtue of being readily available in most good supermarkets. The guanciale, however, adds a splendid depth of flavor all its own. Also, you may not get enough fat rendered out of the pancetta before it starts to crisp. If you don't have enough, add some olive oil to the pan.

Equipment:

This is a one-pot sauce, but the pot you'll need is a large (12"-14") deep heavy skillet (or a Dutch oven) with cover. You'll also find that tongs come in handy.

Method for the sauce:

• Over low/moderate heat, render the guanciale fat. If you're using the sliced quanciale, make sure you separate the slices in the pan, as you'd do with bacon. Keep an eye on it; you want to make sure the fatty part is just turning opaque -- you don't want to go all the way to crisp. The guanciale should give up enough fat to sauté the veggies. (You can always add a little olive oil later, if the pan seems too dry.) 
• Remove the guanciale from the pan and set aside. Add the chopped veggies and garlic to the fat remaining in the pan, add a good pinch or three of salt. Stirring occasionally, allow the mixture to soften --the onions will become translucent -- but not brown.
• Pour the tomatoes into a bowl with their juice, then plunge your hand into the bowl and crush each tomato in your fist. This is fun -- you'll feel like a kid messing with finger paints. 
• Add the tomatoes and their juice to the pan. Stir, and adjust the heat to bring the mixture to a simmer (bubbles just breaking the surface).  
• Stir in the herbs. 
• Adjust the heat so that the sauce maintains a slow simmer. 
• Cover the pot. Simmer for an hour or so, until the ingredients have melded and the sauce has thickened -- one recipe I have calls the result "the consistency of oatmeal." 
• Stir from time to time during the hour, and taste to see if you need to add salt or more herbs.
• About a half-hour into the simmer, break up the reserved guanciale and add to the sauce. At the same time add a pinch or two of the red pepper flakes.

When the sauce is done, you can use it immediately; or cool it to room temperature and refrigerate in a covered bowl -- it's even better if it sits in the fridge overnight; or you can divide it into portions and freeze. Or some combination thereof.

Preparing pasta:

I use the kind of big stockpot with pasta insert shown here (click the image to see it enlarged). It's a great all-purpose pot for soups and stocks as well as for steaming vegetables and cooking pasta.

• Cook the pasta in salted boiling water -- enough to allow plenty of room for the pasta to move freely in the water -- to the al dente stage. (The Italian brand of spaghetti I usually buy, for example, says "Cooks in 8 minutes. Taste at 7 minutes." A definite warning not to overcook.) 
• While the pasta is cooking, heat a quantity of the sauce in a pot large enough to hold the amount of cooked  pasta you're making. (Why not use the pot in which you cooked the sauce!) Recheck the seasonings. 
• Drain the cooked pasta, reserving some of the cooking water; pour the pasta into the hot sauce and, with the tongs, toss thoroughly to coat the pasta. (If the sauce is too thick, add a couple of spoonfuls of the pasta cooking water.)
• Use the tongs to take the sauced pasta from pot to bowls. If there is any sauce left in the bottom of the pot, spoon it over the pasta. (The ideal quantities, which you'll have to discover from your own experience, leave little sauce once you've tossed the pasta.)

Grate a good quantity of cheese over the top and serve. Mangia bene!

Talk about your "high concept"

Wikipedia describes the Hollywood definition of "high concept" as "a term used to refer to a succinctly stated premise describing the overall idea of a production in just a few sentences or less."

The same notion applies to the guide on your television screen, usually just a few words to give you the gist of the story.

The other night, while I was idly cruising the list, I was stopped dead in mid-click of my remote by this:

A jazz trombonist meets a diner waitress, then picks up a pay phone and hears there's a nuclear war.

Would you have watched it???

Ah, to be in England

1. The Royal website
2. The ancient (and actually dangerous) event known as Swan Upping

A bargain

I don't take particularly good care of myself -- I smoke, and I hate exercise. Somehow, in spite of those failures and of the fact that I'm nearly 70 now (you don't know how little sense that number makes to me) I've never been a hospital patient overnight except when I had my two babies. I do eat a pretty healthy diet, because (as faithful readers will know) I prefer the "Mediterranean" style of dining, with particular emphasis on the grand foodstuffs of Italy. But using olive oil in cooking instead of butter and eating salads instead of Big Macs can only take you so far. Luck and genes, I suspect, are more responsible than anything I do or don't do. Thanks, Mom. Thanks, Daddy. And all the begats.

There is, however, one pesky problem that I've had for years -- with my back. A muscle on the lower left side gets knotted, and then I can't sit or stand straight, which means that all the rest of me gets progressively twisted and tortured. I can usually fix things up with a couple of days of bedrest, a heating pad and Advil. When those remedies don't work -- and in the last week they hadn't -- there is a chiropractor in town who offers deliverance.

Dr. Adams is one terrific lady. She doesn't seem to have aged a day since I first met her, nearly twenty years ago. She and her husband, who are in practice together, have raised five children. They both are -- there's no other word for it -- merry. They have a positive attitude about life that they convey, simply, with their own body language. It's a delight to know them. Best of all, they are completely non-judgmental, even with people like me who cavalierly break all the rules of a holistically healthful lifestyle that they themselves cherish. 

What a relief it was yesterday to receive Maria's tender ministrations. When she was finished, I fairly hopped off the table, filled with the bliss of being pain-free. I then had another pleasurable moment. Instead of the usual $50 fee, I needed to fork over only $6.42. 

Now...I pay something over $3,000 in annual premiums for Medicare and the Part J supplement -- the latter is known as "Medigap," for you young 'uns out there who aren't yet ripe for the program, and covers a significant portion of the fees that basic Medicare doesn't. In light of the hefty premiums, $6.42 may not seem like that much of a bargain. But I think it is, if only to remind me of how fortunate I have been, of how a government program can soften what otherwise would be a hard financial landing if indeed something more catastrophic than a sore back strikes. And to remind me, in a visceral way, of what a rocky road this life is for so many people who have inadequate health insurance or none at all. 

Pulling my back out while they pull me back in

"Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in..."

I pulled my back out the other day, and since my chiropractor is away till Wednesday, I've had to favor it with lots of bed rest -- meaning I've spent my time reading books, watching movies, and far too often clicking around the "news" circuit from CNN to C-SPAN to MSNBC.

I guess "politics" is my Michael Corleone thing. I'd really promised myself that for a while I'd cease to pay attention, to take a psychic rest from the Great Debates of the last couple of years. I figured that from January 20 forward the country's fate was in safe hands and didn't need my attention quite so much. But, inevitably, events in the last couple of weeks have proven that my faith was sadly misplaced. The Republican goon squad is still operating with the same outrageous arrogance and ignorance as ever it did, notwithstanding the repudiation of the rightwing by the national electorate. And the Democrats have been hard-pressed to know how to deal. (Thank heavens that the worthies at Hullabaloo are keeping an eye on things, and as usual have found the sweet spots for their anger and mine.)

I never believed that "post-partisanship" was anything but a pipe dream. There was never going to be anything but a clenched Republican fist meeting the Democrats' open hand. I hope that President Obama's vaunted pragmatism will let him admit to this, and to change tactics. I hope, too, that when he goes prime time tonight, he'll light into his opponents. Damn the torpedoes and all that. 

[The Rethugs are even wagging their finger at a prime time press conference, bitching that his "usurpation" of network bandwidth strikes a financial blow at the telecomm companies. Oh you naughty boy.]

It's time to take 'em on, Barack!

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

Pope Benedict and Barack Obama are both saying "Sorry."

Well, the Pope actually says, "I didn't know," but gets points for making an effort to rectify his mistake. And the President tells the American people, "I’m here on television saying I screwed up and that’s part of the era of responsibility."

Barry Bonds, on the other hand...

The Micro and the Macro

I've been cleaning old files off my computer, forgotten and outdated stuff, and found this little essay of mine. It's from four years ago and I only vaguely remember writing it. I suppose it deals with issues I'd rather forget.

The Micro and the Macro

My darling daughter, my only child, moved out yesterday to live with her boyfriend. She’s barely eighteen. On top of all the worries and concerns—“Will she be okay? She’s really so inexperienced and not street-wise enough.”—there are the quiet questions. As so many before me have asked, “Where did the time go? How did she grow up so quickly?”

There are other questions, too. Did she leave because we were at each other’s throats, constantly battling for control on the one hand, freedom on the other? Where did I lose confidence in knowing what to do, how to do it, and know that this was not what I had expected after 18 years of motherhood?

And back to that sad, echoing question: “Where did the time go? Where was I while this was happening?”

I was at work, or commuting to work. Or commuting back home. One summer evening, soon after moving to the suburbs and doubling my commute time to two hours each way, I was sitting in the backyard with my toddler daughter. We were admiring our flourishing vegetable garden and she asked me when I’d be home the next day. I tried to make the miserable facts poetic: “I’ll be home when the fireflies come out.” That sounded much better than, “I’ll be home when it’s almost dark, after leaving the house before you’re awake.”

Then came the years that I’d get calls at work. She’d be crying, or wanting, or sick, and what could I do? I was 50 miles away. So I’d talk and soothe as much as I could, and give instructions to the babysitter, and stew at my desk.

I have a message for women: You can’t have it all—at least not the way modern American society is structured in its beliefs, values and priorities.

Lest anyone think I am advocating a return to the days of “women, barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” please let me state that my feminist principles are strong. But this isn’t about feminism, or maternalism, or the proper role of women in society.

This is about what our society is doing to destroy families, mothers, fathers, children and the entire extended clans of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins.

For most of human history, children knew what their parents did each day. Their parents worked in the fields, or hunted, or made useful things to sell, or performed services that people needed, like getting the horse shod. The children often helped, and so became accomplished and responsible as well. Mom and Dad were rarely, if ever, far away, and grandparents, aunts, cousins, the extended family were on hand as well.

Now we have “Bring Our Daughters/Sons to Work Day.” One day a year to try to make the unimportant and unintelligible seem like a good enough excuse to keep Mommy away from home for so much of the time. What will they put on my epitaph? “Here she lies, She filled a filing cabinet for MegaCorp Inc.”

Why do we do it? For some of us, it’s what we want to do, what we’ve trained to do, and we love the work. For most of us, I believe, it’s because we must. We need the money to pay for things, for mortgages, for cars, for college educations, for insurance, for food, for toys and expensive amusements for the children we’ve left each day. For too many, one income isn’t enough, even for the necessities.

So we travel long distances to jobs that may or may not be interesting, but these jobs are a mystery to our children, who resent how the job has robbed them of parents. It’s not just Mommy, it’s Daddy as well. When we were a nation of small farmers and shopkeepers and artisans, we were around to see our children grow up. And they could see us, and know we were there for them. A cellphone doesn’t replace that. And please spare me the nonsense about “quality time vs. quantity time.” Children want and need quantity.

The problem, as I’ve come to see it, is the complete package of Western industrialized capitalism. Equilibrium is abhorred in this system. It must be ever-growing, ever more consuming. We strive as a society for a larger GDP year over year. In order to accomplish that, we must be ever more productive, working ever harder. And all that production must be consumed, so we are trained to buy new, buy more, buy larger, and work ever longer to keep that engine of commerce, production, capital and profit running. Technology has been the midwife of this swelling burden. For every benefit that technology has wrought, it has bound us tighter to the treadmill.

Please don’t turn away now, convinced I’m a Luddite of the most ignorant sort, or a Commie-pinko throwback to the commune movement of the Sixties. I’m just calling it as I see it. I don’t deny my own personal responsibility for the choices I made, nor do I blame the feminists, the economists, or any of the salesmen for the American Way of Life that we’ve heard daily since mass media entered the television age.

But I wish I’d known then what I know now—that the time with my precious daughter would be so short, and hers with me, and that I would be squandering way too much of it just trying to give her what I thought she needed. It wasn’t what she needed after all, and I’m left asking, “Where did the time go?”

There’s a larger lesson in this, as well. As a society, as a species, we can’t keep squandering the time we have on this earth to make everything bigger, better, more powerful or more consuming. It’s not what we need, nor what the earth needs. Something has to change, and change soon, because this arrangement can’t last forever. Or we’ll all be asking, “Where did the time go?”