Food, war, and chaos--finding comfort in bad times

 

 

You know it’s a slow week when the highlight of the day is going to the doctor’s office for blood work. The nice thing about that is that Jordan and I both had appointments. And the brdy part was that it got me out in the fresh air.

But that’s sort of how my week has been, so tonight this is a non-blog. I just don’t have much to say. My week has been consumed mostly by my dive into the food we ate in the 1950s. I can’t figure out if I’m working on a cookbook, a memoir, a narrative about culinary history or some weird combination of all those. I’m loving some of the facts that I turn up, along with the stories friends tell me. One friend remembers her grandmother making biscuits in an old enamel pan, adding a pinch of this and a glop of lard—no measuring. Still another remember the time the flour from the store had little black specks in it—not knowing any better, she dumped it into the barrel where her mom kept fresh flour. Of course, the whole thing had to be thrown out, and her mother was angry. She had lived through the Depression, as had my mother, and she was terrified of waste.

Two other things consume me, and my thoughts frequently go to the Middle East, grieving over the Israeli dead and those held hostage and equally over the Palestinian civilians caught between two warring armies—and two ideologies. But at the same time I am riveted to the chaos in our House of Representatives, or as Hakeen Jeffries calls it, “the Peope’s House.” I am relieved beyond measure that Gym Jordan’s hopes for the speakership seem doomed, but I am still a bit afraid to count on his defeat. To think of that man wielding political power, let alone being third in line for the presidency, is a horror beyond imagining. I should think that this clown show has the Republican party hemorrhaging votes, but I know that mine is a simplistic attitude. At this point, there’s no explaining die-hard Republicans.

I have also done some menu planning this week—I will be entertaining a small group next week one evening, some book ladies, and a longtime friend another. So I was thumbing through old recipe files, something I like to do. For the small group I will fix pigs in a blanket and onion soup biscuits—where you quarter refrigerator biscuits and roll the pieces in butter and onion soup. Remember how many things we fixed with that soup back in the day? Today most people still use the classic dip with sour cream—it’s so addictive. But I am trying to stick to finger food, so no dip. One friend is bringing deviled eggs—yum!—and another Parmesan crisps. The night my friend comes I’ll do a stuffed eggplant (it’s okay—she doesn’t read on Facebook) because I know she loves eggplant, and my family won’t eat it.

And then there are some eat-alone nights. I’m still in search of a can of corned beef hash so I can fix it like my mom did—refrigerated, then took both ends off the can and pushed the meat through in one big cylinder, which she sliced and fried. She got a good, crisp crust on it, something I have yet to duplicate, but I’ll keep trying. Speaking of such retro dishes, I did fix creamed chipped beef (commonly known as SOS or shit on a shingle) for someone last week, and we both raved about how good it was.

As I look back at the week, or half week, I realize that I find comfort in reading, writing, and talking about food. It draws my mind from the chaos of our world and somehow reassures me that the normal world is still there for many of us. That normal world is so fragile, and we are so fortunate, that it sometimes scares me a lot. But I am an optimist. I pray for peace abroad, and for tolerance here at home so that we may truly love our neighbor—and let our kids read whatever books they want.

I’ll quit and read a good mystery. Watch for Gourmet on a Hot Plate tomorrow—hint, the recipe of the week is something from the fifties (no surprise there), and it involves chicken and linguini.

‘Night all. Sweet dreams.

Ambivalence

I read something on Facebook this morning to the effect that all it takes for the evil man to triumph is for the good man to do nothing. It’s as true for nations as it is for the man on the street. The part of me that cries out for justice knows that is true. The U.S. could not ignore Assad’s heinous chemical attack on his own people, the women and children who died. That part of me is okay with the air strikes, though I did read, unverified, that what the planes bombed was a repair and storage facility not an active air field. Talk about planning.

But this attack comes after Trumpf first said there would be no repercussions to Assad. So why now? Trumpf has been obviously looking for a war since his inauguration. The man has no patience to wait for a war, so he’s going to begin with strikes, perhaps justified, on Syria. Abhorrent evil cannot be ignored.

But wait! Why is he so concerned about Syrian women and children when they are the very ones he turned away from our borders, on the grounds they were probably terrorists. And last night he was on TV, sentimentally bemoaning the deaths of those innocent children. I suspect he blows with the wind of popular opinion.

My fear is that he will have last night felt a surge of excitement, a sense of “Hey, this is fun,” that will lead him to order other attacks. Having seen once, in apparently a spontaneous move, how easy it is and the thrill that results, why stop now?

No matter the justification, war begets war. Air strikes make that many more Syrians hate us and long for vengeance. Where are the scales of justice balanced? Must we avenge or should we think ahead and protect our own people? What if this leads to conflict with Russia, though I doubt it will come to that.

I am ambivalent. I remember coming out of church one sunny Sunday morning only to hear that we had bombed Iran. I was devastated, especially by the irony of the moment, and I still think it was a huge mistake, although there was a meme on Facebook showing George Bush essentially saying, “I told you Iran sent chemical weapons to Syria.” That would take a lot more investigation to be proven.

I wish this were an isolated incident, but I fear not. A sense of dread fills me tonight.