Isn't this where we came in?
I have nothing. The day came and went and nada. I had a school teacher call today and refer to a colon as "You know, the dot with the other one over it" and back slashes as "the sideways lines, but the other way." He swore to me he didn't teach English, but it did not make my need for a stiff drink any less real...
If I'd been a little more vigilant and not wander the Internets oblivious and without focus, I would have at least recognized that Kevin Walsh had a book signing event at Court Street -- so close to the office I could have walked it in minutes! I figured it out after 9 p.m. tonight, when it was of no use to anyone. Go to
Forgotten-NY and click through and buy the man's book! When I started blogging, I found his and it was quite a revelation. And this last month I thought of him a few times because there is a new show on public television on the so-called "Secrets of New York" that isn't a third as interesting as his website and then-book plans (on sale now!). Help a Brooklyn Boy out and learn something new about my town!
Apropos of posterityBack in 1979, on this date, a momentous release for my generation with Pink Floyd's "The Wall" finally coming out. This should be imprinted in your heart as an awesome date. How many drunken, smoke-filled discussions have been had on the philosophical implications of this album? We were teenagers and the album was about alienation, love and loss, power and insanity, drugs and blaming the system -- so it was brilliant. It remains relevant only if you remember what it felt like and can identify the pain, building the wall, the isolation, the trial, dismantling the wall and going on with the show... I always liked my rock operatic!
Brooding, but with good food.
One of the colleagues in our pedagogical haven is starting a new adventure down South at the end of the week. To celebrate her new endeavor six of us joined the Boss giving her a nice send-off at one of the lovely Italian restaurants in downtown Brooklyn. Here are some of the components of said meal – for posterity:
Focaccia bread with accents of fresh rosemary; freshly baked bread with olive oil; enormous, flaky crab cakes; fried scallops, shrimp and squid; and grilled calamari for appetizers. Finally, I wanted to order something I don’t ordinarily have or can readily cook at home – because at this point eating out is a once every six-month thing and I want to make it interesting. I chose the homemade tortellini stuffed with veal, in a cream sauce with porcini mushrooms. We were too stuffed for dessert, but were gifted a flourless chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce and a few pieces of cheesecake. We thoroughly enjoyed that and left a gorgeous tip to the young lady who served us so amicably and capably.
The restaurant is on Montague Street, a lovely and rather trendy spot in historic Brooklyn Heights. I used to love walking about this area but I do not anymore. It reminds me of rue St Denis in Montréal as it rolls down from the Latin Quarter to the French Quarter. In Brooklyn, it leads to the water and a magnificent view of the harbor and lower Manhattan, and New Jersey in the distance. There is evidence all about of our magical borough’s early Colonial period, but my mind keeps going back to Montréal and the thought that if given the choice, I do not want to live this particular existence but I cannot shed this skin, its brain or the road it stands on.
Don’t mind me, I’m just in a mood. It will pass. Just concentrate on the food part. It was sensational!
I'm puckering as I type!
The assorted days that I was out of the office last month have finally accumulated negatively. So at this moment I don’t have enough money to carry myself for a full month. I will on Friday, when my miniscule check comes in to cover the week cut off by the holiday. Then all I will be able to pull off is the rent and have about $25 left over… Then the race starts again trying to cover the bills and the rent (well rent first, bills if possible). But that means no birthday and no Christmas and also no birthday for Mom – at least not this year,
maybe in February.
This would be a rather auspicious time for that job to come through.
And yet,
even if it doesn’t, we want for very little. Despite the tightness in the budget (yeah,
what budget?!), our blessings outweigh that pain in the ass reality. Still, my most fervent wish is that this Biblical ass kicking I have been subject to is nearing an end. If I swear that I have gained perspective and augmented the strength of my character, may I get a reprieve?
Seriously: Uncle! Just whose behind do I have to kiss to get a break? I'll do it. Point to the butt, GoogleMap it for me!
(Everything is going to be okay, I just needed to vent a little and now I have. Remember, you don't always get a blue pencil to edit life. Some of it needs to be documented for posterity. So it goes, as is. Let it be.)
Lentil Soup for the Well-Rested Soul
I’m well rested and content in my newfound serenity. Whether this will be enough to sustain me when I return to the rat race tomorrow remains to be seen. For that, we had a spicy lentil soup with ham and carrots. Energizing food, comforting food – fuel for the body and soul. Another 8 hours of beauty sleep and I’ll be ready!
Other than that, I will continue to put together a profile for a character I will be playing in an RPG. The process reminded me today of the elaborate games we used to invent as kids. We understod character development the way Hollywood doesn't seem to anymore. We set place, time, atmosphere and played in a Universe of our own doing, with story arcs which we carried for weeks sometimes until we had a satisfying finality to it.
I was a little nervous about the undertaking, but now I'm looking at it as an opportunity to partake in creative pursuits that will bring me closer to childhood at heart and keep me young. Ultimately, it's just about story telling. That has to be a great antidote to the rat race!
Life is a Siesta, pass the covers!
This image is pretty much how my day went. I could have gone shopping with the hundreds of thousands of aggressive people who went at stores like hungry vultures at a dead, bloody rhino. This tiny vacation will be spent in relative peace and a leisurely siesta is a gift from heaven. I made sandwiches for lunch and pork chops tonight, smothered in paper-thin slices of onions. But that was the most I did today (though I enjoyed my time in the kitchen). I also linked up to a test Amazon store. I wanted to call it the Pantry of Doom but that didn't seem quite right. It's not quite what I planned a year ago, but I'm sure I'm not quite done with it. What do you
think?IMAGE: Romantic Siesta by Carrie Graber. Check out more of her art at this
gallery.
Toeing that thin line
Fantastic meal! The garlicky chicken recipe is definitely a keeper. We skipped the toast because we felt bread would be too much. We did have our landlady’s cranberry sauce, which added a different dimension to the meal and a perfect accompaniment to the chicken. The garlic that cooked under the chicken became a salty, creamy paste to thicken the sauce and the garlic head that cooked inside the chicken got chopped and thrown in the sauce. Mom says it tasted almost nutty. It had just enough pepper to linger on the palate without overwhelming it. I think the sea salt, by virtue of the scary big grains, helps in not over seasoning and instead leaves a faint savory taste to the palate. The chicken was tender and juicy. The pasteles (a Caribbean tamale) were just right! It was a fantastic meal.
We got up really late. We lounged and had coffee and cranberry bread. Watched some TV, did a few puzzles, read some trashy magazines and enjoyed the progression of simply delicious aromas filling the apartment. Mom had a ridiculous conversation with Mami, who is visiting her sister on the eastern coast of Puerto Rico. I started winterizing the windows in the front room. So pretty much the day was what I expected it to be, only better because we lived it (and the chicken was fantastic). In short, it was an extraordinarily ordinary day. Who knew that I’d ever come an age when I’d enjoy that in a day? It’s a far thinner line between boring and fabulous than I’d been led to believe in my younger years!
It rained all day but we were warm and perfectly content in a peaceful atmosphere. For these little things too we are thankful.
Giving thanks
I am thankful that this year, despite its ups and downs and the occasional heartbreak, has been a vast improvement over the last one and worlds apart from two years ago. I’m thankful for the few friends who stuck with me through hell and still support and love me today. I’m also thankful for new friends and for the wonders that is the Internet (which has brought some awesome folks into my life from spots on Earth I hope to visit some day). Finally, I’m grateful and thankful to have Mom. Still my rock, my joy and the coolest person I have ever known! This is my family of choice, blood and virtual and they are a formidable lifeline.
After a day of lounging, reading trashy magazines and viewing one or all of our movies at home (The Incredibles, Batman Returns and/or Return of the King). We’ll eat our garlicky chicken and the pasteles our friend made for us. And then, made in my kitchen by Mom’s loving hands: individual, tiny pumpkin pies with homemade whipped cream. I’m thankful for pie too!
Despite my whining, I am blessed in many ways and for this I am thankful.
Totally decadent!
Our plan for Thanksgiving was to make roast pork and pasteles -- one of the Puerto Rican traditional holiday meals, but the local markets are not cooperating and what is available are 10 and 15 pounders to feed a small army. So instead we decided on roasting a chicken. And this will be a medicinal chicken. It will clear your sinuses. This baby requires 3 heads of garlic. Imagine that? Two of our favorite things: chicken and garlic in decadent marriage! A love more pure than the fake wedding earlier this week…
So I will be book marking the page at
Chow with the recipe for (I
love the recipe name) Garlicky Roasted Chicken with Garlic Jus on Garlic Toast. I haven’t tested it yet, but everything about this recipe sounds and feels right. I’ve read it four or five times already and should be able to perform all the steps by memory on Thursday. On Friday, I will be having overstuffed sandwiches with leftover garlicky roasted chicken!
In the meantime, here is one of the things we are thankful for: a child’s laughter.
Labels: chicken, foods, recipes
Not your father's wild turkey.
I used to work at the CIA (not the spooks) and the V.P. of Marketing loved to go hunting. I used to torture him, arguing that unless he also armed his prey it wasn’t a true contest. He countered that what he did was extremely hard. How hard, I asked, can it be to kill a turkey? It’s pretty large target, it can’t fly and it’s not necessarily speedy.
He explained that you had to shoot them in the head (and turkeys are pinheads). If you shoot them in the body, there might be buckshot. Who knew? I’m not NRA Girl! The shooting in the little bobbing head, I understand, would be rather difficult. But I just couldn’t let him have even his long list of defeats. It just wasn’t in my nature.
“Why don’t you just use a bow and arrow like the Indians did? No buckshot, better control of where to shoot the animal and a greater chance of success. Well, not for the poor turkey; but it would make you look less stupid against the turkey prey… I mean, who wants to die and think ‘I’ve been outwitted by turkeys, for years and years and years.’ The breath leaving you, the lights dimming, and finally to end your days the only sense left is the sound of a gaggle of turkeys laughing at you: their gobbles becoming a mocking cackle at your expense. That's some wild turkey!”
He was very much a gentleman, I swear it; still, when he muttered something like “I’m going home,” I’m pretty sure I heard him say he hated me, with the virulent spite of a junior high school cheerleader. That memory makes me giddy. I think that means I'm a bitch.
Let the holidays begin!
Pass the empanada!
I love empanadas, but I don’t enjoy making dough, rolling it and pressing and shaping. It is messy and takes an effort I am completely uninterested in – though it is a nice upper body cardio workout!
Goya makes the flour discs and these can be found in the refrigerated section of most supermarkets in our area, but I suppose they can be ordered by mail somehow. In this day and age anything is possible, thanks to technology and ingenious business ventures.
Quite basically you fill them with a tablespoon or two of whatever you wish – meat, cheese, chicken, fruit or whatever floats your boat. Simply, once you fill the disc placing the mix in its center, you close it into a half moon. You can seal the ends by pressing; you can wet the ends with a little water of an egg wash. The filling, when it includes meats or fish, should be previously cooked. Cheeses should be grated. Whatever you choose as your filling, make sure it isn’t too wet or it will soak through the flour disc. Traditionally these are deep fried, but I find that baking them (20 minutes!) still gives you a crispy empanada without the extra grease. These make for wonderful snacks or tapas.
My favorite empanadas include ground beef, cooked in olive oil, garlic and onions with a bit of tomato paste, oregano and pepper; then assembled with shredded cheddar to bind it. A dessert empanada that I always loved included a guava paste and cheese filling that was awesome. There are dozens of varieties throughout Latin America. This article called
In Search of the Perfect Empanada has a few links that might give you ideas to make your own.
You can freeze these and cook later. You can also prepare the mix ahead of time. Most empanadas are best served while hot, but they tend to hold up rather well cool. You can cook a couple dozen in the oven and are perfect for holiday get-togethers! I'm dying for a good empanada just about now...
Labels: empanadas, food, recipes
The Language of Inspiration
I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for many reasons, though I can tell you that I desperately wanted to be in the city and loved the idea of being surrounded by art school types. I was earning a business degree in this environment and the dichotomy was enchanting to me and puzzling to most people.
(“So you’re not studying to be a designer? But you’re always drawing?”) I also worked at Pratt Institute for a while. I was supposed to be there as an administrative assistant, but the truth is that I was there helping someone with their doctoral dissertation. I was surrounded by artists in one form or another for a lifetime – I’m related to some of those lunatics! I even choose to partake in the gallery community for a very brief period in my early twenties. That got tired very quickly. But there was something magnetic and enigmatic about the scene for some time.
We are big New York Times crossword puzzle fans at the house. Though we tend to have a love/hate relationship with its editor. I’ve mentioned that a few times here…
It was this background that informed our choice of movies for this weekend: “
Art School Confidential” and “
Wordplay.”
Ultimately it is their link that made them perfect companions. Art and crosswords are about interpreting language and even when that language consists of words, you can creatively play with them in artful ways that evoke other ideas. Both art and puzzle solving involve creation and their completion creates an elation that is quite addictive. In our case, watching these two pieces simply brought the joy of remembering people we’ve met, puzzles we’ve solved and created the opportunity to share it in conversation.
IMAGE: Crossword Puzzle by Frank Morrison at
AllPosters.
Gimme chowdah!!!
Today had that distinctly soulless feel to it. It was gray and breezy and threatened to turn ugly. Uglier in increments of ugh! By sundown it turned wet and cold, in a clammy way. And it was this last thing that made my mind turn to thoughts of soup. What this day needed to end it on a glorious note was soup. But not just any soup. I had a cup of chicken and rice soup from the Chinese kitchen across the street. It was okay. Good even.
This evening called for chowder. It screamed chowdah!
I will not go into what the right chowder is or isn’t, that’s just dangerous. White. Red. Can’t we all just get along?! What I wanted was New England clam chowder, from one of those roadside shacks in Cape Cod. My palate makes very specific demands when it whims and craves.
There is a sweet compilation of recipes at Marc Brazeau’s
Ravenous pages. In fact, check his other guides because he made quite an extraordinary effort to put together these comprehensive resource pages that are just fantastic! I’m in awe.
Labels: chowder, recipes, soup
On the Radio: Awesome Tsunami 2006 Coverage
My friend
Jeff is in Japan for the semester at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has been very generous with the stories and his fantastic photographs from his travels in Asia. And occasionally we even get a chance to chat at odd hours (it’s day here and night there or vice versa and somehow that’s pretty cool).
This morning, when I turned my kitchen radio on to check the weather and transit reports on the news station, the first thing I heard was “We have a tsunami alert for northern Japan.” So my first conscious thought this morning was, “Oh, jeez! Leave Jeff the f*ck alone!” (Not that Tokyo is in the north, but I hadn’t had my coffee yet and up is down, you know?)
I continued to get ready for work and some 10 minutes later this nugget comes from the same radio, “The tsunami has hit with waves as high as 16 inches…” Sixteen inches? A G.I. Joe can survive that! I suppose I was feeling particularly relaxed because the next thought was wholly inappropriate and it involved those same 16 inches and Andre the Giant.
Then some 10 minutes later, the same guys end their Awesome Tsunami 2006 coverage with something like this, “Apparently Japanese broadcasters weren’t very concerned, listen to this coverage—“ and then they threw in some 10 seconds of a Japanese newscast. In Japanese! And I suppose the guy speaking sounded unconcerned and maybe even a little peppy. I know there was no panic because not once did I hear him scream out, “GODZILLA!”
Jeff is fine; but a guy in Hawai’i got tossed around and was slightly injured by a wave considerably larger than those vicious sixteen inches that hit Japan. Maybe it’s goofy moisture from all the fog, but in my head I keep hearing Peter Lorre doing the news: “The terror! The terror! We are all doomed. DOOMED!!!”
The Ultimate Protest
I was writing checks last night. I hated every moment of it. It was quite painful. Each check chipped away at that vast fortune in the (near) mid-three figures I have been cultivating. But it was unavoidable. Each bill
had to be paid! Each month has become an “
eenie, meenie, minie, moe” game trying to pick the unlucky creditor who will not get a magic piece of paper that will convert itself into currency. After each signature and closure of the appropriate envelope I allowed one vulgarity after another escape my lips. This is my own brand of civil disobedience – because the alternative sucks. After all the bills were paid, I noted all payments, filed away the bills and shredded 60 lbs of back-up spam sent along with it.
As we were out of stamps, I took the bills to the kitchen table so that Mom could stop at the post office today and mail the damned bills. But they weren’t there this morning. She assumed I took them. I had already forgotten last night’s incident (Queen of Denial, I am!). But I did not take them, I did not mail them and I had no idea where the bills could be. I made the trek from room to room in our place and couldn’t find a trace of them.
It turns out I threw them in with the recycled papers (otherwise known as the garbage).
Now that’s a protest that goes beyond the mere vulgar!Poverty and insanity are like drinking and driving and responsible adults should avoid them in combination.
Good things ... those who wait, etc.
Two years ago this week I found myself at almost the lowest point of my life. I had exactly $17. Not in the bank: in total!
I say “almost” because a few weeks later, I could literally look back on it nostalgically as the good old days, when I found myself completely broke with an eviction notice taped to my door.
We are doing much better these days. I have a fortune in the 3 figures now. The rent is paid and will be paid next month as well, I’m pretty sure.
We are older and really tired, but we are still here, attesting to the true family heritage: survival. We can withstand almost any abuse. If grace under vicissitude enriches character, I suppose we are billionaires and gaining on Bill Gates.
Next month it should improve vastly. I expect good news. My understanding is that Santa is bringing me a real life job, with benefits and everything. Wait for it…
Chicken Denial: pretend it's summer!
I like crunchy chicken. But fried chicken is something that should be had sparingly because too much of a good thing can kill you. So instead, I like to bake it crunchy.
The dry rub is relatively simple and you can get creative with it. It starts with about half a cup of flour, ¾ cup of breadcrumbs, a ¼ cup of grated Parmesan cheese, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, herbs and half a packet of adobo or powdered chicken bullion cube. This all goes in a bag and then the chicken gets shaken in it to cover in the rub. You could add some moisture to the chicken (not too much, just surface moisture otherwise the rub clumps). This could include a combination of honey and lemon, an egg wash, a little olive oil, vinegar, yogurt, orange juice or buttermilk – each option changes the taste just a trace and allows you to change it every time to make this dish. The rest is cooking at 350º for about 40 minutes.
A few notes: we use legs and thighs because they have a higher fat content and will cook at higher temperatures without becoming dry. While it isn’t absolutely necessary to line a pan or baking sheet with foil, you want to spray or brush some oil so that the chicken doesn’t stick. If you want a healthier treat, trim the fat off the chicken.
The skin will be crispy and a golden brown. The meat sears under the coating and so it steams from within and retains all its juices. Plus, it tastes great cold as leftovers. Call it “chicken denial” and pretend it's a summertime picnic treat while the temperatures dip outside! I don't have any scientific prove of this, but keep the recipe for later when
SAD starts to hit you, then you can call it "chicken therapy" for what ails you.
Labels: chicken, food, recipes
WANTED: multifaceted cootie catcher
Thursday I was hit with a burst of heat that went through me and created a force field around me! I was ablaze and in a haze the rest of the evening. I slept uneasily and awoke stunned. I kept looking at the clock and internally telling myself that even though time kept moving, I still could make into the office on time. The fact that the rest of my body was not responding did not alarm me much because I just
knew I could make it!
I took a hit off my pump and an over-the-counter allergy pill and waited it out, because it was only a matter of minutes before I came out of it and was able to function.
I just knew it! I sat with my face on the counter, clutching my cup of now cold coffee, intermittently conscious until I finally conceded defeat. I didn’t want to because there’s money involved; but I called in sick because, in the event I was able to get past my front door, I’d be useless and sent home anyway. I proved that by falling fast asleep within 30 seconds of hanging up and sleeping 10 hours straight.
Right now I am heavily medicated and regret to admit that the cooties are killing me. I am infested with cooties and I don’t know how to kill them! They just keep coming back to haunt me.
Bastards! This requires a multifaceted cootie catcher...
Labels: cooties
The Aftermath of Bloody Tuesday
The last 24 hours must have been very interesting at the White House. I don’t think the Republicans ever considered Tuesday would be so bloody. It’s one thing when you lose Congress in a midterm election (by the way, the lower body will henceforth be known as The House of Blues). Their governors took a beating too. Now that’s a statement even a monkey can understand.
After an almost Biblical ass kicking, I suppose being conciliatory is probably the best move in order to survive. I just can’t believe that Rumsfeld is the sacrificial lamb. Shrub gave the Democrats Rummy!
“Gee, fellas, I’m sorry; here’s an offering to placate the Electoral Beast…” I mean, he threw him into the volcano! That’s cold.
All in all, it’s a good thing Karl Rove is not a Scientologist because he hasn’t slept and has been roaming the castle like Macbeth, going,
“Dude, what the hell happened?!” He is going to need anti-depressants and sleeping aids after he is done with the Chivas. He has been a thorn in the back of Democrats for well over a decade, but I am a humanist: Karl, if the Vice President invites you to go on a little hunting trip, for the love of God say no! Enough blood has been spilt.
Vote, DAMMIT!
There are endless reasons to vote. There’s the whole change thing. There’s the reversing evil thing. There’s the civic duty thing. There’s principle involved. Some even attach morality to it. You can equate love of country to it. There’s the sense of empowerment one gets when pulling the soon-to-be-obsolete lever to institute your end of “government by the people.” Vote because your parents did it, your grandparents did it and their parents did too (assuming they were men, white and possibly land owners). Vote to support your team or to voice your dissatisfaction with the status quo. Vote because it is the responsible thing to do, because you must take control of your country’s destiny by putting people who share your values in charge of it.
Do not vote because it is mandate from God because he did not sign the Constitution and belongs neither in the classroom nor the voting booth. Don’t vote because a candidate is hot because politicians only sleep with attractive young things that know nothing and YOU can read.
All these reasons, and whatever else the pundits in the trenches can come up with, are valid reasons to vote. After two decades of voting, I am deeply jaded about the process. So I will vote because I want to meet with my Election Day friends. We engage in a philosophical debate each time we meet – usually from primaries to election and sometimes on to a second term. To the layman it’s just a superhero pairing to see who could win a fight. To us, it is an exercise in geekdom that makes an otherwise worthless gesture into a fun outing. (I intend to counter everything with, “Jack Bauer can kick his ass!”)
I’m a card-carrying misanthrope, but there might be hope for the rest of you: GO VOTE (or Jack Bauer will shoot you in the thigh)!
Libertines All
In the preamble to “
The Libertine,” the Second Earl of Rochester (eerily played by Johnny Depp) looks through you and asserts,
“You will not like me.” It is creepy!
“I don’t want you to like me,” he grunts dismissively, as if it matters little whether you do or don’t. He is arrogant enough, but you feel a deep self-hatred, and because the face is Johnny Depp’s you think, “Oh, honey, of course I will.”
Then, when the film ends, he returns to the screen, looking down on you again and pointedly asks,
“Well, do you like me now? Do you like me . . . now? Do you like me?”No, I don’t. Okay, maybe a little. You were amusing and a reprobate, that’s always fun -- from afar. A tragically flawed cynic, a poet and playwright, he shunned authority and mocked God, he drank too much and consorted with whores and actresses; he is said to have completely repented and converted to Christianity on his deathbed. That story is a little suspect, but I suppose there are no atheists at the throngs of ravaging syphilis. But in all, I think the Earl hated himself far more than I could. I’ve met worse. Hell, I’ve lain down with worse! Do
you like me now?
It's like a Viking Snack!
Everybody loves finger foods. There is something primal and liberating about grabbing a hunk of meat and biting into it with lusty gusto! Then there is the simple pleasure of that crunch in an oven fried potato wedge; especially if there is a creamy dipping sauce involved in the mix, because it creates the distinct possibility of messy finger licking. Add heat and abundant ale and it falls somewhere between decadent comfort and childish bliss.
You’ll need pterodactyl-sized turkey wings, 1 per person. In a bag, combine some flour for dredging. To it you may add garlic powder, salt and whatever heat source makes you weak in the knees (cayenne, chili, fresh ground pepper). Throw the wings in the bag and shake to your heart’s content. Heat up about one inch of oil (canola or corn work best) and brown the wings, turning once, for about 10 minutes on a medium high flame. Drain the wings on paper towels.
Melt some unsalted butter and add hot sauce to drizzle over the wings. You can add barbeque sauce for a sweet finish, or mustard for a salty tang, or even mayonnaise for a creamy sauce, or minced garlic for bits of spicy crunch. I always encourage experimentation: go wild kids! The wings will cook on a pre-heated oven to 375º for about one hour. You should turn them at least once and you can baste them with additional sauce 3 or 4 times during cooking. (Discard any leftover sauce not used to cook the turkey wings.)
Let them sit for at least 5 minutes so that the hungriest among you do not burn your fingers handling the wings!
All Souls Day
Today we pray for leniency towards loved ones held over in purgatory. Purgatory can mean a state or condition or a place in which the souls of those who have died in grace must expiate their sins. Pending said expiation, purgatory becomes the Catholic equivalent of a cleansing/waiting room for Heaven proper, in a matter of speaking.
I suppose the point of this exercise is to give the grieving the consolation that they too have a hand in saving even the dead from themselves, if they are pious enough. It’s an interesting notion, but it isn’t one based on any Scripture. Purgatory as it has evolved to the horror-movie sense we know it today was introduced by Church scholars a handful of centuries back. Luckily, most Catholics don’t read much and never question women in habits and big rulers or men with collars. Purgatory is a fiction but a nifty one because Catholics love shortcuts like some people like chocolate. Of all things that make the Catholic Church unique is they have a Mulligan in the form of “Special Dispensations” or “Indulgences.”
Pope Ratzo doesn’t think it is nifty and has been making noise about rejecting the concept altogether. So far he has called for the Vatican to reconsider and redefine the whole idea of purgatory. He stopped short of rejecting it outright because this might prove costly considering the donations involved in special prayers and masses. Instead of denying the fiction, now purgatory is a metaphysicality where the love of Jesus cleanses us and gets us ready to meet the Big Man. But the Pope hasn’t made it clear why we still need to offer prayers and good works on the dead sinners’ behalf since Sweet Baby J is on the case.
I don't know much, but exactly what can any individual’s good intentions do that Jesus’ love cannot? I know Ratzo wears the big hat, but I wonder why nobody has called him on that.
Bretton, DeNiro, Bennett: a regular day in NYC
Sometime last month, Barbara Bretton asked me if I’d like to be a guest editor for her food column on her
website. Barbara writes what the uninitiated insist on calling ‘romances’ – which is just as simplistic and fallacious as calling any book with a female lead ‘chick lit.’ What she does is write insightful and witty dialogue and she has a magnificent way of taking you places: you’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you will be transported if you let her take you. You know, everything you expect and love about fiction… For her, writing is a passion. Life is passion! And there is passion in cooking and food, so of course her website has a regular feature including food and cooking. She also has a great passion for knitting and hosts a very lively
blog on the subject – which at times extends to other passions, including varying levels of
nekkidness in hot actor guys, more food, and the joys and dramas of life.
Food, cooking and books: these things I have a passion for that transcends all my increasing neuroses. Besides, when Barbara asks, it’s a non-brainer: you always say yes. Anything after the initial request is guaranteed to be fun! Plus, I get to call myself
Food Goddess at least once a month. I’ve linked to it on the list at right and I suggest you visit and check out her archives for some scrumptious recipes. As for me, I just hope to live up to my new title. Go check it out!
Apropos of nothing, when I arrived home last night Mom announced, “BTW, there are a couple of messages on the machine.”
Okay. “So, who called?”
“Bobby DeNiro.”
WTF?! “DeNiro? What exactly did he have to say?”
“Wanted to remind you to vote for Hilary on Tuesday.”
“Vote. Hilary. Tuesday. Check. Hmm, I guess he’s heard things…”
“Oh yeah, then Tony Bennett called.”
“I Left My Heart In San Francisco, Tony Bennett?”
“Yep.”
“And what did Tony want?”
“Hilary. Tuesday. Vote.”
You gotta love this town!
