Category Archives: prose

Incongruence, or How to Make a Salad

It was Friday.

A cold snowy day. My wife was home from work, sick with a cold and I was the dutiful caregiver – supplying her with ice cold drinks and extra blankets.

We decided that we wanted salads for lunch. My wife’s favorite salad is a Sante Fe style salad, with chicken, lots of crunchy tortilla strips and usually ranch dressing.

Luckily, I had cooked half of a package of chicken tenders two nights before (when I made a chicken pot pie), but seasoned with a homemade taco seasoning – comprised of chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, black pepper, red pepper and cumin. These days, I am intrigued by the opportunity to play with the spices we have in our cabinet. Sure, it is more difficult than just using a packaged taco seasoning, but it appeals to the scientist in me.

Anyway, I had cooked those chicken tenders on Wednesday night. They were looking for something useful to do. I cut them into small chunks, and set them aside.

I pulled out a bag of Romaine lettuce. Now, you may ask, why didn’t you use a whole head of lettuce? Fewer things in the kitchen bore me more than chopping and cleaning a head of lettuce. This is interesting, because I will prep and cut onion, peppers, tomatoes, squash, cucumber…even carrots, just about any vegetable. Lettuce bores me.

I poured the precut salad mix into a bowl and inspected it for undesirable components, rinsed it, and moved on. I chopped two Roma tomatoes (see comment above) and added to the lettuce. I grabbed a handful of grated monterey jack/cheddar cheese – this is about a cup – and mixed it into the salad bowl. Finally, I tossed in another handful-and-a-half of tortilla strips.

For the dressing, I mixed 2 parts of Country French with 1 part Chipotle Ranch and stirred. This gives the “right” combination of sweet and spicy. Flavor chemistry is an interesting subject. The Country French sweetness is detected by a combination of receptor proteins in the roof of the mouth and the back of the tongue. These receptors synapse with the glossopharyngeal nerve and the chorda tympani, which means the signals are transferred up the center of the neck as well as along the sides of the skull, through the inner ear.

Spicy flavors, on the other hand, are detected by the VR1 receptors in the mouth. What is interesting is that they are designed to detect heat, such that we don’t consume hot food that will burn our mouths. The detection of capsaicin (the chemical in most peppers) is accidental, but activates the “heat” response of the VR1 receptors.

I poured the dressing over the salad mixture and tossed liberally to coat the lettuce, cheese, tortilla strips and tomatoes. At this point, I heated the chicken in the microwave for about 90 seconds.

To serve, I scooped out a serving (or two) of the salad mixture onto a plate, then topped it with the warm taco chicken. What you get is a delicious, yet incongruous, mixture of ingredients.

Crunchy, yet smooth
sweet, yet spicy
vegetable, yet chicken-y
warm, and cold

Serves 3 to 4 people, was eaten by 2.

So, in summary:

5 or 6 chicken breast tenders, cooked with taco seasoning or similar spices, then chopped
1 bag Romaine Salad
2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 Cup Monterey Jack/Cheddar grated cheese
1 1/2 cup thin tortilla strips
2/3 cup Country French Dressing
1/3 cup Chipotle Ranch Dressing

Soundtrack for making the salad:
Ramblin’ Man – The Allman Brothers Band
Smile – Nat King Cole

Climb the mountain

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So by now, (if you enjoy pop culture events) you either watched Lady Gaga’s performance at the Academy Awards live or caught up with it on the internet. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to go find a link and listen.

I am not necessarily surprised by the talent she displayed in performing selections from The Sound of Music. I knew she was super-talented. I’m not a big fan of her pop persona, though I recognize her talent and abilities as being among the leaders in her industry. No, what amazed me was the solid…Solid….versatility she displayed in performing not only the Julie Andrews part of the catalogue with sensitivity and confidence, but also Climb Every Mountain … which is written for a dramatic soprano and requires different vocal skills and range.

She nailed it.

If you watch her facial expressions during her (well-deserved) standing ovation, there is a flash of disbelief on her face. It is almost as if she couldn’t believe that she had done that.

The question that popped in my head after watching that was, “Why the schtick?”

With all that talent, and considerable versatility, she has ability beyond what most of the viewing audience realized. So why did she/does she cling to this pop persona of hers? Or better yet, why did she develop it in the first place?

The answer to that is frighteningly simple…image sells.

In the entertainment industry, there is no shortage of talent, pretty faces, and even versatility. If you want to set yourself apart, you need to create an image that people will remember. History shows this again and again. The Beatles clean cut business suit image, fashioned by Brian Epstein, was designed to appeal to older record executives and wary parents who thought Rock & Roll was a passing fad. The KISS make-up and rock image was designed to give people a visual memory of a heavy metal band when there were a lot of other bands around. Madonna’s image seemed to be fashioned to keep people talking about the entertainment – when (albeit early in her career) her singing skills were limited. It seems as if Gaga’s flamboyant stage presence was designed to keep people talking – as if her talents wouldn’t be good enough to be remembered on their own.

I think she just blew that out of the water. It will be interesting to see how she moves forward and if she simply lets her talent and ability do the entertaining.

If there is a takeaway from this, it is to never underestimate your abilities. Always keep yourself grounded in something you do well and love doing. If you keep working and applying your skills to the things that you love most, there will come a moment, a pinnacle where you perform to your very best. At that moment, you will break through into something you never anticipated… and a manufactured image is rendered irrelevant.

Passion for what you do is the best marketing strategy.

Collecting Yourself

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We all have our likes and dislikes, things that we migrate toward (or away from). When it’s something tangible that we really like, we like to have a memento of it. It is a part of who we are. When we see different forms of the same thing and get several tangible mementos, it becomes a collection. We go through life collecting things.

When I was young boy, I collected rocks, because I liked the different shapes and colors, smoothness and jaggedness. I always hoped that it would turn into an arrowhead collection, but those were difficult to come by. I also collected coins, because I liked the detail, the science and history of minting coins and medallions. Turns out, numismatics gets to be an expensive hobby, but I enjoyed the search for unusual currency and still enjoy coins today. As a teenager, I collected Beatles LPs and other records that I still own and have loaned to my sons so they could enjoy the crispness of vinyl recordings. I have a collection of poetry books that includes Frost, Heaney, ee cummings, and Bukowski, and I’m always on the look for new/old print poetry collections/chapterbooks, especially in second-stores and flea markets.

As an adult, some of my collections have happened by accident.

I have a nice collection of coffee mugs that I have accumulated over the years, mainly from perusing clearance shelves. Interestingly, it is the shape/design of the mugs that mostly appeal to me. Four of my coffee mugs are plain white china, but in different shapes with different handles. I do have a few “souvenir” mugs that are comprised of sorcerer’s apprentice Mickey, my writer’s mug (It is unwise to mock the poet), and my periodic table mug. It’s a good thing that I drink lots of coffee.

Sometimes there is a jump to other collections because of overlapping interests.

Recently a friend bought me a souvenir from his trip to Epcot: a set of coasters with Beatles album covers. A very cool and thoughtful gift – knowing my fanaticism for Beatles stuff. At Christmas, my sister gave me a gift of coasters as well: Four coasters with periodic table information of the radioactive elements U-238, Ra-226, Th-232, and Pu-244 on them. AND…when you set the glass on the coaster, they light up in the spectrum color of the actual element. Available from ThinkGeek here.

I don’t drink much, and we don’t entertain all that much either, but these coasters are WAY cool. I am now collecting cool coaster sets.

Cool mugs and Coasters

What do you do when you are no longer interested in your collection?

I am currently involved in a home project of reducing our stored clutter. Among the Christmas decorations, old pictures, and various memorabilia that we have stored is my wife’s collection of Beanie Babies. She collected these when they were all the rage in the 90’s. We have several bins, with some of them in little acrylic cases. My wife has agreed that she is no longer interested in them, and that I can remove them from our house…the question is…where?

Are there any collectors out there willing to give me a few dollars for all of them (probably 100-150 of them still with tags on them – make me an offer*)?
Are there any worthy organizations that would accept a donation of small plush adorable creatures?

Won’t someone take us home…please?

What do you collect? How have your collectible interests changed or evolved? Do you want any Beanie Babies?

*****************************************
*And if you are serious, email me and I can go through and catalogue what we have.

Acappella Friday – Music in Poetry: Sure on this shining night

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Lyrical phrasing, meter, rhyming, consonance, assonance, timbre, and tone mean so much to both choral music and poetry. Perhaps that is why, when good poetry is combined with a beautiful musical foundation, the result can be an emotional and spiritual adjuvant. It soothes the soul. There is no doubt that there is music in poetry/poetry in music.

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Once again I have been affected by a poem/choral arrangement that is not a cappella. Thus, I have renamed this feature Music in Poetry.

James Agee (1909-1955) was born in Knoxville, TN. His father died when James was only six, and his mother sent James and his younger sister to boarding schools. He was educated in Episcopal Boys Schools, ultimately graduating from Harvard in 1932. He worked as a freelance writer for most of his short life. He was a journalist, novelist, film critic, and screenwriter. He was a well-respected film critic in the 1940s and wrote screenplays for The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). His book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) detailed the conditions of sharecropper families in the Depression era Deep South. Agee was also a poet. He published one volume of poetry in 1934, entitled Permit me Voyage, which contained the poem Sure on this Shining Night.

Sure on this shining night*
by James Agee

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.

*from Permit me Voyage published 1934 by Yale University

The poem itself is simple and hopeful. There is no doubt that Agee’s religious upbringing and education had instilled a faith in him, yet a loneliness pervades this poem. Perhaps due to the loss of his father at an early age and being sent to boarding schools away from family, the middle four lines

The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.

indicate times when things are good, implying the typical holiday and family times of the year in the late year and the high summer. It is interesting use of the phrasing “all is healed, all is health” which follows the phrasing of the Christmas carol Silent Night, and has as it’s message, heavenly peace.

Other times are spent wandering and wondering, hopeful for Kindness to watch over him.

It is a strong emotional poem and is made musical on its own merit, through consonance with repeating sh-, sure and shining, l- late and lies, and h- healed, health, hearts, and whole. Lyrically, all very pleasing and comforting sounds.

In 1938 Samuel Barber wrote a musical setting of Sure on this shining night as a vocal solo (and later as a choral setting). The piano accompaniment evokes some of the emotional loneliness, and the solo performance by Cheryl Studer (soprano) captures the ache of lonely wonder/wander -ing. I like Barber’s choral arrangement (and have sung it), but this solo art song version is very beautifully done.

Sure on this shining night, music by Samuel Barber, published by G. Schirmer, Inc.

Rather than link to Barber’s choral arrangement, I found a different version of the song written in 2005 with music by Morten Lauridsen, a contemporary American composer. Lauridsen manages to bring the contemplative nature of the poem out in a subdued melody line that just seems to breath a life of its own. The performance by the Vox Humana Choral Ensemble is stunning.

Sure on this shining night, music by Morten Lauridsen, published by Peermusic Classical.

Both versions of the song do credit to James Agee’s poem.

What’s on the horizon?

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I’ve always liked horizons.

They hold a lot of picturesque beauty. Whether it’s a mountain range, a sunset on the plains, the moon rising over a cityscape, a thunderstorm over the ocean…you get the picture. And that’s it, isn’t it? The picture – the still life of what is most beautiful in our day or on our journey, the horizon is a promise of something good. We wonder what is there, and how long it will take us to arrive.

I went for a walk one afternoon this past week. The weather was reasonable (for January) and I felt a bit of cabin fever, so I set out on a quick walk on the bike path that weaves through our township. I noticed as I was walking, that my head was always down, looking at the ground just ahead of my step. This was out of necessity, as the winter condition of the path is not good – it’s muddy, and there is a lot of goose poop. We are on the migratory pattern of a multigenerational gaggle and they make a huge mess along the common areas in my neighborhood. Anyway – with my head down- I couldn’t really tell where I was going, I was only focused on where my next step would fall. I trusted that I knew where I was going and I would end up back at my house. But the truth is, if I never looked at the horizon to get a bearing on where I was, or where I was going, I could have ended up in Pennsylvania (it might have taken 2 or 3 days, and I would be incredibly stubborn for not ever getting a reality check on my location).

There is something of a life lesson in this. While going through our daily routine, we tend to focus on the details and tasks – the places where our feet fall to avoid the goose turds and the mud puddles. If we never look up to see a horizon – to view where we want to go and give vision to a dream- some day we’ll stop and look around and realize we have no idea how we got to where we are. There is no memory of places along the way, only memories of steps and missteps, avoiding puddles, and hopping over fresh goose-shit.

I am vowing to look up more at the horizon and to enjoy the view. I might end up with a little more mud on my shoes, but the view will be worth it.

Do you stop to look at the horizon, or are you always trying to avoid the goose-poop?

Bavarian Alps, Germany, May 2014

Snippets, newly minted

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The new year is rambling on…

Writing
I mentioned a while back that I had submitted a poem that was accepted for an online publication. It is posted here, in The Front Porch Review, or at the link Periodicity under Published Work, down at the lower right of the menu bar. I am fond of this poem, as it captures some actual experiences of my life, and rolls some of the meaning into life’s cyclic nature. There are some other excellent poems in that issue, I invite you to give it a read. As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts.

I’ve started off the new year writing (attempting to write) some flash fiction pieces. I may share something here soon, but I’m also contemplating moving/reorganizing my blog site to accommodate things differently.

Music
After bingeing on holiday/Christmas music since mid-November, I have been cleansing my musical palette with “oldies.” That’s such a relative term, isn’t it? One generation’s oldies are not the next. When I say oldies, I mean 50’s and 60’s jukebox tunes. Doo-wop and British invasion songs are peppy enough to gloss over the general ‘suckiness’ of January weather. I don’t mind the snow…but the bitter cold. What do you listen to on a winter day?

Some random statistics
Since my unemployment began, I’ve applied for approximately 125 positions, mostly through internet application processes. I’ve gone through 12 phone interview processes (with different companies) resulting in 1 onsite interview. That means almost a 10 % conversion from application to phone interview, and only about 8 % of those result in a site interview. This gives a whopping 0.8% likelihood of a job interview based on internet applications – I think. This is biased due to my specific area of expertise and experience level, but it demonstrates the level of difficulty in finding the right job. Sorry about the math…I have to keep my skills up.

Reading
I wish I could say that I did a lot of reading over the last part of 2014 and the Christmas holiday…but I didn’t. I’m still nursing Philip Kerr’s novel Dark Matter:The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton– A Holmes-esque mystery novel during the time when Newton was Warden of the Royal Mint. I’ve read some interesting journal articles about anthocyanins that I mentioned in a post a while ago in December. And, my MIL gave me three Jack Higgins novels to read…which I am excited about. I read The Eagle has Landed when I was in high school and really liked it. Also, I dusted off my copy of The Silmarillion (after seeing the third and final Hobbit film), and leisurely read a few sections to try and jump start my interest in the book…sigh…the names.

Thanks for visiting and reading.

2014 -Es war ein gutes Jahr für das Schreiben und Tomaten.

Resilience

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There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself.

-Gandalf, speaking to the dwarves about his choice of Bilbo to be their burglar, in The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Today (December 17, 2014) marks the release of the third and final movie installment of The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson, and perhaps our last film adaptation of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, unless someone tries to unravel The Silmarillion or tries to flesh out any number of short stories. I plan to see the movie (not today, or even this week -probably), because this story is such an important part of my literary life. I read The Hobbit for the first time as a 14 year old, then moved on to the LOTR Trilogy. I recently read it again (a couple of years ago, prior to the film releases), and was still amazed by its light-heartedness compared to the later trilogy – though the films are trying to invoke that more brooding environment.

My enjoyment of The Hobbit has always centered around Bilbo Baggins. He was written as such a likeable character and an everyman that readers (and I think, especially adolescents) could relate to. He wasn’t adventurous and had never sought out grand change – yet, he had the internal bravery to go beyond his comfort zone when faced with the choice. He wasn’t thought of as much of a warrior or a contributor to the dwarves group. He was very much an outsider, culturally and personality-wise. He didn’t fit their idea.

Bilbo Baggins, as depicted in the Rankin/Bass film production of The Hobbit (1977)

Yet Gandalf knew…and took a chance.

Either he knew something of Bilbo’s ancestry (as Tolkien suggests some of Bilbo’s ancestors were more adventurous hobbits – which made them something of a novelty to the culture) or he recognized something in Bilbo’s personality that made him appealing in the role of burglar.

Perhaps, it is because he was so small.

Perhaps, it was because he was so self-effacing.

Perhaps, it was because hobbits are generally resilient and self-preserving, yet light hearted.

Whatever the reason, Bilbo ultimately proves his worth to the group and grows in confidence by saving them from various situations until the dwarves accept him. He returns to his home at Bag-End a wiser, more confident hobbit.

And while he was also the fortunate finder of a ring of power and being literally invisible is much more useful than just being ignored, the ability of people to achieve things under unusual circumstances should never be underestimated. Certainly Bilbo had to prove himself, but he also was put in circumstances where he had to do something. He chose to help out Thorin and Company. His self-preservation didn’t win out. This is seen later in other hobbits in the trilogy: Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin all faced challenges and stepped in to do something.

That is the redeeming part of Tolkien’s Middle Earth Saga, that hobbits and other creatures (Ents?) viewed as unimportant tipped the balance and achieved great things.

Think about that.

Extracting meaning

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Ain’t that the berries…

was an expression my high school band director used when expressing excitement and surprise over something.

As he used it, this is an equivalent expression to:

Way Cool! and That’s the bees knees* and That’s great!.

Presumably, the origin of this saying has something to do with things being just as awesome as berries (which are pretty good – particularly in jams, pies, cobblers, and some simply by themselves). It is an interesting equivalency. And while the awesome culinary delights of berries are mostly undisputed (though some may have their favorites and not-so-favorite), there are other properties of berries that are quite unique and contribute to their awesomeness.

The extracts of berries contain flavonoids, phenolic acids, lignans and complex phenolic polymers (polymeric tannins). Among the flavonoids, the predominant group of anthocyanins give color to berry fruits (characteristically orange, red, or blue). These color compounds are interesting, because they can be used to study a variety of chemical interactions.

I find blueberries interesting because they are blue food. There are edible fruits that are green, yellow, orange or red, some purple…but this is the only naturally occurring blue food. In some of my recent reading**, I found an interesting research study on the potential use of blueberries for improvements in night vision. There have been numerous studies that claim this fact, but all have been subject to criticism for poor control studies. This recent report was inconclusive on the fact of improving night vision; however, it suggested a strong correlation between anthocyanin consumption and recovery after photobleaching (that moment when you step out of the dark into the blinding light, and you go.. Whoa! that’s bright!..and it takes you a moment to adjust.). The anthocyanins in blueberries may assist that recovery time.

Another interesting berry fruit is cranberries. Like them or not, this staple of the Thanksgiving meal has also long been used as a folk remedy for urinary tract infections. In 2008, research*** was published that showed that cranberry juice cocktail inhibits the ability of E.coli bacteria (one of the common bacteria that causes UTI’s) from forming biofilms. This in turn makes it more likely that the bacteria can be flushed from your body.

In raspberries, there is a diversity of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients unlike any other commonly consumed fruit****. Raspberries (both red and black) have been studied to determine their antioxidant content, and it has been suggested that raspberry ketone (rheosmin) increases metabolism in our fat cells, which has an impact on the management of obesity. Further, rheosmin can decrease activity of pancreatic lipase (a fat-digesting enzyme released by the pancreas), which may result in less digestion and absorption of fat. Another benefit is that by providing a rich supply of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients, raspberries can help lower risk of oxidative stress and excessive inflammation, reducing the potential for cancer cell formation.

It is amazing that these small fruits pack so much punch in flavor and health benefits. So I suppose there is something to the expression –Ain’t that the berries.

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*Another curious expression that I’m not sure about.

**”Blueberry Effects on Dark Vision and Recovery after Photobleaching: Placebo-Controlled Crossover Studies” Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry 2014, 62 (46), pp 11180–11189

***New Biological Activities of Plant Proanthocyanidins,ACS Symposium Series Vol. 984, Chapter 7, Brandy J. Johnson, James B. Delehanty, Baochuan LinFrances S. Ligler, 2008, 101-114

****Anthocyanin content, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties of blackberry and raspberry fruits. Journal of Food Composition and Analysis, Volume 23, Issue 6, September 2010, Pages 554-560.

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Category Archives: prose