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Final Exit

Truth Thursday

As I write this, it is a day before my neighbor and friend will begin her final journey. She is planning to stop eating and drinking in order to put an end to what has been horrendous emotional and physical suffering for many years.

By the time this gets posted, we will have said our final goodbyes, and I am fairly certain she will have died.

She called me at work yesterday, and asked me, quite insistently, to come over last night after I finished having dinner with my family. Honestly, I was so tired from a long day at work, I wasn’t up for a visit. But there was something in her voice, a voice that has called me many times for help over the years, that was different. I knew that I could not beg off. 

So as my husband was cleaning up, I took a deep breath and walked the few steps across the street that I have walked many times before, often with a prescription in hand that I’ve picked up for her, or an extra challah that I’ve baked on a Friday night. 

Her husband guided me upstairs, and I sat down on the bed right next to her. She actually looked quite fit, and happy, compared to many times in recent months where she barely looked alive. She grabbed my hand and my arm and made hearty physical contact with me. We looked into each other’s eyes, and I asked her what was wrong.

She told me that I needed to read her letter. In it she described the unbearable pain that has afflicted her over the years, both mentally and physically. I had known about her bi-polar disorder, and her severe Parkinson’s, but I had not known about her respiratory challenges as well, which have plagued her since she was a child.

In the letter, she referred to her conditions as “thieves,” in that they have robbed her from her loved ones.  But I also know that she was robbed from her loved one – one of her beloved sons – when he was a young man. He died of cancer, and sharing stories of that loss and the loss of my own young baby boy is what brought us close together many years ago.

It's all in the Sauce: Try a Little Tonnato

Meal Monday

I rarely bother with fussy cooking and have little patience for mastering every sauce Julia Child ever imported, even though I'm aware that I probably should. So I surprised myself the other day when I decided to make the classic Italian tuna sauce to dress up our skinless, boneless, thin sliced chicken breasts.

And you know, it really was good! Nothing like a little protein atop of some protein for dinner. This sauce involves no roux, no rendered fat, no whisking. It's incredibly easy to prepare and is delicious either hot (caldo) or cold (freddo).

Seneca, Selma, Stonewall

Truth Thursday

Seneca, Selma, Stonewall.

Could there be a better alliteration to capture the purest moment of American democracy on display this week?

I’m incredibly moved by the linkage of these three civil rights movements. And incredibly grateful to live in a time and a place where the President – MY president – can invoke them in his inauguration speech.

I have spent most of my life caring about and fighting for reproductive rights and a woman’s right to choose. The images of the Seneca Falls convention, and the suffragettes, have always guided my view of the world. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t a feminist. Like my mother before me, I have marched, and rallied, and given money, and worked for the rights of women to live lives free of patriarchal derision, injustice and oppression. 

As for Selma, I was born the year Dr. King gave his iconic speech on the Mall, and only two when he led the march to Selma, Alabama, during which the Jewish spiritual leader, Abraham Joshua Heschel, described his feet as “praying.” Whenever I pray, Heschel’s image, linking spirituality with activism, resonates.

The civil rights movement was an integral part of my lessons growing up. I was raised in a Brooklyn neighborhood where I was one of only a few white kids – most of my friends and neighbors were African American. I understood -- in reverse -- what it meant to be the minority in the classroom. I memorized Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son" (Life Ain’t No Crystal Stair) poem for a choral speaking contest, and sang the black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” for Black History Month. When my parents shipped me out of my neighborhood to a white enclave for the rest of junior high school, it came as a culture shock.

Mexican Chocolate Crème Caramel

Meal Monday

When I was a child, going out for dinner was a special event. On the rare occasion when we did go out, I eagerly checked the menu for dessert. One of my all time favorite finales was crème caramel or flan or crème brûlée. I loved the silky texture, the caramel syrup and the subtle flavor of the custard. And it always seemed like such a rare treat. I think in those days (the dark ages of the late seventies and early eighties), it was considered very sophisticated and oh so continental. Certainly not something the American home cook would normally prepare.

However, in the spirit of making things that are personal favorites, (see Baklava as the Perfect End to a Poignant Meal) I have taken on a chocolate crème caramel (crème brûlée involves a small culinary blowtorch that I don't have and don't particularly feel compelled to purchase at the moment) and added cinnamon and cayenne pepper to give it a little more depth, interest and style (and to jump on the trendy spicy chocolate bandwagon).

This is a Mexican recipe I've altered by adding the cayenne and I usually serve it with fresh berries. It would also be delicious without the chocolate and cayenne as a "regular" crème caramel. Trust me, it's easy and impressive. But the main thing is, it's really, really good.

I adapted this recipe from Everyday Mexican, one of a series of fantastic cookbooks by Parragon Publishing. I use this book all the time, and also love Parragon's Berries, Baking,Thai and Perfect Cocktails. I pick up these books at Marshall's for literally $2.99 or $3.99 apiece. Also, as usual, I use lactose free skim milk in my baking and it works just fine.

Mexican Chocolate Crème Caramel

Generous 1/2 cup of granulated sugar

4 tbsp of water

2 1/2 cups milk

2 oz semisweet chocolate, grated (I often use Mexican chocolate that's already spiced with cinnamon and cayenne pepper)

If using plain semisweet chocolate, then add:

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cayenne pepper

4 eggs

2 tbsp superfine sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place a 4-cup soufflé dish in the oven to heat.

2. Place the granulated sugar and water in a heavy-bottomed pan over low heat. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Bring to a boil, without stirring, and boil until caramelized. Pour into the hot dish, tipping it ot coat the bottom and sides. Let cool.

3. Place the milk and grated chocolate in a separate pan and heat, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate has dissolved.

4. Beat the eggs and superfine sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Gradually beat in the chocolate milk, cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Add the vanilla extract and strain into the prepared dish.

5. Stand the dish in a roasting pan and fill the pan with enough lukewarm water to come halfway up the sides of the dish. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour, or until set. Let cool, then invert onto a serving platter. Let chill in the refrigerator before serving.

 

Anticipation

Truth Thursday

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway

Ain’t it the truth? I don’t know about you, but I feel sometimes like I spend my whole life anticipating things.

Anticipating the first day of school.
Anticipating the last day of school.
Anticipating college.
Anticipating life after college.
Anticipating marriage.
Anticipating children.
Anticipating death. 

That’s it, that’s about the whole life cycle right there. Of course, there is much in between to anticipate as well, including the past six months of my life, during which I have been anticipating an enormous change to my work life, as well as a big (big) birthday.

Without prating on yet again about how big a transition it will be to return to a full-time position, shuttering my independent consulting business and losing my professional autonomy, which basically sums up how I’ve been feeling since last summer, when I learned that I was being offered a promotion and also being asked to work full-time – suffice it to say that it’s been the mother lode of anticipation. Mostly negative and filled with a little fear.

However, I’ve finally jumped across the Rubicon and officially started in my new position with my new schedule. And short of the fact that I spent the first week of that new position essentially in the prone position with a terrible virus, it’s been fine.

It’s been more than fine. It’s fun. And it’s exciting. And it holds so much potential for growth, and reward, and excitement at work. All that, and I get to earn a little more money too for working a full schedule. Who knew? All that wasted negative psychic energy.