Your Children's Future Leader Speaks!

"I'm not the puppet. I'm the hand."

-HIH, Crown Princess Amalia

Yesterday I went to the fruit bowl for an apricot. The apricot had a couple of little holes in it. I cut it open, looking to see what had bored through the apricot. Nothing. The holes went in only a little bit. I looked at the fruit bowl. Each apricot had identical pairs of holes.

"Amalia, how did these holes get here?"

"The bull did it."

"Amalia. How did the bull do it?"

Hanging her head, "I'm sorry, Babbo."

Already my food is threatened by the herd of Imperial cattle. And to think that I gave her the bulls in the first place.

Budweiser

As I expected, I have been getting a lot of guff from beer snobs over the whole Budweiser issue. So, what we need to do is a tasting. Not a blind tasting, which is really never much more than an ah-hah gotcha sort of exercise, but a prolonged, critical tasting.

Here is your challenge:

1. Buy a can of Budweiser.
2. Chill it properly (at least four hours in the fridge)
3. Wake up at 7am
4. Have a light breakfast with two shots of ristretto espresso (no milk of any sort, sorry).
5. Eat nothing until 10am.
6. At 10am it is tasting time:
7. Open the can of Budweiser.
8. Pour two inches into a decent glass.
9. Do not swirl, but take a deep sniff.
10. Without trying to evaluate, just write down what you smell. A hint of skunk? Floral notes? Whatever. Just be honest and as observant as you can.
11. Now, take a sip. Just a small sip. Run the beer over your whole tongue. Use your tongue to force the aroma into your nose. Really pay attention here: what do you smell? Spit. Repeat. Take notes, again avoiding "good"/"bad", but things like, "mineral notes, toast, small finish."
12. Now, take a decent drink and swallow. Note the body, note the nose, note the balance of sweet to bitter, note the acidity. Pay attention to the amount and size of the bubbles.
13. Now you can drink the beer on its own. How does it go down? What sort of aftertaste does it leave.
14. Post your notes in the comments box here and we can have a rational discussion of matters of the hop.
15. For fun, repeat steps 1-14 with whatever other beer you want (preferably a lager: apples to apples, you know). If you want to remain anonymous, please create a handle so we can communicate better.
16. No wine, tea, gin, coffee, or orange juice tastings here, please. Let's stick to beer for this one. No Lambic for now, as it is a different animal.

Nigerian 419 Scams

First the letter:

Dear Beloved in Christ,
It is by the grace of God that I received Christ,
knowing the truth and the truth have set me free.
Having known the truth, I had no choice than to do
what is lawful and right in the sight of God for
eternal life and in the sight of man for witness of
God´s mercy and glory upon my life.
I have the pleasure to share my testimony with you,
having seen your contact from the Internet. I am
Barrister george frank, the legal adviser to late
Mr. and Mrs. Bright Williams, a British couple that
lived in my Country Nigeria for 25 years before they
both died in a plane crash late last year. These
couples were good Christians, they where so dedicated
to God but they had no child till they died.
Throughout their
stay in my country, they acquired a lot of properties
like lands, house properties, etc.
As their legal adviser, before their death, the
husband Mr. Bright Williams instructed me to write his
WILL. Because they had no child, they dedicated their
wealth to God. According to the WILL, the properties
have to be sold and the money be given out to a
ministry for the work of God. As their legal adviser,
all the documents for the properties were in my care.
He gave me the authority to sell the properties and
give out the fund to the Ministries for the work of
God.
In short, I sold all the properties after their death,
as instructed by Mr. Bright Williams before his death.
And as a matter of fact, after I sold all their
properties, I realized more than $3.5,000,000.00
(three
million five hundred thousand US dollars plus), and
what supposed to be the
percentage interest of my right legal fee was firstly

deducted by me out of the total amount realized from
the sold properties, this was base on the initial
agreement between me and the owner of the properties
before his death. Therefore the total amount left to
be invested into God's work as instructed by the
owner, is US$3.5 MILLION only.
But Instead of giving the main fund out for the
work of God as instructed to me by the owner before
his death. I converted the fund to myself with the
intention of investing the fund abroad for my personal
use.
I had encounter with Christ when Pastor Benny Hinn was
preaching on television concerning Ananias and Saphira
in Acts 5:1-11. After hearing the word of God, I gave
my life to Christ and became a born again Christian.
As a born again Christian, I have asked God for
forgiveness and I know that God
have forgiven me. But I have to do what is lawful and
right in the sight of God by giving out the fund to
the chosen ministry/individual for the purpose of
God's work as instructed by the owner before his
death.
I then came across your address on the Internet as I
was browsing through a Christian site, and as a matter
of fact, it is not only you or your ministry that I
picked on the Christian site initially, but after my
fervent prayer over it, you were nominated to me
through divine revelation from God, so these are how I
received such a divine revelation from the Lord, how I
got your contact information, and I then decided to
contact you for the fund to be used wisely for things
that will glorify the name of God.
I have notified the bank where I deposited
the fund that I am moving the fund abroad and the
finance company has since been waiting for my
authority for the
fund to leave my country to abroad.
if you know that you will use this fund honestly
and wisely for things that will glorify God's name,
You should also forward to me your telephone and fax
number for easy communication.
Your prompt response will be highly appreciated.
Note reply to my private e-mail addres barristergeorge1@faithmail.com
Yours in Christ.
Barrister george frank.
TEL:234 8033911570

Then my response:

Dear Barrister George Frank,

How moved I was at your story. I, too, am a huge fan of Benny Hinn, and trust anyone who has been so moved by the Spirit. I would definitely like to work with you in this endeavor, as it is truly moved by the Lord. Please let me know how I may help.

Erik Keilholtz

I will blog all developments as they happen. I have had a bit of fun with these in the past, and there is no telling when you have a live one. For anyone who might think that there is a hint of truth to this man's claims, trust me, there is not. These people are cruel fraud artists who prey on people's base instincts. Wasting their time is a civic duty.

Fresh fruit alert - local food news

To my Bay Area readers: nectarines in the farmers' markets are outstanding right now, and the price is good. We bought both white and yellow, and they are fantastic. Last two weeks for apricots. Be selective. We are talking Fresno and San Joaquin County produce here. Brentwood still has good stone fruit, as does Amador (good luck finding Amador County stuff in the Bay Area, though).

Also (drum roll, please), tomato season has officially begun. I finally had a tomato that was so good it almost made me cry. So far the Cherokee purples and green zebra grape tomatoes have been the best. I have a couple of brandywines that look promising, too. Tomorrow they will be used in an ensalata caprese, so I will be able to give a rating to them afterwards. Hint: Look for Napa Valley tomatoes. So far they have been the earliest good ones. Vacaville is not quite there yet, and it is way too early for Molina Creek.

Garlic: excellent right now. Probably at its peak. Now is a great time to make aioli or pesto (and do yourself a favor and buy a mortar and pestle, and do it right. It is much better than stuff that is whirred through a machine). Vacaville is blowing Gilroy out of the water for garlic this season.

Spotted: black figs, at $1.50 a basket. Still way too expensive for me (although since I generally get flats of figs for free, that sets what I am willing to pay at the market really low), but they looked good, and it is good to know that one has options if one absolutely has to have figs stuffed with chevre, wrapped in pancetta and grilled over a hardwood fire.

Greens: Have been enjoying some good Napa Valley greens, but went back to our Salinas family's European mix. Lots of bright radicchio, green butter lettuce, purple oak leaf, not too much spicy stuff, which is fine, since I have been overdoing that.

Corn: The first crop is good, but suffers from poor breeding. Too much sugar, not enough corn flavor. BORING. The trick is to pick, cook and eat it right away. Then you can have good, sweet corn. If you want shelf-life, then forget it. Corn is not the right vegetable. Try potatoes. Just kindly stop pushing the farmers towards these dull over-sweet varieties.

Fish: fresh wild salmon has been great. Grill simply. Eat. Yum. Drink Bonny Doon's Big House Pink (or Mactarnahan's honey ale) with it. Extra yum.

I survived the dentist

The appointment went fine. Modern dentistry is amazing. Of course I am passing on the recommended stuff, for a number of reasons: first, if I had that kind of money to blow on having prettier fillings, I would use it to spend two months in the Azores with Melanie and Amalia, second, even if I had so much money to spend on such things, after having enough money to spend on more important things, my rule is to minimize the number of hours I spend in the dentist's chair.

So, naturally I go for the bargain basement options (here is a quick lesson for you folks: floss daily. Before today I had not been to see Old MacTeague for fourteen years. Basically my teeth are in good shape, in spite of the worn out fillings and the unsightly metal that he would very much like to replace. That's what flossing does for you).

Anyway, I do have to go back in a couple of weeks, and probably again a few times afterwards for those worn-out fillings, but the dentist seems a good sort. Probably even buys bottled beer.

Drowning my sorrows in gin

In seven hours I will be facing one of the worst demons I can imagine: a visit to the dentist. I gave up on dentists after the last final bout with the insidious Dr. K. Melanie has finally talked me into it, so all I can do is face the devil in the white coat.

I am not really drowning my sorrows in gin, but I did have two martinis tonight. I was only going to have one, but it was so good that I had a second. Here is the amazing thing: it was cheap gin. Really cheap gin. I tend to avoid cheap gin, because it usually is as nuanced as chewing a piece of cat-piss coated juniper, but on a lark (and enticed by the very low price at Trader Joe's), I chanced it. I have been enjoying cheap beer these days, and I figured that bad gin can be salvaged with more vermouth, or used in Venetian martinis or gin and tonic. I honestly did not expect to think that much of this gin.

I was pleasantly surprised at how good this stuff is. I am not so sure that I will be buying Bombay Sapphire with the frequency I used to. The stuff is called Rear Admiral Joseph's Original London Dry Gin. It is imported, but has the look of "cheap nasty stuff" all over the label (really bad graphic design), but inside is a gin worthy of my martinis.

So I am planning on rewarding myself for being a good boy and going to the @$##@$# dentist tomorrow. Come cocktail hour, I am going to fix a mighty fine martini!

On other fronts, we went to see the Lipizzaner Stallions tonight. The horses are gorgeous and the riding fantastic, but the show is quite dull, with most of it devoted to explaining the basics of dressage. The MC is pure cornball. I think that the used car lot might be missing him. He was sort of like the love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Regis Philbin.

However, even his cornball delivery could be salvaged with better writing. Why, oh why did they spend so much time talking about the brands? The history of the breed could have been cut in half at least, or put in the program and left at that. And having Mormon-style Americana stuff (arrangements that sound like the Osmond playbook) alongside this noble Hapsburgian tradition, complete with the work of the incomparable Mozart does not make "God Bless America" sound any better.

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I also am perplexed by the need to have the "Star Spangled Banner" open the show. Is it out of some sort of guilt for indulging in such an aristocratic, European tradition? Am I to think that at home the Spanish Riding School plays the Austrian anthem at the start of their shows? I am not one for flag-worship anyway, but I sort of understand the tradition before baseball games. But before an evening of Austrian horsemanship?

Anyway, I have to admit to being a bit jaded when it comes to dressage. Every summer I see the exact same stuff, but done in front of a wild bull. These riders are good, but Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza could ride circles around them, placing bandarilhas in a bull at the same time.

Amalia had a great time, as did her friends who went with us, although she did ask twice were the bull was. That's my baby!

Oh no, I forgot to do this

JXrXd, the unnamed bearer of beer at the bullfight Monday night, was a bit miffed that I gave the impression that he somehow bought Coors Light on purpose or was at least OK with his purchase. It was one of those things that happen in a crush of people (all speaking Portuguese, a language that Mr. GXtXkXnst does not speak), in a hurry. It was not his fault, and he definitely does not like Coors. He also does not think that I disguised his identity enough, which is hogwash. Obviously changing the vowels to X's made it very difficult for anyone to know who I was speaking of.

Anyway, rest assured that I do not go to bullfights with regular Coors drinkers.

Speaking of beer in cans, I just bought a twelve pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon, which was the first beer ever put in cans. For what I am using it for, Pabst is a tolerable beer (I will be using an opened can of it as a stand for a chicken on the barbecue). You can drink it, too, which barely applies to Coors.

Now I am going to utter complete heresy: German beer is overrated (a generalization). Give me an Englisch ale any day (or a Czech beer if we are looking at lagers). Still, they sell these wonderful minikegs at Trader Joe's, and when the weather is hot, they are mighty tempting.

Search Requests

To the person searching for "recipe for Muslim oil" I am a bit baffled. I hope you are not looking at rendering some hapless Mohammedan. We must fight that horrid heresy, but rendering is over the top. Perhaps you mean the black stuff from which we make gasoline? In which case the best recipe is invade and take the stuff. Letting them sell it only fuels death and the spread of Mohammedanism. If you are looking for a food thing, then you are going to have to be more specific. Not counting Western apostates (whom I really cannot object to rendering - every rule seems to have an exception), Mohammedanism covers a lot of ground, from Morocco to Indonesia. I have recipes from North Africa, from Syria, from Turkey, from Pakistan, etc. All sorts of flavoring oils and cooking oils, so you have to be more specific.

To the person looking for the key that has three flats, the easiest thing to remember is: B-E-A-D-G-C-F. For the Major key, look to the penultimate one in the number you get to, so for three flats, B-E-A, and the answer is E flat Major. For minor, then go down a minor third, so c minor. It is not really correct to call a mode a key, but if you were, then you could be talking about g phrygian or even d locrian, although the locrian mode doesn't really exist.

Campion News

Here is the latest:

Campion is working with Ignatius Press/Guadalupe Associates to become completely independent (an all-around good thing), which means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, that light is contingent upon some pretty massive fundraising in a teeny amount of time. Teeny. As in miniscule.

So, if any of my dear readers have a fortune sittting around, please let Mr. John Galten know.

For those wondering more about the story, here is why I have not been posting too much: first, I wanted to pitch it to print media, but no one is biting. The Catholic world is probably not to keen on having to pick sides (and let us all hope and pray that the picking of sides will not even have to happen), and the non-Catholic world sees it as a special interest story, which means not many column inches. Not many column inches means no depth, so might as well leave that sort of thing to regular reporters.

Now, not working for a print media outlet makes me hesitant to call people for interviews. I could always say, "I am with the Daily Argle Bargle," which would be true except that I would not really be covering it for the Argle Bargle, so it would only be partially true, and this story demands truth over anything.

So, without interviews of people on all sides, I will not post a "news" story. Editorializing, sure, but know that if I post a news item it will be something that is quasi-public (in other words I will not break anything that the students and faculty as a group have not already been told officially) and verified by legitimate authority (or by my own viewing of the documents and suchnot).

However, there is one thing that must be said, and that is what an honorable and decent man John Galten is. I have met him maybe twice, and cannot say that I know him, but from what he has said to people involved in this, how he has handled all the factions, he has been a paradigm of honor, calmness, and reason.

If you want just one good reason (and I can come up with a dozen at least) reasons to support Campion College of San Francisco (or if you cannot support it materially, at least with your prayers), it would be simply because it has John Galten as a president.

Another Prayer Request

Somewhere in the Gospel it does not say, "if you find a bunch of people blinded by the zeitgeist and carrying those abominable ideas to their illogical conclusions, you have the moral duty to organize a security force and send those people off to concentration camps."

I have to keep this passage in mind every year when my normal route to Sunday mass is blocked by the Homosexual Envy... (no, not that sin, Gluttony? no, no, although quite accurate, as is Lust, but that's not what they call it...Pride. Right. I knew it was one of the seven) Pride Parade in San Francisco. I am not that homophobic, even though I am working on it, but there is something about literally parading ones disordered sex life about that makes me long for the days when the police would have put the kabosh on this stuff immediately.

Now, I do not back down from the position that this sort of parade should be illegal, and that sodomy should be treated as a criminal activity, but beyond that, I have to realize that my gut instinct is all too human, in the post Fall sort of way. So, no, I recognize, the proper response is not to round up all the paraders and send them to Manzanar (they should at least be given one warning, and then a night in county jail first), but to pray for these people who are themselves victims of heresiarchs who have all but destroyed the public conversation of morality, of fraudulent psychologists who settle matters of Truth by popular vote, of a media that sells sex in order to sell more sex, of politicians who believe that morality is whatever 51% of the public thinks it is, of horrid notions of individual autonomy that are running wild over the land.

So, this Sunday, please pray for the conversion of the participants in the Homosexual Parade, and all those who stubbornly call right wrong and wrong right. Also, pray for those of us who are in constant danger of sinning in reaction to some other sin, for our conversion is probably even more difficult than theirs.

Country Music Again...

I had to make a phone call to Texas today. Funny thing about Texas is that whenever I hear the name I am forced to remember the song "All my exes live in Texas."

If one were to have a conjunto do that song, would it have to be "All my ejas live in Tejas?" or "Todos mi..." never mind.

Inquiring (but not too sharp) minds want to know.

For those who are wondering and possibly worrying, yes, I have been listening to a lot of country music these days. I have been in the Central Valley four times in the last two weeks, drinking ice cold Budweiser (OK, some Sierra Nevada, too. I am not a complete redneck), and sometimes it just clicks. You gotta hear Hank or Bob Wills or Flatt and Scruggs. When I drive through Vacaville too many times I have to hear Spade Cooley, which is definitely a sign that one should move away. Far away.

But where? Country Music is everywhere. Even in San Francisco, where I have seen some of the best country acts in the world.

So, I don't move away and try to escape the twang, I embrace the twang. I listen to Bob Wills and Waylong Jennings and Buck Owens and even Spade Cooley (although it is hard to listen to him and not think about what he did and not want to throw the record in disgust, but he was such a good musician. I listen to Gesualdo, Wagner, and Berlioz, too).

Of course I realize that country music doesn't kill people, country musicians do (or at least they break into restaurants to rob them for dope money not realizing that the restaurant is open), but there is a part of me that thinks that somehow if I listen to country music too much it will somehow make me more of a redneck. So I have to keep tabs on these things. You can never be too careful.

Campion Update and Prayer Request

I am not at liberty to go into detail, but a prayer request has been passed on that would benefit from a good old fashioned storming of Heaven, so please pray for all involved in this situation: the students and faculty of Campion College as well as the staff of Ignatius Press and the Guadalupe Associates. A good prayer for their intentions, as well as for all to get through this with their Faith, Hope and Charity in tact would be in order.

St. Edmund Campion, Pray for us!
St. Ignatius Loyola, Pray for us!
St. Thomas Aquinas, Pray for us!
Seat of Wisdom, Pray for us!
St. Francis of Assisi, Pray for us!
All holy men and women and all the angels, Pray for us!

Oh yeah

Obviously posts like that last one should tell you that I am still too swamped for anything of substance, like that bullfight report. And with Dante tonight, it looks like we must wait for tomorrow.

Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Seems so Far away,
Now I believe in Tomorrow...

No, that's not it. Not it at all. At least this one doesn't have that whining vegetarian singing it. Why not? Because he is stuck in Yesterday.

Back to writing Strategic Marketing Brief.

Bye.

Stuck in Bakersfield without a dime to my name

No, not really. I am in Sacramento and have at least the requisite tank full of gas that represents supreme freedom in these parts, but I have been listening to a lot of country music (in between the Mexican version of low class Okie music, glorious accordion conjunto) and the idea comes around. Stuck in Bakersfield/Texas/Oklahoma/etc. without the means of getting out. What would it mean to wake up and find that you are flat on your back, and the only option is to beg, borrow, work, or steal to get out of Bakersfield (or Beverly Hills for that matter - anywhere that you know no one, besides decidedly unsavory sorts that you just lost your last dime to at that honky-tonk down the road)?

I have been to Bakersfield and Oildale, and it all seemed kind of fun, sort of like a Cal-Okie hajj to the land of Hag and Buck. But I imagine that it would be different to actually be stuck there.

Lodi, on the other hand, is really quite pleasant. It reminds me of Pisa, and I am always happy to be reminded of Pisa, especially in hot weather. Bakersfield does not remind me of Pisa. It reminds me of Armadillo or Amarillo or whatever that town is in North Texas, except that it is close to the Tehachapis.

All of this is making me itch to go to Death Valley and the Owens Valley, which only lunatic Kraut and French tourists do this time of year. So, it will have to wait until the winter, when it is quite nice to get away to the borax flats.

Meanwhile, I have some Hank Williams to listen to.

O Fado do Campion

I am trying to do too many things this morning: two CD reviews, weekly orchid care, bullfight report, a marketing project under a tight deadline, a trip to Sacramento, three canti of Purgatorio to study, and an update on the Campion situation.

First: the bullfight report will have to wait until tonight. For the few of you clamoring for it, you can wait (big bulls, mixed quality, Cesar was tossed, but avoided goring). For this post the only thing that matters about the bullfight is that the main topic was discussed on a pleasant hillside above the Campo Grande bullring in Pico dos Padres on a warm evening of the longest day of the year. It is a pity that JXrXd (name modified to protect the guilty), who was sent back to the food stands, brought back Coors (dreaded Colorado swill) instead of Budweiser (the King of Beers), but I wasn't the one who had to climb back up to the hill with beer, so I shouldn't complain (not that that has stopped me before).

Digression: Come on, beer snobs, I dare you to try to tell me that Budweiser is inferior and that "once you have a microbrew you will understand." Just try to out-snob me on any matter of food or drink. I dare you.

But back the topic at hand: It seems that word is getting around that Prof. Cordova is calling for a boycott of Ignatius Press. For a clarification of that, please read his comments in the "On Campion" post. He is very reasonable in his approach, and I think I have to concur (which is difficult for me: I tend towards scorched earth politics and favor the old "send the commies to the stadium" approach).

The use of the term "boycott" was my unfortunate mistake. Around the East Bay we boycott things at the drop of a hat (or the refusal to drop all contacts with the oppressive fascist government of... no, wait, I don't boycott those).

I have been told that the term "boycott" goes back to the squabbles between the Picts/Angles/Celts in those little barbarian islands off of France. As a matter of Catlick solidarity, I, of course, half-heartedly endorse the Norman/Celts of Ireland (not to mention a sympathy towards red hair), but frankly, can't see what the to-do is about. We are talking about islands that are barely suitable for habitation. Whatever happened to real rivalry, like Firenze v. Pisa? I know where I stand on that one (facing East with two figs raised).

So I will retract any suggestion or hint that one should "boycott" Ignatius Press. Let the term rest with the dirt-punks of Berkeley and Irish tenant farmers.

I will probably buy an Ignatius Press book or two in the future. I will just hold my nose while doing it. I am not a fan of cults (other than my own. At ease, Gentlemen. Nothing to see. Move along. Believe! Obey! Fight!), and the Guadalupe Associates seem to be acting rather cultlike. We are to believe that they suddenly discovered that founding a college was not fiscally responsible? I am curious as to when they realized this as a group, because they had to have known back when the timing would have been better, or were they waiting for word from Number One, who now has a new toy and sees the old toy as competition for resources?

Basically, from what I am seeing, the Guadalupe Associates have not been acting like adults. I know a few of these folks (although they probably will not admit it in public these days, and I can hardly blame them), and they are intelligent folks. They produce fantastic books. I assume that some of them can read a financial statement. What prevented them from taking action when the students had time to make plans, the faculty time to look for jobs in the fall, etc.? Were they hoping that Number One was going to pull something out of his biretta? Is the Cult of Joe a Cargo Cult?

They talk about the focus of their apostolate, but of all the things they have wasted money on (inept stock market trades, radio, etc.), they really do not have much of a track record of sticking to their knitting. They have managed to keep going even with a history of frivolous spending, so why didn't they do the honorable thing, postpone a few pet projects and honor their commitments?

More later, but a note here to the good folks of Ignatius Press/Guadalupe Associates: what happens when Old Joe, SJ decides that you, too, are yesterday's toy?

On Bulls and their Leavings, not to mention the Campion brouhaha

Monday, Monday. La La. Dum de dum dum. La La. Dum de dum dum.
It must be a day for bulls. La la. Dum de dum dum...

Tonight is a bullfight at my favorite bullring, Pico dos Padres, tucked into the western hills of the San Juaquin Valley. You drive through orchards and dirt roads onto the bull ranch and end up in a little pocket of Portugal, surrounded by Azoran dairymen and their families out for a summer festa.

It promises to be a good one, if you are in the area (it is about an hour and half from the Bay Area, and it is a lovely drive).

Of course, you probably did not come here for bulls. Very few do. I think I have five readers who care about the bullfight stuff. Maybe seven.

You undoubtedly came here for an update on the Campion story. I am working on this, but mostly behind the scenes at this point, for several reasons, not the least of which is that I really want to make sure that my facts are correct. I have heard the same report from several people on certain issues, but need to hear from the other side. Even though I trust my sources (including Mr. Smithers, who has been commenting below), I want to hear it from the other side. In order to hear it from the other side, there are a couple of things that must happen first.

I have in my possession an email from Mr. Brumley, which is quite frankly pathetic. However, it was not addressed to me, but came to me from a couple of directions, so for now I suggest that you contact one of the Campion students to ask to read it (or if one of you lawyer-types from the law school that has very good reason to look with alarm at how Fr. Fessio's minions treat people can post a sound argument as to why I should just post the whole thing, with or without commentary, then I will do so).

Comment freely, and also feel free to contact me privately at EKeilholtz [at] a o l [full stop] c o m.

I am getting a pretty good story together, but I am a stickler for fact checking, and will be off to the bulls tonight, so check back later (and be warned - you might have to wade through a bullfight report before I get the thing posted. It goes with the territory - this is a bullfight blog more than it is an investigative reporting blog).

Englisch Spelling

I am not the best at spelling. I am also somewhat lazy, so when I find I am stumbling on a word I look for another word, rather than look it up. Once in awhile this habit disgusts me, so I go through a rigorous spelling period.

However, I never, ever, have written "rebuttle." I encountered this on another website and had to wonder what a rebuttle is: some reversal of a cosmetic surgery? When one has a rebuttle, does one ask the doc to "rebutt me?" Does it refer to falling off the dietary wagon?

"Oh, she dropped fifty pounds, but then gave into her pastry habit and has had quite a rebuttle."

Or is this some slang term for repaying a person for a bummed cigarette?

"Hey, man, the other day I gave you a smoke, but now I'm out, rebutt me."

Or perhaps it is slang for quitting quitting?

"Oh yeah, he went through some health kick, but stress at work led to his rebuttle."

Then again, it could be an old Southern custom, regarding a return to society:

"Wilma Mae just completely dropped out of society, but when she realized that the hippy lifestyle wasn't working out she decided to become a rebutante. Her rebuttle is going to be held at the Prichett Plantation."

As I said, I am in no position to ridicule other folks' spelling errors, but this crosses the line!

Happy Fathers' Day!

Our Fathers' Day weekend started rather poorly, with Melanie getting a pretty serious case of food poisoning from a restaurant that we really like. By figuring who ate what and who tasted what, my best guess is that some bad cheese was the culprit. Since this is a restaurant that we go to regularly, and that tainted cheese is a rare risk, but one that could happen anywhere, I will not divulge the name of the restaurant.

She seems to be over it (without need for a hospital visit, thank God), but I doubt that she will be in much shape to eat what I planned for us tomorrow. Who knows, though, as her constitution is almost as strong as mine (although we both remember getting food poisoning from an In and Out Burger (if you poison me with a fast food burger, you are going to get named repeatedly, especially given the name of the place and the nature of the illness) on our way to our honeymoon in Yosemite and how I managed to prolong my case by foolishly indulging in prime rib with horseradish and a Kenwood Jack London Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon - chalk that one to Teutonic stubborness; I was not going to miss a great dinner at the Ahwanee just because I had been unable to keep anything more substantial than Saltines and 7-Up in my system for the 24 hours prior. I ate the whole thing and drank most of the wine, as Melanie had more sense. It was marvelous, but caused another 18 hours of misery, although since it was a briefer bout, I felt triumphant).

So, I will be looking at serving something mild and easy on the digestion for her. I will probably have to do two dinners, because the rest of us will not be up for that sort of thing (I can just see the look on my father's face if I propose that we all eat rice mush or some sort of pap).

So, here is the menu:

Cocktails and antipasti
1. Fetuccine al pesto
2. Ensalata caprese
3. Bistecca fiorentina
4. Panna cotta with berry sauce
5. Vin santo e cantucci

In other food related notes, Amalia has taken an interest in snails. I told her that one can eat snails, and immediately realized that I had to add the strong addendum that one must cook them first. Now, whenever I go into the yard to kill the little basil-devouring beasts, she reminds me that I can eat them, but I have to cook them first.

So, this summer I will probably build a small escargot farm (Melanie's objections have been softening) so that I can raise clean, culinary snails. I think that I was about five when I first had escargot, but Amalia is adventuresome when it comes to meat (vegetables are another matter - she will try anything, but rarely wants more than a bite or two of most vegetables).

Anyway, Happy Fathers' Day to fellow St. Blog's fathers!

Sour Grapes

First, I don't see what all the fuss is all about. If these loyal Boston fans are so loyal, let them move back to Boston. I am not one of these people who thinks that immigrants must renounce all ties and allegiances to the old country, but to wear red and blue to Pac Bell Park is treason. You want to engage in that garbage on your own time, in the privacy of your own home, fine, but don't do it in public on Giants' time. If you love Boston so much, remember it in the winter when Logan is iced and snowed in by some blizzard and we are going about in short-sleeve shirts. Then we'll see you people change your tune.

Second, quit gloating, Mark, because everything will be different after tonight.

Fun and Games with Nigeria

It must be something in the water. How long before this guy starts sending me emails asking for help in getting the money out of the Swiss bank account?

HOUSTON, June 18 - Halliburton said Friday that it was severing all ties with Albert J. Stanley, until recently one of its highest-ranking executives, after investigations showed he secretly enriched himself by channeling as much as $5 million from an elaborate payment scheme for a Nigerian energy project to a Swiss bank account.

For the whole story, you will have to read it in The New York Times.

Campion News

From looking at my tracking stats, it would seem that the old Rants and Recipes is going around on the email circuit at a law school that has every reason to watch the dealings of Old Fessio, SJ with close scrutiny. I honestly figured that someone else would write about the closing of Campion by now, but nothing has appeared in the papers or on the internet. A google search yields only me.

Yikes. I am a newspaperman of sorts, but not a reporter per se. I do restaurant reviews and CD reviews, fer cryin' out loud. When I do reportage my beat is arts, not breaking news. So, I suppose I owe my readers an apology for breaking a story in such a slipshod fashion. So, to make amends I will do some posts over the next couple of days that will sort out the facts, establish a chronology, etc. etc.

Since this is a blog, editorial commentary and news reporting sit side by side. Deal with it. If you cannot tell the difference, then learn to read better or go back to reading your news on dead tree where it is all spelled out very clearly.

Erik's Rants and Recipes: All the news that I find fit to print with the commentary that I find fit to post with it.

Art talk

I realized that I haven't done an art post for awhile, even though I have been more involved in making art in the last month than I have for quite some time. Then it dawned on me: when I am in furious art creation mode the arts thinking that I do is divided into craft issues and composition issues. The composition issues get thought about in the sketching and painting. By the time I am ready to discuss them, the art has to be dry and ready to leave the studio. Often I find that a theory does not work so well once it has hit the canvas, or at least needs adjustment. So rather than gush about some nifty way of dividing space or some interesting color management scheme, only to retract the whole thing later, I keep the talk about that sort of stuff to my studio and the one or two close artist friends who I force to listen.

As for the craft issues, I doubt that there is much of an audience for it. I might be wrong, but I really doubt that the average Rants and Recipes reader cares much about archival issues of multi-layered polychromed concrete sgraffito. Maybe you will want to see a picture when the piece is done, but I doubt that you really want to hear my worries over the technicalities here.

While I have been avoiding the First Thursdays like the plague, it is high time that I do a gallery circuit, and will have something to say about something out there (of course June and July are about the slowest for gallery activity, but there is less chance that I will run into one of the artworld creeps that I want to avoid). At the very least, I will be going to see the rehanging of SFMOMA's second floor, and have every reason to believe that I will be ranting about it for some time (I have a very set idea of how the permanent collection should be curated and hung, and I see some horrid trends in the administration there).

I was hoping to post something about a friend's open studio, but could not make it.

So, if you really need some art talk, why not debate amongst yourselves:

Is synthetic sizing as reliable as rabbit skin glue?
Are Isabey brushes worth it?
Should Iris Giclee prints be sold as bonafide fine art prints? Are they archival enough? Is the lack of control over the number of impressions troublesome?

Or pehaps tell a funny story about finding that your best painting has developed many cracks and the paint appears, after two years, to be seriously underbound. Har har har. Artist gallows humor for you.

The end of 9lbs of leberwurst

I still had one pound of leberwurst in my icebox, and it had, by my educated guess, a day or so of life left in it. I like it, but felt that I had leberwurst coming out of my ears, and the thought of eating a pound in a day wasn't exactly my idea of fun.

Somewhere Melanie found that one can make classic German Leberknuedel with Leberwurst instead of fresh liver. I modified a recipe by deleting the onions (Leberwurst already has onions), adding garlic (felt that the mature beef liver could take it), and serving it in a pork consume (again, figuring that the beef liver would be amply strong to stand up to the powerful porkiness). It turned out great. I also did not have any bread, so I used breadcrumbs, which was less than ideal, but not so problematic as to throw the dish.

Per half pound of Leberwurst:
Take about half the mass of the Leberwurst in bread soak it in milk and knead it. Add an egg, a generous amount of whatever finely chopped fresh herbs you want (I used parsley, Greek oregano, and winter savory), two cloves of garlic, salt and pepper. Knead with the Leberwurst into a paste and form dumplings. Boil the dumplings in salted water for fifteen minutes. Serve in beef broth or with braised sauerkraut.

Serve with either a lager or a dry Riesling (for those of you laughing at the repeated wine and beer pairings, just wait, we will be back to red wines soon).

Books, Books, Books

First, I want to answer the Wendesday One. My choice is the whole reason that I thought of the question, because I have homicidal temptations whenever I so much as think about this book, and figured that, while I might be a fascist extremist, I am probably not that far off from other people in these matters, only more honest.

So, I asked and so far there has been quite an outpouring of honesty.

Anyway, the one book that I would be happy to consign to the bonfires is a slim volume of Marxist art theory from a little twit named John Berger that is called Ways of Seeing. This book, a paperback in the Buckminster Fuller-too-much-sans-serif-bold style that screamed "The Future!" in 1972, was based on a BBC television series called Ways of Seeing. It should have died in 1978 as mere ephemera, a relic of hip, swinging London where fellows in Austin Powers regalia used trendy Marxist and feminist terminology to lure chicks to their pads for nefarious purposes (or perhaps each other to their pads for even more nefarious purposes).

However, Ways of Seeing offers the perfect mix of pre-digested, sound-bite stylings with enough agitprop to shame Brecht, all washed in a veneer of snide, ironic detachment (delivered in that annoying manner of speech that they tell me is called a "British accent." Perhaps, but it sounds like just another corrupted Low German dialect to me).

"The dumb fools might think that they are looking at a beautiful painting, but we know that what they are really doing is looking at a reproduction of an image that serves to stimulate desire, oppress women, blah blah blah." or in his own words (page 83):

"Oil paintings often depict things. Things which in reality are buyable. To have a thing painted and put on a canvas is not unlike buying it and putting it in your house. If you buy a painting you buy also the look of the thing it represents.

This analogy between possessing and the way of seeing which is incorporated in oil painting, is a factor usually ignored by art experts and historians."

Well it is probably ignored because it rings so hollow, is so patently minor a point, and is only partially true.

Berger is a Marxist. He is only concerned with power. He puts on shows financed by the BBC and his books are put out by Penguin Press. In other words, he represents the little guy. I imagine that if Michael Moore were smart enough, he would have an icon of Berger.

Anyway, this little turd of a book has the right blend of sneer, irony, Marxism, all pre-masticated, and has been tapped as an important text for Freshmen, especially in art history courses. I would bet that any given fall, any college bookstore in America has this book in the art history section of the textbook department.

There are some books that I periodically reread just to get my blood pressure moving. Tom Wolfe's idiotic, but slightly funny The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House and Ways of Seeing top my list.

Wolfe,though, I find amusing. He is so notoriously fast and loose with his facts (particularly geography) that he makes a parody of himself, but seems to have the character to chuckle with us. John Berger (of course I am speaking of the ideal author, as I have no idea of the character of the actual John Berger - he might just be a cynic) is the sort who seems to need to be strangled with his silk scarf, and left to rot from the eaves of Saatchi and Saatchi as a warning to others.

Wednesday One

When I suggested reviving the Friday Five, I was suggesting that others take up the torch and offer questions as well. I simply don't have time to do it every week, but if no one else does, I will do it when I feel the urge, but not as a regular thing.

Meanwhile I thought of a good one, but it is just one question, so I will post it today as the Wednesday One:

Is there a book that makes you want to strangle the author? I am not just talking about being a bit peeved, but having to deal with the temptations of deep-down, homicidal impulses. If so, please explain. Be honest.

On Campion

First, be sure to read Prof. Cordova's comment on my original Campion College post. He is absolutely correct (as he usually is on all matters OTHER than the Spanish Civil War, democracy, and onions), and after reading his comment and rereading his post, I realize that my post does sound like I was talking about Campion.

I wasn't, rather I was looking at the fate of post-Campion Catholic education and talking about three or four other colleges out there as being, in the words of someone who is free to take credit for this if he so chooses, "seminaries for the married vocation." You know the ones: places that confuse apologetics for scholarship.

Campion was not one of those places, which is the whole shame of its demise.

OH yes, I must also second the call for a boycott of Ignatius Press books. They took the low road in just about every way possible, carrying severe myopia to the point of betrayal.

Some Bad News

Today the students were informed so there is no reason not to blog about this, but Campion College of San Francisco is closing. I do not have all the details, but the Guadalupe Associates have decided to pull the plug. Since I do not know all of the situation with Guadalupe Associates, I am going to refrain from speculation, but they seem to be doing this in a way that is less than honorable, leaving the students without a place to go in the fall and faculty without jobs (and good luck finding something for the fall semester in mid-June).

I know a lot of people involved in Campion: students, family of students, and teachers and had a lot of respect for what they were doing. We were even trying to get our nephew there next year. This is a sad day for Catholic education.

Or perhaps not. I have often felt that Catholics should stake out positions in secular universities and not retreat from the world. At 18, with a good formation, a Catholic student should be able to take on the secular and even anti-Catholic world without danger to his own faith. Quite possibly this is a blessing in disguise.

Enchilada Pie Tirolia

The first time I had enchiladas suissas was in a little town in rural Michoacan. They were outstanding. Basically an enchilada suissa is a cheese enchilada that has been topped with swiss cheese. I have found enchiladas to be a lot more work than they need to be and generally opt for an enchilada pie, which is layered like a lasagna.

Tonight I found myself wondering what to do with the leftover sopa de tortilla base that I had (getting sick of the sopa itself), so I reduced it, added a handful of polenta, another box of Pomi, some Mexican oregano, two seeded chipotles and a dash of pimenton and used it as a sauce.

In a second pan I fried a half pound of chopped pancetta until it was just getting crisp.

In a round dish I layered sauce, handmade corn tortillas, more sauce, grated Swiss cheese, pancetta bits, a dab more sauce, and so on until I was out of pancetta (which happened to be about at the top of the dish). I baked it until the cheese was starting to brown.

I served it with an improvised Mexican crema (I was going to use creme fraiche, but was out) that I made from whipping cream and Fage Total yoghurt from Greece.

I highly recommend this if you made the sopa and have leftovers. Serve with a lager or hefeweizen or margaritas.

Kicking a Man When he is Down

There is a rumor going around that I am the sort of person who kicks a man when he is down.

It is true.

I say that if a man needs kicking, it is best to take a good shot at him when he is most vulnerable. The best objection that I have heard to kicking a man when he is down is that it is not quite sporting. I hold that to kick a man for sport is bad. If he needs kicking, then he obviously poses some serious threat to the common good, and that a well-placed kick when he is down will probably keep him down longer, or at least will dissuade him from the behavior that required his kicking to begin with.

Kicking a man must follow the Just War Doctrine. Since we are assuming that our hypothetical case requires kicking to restore order, and that kicking is proportionate to the harm he poses, then all we have to do is to determine when he has had enough. I have rarely encountered a kick-worthy person who was rendered fit for public life simply after one kicking. Some of these folks are like the Energizer bunny.

Now, while I am using the old physical metaphor, it is obvious that I mean to apply this rule more to verbal jousts and the like (but that does not mean that I don’t hold the rule for some idiot who needs a real kick as well). If someone is such an ass that he needs a verbal kick, why spare him when he has just put his foot in it? Go for the gold and really teach him something.

I have heard it said (how’s that for cliché? Passive voice, too) that one is a redneck if “he had it coming” sounds like legal justification for punching someone. I probably am part redneck, and I was excused from a jury once in a self-defense case.

Now, there is a huge difference between kicking a man when he is down and kicking him when he is dead.

I was no fan of Ronald Reagan. I did indeed say, “I’m glad he’s gone,” but that was in 1989. However, his mere existence as an ailing old man seemed to bother some folks. I am probably more baffled by the vitriol that some writers and pundits have shown than by the misguided (yet somewhat understandable) folks who seem to revere him as a saint.

Surely there is a time and place for a critical look at his reign, and so long as it is sober, considered, and measured, it can even happen right away, but the jumping up and down with glee stuff before he is even cold is sick. I could understand it if this were some real monster we were talking about: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, FDR or Truman, perhaps even my alter-ego, Richard Milhous Nixon, but no matter how one sees Reagan’s policies, his family life, his public morality, etc., to think that he is in the same league is asinine.

I never thought that I would need to say...

Of all the possible combinations of words that I thought I would have to put together in my life, the following are ones that I would not have dreamed of in a thousand years without the assistance of a certain two year old:

Amalia, stir that with a spoon, not with the tiger.

Don't put the hedgehog in your mouth!

If you need a printer...

I normally don't plug one printer over an other, especially in the Sacramento area, seeing as how my family has been in that industry in that town for three generations, and my father is currently a consultant and business broker to that industry, but one of St. Blog's own could really use the business, and is a good guy. Last Christmas I had the pleasure of going to the Traditional Latin Mass at St. Stephen's, where the Culbreath family is regularly found.

I have not seen his printing, but his character is top-notch, so I completely trust his description of the quality and price and level of service his shop offers. So, if you have any printing needs, please consider using him.

Experiments in Linguistics

Watching Baby Doolittle. A woodpecker comes on the screen.

Mamma: Look, it’s a woodpecker.
Amália: Woodpecker!

An owl comes on the screen. It is one of those owls that has a scowly looking face.

Amália: Is that a grumpy pecker?

Carnitas de Corazon y Sopa de Tortillas

The other day I boiled one of the beef hearts (after trimming it, I cut it into sections and removed anything that looked tubular, fatty or silver) with Mexican seasonings: onion, garlic, toasted coriander seeds, toasted cumin seeds, cloves, cinammon stick, Mexican oregano, bay leaf, and fresh cilantro (OK, it might be coriander overkill, but what a flavor). When the meat was done, I removed it and strained the broth.

Today I chopped the meat into roughly quarter to half inch dice. I heated up some freshly rendered pork lard, and gently fried a diced shallot and chopped garlic with cumin seeds. I added the meat and a chipotle pepper (with a dab of its adobo) and fried it. When it was getting crisp, I drizzled it with lime juice and seasoned it with salt, cinammon and fresh cracked pepper. I used this meat on tacos (using handmade corn tortillas) with some chopped cilantro and queso enchilado. It was very tasty with a pronounced beef flavor.

I put a box of Pomi tomatoes in the blender along with a few cloves of garlic and two toasted and chopped dried cascabel chiles. I blended them until smooth. I fried the stuff briefly in lard and added the broth from the beef, a pint of pork broth (a classic brown stock made with the pork bone from the pork shoulder that went into the liverwurst), some ground coriander, salt, and a sprig of fresh mint and simmered it. When it was done I served it in bowls and topped it with tortilla chips and grated cheese (I don't know what kind of cheese it was - some Italian cheese that tasted vaguely of sheep).

I served beer, but a dry riesling would have worked as well. It was a very good Mexican meal and made me really appreciate beef heart. I would make more, but I have decided to boil the other heart in red wine and make a classic mince pie with it.

NOTE: for some reason this post keeps drawing lots of spam comments, so I have disabled comments on this entry. If you have something you would like to say or add or question, please email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [dot] com.

Bulllfight Report

Last night's bullfight for the Turlock DES Festa, held at the Stevinson Praca de Toiros, featured Pedro Salvador, from Portugal, Eduardo Costa from Los Banos, and Jose Ignacio Ramos from Spain as well as the Forcados from Turlock and Artesia. The seven bulls (Salvador and Artesia took the extra) from the Ganaderia Acoreana were fairly decent (I would call five of them good, one so-so and one bad). The ring was sold out with standees at least two deep all around the ring (and this was the case half an hour before the trumpet).

Toiro 1 - a good, fast charging bull, taken by Cav. (Alt) Pedro Salvador, who made several failed attempts at placement, but redeemed himself with good horsemanship and a couple of beautiful placements. Turlock made a good, clean grab.

Toiro 2 - This bull had stamina, but was easily distracted from the charge and was a bisco. Cav (Practicante - until next week) Eduardo Costa was OK, but has had better times in the ring. Nothing spectacular. For some reason I did not take notes on Artesia's grab, but I think it was OK.

Toiro 3 - Matador Jose Ignacio Ramos took this beautiful chestnut bull. Even though 95% of the crowd neither knows nor cares a whit about the art of toreo en pie, Ramos always performs honorably. He showed decent work with the cape, placed his own sticks, and gave a respectable faena with the muleta, working both sides. He clearly had the bull under his control. Overall his repertoire was pretty straightforward, but well executed.

Toiro 4 - A charcoal bull that charged consistantly for Salvador allowed a wonderful display of horsemanship that was all but ruined by too many failed attempts at placement. It reminded me of playing a Bach keyboard piece and acing all the ornaments, but making a mess of the actual written notes. There were several excellent placements, though, so he was able to salvage his honor. The Turlock squad had trouble with this bull, failing two grabs, and making a good grab on the third attempt with a different forcado at the head.

Toiro 5 - An all around acceptible if not remarkable performance by the bull, Eduardo Costa and the Artesia forcados (with the Turlock tailman joining them). The bull was quite good, so a quibbler might quibble about Costa doing work that was only just OK for a horseman of his abilities.

Toiro 6 - A so-so bull that was well-worked by Ramos, who built a couple fo solid series of veronicas (something that I never understood is why more bullfighters in California don't do more with the cape, as that is the one area where there is no difference between the bloodless bullfights and the real thing), and showed classic form with the muleta (including several striking naturales). He placed his own sticks, which was an ugly affair this time, with a lot of bad timing and worse aim. Other than the tercio de banderillas, I continue to be impressed with Ramos's class and integrity as a torero.

Toiro 7 - Ever get a bonus that seems more like an obligation. Bad bull, and Salvador was unable to do much with it. The sort of thing that makes you first excited to get the extra bull, but then makes you think of how far along I-5 you would already be if they stopped at six. There were a couple of moments, but at that hour you want something more. Good grab by Artesia, I think, as Amalia and my mother were clearly ready to go, so we were not really focused on it.

The band (Lira Acoreana) was good at what it did, but really needs a larger repertoire.

It was a beautiful evening in the San Joaquin Valley, with a cool breeze, a gorgeous sunset, and a low mosquito count.

Next week is the Festa de Stevinson, with a really exciting cartel. Again, don't take my word for it, look it up yourself bullfights.org.

If you are looking for me tomorrow night...

If you need any advice on making strange concoctions out of organ meat or brewing interesting cordials, you will find me in Stevinson, California for the Festa da Turlock. The cartel is Cav. Pedro Salvador (Portugal), Cav. Eduardo Costa (from California, who will be taking his alternativa this year, in fact I think in a couple of weeks), and Matador Jose Ignacio Ramos (Spain), with forcados from Turlock and Artesia.

If you have the evening free, have $20 (plus enough for $2 beers and $3 pork sandwiches) and are in Northern California, the fun starts at 8pm. I sit on the side of the ring opposite the toril (near the presidencia). I will try to post a review of the bullfight sometime on Tuesday (although I have a pretty full schedule, so if it doesn't happen Tuesday, it will not happen at all).

Remember, if you are interested in the California bullfights to frequently check bullfights.org for all your West Coast bullfight schedule needs.

Well, now, that's something different!

When you have a Catholic blog that features food, and you have a tendency to sit front and center when animals are being killed, either on the ranch, on the boat, in the woods, or in the ring, you really cannot be surprised to find that "lamb knife throat preparation -bible slaughter" is a phrase that will lead folks to your website.

It sounds like this person needs technical advice, and I would hate to mislead him. Perhaps a local sheep farmer would be a better source.

Beef Liverwurst

I spent yesterday from about 11 am to 2 am in the kitchen (with a few breaks here and there to enjoy the sunshine/moonlight. I was converting four pounds of the 22 lbs of beef liver that has been hanging out in the icebox into liverwurst. I based my recipe on this one, but with some changes:

1. I used beef liver instead of pork liver. To mellow it, I soaked it in milk overnight (something I recommend for the stronger beef liver).

2. I used pork shoulder roast, instead of pork butt. I do not necessarily recommend this change, as deboning was a pain, and all those muscle attachment points mean more intricate knife work, more waste (although all the waste meat went into the stock pot with the bone, and all the waste fat went into the rendering pot, so very little was really wasted), more tedious calculations (since I bought enough pork fat to match the amount of meat that I thought I had bought, I had to reweigh the fat once I knew how much reliable meat I had from the pork).

3. I used a mix of pimenton dulce with Hungarian paprika.

4. I roasted and ground all my spices.

5. I substituted a smaller amount of fresh nutmeg for mace, as I was out of mace.

6. I used yellow onions instead of white.

7. I added fresh, finely chopped French rue and lovage (both to help balance the beef liver - both were good additions). I used amounts roughly equal to the marjoram.

8. My butcher did not have wide casings, and I was not about to use casings that I had to sew (returning buttons to their rightful place is about the limits of my abilities with needle and thread). I used Saran wrap, tied knots in the ends, wrapped the middle with a fresh piece in the other direction, then stuffed the tubes in the upper parts of clean socks, folded the foot of the sock around and tied the toes to the opening, thus sealing the whole thing (the sock is just to reinforce the Saran wrap casing, which does the work of keeping the water out and the wurst in). I removed the socks after the ice bath and left the plastic casings on. I had no problem with bursting.

They came out great, but a little firmer than liverwurst usually is (more sliceable and less spreadible). The seasoning was good. It was a lot of work, created a lot of mess (the work bowls and the works of the grinder should be cleaned between each of the big grindings - if I were really in anal retentive food lab mode, I would have dipped everything in bleach solution, which is quite literally overkill, but you really do want to clean this stuff between stages). By the end I was tired, my feet hurt, and I was able to go to bed savoring the smell of liverwurst wafting through the house.

This morning I had my first espresso (which reminds me, I am about due for number two, well, actually three, but two needs to come first. What is the matter with me?), and had the courage to peek. What if it tasted bad and my day was lost (not to mention the ingredients)? What if all the people who knew that they were going to have liverwurst foisted on them had to be called and told, "well, it just didn't work out, sorry"? Could I live with the shame? The humiliation?

So I cut the casing on one of them and had a taste on a table water cracker. It was good. It would go well with a dry Riesling (possibly even a sweet wine, as many liver products go well with sauternes) or a crisp and hoppy beer (IPA seems about perfect, although the MacTarnahan's Amber Ale I am currently imbibing is a good fit, too).

Would I recommend this recipe? Only if you have many pounds of liver you need to consume, or if you want to experiment with seasonings and eventually build a better liverwurst. It is time consuming, hard work, involves handling stuff that most people would rather not handle (I know, I am a freak, I actually like playing with organs), and produces a product that is good, but not much different than a well-made commercial product.

On the other hand, it was fun, I have a much better understanding of liverwurst, and there is a good deal of satisfaction in knowing that the log cabin of liverwurst logs in the icebox was made from scratch in my own kitchen.

Next report: beef heart carnitas tacos!

Some Advice For Young Foodies

Since it is graduation time, it seems that everyone and his dog are offering advice for young people. It seems only fair, since I offer a source of temptation for foodies, that I offer some cautionary advice to those young people who are of a foodie bent.

First, how do you know if you are a foodie?

If you wake up in the middle of the night with an experimental recipe gnawing at your brain, if you smell a dead skunk and study the aromatic profile of it, if you find yourself on vacation, without a kitchen, but still have the urge to check out the produce section at the local market, you probably are a foodie.

If you would buy a mansion in a posh part of town and grow tomatoes in the front yard, because the light is best, you probably are a foodie.

If you learn botany, organic chemistry, zoology or any other science just to get a better grasp of your ingredients, you are a member of the club. If you can name more chefs than you can quarterbacks, you probably are one of us. If you can elaborate on the specific contribution to the world of food from each of the chefs, you are deep in it.

If you are a vegetarian, forget it. You are no more a foodie than I am an expert gymnist. If you think that bran tastes good, then you are a lost cause.

So, you are a foodie?

At some point you must make the decision of whether or not to turn pro. My general advice is don’t. If you don’t believe me, then read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Bourdain is right when he says that people become professional cooks when they can do nothing else.

Bourdain talks good sense, but you need to hear it from a Catholic point of view. Professional kitchens can destroy you. If you are at all wishy washy in your faith, if you too easily succumb to the temptations of sex and heavy drinking and drugs, then you need a career in the kitchen as much as a modern university needs more Marxists.

When I graduated from college I had to make the decision. I had been doing some catering and was beginning to find my voice in the kitchen. Career opportunities for harpsichordists were dismal, and retail was wearing me down. I had a good friend who was a sous chef and it seemed inevitable that I would go that route. My friend put it this way: “a kitchen is a place where you put a bunch of demented bugs and let them play with fire and sharp knives.” It sounded fun.

I can only attribute it to Grace that I managed to avoid this career path. I have successfully stayed out of restaurant kitchens. I worked in a food lab (a great place for a foodie to work), and eventually ended up as a restaurant critic. I take on gigantic cooking projects for friends and family, and that seems to keep my unwholesome impulses in check.

If you are a young Catholic of sufficient faith and formation to withstand the life of a professional cook, plan on doing these things to stay that way:

1. Pick your chemical indulgences well. You will be surrounded by drunks and drug addicts. If you can honestly handle a fair amount of drinking, then great. Work out a drinking regimen that will keep it under control (something like Mencken’s rule of never drinking when the sun is up is a good start). Pay attention to how much you drink, and if it is within the bounds of relatively good health and good morals, then stick to it. If you have a desire towards stimulants (again, you need to figure this out in advance), then cultivate an espresso habit. It is legal, works well, has good health benefits, and will help you avoid the ever-present cocaine and meth. If you like tobacco, then settle on a good amount to consume and stick to it. Do not take a dualist view of smoking. Most professional cooks smoke, and you probably will as well, even if you don’t plan on it. Don’t divide the world into chain-smoking and non-smoking, because then if you find yourself enjoying a post-shift cigarette, you will label yourself as a smoker and will find it difficult to establish limits. The language of the addiction recovery business is rooted in the horrid philosophy of Calvin. Avoid it. There are many levels of consumption between zero and a pack a day. Ideally, I would advise young cooks to smoke cigars, as they have all the benefits of tobacco (focusing thought, giving aromatic pleasure, etc.), but take a more contemplative turn (it is much harder to absent-mindedly light and smoke a good cigar than it is a cigarette, and absent-mindedness is the cornerstone of a bad smoking habit). I would not recommend a pipe for a cook, as there is too much fiddling around with the works for someone in this milieu.
2. Plan on attending daily mass and weekly confession. The devil finds work for idle hands, and the pace of a kitchen is such that what used to not seem like idle time, becomes idle time. It is amazing the amount of mischief a cook can get into in a five minute lull in a hectic shift. You need all the fortification you can get in this environment.
3. Look for restaurants that came out of the Chez Panisse world. The philosophy you will encounter in those places has much more in common with Catholic thought than some of the flashier places.
4. Make an exit strategy. Figure out how to turn a kitchen job into a food lab job or something with a more sustainable pace. You probably don’t want to be on a line six days a week when you are in your late sixties.

Beyond that, good luck, God bless and all that. Cook well (but not my steak, thank you).

For those of you foodies who are not going to go into the business, you will have to come up with some way of dealing with your foodie impulses. You will probably need to find a spouse who is somewhat of a foodie, but not so much that you compete. Your non-foodie spouse will need to eventually cede the kitchen to you and realize that some dishes must be prepared by you, because you get fidgety if someone else cooks them in your kitchen.

Your spouse must appreciate or at least tolerate your enthusiasms for strange ingredients. The spouse must tolerate your turning the kitchen into an abattoir when you come upon a five-prong buck or twenty pounds of beef liver. She must get used to, or feign getting used to, lifting a pot lid and having a pig’s head stare at her. She might set limits on your farming experiments, but should be reasonable. And remember, she has every reason to be a bit miffed when your escargot farm turns out not to be as secure as you promised. Also, she is not betraying you when she decides to pass on the delicious grasshopper flan you made, nor is she betraying you when you are out for the weekend and you come home to find empty cans of chili.

On the other hand, if she is secretly eating Chef Boyardee, then you need to do an intervention.

Also, I don’t think that a marriage between a foodie and a vegetarian will work, nor between a foodie and a teetotaler. If you can’t share a bottle of 1995 Kenwood Jack London Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon with the perfectly made venison saddle with a huckleberry/demiglace reduction that you are serving, then you probably need to think about counseling. There are limits to the mixed marriage, and it is good to understand those going in.

You will inevitably have non-foodie friends who fancy themselves foodies, and you must cultivate patience. They will invite you over to dinner and attempt to impress you with dishes far beyond their abilities. They are not your students. When they ask what you thought of it, they don’t necessarily want to know. NEVER phrase constructive criticism with “you might want to…” Instead say, “I had a dish like this at XXX. It was a little different…I think they did…, but I am not so sure. This is quite good, though.” These types of folks inevitably get something right, so complement them on it. It will mean more to them than you will ever know.

If you are really unlucky you will end up in a situation where you will have to cook with one of these non-foodies. This will take a more pro-active approach. You will have to instantly evaluate their knife skills. If they are slow and inaccurate, then you will need to assign them other tasks. If they think that garlic powder is a valuable spice, then you will need to keep them well away from the seasoning. Be polite, but there are limits.

Sometimes a dish simply cannot wait for their dilly dallying. Sometimes they will hover around the stove dangerously. You will need to cultivate a firm command position. You might be tempted to kill them, but that is a mortal sin. Instead, as they drift around between the stove and the sink, and you need to move a heavy, hot pot along, use standard restaurant warnings: “Hot, behind you.” Then, after the danger has passed, bump them with an elbow, but do not make it look intentional. Not enough to hurt, but enough to remind them of their corporeal existence in a hazardous environment. If they still do not get it, you may have to knock them over. Again, do this with charity and love.

The final relationship to work on in a foodie household is with the children. They are your serfs and students as well as your flesh and blood. As soon as they are old enough, they need to be taught knife skills. Mostly they will learn from example, but they might need explanations as well. Always convey that cooking is a fun adventure, and that the market and kitchen and family dinner table are privileged places. Remember that they will think of washing dishes as playing in the water if presented right. This stuff will probably come naturally. What you need to really worry about is teaching good manners when eating at other people’s houses.

The time will come when you are at someone else’s house and the kids are served some wretched mess of overcooked meat, overcooked green beans, watery potatoes, all served with that horrendous concoction known as iced tea. They must be taught to eat everything and to appreciate it, even to ask for seconds of the limp, drab beans. If the food is really inedible (deviled eggs come to mind), then they should be coached in realistically feigning grave illness or making the plausible explanation of severe allergies. Remind them that the grave illness escape only works in the rarest of situations, and that if repeated too often, folks will expect them to actually die. They also need to realize that the allergy excuse is blown if they eat some dish later that has the allergen in it (so, if allergy to eggs is cited, merengue cannot be eaten with relish – of course my own excuse (which is completely true) is that I had a childhood allergy to eggs and never have been able to develop a taste for them, unless they are sufficiently masked in souffle, quiche, etc.).

Children should know that the consequences of picky eating at someone else’s house are dire and can even involve having to observe the Eastern discipline of Great Lent for months at a time. They must always know that it is a blessing to grow up in a foodie household, but that blessing can be taken away for the sin of ingratitude.

If your children develop strange affinities for such dreck as canned spaghetti, Velveeta, and so on, have no fear. They will do this, and will grow out of it. Don’t make a big deal of it, but don’t go out of your way to indulge it, either. If they like cheesewhiz, they can eat it when they are at someone else’s house. If they try to weasel out of the family meal to watch sitcoms, on the other hand, they should be threatened with being turned out and deprived of the family name.

Explore, cook, and eat well!

Friday Five

Here is a new Friday Five. Please answer in the comments box or on your own blog.

1. If you could hire any architect from any era to design your ideal house, who would it be and why?

2. If you had to eat exclusively from one cuisine for the rest of your life, which would it be?

3. If you could commission any artist, living or dead, to paint your portrait, who would you choose and why?

4. Tomorrow one tune will be stuck in your head. You will not be able to escape it from waking up to going to bed. You get to pick the tune. Which one would it be?

5. If you were going to be put under house arrest, but were allowed to pick the place (this is a house arrest where you could travel five miles in any direction, but beyond that your radio collar will trigger the men in black to round you up, rough you up and take you back home), where would you pick?

La Virgen de la Macarena

The Old Oligarch has a post that mentions his learning "more than he ever cared about the Macarena." One thing he didn't mention was the bullfighting connection to the Macarena. As he correctly notes, the song is named for a quarter of Sevilla, which is named for its well-known and revered statue of the Blessed Mother.

Someone once wrote a tune (it may have originally been a hymn, but is used intrumentally nowadays) called "La Virgen de la Macarena." It is one of those searingly emotional saeta-like Spanish tunes, with a haunting melody that is generally assigned to the trumpet. When you hear it, the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

In many bullrings the band plays "La Virgen de la Macarena" when the matadores have entered the chapel of the bullring (as my distant cousin by marriage (second cousin of the fellow who married my second cousin - you tell me the exact relationship), who is a Portuguese matador, says, "there are no atheists on the sand").

The Tijuana bullfight orchestra, which has had its ups and downs, but remains an outstanding ensemble, plays this tune with particular brilliance. Their trumpet soloist is phenomenal and sends that melody out over the ring in such a way as to make all time and space stand still. Suddenly the Corona and melon and chips vendors seem to disolve. The villamelones who are there to ogle the girls cease to annoy. One is no longer sitting in La Plaza de Toros Monumental La Playa in Tijuana, a strange outpost of never-never land on the Pacific Ocean, but in the timeless universe of the bullfight, indeed of all Spanish history.

For a few minutes, when one is sitting in the sun (or shade, although on some days it all seems like Sol) at the bullring and "La Virgen de la Macarena" plays it all fits together: Santiago Matamoros, El Cid, Juan Belmonte, Cortez, Fillipe II, El Escorial, Franco, Picasso, Goya, Cervantes (minus the hand left at Lepanto), El Cordobes, flamenco, insufferable royal bureaucrats creating ever more byzantine social divisions, intense piety, equally intense anti-clericalism, the whole tapestry of Spanish culture seems to unfold in that trumpet solo.

Then the solo is over and you hear "cerveza!" and "ayiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" and "que un cabron!" and you are back in Tijuana and it is not Juan Belmonte on the sand, but Cesar Castaneda (who, as I have said before, can be quite good) and it is not Goya drawing from the Sol General, but a drunken San Diego State student on a long weekend making eyes at the pretty girl, hoping that the pretty girl's boyfriend, the fellow with the parrot and goat and rooster on his shirt doesn't notice.

You will have to hunt to find a good recording of the song. I finally found an almost tolerable one on a record of Bullfight pasodobles as played by the Mariachi Silvestre Vargas. If anyone has a better recording than that, please let me know.

Hippy Winemaking Recipes

Greetings to the person looking for "Hippy Winemaking Recipes."

Look, I may giggle at hippies, but I have known many good ones. The good ones usually end up in rural Northern California and build harpsichords or become blacksmiths or raise cattle or goats or some such business. My favorite hippy is the Armenian grape farmer from outside of Fresno who swears that an Armenian wedding celebration is "exactly like a Grateful Dead show." This particular hippy drives into San Francisco with his wife to go to the opera. He's a real good guy. Gave me detailed directions on how to roast a lamb over an open fire.

The point is that hippies (whatever that means - I have my own idea, but it is a rather vague term), unless they are the sort of poseurs that hang around Haight Ashbury, do a lot of drugs, etc., spend most of their lives doing rather unremarkably normal things. They eat, drink, work, and the like the same way non-hippies do (again, I am excluding the trust fund hippies that one finds around certain areas).

The hippies that I have always liked tend towards natural things, good craftsmanship, keen appreciation of literature, etc. They might have bushy beards and longish hair, but they are often quite conservative in most things. I remember a hippy blacksmith in West Marin (the cool part of Marin, full of real hippies and Swiss Italian dairy farmers). He had the typical big black bushy beard, and longish hair, but was a great craftsman. My grandfather (a straight-arrow German Lutheran, member of the parish council, union ironworker, all of that), loved to talk to the guy about iron work design and techniques and the like. There was never any friction between them over hair or beards or living in Inverness or Sacramento or any of that. They were two guys who loved the craft of iron work. Whenever my grandfather came up from Sacramento with us, he would want to go over to this guys' shop.

So, a hippy wine recipe (unless you are looking for funny stuff in it, but who would want to louse up wine with funny stuff in it?), would be a well-crafted, probably organic (though not necessarily, as I have known plenty of hippy types who stridently disagree with organic labeling), probably with natural yeasts (more for the complexity that those can bring out over any other reason), probably with oddball varietals and cuvees.

So, since there is no real reason to make your own wine, with the glut in good wine on the market, unless you have that great hippy craftsman bent and want to try some cuvee that has been floating around in your head, I would suppose that all home winemaking recipes are sort of hippy recipes.

The Oakland Cathedral

I have to admit that I have been laboring under false information. When writing about the new Oakland Cathedral, I thought that the whale skeleton thing was still going on. I was wrong. That was the design by the hip and trendy Spanish architect. The current one appears to be more like the reactor core of some new-fangled power plant. It is hard to believe, but it seems to be even uglier than the original proposal.

Now, good luck finding an image. The Oakland Diocese has only written stuff under the Cathedral Project section. I don't blame them for not hyping it.

Mark Sullivan asked me what I thought of a proposed alternative from a Notre Dame architecture student. I finally got around to looking at it.

It is fine, but not what we need. We need a striking cathedral that reflects California, not some imitation revivalist thing. Certainly architects must take the best from the past, but Catholics do not need to stop at the Baroque (this coming from a harpsichordist!).

If I were designing a new cathedral, I would look towards the Arts and Crafts movement, which has profoundly influenced our local architecture. It is a striking style, encourages good ornament (indeed requires it), has roots in the Gothic without simply aping the style, has proven to be quite suited for our climate and native materials, and would provide a signature church that would reflect our own time and place (as the approach can even bring in modernist styles and make them work).

I would design using California serpentine and granite, redwood, oak, bay laurel, stained glass, glazed ceramic, brick, and ferrocement. It would be full of wooden sculpture, bas relief, glazed ceramic stations of the cross, candles, and icons. It would be thoroughly Catholic, while taking the best of art and architecture across the spectrum. It would have a choir loft with a magnificent pipe organ. The ornament would reflect California: poppies and eucalyptus would lend their forms to magnificent cast-iron window frames as well as screens for side chapels. The tabernacle would be front and center, made of high quality California woods, hammered copper, jade and gold. There would be a high altar for the regular celebration of ad orientum Latin masses (of either missal).

Vestments, processional crucifixes, thurifers, etc. would be designed to harmonize with the elements of the architecture.

As for light, there would be just enough, not the obnoxious dazzle of white that modern churches seem to favor, but ample, warm light, coming through stained glass, as well as from candles and mica lamps. The floors would all be stone and mosaic. The social hall would be full of rich tapestries and leaded windows.

However, I am not an architect and so nobody asked me to design our cathedral. Oh well.