I Love Anti-Catholics!

It is probably because I am a bigot myself, but I can't help but feel a warm glowing feeling when a Baptist or some other semi-literate Prottie goes mouthing off about the Church. To do the right thing means making enemies, and if our enemies are the likes of Ian Paisly, Jerry Fallwell, Martin Luther, Brigham Young, and so one, well, it is a sign that we are on the right track.

Ultimately Anti-Catholicism says more about the anti-Catholic than it does about the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. You will notice that the most decent of the Protties, like Billy Graham, do not go stooping to this level. This is not to say that there is much chance of their salvation, because I tend towards a fairly narrow interpretation of EENSE, not quite Feeneyite, but with little inclination to think that C.S. Lewis is anywhere but fairly deep in the Eternal Bog. We don't know, and, naturally, we should err towards caution. No fence sitting.

So, finding this thread on historical anti-Catholicism (courtesy of TSO, was a delight indeed.

For too many years the American Catholic, when accused of taking orders from a foreign potentate, wanting to abolish the separation of Church and state, not believing that all ideas were equally valuable insofar as they were cherished by various individuals, etc, would bend over backward to prove how American they were. I won't pinpoint a specific type of American Catholic, but let's say that I would figure that JFK is probably getting the treatment from the same demon that is tormenting C.S. Lewis.

Hopefully when we look at these old tracts and cartoons we can stand and say, "yeah, that's right. I do take orders from a foreign potentate, I do take a dim view of secularism, and so on. Oh, but look at how well your Freemasonic, French Endarkenment ideas have served you! Oh, you can't talk now, because you must rush off to your son's (by your fourth marriage) homosexual "marriage"? Too bad. Maybe after you pick up your other child's ritalin we can continue the argument!"

That is your ecumenical moment for the day!

Help! I'm turning into Sancho Panza!

Twice today I have engaged in malapropism, telling Amalia "argh! You're exacerbating! I mean exasperating!" Earlier I did another one with her, but it was too early in the morning, so I cannot remember what it was. You know the old saying that the early worm gets fed to the birds!

Now, if you will excuse me, I must mount Dapple and see what adventure my master has for us today.

Proud Father Moments!

Yesterday Amalia helped me make pesto (her new favorite dish is pasta al pesto).

Today, after hearing the song only once, she had the chorus for "Ring of Fire" memorized and was happily singing it to Melanie.

That, my dear readers, is the very model of a Central Valley Wop: able to appreciate real Italian food AND Johnny Cash. Next thing you know she'll have her tricycle up on cinder blocks.

Maybe tomorrow I'll teach her "Okie from Muskogee." Then, next time we are visiting family up in Redding, she can go over and sing it to the songwriter.

Gotta get that girl a toy gun! It'd match her blue suede cowgirl boots.

Rednecks, rednecks uber Alles!

Suggested summer menu (with recipes!)

1. Bread and tomato salad. First make croutons by heating up some extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Gently fry a peeled clove of garlic and add your cubes of day old French or Italian bread (my favorite are rustic baguettes) and a generous pinch of dried thyme. When the bread is toasted, transfer to a bowl, sprinkle with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. In another bowl add diced tomatoes. IF your tomatoes are not of the highest quality (heirloom, organic, fully ripe, locally grown, in season), then don't bother with this recipe. Your croutons will be better used in a Caesar salad. Add an equal quantity of croutons to the tomatoes, a splash of high quality balsamic vinegar, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Garnish with ribbons of basil or fresh thyme leaves. Serve right away or let the juice of the tomatoes soak into the bread cubes for some time.

2. Pasta al pesto. Toast a handful of pine nuts. Pound them to a paste in a mortar and pestle. Add three medium cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt and pound together. Gradually add in basil leaves, which may be coarsely chopped first to make them fit easier. After you have pounded the first handful, add the juice of half a lemon and a generous splash of extra virgin olive oil. Keep pounding. Add another handful of basil. Keep pounding. At about the third or fourth handful of basil you should add the juice of the other half of the lemon and a little more oil. Keep pounding.

Pound.

Pound. Add basil.

Pound.

Think that it will never be a paste, that there is too much basil for the size of the mortar and pestle, think that you should have just settled for doing it in the blender, think that perhaps it would have been better to go out and just buy some pesto. Pound. Add. Pound. When the pesto is pounded to your satisfaction (I allow some leafiness to remain, although some folks insist on an almost aioli-like consistancy), taste and adjust for salt, remembering that the cheese has yet to go in it.

Now, if you are making the pesto for later, simply cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the ice box. If you are using it today, grate some reggiano parmiggiana (come on, you just pounded pesto by hand - why louse it up with cheap cheese?) into it and pound some more. Taste and adjust.

Cook up a pound or two of pasta (I tend to like less sauce than most, so I figure that a bunch of basil yields pesto for two pounds of pasta, although most Americans will probably want the ratio of one to one) in salted water (don't add oil to the cooking water - that's barabaric) to al dente. Drain (but never rinse! More barbarism) and TOSS in a bowl with the pesto, until it is evenly covered. If you stir the pasta, rather than toss the pasta, give yourself a sharp slap to the back of the head.

3. Grilled Italian sausages. Self explanatory. Grill. Squeeze lemon juice on them. Eat. Yum.

Serve this menu with a light red wine, or even a good dry rose (especially if eating outdoors).

Toiros on Monday!

This is just a reminder that there is what looks to be a good bullfight in Gustine at 8pm on Monday, August 1. I am planning on going to this one. Email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [period] com if you would like to meet up.

Art, art, art, and I am not talking about Paul Simon's buddy

It has been a long time since I have posted anything about art. Partly it's because I have been wanting to spend more time doing it and time spent writing about it must be deducted from the time spent doing it. Also, it is because I have not been to the museums all that often recently. I did see (and enjoy) the George Herms show at Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum (and I bought a piece of art from their Art Vending Machine), as well as a cool show at the Paul Thiebaud Gallery (although I am drawing a blank at the fellow's name. Realist. Been dead for a few years. Good painter. It will come to me and I will post it later).

I did have something strange happen last night, though. I dreamed about painting a painting, and remember all of the visual details of the dream EXCEPT for the painting itself. So I can't tell you if it was any good or not. Sorry.

I do believe that it is the season for that secret ingredient that I like to forage for...

There was a time that I made stuff with blackberries. Ice Cream. Cobblers. Gallettes. Berry sauce.

Then came Amalia. We dutifully go into the woods with our bowls and baskets, and, for some reason, we never seem to have enough berries by the time we get home. We have a very happy little girl in purple clothes (even when they start the day white), so it makes it all worth it.

Tomorrow we will officially open our blackberry season with an evening trip to our secret spot, armed with a picnic lunch and lots of bowls. Perhaps if we can appease the girl with ham sandwiches, she will let some berries make it home to become ice cream or even a pastry of some sort.

So, call this entry a Monday One:

What are your favorite things to do with blackberries?

Friday Five

I haven't done one of these for awhile. You can answer in the combox or on your own blog. My answers are in the Extended Entry section.

Five Seasonal Questions

Imagine you are in one of these hot places, where the mercury hits 100+, as this is the underlying assumption behind all of the questions.

1. What is your favorite way to beat the heat?

2. What is your favorite hot weather dish?

3. What is your ideal hot weather music?

4. What smells do you associate with hot weather?

5. OK. Enough is enough. If time and money were no object, where would you go to escape this infernal heat?

1. Swimming.

2. Tomato and bread salad (chunks of organic, heirloom tomatoes, homemade croutons, balsamic vinegar, fresh thyme, extra virgin olive oil, a pinch of salt and a dash of fresh cracked pepper).

3. 1960's Jamaican ska.

4. Coffee roasting and cigarette smoke, the result of driving by Sacramento's Java City with the windows down. It is a great smell.

5. Lake Garda in the Dolomites.

Fifties Recipes?!?

Someone found this site googling "Fifties Recipes." I cannot think of a site less inclined towards mounds of Jell-O and devilled eggs than this one. Try Lileks.

Speaking of recipes, I will be posting some seasonal ones soon, after a visit to the farmers' market on Saturday.

I'm Back! And some Baaaad Architecture...

First, I am finally settled back after vacation. Thanks to you who kept checking in!

So, what better way to resume blogging than by giggling at Domino's, I mean, Ave Maria's new proposed oratory. Go here to see what looks like a comic take on the gothic. The proportions are to good architecture as the dialog of the most recent Star Wars flick is to good writing, or what Domino's is to good pizza.

I wonder if the building is not finished in 30 minutes if they get it for free.

Checking in!

I was hoping for a more substantial post, but duty calls. I have to get food ready for tomorrow's camping trip. Redding was fun: horseback riding, swiming in Whiskeytown Reservoir, Turtle Bay, etc. If you find yourself on I-5, definitely stop in Redding for the Turtle Bay museum. The Calatrava Bridge is worth it just by itself.

Anyway, that will have to do for today, as chili awaits (and I have to learn the ropes of this new version of MT. For some reason Blacklist is not working quite right).

Back Under the Volcano(es)

Tomorrow we head up to Redding for a few days. Blogging will be light to non-existant, but will resume Thursday, when we are back in Sacramento. Then we will be off to Mark Twain country for some camping, fishing, hiking, yodeling, etc.

Teachout Cultural Preference Indicator (or whatever he calls it)

From Terry Teachout

If you had to choose, would you pick (my preferences in bold):

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly?
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises?
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington?
4. Cats or dogs?
5. Matisse or Picasso?
6. Yeats or Eliot?
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin?
8. Flannery O’Connor or John Updike?
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca?
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning?
11. The Who or the Stones?
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath?
13. Trollope or Dickens? [no preference, as I haven't (gulp) read Trollope]
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald?
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy?
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair?
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham?
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers?
19. Letterman or Leno?
20. Wilco or Cat Power?
21. Verdi or Wagner?
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe?
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? [tie. Both are very dear to my heart and ears]
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis?
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando?
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp?
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt?
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin?
29. Red wine or white? [but it depends on the red, the white, the temperature, the time of day, the occasion, the menu, etc.]
30. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde?
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? [have not seen High Fidelity]
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev?
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev?
34. Constable or Turner?
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo?
36. Comedy or tragedy?
37. Fall or spring?
38. Manet or Monet?
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons?
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin?
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James?
42. Sunset or sunrise?
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter?
44. Mac or PC?
45. New York or Los Angeles?
46. Partisan Review or Horizon?
47. Stax or Motown?
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? [but only by a hair]
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello?
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? [I am a child of dead tree culture]
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier?
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers?
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde?
54. Ghost World or Election? [Have not seen either]
55. Minimalism or conceptual art?
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny?
57. Modernism or postmodernism?
58. Batman or Spider-Man?
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams?
60. Johnson or Boswell?
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf?
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show?
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table?
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity?
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni?
66. Blue or green?
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It?
68. Ballet or opera?
69. Film or live theater?
70. Acoustic or electric?
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo?
72. Sargent or Whistler?
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera?
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma?
75. Sushi, yes or no?
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn?
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee?
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove?
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham?
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe?
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones?
82. Watercolor or pastel?
83. Bus or subway?
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg?
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter?
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser?
87. Schubert or Mozart?
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? [this is hard. If we mean the fifties of rock and roll, drive-ins, and all that crap, then the Twenties, hands down. But if we mean the Fifties of Abstract Expressionism's peak (Diebenkorn Berkeley series), Beat poetry, red-baiting, bebop, and all that, the Fifties have it. Also, I think Prohibition was the darkest of America's days]
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick?
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce?
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins?
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman?
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill?
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann?
95. Italian or French cooking?
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? [and I hold anyone in anathema who says otherwise]
97. Anchovies, yes or no?
98. Short novels or long ones? Good ones, regardless of length.
99. Swing or bebop?
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"?

Teachout's selections are all the first entries.

San Fermin!

I forgot to wish you all a happy feast of San Fermin!

For those of you not able to get to Pamplona, but would like to join me at a bullfight, I am definitely going to Gustine on July 18th. It looks like it will be a good one. Get in touch if you would like to meet up there.

Today We All Wear The Union Jack

We Europeans, and I include North America in the number of the Europeans, might have our internal disputes and rivalries. We might even do some bloody awful things to each other, some of them even undeserved. However, let no supporter of Western Civilization, be he Irish, French, German, Italian, or Spanish, refuse to stand in solidarity with the people of England today.

Too long Europe has slumbered in blissful ignorance of the dangers of the age old Enemy. Too long have we allowed hard-fought settlements to our own sectarian disputes to be applied to a vicious, alien faith that puts its own conquest and our destruction ahead of all concern for Truth, Goodness, Decency, and Honor.

It is time for Europe to wake up. Liberalism is a sin we can no longer afford.

My Beloved Colleague in The Food Criticism World...M. Chirac!

It's sometimes tough to be a bigot. I suppose the key is to be a very selective bigot: perhaps an anti-Lapp bigot or something. Claim to have discovered the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Reindeer Herding" and wage a campaign to have all the Lapps deported to Canada.

You become a monomaniac, with one driving quest. It makes things simple. Rid the continent of the hapless Lapp (or Lappless Hap?) and the reindeer will return to their rightful place of glory!

So, pity those of us broad-minded bigots who take on just about everyone as part of our complicated web of prejudices and snobberies. Sometimes you get an overabundance of good when two peoples on your list fight each other: no matter who loses, you win! But there is a cloud in this silver lining: you have the prospect that one of them will also win. So you win one, you lose one, but there is always the hope that there will be much sulking on both sides.

So, when the President of the Franks takes on the Anglo-Saxons, why, what am I to do? Of course the fact that the French and the Englisch are at each others' throats again is one of those great signs of stability in the world. The fact that the French are resting on their laurels in the kitchen is also one of those great signs of stability in the world.

So I must rejoice. Chirac unknowingly makes an ass of himself (the food in England has gotten really good, in fact I bet that it is easier to find a good croissant in London than in Paris, where patisserie is at an all time low. Although he is right about the Finns. Must be the Lapps), the British get their noses out of joint, and those of us cisalpines get to giggle and titter at the hijinks of the barbarians. French food/Englisch food, what difference does it make? When either one of them really want to get down to business they hire Italians for the kitchen anyway.

Hell and Dirty Dishes

In my little demented Teutonic mind I like to see the Cosmos as a perfectly structured factory, with everything an assigned place with an assigned job. So, yes, I suppose that Heaven is the Great BMW Factory in the Sky.

So, in this perfectly ordered factory, it is obvious that one gets to cook and eat in Heaven, then the dishes go down the Cosmic Dumbwaiter (ah, perhaps there is an eternal role for Mattie Fox after all!) where the denizens of Hell get an infinite pile of dirty dishes to clean. When they are done, then they get to fold laundry.

So, yes, I am sitting in the kitchen looking at the carnage from last night, thinking of ways to put it off.

But I know, it only makes it worse that way. I will have to just dig in and start scrubbing. Make it a game. Have fun with it! Smile!

Cut it out. Amalia doesn't buy it, and neither do I. Doing dishes is part of the price of original sin. We weren't meant for this sort of work.

Nor for folding laundry. Now I imagine that there is some smiling psychotic who loves to fold laundry, who takes great pride in folding a perfectly symetrical tee-shirt. Well goody for them. Probably teetotallers too.

Feh!

As Holy Roman Emperor of the Europeans, San Franciscans, &c., we hereby declare today to be "Complain About Household Chores and Invest Far More Energy in the Complaining Than If We Simply Made Another Espresso And Took Care Of Them Day"

Bah! Humbug!

Cherries and Pork

I was asked for a Rainier cherry recipe. First, I will say that I prefer the more intense cherry flavor of bings, but Rainier have a pleasant sweetness that can be useful in pork cookery.

First, you will need to pit a bunch of cherries. It is tedious, and there are gadgets that make it go better, or you can use household indentured servants (children) to do the task, provided they are old enough to use a knife properly.

Rub a pork loin with salt and pepper.

Then, brown your pork loin in butter. Transfer to a plate.

Add a finely chopped onion, a couple of peeled cloves of garlic, and fry gently in the fat.

Add the cherries and a pinch of carraway seeds and fry for a minute.

Return the pork to the pan, add a splash of white dry vermouth, cover and cook over low heat until the pork is done to your liking.

Let the pork rest 10 minutes before slicing. Meanwhile, reduce the cooking liquid, remove the garlic, finish with port and softened butter.

Slice the pork, and cover with the sauce. If you want to be fancy, you can puree and strain the sauce before the butter enrichment, but I like the chunks of fruit and cooked onion in mine.

Serve with good bread, a good pinot noir, and a green salad.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

I like fireworks. I like barbecues. I like to see the Englisch lose.

Not too keen on Freemasons and various French Endarkenment ideas though.

Hmmm.

Since it could have been worse: we could have had an idiot skinhead lawyer like Mohandas K. Ghandi leading our independence movement, then I will say that I am all in favor of the Fourth.

Now, since we have determinde that independence can be worthwhile, will someone please scrap that "indivisible" crap from the Pledge? Or howzabout the whole Pledge? Don Jim Tucker has a great commentary on that. I agree, this is idolatry, pure and simple. I don't say it. Period. "Under God" is the only part that is not objectionable.

Indivisible. That is supposed to mean that the Great State of California is forever attached to West Virginia? No thanks. Although if someone were to chain our Senators up to theirs and toss the lot of them in the sea, well, maybe we could talk.

Here is a much better Pledge:

I pledge allegience to God,
His Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church,
And His Vicar, the Bishop of Rome,
And promise to serve Him faithfully.
Insofar as any civic government
Adheres to this goal and provides for the authentic common good,
I will uphold and defend it
In accordance with the teachings of the Magisterium.

This is a good one, as it can be said by people of all nations.

As I always say, a bit of Catholic Triumphalism never hurt anyone, unless they deserved it anyway.

Eat grilled meat!
Blow things up!
Listen to Sousa!