Maybe you do like sauerkraut

When I was a kid, I remember liking sauerkraut but I have no memory of where we bought it nor of the container. But as an adult, remembering, I had not been able to find a sauerkraut that seemed to match what I remembered from childhood. Too damn sour - to tart by half, but when I would buy some I would eat it. I finally decided that I just like things more sour when I was kid. Like the huge sour pickles, when I was in 5th grade, that were sold for a nickel at the little store just across the street from our school in Archer City.

Recently, reading online about food fermentation, I read an article on how to ferment cabbage. Cabbage and salt. That's all it takes. So next time I was in the store, I checked the ingredients in the name-brand sauerkraut I thought was the best of brands I had occasionally bought. Well, there were additional ingredients but one of the main ingredients was vinegar. So I was being sold cooked cabbage with added vinegar and told it was "all natural" sauerkraut. Baloney!

Okay, there is real sauerkraut available but not typically on the canned veggie shelf at the super market. Here in Houston, you can find "barrel sauerkraut" at Fiesta and Central Market (and probably other places) made from cabbage and salt. Cabbage and salt period - nothing else. The brand I bought, Gundelsheim, is a product of Germany. But I'm sure that are other brands from other countries. It is delicious. It is better than the sauerkraut I remember. When I was in the Army (USASA in Bad Aibling) stationed in Germany, I do not remember ever testing their sauerkraut. I remember their Christmas goose and dumplings (but that's another story).

Well, as I kid, when we had our occasional sauerkraut it was always with wieners (3 lbs for $1 or some price similar) but I wouldn't eat those wieners today. Since I haven't been a red meat eater for over 30 years (not that there was much real red meat in those childhood wieners), I use a veggie alternative. My favorite is the Veggie Patch veggie dog but there are lots of brands (Veggie Patch wieners are products of Israel).

If you are a meat eater, try real fermented cabbage (sauerkraut) with your sausage and it may turn out that you actually like sauerkraut!

I do.

Our cats were not given names from Shakespeare.

No one ever thought Ms. Emily's name was based on a Shakespearean character, but many (most) people assumed that Cassius and MacBeth were named for characters from the plays. Not so.

Cassius showed up as a homeless kitten (3-4 weeks old) at the Fellowship. He had all the markings of an orange tabby cat but less than 1% of the orange - his shadings were pure Siamese. And like many of his Siasmese forebears and cousins, he had some of the awkward gait that must be the result of so much early inbreeding. As Cassius got a little older he very much took the gait of a four-legged Hercule Poirot, especially when walking away (think of David Suchet and not of Peter Ustinov or others). Anyway, Cassius was given his name as a tribute to Muhammad Ali - who was no longer attached to that name (I don't know why Muhammad Ali was given the name Cassius - that could well have been from Shakespeare). When Ali said that he no longer wanted to be called Cassius Clay, I thought that was fine and accepted his name as Muhammad Ali. But still, Cassius got his name as a homage of sorts to the early swaggering but graceful young boxer. And Cassius never seemed to mind his name. He lived some 19 years. He could be a bit cantankerous but was at heart the sweetest of guys, a bit swaggery but graceful in his Poirot-ambling way.

MacBeth's name was originally shorter. As a kitten who showed up squalling outside our front door (a rounded black and white upset kitty) he was mistakenly judged a 'she' and our granddaughter Elizabeth who was of an age when she had decided she would rather be called Beth rather Elizabeth (though no one else seemed to adjust to her wishes) named the kitten Beth. When it became apparant (or rather was discovered) that she was 'he' we decided that Beth was not the most appropriate name.

Much earlier in our married life A & I had a similar experience when a tiny puppy showed up at our door asking for refuge - like the early Beth, we carried the puppy door-to-door to find where it belonged but no one claimed it. I was working nights and had just been in bed a short time when A woke me with the puppy in hand and informed me that it was homeless and wondered if we should adopt it (or perhaps take it to the SPCA). I could tell by the way the question was framed what answer was expected of me and so, of course, I said that we should adopt the homeless puppy. Before returning to my anticipated rest, I asked her if the hound was male or female and A (who is usually quite adept at deciphering such things, told me the pup was a male).

So, after a conversation of sorts, we christened the puppy Michael Valentine Smith (actually my influence is most apparent here since I had just been re-reading Stranger in a Strange Land. Anyway, Michael appeared satisfied with his new name. Later when it became apparent (or was discovered) that the supposed gender was in error, we stuck with the name Michael and she wore it with what appeared to be a continuing satisfaction (I had explained to her some of the background of her fictional namesake). And she was a perfect enough Michael - we mostly called her Michael and not Michael Valentine Smith. Anyway the name worked well enough.

Not so with 'Beth' or so it seemed to us - first of all, Beth never responded to our using the name but ignored us as though certain that we must have intended to address some other creature. I suggested we keep the name but make it a little 'manlier' by placing a Mac in front to show that we understood that he was he and not she. He seemed to accept the new name as readily as he had the earlier shorter version and was apparently not at all put out by the sudden change from a simple to a compound name. I earlier said that Cassius was graceful - and he was - at least to the extent possible in his on awkward kind of stumbling way - but MacBeth is really the most graceful of the entire family. He walks or runs up and down stairs and jumps on top of things with a natural and refined fluidity that moves beyond mere gracefulness. There's probably a word for grace in motion to the nth degree - the only word I know for it is MacBeth.

Cassius' grace was more an inner state of being (full of savoir-faire) and no less to the nth degree. We will miss him.

Quick Saturday Soups

We (A&I) make cod soup a lot on Saturdays because of our busy home schedule - try living in a 40-50 year old 2 story house and see if your Saturday schedule isn't busy. Anyway, we make a lot of cod soup because it is easy and fast and so far we're still enjoying it. Yesterday's cod soup (maybe call it 'cod noodle soup') was good! It's almost always what we happen to have on hand or didn't use for lunches during the week and may not make the next week. So I pulled out the frozen broths (about 2 cups) that we save when we blanch veggies for other meals or lunch; the aging cilantro (now mostly stems from being trimmed though the week), frozen leftover tomato sauce (not used in some texmex creation - about 1/2 cup), leftover onion (yellow and red but the red was beyond saving and went into the compost pail after failed efforts at trimming off the obviously flawed portions until nothing was left to trim - so really just less than half a yellow onion cut and not used in last Sunday's salad probably), a sliver of red pepper (maybe 1/6 of a red bell pepper), three baby carrots sliced into slivers, and, of course, olive oil to saute the onions, carrots slivers, and cilantro stems. Which I did (slowly and not too hot) while I loosened the frozen broth from their containers. When the onion, carrot, cilantro mix was slightly softened and releasing a pleasing whiff of things to come, I turned up the heat and dumped the frozen broths and tomato sauce into the mix with added water (2 cups or so) and brought it to a boil and added just 1/2 vegan veggie bouillon (no added salt - Rapunzel brand).

Meantime, I had boiling water on the back of the stove for the extra wide pasta noodles that we love and tried to time the whole thing together. Actually the pasta is critical because when it is ready it does not tolerate a lot of rest time like the soup will. Once my broth mixture came to a boil I dropped the cod (not a lot but enough for two people) into the boiling soup and allowed it to return to a boil before putting a lid on it and turning off the fire. It will set until the pasta is perfect. By the way the cod was fresh but because we had so much of it we had frozen some of it and I was using the last of the frozen fillets.

Okay, the spices. For me, if I don't use fresh garlic as I prefer to do, I add some powdered but otherwise the spices are about the same most of the time I make a variety of cod soups that we like (most of the time with brown rice rather than a pasta): unsalted cajun spices (the ingredients are basically dried bits of the holy trinity of onion, bell pepper, celery with a bit of parsley etc. - the brand we use is Benoit's Best and is readily available in Houston and is made in Maurice, Louisiana - any such seasoning will do), red pepper flakes, fresh ground black pepper (actually ours is a mix of black, white, etc.), a pinch of kosher salt, and plenty of cayenne pepper to taste.

A raved about it. She had a glass of Malbec (I was drinking St. Arnold's Winter Stout) but I don't think it was just the Malbec talking. It was pretty good.

Happy New Year!

Mexican Immigration Through New Mexico & the Southwest

9-minute video by Tom Miles:

Christmas 2009

Right-wing noise machine hijacked the debate

Incredible.

Read this from
Think Progress' The Wonk Room:

While the hacked e-mails may reveal that scientists might not have nice things to say about climate change deniers at times, they do nothing to change the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use are raising temperatures and making oceans more acidic. As the right attempts to use the Climategate story to derail the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference this week, arctic sea ice is still at historically low levels, Australia is still on fire, the northern United Kingdom is still underwater, the world’s glaciers are still disappearing and today NOAA confirmed that not only is it the hottest decade in history, but 2009 was one of the hottest years in history. But how did the right-wing noise machine hijack the debate?

Read it all.

From the Immigration Policy Center

Climbing the Socio-Economic Ladder:
An Historical Perspective on the Success of Immigrants and Latinos

December 7, 2009

Washington D.C. - As a front-page story in (yesterday's) Washington Post reminds us: "Not since the last great wave of immigration to the United States around 1900 has the country's economic future been so closely entwined with the generational progress of an immigrant group." The story highlights the degree to which the children of immigrants from Latin America have become crucial to sustaining the working-age population and tax base of the nation as the 75 million Baby Boomers retire. The parents of these children most likely would not have even come to this country if not for the U.S. economy's past high demand for workers to fill less-skilled jobs; demand which was not being adequately met by the rapidly aging and better-educated native-born labor force.

The Post story also casts a spotlight on the insecurities and anxieties of commentators who feel that Latino immigrants and their descendants aren't integrating into U.S. society and moving up the socio-economic ladder "fast enough." Although these concerns are certainly understandable, they are as unjustified now as they were a century ago when they were directed at immigrants from southern and eastern Europe .

By any objective measure, the children of immigrants from Latin America are making significant progress compared with their parents. As demographer Dowell Myers points out in a 2008 report, the experience of Latino immigrants in California reveals not only the vast strides that immigrants themselves make within their lifetimes in terms of English proficiency, homeownership, and declining poverty rates, but also the degree to which the children and grandchildren of immigrants do better than "newcomers." Similarly, the National Research Council's Panel on Hispanics in the United States concluded in 2006 that "trends in wages, household income, wealth, and home ownership across time and generations point to the gradual ascension of many U.S.-born Hispanics to the middle class."

This isn't to say that the undeniable disparities in educational attainment and income between native-born Latinos and native-born non-Latinos in the United States aren't pressing social concerns. However, to effectively address these problems, they must first be accurately identified. The challenges confronting (and posed by) a poor immigrant from Mexico differ from the "Struggles of the Second Generation" Latinos whose parents are immigrants, which in turn differ from those of a poor third-generation Latino whose parents are native-born. Some of these challenges are unique to the immigrant experience, others derive from being part of a "minority" group in U.S. society, and others stem from dynamics of poverty that are not limited to any ethnic group, immigrant or otherwise.

For instance, if some third-generation Mexican Americans, like other minority groups in the United States, have encountered a "glass ceiling" in wage growth, this says more about the need for educational investment in poor communities than it does about a culturally specific lack of ambition. To treat Latinos as a homogeneous group inherently incapable of upward mobility, as some immigration restrictionists do, serves only to simplistically misidentify what are in fact a diverse range of issues. To deny the tremendous progress of Latino immigrants and their children over time is simply inaccurate.

Dan Bern for President

Check out Mr. Bern's website.

New Americans in the Hawkeye State

Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians are Growing Economic and Political Force in Iowa
December 1, 2009

Washington D.C. - The Immigration Policy Center has compiled research which shows that immigrants, Latinos, and Asians are an important part of Iowa's economy, labor force, and tax base. Immigrants and their children are a growing economic and political force as workers, consumers, taxpayers, and entrepreneurs. With the state working towards recovery, immigrants and their children will continue to play a key role in shaping the economic and political future of the Hawkeye State.

Highlights from Iowa include:
Iowa was home to 117,437 immigrants in 2007.
34.5% of immigrants in 2007 (or 40,473 people) in Iowa were naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote.
Latinos accounted for 4.0% (or 119,522) and Asians 1.6% (or 47,809) of Iowans in 2007.
The 2008 purchasing power of Latinos totaled $2.4 billion and Asian buying power totaled $1.7 billion in Iowa in 2007.
Unauthorized immigrant families in Iowa paid between $40 million and $62 million in state and local taxes in 2007.
If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Iowa, the state would lose $1.4 billion in expenditures, $613.4 billion in economic output, and approximately 8,819 jobs.
There is no denying the contributions immigrants, Latinos, and Asians make and the important role they will play in Iowa's political and economic future. For more data on their contributions to the Hawkeye State, view the IPC fact sheet in its entirety.

New Americans in the Hawkeye State (Iowa)

Read our blog about Iowa, post-Postville.

Read more about immigrant contributions in other states:

New Americans in the Grand Canyon State (Arizona)

New Americans in the Natural State (Arkansas)

New Americans in the Golden State (California)

New Americans in the Centennial State (Colorado)

New Americans in the Sunshine State (Florida)

New Americans in the Peach State (Georgia)

New Americans in the Prairie State (Illinois)

New Americans in the Hoosier State (Indiana)

New Americans in the Pelican State (Louisiana)

New Americans in the Pine Tree State (Maine)

New Americans in the Great Lakes State (Michigan)

New Americans in the North Star State (Minnesota)

New Americans in the Silver State (Nevada)

New Americans in the Empire State (New York)

New Americans in the Garden State (New Jersey)

New Americans in the Tar Heel State (North Carolina)

New Americans in the Buckeye State(Ohio)

New Americans in the Keystone State (Pennsylvania)

New Americans in the Palmetto State (South Carolina)

New Americans in the Volunteer State (Tennessee)

New Americans in the Beehive State (Utah)

New Americans in the Old Dominion State (Virginia)