An Exalted Folly

The following was published as part of the liner notes for Herbie Mann - the Evolution of Mann in 1972:

SONNET

Music is a strange and useless thing.

It doesn't offer cover from the storm.

It doesn't (really) ease the sting of living; nor nourish us, nor keep us warm. 

And men expend their lives in search of sound, and by their swift illusions to 

confound the heart with fleeting and evasive joys. 

Yet I am full of quaking gratitude

that this exalted folly still exists,

that in an age of cold computer mood, a piper can still whistle in the mists.

The notes are pebbles falling into time.

How sweetly mad it is, 

and how sublime.

Gene Lees

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD!

Just before all the isolation began, K and I were interviewed by a nutritionist as part of a check-up. She was quite impressed that we rarely have any prepared foods, tending instead to use fresh ingredients where possible, and cooking our own meals from scratch. She even asked for the treacle flapjack recipe! Perhaps that will be another post, but today, at the risk of having a blog of mine evolve into a food blog, I want to share a recipe we have for a favourite side dish that can be a stand-alone meal - Baked Beans. 

Growing up, we both enjoyed brown beans. They came from a can with Heinz written on it. If I'd known then what I know now ... ah well. I do know now and making my own pot of baked beans is so easy, and the meal so tasty - why spend so much money for something that is a really cheap and delicious meal? 

South of the border these are known as Boston Baked Beans. I suppose that comes from one of the major ingredients; molasses. Molasses is a derivative of sugar cane (imported through the port of Boston at one time) and a by-product from the production of rum. It is a sweetener, but could replaced by, oh say, maple syrup ... hmm ... At any rate, I am using an original recipe with some very small changes that I've found work to improve the flavour and texture. More experiments will follow, since there is great pleasure to be found in attempting the perfection of a recipe! 

The main ingredient is the humble bean - a pulse as the food folk like to say. In this case, we need white pea beans, sometimes called navy beans. Canada is a major grower of legumes of all sorts, and a pilgrimage to Hensall, Ontario might be in order ... it is the white bean capital of Canada. 

Making baked beans all begins by washing the dried beans in cold water; then, in a pot with lots of water, boiling the beans to soften them. After they have boiled for 30 minutes in the morning, I let them sit all day and overnight. In the original recipe I have, the beans are soaked for a day, then boiled just before mixing them with the other ingredients. I have found that boiling twice actually softens the beans better, and you must soften them before baking - they don't get any more tender in the oven. 

The beans alone are bitter, and otherwise tasteless, so some peppy ingredients are now added to give them the characteristic flavour of baked beans. Here is the recipe I've been using and massaging for a while now. 

So here is the pot, water drained off and set aside. The tasty ingredients have been added, and once mixed will be poured into the dutch oven, on top of the onion slices, ready for the reserved water and bacon to be added. 

I expect you could leave the bacon off, if that was your choice, but it does add to the comfort-food aspect that baked beans evokes. 

You can see the bowl of reserved liquid. As the beans bake all day the smell tells you that some of that liquid is escaping.

Don't let your beans get dried out as they cook. The sauce is a wonderful part of this meal.

If the reserved cooking liquid gets used up, plain water will do nicely.


For more on the history of baked beans, I recommend this article by The Old Foodie, where we learn that baked beans are part of that classic - the full English breakfast! I also love the idea that when the French came to North America, they adapted their cassoulet recipes to match the available ingredients. Mmm, ... cassoulet! I think there is a recipe here somewhere ...

What is better than cooking wonderful food? 

Eating wonderful food. 

Peameal Bacon (Canadian bacon for my friends from the south), and Baked Beans! 

Adventures in Staying Healthy

It is becoming clear that many will remember this winter and spring as the time we woke up to the reality of global pandemics. I have seen several articles that give good reasons to believe that this will not be the last of these. It is clear the way we do things will change permanently because of the way we have had to adjust to stay healthy and to help others who are vulnerable do the same. 

Sadly, it is clear that many thought it would be business as usual for far too long. In some cases, people used half-measures, and that didn't work out well either. For example, not far from us, in a relatively small and remote community, twenty-two (at last news report) residents and the spouse of a resident of a sixty-five bed nursing home have died from COVID-19. As well, at least twenty-four staff members there are also infected. Somehow this disease got into a facility that should have been a safe haven for the most vulnerable. If it can happen there, we all need to do as we are being instructed - stay home as much as possible.

On a lighter note, living in a time of a health crisis doesn't mean that other health concerns end, even mundane ones. Some computer likely deserves the credit for keeping track of such a thing, but it was a human who took the time to phone and tell me that I have an appointment for a mammogram next month. It seems likely that I will have a follow-up call  in the next few weeks telling me the appointment is postponed, but at least they are carrying on the business of taking care of our health in general. 

At the very best, some of us can see this as an adventure; we stayed home and entertained ourselves in new ways. Hopefully we didn't gain too much weight. 

At the worst ... the worst is unspeakable.

K and I have been keeping busy - not just entertained. Being really engaged in some activity is important for good mental health. Most days, while we aren't working on a nasty jig-saw puzzle, K is downstairs in her office working on family genealogy while I am upstairs with the girls (three miniature dachshunds) making sure they know everything is ok. Generally my time is filled with cross-stitching and cooking. I'm trying to give us a variety of meals to make up for a lack of variety otherwise. It is an interesting challenge to plan for a once-a-week grocery outing. While K is keeping the girls company, and cross-stitching, I head to the music room to practice. 

In the area of entertainment is the vast number of videos available online. I love to learn so history or science or music is keeping my mind busy as I do these other things. 

Of interest to those who like classical music would be the recent addition online of the Keeping Score videos by the San Fransisco Symphony and their director Michael Tilson Thomas. Below is a link to their YouTube channel. There you can see the full list of composers and pieces that have been featured. Each of the four I've listened to so far has a full performance at the end of the program, with interesting background insights at the beginning. They aren't short, but they are very well produced - fascinating for anyone with a love of music. 

Keeping Score - Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Fransisco Symphony

A New Game

I think most of us have nights where a disturbing dream keeps coming back over and over. You wake up, and when you drift off, there it is again, turning rest into restlessness.

In my dream, I am working on a sudoku puzzle. But it is clear that it is a waste of time - no matter what I try, I can't make headway toward a solution. So, like any smart game player, I chose to start a new game. Yet when I look at the new game it is the same one that I've been struggling with - that same unsolvable game that has been making me miserable.

What a relief to wake up! It is morning so I am not tempted to try to sleep any longer.

Ok how about this: No more billionaires. None.
After you reach $999 million, every
red cent goes to schools and health care.
You get a trophy that says, "I won capitalism"
and we name a dog park after you. 

Then I realize that, in this wide-awake world, there is a puzzle that I and many others have been trying to solve for years, and it isn't a sudoku. But there is a parallel to the dream. No matter what we do, it is always there, and we can't  hit reset or wake up. It is the puzzle of how to make sense of a world where so much seems like a big game. The game we have been put into that, up until recently it seemed, had no winners.

Interestingly, this game does have a restart button. A pandemic that is not just killing people; it is changing people's lives in other ways. Keeping us from loved ones, who are sometimes sick and dying. It is keeping some home and it is keeping some far away at a job that is essential. There are people who need medical attention for other reasons than the virus, but cannot get it until the medical community has the time and resources to do anything other than help those who are infected. The list of those in pain goes on and on. 

Seen from a different perspective, this pandemic is shuffling the cards. It is dealing, what could be, the first new hand we have had in a long time.

As U.S. president Abraham Lincoln said to his congress in a time of crisis in his nation:

"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."

And so, politicians are showing their true colours. Some are sinking to new depths. Their habitual swagger of overconfidence is leading them to say and do foolish things. Others are listening to advisors who are getting the best facts for them. Hopefully, voters won't forget the sort of leadership their heads of state and even local leaders showed, in this time when strong and positive leadership is essential.

There are so many examples of responses that surprise. So much that is wonderful. Some things that just make you shake your head.

Is it possible this pandemic is the world hitting restart?

You Can Take the Educator out of the Classroom

Over the years when I was an active teacher, there were a lot of my students who would tell me they were thinking of becoming a teacher. When they asked for advice, what they got back was a variation on a theme that went like this: "If you feel being a teacher is something you must do, then don't let anyone talk you out of it. We need more good teachers."

I have often seen 'being a teacher' as a character type (I almost wrote 'character flaw'). Teaching isn't only a profession - it is a calling. So, even though I haven't been a part of a class for three years now, I still know that I am a teacher and, likely, always will be.

This is never so evident as when there is what we in the profession call "the teachable moment". This is the occasion when a situation arises, or a question is asked, which makes a particular bit of learning glaringly useful and easily learned if dealt with immediately. Even if it isn't on the curriculum, a good teacher will take advantage of that teachable moment, trying their best to teach their charges that especially relevant bit of knowledge. 

The crisis in the world right now is presenting a series of highly teachable moments. All the good teachers are just itching to be useful by helping everyone (including themselves) become better informed. 

Please make allowances for the people in your community who are, or were, teachers. When they see what is going on, and how desperately some are trying to make sense of it all, the teachers among us will want to make sure the message is one that helps and doesn't hurt. The teachers will want everyone to be strong and to think for themselves - to get information that is useful, not misleading. 

So, check your sources ... footnote those essays. In other words, let's all get through this better than we went in, please. 

Ripe For the Picking

When I was a younger and somewhat naive person, someone taught me a really important lesson, unintentionally. The person was grooming me; slowly and carefully building up my trust. When I figured out what was going on, I backed away very slowly, so that they would think I hadn't figured them out, but was simply too busy to carry on the relationship they had in mind. I was lucky to not be hurt seriously.

If you survive something like that, you might go on in life never being able to trust anyone again, I suppose. In my case, it has made me very aware of manipulation, no matter how slight. 

In the previous post here, I wrote about what I see as an appallingly short attention span by folks when they scan social media, and its connection to my withdrawal from platforms like Face-Book. One of the main reasons for that post, and this one, is a shiver up my spine - a shiver of fear that signals danger from manipulative people, organizations, or worse, foreign governments.  

Much too often I have seen some political or social commentary posted and have checked the 'facts' independently, only to find that the whole article was built upon fabrications. So-called authorities being quoted didn't say any such thing, for instance. 

In my previous post, we saw how a slick presentation, referring vaguely to 'a study' can make you confident that something that you suspect to be true has, in fact, been proven. 

This sort of 'error' is not always unintentional. What is worse, however, is that gullible, but well-meaning folks repost and comment on the lies. I might have done it myself! They fall into the trap of those who want us to feel part of a social movement for change ... they are participating in their own grooming. 

During this pandemic, more people will be relying on soundbites and catchy articles for guidance. How can anyone manage to make sure that there is truth in what we read or see on social media?

I can't shake that feeling that we are being groomed. 

~ Ripe for the picking ~

Who is in charge of the harvest?

I am not alone in wondering this, of course:

A Land of Confusion

For some time I have been backing away from what has been called social media. I like blogging, but ...

Blogs are Way too much trouble
for some to read.

Reading the newspaper used to be a real pleasure; a daily encounter with clever people who knew how to turn a phrase. Sadly, that seems to be changing. 

It isn’t the paucity of good writing in blogs or newspapers that bothers me. It is that people just can't be bothered to read it seems! 

"It's BORING!!"

 It seems the attention span of the population has … oh, wait!! Are you still there????

Did you know that a study found that the average human attention span is now shorter than a goldfish’s? It says so here. 

https://www.wyzowl.com/human-attention-span/

What could this mean for the future?? 

It might mean … the media that is the best at holding your attention might not be something that is meaningful, but something that is slick! And visual. 

All of this actually seems to make sense, but wait - there is a kicker.

There is no such study! 

The BBC went looking for it, and in their article "Busting the Attention Span Myth", they exposed it as missing in action. 

In my next post, I will explore this topic a bit longer, without the interest-catching/holding graphics.

Maybe you came down to see what video I chose … hope you did, because it an oldie and a goodie!