Category: Opinion

Whole Grains Evangelism

On By SarahIn Food & Cooking, Opinion2 Comments

Gillian’s New Year’s resolution this year was to pick one cook book a month and cook from it almost exclusively. Gillian is quite the chef, and we have a nice little cook book collection, and she wanted to really spend time with some of the books, and that seemed like a good way to do it.

For January she chose Whole Grains, Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass. Sass is also a specialist in vegan cooking, but I won’t hold that against her (ha ha). This book is decidedly not vegan, or even vegetarian.

This book has changed my life. I am now a whole grains evangelist. I am spreading the word about this book and about eating whole foods.

The recipes include some things I may have heard of, but never before eaten, like kamut or spelt. We have tried many recipes already, and have loved them all. Each one has been absolutely delicious. So far we have tried and loved kamut, broccoli rabe, and sausage medley; masa harina-beef casserole; faro risoto with butternut squash, ham, sage, and toasted walnuts; and (I think my favorite so far) bulgur pilaf with Moroccan roast chicken. And did I mention the granola? It is the best I’ve ever eaten, and super easy to make.

The bonus is that we feel great, too. There has been a real difference in my energy level each day. Not to mention the positive effects on the digestive system, if you know what I mean (and I think you do).

There are many real health benefits for eating a whole grain diet. Sass points to studies that show that a whole grain diet can lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, can lower cholesterol, reduce risk of stroke and obesity, and can protect against digestive system cancers. A colleague of mine told me that her father has increased whole grains in his diet during the last year, changing nothing else about his diet and exercise regime, and within a year he naturally lost twelve pounds. You can check out some of the scientific literature on the health benefits at the Whole Grains Council website.

And health benefits aside, this stuff is really delicious! The left overs are awesome. You’re having healthy food that doesn’t feel at all overly virtuous to eat. I really like to eat for pleasure. Food is passion. I don’t believe in dieting as discipline on principal. I don’t like processed foods – I like to know where my food comes from and what is in it. I like my food to be food.

Michael Pollan wrote a really great piece for the New York Times Magazine on January 28, Unhappy Meals where he talks about how the majority of Americans consume highly processed food products. Have you walked into a Safeway or Albertsen’s or any grocery store chain recently? Everything is prepackaged and processed. What is in that stuff anyway? I can’t pronounce half of the ingredients list on some things. It is so hard to find unprocessed food these days. We are fortunate in the Bay Area to have several grocery stores that stock things like spelt and kamut, but if we lived in Kentucky we might have to mail-order these things.

Gillian and I have always eaten very well, and we are relatively heath conscious, but not obsessive about it. Mostly, we eat for pleasure. My friends think I’m a little crazy, but I feel that I’ve had a conversion experience. I am a believer.

We are enjoying cooking from this book so much that we’ve decided to continue focusing on it, cultivating a “grain bank” as Sass recommends, menu planning primarily using Whole Grains. Gillian may move on to other books eventually, but we have decided that whole grain recipes are going to stay a staple of our diet.

Alright, I’ll climb down from my pulpit, but I’ll leave you with one of our favorite recipes from the book (with slight modifications).

Stupendous Granola

2/3 cup grade B maple syrup
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups unsalted nuts (your choice), coarsely chopped
1 cup dried fruit

Place a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 225.

In a small saucepan, blend the syrup and oil. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until warm (3-5 min). Stir in the vanilla extract. Cover and set aside.

In a large bowl, toss the oats, wheat germ, coconut, and nuts together. Stir in the syrup mixture until the oats are evenly coated.

Spread the granola mixture evenly onto a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the oats are golden brown, about 1 1/2 hours. Stir the mixture every 20 minutes, and rotate the baking sheet so that the mixture will be evenly toasted.

Transfer to a large storage container. When cool, stir in the fruit.* Cover and store at room temperature for up to 2 weeks or refrigerate for up to 2 months.

* We used dates, throwing them in the mix to toast with everything else. They were delicious after a toasting.

Variations: Use rolled barley, spelt, or rye in place of some of the rolled oats. Also, try adding 1/8 cup of sesame seed and/or flax seeds.

Towards Marriage Equality, Part 2

On By SarahIn Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

This is awesome:

In the SF Chronicle today, I saw a piece about a ballot measure that was introduced in Washington State today that would require opposite sex married couples to have a child within three years of being married lest their marriage be annulled. This has been proposed by the Washington Defence of Marriage Alliance.

Great name. They have beautifully turned the right-wing tactic on its head and crafted a name to make it sound a lot like “The Defence of Marriage Act,” which was totally anti-gay. But I digress.

I love this!

It is totally absurd. Just like the argument that “marriage is for procreation”, therefore same sex couples shouldn’t have marriage rights.

If we used this logic, my father wouldn’t have been able to marry his current wife last summer. They are in their early-to-mid 70s, and I don’t think they are planning to have children. They’ve both been there, done that, and they wouldn’t appreciate anyone telling them that their marriage is any less meaningful because they can’t procreate.

In fact, their have taught me a lot about love and family. Their relationship has been very creative (maybe even procreative) in growing their family, bringing a disparate group together in kinship and love. They are thriving in companionship, and continuing to grow independantly and together.

My mother and father were married for over 40 years by the time my Mom died in 2001. They were soulmates, and they are my role models for marriage. Now that my Dad was lucky enough to find Great Love a second time, I have another couple to look to for inspiration.

All of this is to say that love makes a family. What can possibly be wrong about that.

Bigotry of the AFA

On By SarahIn Opinion, PoliticsLeave a comment

I subscribe to the American Family Association email alerts because I want to know what they’re up to. Mostly they send out emails about what companies you should boycott because they offer domestic partner benefits to same-sex couples, and its a great way for me to know that I should write to thank Wal-Mart or the Home Depot for supporting their gay and lesbian employees.

Lately, the email alerts have been particularly disturbing because they are so blatantly trying to encourage hatred and intolerance for Muslims in the US. In the midst of everything that has been happening in the last seven years, this is very dangerous.

In November, I received an email telling me I should write to my representatives asking them to support legislation that would require that all elected officials take the oath of office on the Bible. This was in response to the announcement that Keith Ellison, the first elected Muslim in the US (go Minnesota!) planned to take his oath of office on the Quran.

I was livid. This is craziness. There are so many things wrong with this. First, what about the separation of church and state? Second, what about freedom of religion? Third, what about freedom of speech? I could go on about the fact that any oath that a Muslim would take on the Bible would be meaningless to that person, or how we should take a note from the Quakers don’t take oaths because they believe that they should be truthful all of the time. But this is like trying to have a rational argument with an irrational person.

This past week, I received a survey from the AFA on Islam. I’m sure they ramped up again because of all of the folks taking office in Washington this week, including Keith Ellison. Again, they got on their bandwagon of intolerance and peppered their constituents with questions about their opinion of Islam in America. The questions reveal an agenda to spread misinformation and hatred of Muslims, taking advantage of an already tense and fearful climate.

All of this scares, angers, and saddens me. It is so wrong, and I wish that it weren’t out there in the public sphere because of the hateful attitudes is espouses. On the other hand, I think its ultimately good that the AFA is revealing its blatant hate-mongering agenda. Let the people see it for what it is.

I identify as a Christian, a mantle I have reclaimed in recent years because I was tired of a small and hateful minority plucking my religious tradition out of my spiritual life. In the spirit of ecumenism, I do not begrudge the AFA from claiming its Christian identity. However, they are hijacking a peaceful tradition that is about unconditional love and radical social justice.

The AFA promotes bigotry thinly veiled behind a mask of Christianity that they claim gives them a moral high-ground. I am pleased that they are showing themselves more and more as the bigots they really are, making it clear that they alone are responsible for shaping the hateful attitudes they hold about those who are different from them.

Yesterday, Keith Ellison was sworn in as the first Muslim member of Congress using a Quran that was once owned by Thomas Jefferson. I am proud that my home state of Minnesota elected him.

Resistance is Futile

On By SarahIn Art & Culture, Opinion2 Comments

the lament of a latent activist

(Sarah’s 1997 holiday rant)

My name is on the mailing lists of several mail-order catalog companies. I probably got on the list for Pottery Barn because of my subscription to the New York Times, or Tweeds because someone sent me a mail-order gift from them for my birthday one time. I’m not sure why, but I get their catalogs, along with Eddie Bauer, Levenger, Victoria’s Secret, and many other clothing and home furnishing mail order companies. Especially now that its the holiday season I get a new one almost every day. I come home and my mail box is crammed with glossy pictures of unusually gaunt models wearing cardigans in colors like ox blood, moss, and citrus ($45.99 each), or of other people’s homes featuring furnishings such as the 6-foot “cathedral” wind chime with symphonic sound (“Kenny G’s percussionist plays one”, only $139.95).

I’m aware of the marketing research that goes into these specifically targeted mailings. Within my demographic, zip code, age range, and gender category, these companies know my probable salary range and even what my tastes will likely be. What these mail-order companies don’t know is that I am more inclined to throw the catalogs right in the recycling bin, if they are indeed made of recyclable material. I know better than to think “well, hmm, I may actually want something in here, and who knows, it may not be so outrageously priced, and it can’t really hurt to look anyway.” I have made that mistake many times before, and I learned my lesson. The only thing that leafing through those catalogs does is inform me that my home is not complete without an heirloom-quality hand-carved cedar trunk ($395), and that my wardrobe absolutely must include that basil-colored denim jacket ($150).

I know better than to even bother looking at the catalogs because I understand that capitalism makes you feel empty. You spend the best hours of your day at a job you don’t care that much about, so you come home at the end of the day, energy spent, uninspired to do anything interesting to fulfill any creative need in yourself. So, to numb yourself you turn on the TV, or read the newspaper, or look at catalogs with glossy pictures, passively letting Sears convince you that you need a new refrigerator in order to feel fulfilled. We are bombarded with commercials and billboards and newspaper ads for sales at Macy’s. When I pay attention to them, the ads make me forget that I am outraged when I see homeless people everyday when I go to lunch, or that my vegetables are grown with chemicals and pesticides. Advertisers want me to focus on my need for a $175 Italian calfskin wastebasket rather than on the fact that the United States still spends billions a year on weapons development. Most of the time I can sustain my awareness of how the system works, knowing intellectually that I do not need a $50 leather mousepad to feel like a whole person.

But its the holiday season, and I begin to see those glossy catalogs in my peripheral vision. Even with my personal ritual of throwing them in the recycling pile, affirming my choice of a simple life-style, I feel a tug. My justification is that I need gift ideas, so with that in mind, I give in to temptation and fish them out of the recycling bin. They probably can’t be recycled anyway.

What I am ashamed to admit, even to myself, is that my darkest secret desire is to get ideas of gifts for me. I need to find the perfect tie tack for Dad ($20.00) to go with the Dilbert Christmas tie I want to get for him, but don’t I need a mahogany remote-control organizer ($65.00)? My middle-class existence has afforded me the belief that I have the right to own these fabulous objects, and not only that, but that I must be truly miserable and deprived without them. These thoughts don’t exactly go through my head in that way as I thumb through the catalogs, but I certainly feel an emotion, a dearth, an emptiness in my heart because I lack “barrister” glass-front sectional bookcases at $189 a section (plus $89 for the legs and $119 for the “crown”). Besides, focusing on that lack makes me forget that I am outraged that Pete Wilson wants the University of California to deny health and housing benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of its employees. Why get upset about the fact that I am one ineffective person, alone, small against the huge backdrop of this issue, when I can contemplate what to get for my nieces for Christmas and fantasize about a $65 dental floss dispenser for me.

I am dismayed at my own emotional reaction to this feeling of deprivation in my life. To be completely honest, when it is not Christmas I still have difficulty resisting that consumer impulse. It effects me profoundly even when I go shopping for underwear. This is how it goes: I am going to Target and I am only going in to buy Fruit of the Looms, and maybe some socks; I come out of the store with a shopping cart containing a couple of T-shirts, a new hair conditioner, a rolling pin, some new kitchen towels, a box of 300 Q-tips, and a CD tower made of plywood that I have to assemble myself when I get home. This is what happens when I am using restraint.

Part of me believes that resistance is futile, but I also feel revulsion at my own reaction of want and need when faced with these objects of desire/disgust. I say to myself “do the advertisers for this stuff really think we’re morons and will pay money for that?” And I will pay money myself, get that momentary consumer high, and go back to my unfulfilled life and feel sorry for myself, or maybe go watch TV, indulging myself in passively allowing the Fox Network to distance me from my own feelings and thoughts. I despair because somewhere deep down inside myself, I have given up hope and I participate in this world as if I have no idea how garbage production is affecting the environment, as if I am oblivious to the reality of domestic abuse, as if I truly believe that anything I might do to show my outrage at these things wouldn’t matter anyway. I am disheartened because I start to believe that I don’t have any responsibility to solve the effects of greenhouse gasses.

During the holiday season it is especially hard to resist the consumer temptation, and I feel myself getting sucked into the cyclone of commercialism and family obligation, what I have convinced myself is the desire to show love to those near and dear to me with gifts, gestures of my undying affection. I know that I am not the only person in the world to feel isolation at Christmas, to feel the urge to fill up the void with mulled cider and ginger bread cookies, to suddenly feel an urgent need for a pine tree in my living room strewn with tinsel and shiny ornaments. Even as I dread the onset of the commercial hype, my heart warms at the thought of baking short bread in the shape of reindeer and sleighs, or inviting friends over to enjoy cocktails in front of the Yule Log video.

I swear to myself every year that I am not going to let it suck me in, but I recall a cartoon I saw once depicting fat lady outside of a candy store, caught in a wind tunnel, as if the door to the store is a big vacuum cleaner. She is desperately holding to a parking meter while her hair, dress, and purse, her whole body is horizontal with the ground as the force of desire pulls her in against her will. For me this illustrates quite fittingly the contradiction of the pull of consumer culture against the better judgment of the human conscience. That fat lady is me at Christmas, resisting with all my strength the pull of the holiday vortex where my personality would be lost in the deluge of manufactured desire.

Towards Marriage Equality

On By SarahIn Friends & Family, Opinion, Politics1 Comment

South Africa recently legalized same-sex marriage and declared the same inheritance rights of heterosexual married couples. Mexico just passed legislation supporting same-sex civil unions. In 2005, Spain gave same-sex couples the right to marry.

I didn’t used to care about marriage. I didn’t used to want to be like dysfunctional straight people. I didn’t want to emulate a relationship that was not natural to me.

I didn’t want to be married. Until I met Gillian.

Now I understand why I need the right to marry Gillian, and that this is really a civil rights battle. For me, marriage is not about fitting in or changing the paradigm of marriage. Plain and simple, for me marriage is about love, family, and home. We don’t want to redefine marriage, we just want to build a life together, and we want to make sure that we can take care of each other. There are people who would like to make that impossible, or very difficult at the very least. Gay rights is not all about being able to get married, but I do think that raising the visibility of this issue could be a way for the straight world to see us as more human and less “other.”

I live in a part of the world where Gillian and I are accepted as a couple. No one here questions who we are to each other. We have never had to fight or risk anything because people, even when they are homophobic to some degree, respect our relationship. Our family loves us and support us and celebrated with us when we got married. We are privileged in many ways that others are not, so Gillian and I feel a responsibility to fight for the rights of others who live in more dangerous places and truly need the protections we are fighting for.

We recently watched the documentary Dangerous Living, which is about people coming out in the Third World, and its really terrifying and inspirational. The film focuses on the 52 Egyptian men who were arrested in 2001 for being gay and out, as well as following the stories of gay men and lesbians, all activists from other countries, their decision to come out, and the danger they face as a consequence.

I remember hearing about the Cairo 52 on the news when it was happening, and feeling really distant from it, thinking “gosh, that really sucks, but what can I do about it.” It is so easy to do nothing when something terrible like that doesn’t impact you directly, or at least doesn’t seem to. Seeing those interviews made me see the human face of this terrible injustice. These were people just like me and my friends and family, trying to create a vibrant and loving community and being persecuted for it. Some are just trying to survive, which in some places is revolutionary in and of itself.

I really hope that most people, regardless of what they think about being queer, would agree that no one deserves to be imprisoned or beaten or terrorized or killed for being different. Is it such a revolutionary idea that all people, regardless of their differences, should be treated with respect?

We are gaining civil rights all over the world. I am thrilled and hopeful, and so happy that South Africans and Mexicans will now have the right to marry whomever they choose. I am also frustrated and enraged that this backwards culture that I live in won’t recognize our families or our love. We’re on the right side of history, as my friend Rebecca says, and that gives me the courage to persevere.