By the water

Last Friday was Earth Day, Lenin's 140th birthday, my 38th birthday and, this year, Good Friday. The April 22nd I was actually born on (1973) was Easter Sunday.

Friday morning we were at a small beach town in Delaware, the last stop of a short vacation we took for the kids' spring break, cheap because it was the off season. I got up to run in the morning, it was in the low 40s and the boardwalk was nearly deserted. A sheet cloud covered the Eastern horizon far out over the Atlantic ocean, but as it approached the shore it gave way to small puffy clouds, close together like cobblestones. It was one of those rare moments when you can't see the sun, but its rays are visible shining down through cracks in the clouds, like the illustrations of God's love or holiness in those 14th or 17th century European paintings that so confused me in art museums when I was a little kid, befuddled by why anyone would want to paint so many pictures of a naked guy being tortured.

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We drove back by way of scenic Route 9 along the Delaware coast, the "Coastal Heritage Greenway." The road is at places so close to sea level that there are numerous sign proclaiming that the road ahead is underwater if the lights are flashing, and so forth. Some of the land is farmland, some of it muddy tidal wetlands, a good portion of the latter protected as wildlife refuges.

At one point we drove a couple miles from Route 9 out to the actual shore, and stopped at what I'm guessing was once a fishing village, and is now a tiny pocket of poverty with a few people who try to make a living fishing. It had about two dozen small houses, a parking lot, boat ramp and a small pier which is closed from dawn to dusk unless you're fishing, and this ramshackle and abandoned structure:



Along with island nations and low-lying, densely populated areas like Bangladesh, this area of Delaware is almost certain to be covered by the ocean within a few decades. Unlike Bangladesh, it's not densely populated; the relative handful of I imagine mostly poor folks who eke out a living from the land and sea will be displaced into the rest of what passes for American society.

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At that fishing village, we also got our first glimpse of the Salem Nuclear Power Plant, which sits on an artificial island between Delaware and New Jersey. It dominated our view all the rest of the way along the "Scenic Route," which oddly enough begins at an Air Force base and ends at an oil refinery.

Turning your leftover roast beast into a tasty pasta sauce

So this Christmas, we reverted to the traditions of my mother's New England family, and had roast beef for Christmas dinner. Since my sister has been not eating red meat for a few years, it's been awhile. (In addition to the roast beef, we had a filet of salmon, which worked out nicely — the resting time for the roast was just enough time to crank the oven heat up and roast the salmon).

However, on account of having two main dishes (our kids were also preferring the salmon), the limited selection at the grocery store we patronized last Saturday, and the general state of the economy, I ended up buying a small top round roast rather than the more extravagant standing rib roast that I've cooked in the past:



... and, between the top round's high proportion of connective tissue and my chronic tendency to undercook things, there was a lot of, well, quite rare and chewy meat which didn't get eaten Christmas day.

So last night I made the leftovers into a rich pasta sauce:

1. Cut leftovers into 1" chunks and brown them well in a little fat (I used bacon fat, because I had some on hand and was feeling decadent, but olive oil would work too). Make sure you don't crowd the meat; I did this in about three batches.

2. Remove meat from the pan, add a little more fat if there's not some left in the pan, and then add 1 cinnamon stick and 1 bay leaf; toss in the fat for 20-30 seconds.

3. Add about 1/2 cup each of finely diced onion, carrot and celery. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until well browned. Add some chopped fresh rosemary and 1 clove garlic, minced. Sauté for 15-30 seconds.

4. Deglaze the pan with a good splash of white wine, scraping the bottom to incorporate all the browned bits into the sauce. Add any meat juices from the contained you stored the leftovers in, and enough stock to make a saucelike consistency (beef would probably be best, I used turkey because that's what I had, chicken or veggie stock would probably be ok. I've also used leftover soaking liquid from reconstituting dried mushrooms with great success). Return meat (with any accumulated juices) to the pan.

5. Cover and cook over low heat for a couple of hours, adding stock and/or water as necessary to keep it from drying out:



6. After you've basically cooked the meat into submission, remove the chunks of meat to a cutting board. Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaf. Now is a good time to start boiling the water for your pasta. Chop the meat up fine, then return to the pan:



7. Keep the meat mixture simmering until pasta is cooked. I used homemade papardelle (really wide noodles). If you're using storebought and can't find papardelle (I can't find storebought papardelle around here), use the widest noodles you can find — fettucine, farfalle, or wide egg noodles:

My UE peeps in Chicago make some history

In January 2006, I got to spend a week in Caracas, Venezuela, as part of a UE delegation, along with Armando Robles, now president of UE Local 1110.

Word of the day: expropriation

We don't watch much television, and even less so commercial television with the kids, but the last two weekends we've started watching the new Doctor Who on CBC and of course we watched the Simpsons season premiere last night. So the kids have periodically caught "coming up on the news at 10" references to the BAILOUT. (which are pretty amusing in their Canadian flavor — "Tonight, on The National, the world's biggest promoter of free markets proposes the largest government bail-out in history")

Poor kids — they've already suffered through hearing "you kids are going to paying for this stupid war, so you'd best help us stop it" probably more times than is good for developing minds; now they get near-daily lectures about how they have to learn about expropriation if they're ever going to enjoy a decent standard of living.

Gingerbread economy

Sad as it is, the price of maple syrup has become so high, even in Vermont, that we no longer feel like we can eat it on our pancakes and waffles every morning. Lately we've even begun to rely on the old southern/midwestern standby, homemade brown sugar syrup. As a New Englander of many generations, I find this a bit depressing.

Here was an attempt to come up with a pancake recipe that actually goes fairly well with the thin, caramelly non-maple-tasting brown sugar syrup:

Gingerbread Pancakes

1 c white flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
3 TBSP sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

1 TBSP cider vinegar
1 1/2 c (less 1 TBSP) milk
1/2 tsp vanilla

3 TBSP butter
3 eggs

1. Combine all the dry ingredients.
2. Combine cider vinegar and enough milk to make 1 1/2 cups (or, if you like, use 1 1/2 c buttermilk and omit the vinegar), then add 1/2 tsp vanilla
3. Melt butter, add milk and then eggs, one at a time, combining well
4. Add butter-milk-eggs mixture to dry ingredients
5. Ladle by 1/4 cups onto hot griddle

Steps 1 and 2 can be done the night before (leave milk in fridge overnight), making pancakes on school mornings much easier.

Makes about 16