Month: July 2005

Sorry to all those who expected a blog yesterday. I completely forgot to write one. So let me recount some of the happenings in yesterdays life.

I met with my faculty mentor yesterday in Latham at 3PM. We discussed my past education, my present situation, and where I was going. As it turns out I will not be receiving much in terms of credit for my Associates Degree from culinary school. Unless I can show that I attended classes in the sciences, languages, history, college algebra, humanities, etc…I will get nada. When I was told this disappointing news, I immediately began to seethe. “How could they?”, I thought. My mind went nuts for about 10 seconds. I was King, I was in charge, and don’t they know who I am? Thankfully this thinking never left my head.

So, it seems I’ll have to take some actual classes when I return to school, instead of skating through on what I think that I’ve earned and what I think I deserve. In a split second my mind warmed to the idea of taking a ‘hard science’ (I’m thinking geology), some math (algebra), history (American), a foreign language (I am going to avoid French, having studied it in high school), and a few other subjects deemed part of the core curriculum of any college or university. My concentration will be in political science and philosophy, so I’ll look to that end to decide on my core studies. Once again I find that I am not that special and that there is nothing unique about me or my personal history.

In any case, the meeting went well, and I was given in-state status. I have paid for the first semester, which begins in September. My first 2 classes will be an intro class on college writing, called, BTW, Introduction to College Writing, and The History of Western Philosophy, Pt. 1. The philosophy class will be taught by my mentor, Dr. Charles Fox, who I find to be an engaging and straightforward fellow. The writing class will be taught by Claudia Hough, whom I have yet to meet. I am excited, eager, and looking forward to doing something that will help build my future.

So when I came home yesterday at 6:30PM, I was exhausted. I had been on the road since 10AM that morning, all around Berkshire, Columbia, and Rensselaer Counties. The drive home was the worst, in rush hour traffic from Albany, in sweltering heat, at speeds in excess of 70MPH. I can only imagine what it must be like to live at that pace 5 or 6 days a week. No wonder stress, frustration, and the results of them are so prevalent in society. This world needs to take a chill pill and just stop for a few months. Thankfully I will only be driving up to Albany a few times each month, and in the evening to boot. I’ll miss some of the craziness and life-sucking vortex of the rush hour lifestyle. The quality of my life is incredibly serene here in the country, where things move at a more natural and unhurried pace.

Outside I can hear the frogs on the pond and the owls in the trees. In a couple of hours the coyotes will start to wail. Last night I stood outside for a cigarette and heard them howling off in the distance, miles away it seemed. The air was clear and the moon was full, but waning slightly. In the blue light I saw the shadows of trees, motionless, and an eerie reflection off of the ponds surface, caught on floating algae. If I looked directly at the shadows they were indistinct and amorphous. Viewed from the corner of my eye they were sharp as day. I imagined what life must have been like years ago, in the days of superstition, with the banshee wailing , shifting shadows under the moonlight, and the cries of spirits flying through the trees. I’ll take that over a freeway any day.

And maybe I’ll take Russian, or Chinese…

Johnnyboy

…Or maybe that should be Stuffed Court…It seems like Shrubya is loading up his side of the fence with folks who will do what he says. This new guy has all the earmarks of a real Yes Man. He’s a business lawyer with a right-wing Christian bend to his thinking. That means prayer in schools, drilling in the Arctic, reversing R v. Wade, and tax breaks for the rich.

It can make me depressed, but then I go out in my lush and jungle-like garden and discover a zucchini big enough to stun a horse. This when all the rest of the zukes are but wee nubbins on the plant. It’s a mutant, I tell you. So I think I’ll stuff it for dinner with a mix of ground meat, herbs, and veggies, and roast it in the oven. I think I’ll try to find some ground lamb, mix it with some garlic, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper, and cooked veggies. I’ll use peppers, leeks and some potato. It’s important to cook these vegetables first, before you mix them in with the meat. That way all of their water and juices get boiled away, concentrating the flavors and insuring that your mix won’t turn soggy. Dice all the veggies medium, and saute until they are cooked through. Don’t forget the salt and pepper. The potatoes add a starchiness that helps to hold the mix together. That way you don’t have to add bread crumbs or eggs. This meat mix will also work for any kind of stuffed meat pastry–just make sure that you cook the mix before you wrap it in the phyllo dough. The possibilities are endless. That’s why I love food and cooking. Recipes are good for pastry and things like that, but the rest is all technique and knowing how to treat the food from the raw state up until service. Being able to look at a cut of meat, or any item of food, and knowing how best to prepare it in order to bring out its best is a great gift, and one that I’ve worked hard at perfecting.

4 more blasts in London this morning, but they seem to have added up to naught–only 1 person injured. I think it was a copycat.

Johnnyboy