Shhh.... Meatless Meatloaf

This year, my resolution is to live more intentionally.  I do some cool things - at any rate I think they're cool things - but they are wasted for posterity because I don't record them.  For example, I don't write about the amazing things that sometimes happen in my classrooms that  my students are doing.  And closer to home, I often make delicious, healthy foods that will never be made again because I don't bother hanging onto the recipe.  Or if I created the dish, I don't bother writing it down.

Now, on the one hand, no biggy because I can create a new dish every single day if I want to.  On the other hand, what a shame, right?  Because if it's really good, why not allow myself the pleasure of enjoying it again?

One of the things I wrestle with - I've wrestled with this for years - is our reliance on meat.  Part of my new commitment to intentionality is to be more intentional about meat eating.  The ramifications of eating meat bothers me on multiple levels - the cruel way most of our agricultural industry treats the animals that become our food, and the amount of land we use to feed animals that could otherwise be used to reduce human hunger.  Unfortunately, there's a bigger profit in beef than in beans, but that's a topic for another day.

I am also aware that our health is better when we include more non-meat fiber, protein and vegetables in our diet.   I'm not planning to become vegetarian, but when I cook for others, I too often find myself falling back on the dinner plate formula I learned growing up in Kansas - meat, potato, vegetable, dessert.  Oh, and a hunk of garlic bread if we were lucky. Well, there are very few white potatoes in my life anymore - although  I consider truffled garlic fries a birthday cake substitute.  And I eat bread only "out" and then only those loaves I consider irresistible. At home, my dinner plate often excludes what used to be called "a starch," the role on the plate represented by the potato or pasta - "bad' carbs.  But it doesn't often enough include the healthy replacement, "a fiber."  Fiber, good for us in so many ways, often contains enough protein to let us leave meat off the plate.  A reduction in meat is good for me and good for society in several ways:

Reducing meat purchases reduces food costs, leaving me with extra money to pay the higher cost of buying meat from compassionate farmers when I do buy meat.  I can't even write about what happens to many of the animals abused by industrial food production facilities without my stomach turning, but the Grace Communications Foundation website covers it thoroughly enough, and everyone ought to take the time to read about it at least once.1  Unfortunately, meat raised in kinder (and more sustainable) ways costs quite a bit more than facility-raised critters, but if you reduce your meat costs by eating less of it, you can shift those savings to paying the up-charge. Sources for compassionately raised meat can be found at CertifiedHumane.com, AmericanHumane.org, AnimalWelfareApproved.org and compassionate-carnivores.org.

If you happen to keep kosher, like I do, it's going to be more difficult.  I've found three companies, Wise Organic Pastures, Kol Foods, and Grow and Behold.  Unfortunately, they're all on the east coast, making shipping prohibitive if you live anywhere west of the Mississippi, although Kol Foods and Grow and Behold have buying clubs in some cities.  Two other Colorado based companies and a Texas company stopped offering kosher grass fed meats within a few years of their launch dates.  Costco and Trader Joe's carry free range organic kosher chicken from Empire.  Trader Joe's carries kosher meats, but as far as I can tell, besides the Empire offerings, none of it comes from compassionate producers.  Otherwise, I suggest Googling "free range kosher meat" and see what's available.

If everyone would reduce meat consumption even by a little, some of the land used to raise feed could be converted to raise crops for humanity, and more people would get fed.  According to a Stanford study, over two-thirds of the world's agricultural land is given over to raising crops to feed livestock, compared to only about eight percent used to feed humans directly.  I find that unbelievable.  And as the economies grow in third world countries, these numbers are only expected to get more extreme.  The industry is taking over forests and grasslands, changing ecosystems forever and using our already insufficient supplies of fresh water.2  Why, in 2012, a Business Insider article reported that within the last decade, over 495 million acres were sold or leased to foreign governments for the purpose of accessing land for agricultural, forestry and natural resource extraction purposes.3

And of course, we are healthier when our ratio of vegetables, legumes and fruits is higher than our meat consumption.  I say "of course," but maybe that's not so obvious.  I have no intention of getting into it with the Paleo crowd and say, "God bless them," but we are not the same creatures we were in caveman times.  The level and type of activity we needed to eat to support, and the length of our lives were different then, and medical science still insists that too much meat leads to heart problems.  Conversely, adding vegetables, especially those cruciferous veggies like cauliflower, broccoli and the like, have the opposite effect.4

Ok, the "why" discussion can give way to the recipe.  What, you may ask, prompted me to go all "eat less meat" on you?  Well, today's recipe is a meatless substitute for one of America's favorite meat dishes, meatloaf.  Just try it.  I predict you'll like it.

Shhh.....Meatless Meatloaf

As often happens, my inspiration for this meatloaf came from a lot of online sources.  I saw some amazing versions that include walnuts, but I got in the habit of eliminating all nuts but almonds from my cooking about 30 years ago, because my oldest daughter turned up allergic.  So many kids have nut allergies.  I noted what I liked, but moved on to lentil loaves.  I liked the idea of a hearty lentil meat replacement, but most of the lentil loaves mixed lentils with rice.  I've more or less given up on rice, because its glycemic index number is higher than I prefer, even though it's not a simple carb.  So, in the end I decided to mix chana dahl - looks and tastes like a lentil but is actually from the chick pea family and has more protein than lentils, and mix them with quinoa.  As an Indian food staple, it's readily available at your local Indian market or online.  I worked to get the same meaty, tomato-y taste we're all used to from a good, old-fashioned meatloaf, and I think I succeeded - but would love to hear about your modifications.

Ingredients

Loaf
1.5 c quinoa
2    c chana dahl
7    c vegetable broth - I used "No Beef" bullion
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp sage
1    tbsp worcestershire sauce (vegetarian or not)
1    tsp soy sauce
1    tbsp olive or other oil
1    yellow onion diced
1/2 c shredded carrots
3    cloves garlic, minced (I was out so I used garlic flakes, which I didn't bother to measure)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Glaze
1 small can of organic tomato paste
1    tbsp worcestershire sauce (vegetarian or not)
2    tbsp coconut palm sugar.
1/2 tsp mustard (I used dijon because it was handy but I think anything will do)
1/4 tsp hot sauce of choice, amount adjusted to personal taste
1 tbsp roughly of water, to get the whole thing to the right consistency to spread on top of the loaf

Soak the quinoa and chana dahl briefly to dislodge any particles of dirt or tiny stones, and, using a strainer, pour off the rinse water - I used it to water plants - and put the quinoa and dahl into a pot.  Add the broth and spices and bring to a low boil.  As the proteins in the dahl break down, a white foam will well up in your pot, similar to simmering meat for broth.  Skim it.  Turn the heat to low and simmer for approximately an hour minutes, stirring occasionally until the water has been absorbed, the dahl mixture is creamy but not wet, and there is no broth left in the pot when you stir it.  If you feel the dahl is drying out before it reaches this stage, feel free to add up to more broth or some water.  When finished, taste it to see if it needs salt and pepper.  This will depend in large part on the bullion or broth you used.

While you wait, saute the onions and carrots until the onions are translucent.  About now, it's probably time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the glaze, mix all the ingredients but the water together in a 3 or 4 cup measuring cup, or a wide mouth bowl.  Then slowly add a bit of water, stir until well mixed, and continue to add more until you get a consistency that would be easy to spread but unlikely to drip.  That's your glaze.

When the dahl and quinoa are ready, mix them into the onions and carrots, add the worcestershire and soy sauces and stir until everything is well mixed.  Use a bit of oil to lightly grease the surface of a loaf pan, and turn the mixture into the pan.  As you can see, I chose to use an 8 x 8 pan instead of a loaf pan, but you can do it either way.  At this point, assess your dahl mixture.  It should be dry enough to support the glaze on top, but if it's not, you can glaze the loaf midway through baking.

Bake for 1 hour, or until it just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.  Let it sit for about 10 to 15 minutes to cool sufficiently to cut before serving.  Serves 6.

Issue
The first time I made this, I took the advice of those who said that if you cook dahl without a pressure cooker, add more water.  So I added an extra cup, and then it took about 2 hours to evaporate all the water out of the dahl.  The second time, I used a cup less liquid and found that the mixture stuck to the bottom of the pan and I needed to add more water.  In neither case did it impact the flavor, but too-wet dahl mixture did not bake up as firmly as I would have liked it to.  Just be aware.

Alternatives
American vs. Asian loaf:  I have to say that using these particular spices with dahl felt awkward, as I usually think of dahl as carrying asian flavors, but if you want it to taste like meat loaf, go with my combo.  If you want something more exotic, feel free play around with cumin, dried chili pepper, masala and other spices.  If you do, you probably ought to use a half teaspoon of finely grated ginger and something slightly fruity - jam or chutney - in place of the worcestershire and mustard in the glaze.  If you use ginger, remember that fresh ginger has a pretty strong bite, and reduce the hot sauce accordingly.

Sweetener:  Coconut palm sugar is slightly less sweet than table sugar, lower glycemic and lower calorie, and has a natural vanilla taste.  You might prefer maple syrup, brown or plain cane sugar, or a zero calorie sugar alternative.  If you substitute, start with a tablespoon (or an equivalent for the zero calorie substitutes), and adjust upward till you get a sweetness you like.

Hot Sauce: I used Nando's Peri Peri Sauce, medium, courtesy of my friend Kate, who brought it back from South Africa.  I put my pinky in the jar and tasted it first.  Whoa. Hot. Not Medium.  I don't even know if you can get this in the states.  Chipotle would be good, or Sriracha sauce.  Or anything, really.  Adjust to personal strength.

Lemon Juice:  If you don't have any, sub in balsamic or another vinegar.


1. http://www.sustainabletable.org/274/animal-welfare

2. Brooks, C. (2011?). Consequences of increased global meat consumption on the global environment -- trade in virtual water, energy & nutrients. In W. I. f. t. Environment (Ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.

3. Khetani, S. (2012). These 14 Countries Are Buying Incredible Amounts Of Foreign Land In Deals You Never Hear About. Business Insider.

4.  Pan, A., PhD, Sun, Q., Md, ScD, Bernstein, A. M., . . . et al. (2012). Red meat consumption and mortality: Results from 2 prospective cohort studies. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(7), 555-563. doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287.

First Harvest: Roasted Eggplant, Squash & Tomato Salad

It's only May 2nd, and yet I harvested two beautiful Japanese eggplants from my garden.  This particular plant sprouted of its own volition from last year's harvest, and so it's light years ahead of the plants I put in a few weeks ago.  Herbs also lasted through the winter, or popped through as soon as it warmed up, so I plucked some sage too.

Never having been a patient woman, I hit Google immediately in search of recipes.  I found several that appealed to me, both for the idea of them, but also because I mostly had the ingredients at hand.

In the end, though, the assorted ingredients in my refrigerator suggested their own outcome.  Yellow squash, mushrooms, onions, arugula, tomatoes.  Roasting appealed to me because grilling or frying eggplant is a mess - a delicious mess and I do it sometimes, but not today.  Very simple - and - it got the thumbs up from Tony, especially the 'shrooms.

Roasted Eggplant, Squash & Tomato Salad

2 Japanese or one "regular" eggplant
1 yellow summer squash
1 medium onion, any color
8oz tub of fresh mushrooms - I prefer crimini
6 cloves of garlic
6 small or Roma tomatoes, or maybe 3 times that many cherry tomatoes
Handful of fresh torn or teaspoon of dried sage
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder (optional)
                                          salt and pepper mill pepper to taste

1/4 c of pine nuts
2 c arugula
3 oz soft goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Slice the eggplant and the squash into medallions about half an inch thick.  Cut the onion into 6 to 8 wedges.  Slice the 'shrooms in half.  Get the garlic cloves out of their skins.  Throw all these veggies except the tomatoes because they're probably too fragile into a bowl and toss until coated with the olive oil, the salt and pepper and the sage. If you're a garlic hound, add the garlic powder.  Cut the tomatoes in half, unless they're big ones, and in that case, cut them into very thick slices.

Find a 9 x 13 glass baking dish, dump in all the coated vegetable pieces and spread them out across the dish.  Add the tomatoes in a bit more carefully.  Roast the vegetables for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on your oven.  Slightly under-cooked is far better than over-cooking them.  The high heat will continue to work through the flesh even after you pull the veggies out of the oven.

On salad plates, spread some arugula.  Scoop some of the veggie medley on top of the arugula, crumble goat cheese liberally, and then scatter a few pine nuts for show.  Voila!  Serves two as a main course, with left-overs, or five or six as a side dish.

Damn, that's Good! Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup

Occasionally I strike out.  I made something the other night that Tony so over-salted.  I got the message.

Tonight, on the other hand, home run.

Wow. What's with all these sports metaphors? That's so not me.

Anyway, back to my home run.  Or really, back as far as Passover.  I got this idea that I would make some mushroom matzah kugel for Seder.  So I bought a couple of trays of crimini mushrooms.  But my friend Sharon offered to bring this winner of a sweet potato dish, and I realized I could drop back one dish.  I'm an ambitious hostess, but I know a gift when I see one.  At that last moment, having one less thing to prepare is a blessing.  Thank you, Sharon!

Passover was a bit ago already, but I still have a couple of gallons of turkey broth, and two packages of mushrooms.  Perfect storm for Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup.  This is the easiest soup ever, hearty and delicious.  And demonstrates the value of having frozen broth on hand.  If you don't have broth, click this sentence for my fast and easy Vegetable Bin Broth recipe.

Wild Rice & Onion Mushroom Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, sliced thin
1 container of mushrooms (about 8 oz), sliced
8 cups or so of turkey, chicken, beef or vegetable broth
1/2 cup of uncooked wild rice (or, use quinoa, barley, beans or lentils)
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large, deep saute pan.  Add sliced onions to hot oil, and turn the heat down to medium low.  Push the onions around so they all get coated in oil, and then stir occasionally.  Saute until onions become translucent, and then caramelize.  To caramelize the onions, you simply cook them over medium to low heat long enough for them to brown, stirring occasionally so they don't stick and burn.  If they seem to be sticking, just turn the heat down and stir more frequently.  This process takes about thirty minutes.  If you want a fuller explanation about caramelizing onions with lots of pictures, click this sentence to be whisked to one of my favorite recipe blogs, Simply Recipes.

Once the onions are how you like them - or if you've never done this before, a warm brown color, push the onions to the side of the pan to make room for the sliced mushrooms. Toss them in, and push them around every few minutes, for about ten minutes, until they are well sauteed, but still firm.  Set the onions and mushrooms aside.

You can see carrots in my soup.  These were already in the
turkey broth, but aren't necessary.

In a pot, pour the broth and add the wild rice.  Heat to barely boiling, then lower the heat and simmer gently for thirty minutes, until the rice is al dente.  If you're using something other than wild rice, adjust the time accordingly.  Lentils, for example, usually take longer than 30 minutes.  

When the rice is ready to eat, simply stir in the onions and mushrooms, and let them heat in the broth for a couple of minutes.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Ready to serve.

Before we say goodbye so you can go make this simple and beautiful soup, I feel the need to make mention of my suggested substitutes for wild rice.  Not everybody has wild rice in the house all the time.  You could, I suppose, substitute regular white rice for this dish.  It's not as hearty and the flavor is different, but it would work pretty well.  You could substitute pasta.  Almost everyone has regular rice and some sort of pasta sitting around the cupboard.  But I specifically did not recommend those things because they are high on the glycemic index, and low on nutritional value.

They are the comfort foods of your childhood, but if you don't give them up or at least reduce their incidence in your diet significantly, they will be the bain of your old age.

But don't take my word for it.  If you don't understand glycemic index, read what Harvard says about it by clicking this sentence.  To see Harvard's food chart listing glycemic index of 100 foods, click this sentence.

Was that easy or what?

Vegetable Bin Broth

Fridge clean-out day.  I didn't plan it that way, but when I opened the bin this morning, so many melancholy veggies looked up at me with those big, sad eyes.  I knew it would be Vegetable Bin Broth day.  Vegetable Bin Broth is the perfect antidote for pouting veggies.  Almost anything that is so far gone you wouldn't buy it from the market, but not actually rotten can be put into the pot to create a delicious, healthy soup base.  Use it now, or freeze it for later.  

Here's the recipe.  Don't despair that my measurements are not exact.  You really can't do any harm here as long as you have adequate water in the pot with the veggies.  Quantities depend on how many veggies you're trying to get rid of, and how big a pot you're using.  And you will notice I don't have you remove skins or leaves.  These add flavor, color and nutrition, and you'll strain them out later.  If you don't have a regular strainer, use your spaghetti strainer!

Vegetable Bin Broth

Nice to Have Ingredients:

You can make a nice soup with only the following ingredients.  But even if you don't have all of these, you can just use whatever you have.  Really!

An onion or two, quartered.  Don't even bother to remove the skin
Two or three cloves of garlic.  Leave their skins on too.
A couple of carrots cut into pieces

Pepper corns
A bit of salt
A couple of bay leaves or a sprout of thyme or parsley 

Optional ingredients

Whatever uncooked, limp but un-dead vegetables in your fridge. Celery, root vegetables, peppers, past-prime (but never sour tasting) tomatoes, parsley or other herbs, broccoli, brussel  sprouts, squash, mushrooms.  Anything, really.  The only vegetables I strongly advise against are cucumber and particularly starchy vegetables like potatoes.  Trim off bad spots and stems, but use the leafy tops.

This soup is perfect for vegetarians and vegans, but if you are a meat-eater and want to  toss in a couple of chicken quarters or beef bones, feel free.  But don't feel you have to.  A purely vegetable stock is a lighter concoction with a more delicate flavor, and you'll find lots of uses for it.   Some of my favorites:  as a base for Asian soup recipes, a flavorful broth for steaming or poaching fish, or a substitute for water when simmering rice, lentils or beans.   

Preparation

Toss whatever you've got into your pot, and add water to just cover the vegetables.  Now however high the water comes in the pot, add more water till it's double.  Bring to a boil and then quickly reduce the heat and simmer until the onions are translucent and the carrots have exchanged their vibrant orange for a muted rust color.  The process could take anywhere between twenty minutes and an hour, depending on how much stuff you've got in your pot.  

By the way, if you get involved in something else and forget your soup, and when you return, there's hardly any soup in the pot, do not despair.  Unless you've let it go so long that the veggies are scorched and stuck to the bottom of the pot, just add water back to reconstitute the very concentrated broth that's left.  It will be fine.  If it is scorched, you'll have to toss.  Scorched veggies leave an acrid taste in the broth.  Yuck.  If you're like me, and prone to time lapses where you look up at the clock and entire half days have gone by, consider setting a timer that goes off loudly.

To know when you're done, use your eyes.  When the colors are dull, the broth is ready.  Don't worry about how your veggies look - you're not serving them.  You're getting rid of those veggie carcasses as soon as they transfer their healthy goodness into the pot.  If they're still bright and colorful, then their value is still in the vegetable and not yet in your broth.  

Once your broth is ready for you, use a strainer placed over another pot to separate the vegetables from the broth.  Let the broth cool and refrigerate it.  Reheat your broth for soup tonight, adding some cut up veggies, rice, or lentils before serving, or you can freeze it for later use.  

I don't want to guilt you, but consider tossing your spent veggies into a composter.  They are still good for enriching your garden soil.  I seriously recommend clicking here to see this little composter guy.  It fits right under your counter so you don't have to run your scraps outside.  It is air tight, surprisingly doesn't smell at all, and turns out some really great compost, as well as compost "tea" for your house plants.  By the way, compost tea needs to be seriously diluted before using.

Once you've gotten into the habit of creating delicious stock from your vegetable bin, you will swear off bullion cubes forever.

Bon appetite!

Garlic & Kale Smashed Cauliflower

Can I write about food here?

I'm on a self-imposed diet.  I'm trying to keep my youthful figure, even though I'm upwards of that half-century mark where everything heads south, best intentions notwithstanding.  So, I've become a low carb, low glycemic kind of gal.  I also avoid fried foods, but more because frying tends to destroy perfectly good vegetables than that it's bad for me.  I know it's bad for me, but the best food in the universe is a french fry, and really crispy onion rings are right behind.  And a few other things, but I won't go on.  I occasionally do indulge.

Mostly I'm good.

I've noticed that when I don't record my recipes, I can't remember how I made something.  This has been vexing for baked goods, because, while I can pretty much improv anything else, I'm not much of a baker.  Tony likes his sweets, though, so it's worse than a shame when, after spending ages trying to force almond flour and sweetener substitutes into ice creams, cookies, brownies and bars that pass the Tony taste test, I can't remember how I made them.  From now on I record.

Today I'm not baking.  Today I am missing mashed potatoes.  I thought I would try to replace it with smashed cauliflower.  I read half a dozen recipes, and then created my own.  Here goes.  Maybe I'll remember to take a picture and post it here before I eat it.  Maybe not.

Garlic & Kale Smashed Cauliflower

Ingredients

One head of cauliflower, cut into large florets
Enough vegetable broth to cover cauliflower in a pot
Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, chopped into smallish pieces
Two cups of kale, cut or torn into medium size pieces
One cup of basil, torn into medium pieces
1/4  cup grated parmesian cheese (optional)

Put the cauliflower and the broth into a pot big enough to hold them with room.  I actually made a vegetable-based broth because I only had left over Turkey broth in the house, and meat and cheese do not co-mingle in my kitchen.  I also think the gamier flavor of meat broth would overpower the basil flavor, but I'm not sure about that.  If you try it, let us know.

Making a vegetable broth, by the way, is an easy way to get rid of vegetables that are limping along in your refrigerator wondering if you even remember they're there.  If you already have broth, that's great.  But if not,  click here to check my fast and easy recipe for Vegetable Bin Broth.

So, where were we?

Oh, yes, the cauliflower is now in a pot, with broth to cover.  Bring to a boil on medium high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer.  While you are waiting for the cauliflower, rinse and chop your garlic, kale and basil, if you haven't already.

After 10 minutes, the cauliflower should be done enough to move a fork through the vegetable easily. It's best not to overcook it, to preserve nutrients, flavor and texture.   Use a strainer to catch the cauliflower, pour off the broth, let it cool, and refrigerate it for another use.

Put the cauliflower back into that pot or a smaller one, and mash it with a potato masher, mixing in a tablespoon of good olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.  Put the cauliflower aside.

In another pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil, and add the chopped garlic.  Stir over medium heat until the creamy shade of the garlic begins to darken to a beige color.  You'll want to watch carefully, because garlic goes from beige to burnt fast.  Burnt garlic gives your oil - and hence your dish - an acrid flavor, forcing you to pitch the oil and start over.

When the garlic is ready, add the kale and stir.  It will begin to wilt within a couple of minutes. If you hear sizzling or cackling, add a bit more oil and reduce the heat.  As soon as the kale starts to wilt, toss in the basil. Stir for another moment, until the basil starts to wilt  too, and then remove the pan from the heat.  If you're ready to eat, move on to the next step.  If not, let it cool, and refrigerate the greens and cauliflower in separate containers until you are ready to eat.

When you are ready to serve, reheat the cauliflower if necessary, stirring in a few tablespoons of the left-over broth. Stir in the greens. If you want cheese, stir that in too.  When the cheese "disappears" into the dish, it's melted and you're ready to serve.  Serves four.

Ode to You, ASU - NLM 160!

Dear Students of NLM 160 Voluntary Action and Community Leadership:


FINALS ARE GRADED.  I left comments about your individual exams in the Bb gradebook.

I'm very proud of this class.  There were 13 perfect 100 point exams! If we were together, I'd make you give a standing ovation to these students.

The graph above shows the spread of your scores. Although there are a couple of very low scores, you will see that they are quite skewed toward the high end of the scale.  Only seven of you earned less than a B.  


Some might say, "Well duh, you gave us the exact selection of text where we could "look" for the answers." Well, yes I did list the readings I wanted you to refer to for each question.  However, that's not really what we're seeing. 


By asking you to find an organization online and apply the information in the readings to that organization's situation, you demonstrate that you can use the information in a real life situation.  I want to know whether you can apply what you've learned, not whether you can memorize and spit information back to me.


If you can't take what you learned in class and apply it, then I've only done half my job. 

The amount of work involved in reading 60 exams is well worth the trouble, because it gives me an opportunity to see exactly what you've learned this semester and what didn't work. Here are the two biggest mistakes, both of which I consider minor because they are definitional, not substantive:

(1) About two-thirds of you wrongly identified an organization as fitting the community building model. There were two common mistakes, (a) the organization fit the civic model but worked inside a geographically bound location, or (b) the organization were "support" organizations for community building organizations, but were not, themselves, community building organizations. 

(3) About a third of you do not realize that "framing" means the way we craft language - rather than tactics - to create powerful messages that express an ideology (Lakoff). 

NOW, HERE IS WHAT IS BRILLIANT ABOUT YOU

The beauty of this exam was that I got to see that you are capable of figuring out what these organizations were doing right, and what wasn't working for them.  You were able to identify the assets they bring to their endeavors, and suggest other resources that might improve their work.  You had thoughtful suggestions about better strategies to further their causes.   


You noticed where their framing was successfully pulling others into their work, and where their framing was frightening potential allies away.  


You were able to trouble-shoot, innovate, and suggest ways that very diverse organizations could work together. I marveled over and over again at your brilliant solutions for thinking about how diametrically opposed organizations could find a way to come together. 

A couple of you rose to challenges like joining Westboro Baptist Church or Pro-Life organizations with LGBT groups, or "out there" protest groups like PETA or Rolling Thunder with quiet cultural centers or youth education organizations! Do you realize that if you employ these skills in real life, you will bridge gaps that have stymied older generations? 

One of the most impressive things you showed me was that you know that if two groups are not ready to work together, there are still preliminary places they can meet and engage. They can pair off for conversation and get to know each other as individuals. They can convene to simply tell their stories, without any future obligation at all. There is always a starting point for trust-building.  

I don't believe in grading on a curve. I believe in making sure you walk out of my class with solid knowledge. You guys did a marvelous job and should pat yourselves on the back. 

Oh yeah, and my other favorite thing about this exam: Those who skated without reading the assignments during the semester have surely read them by now. No getting these excellent grades without reading the material! 

You were a great class. I learned as much from you as you did from me! 

Enjoy your holiday break, and when you do really amazing things in your future, which I know you all will, please let me know about it!

Warmly,

Sandy Price

So Many Fishies, So Little Time

"One guy could be the driest man in the universe, giving practical birthday gifts - think paying for a window washer so I don't have to get out the ladder.  The other guy could take me to the moon, turn life into something beautifully, romantically surreal. Of course, he might be poor as a dog, spending all that time writing poetry."  




In a world where most people are paired by my age, and I don't meet that many single Jewish guys in the course of my normal day, I have found a place on the online dating sites.  One such site, Plenty of Fish, has as many Jewish guys as JDate, and because the service is free, why not?  That also means I am approached by non-Jewish guys in about the proportion that non-Jews are represented in the overall population.  The interaction on these sites can be so amusing, such a study of human thought and longing, that friends have urged me to save the responses I get and write.  I've never wanted to do that until today.  Today I got two such diametrically opposed letters that I couldn't help but share.


So, to begin, I actually got more than two letters.  This morning was typical.  I received several emails - maybe eight or ten.  The majority of them started and finished with something like, "You're beautiful [hot, pretty, sexy, just what I'm looking for, etc].  When can we meet?"  This is flattering, but it is also indicative that the fellow is flipping through profiles looking for someone he can sleep with without putting a bag over her head.  If I'm up to testing this theory, I can simply check his profile, and "yup, he's not Jewish."  That is a sure signal that he didn't read my profile, in which I have three paragraphs of explanation about why - I mean it - I am only dating Jewish men.  I don't even respond to these bag men.  There are simply too many.  


What, you ask, if he's a Jewish bag man?  LOL.  I wish.  


To be fair here, we are all animals and physical attraction is worth something.  The few times I've been tempted to break my own rule about dating Jewish guys, it's because I have a strong physical attraction to someone's picture, then read into the profile and see that they're interesting too.  I have to fight those urges down, so I get it.


There's a more intelligent variation on the above tactic.  These guys say, "I loved your profile.  Check mine and tell me if you're interested."  While it purports to be interested in what I wrote, it's a no-brainer that he's secretly interested in the photo.  You can tell because he doesn't mention a single thing I actually wrote about myself.   Again, I can check my theory, and as soon as I read something like, "Good Christian, loves Jesus," or just plain "Episcopalian" in the Religion box, I am confirmed. 


Today, for example, I got a note from one Javier that said this, "You have a very sincere and open profile.  Really tells alot about yourself.  My name is Javier and I would like to get to know you better and hopefully go out and have dinner."  Javier, it turns out, is Catholic - and 32 years old.


I usually answer these, because it humors me to be honest, with something like, "You didn't really read my profile, did you?  LOL."  


I hope the "LOL" tells them that I get that he's being, as Bill Engval would say, "just a guy."  I'm not really being too snarky.  


Sometimes they come back with, "Well, you're right, I didn't read your profile, and now that I have, I apologize.  I'm not Jewish and I wish you well."  Answer:  "Thank you."


Other times they come back with, "You are limiting yourself.  You don't know where love will show up.  Please reconsider."  Answer:  "We all limit ourselves.  Some won't date someone with an opposing political view.  Others limit by body type. If you were attracted to me, I bet you passed right by all those well-rounded mamas you saw.  I have a few rounder girlfriends, and you know what, they're every bit as interesting, loving, sexual - as I am.  You're really limiting yourself."  


But my favorite is, "I didn't realize you were a prejudiced bitch.  Glad I don't have to meet you."  Answer:  [none].  Or, occasionally, if they didn't call me a bitch - just prejudiced - I tell them that my first husband wasn't Jewish, and that, although we used the same words, our underlying value system was different.  That I want someone who shares my nostalgia for my holidays and rituals.  But mostly, why talk to a wall?


Not to mention, the old saying, "Yes means yes, maybe means yes, and no means maybe to a man."  If I even continue the conversation, I'm apparently letting the man know that I'm open to talk - and hence reconsider.  So, I don't respond more often than a polite Kansas girl thinks in her heart is correct.


But getting back to my typical day.  I got two very interesting emails this morning, in that they are very different.  I don't usually write about this stuff, but these two approaches were so distinct, that they warranted a blog post.  The first writer is obviously a left-brained fella, and he's using reason and evidence to convince me that I'm lucky to have his attention.  The bottom line:  "There aren't that many men in the barrel, and if one comes along, I should grab him up."  I should tell you that this man has been pursuing me for months, AND is Jewish, and I've turned him down repeatedly on the grounds that he's ten years younger than I am.  I will date someone 5 or 6 years on either side, but I confess to a bit of insecurity about what happens when my looks take their last breath, and the man in my bed wakes up one morning to find Granny Clampet laying next to him.  Is he out the door, or does "In sickness and in health, in beauty and in decline..." mean anything to him?  Will we have enough money to keep me in botox?   


I experienced this fear, whether or not irrational, when I dated a man 9 years my junior for three years.  He was fine with it, but his friends were his age, and their wives and girlfriends were 15 years younger than I.  I have always been satisfied with myself.  I don't see myself as a great beauty - more like the girl next door.  Very happy with that.  I've learned over time that I'm not for some men, and others will like how I look very much.  But hanging around women who are 15 years younger than you can be intimidating.  You immediately start realizing all the ways you're aging.  Your skin texture is different.  They can still eat everything under the sun without effect.  Their thighs haven't started leaning on their knee caps yet.  Whatever it all is, it's like having the fact that you age - yes, I know it's inevitable - thrown into your face.  Nobody likes to look aging in the face.  


Anyway, the first writer is 10 years my junior.  Otherwise I'm sure we would have met by now.  Here's his latest argument - and as a teacher, I do have to credit him for doing his research! 


"There are 80 men for every 100 woman in the United States. Over age 40 that number becomes about 77 men to every 100 women.


30 % of the population in Arizona is considered Obese  47% of the population is considered overweight.

The number off single men over 35 as compared to single women is 2 women to every guy 2-1 which means if a guys is attractive enough for you there is at least 1 other person he could be dating. 10% of the population is unemployeed. 70 % of the men over 40 have been married at least once and have children. Which means the odds of finding a single in shape man over 40 with a job no kids is 1 out of five. Which make me feel very good about me.. Oh due to the current mortgage crissis a home owner you don't want to know..I feel even better. 

46 of the adult population is not married using the ratio 100 million unmarried males and females.

The median male income in Arizona was 33000.00 per year. So a single guy who makes 3-5 times that a year and is not married well let's just say it's about 1 in 22. I believe ever one deserves the best it's just how we define it."  



It's hard to argue with him by these statistics.  He's a catch!  And age difference or no, I should realize my good luck.  He's persistent too.  I'll give him that.


The second writer, obviously, has either been schooled in how to appeal to the romantic side of a woman, or is a romantic himself.  You never really know.  But he wrote a poem. Or he lifted someone else's poem without crediting the author.   But you have to give him credit, whether he wrote it or lifted it, for choosing it.  I assume he did not write this poem for me personally, and that he uses it with any woman he approaches. 


"i want to touch you... yes your flesh 
but more than this i want to handle 
bright glorious fabric of your soul 
with gentle hands of my heart 
let it slide though fingers 
of patient understanding 
like colorful fine silk 
leaving behind it 
indelible sense 
of your true 
uniqueness 
i want to know you, every part of you 
all your heights of obstinate courage 
and darkest depths of fervent fear 
each wild fantasy you entertain 
and gloomy reality you face 
i want to hold you close 
and kiss you so deeply 
soul to soul with lips 
flaming imagination 
on fire with desire 
for me alone"


One of these guys could be a rock.  Stable and realistic and there for you when you need someone to be there for you.  The other guy could spend his days in flights of fancy, his feet never really touching the earth.  Or one guy could be the driest man in the universe, giving practical birthday gifts - think paying for a window washer so I don't have to get out the ladder.  The other guy could take me to the moon, turn life into something beautifully, romantically surreal. Of course, he might be poor as a dog, spending all that time writing poetry.  Can we eat poetry?


I know there are stories just like this on the other side - the male side - of this gender gap.  I have heard stories about the women who ask you right up front how much money you make, or try to move in after the very first date.  


So, these are the choices we singles get to make every day.  The mating ritual can be so interesting.


Oh, and if you know any nice, intelligent, single Jewish guys between the ages of say, 48 and 58, be so kind as to introduce me!