The Sunday Snewz Issue No. 26
September 24th, 2023: Once Around The Kitchen
Each week I make my best attempt to choose a clever theme for this publication and intricately weave it in and out of the cracks between facts and my gratuitous opinions. This week there was no such theme in sight. Maybe it was because I only left the house once - to take my dog to the vet for her allergy shot so she didn’t disfigure her face with the scratching. I worked out (everyday), did yoga (two days), showered (most days) and baked enough yummy treats to feed a small country of military-aged men. Or half of the 2.7 million who crossed our southern border last year. What can I say? I had a 5 lb. zucchini hiding out in my garden that needed to find its purpose. (But can something really be classified a “treat” when it’s made from a vegetable?) While this sort of week is about as close to paradise as one can get, it doesn’t bode well for identifying a motif to build my writing around.
During times of grocery droughts, which occur when my husband isn’t around to do the shopping, I scour the kitchen to make what I affectionately call, Once Around the Kitchen. There’s usually an old box of chicken stock tucked in the far, back corner of my baking cupboard, milk in the fridge (because I cannot survive without the pleasure of a dry cappuccino each morning), and some veggies that wouldn’t pass as edible if left alone on a plate but could be fed to my hens or rinsed well and put out of their misery in a caldron of boiling stock. Sometimes a few potatoes are hanging about, growing legs in the form of roots as if they’re going to run back to the garden and replant themselves. Nope, off with your legs and into the pot - we need starch! And if we’re really lucky, there’s part of a cow that got pushed to the back of the freezer that is not yet entirely covered in frost bite. Tough and past its prime for sure, but when added to Once Around the Kitchen, we feel like Tiny Tim on Christmas Day. “God bless us everyone!”
So, today we make soup!
Another Kennedy Assassination - The DNC couldn’t be so lucky
Ever since Senator Bobby Kennedy’s assassination in 1968, presidential candidates have been allowed secret service protection. All candidates except, of course, RFK Jr. He’s a Kennedy, it’s not as if he has any reason to fear for his life!
The Biden administration is intentionally putting RFK Jr. at risk by denying him protection. Be sure to watch the video in the article below to see just how egregious our government corruption is.
The Clean Energy Movement
First I became a registered Democrat, now I joined the clean energy movement. No, I didn’t buy an electric vehicle, nor has hell frozen over. I’m creating my own movement - a movement towards clean energy sources to fuel me. Moving away from dependance on Big AG, Big Pharma, corporatized healthcare, hypnotic internet hyperbole and the narcissism of the selfie world. Refusing the temptation to use bio-mass - tossing social media memes like wood chips into my mind’s fire for motivation. Fueling my mind instead on fresh air, the sounds of birds chirping, books, prayer, meditation and sunlight. Ditching the sooty residue left inside the chimney of my soul from incessant, finger-pointing politics, Instagram stories and “look at how much better I am than you” Facebook pages. Weening myself off Amazon’s tit of over consumption by being grateful for what I already own. I invite you to join me.
Fuel is not just what we eat. We fuel our minds, our attitudes, our behaviors and our bodies by everything we put into them. There are clean sources for this energy and dirty ones. Choose clean. Here are some of the ways I’m choosing clean sources of energy:
Delaying my coffee. Instead of sleepy-eyed stumbling to the kitchen for caffeine to wake me up, I down a 16 oz. glass of water with 15 ml ACV (apple cider vinegar) and 2 drops L-theanine.
Stand with my bare-feet on the bare earth. There is energy in the ground just waiting for you to absorb it.
No headset for the morning walk/run. Instead listen to nature around you. We have forgotten we are a part of nature, not something living in dominance of it. If we connected to nature more often, we wouldn’t be so flippant about destroying it.
Pray, read, meditate before picking up my phone. All the information on that little device is going to pollute your mind with doubt, fear, anxiety, irritation, self-doubt or worse. Take in sustainable, positive energy from daily devotional books, poetry, or a meditation mat instead.
Self assessment at the end of each day. Did you consume more than you left behind?
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Who would you be if you could not see yourself as others see you? How would you describe yourself if you had never seen yourself in a mirror?
On my trip to Florence last month, I gobbled up as many books on the Renaissance as I could afford to ship home. I learned the complete history of the Medici, explored the emotions behind Giovanni da Bologna’s The Rape of the Sabine - power, loneliness, aggression and longing - the driving forces behind Roman men kidnapping young women from surrounding villages in the 8th century BC and uncovered the real story behind the Bonfire of the Vanities. Come to find out there’s more to the story than Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith and Bruce Willis were telling us in 1990. Botticelli burnt his own paintings for fuck sake! But the most fascinating book I read is titled, How to be a Renaissance Woman. In one sentence, women were going through the same shit in the 1500’s as we go through today. Wearing make-up to attract a mate, waxing to remove unsightly hair, cinching themselves into iron girdles - what we call Spanx today - same contraption, more comfortable fabric. Nothing has changed really, except now we have limitless ways to admire (or degrade) ourselves. It started with mirrors and devolved into the device we carry in our hands - the iPhone.
I’m working on a piece exploring the consequences of a society who is fixated upon looking at ourselves. Recording our every move on social media, talking into our phones and posting it to Insta-stories, as if what we have to say is so profound it must be heard by everyone, everywhere - right now! Socrates didn’t have an iPhone to relay his thoughts and yet somehow, the message got out. Pythagoras lived a good portion of his life in a dark cave, on the tiny Greek island of Samos, yet his genius became the building block of modern society. What if mirrors were available to these men?
The article comes out this Thursday, in its entirety for paid subscribers. Be sure to take advantage of the 20% discount so you don’t miss out.
Another Industry Captured
When I saw Michael Moore was the director, I kept scrolling right past Planet of the Humans. I just can’t take a guy serious, who looks like he’s completely given up on life. But after engaging in a string of comments in response to an article written by Michael Schellenberger on
about the wind industry’s destruction of the North Atlantic Right Whale where someone mentioned the documentary, I felt compelled to watch it.
Boy am I glad I did. As if we didn’t have enough corruption within health regulatory agencies, the defense industry and intelligence agencies to wear us out of giving a shit, we can now throw environmental causes into the mix. As someone with an agreeableness factor of 3% according to the Big Five Personal Traits assessment, I never bought into the Green Energy Movement. I believe climate change is real, that the earth is getting hotter and that humans are mainly the cause but it’s the proposed industrialized solutions I’ve called bullshit on. Turns out, my gut was right all along. (The vaccines, Covid, censorship - are you seeing the trend in my intuition yet?)
A true test of the validity of the information in the film is that it has been removed by YouTube, censored by most everyone on the left and doesn’t show up on Amazon until you type out the entire title. They don’t want you to see it, therefore you know it’s true. So if you have the stomach to add another layer of truth to your life, watch Planet of the Humans. It’ll save you from the unnecessary expense of buying an electric car at the very least, and at best, it might make you a better citizen of planet earth.
Zucchini, Golden Tomato & Goat Cheese Tart
Don’t shy away from this recipe because it requires a homemade pie crust. Martha Stewart’s recipe for Pate’ Brisee is quick and easy, plus you don’t get the counter dirty because you roll the dough between sheets of plastic wrap.
Tart
Crust - use entire recipe for pate’ brisee (see below). Press into an 11-inch tart dish and bake at 375 for 10-15 mins. until lightly golden.
Meanwhile, combine 4 eggs, 1 cup milk, 6-8 ounces goat cheese, salt, pepper and 1 Tbsp. Herbs d’ Provence. Whisk until light and slightly frothy.
Cut zucchini with a mandolin or very sharp knife into 1/4” slices. Remove the crust from oven, reduce heat to 350 degrees. Line crust with slices of zucchini, very gently and slowly pour egg mixture over zucchini, then repeat zucchini slices on top. Add thin slices of golden tomatoes for added color and taste.
Bake for 20-30 mins. longer, until center is just set. Cool on rack for 10 mins. before cutting or place in fridge to serve cold.
Pate’ Brisee
Ingredients 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon sugar 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces 1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water Directions In the bowl of a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar. Add butter, and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds. With machine running, add ice water in a slow, steady stream through feed tube. Pulse until dough holds together without being wet or sticky; be careful not to process more than 30 seconds. To test, squeeze a small amount together: If it is crumbly, add more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time. Divide dough into two equal balls. Flatten each ball into a disc and wrap in plastic. Transfer to the refrigerator and chill at least 1 hour. Dough may be stored, frozen, up to 1 month. Originally appeared: Martha Stewart Living, October/November 1992
We choose a series to watch each year when it starts to get dark shortly after lunchtime and Yellowstone made the cut this year. (I know, I know - we’re behind the times.) If there were no consequences in this life or in the hereinafter, I would undoubtedly be like Bethany Dutton - the endearingly evil vixen. My sister, on the other hand, stopped watching the series in season two because of Bethany Dutton. This got me thinking about my upcoming book, You Matter to Everyone Yet to No one and I want your feedback.
When you read a book, do you like to feel as if the narrator is speaking to you? That the main character is engaging you, developing a rapport with you, giving you a nod as if to say, “you and I, we’re the same.” Or do you like to feel as if you are getting an exclusive, secret look into the inner-most secret life of the character? You are outside, looking into the forbidden truth of the character’s life?
I’d love to know!