Making TBTAM's Butternut Squash Soup

So, there is is this neat blog called "The Blog That Ate Manhattan" http://theblogthatatemanhattan.blogspot.com/ that is written by a doctor in, of all places, Manhattan. Along with lots of good medical advice and articles, the author, Margaret Polaneczky,MD (aka TBTAM), also writes about a wide range of other topics including cooking and food.

Recently, I came into possession of TBTAM's infamous Butternut Squash Soup recipe, so tonight I am making the stuff. I have never personally dealt with a Butternut Squash, I have had pleasurable dealings with pumpkins, which are a cousin of the Butternut Squash who just happen to have had a much better publicists when the English tradition of carving turnips for Halloween made its way across the pond to America, where we, jumbo sizers that we are, decided that a turnip was just too puny for our needs and transferred the tradition to the more suitable pumpkin.

And, of course, none of that has anything to do with making butternut squash soup, other than that pumpkins smell and taste similar to butternut squashes, and also do quite well as soup.

I am excited about this recipe as it pushes me out of my comfy cooking comfort zone, not only by making me work with an unfamiliar squash, but also by forcing me to use 5-spice and Ginger, two spice choices I don't normally utilize.

So, here's the basics.
Get a butternut squash (you'll find them lurking in the shadowy back corners of the produce section, loitering near the potatoes and yams)


Peel the squash and then slice it in two, which will reveal a neat little cavity filled with much the same schmutz that you find inside of a pumpkin...scoop that stuff out so that all the seeds and stringy bits are gone.


Then, slice the squash into neat 2-inch chunks and place them in a bowl where you then toss them with olive oil, salt and pepper. (My apologies to TBTAM, but I replaced the pepper with Chipotle for a somewhat zestier twist).


Next place the oiled up chunks of squash onto a baking pan and shove them into a pre-heated to 350 degree oven. Leave them there for 30 minutes or so (turning occasionally) until they are nicely browned all the way around.


While the squash is cooking, mince two tablespoons of ginger and mix it with 1/2 teaspoon of 5-spice.

When the squash is baked properly, place the chunks into a food processor along with the ginger-5 spice blend and processorize it. Add a cup of vegetable broth and continue to processorize until it is smooth.

Pour the smooth squash into a medium sized stock pot and mix in one to two more cups of vegetable broth along with one cup of white wine (yeah!). And...simmer.

Before serving, mix one cup of creme fresh (I used fat-free half and half) and a tablespoon of orange juice and before serving, swizzle this mixture on top of the soup.

That's it. A great soup for a chilly winter's night.

Moving Too Fast

I gave up caffeine awhile back, which is kind of a big deal for me as I was drinking a lot of coffee each morning. The headaches I would get from either drinking too much coffee or not drinking enough were really getting tiresome, so I weaned myself onto decaf, which is all that I drink now.

I get fewer headaches, which is nice, and aside from a few mornings where the old starter just won't turn over, I have not been missing the early morning buzz. I still enjoy the warm cuppa every morning, its just a warm cuppa unleaded.

Anyway, I figured that once I got off the java-juice, I would become more relaxed and thus, more tolerant of the slower pace that the world surrounding me seems to have adopted of late.

No such luck. You see, I have the fortunate/unfortunate circumstance of living in the lovely county just north of the Golden Gate Bridge...once the center of the new age movement and 70's haven for all things spiritually and cosmic.

Its also freaking expensive to live here as well. Lovely climate, proximity to San Francisco, beautiful landscape...it all adds up to the ideal place to come and enjoy the fruits of a successful life. Except, it seems that all the people who moved here in the 70s and 80s to gobble up those fruits have stayed on here, and now the median age of the residents of this lovely little county is approaching triple digits...AND THESE PEOPLE MOVE WAY TOO FREAKING SLOW!!!!!

I mean seriously, it is incredibly annoying to me to be stuck behind someone driving a Jaguar who can't manage to push the peddle down far enough to overcome basic inertia. Fine, you made it, and you can buy that snazzy, expensive sports car...now drive the thing like it is supposed to be driven. Or, when you manage to claw your way out of it, pay attention to your physical presence in the world so that you don't meander up and down store aisles, essentially impeding any type of normal progress as you scour the shelves for just the right brand of Metamucil.

I know, I know, there but for the grace of God, and all that. Sure, I'll be old one day (sooner than I'd care to admit), and I too will be getting in the way of some irritable younger jerk who is just moving too darned fast...but I'm not there yet and I think that I need to face up to the fact that the pretty county that I grew up in has morphed into a big ex-hippie Sun City.

Sigh...hurry up with that double decaf! I got places to go!

I'm Missing New York...Time To Cook!

So I've been in a lousy mood today, everything is moving too slow, everything is too boring and dull and well...I just don't feel plugged in like I did in New York, so, if you know me at all you know that when I am feeling lousy I create complicated recipes to cook up for dinner. The more lousy I feel, the more complicated a recipe I think up.

Now combine this propensity with the fact that its once more pomegranate season and that's all she wrote...(BTW, who is she and what has she actually written anyway?)

So, here's what I made tonight. You decide how lousy I felt.

Main course, a spinach, caper and blue cheese stuffed chicken breast that is coated in a wash of pomegranate infused fat free sour cream covered by panko and baked at 350 for about 30 minutes until it is so tender that Elvis would cry when he slipped a fork through it. This is all covered by my patented pomegranate reduction sauce that, quite frankly, has been known to send Catholic School girls into dramatic fits of peremptory confessions of lust for the chef.

Side dishes, my ever famous spinach-mushroom-green-olive-Parmesan bake with panko flavored by salt-free chicken bouillon and , of course, just a touch of chipoltle to keep everyone honest.

Complimenting the spinach bake is a nice little salad of sliced Washington Pears with a pomegranate-sour-cream drizzle whose tang balances the pear's sweetness just right.

This whole meal took about an hour and a half to prepare with many complicated steps involving just about every available dish and cooking device in the house.

Do I feel better? Well the Barefoot Chardonnay www.barefootwine.com that accompanied the meal didn't hurt, and everything actually turned out quite tasty, so I still miss New York, but at least I feel well fed and a little buzzed so the longing is now more of a soft moan of the soul rather than the wrenching ache of longing that had defined most of my day.

Its a start...

The City That Never Sleeps?

10AM, Borders on Columbus Circle.
Don't worry, he's not dead...just very relaxed.

Infected By New York

It’s happened, I’ve been totally infected by New York. I am not complaining. I have been reawakened by the mainline jolt of electricity that is now buzzing along my veins. Up until now, I thought that San Francisco was about the biggest city that I could handle, being the shy little Marin country boy that I thought myself to be.
But that boy is gone now, seared away by the epic truth that I have now walked the streets of a real city. I have walked the streets of Paris, and she is beautiful and large as well, but I am far too American in my soul to ever feel at home there. And though San Francisco is where I have always called home, I wonder now if I have just accepted San Francisco because of proximity and because of growing up in a place that everyone tells me is so beautiful and desirable. Yes, this is my home, my roots and family are here, but aside from those strong ties, I have never felt the instant affinity for a place like I felt on the streets of Manhattan.

San Francisco has many charms and does look lovely as it sits like a princess on an azure silk pillow…but once you get closer you find the people cold and unfriendly, rushing about furiously trying to justify the expense of sharing the azure pillow with the princess.

I wonder if the coldness that pervades most of the people you pass on the streets of San Francisco comes from a deep-seated discontent. So many people come here to California, and San Francisco thinking that this place is the answer to the restlessness in their soul, but then they discover that San Francisco is just another place and the answer that they seek is really supposed to come from inside of them…and it just isn’t there, the answer continued to look even further on.

Maybe I am just smitten with New York, like the vivid thrill inspired by a new lover, but something feels so right and connected within me now that I have walked those streets.

Does this herald a new beginning? I rebirth? Not sure, but I think that I need to explore this new lover some more to find out.

Halloween in Penn Station

After the American Cancer Society pasta dinner on Saturday night, we were planning on just heading back to the hotel and having an early night so as to rest up for the race on Sunday. As we were leaving though, Sarah Colloum, the project manager for the ACS Team pointed out that we were very near to Penn Station and that we might want to check it out, being that it was Halloween and all.

So we walked the block to Penn Station and ducked in to get out of the rain.
So there we are, in a walkway leading up to 6th Ave, watching thousands of people coming off the trains dressed up for Halloween…WHAT A TREAT!!!

Many of the girl’s costumes seemed to have a common theme:

• Sexy cop with badge and hot pants


• Sexy nurse with a cap and very short skirt


• Sexy zombie with bloody mouth and very short skirt


• Sexy ganster girl, with fedora and very short skirt


• Sexy…well you get the picture

Now, I wasn’t complaining, but I was more interested in the wild and unusual costumes that passed by, the ones NOT purchased at SexyCostumes.com.

And there were plenty to choose from, several pig outfits with the word Flu written on them, many centurions and gangsters and pirates and zombies and an extremely buff guy dressed as Snow White(boy wouldn’t the 7 Dwarfs been surprised!)
Then there were the just plain out there costumes that defied description, my favorite being a man (I assume) dressed head to toe in a bright green body stocking that covered his face and body completely…or the guy who was a walking Facebook Page with a cutout for his face where the profile page would be.
I was used to the parade and variety at the Castro in San Francisco, but this was truly a special moment for us and we just stood and gawked (and took pictures to be posted later).

Funny, I don’t mind being such an obvious bumpkin here. Besides, Halloween is made for watching and staring right?

Cosmic Tease

Even before we landed at JFK, there seemed to be some kind of cosmic conspiracy to keep us from getting to New York quickly. I know, the cosmos was just trying to build our anticipation, but enough already. Virgin America has wonderful in flight entertainment option s including a way that you can track your actual flight, so that was what I was doing as we approached New York. I popped up the nice Google map and saw our plane pointing East, taking dead aim at New York, but then a funny thing happened, the plan started pointing up (North) and then to the left, (Back West!) Along with the map, the display pops up altitude, airspeed and outside temperature (in case you were wanting to take a stroll on the wing at 30,000 feet, bring a coat…its a nippy 48 below zero and at 500 miles an hour the windchill might be severe).
For the next several minutes, the plane maneuvered through a series of complicated loops and turns that, according to the map, took us over much of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and quite possibly half the Eastern Seaboard. Finally the altitude started to reduce (the outside temperature started to creep up toward zero) and we seemed to get closer to something New Yorkish.

So, down through the clouds and onto solid ground again. We’re getting excited now and it helps that we are in row 5, so we figure that we’ll be some of the first ones off the plane (crafty thinking huh?), except that they don’t open the doors, and we wait, all of us on the plane flooded into the aisles or hunched over by the windows, waiting. Eventually the pilot came on and told us that one of our engines wouldn’t shut off so they couldn’t bring the jet way out to us. I could hear the engine whining in the background and had visions of some crazy cartoon jet spinning around on the tarmac with one engine blasting away…that didn’t happen by the way, we just sat there…waiting.

After about 20 minutes of this, the pilot came on and told us that they had managed to find the off switch and the door opened. We were released, New York here we come!

Not so fast dere bud!

New York wasn’t finished teasing us. We made it down to the baggage claim, only to be held outside the carousels by security guards who said that they were checking out a suspicious bag.

So, another 20 minute wait until they let us in, the suspicious bag having been checked out and whisked off to suspicious bag purgatory. But we were on our way…right?
Nope. The carousel spit out a couple of bags right away, and then…stopped. We all figured that between the delay before we were let of f the plane and then the delay getting into the carousel that there would have been plenty of time to get the bags out of the plane and into our hands.

We figured wrong, so another twenty minute wait…are we ever going to get to New York?
The bags came eventually, K’s alarm clock was going off inside of her bag so I was fairly certain that we were going to be descended upon by all manner of security forces…but they let that slip.

We had planned on taking the New York Airport Service bus to Manhattan. I had called a few days earlier to see if they would take us to the hotel and was assured that “Yeah, we can take you dere.” Funny though, when I spoke to one of the NYAS representatives at the airport itself, he looked at me with a grin and shook his head ‘no’.
He did give us a tip to go to the travelers aid who could arrange a shuttle for us. So we trooped on over to the traveler’s aid and a wonderful lady from Queen’s, Janey, got us set up with a shuttle.

Janey was pure Queens joy, with long blond to grey hair and friendly pretty face that complimented her open-direct demeanor. She was excited to find out that we were running the marathon and when we told her that there was a way to track our progress online, she asked for our numbers and then told us that she’d be at the 56th street bridge in Queens and that she would be rooting for us.
“You don’t gotta worry”, she told us, “Now you got family here in New York!”
Our shuttle driver arrived and we followed him out to the van where another couple climbed in with us.

Great we are on our way, New York here we come!!!!

“Heh, heh, heh. Man, you outta towners are the best y’know?”

The shuttle driver was really quite good, in fact he provided us with an extended tour of every possible turn and terminal available at JFK while he wound his way around looking for more passengers. I had no idea that one airport could be so convoluted and massive.

After a several stops we had filled the van with people and made it to the airport exit.

Woo hoo! Now we’re on our way! Just a quick ride down the Van Wick Expressway and we were there.
That’s when I remembered the Seinfeld episode where George was trying to get to JFK in record time except that, “I’ve never beaten the Van Wick”.

We didn’t either.

2 hours after landing we emerged from the tunnel into Manhattan and now it didn’t matter to us how long it took because we fell into instant tourist-yokel mode. Gawking out the window and being glad that somebody else was driving, especially when it became evident that New York celebrates the last Friday of the month like they do in San Francisco, with the streets being flooded with bikers participating in Critical Mass, although I have to say that New York Critical Massers have a far greater amount of courage than their sometimes noisy SF counterparts. These people were truly insane to try weaving in and out of New York traffic.

I have to say also, that while intense and crazy, I like New York drivers and pedestrians because both have an innate understanding of the physics and motion dynamics. None of this “how-dare-you-think-of-touching-me” pedestrian attitude that seems to pervade West Coast streets. No, here, people on the street understand that a speeding cab will run you down because they are faster and a whole lot heavier that you, so people on the streets pay attention and walk when there are no cars coming, not stepping blithely into the street as if they were impervious to physical laws and damage.

But, we’re here now, and we are ready! And already got family here!

In Flight

So, we’re in flight, somewhere over …umm, someplace snowy with turbulence. I have been bouncing off the walls for the last several days, the excitement about the marathon and getting to New York. K- has been doing a lot of research, which is good because my concentration is shot. I keep running through logistics: how will we get to the ferry? How will we get to the expo? How will we get from the end of the race to the first hotel to pick up our bags and get to the second hotel without collapsing?

But it will all work itself out I am sure.

And then there is New York. A lot of people find it hard to believe that I have lived this many years without ever setting foot there. I have seen it from the Jersey shore, and it is beautiful and thrilling and terrifying and mysterious…and I suspect, intoxicating. Though I wonder if I am still able to be addicted to such things.

We shall see in just a few hours.

Nothing at Face Value?

Last Thursday, I participated in a focus group that looked at various marketing campaigns for Internet Security Software. The other group members were all pretty computer savvy, and all of us had been burned in some way by a computer virus, or security breach of some kind.

The interviewer gave us four paragraphs that basically presented a marketing pitch for each of the systems, after reading them we were to talk about what we liked and what we disliked and then say how much we would pay for it.

Immediately, it became clear that none of us were buying any of the marketing spin that we saw on the paper. We were more experienced than that, and at one point, the interviewer had to tell us..."Just assume that it is true, then how would you feel about it?"

But that's the problem, not a one of us was stupid enough to just "assume it was true." As much as marketers and their compadres would love it if we were that stupid, there are very few people who have grown up in our age of media bombardment that will willingly accept any claim made on an ad at face value. Its absurd to rely on any evaluation of an ad given that caveat.

Add to this absurd assumption that the product, internet security systems, have repeatedly shown to fail at some time or another, either via coordinated system hacks, or through simple human error or avarice and the level of requested assumption drops to less than zero.

Fine, so the focus group premise was a joke...this is not the point that I learned last Thursday. No, what I learned is that my own cynicism and mistrust runs extremely deep within me, as it may within many people. I have been repeatedly disillusioned, deceived and otherwise disappointed by advertising, corporations, politicians and humans in general, and these things have changed me.

I am not a paranoid who believes that the world is out to get me, rather I believe that I am a rational, reasonably intelligent person who has simply lived his life in this modern world and paid enough attention to recognize that there is a pattern of promises not meeting reality that runs throughout the types of interactions that I sited above.

So what do I do with this deep cynicism, because I also have come to recognize that this cynicism rests at the core of so much of my personality. My humor tends toward the witty observation of inequity, or world-weary reality check. Sure, it makes people laugh, but what's the underlying cost of just accepting a world that continuously fails to meet its own stated promises?

Right now, I feel as though I am on the cusp of a change. A decision about how I want to live my life...how I want to be. This decision carries a lot of weight as the choice means that I may have to abandon this core foundation of cynicism, and with it so much of who I seem to have become.

Perspective: 30 Years in a Heartbeat

Interesting contrast.

A lazy afternoon recovering from my 30 year high school reunion and I ran over to the store to pick some things up for dinner. Outside the store was a crowd of high school kids hanging out.

And of course, that got me to wondering.

All the clichés are true of course. Time flies by in the blink of an eye. I knew that the kids hanging outside the store had no clue that in 30 years time they would be walking into a room filled with almost-50-year old adults, all of who bear ghosts of the faces that you once knew so well; ghosts now buried under 30 years of experience. And certainly, the almost-50-year-olds have only the vaguest memories of what is was like to hang out on a warm Sunday afternoon with our minds uncluttered by kids, and mortgages and college tuition and all the other mundane and “grown-up” realities that have filled our once-uncluttered minds.

It is the natural progression of things that we all get older. There is nothing profound in stating this obvious reality. But still, I think that in each of my classmates was a little cringe of just how vivid that reality was. It is one thing to watch our mirror gradually reflect back the receding hairline and growing paunch over incremental time. This slow progress allows us to develop our self-denials that time has much of an effect upon us.

It is when the mirror is stripped away and we suddenly find ourselves surrounded by all of these grown-ups that look like our parents looked, when they should actually look young and eager and goofy and all the things that we remembered them to be, and we wonder, can this really be true? Are these all the same kids? How did they grow so old when I haven’t changed a bit.

Ah sweet denial. I wonder how many of us were eager to go home and confront the mirror after such a night?

Still, seeing the faces of my once young contemporaries, I was encouraged that we all had arrived through our 30 years journey stronger and wiser and, in a deeper way, far more beautiful than the clichéd beauty of coveted youth. The experience etched around our eyes and drawn across our flesh is a coin of real value, for it is purchased in exchange of innocence and naive hope.

Our youthful dreams were once fueled by the innate certainty of immortality, of boundless possibility and an unwavering belief that we could accomplish anything. We had all the answers and the blind self assurance of unyielding possibility.

Now, of course, we know better that life is a formidable opponent. We know that despite our belief to the contrary, our youthful dreams must yield and adapt to the currents of our actual lives. Our dreams have evolved and become stronger by it. We have learned that the cost of making dreams real is long and hard work, pain and often regret at what has to be left behind so that we can move forward.

But, like the ghost faces of the kids that we once were, we can still recognize the shadows of the dreams that we once produced. We know that between those unrealized dreams and the realized dreams of our lives in a wavering and circuitous path that connects them, the common thread being ourselves.

We were once beings of pure and youthful beauty who have grown into the expression of our own beautiful experience.

My New Cards

So I finally broke down and got myself some new business cards. I have been contracting now for a couple years, and never got around to getting any cards made. So here it is.

I had them designed by my girlfriend's sister who is an excellent graphic designer. If you like them and are interested in having her do some work for you I'd be glad to hook you up.

In any case, I started out by just giving her some basic contact information along with what I did for a living. Then I also told her that I liked green, and that I wanted an oak tree on it. Yes, I have a thing for oak trees OK?

I also blanked the phone number, but if you want to give me a gig, let me know and I will give you the number.

My 15 Minutes of Fame

Yep, this is me and they still seem to be playing this commercial, because people still keep telling me that they saw me on TV.

This was a strange little turn of events that lead to me appearing in this commercial for an anti-snoring device. We attended a focus group where they showed us the device and asked how much any of us would pay, or whether we would even buy something like it off of a TV ad. I said that it seemed like a good idea for a product, but that I had never bought anything off of the television and wasn't likely to. They paid all of us $60 bucks a piece and that was that...or so we thought.

About two weeks later, I got a call from the Puresleep folks asking if I would be interested in trying one of their devices. I said sure, why not? It was free and I figured that it might even help with my snoring, which had gotten rather epic.

I tried it and it worked, and I told them that. A little while later they asked if I wanted to be in their infomercial. I said yes, and this commercial is the result.

It has been an interesting experience because they seem to run this commercial all the time on certain cable stations. I have only seen it live a few times but I have bee approached by many co-workers at various different places who all say, "Are you on TV?"

Yep, but I haven't made a dime (nor will I) and so far, no Hollywood agents have come beating down my door with offers for the PureSleep movie.

The Joke That Really Isn't

Once upon a time, there was a young man in college who was very excited. He had worked hard in high school and managed to gain entrance to a very prestigious college. He thought, now I am going to be somebody, and worked diligently to get the best grades that he could.

After some time he realized that there was something missing, after all, getting good grades was fine, but they only went so far and he believed that there was something more. That's when he met a lovely young woman with whom he fell in love.
"Now I know what was missing." So he married the lovely young woman as soon as he finished college.

But after college he realized that there was still something missing. His friends told him that he needed to have children soon, because children gave your life permanence and purpose. So he talked with his wife and they set about starting a family, and in a few short years they had two lovely, healthy children and he thought, "Now I know what I was missing."

Still, something felt incomplete. The man had worked in a few different jobs, but hadn't settled into a path that felt right. He spoke to many people including his father who advised him to do what he loved. The man loved to tell stories, so he found a job where he could tell stories and discovered that he felt happier. So, looking back he realized that his wife and children were not enough, and that now that he had a true vocation, he would be happy.

A few years went by, his children grew, he advanced in his career and became more successful. But still, he felt like there was something missing. He looked around and saw that his friends all had the same things as he did, a home, a family a career, and they appeared content so why didn't he?

He began to look for answers. First he started to read many books about the meaning of life. While he gained some insights, he still didn't feel that what he was reading provided him with the answers he was seeking. He started to become obsessed with finding the answers he needed.

His wife told him that he should be happy with what he had. His pastor told him to find peace in God, and his parents told him that they were proud of him and that he should be proud of himself.

But nothing that anyone said seemed to satisfy him. A friend told him that true wisdom lay in Eastern philosophy, and so the man began to read a great deal of Eastern Philosophy. The man began to become enlightened and expanded his view of the universe and his role within it.

But still, he felt that there was something missing. This feeling gnawed at him and he became even more obsessed. One day he came home and told his wife he could not stand it any longer.

Even though she pleaded with him, he quit his job and devoted all of his time to studying philosophy. His wife grew frustrated and desperate and finally left him. Though hurt, he felt that he could not give up his quest.

He used his remaining money to travel to China in search of someone there who could help him to find the answers he sought. Once there he found many teachers, but none that could give him the deeper answers he was looking for. That was when someone told him the wisest teachers were in Nepal. So he made the long journey to the Himalayas.

He found a monastery that allowed him to stay and learn in exchange for work. He worked hard at cleaning the monks robes and dishes, all the while he studied hard, looking deeper and deeper into his soul. While he felt that he was getting closer to the answers he wanted, something was still missing.

Seeing his frustration, the elder monk told him that he must seek out the wisest man of all time, the great Sri Unum. "Only the great Sri Unum has the wisdom to give you the answers that you seek."

The man was overjoyed but the monk warned him that the great Sri Unum lived on top of the most difficult and treacherous mountain in the Himalayas and that the journey to him would be hard and long and he could lose everything. The man didn't care.

"I have to know" he told the monk and he set out to find the great Sri Unum. He walked for weeks, over harsh terrain in terrible conditions. Along the way, he was robbed of his remaining money. He cloths became threadbare and torn, but still he persisted. When he saw the mountain that the great Sri Unum lived atop, he was disheartened for it was a truly intimidating mountain. But he was determined and so he walked on.

He climbed and climbed the rocky face of the mountain. His hands and feet became bloody and blistered. He was frost-bitten and starving, but still he climbed on until he reached the summit where he saw a small wooden shack sitting in a bare patch of ground at the very top of the world.

By this time the man was nearly broken. He could not walk but crawled his way to the door of the humble shack. When he opened the door, he saw a very old man sitting in lotus, smiling peacefully.

It took all the man's strength to ask, "Are you Sri Unum?"

"Yes, I am he." said the old man.

""Oh that is wonderful, I have come so far, given up everything to find the answer that I seek, can you help me?"

"Yes, of course. What is your question?"

"What is the meaning of life?" asked the man.

"Life..." began the great Sri Unum, "is like a fountain."

The man looked at the great Sri Unum, waiting...but there was nothing more.

"That's it?" asked the man, "I have come all this way, lost my wife and family, given up my home and all my possessions and you tell me that life is like a fountain?"

The great Sri Unum looked surprised, and then a little confused, "You mean, life is not like a fountain?"

Cynicism Vs. Compassion on the Internet

Recently, an excellent health blog that I follow, www.Everythinghealth.com, posted an article asking for financial assistance for a 13-year old Armenian girl who requires a very serious operation to remove ovarian tumors. The blogger is a physician that I respect and have consistently found her blog to be an excellent source of credible medical information and advice, however, this recent article caused me some concern.

In general, I am always suspect of pleas for money that arrive over the internet. A few years back, I began to explore the many “Nigerian Scams” that I would receive via the various email accounts that I had. This exploration lead me to develop some vary simple research techniques that quickly identified whether a particular message was a scam. Unfortunately, these same techniques don’t seem to yield the same degree of certainty about whether the messages are not a scam.

And therein lies the foundations of my cynicism regarding internet pleas for money.
The problem, of course, is worldwide and affects anyone with a valid email address. Most of the pleas come in the form of non-specific spam messages which most of us have come to recognize. The basic components of a “Nigerian” scam seem to include:
• A long, detailed message body
• Semi personalized greetings
• A reputable sounding author
• A detailed explanation about a unique financial predicament that requires the recipient to make certain international financial arrangements, which, if performed properly, will result in the recipient receiving a large sum of money.

“Non-Nigerian” variations on this theme can also include:
• A desperate description of a dire (medical, political) situation facing the author or author’s family
• Specific details that relate to the recipient’s situation (child of similar age, recent news topic, shared family name)
• Specific dollar amounts required
• Detailed explanation as to why the author is required to ask for help via the internet

Many of these messages are truly heart-wrenching, and easily understandable given most of our knowledge of the various terrible world and personal situations facing us. My cynicism grows out of the fact that these messages specifically target that most precious of human qualities, compassion, and twists it into a completely self-serving ploy to separate well-meaning people from their money.

Of course, in the pure Nigerian Scam, the recipient’s motive is less altruistic, as these scams rely on another human quality, greed, as their primary motivator.
The non-Nigerian scams rely upon the recipient’s underlying guilt at his/her own financial comfort and relative success, compared to the poverty that exists throughout a great deal of the world. This guilt is mixed with a need for meaning and purpose that haunts many of us in the Western World. There is a feeling that our success and comfort has separated us from true substance and moral value, so donating some of our wealth to support those less fortunate (and seemingly more desperate) than ourselves seems to be a logical way of re-attaining our compassionate soul.

The internet is a powerful vehicle for reaching literally millions of people quickly and effectively. Note how effectively President Obama leveraged the power of the internet to fund his campaign and organize his followers. This same power has long been used for various other types of fund raising for any number of excellent and worthy causes. There are so many convenient payment and verification tools now available on the internet that online fund-raising is almost painless and certainly immediate.

So how can one weigh the value that the internet can provide for worthy causes and individuals against the harm that unscrupulous individuals and organizations cause to human spirit and faith by using our own compassion against us? This is a question that I struggle with often, especially when presented with, what appears to be, a genuine plea for help that any desperate parent might resort to in order to save their child.
In a future blog, I will share some tips I have learned about quickly identifying internet scams using simple internet search tools and websites. In the mean time, I welcome your comments on this topic.

Baked Spaghetti

My Niece just moved into her first apartment and asked me to send her some easy dinner recipes. So, this is an stand-by I have used for years, its nothing earth-shattering, but just makes a tasty spaghetti without meat.


Spaghetti:

1 box regular or whole wheat spaghetti
1 jar spaghetti sauce ( I like Classico "mushroom and ripe olives)
3-4 good sized mushrooms (optional)
5-7 green olives (optional)
2 green onions (optional)
1 clove garlic (optional)
1 tablespoon Italian spices (buy a mix, it's easier)
1/2 to 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
2-3 quarts water (basically you need enough water to cover the softened spaghetti with about an inch of water)
Some salt
Some olive oil

Put water in a large pot, add a little salt and a little olive oil, bring the water to a boil
When the water boils, add the spaghetti, let it boil for about 5-10 minutes (read directions on package) but it really is "done" when you can throw a strand of it against the wall and the strand sticks...(take strand down after throwing unless you like a pasta-themed kitchen) When pasta is done, pour water and pasta out into a colander and rinse briefly with cool water. Set aside.

Pour spaghetti sauce into another pot and warm it on low to medium heat, stir frequently

Optional part:
Slice mushrooms, olives and green onions into small pieces
Crush or chop tiny the garlic
Add some olive oil, salt and Italian seasonings to a frying pan on medium heat
Add mushrooms, olives, onions, garlic to frying pan
saute all of these by stirring them frequently in the oil. You'll be done when the mushrooms are a little brown singed.
When you are done, add these to the simmering sauce.

Next,
Pre-heat oven to 350
mix spaghetti, sauce and most of the grated cheese into a single large bowl that can go in the oven (like Pyrex)
sprinkle remaining cheese on top of spaghetti,sauce and cheese mix
put spaghetti into oven and bake for 15 minutes

Then serve

Skip the optional part if you don't want the hassle or don't like mushrooms and olives. Or you can substitute with other veggies like spinach, asperigas, broccolli, tomato, zuccini, eggplant..but always do the saute with olive oil, garlic and italian seasonings.

Rock the Pot-Luck!!!

OK, so you want to make a big hit at the office or neighborhood pot-luck? Here’s a salad that will do the trick. In addition to being colorful and tasty, it is heart healthy, with very low sodium and fat.

This salad takes about 30 minutes to prepare, and can be made up the night before with no problem.

So here’s what you need to get started.

• ½ pound Orzo (Roughly ½ a box of the Ronzoni Orzo)
• ¼ to ½ cup of Feta cheese
• 10 – 15 Kalamata olives
• ½ of a good-sized tomato
• 4 mushrooms (sliced)
• 2-3 cloves fresh garlic, (minced)
• 3-5 green onions (minced)
• ¼ -1/2 cup chopped basil
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro
• ½ -1 cup fresh spinach (chopped)
• 1-2 small-medium sweet peppers (chopped)
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1/8 – ¼ cup red wine vinegar

While the orzo is cooking, prepare all of the other ingredients (except for the olive oil and vinegar) and put them in a large bowl that will give you room to really stir it all together.

Once all the ingredients (except the Orzo) are in the bowl, add the oil and vinegar and mix everything well.

The following is the key to the success of this salad, so pay attention.
When the Orzo is ready, drain it and then immediately pour the drained and still hot orzo into the bowl with your ingredients. Mix the Orzo thoroughly with all of your ingredients and then let the bowl sit out(preferably covered) for about 15 minutes. This will steam-cook the spinach and other vegetables just enough to release their flavor. It will also slightly melt the cheese so that is mixes and blends in with the other flavors.

After 15 minutes, refrigerate the salad until you are ready to go to your pot-luck. This salad is best served at room temperature, so that is why it is ideal for bringing to a party because by the time you reach your destination, the salad will be perfect, and you will be a star!!!

I Believe in God and Science.

I believe in God and Science. I also believe that religion and science are the creation of Man, and thus subject to the motivations and influences of Man. While these institutions may have been born of a profound personal conviction, they are not the definition of God.

So how do I define God?

Basically, I believe that the universe is too complex, too intricately interrelated, too beautiful and spectacular to be the product of mere random chance. I believe in a continuum of intelligence, so that just as my intelligence is greater on that continuum than that of an amoeba, so too must there be a far greater intelligence than my own.

Is it so much of a leap, then, to imagine that this far greater intelligence consciously designed the universe? Why do modern scientists dismiss the idea that complex systems and processes were the product of something greater than random chemical reaction? After all, where did the elements and chemicals come from? Why do they have the possibility of interaction in the first place?

I believe that each of us has been created with a set of tools that we can choose to use as we see fit. These tools include curiosity, intelligence, compassion, discipline, love, ambition, drive, fear, joy, passion and patience. We have the capacity to explore and study and discover the beautiful intricacies of the universe, and then, once discovered, to look for more.

We also have been given choice, and the will to choose those tools that we wish to utilize. I find it sad when someone chooses then to believe only the dogma and doctrine of what is familiar and claim that that is the end of their need to question and explore. That type of choice, to me, is tragically limiting and wastes the gifts that we have been created to use. Too often the constructs of religion and the Church have been used as a weapon to beat down these gifts in order to satisfy the very human need for power and control over others.

That is why I differentiate between Faith and Religion. Faith is that wonderful capacity in humans that allows us to believe in something greater than ourselves, and, perhaps even more important, to dream. What an incredible gift to be given, the capacity to dream and believe that there is always something more that can be discovered? Perhaps then, this ability to dream is the most tangible evidence of God we have. Who else could conceive of giving the product of millennia of innumerable chemical reactions the intangible capacity to feel the presence of an intelligence and power greater than itself?

Religion can provide guidance, solace and direction to a large number of people. In it’s purest form, an organized religion creates a safe and wholesome community that is united by shared beliefs and ideals. Unfortunately, too often religions can fall prey to the baser nature of mankind, especially the hubris, greed and lust for power that can consume even the most devout of humans. When this happens, religion is tainted and twisted into a mechanism for prejudice and hate.

I am not condemning religion, nor am I condemning those who ascribe to any specific denomination. My objection with organized religion is when the very human leadership of these religions too often choose to supress the gifts of imagination, free choice and curiosity that we have been given, and instead choose to further their own agendas of prejudice and hate through twisted doctrine and dogma.

Our lives and existence are truly miraculous things, and to ignore them is to miss a fundamental component of being human. Science may not consider itself a religion, yet it ascribes to the same ultimate purpose as any religion, to explain our own existence and all of the infinite details that that explanation entails. Discovering these details for ourselves does not lesson the greater wonder that these details were there for us to discover in the first place. Why not ask, “Who put these details there?” or, at the very least, admit that this continual cycle of the discovery of new details indicates an order and system to the universe that we have yet to discover the nature of.

Admitting to the wondrous complexity of the universe in no way diminishes our quest to explore that complexity. Admitting that this self-same complexity may be the product of a greater intelligence than our own, merely means incorporating the human capacity for faith into our consciousness and our explorations.

Retinking McCain

So yes, the election is over and Barack Obama is now firmly ensconced in the Whitehouse. So why discuss John McCain’s choices during his failed attempt to run for president?

Well, I still have some lingering questions about how John McCain, a man who is admirable and politically savvy, decided to use the negative campaign strategy team that launched George Bush into office. Certainly, on the surface, the choice to go with a team (and tactics) that have a proven track record of success would seem a logical choice, especially when facing the juggernaut of momentum that the Obama campaign had generated. Still, the Obama juggernaut indicated that America was ready for a new type of government, built on a foundation of Hope and Possibility, rather than Fear and Arrogance. John McCain has been a fixture in American politics for 3 decades. The question then is, how could he miss such an obvious movement, and not try and capitalize on it himself? Or, at the very least, not tie himself to a campaign machine built on the principles and tactics that the evident trends indicate are being rejected by the voters?

There are two possible answers to this question:
1. John McCain was desperate and turned to the Bush-Rove-Cheney strategy team as a last ditch effort to tap into the power and influence of the neo-conservative movement.
2. John McCain is actually quite politically savvy, and he indeed recognized the strength and value of the Obama (Hope and Possibility) movement, and so he intentionally chose the Bush-Rove-Cheney campaign strategy BECAUSE he knew that it would fail, in essence, throwing the election.

The reasons for possibility #1 are obvious, and were John McCain not such an experienced politician and savvy political survivor, this would seem to be the only logical choice available to him. By choosing this path, he stays true to his Republican base, tosses a sop to the neo-cons and remains in power (with enhanced national recognition and influence).

The reasons for #2 are less obvious, though indicate a far savvier political strategist than first thought. By engaging a campaign strategy and team that is in the process of being rejected, and that is intimately tied to an outgoing administration that has the lowest approval ratings ever, McCain was actively putting the final nail in the entire Neo-Con revolution, a revolution that he himself had never fully endorsed or participated in.

In addition, it has become evident that John McCain has maneuvered himself to be a very prominent and influential player in the new Obama administration, basically becoming the poster child for the Obama administrations to truly “reach across the aisle” and mend the political rifts caused by divisive tactics that have defined the past eight years.

John McCain is a proven survivor, in life and in politics. No one questions the courage and fortitude that he displayed during his time as a prisoner of war, and he has leveraged that same strength and fortitude into his long political career. Perhaps he learned in prison that one can stand against a powerful force on the strength of one’s convictions, and that by doing so, outlast the powerful force.

Essentially, John McCain is a good and honest man, who has built a career of “being his own man”. He has also learned to become a wise political player who recognizes the value and strength in being flexible in alliance and temporary ideology so as to achieve a more lasting and broader objective. Some would call this flip-flopping or some other type of derogatory term…others might call it savvy political survival.