Falling




The truth is

that I fall in love




so easily because

it's easy. It happens



a dozen times some days.             lovely women in the world,

I've lived whole lives,               but because each time,




had children,                   dying in their arms

grown old, and died             I call your name.




in the arms of other women

in no more time




than it takes the 2-train
to get from City Hall



to Brooklyn,
which always brings me




back to you:

the only one




I fall in love with

at least once every day—




not because

there are no other



by Patrick Phillips, from Boy © 2008.

Graham Cracker Cake

Serves 10 -12

Ingredients for Cake:
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
5 large eggs, separated
1 1/4 cup whole milk
33 graham crackers, (about 2 3/4 cups) finely crushed in a food processor
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups baker's sugar or superfine
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts


Directions for Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350˚. Allow butter, eggs, and milk to come to room temp. Grease a 10x15x1” baking sheet and cut parchment paper to fit the bottom. In a large bowl stir together all the dry ingredients (except sugar).
2. Beat butter on medium-high speed in a mixer for 30 seconds. Beat in sugar until well combined. Beat in yolks one at a time.
3. Combine milk and vanilla. Alternately add flour mixture and milk mixture to butter mixture. Beat on low speed until just combined. Gently stir in the walnuts.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold 1 cup of whites into the batter. Then fold the rest in. Do not over mix.
5. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes – cake should spring back to the touch. Cool cake in pan on wire racks for about 10 minutes. Then carefully invert onto a cooling rack and remove parchment paper. Cut cake crosswise into 3 equal pieces. Cool completely before frosting.

Ingredients for White Frosting:
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
4 3/4 powdered sugar, divided
3 Tbsp whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

Directions for white frosting: Beat butter on medium-high and slowly, add 2 cups of powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt. Gradually beat in the rest of the powdered sugar until the frosting is a smooth consistency. Frost the cake and decorate with walnuts, candied ginger, or bits of broken graham crackers

***Historical factoid: A Dr. Graham invented the graham cracker because he feared that youngsters might become perverse if they consumed too many sugary foods. So he set out to create a recipe for a bland cracker to satisfy children's appetites for snacks without igniting their potentially fiery sexual appetites. Thank goodness for the puritanical resourcefulness of Dr. Graham. What would preschool snack time, campfires, and everyday life be like without these delightful, rectangular munchies?

Recipe adapted by Cristina Paul from a 2004 Better Homes and Gardens contest winner

Blah-Blah-Blahg: Food For Nought

F sells...
or at least an open-mouthed shot of privileged teenagers leaves so very little to the vivid imaginations of Gossip Girl's viewers. That way, the CW needs only to suggest the scenarios which the network and the censors will not allow. So Gossip Girl really DOESN"T put the F in OMFG. My response to the OMFG campaign: WTFC

Posthumous

Would it surprise you to learn

that years beyond your longest winter

you still get letters from your bank, your old

philanthropies, cold flakes drifting

through the mail-slot with your name?

Though it's been a long time since your face

interrupted the light in my door-frame,

and the last tremblings of your voice

have drained from my telephone wire,

from the lists of the likely, your name

is not missing. It circles in the shadow-world

of the machines, a wind-blown ghost. For generosity

will be exalted, and good credit

outlasts death. Caribbean cruises, recipes,

low-interest loans. For you who asked

so much of life, who lived acutely

even in duress, the brimming world

awaits your signature. Cancer and heart disease

are still counting on you for a cure.

B'nai Brith numbers you among the blessed.

They miss you. They want you back. 


by Jean Nordhaus from Innocence

Black “Bean Me Up” Soup

Serves 4





Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 shallots, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
½ red bell pepper, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon finely chopped dried guajillo chile with most seeds discarded (any medium chili will do)
2 15- to 16-ounce cans organic black beans, undrained
1 15-ounce can petite diced tomatoes in juice
1 1/2 cups organic chicken broth
¾ teaspoon salt
1 tsp fresh oregano or substitute ¼ teaspoon dried oregano

Directions:
1. Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add shallots, carrot, pepper, and garlic. Sauté until vegetables begin to soften, about 6 minutes.
2. Mix in cumin, paprika and chili (you can reserve some of the seeds and add them later if you desire more heat). Add beans, tomatoes with juice, and broth; bring soup to boil. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until carrots are tender, about 30 minutes.
3. Transfer 2 3/4 cups of soup to blender or immersion blender cup and puree until smooth. Return puree to pot. Simmer the soup until thickened, about 30 minutes. Add salt and oregano. Taste and you may wish to season with remaining chili seeds or more salt.
4. Halve bell peppers and serve soup in these natural soup bowls for a beautiful presentation.

**** Queso fresco, sliced scallions, pepitas, and nasturtiums make a tasty and beautiful garnish for the soup

Brought into bean by Cristina Paul

Blah-Blah-Blahg: Food For Nought

My Two Favorite News Stories This Week:

Heavenly Flight
Attempting to raise money for a rest stop for religious truckers, 41 year old Brazilian priest, Adelir Antonio de Carli, was carried off by 1,000 helium balloons and is still lost at sea. What, precisely, would those truckers have reflected upon at this prospective rest stop? Perhaps God just did not approve of any rest for the weary truckers. Alternatively, God may be making a statement against the insensitive use of helium during a time when bright-faced birthday boys and girls in first world countries are being charged up the ying yang for this golden gas.

Bright-Faced Children in First World Countries
Just watch the video

Poem of the Week

Happy Birthday To Ye!

No one really knows when the Bard was born, but records of his christening on April 26th suggest that April 23rd is his birthday. So many of our ideas about this guy who wrote in iambic pentameter, had no formal education, and who we all had to read in school or otherwise are dubious. There is even speculation as to whether or not Shakespeare wrote all the plays and sonnets which have been attributed to him. Recently, scientists ran his plays through a fancy computer program to compare his work to his contemporaries, such as Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, and the Earl of Oxford. The only writer who used words and phrases similar to Shakespeare's was Queen Elizabeth I, and she was eventually ruled out.

Wielding about 30, 000 words, like so many swords, Shakespeare boasts one of the largest vocabularies of any English writer. Plus, he's responsible for some pretty incredible idioms and phrases, including "foul play," "as luck would have it," "too much of a good thing," "good riddance," "in one fell swoop," "cruel to be kind," "play fast and loose," "vanish into thin air," "the game is up," "truth will out" and "in the twinkling of an eye."

Sonnet 29
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.