Man is the Sire of Sorrow.

-Joni Mitchell

There is an ample and growing body of evidence that our society, if not our global society, then surely this bicentennial society of the “American” empire is approaching a potentially uncomfortable, possibly violent fin de siecle that may be our last.  Poverty spreads like a virus.  Wealth is becoming more and more concentrated.  As I write this six (?) people are dead and a member of Congress lies in a hospital room in Tucson clinging to a life that has been all but taken from her by the contents of an automatic pistol.  Our humanity is at war with itself inside a political culture so divisive.  That this war has become bloody seems only inevitable. We are the prison guards that our captive souls must fear.     Environmentally, our weather systems are increasingly erratic and destructive. The planet is at once drying up and beginning a slow drowning as nations begin to slip into the seas. The world’s oceans are being fished out.  Species are disappearing daily and we are finding it necessary to drill deeper and more dangerously for, not only oil, but water as well.

This last one seems to me the most ominous.  There is little that is more frightening than the notion of drought. The fish are gone.  OK, we can adjust.  The oil has dried up. Well, lets learn to exploit what alternatives we have more effectively.  What replacement is there for water?  This is of course a rhetorical question as there is none.  The American Southwest is becoming increasingly reliant on tanker trucks from the Great Lakes.  There are plans in place to commence water shipments from Lake Sitka in Alaska to the Indian subcontinent. There is evidence to suggest that the movement of these resources is causing the distributed weight of the planet to shift which could in theory change the spatial behavior of the earth.  We are actually changing the weight of the planet.  We have no idea what that could mean.  It does however provide a simpler path to dark theories.

I do not suffer notions of doomsday, or the popular culture that loves to speculate, gladly.  Prognosticating cataclysm has developed a cult that does not fear the apocalypse but actually derives a perverse enjoyment out of the coming end.  They love the movies, the tv shows, the books that tell of our inevitable demise with relish.  It is incomprehensible to me.  This is not to say that I do not share a certain foreboding, that when I look at young children I do not wonder what their world will be like as they pass through it.  It frightens me and I have found myself at a loss as to how I might make a valuable response.

In the documentary Collapse Michael Ruppert uses the Titanic as a metaphor to examine potential responses to catastrophe.  He breaks it down into three basic types.  The first is to pretend there is nothing wrong.  “Iceberg?  What iceberg?  We’re fine.  I’m going to the bar.”  The next is panic.  “Iceberg!  There aren’t enough life boats!  We’re all gonna die!”  The final one Mr. Ruppert considers and the one he has a kinship with is to find a leader.   “Iceberg?  There aren’t enough lifeboats?  How do we go about building some?” This is of course the response he advocates and it’s one that I totally respect.  I think though that there might be a fourth response and it might go something like this.  “Iceberg?  Shit, that sucks.  Well, you guys get to work on those lifeboats.  I’ll go to the bar and get everything ready for you when you need a break.”

This is I suppose not so much a fourth way as maybe a contingency of the third.  I am not a carpenter.  The machine shop is an alien landscape to me but I can feed the troops.  Activism is in my genes.  I can trace it back to the two year old that spent seemingly endless days in nondescript wood-paneled rooms sitting on the floor with a few toys in front of him while his mother took part in meetings, made fliers and signs for progressive politicians; on her back as they traveled a 10 mile bike ride in support of the McGovern campaign in the only state that he succeeded in winning.  Activism has been a relative constant in my life.  The reasons and the causes have shifted in importance but the impetus, that need to effect change has been a driving force.  In more recent years a certain amount of despondency has set in.  Change has been hard to come by and when it did seem even remotely possible those hopes crumbled to dust.

As I said before food, cooking has always been a part of my life but it has not been until fairly recently that  I have been truly aware of the myriad food issues we face locally, nationally, internationally; the particularly American problem of urban and ex-urban food deserts where one may easily achieve a Big Mac and fries but a fresh apple or head of lettuce is, if you’re lucky, a bus ride away; the lack of affordable green markets; that unemployment check may get you a banana and a bag of chips at your local Whole Foods but not much else; the environmental issues that surround eating that blue fin tuna steak you got at Trader Joe’s;  the disappearance of food banks and soup kitchens just when we need them most.  Not to mention the utter destitution in the developing world; the victims of genocide in the Sudan; children eating mud pies in Haiti that are actually made of mud.

The list of problems seems endless, hopelessly daunting.  But before this ship sinks beneath the waves I will find a way to make a great vegetable sauté life boat.  Maybe learning to create a superb beurre blanc seems a round about way to salvation but I am looking at my upcoming time in the classroom as simply a part of my education.  Thankfully my current situation allows me time volunteer in those soup kitchens.  I will endeavor to become an active part of  organizations like City Harvest, Greenmarkets NYC.  I look forward to reactivating that dormant activist inside me.  And you know, maybe some homeless lady is just dying for a poached salmon fillet in a beurre blanc sauce.  Just maybe I’ll help her out.

2002 – I realize with some joy that I am what I have been playing at for the previous 12 years; a librarian.

2005 – I graduate from Queens College with a degree in Library Science ready to lend support to knowledge seekers everywhere.

2006 – Amidst the distant rumblings of an economic collapse I get the job, that recession-proof, government detail that will see me through whatever potentialities come to pass.

July 16, 2010, 10:25 AM- “It’s not you. It’s us. Oh, and can we get your ID and keys?”

Sometimes you just gotta look reality in the face and say “No.”

-Ben from the TV series “Reaper”

Get off your copper bottom and do something!

-Ann Farrell, Christmas 2010

I’ve had this plan for weeks now, to begin this document, to organize my feelings about this moment. My apprehension at this beginning has been paralytic but as I finally do commence this correspondence with myself I think I know what has me spooked. This is a harbinger. I have slowly come to realize that the significance of these words is much greater than I had anticipated. In twenty-two days I will begin a travail that will lead me away from a path I have been padding down for the past 20 years. It has been a comfortable, steady stream of jobs and though the trajectory of my career found me in a specialization that I would never have anticipated, or chosen for that matter (engineering librarianship) I have worked with some great people and at times have had the pleasure of providing truly valuable support. In the end that really was the reason I was there, why I was a librarian; to help, to provide assistance. The sense of accomplishment provided me by successfully resolving a patron’s conundrum was great reward. Conversely, when a query provided only complexity, unanswerability I found great resolve in my ability to obsess.

But just lately a boredom had set in. This desk, this ritualistic 8 AM pot of coffee, this increasingly tetherous relationship to my desk top computer, the blinding exhaustion one experiences from sitting on one’s ass for far to long. Was this me? Was it worth the 401k, the pension, the notion that some day when I was old, well, older I may just have something that resembles retirement? I was beginning to wonder. Nevertheless, when this path came to an abrupt end I was shaken and angry. It’s like that Woody Allen joke. “ ‘The food at this restaurant is awful.’ ‘Yeah, and such small portions.’” Yes, the tasks set before me were increasingly bloodless and menial tasks but they were my tasks and they were comfortable. Well, needless to say that abrupt end forced a rethink. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that, after sending out about 300 applications, I may get more responses if I sent those resumes with some very earnest and well written cover letters into the currents of the East River.

That realization, really my whole life up to this point, has found me in this moment. In roughly three weeks time I will commence a year-long program at the Institute of Culinary Education here in New York City. With a loan from the government and my cashed in 401k I will be donning my kitchen whites ready to take the expected abuse with the best of them. With the flashing blades of my new Wusthof knives under the glaring lights of the kitchen classrooms I will continue an education I didn’t even realize I have been conducting my whole life. I am excited and more than a little bit scared; all those sharp knives, hot pans and angry chefs. I will channel that fear, find wonderful scents and flavors, strive for that perfect mouth feel. This future is mine and it will taste good.

Where all this will lead is still a mystery of course. Will I be a cook, maybe even a chef, a food writer, culinary photography, find a place in the TV industry. Or will I be a bum, a beggar on the street who can whip up a great risotto. There is evidence in my past that I could be any one of these things. The next year will provide clues and hopefully some nice dishes and experiences. In this space I will muse, report, pass on useful tips, share recipes, lick my wounds and prepare for the new and different tasks I will find along the way. For the first time in a very long time the unknown is not frightening to me and seems eminently discoverable.

Beurre manié should not be confused with roux, which is also a thickener made of equal parts of butter and flour, but which is cooked before use.

Because Beurre manié contains uncooked flour, liquids thickened using Beurre manié dough may have an undesirable floury or pasty taste due to the uncooked proteins in the flour. For this reason, it is important that the Beurre manie is allowed to cook adequately, rather than being added to a dish immediately before serving.

Beurre manie is also used as a finishing step for sauces, imparting a smooth, shiny texture prior to service.

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)