Saturday Bites & Pieces: Southern Comfort

Posted on June 30, 2012 by okiegirl

I’m baaaack!  There has not been time yet to catch up on all the ATiM posts and comments, but at a glance you certainly had some interesting discussions that I very much look forward to reading more thoroughly.  Thanks to all of you for that gift.

Mexico was fabulous, although I only got out of the resort for one excursion so unfortunately don’t feel like I experienced any of the local culture.  The food at the resort was plentiful but IMHO so-so in quality, with a few notable seafood exceptions, and obviously off-the-charts in sodium content.  So I’m happy to get back to my regular low-sodium diet, and this recipe is both quite healthy and very low sodium (fairly rare on both counts for a “comfort food”).

While shopping today at my local farmers market, I was overwhelmed by the gorgeous and inexpensive produce.  I wanted everything, so it took some self-discipline not to buy too much.  The local okra is coming in plentifully, and it inspired me to make one of my favorite southern-style comfort foods.  I love okra.  If this summer is as hot as last summer, I’m sure it will be another bumper crop.  I grew up eating a version of this (proportionately much more chicken) served over grits, but it’s just as good or better served over rice.  The original recipe (for the below, not for what I grew up eating) calls for twice the amount of chicken and half the amount of okra I’ve included below, but my modification lowers the calorie and fat content significantly.  If you are not particularly fond of okra, you probably would still like this in the original proportions or you could substitute squash or another veggie for the okra.  I hope you’ll give it a try.

FB, this is another “one-pot” meal (except for the grits or rice), but I have no idea if your boys will eat okra, especially considering the texture issues many people have with okra.  And it takes at most 30 minutes to prep and cook.

CHICKEN WITH OKRA AND TOMATOES

Makes 2 servings, 1 ½ cups each

Ingredients

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1/2 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels

4 ounces boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat and cut into 1-inch chunks

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon paprika

Pinch of cayenne pepper, or to taste

1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes, preferably no salt added

2 cups fresh or frozen sliced or chopped okra

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and corn and cook, stirring often, until lightly browned and softened, about 4 minutes. Add chicken and cook, stirring often, until browned, about 2 minutes.  (The chicken just needs to be browned, not cooked through because it will be cooked later.) Add garlic, paprika and cayenne and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and okra. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through, about 5 minutes. Add pepper and salt.

Nutrition

Per serving: 175 Calories; 4 g Fat (1 g Sat); 33 mg Cholesterol; 23 g Carbohydrates (8 g Sugar, 6 g Fiber); 13 g Protein; 173 mg Sodium

P.S.  I STILL  l.o.v.e  the Thunder.  They had a great year.

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Old Fashioned Sweet Cherry Conserves

From The Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary Edition

Makes enough for about eight 1/2-pint jars

  1. Wash and cut 2 oranges into very thin slices, discarding any seeds.
  2. Barely cover with water in a large saucepan, about 1/4 cup, and cook until  very tender.
  3. Wash, stem, pit (see Note below) and add 1 quart cherries.
  4. Add 6 tablespoons bottled lemon juice, 3 1/2 cups sugar, 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 6 wholes cloves tied in a cheesecloth bag.
  5. Simmer the conserves, stirring frequently until thick and clear.
  6. Discard the spice bag and ladle the hot conserves into hot 1/2-pint jars, leaving 1/4-inch of headroom.  Process for 15 minutes.

Note:  To pit the cherries, I treat them like olives.  First put on an old t-shirt (one that you use for painting would work well), then take the cherries, a chef’s knife, and a cutting board outside to an area that will clean up easily (a pool deck is probably perfect).  Using the flat side of the blade, whack a couple of cherries at a time and remove the pit(s).  Once all of the cherries are pitted, go back inside and finish the conserves.

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Gay Marriage Strawman 4: I Pronounce You Man and Wife and Wife and Wife

Posted on June 30, 2012 by yellojkt

Fourth is a four part series which closes out Pride Month.

I have previously discussed pedophilia and bestiality as slippery slope oppostions to to gay marriage. Another one frequently brought up is polygamy. When in doubt, the man whose name is synonymous with slippery slope (so to speak) metaphors, Rick Santorum is always good for a quote.

“So, everybody has the right to be happy? So, if you’re not happy unless you’re married to five other people, is that OK?”

Rick is prone to these Socratic rhetorical outbursts, but why did he pick that particular example when ‘man on dog’ had been such a winner for him in the past? Well, Eugene Volokh in the Hofstra Law Review explicitly endorses polygamy as a slippery slope gambit.

And as it happens, there probably is a large group of American listeners that neither firmly opposes nor firmly supports same-sex marriage, but pretty firmly thinks that polygamy ought not be recognized, and a smaller but nontrivial group that is open to same-sex marriage but skeptical about at least some kinds of bans on sexual orientation discrimination. People in these groups are thus potentially swayable by the slippery slope argument.

As I mentioned in my last post, the most common definition arrayed against gay marriage is that it is traditionally between one man and one woman. And while I find the gender distinction irrelevant, some people fixate on the ‘one’ part of the circumlocution. They feel that allowing gay marriage could lead to polygamy, not realizing that polygamy exists in lots of countries already, many of them highly opposed to gay rights of any variety, so the connection is tenuous at best. Polygamy is a Biblicly endorsed practice along with slavery and the shunning of menstruating women. As such, it is hardly novel or shocking.

These objections over tradition also seem oblivious to the fact that the religion of the Republican candidate had polygamy as one of its founding tenets, a practice it refuted only just over a century ago even though splinter sects still practice it. And the practitioners don’t go through the motions of civic marriage, even if they could, because that infringes on their gaming of the child welfare system that is part of their economic model.

Polygamy raises the hackles of many people including feminists who find it a patriarchal institution suppressive of women. I doubt you will find many lesbians, single or married, in support of ‘traditional’ polygamy.

The more modern form of multi-partner relationships is called polyamory in order to distinguish it from the older variety, but even it is nothing new as it is just a newer variation on the Free Love and Open Marriage movements which have been around for years. By taking the ‘gamy’ suffix out, it divorces (so to speak) the romantic/sexual relationship from the square traditional concept of fidelity. Also within the concept of polyamory is an implicit acceptance of bisexuality as at least one of the possible permutations.

For the most part, polyamory seems to be for people who just find the emotional tightrope of traditional relationships too easy and need a greater challenge. At least that is my impression from my major source of information on this topic, Dan Savage’s Lovecast podcast. Judging by his listenership the predominant paradigm in these relationships is a primary partnership, which may or may not be a legally married couple, and ‘special guest stars’ of indeterminate duration. The very ephemeral nature of the secondary partners makes absorbing them into the marriage concept complicated to say the least, and most likely unnecessary in the long term.

Conceptually the idea of extending marriage to multiple partners is simply to make marriage contracts non-exclusive. This could lead to all sorts of interlocking directorates of sorts which would really not do much except open new areas of practice for divorce lawyers. This would also require the elimination of bigamy laws which I have no qualms with since I have always considered bigamy its own punishment.

So when someone goes on clambering about how gay marriages are going to destroy society, try to realize how much society has absorbed already. Gay marriage was originally drafted as a conservative measure to draw homosexuals into society. Marriage in any form is a civilizing influence. It creates responsibility and fosters commitment, not just to a person but to a code of behavior and expectations. Love comes is all colors, sizes, and shapes and should be celebrated wherever it occurs and to whomever it happens.

On a personal note, my cousin had her civil union in Delaware on Wednesday. The Delaware rules make a ‘solemnized’ union literally indistinguishable from a marriage. Today four generations of all political stripes will gather to celebrate and honor the creation of a new family. I’m sure it will bring a tear to my eye because I find all brides beautiful and today’s ceremony will be doubly gorgeous.

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