Salt is evil. Or is it?

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Mark Bittman recently wrote about how people talk about food in good-and-evil terms. Salt is always bad. So is sugar. Fat is always bad too. Gluten is the devil. Quinoa and spelt, on the other hand, are wonder foods. Soy used to be wonderful, but now it’s suspect. Same with sweet potatoes.

Here are some facts: Salt is a necessary nutrient. Sugar is just a carbohydrate, like many others. Fat is concentrated energy in food form, which is why we find it so appealing. Gluten is just wheat protein; some people may have a sensitivity to it, but most people really don’t. Quinoa and spelt are nice additions to the diet, but don’t cure cancer. Soy is generally fine, as are sweet potatoes.

Now go online and read the reactions from Bittman’s readers! Some of them were furious. He was telling them something contrary to their own beliefs.

Beliefs!

Now here’s a somewhat different case. Watch this video and think about it, and then continue reading:

This is “Sam Sandwich,” an animated character created by the Disney Channel. Sam teaches kids to eat healthily. There are lots of episodes, and I invite you to watch some; they’re cute, and some of them teach valuable lessons, like don’t eat candy for lunch, etc.

But what lesson did you learn from the above video?

If you’re an adult of average intelligence, you will have noticed Sam’s comment that “a pinch of salt makes food taste better, but too much is bad for you.” If you’re a child, you will hear: SALT IS BAD FOR YOU.

I heard about Sam Sandwich from a colleague, who found that her little boy wouldn’t eat anything salty anymore, because “Sam Sandwich says it isn’t good for you.” Evidently he’s a picky eater to begin with, and this has made matters even worse.

Bittman has shown us that adults are credulous enough. Sam Sandwich shows us that children are even more so.

Enough, already. Stop frightening children. And let’s have a little reasonable conversation.

If possible.

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The Jack Kerouac commandments

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There is a website called brainpickings.org, which posts all kinds of interesting things: book recommendations, repostings, quotations.

Sometimes they recopy the advice of great writers. Usually, sadly, the advice is crap.

The following is a list the Beat author Jack Kerouac (supposedly) wrote and tacked to the wall of Allen Ginsberg’s hotel room in 1954, a year before Ginsburg’s most famous poem, “Howl,” was published.

Take this list for what it’s worth. I think, for a change, it has a few worthwhile items on it.

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25.  
26. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
27. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
28. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
29. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
30. You’re a Genius all the time
31. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

For me – stupid aging me – “Accept loss forever” and “Like Proust be an old teahead of time” are the two most immediate dicta here.

Also #25, which is a blank. I choose to believe it means: “Insert your own truism here.”

Although I am crazy about “You’re a Genius all the time.”

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The one, the true, the good, and the beautiful

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I was taught classical philosophy at Gonzaga University, a Jesuit institution. This means that I was taught Aristotelian philosophy, by way of Thomas Aquinas.

I learned, in my Metaphysics class taught by Father Carney back in 1977, that there are four transcendental properties: the One, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Everything in the world partakes of these four properties. Take a tree, for example. It’s one tree: it’s a unity, a thing in the world that can be pointed at and identified. It’s a true tree: it’s identifiable, it’s a unique tree, it’s that tree there in the front yard, and it definitely conforms to every definition of a tree you ever heard of. It’s a good tree, in that it conforms to the definition of trees, and in its nature it has never consciously committed any evil deed. And it is a beautiful tree, because it, in its present state of being, is admirable and beautiful, whether or not it’s perfectly symmetrical or delightful.

Then, recently, I ran across this old dialogue between Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore:

TAGORE: . . .  Science is concerned with that which is not confined to individuals; it is the impersonal human world of Truths. Religion realizes these Truths and links them up with our deeper needs; our individual consciousness of Truth gains universal significance. Religion applies values to Truth, and we know this Truth as good through our own harmony with it.

EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or Beauty is not independent of Man?

TAGORE: No.

EINSTEIN: If there would be no human beings any more, the Apollo of Belvedere would no longer be beautiful.

TAGORE: No.

This hurts me.  It strikes at the True, and at the Beautiful.  (Well, the Beautiful was little shaky to begin with, in case you didn’t notice.)

Basically, Tagore is saying that, if there were no people in the world, the transcendental properties would not apply.

Uh-oh.

Beauty becomes a fashion show of stuff that doesn’t matter, and Truth becomes just a set of things that equal other things.

And it goes without saying that the Good goes right out the window.

And – given what we know about the subatomic universe – who can say what’s a unity? What’s the One?

The Universe is a scary place, kids, when you take away the transcendental properties.

Somebody please hold my hand.

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The most trusted people in America

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Partner and I subscribe to quite a few peculiar periodicals: Consumer Reports, Conde Nast Traveler, the Vegetarian Times, Mother Jones.

But I do believe that Reader’s Digest is the most peculiar of all.

Decades ago, I loved Reader’s Digest. My sister Susan used to renew my subscription year after year as a birthday gift, and I loved it. I actually learned from it. I remember whole chunks of things I read in it. My god, back in the 1960s, they did a summary version of “The Naked Ape”!

Times have changed. It’s a conservative publication now. They print 100% American articles about Our Troops, and Everyday Heroes, and What Your Doctor Won’t Tell You.

Recently they did an article on the Most Trusted People in America. O dear god, such a list they did! Evidently Tom Hanks is the most trusted man in America. Why, for god’s sake? I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man, and he’s been in some good movies (and some stinkers, like “Joe and the Volcano”). But “trusted”? For Jesus’s sake, why?

Also, evidently, we trust Alex Trebek, who recites trivia answers that he receives through an earpiece. Also Sandra Bullock, who is the female Tom Hanks. Also (most confusingly) several Nobel Prize-winners, two chemists and an economist, of whom I’ve never heard. How did they even get on the list?

The ridiculousness continues. Tony Dungy. Johnny Depp. Tim Tebow!

All of these rate above Barack Obama, by the way.

What is this “trust,” anyway? I actually read the article twice, to make sure I was extracting all of the vital information. It appears to have something to do with making us feel good, and making our brains release oxytocin. Evidently Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock make us release gallons of oxytocin.

What rubbish!

Get this, from the article:

“The real winners aren’t here. We removed the three top answers: ‘my doctor,’ ‘my child’s teacher,’ and ‘my spiritual advisor’ – from our results, to make the list more universal.”

Tom Hanks is universal? Tony Dungy is universal?

We have left Earth and entered a parallel dimension, in which Tony Dungy is more important than anyone you might know in your private life.

I suppose you’d better get used to it. Reader’s Digest says so, so it must be true.

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For Bloomsday: Stracotto di maccheroni a la James Joyce

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Today is Bloomsday: June 16, the day upon which James Joyce’s novel “Ulysses” takes place (in the year 1904). Joyce fans and scholars celebrate the day by reading aloud, and dressing up, and doing all kinds of odd things.

This recipe I discovered on Facebook, in a nice blog called “Paper and Salt.” It was (evidently) one of Joyce’s preferred dishes, which he first tasted while living in Trieste. He asked his wife Nora (nee Barnacle) to cook it for him, in a letter to her: “I would like roast beef, rice-soup, capuzzi garbi, mashed potatoes, pudding and black coffee. No, no I would like stracotto di maccheroni, a mixed salad, stewed prunes, torroni, tea and presnitz. Or no I would like stewed eels or polenta with… Excuse me, dear, I am hungry tonight.”

(I find upon research that most of the Italian recipes for stracotto call for more interesting and exotic spices, like cinnamon. Partner doesn’t like beef with cinnamon, so, if/when I make this, I’ll make the version below – probably in a slow-cooker (except for the rigatoni):

2 pounds boneless chuck roast
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 carrots, in 1-inch pieces
2 celery ribs, in 1-inch pieces
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
2 cups beef or veal stock
1 can (14 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 bay leaves
1/2 teapoon red chili flakes
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 pound dry rigatoni
Grated parmesan, to taste

1. Pat roast dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. In a large pot over medium heat, add 1 teaspoon oil until hot but not smoking. Add meat and brown on both sides, about 12 minutes total. Transfer to a platter and set aside.

2. To the same pot, add remaining 1 tablespoon oil and onion, carrot, celery and garlic. Sauté over moderately high heat until softened and golden, about 5 minutes. Add wine, stock, tomatoes, thyme, oregano, bay leaves, and chili flakes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low.

3. Return roast with any juices on platter to pot and cover. Braise, turning over once every 30 minutes, until tender enough to shred with a fork, about 3 hours. Add additional wine as needed, if sauce reduces too much.

4. Transfer meat to a cutting board and allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, discard bay leaves from sauce and, using an immersion blender, purée sauce until texture is thick and even. Cut meat into 2-inch chunks, then shred with 2 forks. Return shredded meat to sauce, and season with salt and pepper.

5. Cook rigatoni in a pot of boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of pasta water. Stir water into sauce, then add pasta and stir to coat. Top with grated cheese.

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Eat your books

Natalie Babbitt (the wife of one of my old bosses, and the author of “Tuck Everlasting”) is a terrific person who writes and illustrates pretty good books. She was featured in a documentary called “Library of the Early Mind” a few years ago. Some of the documentary’s participants complained about the publishing industry. Natalie, being smart, did not complain about it, probably because it's like being an oxygen breather complaining about breathing oxygen. 

Instead, she talked about her own love of books.  “I write books for children,” she said, “because my childhood was the most important part of my life to date.  And I'm seventy-two.”  Later she talked about her love of “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,” noting that Alice was the smartest person in the book, and that the adults were “idiots.”   “And,” she added, “I grew up to find that that's true.”

That’s one of those sharp little zaps you get from a really smart observer. Myself, I didn't read the Alice books until high school, and I was immediately taken with Alice's brisk businesslike manner, and how she deals with the various kinds of nonsense around her.  She can be brusque, as with the Queen of Hearts; she can be nannyish and mothering, as with the White Queen; she can be sweet and sentimental, as with the White Knight. Alice, at the age of seven, is the only really adult-acting person in either book.

Children are generally not surprised by this. Children love their books. I know I loved mine.

I once read a wonderful Maurice Sendak anecdote, which I hope is true:

“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”

So: you really liked that John Grisham novel, did you?

Let’s see you eat it.

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Meat sweats

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Apollonia told me recently that one of her sons had a little disturbance after having dinner at her house. “I don’t know, Ma,” he said. “Maybe it’s the meat sweats.”

Meat sweats?

I have done some research on this, and if you want to have a good time with Google, you should do the same. Just do a search for the phrase “meat sweats” and see what comes up.

Long story short: people who eat a lot of meat at one sitting often begin to feel very warm, and then they begin to perspire.  Picture the contestants in a hot-dog eating contest, or somebody in one of those restaurants that give you another five-pound burger for free if you finish your first one.  In your mind, they’re sweating, aren’t they? Of course they are.

There are lots of explanations. Myself, I get a funny choking feeling if I eat a lot of beef; it turns out to be something called “esophageal stricture,” which can be caused by lots of things, including eating too much meat. Also, your body metabolizes protein differently, and large amounts of protein can activate all kinds of strange processes . . .

But no. Most doctors agree that there’s no such thing as “meat sweats.” It’s a symptom of fullness; your body is signaling to you that it’s full, and no more food is necessary.

So let’s have some dessert.

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Appreciation: Maria Ouspenskaya

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I usually write these “appreciations” about hunky guys like Channing Tatum and Victor Mature and Aldo Ray.

Well, this time it’s a tiny little old lady.

Maria Ouspenskaya was a small regal actress who graced a number of classic films. She came from Russia, studied in Poland, and came to the USA in the 1920s. She liked it here so much that she decided to stay.

Her heart was in the stage, but the financial troubles of the late 1920s / early 1930s made it necessary for her to look toward Hollywood.

Her first film was “Dodsworth,” with Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton. She plays a steely old European martinet who forbids Ruth to marry her son. She’s terrific, and she got an Academy Award nomination for the role.

Many more roles followed. She played Charles Boyer’s darling grandmere Janou in “Love Affair.” She’s the mysterious Maleva the gypsy in “The Wolfman” with Lon Chaney, who intones:

Even a man who’s pure of heart

And says his prayers at night

Will become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

And the autumn moon is bright.

Ouspenskaya was reputedly difficult. She was scornful of her fellow actors. She knew herself to be a brilliant actress, and acted accordingly. According to her IMDB biography, she relied on celebrity astrologer Carroll Righter to tell her when she should and shouldn’t perform.

This did not endear her to directors and fellow cast members.

My favorite Ouspenskaya performance is in 1939’s “The Rains Came.” She is (to perfection!) the bejeweled Maharani of Ranchipur, smoking her cigarette in a long holder and playing bridge. She is dryly ironic, and she is wonderful.

She was injured in a fire in 1949, which was (probably) caused by her smoking in bed.  She was taken to the hospital, and died of a stroke a few days later.

Poor thing.

Honor her memory by seeing one of the movies cited above.

You’ll thank me for it.

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Colors

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For years I wore mostly dull colors: gray and brown and blue (especially blue, because it brings out my eyes, tee hee).

Then, some years ago, I made a breakthrough, and I began to wear red shirts, and orange, and yellow, and chartreuse.

Now I love bright colors. I have a marigold-orange shirt, very vivid, and when I wore it a few weeks ago – “ORANGE!” a coworker shrieked. “I look at you, and all I can think of is ORANGE!”

Colors are important. They’re all around us, and we need to appreciate them. This is Pride Month, after all, with a flag that looks like this:

The colors have meanings: red is life, orange is healing, yellow is sunlight, green is nature, blue is harmony, and purple is spirit.

(The original flag included pink for sexuality and turquoise for magic/art. I wish they were still included.)

To quote Vampire Weekend:

Did you stay up

To see the dawn

In the colors

Of Benetton?

I love that song. It’s full of life and art and magic and sunlight and spirituality. Let’s hear it:

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British English and American English

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A friend in England just sent me a nice little book: “British Language and Culture,” published by Lonely Planet.

I thought my knowledge of British English was moderately okay. I can read the Financial Times without a crib sheet, and even do the crossword puzzle. (The puzzle, sadly enough, often resorts to cricket terminology, which kills me, but I now know all about googlies and centuries and maiden overs, not to mention former Archbishops of Canterbury and Prime Ministers and managers of Manchester United.)

But this new book is a gold mine.

I opened the book randomly to Cockney rhyming slang. “Apples and pears” I knew from an Austin Powers movie (it means “stairs,” which rhymes with “pears”; you can say just “apples” if you’re feeling obscure). How about “Use your loaf” for “Use your head”? I assumed “loaf” was just a silly euphemism for “head,” because people’s heads were big and lumpy, like loaves of bread. But it’s rhyming slang too: “head” rhymes with “bread,” which leads us to “loaf of bread” . . . .

The book also includes Estuary English, and Zummerzet English, and Geordie English. It has a Cornish lexicon, and a Welsh lexicon, and a Scots Gaelic lexicon, not to mention a Lallans supplement.

It makes my head spin, that there are so many ways of saying the same thing.

Here’s a story from my own past:

Where I grew up – in the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s/1970s – “I have an idea” was a synonym for “I think so” or “I agree.” Example: if someone said “I think it’s going to rain today,” you could agree by saying “I have an idea.”

Then I came to New England in 1978, still using all my Northwestern idioms. I quickly stopped saying “pop,” and substituted “soda” (which seemed strange for a year or two, but which wasn’t such a big deal). I quickly stopped making fun of people who didn’t pronounce “ant” and “aunt” in exactly the same way. Ditto “ferry” and “fairy.” Ditto “Mary” and “marry” and “merry.”

And slowly I learned to speak New England English, or more specifically, Rhode Island English.

But it took me a long time to get rid of “I have an idea,” even though people reacted strangely to it. One person long ago said, wonderingly: “What? What idea do you have?”

Okay. I finally got it. No one understands “I have an idea.”

But I still think it’s a cute expression.

And isn’t it lovely that we have so many ways of expressing ourselves?

‘Bye now. I have to run up the apples and pears.

Such a s

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