Category: food

Eat More Tolerance

I didn’t grow up with Chick-fil-A, though I did grow up in the South.

The smallish town I’m from did not have — and still does not have — much in the way of restaurants, fast-food or otherwise … nor much in the way of shopping, entertainment, and a hundred other things that are not relevant at the moment.

This isn’t about my hometown.

This is about a sandwich.

A good sandwich. A fine sandwich. Hold the pickles.

A sandwich I have loved since at least my teens, when I would look forward to trips outside my hometown to places where this treat was attainable.

A sandwich I splurged on in college whenever the campus newspaper ran two-for-one coupons.

A sandwich I could afford in the days when I was a poor newspaper writer.

A sandwich I could rely upon in recent days amid the otherwise mediocre offerings of the cafeteria in my office building.

A sandwich I have given up.

Not that Chick-fil-A may notice, certainly not today, as some crowds are loyally observing “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” blithely indifferent  to — or worse, supportive of — the restaurant’s stance against gay marriage, a stance evidenced by its CEO’s statements and its history ($5 million and counting) of financial support for organizations that seek to block and roll back equal rights.

I recognize my decision may be insignificant — what difference do a few dollars make in a pile millions high?

May as well ask what difference one vote makes in a pile millions high, yet we are taught early and reminded constantly that “every vote counts.”

So I am voting NO on Chick-fil-A’s anti-equality stance.

Anti-equality stance.

Putting it that way is entirely too kind — let’s be honest here and use the proper term.

Bigotry.

A deliberate choice to actively scorn and deny equality to a group of people based solely on the fact they are different is nothing else.

Bigotry.

Bigotry whose adherents expect a pass by claiming it’s based on a religious principle.

No.

A bigot hiding behind religion is still a bigot.

And a bigot who whines for freedom while actively seeking to deny freedom to others deserves no respect, no sympathy.

But, by all means, bigots, whine on.

Speech is every bit as free today as yesterday, and may it ever be so.

But the loveliest thing about free speech is that everyone gets it, and while the bigots freely speak, so shall enlightened minds.

And we will watch as this bigotry battles enlightenment in the marketplace of ideas, and, as every manner of bigotry before it, loses.

Maybe slowly, certainly painfully. But definitely.

History will march, and such petty, terrible injustices will be dust on the roadside.

Mommy Bread

My interest in cooking goes back to college, where it flared up a year or so after I moved off-campus and began to tire of frozen pizzas and similar fare.

I admit I was pretty terrible at first, fumbling my way through a few simple dishes I grew up with, succeeding only by the most loose definition of success. (In those days my attitude was very much akin to Hannah Hart’s: “This whole cooking thing is a matter of opinion. There is no right, and there is no wrong. There’s just food and inedible.”) (If you aren’t watching “My Drunk Kitchen,” please, by all means, rectify.)

In the years since, I have continually worked on my kitchen skills, coming to understand that food work, like so much else worth discovering, is a life-long pursuit, not a simple skill set swiftly mastered and filed away before flitting to another goal.

Along the way, I studied a lot of cook books, followed a few cooking shows, and bought my weight in kitchen gadgetry. During my journalism career, I spent the better part of a year soliciting advice from my paper’s worldly wise food editor. Gradually, my methodical, detail-oriented personality drew me to cooking idols such as Alton Brown and J. Kenji Alt-Lopez.

My first and most lasting cooking influence, though, is my mother. I still periodically call her for advice, and I often set my sights on replicating some dish of hers I fondly remember from my childhood.

Sometimes that’s easy, but other times … well, other time’s it’s Mommy Bread.

My mother makes a bread the likes of which I have not encountered in any bakery, restaurant, home, or street stall. It is light, pillowy, wonderful. And, according to my mother, simple to make.

Well, it is. For her.

For me, every time I have attempted it, it has been a hot mess.

Part of the problem — okay, most of the problem — is that my mother knows this recipe so well that she makes it without thinking. She throws a few things in a bowl, no measuring, and it comes together. Every. Damn. Time.

I have watched her, and I have tried to estimate amounts, and procedures, and it has driven me near to madness. (Not a long drive, but still …)

So, this week my mother was in town, and I decided that, before the week was over, I would figure this bread the hell out.

I finally came to the delightfully simple answer to my problem: I had my mother throw things together as usual, but, before each addition, to her great amusement, I put the work bowl on my scale and measured.

Some math later, I had a proper recipe.

Last night, to my great delight, I followed that recipe and achieved the dream.

I made Mommy Bread.