Pink Eyed Jim’s Blog

I know I haven’t updated this thing in awhile, but I’ve been really depressed and haven’t wanted to do anything. Shannon and I broke up for an undetermined (but long) amount of time. Haven’t exactly been in the mood to follow the news or anything. I’m sorry. I even missed Free for All Friday yesterday!

I promise you folks that I will write some more stuff soon. I’m currently reading Richard Clark’s book “Against All Enemies,” I’ll share some of my thoughts later this week.

But for now, I’m just going to share this with you. I’m putting asterisks next to the ones I actually do.

This isn’t exactly news, because this article is dated January 31st. I just wanted to highlight a few parts of the study, especially those that the MSN article downplays.

The first “key finding” of the study, and the most visibly distressing I might add, is that “Nearly three-fourths [of high school students] say either they don’t know how they feel about it [the First Amendment] or they take it for granted.”

It gets worse.

“Students are less likely than adults to think that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions or newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.” This leads me to one important connection that seems to go unnoticed by both the Knight organization and the MSN article. I’m going to compare two statements given to those that took the survey, the percentages given will reflect those that agree with that statement.

Newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories.

• Students - 51%
• Teachers - 80%
• Principals - 80%
• Adults - 70%

High School students should be allowed to report controversial issues in their student newspaper without approval of school authorities.

• Students - 58%
• Teachers - 39%
• Principals - 25%
• Adults - 43%

It should be noted that this was only one of two questions that principals and teachers responded less favorably to than students and regular adults. The other was “Musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics others find offensive.”

Perhaps the problem is that the high school students aren’t encouraged to investigate and report controversial issues. No one likes criticism when it’s directed at them. This is why the First Amendment is so important; to protect citizens from their government, lest they decide to pass legislation forbidding criticizing them.

The thing is, folks, hypocrisy is dangerous to liberty. Teachers and principals, upon their initial offense at being criticized, can cause the next generation of Americans to be extremely apathetic about their own freedoms and liberty. Your freedoms are a double edged sword, it does no good to demand your freedom of speech while limiting the free speech of others.

For ten years now, Rutgers University has been the site of frequent protesting over its exclusive beverage contract with Coca-Cola. In 1994 Rutgers University signed a $10 million “pouring rights” contract, giving Coke the exclusive beverage business of the entire university. Water can’t be offered at a university event unless it’s Desani.

This has all recently changed. So recently, in fact, that I’m the first to print this.

I work at one of the eating establishments on the Rutgers New Brunswick campus. An email was sent to the managers of all the food and beverage establishments on campus saying that, effective July, Rutgers will be a Pepsi school. That’s right, for the next ten years, anyone who attends Rutgers, sees a sporting event at Rutgers, or just happens to eat somewhere on a Rutgers campus, that person will have the choice between one Pepsi product and another Pepsi product.

I will only say that it is very sad to be living in the United States of America, supposedly the richest, smartest nation in the world and yet Universities have such a lack of funding that they need to seek exclusive beverage contracts with huge conglomerates just to raise some funds. It makes my education feel that much more genuine.

Last Monday I went to the French St. Farm Market, one of those stores that seems to specialize in produce and either Asian or Hispanic foods. Those stores are amazing because the fresh produce is so cheap. I spent $65 stocking up on fresh produce and some fruit juices and such. I spent the whole week just preparing all of these beautiful fruits and veggies. Most of the dishes came out really great, so I’ve decided to share the recipes.

Stewed Fava Beans with Tomatoes and Tuna

This is one of those really minimalist dishes where success is solely a matter of having good ingredients and preparing them simply.

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces fresh fava beans, in the pod
• 1 - 28 ounce can organic whole plum tomatoes (of course they don’t have to be organic)
• 2 large cloves garlic, sliced thin
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt and fresh ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried ground oregano
• 1 - 6 ounce can tuna (preferably in olive oil)
• 2 slices bread, crusts removed, and torn into small pieces
• 1 tablespoon each of butter and olive oil

Method:

1. Remove the favas from their pods, drop the beans in boiling water for about 2 minutes, then drain and drop into ice water. With your fingernail, make a small tear in the skin on the outside of the favas, then squeeze the bean lightly, it should pop right out of its skin.
2. Empty the can of tomatoes into a small saute pan. Using the back of a wooden spoon, break the whole tomatoes into small pieces. Pour in the olive oil, season with the salt, pepper, and oregano. Mix in the garlic slices. Simmer this mixture over medium heat for about 20 minutes.
3. Reserve half of the ersatz tomato sauce for the Confit of Habas and Tomatoes recipe that will follow. To the remaining half of the sauce, add the fava beans, check for seasoning on the sauce, and simmer the beans in the sauce for another 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4. If you listened to me and got the tuna packed in olive oil, you can just toss the whole can, oil and all into the tomato and bean mixture and break the tuna into small pieces. If you have water packed tuna or regular oil packed tuna, you will need to drain your tuna before adding it to the sauce (and you may want to add an extra tablespoon of olive oil to the dish at this point). Heat the whole shebang until the tuna is warmed through.
5. In a small nonstick skillet, melt the butter and heat the olive oil. When both are hot, add the torn bread pieces and saute until crsipy, stirring almost constantly. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve warm, or even better, at room temperature, topped with the bread crumbs.

Confit of Habas and Tomatoes

This is a vegetarian version of the above recipe made with canned fava beans (you’ll most likely see them called “broad beans” or “habas” when they are canned). This recipe is wonderful made ahead and left in the refrigerator for a day or two until the beans pick up the flavors from the tomato sauce and olive oil. Serve these at room temperature to company with just some toothpicks or cocktail forks.

Ingredients:

• 1 can (16 ounces or so) Broad Beans (or Habas) drained
• approx 2 cups tomato sauce (reserved from above recipe)
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper, to taste

Method:

1. Combine the beans, olive oil, and tomato sauce, and season to taste with the salt and pepper. Pour into a smallish baking dish (I use a shallow pie dish).
2. Bake in a preheated 325 Degree oven for 1 hour.
3. Chill at least overnight.

Cucumber-Yogurt Salad (Raita)

A chilled cucumber yogurt salad similar to this is served in Indian restaurants in order to cool down the palate from all of the spicy dishes normally served. I, however, like to wallow in this all by itself.

Ingredients:

• 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced small
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1 small clove garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
• juice of 1/2 lime
• salt and pepper

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients and chill for at least an hour, or up to three days.
2. Serve with warm pita chips (or pappadams or naan).

Tomato Tartare with Tomato Water Dressing

I often get a yen for tuna tartare (Stage Left’s Tuna Tartare to be specific), this is a completely vegetarian dish that satisfies that yen when I don’t have any AA grade tuna around. Do not, I repeat, do NOT make this with anything other than superb fresh ripe tomatoes or you will be disappointed. This dish was inspired by Jacques Pepin, but the proportions are mine.

Ingredients:

• 1 large tomato ( I love the UglyRipe tomatoes that you can now find in most large supermarkets).
• 2 tablespoons sliced scallion
• 1 slice bread (any kind is fine, but I usually use whole wheat), crust removed
• 6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper

Method:

1. Cut the tomato in half lengthwise, and scrape the seeds into a fine mesh strainer over a bowl. Sprinkle the seeds with a bit of salt, and let sit.
2. Dice the tomato very small, about 1/4 inch square.
3. Dry the bread out in a toaster oven. Dice dry bread about the same size as the tomato.
4. Combine the diced tomato, diced bread, scallion and two tablespoons of the olive oil in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper, and mix well.
5. Use the back of a spoon to scrape the tomato seeds and pulp against the mesh of the strainer, this should cause tomato juice to drip into the bowl. Do this until there is no more of the viscous liquid that surrounds the tomato seeds. Discard the seeds.
6. Whisk together the tomato juice with the remaining olive oil, season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Wash out an empty tuna fish can. Pack the tomato/bread mixture in the tuna can tightly. Invert the can on a small plate and tap on the top until the tomato tartare unmolds. Pour the tomato water dressing around the base of the tomato tartare.
8. Serve with crackers as an appetizer for two, or with a fork as a light lunch for one.

It’s officially spring folks, hell, it’s almost summer. Go out and get some nice fresh veggies and enjoy them while they’re here, winter will be back again before you know it.

I lent a friend and her roommate a couple of bucks the other day so they could buy some beer before the liquor store closed.

Well, I got paid back the next day:

I love that it says “Beer!” in the memo field.

It’s lucky that the people at work have me to save them from themselves. Why, just the other day, Jeremy (one of the chefs) suggested that we call his calamari dish “Calamari alla Puttanesca.” Now wait just a god-damned minute here, Jeremy. You can’t say things like that at Rutgers!

If you, the reader, are slightly confused at this point, good. You should be. Rutgers University’s antipathy for freedom of speech doesn’t make any sense.

In order to lower your level of confusion, I will at least tell you what “puttanesca” has to do with Rutgers’ antipathy for freedom of speech.

You see, one of the popular spots on campus for Rutgers students is the “Grease Trucks” which are all in a Rutgers-owned parking lot across from Scott Hall. These trucks have been making “fat sandwiches” since the 70’s. The typical fat sandwich is some permutation of a few basic ingredients, all stuffed onto either a steak roll or a pita. The ingredients range from cheese steak to mozzarella sticks to chicken fingers to burgers to gyro meat to veggie burgers to fries. The sandwiches are all given sophomoric names (no surprise that the grease trucks are all of a hundred or so feet from “frat row,” Union Street) such as the Fat Bitch, Fat Bastard, Fat Darrell, Fat Dyke, Fat Filipino and so on.

Rutgers decided back in February that these names had persisted long enough. Groups of students complained that the names led to stereotyping and (though you’ll never find out how) domestic violence.

“This is part and parcel of social progress,” she said. “It may seem small, but these [sandwich names] are part of a general climate of insensitivity toward the LGBT community and a lack of respect for racial ethnic and national differences, as well as for women as a whole.”

Then why “puttanesca?”Epicurious.com has an internet food dictionary, which begins its entry for “puttanesca” as such:

puttanesca sauce; alla puttanesca
[poot-tah-NEHS-kah]
Generally served with pasta, this sauce is a spicy mélange of tomatoes, onions, capers, black olives, anchovies, oregano and garlic, all cooked together in olive oil. A dish on a menu described as alla puttanesca signals that it’s served with this sauce.

Seems benign enough, doesn’t it? The entry continues:

The name puttanesca is a derivation of puttana , which in Italian means “whore.” According to one story, the name purportedly comes from the fact that the intense fragrance of this sauce was like a siren’s call to the men who visited such “ladies of pleasure.”

How dare those crazy Italians name a dish after whores?!? Don’t they know that that’s not how we do things at Rutgers, because naming dishes after prostitutes and anything else generally considered offensive simply reinforces stereotypes and somehow (incredibly) leads to domestic violence.

Why is Puttanesca named after whores? This is where it all breaks down, folks. Epicurious says “the name purportedly comes from the fact that the intense fragrance of this sauce was like a siren’s call to the men who visited such ‘ladies of pleasure.’” Sicilianculture.com says:

at the end of the evening, the prostitutes would come begging at local restaurants for leftovers. This sauce was made of all leftover ingredients. So basically, it can contain anything, the Italians NEVER throw away anything, and if there was sauce on the stove, anything that may be going bad was put into the simmering sauce.

So either the sauce is named because of its seductiveness, because it’s a sauce the prostitutes used to cook, or because it was a “whore” of a sauce - made to take any leftover ingredients that might be lying around. I’ve even seen the suggestion that it was so named because the average housewife could, after a clandestine meeting (read: affair) while her husband was away, make a puttanesca sauce that tasted like a long-simmered sauce in time for him to arrive home!

Hmm…

I understand that some people are very sensitive little flowers that practically bruise in the wind. I understand that some people think that the jokes are about them.

Don’t flatter yourself.

I also understand that a sandwich called a “Fat Nigger” never would have made it past the drawing board. I don’t agree with that fact either. So why tolerate the offense when “directed” at Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, or Transgenders? Why have the Italians tolerated puttanesca for decades and decades?

Because they realize that it is the slightly poetic and highly ironic name of a dish that they’ve come to love. And if it’s the prostitutes who invented the dish, maybe the Italians have come to say, “I still don’t approve of those whores, but they make a damn good pasta sauce.”

Granted, no one says “I still don’t approve of the LGBT community, but those ‘Fat Bitches’ sure are good.” But I’ve yet to hear somebody rally around the name of the sandwich as a call against that community, just as there have been no riots in Italy where the people have been chanting “down with those puttanescas.”

The RUGG website laments, “This issue is not one of free speech versus political correctness but rather how we as a community want to treat each other.”
Don’t you idiots realize that you turned it into an issue of free speech when you caused the University to force the vendors to cover their signs, and eventually change them (at significant cost to themselves) against their discretion? If the issue is supposedly “how we as a community want to treat each other” then why are you treating members of your community as though they don’t have their right to freedom of speech?

We love to chant platitudes without thinking of how we’re being completely hypocritical at the same time.