Day: February 22, 2020

February 22, 2020 Yummy Food & Recipes

Pancake Chef Cheers Us

It turns out after knowing my husband Bill for 35 years, I (along with Natalie) have only recently learned that he is an amazing pancake chef. We wake up thinking about his pancakes. One night last weekend, I told him I was in the mood for his pancakes and guess what? Yes!! We ate pancakes at 10 pm, after watching a good movie. Any left-over pancakes are delicious to have with afternoon tea/coffee or for dessert with a smear of jam. Pancakes can be left out on a plate for one day on the counter, unless it is a hot summer day. Pancakes made with yogurt instead of buttermilk, olive oil instead of butter, topped with maple syrup and with a side of excellent applesauce, are uplifting for both tastebuds and spirits. Recipe below:

PANCAKE RECIPE

  • up to 1 1/2 cup of plain whole milk yogurt
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup wholewheat pastry flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon natural sugar cane sugar
  • pinch of salt

Stir dry ingredients in bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl, then add to dry ingredients. Bill drops a small dollop of olive oil on our iron skillet, then wipes the dollop to lightly oil the skillet. Bring the skillet up to a medium-low heat. You know it’s ready when you flick some drops of cold water onto the skillet and they burble and dance around. Take a soup spoon of batter and plop onto skillet. It will melt into proper shape. Wait for bubbles to appear on top side, and then check bottom for lightly browned color. Flip. Wait a minute or two, then jiggle the top of the pancake with edge of spatula. If top doesn’t wiggle side to side separate from bottom, the pancake is ready. Caution: Monitor the bottom layer for over-browning, rotating and sometimes flipping pancakes an extra time or two to make sure pancakes are perfect.

February 22, 2020 Confessions of a Book Lover

Truth & Tubman

It is time for me to make a confession: When I noticed in my public library a slick “everything is okay” children’s biography of the current president shelved between Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, I pulled it out and hid it in the library where it will never be found. This president is a soul killer. Neither Harriet nor Sojourner deserve to have him divide them. Nor do our children deserve to be lied to.

I checked out the biographies of Harriet and Sojourner and thought about the issue of “electability” we keep hearing about. The United States is so ready for an intelligent, wise, forthright, caring woman president and we have someone like that in our midst. We need to shift the “electability” (We Aren’t Ready) discussion to WE ARE READY.

87 countries have or had women elected as heads of state or government, as of 29 November 2019.
WE ARE READY.

WHAT IF:
Each of us, once a day, says to someone/anyone/everyone:
The U.S. IS READY FOR A WOMAN PRESIDENT.

Say it for Greta, Ruth, Dolores, Harriet, Sojourner…
Say it for the sake of your daughters and grand-daughters.
Say it for the sake of the country.

Do not allow “We aren’t ready” to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. WE ARE READY.

February 22, 2020 Suzanne’s Studio

Long and Winding Road

It has been a challenging winter since my wonderful mother passed away last month. She was the best person I knew. I am lucky to have art to turn to, as it always proves to be such a refuge. I practically run to board the train each week for art class in downtown L.A. Although I still enjoy painting, my latest refuge has been working with fabric — I’ve been creating a large piece that explores my family’s past.

Detail from new artwork

My father always warned me not to look into his family’s side, saying “you may find a horse thief.” So far no horse thieves but definitely some twists and turns. Turns out I am descended, in small part, from people from Benin and Ghana. My grandfather was one quarter black; my dad was an octoroon.

As I have learned, the DeCuirs came to the U.S. in 1720 from Macon, a town that was once in France but is now in Belgium following a few wars and boundary changes. In Louisiana, our newly arrived ancestors started marrying those already there….many were free people of color.

Left: Albert DeCuir sailed to America in 1720; hand and machine stitched. Right: Checked fabric is French from the 1800s. Symbols are from those found on a grís-grís bag, worn by girls for protection. Note Islamic verses; this tradition traces back to Senegal & Ghana.

Apparently, Louisiana has a complicated racial and colonial history. Before Louisiana became an American territory in 1803, the area was under French and then Spanish control. Some of these free people of color were quite wealthy and even owned slaves themselves. (At the time, slaves could gain their freedom in several ways, by fighting for the colony or teaching the master’s children, for example.) I have a hard time getting into the mind of my slave-owning French, Black and Creole ancestors. I can’t help but think about how bizarre this is while I sew.

Using fabric from the present and the past, this new artwork uses as a reference point the area of Pointe Coupée, Louisiana, but rather than just copy a map, I have used it as a way to suggest many elements that come to mind: the much-divided plots of land for sugar, indigo, and cotton fields, the winding Mississippi, the mixing of French and African languages that became Kouri-Vini, the stolen lives of endless work, and the fact that I nearly lived my whole life knowing nothing about these ancestors.

Artwork so far…about 6′ x 8′

*Re. Riverlake Plantation: I opened The NY Times in December of 2019 to learn, to my horror, that author Ernest Gaines (Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman) grew up on Riverlake where five generations of his family had lived as slaves. About 20 years ago, he purchased the unkempt graveyard in order to be sure it would be taken care of properly.

Suzanne’s website is suzannedecuirfineart.com. Click here to watch “Life Jackets,” the 8-minute film (free streaming) by Pamela Beere Briggs & William McDonald featuring another of Suzanne’s recent projects.