Tag: culture

January 17, 2024 – Like Father, Like Son

January 17, 2024 /

My dear, dear son. We are so much alike and yet it seems like there are chasms between us. Our interest and capabilities are similar, our experience and feelings are similar and yet for some reason one is haunted while the other is content in our beings. He made this cleaver below. I went to put the dishes away and it was in the knife drawer with the note Happy Birthday on it. He even presented in a way that I would. In secret, without any fanfare.

Last week was a difficult week for us. I was busy trying to keep the household together while he was doubting his place and role in it. My birthday was a week ago but it really came and went. I made a Korean inspired dinner so that I could taste my kim chi. I have to say that it wasn’t quite as soft as I wanted but in many ways it was better than I hoped. I definitely preferred this one to many that I have tasted before.

I was worried about the heating system and that everyone had their physical needs met before we were iced in for a couple of days while he was iced in already. Since we really didn’t do much on my birthday, my wife suggested that we have a small dinner on Friday, ahead of the weather. I was focused on the best choice and getting the word out while he was already planning how he could avoid it all together.

I am not there, but I think that I had a very similar high school experience. My best friends were older than I was. And so, my senior year was a solitary one. I ate lunch by myself. I was a little lonely, but only from the perspective that I didn’t understand why I jived with people that were no longer around more so than my peers. It is not so much of a mystery really but it is hard to convey in words. I think that my propensity to get along with older people has served me well. My first boss being a World War II vet liked me very much and invested in my first seven professional years.

I don’t know how better to describe high school but trite. My era had people wearing baseball caps twisted with the tags hanging down and overalls clipped on one side. Talk about stupid. They were emulating the videos they saw on M-TV. It is no wonder I started listening to country music at that point. But at a deeper level, I can certainly understand not identifying with those people.

When you are not quite your own person and not self sufficient it is hard to squeeze into the crack of figuring out who and how you want to be. Even out of college, I struggled to become my own person. My parents didn’t do it intentionally (I don’t think) but in my head I was under their thumb and so therefore my decisions were clouded with how they would judge my decisions.

Now, it seems silly, but at the time it was real. I can’t get a job in college because my parents are paying for it. I can’t let them know that I am going to a bar. I can’t take that class, it is not serious enough. I can’t skip this class to do something I need to do. And on it goes. I get my son and we discuss gaps such as that. I do my best to empower him, but I can only go so far, It is up to him to take what is given.

I used to seek permission on many things, even at work. One day, I realized that if it is not illegal, immoral, against policy or something like that it was time to stop. Nobody needs to enable me to go above and beyond or improve something. That was a liberating moment even to the point that I am challenging the status quo on the other things as well now. Why is this policy in place that doesn’t make sense or I don’t agree with that stance because of X, Y , Z data.

You have to be careful with that way of doing business but it is part of becoming your own person. I think once that happens, then you become confident in who you are. And when you become confident, you become happier. When you become happier, you realize the proper perspective of all those other things were not worth the worry. That is where we need to take this conversation.

End Your Programming Routine: Of course, none of us are perfect. I am not and neither is my son. He ground and honed that edge, which took a lot of time and looks pretty good. The handle is a little more crude and made with pine, probably the wrong material for longevity and durability. It is just like our lives. Some things are worked and refined while other parts are dubious or inappropriate. We just need to keep practicing those elements that need work. Find another material, method, use another design or shape until we find something that works for us. The only way to do that is to keep trying.

October 12, 2021 – The Cure for a Hangover

October 12, 2021 /

One of the most treasured things that I gotten in relationship of a Latino family was the ability to open up to culture that was very foreign to me. I find it fascinating that two families can grow up in the same geographic area and relative socioeconomic level and yet have experiences that are extremely foreign.

The older I get the more I realize this is more common with ethnic families. They have largely embraced the American experience while retaining elements that are important to the original culture. I suppose that I cannot speak in ultimate authority, but I have seen examples in this family for sure. Speaking outside of food traditions for the moment, there is something called Curanderismo or white magic. I am not going to go any deeper than surface level but there is a technique for solving an ear ache or taking away bad dreams.

I find that there is a lot of superstition, most of which I don’t think there is a whiff of science or logic but this one makes some sense, the cure for a hangover. When my wife and I were dating, I was enamored by so many new experiences. One of them was for young families to stay out late dancing, drinking and socializing. Then, after the social outing you would cap off the night (or morning) with soup called menudo.

On first blush, this is a fairly simple composition of ingredients. The primary ingredients are tripe, water, garlic, oregano, salt and chili powder. Some people like some variants that include hominy and pigs feet. Sound good yet? The work is in the prep and the timing because there is a fair amount of those two things.

Having made this a number of times, I would not call it exactly inexpensive. At seven dollars a pound for tripe, buying 15 pounds the price starts to add up. These are big pots, so it is typically made at 10 gallons at a time. But, let’s get into it.

Tripe is most often bought frozen. It is a beef byproduct that is cleaned and fresh frozen in blocks. Most supermarkets will cut these blocks on the bandsaw in smaller pieces but they are never small enough to use. So, these need to be thawed out plenty of time, like overnight before you need to start cooking.

I add salt and about a head of garlic for about five pounds of tripe and enough water to start boiling down the trip. If you use pigs feet, this is also the time to add them. What these do to the soup is contribute collagen for thickening and this soup will end up solid at room temperature when done right. One foot per 10 pounds of tripe is about right. I didn’t want to spring for a bunch of pigs feet, but I did use some smoked ham hock which I already had.

Now, what I have done is put this pot on overnight. This time I added the menudo mix which is oregano and chili flakes along with salt and let it go. By the time I woke up in the morning there was 1/2 an inch of fat on the top of the liquid and the tripe was boiled down to half of its size. I say this so that you are careful about how much additional water is added. I used three quarts initially but if I had to do over again, I would have done more tripe and less water.

I was serving this around dinner time, normally it would be late breakfast time so you may need to get up early to get the seasoning done. I used 25 dried guajillo chilies to rehydrate and make a paste. That happened to be all I had, it probably needed double that amount for this batch. If you don’t have enough which is frequently the case, you can use chili powder to help out. Keep tasting because you want the broth to have body.

Hominy is a slightly controversial ingredient. In Tex-Mex fashion, it is used. My wife likes it so I try to do a 50/50 tripe to hominy ratio. In Mexico, there would be no hominy added. Keep tasting you may need salt, chili and garlic.

Serve with corn tortillas, chopped onion, limes (my wife likes lemons), extra menudo mix and chili for added spice. Coffee or Coke is the best pairing for drinks and eat three bowls. That will cure your hangover.

I will be honest, I don’t love it. It tastes fine and I am good with it every couple of months but I don’t crave it. What I do appreciate is keeping the tradition alive. I also appreciate the waves of people enjoying the food and the camaraderie. I also like being the white guy that makes the best menudo and it makes my wife happy. So, once a year or so I will do it again just for the heck of it.

End Your Programming Routine: Yesterday was the two month anniversary of my father-in-law’s death. This was an homage to him as the hominy and the menudo seasoning was his when we cleaned out the pantry. I made it for my wife who returned home from Texas over the weekend who loves it. His passing still weighs heavy on her heart. We really didn’t have a hangover in a traditional sense, but in a small way hopefully this helps with the figurative one.

May 5, 2021- Feliz Cinco De Mayo

May 5, 2021 /

This is one of those days that has changed in my lifetime. I suppose that with the rise of Latino culture in my area, there has become more awareness of the culture in general. I would equate it more to Saint Patrick’s Day where people are enjoying something that they have no idea what it is about.

Ask a typical American what is Cinco de Mayo and there is a good chance they are going to say Mexican Independence Day which is wrong. Mexican independence is September 16 Cinco de Mayo is the celebration of a victory against the French at Puebla in 1962. Huh, so what so important about that? Good question, not a lot. My wife who has lived in Mexico says that it really isn’t acknowledged as a holiday.

You can read all about it if you like, but now that you know the truth what are you going to do? I say enjoy it. I love Mexican food and the weather is (often) nice. Crack a cold one or two and start to get educated the real history.

Now that I have given permission to enjoy, let’s get serious. Mexican food is way (and I mean way) more diverse than tacos and Coronas. Just like the United States, Mexico is an infusion of culture primarily German, French, Spanish and native. For instance, my favorite Mexican beer is Dos Equis Amber which is an example of a Vienna style lager. In fact, all of the ‘brown’ beers like Negro Modelo are take-offs of the Vienna style lager. We all know about the Margarita (lime and tequila) but what about the Paloma which is grapefruit juice and tequila?

I am going to transition from drinks to food now but I was trying to give some recognizable difference to show what is under the surface but probably not known. So, food… who doesn’t love nachos? But what we think of as Mexican food is colored by a number of factors. First let’s start at a high level history of the food.

The basis of the food is the indigenous base. That means that it is different depending on the location. For instance, food is different in the southern region than it is in the northern and the inner regions differ from the coast. Because of the long history of different indigenous cultures, every state (in Mexco) often has variation of the same dish. It had to do with the spices and raw ingredients available. To the tortilla, wheat is from the north and corn is the most ubiquitous. It is also why I consider pairing wheat with beef but more often corn with everything else.

You take the base (or real) Mexican food and you start mixing food from other countries like France and you end up with very intricate and refined food. Sauces such as mole are extremely complicated and rich in flavor. Don’t be fooled with the restaurant mole, this can be highly refined and delicious. I would submit that Mexican food can be fine dining and held up against anything else in the world or dressed down to street food.

As food and culture migrate, so does the interpretation. Frequently what we see as ‘Mexican’ food has been coopted into Tex-Mex and American tastes. It is kind of like when I had a hamburger or pizza in China, close but not right. Our typical rice, beans, entrée plate has become what is synonymous with Mexican food but it runs much deeper than that.

End Your Programming Routine: Enjoy Cinco de Mayo. I haven’t decided what is for dinner yet, but it is either going to be ceviche (not originally Mexican but already made) or some fresh made chorizo (Spanish origin) I bought yesterday. Take the time to be educated in history and culture so that you make your celebration about the right things like just having fun rather than thinking you are some culturally sensitive, woke dumbass.

June 19, 2020 – Maybe I should become a wood poet?

June 19, 2020 /

Sometimes my mind goes in a direction that seems like it is different than everyone else. For instance, while remodeling the kitchen to add the new microwave hood, I found a piece of blocking in the wall that was rough sawn oak. I have written about wood and my speculation of it’s origin before.

To the untrained eye, this would have been tossed out with all of the other debris. It is too short to re-use anywhere. It is still full of nails and has a sizable knot on one edge. But I saw something different.

I first noticed that is rough sawn. That is why I set it aside to look at it later. Then I noticed that it is a true 2″ piece of dimensional lumber. After I pulled the nails out, I started to notice the saw markings. If you look closely, one face is cut with a circular saw (those are the curved lines) and the other face was cut with a band saw (indicated by vertical lines).

Now, I am going to jump around a bit as I do to eventually get to a point (you can feel like you are getting a Malcom Gladwell experience here). In 2015, we wanted to paint the house. While attempting to do some rot repair, we found that the house was constructed in an unusual way. That led to adding new siding. After everything was completed, we were paid a visit by a former owner (Lloyd) who brought us a handful of pictures and a couple hours of stories as it was from the 1960’s when he purchased the house.

Over the years, we have had a number of run-ins with people that are connected to this house. It first started in 2005 (our first year here) when we had a garage sale. Some people that stopped by said that their grandparents lived here and that they used to stay here in the summertime in the 1950’s as children. Everybody knows this house, it is a big, blue Victorian at the top of the hill on Main St.

It seems as though the history of the house is uncertain. The county list the date as 1893. Former owner’s claim that is when records began and that this house dates back to 1873. Further, stories allege that this was the original homestead in the area, with all the lumber from the site. Now, we are starting to circle back to wood.

Let us assume that the rough sawn board on the left is from this site. I counted the growth rings on that board as 36 from what I could see. Not knowing the ultimate size of the tree, a person could speculate that tree was at least growing in the 1850’s (1893 – 36 = 1857).

The board on the right is definitely from this site because I milled it in 2006. When I cut down the fir tree, it had 56 rings making it planted in 1950. The history of the house in that period is much more certain.

Lloyd tells a story that he was living in an old farm house across the street. He was noticed that it was empty and went to inquire about the future of the house. The city considered it a nuisance house (it was previously spit into college apartments) and was going to tear it down, so Lloyd purchased the house. I guess you could say that Lloyd saved the house, but somewhat killed it at the same time because the house was stripped to the framing both inside and out.

The lap siding was replaced with T1-11, the plaster gone, windows replaced, doors and Victorian decoration all gone. On the upside, we got a modern electrical service (200 amps) and insulation and a new lease on life. We heard about how he ceded a portion of the property in back so that the neighbor had a lot size big enough to build a house. We heard about how the other neighbor built the fence on our side of the property line. All-in-all, it was an extremely interesting and surprising visit.

At this point, no one fully knows what was happening on this property in the 1850’s. The town was incorporated in 1859, the same year as the state. One of my future goals is to look at historical pictures and see if I can discern any truth about the origin of the house, including architectural details. I have seen some aerial photographs taken from a balloon that date to the 1880s, but they always orient toward the city center, which is to say away from this house.

There have been numerous changes in the town landmarks over the years. Houses have been moved, rails were removed, even the highway was moved in World War II to accommodate for an army base down the road. It will take a keen eye and thoughtful mind to reconstruct the past, but it sounds like fun.

Happy Father’s Day everyone.