A Sunday roundup: 14-cup commercial food processor, a foster cat, friend visit, misc

Y'all will be as thrilled to hear, as I was to experience it, that I have had the dreaded relapse that so many people have succumbed to following round 1 of this horrid virus going around. Not even kidding I have gone through FOUR boxes of Kleenex since Thursday. Don't even talk to me about phlegm and nosebleeds and that disgraceful chap pattern I now have under my nose. 

That said, my dear friend, Anne, came to visit Thursday - Saturday, and as it always is when you spend time with someone who makes you pee in your pants laughing and also shares their deepest secrets and you yours and doesn't mind watching you go through two of those four boxes of Kleenex or eating leftover pizza from the double-slumber party you host one night during her visit for dinner, it was marvelous.

As evidenced by that picture.

Also last week I received a new kitchen toy, Hamilton Beach's 14-cup dicing food processor. My friend, Christine (I call her Burratine because we first truly bonded over a plate of burrata and have been fast friends since; was that two years ago, C? three?), writes the snappy food blog, Chew Nibble Nosh, and recently had a giveaway sponsored by Hamilton Beach. Out of 175 entrants, my name popped out of the Promo Simple winner generator. Y'all, I was thrilled. I don't think I've EVER won anything. And then, faster than I can type Hamilton Beach, this puppy was waiting by my front door. 

Thank you, HB; photos below courtesy of Hamilton Beach

I used it yesterday to mandoline three Meyer lemons in the blink of an eye for a Shaker lemon pie and again today to DICE many pounds of green peppers and onions for the chili verde I make most every year for the Superbowl. 

Because I was BESIDE MYSELF thrilled by the speed and mostly-accurate dicing and mandolining of all these things, which otherwise takes not an insignificant amount of time, I neglected to take any action shots. You should click here as Christine photo-documented her entire maiden voyage with her dice-chop magic appliance. It dices tomatoes without crushing them. WTF?! #winning

I cannot wait to use this bad boy to deal with potatoes in a million different ways. Latkes, hash browns, you get my drift! Thank you to Christine and Hamilton Beach!

In feline news, a beautiful little cat has been wandering our neighborhood for weeks, collarless and thin. It has emeralds for eyes and is the sweetest, calmest ball of silky fur and purr ever. Many of us have come to believe it's homeless, and so today we took him in. 

I promised T it was just a foster cat (he does NOT want another cat), and I have put signs up all over the neighborhood and also reached out to a friend who recently lost her beloved cat of 17 years to see if she might want to adopt this honey. But y'all know the truth: the boys and I want to keep this cat. Big time. Right now he's sound asleep, still purring, in bed with Jack. 

As I scooped this sweetie up today, and felt unabashed love literally course through my body, it all felt so simple. Such a perfect counterpoint to all the ugliness and complete lack of love and respect and care being spewed from the White House. It's so much easier to be kind and put a little goodness out there. #resist

Lunar New Year & Taco Night

In order to ignore (as best as possible) some of the uglier white noise in our collective background, I have enjoyed a great deal of kitchen time this week.

To celebrate the Lunar New Year (last Saturday) and welcome the Year of the Rooster, and also because Jack is finally exiting his phase of mind-numbingly dull eating and has discovered a mad passion for pork dumplings, I made, wait for it, many pork dumplings yesterday.* Oliver and his sweet hands were huge helps in the folding and crimping department, and we crafted about sixty half-moons in no time flat.

I steamed most of them but also friend about a dozen for Jack because he prefers pot stickers. Mine were definitely on the crisp side but he declared them delicious, so I'll take it. Meanwhile, Oliver inhaled approximately 35 of the steamed version. 

I also made some soba noodles, peanut sauce, fried tofu, and steamed broccoli, and tossed all that together for a nice salad. Oranges made for a perfect, good luck dessert. 

Tonight was taco night which, because of our embarrassing POTUS' lack of knowledge of Frederick Douglass, also included a margarita for moi. 

Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I noticed.

Is POTUS aware that Frederick Douglass died in 1895? I just don't have words. So really, you can easily see why I made the margarita. 

Otherwise, Tacos. Family dinner. Good!

And my darling fur baby. 

Pork dumplings:

1 pound ground pork
the white/light green ends of two scallions, minced
a couple teaspoons minced chives
~2 teaspoons grated ginger
~1-2 teaspoons sesame oil
about the same of soy sauce
~2 teaspoons salt.

Mix everything together well and refrigerate for at least an hour.

I only had egg roll wrappers, so used a 3" cup to press rounds for the big dumplings. I used a biscuit cutter to cut rounds for the potstickers. One by one, fill the rounds and then seal by dabbing a bit of water around the edge of the circle, folding the circle in half, and crimping it shut.
I steamed the dumplings and fried the potstickers.

Make a good dipping sauce. We did roughly this:

1⁄4 cup soy sauce
1⁄4 cup rice wine vinegar
2 1⁄2 teaspoons sugar (didn't do this, or only did a bit; I don't know, I put Tom on the sauce)
1⁄2 medium scallion, minced
2 teaspoons minced fresh gingerroot
1⁄2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1⁄2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Mix. Serve.

Two-protest Monday, the real meaning of our flag, democracy in action

I am starting to believe that investing heavily in foam core and Sharpie Magnums is not an unwise long-term investment strategy. 

After a school meeting, necessary workout so as to combat near-freaking out, several must-happen errands, and carpool runs, I had just enough time to make a double-sided flip sign before heading off to the two protests I wanted to attend tonight.

The first was to protest the most ignorant Secretary of Education nominee ever: the Kingdom of Heaven billionaire with zero real experience in education other than defunding public schools for no good reason, Betsy DeVos.

Lamar Alexander, the mealy-mouthed "head" of DeVos' confirmation hearing was, this afternoon, addressing the National School Boards Association annual meeting here in DC. I cannot imagine that the other speaker, the illustrious Doris Kearns Goodwin, felt awesome about Lamar following her, but perhaps she didn't much care.

If the support we received from NSBA attendees was any indication, DeVos has zero support from within their ranks and maybe Lamar should have done some good listening. But I doubt it. Not even kidding, they were pouring out of the Marriott to come and high-five us, take selfies, dance with our cheers, and even lead our cheers. The Michigan delegation loudly told us that for their public education system, "DeVos has been a nuclear bomb. A NUCLEAR BOMB."

This should come as no surprise to anyone who watched any bit of DeVos' confirmation hearing and/or who actually knows anything about American public education. It should make all congressional votes run for the Hills of No, but we heard tonight via a woman who'd met with Senator Kaine that he expected a straight party-line vote. Great. Said no one.

After that protest wrapped, I inverted my sign and asked two young spitfires if I could tag along with them to the Supreme Court as we all planned to attend the Senate Democrats press conference and vigil against Trump's heinous #MuslimBan. There I planned to try and meet up with my friend, Mina. And there I happened to run into my cousin via marriage, Sonia. So cool!

Mina and I did meet up, and we were both very pleased by the size of the crowd. Mina said it compared to that protesting at the White House yesterday. Good! Because this ridiculous ban on Muslims from only some countries is OFFENSIVE beyond belief. 

That's me.

Tonight, Senators Bernie, Elizabeth, Nancy, Al, and Tim all addressed us from the Court's grand steps. And Senator Leahy walked right past me and said "Thank you for being here." He's much taller in real life than I expected, more robust too, but still with those kind, smart eyes and recognizable face. 

All of chanted and cheered. Everyone was so kind and just brimming with solidarity. I was wearing that flag because some guy walking towards the SC with us kept dropping a giant box, and the two young spitfires and I asked if he needed help with it, and he said "No, but do you know what this box is full of?" 

"No," we said, "What?"

"American flags," he said. "They keep trying to say they are America, that they're going to make America great. But WE are America, and we are what makes it great, and we need to wear these flags proudly and show what the truth of America is."

That's one of the spitfires I met, in front of the Capitol. I love this pic!

And he was right. I have become viscerally opposed to flag pins in recent years. They make me want to gag because too often they're worn, with fake and sycophantic reason, by people who use what the flag truly represents to mask all that they don't. They've taken a real symbol of patriotism and bastardized it. 

But this guy helped me think differently. About reclaiming our stars and stripes. I am thankful for that and to him and his generosity. So hey, if you're going to a protest, please, honor this real patriot and buy an extra flag and give it out to someone just because.

It was another special night of coming together, one I needed desperately because earlier today I felt more worried than I have yet. 

Tonight, as strangers, friends, senators, and even some children sang "This land is my land, this land is your land" together, I took a snapshot and plugged it away inside my mental reservoir. This is what is at stake, and this is what we're fighting for.