Voting in a strange land

Tuesday was the MA primary election. This feels remarkably late for me since the CA primary was in June. With a primary in September the general election campaign season is necessarily short.

Anyhow, I had an observation about voting in MA: I don’t like it. No really, this is not just the whiny Californian feeling like MA still isn’t home, it’s more than that. Prior to the election we got mail from one candidate in one primary race. No info from other candidates. And more importantly, no info from the state. I find the later high problematic and disturbing. The state should be doing more to ensure people know that there’s an election approaching, when it is, where your polling place is, how to get an absentee ballot, and what’s on the ballot.

In California of course, this is done in extreme form: Significantly before the election you receive a sample ballot that also tells you the location of your polling place and has a form for applying for an absentee ballot. Closer to the election you receive a complete Voter’s Guide. In the Guide there are official statements from each candidate. For ballot propositions there is a summary of the proposition, analysis of its legal and fiscal effects by the state legislative analyst, and statements from both sides of the issue (the Yes and No campaigns).

I’m not suggesting MA needs to go to the same level, but it is currently at the opposite extreme. Yes, much of the voter guide type info could be on a website. But there should still be at a very minimum direct mail to the voters saying the date of the election, and giving the URL of the website to go to for more information (this could be a post card). In my opinion, it should also be personalized enough to also tell you on the mailing where your polling location is (which is fairly easy to do). Sure, as a native Californian I’d prefer to see an actual sample ballot even if a more extensive voter guide (which as far as I can tell doesn’t exist in MA) were available only online, but even if you don’t receive a sample ballot, you should be told when and where to vote and where to find out what’s on the ballot. How can we expect hope for an even minimally informed electorate when they don’t even know there’s an election happening?

Secrecy in the News

The Washington Post this week has been doing a series called "Top Secret America". You should read it, if you haven't already. The online format for the articles is sort of annoying but if you go into the article you want and click the print button on the screen it will bring it up in a more read-able format (which you can then print or not).

Also, on a related note, I'm sort of surprised they didn't interview (or quote, anyhow) Steven Aftergood at FAS for this study. If you're interested in the topic you should definitely be reading his blog, Secrecy News.

Adventures in the Kitchen

Trying to eat more vegetables has been an on-going adventure for us. Toyb grew up eating very few vegetables and has not really made them for himself in the intervening years. Luckily, he’s a good sport and he’ll always at least try them if they’re presented to him. However, its still hard to keep buying and cooking vegetables when you’re not sure if the second person is going to really eat them. Besides, I also want to expand my repertoire since I grew up with sort of mainstream vegetables and they are thus my comfort zone.

This summer we have a CSA farm share. It's yummy food, it's good for you, it's good for the environment, and it's good policy – what a win! Anyhow, it has not only been getting us to eat more vegetables (both quantity and variety), but has also prompted us to experiment with cooking more. Last night Toyb suggested that maybe we (which means I) should be blogging some of our more successful experiments.

Last night’s dinner, a fast and delicious couscous:

• Cut large summer squash from CSA into bite size pieces. Roast with a bit of olive oil, garlic salt, and lemon pepper.
• While that’s roasting prepare other ingredients:
  • Slice green onion (also from CSA).
  • Crumble some feta.
  • Cook plain couscous on stove top.
• Place couscous in mixing bowl. Drizzle in extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkling of salt and basil (fresh would have been better but this was improvised base on what we had). Toss in the roasted squash. Add a splash or two of lemon juice. Mix in green onions and feta.

The ingredients last night were not actually new-to-us vegetables (unlike some of adventures earlier this summer), but it was still fun experimental cooking. And yummy.

Traveling while Jewish: Shabbat

One of the biggest challenges posed by traveling over Shabbat turned out to be finding a place to stay that has old-fashioned mechanical locks rather than electronic key-cards. In some cities with major Jewish populations, a few major hotels do offer the option of mechanical keys, but elsewhere this is simply not an option. Our solution: try bed-and-breakfasts. This might be a counter-intuitive option for the shomer shabbat traveler. After all, (1) you might have kashrut issues with eating at a B&B, and (2) you might have shabbat issues with eating at a B&B. However, they tend to be small and homey which means no elevators and no electronic keys. This makes it worth-while even if you don’t eat the food. (And often there will be fresh fruit and cereal available, so even the food may be workable).

Another issue, of course, is lights. If you’re in a hotel room, you need to have lights on in order to do anything, yet it can make it difficult to sleep at night (and you likely don’t have a second room to solve the problem). Plus if you leave lights on they are likely to be turned off the next day by the cleaning crew, leaving you in the dark in the hours prior to havdalah. The solution: bring a wall timer with you. Hotel rooms almost always have lamps plugged into the wall, so you can have a timer and avoid both sleeping in the light and reading in the dark.

Traveling While Jewish: Kashrut

These musings come out of a long cross-country road trip. While this posting is probably particularly relevant to those who do not “eat out” (i.e. don’t eat at establishments that are not kosher-certified), it may also be relevant to other kosher-keeping travelers as well.

A few pieces of advice: (1) many places have at least a limited amount of kosher food available, so you should definitely look into options ahead of time rather than assuming the worst; (2) that said, the options are often very limited, and in some places it is almost impossible to find certain items (like kosher cheese and bread).

If you need to take your food with you, travel with a cooler, take at least one knife, and try to stay in places with mini-fridges. This will greatly increase the range of foods available. In addition to eating tuna, crackers and bread, we had fresh fruit, salad, cheese, and milk (for cereal) making for much more pleasant and balanced meals.

Also, look into what might be available even if there is not a kosher grocery store. For example, although the availability of hechshered bread will still vary regionally, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods both carry a number of hechshered foods, including cheeses, nation-wide, so if they are nearby you will find many more products available than you might otherwise expect in areas without large Jewish populations. That said, Trader Joes itself is not available in large swaths of the country.

Favorite home-made meal of the trip: Avocado-Tomato-and-Goat-Cheese sandwich with salad.

Favorite “restaurant” meal of the trip: Kosher taco cart in LA (Pico-Robertson area) motzei shabbat. The real deal. Tacos that happen to be kosher rather than the other way around. Yum. Of course, I’m not sure this really counts a restaurant.

Other restaurant highlights included: Indian (dairy) in Austin/Houston, Moroccan (meat) in New Orleans, Coffee and Beignets also in NOLA, delicious dairy pastas and salads in Atlanta, and BBQ in Teaneck. Of course we had some krispy kremes along the way as well.

Most unexpected meal out: in Charleston, SC there is a yoga studio that has hechshered vegan foods at lunchtime (salads and wraps and such – menu based on ingredients of the day).

Keep Austin Weird

So, as you may know, Austin, TX is proud of being weird. There are T-shirts and hats all over the place that say "Keep Austin Weird". However, I think they probably define weird differently than I do.

What I think is weird: (a) We visited the state capitol, and the tour guide was a retired New Yorker (he moved to TX because that's where his oldest kid is in college!). Seriously, we can't have an actual Texan tour guide for the Texan capitol? (b) One of things that I learned from the tour guide is that the Texas state legislature meets for one 140 day session every two years. (The governor can call special sessions in which he defines the agenda in case emergency appropriations / legislation are needed, but basically the legislature is in session 5 out of 24 months). Say what?! Texas is weird.

Vivir para contarla -- Living to Tell the Tale

When Vivir para contarla, the autobiography of Gabriel García Márquez, was published in late 2002, it made a big splash internationally, despite the fact that it had not yet been published in English. In fact the English translation would not be available for a year, yet the Spanish version was selling well even in the US. A few months later, the LA Times published a book review of it … also in Spanish.

Editor's note: Recently, Alfred A. Knopf, in a move unprecedented in the U.S. book world, published the Spanish edition of Gabriel García Márquez's long-awaited memoir in the United States, a year prior to its appearance this fall in English. Without benefit of reviews or publicity, "Vivir para contarla" found its way onto The Times' bestseller list. Book Review has decided that a review, in Spanish with accompanying English translation, is in order.

- “Gabo Habla”, by Gioconda Belli, Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2003.

The full review is no longer available on the LA Times website, but can be found online here.

I was a college student in Los Angeles at the time the book review was published. In fact, I was majoring in Spanish-language Literature (part of a double major with international relations). And I was impressed. But I did not have time to read the book at that point. I was after all working on two theses – one for each major. But I promised myself that I would one day do so. This year I finally fulfilled that promise by reading the book. It was a challenge (probably more than it would have been 7 years ago), but ultimately an interesting read for anyone interested in Latin American literature and familiar with Gabo’s novels.