Massachusetts’ Experiment in Open Debates

   Adam Zolkover
The Open Debate Process

So — Massachusetts’ fifth congressional district is throwing a special election.

This in itself isn’t news. Earlier this year, Ed Markey, who had long represented Eastern Massachusetts in the House of Representatives, was elected to the Senate to fill the seat that John Kerry vacated when he was appointed Secretary of State. By law, Governor Deval Patrick has one hundred sixty days to line up a replacement. And so, on December 10, folks in Middlesex, Suffolk, and Worcester Counties will come out, cast votes, and send someone new to the least popular institution in the United States.

Hanging Out With Farmer Liz

   Adam Zolkover
Hanging Out With Farmer Liz

Elsewhere on the blog, I’ve mentioned that I really love having the opportunity to see people make things — and especially things in which they take a lot of pride. Whether it’s fermentation, distillation, canning, or coaxing delicate green shoots out of the stony soil, for the folklorist in me — for the part of me that’s interested in what it means to live artistically, to live deliberately, and to trade in the handmade — I can think of no higher treat.

This is why I was so excited that, after several months of crossed schedules and unavoidable delays, I was finally able, this week, to go and visit the Wagner Farmstead.

Foraging for Beginners

   Elizabeth

The satisfaction of growing one’s own food can almost – not quite, but almost – be matched by the satisfaction of finding one’s own food.

For me, it began with the raspberries. Indeed, raspberries are perhaps my rampion: like Rapunzel’s mother, I crave them above all other foods. The first thing we did when we bought a house, before we painted a single wall or moved a single stick of furniture, was to build a raised bed and plant three raspberry canes. They all died by summer’s end, apparently of ennui.

Ginjinha; or, Portuguese Sour Cherry Liqueur

   Adam Zolkover
Ginjinha; or, Portuguese Sour Cherry Liqueur

Tiny chocolate cups are for chumps.

All the best tourist guidebooks seem to agree that they’re entirely traditional and absolutely vital when it comes to imbibing ginjinha — that delicious Portuguese sour cherry liqueur — in Lisbon, or Porto, or anywhere else on its Iberian home terrain. But while I have nothing but respect for good old Rick Steves and his globetrotting colleagues who write these things, on this one small point, I must disagree.

(Mostly) Vegan Green Berry Smoothie

   Adam Zolkover
(Mostly) Vegan Green Berry Smoothie

A couple of summers ago, now, Sarah and I invited a vegetarian friend to come to dinner. I was really excited to cook for her, and planned an elaborate menu out ahead of time: soup, composed salads, pasta primavera from our garden, and crisp for dessert. It was going to be great.

And it was going great, too, until it came time to cook the pasta. By that point in the meal prep, the part of me that was committed to making a fancy dinner had taken over, leaving the part of me that was making a fancy dinner for a vegetarian far behind. The pasta water came to a boil. And without giving it much thought, I reached for the upscaliest noodles that I had on hand: squid-ink spaghetti from Claudio’s Specialty Foods in Philadelphia’s Italian market.

Restoring the Fourth on the Fourth of July

   Adam Zolkover
Restore the Fourth

Folks in the United States: I don’t know what you all did for the Fourth of July, but Sarah and I were in Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park — and then on the march — to support Restore the Fourth (#restorethe4th).

For folks who don’t know, Restore the Fourth is a grassroots, non-partisan, non-violent movement, the purpose of which is to demand that the government of the United States of America adhere to its constitutionally dictated limits and respect the Fourth Amendment. It was formed, in part on Reddit, in response to recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance initiatives: the monitoring of telephone conversations, and the PRISM electronic snooping program that was revealed by Edward Snowden. And it has the backing of civil libertarians and libertarian libertarians, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Senator Rand Paul (not really a libertarian libertarian, but plays one on TV).

Sour Cherry Upside Down Cake

   Adam Zolkover
Sour Cherry Upside Down Cake

For the sake of full disclosure, you need to know that this recipe for sour cherry upside down cake is recycled with only a little modification from last year’s model: a peach cake in the same style. In the previous edition, I claimed that the point of the recipe was to rehabilitate the upside down cake genre, which has been saddled with all manner of unfortunate business like canned pineapple rings, cheapy maraschino cherries, and an aesthetic that screams at the top of its little pastry lungs: I’ve just come from the 1950s, and I’m here to help!

In that post, I said that this cake calls for two key modifications that make it a delight, rather than a chore, to eat: 1) I use real fruit and only real fruit in this recipe, eschewing the canned stuff in favor of whatever is local and in season; and 2) I’ve turned this into a yogurt-based cake, which leads to a texture that is moist but not soggy, and that adds just the tiny bit of creamy tang you need to complement the acidity of the fruit.

Hardtack; or, Ship’s Biscuit

   Adam Zolkover
Hardtack; or, Ship's Biscuit

At this point, dear readers, you must surely already be aware of my deep and abiding love of Star Trek. But what you probably don’t know about me is that Star Trek is hardly the only shipborne drama that catches my imagination. I’m a sucker for all things nautical, too.

Wherever I travel, if my companions show even the slightest tinge of amenability, one of the first items on my touristy to-do list is to find the local maritime museum. In Reykjavik, it was a dockside exhibition showcasing the importance of fishing and whaling to the Icelandic economy. In Tallinn, it was a museum of nautical mines (the explody kind), followed by the Estonian Maritime Museum, nestled inside of a medieval stone turret named Fat Margaret. Blocks and lines, sextants, scrimshaw, or any other oceanic artifact instantly catches my interest. And especially if there’s a robust and well-sourced explanatory card attached, it’s difficult to drag me away.

Zucchini Cakes, For One

   Adam Zolkover
Zucchini Cakes, For One

I’m all alone this weekend. Sarah has gone a’visiting, and left me here to make my own fun.

I don’t actually much enjoy cooking for one, and usually, when this happens, my food situation quickly becomes more than a little bit dire. Either I revert to a state of stereotypical bachelorhood and subsist on boxed ramen, cereal, blocks of mediocre cheese, and the more nourishing varieties of beer. Or I decide to splurge and eat only the foods that I love, but that I know Sarah can’t abide: whole crabs, olives, and the occasional piece of steak.

Note From a Friend Re: #OccupyGezi

   Adam Zolkover
#OccupyGezi Timeline

As most of you surely know, Turkey has been experiencing civil unrest since May 28th, when riot police in Istanbul forcibly evicted peaceful protesters from Taksim Gezi Park. The protesters had been there objecting to a plan that would level the park and replace it with a shopping mall. But after the eviction, and after the police violence that came with it, protests spread to cities across the country, and their cause came to encompass a wide range of concerns, at the core of which were issues of freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and the government’s encroachment on Turkey’s secularism.