Ramos Gin Fizz

There are few cocktails worth drinking in this corn syrup-addled world of ours, but occasionally the time and place presents itself when booze should indeed be mixed with more than just ice or vermouth.  Those moments are called "brunch," and they usually occur A) at your own house, or B) at an overpriced café.  Sometimes a finer establishment with a pleasant view of the stockyards will offer Breakfast Plus as well, but the kind of drinking done at Worthington Country Club at ten o'clock in the morning usually does not include vodka shots or whiskey.

To spare you from embarrassment, here's the name and recipe of a more socially acceptable concoction to have with brunch that won't put you in a diabetic coma.  It's called a Ramos Gin Fizz, the exalted chef-d'oeuvre of one Henry C. Ramos, a New Orleans barkeep from the late nineteenth-century.  The drink rose to greater prominence in 1935 when Senator Huey Long called a press conference in New York to demonstrate to the world how to make one properly.  Flying up a bartender from his home state of Louisiana, Long made a memorable spectacle in front of the newsreel cameras, enjoying his first drink in two years "to make sure you gentlemen are getting the real thing."  Five glasses later, the grinning Senator had succeeded in what many suspect was a diversion to prevent the US Treasury from intervening in an attempted sale of Louisiana state bonds.

So here's what you need as an excuse to drink in the morning:

1 1/2 ounce dry gin

1/2 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce lime juice

1 ounce powdered sugar

2 drops orange flower water

2 drops vanilla extract

2 ounces heavy cream

1 egg white

Soda water to top off

Combine everything in a cocktail shaker except for the soda, and shake for about a minute and a half.  Then fill with ice, shake again for one to two minutes, and strain into a 12-ounce non-tapered glass.  Top off with soda water.  Makes one.

According to lore, Henry Ramos employed a small army of gawky soda jerks to shake each of his fizzes for ten minutes before serving.  They do turn out better the longer they're shaken, but ten minutes is probably a little tiresome.  And orange flower water is nice, but not always obtainable.  Look for it in Mediterranean grocery stores.  The drink still works without it, resembling frothy melted ice cream with a fizzy citrus twist.

Now raise your glass in memory of the Kingfish, the Honorable Huey Pierce Long, Jr., Senator from Louisiana and propagator of a most worthy alternative to the simpler libations to which we've grown accustomed.  He never made good on his threat to lead an angry mob to hang his Senate colleagues for being too cozy with the rich, but his legend lives on in his accomplishment of making day-drinking more tolerable.  For those of us denied the pleasantries of beer served with our eggs and cantaloupe, the Senator and Mr. Ramos remain to this day as truly the Drinker's Champions.

The Case Against Austerity In Washington State

"I hate my budget. I hate it because in some places I don't even think it's moral. Who would have thought that I would be doing this?  It's just beyond me that I would be the one to do this.  That we would find ourselves in this situation.  As we've gone through weeks and months of sitting in this room, of cutting, we've had to take a recess because people broke down in tears and had to get away. Bluntly, I was among them. I hate what we've had to do."

------Governor Christine Gregoire

                On November 2nd, the people of Washington were presented with several ballot measures addressing issues of taxes and spending.  Amid the worst economic downturn in decades and facing a projected multi-billion dollar budget shortfall, voters decisively rejected all proposals to raise revenue.  Now the legislature is tasked with finding $4.6 billion to balance its books for the 2011-2013 biennium, made even more difficult with the passage of Initiative 1053, requiring two-thirds supermajorities in both houses of the legislature to increase taxes.  The deck is stacked in favor of massive budget cuts, the passage of which only require a simple majority.

                Governor Gregoire, claiming the voters “sent a message of an all cuts budget,” has proposed just that.  Tens of thousands of low-income people, including 27,000 children, will be stripped of health insurance while state funding for education and parks will be slashed as well.  Twenty-one state properties are to be sold off, ferry service will be cut, and fares will be raised by ten percent.  Public employees are to receive lower compensation or simply laid off altogether.  The Governor’s plan will also reduce their pension benefits by $425 million over the next two years alone.

                Yet Washington is hardly unique in facing serious budget problems.  The Evergreen State can certainly boast the most antiquated and regressive tax system in the country (the poorest 20% of the population pay an average of 17.3% of their income in taxes, compared to 2.9% for the top 1%), but other states are contending with even bigger quandaries.  Nevada leads the nation in unemployment while Illinois has a projected deficit approximately half the size of its general operating budget.  The roots of economic dysfunction often vary by region, from deindustrialization in the Midwest to excessive real estate speculation in the Sunbelt.  Despite the diversity of cause, politicians across the country are peddling the destruction of social services as a common remedy.

                Public employees’ unions are being targeted with particular zeal.  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is planning to “mount a presidential-style permanent political campaign” against labor unions in 2011, while California’s Jerry Brown is pushing for a 10% pay cut for over 50,000 state workers.  Scott Walker of Wisconsin has gone so far as to openly consider decertifying state employees’ unions while John Kasich of Ohio is proposing eliminating thousands of state child care workers’ ability to unionize in the first place.  Breaking the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the largest unions in the country, would necessarily result in a serious erosion of the American middle class.

                Federal politicians, not to be outdone, are working in sync with their state-level counterparts to diminish the power of organized labor.  With December's expiration of President Obama’s Build America Bonds program in December, which helped lower the cost of borrowing for state and local governments, the stage is set for even deeper budget problems.  Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is attempting to exploit this by advising his colleagues in Congress to pass a bill allowing states to declare bankruptcy, which would allow for court-empowered renegotiation of union contracts and pension plans.

                The assertion that public employees are overcompensated is not substantiated by facts.  According to a 2010 study by Jeffrey Keefe of Rutgers University, state government workers are on average compensated 7.6% less than their private sector counterparts, while local government workers are compensated 1.8% less.  These numbers include both pay and benefits such as health insurance and retirement plans.  College-educated workers, in particular, receive 25% less than they do working for private firms.

                It is also frequently claimed that eliminating waste in state government would be sufficient to rein in costs.  This is likewise not supported by available evidence.  According to Washington’s Office of Financial Management, the administrative overhead for the Department of Employment Security, for example, is less than 6%.  The Department of Health’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year includes about 5% set aside for administration.

                Compared to private firms that utilize public money, state government is a model of efficiency.  Boeing won a $3.2 billion set of tax privileges in 2003 to assemble the 787 Dreamliner aircraft in Washington, and after repeated delays a single order has yet to be completed.  The subsidy is so lavish that divided between the 800-1,200 workers the project is roughly expected to employ, it amounts to about $150,000 per worker per year, despite their projected average annual pay of $65,000.

                For a further example of private sector waste and abuse of taxpayer money, one need look no further than the proposal to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct in Seattle with a deep bore tunnel costing over $1 billion.  The consortium selected to undertake the project, Seattle Tunnel Partners, includes the Tutor Perini Corporation.  Tutor Perini has spent almost $20 million since the 1990s settling fraud claims and has a history of cost overruns on projects ranging from bridges in New York to subway tunnels in Los Angeles.  Now they’re being awarded state money to help dig the widest deep bore tunnel in history through extraordinarily varied soil along a waterfront in an earthquake-prone city, replacing a free structure that serves over 110,000 cars per day with a tolled project that only accommodates 41,000.

                What can be done to spare Washington from the wave of brutal budget cuts sweeping the country?  While it would be politically difficult to close the deficit with an increase in overall tax rates following the passage of I-1053, other methods are available.  According to the non-profit Budget and Policy Center, every year the state loses $6.5 billion from tax preferences it allots to the politically well-connected.  About $10 million is lost in sales tax exemptions for cosmetic surgery.  Banks, mostly based out-of-state, avoid paying tens of millions of dollars in Business and Occupation taxes on the interest extracted from Washington homeowners.  Retailers of fuel cut with ethanol, an environmentally destructive and corrosive additive, receive B&O tax deductions as well.  The production of inorganic food is subsidized through sales tax exemptions for chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

                Closing any of these allowances will still require a two-thirds majority in both houses of the legislature.  While Democrats have suggested eliminating some of these loopholes, Republicans are less likely to offend the business community.  To meet the two-thirds threshold, three Republicans in the Senate and four in the House will need to be persuaded to vote with the Democrats, a difficult but not insurmountable task.  According to a recent poll by Elway Research, only 31% of Washington voters support cutting “state spending as much as it takes” without raising taxes or closing tax loopholes to help balance the budget, suggesting popular opinion is opposed to the “all-cuts budget” proposed by the Democratic Governor and legislative Republican minority.

                With this in mind, Republican defectors will probably have to be recruited from legislative districts that lean Democratic, consisting of voters less ideologically committed to cuts in social spending.  There are four Republican State Representatives whose 2010 election victories were won with less than 52% of the vote (Vincent Buys 50.13%, Katrina Asay 50.4%, Hans Zeiger 50.5%, John E. Ahern 51.78%), and three Senators who won with less than 54% (Steve Litzow 50.16%, Andy Hill 50.97%, Michael Baumgartner 53.71%).  All of their districts voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

                To elicit the cooperation of the more implacable of this group, promises of reciprocity may have to be made, perhaps in the form of modest tax cuts benefiting their constituents.  At the very least, a compromise could be offered whereby some reduction in public spending is combined with the elimination of some tax loopholes to spare the population from deeper cuts than necessary.

                The only thing missing from this feasible strategy is leadership.  While Governor Gregoire publicly mourns her powerlessness in the face of a perceived right-wing tilt, a more proactive approach is needed.  Public office can and should be used to promote innovative solutions to serious challenges, and there is no better time than the present to demonstrate to the people of Washington State that a budget embodying fairness for all and a commitment to irreplaceable public institutions is still possible.  For some, it is a matter of political calculation.  For the sick and vulnerable, it is a matter of life and death.

Spaghetti with Marinara Sauce and Stuffed Mushrooms

All of you amorous would-be turtle doves out there may want to pay attention to this one.  When love is in the air nothing drips of romance more than a heavy feast in the dead of winter served by a partner with compatible pheromones.  So grab your yin, yang, or attractive companion with whom you are "just friends" and prepare to fill your hovel with the warm scent of marinara sauce made from scratch.  The dimensions of this meal are so perfectly rounded that even the coarsest of haters will be inevitably overpowered and hopelessly drawn to you.

Complexity of flavor and elegance of texture might not bring Bilbo the Tongueless Anti-Foodie to heel, but the weight of this thick sauce will certainly slow him to a crawl, at which point he can be tamed and neutralized.  Suddenly he won't be in such a rush to "meet up with the guys" to toss used furniture off the overpass anymore.  Plus he'll already be ensnared in conversation due to the long prep time that allowed the two of you to split a bottle or three of Chianti while slowly, patiently stirring.  The anticipation of food will have no doubt worn him down as well, the drooling lug waiting for dinner while absorbing the smell of garlic and oregano, a guard-lowering throwback to the home-cooked meals of a more innocent time, back when trucker hats weren't ironic and people used phone booths.

If all the stirring and waiting and meeting of eyes is too much to bear, you should probably munch on hors d'oeuvres while the sauce is developing.  Stuffed mushrooms work fine either with the meal or before, so use your own judgment.  Just keep in mind that this is a serious sauce, requiring a good several hours to condense properly.

For the Stuffed Mushrooms gather the following:

12 ounces crumbled feta cheese

24 ounces white mushrooms

4 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons rosemary

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Wash the mushrooms, remove the stems.  Dump the feta, rosemary, and olive oil into a bowl, mash together with your powerful (clean) hands until thoroughly mixed.  Deposit lumps of greenish feta stuffing into each mushroom cap.  Place mushrooms on an non-greased cooking tray, feta pointed up towards glory.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Serves four people.

In my experience these babies go down quick, so you might want to cook a double batch.  Something about pop-able hot food makes these vulnerable to over-hunting.

As for the Marinara Sauce, here are the essentials:

6 tablespoons olive oil

30 cloves garlic

40 medium tomatoes

4 tablespoons oregano

4 tablespoons dried basil

2 teaspoons salt

1 pound spaghetti noodles

Firstly, rinse off the tomatoes.  Dig out small craters where the stems used to attach, and cut an "X" over the crater.  Plop the tomatoes into a pot bigger than you and pour boiling water over the lot of them.  Let stand for about ten seconds, then dump out the water.  The skins should peel off easily at this point.  Dispose of the skins, begin to hand-mash the tomatoes to as fine a pulp as possible.  When fully soupy, place over stove on medium.  Next, mince the garlic.  Put olive oil in large pan over stove on low, followed by garlic, oregano, and basil.  Stir until garlic is soft, about five minutes.  Do not let it brown.  Place garlic, oil, oregano, and basil into tomato paste.  Stir occasionally for two hours, then turn down to medium-low.  The sauce will cook down significantly in volume.  Continue stirring occasionally for four more hours.  Add salt.  Serve on spaghetti noodles.  Makes four servings.

I must confess that this is a dish I do entirely by intuition, never measuring the ingredients and  sometimes adding wine, chili peppers, or balsamic vinegar depending on the mood of the hour.  If you don't want to use raw tomatoes, go ahead and buy them canned, if you must, as long as  they're peeled.  Six to eight large cans should be enough.  Serve with wine and maybe a tossed salad if you're up to it.  Parmesan, yeah, fine.

Don't rush the sauce, otherwise it won't condense enough to give you a fully developed flavor.  It's a good code to live by, and I, for one, will always live by the Sauce.  Stirring wasn't invented for silence; it was meant for conversation.  By enjoying the process, the means become ends, and then we're not really waiting, are we?  Then again, maybe your attractive "friend" really is waiting for dinner, and you're waiting for something else.  Don't disappoint each other.

 

Bean Burger with Yam Fries

Having born witness to many a failed attempt on the part of vegans to convert Middle America's diet to one of couscous and raw kale, I'm firmly of the opinion that the flesh-eating majority would tone it down if only the culinary leap in form weren't so vast.  A plate of grains and produce might warm the hearts of some, but appears so alien to the greater herd as to inspire fear and revulsion.  Lucky for us, dear gastronauts, there is a third way, one that spares poor Wilbur from the guillotine and satisfies the same niche in your diet as processed animal corpse: Bean Burgers.

But before getting to the recipe, we should probably pay our respects to the towering institution of Burgerdom before it's chic young rival, the Wrap, scrubs it from the public record forever.

The history of the noble hamburger is a long one shrouded in mystery and intrigue, but on a few points there is little controversy.  It originated in Germany in a form quite different than its modern counterpart, back when it was fashionable for rowdy sailors to stagger around seaports spending their wages on salted "Hamburg steak," often brawling ruthlessly for the last morsel available, which they would then strap to their chests as status symbols to attract the attention of wealthy merchants into whose prestigious families they would attempt to marry.  When this didn't work, many fled to the United States where it was considered a more effective tool of courtship.  Today, with excessive beef consumption associated with myriad health problems and the mighty Oprah broken and humiliated, many are quietly turning to pork and dolphin to fill the void.

To save you from these less than optimal alternatives, here's a recipe I dug up and modified that should suit you well.  And fries too, because we're cool like that.  Start those first, as you can get to work on the burgers later while the fries are in the oven.

For the Yam Fries you'll need:

2 large yams
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 tablespoon cooking oil
1 six-pack beer

Preheat oven at 425 degrees.  Clean off them yams (don't peel).  Cut into thin strips, sized as you want them to be when served, as they won't significantly cook down.  Drink beer.  Mix olive oil, cumin, coriander, pepper in a large bowl.  Add yam strips, stir vigorously.  Coat a baking sheet with cooking oil, evenly spreading strips across the sheet in a single layer.  Bake for 25 minutes, turning once halfway through.  Makes three servings.

As for Bean Burgers, here are the essential ingredients, not counting buns and condiments:

2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons cooking oil
1 white onion
1 clove garlic
3 green onions
1/2 teaspoon cumin
3/4 cup diced fresh mushrooms
1 15 ounce can pinto beans
1 teaspoon parsley
9 tablespoon breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste

First, mash the beans with a meat tenderizer or heavy kitchen utensil until thoroughly crushed and defeated.  Next, dice the vegetables and mushrooms.  Fry up the white onion and garlic in cooking oil for about 4 minutes.  Add the green onions, cumin, and mushrooms and stir for another 5 minutes.  When the mushrooms are fully cooked dump your medley into a big bowl.  Drink beer, add the beans, parsley, salt, and pepper to the bowl of fried goodness.  Stir well.  Shape the mixture into patties, adding 3 tablespoons of breadcrumbs to each patty.  Drink more.  Heat the olive oil in a pan and cook each patty about 3 minutes on each side.  Makes three burgers.

By now you should be deep into your six-pack and wondering why beef has all the play.  This is natural.  Continue to drink, alternating between bites of your succulent burger, sips of your frosty cold one, mouthfuls of yam fries, and back again to your frosty cold one.  Don't beat yourself up for eating meat or deep-fried Twizzlers tomorrow, or drinking beer right now.  For evolution is more permanent than abrupt changes in lifestyle.  Now get back to that cold one.

Shrimp Étouffée

 

Alright ya rascals, Uncle Pie Baron's gonna teach you a thing or two about Étouffée, a Cajun dish so frickin' tasty you'll collapse to the floor on your first bite and curse your parents for not introducing it to you earlier.  For starters, it's pronounced "ey-too-fey" so now you won't sound like as much of a idiot as I do when attempting French, a vile mud language if there ever was one.  Our North Atlantic cousins have often been a crude and brutish lot towards the Bretons and Alsatians, but from time to time they cough up something worthwhile, like the Statue of Liberty and the Situationist International.  Their influence on the cuisine of Louisiana also deserves a nickle in the tip jar as well.

Here's what you'll need:

2 pounds of frozen shrimp

1 cup margarine

1 cup white flour

3 large white onions

1 green bell pepper

1 red bell pepper

1 stalk of celery

1 cup green onion tops

4 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon salt

Tabasco sauce to taste

Pepper to taste

4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 cups rice

Start by setting aside your frozen shrimp to thaw while you cook.  Now dice the onions, bell peppers, and celery.  Melt that margarine in as big a frying pan as you can muster, on medium.  Dump your pile of diced vegetables into the melted margarine and stir.  When everything is fully coated, add the flour and stir like the dickens.  Cook until the vegetables are thoroughly tender and the flour has slightly browned, making a paste-like consistency.  Chop up your garlic and green onion tops, toss them in, keep stirring.  Add the shrimp, stir a few minutes until fully soft and pink.  Add salt and Worcestershire sauce.  Serve on a bed of rice.  Add Tabasco sauce to taste.  Makes enough for four people.

A few cautionary reminders:

--I tried making this on an electric stove once and instead of a thick, savory sauce it turned into a caramelized disaster.  My dear pal Yancy didn't mind the chunks of grainy margarine as much as I did, but then again he is an Avaricious Beast.  Maybe you'll have better luck than your poor unfortunate Baron, but beware.  Natural gas for the win.

--Buy clean shrimp.  I know it's kind of fashionable to assert that Real Men don't worry about cancer or degenerative brain disease, but BP hasn't bought us a new Gulf yet and imported shrimp come from toxic cesspools of their own.  Farmed non-Gulf American shrimp is probably your best choice.

--Tabasco is a must.  Even if you're afraid of spicy food, eye contact with strangers, or your own shadow, one dash of the stuff changes the entire meal.  Give it a shot and I'll be your best friend forever.  Now go out and tip your local Frenchman.