Hmmmm...

It's been nearly 5 years since I wrote my post about leaving the DOE. The post seemed to hit home with a lot of people--educators and non-educators alike. It was reposted, with my permission, on a number of social media pages, shared in a class at FHS and even reprinted in a small independent newspaper column. Essentially, I created a post that I didn't think I would ever be able to top.

So I stopped writing.

I kept revisiting this blog though; reading the posts and comments and reliving the memories that came along with it. Doing so reminded me of why I started the blog to begin with--to express my POV and to preserve some of my thoughts. Future posts may not have the impact the DOE letter did but that's not the point, is it?

Maybe it's time to start writing again.

Dear DOE

Well, I'm back.  There's been a lot of stuff happening this year--some of it good, some of it bad, as can be expected.  But there's been momentous change, too:

Today I end a 24-year teaching career.  It’s not because I can officially retire—I have enough years of service but not age.  It’s not because of ill health—thank goodness.  It’s not because I don’t like my job—I’m passionate about teaching and since I was a high school sophomore, it’s the only career I ever thought to pursue.  It’s not because I don’t have good colleagues—I have the best team on campus. It’s not because I don’t like my students—I think I relate well to them and I truly care about them.

After 24 years, I am leaving because the DOE is making it impossible for me to stay.  As a teacher, I knew I would be subject to a top-heavy bureaucracy and there would be cumbersome policies that I would be called upon to implement. I’ve seen a lot of change in the two-plus decades I’ve been at Farrington (my alma mater, by the way) and though I didn’t always like the policies, I was always willing to roll with it and give it a try.

Not anymore.

The system is abusive to its teachers and the worst part of it is it is the better teachers who are most affected by this abuse.  Bad teachers go on doing what they always do:  NOTHING.  They don’t relate well to the kids, they ride on the coattails of their colleagues and when called to task, they plead ignorance.  They must do it well because there are too many of them and they make the same amount of money, or more, than I do.

Yet it’s never been about the monetary angle for me.  It’s the inconsistencies and the contradictions; rather than take care of these “educators,” the system passes policies across the board; policies that make more work for the good teachers who are conscientious professionals and policies that don’t truly serve the population they claim to:  the students. 

Dear DOE, I am tired of you.  I am tired of you poking your nose into my classroom and telling me what you think is best for my kids. And they truly are “my” kids.  I am the one who identifies their weaknesses and tailors my teaching to them.  I am the one who challenges them to excel and holds them to a standard that is high, but realistic. I see them as the individuals they are and you judge them based on STANDARDIZED tests?  How dare you!

Though I would like to say that I am personally unlike the DOE, I’m afraid that’s not true.  You see I, too, have STANDARDS, professional and personal standards that do not agree with the changes being made.  I refuse to be a part of anything I cannot support.  I refuse to go through the motions.  And, I refuse to put aside my personal values for the sake of a job.  

People keep asking me if I’m sad.  Of course I am.  I will miss teaching and I will certainly miss my kids. But mostly, I am sad that it had to come to this; teaching should have been my only career. 

Hawaii 5-Uh Oh!

I have never watched Hawaii Five-0.  Nope, not the original and not the remake.  I didn't even know who Scott Caan was until all of the indignation arose over his interview on "Chelsea Lately".  Another show I never watched and never heard of until now. 

I hadn't intended to watch the interview but the comments on FB and on other news feeds spurred my curiosity.  I clicked on the youtube link fully expecting to be as incensed, insulted and outraged as everyone else.  Yes, Caan said he thought Hawaii was slow-paced.  But, duh.  We are.  That's one of the reasons I live here; the hustle and bustle of some of the mainland cities is too much for me and I don't like the person I become when I'm there.  Hawaii is not for everyone and that's exactly what Caan meant; he wasn't even nasty about it.  No insult taken there. 

Talk show host Chelsea then quipped, "Yes, it's slow and the food isn't great."  Caan, obviously tongue-in-cheek replied, "Yeah, it sucks."  Uh, people who took insult, this is called irony.  It was also a joke; an intent to be funny.  You can be funny and ironic this way when the thing you are making fun of is clearly not what you say it is.  Hence, our food does not suck.

It is not because some people didn't get it that prompted me to write this post; it's the fact that so-oo many of the outraged immediately pulled the race card:  "Stupid haole, go back to the mainland if you don't like it here."  And that's one of the mild ones.  Those who chose to take offense are certainly within their rights to do so but using a racial epitaph to express that offense says far more about the comment makers than it does about the person who may have elicited it. 

With a pinch of nostalgia

No, I haven't forgotten you.  It's been a busy few months though and blogging, especially when I am not feeling particularly pithy or insightful, tends to take a backseat at times such as these.  Anyhoo...

Food, as is often the case, is foremost on my mind, but more so because of Christmas.  I have always known that there are some foods I only prepare around the holiday (even though the family enjoys them and have said more than once that they wouldn't mind getting more frequently), but it never hit home exactly why.  Then a couple of days ago, C and I were trying out a new cookie recipe and I had a huge, "oh duh" epiphany.

The cookies were a basic chocolate chip recipe but instead of chips we used semisweet chunks and we also added chopped pecans and Heath bar bits.  Just for the heck of it we sprinkled some sea salt over the top:

Chewy texture, chunks of chocolatey, toffee goodness!

Then we tasted the cookies.  Since there are so many recipes out there, our unspoken agreement is all new recipes have to be outstanding enough, as is, for us to make them again.  I glanced at C.  He nodded his head and said, "Good."  Just good?  "Well, it's a good recipe and it's a good cookie."  But, not great?  He chewed thoughtfully for a moment.  "Well, it doesn't have any nostalgia."

Sharp kid, my son.  And that's when I had my epiphany.  So many of the things I make, especially around such an emotionally-charged time as Christmas, I make because of the associations I have with particular recipes.  Crunchy jumble cookies are very good cookies but I especially love them because I got them from a respected colleague (now blissfully retired) and I typically make them on the day we decorate the Christmas tree.  Passion fruit jello is a recipe from my aunty who has been so afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis she is no longer able to cook; this recipe was a staple at our New Year's brunches at Grandma's place.  Blueberry banana jello mold is my grandmother's recipe; she got it from her younger sister and I loved it so much she made it at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  When she was no longer able to make it, I copied out the recipe from her box of cards and have been making it ever since.  It's the same thing with her pumpkin chiffon pie.  Though they aren't "Christmas" recipes, I often make guacamole and ratatouille because they are foods my brother and sister made for me when I visited them at their respective homes in Seattle and Boston.

"Good" food feeds the body but "great" food feeds the heart.  I can't believe it took me that long to figure it out.

Merry Christmas to all!

S'more Sunday

It's probably a bad idea for me to have too much time on my hands on rainy Sunday afternoons; idle hands, are the devil's playthings and all that.  I blame my friend N. 

 She posted a recipe for Giant S'mores Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies on Facebook (see http://smells-like-home.com). With pictures. Envision a cookie with a 6" diameter.  Now imagine the cookie with an entire s'more baked into its center.  Yup.  Disgusting stuff.  I had to make them.

E made a grocery store run for me and when he came back with 2 bags of marshmallows, I admit I was slightly puzzled/annoyed.  That's an awful lot of marshmallow when I only needed 4.  Then I noticed that one bag was special:

Yup, flat marshmallows especially made for s'mores!

Perfect for my recipe and the flatness did not change the taste one bit.  I know 'cause I ate about 5 of them.

A blob of cookie dough, topped by graham cracker, chocolate and the nifty marshmallows

A graham cracker topper

Then the whole thing is covered with more cookie dough

A brick of chocolatey goodness!

The cookies had to be placed 4" apart so only 2 per sheet

When the dough started to melt down, I got worried--it looked like the dough was going to sheet right off of the s'more

They flattened out a bit while they were cooling but it was still obvious that something was hidden under there.

A chewy cookie with a gooey center

 I really liked the way the graham cracker maintained some of its crunch, but I did wish there was more marshmallow.  It's a rich, decadent treat that you will probably want to share.  Or not.

Sausages!

I don't think I've mentioned Radishes before--a couple of years ago, some of my foodie friends decided to create a group dedicated to the learning, the cooking and, of course, the eating of different foods.  We meet every other month and there are two basic rules:  there is always a theme which the food or beverage must fit and the dish(es) must be homemade.  Most of our themes have centered around regional cuisines; Russian, Scottish, North African, and so forth.  A couple of times we went with a general topic; comfort food, picnic, you get the idea.  The results have been extraordinary--not only is the food enjoyable, but I find it fun to discover a little about the chosen region and its traditional ingredients.  This month we are meeting at a beach park and the theme is "Sausages 'n Stuff". 

I am ridiculously proud of myself.  I made sausages today; as in, ground, spiced meat, stuffed into pig intestines.  I have no idea how they taste but they look pretty nifty and the sausage stuffer I bought worked like a charm.  I love when things work the way they are supposed to! I started with two basic sausage recipes--one is pork with fresh parsley, sage and maple syrup and the other is pork with brown sugar and a bit of cayenne pepper.

Fresh parsley and sage, maple syrup

 I refrigerated the sausage mixtures for a while and then put the hog casings in warm water to soak--I didn't know how many of the casings I would need and I didn't realize how many were in the package.  Unfortunately, I had to toss the ones I didn't use.

They kind of look like kanpyo...

The casings were very thin and fragile looking but they were surprisingly easy to work with and none of our sausages burst.  C, who acted as my sous chef, said he, for one, was glad to know that intestines don't burst as easily as I had anticipated.  I see his point.  

The stuffer is pretty much like a caulking gun

I loaded the first batch of sausage mixture into the tube and snapped the stuffing nozzle onto the front of the gun.  C screwed the tube onto the handle and we were ready for the casing.

Yes, we both chuckled over the fact that it looked a lot like putting on a condom...

Once the casing was threaded onto the nozzle, C started pumping the trigger and despite the simple mechanism, the meat flowed out in a fairly steady stream.

It took a little practice to get the sausage nice and even.

We had 4 pounds of pork mixture and used 6 casings.  It was a fairly easy process but we definitely had our system down pat by the last sausage.

Definitely need two pairs of hands.

When each sausage was completed, I squeezed out as much air as possible and even used a pin here and there so there wouldn't be any bubbles.  Then I twisted the long piece into links.

Sometimes I forgot which way to turn the next one--they need to alternate.

The final product looked much more professional than I had hoped for.  The sausage stuffer wasn't too complicated to clean but I will definitely buy a bottle brush for the tube.  

Sure hope they taste good!

The real test comes tomorrow when we grill these babies and serve them up to our friends.  Hope it's a happy Sausage Saturday!

The Endless Food Summer

So a couple of people have asked me if I had given up on my Food Summer.  The answer is definitely not!  It's just that it occurred to me that writing about taste-testing recipes was growing monotonous and if I was having a hard time writing' em, well, my extremely small group of readers probably didn't want to read 'em either. Henceforth, I will only blog about my recipe tests when I have hit upon one that is worth writing about. Here's a couple of them.

Last week, T and I made Apple Pie Bars. And they are sooooo worth writing about.  My family loves pies and this one looked interesting; basically it is apple pie for a group larger than 8:

Tangy apple filling encased by two flaky, buttery crusts...it's a pie lover's dream.  I liked the fact that the pie crust was pretty easy to work.  Our humidity does cruel and frustrating things to pie crust so having this one roll out smoothly then peel off the waxed paper neatly was a huge, huge bonus.  The flakiness of the crust was incredibly rewarding for a frustrated pastry cook like me.

We cut the pie into bars as the recipe suggested.  They sure didn't last long--all the bars were gone by the next day.  Another bonus--refrigeration didn't make the crust soggy!  Definitely a make-again recipe!

Tonight I decided to make shrimp and grits.  Except I didn't have shrimp, I had slipper lobster.  The only thing I missed about the shrimp is its pretty pink color when cooked.  Slipper lobster is rather bland-looking by comparison, but the taste more than made up for it!  Nothing that bacon, garlic and onion can't fix!

The grits were a really nice change.  I told E that I could see why farming families ate it--it is so economical and so filling.  I love that it is such a versatile vehicle for all kind of flavors and toppings.  I put cheddar cheese in my grits so they could definitely have been a side dish in and of themselves:

The farmer's market at Windward Mall sells Nalo Farms' greens--I bought two big bags of baby kale for $5.50 each and a smaller bag of Swiss chard.  The kale went into a pot with seasonings and smoked turkey legs.  They were a great accompaniment to the grits dish:

Hmmm--not highly attractive on the plate perhaps, but they were an awesome meal.  A said she thinks I am actually a closet Southerner.  I'll take the regional foods but they can keep their weather; they have even more humidity than we do! ;-)