Saveur Magazine Serves Up Holiday Wampum

One of my guilty pleasures is reading Saveur magazine. In my mind it is one of the best produced food magazines around, filled with lengthy centerpiece articles, beautiful photos and a fair amount of recipes. I don't actually cook all that much, so I don't get it for the recipes. I get it more for articles that usually drop you in the middle of some region or culture, highlighting the unique facets of their relationship with all things food.

And of course, I look forward to the holiday issues, even though the pantheon of holiday food is pretty set and there are only so many ways to cook a turkey or make mashed potatoes stand out. But I was not ready for my November and December issues, where Saveur editors opted to be decidedly agnostic as far as any sort of holiday fair. Not completely agnostic, but indifferent enough to the specifics of American Thanksgiving to render the issues a complete letdown.

The November issue does have "28 Great Holiday Sides" splashed across the front, but not much else to give the meat loving festive person a spark. The December issue gives us "Italian Christmas" with pasta on the cover; it's less a about Italians and Christmas than it is a retrospective of the influence of Italian cooking across the United States. The other main article "Puerto Rican Feast" sort of fits the bill, but the pictures lack any true festive appearance. No families round the dinner table, no tables, no Christmas lights, no Jesus, no religion at all.

Apparently the lead editor must have hit a severe patch of holiday blues and political expediency, deciding to forgo any traditional imagery or foods in both issues.  I don't really read Saveur to get my longings for standard American fare continually reaffirmed, but you do like to see a spot of the familiar mixed in with articles about how "other people do it" or, don't do it, during the holidays.

In place of my turkey or how to make a killer stuffing, and pictures of same, I get a vegetarian who has decided in this issue, MY ISSUE, that she will not even allow her guests to bring the turkey they usually offer to bring. Her ethics are her hero and my bane as she slips us wheat berry pilaf (in place of stuffing) and autumn vegetable patties (in place of meat).

I actually have no problem with that. It makes for interesting reading to see how other people eat and live and adapt a tradition to fit their own style. But when I am offered nothing else, and thus forced to dine on peas with orange and mint, sans turkey, ham, roast beef, or anything remotely familiar like baked mac and cheese, sweet potato pie or mashed potatoes, well, I get a bit peeved. You can't exclude the majority while including the minority as some project in equality or mind control.

It's disconcerting. I don't like all my holidays "disappeared" and replaced by meaningless otherness and commercial considerations. Thanksgiving itself is being sacrificed itself to corporate interests, with Black Friday dominating the news, while we are encouraged to give thanks to the Native Americans. There is so little now that is fun or authentically focused on the holiday's original intent.

I sat through the Thanksgiving Day parade in general annoyance and horror. The two hosts blabbed on and on, as the child who was watching the parade with me asked, "When is the news going off?". I told her "This is the parade, and those are the hosts."

There was more focus on those hosts and boring guests than on the parade itself.  Even the balloons were no treat, flying lower each year to avoid liability should a wind come and make things interesting. And at the very end, right before Santa, we had a Native American float called, "The True Spirit of Thanksgiving," because apparently for all these years we have all been getting it completely wrong.

Oh Saveur, how I know thee not, this holiday season. I don't want yuppie totalitarian vegetarians from comfortable Lawrenceville, New Jersey standing in for actual Thanksgiving. Take thy literary food wampom elsewhere, and given me something true.

Frankenstein Monster Candidates: Republicans Debate Bonus Wars

Robin (on left) with Batman

In case you were thinking that our military adventures (necessary and otherwise) are on the wane, with troops leaving Iraq, and Afghanistan looking more dubious by the hour after the death of Darth Bin Laden, rethink.

In  tonight's debate with the Republican presidential candidates, we are assured of one more war. Both the  front runner and the hind quarters of the political presidential race have come on in favor of attacking Iran IF they prove to be building nuclear stuff. And human nature being what it is, we can be pretty assured that Iran believes it has the right to build whatever we Americans gave ourselves the right to build. We don't mean to suggest any sort of equivalence between American and Iranian nuclear purposes, but then again, a bit of hypocrisy can be seen blowing from our end of the national possiblity pipe.

Romney said that if "crippling sanctions" and other strategies fail, military action would be on the table because it is "unacceptable" to Iran to become a nuclear power. Gingrich agreed, saying that if "maximum covert operations" and other strategies failed there would be no other choice. 

Ron Paul strongly disagreed, stressing the need to go to Congress before military action and saying it isn't worthwhile to use military force against Iran. "I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq," he said. 

(CBS News)

Sometimes Mr. Paul is the most sensible voice amongst the insensitive and unstable, although his sensibility tends to deteriorate the closer he gets to diagnosing a solution for economic problems. There are moments when you want to take components of each of the Republicans and yank out that one specific part, and meld it together with the other parts to make a more ideal Frankenstein monster candidate.

Eventual U.S. Reality Show Contestants

All these candidates have serious flaws that make them incomplete packages. Because of their inability to push forward with a cogent identity, they are reaching for anything that might push them forward and help them nail their own brand down in the public's mind. If necessary, bombing Iran is just the sort of positive pick me up that's needed to make it clear that they are in fact the man for the job.

But this sort of tough talk does nothing for solving issues and the underlying policy that assumes that no country should have what you have needs serious re-examination.  But it would take a truly bold candidate to try to redefine long assumed prerogatives.

Washington Post's Expert Misread of 2012 Election

The White House

The press is always behind the curve. When housing prices are rising, they are not writing articles warning you to back off from the frenzy. When things are at their worst, they are not encouraging you to be a buyer. When the sun is on the verge of rising, the press will usually be making the hard case for permanent inexplicable darkness. 

This applies no matter the subject. In this case we have the Washington Post warning that Obama may have a difficult and unlikely path to a second term. While that argument can seem plausible at various junctures of Republican stubbornness and confrontational stalling, we tend to be underwhelmed by the idea that Obama will actually lose in 2012. In fact, enough factors are piling up to suggest his win will be solid. 

The Post points out the "dark electorate mood," and the continued battered economy, quoting different political folks, including one representative of Romney who makes the false claim that Obama has worsened the economic situation (which is entirely plausible if we throw out measurable economic statistics and speak from our imagination). 

The truth of the matter is that the Republicans don't have a working candidate that can actually counter the truth of Obama's record. Perry, what with his job growth stories, can be compared to the man with a one person company, who hires a second person and brags of 100% job growth. Fast job growth can be particularly meaningless when your overall unemployment rate is high, or the jobs are meaningfully piddling in pay. 

Romney, the only Republican remotely capable of capturing a broad swathe of the voting public, cannot reliably counter the record of Obama. He can't critique the health care plan, and actually, as features of that plan kick in, it will not likely be the albatross the pundits imagine. The foreign policy can't be knocked, what with arms treaties, the death of dictators, the support of democracy (however selectively), and the killing of terrorist enemies. 

Romney is the numbers guy, but if you get into a real numbers debate on the economy, you lose. Job growth and GDP and corporate profits moved positive under Obama. You can even make an argument that the 10.1% unemployment peak was reduced due to Obama's stimulus package. That rate was already high when Obama walked into the office. If it drops another tenth of a point or two between now and 2012, Obama might even be able to argue that unemployment has not increased on his watch.

Which is why the Republicans have relentlessly focused on the debt issue. They know all too well that Obama has been quite successful in a number of areas, moving legislation and transforming parts of society while remaining solid in foreign policy execution. What better way to stop your opponent than to hang on him a problem created over many years, and a problem that defies instantaneous resolution. They know that. It was a brilliant pivot by the Republican strategists to get the masses (via the Tea Party structure) to focus on that which cannot be easily fixed, and blame it all on Obama for its mere existence. 

Thus when you are using your rare budget dollars to shore up the economy, you can be hit from the right by the accusation that you are spending frivolously, destroying the country and its future. 

That is the sole message that might resonate, red herring that it is, but unfortunately the Republicans lack a symbiotic relationship between their best candidates and their most activist voters. And by best candidates we mean Huntsman and Romney. They have a mountain of mistrust to overcome, and even then, the residue of distrust will spill over to the wider voter. The Mormon superstructure is not your average church, and its reach is vast. 

However benign and vague the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hopes to be, it nevertheless is even now working toward creating an environment conducive to a Romney win with its advertising campaign. (That campaign centers on a bunch of non-stereotypical Mormon types proclaiming that they are exactly like you and I, but Mormon, which rather defies any distinctions of Mormon faith, and especially if "you and I" happen to be fornicators, killers, or coffee drinkers). 

No, in the end this campaign will be a lot easier in 2012 than it appears today. The economy is already sending numerous signals of improvement and the numbers will be better heading into 2012. Barring some entirely normal Republican with an exceedingly well thought out economic plan, Obama will have no trouble sparring against Romney or the many lesser aspirants out there.