Balthazar's Short Ribs, part one

Deep breath - let's try to make Balthazar's recipe for braised short ribs. Start the clock...30 minutes of prep (get that mise en place in place!); 15 minutes to brown the ribs, ten minutes of sauteing, and 20 minutes of reducing the Cabernet/Madiera/tomato paste/beef juices mixture. Let cool, then put in the 'fridge to marinate overnight. Stay tuned for part two, and the results!

Don't Ask, Don't Tell Don't Work

The U.S. military has discharged more than two dozen linguists for being gay during the past six years. Meanwhile, we're trying to fight a war on terror, and the deficit of trained speakers of Arabic as well as Farsi puts our soliders, marines, airmen, and sailors at great peril to say nothing of the risks to homeland security. I guess this is just another way that Bill Clinton left the country less safe and less prepared for the dangers of the 21st Century.

Sayonara Serena!

Appearing in her last episode after a four year run, Elisabeth Rohm went out with a "Law & Order twist." Her character,Asst. Dist. Atty. Serena Southerlyn, was fired by her boss for being too passionate, rather than cold-blooded, in her pursuit of justice. Her response? "It's not because I'm a lesbian, is it?" Have we ever had even the slightest inkling that she was a sister of Sappho? I wish I could salute Rohm for playing an out-of-the-closet lesbian whose sexual orientation was irrelevant to her job performance, it was never reflected in her characterization. In fact, during her stint on the show she has demonstrated no growth or development as an actor. She started weak and never really created a character I cared at all about. Good-bye, and good luck, I say.

Flashback: 1969 Draft Lottery

I've been reading David Leavitt's most recent novel, The Body of Jonas Boyd. One character's 1969 military draft lottery number is four, and he decides to escape to Canada. This got me wondering: what would my lottery number have been, and would it have been low enough to mean I would have been sent to 'Nam? Turns out my birthdate was #27 in the 1969 lottery; my husband's was #30. Had we been born 15 years earlier, does this mean we might have met somewhere in the Mekong Delta instead of in New Haven?

Marriage, schmarriage!

Gavin Newsom, San Fransisco's mayor, has announced that he and his wife of three years are getting divorced. The couple cited the difficulties of dealing with careers--which they had before they met, got engaged, and wed--that place them on opposite coasts. Now, recall that this is the same mayor who granted marriage licenses to 4000 gay and lesbian couples in violation of California law and in the process contributed to the political firestorm that resulted in the passage of 11 state contitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage to say nothing of President Bush's support for amending the U.S. Constitution to do the same. I guess we now more fully understand what was going on: I don't doubt that he believes in marriage equality for gays and lesbians, but now we also see that his regard for marriage is something less than traditional for heterosexuals as well.

Anderson Cooper in Sri Lanka

Anderson Cooper has been a stand-out in the tsumani coverage on television. His is a calming presence, sincere and understated. Like the excellent ITN reporter Dan Rivers, whose reports have been on The NewsHour, Cooper's reportage has avoided adjectives, especially comparatives, and reported with nouns and verbs (not gerunds - so take that, NBC and Fox!). Now if only CBS would hire Cooper to replace Dan Rather.....

Bark Mitzvah? Oy vey!

Odd coincidence: two days after this article ran in the NY Times our Aunt Mary sent this Chanukah gift to our whippet, King Louie. Now, if only he would just learn his torah portion...

Has Dan Rather snapped his tether?

Does it bother anyone else that Dan Rather has started referring to "the government representing the people of the United States"? Why has he stopped calling it "the U.S. Government"? Is this the beginning of an industry-wide trend, or just another example of Dan-the-situation-could-give- an-aspirin-a-headache-Rather's blatherisms?

Dim Sum in Chinatown

Got together with the family for dim sum today at Emperor Garden. Judging from the procenium separating one huge dining room from the next and the murals on the wall, I assumed the building had once housed a grand movie palace. Turns out it was a site for entertainment, but for men only. According to my sister-in-law, who remembers it from her days at Tufts, it used to be a strip club known as The Naked I. As for the meal, my feeling is I always think I'm going to enjoy dim sum more than I ever actually do. The sweet pork buns are a treat, but overall I'd rather just order from the menu and share a few plates. Dim sum strikes me as a quintessentially male type of meal; it's all about hunting for the next bit to eat waiting for the carts pass by and then devouring what you nab.

Happy New Year, 2005

We watched this DVD last night, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)", courtesy of Netflix. I found parts of it a tad too psychodelic for my taste, but the creative impulse is breathtaking. Are there no limits to the imagination of Charlie Kaufman?

If they can marry, why can't I?

Will someone on the far right please explain to me why convicted, incarcerated double-murderers have the right to marry but a law-abiding, tax-paying, vote-casting citizen cannot if he is gay

So much for the sanctity of marriage ...

So the Florida legislature has just overruled the state court in the case of that comatose woman. Whatever happened to separation of powers? That court had ruled based on existing law. So the new standard is every time we don't like what a court does we pass an ex post facto law? And what about the sanctity of marriage? This woman's HUSBAND is the one who sought the court order. But instead of honoring that, the legislature and governor sided with her parents. I know Florida, which is one of two states that prohibits gay people to adopt, will never allow gay marriage; but I didn't realize they were against supporting traditional marriage.