Poor David's Almanack

21-February

My interest in the Cuban pork roast began at a little Cuban place just west of the Orlando Airport. I think it’s called Versailles Café, or something like that. Versailles shows up frequently in the names of Cuban restaurants, for reasons unknown to me. This one is a tiny, unassuming place that you’d miss unless someone told you of it, and I liked to go there for lunch when I was working in Orlando. The lady behind the counter would laugh at my idiotic Spanish, correct me as required and serve this incredible plate of roast pork with yellow rice and black beans.

Thus commenced my alternative to smoked pork, for those times when outdoor cooking is impractical. I looked up how the Cubans do it and gradually developed my own way of doing things. I use pork butts, partly because the name is so deliciously uncouth, but others use pork shoulder with similar results. The butt is a cheap cut of meat, but with patience and love, it becomes a tender and fragrant visitor to the household.

The fragrance comes from a marinade called a mojo. Like almost everything I do, the measurements are ruff and approximate. This explains why I’m a terrible baker, but that’s a different subject. A good fistful of whole garlic cloves, the juice of a couple of nice navel oranges and 6-8 limes, cumin, olive oil, pepper and maybe half a bunch of cilantro. All into a food processor or blender until it’s a smooth greenish concoction. Refined cooks inject this into the butts, but I just stab the meat with a fork and pour the mojo on top. Stabbing is more satisfying and feels less like a medical procedure.

It looks like this:

This marinates in refrigerated comfort overnight. Cooking time depends on the weight of your butt(s) – must be a terrible joke there somewhere – and if I’m doing 12-15 pounds, it can take 7-8 hours. It’s fun to rise early, dial up the oven to 408 Kelvins ( that’s 275F ) and let that beautiful aroma fill the house while the coffee brews and the other residents sleep. It’s almost as good as Thanksgiving.

You can use a meat thermometer to ascertain the “pull temperature,” but my method is just as good and requires no measurements. Inside the pork butt is a saddle-shaped bone and when the meat slides away from it easily, you are in business.

Slow cooking at low temperature is intrinsically satisfying, but it also allows a good deal of the rude fat of the butt to be rendered out of the meat, leaving a delicious roast that pulls apart effortlessly and is amazing with almost anything.

20-February

A few days off from the February Shorts experiment, which is proving interesting. Whatever it is that you are doing, when it becomes habitual, it is much easier to overcome inertia. Take even a few days away and it becomes more difficult. It is this way with almost all things.

Today, I am looking at an 11-page paper  ( facharbeit ) on the history of the Ku Klux Klan. Written by our young fraulein Miss Emma Seitz, lately of Bochum Germany, who is probably what we would consider a high school junior. Emma was an exchange student with us most of last year, and although she never actually came to live with us, we became quite fond of her and her family. Her paper is written in English, so she is asking for an English-speaking review.

It is quite fun to do this, and I am always happy to help. Seeing young writers thought processes and developing literary personae is fascinating. Emma would not suspect that her English paper on the Klan demonstrates anything like a persona, but it does. Was it E.B. White who said that “every person who puts pen to paper writes of himself, whether knowingly or not?” So true. Is it less true when the writer is writing in a language foreign to her?

I don’t think so. One of my objectives with Emma’s essay is to polish up her English a bit, but without losing her voice in the process. Often, we try to direct ourselves to what we think the reader wants, a worthy aim, of course, but not at the expense of authenticity.

First, be you. Everything else can be taught and learned, but one’s uniqueness is innate.

16-February

Snow scenes are peaceful and reflective. Like this one, an am-a-ture fone foto from this morning.

The reflectivity in this shot is both literal and poetic, isn’t it? Snow shadows cast in sunlight are often blue, one of the reasons the photographs are so captivating. Why would they be blue? Something to do with the sky.

And sometimes church bells
Trees and seasons
Marking times gone by
Sometimes starlings swell
Some tidal moons
And filled up eyes
Sometimes everything at once
But sometimes just the sky
Sometimes just the sky

Those lyrics are from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s beautiful song, Sometimes Just the Sky.

Why the sky is blue was not explained until the late 19^th century, in the Golden Era of classical physics. Rayleigh Scattering, named after Lord Rayleigh the English physicist. These English physics worthies acquired honorific titles known as peerage. Rayleigh wasn’t the chap’s name. He was given it, like Lord Kelvin, whose peerage was named after a river, I believe.

Rayleigh discovered the scattering of charged particles by electromagnetic waves. The shorter the wavelength, the stronger the scattering. Since shorter wavelengths are on the blue end of the visible spectrum, the atmosphere in sunlit skies appears blue. A tree that blocks sunlight, creates a shadow that is illuminated by the sky only – the blue shadow. Sometimes just the sky

15-February

Today is bitterly cold, with wind and snow. The dry bulb temperature is about 0F and the wind chill is -10F. And we have visitors coming to Saint Louis from Philadelphia! This is not what we mean by Midwestern hospitality.

Mitzi is a long-haired tortoiseshell cat, who found us back in the fall sometime. I’m not sure that the descriptive terms “long hair” or “tortoiseshell” are scientific designations for feline breeds. But that’s what Miss Mitzi is…..and a whole lot more. We’ve never seen a cat with as much tortie personality as Mitzi; she is extremely social ( unless you smell like another cat ), playful and quirky.

There are several weird quirks. The one I like the best – on most days – is that when she is ready for me to get up in the morning, Mitzi climbs on my chest, puts her face in mine and starts head-butting. She is usually purring loudly and demanding petting. I am almost always compliant, but if for any reason I cease appropriate stroking, I get a hairy paw on my face until attention resumes. Hard to resist.

The rest of the family has hardened their resolve to resist this sort of intrusive cat behavior, especially when it occurs between the hours of 0300-0600 in the dead of winter. That leaves me as the easy mark and Mitzi has no hesitation to seize this opportunity. This morning, we arose at 0530 for our morning ritual of feeding, coffee-brewing and dishwarsher emptying. Watching the blowing snow and feeling grateful for heated shelter.

There is an old folk truism that people who don’t love animals are not to be fully trusted. May not apply to bears or wild mountain-cats, except at a safe distance. Mitzi is fully trusting that she will get the love she needs – at all hours.

14-February

The Feast of Saint Valentine, and like many ancient relics, it has little or no relation to the observance of romantic love in our modern world. As one gets older and watches the difficulties of mortal life, the notion of love becomes much broader. One word, many meanings. I recall reading an essay in my youth describing the three Greek words for love: eros, agape and philos. Why I would remember this essay and its author – a Max Weatherly – is a mystery to me.

I read two other authors in that class that also impressed me – William Saroyan and James Thurber. Perhaps it was an American literature class. This must have been 45 years ago.

But the three forms of love – romantic, brotherly and all-embracing – seem to square with centuries of human development. The reality of Valentine’s Day in 2021 is a coarse and warty rendition, full of saccharine commercialism, immodest suggestion and heightened expectation. A quiet reflection on the incredible ability of human beings to give and receive affection in so many forms seems a better way.

In our house, it is simply an occasion to remember those we treasure. Mrs. Andrea Kipp acquired some excellent pastries this morning from Comet Coffee and delivered a few to our delightful neighbors. We chowed the rest. Delightful neighbors delivered warm beer bread to our doorstep later in the day. It has not even reached 10F today.

These are the little heart-warming February moments worthy of a 3^rd century Italian priest who demonstrated steadiness of faith.

12-February

The Bhagavad Gita has been one of my essential pillars for many years. The translation by Eknath Easwaran ( a most admirable fellow, well worth investigating ) is the one I use. It’s a great book to return to from time to time, full of lovely jewels that are delivered in the form of a conversation between Arjuna, a troubled warrior, and Krishna, a Hindu deity.

The part I went back to today was the passage on selfless service:

3 At the beginning of time I declared two paths for the pure heart: jnana yoga, the contemplative path of spiritual wisdom, and karma yoga, the active path of selfless service.

4 One who shirks action does not attain freedom; no one can gain perfection by abstaining from work.

5 Indeed, there is no one who rests for even an instant; all creatures are driven to action by their own nature.

6 Those who abstain from action while allowing the mind to dwell on sensual pleasure cannot be called sincere spiritual aspirants.

7 But they excel who control their senses through the mind, using them for selfless service.

8 Fulfill all your duties; action is better than inaction. Even to maintain your body, Arjuna, you are obliged to act.

 9 Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit.

Sometimes we find ourselves in the grip of action without a guiding compass. A private prison. My experience is that the compass of selfless service provides remarkable benefit to both the practitioner and those around him.