House Anniversary Dinner

On Friday night we celebrated one year since we closed on Casa Corazones, and were very happy to host our realtor, who is a classy, hardworking, wonderful person, for a nice colorful dinner. No pix remain, but here is what I cooked:

Inauthentic but Tasty Posole Soup (big pot, lots of leftovers):
– 1/2 pound dry hominy corn (I like the variety from Rancho Gordo)
– 1 can chickpeas
– 6 carrots
– 1 bunch dino kale
– 1 onion
– 4 garlic cloves
– stock/dried vegetables and water
– fresh parsley

Cook posole according to instructions. Then, add other ingredients, cover with water/stock and cook for 45 mins. I served the soup with freshly baked Bialys from a local bakery.

Salad
A fresh romaine lettuce with 1 avocado and 1 red grapefruit.

Steamed Asparagus
This one’s a no-brainer, of course, but consider steaming it above the soup, so you get two things done at once.

Greens, Mushrooms, and Tempeh
A nice stir-fry of chard, button mushrooms, and sliced tempeh. I happened to have a marinated variety on hand, but you can easily marinate your own in soy sauce or Bragg’s Aminos with some orange juice, garlic, ginger, spices, and hot sauce.

Caramelized Cherry Tomatoes
I found two tomato baskets for cheap at the grocery store, so I halved each of them, placed them with the sliced side up on a tray, drizzled them with olive oil and added fennel seeds, sumac, and nigella seeds. They were ready after about 20 mins, and I garnished them with fresh oregano before serving.

Tiny Bite-size Baked Potatoes
The little potatoes were cute and inexpensive, so I bought a lot of them and baked them whole with garlic, rosemary from the garden, some truffle salt, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Berries
Our guest brought fabulous cakes and I bought chocolate-mint vegan cookies. All the desserts were served with a big tray full of berries of all kinds, which I drizzled with juice from one tangerine and sprinkled with lavender tips.

This was a fun lesson in serving an entirely vegan meal without advertising it as such.

President Obama Interviews David Simon

A truly epic meeting has happened at the White House: President Obama interviewed David Simon, creator of the masterpiece series The Wire.

Yes, you read right, and you can see the entire interview below.

This interview is incredible on several levels. First, it is a strong testament to the power of a cultural piece in shaping discourse around big policy issues. If any television series is worthy of this honor, surely it is The Wire, which, through its depiction of the drug trade in Baltimore, has expanded America’s perspective of the criminal justice system to the schools, the political system, and the media.

Second, this dialogue is truly wonderful to experience. As I write in Chapter 5 of Cheap on Crime, the Obama campaign was the first presidential campaign since Nixon’s that did not feature crime control and punitivism as a central feature. I read this as a testament to the power of recession-era politics to reshape the political conversation. And the followup during the presidency has also been remarkable: no matter what you think about Obama’s foreign or economic policy, it is his presidency that fostered the bipartisan initiative to deescalate federal punishment, as well as the Holder and Cole memos to refrain from intervention in marijuana enforcement in legal states. What this remarkable interview reveals are the complex motivations behind this change. In Cheap on Crime I argue that the recession created conditions under which politicians of all stripes can foster non punitive reforms without suffering electoral and public consequences; but even if that’s what brings people to the table, it is only partly what fuels these changes. This interview is a combination of financial issues (particularly when Obama and Simon discuss the difficulty of young men with felonies to engage in the job market) and broader issues of dignity, like the ones Jonathan Simon covers in Mass Incarceration on Trial. To Obama, perhaps unsurprisingly, what is salient in this picture is boys growing up with absent fathers, or with fathers in prison, and he particularly mentions the fourth season of The Wire, which addresses the schools.

Third, which is poignant, is what Obama says toward the end of the interview: that perhaps the time has come to address the structural issues that lead to overincarceration in the first place. Is he referring to poverty? racism? social stratification? The time to address these differences through deep economic change is sorely overdue, but with a Republican congress any effort to make America more egalitarian and less stratified generates cries of “communism!” panic that echo the 1950s. I have no doubt that Obama and Holder have deeply understood and internalized the lessons of The Wire, but I can also see why translating these lessons to practical political gains in a complicated field of political struggle is a big challenge.

I applaud Obama and Simon for this remarkable conversation.

Blue Ribbon Committee Report on Marijuana Legalization

The Blue Ribbon Committee Report on legalization is out, and it raises a lot of interesting issues. It’s a short and interesting read. It doesn’t dwell much on the failed effort to pass Prop 19, and it looks at the initial experiences of the four states (and DC) who legalized marijuana as possible guidelines.

Among the topics discussed in the report are questions of enforcement with regard to minors and travel; concerns about workplace and environmental safety; level, type, and usage of taxation; structuring the business end of things; issues concerning the distinction between medical and recreational marijuana; and the need for statewide uniformity.

A few things worth noting:

1. The report hardly discusses tobacco and alcohol regulation as comparisons, and the references to tobacco are limited to the issue of advertising.

2. Very little attention is paid to the political configuration that makes statewide policymaking in California particularly weak – namely, polarization and neopopulism.

3. Not enough attention is paid to what we already know from economic studies of legalization and taxation: there is already some useful information coming in from CO and WA, and there will be more from other states (I will post some links in a future discussion.)

4. The distinction between marijuana and other drugs, and the retrenchment of the latter category, is worth discussing, even if there are good arguments to justify it.

I will be speaking about the report on KQED this afternoon.

Tomato-Vegan-Sausage-Sauce

I’ve just put on the stove a version of one of my favorite pasta sauces. made with a tomato base and some vegan sausage. This particular version has the distinction of containing everything we have left over at home, because our fresh CSA box arrives tomorrow. Making the most of it, I’m using Pomi chopped tomatoes for a delicious and hearty meal.

6 green onion stalks
4 garlic cloves
1 tsp olive oil
10 large button mushrooms
2 Field Roast sausages
1/2 container (or 1 cup) Pomi
1 cup water
big handful containing all or any of the following: parsley, rosemary, oregano, sage
1/2 tsp paprika

Chop onions and garlic thinly and give ’em a minute in the wok with olive oil. Proceed to slice mushrooms and vegan sausages and add to the wok. Follow up with paprika. Give it a spin until the mushrooms and sausage begin to brown. Add pomi, water, and herbs, lower heat somewhat, and simmer until sauce thickens. Serve atop pasta, rice, quinoa, or anything, really.

Spring Food Sharing!

Today, the Vernal Equinox, turned also to be the Grand Day of Spring Food Sharing, which was fantastic! It started with a trip to see friends in Berkeley who have recently had a baby. My standing thing to do for friends with kids is cooking up a storm and packaging the food in individual frozen servings, so they can quickly and easily defrost and eat it. Happily, I had a beautiful lentil stew from yesterday, which I brought the friends:

2 cups green lentils
3 large carrots
3 large tomatoes
1 fennel
3 celery stalks
1 package rainbow chard
5 garlic cloves
1/2 can tomatoes
1 tbsp cumin

Mix all ingredients in slow cooker, cover with boiling water, and set to cook on “low” for ten hours. Delish!

From there I headed on to Oakland for an Equinox ritual, which was springy and delightful. You can see our gorgeous altar in the photo. One of the activities was dyeing hardboiled eggs, which no longer appeals to me knowing what I know about the egg industry. But there was an alternative–sowing seeds and getting clippings of succulents–and we did a wonderful ritual for rain using reclaimed water, which I really appreciated. I need to start thinking about ways in which we can use reclaimed water and gray water here at Casa Corazones. Our garden consists of natives, which need a lot less water than exotics, and yet, if we are wiser about collecting shower water we can water them with that. The drought is a very serious source of concern, which means we may need to switch to growing things that require less water.

Our post-ritual feast included a lot of wonderful vegetable dishes. I summarily ignored the chicken and cheese and went for a green salad with edible flowers, two varieties of hummus, roasted asparagus, starfruit and strawberries and blackberries and blueberries, and my two contributions to the feast:

Fennel and Cucumber Salad

1 fennel
4 cucumbers
2 Meyer lemons
1 tsp olive oil
1 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp lemony pepper

Thinly slice fennel (bulb and leaves) and cucumbers. Combine in a bowl with juice from the lemons and the spices.

Broccolini and Blood Orange

20 broccolini stems (or two big broccoli heads)
1 blood orange

Cut broccolini or broccoli into florets and steam until bright green and cooked but still lively and crunchy. Peel and slice up orange into little bits. Combine with broccolini.

I really hope my friends, who were lovely company, enjoyed all the vegetables and may have been persuaded that a meal that consists mostly (or exclusively!) of plant foods is fantastic. This one certainly was!

For this evening, I’m plotting tofu and mushrooms in soy-orange glaze, served over quinoa.

Homemade Hummus

Just finished making hummus for the week ahead! It’s delicious and not too difficult. Here’s our home recipe:

3 cups dry chickpeas
boiling water
1/2 jar raw tahini
4 small lemons
for garnish: paprika, parsley, olive oil, pine nuts

Place chickpeas in pot or slow cooker (we prefer the latter, as it saves a lot of time if you start in the evening and make the hummus the next day.) Soak them in boiling water, about a couple of inches above the chickpeas, for a couple of hours. Then, turn on the heat or the slow cooker and cook until the chickpeas are tender. Remove the foam a couple of times and add more water if necessary.

Place chickpeas, water, and tahini in blender. Add juice from lemons and blend slowly until creamy. Garnish with olive oil, pine nuts, paprika and parsley, or save a handful of chickpeas to garnish. Serve warm or cool.

Residence Requirements for Sex Offenders Struck Down

This morning, in re William Taylor et al., the California Supreme Court struck down the provisions of Jessica’s Law that restricted registered sex offenders from residing within 2000 feet of a school or park.

The bottom line is as follows:

[W]e agree that section 3003.5(b)‟s residency restrictions are unconstitutional as applied across the board to petitioners and similarly situated registered sex offenders on parole in San Diego County. Blanket enforcement of the residency restrictions against these parolees has severely restricted their ability to find housing in compliance with the statute, greatly increased the incidence of homelessness
among them, and hindered their access to medical treatment, drug and alcohol dependency services, psychological counseling and other rehabilitative social services available to all parolees, while further hampering the efforts of parole authorities and law enforcement officials to monitor, supervise, and rehabilitate them in the interests of public safety. It thus has infringed their liberty and privacy interests, however limited, while bearing no rational relationship to advancing the state‟s legitimate goal of protecting children from sexual predators, and has violated their basic constitutional right to be free of unreasonable, arbitrary, and oppressive official action.

Nonetheless, as the lower courts made clear, CDCR retains the statutory authority, under provisions in the Penal Code separate from those found in section 3003.5(b), to impose special restrictions on registered sex offenders in the form of discretionary parole conditions, including residency restrictions that may be more or less restrictive than those found in section 3003.5(b), as long as they are based on, and supported by, the particularized circumstances of each individual parolee.

While the Orange County Register believes that it is unclear whether the ruling has effect outside San Diego County, it seems that a legal provision that is unconstitutional in one area of California is just as unconstitutional in another. Of particular interest is the impact of San Francisco, which, because of the layout of schools and parks in it, is essentially inhabitable to sex offenders under Jessica’s Law. This meant a large proportion of homeless and transient sex offenders, which, as one of them said to ABC news, “are actually walking time bombs out here because we are suffering from sleep deprivation”.