So here we are, 365 days later, facing yet another Valentine's Day. Woo Hoo! Last year I pointed out a few places where Valentine's Day goes off the rails... well lets not talk about them now . Instead maybe the best thing I can do is to try and fight the consumerism and destructive thinking that have overtaken yet another, should really be wonderful instead of sucky, holiday. Now I know that I am a poor choice to fix a holiday about love. For one thing I was completely wrong about love until just 2 months ago. For another all of my love encounters end with me leaving $200 on the nightstand then doing the walk of shame back to my car. Still I think any holiday that has a well armed baby as its' main symbol must have at least a sense of humor. Well armed winged babies being almost as funny as monkeys with guns. Actually upon close examination the resemblance to me is uncanny... maybe I can contribute something.

I do wear cooler glasses though.

So lets just eliminate the bad stuff that the holiday has accumulated, blood diamonds, slave chocolate, drug lord flowers ( I told you I'm not talking about it this year. If you are curious take the link above to last year), and instead make for a kinder, gentler Valentine's Day. Now I'm sorry ladies, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave the blog at this point. Yes, leave. Face it, if it were up to men February 14 would just be another calendar day. This whole holiday and a huge part of its corruption ( I said check last years post) is on the ladies. You couldn't just be happy with what team Y chromosome was able to come up with unprompted so you had to guarantee at least one emotionally rewarding day a year for yourselves. Plus presents. Now I want you to go out and think about how emotionally unrewarding it is to try and mandate an emotionally rewarding day.( Presents are always good so you don't have to think about them unless of coarse you find presents emotionally rewarding, which makes you a sociopath who should dump whomever you are currently dating for their own sake .) This kind of thinking is a koan, a zen puzzle if you will. The only way to get the answer is to just get it. Men already do which is why we don't get much else. So you ladies get on that Valentines connundrum and leave the boys with me. You can come back for the recipe at the end. Sociopaths please just leave.

I know, I know... you can't believe how smart I am.

OK boys, are they gone? Good, because we have to get out in front on this Valentine's Day thing. Face it, we don't really have a very good track record on the whole treating women well thing. No wonder they grasp at a soulless corporate holiday front-loaded with faux emotions and backloaded with 3 products that make veal look like the moral choice. Don't worry, all we have to do is try a little harder, or perhaps just try a little differently. She's the love of your life, the mother of your children, your better half, she's certainly worth it, right? So, an occasional hug just because. When you hear that Wa,Wa,Wa, while you're watching TV focus so that you'll realize that those are actually real words she is making. If you are lucky they will be in a language you understand and organized in some fashion that imbues them with meaning. You know what? Put the seat down. I know that it is stupid that she keeps falling in, but is it really any trouble to lower the seat? You raised it in the first place after all. Do it for selfish reasons; aren't you tired of that wet bottom when she climbs back into bed? Take the kids for at least half a day every weekend. What do you mean why? They're your kids dumbass and if there is one thing I know about kids it's that the greatest gift you can give a person is free time away from them. I could go on but the sad truth is you know all the crappy things you do to the woman in your life Mr,"I'm done so I'm going to sleep now." Work on it.

So that leaves us to fix Valentine's Day until all that improving we do makes Valentine's Day unnecessary. Now the first thing you can do is save the restaurant trip to pretty much any other day of the year than February 14. Friday's and Saturdays are crowded year round but they don't have special "romance packages or menus" except when they want to screw you (cough Mother's Day) (cough Easter) (cough New Years). The only one you want screwing you on Valentine's Day is your soul mate so skip the restaurant and eat at home. You'll need a menu, a soundtrack, entertainment, and a gift. We'll keep it simple so you'll have plenty of time for all that good loving you'll be getting.

For diner I'm leaning toward pumpkin or sweet potato ravioli in a brown butter sauce with a composed salad on the side. You should be able to handle this if you can make grilled cheese without hurting yourself, but if you can't take-out, artfully served, (Dude! you have to use real china for this) will probably pass muster. Do not try and pass the take-out off as your own cooking. Women can smell liars from miles away. Just serve it without comment. If she presses you tell her where it came from, but that you wanted to make tonight special.

Composed

1. Hard boil 4 eggs.
2. Put the eggs in a pan( that has a lid) of water, bring to a boil, turn off the heat, put on the lid. When the waters cool enough to touch you have hard boiled eggs.
3. Blanch some asparagus
4. Re-boil the water, meanwhile bend an asparagus spear until it snaps, line it up with the rest of the spears and cut off the  parts that stick out past the break, these are the woody stems, toss, salt the hell out of the boiling water, add the spears, 4 minutes later bring the pot to the sink and fill with cold water. Let sit then drain. The spears should be bright green and crisp tender.
5. Spread a layer of greens on two salad plates. Bagged pre-washed greens is fine.
6. Place the asparagus in the center.
7. Peel the eggs, slice in half, arrange at the corners of the plate, you can make them ahead, but the salad is better if the eggs are still warm.
8. Vinaigrette is 1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil. Salt is good. A dab of mustard will keep the dressing from separating after you give it a mix. Drizzle over the salads.
9. Grate a good asiago or parmesan cheese over each plate.
10. A crumble of bacon takes things to the next level. You want to take things to the next level.

Obviously with something like a composed salad great components make all the difference. Bacon bits from a jar will work but things aren't going to be as good as they could be. The simpler the preparation the harder it is to hide the flaws in the ingredients.

Ditto for the Ravioli!

1. Melt one stick of unsalted butter in a fry pan over medium high heat. At the same time boil another pan of generously salted water.
2. After the butter foams add a finely chopped shallot and 8 to 10 sage leaves to the pan.
3. Turn down the heat to medium low.
4. Watch the pan, take it right off the heat once the butter turns brown. The smell should be outstanding. Fish out the sage leaves and slice thin.
5. Meanwhile cook the ravioli (Store bought is definitely better than the ones I make, but if you are a kitchen whiz homemade would be nice.)
6. By cook I mean toss them into the pan of boiling water. Stir. When they float to the top scoop them out with a slotted spoon and toss them into the butter sauce. 
7. Plate.
8. Again, a quick grate of asiago or parmesan.
9. A sprinkle of that bacon....!
10. Finally sprinkle the sage for color and an herbal undertone.

Bang, dinners on. Do the eggs and asparagus ahead and the whole thing is only going to take 30 minutes fridge to plate. So have the lights low, a few candles burning, and tunes. Now you can certainly play any music you like, this is America after all, or if you are very observant you could play the music she likes but I doubt you can do that or you wouldn't be wasting your time taking advise from me so I am going to suggest going old school. How old? 40 years at least. I'm thinking doo wop old, I'm thinking soul, or maybe just some lush orchestral jazz. Face it, at first she'll probably think it's goofy, but at least it won't be wrong. Then if you play the good stuff that I'm going to point you towards and she gets to watch you go all iron chef on some brown butter, and the house smells amazing, and she sees her gift, (later, we'll get to that later) and a 20 piece band soars in the background she will forget about Carly Ray Jepson. If not give her the boot, eat the ravioli, pawn the gift, and contemplate why your broken soul wants to get frisky with a woman whose soul is made of plastic.

Besides you really should have some of this stuff on your music player. Do you really want the soundtrack of your life to be nothing but Green Day?

Sinatra without all the mean

Start with Tony. It's jazz music with pop arrangments. Ear candy for adults.

She was one of the first to bring pop to the bedroom.

It's not soul, but it's getting there. You're still dancing in the living room.

60's hair, you could bounce pennies off of that.

It is soul, but white girl soul. Adele's mom brings the feeling but it is still happening in your head not her hips.

Now you're still dancing close but the heat is in your hips and the bedroom calls.

You can play your sound track in any order you want but if you go with Reverend Al before dinner you might end up filling up on something other than ravioli. The beauty of this soundtrack is if it doesn't work it is not because of your age, it is because you or your girl are pinheads. Lush is always lush. The things that make these albums perfect for romance now are exactly what made them perfect 45 years ago. It's exactly the same stuff that works for contemporary music and it is the stuff that made Greensleeves the go to seduction song after a joust. Trust me, if it doesn't work it is not the music that is broken.

Now somewhere in here you are going to have to let her open her present. Here I defer to you. The only thing I ask is hold off on the chocolate because I'm going to show you how to avoid the whole child slavery problem in a second. Then if a diamond is a must (repeat after me "Diamonds are evil") promise me it will be an antique (used) diamond. Me? I just give cash which is the best gift ever every time, or if you put some serious thought into it ( really the best gift ever every time) go with what you know she likes. A word of advice; grown women that love stuffed toys are disturbing on several levels so if a Vermont Teddy Bear is the first idea that pops into your head you might want to either run for it and try again next year with a different woman, or slam that head into a cinder block until it thinks of a better gift.

We will assume that everything went well. We will assume everyone got what they needed out of the holiday. We will assume that some cuddling is now in order. I know, I know, you just want to sleep. Well, we are trying to do better so some cuddling is now mandatory. That's why we brought entertainment. That way the cuddling doesn't have to include talking. I told you we were trying harder, but I don't expect you to stay awake, cuddle a clingy woman, and talk. I'm trying to make things better, not kill you.

Funny Romantic War movie. Perfect!

So while Rick and Elsa battle the Nazis and their doomed love you can wrap your arm around your girl and if she starts getting talky just offer her one of these...

She'll love your balls.

These will have to be made in advance because the ganach needs to set up. If you want to surprise her you will have to figure out how to keep your balls secret. First you will need 2 pounds of fair trade chocolate. You might have to search around. Despite the whole child slavery thing of the big 3 chocolate sellers in this country Nestle has signed a pledge that only covers price not working (or slavery) conditions, Mars has agreed to accept fairtrade but only with a gradual step down which means that until 2020 their bars could be 70% from a tainted source. Hershey refuses to talk about their sources or sign the pledge. So what do we do?

Divine chocolate distributers are owned by a farming collective in Ghana. You can order chocolate from them at a rate of $16 a pound which is about twice as much as the same amount from Hershey. Hey, it's your call. I can only give you the information.

1. Chop 2 pounds of 70% cacao chocolate. Put 1 pound and 3/4 pounds in separate heat proof bowls. Save the other 1/4 pound anywhere you like.
2. Heat a cup of heavy cream until it just starts to boil.
3. Mix the cream and the 1 pound of chocolate, stir until smooth.
4. Put the ganache  in the fridge for a few hours. Do something else.
5. When the ganache has set use a small scoop to make balls of ganache. You want them golfball size.
6. After you make each one place it on a sheet pan covered with parchment paper.
7. When you have used up the chocolate you will have a sheet full of balls, pop them in the fridge while you prep everything else.
8. Take the other bowl of chocolate and microwave it on high for 20 seconds, stir.
9. Microwave, stir. Microwave, stir. Keep doing this just until the chocolate is completely melted.
10. Immediately dump the cold chocolate into the bowl and stir until it is incorporated with the rest. This tempers the chocolate so it will harden up nice and smooth instead of grainy and gray.
11. Pull the balls from the fridge.
12. Use a table spoon to roll each ball in the chocolate coating then return to the parchment.
13. You could also give each ball an additional roll in some chopped nuts, chopped hard candy, coco powder, go wild.
14. Let them set in the fridge.
15. Give to your girl if she tries to talk over Dooley Wilson singing As Time Goes By

Happy Valentines Day. Got to run. I need to get to an ATM for nightstand money.

Lost Boys

So December found me wrong about love, what other things have I been wrong about over the years. I started thinking on it hard after that last post ( and hard it was since I know just about everything) but then work took off, projects came in a torrent along with Christmas and New Years, time flew by as it is want to do, and I sort of forgot about the possibility that I might be wrong about things. Me wrong? Ha! The next thing you'll be telling me is Payton Manning would lose a football playoff game by playing weeny football, or that the NRA wouldn't quietly go away after the Newtown CT shootings, or that Christmas wouldn't be as emotionally and financially satisfying as it usually is. Me wrong? Then why would fate involve me in  a huge project relocating the good Fathers of our local Jesuit collage into temporary digs while their cozy residence hall is being renovated? Damned fate, I've been avoiding the catholic church for thirty-five years, nay all religions, because they're evil. Maybe there are occasional anomalies in our multi-verse where true love can thrive but religion? Bah!

Just a comfy little crash pad paid for with gold extorted from the poor. Each brick washed with alter boy tears.

So me, still not wrong. I'm sure you have managed to glean from my previous posts that I have a strong aversion to organized anything and the Catholic Church sure seems organized. Organized enough to hush up their pedophile scandal for more than 30 years, organized enough to turn a profit off of orphans in the Montreal dioceses, organized enough for the Magadelene laundries in Ireland. So maybe a few good eggs managed to surface in Latin America in the 60's, ( you know; feed the poor and comfort the suffering) just don't tell Bill O'Rielly and American Catholics about it. I still consider it a good policy when you meet a priest, or minister for that matter, to consider them guilty until proven innocent and I was about to meet 41 priests, Jesuits at that. Why just search the internet for a few moments and my righteous anger is nothing compared to the heaping piles of Jesuit conspiracies about to engulf us. I was wrong once, but me and the internet? Come on!

My preconceptions about the clergy weren't disappointed when the project started in September. I was introduced to a steady stream of imploded vaguely Irish looking little dudes in their 60's and 70's, minus 2 young guys from Africa and 1 from India, who didn't so much inhabit that cottage in the picture above as seem imprisoned there. It was as if the Lost Boys were living in a Neverland built by Charles Addams. They were lost Boys too. Somehow their insular lives and bonding to the church had rendered them strangely adolescent in their demeanor. Giggly, occasionally petulant, peckish with the disruption and a little helpless outside of their safe places. These Lost Boys were not waiting for Peter and Wendy... no they were a little different...

Not that different!

Sorry about that. Wrong lost boys. My preconceived notions must be getting the best of me.

Just like this, but lots older, and no Wendy.

I was tasked with relocating their offices, an activity made harder because each office required a photo shoot so they could be packed up, relocated, and restore to exactly the same state the good Fathers left them. In addition I was told that the offices contained many objects that were "irreplaceable" which is a transportation code word for expensive. ( not hard to believe, I once moved a whole room of 17th century and earlier manuscripts at one of the BC libraries because the leaky roof was dumping water on the open shelves ).The Fathers all felt the need to quiz me directly as to how I would proceed so they would feel comfortable that the disruption of their lives would be manageable. They especially were concerned that the photo shoot would interfere with their daily routines, a fear I relieved them of by assuring each one that he didn't even have to be present for the cameras since he wasn't nearly as important as his stuff. (Word it the right way and say it with the right inflection you can insult people and they can't do a thing about it.)

Turned out that every single one of them showed up for the photo shoot of his office because all their stuff really was irreplaceable. There were all kinds of things there that once destroyed would be gone forever. There were computers that still had floppy drives, lectures recorded on beta-max tapes, music on LP's, 8 Tracks, and cassettes. One father's phone was a rotary dialer! Are you kidding me? They must have been spending the big money on... no the furnishings were old, but not antique old, more like 40's military old. Stout wooden desks that would become antiques someday unless they were burned for firewood first, green pleather chairs with only four wheels at the bottom instead of the OSHA mandated 5, there were typewriters...typewriters! all files where vertical. There was no pressboard only items waiting to be made into pressboard. It would have been hard to replace the stuff if it was destroyed, it would be harder to find somebody that would want to.

Those church bastards were just living it up! Word.

By the time I was on my forth photo shoot I had to ask "They spent hugh money on this building, they're spending tons more on this renovation, the chapel, the dinning hall, the foyer, everything is immaculate couldn't you guys get better furniture? Father F didn't even have to think about it, "The building is for the glory of God, the furniture in here is what we need to work. " He put it out there so fast that I wasn't sure I was buying it, but he seemed so sincere it would have been bad form to continue  my inquisition ( ha, pun! the office of the inquisition, yes that inquisition, still exists at the current vatican). Haters hate, it's what we do.

I was a little flummoxed though. On first visit and especially when they were in a group they definitely seemed to conform to my expectations which is to say, "a bit off", but they were getting around my anti-religion, anti-priest defenses by being friendly, by feeding me every day at their dinning hall, by openly drinking scotch and other adult beverages, by checking out cleavage (got you Father A!) , and by generally just being regular people in a very WTF situation. Don't judge you say? How else would you categorize a man that gave up cleavage even though he was still giving it the hungry side look 40 years later. That's straight up tragedy.

...and did I say regular people? That would be true until you got to the irreplaceable flotsam that they had saved to brighten their offices. There were none of the high are crucifixes that adorned the public areas, but there were dozens made from old metal, bits of rubber and wood, hand painted pieces of furniture, pretty much anything that could be used for crafts, or house building, can be used to fashion crucifixes. Crucifixes that each had a unique story. Crucifixes that came from every ripped-off beat-down third world hell hole on this planet. Crucifixes that weren't the spoils of colonialism or conquest, but gifts to the only men that brought food, medicine, and education to places where hope was a commodity that no-one had enough money to buy.

... and it didn't stop there. Each of them had little pottery things or carved wood items crafted just for them. Crafted by people that had nothing else to give. People that filled the pictures that covered the walls. Pictures of baptisms in jungle ponds, pictures of half built schools on rugged mountainsides, pictures of trucks full of food surrounded by people patiently waiting their turn, pictures of festivals, parties, and feasts that reminded me of nothing my own catholic childhood could remember. These guys were not regular people.

I gave up on organized religion over 30 years ago. Church is where thinking goes to die. That doesn't mean I get to pass blanket judgment on millions of people just because they are part of something that has gone off the rails over and over again... but I did. The Fathers at St Mary's made me feel small about it though. Who have I helped? Is the world a better place because I live my reasonably moral but safe life while churning out a snarky blog, or because someone in the grip of what I consider a delusion builds an infirmary in the Sudan?

There's all kinds of lost boys.

If good people belong to a bad organization does that make them not good? Can an organization even have a moral component? Can we do good things if we do them for bad reasons? Can we judge and not be judged? I wasn't wrong about the church but I was dead wrong about the Fathers... or maybe just lost?