The American Dream

The American Dream

I was inspired as I watched the interactive art zoetrope by Peter Hudson on the TV Free Burning Man site this morning. "Tantalus" so completely summed up what many Americans are feeling about their country. It was an eerie display of torsos and arms reaching for golden apples dangling enticingly out of reach. I wonder if we are the only nation that feels this way. I mean, we never hear about the Italian Dream or the Bulgarian Dream, do we? If we Google it, we actually have a wikipedia entry for the American Dream, while other countries do not. Go ahead and try it, I did. It was the theme of this year's gathering in the Black Rock Desert and Peter's deliberate use of only part of our Star Spangled Banner pushes the reality of unfinished business to a place where we cannot ignore it.

Hudson brought up good questions in his interview, what exactly is the American dream anymore? I know my vision may not match my neighbors, because of my religion, political leanings, age bracket, sex, and economic status. Is there just one dream we all share, is it simply freedom or is it something else? Is it possible that as we grow larger and more diverse that this utopia can never be achieved or maintained for a reasonable period of time? Do smaller groups that share a common ideal ever achieve their vision? I guess the Burning Man group might be able to answer that. Hudson's fantasy of people "experiencing each other" after his second trip to Burning Man may compete with someone else's mission to seek out budding artists for capital gain. The zoetrope that Peter created is made up of many arms reaching for many apples, some are closer to realization than others, and no two appear alike. Makes you think...

Making tomato sauce from scratch

How to Make Homemade Tomato Sauce
Use Those Fresh Romas from the Garden
By Michelle Wendt
As published on Associated Content


This year my family planted cherry and grape tomatoes. It was our first year gardening after a three-year hiatus; we were just planting for household eating and not for canning or freezing purposes. Having no room to plant melons is always a disappointment, but the gentleman around the corner grows them and he typically sells them to us. Stopping by to get the melons, we found out that he was flush with ripe, Roma tomatoes and selling them for a $1 per half-bushel container. I told him that I already had enough tomatoes, but he was stressed that they would go bad before he could sell them and he argued with us in his Italian accent, " Take them home, make up some sauce, it's good eating. They gonna go bad here."
Well, we are not the type to let down a little old man, especially a neighbor, so we bought a bushel and prepared about 8 quarts of sauce from them. My thirteen-year-old daughter Haley, who is learning how to cook, practiced blanching the tomatoes in boiling water for two minutes. Then we let the hot tomatoes cool for a few minutes and sliced them in half. By grasping the ends of the tomatoes we pulled the skins right off. It was so easy. We had a bit of trouble with a few of the stem ends so we kept a small paring knife handy to assist us with the more unruly skins. My sister Pinky informed me today that if I had scored the skins before blanching, I would not have had this problem. According to her, this method also works well when skinning peppers. Haley had a great time skinning them and kept pushing me out of her way, I was stuck just slicing them in half.
After peeling the tomatoes we put extra virgin olive oil in the bottom of our stock pot and dumped in the pulpy fruit. My friend Belinda used to give the tomatoes a squeeze to get out any stray seeds before she cooked them down, but Haley and I decided to skip this step; Roma tomatoes do not have many seeds at all, so it is not usually a problem for me. We added fresh oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary and marjoram from the garden, and dried parsley and red pepper flakes from the pantry. Each one of the fresh spices grows very well and I am always delighted to utilize our abundant herb garden. We picked, washed, minced, and added the Italian spices a bit at a time as the tomatoes cooked down. Belinda used to say that if we just added the spices at the beginning, they would not be as aromatic or tasty as they would be if we kept adding some during the cooking process.
Simmering the tomatoes for an hour and half, we started to get a bit impatient that they weren't "cooking down" as fast as we wanted them to. Haley used the immersion blender to break up the more stubborn pulp and I added whole garlic cloves and minced garlic. I like to remove and use the cooked whole cloves and some butter to mash on Italian bread later. It is delicious! After pre-cooking our sweet Italian sausage in the frying pan, we added it and the juices to a portion of the sauce and allowed the meat sauce to simmer some more. The reason we reserved some of the sauce was to have an ample supply of both marinara and meat sauce on hand during the winter.
The sauce was finally done and we had to think about storage options. I save all the quart containers from the deli and Chinese food takeout, and I do not mind writing on them a bit. They fit well in the freezer door and are an invaluable resource to us as we make huge batches of soup all year long. After putting sauce up in the containers, we cleaned up our little mess and the rest of the family pitched in at this point. My husband explained how he would take care of the pots just like he had when he was young. He grabbed some of the Italian bread and took over the stockpot. Soon, my whole family was standing over the pots with slices of bread and scooping out the remains. It was the perfect end to a wonderful afternoon and I will remember the happiness of cooking with my daughter as we use each quart of sauce this winter on our pizzas, linguini, and parmesan.

Stargazing Party Brings Summer Back Home

The Best Evenings Are Right Outside Your Door

As published on Associated Content

We were recently invited to a bonfire to celebrate the end of my daughter's musical theatre program. This was the third cast party we had attended and we enjoyed it so thoroughly because of what it didn't have that all the others did. There were no tiki torches, and there wasn't a pool or hot tub surrounded with themed lighting. There was no fenced-in yard with a swing set or bar full of Sangria. What there was, was a sky full of stars above a wide-open field, a homemade swing that sat three, a crackling fire, and great companionship. The guests were each instructed to bring our own camp chairs and favorite snack, and to wear shoes that would not keep us from the games.

We arrived and played football for a while until it was too dark to see, and then the game of jailbreak commenced. Outside of the fire circle were the shadows of our children chasing each other around and giggling as they each were caught. The best entertainment was in the night sky. We oohed and aahed as each parent discovered planets and constellations, shooting stars and satellites flying across the sky, and even some wayward meteorites that my husband swears were merely fireworks. We argued over the position of some of the constellations and searched in vain for the Little Dipper. One couple laughed over the winking stars that were really fireflies. At one point a flashing light swung quickly across the sky and the kids all got excited thinking it might be a UFO. I thought it was a military object, my husband said it was a helicopter, but whatever it was, we spent the rest of the evening with our eyes trained upon the heavens looking for whatever we could find.

I have never had a conversation before where I didn't look at someone's face as I spoke to him or her, but it was not a hardship; I simply could not stop watching the atmosphere. So we all chatted facing upwards and chuckled about it as we did so. I recalled how many hours I spent gazing up at the clouds and the stars when I was a child and I was contented knowing my children enjoyed the same uncomplicated pleasures. It was a simple, effortless evening, and it certainly beat watching TV, going to the movies, or playing video games.

I plan to make our own fire circle in the backyard this week and really enjoy the rest of summer and the autumn. We have lots of deadfall in the woods beyond our yard and plenty of space that we never use. The simplest pleasures of life do not require cash, fancy yard furniture, or even a ride in the car, they can be found right outside our own back doors.