Belated TDoR post

November 20 is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, to memorialize the victims of transphobic violence. Sorry I'm a day late, but I was out of town all week and did not have the energy or time to post yesterday when I finally got home. I never know quite what to say about the TDoR. So I think I will shamelessly quote from people who are better writers than I am.

But first, the list of people remembered this year is here. It's long. It's always long, way too long.

Queen Emily writes on conflicting thoughts and feelings about the TDoR:

So it seems to me that to unite all trans people under one banner ignores the specifics of death – sex (the majority are trans women), race (Latina and black), class and occupation (sex work) are as important factors as transness. Appropriating those deaths for political work seems dubious to me at best.

But that the TDoR is still important, because, as Queen Emily writes:

...to honour the memories of every single trans person murdered this year, and to acknowledge the violence that our community lives with as a whole. To acknowledge that even in death, transphobia and cissexism mean that the murdered are not properly remembered, not even by the correct names and pronouns–and those people should be remembered as the right sex. That is our task for today (surviving ourselves, as well as prevention of more of the same is our task for the rest of the year). The example of Levi suggests that the task of witnessing may well be impossible, but we should attempt it nevertheless.

Liss at Shakesville writes about the often-overlooked ways that apathy kills.

Helen G. at Bird of Paradox reminds us that:

For many of us, our focus is finding ways to overcome that state of emergency: we transition to survive. We are not here to provide entertainment for cis people, nor to be the subject of cis centred academic theories. We cannot be socialised into being cis; neither can being trans be beaten out of us. We may not choose to be trans, but we are here, and we are trying to make our way in a world where we face prejudice and discrimination, bigotry, hatred and violence from cis people on a daily basis.

So spare a thought for our transgendered sisters and brothers, and try to ask yourself what you can do to help end transphobia in your little corner of the world. Is it calling out people who make offensive jokes? Is it posting a link on facebook? Is it inspecting your own thoughts, your own prejudices? Is it writing to your representatives to encourage them to support trans-inclusive ENDA? What can you do?

[Edited to fix link to Helen's blog.]

Vegetarian Red Beans n' Rice

So I know this is kind of sacrilege to some people, but I am a fan of beans, spicy/sweet/smoky flavors, and having the house smell awesome, so I came up with this vegetarian version of red beans and rice.

Red beans and rice is a traditional Creole dish of red beans simmered long and low and usually with meat -- the beans typically are simmered with a ham bone or ham hock for flavor, and pork and sausage (Andouille usually) are either cooked with the beans or served separately. My vegetarian version attempts to replicate the sweet, smoky, spicy flavors without the pig. I think it's pretty good, but of course, if you're a carnivore it probably won't match up :) This recipe calls for dried beans that you soak and cook, so it takes some planning and a while to make. But your house will smell WONDERFUL!

1 generous cup dried red kidney beans, picked over and rinsed

1 onion, diced very small
1/2 green pepper, diced very small
1/2 red pepper, diced very small
1 tsp EACH chili powder (NOT cayenne pepper powder -- the kind with garlic and other spices in it!), thyme, oregano, and allspice
1 tbsp cumin
2 small bay leaves
2 cloves garlic, minced finely or pressed
1 28-oz can whole tomatoes, mooshed up with your hands
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 cups veggie broth
2 cups water
1 package smoked tofu (I use this stuff), diced
1 package veggie sausage (I use this stuff in Mexican Chipotle flavor), sliced

1. Soak beans 8 hours or overnight. I like to soak my beans in distilled water, because our water is very hard and I think it tends to make them cook weird, but maybe that's just all in my head. Additionally, Cooks Illustrated recommends soaking beans in a brine solution. This seasons the beans thoroughly, which I like. I add enough salt to the soaking water for it to taste slightly salty (not too much!). You want enough water to cover the beans by several inches; they'll expand as they soak.

2. When you're ready to cook, assemble your ingredients and preheat the oven to about 275 degrees [ETA -- I say about, because I usually set my oven to what ~looks like~ 300 degrees but the knob is wobbly and weird and it could be 275 or it could be 325, really, I don't know]. If your spices are whole, grind everything up in a spice grinder (i.e., a coffee grinder dedicated to spices). Drain and rinse the beans and set aside.

3. In a large soup pot or dutch oven (I like my cast iron dutch oven for this!), sautee the onion and bell peppers over medium-high heat until they are soft and the onions are starting to brown. If necessary, add a little more oil, and sautee half of the smoked tofu and half of the veggie sausage until a bit browned, maybe a minute or two. Again, adding oil if needed, sautee the spices and garlic until fragrant -- maybe 30 seconds, you don't want to burn them!

4. Add the tomatoes and their juices, broth, water, bay leaves, and brown sugar and bring to a boil. If you have a bottle of beer open, you could always add a dash or two of that, too! Turn off heat, cover, and place in the oven. Bake nice and low and slow for maybe 2 hours or more -- much will depend on your oven, your pot, and the age of the beans, so this is only a rough guideline. Check the beans from time to time, stirring occasionally. When the beans are almost tender, add the rest of the smoked tofu and sausage, remove the lid, and cook until the beans are done, stirring and keeping an eye on the liquid level from time to time. You want the liquid to reduce a bit, but you don't want things to scorch, so add water if necessary! Let stand maybe 10-15 minutes out of the oven to get the flavors nice and blended. Check for seasonings -- if you need salt, consider adding soy sauce. It gives saltiness plus umami! If the seasonings don't seem quite right, you could consider adding a bit of garam masala, it's a warm spice blend and should contribute what you need.

5. Serve over white rice. I like a bit of cheese melted on top of mine, but I have no idea if that's traditional!

Fall Pizza

I accidentally, somehow, managed to post this blank at first. Sorry bout that!

Last night Joelster and I made this delicious fall pizza that I thought maybe someone would like. Coming up probably tomorrow will be some vegetarian red beans and rice, too. Tis the season for savory, hearty foods :)

1 small or 1/2 of 1 large butternut squash, peeled thickly and diced small
1 onion, diced (doesn't have to be as small as the squash)
About 2 tbsp torn fresh sage leaves
2-3 cloves garlic, whole and unpeeled
About 1-2 tsp brown sugar
Salt, pepper, olive oil

1 ball of store-bought whole wheat pizza dough, or make your own

sliced or shredded extra-sharp cheddar or Gruyère
1 small crisp tart apple, diced small

1. Preaheat oven to 350 while you chop everything. Place a baking sheet in the oven to preheat -- I like to cover mine with foil to help ease cleanup. Set the pizza dough out if refrigerated to come to room temperature.

2. Toss the squash, onion, garlic, and sage together with some olive oil, salt pepper, and the brown sugar. Spread on the hot baking sheet and roast for about 20-30 minutes, until everything is lovely and browned.

3. Remove the squash mixture and set aside to cool slightly. Now we're going to shape the dough. You can handle the dough a couple of different ways. You could bake this as maybe 2 small pizzas directly on a baking stone if you like, in which case you'll want to shape the dough on an inverted cool baking sheet dusted with flour or cornmeal so that you can easily slide it off onto the baking stone. If you, like me, have a completely gross stained awful baking stone that you only keep in the oven to help even out the heat because you have crappy apartment appliances, you can bake on a greased baking sheet. I'd set the baking sheet right on the stone, or on the lowest oven rack. In either case, stretch and shape the dough to your desired shape -- I used a greased baking sheet, so I just mooshed and stretched the dough till it covered basically the whole thing.

4. Remove the roasted garlic cloves and mash up with a little salt in a mortar and pestle or a bowl. If you've got a couple of leftover sage leaves, add those in too. Spread the garlic mixture on the dough, topped with the squash mixture. Lightly pat the squash mixture down so it sticks to the dough. Sprinkle the diced apple on top, and top with the cheese. Bake at 350 or whatever the package directions say for about 20 minutes, until done.

5. Let stand for a couple minutes to give the cheese and toppings time to glom together a bit, then slice and nom!

Tofu Salad - a concept.

Because sometimes you just need something with tofu and a ton of green stuff in it. This isn't so much a recipe as a group of ingredients that go great together that you can play with however you want.

Check it out:

Roast some tofu:
1 tub of tofu, drained (not pressed)
tbsp dijon mustard
tbsp olive oil

Cube the tofu and mix with the mustard and oil. Bake in a single layer in a baking dish or sheet at around 350 for maybe an hour, while you do everything else.

Everything else:
About 2 tbsp tarragon, chopped
1 tbsp parsley, chopped
About 1/4 of a sweet onion
Some miscellaneous sturdy veggies -- green beans, baby limas or favas, celery, broccoli or cauliflower florets, carrots, etc.
Toasted nuts, cooled and chopped

Dressing stuff:
Mayo
More mustard
Olive oil
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
Red wine or tarragon vinegar
Some whole grain mustard
Garlic

Romaine lettuce (or whatever you like)

Blanch or steam your veggies, if necessary. For example, today I used limas and green beans, which got blanched in salted water, and celery which just got chopped. If you're using carrots, broccoli, etc. you'll want to blanch or steam them so they're pleasant to eat. Depending on how many servings you want to get, you'll want a good one to two cups or more of chopped veggies. Make sure you chop em about the same size as the tofu.

Mix the blanched veggies with the onion, nuts, and herbs. Salt and pepper modestly, and toss and set aside.

Mix up the dressing. Depending on how many veggies you have, you'll need less or more, so work to your own taste. But what I do is mix about oh, 1/4 cup mayo with a dash of olive oil, the juice and zest of the lemon, and about a tbsp of each kind of mustard. Mince a half a clove of garlic through a press, and mix in. Taste, and add the vinegar if you think it needs more tang, and some more mayo if it is too tangy, etc. Feel free to add a bit of warm water if it's too thick.

When the tofu is nice and browned in spots (it'll have shrunk down), mix in with the veggies and the dressing, then cool in the fridge until you're ready to serve it over lettuce, or in a sammitch or wrap if your fancy takes ye that way.

Hmmm

Can anyone who is good at HTML tell me how to fix my blog layout so that the stuff on the right side isn't so big? There definitely doesn't need to be that much space there and it makes embedding stuff like videos or images annoying, but I have no idea how to fix it.

You guys...

Did I mention I absolutely love Troy Polamalu? Well I do.

On swallowing shit:

This post by Melissa McEwan at Shakesville is all over my corner of the blogosphere right now, but I wanted to share it in the event that any of the four people who read my blog didn't read it. It's a long post, but everyone should really read it. It's about trust, and speaking up, and the particular hurt that comes from someone you love blindsiding you with bigotry.

Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?

Speaking up is risky. Risky like you can lose friends. Risky like you could be assaulted. Risky like realizing that the people who claim to love you don't give a shit about your pain and your reality and your ~personhood.~

There are the jokes about women, about wives, about mothers, about raising daughters, about female bosses. They are told in my presence by men who are meant to care about me, just to get a rise out of me, as though I am meant to find funny a reminder of my second-class status. I am meant to ignore that this is a bullying tactic, that the men telling these jokes derive their amusement specifically from knowing they upset me, piss me off, hurt me. They tell them and I can laugh, and they can thus feel superior, or I can not laugh, and they can thus feel superior. Heads they win, tails I lose. I am used as a prop in an ongoing game of patriarchal posturing, and then I am meant to believe it is true when some of the men who enjoy this sport, in which I am their pawn, tell me, "I love you." I love you, my daughter. I love you, my niece. I love you, my friend. I am meant to trust these words.

So...speak up? Speak up to your partner, your best friend, your father, your uncle, your boss? Really? The only people who think that's ~easy~ are the people who have never had to do it.

And there is the denial about engaging in misogyny, even when it's evident, even when it's pointed out gently, softly, indulgently, carefully, with goodwill and the presumption that it was not intentional. There is the firm, fixed, unyielding denial—because it is better and easier to imply that I'm stupid or crazy, that I have imagined being insulted by someone about whom I care (just for the fun of it!), than it is to just admit a bloody mistake. Rather I am implied to be a hysteric than to say, simply, I'm sorry.

So, anyway. My male friends and acquaintances. My male relatives, my friends of friends, people who found my blog googling my name. Go read the piece. Swallow your defensiveness, swallow the shock that ~I don't trust you,~ that many or most of your female relatives, coworkers, and friends ~do not trust you,~ and think about why that is, who we are, what we experience every day. Think on it long and hard.



And to state the obvious, the link isn't a blanket endorsement of everything at Shakesville, but this post passionately and searingly expresses what I and many women feel and think about the people we love.

Go Pitt!

The University of Pittsburgh stated on Tuesday that:

it "has no interest" in receiving an estimated $225,000 from the estate of LA Fitness gunman George Sodini, who named the school as the sole beneficiary in his will.

...

[university spokesman Robert Hill said in a statement that] "The university community continues to grieve about the tragic loss of lives. And we believe that any available funds should benefit Mr. Sodini's victims and members of their families. Our thoughts and prayers remain with them. We at Pitt will do what we can to assist them in receiving any funds that have been bequeathed to Pitt."

As I'm sure we're all well aware by now, George Sodini was a very troubled man who murdered three women and injured others. His deep-seated hatred of women, coupled with his patriarchy-induced belief that he deserved a much younger sex object -- I mean girlfriend -- led to this tragedy. For some additional relevant reading on the Sodini rampage from a feminist perspective, check out:

Jeff Fecke at Blog of the Moderate Left
The inestimable Kate Harding, writing at Salon.
There's plenty of others, but those were the two that stuck out in my mind...

HT for original story. Via.