Whew, that was quick. Another year gone.
Resolved for ’15: to be kinder and more patient. As we age, we trend toward kindness. So says the writer George Saunders. Here’s an excerpt from a convocation speech he gave to the class of 2013 at Syracuse University where he teaches:
“So, quick, end-of-speech advice: Since, according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf – seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life.
“Do all the other things, the ambitious things – travel, get rich, get famous, innovate, lead, fall in love, make and lose fortunes, swim naked in wild jungle rivers (after first having it tested for monkey poop) – but as you do, to the extent that you can, err in the direction of kindness. …”
That speech has been published in a book, Congratulations, By The Way: Some Thoughts on Kindness, Random House, 2014.
Oxtail stew on New Year’s Day
Late Wednesday afternoon, New Year’s Eve, the butcher department at Sunflower on Military Road was humming. Robert Bates was busy on a vertical meat saw trying to stay ahead of the demand for hog jowl, which cooked with black-eyed peas and eaten on New Year’s Day ensures a year of good luck.
Yes, we have oxtail, Robert said. And, yes, he’d be happy to show it to me. He stopped his hog jowl cutting, left one refrigerated room for another and returned with a box containing three oxtails.
Some clarification may be needed here: From a butcher’s point of view, oxtail and cow’s tail are interchangeable. An ox is an adult male cow that has been castrated and put to work pulling something, a cart or a plow. Hog jowl is the muscle in a hog’s jaw. Jowl at Sunflower sells for $1.49 a pound; oxtail, once had for almost nothing, now brings $6.99 a pound.
At this point I’d not planned to make oxtail stew, but then Beth found a recipe in “Smoke and Pickles” a cookbook by Edward Lee, who makes “Southern food with an Asian twist” in Louisville, Kentucky.
New Year’s Day morning bright and early I was back at Sunflower.
“We cut ’em every day,” said Phillip Pennington. He retrieved a box of uncut cow tails from the freezer, and I made my selection. While Phillip sectioned the tails, I stepped back into the grocery area and there met Jessie Walker, who was carrying a single package of hog jowl.
“We’re gon’ be cooking it with black-eyed peas,” Walker said.
Walker, 69, said his grandmother and his mother cooked the dish every New Year’s Day when he was growing up in Artesia.
The soft-spoken Vietnam Vet said he would be at the stove this year.
“I was the only boy in the family,” Walker said, “and my mama taught me everything she taught my (five) sisters.
“It’s supposed to make you have a prosperous new year,” he said.
Has it worked? I asked.
“I’ve been prospering pretty well,” Walker replied. “No complaints.”
By then Pennington had my oxtails cut and wrapped, $22 worth.
Leaving Sunflower I noticed Bobby Jordan over at his barbershop across the way. Bobby is one of those people who never seem to age; he is always dapper. New Year’s Day was no exception.
Everyone vacated the kitchen, only reappearing when I called for help — What is star anise? Allspice? Black bean paste? How do you mince ginger? What do I do with all this fat?
I followed the directions more or less and ended up with a dish that was eatable. Remember this: If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t improvise, especially when it comes to sherry. The recipe called for a cup of dry sherry; why not two, I thought. A bad idea.
“This tastes like it has a little too much of something,” one of my tasters said. He was being charitable.
The next day I stopped by Helen’s hoping to pick up some guidance from the master. (The only time I’d eaten oxtail stew was at an event she catered five or so years ago. Her stew was rich, sophisticated, even ambrosial.) She wasn’t in, but her son Kabir, also an oxtail enthusiast, had plenty of advice.
I’ve duly noted it all and will try again … maybe next New Year’s Day.
Fire on the water
Hope you can make the Christmas Tree bonfire across the river from Riverside Park on Thursday at 6 p.m. Someone heard about another community having one, and we wrote an editorial advocating such. Mayor Robert Smith liked the idea, and so did his department heads. Voila, we’re having our own.
Salem, Massachusetts, Fire Chief David Cody — his town will have its 12th annual bonfire on Friday — said last week his community’s bonfire (held on a beach) has grown to a popular family event.
Here’s hoping ours starts off that way.
“Those trees will burn a long time,” Cody said.
He said Salem public workers collect enough trees to make an 18-foot tall by 30-foot wide pile.
Expect the fire to last well into the night, Cody advised.
“We start at 6 and it’s still going at 10,” he said.
The old 82 bridge should provide the perfect vantage point.
I have it on good authority that not too many years ago on New Year’s Eve Vee Ferguson and friends were cruising the Tombigbee on his pontoon boat, replete with pink plastic flamingos and Moody Blues soundtrack.
Maybe there will be boaters at Thursday’s event. Not too close, boys and girls, you’ll melt the flamingos.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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