1. On Saturday, Debbie reminded me that we had more eggplant in the fridge and wondered if I might make a pasta dish with eggplant but without tomatoes.
I was happy to do that. In short time, I found a recipe to follow and got crackin'.
I began by cutting all of our eggplant pieces into small cubes, putting the cubes in a couple of bowls, and generously salting the eggplant and leaving the salted eggplant alone for about twenty minutes.
I poured a puddle of olive oil in a Dutch oven, heated it up, and added the eggplant along with three minced cloves of garlic, a shake or two of oregano, a few pinches of hot pepper flakes, and cilantro leaves. I combined and cooked these ingredients until the eggplant was just shy of mushy and, at the same time, boiled a bunch of spaghetti.
When the spaghetti was done, so was the eggplant mixture. I drained the spaghetti, combined it with the eggplant, and our delicious dinner was ready after each of us topped our helpings with grated hard cheese.
2. Before I did a little shopping at Yoke's this morning so that I'm ready to make tomorrow's appetizer for family dinner, I stopped in at Beach Bum Bakery and bought a lemon poppyseed muffin, a bracing and hot cup of coffee, and a couple sourdough baguettes. The muffin and coffee hit the spot and I'm always happy to have baguettes in the house.
3. Today, I read more deeply into Kathleen Belew's book, Bring the War Home. Much of what I read was focused on white power groups' growth and activity in the 1980s. More people got involved. Their focus became more and more anti-government. Efforts to recruit participants from both the military and in prisons found success. The military connection was vital. The white power militias and milita camps depended on military veterans not only for ideological support, but for military training expertise. Involvement of military members also helped white power groups stockpile weapons and explosives, in part, through stealing them from military bases.
Running parallel to the white power movement becoming more and more like the military was the way civilian police forces and federal law enforcement groups were, too.
Right now, I'm moving into Belew's writing about the standoff at Ruby Ridge and the events at Waco, TX. Belew argues that both of these events have to be seen in light of the growth of white power violence in the years preceding them and in how law enforcement agencies had become more and more like the military in terms of weaponry and strategies. It was a volatile and explosive mix.
Belew's research uncovers much more than I've written here, including a chapter on the role of women and ideas of femininity (and masculinity) in the white power movement.
I'll keep chipping away at other dimensions of her book in future posts.
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