All Things Michael Miles

I found a tasty little recipe this weekend after picking up some kohlrabi at the farmer’s market. If you’ve never tried kohlrabi, put it on your list. It’s a relative of the turnip and radish, and quite delicious raw or cooked.

The provenance of this recipe apparently begins with the October 1992 issue of Gourmet magazine. It was then modified by Alanna Kellogg, who posted it to the website A Veggie Venture. I have further modified it.

3 bulbs kohlrabi
2 Granny Smith apples
6 oz. plain yogurt
1 lemon
3 T chopped mint
1 t stone-ground mustard
1 t sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Squeeze lemon and reserve 1 tablespoon of juice. Trim and chop kohlrabi and apple into batons. Place in bowl, and toss with lemon juice to prevent oxidation. Set aside.

Mix yogurt, reserved lemon juice, chopped mint, mustard, and sugar. Whisk until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper. Toss with slaw and serve immediately with mint leaf garnish.

I came across this quote today while reading Andrew Bacevich’s new book, Washington Rules.

…committing U.S. units to counterinsurgencies appears to be a very problematic proposition, difficult to conclude before domestic support erodes and costly enough to threaten the well-being of all America’s military forces (and hence the country’s national security), not just those involved in the actual counterinsurgency.

David Howell Petraeus, “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam: A Study of Military Influence and the Use of Force in the Post-Vietnam Era” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1987), p. 305.

Nothing else can be said, can it?

Tuesdays are flexible for me: the dog goes to daycare, and I don’t have any client obligations, so sometimes I find plenty of time on my hands. Today I decided to head downtown to the Art Institute of Chicago and check out the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit. Cartier-Bresson was a singular force in modern photography, and his career spanned five decades before his retirement in 1975. Exhibits like this are why people live in big cities.

As usual, the Art Institute did a fabulous job, and I got a little lagniappe when I automatically went downstairs to the photo galleries and found a wonderful tribute to Louis Sullivan, the famous 19th-century Chicago architect and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. In addition to some lovely graphite sketches of variations on building ornamentation – done by Sullivan – the exhibit is comprised of silver-gelatin prints from three artists: John Szarkowski, Aaron Siskind and Richard Nickel, who came together in the early 50′s at the Institute of Design. The three of them documented Sullivan’s work throughout Chicago, at a time when many of the beautiful buildings were being demolished for urban renewal. Szarkowski went on to replace Steichen at MoMA, Siskind was an influential photographer in his own right, and Nickel – a favorite of mine – remained in Chicago to pursue the documentation and preservation of Sullivan’s work. Sadly, he was killed in 1972 when a stairwell at the Chicago Exchange building collapsed while he was salvaging precious ornamental work before its demolition. In all, about 50 images comprise the exhibit; don’t wait too long to see it.

Cartier-Bresson’s catalog stretches from the early 1930′s through the mid-70′s, and the Art Institute has many examples from each important period. The first gallery includes early works from Spain and France, as well as his travels into colonial Africa. There is an entire gallery devoted to the portraiture of many celebrities and intellectuals, and significant space is given to his work in China and the Soviet Union. Cartier-Bresson was known for his ability to photograph ‘in the moment’, to capture the essence of the interaction between subjects, including the audience. This exhibit does a magnificent job of highlighting that ability, and because of that it is an emotional experience that is most enjoyable.

One thing that I learned today was that Cartier-Bresson was not enamored with darkroom work, and did not print his own negatives. He only cared about the image itself, and could not be tied down with the technicalities of the darkroom. Interestingly, that made my examination of his work different than the previous exhibit, for I didn’t examine the nature of the print as much as I sat back and viewed the image more holistically. Given the nature of this artist’s work, I think that is the best method.

The show runs through October 3rd. Whatever you do, don’t miss it.

With all the bogus controversy surrounding the Park51 Community Center in lower Manhattan (also know as the Ground-Zero Mosque), the right-wing has boxed themselves into a corner. How does “common sense” dictate that Muslims should relocate their place of worship, but gun zealots get to carry cop-killing bullets? If the test is just a matter of diffusing trouble, then we should hold the NRA to the same standard.

Today marked my second visit to Smoque, a great barbeque joint in the Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago (about a block south of the Irving Park Blue Line stop.) Snaps to Bridgid for pointing me in the right direction a few weeks back.

This is a down-and-dirty, community-seating, corner restaurant that is moving serious volume even at 4:00 in the afternoon. As you walk in, there is a sign instructing you to order first, and a large blackboard detailing your choices. The kitchen is open and visible, and the buzz is high.

I ordered a brisket platter, which comes with slaw and two sides. Today’s choices were mac & cheese and cornbread. Total cost: about eleven dollars with my Coke, which I poured at the fountain before sitting down with my book.

So, there are a couple of things that make or break a barbeque joint: getting the meat right and offering great sides. One challenge for thrifty restauranteurs is devoting the necessary time to barbeque. I can’t even begin to recount all the delicious-smelling, chewy ribs I’ve had over the years. So I’m always skeptical. But both my platters at Smoque were done right. Tonight’s brisket was sublime: the outside of the meat had a thin layer of char, while the brisket fell apart with the touch of my fork. The flavor is so lovely that using sauce should be a crime. I can’t wait to go back and try a slab of ribs.

The sides were a mixed bag. This is usually where I bitch about barbeque joints. First, the good stuff. The cole slaw is awesome; a perfect combination of sweet and tart. It is included with every platter, as it should be – this is their signature side. I also enjoyed the cornbread. It was simple and full of flavor. But most important, the moisture and texture was very enjoyable. The mac & cheese left me pretty ambivalent. It wasn’t bad, just nothing special. Especially in this day of over-the-top mac & cheese offerings, I felt let down. Next time I will definitely go back to the baked beans.

You can’t go wrong here. And believe me, I’m just repeating what others have said. But given my proclivity to eat red meat, I’m looking forward to many more delicious meals at Smoque.

I play housewife in my home, so I shop a lot. Over the past couple of days, a theme has emerged. I guess it’s always been there, but lately it has moved to the forefront of my thoughts: there are a lot of ‘medicine wagon’ remedies for sale in our culture.

That they exist at all is a testimony to the effectiveness of the traveling salesman and the gullibility of the consumer. We all know the stories of men traveling from town to town, selling liniments and tonics guaranteed to accomplish everything from hair restoration to longevity. He would stay long enough to achieve market saturation, deplete his inventory of herb-infused sugar water, and then move down the road. He never had to return, so he never had to worry about repeat business. The next shyster that came along had little trouble selling his wares, since people never seemed to be hesitant about giving their trust. Which brings us to the interesting question about our nature: why do we still give that trust to the traveling salesman, after generations of getting ripped off?

Of course, the salesman has evolved, staying well ahead of his customer base. Today he is in the pharmacies and health food stores, has branding campaigns and even carve-outs in federal regulatory law. So we don’t see the medicine wagon anymore. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there. On a recent trip to Whole Foods, I walked through the supplements section and found pollens, root extracts – everything but powdered rhino horn. People flock to these remedies without any reason to believe that they will help, other than what is printed on the label. And thanks to our Congress, led by Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the supplement industry is pretty much allowed to print anything they want on the label, and put anything they want in the product. The only difference between then and now is that the Whole Foods consumer has more disposable income.

Where does this come from? One hundred and forty years later, it is easy to describe the consumer of 1870 as ignorant, but I’m not really sure that does justice to the question. There is a more complicated process at work here for the medicine wagon to have survived for so long. Surely it begins with vanity: as a person, we desire ways to look better, perform better, and feel better. Aging is a bitch, and anything that mitigates its effects is welcomed. But what about effectiveness, the main lesson in the medicine wagon story? Today’s remedies provide no more assurance of that, and as I mentioned earlier, we don’t even know if they are adulterated. All we really have is trust in the brand, which is meaningless. In fact, more science and information about these products hasn’t impacted their popularity one bit. It’s almost as if Americans are adamant about buying from the medicine wagon.

Individualism and libertarianism are two characteristics that Americans have embraced with pride, but sometimes it’s taken a little too far. Not that you aren’t free to discard your money at the medicine wagon. It’s just that the only kind of ignorance that can explain it today is the willful kind. Modernity and science have extended our capabilities far beyond ourselves, but that can only be embraced if we give up a bit of our individuality. To remain a rugged frontiersman (metaphorically, of course) we must reject that which others can provide, including knowledge. I’d like to think that, 140 years from now, we’ll be less likely to support the medicine wagon. But I have never embraced the frontier, instead preferring to build upon what has come before me. While it’s important to explore and forge new directions, growth occurs from the assimilation of that exploration, after the fact. Both are critical to improving our lives, and learning the lessons of the medicine wagon.

There sure are a lot of people using the word freedom these days. I hadn’t noticed, but apparently I’m living under the yoke of tyranny, which is probably a big surprise to the Burmese people. Anyway, I had an interesting conversation a while back with a dear friend over a bottle of wine. We are both great dog lovers, so I put the following question to her:

Who is more free: the dog running loose in a fenced yard, or the dog walking the neighborhood on a leash with his owner?

Now, the dog in the backyard has freedom of movement, and he can lay in the shade, or lay in the sun, without having to worry about the desires of someone else. To make a finer point, he can lay all day, as opposed to walking briskly and getting tired. If he wants to chase squirrels, so be it. He has the freedom to do many things, but one thing he can’t ever do is leave the yard. So, in a sense, he is a prisoner.

The dog on the leash has another set of issues. She is confined to a small area surrounding her owner. She must obey commands, and is expected to maintain a steady pace over a long distance. She cannot decide to lay down in the sunshine (although mine tries to.) Her leash is a shackle which restricts her movement. Of course, unlike her counterpart, she gets to experience life beyond the fence. In the course of her walk, she can meet and play with other dogs, and smell things that dogs smell. People will call her cute, and pet her, which makes her happy. She sees a much larger world than the dog in the yard.

There is [sadly] a third scenario. The feral dog lives in the city park, or a vacant lot. He has no concerns about fences or learning manners. He never yields to the command, “stay.” In a true libertarian sense, he is unencumbered by societal concerns and responsibilities. Unfortunately, his life is not only hard but very short. As we all know, if feral dogs aren’t rehabilitated at a young age, they die quickly.

So, what is your idea of freedom? Every form requires some kind of sacrifice. That is the point we so often overlook when we’re painting our protest signs and complaining about taxes. If we want to enjoy the benefits of living in an organized society, then we have to do our part to keep it organized. The alternative is the feral dog.