To Love Another Person Is To See The Face of God

Memoirs of a Six Suitcase Girl in a One Bag Allowance World

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The Church Of Les Mis

Beth Haile dissects the moral theology in Les Miserables (spoiler alert):

In the end, Valjean is a man, "no worse than any other man," as he explains to Javert. The critical difference between the two is that Valjean is willing to live out a life of mercy. He is willing to both give and receive it while Javert can do neither. When Valjean offers Javert mercy, saving his life at the barricade, Javert is tormented. His system is broken, his god dead. As his world comes crashing down, he plunges into the Seine. Valjean, on the other hand, looking up with shame into the eyes of the bishop whom he just stole from, chooses to accept mercy, and then give it in return–to Fantine, to Cosette, to Marius, and even to his enemy.

Victor Hugo apparently had a strained relationship to the faith but the story has a very Christian message: "To love another person is to see the face of God."

The Daily Beast January 6, 2012

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Define "God" as you wish.  Call it God or Grace or Love, Compassion or Kindness.  It doesn't matter what we choose.  I think it is what keeps any of us from willfully plunging from a  high bridge into a cold and deep river, be that river figurative or literal...

Pixies on Parade

Memoirs of a Six Suitcase Girl in a One Bag Allowance World

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We saw Les Miserables last week.  I loved every single moment of it.  The cinematography was just phenomenal.  We had seen it on the small stage in the west end years ago.  The movie version allows one to see the actors faces and nuanced expressions.   Also, the movie allows for such wonderful scenery and costuming.  Every actor was phenomenal.  I especially loved Sasha Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter who add whimsy and panache to an otherwise heavy story line.  They were just perfect.

I decided to take direction from the wonderful Anne Hathaway who hacked her long tresses to play the role of Fantine.  The dayafter the film I went to a new stylist reputed to be the master of the straight edge razor textured modern Pixie cut and told her to have at it.  She spent over an hour just on the cut.  I love it.  I don't pretend to be an Anne Hathaway.  I'm thirty-four years older than she is. It's not easy to be turning sixty-five soon.  There's nothing worse than an old woman trying too hard to look young.  I've vowed to never put the knife to my face, but hair and make-up are another storyI'd like to age with aplomb.  But...the cut is a classic worn by Audrey Hepburn and others.  I wore the style for years. Even though my longest strands are now about three inches,  I'm really happy I had it done.

What's It All About, Alfie?

Memoirs of a Six Suitcase Girl in a One Bag Allowance World

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 I'm really not very good about the whole new year thing.  I don't feel any difference between 2012 or 2013 or even 1989.  I mean, I don't really mark time as other people seem to do.  Holidays aren't a big deal to me.  We don't really make a big deal of anniversaries or birthdays or Christmas.  Christmas to me seems like a figurative armed robbery where someone holds an imaginary gun to your ribs and hands you a list of what they want you to hand over to them.  As far as the new year and regrets and resolutions to do better; well, I'm not good with that whole concept either.  I figure I have a finite time allocated to be sentient from like zero to whatever.  Three hundred and sixty five days per unit has nothing to do with that.  I try to live an authentic life and be the best human being I can be every day.  Sometimes I falter, mostly I muddle through without causing much harm.  I don't need lots of little task  resolutions to do that, just I guess basically an understanding of a set of a broad rules like the ten commandments.  If you can understand them conceptually rather than literally, well then, life is pretty easy, you've got a moral compass and it has nothing to do with formal religious dogma. 

Anyway,  That's pretty much who I am.  Nothing complicated about me.  Who are you?

Hits of 2012

Memoirs of a Six Suitcase Girl in a One Bag Allowance World

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Hits of 2012

• After much hemming and hawing, finally taking the plunge and buying the Zebra for the lower stairway landing.  It's 4'X4'square.

• Mastering the art of pizza making and vowing to never again eating commercial varieties

• Spending the last two weeks of November including our tenth anniversary and Thanksgiving ( both falling on the same day) with family in England and enjoying a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner of bangers and mash

 Spending the first 15 nights of December aboard the gorgeous Celebrity Cruise ship, crossing the Atlantic  at  a leisurely pace being pampered and indulged every single moment...such bliss...

•  Coming home after almost five weeks out of the country and finding that my daughter had decorated the house for Christmas

 

 There were some misses in 2012, but I've decided that they are not important enough to record for history.

Braised Beef Short Ribs Atop Creamy Polenta

All I have to offer is a recipe I created for tonight's dinner of  beef short ribs.   Very simple, very delicious.  I served them over polenta. I love polenta.   I use Bob's Red Mill Coarse Stone Ground Corn Meal for my polenta.  It's the best. 

 

Braised Short Ribs

 In a heavy dutch oven or any pan that can go from stove to oven,salt and pepper ribs and thoroughly brown ribs on all sides in a small amount of oil.  Remove ribs, drain all but a bit of the oil.

 Make a sofrito. Sofrito (Spanish) or Mirepoix(French) is basically just celery, carrots, garlic and onion cooked down in oil or butter.  I cook my sofrito as a paste by first tossing it all in the food processsor and then sautee'ing it in a small bit of oil.  I put the carrots and celery on the bottom and onions and garlic on top to prevent the onion from becoming onion water.

In the pan in which you browned the ribs add a bit more oil and cook the sofrito for about 10 minutes, often scraping up the bottom browned layer.  After this I added a bottle of cabernet savignon, 3 bay leaves, a bunch of thyme, 2 cups of beef broth, salt and pepper and I let in all cook down until it was reduced by half.  Once reduced I added 2 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar. 

Add the ribs back in, cover and bake at 300 degrees for three hours or so.  More time will not hurt it.

The polenta is easy...6 cups salted water brought to a boil.  slowly add 2 cups corn meal stirring all the time.  Reduce heat and cook, stirring frequently until thick and creamy.  Remove from heat and add a big ol' glob of butter and some grated parmesean or romano.