Haters Gonna Hate, But Gwyneth Doesn't Care

I know.

I know.

You don't like Gwyneth. You hate Gwyneth.

Lots of people can't stand her. Apparently, it's such a common thing that Buzzfeed recently had a feature of "22 Pictures that may just cause you to like Gwyneth Paltrow again."

If you're one of those people, I think you should change your mind. At least, change your mind about her cooking.

I recently picked up her cookbook It's All Good, and I have to say, it's quickly becoming my favorite kitchen companion.

The theme of the cookbook is simple cooking that is good for you - hence the title. The story behind it is that Gwyneth felt really gross and thought she was going to die one day, but it turned out she was having a migraine and a panic attack. So a doctor basically told her to cut everything fun out of her diet - including deep water fish. Never heard that one before; I guess it has something to do with mercury. Then she found out her family is basically sensitive to gluten and cow's milk and angels and kittens and rainbows (hmm... maybe that is why people don't like her).

All of the recipes in this cookbook are labeled according to the kind of diet you might be on - elimination, vegan, protein-packed, etc. This sounds like it might be a huge bummer, but it totally isn't. So far, everything I've cooked has been full of flavor, filling, and pretty to look at. 

I especially like this book because it is perfect for someone like me, who doesn't eat mammals. There are only a couple of meat recipes; the non-veg recipes are mostly chicken and fish. I've made Gwyneth's Spanish-style barbecue chicken, the roast chicken, and Tandoori turkey kebabs. Every one was delicious.

I will say that most of the cooking times haven't been accurate for me, but I think it's mostly my stove.  Nevertheless, I'd make sure you're using a meat thermometer if you're cooking any of the chicken dishes.

And I'll admit it, I kind of like the pictures of Gwyneth lounging around her farm. I'm pretty sure her life is just like mine... right?

Pop Culture Update: Spring 2013

The theme of this pop culture round up is "Grrrrl Power", as I realized that every one of the pop gems I'm featuring this season has a strong woman (or more than one) at the center, from a tough little girl to a spy to a   powerful wizard.

I also got wise to the fact that the categories of "Movies" and "TV" and "Books" that I've been using make absolutely no sense in this crazy, mixed-up, interweb universe we live in. When I organize drawers I tend to organize by function (things that adhere; things that cut). So I've decided to take a similar approach to the categories below. Each title will include how I accessed the media - although there may be other ways to access these.

Things to Watch (Non-Serialized Variety)

Upstream Color, available OnDemand

It's impossible to describe writer/director/actor Shane Carruth's new film, Upstream Color, without sounding ridiculous. As evidence: it's about worms that get in your bloodstream and make you susceptible to brainwashing. And pigs. And orchids. See? Ridiculous. But wade in.  You won't regret it. If you watch it at home, I recommend turning off all the lights and turning off the phone, so you can get washed away just like you would in a real theater.

What Maisie Knew, in theaters
Maisie is a little girl with terrible parents who love her in the way that utterly self-absorbed people love others. She has two beautiful, young, and kind stepparents who are caught in the torrent of these terrible parents. Some awful yet ordinary things happen to her. If What Maisie Knew (based on the Henry James novella), was told with any distance, it would be hard to watch. It's told from Maisie's perspective, however, and you're brought into her world of toy animals and fabric crowns. Grounded by a remarkable performance by Onata Aprile, as Maisie, this is the kind of portrait of childhood that I haven't seen since 1996's Ponette (another stunner, if you haven't seen it).

Things to Listen To
I do almost all of my listening on Spotify these days. The premium account is around $10 a month and allows you to listen to playlists offline. I like having a steady stream of all the music on my phone.

I Was an Eagle, Laura Marling
Laura Marling's world is one of devils and angels. It's also a world of old-fashioned-style folk music: a girl and a guitar and her declarations and confessions. This isn't any harmonizey post-Mumford stuff (although, fun fact: Marling used to date the Mumford in charge). While nothing quite lives up to my favorite Marling song, "The Beast" (which is just scary), the album, particularly it's title track has been getting a work out on my computer headphones lately.

Things to Watch (Serialized)

Covert Affairs, Season 3, available on Amazon Streaming
When I was a kid, I made up stories about a girl spy named Jamie Pond, double-oh-six. So I'm basically the target audience for Covert Affairs, a show about a young female spy named Annie Walker. I recently started watching past seasons on Amazon. Seasons 1 and 2 were decent fun, like most USA summer shows. And then season 3 broke the case-of-the-week structure in favor of a season-long arc, dealing with what it means to be a woman staking claim to power, loneliness and loss, helplessness when our loved ones are in pain. I'd recommend the first two seasons to get to know the characters - particularly leads Annie and Auggie, played sympathetically by Piper Perabo and Christopher Gorham; and Oded Fehr as the recurring character of Mossad agent Eyal Levine. Once you're all caught up, though, you'll find that Season 3 is a whole different beast - stronger, darker, and deeper.

Orphan Black, BBCAmerica and Amazon Streaming
A young, punkish woman named Sarah stands on a train platform. She watches as another woman - this one well-dressed and business-like - jumps in front of a train. But just before the woman jumps, Sarah sees that they have ... the same face. This is the high concept beginning of Orphan Black. As Sarah investigates, she begins to find other women who look exactly like her. Each woman is played by Tatiana Maslany, who has got to be one of the most talented actresses working today. Playing a suburban housewife, a hippie scientist, an insane Ukrainian - just to name a few -- Maslany pulls off an incredible string of performances. Each woman is distinct from the others, and all of them are critical to the plot. My only
quibble with the show is that sometimes it's Canada-as-New-York production values are a little sloppy. Would an American husband use "I got up early to watch cricket" as an excuse for why he wasn't in bed? Probably not, but it's easy to brush nitpicking aside when the action and characters are so brilliant.

Top of The Lake, Netflix Streaming
Jane Campion's seven-part mystery series completely gets the dichotomy of living on the frontier. Though surrounded by beautiful scenery, you're also surrounded by poverty, crime, and lack of options. Those who choose to live in that rough world are often rough themselves. The series reminds me of the Northern Idaho country where I lived as a child, but in this case, it's New Zealand's lake country we are talking about. Elisabeth Moss (yes, from Mad Men, which I have not been watching this season) plays Robin, a detective who has returned to her home town to visit her dying mother. While she's back in town, she is called in to work on the case of a missing little girl. As the mystery deepens, Robin is forced to confront her past. Sounds familiar, right? You've seen this tale before. But the setting, the acting, and of course, the Jane Campion touches of weirdness, put Top of the Lake above your typical procedural. I wish that the final chapter wasn't quite so overwrought, but you can't do gothic without some twists and family mysteries.

Things to Read

Siege and Storm, by Leigh Bardugo
Siege and Storm is the second book in Bardugo's "Grisha Trilogy," a series about a young woman living in a kind of alternate version of Tsarist Russia called Ravka. In Shadow and Bone, we learned that Alina is a wizard with a unique power. In Siege and Storm, multiple players are after that power. Alina is a likeable character to whom many a geek girl will relate. Even better, Bardugo's writing has become more lyrical and self-assured. With snappy dialogue, clearly-described action sequences, and lovely descriptions, Siege and Storm should bring the Grisha Trilogy above other similar YA novels, particularly those about glittery vampires.

TheMarySue.Com - A Guide to Girl Geek Culture
Why didn't I know about The Mary Sue earlier? It's a website about geek pop culture for girls! It's got articles about why Alice Eve had to take off her clothes in Star Trek: Into Darkness for no reason! It's my new favorite website.

Recipe: Homemade Refried Beans

... And now for something completely different.

So, it's a little heavy around here, right? What with the activism and the inspiration and the visits to prison?

Here's some food activism for you, then.

As I've been working to dramatically decrease the number of canned products I buy (if I can't get a BPA-free can), I realized I would have to find a substitute for one of my staple foods - canned refried beans. I'm rather famous in my family for my love of beans (c'mon, they are like the perfect food - filled with protein and fiber and deliciousness). There are a couple of companies, like Eden Organics, that make plain canned beans that are both readily available in many regular grocery stores and come in BPA-free cans. However, it's much harder to find the refried beans in my local groceries.

Luckily, I've discovered that making refried beans is incredibly easy and they taste 1000 times better if you make them at home. It really doesn't even seem like the same food. Just goes to show that most of the food we buy is processed to the point that we don't even know how the real thing tastes.

Before the recipe, a couple of notes:

• Traditionally, refried beans are made with lard or bacon fat or some other animal fat. Because I don't eat red meat, I use butter in the recipe. It's extremely tasty, but if you are a carnivore and you want something more authentic you could substitute fat from an animal, I suppose.
• You need cooked pinto or black beans for the recipe. I usually cook them in my slow cooker and then save 2-cup portions in my freezer, along with the liquid from the slow cooker. You can use canned beans, but of course, you want to be sure that you find one that says, "this can was made with a liner that does not include BPA," or something similar. 
• I usually make my beans in the slow cooker with onion, garlic, and cumin. If I do, I reduce the amounts in the recipe below. The recipe below is written as if you're using plain beans.

Homemade Refried Beans

Ingredients:

• Cooked pinto or black beans with the liquid. For each cup of beans you use, you'll need:
• 1 tbsp. butter
• quarter of an onion, chopped
• 1-2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I like less salt than many Americans, so you could use a little more if it's not flavorful enough for you)
• 1/2 tsp. cumin
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper

Step 1: Place the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When it's just about melted, throw in the onion and garlic. Saute for 2-3 minutes.

Step 2: Add the beans and the spices. Bring to a simmer. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 20-30 minutes or until the liquid is mostly reduced.

Step 3: Take the beans off the heat and mash with a potato masher until they are the consistency you want - I like mine to be chunky.

Step 4: Let sit for 5-10 minutes to thicken.

You can then use these in tacos or burritos, or as a side dish. Yum!

On Rising, Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1, you might want to start there or this might not make much sense.

One of my favorite quotes is a simple two words, repeated.

"We rise... we rise."

It's said as a kind of prayer by Pocahontas in Terrence Malick's gorgeous film, The New World. To me, those words encapsulate what the work of social justice is all about: we rise. 

Not "I rise." Without others, we cannot lift ourselves from our mistakes and tragedies.

These words echoed in my head as I spent the day, a couple of weeks ago, with the men of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (a.k.a. PEP). It came at the end of that terrible week - the bombings in Boston, the explosion in West, the death of the gun control bill in Congress. I think many of us who were there that day were feeling lost.

Inside the walls of the PEP classroom, though, joy was overflowing. The word "love" was thrown around freely. Men - big, tattooed, incarcerated men - danced. It was like nothing I had ever seen. In my work, we say that the highest level of classroom culture is "passionate, urgent, joyful and caring." I've been in very few classrooms that exemplified this kind of culture, but PEP certainly did.

As I spoke with the men, they talked of who they were when they entered the program: reclusive, closed off, selfish. They had gone through character assessments from the other men, had been charged with transforming themselves and held accountable by their fellow participants. Not one man that I met could be described as reclusive. They greeted us with cheers, smiles, handshakes.

I realize this all sounds naive, as if I'm ascribing some magic to what I saw, or forgetting what these men did. I assure you, forgetting was impossible; they were totally honest about the actions that had led them to prison. They talked about the families back home, not knowing if they would be welcomed back. One man spoke of his deepest desire: to have a paying job - any job. He had never had one before.

I had a lot of swirling thoughts and realizations that day, but the one I keep coming back to is this:
transformation happens in community.

Most people in society would consider prisoners to be untrustworthy, dangerous, sick. Many of the men I talked to admitted that they had been those things before. But because of the community they had formed, the love of others, the love of the volunteers, they were rising together. Not everyone would make it to the summit. A few would re-offend, end up behind bars again... but more would not. 

That seems like everything we want as a society - for the broken to feel whole, for the lost to be found, for the sick to be well. Now that I have seen PEP, my work in education has a new urgency. Because, as I mentioned, most of the schools I visit are more like traditional prisons than they are like PEP. But if the men of PEP can rise together, then we have no excuse for not lifting our children - no matter how poor, no matter the color of their skin, no matter what country they came from - to heights that are unimaginable.

And I, as a college-educated, privileged White person, cannot rise if anyone - be she prisoner or child, immigrant or homeless -- doesn't rise with me. We rise...

We rise.

On Rising, Part 1

"What's going to happen next that will totally transform the way I think about the world?" asked my friend Melissa, turning to me.

"I have no idea," I said. I imagine that I was grinning ear to ear.

We were sitting in a large classroom in a prison north of Houston, as guests of a remarkable group called the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (a.k.a. PEP). As Melissa said, over the course of a few hours, we had been changed by what we had experienced.

The past couple of years, I've been listening to my father's stories of his visits to see my stepbrother, who is currently incarcerated. My family is proof that any family can be impacted by our country's criminal justice system, but the facts are: you're much more likely to be impacted if you are a) a person of color; b) poor; c) under-educated; d) all of the above (or mentally ill, addicted to drugs... any weakness that might have brought you favor in the eyes of Christ brings you to a cellblock in America). In our schizophrenic "Christian" nation, we espouse the belief that people can change and that redemption is possible, while at the same time refusing to spend money on justice that restores people who have committed crimes.

As I've listened to my father's descriptions of his visits to prison, I've become more and more uncomfortable. You see, education is "my" issue. While I care about most progressive causes, I devote my life to educational justice. What I began to realize, as I listened to my father, is that schools that serve poor children function much more like prisons than they do like the colleges or businesses in which we hope our kids will find a place. Our schools, it seems, are often training children for prison. 

I'll give an example: the "bubble in the mouth." 

You may not be familiar with this term unless you teach young children in primarily low-income neighborhoods. In many schools, children as young as four are expected to walk silently down the halls of their school. Because this is difficult for exuberant kiddos to maintain, they are told to hold a "bubble in their mouth." They puff out their cheeks like Dizzy Gillespie, seal their lips tight, and go.

Try it. It's uncomfortable. It's hard to pull off for more than thirty seconds or so. If upper-middle-class, White children were asked to hold a bubble in their mouths, many parents would call b.s. at best; abuse at worst. Yet this is common practice in many preschools that serve low-income children.

I thought of this the day I visited the prison with Melissa and some of the teachers with whom we work. I saw men walking silently down a cinder block hall that had been divided by a tape line. It looked just like some of the schools where I coach teachers.  The path from classroom to courtroom seemed clear.

Inside the walls of the PEP classroom, though, things were different. There was joy, there was community... there was love.

The idea of PEP is simple: men from Texas prisons who are within three years of release apply to the program, and those who are accepted are taught business skills. The program culminates in writing a business plan - the day we visited, we were giving feedback on the draft plans. The program is wildly successful. Men who go through the program have a dramatically lower recidivism rate than the general prison population.

Sure... you're saying to yourself. I bet they pick the guys who are least likely to re-offend. I bet guys who will fill out an application are probably less likely to re-offend anyway.

Maybe. But when we were at PEP, more than one guy said he applied for reasons other than wanting to be an entrepreneur. Air conditioning was a big theme in the reasons why the men wanted to do PEP. Yet a few months into the program, they were fully bought in, part of the PEP community. It didn't seem like there was anything truly different about the men of PEP... until there was.

All of this is preamble. This is here to set up the post I've been trying to write for a couple of weeks, the post that describes what I learned that "transformed everything I know about the world." I know that nothing I write will really represent the experience I had. Yet this is what we try to do, we idiots who call ourselves writers. We try to describe the indescribable.

Coming up... Part 2.

What I've Been Up To

Trust me, I am working on a new post ... but, it's taking me awhile. In the meantime, here's what I've been doing:

I've been...

picking blackberries in my yard,

visiting my new nephew...

... and finishing up this blanket for him,

watching this amazing, feel-good movie,

and taking care of this cute cat ...

... who is also very naughty!

Light Green. New. Improved. Better Tasting.

When I was a teenager, I saw a story on the news that really disturbed me. It was about a study that found that most activists had parents who were also activists.

"Well," I said, looking over at my parents, who were also watching the news (and possibly reading Vogue if the parent was my mother), "I guess I won't be an activist then."

Haha! Little did I realize at the time, my parents were stealth activists.

You see, I had a picture in my head of activists as slightly-unclean, too-skinny young people waving signs and being arrested in front of the School of the Americas.  While direct and disruptive actions - such as protests - are important for galvanizing support, introducing issues to a broader audience, and communicating large-scale messages to those in power, often they don't create the lasting change we would want. After all, the School of the Americas is still open - even though it did change its name.

Dr. Gene Sharp, one of the primary researchers into non-violent actions for social change, identified one hundred ninety-eight ways that people can take non-violent action in order to transform the status quo. Those range from the big demonstrations to the daily actions that we can all take - such as using alternative forms of transportation, boycotting certain products, and establishing new social patterns. The most successful social movements have used combinations of the grand and the small to impact the power structure.

This daily social activism is the kind that my parents modeled for us throughout our lives. They chose to live modestly, often in rural settings, so that my father could work as a teacher and later as an administrator for several American Indian tribes. My mother made daily choices about what we ate, watched, and bought so that we would grow up healthy and conscious of helping other people. And you know what? It worked. My sister and I both went into social service careers - she as a social worker and I as an instructional coach for new teachers. I've spent my life as an activist for educational equity. Thanks to my parents, I learned that activism takes many forms.

So, you'll probably notice that Light Green has had a bit of a make-over. Lately I've been wanting to expand the reach of this blog to not only encompass daily actions that help the environment, but also daily actions that influence the issues that I care most about, including actions that you can take no matter WHAT you're passionate about. And frankly, I feel like I've written about as much as I can about using vinegar to clean your house. 

My time, action, and money tend to concentrate in the following issues (so you'll probably see posts about these things)

1. Social justice, particularly educational equity and the well-being of children

2. Civil rights for women and minorities

3. The environment, especially the intersection of our food culture with its environmental impacts

4. Media and popular culture

But don't worry! There will still be lots of recipes (see number 3), cute cat pictures, and updates from the farm. Because to me, these are all (well, maybe not the cat pictures) part of how daily life can be lived as a form of protest against a culture that doesn't support the health and well-being of all its citizens. The cat pictures? Well, who doesn't want to see a cute cat picture?

Springtime on the Farm

Get thee behind me, pizza!

Is it March already?

Not only is it March, but we're well into March. The kiddos here in Houston are on their spring break, the flowers are starting to bloom, and I've been able to sit outside on some glorious spring days. 

However, I didn't really do too well on my February plan to taking control of what I eat and drink, as part of making 2013 The Year of Health and Wellness. My plan was:

• To use an online tool to track what I eat and drink
• Drink only one caloric beverage a day 
• Eat lunch out only on Fridays, and stick to salads and soups when I do so.
• Plan my meals for the week each Sunday and shop accordingly.

I have rooted out a big culprit in eating unhealthy: my office is always full of food. We host lots of meetings for board members, guests visiting from other teams, our teachers. Every time we do so, we order food, and then the leftovers are put out on the counter for anyone to share.

So while I've been planning my meals and cooking healthy, I've also been eating lots of junk food at work.

In March, my plan is to stick to the four bulleted rules above, and to add one more:

• Don't eat food at work unless it's part of the weekly meal plan (or the occasional cookie - but ONLY ONE, and only if it's a kind I actually like.)

Sometimes we have team lunches and I'll know ahead of time, so I can plan for it. I'm not going to give up those, because I consider them an important part of our team culture. However, I am going to forego the leftover pizza, chips and dips, bagels, etc. I bring healthy snacks each day, but sometimes they go uneatedn. So I'm going to eat those instead of eating leftovers.

So, spring, let's see what you've got for me.

What do you get a girl for Women's History Month?

I'm not going to lie. I have mixed feelings about Women's History Month. I imagine that African-Americans feel the same way about Black History Month, and people of Latin heritage feel the same way about Hispanic Heritage Month. It's too little too late.

The Euro-centric patriarchy is saying: Hey, we know we've systematically oppressed you. We know that we've treated you as property, refused to listen to you, and under-educated you. We know that we've written a story of our country that doesn't include you. But look - here's a month where we'll put up posters you!

I kind of want to say back: Hey, take your stinkin' month.

But then again, I want to run through fields of flowers and hug my copy of Little Women in celebration.

(Insert crack about how women never can make up their minds, to put the misogynist cherry on top of the sundae of my mixed feelings).

Despite the fact that we can't erase thousands of years of oppression with 31 days of NPR stories about boundary-busting women, it's worth pausing for Women's History Month. Why? Because many think that feminism, like other equal rights movements, is no longer needed. Here are a  few things to think about, if you're not sure why we still need a women's rights movement:

• Globally, 1 in 5 girls who are eligible are not in primary school. 2/3 of illiterate adults are women.
• Only 12% of university physics faculty members are women. 43% of physics faculties have NO women.
• Women are 51% of the population but hold only 18% of the seats in Congress. This is a historical high. Only 29 women in Congress are women of color. 
• Seems obvious, but the US has never had a female president or vice-president. Countries that have had a female head of government? Pakistan, Bangladesh, Germany, Norway, Indonesia... and more
• On ABC's Scandal, Kerry Washington is the first African-American female protagonist of a network drama in FORTY YEARS. Mindy Kaling is the first woman of color to write, produce, and star in a network sit-com. EVER.
• Hollywood's highest earning male actor (Tom Cruise) makes $75 million a year. The highest paid female (Kristen Stewart) makes $35 million.

Even if all of these statistics eventually become equalized, will things really have changed?

Here's the thing about oppression: the oppressors write the rule book. They get to determine what it means to be successful, to be good, to be worthy. Improvements in civil rights become defined as "getting to do what the oppressor formerly kept you from doing" -- things that the oppressors deemed as valuable in the first place.

So yes, women might one day make as much money as men. And then what? The idea that money is a sign of worth has been imposed by a system created by and benefiting white men. Women might hold more political offices, but the governmental systems are all defined by the patriarchy. All our dearly-held values were determined by a system in which the voices of women and minorities were diminished.

So what does this mean, if we are seeking to be equals in a system that we didn't create? What does it mean for Women's History Month?

I don't know for sure.  I think it means that we have to say what we want, and not what we believe we should want. We need to stop judging other women. Women have to tell a lot more stories, in our own ways -- not just stories of the women who get on Women's History Month posters, but stories of our mothers and grandmothers and sisters. And then we need to shut up and listen. Because the patriarchy has determined that the person with the loudest voice is the one who gets the spoils, but there exists within us a world where the one that hears the softest voice will gain the greatest wisdom.