I've decided to fill the void that is the Sons of Anarchy hiatus with one of my other passions: cooking. Bobby Elvis and I are soul mates in this respect. I love cooking for the people I love. I'm not an especially effusive person when it comes to public displays of affection, so I show folks I love them by making tasty things to eat. My dear husband probably blames his inability to lose his grad-school weight on the fact that I insist on cooking with real butter and whole milk.
Anyway, I made this amazing pot of French onion soup tonight, and during the process I thought to myself: "This is something Bobby Elvis would do for the boys in the club house. He's a worldly guy...he probably tries to expose the guys to as many different dishes as he knows how to cook."
So, here's my recipe. I'd like to think it's something Bobby would throw together. And, in the spirit of Bobby's enthusiasm for organic foods, I used as many organic ingredients as possible.
Ingredients (for six to eight servings)
1 1/2 pounds organic sweet onions (about two large).
1 big tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons organic sweet cream butter
1 heaping tablespoon salt
1 heaping tablespoon sugar
3 heaping tablespoons flour
2 quarts organic broth (I used a quart of vegetable broth and a quart of onion/beef broth)
1/2 - 3/4 cups Madeira (or other dry California white wine)
Organic Jaarlsburg cheese (Swiss or Parm work, too)
A loaf of organic French bread (day-old okay)
Instructions
Peel and slice onion to your preferred thickness. Steam on low in a covered, four-quart soup pot or saucepan with the butter and olive oil for about 15 minutes. If the onions start to brown too quickly (which it may do if you sliced it thinly), turn the heat down a little.
Add the sugar and salt to the onions. The salt is for flavor and the sugar (also a little for flavor) helps the onions brown evenly. On mid-to-low heat, cook the onions slowly until they are a golden brown. They may take anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes to cook, depending on onion thickness.
When the onions are a golden, carmelized brown, add the flour. I know this sounds strange, but trust me...it's all part of the process. Stir until the flour is absorbed.
At this point, your house probably stinks of onions. I apologize for that.
Add the broth and bring to a slow boil. The soup will seem relatively thick at this point. Then, add the Madeira. Return to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer and let simmer for 40 minutes. Make sure you partially cover the pot so the yummy flavor stays in there. Stir and taste occasionally to adjust flavor.
Slice and toast the bread until just crunchy. I prefer big, beefy slices of bread, but this is a personal preference thing. Place in oven-safe clay or porcelain bowls (if you have any bowls with handles, well, that's even better).
Pour a big spoonful or two of soup over the bread. Top with a slice of cheese and place in a toaster oven. I used the toaster-setting and toasted the soup until the cheese was melty and bubbly. Microwaves work, too. You could also put the bowl under the broiler until the cheese melts.
Yummy. Here's to keeping resolutions!
Friday, January 15, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
SAMCRO Resolutions: 2010
I know, I know....resolutions.
But there's something to be said for resolutions that may be fairly easy to keep, given enough inspiration and the occasional reminder. Thus, I present to you my list of Sons of Anarchy inspired resolutions. Note, there is nothing here about losing weight or quitting my somewhat embarrassing chocolate habit.
1. Share the road. If anything, Sons of Anarchy is a great reminder for those of us cagers out there to keep our eyes open for our fellow motorists on two (or three) wheels.
2. "I accept that." My new mantra for the year 2010, inspired by our two-fingered friend Chuckie. I'm not known as the most flexible person in the world, so my next resolution for the year is to be willing to accept the things I can't change and learn to live around them.
3. Bake lots of banana bread. What better way to show the people you love how you feel than to bake them banana bread? Or buy them fresh, organic muffins. I wonder if Bobby's recipe is posted anywhere.
4. Be fierce. Granted, I just said that I'm going to "accept" those things I can't change...but I'm not going to back down from the things I can and know I should. This includes standing up to power-tripping administrators and wrong-doers.
5. Take one for the team. In times like these, sometimes we need to consider the bigger picture. We need to think about our wider role in the system, rather than our place at the center of it. So, here's to putting aside some of my own wants and desires this year in the name of a greater good. This is my shout out to you, Juice and Otto.
6. Embrace diversity. This is a given, and I'm mostly good at it (I hope). However, there's always room for improvement. Here's my effort this year: porn stars are people, too. However much I want to do what Gemma/Tara did to their cars at CaraCara....it's better to befriend than cause extensive damage that requires expensive repairs and filling out painful insurance claims.
7. Care for my community. I love where I live - I love the weather, that there are no drive-thrus, that I have a thriving downtown to stroll and that all of the big box stores are on the outskirts. This is a resolution to be a more active member of my community, to speak out when I don't like where someone wants to take it, and to use my voice and my wallet as forms of activism. We don't have a chapter of the SoA in our town, so we need to look after ourselves.
8. Stay out of prison. Let's face it, a stay in prison has more minuses than pluses. Sleeping in a cell designed for four with twenty other folks just isn't my idea of a pleasant time. I enjoy my privacy too much and don't fancy getting shived for not being in the right group. I've had good luck with this one so far, so let's hope this is another successful year. And, really, orange just isn't my color.
9. Keep out of the ATF's radar. Yeah...Agent Stahl is one scary bitch. I don't plan on doing anything that would attract someone like her to my quiet little corner of the world. Therefore, I shall not be making any nefarious arrangements with scary underground groups.
10. Be a good listener. Here's to really listening to people. Here's to trying to understand what someone else is trying to say instead of formulating a response based on what I think they are saying, or try to solve their problem before they've even asked for advice (and maybe don't even want any). We've all done it...and it isn't very helpful. I resolve to be a good and careful listener. That's really what people want: someone to listen.
11. Forgive.
But there's something to be said for resolutions that may be fairly easy to keep, given enough inspiration and the occasional reminder. Thus, I present to you my list of Sons of Anarchy inspired resolutions. Note, there is nothing here about losing weight or quitting my somewhat embarrassing chocolate habit.
1. Share the road. If anything, Sons of Anarchy is a great reminder for those of us cagers out there to keep our eyes open for our fellow motorists on two (or three) wheels.
2. "I accept that." My new mantra for the year 2010, inspired by our two-fingered friend Chuckie. I'm not known as the most flexible person in the world, so my next resolution for the year is to be willing to accept the things I can't change and learn to live around them.
3. Bake lots of banana bread. What better way to show the people you love how you feel than to bake them banana bread? Or buy them fresh, organic muffins. I wonder if Bobby's recipe is posted anywhere.
4. Be fierce. Granted, I just said that I'm going to "accept" those things I can't change...but I'm not going to back down from the things I can and know I should. This includes standing up to power-tripping administrators and wrong-doers.
5. Take one for the team. In times like these, sometimes we need to consider the bigger picture. We need to think about our wider role in the system, rather than our place at the center of it. So, here's to putting aside some of my own wants and desires this year in the name of a greater good. This is my shout out to you, Juice and Otto.
6. Embrace diversity. This is a given, and I'm mostly good at it (I hope). However, there's always room for improvement. Here's my effort this year: porn stars are people, too. However much I want to do what Gemma/Tara did to their cars at CaraCara....it's better to befriend than cause extensive damage that requires expensive repairs and filling out painful insurance claims.
7. Care for my community. I love where I live - I love the weather, that there are no drive-thrus, that I have a thriving downtown to stroll and that all of the big box stores are on the outskirts. This is a resolution to be a more active member of my community, to speak out when I don't like where someone wants to take it, and to use my voice and my wallet as forms of activism. We don't have a chapter of the SoA in our town, so we need to look after ourselves.
8. Stay out of prison. Let's face it, a stay in prison has more minuses than pluses. Sleeping in a cell designed for four with twenty other folks just isn't my idea of a pleasant time. I enjoy my privacy too much and don't fancy getting shived for not being in the right group. I've had good luck with this one so far, so let's hope this is another successful year. And, really, orange just isn't my color.
9. Keep out of the ATF's radar. Yeah...Agent Stahl is one scary bitch. I don't plan on doing anything that would attract someone like her to my quiet little corner of the world. Therefore, I shall not be making any nefarious arrangements with scary underground groups.
10. Be a good listener. Here's to really listening to people. Here's to trying to understand what someone else is trying to say instead of formulating a response based on what I think they are saying, or try to solve their problem before they've even asked for advice (and maybe don't even want any). We've all done it...and it isn't very helpful. I resolve to be a good and careful listener. That's really what people want: someone to listen.
11. Forgive.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Yet have I something in me dangerous. . .
I've been tossing around a comparison of Jax Teller and Hamlet for a couple of weeks now and am finally ready to get some thoughts down on the proverbial paper. I'm only scratching the surface with this blog - the comparison could go much deeper.
I was totally into the dark, brooding guys in high school; the guys who always seemed to be contemplating the more depressing aspects of life as they wrote in their black leather-bound journals using black ink and tiny, nearly illegible script. Although they seemed to carry with them a certain ennui about life on their hunched shoulders, they carried it well - the dark yet neatly donned clothes, the ponytail so carefully slicked back. So, when we read Hamlet in high school, I have to admit I always felt a certain level of affection for the perpetually prickly prince. Despite how unfairly he treated Ophelia, I wanted to throw my arms around the suffering Dane and tell him that everything was going to be okay. His tortured soul was so attractive. He was so quick to act on some things - how he treated Ophelia, the impulsive murder of Polonius - but contemplative, even strategic in his plotting to avenge his father. The audience is never entirely certain of his madness (Polonius even recognizes the method to it), never knowing if it is a function of his father's murder and his need for revenge, or if it is a carefully crafted ruse to distract everyone. And, while we're suffering with him through his "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," Hamlet delivers some great lines to his rivals that makes us think: "damn, I wish I was quick like that."
Jax Teller doesn't necessarily share Hamlet's appeal as the dark, brooding type. The attraction to Jax is much more in the "bad boy" vein wrapped up in a male model package. Yet, we all know Jax to be so much more dynamic than that. We know, for example, that he's well read - how many of us actually got through Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in high school? Jax tells Tara that the book almost made him a vegan. We know how passionate Jax is about the Club - it defines who he is and gives him purpose - something Hamlet never really had. We've seen him contemplate his father's words on the roof of the clubhouse and journal his reflections...maybe he's even penning a new edition to The Rise and Fall of Sam Crow.
Where Jax and Hamlet are similar is much scarier when it comes to Jax's character arc. Jax is both contemplative and impulsive. Unlike Clay, he's a big picture guy. Clay, like Hamlet's uncle Claudius, sees power as an ultimate goal. We know that Jax understands that it isn't power that's necessarily important - it's what one does with power once it's achieved. John Teller, like Old King Hamlet's ghost, provides some perspective for his son as he tries to navigate the tricky sphere of influence in Charming.
But Jax is so quick to act that he often undoes his own carefully laid plans. Consider the episode in Season One when he had Half Sack dig up a dead body to use in a crime scene fabrication in order to distract the Lodi CSI crew away from the burnt gun factory. Clay initially wanted Tig to find someone to kill, but Jax convinced everyone that using a member of the already-deceased would be better. Good plan. Very noble. Yet on their way to stage the crime scene, a jerk in a mustang cuts Jax off. They eventually run into the guy again, and guess what: the guy ends up dead because Jax impulsively confronts him. Now, Jax didn't actually kill the guy, but his actions created the right formula for the man's death.
Another area where the two characters overlap: self-loathing increases as time passes. Hamlet's is based on his role in the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia; Jax's as the MC unravels before him and he feels increasingly powerless to stop the downward spiral and somewhat at fault for it.
Where will these similarities lead Jackson Teller?
I was re-reading some of my favorite quotes in Hamlet today, and this line in particular gave me the chills about Jax:
"Though I am not splenitive (means to be angry, hot headed) and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous." (Act 5, Scene 1).
And now we see the most impulsive act by Jax yet...to go nomad. What will the fallout be? How will he affect change in the Club if he isn't there? Will Stahl try to turn him? What will Tara do? We know from the previews for next week that Piney tries to convince Jax to stay, and that Gemma introduces Jax to the theory that his dad's death wasn't an accident (so juicy...did she have a role in John Teller's death? Is she omitting important information?).
What is it about these characters that make them so appealing? For that matter, what is it about any fictional character that makes them so attractive that we spend our time blogging and tweeting about them? I've thought about this a lot, and I have a theory: they are at once larger than life and completely familiar. We all know someone who reminds us of Jax or Bobby or Clay or Gemma. Piney in particular reminds me a little too much of one of my relatives. But we also don't know anyone like Jax or Clay or Gemma....or Hamlet. They say things we never have the nerve to say and do things we're too chicken to do. And we, like the Greek Chorus in Oedipus, must watch them make the worst mistakes while we shake our heads and shout "NO! Don't do that! Zobelle is behind it all!"
They are fantastic, and they are real, and they are really fantastic.
Where Jax and Hamlet are similar is much scarier when it comes to Jax's character arc. Jax is both contemplative and impulsive. Unlike Clay, he's a big picture guy. Clay, like Hamlet's uncle Claudius, sees power as an ultimate goal. We know that Jax understands that it isn't power that's necessarily important - it's what one does with power once it's achieved. John Teller, like Old King Hamlet's ghost, provides some perspective for his son as he tries to navigate the tricky sphere of influence in Charming.
But Jax is so quick to act that he often undoes his own carefully laid plans. Consider the episode in Season One when he had Half Sack dig up a dead body to use in a crime scene fabrication in order to distract the Lodi CSI crew away from the burnt gun factory. Clay initially wanted Tig to find someone to kill, but Jax convinced everyone that using a member of the already-deceased would be better. Good plan. Very noble. Yet on their way to stage the crime scene, a jerk in a mustang cuts Jax off. They eventually run into the guy again, and guess what: the guy ends up dead because Jax impulsively confronts him. Now, Jax didn't actually kill the guy, but his actions created the right formula for the man's death.
Another area where the two characters overlap: self-loathing increases as time passes. Hamlet's is based on his role in the deaths of Polonius and Ophelia; Jax's as the MC unravels before him and he feels increasingly powerless to stop the downward spiral and somewhat at fault for it.
Where will these similarities lead Jackson Teller?
I was re-reading some of my favorite quotes in Hamlet today, and this line in particular gave me the chills about Jax:
"Though I am not splenitive (means to be angry, hot headed) and rash, yet have I something in me dangerous." (Act 5, Scene 1).
And now we see the most impulsive act by Jax yet...to go nomad. What will the fallout be? How will he affect change in the Club if he isn't there? Will Stahl try to turn him? What will Tara do? We know from the previews for next week that Piney tries to convince Jax to stay, and that Gemma introduces Jax to the theory that his dad's death wasn't an accident (so juicy...did she have a role in John Teller's death? Is she omitting important information?).
What is it about these characters that make them so appealing? For that matter, what is it about any fictional character that makes them so attractive that we spend our time blogging and tweeting about them? I've thought about this a lot, and I have a theory: they are at once larger than life and completely familiar. We all know someone who reminds us of Jax or Bobby or Clay or Gemma. Piney in particular reminds me a little too much of one of my relatives. But we also don't know anyone like Jax or Clay or Gemma....or Hamlet. They say things we never have the nerve to say and do things we're too chicken to do. And we, like the Greek Chorus in Oedipus, must watch them make the worst mistakes while we shake our heads and shout "NO! Don't do that! Zobelle is behind it all!"
They are fantastic, and they are real, and they are really fantastic.
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