Vic Socotra

23 July 2008

Slow Food

The Author's 10-inch Swiss Diamond Fry Pan

It is moving too fast, way too fast. Hardly time to think about the consequences of anything. The rains are coming hard today, presaging a big change.

I have a pal who is going to testify before the Congress of These United States, one courageous woman who i s going to take on the House Armed Services Committee and the Department of Defense. I would like to be there to support her, and will try to turn out if I can, but the problems at the office are like the tiny ants I am starting to see here in Tunnel 8 on the 4th floor of Big Pink.

It is easy enough to bomb them with Raid or one of the other weapons of minor destruction, but then I will be polluting my own little ecosystem, and I will be ingesting the same poison.

Too busy to do the right thing. I find that repellent. You have to stand up for something, sooner or later, and I really admire those who do. My pal was a damn good naval officer, and while serving honorably, lived a life of quiet desperation, wondering if something awful was going to fall on her out of the blue every day.

It makes me squirm a little bit. My pal is doing the right thing, and turning over some rocks to show what is underneath for all to see. When you live in the shadow world, there is a natural reluctance to make waves or do anything to make you stand out in the crowd.
Going before Congress to say that the Department of Defense is wrong is a dramatic damn-the-torpedoes act of courage. It is time for a change, and I hope she gets it for those who are still on active duty.

When I don’t act on matters of conscience, I feel embarrassed t hat I have something in common with banality of evil. Normally I don’t think I have much in common with Radovan Karadzic, mass-murderer and Mr. Serbia Best Big Hair of 1994. Apparently he had been hiding in plain sight right in Belgrade. He had not even been on the run; his disguise was fabulous. He had gone from Rock Hair to Santa Clause from Hell. His white beard is much cooler than Saddam’s and he was sporting a bizarre top-knot on the top of his head.

I am hoping they extradite the son-of-a-bitch, give him a fair trial and hang him. In whatever order is most convenient.

They say that in his new private life he was an open advocate of alternate homeopathy, and talked to large public gatherings about it. That is where the coincidence starts to get=2 0uncomfortable. He had to change his life radically because the long arm of the law was after him.

I think he might support Slow Food.
These days, to a degree, everyone is in favor of Slow Food, even if they don’t know it. The formal movement came out of Italy, a place where people take their time with just about everything.

Carlo Petrini is the man who originated the concept back in 1986, when Disco and Dance had replaced the Woodstock ethos, and some bright folks realized that with modern intermodal transportation, fruit and vegetables could be shipped around the world from the fields=2 0and trees that were in season wherever they were.

There was a slight problem, of course. The varieties of things like Tomatoes needed some improvement so they would travel better, stay on the shelf longer and be more resistant to pests.

The biologists were happy to oblige, and that is why the stuff in the Commissary’s vegetable aisles is actually brightly colored tasteless plastic.

I am in favor of flavor, and that predilection happens to coincide with the Eat Local movement. I am in favor of local farmer’s markets, and in favor of cooking slow to bring out the savory goodness.

What has happened to the tomato and the Artichoke is an outrage, a minor war crime. Tomatoes should come from the same zip-code, succulent and delicious, and the only artichoke worth eating should travel by rail when ripe from Castroville, California, and not the Philippines.

My problem with Slow Food as a movement is that is comes with a bunch of baggage. The founders were the sort of limousine liberals who managed to combine the principles of high quality and taste with a strong dose of social responsibility.

There is a strong anti-technology and anti-globalization streak to the whole thing, which is where I get off the gravy train. I pick my issues on the merits, like my frying pan.
I have been experimenting with slow cooking for a long time. The venerable crock-pot was an early favorite, but that was intended to allow you to throw some plastic vegetables and half-thawed stew meat into the thing on the way out the door in the morning.

After work, Voila! Dinner that cooked itself!

Not a bad start, but it was a pain in the butt to clean up and I wasn’t always alert enough to keep the electrical connections out of the water. That is how I came to the Swiss Diamond frying pan.

There are two things that are absolutely essential in the kitchen: a good knife, and a good pan. There are all sorts of cult groups that sell them in those uncomfortable in-home quasi-religious meetings.

My Swiss Diamond came with no missionaries. It features a revolutionary non-stick surface formed of industrial diamonds that create a virtually indestructible non-stick coating. I have been cooking on mine f or about two years, every meal, one way of another, and the coating has not peeled, cracked, or blistered. The solid six millimeter pressure-cast aluminum core is flat as a die, and perfect on my gas stove.

The best part is the tempered glass dome that fits tightly on top, and which, coupled with the minimal gas flame available from my left front burner, allows me to watch the locally-grown tomatoes meld gently into whatever sauce I am cooking, or get friendly with the left-overs.

I can cook stuff for hours. I put the ingredients in when I get home from the office and everything is done to perfection before I go to bed. Sometimes I have cooked stuff overnight, low heat, and slow, slow cooked.

Which leads to one of the pleasant side-effects of slow cooking- by the time it is done I am no longer hungry, and transfer the meal from pan to Tupperware direct, no middleman at all.

So, I am totally committed to Slow Food, though I am holding my options on the social justice part of it.

I am cooking a brisket today, by the way, and it will be done after the rains and thunder blow through, and after my pal testifies to the Congress that the fact that the love of he r life happens to be another woman really did not have much to do with the quality of her service to the nation for thirty years.

That is one thing I agree with. It has been a long-simmering issue, and it is about time to take it off the stove.

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