“How can a nation be called great if its bread tastes like kleenex?” ― Julia Child I’ve learned a lot from Julia Child over the years. As a young boy watching her on public television, I learned that the kitchen was a place I could work hard and find immense pleasure. As a young man, …
Author Archives: Jonathan Simcosky
A Thoroughly Modern Beefsteak Banquet
According to Wikipedia: Beefsteak banquets originated among the working class of New York City in the mid-1800s as celebratory meals or “testimonials”. The meal would generally be set up by an organization wishing to laud or raise money for politicians, newly promoted friends, or celebrities. Early beefsteaks were held in a relaxed, men-only atmosphere, with diners sitting …
Dia de Ñoquis / Pasta Friday
On the first 90 degree day of the year, two pots of water are boiling away on the stove. We’re elbow deep in steaming potatoes plunked down and kneaded right on top of the kitchen table. Children are pouting. Children are running. Strangers are introducing themselves. I’m orchestrating a complex training scheme to facilitate efficient, …
Diner en Blanc: 30th Anniversary
Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. – William Wordsworth “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early …
Death over Dinner
What’s the most important and costly conversation Americans aren’t having? According to a group of medical and wellness leaders, it’s how we want to die. If 75% of Americans say they want to die at home, why do only 25% of them do? As a consequence of the United States’ unique profit-first health care, religious …
Disrupting Easter
The plan was to have a fairly traditional (for me) observance of the Easter Triduum, the three day period between Maundy Thursday and Easter that recalls the passion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus as recorded in the canonical gospels. Nothing too disruptive. . . Nevertheless, true to form, I didn’t exactly stick to plan. …
Disrupting Holidays: Purim Play
After a lifetime of not observing Purim, I made hamantaschen twice this year! Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates Queen Esther’s saving of the Jewish people from Haman, who was planning to kill all the Jews. The story is recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther, with contemporary overtones I can’t help but notice. …
Disrupting Holidays: PlayTime with Glitter + Ash
“You hate nothing you have made.” Since 1549, Thomas Cranmer in the opening line of his [modernized] Collect for Lent in the Book of Common Prayer has been reminding us that the act of creation is actually a labor of love. Serendipitously for my ongoing project of disrupting holidays, Ash Wednesday, the first day of …
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Disrupting Christmas: Part III
Finally, reclining on my luxury Mexican coach en route direct to Ciudad de Mexico, I’m feeling much better about how this little pet project is playing out. After what I hope will be the saddest Christmas Eve of my life (completely self-inflicted I completely realize), everything’s been looking up, since those three Alabama state troopers …
Disrupting Christmas: Part II, Bethlehem manger > Montgomery floor
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. “This is the day the Lord has made, let …
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Goat anyone? 