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January 27, 2021

The Chestertown Spy

An Educational News Source for Chestertown Maryland

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Spy Top Story

Bob Ortiz: A Mural for “El Trompo”

January 27, 2021 by James Dissette Leave a Comment

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Anyone who knows Bob Ortiz knows him as an artist who has long been at the forefront of promoting Kent County arts. If he’s not putting the finishing touch on an exquisite wood creation at his Robert Ortiz Studios on Cross St., he and musician wife Pam, as the Pam Ortiz Band, were performing pre-pandemic for the community.

Ortiz has always regarded his work studio as more than a place to create furniture. Countless artistic ventures, surrounded by table saws and raw planks of wood, have been launched there, from music and dramatic rehearsals to poetry and exhibits of fellow artists.

“I honestly believe that furniture making is the least important thing that happens in my shop,” he says.

Now, the master-craftsman feels a sense of responsibility to showcase two young artists he has taken under his wing for the last three years. From Latin America, the artists bring an aesthetic often under-represented on the Eastern Shore.

“In April 2021, I will celebrate my 71st birthday, and it’s clear to me that I’m in the final stage of my working career. With this in mind, I have felt that I have an obligation to be supportive, in an active way, of local artists who are starting out in their careers,” he recently wrote in a funding proposal.

With that in mind, Ortiz is offering the exterior wall of his shop as a blank canvas to emerging artists Fredy Granillo and Vanna Ramirez for their “El Trompo” mural.

“El Trompo,” or “the top,” is a nod to the ancient and universal children’s wooden toy spun from a string. Popular in Latin America and worldwide, the top in a child’s hand with a village backdrop will be the central motif in the artists’ mural.

The Spy recently talked with Bob Ortiz about the project, and the importance of showcasing the often underrepresented artists from the Latin American community whose roots in Kent County are deep and generational.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. To see more of Fredy Granillo’s art, go here. For more of Vanna Ramiriz’s art, go here.

 

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Filed Under: Spy Top Story

Chestertown’s Equity Advisory Committee Steps Up

January 25, 2021 by James Dissette 2 Comments

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The Equity Advisory Committee, part of the 16-month plan Chestertown Unites Against Racism addressed their progress during their second meeting on January 12 and the January 19 town council meeting.

Chestertown Unites Against Racism was passed by the Chestertown Town Council as a resolution to promote racial equity in September 2020.

The newly formed Committee is designed to educate the community about its history of race relations; pursue legislative reforms that address systemic racism in the Town of Chestertown; and promote unity, equality, and inclusivity amongst all residents.

Committee members are John Queen, Chairman; Kate Livie, Secretary; Brandy Barrett; Thomas Hayman; Vic Sensenig; Ruth Shoge; Reverend Robert Brown; Jen Baker; Latoya Johnson; and Bishop Ronald Fisher.

“Personally, I’ll say this: the Council and Mayor’s picks for committee members according to their skill sets, resources, and their connection to the community is one of the most well-rounded boards of been on, It’s refreshing to see this many perspectives,” says Committee Chairman John Queen.

And more perspectives are on the way as the Committee reaches out next month to the Downtown Chestertown Association (DCA).

“There are a lot of moving parts to this plan,” Queen says. Currently, their agenda plans for diversity and cultural training sessions, community dialogue with Washington College’s SGA, a series of historic videos highlighting the history of Black churches, police brutality, the history of lynchings, and the gentrification of parts of Chestertown. An introductory video and Chestertown Black Churches are currently in production.

Queen says he is pleased that focus on the Committee’s formation and goals have not been lost to the twin topics of the pandemic and politics. The Committee chairman seeks more community engagement, suggestions, and discussions to advance the group’s mission.

Here, Secretary of the Committee Kate Livie describes how the Committee is structured and its relationship to the town government. John Queen updates the council on their progress.

The Committee invites public comments during their monthly meeting. Participants will be given two minutes and must provide a current address within city limits, ward of residence, and council representative.

The next meeting is scheduled for February 9m 2021 at 7 pm. Links to the meeting, will be posted on their website. To find out more about the Equity Advisory Committee Chestertown Unites against Racism, go to their new website here.

This video is approximately 5 minutes in length.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

Snapshots of Daily Life: Intimations

January 24, 2021 by George R. Merrill 3 Comments

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At this tumultuous time, what should I write about? Something profound about recent political developments. As I thought about it, I heard an inner voice: “Put a sock in it, Merrill, give it a rest.” I took this as a sign.

I decided to write about something nice instead. I’ll write about my favorite photograph hanging in the studio where I write and process films. It’s particularly meaningful.

In the winter, it has been my habit to take to the fields, woodlands and the shore to photograph. Why winter? Spring, summer and fall reveal the earths plumage and busyness but, in these climes, winter shows the land’s infrastructure and reveals some of the basics that hold everything together.

I’d made similar excursions while living in Connecticut, but they weren’t as satisfying as they were in Maryland. In Connecticut, it often snowed – hiding the landscape. Snow left a bland sheet of white over everything.

In winter, Maryland’s rural landscapes are more generous in showing their stuff. Snows are less frequent so I’m able to see the nuances of their composition. In the other seasons, it is more difficult to see to the heart of what holds things together, their primal connections. Winter can reveal these connections

Speaking of how things are held together: my first visit to an orthopedist years ago was not particularly helpful, but it got me thinking about connections. I saw a life-size skeleton in the doctor’s consulting room. I wasn’t sure what kind of statement it was intended to make. Maybe nothing more than to remind me why I was there if I should get chatty and begin to wander too far from my complaint. I talk a lot when I’m nervous. I’d never seen a real skeleton. Was this the real thing? The thought spooked me.

I trusted the doctor’s office skeleton was not a commentary on the successes or failures of his practice, but only designating his specialty. I was almost sure that this skeleton wasn’t the real thing. Still, I was very conscious of its presence and remained curious. I decided it would be in poor taste to ask.

My winter walks often included frequent visits to small, old country cemeteries, many hidden behind old churches, alongside farmhouses or in open fields, lonely and melancholy. The epitaphs were sad. There was a famous 18th century epitaph I read about, less melancholy than it was sobering:

“Remember, friend, as you walk by, as you are now, so once was I,
As I am now you must be, prepare yourself to follow me.”

Whether about the fundamentals of a rural landscape in winter or the bare bones of a body, matters like this finally came down to how all things in this astonishing universe are connected; how one thing or a single phenomenon, apparently so different from another, or even distant, are conditional upon another. I believe this is one of the principal laws of the universe. For all its complexity, we understand only portions of it, but the natural world is, as we are, all of a piece.

I especially enjoyed roaming Elk Neck State Park at the head of Bay. I took the above photograph there in 1974. It immediately became my favorite.

I’d often be the only one out in the fields and woods, except of course for the critters like herons, geese, foxes and deer that roam through the fields. It was the leafless hardwood trees that seemed skeletons of sorts and they commanded my attention more than anything I witnessed that January day when I first walked the park. It hadn’t snowed. The day was cold and clear with clouds that came and went. Everywhere the bare limbs of the hardwoods were set against the dramatic sky that was alternately overcast and then sunlit; some trees were huge. Their leafless limbs reached out laterally, a few drooped downward, but most reached upward the way some tribal worshipers throw their arms up in the air in the intoxication of religious ecstasy; the tree limbs, crossing this way and that, presented a delicate tracery like a fine filigree does when silhouetted by the light shining from behind it.

As I saw the landscape, my instinct was to stand and be still and in the presence of the trees, reverently, as if I were on holy ground. I recalled the familiar call to worship in church liturgies that begin:” The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silence before him.” It never worked, at least in the churches I served. In seconds following this invitation, there’d be hymns, announcements, prayers, the sermon, muffled whispering, an atmosphere more like the Tower of Babel than the silence of a holy temple.

But here in this winter wood, a silent reverence was certainly the order of the day except for a bird or two and the sound of cold air as it passed between tree limbs with a soft rush.

No doubt there is particular grandeur to a tree in leaf –– especially the bold, gold and crimsons of fall and the delicate yellow-greens of Spring. There is yet another glory of trees when they surrender their leaves to reveal their graceful bodies and elegant limbs while waiting for Spring’s wardrobe to arrive.

I couldn’t count how many prints I have made over the years. If I could, I hope this would not reveal me as a misanthrope. Most images are of tidewater environs in winter, usually empty of people. The thing is, that it’s in standing in the very uncluttered expanse of land and water that I have sensed intimations of eternity.

The photograph’s value to me is not its aesthetic properties although there are some. It has served me more as a documentation of a special time when I once stood in a liminal space between two worlds, the one bound in time, the other outside it and how I had the strongest sense that both were connected.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

 

Filed Under: George, Spy Top Story, Top Story

Food Friday: Winter Salads

January 22, 2021 by Jean Sanders 1 Comment

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How are all your New Year’s resolutions holding up? Are you still walking 10,000 steps a day? Are you still eschewing alcohol (this has been a tough Dry January, but you can do it!)? Are you reading more? Are you still keeping a notebook handy for thoughtful jottings and ruminations? And what about your vegetable intake? I wish someone would sneak more vegetables into my diet, but being the chief-cook-and-bottle-washer around here, I can’t very well surprise myself with well-disguised broccoli or imperceptible beets. Therefore, I must suspend my disbelief and will finally surrender to adulting, and winter salads might be the best way to go.

I love a nice leafy, crunchy salad. I was raised on iceberg lettuce salads, so the discovery of romaine lettuce in college shifted the tectonic plates of my tetchy palate. I used to eat sun-warmed tomatoes out in the garden every summer, but grew up eating tasteless, refrigerated, hothouse tomatoes in my salads all winter long. Luckily time does march on, and we can avail ourselves of healthier greens all year long. Our local farmers have also come into the twenty-first century and are ready to nourish us with their winter bounties. Look for parsnips, garlic, turnips, rutabagas, leeks, lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, potatoes (sweet and regular), and cabbage.

The Ware family was going nuts on the Table Manners podcast this week, waxing poetical about “massaged kale”. Honestly. This was news to me, so off to Google I trotted. https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-massaged-kale-salad-15-minutes/ And as we all have delicate constitutions in this house, even omnivore Luke the wonder dog, I guess we will be massaging kale from now on. Put that hint in your handy notebook.

The dark of winter is a good time to introduce hints of color and sparkle to your salad. Cranberries! Apples! Cheddar cheese! Pomegranate seeds! https://www.foodiecrush.com/kale-salad-with-cranberries-apple-and-cheddar/

You can throw everything in a main course winter salad, by cleaning out the produce drawer in the fridge and adding shredded cabbage, carrots, Brussels sprouts, roasted squash, or chunks of apples. You will be cutting down on clutter while eating in a healthier fashion – surely that will be two more New Year’s resolutions you are attending to, because you are marvelously efficient and thorough. https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a104726/ultimate-winter-salad/

We still haven’t touched upon quinoa, grilled cabbage, or sweet potatoes. You can go meatless for weeks, and feel very smug about your resolutions. And since we can’t socialize anyway, none of your friends will know how smug you have become. Finally, a silver lining for our pandemic times: you can be insufferable in private. And when the good times roll around again, you will show off your toned legs, flat abs, and your newly bookish nature to great effect. https://www.saveur.com/best-winter-salad-recipes/

Here is a great chatty, weekly newsletter: Emily Nunn and The Department of Salad can guide you through the rest of the winter: https://eatsomesalad.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-department-of-salads

We have almost gotten through January. The first daffodil has bloomed in my front yard – I think it is regretting its rash and hasty decision already. Nonetheless, time is inching forward. Put down your phone, walk the dog, wear your mask and eat all your winter veggies. You’ll feel better. It’s almost time to plant seeds, and then the rest of the daffodils will start blooming, right on schedule.

If you are going to plant your own garden this year, now if a good time to go through some of the seed catalogues that have been arriving weekly. It’s almost time to start sowing seeds to nurture inside, while waiting for spring to arrive. https://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-calendar/MD/Easton#

“On Saturday afternoons when all the things are done in the house and there’s no real work to be done, I play Bach and Chopin and turn it up real loudly and get a good bottle of chardonnay and sit out on my deck and look out at the garden.”
–Maya Angelou

Filed Under: Food Friday, Spy Top Story

Chesapeake Bank’s Bob Altieri Takes His Seat as President and CEO

January 20, 2021 by James Dissette Leave a Comment

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The Chestertown Spy extends a warm welcome to Bob Altieri, the new President and CEO of both Chesapeake Bank & Trust and its holding company Chesapeake Bancorp.

Mr. Altieri, who succeeds Glenn Wilson, has broad experience in finance, including two decades at Carrollton Bancorp and Carrollton Bank where he became President and CEO and Howard Bank as Executive Vice President and President of Mortgage Division.

In Chestertown for just a month, Mr. Altieri is surprised by the recognition and warm welcome he has received.

“I’ve only been here a few weeks and already I’m greeted on the sidewalk. I come from somewhat of a more metropolitan area and this is really refreshing,” he says.

It’s that kind of personal relationship Altiera says is the hallmark of community banking and that Chesapeake Band and Trust has earned its reputation serving businesses and individuals while emphasizing personal relationships. He praises Glen Wilson’s 6-year stewardship of the bank and wants to continue CB&T’s financial leadership role in Chestertown.

“This is a true community bank. This is local, and everything you want from a community bank. We’re here to support the community.”

Here, Mr. Altieri talks about his experience, and how CB&T as a community bank offers the flexibility to work one on one with its customers in its commitment to help keep the local community vibrant.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. More about Chesapeake Bank & Trust may be found here.

Filed Under: Spy Top Story

The Legacy of Martin Luther King with Bishop Ronald Fisher

January 18, 2021 by The Spy Leave a Comment

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For Bishop Ronald Fisher of the Faith Life Church in Kent County, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is a simple one. With literally decades of service to the Eastern Shore and the church, the Bishop has been consistent in his firm belief that Dr.King’s legacy rests on the role of faith in conquering social inequality.

A native of Queen Anne’s County, Bishop Fisher quickly adopted into a life of service. In 1974, he started his life with God. He then promptly joined Gospel Church of God (Faith Life) two years later under pastor Bishop C.W. Cotton and succeeded him as Pastor in 1990.

Beyond his role as pastor, the Bishop has been an active participant on a state and local level. He has served as a counselor with the State of Maryland’s Division of Parole and Probation Boot Camp, provided sensitivity training for police departments, and is a member of the Kent County Extension Advisory Council for the Maryland Cooperative extension. He also developed two after-school mentoring programs, Boys to Men and Young Ladies on the Move.

With this deep background, Donald plans to focus on the power of MLK’s message in times of conflict for his virtual address today to the annual 19th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance and Breakfast. The Spy sat down with him last week by Zoom to capture his thoughts for those who couldn’t make the online event.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Faith Life Church please go here.

 

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

Art on Lockdown: Cassandra Kabler

January 13, 2021 by Dave Wheelan Leave a Comment

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For the last ten years, the Spy has always said one of the best art galleries on the Mid-Shore masquerades as a restaurant. With the keen eye of Amy Haines, her Out of the Fire establishment in Easton has displayed some of the very best art found in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Out of the Fire continues this generous contribution (the restaurant takes no commission) even during these dark days with the dining room filled on both walls the work of Claiborne’s Cassandra Kabler.

With some of her canvases reaching over six feet in height (in memory of her deceased husband’s size), the artist boldly explores colors and images that celebrate life as only a practicing Buddhist can (she is one), which bring to her work hope but also the fluidity of existence.

This video is approximately two minutes in length. For more information about Out of the Fire hours of operation please go here. 

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

The Photograph of Who We are Now by Jim Dissette

January 11, 2021 by James Dissette 9 Comments

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I recently walked by Charles Sumner Post today as dusk settled in over town. It was closed of course, but access was not why I was there. I had been thinking about a photograph, now iconic, taken in the National Statuary Hall of the US Capitol during the fatal insurrection by Trump supporters on Thursday. The image has a direct thread to Chestertown.

The photograph by Reuters photographer Mike Theiler shows a man waving a Confederate battle flag through the halls of the United State Capitol where portraits of past lawmakers pose regally from their frames.  It is doubtful the insurrectionist knew the identities of the two portraits captured with him during that fleeting moment.

Aside from the dominance of the Confederate flag, one’s gaze shifts to the portrait in the background, a full-bodied fellow with mutton chops who looks to be gazing off to some imagined future.

It’s Charles Sumner, the US Senator from Massachusetts, leader of his state’s anti-slavery movement and fiery abolitionist in the Senate during the Civil War.

Sumner devoted his life to ending “Slave Power,” the influence southern slaveholders had on the federal government and he almost gave his life up for it when beaten almost fatally by South Carolina Democrat Preston Brooks after Sumner gave a five-hour speech on the floor condemning Kansas’ admission to the Union as a slave state. The senator did not mince words and leveled his criticism at Senator Stephen Douglas calling him a “noise-some, squat, and nameless animal . . . not a proper model for an American senator,” and an even more scathing rebuke of Andrew Butler, another ardent advocate of slavery. Preston Brooks was Butler’s cousin and sought retribution for Sumner’s personal attack on his family’s pro-slavery stance.  

To the left of the criminal intruder waving the ultimate symbol of white supremacy, is another portrait, the South Carolina statesman, John Calhoun. Calhoun, a slave owner, equated human bondage as equity and a signifier of status among the South’s elite. He once wrote “The will of a majority is the will of a rabble. Progressive democracy is incompatible with liberty.” 

And there it was: the trifecta of converging elements mixed into the bloody and explosive alchemy we saw in display during those few hours as the Capit0l lay fallen in the hands of marauders who ransacked the Capitol and the American psyche, a perfect summation of white supremacy and the moral imperative to end it. 

It’s hard to say what a Venn Diagram of last Wednesday’s coup attempt against the Capitol would look like if you added every belief and grievance that clawed its way through the building that day. One would have to add the Proud Boys and other militia groups, Q anon cultists who believe that the government is run by blood drinking satanic pedophiles, CEOs, Republican officials, GOP donors, anti-maskers, evangelical Christians who blessed Trump with moral authority, ex-military, and Trump adherents in the grip of self-reinforcing denial that the 2020 election was a massive conspiracy,  many of them capable of committing murder, and some who did, all spurred on by the President and his entourage of spokespeople fomenting summed up by Rudy Giuliani’s call to arms just hours before the onslaught: “Let’s have trial by combat.”

Amid the overlapping circles in the diagram, its center, where one usually finds the commonality within separateness, what would we find? I think we might discover a two layered center—the fervent Trump supporter rallying to the call of his false claims about the election, and the venom of white supremacy.

The day after the insurrection that cost the lives of Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick and four others, Ford Foundation President wrote “I have long believed that inequality is the greatest threat to justice—and, the corollary, that white supremacy is the greatest threat to democracy. But what has become clear during recent weeks—and all the more apparent yesterday—is that the converse is also true: Democracy is the greatest threat to white supremacy.

Yes. Consider the reenactment of the George Floyd death under a BLM banner at National Christian Church Wednesday morning; the disparity in the police response Wednesday to last August’s BLM protest; a noose dangling from a beam outside the Capitol building; a man wearing an Auschwitz t-shirt after breaking into Congress, the Confederate Stars and Bars fluttering next to Trump flags. Where else would a threatened white supremist strike but the heart of democracy, the halls of the Capitol.

Of course, many thousands of true believers in Trump’s delusion of a vast conspiracy to defraud the election made their way to DC not to commit violence but to uphold their right to protest. They feel disenfranchised, cancelled, with no one at the helm to address their grievances.

In one interview this weekend, a Black woman commented “maybe now you know how we feel.” We will never know that fully, but maybe we are in inch closer.

Reflecting on the photograph once again, I see less the racist with the flag or the bench-jawed Calhoun eternally counting his slaves, but more the gaze of Charles Sumner still imagining some future, perhaps prescient with the knowledge that racism would continue to wear many hats and its fever dream would long seep into the fabric of the nation and continue to manifest in attitudes, policies and systemic malignancies. He wouldn’t have been wrong.

As I walked away from the building on Queen St. bearing Charles Sumner’s name for its heritage as a post for Black veterans of the Civil War, I thought about something else he wrote: “I have fought a long battle with slavery; and I confess my solicitude when I see anything that looks like concession to it.

Anything.

Jim Dissette is the editor of the Chestertown Spy. He acknowledges with thanks The Atlantic’s staff writer Clint Smith for calling attention to the image.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Spy Highlights, Spy Top Story

Snapshots of Daily Life: Crisis by George Merrill

January 10, 2021 by George R. Merrill Leave a Comment

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According to The Guardian, a rat was sighted in New York City engaged in what can only be called “take out.”

He was seen on the steps of a subway entrance carrying a pizza slice twice his size, far more than he needed. He proceeded down several steps to the train platform. A rat would not qualify for delivery services and I’m sure he wasn’t trying to catch the uptown. He was taking lunch home somewhere in the tunnels. Remarkable really but slightly irregular. I think of rats as more covert, furtive in their habits.

The Guardian also reported other animal anomalies.

In England, a kestrel was seen regularly checking out his reflection in the traffic camera on a busy corner. His vanity was insatiable: he returned regularly to check his image and primp even though he was harassed by a magpie and a raven. He also was buffeted unmercifully by high winds.
In California, a peacock somehow found its way into a liquor store. I can only assume by his behavior that he’d had a beak full, and was wasted before he even got in. He ransacked the store and caused hundreds of dollars-worth of damage knocking bottles off the shelf. This behavior in the critter world may strike some people as amusing, but I found it troubling at first.

In January of this year an aggressive squirrel terrorized the residents of Rego Park, Queens in New York. Locals have become fearful of leaving home lest they become the victims of a squirrel attack. Some residents, exercising their right to bear arms for personal safety, have taken to the streets carrying weapons, notably pepper spray. Micheline Fredrick, a Rego Park local, told the Guardian that she had been targeted by the squirrel in a bloody attack on December 21, while holding the door open for a furniture mover. “Suddenly the squirrel ran up my leg . . . and I thought how can this be? The furniture man ran inside for cover leaving Ms. Frederick to be “bitten on her arms and hands, with her little finger badly gnawed.”

These anomalies from the natural world express my own sense of this day and age where all anomalies are regarded as norms. I wish we were kinder and gentler, a little more predictable. Chaos and unnatural acts are seen everywhere. There’s little certainty, little dependability and nothing that one can, “put in the bank” as the saying goes. Where does one go for solace? In nature, of course. But the solace of nature may be under siege, too. Is nature going nuts? Or are these critters behaving as we do.

In the last four years, and particularly in the last several days, I feel I have lived in a topsy-turvy universe. Some of our elected officials have been behaving in erratic and cruel ways, like the errant rat ort peacock. More recently, vigilantes, like the predatory squirrel, stormed the Senate chamber bringing death and injury. For what reason isn’t clear. Are planets faltering in their orbits and stars crossing?
When I feel troubled, I try taking a long look. It’s to gain perspective, and in some instances, to preserve my sanity. When one enormity follows another, it doesn’t make things any easier. Like bad weather it does pass but while it lasts, it’s disturbing. One thing stands out for me in the stormy weather of the last few days.

Our democracy has been under siege. On Wednesday, January 6th the siege came to a head. Our President, charged to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, abandoned his charge by enabling and inciting a mob to attack the Capitol, thus desecrating the symbol of democracy and causing five deaths and destruction.

Taking a long look at the last few days I’d say this: it’s the nature of things to have rats that take more than they need; there are people everywhere who, like the predatory squirrel, attack innocent people; And, there are people like the birds that are so narcissistic they can never get enough of themselves; or like peacocks, love showing off wherever they go but leave suffering in their wake ; our democracy has weathered them and many more since its inception and been vindicated. Our National Anthem describes last Wednesday night and Thursday morning in a timeless, and timely fashion:

The rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,

When the violence of the siege ended late, and the political rhetoric finally spent itself by Thursday morning, the flag was still there.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

 

 

 

Filed Under: George, Spy Top Story, Top Story

Food Friday: Comfort Zone

January 8, 2021 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

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I don’t know about you, but I am ready to curl up into a little ball, and burrow into a nest of protective blankets on the sofa for the next couple of weeks. The new year is not going according to plan. I feel like retreating, and keeping warm and safe in my cozy lair. It’s hard to stir myself enough to cook dinner. That is a self-indulgent fantasy that won’t come true anytime soon. There are deadlines to meet, a dog to walk, and a couple of growling tummies every night that cannot be ignored by magical thinking. Instead, I will compromise with some easy loaded and stuffed-to-the-gills, hot, baked potatoes. And by turning off the talking heads and going to bed early with my stack of Christmas gift books. (A New Year’s Resolution I made was to read more. I hope it was one of yours, too!)

One of my culinary pursuits is perfecting potato delivery systems. I aspire to making the perfect French fry, which has been a decade-long quest. I have decided that I am terrible at making fries from scratch. However I slice or dice the potatoes, I never seem to fry the frites of my dreams. I compromise by frying up frozen, store-bought shoestring potatoes. And in these stress-y days, that is OK. Store-bought are reliably crisp, tender-on-the-inside and importantly, hot.

Baking potatoes at home is much easier. Baked potatoes do not need searing hot peanut oil (or canola, grapeseed, corn, vegetable, olive or peanut oils) with an expensive immersive deep fat fryer, with a sensitive (and accurate) thermometer. Nope. Baked potatoes just need an oven. I can do that.

For a plain Jane baked potato I use a russet potato that weighs about 10 or 11 ounces. (I only know that because I weighed the two I have in the kitchen just now.) I think you know your potato preferences, so find one of a pleasing heft, and proceed.

I pierce the potato skin with a cooking fork a few times, wrap the potato in a paper towel, and pop it into the microwave for 3 minutes on high. (You can skip this step if you are opposed to microwaves. Some people have higher standards.) Then I place the steaming potato on the rack in the oven, which has been preheated to 400°F. After about 45 minutes, I poke the potato with the cooking fork and see if it tender. When it is done, we proceed.

Now comes the fun. Just adding butter, salt and pepper is for purists. For the more adventurous, you can dabble with twice-baking the potato, which has been our latest go-to variation. Since we aren’t venturing out into the COVID world much these days, we have been trying to re-create our favorite (or aspirational) restaurant meals at home. Lately, when we are playing Let’s Go to Smith & Wollensky, we add twice baked potatoes to our homemade à la carte menu. “Jumbo Twice Baked Potato: aged cheddar, apple smoked bacon, scallions, sour cream – $12.” (https://www.smithandwollensky.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Dinner_Fall_Miami2020.pdf) (One upside to the pandemic is that we are saving a lot of money. Imagine if we flew to Miami to eat at Smith & Wollensky! Airfare, plus hotel, plus Uber, plus $12 for one potato. Money saved! I love being frugal.)

This recipe is for a large party of potato eaters, which we are not. But you can do the math yourself and use what you need: https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/overstuffed-twice-baked-potatoes

Here is a sightly more simplified version: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cheesy-stuffed-baked-potatoes/

And for those nights when you do not feel like pretending to go to a pricy steakhouse, when you are curled up on the sofa, wrapped in your toasty blankets and ennui, you can add a variety of goodies to a potato as a special home-styled comforting treat for yourself. Luke the wonder dog wishes you will drop some bacon chunks in his direction, but he is always hopeful of little, everyday miracles, isn’t he?

Toppings
• Rummage through the fridge and look for leftover bacon, taco meat, chili, Sloppy Joe meat, barbecue, diced ham or chicken, shredded beef, smoked salmon, shrimp, pepperoni, crumbled sausage
• Cheeses: Cheddar, gorgonzola, Colby, feta, mozzarella, gruyere, Monterey Jack, Swiss
• Greek yogurt, sour cream, hummus, guacamole
• Broccoli, chives, green onion, green pepper, mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, olives, capers, jalapeño slices, caramelized onions, leeks
• Fried egg and Sriracha
• Old Bay, steak sauce, barbecue sauce, pesto, honey mustard

Let’s enjoy our daily comforts, as we venture out into the cold new year. Stay warm. Curl up with a good book. Spring is in its way.

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”
― James Baldwin

Filed Under: Food Friday, Spy Top Story

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