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Carb-loading.

Barack Obama extends his press hon­ey­moon for one more day with this fas­ci­nat­ing New York Times story about the Hawai­ian plate lunch, said to be one of those secret-longing favorites of the president-elect.

Which is? you ask. Get ready:

Draw­ing on the food ways of the Hawai­ian Islands’ many Asian immi­grant groups, and chowed down on reg­u­larly by every­one from surfers to busi­ness­men to the future occu­pant of the White House, the plate lunch is sim­ple in form but var­ied in its ele­ments. Its foun­da­tion: two scoops of white rice and a side of mac­a­roni salad, heavy on the may­on­naise.

This carbo load — usu­ally piled into a plas­tic foam con­tainer — is paired with a pro­tein, gen­er­ally of the pan-Asian vari­ety, often slathered in brown gravy. After a morn­ing of hard work (or hard surf), one might opt for Korean kalbi or meat jun, Chi­nese char siu roast pork, Philip­pine pork adobo, Hawai­ian kalua pork (a luau favorite), Japan­ese katsu or salmon teriyaki, Por­tuguese sausage, American-style beef stew, or loco moco — a ham­burger patty and a fried egg.

I was with him right up to the brown gravy, but I get the idea. While per­haps unique in its pan-Asian weird­ness, the basic struc­ture of the plate lunch should be famil­iar to any­one who ever ate beef and noo­dles, chicken and noo­dles (includ­ing that sin­gu­lar Hoosier odd­ity, chicken and noo­dles over mashed pota­toes), or my per­sonal favorite, the Amish haystack.

My first screen­play was based in Amish coun­try, and I included a haystack scene. Two teenage boys were sit­ting at a din­ner table, and if a haystack should appeal to any­one, it’s the bot­tom­less pit of an ado­les­cent male stom­ach. Googling around for a descrip­tion, most point back to the Amish Cook col­umn, but I think this sin­gle line from a Wash­ing­ton Post travel piece says it best:

Plates in hand, we walked a line of women and girls, who each added a scoop of haystack ingre­di­ents: cracker crumbs, rice, sea­soned ham­burger, let­tuce, toma­toes, onions, pep­pers, melted Velveeta cheese and crum­bled Dori­tos.

You see the sim­i­lar­i­ties: Start with a bed of carbs, add pro­tein, top with sauce. It’s not really a recipe so much as it’s a way to clean out the fridge. Lots of recipes start with spaghetti on the bot­tom, but the inter­est­ing thing about Amish food is the way it calls, so often, for the cheap­est pos­si­ble ingre­di­ents, real Depres­sion food — hence the crack­ers. And the Velveeta. (So often city peo­ple think of the Amish as the proto-crunchy con, liv­ing their pure peas­ant lives out in the coun­try, which isn’t nec­es­sar­ily untrue, but I only want to note: When you have no refrig­er­a­tor, Velveeta makes more sense than arti­sanal cream cheese, eh?)

Any­way, back to the plate lunch. I admire its daffi­ness, sig­ni­fied by the mac­a­roni salad. Hawaii really is a land of mutts, isn’t it?

Quick blog­gage, because I have a lot to do today:

The most inter­est­ing thing about this post-election period has been the beat­ing of breasts and search­ing of souls in the GOP. “Fresh Air” had an inter­view with the NYT’s con­ser­vatism beat writer, David Kirk­patrick, who iden­ti­fied the new and old fac­tions within the party. Old: Social issues, national secu­rity and fis­cal restraint. New: “High” and “low.” Pretty cruel, I know, but what it boils down to is, if you aren’t embar­rassed to say you believe in evo­lu­tion, and are embar­rassed by the sep­a­ra­tion of the coun­try into “real” and “not real” seg­ments, you’re high. If you love Sarah Palin, you’re low. I’d add to that: If Ted Nugent makes you want to change the sub­ject, high; if you put his “writ­ing” in your mag­a­zine, low low low.

Prob­a­bly of inter­est to Detroi­ters only, this nearly slipped past me on Tues­day, a pollster’s look at the two key sub­ur­ban coun­ties here, Macomb and Oak­land, and how the changes of past years reflect on vot­ing trends there.

And prob­a­bly of inter­est to jour­nal­ists only, Ron Rosen­baum deliv­ers a long-overdue take­down of Jeff Jarvis, he of the citizen-journalists-will-save-the-world school of media analy­sis.

Finally, I posted this to Face­book because I found it simul­ta­ne­ously amus­ing and depress­ing: Michelle Slatalla’s rumi­na­tion on how dif­fi­cult it is for a woman to lose weight after 40. I’d heard of Spanx, but I’ve never worn them. (Gents: They’re the 21st-century ver­sion of your grandma’s gir­dle.) What I’ve been miss­ing:

I still remem­ber how ecsta­tic I felt the first time I slipped on a pair of Seam­less Mid-Thigh Shapers and man­aged to zip my tight­est jeans. A sense of relief and well-being flooded me.

Unfor­tu­nately the good feel­ing didn’t last. Soon I had to start wear­ing two pairs at once. If only, like Gwyneth, I could have stopped there.

But I grad­u­ated to the harder stuff. I moved on to the Slim Cog­nito Body Shap­ing Cami and the Hide & Sleek Full Slip, as well. Yet each time a new layer mag­i­cally smoothed one bulge, another popped out like a bal­loon sculp­ture of a dachs­hund.

Despite the company’s warn­ings, I kept going. “If you go with more than two lay­ers, it’s Spanx abuse and you need to get help,” a Spanx spokes­woman warned me.

Two lay­ers of Spanx! No plate lunch for you!

OK, have a good day. I’ll be writin’ and exer­cisin’, so I can be a big fat middle-aged girl, too.

Posted on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 9:39 am in Current events, Popculch. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.


84 responses to
“Carb-loading.”

  1. del said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am

    I’m not a jour­nal­ist but I enjoyed the Jeff Jarvis take­down. Sounds like, after years of hear­ing whis­per­ings by jour­nal­ists annoyed with his recent body of work, he’s become defen­sive and now pushes a pre­emp­tive strike agenda against print jour­nal­ists for his own emo­tional cover.

  2. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:04 am

    Speak­ing of food pref­er­ences acquired in child­hood, check out these clover­leaf rolls. The rolls in this pic­ture, which popped up in today’s WaPo, are not quite as beau­ti­ful as the ones my mom used to make, but the photo sure gave me a jolt. Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas just aren’t the same w/o her per­fectly molded and per­fectly browned lit­tle jew­els.

  3. Dorothy said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:16 am

    Jolene we sold clover­leaf rolls at the bak­ery I worked at when I was 16. And potato rolls, Parker House rolls, sesame and poppy seed rolls. My favorites, though, were the but­ter­crust rolls. I’d reach for one of those as a snack instead of a donut or cookie every time! They had this neat fan shape to them – thin mul­ti­ple lay­ers stacked up. Lord what I wouldn’t give for one of them right about now! (But the bak­ery went out of busi­ness years ago.)

  4. coozledad said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:41 am

    Let Ted keep “writ­ing”. He’s about to find out who holds his choke chain, espe­cially if he keeps play­ing up the know-nothing wing of the party. New money ain’t got shit on old when it comes to ruth­less­ness.
    As pathetic as that boy is now, I can see a much worse end­ing for him. Maybe he’ll be able to play mood music for Klan ini­ti­a­tion cer­e­monies with his intel­lec­tual brethren in Louisiana.

  5. LA Mary said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:02 am

    I don’t know how they can men­tion Hawai­ian peo­ple food and leave out Spam. It’s hugely pop­u­lar there.
    A lot of Hawai­ian food is also Fil­ipino food. Here at the hos­pi­tal, where there are prob­a­bly more Fil­ipinos than any other eth­nic group, you see that plate you described in the cafe­te­ria quite often.

  6. ellen said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:03 am

    Starch, meat, gravy applies to South Africa, too. The “work­ing man’s” meal is maize por­ridge with beef, oxtail, or tripe stew over the top. Want it to go? Replace the por­ridge with half a loaf of white bread, scooped out in the mid­dle to acco­mo­date the stew. No mac­a­roni salad, though.

  7. Connie said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:15 am

    Dorothy, all the Dutch bak­eries of my child­hood are gone, gone, gone. No more Sempel’s bak­ery hard rolls, no more clover leafs, noth­ing. My gro­cery “bak­ery” has only potato rolls. Some of the Hol­land gro­cery store bak­eries will carry kra­kelin­gen (pas­try cook­ies) and ban­ket (almond paste pas­try rolls) around Christ­mas, but it is just not the same. I used to buy my rolls – but­ter horn rolls – from a local Men­non­ite bak­ery that came to the farmer’s mar­ket, but they dis­ap­peared. I recently fig­ured out that they are now pro­vid­ing shops at other “Amish” tourist des­ti­na­tions, so per­haps I’ll find my favorite rolls by Christ­mas.

  8. jcburns

    jcburns said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:21 am

    Uh-oh. Georgia’s NAACP is hold­ing a press con­fer­ence this after­noon where they want to dis­cuss (quot­ing the AJC quot­ing the NAACP): that as a con­se­quence of the elec­tion “African-American par­ents are report­ing that their kids – from ele­men­tary to high school -are being ver­bally and phys­i­cally harassed by their white class­mates while their teach­ers turn the other way.” And, arrgh, damn, worse than that.

  9. alex said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:31 am

    What I miss more than any­thing is pogocsa, a Hun­gar­ian bis­cuit made of lay­ered pas­try, browned and but­tery on top with car­away seeds. Very labor-intensive food. Haven’t had it in years.

    I note that online there’s a Mace­don­ian bread by a sim­i­lar name but it’s not the same thing at all.

  10. Cosmo Panzini said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am

    Inter­est­ing link, jc. Proof that the NAACP is now offi­cially irrel­e­vant.

  11. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:46 am

    Chil­dren in Idaho also seem to be chant­ing pleas­antries re our new pres­i­dent.

  12. brian stouder said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am

    from jc’s link:

    Daryl Gra­ham, spokesman for the state NAACP, said the press con­fer­ence would fea­ture an east Cobb County fam­ily whose daugh­ter attends Wal­ton High School. “The day after, there was a chill in the build­ing,” Gra­ham said.

    I felt that 11/5 chill, too; a bunch of folks with­held their deri­sion about what we had all seen the night before, while oth­ers (includ­ing me) sup­pressed our glee. A gen­uine quiet descended upon us, like a chilly light frost, and it lasted for the remain­der of the week

  13. alex said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    Quiet around my office, too, Brian. A few days before the elec­tion I over­heard a cou­ple of nou­veau upper mid­dle class snobs gloat­ing that they knew Indi­ana would be safe, any­way. Oth­er­wise not a peep out of any­one since. Glum faces as usual all around.

    Our local NAACP chap­ter has a new leader after years of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the pre­vi­ous one, who didn’t pick his fights very care­fully.

  14. Connie said on November 13th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    Speak­ing of chill, I just read George Will’s lat­est Newsweek col­umn. A win like Obama’s is com­pletely against the found­ing father’s inten­tions as laid out in the Con­sti­tu­tion.

  15. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    A Hawai­ian fam­ily at my kids’ preschool would bring Spam sushi to potlucks. Sur­pris­ingly deli­cious, once you work up your courage to try it.

  16. Mindy said on November 13th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    Be sure to wash down that Amish haystack with plenty of Moun­tain Dew.

    I opted for a plate lunch while vaca­tion­ing in Hawaii ten years ago. The mac­a­roni salad had more mayo than mac­a­roni – I couldn’t eat it. But it was fun to watch the locals shovel it in.

  17. Jim said on November 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    The Hawai­ian plate lunch reminded me of the “garbage plates” pop­u­lar in Rochester, N.Y.

    http://​rocwiki​.org/​G​a​r​b​a​g​e​_​Plates

  18. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 13th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    Grilled spam with slice of pineap­ple . . . mmmmm.

    Could the GOP be going through a qua­dren­nial re-assessment? Yep, see all the news sto­ries about Dem brow-tugging after Kerry’s loss four years ago. Do racist morons define the Repub­li­can party any more than win­dow smash­ing goons at World Bank meet­ing protests define the Demo­c­ra­tic party? Nope, even if you can trace a mean­der­ing link between some of their offi­cial stances, the fur­ther fringes of the main­stream, and occa­sional con­tacts between them and the looser can­nons among our respec­tive deck hands.

    I don’t think Howard Dean likes see­ing peo­ple in tur­tle cos­tumes break store­fronts at Star­bucks, nor does Ken Mehlman’s heart sing when crack­ers chant hate at fel­low stu­dents. The debate over the real place of lib­er­tar­i­an­ism in the GOP is going to be where the action is (with reli­gious con­ser­vatism feel­ing the dis­com­fort of severe strad­dleosity), just as Dem infight­ing over edu­ca­tion pol­icy and union enroll­ment among His­pan­ics (doc­u­mented and less for­mally entered) will be their pivot point over the next qua­dren­nium.

  19. coozledad said on November 13th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    My wife used to work with a Philip­pina who is a very tal­ented chef, as well as a mural artist. We were invited to a party at her house where there was a huge spread, and she took us on a tour of the tables point­ing out which items were veg­e­tar­ian.
    Soon I real­ized that “veg­e­tar­ian” meant only a lit­tle bit of lard, no head cheese or pork brains, per se. But it was tasty, and the national cui­sine will prob­a­bly be a food craze before too long.

  20. Rana said on November 13th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    There’s an Amish-run (maybe Mennonite-run?) gro­cery store near here, and going to it is an expe­ri­ence. The local food­ies know it as a place where you can get locally-grown lamb and free-range chicken and heir­loom toma­toes, but those things take up maybe 5% of the store at most.

    The bulk of the store is racks and shelves full of all kinds of dry goods (empha­sis on dry, and thus shelf-stable): dried fruits and nuts in a vari­ety of bulk bags, dried gelatin mixes in the afore­men­tioned bags, flours, pastes, “chips” not only in choco­late and but­ter­scotch but also lemon, jarred fruit, etc. Some canned goods, a lot of odd “old-timey” ingre­di­ents like hore­hound syrup and home­o­pathic drops… it’s a weirdly com­pelling mix­ture of mod­ern granola-crunchy with Depres­sion era gen­eral store.

  21. mark said on November 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    Speak­ing of Detroit, i read today that the city wants to get in line for $10 bil­lion in fed­eral assis­tance for a vari­ety of munic­i­pal neces­si­ties.

    $10 bil­lion for Detroit? That strikes me like ask­ing for $50,000 for some nec­es­sary main­te­nance on a 1976 Chrysler Cor­doba.

  22. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

    Jeff, I agree (includ­ing the spam + pineap­ple: great camp­ing din­ner). It’s the con­tra­dic­tion between the lib­er­tar­i­ans and the reli­gious fundies that makes the Rs so dif­fi­cult to take these days — you know, all about per­sonal lib­er­ties except the ones they don’t approve of. If they can fig­ure that out, they might get me back; or, at least keep my DH.

  23. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

    Here’s a ques­tion to tie the pro­gres­sives into knots. For the Obama children’s new school: pub­lic or pri­vate?

  24. jcburns

    jcburns said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    Why would that tie us into knots?

    Whichever ones the par­ents (with parental-y con­sul­ta­tion with their kids) pre­fer. And can afford. Kinda none of our busi­ness.

    Me, I kinda hope the Obama admin­is­tra­tion turns pub­lic edu­ca­tion into some­thing worth lin­ing up for. (A dif­fi­cult, but not at all impos­si­ble task.) They’re wel­come to some of my tax money to do that.

    But I don’t think the new first fam­ily needs to turn their chil­dren into polit­i­cal pawns to make that hap­pen.

  25. alex said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    Pri­vate, of course. But why should it be any of our frig­ging busi­ness where they send their kids? They have the means to afford the best col­lege prep, so why not?

    Granted, free pub­lic edu­ca­tion is an impor­tant thing, but to sub­ject your chil­dren to it on prin­ci­ple alone is ridicu­lous.

  26. Connie said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:22 pm

    Rana, are you describ­ing E and S Bulk Food in Ship­she­wana? A very strange gro­cery store full of bulk bags and inter­est­ing mixes. This time of year all my hol­i­day bak­ing stuff comes from there, big bulk bags of choc chips and pecans and sugar. Unfor­tu­nately we come home with mostly inter­est­ing snacky stuff. Who knew there was a five pound bag of skit­tles?

  27. brian stouder said on November 13th, 2008 at 3:42 pm

    Well, when it comes to school­ing the chil­dren of the Pres­i­dent of the United States, there’s this:

    http://​www​.msnbc​.msn​.com/​i​d​/​2​7​7​01356/

    MEMPHIS, Ten­nessee – A white suprema­cist charged with plot­ting to kill President-elect Barack Obama wants his indict­ment dis­missed, argu­ing the fed­eral grand jury that charged him had too many black mem­bers.

    Always bet on the Good Guys; but also, don’t for­get that there are bad guys skit­ter­ing about, too

  28. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 4:23 pm

    The Obama kids are in a pri­vate school now, so it seems likely they will choose a pri­vate school in DC. But, lord, are they expen­sive. About $56,000 for the two kids. And that’s w/o the auc­tions.

  29. Rana said on November 13th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    Con­nie – no, it’s a much smaller place north of Rich­mond.

    Some­thing I always won­der on the school issue for pres­i­den­tial and vice-presidential chil­dren is how they, and the school, deal with the pres­ence of the Secret Ser­vice.

    Although it occurs to me that these days schools are prob­a­bly some of the most heav­ily secured pub­lic envi­ron­ments around, what with the fears regard­ing kid­nap­pings and shoot­ings.

  30. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

    I ask about the school because I saw an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion on the sub­ject at the blog of an Ameri­corps teacher in DC. Amy Carter went to pub­lic school there; Chelsea Clin­ton to pri­vate; and Car­o­line Kennedy was essen­tially home­schooled. What to do?

    And Alex, I fig­ure if there’s going to be a dis­sec­tion of The Dress Choice (and the children’s dresses), why should an impor­tant deci­sion like school choices be off lim­its?

  31. nancy said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    The dis­cus­sion can cer­tainly be had, Cather­ine. I notice there’s a 30-year gap between Amy Carter and the Obama girls, dur­ing which time I expect D.C. schools have fol­lowed the same down­ward spi­ral as most big-city dis­tricts.

    Pre­sum­ably they’ll go pri­vate, and they’re going to have to take a bite of the shit sand­wich. You know: lim­ou­sine lib­er­als, not walk­ing the public-school talk.

    I guess I come down on, “it’s a per­sonal deci­sion,” and it doesn’t inter­est me all that much. As we saw with Chelsea it’s not really a dis­cus­sion of edu­ca­tion in Amer­ica, but an excuse to throw rocks at the pres­i­dent.

  32. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pm

    Rana, a friend taught Mary­land in the 70s. She was on a Kennedy Cen­ter field trip with her class when she noticed a lot of fit-looking men in dark suits. Then, just as the lights were about to go down, in filed one last class of kids with… Amy Carter.

  33. LA Mary said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

    My kids have always been in pub­lic schools and for the most part I’ve been very lucky. A few teach­ers I could have done with­out at my older son’s mid­dle school, but mostly fine. We have an excel­lent ele­men­tary school right up the street, and we had a mag­net mid­dle school for one kid, char­ter mid­dle school for the other, spe­cial learn­ing com­mu­nity in a big high school for one kid, and char­ter high school attached to Art Cen­ter School of Design for the other.

  34. A Riley said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

    When the cur­rent Mayor Daley of Chicago was elected, his kids were small. Would they go to pub­lic or pri­vate school? He basi­cally said he wouldn’t sac­ri­fice his kids’ edu­ca­tion to make a point, and they’d con­tinue in the pri­vate schools they’d started in.

    No one thought the lesser of him for it, either. Shoot, every Chicago par­ent who can afford does their darnedest to get the kids into either the parochial school sys­tem or mag­net schools. Fail­ing that, they move to the sub­urbs.

  35. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:12 pm

    Nancy, I think you’re prob­a­bly right that it’s not a dis­cus­sion of edu­ca­tion in Amer­ica, but an excuse to throw rocks at the pres­i­dent. Which is too bad. There’s a great edu­ca­tion reporter/columnist at the Wash­ing­ton Post, and the schools there are actu­ally improv­ing in places. It could be an oppor­tu­nity to shine the light on the improv­ing schools.

    I have one child in pub­lic and one in pri­vate (and if I had a third, she would prob­a­bly be at a char­ter, just for vari­ety). It is not a sim­ple choice for us. There def­i­nitely are polit­i­cal dimen­sions to it. I’ve had a taste of that shit sand­wich. Prin­ci­ple alone, not a good rea­son to go pub­lic; but for me it does play into the deci­sion.

  36. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

    The DC schools are among the worst in the nation, despite being the most expen­sive. There’s a huge school reform effort under­way right now led by a very impres­sive woman named Michelle Rhee and under the pro­tec­tion of the newish mayor, Adrian Fenty. (“Under the pro­tec­tion” mean­ing she’s been given a free hand to do what she thinks is right.) She is, I believe, in her sec­ond year and has already made some good progress.

    She over­saw a big pro­gram of improv­ing phys­i­cal facil­i­ties, fired a large num­ber of do-nothing types from the cen­tral office, closed some under­pop­u­lated schools so as to dis­trib­ute resources more effi­ciently, and dis­missed some inef­fec­tive prin­ci­pals. Right now, she’s try­ing to imple­ment a pro­gram in which teach­ers get big raises in return for giv­ing up tenure and agree­ing to accept more account­abil­ity for stu­dent per­for­mance. It’s not clear yet whether the union will accept this pro­gram, but many teach­ers are in favor of it.

    There’s a long, long ways to go, but she seems to be doing all the right things. She’s also been “men­tioned” as a can­di­date for Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion, but there’ve been sev­eral edi­to­ri­als say­ing she’s needed where she is. I hope she stays. She’s accom­plished a lot, but the hard­est part—really mak­ing change in classrooms—is still ahead, and it would be tragic to dis­rupt the changes under­way.

  37. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    What­ever they choose for their own kids, I’m hop­ing the Oba­mas will take up the cause of the DC schools and the kids in them. I think that occa­sional vis­its to the schools and talks w/ kids and par­ents could really help to inspire improve­ments in per­for­mance. It’s a fairly small system—only 60,000 students—so over the course of their first term, the two of them could touch the lives of a lot of kids. I know it’s a lit­tle simple-minded to think that a visit from a black pres­i­dent or a pat on the head from his wife could over­come the effects of poverty and indif­fer­ent par­ent­ing, but, really, it could for some small num­ber of the kids, and that’d be bet­ter than noth­ing.

  38. Dexter said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    I know the Chicago Korean restau­rants fea­ture SPAM in many recipes. Japan­ese actu­ally favor noo­dles by a wide mar­gin over rice…in hard times, rice was con­sid­ered too expen­sive and noo­dles just took over.
    I always rebelled at beef and noo­dles served over pota­toes, and refused to eat it like that, as every­one else did…way too carbo for me. I still can’t bear to think of eat­ing a mess like that.
    Like our blog host, I am fond of beans and rice. I used to make ham hocks, black beans, and rice and sea­son it with some good spices I bought at the cen­tral mar­ket in Charleston, SC, where we visit fre­quently .
    I was in Kissim­mee, Florida once wait­ing for some car repair and stopped in a restau­rante cubano and ordered beans and rice…and it was served to me and tasted exactly like I had made at home a week before…I was so proud of myself.

  39. nancy said on November 13th, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    San­dra Tsing Loh has a new book out — “Mother on Fire,” or some­thing like that, all about her deci­sion to send her daugh­ters to L.A. Uni­fied. I haven’t read it yet, but from the reviews, she speaks very plainly about the prob­lem of the middle-class par­ent in a city like L.A., and how at some point you have to take respon­si­bil­ity for the qual­ity of your local schools. In a swiftly declin­ing econ­omy, many peo­ple are going to find them­selves in this posi­tion, and real­ize they have no choice.

    I have but two obser­va­tions: Her girls are still pretty young, and in my expe­ri­ence the prob­lems of big-city pub­lic schools become more acute the far­ther you go. Also, when I judged schol­ar­ship com­pe­ti­tions in F.W., by far the best kids — not always the smartest, but the most inter­est­ing can­di­dates — came from the pub­lic sys­tems.

  40. Deborah said on November 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

    I think the Obama’s will go pri­vate and more power to them. I lived in a sec­ond tier city when my daugh­ter was grow­ing up (St. Louis, maybe that’s a third tier city?). She went to a Lutheran grade school and a pri­vate high school. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. We lived in the city and the pub­lic schools were awful, just awful. And I’m a big lib­eral… I wouldn’t have sac­ri­ficed my daughter’s edu­ca­tion to the cause though. We did send her to an inner-city day camp one sum­mer… big mis­take. She suf­fered hor­ri­bly and we ended up tak­ing her out. She wasn’t pre­pared for it and it wasn’t fair to her to make her go through that. I hate it that this gives right wingers fuel, but so be it.

  41. JGW said on November 13th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

    I’ve heard of the plate lunch, kind of fas­ci­nated. I’m won­der­ing is the sug­ary hor­ri­ble Indi­ana style or the sub­lime and tangy east coast vari­ety. It kind of sounds like it’s just mac and mayo.

    The other Hawai­ian treats like Poke – a raw fish salad, and Shave Ice also sound inter­est­ing. The real Aloha State treat seems to be the Shrimp Truck fare. They call it BBQ Shrimp but there’s no grilling. It’s just shrimp sauteed in mar­garine (Ewwww!, I’d have to go but­ter or olive oil) and gar­lic and hot sauce or cat­sup.

    I’ll pass on the Spam Mus­abi. The whole his­tory of spam there is inter­est­ing though, it’s part WW II and part lim­ited refrig­er­ated ship­ping at the time.

    I’ve never even been there but still fan­ta­size about mov­ing there. It’s fun to browse Jour­nal­ism Jobs dot-com but the cost of liv­ing. That and Newegg doesn’t ship there on most stuff….

    I’ll weigh in on schools too. As much as it SHOULD be pub­lic schools, it won’t be. And I under­stand, because it makes the secu­rity so much harder. If I recall Amy Carter almost never got to have out­door recess. The play­ground was too close to the streets.

    Solid bet here, it will be Sid­well Friends. They have a cam­pus much eas­ier to secure, lots of chil­dren of VIP’s, diplo­mats, and they also have a good per­cent­age of minori­ties and kids get­ting grants and schol­ar­ships, not all the kids are rich. But the clincher has to be the Secret Ser­vice his­tory under Chelsea and the staff’s fami­lar­ity with bal­anc­ing the needs of the kids and their secu­rity.

    Read an inter­est­ing tid­bit today – no tacks or nails can be used for their room decor at home, the White House His­tor­i­cal folks stip­u­late the girls use fun tack stuff.

    As a foodie I’m inter­ested in their even­tual chef choice – Obama is very anti-carb, and there are a few lead­ing can­di­dates. Lead­ing choice would be he steals Oprah’s chef. He has cooked for Obama often. Bush actu­ally has a very tal­ented female chef, but word is he leaned toward BLT’s and grilled cheese on stan­dard store bought sand­wich white bread.

  42. Catherine said on November 13th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    I saw San­dra Tsing Loh speak and read from Mother On Fire a cou­ple of months ago. She is hilar­i­ous, and the book is funny and also very poignant. Her mes­sage to the group was really that moth­ers can make a huge dif­fer­ence.

    Yes, her girls are still pretty young, and yes, the prob­lems do get more acute. Also, they are at a mag­net school (which still has >40% kids on free/reduced lunch). That said, she is a great spokesper­son for at least giv­ing the pub­lic schools a try. Like her, I can­not tell you how many peo­ple I know who have rejected pub­lic edu­ca­tion for their chil­dren with­out so much as tour­ing a sin­gle one.

    I have been think­ing, too, about what effect the declin­ing econ­omy will have on my pub­lic schools. My obser­va­tion is that lower-income fam­i­lies have been priced out of the hous­ing mar­ket in our area in the last few years, result­ing in lower enroll­ment. And, no, the mid­dle classes did not just flood back into the schools. The con­se­quences may not be the obvi­ous one of: Mid­dle class fam­i­lies decide they have to get in there and improve things because there’s no alter­na­tive.

  43. LA Mary said on November 13th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    San­dra Tsing Loh used to hold meet­ings called Mar­ti­nis and Mag­nets to explain how to work the LAUSD mag­net sys­tem. Before she started that, I was lucky enough to know Con­nie Rohman, a mother of two bril­liant kids in my neigh­bor­hood. She cre­ated a book­let for par­ents oh how to really get what you want from the pub­lic schools of LA. I’ve got no con­nec­tions, no pull, but I’ve always got my kids into the schools I wanted them in. I have also always been pretty involved in what’s going on in the school. Every sin­gle school they’ve been in has been very mixed eco­nom­i­cally, eth­ni­cally, every­thing. In fact, my kids have been in the minor­ity at every school since ele­men­tary, and that’s part of the rea­son we got in. You can work the pub­lic school sys­tem but you have to put effort back into it. Not only your kids ben­e­fit from your effort.

  44. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    George­town Day School is the other favorite in the early bet­ting, JGW. I’m not sure about the details of its phys­i­cal plant, but, report­edly, it has some of the other fea­tures you men­tion. Also, Eric Holder, mem­ber of Obama’s Veep selec­tion com­mit­tee and AG “men­tionee”, is on the board of direc­tors, so they’ll be able to get an insider’s per­spec­tive. Michelle vis­ited these two schools—Sidwell and George­town Day—during her Mon­day visit to DC.

  45. harrison said on November 13th, 2008 at 7:02 pm

    that sin­gu­lar Hoosier odd­ity, chicken and noo­dles over mashed pota­toes

    that’s the way my par­ents eat it and have for 55-plus years. i often go to their house for sun­day din­ner, and they serve it about once every three months.

    and it’s deli­cious!

    my mother, by the way, makes her own noo­dles. when i was a kid, i used to eat them raw.

    i bet you can’t go to any fancy-dan restau­rant in new york and get it.

    as for high and low republicans/conservatives — this is news? nixon and wal­lace tapped that out­look — the resent­ful, the insulted and injured — start­ing 40 years ago. and they finally real­ize that it hurts them as a party?

    have fun, busi­ness­men. i say those folks are red­necks, and i say they can all burn in hell.

  46. harrison said on November 13th, 2008 at 7:04 pm

    sorry about the all-italic reply. for­got the cor­rect html to stop it. oth­er­wise, every­thing i wrote there stands.

  47. alex said on November 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    Poke salad Annie
    ‘gator’s got yer granny
    Chomp chomp chomp

  48. MichaelG said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

    Late com­ment. Finally saw the movie. Ter­iffic! Hugely enter­tain­ing. More, More!

    Loh is great. I’ve heard her on NPR many times. Didn’t she get side­ways with KPCC or some­thing? Or that other sta­tion in Santa Mon­ica?

    I bought some Spam a few weeks ago just for the hel­lu­vit. I hadn’t had any in years and years. It’s a big wad of fat with no taste.

  49. moe99 said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    Why has no one men­tioned shepherd’s pie yet?

    And my 3 kids went to pub­lic schools in Seat­tle. I had to work to make it work for them. I think I’ve told the story about the ele­men­tary school prin­ci­pal who was fired because of my detec­tive work here, but the results were solid: my daugh­ter is in her sec­ond year of med­ical school at Univ. Wash­in­ton, my old­est son is fin­ish­ing up a physics/math degree from a fine lib­eral arts col­lege in MN, and the youngest is in col­lege in S. Cal. He did not go to the math/science mag­net school in the Cen­tral Dis­trict like his sibs and I think his edu­ca­tion was much the poorer for it, though his high school had by far the most wealthy par­ent group in the city.

  50. JGW said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:20 pm

    I’m not dis­count­ing George­town Day School. It’s a good bet and solid school also. I’m think­ing the fam­ily is already close to their pro­tec­tive details and in some ways will want to fol­low their advice. Who knows though?

    For a (I assume) well researched look at the way the children’s pro­tec­tive details will work and a real appre­ci­a­tion of the dan­gers they face, read Tom Clancy’s “Exec­u­tive Orders.” A ter­ror­ist strike force tries to abduct Pres­i­dent Ryan’s youngest daugh­ter at her day care cen­ter. A bru­tal fire­fight ensues but the bad­dies are foiled.

    The real scary part of that novel in my opin­ion is in a sub­plot. A group of white supre­me­cist wingnuts is also plot­ting a plan to take out Pres­i­dent Jack Ryan. They select one plau­si­ble but not easy method and are foiled, but the other method they pon­der is just too easy and scares me. Not going to spell it out, but any small group of mil­i­tary or ex-military with a cer­tain skill set on a cer­tain weapon sys­tem, it would be childs play.

    I’d like to say the Secret Ser­vice read that book and has pon­dered the idea, but our gov­ern­ment in the form of Codoleeza Rice dis­counted the 9-11 attacks by say­ing no one ever envi­sioned any­one using a com­mer­cial air­plane as a weapon. Tom Clancy did, in “Debt of Honor,” a 747 plows into the Capi­tol Build­ing moments after Ryan is approved but still not sworn is as VP before a joint ses­sion of Con­gress.

    I know a lit­tle bit about this, my youngest kid’s god­fa­ther worked for DSS secu­rity and was on Albright’s detail a few times.

    ———-
    Oh – Hawai­ian food item – potato chips. Friends of mine rant, I only tasted a small hand­full.

  51. JGW said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:32 pm

    On the noo­dle topic- I was read­ing while hun­gry, came across this post on Ruhlman​.com food blog about pasta, and was like , Mmm­m­m­m­m­m­m­m­m­m­mmm pasta.

    http://​blog​.ruhlman​.com/​r​u​h​l​m​a​n​c​o​m​/​2​0​0​8​/​1​1​/​f​r​e​s​h​-​p​a​s​t​a.html

    I made home­made pasta a few times last week. It’s too easy. 1 cup flour to 2 eggs, make a nest, blend in the eggs. On a floured sur­face kneed the dough for 5 min­utes – it’s actu­ally bet­ter by hand. Add flour to keep from stick­ing. Place in a bowl and cover 30-45 min.
    Kneed it again, then roll it out thin on a floured sur­face. I cut mine with a pizza cut­ter, but I’m going to get the Cuisi­nart Stand Mixer attach­ment (Cuisi­nart mix­ers kick KA mixer’s butts. Metal gears, not cheap plas­tic).

    http://​www​.cuisi​nart​stand​mixer​.com

    You want to cook the fresh pasta right away, until it floats and is Al Dente, not mushy. Sim­ple sauces work best. I like the recipe ready toma­toes, no muss no fuss, and fresh grated Parme­san.

    That’s why I love hang­ing at Nance’s place. We can go from Plate Lunch to secu­rity details, pres­i­den­tial fam­ily life, and back to carb load­ing in a few hours.

  52. nancy said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

    Coo­zledad passed along this recipe for Viet­namese gar­lic noo­dles the other day in an e-mail. I mean, as long as we’re into noo­dles, eth­nic cuisines and dragon breath.

  53. Hoosier said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:40 pm

    Hoosiers also are fond of beef ‘n noo­dles over mashed pota­toes. Won­der if Prez elect Oba­man ever ate the famous horse­shoe sand­wich while he was in Spring­field? Sim­i­lar to the plate lunch…toast on the bot­tom, then meat (often ham­berger), french fries and topped with cheese sauce. Great at the B&G Cafe. Yum

  54. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

    Semolina flour, tho’, easy to find these days (even Kroger has it). mixes up, kneads, and cuts dif­fer­ently than with stan­dard white enriched.

  55. Deborah said on November 13th, 2008 at 8:52 pm

    My daugh­ter and I made home­made pasta this week­end. Semolina flour, a whole pound I think and 5 eggs. We have an Ital­ian gizmo that you run the dough through and it cuts it into strips and all. It was fun. Sup­posed to make 21 serv­ings. Yeah right, we gob­bled most of it down in one sit­ting with Bolog­nese sauce. A bit left over.

  56. Dexter said on November 13th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

    Any of yas ever eat those Pri­manti Bros. sand­wiches in Pitts­burgh ? http://​www​.seri​ouse​ats​.com/​2​0​0​8​/​0​8​/​p​r​i​m​a​n​t​i​-​b​r​o​t​h​e​r​s​-​p​i​t​t​s​b​u​r​g​h​-​c​h​e​e​s​t​e​a​k​-​p​a​s​t​r​a​m​i​-​s​a​n​d​w​i​c​h​e​s.html

  57. Dexter said on November 13th, 2008 at 9:14 pm

    …and boy…wow! This guy really knows how to play a room!!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaPprTEjJmA&eurl=http://www.chelseahotelblog.com/

  58. Hoosier said on November 13th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    David VanTieghen palay­ing the room. Reminds me of my music school friends major­ing in per­cus­sion. There wasn’t any­thing they didn’t exper­i­ment with when it came of hit­ting, rub­bing, thump­ing or snap­ping to make a sound. Their rooms were a hoot; a closet rod hung with tire rims, tuned alu­minum ice cube trays even a glass har­mon­ica (or is it an glass har­mon­ica?)

  59. Rana said on November 13th, 2008 at 9:52 pm

    har­ri­son – the end-italics com­mand is the same as the ital­ics com­mand, but with a back­slash / just in front of the i.

  60. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

    Very impres­sive amount of gar­lic in that recipe, Nancy.

  61. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

    Y’know, grilled spam with a good b-b-q sauce slathered atop is awfully tasty, espe­cially next to a stack of shoe­string pota­toes.

  62. Gasman said on November 13th, 2008 at 10:39 pm

    Late to the game today. As for the schools for the Obama kids, pri­vate, no ques­tion. It has noth­ing to do with val­ues or being “one of the peo­ple,” it’s strictly a mat­ter of secu­rity. Have you ever seen a Secret Ser­vice detail? Very dis­rup­tive. Sid­well or the other toney pri­vate schools have smaller stu­dent bod­ies, the cam­puses are usu­ally big­ger and eas­ier to keep out­siders out. They also prob­a­bly already have their own secu­rity staff as they have diplo­mats kids already.

    The Obama girls need pro­tec­tion and in a pub­lic school set­ting, they are dan­ger­ous to them­selves and the other kids.

    When we were in DC in March, we saw Sid­well and another swankey pri­vate school up near the National Cathe­dral. With all of the secu­rity and fences, he lat­ter looked like a nuclear facil­ity rather than a school. I’ll bet that there are Israeli diplomat’s kids there. Those kind of pri­vate schools could accom­mo­date the Obama girls safely with min­i­mal dis­rup­tion to the other stu­dents.

    Safety first.

  63. Jolene said on November 13th, 2008 at 11:36 pm

    Here’s a short arti­cle from tomorrow’s paper on the three schools the Oba­mas are con­sid­er­ing. The topic seems to be the talk of the town.

  64. Catherine said on November 14th, 2008 at 12:01 am

    One expects that the girls’ feel­ings are a big part of the deci­sion, not that the WaPo would empha­size that. Too bad about National Cathe­dral, though…

  65. del said on November 14th, 2008 at 1:27 am

    I cooked a pork shoul­der for a bbq pulled pork recipe a few days ago and my 8 yr old daugh­ter asked if it was really pig meat. She then lec­tured me earnestly about not killing and eat­ing pigs. She said it was against the law to kill a tiger and it should be against the law to kill a pig. I tried to explain it all to her but as the con­ver­sa­tion ended I heard her mut­ter, “I feel like I’m liv­ing with a mon­ster . . .”

  66. Gasman said on November 14th, 2008 at 2:46 am

    del,
    You might not want to rent “Babe” any­time soon. She’d be absolutely con­vinced that she is indeed liv­ing with a mon­ster.

  67. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2008 at 8:18 am

    Just for the record – Pam and I are quite impressed with Fort Wayne Com­mu­nity Schools’ accred­ited Montes­sori schools. Our young folks (includ­ing the 4 year old in pre-K) are in the pro­grams, and the teach­ers are all highly moti­vated and engaged, and there is a lengthy wait-list to gain admis­sion. As much as some yap­pers dog on pub­lic edu­ca­tion, I think Mary hit it on the head (as usual): par­ents who pay atten­tion will fig­ure out where their kids need to be. In our case, a few years ago Pam loaded the kids and I into the mini­van and we went off to a FWCS “school fair” where all the schools sent rep­re­sen­ta­tives (the prin­ci­pal and a teacher or two, in most cases) and you could go from dis­play to dis­play and gab with them, and see which ones impressed you. The Montes­sori schools imme­di­ately impressed us, and the rest is (as they say) his­tory!

  68. Jolene said on November 14th, 2008 at 8:39 am

    So are the Montes­sori schools pri­vate schools, Brian, or are they char­ter schools?

  69. nancy said on November 14th, 2008 at 8:47 am

    They’re pub­lic mag­nets, Jolene. The Fort Wayne Com­mu­nity Schools set­tled their racial-balance prob­lem about 20 years ago by mak­ing all their ele­men­tary schools mag­nets, every­thing from math/science to lan­guage arts to Span­ish immer­sion to phys ed. The Montes­sori pro­gram is part of that. Dur­ing a recent reor­ga­ni­za­tion, they extended it into mid­dle school, so Brian’s kids (and my ex-next-door neighbor’s) can go pre-K-8 at the same school.

    I think you have to apply for admit­tance, but they’re not selec­tive, as far as I know. They may select to some degree for racial bal­ance, but every­one I’ve known who wanted to go there (and was white) got in, no prob­lem.

  70. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2008 at 8:52 am

    Jolene – the Montes­sori schools that our young folks attend are (or at least were) the only fully accred­ited pub­lic Montes­sori schools in the coun­try. The teach­ers make a com­mit­ment (5 years, I believe) to stay in the Montes­sori pro­gram, and par­tic­i­pate in all the addi­tonal train­ing and school­ing they need for full accred­i­ta­tion.

    If a teacher opts out, then they’re on the hook for the invest­ment that the school sys­tem made on their con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and certification….so indeed, the teach­ers and staff are all highly moti­vated stake-holders, right along with the par­ents and the stu­dents. We really love it, and the young folks have been flour­ish­ing – although there IS a lot of home­work for the 13 year old!

    PS – Nance – I think there is a 300+wait-list now; and there are two Montes­sori schools, Bunche (where Chloe goes) and Towles (where Shelby and Grant and Nance’s ex-neighbor goes); I think Bunche is all pre-K and kinder­garten, and Towles goes on up through 8th grade.

    PPS – Recently the young folks were ask­ing me about Ver­non Jor­dan, and I assumed that they knew who saved his life here in Fort Wayne, and they didn’t! So, ol’ dad looked smart when he said that the hint is- where do you go to school? (which drew blank stares!)

  71. Jolene said on November 14th, 2008 at 8:52 am

    Sounds like a good sys­tem. Not being a par­ent, I’ve never had to deal w/ the school choice issue, but I know it can be a dif­fi­cult process—even if you don’t require that the admin­is­tra­tion accom­mo­date the Secret Ser­vice.

    Home­work is good for 13-year-olds, Brian. Oth­er­wise, it’s video games and Inter­net porn.

  72. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2008 at 9:06 am

    Oth­er­wise, it’s video games and Inter­net porn.

    He hasn’t learned to cover his tracks! We have a fil­ter that keeps most of that to a min­i­mum, but occa­sion­ally I’ll look at brows­ing his­tory, and he clicks on lots of Youtubes of scant­ily clad women (youtube is pretty much PG-13 type cleav­age).

    He seems to go for large racks on brunettes….can’t imag­ine where he gets THAT from!!

  73. Dexter said on November 14th, 2008 at 9:16 am

    Party Unity…Hillary Rod­ham Clin­ton for Sec’y of State? Good call. Will she take it? If it keeps it away from Bill Richard­son she will.

  74. Jolene said on November 14th, 2008 at 9:59 am

    I hadn’t thought about that angle, Dex­ter, but you may be right! I have to say I find the idea more appeal­ing than either Richard­son or John Kerry.

  75. alex said on November 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    A New York sen­ate seat’s a pretty plum thing to give up, though.

  76. moe99 said on November 14th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Man, if I were Hillary Clin­ton, I think I’d stick to the life­time sinecure that the Sen­ate seat offers her vs. the Sec­re­tary of State. She can chair the For­eign Rela­tions com­mit­tee and get about the same experience/and/or mileage out of that.

    I don’t see where she derives a major ben­e­fit from switch­ing jobs.

    OT: take this BBC Hol­ly­wood quiz:

    http://​news​.bbc​.co​.uk/​1​/​h​i​/​m​a​g​a​z​i​n​e​/​7​7​2​4​4​46.stm

    I got 7 out of 10

  77. LA Mary said on November 14th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    MichaelG,
    It was the Santa Mon­ica sta­tion that San­dra Tsing Loh ticked off. She used a bad word and the engi­neer didn’t use his bleep but­ton, so it went out over the air. Ruth Hirschman, the gen­eral man­ager, who tends to be a bit dic­ta­to­r­ial, sent her pack­ing. Ruth gets very ticked and holds grudges, so there have been a few tal­ented peo­ple who have left KCRW, never to return. It’s still a remark­able radio sta­tion. You can’t beat it for new music.

  78. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    moe – what a great quiz!! I did badly early on – and then learned to go with my first guess, and ended with a 5 out of 10, in the same “Rocky” range as you (so they say!) My mom would ace that test, though, and groan that any­body would miss any of them!

  79. Jolene said on November 14th, 2008 at 11:01 am

    I got 8/10. Think I’ll give myself a cookie.

  80. Halloween Jack said on November 14th, 2008 at 11:10 am

    Hoosier: I think that it’s quite likely; even though it’s more of a Lit­tle Egypt (south­ern tip of Illi­nois, between the Mis­sis­sippi and Ohio rivers) thing, horse­shoe sand­wiches have spread as far north as Peo­ria. I’ve had one made with prime rib that was very good.

    Another vari­a­tion: when I lived for a short time in St. Louis about twenty years ago, there was a diner that would take a stan­dard breakfast–eggs, hash browns, sausage–and smother it in chili. Mmm.

  81. brian stouder said on November 14th, 2008 at 11:22 am

    makes one won­der why they call it a “horse­shoe”, unless it is a ref­er­ence to what you think you’re pass­ing, 24 hours later…!! (but the toast/meat/fries mound ‘o food DOES sound good! – espe­cially a prime rib one!)

  82. Elin said on November 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

    My 40+ diet con­sists of Spanx AND Slimpres­sions! Spanx (2-please) for the bot­tom half and Slimpres­sions for the top half. I love how they slim my mid-section, back fat, AND ARM FLAB! Bril­liant! What will they come up with next?

  83. Mosef said on November 17th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

    Late to the dis­cus­sion, but I have strong opin­ions about pub­lic school. Here in CA we have just had a divi­sive vote regard­ing same-sex mar­riage, with gays fram­ing the debate as one of civil rights. I have always thought that the deplorable pub­lic schools minor­ity chil­dren are sad­dled with decade after decade (after decade) is a true civil rights issue. It is all well and good for middle-class par­ents to vote with their feet and buy homes in dis­tricts with good schools, but what are poor peo­ple to do? They are stuck with pub­lic edu­ca­tion.

    But I think the “send more money” solu­tion is fal­la­cious. DC and NYC pub­lic schools spend more per pub­lic than many top-tier pri­vate school, with dis­mal results. One option that needs more explo­ration is vouch­ers. Stu­dents in failed schools (note restric­tion) should be given vouch­ers that can be used to pur­chase a decent edu­ca­tion from a pri­vate school. Give par­ents choice, options, and the means to pay for it, and we will see an explo­sion of edu­ca­tional sys­tems. Some will be awe­some, some will suck, but at least we will break the death grip of the teach­ers’ unions on inno­va­tion.

  84. Hattie said on November 18th, 2008 at 11:51 am

    Plate lunches and moco locos are a thing of the past for me. Much as I love them, such a load of carbs, fat, and salt is not for any­one but a surfer in their 20′s.

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