I can remember being 15 and feeling like the only liberal kid in all of Brighton, Michigan, hoping that maybe, maybe, my grandkids would live to see LGBT rights become a reality. And look, I'm a cisgendered hetero chick; the story of those intervening ten years is profoundly not mine to tell.
But, Jesus.
At 15, I didn't know a single out gay person. The issue wasn't personal to me. That's not why I cared.
Most teenagers are insecure, but I think I fell pretty far on the bell curve. If you didn't know me back then, just picture a shy, twitchy bundle of neuroses, vaguely girl-shaped. But here was one thing, at least, where I had zero doubt. It was a clear cut and dry case of right and wrong, and that kind of clarity can be addictive.
I argued, loudly and frequently, in favor of gay rights. These are some of my clearest memories of high school: leaning forward in my desk, full of helpless fury, stammering out a retort to the guy who compared gay people to axe murderers, to the guy who recited that stupid Adam and Steve rhyme like a legitimate debate point, to the girl who snapped "Why do you care so much," as though caring was the worst crime imaginable.
For the most part, I was very timid. But there's a certain kind of fight it took me years to learn to walk away from, and it was hard to escape in Brighton, Michigan.
To be clear: I don't think what I did had much impact, except probably making the actual LGBT kids in the room very uncomfortable. Maybe it helped, to hear someone making the argument? I think it's just as likely they were looking at the floor, at their hands, at their desks, wishing to god for any kind of a subject change. Their Priority Number One was just to get through the day. It had to be.
I get the sense that, even in high schools of politically conservative Midwest towns, this is a little less the case now.
Surely some people predicted the culture shift of the last decade, but it caught me by surprise. In the end it didn't take a miracle, just a critical mass of people making the courageous, radical, and at times dangerous decision to be themselves. This would be the turning point: people being honest and brave, and forcing many well-meaning heterosexuals to realize that LGBT people were not some lurking threat, not a sitcom caricature or abstract issue. That they were our friends, our family members, our favorite comedians, but also our cashier at the grocery store, our mail carrier, that guy in accounting who brings forks to every company potluck. ("Wait, Frank's gay? What does that even mean?" I don't know dude, maybe that sexual orientation is just another thing about a person, like hair color or food allergies or the layout of their circulatory system?)
So. DOMA is unconstitutional and Proposition 8 has finally died.
And of course there is still a lot of work to do. The voting rights act, the situation in Greece--the world has not stopped being an incredibly screwed up place. We need to look at these issues head on, we need to understand what's at stake, and we need to keep fighting.
But if you can't enjoy the victories, you will burn out and succumb to despair.
I keep having this imaginary conversation with 15-year-old Jess, where I try to explain to her about DOMA and Prop 8. As far as LGBT rights are concerned, America is a different place than it was 10 years ago. Because eventually we came to realize that it was personal, after all. That it couldn't not be. And none of that would have been possible without the hard work and courage of many, many people.
And she's crying. And I'm crying.
So thanks.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
"Let us all be from somewhere
Let us tell each other everything we can"
--Bob Hicok, "A Primer"
So listen, I was born in Illinois
and lived there while I became me
(the first time I became me)
Snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring
Illinois: Land of Lincoln,
Land of Capone
Land of dirt as dark and rich as chocolate cake
The state crop is corn,
The state flower
is corn, as well.
It is the state tree and also the state animal.
The state motto is "Hey, don't forget about Chicago!"
Don't worry, Illinois: nobody could.
The bean and the tower and hog butcher to the world--
And in the Field Museum, the bones of dinosaurs
threaded back together with wire as if to say
it all ends sometime
But I will never stop being from Illinois
It springs up in me like a flash flood
of feelings
about deep-dish pizza
or homesickness for a decent supermarket
or the catechism of early nineties basketball players
that still somehow flows through my blood
I live in Minnesota now
The skies are bluer, the newscasters blonder,
and in Winter the air is patently trying to kill you
I like the round vowels and the Nordic stoicism
but I miss being a local
and if I'm honest, I miss the dirt, too.
My children will not be from where I am from.
Which is sad,
except they never are, not really.
In the end, every where is a when, too.
I can only say, here is my where and my when:
snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring
The state bird of Illinois
is Michael Jordan dunking a basketball
and if you don't understand,
then I know you are from somewhere else.
Let us tell each other everything we can"
--Bob Hicok, "A Primer"
So listen, I was born in Illinois
and lived there while I became me
(the first time I became me)
Snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring
Illinois: Land of Lincoln,
Land of Capone
Land of dirt as dark and rich as chocolate cake
The state crop is corn,
The state flower
is corn, as well.
It is the state tree and also the state animal.
The state motto is "Hey, don't forget about Chicago!"
Don't worry, Illinois: nobody could.
The bean and the tower and hog butcher to the world--
And in the Field Museum, the bones of dinosaurs
threaded back together with wire as if to say
it all ends sometime
But I will never stop being from Illinois
It springs up in me like a flash flood
of feelings
about deep-dish pizza
or homesickness for a decent supermarket
or the catechism of early nineties basketball players
that still somehow flows through my blood
I live in Minnesota now
The skies are bluer, the newscasters blonder,
and in Winter the air is patently trying to kill you
I like the round vowels and the Nordic stoicism
but I miss being a local
and if I'm honest, I miss the dirt, too.
My children will not be from where I am from.
Which is sad,
except they never are, not really.
In the end, every where is a when, too.
I can only say, here is my where and my when:
snowpants and the community pool,
rescuing half-drowned worms off the pavement in Spring
The state bird of Illinois
is Michael Jordan dunking a basketball
and if you don't understand,
then I know you are from somewhere else.
Monday, July 30, 2012
In Defense of Not Liking Things
Friends, there are some things the world simply expects us to like.
Off the top of my head: strawberries, french fries, pizza, the Beatles, the Harry Potter books, the original Star Wars trilogy, the first Indiana Jones movie, rock n roll, watching TV, alcohol, the Harry Potter movies, God, sex, cake, and democracy.
Specifics vary from place to place, of course. The above is with America in mind, and is only a fragment of a much longer list. The whole thing would probably be mind-bogglingly long. It's just also, by definition, hard to notice.
For example, I like strawberries, 99% of the people I know like strawberries, and so after a while the brain just categorizes it as objective fact: strawberries are delicious. End of story. So then, at the age of like 20, when you meet your first person who doesn't like strawberries, there's a natural tendency to lose your shit. Strawberries, man. Who doesn't like strawberries?
However.
Please bear in mind: this strawberry hater lives in the same world as you. Assuming they're not a tiny child, they have been subjected to strawberries multiple times.
For years they've heard impassioned pleas in favor of the berry. They are familiar with every imaginable version of "But it's the best fruit ever, what's wrong with you!!!", and then some. They have been fed, mostly against their will, countless jams, smoothies, and tarts, always with the assurance that this, this is the dish that will change everything, that will show them the error of their ways. They have been made to explain, and apologize for, their opinion many, many, many times.
If someone is an adult, and they know they dislike strawberries, rest assured, dear reader, they know they dislike strawberries. They are probably tired of arguing about fruit all the time. Show them some respect.
(Disclaimer: I love strawberries! This is a thought experiment.)
There is one correct response to "I don't like strawberries." One response, and only one, in the entirety of the English language, and that is to look the person straight in the eye, smile, shrug, and say "okay." (The eye contact part is negotiable if you're driving, or defusing a nuclear warhead, but you get the idea.)
Okay.
Moving on.
Full disclosure: I am a giant hypocrite. I abuse the "how could you possibly not like X???" sentence structure all the freaking time. A big part of what inspired this post is that it's something I've wrestled with for years.
For one thing, I enjoy cooking for large groups of people, and I like making people happy. Given that my friends have a range of dietary restrictions (I myself am vegetarian, and also no stranger to the exciting world of food allergies), it can be tough to satisfy everyone. So on top of all that, if a friend admits to hating, say, garlic, my first instinct is always going to be to start banging my head on the kitchen counter. Sorry.
For another thing, I'm a pretty big nerd. And broadly speaking, nerds are THE WORST at letting people dislike in peace. Because in addition to enthusiasm about the miracle of human consciousness, a crucial part of nerddom is getting way too invested in something.
I have feelings about the Harry Potter universe, okay. Hell, I have feelings about Crabbe and Goyle. A lot of them. So to me, when someone says, "I don't like Harry Potter that much," my brain hears, "You know what I hate? Little twelve-year-old Jess, and everything that made her life bearable and got her through middle school."
There's always the temptation to define ourselves by the litany what we do and don't like, and to plop that near the center of our identities. But that's nonsense. We've all met people with tastes similar to ours who still manage to be tremendous jerks. And we've all met amazing people whose media preferences we find inexplicable.
At the end of the day, people can't help their feelings about strawberries, any more than I can help my feelings about minor Harry Potter antagonists. Hearts aren't logical. Hearts can't be reasoned with. People who don't enjoy stuff beloved by the rest of the world aren't trying to be annoying or contrary, and they already know it's an unpopular opinion. You are never going to change their mind by shouting at them, making them feel shitty, or repeatedly bashing your head on a hard surface. Trust me.
Just accept that the world is a strange, varied, and beautiful place and move on.
I realize this may all sound astoundingly obvious. It's just something I think about from time to time, something I try to stay aware of, as practice for the distant but inevitable day a close friend will turn to me and say, "Man, you know what I've just never seen the appeal of? Parks and Recreation, public radio, Neko Case's voice, pancakes, musicals, the Daily Show, David Sedaris, or Firefly. Or garlic."
To which I, god willing, will say, "Okay."
FIRST CAVEAT:
I'd like to think the exception is when someone dismisses an entire genre.
For example, when if you say you don't like The Decemberists, I can kind of shrug it off. What, you mean you wouldn't recreationally listen to a nasal-voiced man sing a bunch of vocabulary words about guttersnipes dying of tuberculosis? That kind of thing is 100% my cup of tea, but I get it. However, when people say they don't like rap, my first thought is, "You probably haven't heard a wide range of hip hop."
Because it is totally possible to grow into adulthood only being exposed to a very particular type of rap. I thought I hated rap for years! I was wrong.
SECOND CAVEAT:
I was going to write something about how to gracefully not like things, but the perfect such guide already exists.
THIRD CAVEAT:
I am far more opinionated than I tend to admit. Please take all of the above with a grain of salt. Or, you know, the seasoning of your choice.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
It's Not Plagiarism if it's Genetic
My father has established a blog to track his long-term self-improvement and brain science odyssey. As I was proofreading his latest, as-yet unpublished, entry (that's right, Robb Best fans, I have the inside scoop! This one's a good one, too) it occurred to me that it feels a little weird to be outblogged by my dad. Outblogged by my hip older brother? Sure, why not? (Check out his funny, heartfelt meditation on a fat man eating tamales here.)
But my dad? The man who was present at my birth? The man who has known me so long, he is responsible for not one, not two, but easily a dozen of my silliest nicknames?* There's just something so wrong about that.
So I figured it might be time for yet another resuscitation of my own online journal.
Without further ado, my goals for this summer:
1. Learn to tap dance. I want to be more physically active in general, but tap dancing is an especial aspiration, both because I covet the ability so badly (so classy! so classic! so Gene Kelly-esque!) and because it is such an incredible longshot. I greatly enjoy the "flail around like a crazy person" school of movement, but choreographed dance has always eluded me. I am a girl who is still overwhelmed by the Electric Slide, who spends the whole song dreading the inevitable rotation that will put me at the front. (Have a heart, creators of line dances! Some of us slip into the back row for a reason.) Luckily, my good friend Breezy would be accompanying me, so for the first time in a long time, this one is vaguely possible.
2. Learn to meditate. I'm not looking for Nirvana. I just want to get past the part where my brain can't stop going, "Are you calm yet? Are you calm yet? How about...now? Now? Now!"
3. Master amateur taxidermy. Or psuedo-taxidermy; I'm not so attached to the idea of touching dead animals, I just want to make a life-size flammulated owl. Because look at it! So cute!
4. Finish my steampunk Rose Lalonde costume. The resolution train is taking a brief derailment into Nerd Country for a moment. But let's be honest: if you're reading this, probably there's at least one corner of Nerd Country you can claim as your homeland. Right now, I need to make a short-sleeved grey blouse with a Mandarin collar, which has the plus side of being something I'd wear anyways.
5. Make a passable (cost-effective?) replica of an old-timey harpoon gun. Self-explanatory.
6. Work enough hours that I can afford to eat like a king. A king that really likes fresh fruits and vegetables, and shops at the Farmer's Market when possible, and makes a lot of baked goods.
7. Edit my old NaNoWriMo project into something that resembles a readable novella. Fix the pacing. Give the characters actual conflicts. Come up with an ending, for crying out loud. If you can't write a wizard battle, at least find a way to write around the freaking wizard battle! (Words to...live by?)
7a. ~Optional bonus goal~ Convert the finished product into a radio play, enlisting my friends to perform the parts. I can't decide whether or not this would be enormously narcissistic, but I happen to know a lot of talented amateur actors and honestly it just seems like it could be really fun?
8. Make some clay things for the express purpose of selling. Earrings for the Ann Arbor Art Center (preferably before Mother's Day, since that's the last jewelry-buying holiday for some time), jar monsters, maybe finally re-contact Vault of Midnight about stocking some creatures there.
9. Find some new music. I have a bad tendency to just wait until the aforementioned brother (and occasionally also my mom) recommends a new band. But given the near-infinite amount of good stuff out there, I really don't have any excuse to be lazy about this.
10. Play some music! Collaborate with people any time the opportunity comes up. Maybe even perform somewhere. People's Food Co-op doesn't require you to audition or anything; it would be an easy enough start.
11. Organize more food-related adventures with other people. Picnics, tea parties, themed parties, cookouts, cooking experiments, cooking in locations where cooking is not generally expected.
12. Take advantage of all the local museums before I move. Om nom nom knowledge.
13. Move around more! Even if the dreams of tappin' up a storm fall through, that's no excuse to spend all my time stationary. Especially considering the research linking exercise to brain health oh God oh God I have become my father, it's too late...
14. Write with some regularity in some form, any form. Even if it's only updating this blog in a halfway consistent manner. The easiest way to not feel like a writer is to NOT WRITE ANYTHING; you'd think I would have figured this out by now.
So there we have it, my own 14 goals.
Your move, Mom...
*For the record: Birdy Khana, Birdy K, Birdy, Bird, "Birdy Hana as Sammy would say", The Great...Bairdy Khana (spoken with a heavy Scottish accent and the pause in the middle is essential), B, BK, Birdikiwa, Birdicus, Birdysseus, Beaky, Beaks, Beaky Von D, Beaky Von Doodle, Beaky von Doodley Doo, Beaky von Deaks, etc. Also, sometimes he calls me Jess.
But my dad? The man who was present at my birth? The man who has known me so long, he is responsible for not one, not two, but easily a dozen of my silliest nicknames?* There's just something so wrong about that.
So I figured it might be time for yet another resuscitation of my own online journal.
Without further ado, my goals for this summer:
1. Learn to tap dance. I want to be more physically active in general, but tap dancing is an especial aspiration, both because I covet the ability so badly (so classy! so classic! so Gene Kelly-esque!) and because it is such an incredible longshot. I greatly enjoy the "flail around like a crazy person" school of movement, but choreographed dance has always eluded me. I am a girl who is still overwhelmed by the Electric Slide, who spends the whole song dreading the inevitable rotation that will put me at the front. (Have a heart, creators of line dances! Some of us slip into the back row for a reason.) Luckily, my good friend Breezy would be accompanying me, so for the first time in a long time, this one is vaguely possible.
2. Learn to meditate. I'm not looking for Nirvana. I just want to get past the part where my brain can't stop going, "Are you calm yet? Are you calm yet? How about...now? Now? Now!"
3. Master amateur taxidermy. Or psuedo-taxidermy; I'm not so attached to the idea of touching dead animals, I just want to make a life-size flammulated owl. Because look at it! So cute!
4. Finish my steampunk Rose Lalonde costume. The resolution train is taking a brief derailment into Nerd Country for a moment. But let's be honest: if you're reading this, probably there's at least one corner of Nerd Country you can claim as your homeland. Right now, I need to make a short-sleeved grey blouse with a Mandarin collar, which has the plus side of being something I'd wear anyways.
5. Make a passable (cost-effective?) replica of an old-timey harpoon gun. Self-explanatory.
6. Work enough hours that I can afford to eat like a king. A king that really likes fresh fruits and vegetables, and shops at the Farmer's Market when possible, and makes a lot of baked goods.
7. Edit my old NaNoWriMo project into something that resembles a readable novella. Fix the pacing. Give the characters actual conflicts. Come up with an ending, for crying out loud. If you can't write a wizard battle, at least find a way to write around the freaking wizard battle! (Words to...live by?)
7a. ~Optional bonus goal~ Convert the finished product into a radio play, enlisting my friends to perform the parts. I can't decide whether or not this would be enormously narcissistic, but I happen to know a lot of talented amateur actors and honestly it just seems like it could be really fun?
8. Make some clay things for the express purpose of selling. Earrings for the Ann Arbor Art Center (preferably before Mother's Day, since that's the last jewelry-buying holiday for some time), jar monsters, maybe finally re-contact Vault of Midnight about stocking some creatures there.
9. Find some new music. I have a bad tendency to just wait until the aforementioned brother (and occasionally also my mom) recommends a new band. But given the near-infinite amount of good stuff out there, I really don't have any excuse to be lazy about this.
10. Play some music! Collaborate with people any time the opportunity comes up. Maybe even perform somewhere. People's Food Co-op doesn't require you to audition or anything; it would be an easy enough start.
11. Organize more food-related adventures with other people. Picnics, tea parties, themed parties, cookouts, cooking experiments, cooking in locations where cooking is not generally expected.
12. Take advantage of all the local museums before I move. Om nom nom knowledge.
13. Move around more! Even if the dreams of tappin' up a storm fall through, that's no excuse to spend all my time stationary. Especially considering the research linking exercise to brain health oh God oh God I have become my father, it's too late...
14. Write with some regularity in some form, any form. Even if it's only updating this blog in a halfway consistent manner. The easiest way to not feel like a writer is to NOT WRITE ANYTHING; you'd think I would have figured this out by now.
So there we have it, my own 14 goals.
Your move, Mom...
*For the record: Birdy Khana, Birdy K, Birdy, Bird, "Birdy Hana as Sammy would say", The Great...Bairdy Khana (spoken with a heavy Scottish accent and the pause in the middle is essential), B, BK, Birdikiwa, Birdicus, Birdysseus, Beaky, Beaks, Beaky Von D, Beaky Von Doodle, Beaky von Doodley Doo, Beaky von Deaks, etc. Also, sometimes he calls me Jess.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Song and Dance Girl
Sometimes I write songs. They can roughly be broken down into the following categories. Annotated for your convenience, and also because I am procrastinating more important things!
(Clicking on the song title should allow you to stream or download the track.)
Steampunk
Tesla :: Inspired by this comic and this video (the latter being decidedly not worksafe due to language)
Time Traveler's Waltz :: The steampunk answer to "Bicycle Built for Two."
Mechanical Man :: Your typical 19th century cyborg tragedy.
Same Place :: A protest song against the practice of digging up cadavers for use in scientific study, which I imagine would only be worse in a universe with greater amounts of experimentation and innovation.
Math, Science and Assorted Geekery
Occam's Razor :: In which I bastardize William of Ockham's principle for the sake of tidy metaphor.
Shroedinger's Cat :: When your relationship feels like a thought experiment, it is time to take stock.
Supersymmetry :: A torch song about the birth of the universe and its subsequent evolution.
Rule 34 :: The one about internet porn.
Silliness
Bicycle Cop :: Life is hard for bicycle cops. It's hard and nobody understands.
Patrice McShane :: The woman, the legend(s).
In My Town :: Post apocalyptic cowboy song, co-written by my dad.
Creepy Ones :: Every example of sketchy behavior listed in this song happened to either me or a close friend. Creepy people of the world, you are on notice!
Snakes for Rats :: I think this song has the highest body count of anything I've written.
The Ones that are Actually Kind of Heartfelt
It's Not Like
The Kettle Song :: Friends, hardship, and tea
Going Insane :: I'm probably going to rewrite this a little at some point in the future.
Certainty :: An extended metaphor about losing one's sense of confidence.
Next Best
Song for Mom :: Fair warning: you need to know my mom in order for this one to make any goddamn sense.
I think that's everything. If you can think of something I've left out, let me know!
Note: The quality of the recordings varies a bit, and at some point I am hoping to record everything using halfway decent equipment and the help of someone who knows how to mix sound, and then put out something roughly album-ish. If you'd like to be kept in the loop about that, drop me an e-mail at jessicamarybest at gmail.com.
(Clicking on the song title should allow you to stream or download the track.)
Steampunk
Tesla :: Inspired by this comic and this video (the latter being decidedly not worksafe due to language)
Time Traveler's Waltz :: The steampunk answer to "Bicycle Built for Two."
Mechanical Man :: Your typical 19th century cyborg tragedy.
Same Place :: A protest song against the practice of digging up cadavers for use in scientific study, which I imagine would only be worse in a universe with greater amounts of experimentation and innovation.
Math, Science and Assorted Geekery
Occam's Razor :: In which I bastardize William of Ockham's principle for the sake of tidy metaphor.
Shroedinger's Cat :: When your relationship feels like a thought experiment, it is time to take stock.
Supersymmetry :: A torch song about the birth of the universe and its subsequent evolution.
Rule 34 :: The one about internet porn.
Silliness
Bicycle Cop :: Life is hard for bicycle cops. It's hard and nobody understands.
Patrice McShane :: The woman, the legend(s).
In My Town :: Post apocalyptic cowboy song, co-written by my dad.
Creepy Ones :: Every example of sketchy behavior listed in this song happened to either me or a close friend. Creepy people of the world, you are on notice!
Snakes for Rats :: I think this song has the highest body count of anything I've written.
The Ones that are Actually Kind of Heartfelt
It's Not Like
The Kettle Song :: Friends, hardship, and tea
Going Insane :: I'm probably going to rewrite this a little at some point in the future.
Certainty :: An extended metaphor about losing one's sense of confidence.
Next Best
Song for Mom :: Fair warning: you need to know my mom in order for this one to make any goddamn sense.
I think that's everything. If you can think of something I've left out, let me know!
Note: The quality of the recordings varies a bit, and at some point I am hoping to record everything using halfway decent equipment and the help of someone who knows how to mix sound, and then put out something roughly album-ish. If you'd like to be kept in the loop about that, drop me an e-mail at jessicamarybest at gmail.com.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Architects, Chapter One
For reasons passing understanding, it was only 1:27. There had to be something about fluorescent light that made time go slower, Danny decided. Had he thought to study any kind of science, maybe he could've drafted a theory explaining why that was. The Daniel Carlson Theory of Temporal Dilation in Shitty Customer Service Jobs. SubHut had been completely dead for at least forty minutes. He stared at the floor, trying to decide whether he could get away with sweeping it again. True, he had just finished sweeping it--the broom was still in his hands--but there was a lot of floor, and maybe it had somehow gotten dirty on the other end by now. He wasn't so sure what it said about him that he was contemplating sweeping the floor for sheer entertainment value. If he had to guess: nothing good.
Behind him, Wendy was fiddling with the radio stations again. Tim the manager was out, and she had taken the opportunity to switch from the earsplitting whiny pop which Tim swore attracted to customers to what seemed to be a recording of chirps and caws.
He stared out at the shop--the orange and green booths wiped clean, the framed SubHut ads unsmudged, the giant churning soda machine with its straws and cups and lids arranged at the side in military precision.
Behind the counter, the tomato slices, cheese, cold cuts, and lettuce shreds lay perfectly restocked in their neat little tubs. Sometimes, after a long shift, when he closed his eyes, he could see those pale green, slightly wilted shreds swarming behind his eyelids. There was a time when he would've kind of enjoyed the thought of being haunted by something--in an abstract way, that brooding, secretive quality appealed to him--but had he been given the choice, he would not have picked pieces of lettuce.
For want of anything else to do, Danny reached into the vat of mayo and swirled the spatula around, pretending to himself that this somehow accomplished something, that it was vital to keep one's mayonnaise well-stirred.
From the radio, a warbling shriek drifted over. "Wendy, what are we listening to?" he asked.
She ducked her head. "Some birdcall nature show," she muttered. "It's the only other thing that comes in clear."
A gull made some sort of bleating noise, and Danny shrugged.
"Better than Justin Beiber," he said lightly.
Wendy gave him a small smile. "Think we can refill the pickles?" she asked.
Danny spread his hands. "Why the hell not?"
Tim sometimes gave him shit about Wendy when she wasn't in, alternating between reminding him about SubHut's no-dating-coworkers policy and making some pretty gross innuendo. The whole policy thing almost made him wish he and Wendy actually were an item, just because it would've been nice to thumb their noses at such a stupid goddamn rule. SubHut paid $7 an hour and didn't give you a free sandwich unless you worked more than eight hours. The idea that this somehow entitled management to control your personal life, like some kind of sandwich-centric fiefdom, was completely absurd.
On the other hand, this was Wendy MacDonald, who rarely spoke above a whisper and whose eyebrows were so pale that she managed to look constantly surprised, as though life was one giant curve ball. She had a round face, a love of socks with pictures of ducks on them, and a tendency to cry when customers got too mean. Sometimes when they interacted, he felt less like a work friend and more like someone who had accidentally adopted a puppy.
This wasn't fair to her, he knew; she was clearly bright and she hardly followed him around all the time, and also she was a fully-functional human being, but despite all of that, Wendy had a quality about her that seemed to scream, "I am young and vulnerable, please take me under your wing!" "Little sister" was probably more accurate than puppy, he realized, but he was an only child so it was a harder comparison to judge.
As far as he could tell, she was still in high school, and was it weird that they had the same job? Maybe it was, but he felt like what should've bothered him more was that she was roughly as good at it as he was. Which didn't really make sense because what did a degree have to do with slapping some mustard and a slice of congealing roast beef on bread? For crying out loud, he'd majored in folklore; it wasn't like that left you with a lot of solid life skills.
The bucket of pickles had been left on a high shelf for some reason. They worked with a lot of pot heads. Maybe that was reason enough.
"I can get it down," he offered.
She almost snorted. "Danny, I am taller than you."
"Slipped my mind."
Wendy dragged the chair across the tiles. They were kind of greasy, Danny noticed. Maybe he should've mopped. For some reason, though, mopping for fun seemed to be crossing a line. He made a hand print on the stainless steel counter and then wiped it off.
"How long has Tim been gone, d'you think?" he asked.
He could hear her voice straining slightly as she reached for the pickle bucket. "I don't know. Maybe--an hour? I wasn't looking at the clock."
"The bank's not that far away," Danny mused.
"Maybe he decided to run some--" Behind him, Wendy gasped, and there was the sound of splashing pickle juice. He turned around, and she was holding the rim of the bucket precariously, wide-eyed and covered in brine. She seemed to be shaking. At first he thought it was because the pickle juice was really cold, but then he remembered that the stuff had to be pretty much room temperature up on the shelf.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," said Wendy. "Yeah." She gingerly climbed off the chair and set the bucket on the counter.
"What happened, dude?" he asked, pulling down a wad of brown, scratchy paper towels. She dabbed at her face. The clothes were kind of a lost cause.
"There was, uh, something on the shelf," she said at last. "Something moving."
"Like a rat?" He made a face. SubHut had experienced some trouble with cockroaches in the past, but somehow this was an extra step up, vermin-wise.
"Maybe," said Wendy. "I don't know. I think I'm going to sit down for a moment." She folded down to the floor, breathing deeply.
"Was it big?"
"Pretty big," she said. "Pretty big. Oh crap!" Her eyes widened. "We're not supposed to sit down while we're working." She fought her way to her feet, leaning heavily against the counter. It must have been a pretty gross-looking rat, Danny figured.
"I'm calling the exterminator," he announced. "This is bullshit. Do you know where the Yellow Pages are?"
She took a deep, shaky breath. "Managers' office. It's locked."
“I don’t suppose you know how to jimmy a lock?” Danny asked.
One corner of Wendy’s mouth turned up. “I don’t know how to jimmy anything. You know who would know––”
“Yeah,” said Danny. “But he was scheduled to come in at eleven. I think we need to come to terms with the very real possibility that we’ll have to do without Jack’s special brand of ridiculous today.”
“Shame,” said Wendy, so neutrally that he couldn’t tell if she was mocking Jack, Danny, herself, or if she was genuinely disappointed. Brine dripped onto the floor in steady trickles.
“You want to change clothes? I’ll watch the counter in case of a sudden, mad early afternoon rush.”
She looked down at her SubHut shirt and khakis and made a small, frustrated noise. “All the extra employee shirts are in the office,” she said.
“Yeah, but didn’t you bring stuff to change into at the end of your shift?” It didn’t take too long at SubHut to get sick of smelling like ham all the time, and cloth soaked it up lingering aromas even better than hair. Although the pickle juice had nicely solved that problem, at least.
“I did.” She chewed her lip. “But it’s jeans and a sweater.”
Danny raised his eyebrows in the universal shorthand for ‘...and?’
“It’s not uniform.”
“Uniform? Dude,” he said. “You’re not a Marine. This is a sandwich shop! Not even a very good one. If anyone tries to tell you that you can’t make their Number 8 no mustard while wearing long sleeves, point me to them, and I’ll––I’ll spit on their cheese and, and make change using all Canadian coins.”
Wendy hovered uncertainly. “Tim’ll be mad, though.”
“Tim,” he said, “is a thirty-year-old guy with nothing to show for his life other than the managership of a single crappy sandwich place. I kinda think he’ll be mad no matter what.”
She frowned, glancing down again at her pickled clothes.
“At the very least, you could change pants,” he pointed out. “People on the other side of the counter only see you from the waist up. You could be wearing hammerpants, or like, one of those giant Civil War hoop skirts and nobody would be the wiser.”
“Except Tim.”
“Tim’s been gone over an hour,” said Danny. “I’m throwing a coup. I claim this shop for the Pacific Isles. Freedom, liberty, equality! Go put on dry pants.”
Wendy gave him a solute––or maybe it was a mock solute; you never could tell with Wendy––grabbed her clothes from her tattered backpack and headed for the bathroom.
He stared around the room for a moment. Despite the glaring lights and bright colors, it was somehow a little spooky without her. From the radio, an owl hooted. He was just about to start stacking tomato slices when his eyes found the bucket and he realized he could restock the pickles. There was exactly one pickle missing from the little metal tin at the side of the counter. He plopped it in with the tongs and glanced back up at the shelf. He could faintly hear the tiny patter of feet up there. Danny wasn’t really afraid of rats, per se, but that didn’t mean he wanted to come face to face with one while balancing precariously on a chair. He didn’t trust himself to have Wendy’s reflexes, nor, if he was honest with himself, her aversion to screaming. Not being a fan of rats was not the same thing as a phobia, he insisted inside his head.
He put the bucket of pickles back under the counter, lid snapped tight, where it belonged. He felt a momentary buzz of satisfaction knowing that he had protected food from infestation. Then he realized that if the rats could get on the shelf, they probably also had access to the pickle bucket. Did rats eat pickles? Then again, didn’t rats eat everything, wasn’t that kind of the whole point of rats? Danny frowned. Had he put a rat pickle in among all the regular ones? He was checking the pickles for telltale hairs when the bell at the door dinged and in walked Jack, eating an apple.
“Morning, Daniel,” said Jack. He paused in the doorway, nose wrinkling. “Ugh, what music are you listening to?”
“Free form jazz,” said Danny drily. A goose honked. “Very free form.”
“Uh, it’s bird sounds?” said Wendy, poking her head out of the bathroom. She was dressed in her street clothes and she had clearly wrung out her braid a few times, but her hair still looked pretty gross. “Most of the stations don’t seem to be working today. Feel free to switch it if you find something you like better.”
Jack threw his apple core in the garbage and turned to the radio, looking at it thoughtfully. He was wearing three or four stupid hipster scarves over his SubHut T-shirt, like his neck and only his neck was in horrible danger of getting cold. Jack was about the same age as Danny, which was to say, early twenties. Unlike Danny, he seemed totally untroubled by the possibility of working in places like SubHut for the rest of his life. This was possibly because Jack didn’t seem to overly care about anything. He was attractive, in a somewhat otherworldly, creepy way––sharp cheekbones, dark hair, bright blue eyes that didn’t blink quite enough––but he never seemed to notice when female customers (and very occasionally male ones) flirted with him.
He would’ve been intolerable, except that whenever a particularly obnoxious patron left Wendy in tears, Jack would wait until the jerk had left and then say something so perfectly funny and mean that she would laugh instead. It was like he was trying to be a good person, but his only setting was “asshole.”
Jack fiddled with the radio, filling the room with a staticky ocean.
“You’re so late you’re practically early again,” said Danny. “What gives, man?”
Jack shrugged. “Something came up,” he said.
“Something ‘came up’ for two and a half hours?”
“It’s a great big world out there,” said Jack, turning one of the knobs on the radio as high up as it could go.
“How are you not fired yet?” asked Danny, half to himself.
“Because Tim cares not one whit.”
“You kinda left us in the lurch, dude.”
Jack looked around the room coolly. “Looks like you managed just fine without me.”
“That’s because the lunch rush was two hours ago!”
“People all eat at the same time,” said Jack. “That’s so weird.” Danny gave him a blank look. Sometimes it was hard to know what to say to Jack.
“I might have a CD in my backpack,” Wendy offered. “Um, it’s classical, but––”
“Ugh,” said Jack again. “I’d rather have owl sounds.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Is there even music you like?”
“Of course there is,” said Jack, a strange smile flitting across his face. “But you’ve probably never heard of it.”
Wendy made a coughing sound. She shot Danny an amused look, and he mouthed ‘hipster douchebag.’ Jack poked the radio with one finger.
“Did you see Idol last night?” asked Danny after a moment.
Jack frowned distantly. “What? No. What's Idol?”
"Oh, is that another television program?" said Jack. He glared at the largest radio dial. "I don't actually own a TV."
Wendy raised her eyebrows in a way that probably meant ‘You don’t watch it either, Danny. Now you’re just being a troll.’ Danny shrugged to say, ‘Point, but we work in an empty sandwich store. What more do you want from me?’
Behind him, Wendy was fiddling with the radio stations again. Tim the manager was out, and she had taken the opportunity to switch from the earsplitting whiny pop which Tim swore attracted to customers to what seemed to be a recording of chirps and caws.
He stared out at the shop--the orange and green booths wiped clean, the framed SubHut ads unsmudged, the giant churning soda machine with its straws and cups and lids arranged at the side in military precision.
Behind the counter, the tomato slices, cheese, cold cuts, and lettuce shreds lay perfectly restocked in their neat little tubs. Sometimes, after a long shift, when he closed his eyes, he could see those pale green, slightly wilted shreds swarming behind his eyelids. There was a time when he would've kind of enjoyed the thought of being haunted by something--in an abstract way, that brooding, secretive quality appealed to him--but had he been given the choice, he would not have picked pieces of lettuce.
For want of anything else to do, Danny reached into the vat of mayo and swirled the spatula around, pretending to himself that this somehow accomplished something, that it was vital to keep one's mayonnaise well-stirred.
From the radio, a warbling shriek drifted over. "Wendy, what are we listening to?" he asked.
She ducked her head. "Some birdcall nature show," she muttered. "It's the only other thing that comes in clear."
A gull made some sort of bleating noise, and Danny shrugged.
"Better than Justin Beiber," he said lightly.
Wendy gave him a small smile. "Think we can refill the pickles?" she asked.
Danny spread his hands. "Why the hell not?"
Tim sometimes gave him shit about Wendy when she wasn't in, alternating between reminding him about SubHut's no-dating-coworkers policy and making some pretty gross innuendo. The whole policy thing almost made him wish he and Wendy actually were an item, just because it would've been nice to thumb their noses at such a stupid goddamn rule. SubHut paid $7 an hour and didn't give you a free sandwich unless you worked more than eight hours. The idea that this somehow entitled management to control your personal life, like some kind of sandwich-centric fiefdom, was completely absurd.
On the other hand, this was Wendy MacDonald, who rarely spoke above a whisper and whose eyebrows were so pale that she managed to look constantly surprised, as though life was one giant curve ball. She had a round face, a love of socks with pictures of ducks on them, and a tendency to cry when customers got too mean. Sometimes when they interacted, he felt less like a work friend and more like someone who had accidentally adopted a puppy.
This wasn't fair to her, he knew; she was clearly bright and she hardly followed him around all the time, and also she was a fully-functional human being, but despite all of that, Wendy had a quality about her that seemed to scream, "I am young and vulnerable, please take me under your wing!" "Little sister" was probably more accurate than puppy, he realized, but he was an only child so it was a harder comparison to judge.
As far as he could tell, she was still in high school, and was it weird that they had the same job? Maybe it was, but he felt like what should've bothered him more was that she was roughly as good at it as he was. Which didn't really make sense because what did a degree have to do with slapping some mustard and a slice of congealing roast beef on bread? For crying out loud, he'd majored in folklore; it wasn't like that left you with a lot of solid life skills.
The bucket of pickles had been left on a high shelf for some reason. They worked with a lot of pot heads. Maybe that was reason enough.
"I can get it down," he offered.
She almost snorted. "Danny, I am taller than you."
"Slipped my mind."
Wendy dragged the chair across the tiles. They were kind of greasy, Danny noticed. Maybe he should've mopped. For some reason, though, mopping for fun seemed to be crossing a line. He made a hand print on the stainless steel counter and then wiped it off.
"How long has Tim been gone, d'you think?" he asked.
He could hear her voice straining slightly as she reached for the pickle bucket. "I don't know. Maybe--an hour? I wasn't looking at the clock."
"The bank's not that far away," Danny mused.
"Maybe he decided to run some--" Behind him, Wendy gasped, and there was the sound of splashing pickle juice. He turned around, and she was holding the rim of the bucket precariously, wide-eyed and covered in brine. She seemed to be shaking. At first he thought it was because the pickle juice was really cold, but then he remembered that the stuff had to be pretty much room temperature up on the shelf.
"You okay?"
"Yeah," said Wendy. "Yeah." She gingerly climbed off the chair and set the bucket on the counter.
"What happened, dude?" he asked, pulling down a wad of brown, scratchy paper towels. She dabbed at her face. The clothes were kind of a lost cause.
"There was, uh, something on the shelf," she said at last. "Something moving."
"Like a rat?" He made a face. SubHut had experienced some trouble with cockroaches in the past, but somehow this was an extra step up, vermin-wise.
"Maybe," said Wendy. "I don't know. I think I'm going to sit down for a moment." She folded down to the floor, breathing deeply.
"Was it big?"
"Pretty big," she said. "Pretty big. Oh crap!" Her eyes widened. "We're not supposed to sit down while we're working." She fought her way to her feet, leaning heavily against the counter. It must have been a pretty gross-looking rat, Danny figured.
"I'm calling the exterminator," he announced. "This is bullshit. Do you know where the Yellow Pages are?"
She took a deep, shaky breath. "Managers' office. It's locked."
“I don’t suppose you know how to jimmy a lock?” Danny asked.
One corner of Wendy’s mouth turned up. “I don’t know how to jimmy anything. You know who would know––”
“Yeah,” said Danny. “But he was scheduled to come in at eleven. I think we need to come to terms with the very real possibility that we’ll have to do without Jack’s special brand of ridiculous today.”
“Shame,” said Wendy, so neutrally that he couldn’t tell if she was mocking Jack, Danny, herself, or if she was genuinely disappointed. Brine dripped onto the floor in steady trickles.
“You want to change clothes? I’ll watch the counter in case of a sudden, mad early afternoon rush.”
She looked down at her SubHut shirt and khakis and made a small, frustrated noise. “All the extra employee shirts are in the office,” she said.
“Yeah, but didn’t you bring stuff to change into at the end of your shift?” It didn’t take too long at SubHut to get sick of smelling like ham all the time, and cloth soaked it up lingering aromas even better than hair. Although the pickle juice had nicely solved that problem, at least.
“I did.” She chewed her lip. “But it’s jeans and a sweater.”
Danny raised his eyebrows in the universal shorthand for ‘...and?’
“It’s not uniform.”
“Uniform? Dude,” he said. “You’re not a Marine. This is a sandwich shop! Not even a very good one. If anyone tries to tell you that you can’t make their Number 8 no mustard while wearing long sleeves, point me to them, and I’ll––I’ll spit on their cheese and, and make change using all Canadian coins.”
Wendy hovered uncertainly. “Tim’ll be mad, though.”
“Tim,” he said, “is a thirty-year-old guy with nothing to show for his life other than the managership of a single crappy sandwich place. I kinda think he’ll be mad no matter what.”
She frowned, glancing down again at her pickled clothes.
“At the very least, you could change pants,” he pointed out. “People on the other side of the counter only see you from the waist up. You could be wearing hammerpants, or like, one of those giant Civil War hoop skirts and nobody would be the wiser.”
“Except Tim.”
“Tim’s been gone over an hour,” said Danny. “I’m throwing a coup. I claim this shop for the Pacific Isles. Freedom, liberty, equality! Go put on dry pants.”
Wendy gave him a solute––or maybe it was a mock solute; you never could tell with Wendy––grabbed her clothes from her tattered backpack and headed for the bathroom.
He stared around the room for a moment. Despite the glaring lights and bright colors, it was somehow a little spooky without her. From the radio, an owl hooted. He was just about to start stacking tomato slices when his eyes found the bucket and he realized he could restock the pickles. There was exactly one pickle missing from the little metal tin at the side of the counter. He plopped it in with the tongs and glanced back up at the shelf. He could faintly hear the tiny patter of feet up there. Danny wasn’t really afraid of rats, per se, but that didn’t mean he wanted to come face to face with one while balancing precariously on a chair. He didn’t trust himself to have Wendy’s reflexes, nor, if he was honest with himself, her aversion to screaming. Not being a fan of rats was not the same thing as a phobia, he insisted inside his head.
He put the bucket of pickles back under the counter, lid snapped tight, where it belonged. He felt a momentary buzz of satisfaction knowing that he had protected food from infestation. Then he realized that if the rats could get on the shelf, they probably also had access to the pickle bucket. Did rats eat pickles? Then again, didn’t rats eat everything, wasn’t that kind of the whole point of rats? Danny frowned. Had he put a rat pickle in among all the regular ones? He was checking the pickles for telltale hairs when the bell at the door dinged and in walked Jack, eating an apple.
“Morning, Daniel,” said Jack. He paused in the doorway, nose wrinkling. “Ugh, what music are you listening to?”
“Free form jazz,” said Danny drily. A goose honked. “Very free form.”
“Uh, it’s bird sounds?” said Wendy, poking her head out of the bathroom. She was dressed in her street clothes and she had clearly wrung out her braid a few times, but her hair still looked pretty gross. “Most of the stations don’t seem to be working today. Feel free to switch it if you find something you like better.”
Jack threw his apple core in the garbage and turned to the radio, looking at it thoughtfully. He was wearing three or four stupid hipster scarves over his SubHut T-shirt, like his neck and only his neck was in horrible danger of getting cold. Jack was about the same age as Danny, which was to say, early twenties. Unlike Danny, he seemed totally untroubled by the possibility of working in places like SubHut for the rest of his life. This was possibly because Jack didn’t seem to overly care about anything. He was attractive, in a somewhat otherworldly, creepy way––sharp cheekbones, dark hair, bright blue eyes that didn’t blink quite enough––but he never seemed to notice when female customers (and very occasionally male ones) flirted with him.
He would’ve been intolerable, except that whenever a particularly obnoxious patron left Wendy in tears, Jack would wait until the jerk had left and then say something so perfectly funny and mean that she would laugh instead. It was like he was trying to be a good person, but his only setting was “asshole.”
Jack fiddled with the radio, filling the room with a staticky ocean.
“You’re so late you’re practically early again,” said Danny. “What gives, man?”
Jack shrugged. “Something came up,” he said.
“Something ‘came up’ for two and a half hours?”
“It’s a great big world out there,” said Jack, turning one of the knobs on the radio as high up as it could go.
“How are you not fired yet?” asked Danny, half to himself.
“Because Tim cares not one whit.”
“You kinda left us in the lurch, dude.”
Jack looked around the room coolly. “Looks like you managed just fine without me.”
“That’s because the lunch rush was two hours ago!”
“People all eat at the same time,” said Jack. “That’s so weird.” Danny gave him a blank look. Sometimes it was hard to know what to say to Jack.
“I might have a CD in my backpack,” Wendy offered. “Um, it’s classical, but––”
“Ugh,” said Jack again. “I’d rather have owl sounds.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Is there even music you like?”
“Of course there is,” said Jack, a strange smile flitting across his face. “But you’ve probably never heard of it.”
Wendy made a coughing sound. She shot Danny an amused look, and he mouthed ‘hipster douchebag.’ Jack poked the radio with one finger.
“Did you see Idol last night?” asked Danny after a moment.
Jack frowned distantly. “What? No. What's Idol?”
"Um, American Idol? It's a––"
"Oh, is that another television program?" said Jack. He glared at the largest radio dial. "I don't actually own a TV."
Wendy raised her eyebrows in a way that probably meant ‘You don’t watch it either, Danny. Now you’re just being a troll.’ Danny shrugged to say, ‘Point, but we work in an empty sandwich store. What more do you want from me?’
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Co-op Enchiladas (Guffchiladas?)
Ahahahaha, so this one time, I had a blog that I used to write in? Oops. Anyway, a few housemates asked for this recipe, and facebook has character limits on notes, so this seemed like the most logical posting place. And so, without further ado, a (very bastardized version of a) time-honored dish in the Best household: Spinach Enchiladas.
1. Heat the oven to 350.
2. For the sauce:
Drain and puree a large can of diced tomatoes. (As always, the caveat: if you can find canned crushed tomatoes--the good, pulpy stuff, not the weirdly concentrated paste GFS hawks, use that instead. Way faster, better texture. Available at any grocery store. Somehow not available in bulk.)
Chop and sauté a goodly amount of garlic in like a tablespoon of oil. I don't really know how much garlic. A lot, let's say. If your garlic is old, you should probably remove the little sproutling inside each clove, THEN chop it up. Add dried basil (I mean, or fresh if you've got it, but let's be realistic, this is a co-op) and some onion powder and let it all sizzle a bit, then stir this into the tomatoes.
3. For the filling:
Peel and cut up some sweet potatoes. Steam them until very soft.
As they're steaming, pour about a tablespoon of oil into a pan. Add crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, and chipotle chile powder. Turn on the heat, and stir it around for a bit. Add (rinsed and drained) canned black beans, stir until it's evenly mixed and the beans look softer.
When a fork sinks right through the sweet potato chunks with no resistance, remove them from the steam and mash them. In another pot, melt some Earth Balance. Add cinnamon and cumin, and then the mashed potatoes. Stir this around--it will be very thick. Add enough soy milk for the mixture to be creamy. (It shouldn't take more than a bit.) Stir until well-mixed.
Wash some spinach, and shake out as much water as you can. Add the beans and the spinach to the pot with the sweet potato mixture. Add some chopped green onions. (If you don't have chopped green onions, then chop a small amount of raw regular-type onion into tiny pieces. Close enough for government work!) Stir until well-combined.
4. Assembly:
Kind of what you'd expect. Pour some sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and spread it around as best you can. Spoon a decent amount of filling onto each tortilla, wrap the whole thing tightly and crowd them into the baking dish. Spread the rest of the sauce on top of them, making sure that no part of the tortillas are dry--especially not the edges. You may need to do two layers to fit them all; this shouldn't be a problem, as long as your dish is deep enough.
5. Baking:
About 25 minutes, or until the tortillas are kind of golden under the sauce.
(For the non-vegan version, omit all the business with the sweet potatoes. Do the beans as written here, then add the spinach, the green onions, and a bunch of shredded cheddar. Knead it around with your hands til well-mixed, and proceed with the recipe. If you really wanted to get crazy, I suppose you could make a version with sweet potatoes AND cheese. I have never done this! I can't promise it would work, but it might be worth a try.)
NOTES: Cooking for 29 people on a student co-op budget is an exercise in adaptation and substitution. Back home, when my mom made this recipe for the four of us, it was pretty different. Some suggestions if you have either more money, or fewer mouths to feed:
-Use finely finely chopped fresh jalapeno instead of red pepper flakes.
-When you're sauteing the garlic for the sauce, add a bunch of chopped up onion, and cook the whole thing until the onion is translucent.
-In the cheese version of the recipe, add fresh chopped cilantro and sliced black olives to the filling.
-You can also consider throwing some chopped up raw bell peppers on top? Not sure if I've ever done it, but my brother says they add a nice crunch.
-When they're done baking, you can also slice avocados very thinly and use them as a topping or garnish. Or both. Man, I love avocados.
1. Heat the oven to 350.
2. For the sauce:
Drain and puree a large can of diced tomatoes. (As always, the caveat: if you can find canned crushed tomatoes--the good, pulpy stuff, not the weirdly concentrated paste GFS hawks, use that instead. Way faster, better texture. Available at any grocery store. Somehow not available in bulk.)
Chop and sauté a goodly amount of garlic in like a tablespoon of oil. I don't really know how much garlic. A lot, let's say. If your garlic is old, you should probably remove the little sproutling inside each clove, THEN chop it up. Add dried basil (I mean, or fresh if you've got it, but let's be realistic, this is a co-op) and some onion powder and let it all sizzle a bit, then stir this into the tomatoes.
3. For the filling:
Peel and cut up some sweet potatoes. Steam them until very soft.
As they're steaming, pour about a tablespoon of oil into a pan. Add crushed red pepper, salt, pepper, and chipotle chile powder. Turn on the heat, and stir it around for a bit. Add (rinsed and drained) canned black beans, stir until it's evenly mixed and the beans look softer.
When a fork sinks right through the sweet potato chunks with no resistance, remove them from the steam and mash them. In another pot, melt some Earth Balance. Add cinnamon and cumin, and then the mashed potatoes. Stir this around--it will be very thick. Add enough soy milk for the mixture to be creamy. (It shouldn't take more than a bit.) Stir until well-mixed.
Wash some spinach, and shake out as much water as you can. Add the beans and the spinach to the pot with the sweet potato mixture. Add some chopped green onions. (If you don't have chopped green onions, then chop a small amount of raw regular-type onion into tiny pieces. Close enough for government work!) Stir until well-combined.
4. Assembly:
Kind of what you'd expect. Pour some sauce on the bottom of your baking dish and spread it around as best you can. Spoon a decent amount of filling onto each tortilla, wrap the whole thing tightly and crowd them into the baking dish. Spread the rest of the sauce on top of them, making sure that no part of the tortillas are dry--especially not the edges. You may need to do two layers to fit them all; this shouldn't be a problem, as long as your dish is deep enough.
5. Baking:
About 25 minutes, or until the tortillas are kind of golden under the sauce.
(For the non-vegan version, omit all the business with the sweet potatoes. Do the beans as written here, then add the spinach, the green onions, and a bunch of shredded cheddar. Knead it around with your hands til well-mixed, and proceed with the recipe. If you really wanted to get crazy, I suppose you could make a version with sweet potatoes AND cheese. I have never done this! I can't promise it would work, but it might be worth a try.)
NOTES: Cooking for 29 people on a student co-op budget is an exercise in adaptation and substitution. Back home, when my mom made this recipe for the four of us, it was pretty different. Some suggestions if you have either more money, or fewer mouths to feed:
-Use finely finely chopped fresh jalapeno instead of red pepper flakes.
-When you're sauteing the garlic for the sauce, add a bunch of chopped up onion, and cook the whole thing until the onion is translucent.
-In the cheese version of the recipe, add fresh chopped cilantro and sliced black olives to the filling.
-You can also consider throwing some chopped up raw bell peppers on top? Not sure if I've ever done it, but my brother says they add a nice crunch.
-When they're done baking, you can also slice avocados very thinly and use them as a topping or garnish. Or both. Man, I love avocados.
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