Saturday Haiku: Tree at Dawn

on the crest

stands a single tree

praising dawn

              ~ CK

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A Southern White Boy Looks at Ferguson – Again

“Atticus–” said Jem bleakly.

He turned in the doorway. “What, son?”

“How could they do it, how could they?”

“I don’t know, but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight

and they’ll do it again and when they do it — seems that only children weep.”

― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

“The past is never dead. It's not even past.”

― William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Back in August I wrote a piece on the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. In that post, I simply asked readers to listen to the voices of two African Americans, culinary historian Michael Twitty, and novelist Ralph Ellison. I stated that “I cannot pretend to offer any solutions. I cannot even pretend to claim understanding. I have been trying, however, to listen. The only recommendation I can offer is that we stop and listen.”  As you can see, I begin this post by quoting two Southern white people and I offer another brief comment from my own Southern white perspective.

Why Ferguson Is Significant

It is difficult for us white folks to conceive of the world that African American's have grown up in. Furthermore, "white privilege" is a term that is difficult for some of us to stomach in the South because so many of us grew up either poor or struggling working class – we don't see ourselves as "privileged," but in terms of how we benefited from a social system set in our favor, we have been privileged. It is only relatively recently that I have begun to grasp the fact that the nice tidy world I grew up in, filled with caring and generous people at school, church, and on the town square, was paralleled by a dystopian terrorist state that my African American counterparts existed in. Nothing was safe or sure for them, and even their most agreeable times were dominated by fear of what could happen to them or their loved ones at any time and without hope for legal recourse. 

So while my upbringing in the South was full of idyllic moments, I had no understanding at the time of the world that black people lived in. They cooked and cleaned for whites – even raised white folk's children, but they were kept under control by tactics of terror. There were enough beatings and lynchings that were ignored by the legal system, and enough incidents of black people being "accidentally hit" by cars as they walked down the road to act as a warning to anyone who dared to challenge the system. My state even had its constitution re-written in 1901 to keep whites in power and to keep blacks suppressed in poverty and even slave-like conditions. Birmingham, Alabama is, after all, the place that South African officials visited to study and learn from prior to enforcing its apartheid system of government. It is difficult to fathom that my world with such joy and kindness existed side by side with systemic terror and evil. That is why Ferguson is significant. It points out the two worlds that continue to exist side by side in this beloved country.

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Photo: Peaceful protest in Durham, N.C. on Nov. 25

Credit: Robert Willett Time News Service

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Recommended Recipes: Apple Ginger Pancakes

I found a new recipe online by Adrianna Adarme at the Fresh Tastes blog. It was fun to make and I was able to adjust it to make it into a vegan-friendly recipe.  In addition to making it vegan, the other divergence I made from the recipe was that instead of using an iron skillet, I used a saute pan to prepare the apples, then I used a stove top griddle to cook the pancakes.

Apple Ginger Pancakes

Yield: 8 pancakes

Photo from Fresh Tastes blog

Ingredients

For the Apples: 

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 honey crisp apple, diced (about ¾  cup)
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• ¼  teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½  teaspoon grated fresh ginger

 For the Dry Mix: 

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼  teaspoon salt

 For the Wet Mix: 

• 1 ¼  cups buttermilk, shaken
• 1 large egg

 Other:

• Butter or vegetable oil, for the skillet

Directions

1. In a cast iron skillet (we’ll use the same one later), melt the butter over medium heat. When melted, add the diced apple, brown sugar, cinnamon and fresh ginger; mix until coated. Cook until fragrant and apples have cooked slightly, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove and set aside.
2. To a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a measuring cup or small bowl, measure out the buttermilk. Add the egg and beat until thoroughly combined.
3. All at once, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. The batter should have some small to medium lumps. Gently fold in the sautéed apples and allow the batter to stand for 5 minutes.
4. Preheat your skillet over medium heat and brush with a teaspoon of butter or a teaspoon of oil. Using a 1/4-cup measure, scoop the batter onto the warm skillet. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes until small bubbles form on the surface, and then flip. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook on the opposite sides for about 1 minute, or until golden brown.
5. Transfer the cooked pancakes to a baking sheet and place in a preheated 200 F oven to keep warm. Repeat the process with the remaining batter, adding more butter or vegetable oil to the skillet when needed. Serve immediately with maple syrup and a pat of butter.

Making it Vegan 

• Substitute the 1 ¼ cups buttermilk with ONE CUP of almond milk (I used Silk Vanilla Almondmilk)
• Substitute the egg with Egg Replacer, following the directions on the package for the equivalent of one egg.
• Substitute the butter with Earth Balance Original Buttery Spread (I do not recommend vegetable margarine due to its hydrogenated oil which is not healthy for the body).

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