The joy of Procreation

Procreate® must be one of the most poorly named apps out there. It has nothing to do with the making of babies, with which I am already well-versed, but is instead a best-selling program for making art (not love) on the iPad. Cassie recently introduced me to the Procreate app (check out her collection of beautiful pieces sometime), and I took a course for beginners that she recommended. There are also tons of YouTube videos, one of which I adapted to make this, which you should all be very familiar with:

Now you have a fancy-schmancy, fully downloadable version of the index card of fatherly wisdom, just in case you ever forget the complex principles I formulated to guide you in pursuing a happy life.

 

After the index card, my next project was a no-brainer: after six years, it was time to design the Use a Kitchen Scale logo. For those of you who haven't noticed yet (shame on you), about a week ago I deployed the logo on the right side of the screen, above the "SEARCH THIS BLOG" gadget. See it over there? 

↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗↗

 

And here it is blown up so you can really appreciate my surprisingly refined, albeit nascent, artistic sensibility:

Nice, right? Licensing opportunities are available at attractive rates for anyone who wants to use the logo to move some merch.

 

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You can do evil and get off scot-free

If you're wondering what your next (or first) job should be, let me direct your attention to ransomware. In May 2019, the cybercriminals behind the GandCrab ransomware attacks announced they were terminating the program because they had earned so much money (north of $2 billion, with weekly income of $2.5 million) that they could retire on a beach somewhere. Their master plan certainly worked out better for them than it did for Hans Gruber.

 

 

 

But just like Hans Gruber, these criminals had a sense of humor. In their farewell notice, the crooks said:

We ourselves have earned over US $150 million in one year. This money has been successfully cashed out and invested in various legal projects, both online and offline ones. It has been a pleasure to work with you. But, like we said, all things come to an end. We are getting a well-deserved retirement. We are a living proof that you can do evil and get off scot-free. We have proved that one can make a lifetime of money in one year. We have proved that you can become number one by general admission, not in your own conceit

So there it is: You can make a lifetime of money in one year if you choose the right career path. Choose wisely.

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And speaking of evil: I've been running with great pleasure past the empty holes where the statutes of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson used to pollute the views of downtown Charlottesville. Ben Hitchcock, the editor of C-ville Weekly, was apparently having the same thought, because he wrote in the August 4 – 10 issue how glad he was to be able to eat his lunch in what is now Market Street Park (formerly Lee Park) next to the raggedly little garden that has sprouted up where Lee's statute used to be, "rather than in the shadow of a racist monument." In addition to the makeshift garden, Hitchcock also appreciated the sidewalk graffiti reading "Fuck Robert E. Lee and the horse he rode out on." Which proves that graffiti artists can be just as funny as (and have better grammar than) cybercriminals.

 

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The utility of the poop knife

One of the funniest things I've ever read is the personal essay "Big Boy" by David Sedaris (Esquire, Nov. 1999; later included in his collection Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), $1 at the book sale). (It's only 715 words; stop reading this episode and go check it out right now.) The gist is that Sedaris is at a dinner party with friends and excuses himself to use the john. But there he finds "the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life—no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a burrito." Sedaris flushes the toilet twice, but the big boy refuses to budge. Then someone knocks on the door to take their turn and Sedaris panics, afraid that they'll think he laid the enormous loaf. So Sedaris finds a plunger and uses the handle to "break the turd into manageable pieces," which he finally gets to go down the toilet with one last flush.

If only Sedaris had had access to the Original Poop Knife (motto: "it's a real thing"), there would have been nothing to fear. What is a poop knife? I'm glad you asked because I only just heard about it at Uncle Clint's birthday party. The Original Poop Knife* is a thin instrument, shaped kinda like a jar scraper, and made out of "hygienic silicone," which you'll be relieved to know is "easy to clean" and "dishwasher safe," just in case you wanted to take this thing straight from cutting poops in your john to your sink or dishwasher for a cleaning. The silicone surrounds a "strong metal core" for "ultimate poop cutting power." And best of all, it's 9.8 inches long so you can cut those hard-to-reach poops in the bottom of the bowl while keeping your hands "clear of the Danger Zone." All that design excellence can be yours for a mere $19.99 (makes a great stocking stuffer!).

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*The story of the original poop knife first appeared in a Reddit post by "Learned Butt," in whose family "everyone births giant logs of crap" that were so often unflushable his family started using a rusty old kitchen knife to cut their turds up to stop the overflowing toilets.

 

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A trip to the ER

You know when you're watching a sporting event and those ads come on for Viagra or other ED drugs and they say to contact your doctor if you have an erection lasting more than 4 hours? Believe them!

 

When Mom went to the ER last week,[1] she could hear everything in the room next door, and what she heard was a 38-year-old dude suffering from Viagra-induced priapism [2] and hollering his head off. In the spirit of a trip to the DMV, here are the highlights of our ensuing text exchange [3]:

 

Mom                                                 Me

Guy just came in with priapism.

He in some serious pain. 

                                                       Seriously? Priapism? How does that                                                        happen?

Viagra?

Sounds like he is in labor.

                                                       Ouch! Can't he just beat off and have

                                                       an orgasm and then it'll go down?

Apparently not. Going to surgery.

                                                       Oh god, dick surgery! This is prime blog

                                                       material [4]

 

Good advertisement not to use

viagra. String of cussing coming

from next door.

 

                                                       Good thing I don't need it

                                                       [wink Memoji]

He says it's gonna pop

                                                       His dick? I thought he went to surgery

Not yet. I think he is going now.

Poor dude. That was some

serious pain

Mom was discharged soon after this last text, so we didn't get to hear how the story ended. But man, talk about learning your lesson the hard way. [5]

 

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[1] Maybe I should have led with this fact. She's fine now.

 

[2] The Mayo Clinic defines priapism as a "persistent erection [that] continues hours beyond or isn't caused by sexual stimulation." According to NBC News, the condition is "[n]amed for Priapus, the Greek god of fertility who sported an oversized, eternally-erect penis (so large, in fact, he used it to frighten away anyone who tried to plunder his gardens)." I bet that would work way better than a scarecrow! I wonder if our homeowners' association would let us put up a full-sized statute of Priapus to keep anyone or anything from plundering Mom's gardens?

 

[3] Due to COVID-19 restrictions, I was not allowed to go into the ER with Mom.

 

[4] Never say I didn't teach you to always keep your priorities straight. 

[5] Sorry, I couldn't help myself. 😈

 

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It's the little things

I recently read an interesting study on using "[e]veryday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships." (Sara B. Algoe, Shelly L. Gable, and Natalya C. Maisel, It’s the little things. Personal Relationships, 17 (2010), 217–233.) The authors studied 67 heterosexual cohabiting couples (134 people total) who had been in a romantic relationship for at least three months. Every night for two weeks, the participants recorded their own and their partner's "thoughtful actions, their emotional response to interactions with their partner, and their relationship well being from that day." Each participant responded "yes" or "no" to two questions to measure (1) their own behavior that day ("I did something thoughtful for my partner"), and (2) their perception of the partner's responsive behavior that day ("My partner did something thoughtful for me"). Participants also reported on (1) their emotional responses to their partner's actions that day (e.g., thankfulness, appreciation, gratitude, indebtedness), (2) their relationship satisfaction that day (on a scale from terrific to terrible), and (3) their relationship connection that day (happy, connected, out of touch, responded to). 

Out of the 1,768 days of reports, participants indicated that their partner did something thoughtful for them 698 times (39.5%; males 36%, females 43%) and that they did something thoughtful for their partner 601 times (34.1%; males 33%, females 35%). The authors found that thoughtful behaviors (or even perceived thoughtful behaviors) predicted that the recipient would feel gratitude toward their partner as a result of interactions from the day. In turn, gratitude toward the benefactor uniquely predicted increases in feelings of relationship quality (satisfaction and connection) from the previous day for both recipient and benefactor. In other words, "[m]en and women with grateful partners felt more connected to the partner and more satisfied with the romantic relationship than they had the previous day." The authors surmised that the conscious experience of gratitude plays an important role in increasing relationship quality within an ongoing romantic relationship through a "remind-bind" mechanism, that is, "gratitude is thought to signal attention to the quality of the relationship with the benefactor (i.e., to remind) and to make the recipient feel close and connected to the benefactor (i.e., to bind)." In that way, gratitude may help to create an "upward spiral" of relational well-being between romantic partners.

Now, if you were paying close attention to the raw numbers above, you will have noted that there was some disagreement between partners as to when one had engaged in a thoughtful behavior toward the other. In fact, the participants agreed with their partner only 61% of the time (i.e., they both answered "yes" or "no" to whether their partner had done something thoughtful for them that day). Something I thought was really fascinating, but that didn't get a lot of play in the article, was that half the time one person reported that they had done something thoughtful for their partner, the other partner disagreed. Take that, smart guy! There you were, smug in the thought that you'd done a solid for your partner and were going to earn some Seinfeldian "hand" in the relationship, and your partner didn't even notice!

 

So how do you avoid the tragedy of a good deed wasted? You have to pick the right thoughtful act. The key is not whether the recipient was in need of a boost but whether the benefactor is "responsive to the self," that is, "the needs and wishes of the recipient." In short, you have to do some work to understand your partner's wishes and needs and then respond to those, which is "central to feelings of intimacy and closeness." Exercise those empathy muscles. Good luck.

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More voyages with porch pirates

Ahoy dear readers, I'm afraid my reputation precedes me, like a mighty leviathan trying to outrun the sting of the harpoon in the briney deep. My buddy Ed continues to feed my obsession by forwarding me every article he stumbles across on the scourge of porch piracy, and I continue to take the bait. But how could I resist such choice morsels as these?

 

The first article ("Americans lost $5.4 billion in stolen packages this year, survey finds") reports that half of the booty lost to porch piracy—$2.7 billion this year—was swindled from millennials and another $1.6 billion from GenXers, while baby boomers lost a mere $700 million. No doubt the buccaneers have realized the profit in stealing all of the North Face, Land's End, and similar merch you and all of your millennial and GenX peers are buying. If you go to the article, you will note that this freebooter was at least thoughtful and/or smart enough to wear a face covering while hornswaggling the loot—no sense giving or getting COVID-19 along with your not-so-hard-won bounty.

Alas, pirate smarts were sorely lacking from the bilge-sucking scallywag discussed in the second article ("Alleged porch pirate arrested after wearing exact same shirt to court from surveillance footage"). This line from the article says it all: "An accused porch pirate has been arrested after wearing the exact same shirt the very next day to a South Carolina courtroom that he had worn to steal packages from peoples’ porches" the day before. Not only that, but you can see from the photo that it was a North Face shirt he was wearing both days, which is prima facie evidence that he's a serial offender, having almost certainly swiped the shirt from some poor millennial on a previous voyage. So mark my words and keep up your guard against this ever-expanding menace. Savvy?

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Music therapy

I've definitely been going through the motions lately, especially after straining a calf muscle and not being able to pause this especially crazy world around me for a few weeks. It also doesn't help to have just passed a Covid birthday, with banana bread I made myself for dessert, and a reminder from Uncle Bob that I'm in the "upper 50's now."

Sometimes when I'm down in the dumps, I try to escape musically. Lately though, after being blown away by Benjamin Scheuer's incredible Trump-era protest song "Lafayette Square," I've taken a trip down memory lane with Bob Dylan's protest and other songs from the 60's and 70's. That is great stuff, but it's definitely not uplifing. "Like a Rolling Stone" is one of my all-time favorite songs, but damn, that is one angry song.

After plowing through two seasons of Cobra Kai on Netflix, we were in a show hole. Brad wasn't ready for anything deep yet, so last night we vegged on the by-the-book rom-com Love, Guaranteed, even though one of the stars is Damon Wayans, Jr., who ruined pretty much every scene he appeared in as Coach in New Girl. The movie was about what you'd expect and only mildly entertaining. But there was a good running gag involving Coach's love interest driving around in a beat-up old car in which the sound system only played a cassette that was stuck on Tiffany's 1987 remake of "I Think We're Alone Now."

The song was originally released in 1967 by Tommy James and the Shondells and is a very early example of "bubblegum" music, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about it. But man is it catchy! Plus, it immediately recalled Umbrella Academy, a show about a dysfunctional family of superheroes that we also binged right before Cassie headed back to school. My favorite scene from both seasons was in the very first episode, where five of the Hargreeves siblings all dance, together but apart, to "I Think We're Alone Now," and each in a way befitting of their own personality:

I don't know why, but the joy watching that gives me is off the charts. That made me think to take a page out of Cassie's book and try some music therapy on myself. So I took a few hours and put together a playlist of songs that have no artistic or other redeeming value but are fun as hell and make me want to sing and dance around the kitchen while I'm making dinner. My "Music Therapy" playlist is here on Spotify and here on Tidal. You can also hear 30-second snippets from each of the songs below:

It's a mix of old and new-ish songs and you can make fun of me for some or all of the choices, but I don't care, they bring me joy and I'm in such a much better mood now that I can handle your scorn. If you're feeling more constructive, let me know if you have suggestions for songs to add.

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The uses of fart spray

I've been having trouble finding a book that will grab my attention, so I finally picked up something I knew I'd like—The Righteous Mind (2012) by Jonathan Haidt.

$1 at the Friends of the Library Book Sale

Also $1 at the book sale

Haidt's first book, The Happiness Hypothesis (2006), is one of my favorites, and The Righteous Mind literally picks up exactly where The Happiness Hypothesis left off. In the first part of The Righteous Mind, Haidt canvasses various experiments that support his first principle of moral psychology, which is that "[i]ntuitions come first, strategic reasoning second." The idea is that people stake out a position first, usually for intuitive reasons, before finding evidence to support that position, in a process known as confirmation bias.

One example of social intuitionism is found in a study showing that people's moral judgments are impacted by their sense of smell, which is obviously intuitive and not rational. The experimental design involved a Stanford grad student surreptitiously spraying a trash can with fart spray half of the time before stopping subjects in the vicinity of the can to have them fill out a survey. The participants who were surveyed next to the malodorous trash can made harsher judgments about the controversial issues they were asked about. My favorite part was tracking down the actual article that was published in the august Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin ("Disgust as Embodied Moral Judgment") and reading this analytical description of the fart spray, including where the scientists procured it:

The fart spray (purchased at www.forumnovelties.com) consisted of ammonium sulfide in a water solution. When the solution is sprayed, hydrogen sulfide, a component of flatulence, is released alongside ammonia. The resultant odor is unpleasant but harmless at low levels.

I'm glad they cleared that up.

As cool as it is to use fart spray in serious scientific research, nothing beats incorporating it into a killer strategy for taking revenge on filthy porch pirates. If you haven't seen Mark Rober on YouTube (he has over 12 million subscribers), he's a mechanical engineer who quit his job at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (where he spent seven years working on the Mars Curiosity Rover) and is now making highly entertaining videos. After a freebooter made the mistake of swiping a package off Rober's porch, he channeled his inner Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin's character in Home Alone) and built the ne plus ultra of anti-porch piracy devices.

When the buccaneers open the fake packages, they get showered with a pound of the "world's finest glitter" and multiple doses of fart spray. The use of fart spray is doubly ingenious because it douses the pirates and the area where they open their faux booty with a hideous smell, which is not only funny but also encourages them to toss the high-tech packages, thereby increasing Rober's chances of recovering them through the GPS-tracking phones he employs for that purpose and to film the entire episodes for his, and our, entertainment.

Rober's first escapade using his "glitter bomb trap" was so popular that he made some upgrades in a second iteration, including adding a second bottle of even fouler smelling fart spray, which he tested with the help of Macaulay Culkin himself. When you're done with these videos, check out the squirrel ninja obstacle course that Rober built in his backyard.

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Rosebush

I've lately been looking to poetry for perspective and have a couple of good sources in Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry columns and the Poetry Unbound podcast that Uncle Clint recommended. I don't have the patience for most podcasts, but the Poetry Unbound episodes are only about 8 to 10 minutes each (and some shorter than that). In his fine Irish brogue, the poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama reads, and comments on, a single poem in each episode. The first 16 episodes have all been worthwhile, but I particularly enjoyed the fifth episode on Tracy K. Smith's exquisite poem "Song."

Dylan also unwittingly introduced me to the Spoken Word Poetry (isn't all poetry "spoken word poetry"?) of Rudy Francisco through his 2017 volume Helium. I can't say the book as a whole did much for me, but I did relate to the poem “Ouch,” in which the poet injures himself just walking and muses that “At this age, / my body is a stranger that I / keep meeting over and over again. / The words ‘I am’ are slowly transforming / into ‘I used to be.’” Here is Francisco reciting the whole poem (it only lasts a minute):



But take a look at this dude! I looked it up and he was only thirty-five when “Ouch” was published. Good grief, Rudy, wait till you see what life has to offer when you're fifty-five.

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Rosebush


My running peaked at fifty,
through the alchemy of age-grading,
till I tore my right hamstring in 2014.
The left one followed three years later.
From a young fifty to a cascade of complaints:
arthritic spine;
a chestful of grief;
a shoulder stabbing in the night (though I haven’t
thrown the horsehide in anger since I was ten);
the accumulating allergies, democratically covering
all seasons and places, inside and out—
Dust mites (the terrible D. pteronyssinus,
like some microscopic dinosaur up my nose),
spring white oak, fall common ragweed,
wasp, yellow jacket, yellow hornet, and
the white- or bald-faced hornet (D. maculata),
to match the bald spot Cassie pointed out in my
otherwise still thick, albeit more gray than not, hair,
mocking me in snapshots taken from the back.

The other day I sat on our bedroom floor,
pressing tissues to a toe on each foot, to stanch
the blood pooling around my just-clipped nails.
K stopped and looked, curious.
“I gotta lot of thorns in my side,” I sighed.
“That just makes you a rosebush,” she replied.
I’m certainly prickly, and maybe
abscinding more abruptly than I’d like.
Do my fallen petals smell like sautéed onions, or
the toasted oatmeal in a warm chocolate chip cookie?

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Flipping fartgate

A few weeks ago, Mom and I watched a segment on The Daily Show in which they tried to figured out who was responsible for an audible fart caught on-mic while Chris Matthews of MSNBC was interviewing Eric Swalwell, the Democratic congressman from California and short-lived presidential candidate. Trevor Noah made the case that Matthews must have been the culprit because the same thing has happened during other shows that Matthews was moderating, when Swalwell was not the guest. Mom rarely laughs out loud while watching TV or a movie, but with her adolescent sense of humor, you can imagine how much she guffawed during this segment each time she has viewed it then and since.

Last night, Mom did her best Chris Matthews impersonation while Brad was shooting a video of me executing the flip while frying an egg over easy. There, nine seconds in, you can hear Mom's gaseous contribution to your culinary educations. Not that Mom would try to deny it, given how proud she is of her flatulence, but the proof that it was her is right there in the video, when you here Cassie ID the perp: "Mother!! Look at her try not to laugh!" [1] You can see how flustered I was, because the first flip was relatively well executed—under control and not too high so as not to break the yolk—while the second flip was wild and nearly disastrous. Could you imagine if someone pulled this kind of stunt while Gordon Ramsay was demonstrating a technique in his kitchen?



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[1] In the law, we call this an "excited utterance," which is considered so inherently reliable that it is a recognized exception to the usual rule against admitting hearsay evidence. Rule 803(2) of the Federal Rules of Evidence defines an "excited utterance" as "[a] statement relating to a startling event or condition, made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement that it caused," which accurately describes the circumstances under which Cassie uttered the statement in question.

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Avast, ye filthy porch pirates! episode III: 'Tis the season

With the coming of the holiday season, the news of porch piracy is coming thick and fast, and is now the subject of a running email chain between my buddy Ed and me. Despite your scoffing at my concerns, there is now documented proof that this scourge has arrived in our hamlet. Item #1: A November 25 article in the Daily Progress ("Holiday packages a treasure trove for porch pirates") reports that about 11 million homeowners had a package stolen from their front porch or mailbox last year alone. A spokesman for the Charlottesville Police Department confirmed that porch pirates are "definitely out there" in C'ville. In fact, there were a "slew" of packages stolen on UVA grounds while students were out of town for fall break,[1] and that will only "increase[] during the holiday season."

That dire prediction was confirmed in a December 5 article in the DP ("Two women arrested in connection to stolen packages in Albemarle County"). The two women must have swiped a lot of packages, because they are facing a "slew" of charges, including obtaining money by false pretenses, trespassing, 13 counts of misdemeanor larceny, and one count of felony grand larceny. [2] The women told police that they had targeted various C'ville neighborhoods, including Carriage Hill, Turtle Creek Condominiums, the 14th Street area, and Ivy Garden Apartments, where Mom and I lived while I was in law school.

I emailed a link to the first article to Ed, who responded with a link of his own to a video describing "How to protect your packages from being stolen." The video starts with some high-quality footage of various freebooters swiping packages from front porches, including one picaroon wearing a "SECURITY" tee shirt, which is kinda funny. The first suggestion is to use Amazon Key, which allows delivery people to unlock your front door to enter your house and leave packages inside. Doesn't that sound like a great idea—stopping theft from your front porch by giving someone you don't know access to the rest of your house? I'll take a hard pass on that one. Other suggestions in the video and DP article include having your packages shipped to a locker at UPS, FedEx, or Whole Foods (Amazon again), or bolting an ugly lockbox to a table on your porch, [3] all of which are a big pain in the ass. But my favorite suggestion was to get one of those newfangled doorbell cameras (top-rated model only $229!) that let you see on your smartphone who's ringing your doorbell, as if a porch pirate is going to ring your fucking doorbell before looting your front porch. I think it's time to shop in real stores again.

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[1] My heart is absolutely breaking for all of the UVA students now having to go without the pastel apparel and docksiders they ordered. O' thou cruel buccaneers, take pity on the scholars during this most joyous season of giving!

[2] I guess one package had a lot more than just socks in it for them to get hit with a felony charge.

[3] The video makes it look like a pretty large lockbox will still only fit something no bigger than a loaf of Mom's child-sized bread inside. Plus, you gotta cram the stuff in there, so don't order anything breakable. I also wonder if there's a neighborhood covenant against having a big steel lockbox on your porch?

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Four-square

I've been struggling with a decision for months now. Mom finally couldn't take my whining about it anymore, so she sat me down at the kitchen table for the dreaded Four-square™ session. I don't know where Mom came up with this method, but I've searched the internet and can't find a progenitor. There is something that looks similar called the "Eisenhower Box," but that was pioneered by President Eisenhower to help him be more productive by prioritizing tasks, rather than deciding whether to do something in the first place. You're all familiar with the particulars.

Four-square

You get the blank paper out,

draw the lines—

first up and down, then across—

label the quadrants, and

start entering data.

As usual,
I ask how it’s better than a standard binary list,

pointing out that pros in one box

are just the opposite of cons in the diagonal,

exaggerating their effect and throwing off

the decisional weight of your four-square.

As usual, you’re having none of it.

"Subtle differences," you say, with

the honeyed voice I imagine you use when

spelling something out to one of your third graders

you know will never grasp it anyway.

Intent on the matter at hand,

you don’t notice me beaming at you.

I water this seed of love,

another building block in our union,

like the Legos our boys used to assemble

Yoda and the Millennium Falcon.

And the damn thing works this time, extorting
the vital bits needed to make my choice.

It only puffs you up more, but
you’re radiant in your smugness,

so I don’t mind. Unlike Darwin,

I never needed a scientific method to know
what a good thing I was getting myself into.

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Mr. Graham's moment of glory

Humble Beginnings

Once upon a time, there was an annual Fourth of July party in the Stoney Creek cul-de-sac. The festivities included a pie contest, for which I often served as one of the judges. Early on, Mr. Graham would buy a pie at the store, remove the pie from its aluminum home, then transfer the pie to a plate and (jokingly) enter it in the contest. Mr. Graham eventually realized the error of his ways and started baking his own pies.

Fast forward to the fall of 2018, when Mr. Graham entered a pie-making challenge with a friend. Mr. Graham started out making a double-crust blueberry pie. It was okay, but the crust was not flaky and the blueberry filling did not really grab your taste buds. After Mary Alice had a catering gig with the C&O Restaurant, she and Mr. Graham ate leftovers of sweet potatoes and wild blueberries. The seed was planted for a new filling, and Mr. Graham started experimenting with a combination of sweet potatoes and blueberries. A flavor success! Mr. Graham also tinkered with the crust to improve the flakiness.

Some of the experimental pies that paved the road to greatness

The master at work—check out the fancy pastry mat!

   

Mr. Graham's Moment of Glory

Though the annual Fourth of July party is no more, there was a Stoney Creek cul-de-sac gathering back in June of this year, which seemed like a good occasion for an impromptu pie contest for old times' sake. There were seven entries, including Mom's take on my Not Really Key Lime Pie (#3 in the picture below) and Mr. Graham's Sweet Potato-Blueberry Pie, which is just to the left of Mom's pie. 

Every partygoer had a taste of each of the pies, then voted by secret ballot for their favorite. Each vote in favor of Mr. Graham's pie was met with a thunderous cheer from Mr. Graham. When the votes were counted, Mr. Graham's pie emerged the winner, besting my still-not-award-winning pie by a tally of seven to five. Mr. Graham was crowned the Mid-Atlantic Stoney Creek Cul-de-Sac Pie Champion for 2019. Not quite as impressive as being an Olympic ping-pong gold medalist, perhaps, but close and pretty darn good all the same.

Just another day at the office for a pie-making legend

Mary Alice and Mr. Graham kindly provided me with some of the back story and the winning pie recipe, which I finally had a chance to make this past weekend, albeit with a gluten-free crust substituted for Mom's benefit. We invited Mary Alice and Mr. Graham over to try it out, and I'm happy to report that Mr. Graham gave his seal of approval to my version of his award-winning pie.

Rubbing elbows with the Prince of Pie

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Step 3 of the recipe below

Step 5

Step 8

Step 11

The finished product

Mr. Graham's Sweet Potato-Blueberry Pie

Adapted from Mr. Graham (who adapted the pie recipe from Divas Can Cook) and The How Can It Be Gluten Free Cookbook (2014) by America’s Test Kitchen via NPR (for the crust)

Time: It took 15 minutes to make the crust and get it in the fridge to rest; from there, it took about 2 hours to make the pie.

You have several options for the crust other than the gluten-free one set out below. The original recipe Mr. Graham adapted his pie from uses an all-shortening crust; you can view that recipe here. If you want to do an all-butter pie crust using all-purpose flour, I highly recommend J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's Easy Pie Dough recipe on Serious Eats. Also check out Lopez-Alt's gallery of photos showing how to make the pie crust step-by-step; even if you go with one of the other crusts, the pictures will still be useful, especially the ones showing how to get the crust into the pie plate and flute the edges.

Gluten-Free Pie Crust
113 grams (1 stick/8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
37 grams (2½ tablespoons) cold water
23 grams (1½ tablespoons) plain whole-milk yogurt or sour cream
7 grams (1½ teaspoons) rice vinegar
185 grams (1½ cups) UaKS Gluten-Free Flour Blend or other commercial or homemade gluten-free flour blend
6 grams (1½ teaspoons) white sugar
¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
¼ teaspoon xanthan gum

Sweet Potato-Blueberry Filling
3 medium sweet potatoes, washed well but unpeeled
113 grams (1 stick/8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
120 grams (½ cup) evaporated milk
2 large eggs (~57 grams each still in the shell)
1 teaspoon (4 grams) vanilla extract
100 grams (½ cup) white sugar
100 grams (½ cup) brown sugar
8 grams (1 tablespoon) Thai glutinous white rice flour, or tapioca flour/starch, or gluten-free flour blend
½ teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly ground
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
a pinch of salt
~140 grams (~1¼ cups) frozen blueberries

    1. Make the pie dough: Cut the butter into ¼-inch pieces, then stick them in the freezer for 10 minutes.
    2. Meanwhile, in a very small bowl, whisk together the cold water, yogurt or sour cream, and vinegar. Park the bowl in the fridge while the butter is freezing.
    3. Place the gluten-free flour blend, sugar, salt, and xanthan gum in the work bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal "s" blade. Process for 5 seconds. Scatter the frozen butter pieces evenly over the flour mixture (see the photo above). Pulse until the butter is the size of large peas, about 8 one-second pulses.
    4. Spoon half of the yogurt mixture (~2 tablespoons) over the flour mixture; mix in with 3 one-second pulses. Scrape in the remaining yogurt mixture, then process just until clumps form, about 6–8 one-second pulses.
    5. Dump the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Using your hands, gather it into a cohesive ball. Flatten into a 5-inch disk (see photo above). Wrap the disk in plastic cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (You can make the dough ahead and keep it in the fridge for up to 2 days.)
    6. Roast the sweet potatoes: While the dough is resting, place a rack in the center of the oven and heat to 375 degrees. Place the sweet potatoes on a plate in the microwave and nuke on high power for 4 minutes. Rotate the plate 90 degrees, then zap on high power for 4 minutes more. Transfer the potatoes to a foil-lined baking sheet, and roast until a skewer or thin knife slips through each potato with no resistance, about 15–20 minutes (watch carefully so the flesh doesn't liquefy completely during roasting). Set aside until cool enough to peel.
    7. Form the pie crust: Once the dough has chilled in the fridge for at least 1 hour, let it sit out on your work surface to soften slightly, about 15 minutes. Unwrap the disk, but leave it on the plastic wrap. Cover with another large sheet of plastic wrap. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12-inch circle. Remove the top sheet of plastic. Place a 9-inch pie plate on top of the dough, then invert gently. Ease the dough into the pie plate, using one hand to lift the plastic wrap off the dough while using the other hand to press the dough into the pie plate. (Keep the plastic wrap to use in the next step.)
    8. Using clean kitchen shears or sharp scissors, trim the excess dough so that it overhangs the edge by ½ inch all around. You can use the trimmed pieces to patch any cracks or fill in around the edge where needed. Tuck the overhanging dough under itself all the way around the pie, so that it rests on the lip of the pie plate, flush with the edge. Using the index finger of one hand and the thumb and forefinger of the other, flute the edges of the pie crust all the way around (see photo above and steps 18 to 21 in Lopez-Alt's gallery of photos). Cover the dough loosely with the reserved plastic wrap, and freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.
    9. Blind-bake the pie crust: With the oven still at 375 degrees, bake the crust until light brown in color (don't overdo it), about 20 minutes. Transfer the pie plate to a wire rack. Increase the oven temperature to 425 degrees.
    10. Make the filling: While the pie crust is blind-baking, peel the warm sweet potatoes. Weigh 500 grams (a little over 2 cups) of sweet potatoes into the work bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or a large bowl with a hand mixer (or a whisk, if you're wanting a workout). Beat the sweet potatoes on medium or medium-high speed until smooth and creamy. Pour in the melted butter, and mix until combined. Add the milk, eggs, and vanilla, and mix until combined. Add the sugars, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and salt, and mix on low speed until smooth.
    11. Add just enough frozen blueberries to cover the bottom of the still-warm, partially baked pie crust in a single layer (see photo above). Scrape the filling gently over the blueberries; the crust should be pretty full.
    12. Bake the pie: Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. If the edges of the pie are browning quickly, tent the pie very loosely with a large square of aluminum foil. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees, and continue baking until the filling is pulling away from, and lightly cracked around, the edges, and a small-ish circle in the center of the pie wiggles slightly when jiggled, about 20–25 minutes (but start checking after 15 minutes). Transfer the pie back to the wire rack, and let cool at least until the filling is completely set, about 2 hours. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.

An eventful week

Some of you, Dylan in particular, think Mom and I never do anything. We laid that canard to rest over the past week, which was one of the most eventful I've ever had, starting with last week's trip to Washington D.C. Among other things, on Thursday morning, the Virginia Supreme Court released its opinion in a case I've done all the briefing on from start to finish, and affirmed the decision of the trial court in our favor. Thursday and Friday evenings, Mom and I attended two screenings as part of the 32nd annual Virginia Film Festival.

The first was a showing of Western Stars, a complete run-through of Bruce Springsteen's new album of the same name. The concert was filmed live in a big old barn on Bruce's horse farm in New Jersey, complete with a 30-piece orchestra (lots of strings and some brass, but no bassoon, alas). There were also some clips of Bruce from bygone days, together with a voiceover and some ludicrous shots of Bruce, the consummate New Jersey boy, in Western gear filmed in Joshua Tree National Park in California. Despite being a huge fan, I have to say it was pretty self-indulgent, though, as always with Bruce, there were moments of beauty and plenty of truth.

Thursday evening paled in comparison to Friday, when Mom and I went to a fortieth anniversary screening of one of my all-time favorite movies, and probably the best "sports" film ever made, Breaking Away:



As you are all aware, since I "forced" all of you to watch it with me (Brad and Cassie most recently, just this past summer), I have loved Breaking Away since I first saw it with my high school buddies back in 1979. I will never forget how they busted my chops after the famous scene when the Italian bike rider from Team Cinzano jammed his pump into the spokes of the protagonist's front wheel, sending him over the handlebars and out of the race in which he was competing against them all too well for their liking. The finale was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation, as was Dennis Christopher, the actor who played Dave Stoller, who was visibly moved when he came out for the Q&A moderated by Elizabeth Flock after the screening. Christopher turned out to be a warm, joyous fellow with plenty of stories to tell about Breaking Away and Hollywood in general, including working with such famous directors as Quentin Tarantino, Federico Fellini, and Robert Altman. He was happy to speak with anyone who wanted to meet him face to face, so I said what the heck and approached him after the Q&A and let him know how much the film meant to me and that I had coerced all of my children into watching it with me, but that you all had liked it, too, so that it spoke to people across multiple generations. He was glad to hear it and graciously agreed to let Mom take a few photos of us together (my new Harry Potter scar isn't too visible in this shot, fortunately):

All in all, it was a pretty fantastic experience, and a moment I will treasure.

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Kudos to Uncle Bob, episode II

It was just about a year ago that Uncle Bob was elected to the National Academy of Medicine based on "his innovative application of a groundbreaking capability framework that provides a practical and positive method for addressing the social and environmental determinants of health in participatory interventions that integrate primary care and community health." [1] This past weekend, Mom and I caught up with Uncle Bob and his clan for the actual induction ceremony at the beautiful National Academy of Sciences building in Washington D.C. The inductees were a seriously impressive group that included, in addition to Uncle Bob, the Chief of Surgery of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, among many other heavy hitters in the medical world.

Fortunately, the weekend ended better than it started. Saturday morning, I lost a fight with a wall on my way down to the basement. Mom heard the big bang when I cracked my head open and "thought about checking on" me, but apparently thought better of it and went back to sleep, at least until I finally stanched the bleeding and made my way back upstairs to get her opinion on whether I needed any stitches to close the wound. To her credit, Mom suppressed her usual reaction, which would've been to laugh at my misfortune. On the other hand, Mom couldn't stop herself from saying that I looked like the Old Guy Who Lived, and how cool it was that I'd have a Harry Potter scar for the rest of my life:

Thankfully, no stitches were required, and we were able to get to D.C. in time to spend a lovely afternoon taking in many of the monuments in and around the National Mall, including some that were built since the last time I was there many years ago. That includes the especially impressive Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, which was dedicated in 2011 and sits directly across the Tidal Basin from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Unless I am deceived, there seems to be a subversive element in having Dr. King, in a 30-foot-tall statue depicting him in a rather stern pose with arms crossed, looking over towards, but not directly at, the slightly shorter statue of Mr. Jefferson, the great slave owner.

The Old Guy Who Lived enjoying the Monument Walk with Mom

After that, we finished our whirlwind tour with the Reflecting Pool, the awe-inspiring Lincoln Memorial, and the powerful but somber Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which is just a few hundred feet from the National Academy of Sciences building. There, we met up with Uncle Bob and family for the induction ceremony and post-induction dinner, where a good time was had by all.

See how my tie matches Mom's dress (on purpose)?

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[1] Here are links to three of Uncle Bob's studies using the capability framework that were published in the Annals of Family Medicine (March 2016, January 2014, September 2010), if you're wanting to catch up on some light medical reading.

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