Dove's Eye View

Granola

With all the fuss in the news about inflation, I offer more frugal food.

Cereal costs $5.00 a pound in grocery stores, and more if you buy organic. Here's a recipe for home-made granola, which will cost $2 a pound using organic oats, less if using regular.

Mix and Match Granola 

4 cups rolled oats, wheat, or barley (any combination) 
1/2 cup sunflower seeds or sesame seeds
1/2 cup honey, maple syrup, or a thick syrup made with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2-3 tablespoons water 
1/4 cup canola oil 
1 teaspoon vanilla and/or other extract
3/4 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. 

1. In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together except for the dried fruit.  Set the dried fruit aside.
2. In another bowl mix the sweetener, oil, and extract together.
3. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.  The liquids will be absorbed and the granola will become darker and shinier. 
4. Spread the granola in a shallow baking pan.  Bake at 325 degrees for ten minutes.  Use a spatula and turn the granola on the baking sheet.  Place the granola back in the oven and bake for another ten minutes or until fairly dry and starting to brown.  Remove the granola from the oven and stir in the fruit.

Tips

1. Granola will become crispier and crunchier as it cools.
2. Because of the oil, granola will not stay fresh long.  Store in an airtight container and use within two weeks.  Freeze for longer storage.

Traditional Lebanese Food

Hanna Hakim of Maghdousheh with orange flower blossoms. Photo by Rami Zurayk.

Rami Zurayk sent his students all over Lebanon to document Traditional Lebanese Food, which they presented at the Slow Food convention. Now there's a blog, with links to distinctive foods they found in villages from north to south.

Pages of personal interest to me are the carob syrup from the monastery of Deir MKhalles, whose abbot is a longtime family friend and spiritual mentor, and the orange flower water from Maghdousheh, where my aunt Amal and her friends and relations grow bitter orange trees.

I learned about tannour bread, which sounds a lot like the Indian naan bread baked in tandoori ovens which we love to eat here in Berkeley. I also read about qawarma, which seems like lamb confit. Our hosts at Pugs' Leap in Sonoma fed us their own goat confit on that picnic blogged in April, so I can say that I have eaten local California qawarma.

There Must Be Some Mistake

Because this makes no sense: U.S. Withdraws Fulbright Grants to Palestinians in Gaza - NYTimes.com. Even the rabbi on the Israeli Parliament's Education Committee says so:

€“This could be interpreted as collective punishment,” complained Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Parliament’s education committee, during the hearing. "This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules."

And Condoleeza Rice, our Secretary of State, whose own State Department canceled the seven Palestinian students' Fulbrights for this year, says she cannot understand it.

The Israeli military says that higher education might or might not be a humanitarian purpose. Whatever. The whole blockade on Gaza is against international law, from beginning to end. That the United States would enable the blockade by canceling Fulbright scholarships must be a huge miscalculation. A bureaucratic mixup. A bald-faced failure.

May the siege be lifted. May the minds and hearts of the Israelis be healed of the mistaken belief that starving a people will bring them peace. May the Palestinians live in freedom.

I was in bed with the computer turned off but that woman's picture haunted me and I had to get up and write this. Yes, it is all just a terrible, terrible mistake. Lord, heal the error. This was set up to post after midnight but it's 10:30 pm and I'm logging off for the night.

Urban Areas on West Coast Produce Least Emissions

Smug alert: Urban Areas on West Coast Produce Least Emissions Per Capita, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com.

The West Coast's metropolitan areas had among the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the country in 2005, according to a new ranking of 100 urban areas.

Los Angeles is #2, i.e., second lowest emissions per capita in the United States. Huh? How could this be? Doesn't everybody love to hate L.A. for being the capital of wasteful American excess, symbolized by cars and freeways? Well, California has been working on cutting energy use for a generation; we've got decent alternatives to fossil fuel in place for generating electricity; and L.A. actually has a public transit system. If you wanted to, you could live in L.A. without a car. I know people who have done it.

See the full report on each of the one hundred metropolitan areas here.

My area, the metropolitan San Francisco region (includes Oakland and points south) is ranked 7th overall. I think just S.F. and Oakland would do better, and S.F. alone would do even better. Population density - people living in small apartments rather than giant houses, walking to errands, using transit - reduces carbon emissions per capita. The wind turbines pictured above are on the Altamont Pass, two dozen miles east of my home - an early, large wind generation project.

Further reasons for me to feel smug: I am certain that our household produces less emissions per capita than many in the greater S.F. metro area. We live in a "mere" 1,500 square feet. We have no air conditioning. My husband used public transit to commute to work for six years, until his company sent everybody home in 2006 - now he telecommutes and we hardly ever fill up the gas tank. The kids go to school close by. We even walk to shopping (sometimes - much less now that I am in cancer treatment). We have only one tiny TV, no giant screen. I turn off all the computers and power strips at night. Etc. And yes, when we bought new appliances nine years ago, we paid extra for energy-efficient ones. Every little bit helps.

The point of this is not really to brag, but rather to show that concrete actions produce real results. The West Coast has done well because we have chosen to invest in energy conservation and alternate sources of power. Any other region of the country could do the same, given the political will. Change urban planning to promote walking and mass transit; this would help economic health, the environment, and personal health. Adding incentives for consumers to buy higher efficiency appliances and retrofit homes for efficiency will also improve carbon emissions.

Oh yes, and all these measures will reduce our dependence on imported oil and gas. Why spend a trillion dollars and thousands of lives securing oil supplies in Iraq, when we could improve the planet and our quality of life by investing in efficiency, conservation and alternative energy instead?

It sounds like Dirty Freaky Hippie talk, or a plot by latte-sipping liberals to force the rest of the country to eat organic and ride a bike, but really, improving our carbon emissions will improve our quality of life.

Arab American Poetry Anthology

Inclined to Speak: an Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry, edited by Hayan Charara, from

The University of Arkansas Press.

At no other time in American history has our imagination been so engrossed with the Arab experience. An indispensable and historic volume, Inclined to Speak gathers together poems, from the most important contemporary Arab American poets, that shape and alter our understanding of this experience. These poems also challenge us to reconsider what it means to be American. Impressive in its scope, this book provides readers with an astonishing array of poetic sensibilities, touching on every aspect of the human condition.

You must read this book. So many great poets are in it, including my neighbor and teacher Elmaz Abinader, as well as Fady Joudah (translator of Darweesh, as seen in the New Yorker), Mohja Kahf, Etel Adnan, Lawrence Joseph, Khaled Mattawa... the list is long. Radio program here.

Jewish Voice for Peace: Remember The Nakba

Jewish Voice for Peace is hosting a gathering to remember the Nakba on Saturday, May 31:

Kehilla Community Synagogue
1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont
doors will open at 7 pm

Personal narratives by Jews and Palestinians about the establishment of the State of Israel sixty years ago, an event experienced as liberatory by many Jews in the wake of the Holocaust, and also experienced as a national catastrophe, the Nakba, by Palestinians.

Can we understand these two contradictory realities? Can our understanding help guide us in efforts to bring about peace and justice to both peoples?

This presentation of narrative, music, and poetry will acknowledge the histories of two peoples forever joined in time and place, in contemplation of our own responsibilities to repair a broken world.
The evening will conclude with an audience participation discussion.

Are you surprised that Kehilla is four miles from my home, and favored by most of my Jewish friends who attend temple? Birds of a feather...

Years ago my mother attended a May event at Kehilla in which the children of the synagogue were instructed in the Nakba and how Israel's founding meant something very different to Palestinians.

See JVP's page on The Nakba, Palestinians, and Organizations Working on Palestinian Issues.

Journalist Philip Weiss has had an awakening re: the Nakba, and attended a meeting in the Brooklyn Friends' House that sounds similar to JVP's event above. Read Mondo Weiss for more.

Salmon resurgence in Butte County

Salmon resurgence in Butte County.

"This is the last best run of wild salmon in California," said Allen Harthorn, 56, the executive director of Friends of Butte Creek, who has been fighting for more than a decade to save the historic - and once sacred - spring run of chinook in this untamed tributary of the Sacramento River. The fast-flowing creek now holds the largest population of wild spring-run chinook, or king salmon, in the Sacramento River system.

"It's the only place that gives me hope," Harthorn said from an observation deck he built on a cliff-side five years ago.

Salmon fishing has been banned for three thousand miles along the Pacific Coast of the US this summer, because the salmon runs just collapsed. Millions of fish are simply missing. This one tributary seems to be surviving however, thanks to hard work by those latte-sipping environmentalists of California. A sign of hope.

Nature will heal itself - whether human civilization can survive is another question. But the Earth will restore its waters and its lands. It's just a question of how long it will take, and how we humans will cope.

Folks Who Are Happy About Lebanon's Peace Deal

From Naharnet.com - The Lebanese Portal that Keeps you Coming Back.

Patriarch Sfeir welcomed the Doha accord calling for developing and implementing it. (Lebanon's Maronite patriarch)

Others who hailed the agreement: Condi Rice, Nicolas Sarkozy, the governments of Spain and Britain and the UN Security Council.

Is Doha really such a disaster for Lebanon, America, or the future of the world if all these leaders approve of it? Some lefty friends might say yes, but how about you angry March 14 supporters and rabid Hizbullah haters - now that the Cardinal has come out in favor, are you going to stick to your resentments?

Come on, blogosphere, give peace a chance.</p>

Does Cancer Suck?

Warning: everything I say here applies to me alone. If you find any concepts of interest and try them for yourself, great. If not, no problem. Your mileage may vary.

This time around with cancer, I notice a new fad among patients, nurses and people who support us: the slogan "cancer sucks!" Google the term and you find a non-profit, a website devoted to Cancer Sucks coffee mugs, and another for clothing with the logo. Amazon features books with "cancer sucks" in the title or subtitle - plenty of humor as well as heart-wrenching memoir.

If this slogan appeals to you, that's fine with me. It just doesn't ring true to me, and I find I don't know what to say when somebody says it to me.

Nobody wants to be a cancer patient. I don't. Nobody wants to hear this diagnosis - I didn't. Nobody would choose the treatments, the side effects, and the barefaced look into one's mortality.

I always hated medical procedures and hospitals; just getting induced for my first childbirth made me cry. I hated the machines, tubes, beeps, medical professionals, implements, drugs - the whole apparatus of modern medicine. But I didn't want a stillborn son so I went ahead with the induction and gave birth to a healthy child.

The first time I had cancer, my unconscious slogan was: Cancer doesn't matter. I was determined to get through it and never think about it again. I felt that getting cancer was just a big mistake all around, and I was going to keep going as if it had never happened. Ok I stopped dyeing my hair and gained weight, so I looked different. But damned if I was going to write about cancer, or think about it if I could help it. I changed my life in one way - I went to graduate school and got a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing - as well as a whole community of writers who remain my inspiration and support.

Now that I've got a diagnosis that implies a chronic illness for which I will always be in treatment, I must find a way to live with my reality. If cancer sucks, then every day of the rest of my life is going to suck. That just doesn't work for me. I have to go with what is truly here in this moment.

Today I took the bus to San Francisco for infusion three of my seventh month of chemo; along the way I admired the choppy waves on the bay. The nurse at the Breast Center got me through the visit fast; my blood counts look good. Upstairs in the chemo lounge I got to sit next to one of my buddies, a fellow metastatic patient even younger than I am, who is thinking about writing a children's book. Then my friend Lisa arrived with her "entourage", some lovely ladies from New Mexico - Lisa drives me home from chemo most weeks. We went to King of Falafel on Divisadero Street and feasted, then had an easy drive home.

Now I'm in my bed under the new hot pink duvet, looking out the window at the green trees in our garden. My husband, who works from home, spent an hour at my desk facing the garden, working on his laptop; we had some companionable time together. Pretty soon I'll go outside for some sunshine; later a friend from my college is bringing dinner. My children will come home, we'll visit, I'll help get them ready for bed.

OK I know that talking about the gifts of this illness might make many cancer patients resentful or bitter or disgusted. That's fair. I can understand that reaction. Who wants to hear a smarmy bumper sticker slogan when you're feeling scared and sick? So if that's you, don't read this. But if you are willing to hear about my experience of cancer, then here goes:

However sad, scary, frustrating and horrible this journey has been, it has also brought me so much love and connection with others. I have had uncountable experiences of love, kindness and good will since I was diagnosed. I allow myself to feel miserable, don't worry. I express myself pretty strongly, for negative and for positive. AND I find that continuing to turn to what is good about this moment makes me feel really really happy. I'm sorry I had to get this sick in order to learn how to shut off the negative side of my brain, but I did. 

Today I spend more time being happy than I did when I was cancer-free. Nothing else about my life has changed since then - I have the same husband, financial situation, family, house and life that I had before. And that husband, children, house, family and life were then and remain great blessings; I was unhappy because of the state of world politics, the environment, and my writing career. What's different today: I am forced to work on my inner life, forced to accept reality and find happiness in what is, because otherwise I would just face misery for the rest of my days.

For me, every day is a gift. So while it might be true for you that cancer sucks, I am just not going to accept that idea. I am glad to be here and I am glad you're here reading this. A bird is singing outside my window and a breeze blows the curtains, which are the same new green as the tree leaves. What more do I have than this moment?

Welcome to Colin Beavan's Readers

I checked the internet early this morning before dashing off to chemo and discovered that Colin Beavan, Mr. No Impact Man, had linked to Dove's Eye View! At mid-day when I returned, the site meter had twice the number of hits - and more - as usually collected for the day. Thank you so much, Colin, and thank you everybody who dropped by!

This blog began in January 2004. I had been reading all the political blogs for a year or more and getting more and more depressed. The invasion of Iraq was such an enormous mistake, and I despaired about the future of America and the future of the Middle East.


During that first month of the invasion, in April of 2003, I took a vacation to California's Central Coast. While sitting on the beach at Montana de Oro State Park, looking at the serene ocean, I had a revelation. Peace is everywhere, I thought. Even in Iraq right now, there are places of peace.

So when I got really, really sick of it all in January 2004, I decided to start a blog that would focus on the peace that is at the core of everything. I would blog people, events, places that embody signs of hope. I knew (and still know) that places like Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine are much more than just war zones. I knew that humans have big hearts everywhere, that even in the midst of war people pray and meditate, people do good works for each other, people reach out. People always take actions to construct positive good, no matter how bad the behavior of others around them. I wanted to blog visions of the world we want to have, not the problems that plague us.

In the middle of the night, almost on impulse, I began this blog with that purpose. The name "Bedouina" is derived from a song my Arab grandmother used to sing me, about Leila the Bedouin girl. Bedouina is a Frenchified version of the Arabic term for "bedouin girl." Until I was 32 years old I was indeed a wanderer; the name also denotes pride in my Arab heritage.

Of course as soon as I began blogging, bad stuff started happening in the Middle East. Whenever it seemed too hypocritical to blog signs of hope (how can you chirp about flying kites when they're blowing up children in Gaza?) I would post recipes. "When there's no hope left, you can always make dinner," I told people. I also blogged environmental and sustainable development projects, because I'd been concerned with such issues since the late 70s, when I was a teenager. I wrote to Michael Lerner at least five years ago that "global warming is going to fry all of our Semitic asses if we don't wake up."

In January of 2004, the environment seemed a quirky topic to add to Middle East peace issues, but now that everybody and his brother wants to go green, nobody blinks an eye.

In fact, when I began this blog, my focus on Middle East peace, food and the environment seemed weird. Folks would laugh when I said all three topics together in one sentence. A friend commented that Dove's Eye View seemed "all over the place." It's a sign of hope that nobody finds this combination remarkable today. My buddy Rami Zurayk, who blogs at Land and People, is a Lebanese professor of agriculture who blogs Slow Food, the environment and Middle East politics from Beirut- and he's got a Ph.D. in this stuff.

I also wrote early on:

The Dove told her husband when she first started this blog that all hell could break loose. She's seen other bloggers, mostly women, begin blogs devoted to sunshine and flowers, and then the heavens split open and Jove or whomever sears their hair with lightening bolts.

That one was eerie, since I was diagnosed with breast cancer six months later, and Jove did indeed sear my hair with chemotherapy. Twice. I got it again, second time in September 2007, metastatic, and I'm in chemo now for the seventh month. I'm making progress and I plan to live a very long time with the help of Jove or whomever (your Great Mystery term of choice here).

More than once I've had the experience of seeing the power of words on the internet to mirror or possibly shape reality. I now watch what I type very carefully. I have discovered in this round of chemotherapy that my words about myself and my world affect my physical and emotional state quite strongly. I also think that my words published on the internet affect me. Sometimes I want to bitch and kvetch, or criticize and condemn, but this always causes me problems online and offline. I do permit myself to vent in private (my old friend Felicia is concerned about the happy talk on Dove's Eye View) but I no longer permit myself to vent for posterity.

If you want to know the bad news, or get the negative interpretation of whatever event, there are plenty of sources on the internet. Dove's Eye View focuses on solutions, whether for justice and peace or environmental harmony, and celebrates those who celebrate life.

Oh yes, and if you're my friend, neighbor, relative, acquaintance, college buddy or other compadre/comadre, I reserve the right to brag about you and your accomplishments in public. That explains why readers hear about violinists, trapeze artists, novelists and other random achievers. It's my blog and I'll promote who I want to!