Thomas Cave's Tattoo: Good Times

"Thomas Cave's Tattoo"

I've started a blog that discusses what I call the New Great Depression - the idea that the next few years will constitute a Depression era, and not simple recession. I believe that to understand it in that way will enrich it, and encourage everyone in this country to make this era a creative period, a positive time, an act of construction, and not a cause for panic, chaos and fear. This is a chance for renaissance.

If the New Great Depression produces art, literature, theater, film, community, and a discovery of human value, as the first one did, who wouldn't want to be a part of it.

I am here to barter, trade, share, talk, listen, discuss, argue, understand, make fun, and make peace with the lack of the old prosperity. It was corrupt, and corroded, and it's gone. The dead weight of spoils has been lifted.

Thank you for listening, ma'am.

"About Thomas Cave"

Mr. Cave is the gentleman in the photograph that graces this home page. The photograph was taken by the American photographer Dorothea Lange, who so powerfully documented the country and its citizens during the Great Depression. I found this photograph at www.shorpy.com, a website with a specialty in Depression images. According to Shorpy's site, the Lange photograph, titled "535-07-5248 and Wife," was taken in Oregon in August of 1939. The gentleman is described as an unemployed lumber worker. His tattoo is his Social Security number, by which he is referred to in the title of the photograph. A public records search conducted by Shorpy's revealed that the number belonged to Thomas Cave, who was born in 1912 and died in 1980 in Portland. His wife's name, Ann Kathryn, who died in 2000, appears on their tombstone, a photograph of which is appended under Shorpy's readers' comments.

Mr. Cave is 27 years old in Lange's picture.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Good Times

I promised you good times ("And where are they?!" I can hear everyone shout.)

Let's let Mr. Obama do the worrying tonight. I think about him and his family being in a new house. And being in a new house is in itself exciting. Especially for kids.

Malia and Sasha - go for every window.

I have a friend in southern California who likes to cook beans. She and her husband inaugurated an informal tradition recently of cooking beans one night a week - Bean Night. Part austerity, part comfort. He's a chef at a five star hotel. She's a 'lady from Texas.' They agree on beans; she provides the Mexican bean pots and the cornbread; he provides the rigorous innovation.

They eat Very Well. On Dirt.

On a December visit, we talked about Bean Night, and the idea that something as lowly as a bean - uh, I mean, 'noble peasant,' etc. - could make haute cuisine. And still be considered a 'bean-counting' bill of fare. If you had to upscale a bean, did that mean shaving truffles on it, lobster claws, whatever.

I came back home and invented 'bean gras.' It's basically force-feeding beans, as though they were geese. Food people will tell you there are no new recipes, but here is a recipe for bean gras.

You take a piece of pork belly, about two pounds. You roast it, slowly, in a slow oven, about 300 degrees for a couple of hours, rubbed in salt and pepper. You eat that, for a meal of your own design. But you let the fat from it congeal, and you scrap that into a bean pot with a bag of beans. Standard supermarket bag - I don't know the weight. Use navy beans, or small white Northern beans. Add some water to cover the beans and give them an inch or two of water above. Then bake that for a couple of hours. Watch your water, and don't let the beans dry out, or let them stay too wet. You could do this over a campfire, if you were Mr. and Mrs. Cave. Just let them simmer. Until they are bean gras.

If you use a Very Good Bean, this is like beans that have been raised on pig butter.

Thank you for listening ma'am.

Next up: drinking songs from the surf mama Courages of San Diego.

Thomas Cave's Tattoo