Vegetable Stir-Fry

farmers-market-coalition-logo-1

sunflower, corn, field

West End Farmers Market is located in northwest St. Louis in an area with limited access to fresh produce. The International Institute, offering comprehensive adjustment services for refugees and immigrants in the community, has two farms for food-growing. There, recent refugees from a variety of countries including Burundi, Bhutan, Burma, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Kenya, and Somalia grow produce, which is in turn sold at the market. Market sales fresh produce in basketsbenefit the farmers and the refugees resettled in the community where the market is located, and increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables for the community at large.

The vegetable stir-fry recipe was inspired by the abundance of fresh vegetables available during the summer. To make it a meal, serve the stir-fry over brown rice, couscous, or quinoa. For variation, try adding chicken or extra firm tofu.

Vegetable Stir-Fry

(Makes 4 servings)
cucumber, peppers, cherry tomatoes, tofu, and broccoli cooking in stir-fry pot

Ingredients

 cucumber, peppers, cherry tomatoes, tofu, and broccoli stir-fry

Directions

  1. Rinse and chop cucumber and broccoli. Peel, rinse, and chop carrot. Rinse and mince hot pepper. Peel and finely chop garlic. Rinse cherry tomatoes.
  2. Remove hard stems from kale and stack leaves on top of each other. Use knife to slice kale leaves into ¼-inch strips.
  3. In large bowl filled with cold water, add cut kale. Allow dirt to settle to bottom of bowl. Lift kale out of bowl. Shake off excess water.
  4. In small bowl, mix together tahini, brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Add 1 teaspoon minced hot pepper (add more to taste). Mix.
  5. In medium skillet over medium-high heat, heat remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Add ground ginger and stir. Add chopped cucumber, broccoli, carrots, garlic, and. Stir frequently. Cook until veggies are tender, about 6-7 minutes. Add tomatoes last.
  6. Add tahini mixture. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat. Simmer about 2 minutes.


May/June 2013 Limerick Laughs Contest Winner and Runners-Up

boy on trapeze with doll
That girl in the pretty red dress
Is stuck in a terrible mess
Some nasty old boy
Has stolen her toy
No wonder she’s under such stress
—Neal Levin, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan


Congratulations to Neal Levin! For his poem describing the illustration at left by J.C. Leyendecker, Neal wins $25—and our gratitude for a job well done. If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our upcoming issue, you can submit your limerick via the entry form here.

Of course, Neal’s limerick wasn’t the only one we liked! Here are some of our favorite runners-up, in no particular order:

Bobby’s swinging my dolly so high.
I’m afraid she might fall from the sky.
He offered me first,
But I feared the worst,
So I told him my dolly’s not shy.

—Rollin Keller, Lakewood, California

Jack does not impress me at all
By snatching my favorite doll.
His daredevil fling
Proves only one thing—
He’s just an obnoxious goofball.

—Lynnda Cruz, Las Vegas, Nevada

My brother—how daring is he?
I just can’t believe what I see!
My favorite doll—
I hope she won’t fall.
But I wish (how I wish) it was me …

—Doug Harris, Stockton-on-Tees, England

I once had a brother named Paul,
Who suddenly grabbed my best doll.
He swung her around
Barely missing the ground,
And I just couldn’t watch this at all.

—Maggie Govanucci, Monroeville, Pennsylvania

Big brother was such a great tease
When taunting Samantha with ease.
Little sis couldn’t look
When her dolly he took
A ride on the backyard trapeze.

—Jean Roeth, Springfield, Ohio

No matter how hard he tries,
My brother tells little white lies.
He said it would please her
If he could “trapeze” her.
I just hope my baby survives!

—Sheldon R. Mielke, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin

I’m the kid on the flying trapeze.
Dolly rides as I swing by my knees.
Sis peeks through her fingers,
And though her fear lingers,
She knows I just do it to tease.

—Joy Smith, Burlington, Wisconsin

From nowhere he suddenly came,
A boy playing some kind of game.
He snatched up my dolly,
My favorite sweet Molly,
He still seems to suffer no shame.

—Marie Kreft, Arlington, Minnesota

She peeked through her fingers with hope
That her brother would stay on the rope.
For if he slipped from his seat,
To the floor he would leap,
And her doll would need more than just soap.

—Warren S. Patrick, Townshend, Vermont

Orange-Grilled Pork Sandwiches with Apricot Sauce

Marinated in orange, Madeira, ginger, and mustard, this pork proves that open-faced sandwiches aren’t just for kids.


Orange-Grilled Pork Sandwiches with Apricot Sauce

(Makes 4 servings)

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Marinating Time: 24 hours

open-faced pork sandwich with apricot sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In small bowl, stir together preserves, 2 tablespoons Madeira, mustard, garlic and pepper; cover and refrigerate until needed. Place pork in self-sealing bag; add orange juice, remaining 1/4 cup Madeira, orange zest and ginger; seal bag and toss to coat pork. Refrigerate 8-24 hours.
  2. Prepare banked medium-hot fire in kettle-style grill. Remove pork from marinade, discarding marinade. Grill pork over indirect heat for 20-30 minutes, until internal temperature on a thermometer reads 145°F. Remove roast from heat; let rest about 10 minutes. Thinly slice pork and place on toasted bread; top with apricot sauce; sprinkle with onion and cilantro.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving


Calories: 335
Total fat: 6 g
Saturated fat: 0 g
Carbohydrate: 44 g
Protein: 27 g
Sodium: 290 mg


Recipe and photo courtesy of the National Pork Board.

Olive Oil–Cured Summer Vegetable Sandwiches

When I was a caterer, one of my chefs whipped up these succulent vegetables for her own lunch, and they tasted so good that I immediately included them on the menu in a sandwich. They are a wonderful option for vegetarians and perfect for a road trip, sack lunch, or picnic, in which case you should allow the vegetables to cool prior to assembling. My husband Steve loved these and didn’t even miss the meat—a first!

Olive Oil–Cured Summer Vegetable Sandwiches

(Makes 4 sandwiches)

squash, tomato, mushroom, onion, and cheese sandwich
Veggie-licious!

Total Prep and Cook Time

45 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C or gas mark 5) and line 2 large sheet pans with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
  2. Arrange vegetables in a single layer on the pans. In a small bowl, whisk vinegar, mustard, honey, Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper and drizzle in the oil, whisking to emulsify. Drizzle evenly on the vegetables and toss to coat. Bake until tender, about 25 minutes.
  3. Spread the insides of the buns with hummus. Layer the vegetables on top, finish with cheese, and top with remaining bun halves. Cut sandwiches in half crosswise and enjoy immediately or wrap tightly and chill until ready to eat, within 1 day.

Recipe Note
Try toasting the buns before assembling for added flavor and texture if you will be enjoying them immediately.

Go Clean
Before opting for enticingly exotic-sounding olive oils from a distant country, explore the options available near you. Olives tend to grow well in regions where wine grapes thrive.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving (1 sandwich with ¾ cup vegetables)


Calories: 466
Total fat: 18 g
Saturated fat: 5 g
Carbohydrate: 55 g
Fiber: 11 g
Protein: 23 g
Cholesterol: 15 mg

Clean Eating for Busy Families book cover
Recipe and photo reprinted with permission from Clean Eating for Busy Families by Michelle Dudash. © 2012 Michelle Dudash. All rights reserved.

Hoisin Beef & Edamame Lettuce Wraps in a Hurry

This is one of my signature dishes. I’ve honed and served it throughout my cooking career as a personal chef, newlywed, and mom. I present to you the simplest, most flavorful version yet. Feel free to substitute ground chicken, lean pork, or bison for the beef.


Hoisin Beef & Edamame Lettuce Wraps
(Makes 4 servings)

beef, carrots, and edamame set in Bibb lettuce leaf
Simple and flavorful. Now that’s a wrap!

Total Prep and Cook Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients for sauce

Ingredients for beef

Ingredients for assembly

Directions

  1. To make the sauce: In a small bowl, stir together sauce ingredients and set aside.
  2. To make the beef: Heat a large wok or frying pan over high heat and pour in oil. When oil begins to shimmer, add beef in a single layer and break into pieces. Sprinkle in pepper and allow beef to cook undisturbed for 5 minutes to brown. Turn beef; break it into smaller pieces, add onion, and brown for a few more minutes. If needed, add a splash of water to pan and use a wooden spoon to scrape up any brown bits from bottom of pan. Reduce heat to medium. Push meat to one side of pan, add garlic, sesame seeds, and ginger to other side, and cook until sesame seeds turn golden, about 20 seconds. Add edamame, water chestnuts, and carrots and stir-fry for 4 more minutes until vegetables become tender.
  3. Swirl sauce into beef, and stir-fry for 1 minute.
  4. To assemble: Serve hot over cool lettuce cups with sauces spooned over top and rice served on side.

Go Clean
Grapeseed oil has a light, neutral taste and can be heated to higher temperatures than most oils, making it perfect for stir-fries. Look for “expeller-pressed” varieties, which rely on mechanical extraction with a small amount of heat instead of chemicals.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving (Not including brown rice, 1 cup beef filling with 3 lettuce cups)


Calories: 374
Total fat: 20 g
Saturated fat: 6 g
Carbohydrate: 19 g
Protein: 29 g
Cholesterol: 70 mg


Pizza Meets Grill

I recently enjoyed a women’s grilling clinic taught by Robyn Lindars, a bundle of energy whose mission is encouraging women to get out of the kitchen and to feel confident about running the grill themselves. Her cookbook and blog (grillgrrrl.com) emphasize cooking low and slow, a smart way to enjoy grilled flavor while minimizing the formation of substances on meats that are not good for us.

Grilled pizza has four steps:

  1. Be sure the grill grate is clean and oiled so the dough does not stick.
  2. Divide the dough—store-bought is fine—into portions and set them to rise, following package directions.
  3. Make the grilled vegetables using a grill basket.
  4. Place toppings (including grilled veggies) on the piecrust and grill—be sure to close the lid. A covered grill makes the cheese melt quickly and avoids excess charring. It also increases the smoky flavor of the vegetables

If you are an apartment-dweller, take heart. I am too. Using a grill pan gives you all but the final extra hint of smoke flavor on the topping. In every other respect, pan grilling on the stove works well.


Grilled Pizza with Grilled Vegetables
(Makes 4 pizzas)

grilled pizza

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Divide pizza dough into thirds. Set aside one third for later use. Divide remaining thirds in half, for a total of four pieces. Gently form into balls and place in lightly oiled bowls. Cover bowls with dishtowel and let sit until dough is soft and pliable, 30 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how cold it is.
  2. While dough warms up, for topping, in mixing bowl, combine mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, onion, and garlic. Sprinkle on salt and 4-5 grinds pepper. Add 4 teaspoons of oil, and using your hands, toss until vegetables are coated with oil. Set vegetables aside for 30 minutes.
  3. When pizza dough is soft, lift 1 piece and pat it into a disk. Holding disk by its edge so dough dangles down, gradually work your fingers around the edge, turning and gently stretching it into 4-inch disk. Place stretched dough on large baking sheet and repeat with remaining 3 pieces. Cover dough and let rest for 10 minutes, until soft enough to repeat, stretching pieces to 7-8 inches. Neat, evenly thick rounds are nice, but do not worry if dough is irregularly shaped and thin in places. Leave dough on baking sheet, covered, while preparing grill.
  4. Heat gas grill to medium-high or charcoal grill until ash on charcoal is white. Place marinated vegetables in grill basket. Grill, stirring vegetables occasionally, until crisp-tender, 7-8 minutes. Set grilled vegetables aside.
  5. Turn gas grill to low or move coals all to one side of charcoal grill. Use remaining oil to brush disks of pizza dough lightly on both sides. Arrange dough on grill; for charcoal grill place pieces on side without coals. Grill 5-6 minutes, until dough is puffy on top, and bottom is golden brown with darker spots. Thin areas will be darkest. Using tongs, turn pizza crusts over. Immediately sprinkle ¼ of cheese over each crust, leaving ½-inch edge. Close lid and grill until bottom of crust is golden with darker spots and cheese is just melted, about 1-2 minutes. Remove grilled pizza crusts to individual plates and heap ¼ of grilled vegetables on top of each crust. Sprinkle on basil and serve immediately.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving (1 pizza)


Calories: 370
Total fat: 18.5 g
Saturated fat: 6 g
Carbohydrate: 38 g
Fiber: 7 g
Protein: 592 mg


John F. Kennedy, In Memoriam

Don’t Miss Out: Limited-edition commemorative reprint of the John F. Kennedy In-Memoriam issue in its original as-published format. Available for purchase at shopthepost.com.

As an entire country lay in mourning in 1963, the Post released a special issue paying tribute to the fallen president just weeks after his death. The portrait of this great man by Norman Rockwell graced the cover. Selected excerpts below.

“A Profile in Family Courage”

By Bill Davidson

Norman Rockwell © 1963 SEPS
Fallen leader: The Post honored Kennedy
 by reprinting Rockwell’s portrait on the cover of the December 14, 1963, issue—devoted almost entirely to memories of the fallen president from some of the most prominent citizens of the time.

At 1:44 p.m. a maid came over to the table and said to the attorney general [Robert Kennedy], “Mr. J. Edgar Hoover is on the White House phone.” He had a conversation of about 15 seconds. There was a look of shock and horror on his face. [Ethel] Kennedy saw that, and rushed to where the attorney general had just put down the phone. He couldn’t speak for another 15 seconds. Then he almost forced out the words, “Jack’s been shot. It may be fatal.”

According to friends, [Jacqueline] Kennedy never once broke down during the dreadful night at Bethesda Naval Hospital or when she returned to the White House. A friend who spent a few moments with her on the morning of November 23 says, “She was composed, though you had the feeling she was barely holding on. But she revealed this only among people she held close. In public, she seemed completely composed. She is the kind of woman whose grief is private.”

But [Jacqueline] Kennedy also did other remarkable, less-publicized things in the first day of her grief. She offered Mrs. Johnson all her help for their move into the White House. Then she called in her brother-in-law, Attorney General Kennedy, and asked him to phone the wife of Dallas detective J.D. Tippitt, who had been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, the principal suspect in the assassination of her husband. “What that poor woman must be going through,” said [Jacqueline] Kennedy.

“Hate Knows No Direction”

By Ralph Emerson McGill
His staff, the Secret Service and the FBI knew about the danger in Texas—as they knew of it in other states. But when the president appeared, the reception was so warm and generous, and the crowds so huge and friendly, that some of the vigilance was relaxed. The car’s bulletproof glass cover—which perhaps would have deflected the shots—was removed. And so, a trust born of warmth and generosity and friendliness exposed the young president to the deadly assault of a psychopathic hater.

The more shrewd among the peddlers of hate against their country have been careful to avoid open and direct incitement of violence. But their words and other abuse directed at the president and
the government have inspired many whose disturbed minds tend easily toward recklessness and criminal action.

We must now understand that hate, if unchecked by morality, decency, and the determination of civilized men and women, may so weaken us that we will be vulnerable to our enemies.

“A Eulogy: John Fitzgerald Kennedy”

By Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.
The bright promise of his administration, as of his life, was cut short in Dallas. When Abraham Lincoln died, when Franklin Roosevelt died, these were profound national tragedies; but death came for Lincoln and Roosevelt in the last act, at the end of their careers, when the victory for which they had fought so hard was at last within the nation’s grasp. John Kennedy’s death has greater pathos, because he had barely begun—because he had so much to do, so much to give to his family, his nation, his world. His was a life of incalculable and now of unfulfilled possibility.

Still, if he had not done all that he would have hoped to do, finished all that he had so well begun, he had given the nation a new sense of itself—a new spirit, a new style, a new conception of its role and destiny.

“When The Highest Office Changes Hands”

By Dwight D. Eisenhower
Seen in longer perspective, the facts are that four of 36 presidents have been assassinated, and a president in office and a president-elect have been targets of assassination attempts. These acts all had one thing in common: They were the work of crackpots, of people with delusions arising from imagined wrongs or festering hatreds. In a population as large as ours there is bound to be a certain number of such warped people, but their existence does not indicate that the people of the United States have become lawless.

View a gallery of archival Kennedy images.

Cartoons: School Daze

It’s time to stock up on notebooks and pencils, and brush up on those excuses. The hallowed halls of learning await.

School cartoon

“You understand, of course, I’m not giving up the movie and TV rights!”
December 1950

Teacher cartoon

“… and I’m also here to help you with your personal problems and disputes, and I can lick any kid in the room!”
September 1957

School cartoon

“Just recite the poem, Mercedes … don’t ham it up.”
1957

School cartoon

“Us first-graders spent most of the day getting acquainted.”
January 1961

School cartoon

“I suffer from test-taking anxiety, brought on by lack of studying.”
July/August 2003

Happy to be Hacked

Hacked

It’s the kind of email no one wants: “Hey Buddy, I think you’ve been hacked.” Forwarded with this message was an email from “me.” It was a promotion for phenomenal weight-loss pills complete with a website for easy ordering.

Of course I had never sent this message, and I was at a loss to know what to do. When a Google search revealed that my email provider had been victimized by “criminal spammers who lived in the Russian Federation,” I panicked. Fortunately, a couple of hysterical phone calls later, I learned that changing my password would probably stop the spam.

In the coming hours, I got dozens of messages, all similar to the first one. Some beneficiaries were amused, some annoyed (as I certainly was)—only one person (a shrink!) believed I was actually endorsing this miracle diet cure. But as with so much else in our Internet age, one experience morphed into another, and I began looking forward to see who else from my past got the bogus email. Some I had forgotten. Many I couldn’t recall at all. And then, a name that jolted me.

“Peter, I’m so glad to hear from you, even if just with a miracle weight-loss notion—I think of you often and am sad that we’re so out of touch.” We had been close, working together for decades, but as happens too often, had gone in different directions and our closeness had evaporated as visits, then phone calls, and finally emails had dwindled away. I guess we hadn’t been such good friends.

Except the joy I felt proved that the friendship was still there. The words brought back so many memories, a warmth and excitement that—as he told me when we met a few days later—he had also felt when seeing my name, only to be deflated when he realized it was spam. “But,” he said, “I figured why not just write back? It’s only email.” And we toasted the evil creeps lurking somewhere behind the former Iron Curtain who unknowingly had reunited us.

Teaching to the Test Gets an ‘F’

Sir Ken Robinson
Many schools are killing creativity, says Robinson. Photo © Todd Bigelow.

I have a confession to make. When my son was in first grade, I very nearly murdered his teacher.

She had done nothing immoral. But she single-handedly squashed any interest he had in learning.

At the start of the school year, he’d been a bundle of energy, delighting in his classwork and in his new classmates. But slowly that began to change, and my wife and I didn’t know why. His report card at mid-year identified a problem: Where he’d once eagerly participated in classroom activities, now he would just sit at his desk staring into space.

We asked him what was wrong, and he said that he couldn’t bear school any longer, and then he burst into tears. My wife and I made an appointment to talk to his teacher, and in our meeting we quickly discovered the problem.

The teacher told us proudly that she divided the school day into 30-minute segments, each consisting of a series of exercises on a given theme or topic. So far, so good, but I started to get concerned when she told us that each day’s set of exercises was almost exactly the same as the day’s before. One of these tasks was a special penmanship practice. She called it “touch, bump,” and it consisted of forming a series of loops on ruled paper that “touched” the bottom line and “bumped” against the top line. This was done for a solid 30 minutes while the teacher sang “Touch … bump!” to keep all the children in rhythm as they filled sheet after sheet with neat little loops.

Another exercise involved watching a clock tick off five minutes.

“But that must be terribly boring to a 6-year-old,” I said.

“Well, one of the things children need to learn is that much of life is boring,” the teacher replied. “We need to prepare them for adult life, which is not all fun and games.”

It was at this point that my wife thanked the teacher for her time and pulled me out of the room before I did anything I would later come to regret.

This was 25 years ago, and my wife and I were fortunately able to work things in a way that avoided bloodshed. But the bitter memory of a teacher’s attempt to crush those children’s spirits was fresh in my mind when I recently spoke with Sir Ken Robinson, a leading thinker in the field of education and human potential. Robinson is an in-demand speaker and an author, most recently of Finding Your Element. His TEDTalks lecture “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” has been seen by millions. As he says in that talk, young children are inherently creative, but “by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. … We’re now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities.”

As you can imagine, this struck a nerve with me.

We begin our conversation on whether the role of education is to provide vocational training or to teach children to think. He explains that in the 19th century it made economic sense to teach people to do routine things. “At the height of the Industrial Age, when the notion of public education first became widespread, we weren’t interested in building brains, we were buying muscle. We didn’t need ditchdiggers or factory workers to be independent thinkers.”

But today, he says, society’s needs are much more complex. Unfortunately much of education is still vocational. “You try to predict which disciplines are going to be the most needed, and then you direct a lot of attention to those areas. But the path of life in the modern world is not linear.” (Robinson himself was headed for a career as a soccer player when he contracted polio at a young age. His circumstances changed; he fell in love with books and ended up a college professor.)

I ask Robinson what he thinks of the current reform movement in education, which started out as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) under George W. Bush and was later enhanced by Race to the Top under Barack Obama. “Look, it has the best of intentions, which is to close the achievement gap between affluent and poor,” he says. “It’s all very honorable, but it simply hasn’t worked.”

At the core of NCLB is Congress’s mandate for states to give annual math and reading tests throughout grade school and once in high school. The stakes are high. Schools that don’t meet certain standards face sanctions and, in some cases, closure. This creates a vicious cycle: Fearful of low scores, many schools began devoting substantial parts of the curriculum to preparing for the tests. But, for all that rote learning, our kids are no better off, says Robinson. He points to studies showing that on average one-third of those who start in ninth grade don’t complete school within four years. In some regions the results are much poorer—Houston and Chicago, for example, where the non-graduation rate tops 60 percent.

“We’ve been doing this for 10 years. If the health service insisted on giving everyone a vaccine and one-third of the patients were dying, wouldn’t it make sense to try another method?” he says, adding “As a result of standardized testing, even many kids in Ivy League universities can barely think around a corner.

“In principle, testing is a logical way to monitor progress,” says Robinson. “In practice, it creates a very dry learning environment. Incidentally, this has been a bonanza for standardized testing companies—they’ve done fantastically well—but teachers are tired and exhausted. They’re demoralized. And the kids are turned off. They’re being simply trained as test-takers. You can’t improve education if you alienate the students. What kind of kid wakes up in the morning excited about raising his school’s average test scores?’’

Our focus on test results has led to the trimming or outright elimination of many of the areas of education that Robinson says are vital to a child’s success. Funding for sports, arts, and music has shriveled or dropped entirely.

So, what can be done about it? “I tell parents: ‘Take control of your own situation. There’s no mandate in No Child Left Behind to shut down arts programs. Get your community engaged and make your demands clear. Don’t wait for someone to do it for you,’” says Robinson.

All this brings to mind my dilemma of 25 years ago, dealing with a teacher who seemed bent on squelching creativity. Robinson asks what we did about the problem, and I tell him my wife and I spoke to the principal, who ordered the teacher to create a more flexible curriculum. Then, the principal went a step further. He started taking our son out of class occasionally. The two of them would go on walks around the school and talk about everything from real turtles to the Teenage Mutant Ninja kind. My son slowly regained his love of school and his interest in learning. (Incidentally his second grade teacher was the opposite of his first grade teacher. She was creative, fun, and nurturing.)

Despite my still simmering rage at the first grade teacher, Robinson argues that boring classrooms and barren curricula are usually not one individual’s fault. “In most cases, we can’t blame the problems on the teacher,” Robinson says. “We need to give them room to do their job. We need to train them properly, and pay them properly.”

He points out that none of the top-performing foreign school systems rely on standardized testing. In Finland, for example, which has one of highest ranked school systems in the world, the emphasis is on creating great teachers. Would-be educators compete for coveted spots in a government-supported training program that comes complete with a living stipend. Those who make it through the program are highly respected, well-paid, and given a large degree of control over their curriculum. “America can change,” says Robinson. “But we need to take education out of the hands of politicians. Politicians are not interested in education. They only want to be able to hold up a report that says ‘Our math scores are higher than Taiwan’s.’”

Over 200 years ago, long before No Child Left Behind, the great English poet William Wordsworth wrote of the loss of children’s insight, curiosity, and creativity:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore; —
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. …

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower. …

In the Internet age, Robinson tells us, it’s up to each one of us to keep that glory alive.

Gary Sinise

Gary Sinise Performing
The Lt. Dan Band: “I don’t make any money, not a dime. I’m just trying to give back to our men and women in uniform who are serving our country.”
Photo courtesy garysinisefoundation.org.

Life profoundly changed for Gary Sinise after his Oscar-nominated role in Forrest Gump as the Vietnam vet and double-amputee Lieutenant Dan—a character at first supremely bitter who ultimately finds the courage to come to terms with his disability and even thrive. Wounded vets everywhere responded, and Sinise found himself at the center of a vital cause—to bring attention, appreciation, and help to America’s sometimes-forgotten heroes, the real-life disabled military men and women.

To this day, the busy actor spends countless hours visiting hospitals and meeting severely injured vets. To entertain troops and raise funds to assist the wounded, he tapped his own musical roots to form the Lt. Dan Band, which drives crowds wild. He also formed the Gary Sinise Foundation to organize future veterans programs.

[Watch videos of Gary Sinise & the Lt. Dan Band performing live for the troops.]

Through all this, Sinise has continued his acting career, playing a range of historical figures from Harry Truman to George Wallace. And he just completed a nine-season stint as Detective Mac Taylor in the recently cancelled CSI: NY series on CBS.

Question: Playing Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump really changed your life didn’t it?
Gary Sinise: Prior to doing the movie, I had been involved with Vietnam veterans groups, so I wanted to play that part very badly. But afterwards, vets reached out to me, and it just snowballed.

Q: To this day, you seem as committed to veterans issues as to your acting career.
GS: It’s not a side thing that I do. I’ve been all over the world to talk to veterans and active duty service members and visit hospitals and raise money to help our wounded soldiers. I’ve seen some very sad things—the injuries that our men and women have suffered. And the grieving families that have lost a loved one.

Q: Any personal memories of the wounded heroes you’ve met that stay with you?
GS: There are many. I remember a horribly injured marine in intensive care. His wife asked me if I would go and see him. He had lost three of his limbs and most of his other hand. He was burned over 90 percent of his body, and he had suffered a very severe brain injury. She said, “He’s probably not going to know you’re there, but could you do it anyway?” I could see his eyes flickering as I was talking to him. I don’t know if he knew what I was saying, but I was just letting him know that I was there and that I supported him. It was very challenging because he was one of the most severely wounded that I’ve seen—and I’ve seen a lot of very, very badly injured vets. I never forgot him. Later, I called up his wife, and she told me they were moving from place to place, convalescing. I said, “We can build you a house.” That project will be completed this fall, and they’ll be able to move in. His wife is going to have to care for him for the rest of his life, and she’s so heroic and so incredible.

Q: That’s just one of many, what you call “smart homes,” that your foundation is building for disabled vets.
GS: Yes, each one is designed specifically for the particular needs of the individual. You might have a warrior who’s going to be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, but maybe he’s got his arms so he can get around and push buttons and do different things. His needs might be different than somebody who’s totally dependent on the caregiver. We figure out the best way to make life easier with things like kitchens that can be operated with a smartphone and cabinets that drop down to wheelchair height at the push of a button.

Q: No one would have guessed how your life turned out. It’s not a secret that you weren’t exactly a role model as a teen.
GS: No, I was just goofing off. I was a kid absorbed with my own particular interests—playing in bands or looking at girls or whatever, and really not thinking much beyond my small world. I knew the Vietnam War was a bad thing. I saw the news on TV, the body bags coming home. I never thought about the young guys who were wounded until I got to know some veterans. It made me realize there’s a lot more to life than your little piece of it.

Q: When did you figure out that you could act?
GS: It was sort of an accident. I was asked to audition for a play by the high school drama teacher because she was going to do West Side Story and she needed guys that looked like gang members. I wasn’t sure about it, but I saw all the pretty girls going in there to audition and so I sort of just followed them. Thankfully, I had a natural ability to get on stage and goof off and ham it up so I was able to find something that I was pretty good at.

Q: A lot of parents have doubts about their kids becoming actors. How did your mom and dad react?
GS: When I started performing in plays they were thrilled because I wasn’t going to get kicked out of high school. They were worried because I was not a good student. I just could not sit down and study. But my dad was terrible in school too, so what could he say? Actually, they’ve always been very supportive. I went on to help start the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago while I was working as a gardener, a shipping clerk, doing all kinds of things.

Q: After you became successful, did your parents brag about their son the movie star?
GS: Oh good lord, yes. I still get requests from them for autographed pictures. They live in a small town, and you know that kind of stuff gets them points. My 89-year-old World War II vet uncle recently asked, “Can you send me a picture for Estelle? She works over at the library.”

Breathing Lessons

Breathing Lessons

There are many approaches to mindfulness, but here is a good place to start.

1. Find a quiet place. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Take a few moments to simply be. Notice whatever is happening inside you and in your environment—sounds, physical sensations, thoughts, feelings—without trying to do anything about it. Continue this for five minutes or so.

2. Now bring your attention to the breath. Simply notice the breath as it moves in and out though your nostrils. Don’t try to manipulate it in any way.

3. The mind will wander. This doesn’t matter. Each time you notice you are no longer observing the breath, this is a moment of mindfulness. Simply bring your attention back to the in-breath and out-breath.

4. Allow thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations to come and go. Notice that when you allow these “interferences” to arise without pursuing them, that they pass away naturally of their own accord. There is no need to push, resist, or fight with the mind. This only creates more distraction.

5. Stay awhile. Remain sitting with eyes closed for 10 more minutes (15 minutes total). Use an egg timer to keep time for you—this will free you from the need to watch the clock. Once the timer goes off, take two to three minutes to record your experience in a “mindfulness journal.” Repeat this practice once a day for a month. After one month, increase your sitting time to 20 minutes.

In time, you will notice the great benefits of this simple practice, which can be done anywhere at any time. You will become aware of the tendencies of your mind, how it resists certain experiences and tries to hold onto others, how it becomes tangled up in thinking and prevents you from being able to focus. The more sensitive you become to these tendencies, the clearer and more balanced your mental state will be.

Scrap Cake Birthday Card

Create unique handmade birthday greetings with leftovers: Use scraps of wrapping paper, scrapbooking paper, or even recycle old birthday and greeting cards as your materials to build this fun and funky cake card.

Find paper scraps that are in the same color family but with variant patterns to make this card extra funky.

How to Make the Scrap Cake Birthday Card

Materials for front of card

card stock and scrap paper

Optional materials for inside card

Directions for front of card

  1. Fold the large sheet of card stock in half crosswise to create the base of your card—trim if necessary to fit in your envelope.
  2. hand holding card stock in paper trimmer

  3. Cut the decorative sheet slightly smaller than half of folded card stock (about ⅛” smaller on each side looks best). This will be the front of your card.
  4. To create the cake, arrange 9 of the 10 strips horizontally in the order you want them to appear on the card (these will become the cake layers). Set one strip aside for the candle.
  5. nine strips of paper

  6. Pick up the bottom layer of the cake. Holding it vertically, tear a thin piece off the top (as shown below). Then turn the strip horizontally, and tear the right and left sides off of the strip so that it measures about 4″ long. Continue working up the cake layers in this fashion, tearing off the tops of each strip. When tearing off the sides, each scrap should be slightly shorter than the strip below it.
  7. hands tearing scrap of paper

  8. Beginning with the bottom layer, glue each strip onto the decorative sheet.  (TIP: To create a stacked look, glue only the bottom edge of each strip so that the next piece can be tucked under the top of the previous layer.)
  9. hands gluing strips of paper to card front

  10. Cut the scrap you set aside for the candle to about 3″ long. Then, glue the scrap (vertically) onto the front of your card, as shown below.
  11. hand gluing paper candle to paper birthday cake

  12. Tear the scrap of yellow or orange paper into a flame shape. Glue to the top of the candle.
  13. hand gluing paper flame to paper card

  14. Using craft glue or double-sided adhesive, attach the decorative sheet to the front of your card.
  15. Front of Scrap Cake Birthday Card

Directions for inside card

  1. Cut the decorative sheet slightly smaller than half of folded card stock (about ⅛” smaller on each side looks best). Using glue or double-sided adhesive, attach the sheet to the inside (right side).

  2. hands attaching one piece of paper to another

  3. Using your stamp and ink pad, stamp “Happy Birthday” on the 2″ x 3″ scrap of paper. Round the corners with the corner rounder and attach to the inside of the card using glue or double-sided adhesive.

corner rounder and paper

hand gluing piece of paper to another

5-Minute Fitness: Calf Raises from Lani Muelrath

In the September/October issue, we showed readers Lani Muelrath’s calf raises from her new book Fit Quickies: 5-Minute, Targeted Body-Shaping Workouts to help strengthen legs and address the strain they take from day-to-day life.

In this video, instructor Molly Tittle from Invoke Studio demonstrates how to get the best results from the exercise, and how to avoid injuring your ankles or knees with poor technique.

Cool Cauliflower Salad

You can use this chilled side to complement almost any summer meal, especially at backyard cookouts. Here’s one meal idea: Add baby red potatoes—cut in half and brushed with a bit of olive oil. Then, sprinkle them with some fresh chopped herbs or dust with dried Italian seasoning, and bake. Serve sides with a slice of lean pork roast.


Cool Cauliflower Salad
(Makes 6 servings)

cauliflower salad with basil leaf and lemon wedge

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Steam cauliflower florets 6 to 7 minutes or until desired tenderness. In large bowl, combine cauliflower and celery.
  2. In small mixing bowl, combine remaining ingredients. Whisk together to mix well. Pour dressing mixture over vegetable mixture and toss gently to thoroughly coat.
  3. Cover and chill 2 or more hours. Serve chilled.

Nutrition Facts

Per serving


Calories: 50
Total fat: 2.5 g
Saturated fat: 0 g
Carbohydrate: 6 g
Fiber: 2 g
Protein: 2 g
Sodium: 55 mg


Cartoons: Hot Stuff

"How are things ashore?" July 1960

“How are things ashore?”
July 1960

 

“Humid, isn’t it?” March/April 1995

“Humid, isn’t it?”
March/April 1995

 

“Come now—we've had heat waves before!” August 1958

“Come now—we’ve had heat waves before!”
August 1958

 

May 1961

May 1961

 

“One medium, one medium rare, one medium well, one very well, one just between medium and medium rare, one almost rare …” June 1954

“One medium, one medium rare, one medium well, one very well, one just between medium and medium rare, one almost rare …”
June 1954

 

“Oh, Mr. Artman ...” July 1949

“Oh, Mr. Artman …”
July 1949