Frank's Musings

The agreement in principle reported between Iran and the U.S. constitutes an advance of both the Islamic regime and the Trump administration towards conventional international political behavior. In other words, both sides will have acknowledged that the law of nations only exists among countries that tacitly accept certain norms, such as keeping open straits like Hormuz and not resorting to punishing military attack when trying to modify each other’s policies.

International relations is not a zero-sum game. It is encouraging that someone seems to have convinced the negotiators of that.

Trump’s settlement of his billion-dollar suit for compensation from the I.R.S. for its release of supposedly confidential information on Trump tax returns shows how, in his view, government is all a game. He and his acting Attorney General have concocted a trade-off that withdraws his threat of an unlikely award of $10 billion to him in exchange for creation of a slush fund of “only” 20% of that amount to fund thank-you gifts for the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol at his request on January 6th, 2021.

Rich American cuisine begins owing to immigration. The people who came from foreign lands because of low opportunity, repressive discrimination, adventurism, and even slavery have brought their eating styles with them.

My children’s ancestors continued to compose their meals of whatever they could afford that matched the selection they were used to. The items they ate became part of the local menu wherever they settled, if only by default.

Usually some of those dishes persist in the habits of subsequent generations.  Intermarriage between separate immigrant populations produced unique blended cuisines, like the Eastern European Catholic/Jewish meld which my close relatives share.  Among the foods placed on the dinner table were the following:

Polish dishes            

Kiszka

Czarnina

Pierogi

Head Cheese

Kolats

Kolacki

Golomki

Oplatki

Kapusta

Uzka

Jewish dishes

Latkas
Brisket
Hamen Taschen
Matzoh  brei
Chicken soup with matzoh balls
Challah

Blintzes