The Silence...

When kids go to school for the first day of the year a silence descends upon the neighborhood. While some would beg to differ when watching the hair on my neck stand on end, and as I grimace while listening to them shriek in a shopping mall, believe it or not I love kids. But there is nothing quite like the blanket of calm here today. There is no screaming. No "human child police siren" imitator. There is no ice cream truck. No colicky wails from across the block. I can even open the window!

So yes, while the first day of school hails the death knell of summer it opens a door on a feeling... a "waiting to exhale" that comes with living not only in Baltimore, but other cities like it. You've made it through another summer. And now, for 5 days a week at least, from about 8am to 2pm there is a quietness about the world.

Getting "Paying it Forward" Paid Back to You

Today I read in the Baltimore Sun about 2 youths (Steven T. Hollis III, 18, of Randallstown and Juan L. Flythe, 17, of West Baltimore), part of a subset of the Bloods gang, that stabbed and stomped to death one of their supposedly queer gang members Steven Parrish, 18. It is one of those heinous crimes that makes you wonder, and as a queer person myself makes me filled with a black hole in the pit of my stomach. 10 years later has Matthew Shepard died in vain it seems.... Sigh.

But then a few minutes later arrived this in my in box, from an ex-student in one my classes:

Hey. Good morning. Cheers from Florida. Just got back from the club with some amigos. A tad wet though from TS Fay, but can't complain dancing a lil salsa with this chico in the rain.

.... Love it here. One thing I have been able to do is define myself, (which includes coming out to family and friends in recent months). And surprisingly, I have to pinpoint it to your class in which it let me do that. If there is one class I remember, its your class which I enjoyed most.

What was it I did? Well it really matters not and I won't speculate or pontificate and stroke my own ego in the process either. Point is I helped make some queer kid able to deal with their life and to come out and share that with their parents. They've found courage, joy, and most importantly the opportunity to dance "a lil dance salsa with this chico in the rain." How much more perfect of a pay back for teaching is that?

I bring you butter tarts.

How can a simply pastry be so DAMN good. And Canadian I might add. And butter tarts are simple: sugar, eggs, raisins mixed together and baked in pastry tart shells, and that's it. There's even a story about them that you can listen to on the CBC Radio.


It pains me to no end that you can't get the friggin' things here in the States. And, no, they are NOT like small pecan pies, just made with raisins! That's like saying 7-Up is like Coke, without the caramel flavor, and then lemon-lime in its place.

Here's a recipe that's pretty close (linked and below) to my mothers - have to find that somewheres - you can try it in the meantime.

Ingredients:

Flaky Pie Pastry (NB - I don't know about this pastry recipe - too sweet? 7-Up? Eggs? - make the flakiest pie crust pastry you can - NOT sweet, it shouldn't compete with the filling!)

• 5 cups all purpose flour
• 1 lb lard
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg slightly beaten
• 3/4 cup cold 7-Up (or water)
• 2 tsp vinegar

Filling

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 fresh egg
• 1/2 cup Sultana raisins, washed and patted dry

Directions:

Pastry - Combine all dry ingredients. Cut in lard until mealy. Add 7-Up and vinegar to slightly beaten egg. Add to dry ingredients and mix.

Filling -Mix ingredients in the order given and fill unbaked tart shells. Bake in a preheated oven (350 deg.) for 17 min.

This recipe also doesn't use the requisite amount of butter - should be about 1 cup (that's why they're called BUTTER tarts dumbass that edited the recipe down to 1 Tbsp!)

Now the qualities of the best butter tart are as follows:

1. MUST have runny inside - you bite in it starts rolling out. Lick your fingers, roll the open side up, it starts to run out and over the back - there's no time to delicately eat it - it should be fun and messy.
2. Pastry MUST be flaky, it falls apart in your hands when you bite into it. Do NOT use pre-made shells. FAIL.
3. MUST NOT have crunchy sugar layer in the bottom of the tart! This is the tough one. You need to cook the pastry, but not burn it, AND have the sugar-egg-raisin mix cook and liquify inside without burning that! Good luck.
   

It can take some experimenting and there's really no way to know if you've met the demands of the best tart noted above until you eat them. Oh nelly, but let me tell you when you HAVE you'll be lickin' and rollin' your hand and catching drips of sugar-butter goodness....And hell, even a bad butter tart is better than no butter tart at all.