This is our comfort issue; Lord
knows we need it.
Raise your wine glass if you need
some comfort, read on please.
WORD OF THE WEEK - com·fort
/ˈkəmfərt/
Noun:
1. a state
of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint.
"room for four people to
travel in comfort"
2. the
easing or alleviation of a person's feelings of grief or distress.
"a few words of
comfort"
Verb:
ease the grief or distress of,
console.
"she broke down in tears and
her friend tried to comfort her"
TOP FIVE COMFORT SONGS – Fire up
Apple Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Music, whatever:
1). “It Will Rain”, Bruno Mars (Album: Take Me Home)
2). “Someone Like You”, Adele (Album: 21)
3). “Empire State of Mind”, Alicia Keys (Album: The Element of
Freedom)
4). “Senorita”, Shawn Mendes, Camilia Cabello (Album: Senorita)
5). “Georgia On My Mind”, Ray Charles (Album: The Genius Hits the
Road)
COMFORT FOOD – Tuna-Salad
Sandwich, Julia Child Style
YIELD: 2 sandwiches
TIME: 10 minutes
This was one of Julia Child’s favorite dishes for a working
lunch. For decades, Julia was on the road more than she was home and, when she
returned to her beloved kitchen, she craved simple foods. For Julia, the
important ingredients for this sandwich were the tuna (it had to be packed in
oil) and the mayo (she preferred Hellmann’s). Her longtime assistant, Stephanie
Hersh, said, “The rest was up for grabs.” Make it with capers, cornichons and
chopped onion, a squirt of lemon juice and some herbs, serve it open-face on an
English muffin or between slices of white bread, and you’ll have Julia’s midday
signature.
INGREDIENTS:
FOR THE TUNA SALAD:
1 (5-ounce) can tuna packed in oil, drained
3 to 4 tablespoons mayonnaise, preferably Hellmann’s, plus
more for spreading
3 tablespoons finely chopped celery
2 to 3 tablespoons finely chopped onion, preferably Vidalia
3 to 4 cornichons, finely chopped
1 tablespoon capers, rinsed, patted dry and chopped if large,
or 5 olives, pitted and chopped
Fresh lemon juice
Salt
Freshly ground pepper,
preferably white
1 to 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives or parsley (optional)
FOR ASSEMBLY:
2 toasted English muffins (preferably Bays) or 4 untoasted
white bread slices
4 soft lettuce leaves, such as Boston
4 tomato slices
4 thin slices onion (optional)
PREPARATION:
Prepare the tuna salad: Using a fork, mash the tuna with 3
tablespoons mayonnaise. Add the celery, as much onion and chopped cornichons as
you’d like, and the capers or olives, and toss to combine. Add a squirt of
lemon juice, some salt (go easy at first) and pepper. Taste and see if you'd
like more mayo, onion or cornichons. Add more lemon juice, salt and pepper to
taste. Stir in the chives or parsley, if you’re using either. (Makes 1 1/2
cups.) The tuna salad is good to go as soon as it’s made, but it’s even better
after a couple of hours in the fridge.
When you’re ready to serve, spread the muffins or bread with a
little mayonnaise. If you’re using English muffins, do what Julia did: Make
open-face sandwiches. Put a leaf of lettuce on each muffin half, top with tuna
salad and finish with tomato and onion. If you’re using sliced bread, prepare
traditional sandwiches: Top each of 2 slices of bread with 1 piece lettuce,
tomato and onion, then spread over the tuna and finish with remaining onion,
tomato, lettuce and bread.
TOP FIVE COMFORT MOVIES – Fire up
Netflix, Amazon Video, Peacock, Hulu, whatever:
1). “Roman Holiday”
2). “Tootsie”
3). “When Harry Met Sally”
4). Julie & Julia
5). The First Wives Club”
COMFORT COLLEGE CHRONICLES – This past
Saturday Saturday, Joseph R. Biden Jr. crossed the threshold of 270 electoral
votes, and barring a successful legal challenge, the former vice president will
become the country's 46th president on January 20.
Though this transfer of presidential power is shaping up to be
anything but typical, and there are a few months to go until January, we can
read the tea leaves to figure out what higher education could look like under
the Biden administration. Here are three areas to look out for:
- Campus sexual assault. During the Obama administration, Biden released federal guidelines for how colleges should handle reports of sexual assault — the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter, as it came to be known. The guidance pushed colleges to take responsibility for doing all they could to prevent sexual assault and to punish perpetrators. Under President Trump, colleges were pushed to protect the rights of the accused. The move was a departure from years of Education Department policy.
- Coronavirus cash. Congress remains under pressure to pass another stimulus bill to bolster an economy made frail by Covid-19. Many colleges are desperate for more federal assistance while the pandemic rages. Biden is expected in January to urge lawmakers to craft a stimulus measure, and higher-education funding could be part of that legislation. Here's the catch: Higher education is now a partisan issue, and if Democrats don't have 50 Senate seats, Biden will struggle to provide more federal funds to ailing colleges.
-
International students. Trump kicked off his
administration by imposing a series of policies, including a travel ban, that
discouraged foreign students from coming to this country. That could have a
lasting effect on American higher education. In the 2018-19 academic year, the
number of international students rose only 0.05 percent, according to the
annual Open Doors survey. By comparison, in the 2014-15 academic year, that
number grew by 10 percent. Biden will probably move in the opposite direction
of the Trump administration and make policies that are more welcoming of
foreign students.
Boston University is asking students to stay on campus and
have "friendsgiving," as colleges split over holiday travel.
Many schools — including the University of South Carolina,
Syracuse University and Emory University, plan to end in-person instruction
ahead of the holiday.
Others are asking students not to go home. Health officials
fear indoor gatherings and traveling will worsen the COVID spread nationwide.
If students do go home, experts recommend self-isolation,
tests and flu shots.
The State University of New York system announced that its
140,000 students must test negative if they want to leave campus.
POLITICAL COMFORTS – Donald
Trump is the only President in history to have been impeached, lost the popular
vote, and be limited to a one-term presidency.
The House and Senate are both back this week. It’s House
leadership election week in the Capitol, which means we’ll find out who is
ascendant in the Democratic and Republican leaderships, and who will spend the
next two years grumbling.
T leadership of both parties are all but set: Speaker NANCY
PELOSI will lead House Democrats, and KEVIN MCCARTHY will lead House
Republicans. But there are open questions: how many Dems vote against PELOSI,
whether any dope will raise their hand to launch a half-cocked attempt to take
PELOSI out and who will take the lower-level leadership slots.
The two elections are truly a tale of two parties: Democrats
are holding their election virtually, and Republicans are holding theirs in
person, Tuesday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. That’s right. Four hours. Mask deniers.
BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK – Birthday
wishes and thoughts this week to Diana Krall (56), Gordon Lightfoot (82), Jack
Meek …a cool Professor, Elizabeth Perkins (60), Lorene Thomas …. famous friend
of college students, Sam Waterson (80).
EMAIL BAG – Good to hear this weekend
via email from Joe O’Rourke (St. Lawrence, ’76). Joe, like all intelligent
people, believes our current U.S. President is a wack job. Thank you, “O”,
always glad to hear our friends north of the border think wisely.
OUT AND ABOUT – While on a rare restaurant
visit this weekend to Matt Denny’s Ale House in Arcadia, California. We ran
into an old friend and former proprietor of Matt Denny’s, Matt McSweeney. Matt
looks great, he remains loyal to his Irish Whiskey, and is doing well in the
world of consulting.
COMFORT MARKET WEEK - The
S&P begins this week having closed at a record on Friday. Two things could
be driving stock prices higher: 1) optimism about the arrival of an effective
Covid-19 vaccine and 2) stronger than expected corporate earnings. Also, a
reminder that the figures you see below are year-to-date changes.
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COMFORT DRIVING THE WEEK - Let’s get
a couple of things clear, if we haven’t already. President Donald Trump lost
the 2020 election by a pretty wide margin. Nothing can change that. He can
Tweet. His supporters can march. And they can rage. None of it means anything.
President-elect Joe Biden will take office on Jan. 20. So don’t waste any of
your time worrying about any other outcome. Because there won’t be one.
What does matter is the Trump team’s complete unwillingness to
engage in a traditional transition process at a time of maximum national peril.
There is no question that Biden’s Covid-19 response plan has already been set
back, meaning his approach to the economy is also likely to suffer from Trump’s
completely fantastical intransigence.
COMFORT SPORT - We’re in the middle of a
golf boom
In September, 25.5% more golf rounds were played than last
year, which capped off a wildly popular summer for the sport.
Why? It’s the perfect quarantine activity. Socially distanced?
Check. Dose of nature? You betcha. Anxiety reliever? Sometimes.
The backstory: As stay-at-home orders swept the nation in
March and April, people began looking for a “corrective to stress” as the
Financial Times’s Andrew Martin called it. And golf rose to the occasion:
We Are Golf, a coalition of golf organizations, collaborated
closely with the federal government and the CDC to draw up guidelines to make
the game safer. These included eliminating bunker rakes, leaving flagsticks in
the holes, and limiting players to one per cart.
And in June, the PGA Tour became the first major U.S. sports
league (besides UFC) to return to action.
Golf’s sudden appeal has benefited the business side of the
game, too.
As fun as the boom has been for fans of the game, when a
vaccine trickles down the pipeline and more leisure activities become
available, you have to wonder: Will golf be able to maintain its pandemic bump?
One promising sign: There’s a lot of new blood in the game.
The number of junior golfers (ages 6–17) could increase by as many as 500,000
by the end of 2020, according to the National Golf Foundation.
As a golf hacker, my advice to people who want to grow the
game is to make it more accessible. Less of the “tuck your shirt in, never play
music” energy. More of “welcome to the game, here’s how to stop slicing the
ball.” And for people who’ve never understood the appeal of golf, watch the
final round of The Masters today on CBS Demand or You Tube. I promise you’ll be
Googling “driving ranges near me” in no time. Fore!
SWAMI’S WEEK TOP COMFORT PICKS –
NFL Football Pick of the Week – Sunday
11/22, 5:20 PM (PDT), NBC: Kansas City Chiefs (8-1) vs. Las Vegas Raiders
(6-3). How good is this year’s Raiders, we shall see? Nope not that good,
Chiefs win 27 – 17. (Season
to date 8-2)
College Football Pick of the Week –
Saturday 11/21, Noon (EDT), Fox: #9 Indiana Hoosiers (4-0 vs. #3 Ohio State
Buckeyes (3-0). Coach Norman Dale cannot help the Hoosiers in this one, adios undefeated
season. Buckeyes 40 – 24. (Season
to Date 6-5).
2020 Season to Date (33 – 20)
Have a comfortable week!
Next Blog: Thanksgiving 2020
Until Monday November 23, 2020 Adios.
Claremont, California
November 16, 2020
#XI-17-423
2,085 words, five-minute read
CARTOON OF THE WEEKEND – Peanuts
RINK RATS COMFORT POLL – Your
favorite comfort food?
___ Meatloaf
___ Mac N’ Cheese
___ Pizza
___ Grilled Cheese Sandwich
___ Chocolate Chip cookies
___ Other
COMFORT QUOTE OF THE MONTH – "If
you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then
crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” ----- Martin
Luther King, Jr.
Rink Rats is a blog
of weekly observations, predictions and commentary. We welcome your comments
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Posted at Rink Rats The Blog: First Published – May 3, 2010
Our Eleventh Year.
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