RCV, Pressure in the Kitchen, and a Now Lonely Gold Lame Jacket
January 5, 2023
What’s Happening?
I think we all know what’s happening in our country right now and I believe that a lack of fair representation of “We the People” is the cause. I will address this issue in the What to Do section, below.
But first, I wanted to give you an update about Danone, the biggest B-certified corporation in the world. As I mentioned in the What’s Cooking section of the December 23, 2022 Wendellsden newsletter, it appeared that Danone had taken, and also had NOT taken, actions that put a damper on my opinion of them. Here is a recap, followed by the good news I received about this company:
Danone North America is the biggest B Corporation. You will recognize some of their brands, I am sure, if you click here:
https://www.danonenorthamerica.com/our-business/#brands
They stopped purchasing milk from a bunch of New England organic dairy farmers, although the reason was to instead work with organic dairy farmers closer to their processing plant, which does make sense. However, I was concerned that they had not followed through on their promise to help the New England organic dairy farmers.
Here’s the good news:
I emailed B Lab, the organization that grants the certification, and got the following response from Sarah Silverman, Director, Marketing & Communication:
Thanks for your inquiry. Danone N.A. recently announced multiple initiatives that make up their 2023 Northeast Region Investment Package, which totals approximately $18 million in additional investment to support organic dairy and producers in the Northeast. As part of that, they announced new grant funding to support organic dairy farmers: The Organic Center Announces $500,000 in Funding to Advance Organic Dairy | The Organic Center (organic-center.org).
There has been no change to Danone N.A.'s B Corp certification.
I'd like to connect you with Carolyn Sklar at Danone - she can answer any follow-up questions you have.
I also got a pleasant response from Carolyn Sklar at Danone offering to answer any additional questions I may have.
So, there you have it. Feel free to purchase products made by the following brands know that you are supporting a company that considers its effect on the larger world and future generations and not just the bottom line for shareholders.
https://www.danonenorthamerica.com/our-business/#brands
And, in case you missed the newsletter that talked about B Corps, see this link: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/certification, and this excerpt from that page:
Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy. Unlike other certifications for businesses, B Lab is unique in our ability to measure a company’s entire social and environmental impact.
What to Do?
Along with supporting Danone, I recommend that you learn about FairVote, an organization that supports ranked choice voting, or RCV that I alluded to when lamenting the state of our democracy at the beginning of this newsletter.
What is RCV?
Instead of there being a primary election that chooses one candidate from each party who then each competes in a general election, in ranked choice voting there is only the general election in which each voter ranks the candidates by preference regardless of party. You can read an excellent synopsis of RCV here:
https://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV)
By the way, Ballotpedia is an excellent organization and resource.
Here is some information about FairVote from their About page:
FairVote is the national driving force behind advancing ranked choice voting (RCV) and proportional RCV in legislative districts to give voters more choices, fairer representation and better government.
Take our leadership on ranked choice voting, which has become the fastest-growing, most bipartisan improvement to our elections; with FairVote’s guidance and a growing coalition of national and state allies, more than nine million voters are able to rank candidates in their elections.
The country’s leading authority on RCV, FairVote advises state and national partners on its uses and implementations, from 23 cities in Utah to New York City. Two states — Alaska and Maine — have adopted ranked choice voting for their elections for Congress and president.
I don’t have a “one-minute” action to suggest at the moment, but if you can take just a few minutes, click the following like from FairVoteAction, FairVote’s political advocacy arm:
https://fairvoteaction.org/get-involved/state_based_rcv_groups/
and then click on your state to see what actions are available. Not all states have actions, but many of the links to the specific states that are in the list below the map present organizations that have petitions and other actions.
Take a few minutes to see what you can do, and also share the information if you think ranked choice voting is worth supporting.
What’s the Use?
Petitions work, especially if organized by an organization that has the ability to reach and inspire enough people to get the attention of politicians. FairVote and FairVoteAction have this.
But, I will also leave you with a link to an excerpt from an opinion piece by Lawrence Lessig, Roy L Furman professor of law and leadership at Harvard law school and founder of EqualCitizens.US.
Yet Maine shows there’s no need to undermine the mandate of a president by making the results turn upon such accidents. Battleground states could adopt RCV, making it easier for voters to vote for a third-party candidate without worrying about how that vote will affect the ultimate bottom line. Of those 97,488 Nader voters in 2000, Al Gore would surely have received more than 537 votes more than Bush. There is no reason the election system should force them either to vote for their second choice or help throw the election to their third.
What to Read?
On another note of the song of what is wrong with what is/could be our wonderful country, I was reminded of the book The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates when the book’s author was elected to be Maryland’s next governor in the November 2022 election. (He will be assuming this office on January 18, 2023.)
The book was on the reading list of a study group presented by Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Wakefield MA as part of a series addressing racism. While its author did well in life, the book shows that fate or luck is a stronger force as to success in the lives of Black people versus those of us who are white. Here is the description from Bookshop.org:
In December 2000, the Baltimore Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore.
Wes just couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen?
For all Governor-elect Moore’s positive story, the book is heartbreaking, but very much worth reading.
To purchase a used copy, I recommend trying
first, then
To support the author and independent bookstores, AND help support me so I can keep focused on writing, you can purchase a new copy via my bookstore page on Bookshop.org. I bet your local library has it, too.
What’s Cooking?
You need a pressure cooker. Really. 😊 Okay, you can poach a whole chicken on the stovetop, too, but I would not trade my trusty Presto for anything.
There are a gazillion recipes online for poaching a whole chicken or a chicken breast or two on the stovetop. And, a fair amount for using the pressure cooker. The latter is quicker, by the way. 😉
But I recently came up with a reliably replicable recipe for cooking a whole chicken in the pressure cooker that results in tender tasty meat and not just one, but TWO batches of stock or, technically, broth from cooking the chicken from raw and stock from re-using the bones and bits left after picking the cooked meat off the bones.
Here is the recipe I now use all the time:
1 five or so pound chicken*
1 medium carrot, thinly sliced
1 medium stalk of celery, thinly sliced
½ a medium size onion, thinly sliced
A few cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
Several sprigs of fresh thyme
1-2 bay leaves, depending on size
8-12 peppercorns* (I forgot them this time, so I guess optional. 😊)
½ tsp ground cumin
1 tsp or more dried oregano
2-3 tsp kosher salt
6 cups of water
Pull out the giblet package from the cavity, if one is in there, putting whatever is in there (neck, heart, gizzard, kidney, etc., but NOT THE LIVER) into the pressure cooker along with the whole chicken. Add all the rest, bring to high pressure (takes about 20 minutes or so) and keep there for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the pressure release naturally, probably another 20 minutes or so.
Pull out the chicken with some tongs - it will fall apart and that is okay) strain the broth, and pick all the nice meat off the bones for soup, pot pie, tacos/ enchiladas, chicken salad, or even to slice for a chicken dinner. (The stock will be a great base for gravy!)
Retain ALL the bones, small scraps of meat for the next batch of soup, gristle, and spent herbs and vegetables and either save them for later or pop them right back into the pressure cooker with 4 cups of water (maybe 6 but I will have to let you know after I make this again – I can’t remember if there will be enough flavor to carry 6 cups of water) bring to pressure for another 20 minutes, cool naturally then strain.
And that’s it. And then you have stock and meat for all kinds of meals. Yum!
NOTES: Do NOT rinse the chicken. Cooking it will kill any germs. Rinsing it risks splattering germs all over the place. And never put liver in for broth or stock as it will impart a bitter flavor. It makes a great little lunch for liver lovers, though. Just fry it up.
What Else?
The big thing that happened this week is that on January 2, 2023, a very kind, gentle, loving, open-minded, and interesting person died, and I am very sad about it.
Along with all the previous adjectives, he was among even more things, a skilled chemist, quite the talented musician and, he discovered later in life, quite the band manager, getting the Mad Bavarians German Band a full plate of bookings these last few years.
I knew Carl from singing with him in the Emmanuel Episcopal Church of Wakefield MA choir. What a singer and knowledgeable musician he was!
And, even though we were on TOTALLY opposite ends of the political spectrum, it never stopped us from being friends. In fact, he trusted me enough to ask me to be one of his password retrieval friends on Facebook. And, each of the three years I recruited and led a band of singers in performing at Wakefield’s annual MLK/CSK celebration, he gamely joined in.
He was droll, self-effacing but equally deservedly proud of his many talents, had strong opinions but never dissed anyone for thinking differently, and…well, I am crying as I write this, so please forgive any typos. It is hard to proofread through tears.
I will miss him, even though I no longer live and sing in Wakefield. I was still, as always, enjoying his Facebook posts. This guy had a knack for creating a wonderful turn of phrase, something I always appreciate. (Regardless of the topic. 😉)
And, I had hoped to sing with him again.
Peace be with you, Carl. You will be missed, but your memory will live on in our hearts.
Thank you for doing the plodding work, supplying the links and life stories.