V o l u m e I V, N u m b e r I V
Celebrating The Precious Human Tapestry
September 18, 2009
“Just once I need somebody to show me all [that] I can’t see” B.O.M.S kicks off with inspirational poet Iyeoka Okoawo
BY JUSTIN PIERRE-LOUIS Staff
This past Tuesday on September 15th in the season opener of the Brandeis’ Open Mic Society or B.O.M.S. for short, the nationally acclaimed Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo graced the stage of Castle Commons and was, for all that listened, the guidepost that she so yearns for in the above excerpt from “In the Blink of an Eye”. Her presence was a welcome treat for poetry enthusiasts throughout campus, as well as guests from as far as Boston University and Lowell, Massachusetts. All came to share in the light, warmth, and mutual therapeutic catharsis Iyeoka proliferates and shares with her audience. This event was sponsored by the Brandeis poetry club, Vocal, a Brandeis club geared towards combining poetic arts and community involvement. Vocal will hold open mic sessions every second and fourth Tuesday of the year to facilitate an open reading space for all creative writing and performance art. These sessions will allow guest appearances from prominent names in the world of poetry such as Iyeoka herself, and will choose the members of Brandeis' own Poetry Slam team by means of slam competition.
Before the competitive portion of slamming begins there is also a guest feature from one of Brandeis' own. Last night, accomplished poet and member of the 2009 Brandeis Slam Team, Usman Hameedi, performed for about 15 minutes and brought pure intensity. His subject matter ranged from the flames of the heart to the burning sting of gunfire and, somehow, despite the changing nature of his subjects he managed to maintain an overarching theme focusing on the power of loss, not only to lay waste to our pasts but to lay out the ground work for the building of new and, possibly, better futures. Even at the angriest and most despairing moments in his work, Usman never let us forget that, as Iyeoka puts it, “everyday you breathe is another day’s opportunity left to dream.” Usman is an exemplar of what Vocal represents and what Brandeis has to offer. He really got to shine and gathered nods of approval from all in the audience including Iyeoka, who stayed after her set and was, seemingly, very glad that she did. For any poetry buffs willing to become a member of Vocal, show off their work, or involve themselves in Brandeis’s poetry-related events, check out Vocal at www.vocalpo-
etry.org and/or become a member of the B.O.M.S. (Brandeis Open Mic Society) group on Facebook. Now that I’ve successfully plugged the poetry group (and oh so subtly as well) I can turn the spotlight on our lady of the evening, Ms. Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo. What struck me as the most refreshing and humbling about Ms. Okoawo was her humility; the genuine nature with which she approaches her fans and her work. Even after receiving numerous accolades such as a the 2006 New England Urban Music Award for best female poet, and despite being recognized for her talent on the CBS hip hop show, "The Source, All Access," and Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, she still approaches our simple Castle Commons stage with a perfect balance of composure and excitement that people are willing and ready to come to for the journey that she will take them on. Furthermore, she really likes people. Iyeoka emits an aura that makes it almost impossible to frown around her. As I slinked towards her after arriving late to the show, I was greeted with an “Oh, so now you show up,” which had all the inklings of the familiar joking tone of a sister and gave off anything but a “celebrity” vibe.
PHOTO BY Yuan Yao/The Hoot
STIRRING WORDS: Slam poet Iyeoka Okoawa entertains at first B.O.M.S. event.
After meeting her in person it is not hard at all to believe that Iyeoka genuinely loves people, a sentiment established in her
self-proclaimed goal to “move the world one poem at a time.” Each of Iyeoka’s masterpieces See B.O.M.S. , p. 11
The times, they are a-changin’: Thoughts on last week’s TMI conference BY SAMANTHA SHOKIN Editor
Yale Spector ‘11 sits casually in the Village B2 lounge with the three of us. We are surrounding a table atop which perch our four glossy, multicolored Macbooks. “So how are we going to do this?” he states, not so much a question as a call to our attention. We briefly tear our eyes away from the illuminated screens. Jamie Fleishman ’11 taps a few keys on his keyboard. My cell phone rings. “We are going to need a Twitter. And a blog, obviously. But what about a live stream? Could we get some camcorders set up? I could easily upload a few clips to YouTube and embed them later.” Such questions are posed and a general course of action is agreed upon. We’ve decided that Yale will be in charge of tweeting while Jamie and I will be blogging, and it goes without say that we’ll all be linking live via Facebook, primarily through status updates. These were the kind of tasks I partook in over the span of about 40 hours, from the evening of September 9th until the morn-
PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot
DIGITAL DISCUSSIONS: Audience member offers her perspectives at TMI.
ing of the 11th, as part of the TMI Conference’s “student verdict”—an experiment using inter-
net media to report and determine pros and cons between new and traditional journalism. The
students participating, myself included, signed up to do what we’ve been doing so enthusiastically for over a decade now—fiddling around on the web, or “flexing our internet muscles” as Yale so aptly proclaimed. But it’s one thing to goof around on Facebook between (and during) classes, or web-surf to pass time, or troll up some forums to get a laugh or two. It’s another entirely to use the internet to make a serious point about the power it holds over journalism, and the major changes continuing to take place in the world of communication. As I write this, I am checking my friends’ Facebook statuses to scrape up any shred of information I can about the potential hostage situation going on in my neighborhood back home in Brooklyn. I read about an occurrence on Facebook just a few hours ago, and now a local news blog has picked it up, saying, “posters to a local forum say the Starbucks is being held up by a man with a machine gun. The commenter later said he heard from someone on the scene that
it had to do with a domestic dispute in the residence above the Starbucks.” This is the first time I’ve ever seen a forum post cited in a news story. As the TMI Conference demonstrated, we are living in a hyperconnected age. News broadcasts are instantaneous, and commentary is all-inclusive, worldwide. Everyone is involved. Everyone is wired, tapping away furiously at their respective keyboards, iPhones, and Blackberries. It goes without saying that social norms are being adjusted accordingly. Some people choose to text instead of call. Others choose to dismiss human interaction altogether, save from behind the anonymity of a screen name. During the conference, Yale, Jamie, and I experienced loosely what today’s journalists experience when covering an event. We had at it, sitting at our designated “press” table, in complete silence except for our unanimous and violent key-tapping, using three different though simultaneous means of communication (email, See TMI, p. 11
Diverse City 9
September 18, 2009
VOICES
Seeking divine inspiration in hard times
Hornstein Professor Yehuda Kurtzer examines wonderment in modern Judaism BY MAXWELL PRICE Editor
I felt like I had just infiltrated a secret meeting when I stepped into the Rapaporte Treasure Hall Monday evening. It seemed that everyone there was part of the world of professional Judaism or graduate-level Jewish education. Attending “Memory and Y’irah: On Reclaiming a Sense of Awe in Skeptical Times,” a lecture by Charles Bronfman, Visiting Scholar, helped me realize that there is a thriving community of “super Jews” living amongst the mostly oblivious undergraduate population. The lecture was an event of the Hornstein Professional Leadership Program, which offers several graduate programs to prepare the future leaders of the American and international Jewish communities. Professor Leonard Saxe, the chair of the department, introduced the speaker. Kurtzer’s lecture was erudite and cerebral yet gentle in tone.
PHOTO BY Phil Small/The Hoot
The talk began with an explanation of the joint Biblical responsibility of Jews to love G-d (ahava) and to fear or be in awe of Him (y’irah). This speech focused on the latter commandment and explored challenges as well as
opportunities for fulfilling its mandate. Despite scriptural revelation, Kurtzer asserted that most modern Jews establish a relationship with G-d without a sense of divine miracle. And since Judaic wisdom
tells us that we cannot see Him directly, some people tend to stop looking. Opening our hearts and minds to awe forms an important solution to this dilemma. Seeing served as a central motif for Kurtzer’s analysis. The issue with seeing most everything in our contemporary world, whether through microscopes, telescopes, cameras, or television, is that it leads to the problem that we feel awe at nothing. In order to reignite that spark of awe, Kurtzer suggests to “keep looking and take on a mantle of awe.” When we stop using our penetrating gaze to hurt others and focus on empathy we can begin to strengthen that relationship with G-d through y’irah. Kurtzer also managed to tie this lecture into a past one he gave entitled “Memory and Mitzvah: How We Can Reclaim the Commanding Force of the Jewish Past.” He indicates that awe results in a transformative shift when it becomes a force for remembrance. By committing these moments
of “y’irah” to memory, we complete the “idealized Jewish sequence of see, remember, and do.” The question and answer session was no less provocative than the lecture itself. Not surprisingly, some audience members wanted to consider the implications of this idea for Jewish education. The concept of making teaching “awe-inspiring” and helping students accept ambiguities reminded me of the “Pedagogy of Wonder” event last April in which educators considered this issue in a more secular context. For people like me who might have been overwhelmed with the conceptual and philosophical difficulty of the subject, Kurtzer acknowledged this issue. “It’s okay for it to be complicated. It should be complicated,” he assured us. In the end, the event probably represented what Jews do best: studying vital philosophical issues, schmoozing about them, and demonstrating how teaching and learning are two sides of the same coin.
Come on, Ye! How could you be so heartless? BY DUK HO NO
Special to The Hoot
Who is the greatest rap star these days? Jay-Z? Lil Wayne? Diddy? Well people may have different opinions about the issue, but I believe that one of the most influential hip hop musicians is definitely Kanye West, a.k.a Yeezy. Besides his many hits, his influence on popular culture is presented in various areas such as fashion, art, and even philosophy. For example, Kanye West is certainly, as he has claimed himself, the fashion icon of our era. Out of 64 nominees of fashion-forwarded rappers, Kanye was awarded “best dressed rapper of all time” in the ‘Style War’ competition, held by Complex.com. Also, early this year, Kanye announced his collaboration with many famous fashion brands, such as Louis Vuitton and Nike, which sparked curiosity of those in fashion and resulted in a huge profit margin. Moreover, in posting fascinating images of renowned and newly discovered artists almost daily in his blog, he shows impressive artistic understanding and knowledge. It is actually hilarious to see Kanye often expresses his personal feelings in his posts such as “Bow to the presence of GREATNESS!!!” or “UUUUMMMM…this crib is CRAZE!!” While most people seem to like what he posts, some
argue that Kanye’s specified artistic selection is too complicated to understand, or they question his taste simply because they do not like it. Speaking as someone who is a big fan of Kanye’s blog, I believe that Kanye has great taste in fashion, art, and music. However, although there are some others who do not understand what Kanye likes and his taste, I usually do not argue with them because it is ridiculous to force others to like what I like. It is that simple. Nevertheless, on the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) Sunday night, one of my favorite musicians of all time seems to have difficulty in learning this rule. On the VMAs Sunday night, Kanye West’s outburst directed at Taylor Swift (Best Female Video) was more than just a shock to me. He interrupted her acceptance speech, saying “Yo Taylor. I'm really happy for you. I'll let you finish. But Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!” Taylor Swift was shocked, as anyone would be. My jaw hit the floor. Kanye was asked to leave immediately but remained the talk of Twitter last night. Following the incident, celebrities like Katy Perry, Pink, and Paramore’s Haley Williams took to their Twitter accounts
It is reckless to force one’s taste upon others, just like I cannot really compel others to like Kanye.
PHOTO from Internet Source
VMA OUTBURST: Kanye West disses Taylor Swift, saying, “Yo, Taylor, I’m really pleased for you, and I’ma gonna let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time. ALL TIME. Just saying.”
to express their disgust. Swift’s close friend, country artist Kellie Pickler, left a harsh comment on her Twitter, which I won’t quote due to inappropriate content. I generally support Kanye endeavors even when everyone thinks he is wrong. For example, his song “Love Lockdown” received harsh criticism by the public when it was released because he sings instead of raps. I endorsed the song because I believed that Kanye’s artistic expression was completely different from everything out there. Even when he was arrested after a scuffle at Los Angeles Airport, I did not blame him, but this incident seems out of character. Kanye may be right. Beyonce
may have more talent than Taylor Swift and may have one of the best videos of all time. However, I cannot believe that Kanye also missed the fact that some people actually really like Taylor’s video more than Beyonce’s. It is reckless to force one’s taste upon others, just like I cannot really compel others to like Kanye because I do. Actually, this is not the first time Kanye forced his preference onto others. In 2006, Kanye West crashed the stage at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Copenhagen to complain about losing the award for Best Video to Jeremie Rozan and Martial Schmeltz, saying he “should have won the prize for [his] video ‘Touch The Sky,’ because it cost a
million dollars, Pamela Anderson was in it. [He] was jumping across canyons.” While I’m writing this article, just a minute ago, Mr.West offered an apology to Ms. Swift on his blog for his behavior, saying “I feel like Ben Stiller in "Meet the Parents" when he messed up everything and Robert De Niro asked him to leave... That was Taylor's moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.” Well, we all make mistakes in life. It is right to mend broken bridges. But considering the detrimental repercussions it caused, I guess the best thing you can do is simply not make such a mistake. Pres. Obama also called Kanye a “jackass.”
10 Diverse City
September 18, 2009
CHORUS
Jay-Z swaggers on with latest release BY MATT FOWLER Staff
Who is the king of New York? I can distinctly remember sitting at my middle school lunch table discussing this very question with my peers. Everyone had an opinion on the issue, and if you didn’t, either you ate from your bagged lunch and kept quiet or you hopped on a bandwagon and conveniently repeated something someone else had already offered in the debate. Perhaps it was because we were discussing the question right after the September 11th attacks, or maybe it was because hip-hop was taking over the radio airwaves, but the question loomed large in our prepubescent minds (second only to the “who do you like?” inquiry). With the advent of Jay-Z’s “Blueprint” trilogy and the release of Nas’ “Stillmatic” just a couple of months later, we middle school students had to make a choice. Nas or Jay-Z? Who deserved the throne? After countless hours listening to both albums, I made my informed choice. I chose Nas. Now I wonder if it even mattered.
On “The Blueprint 3,” Jay-Z at times sounds as hungry as he was on "The Black Album." His lyrical flow and chest beating bravado (while touched upon in every album he has made) are the defining characteristic of Jay Z. They're why we buy his album and blast his music when we’re driving. No matter how many times he tells us he’s great (and he tells us a lot in this album), a couple of tracks later he will find a more quotable and fresher way to say it again. It is because of Jay Z’s superior talent in spitting out lines other rappers could not dream of (let alone come up with without writing them down) that makes him a rap legend. There is an innate confidence that Jay Z possesses every time he goes to the mic. It is this quality above all others that made me disregard the lectures in middle school that took place after our lunch period. Even when the excessive amount of guest stars and undercooked beats threaten to pollute the album, Jay-Z remains solid. His commercial hits (“Run This Town,” “DOA”) blend well with
tracks meant for a more devoted group of listeners. Jay Z is as comfortable rapping about money and fame as he is rapping about the streets where he grew up (and he is more than convincing on both types of tracks). For instance, his best song on the album, “Empire State of Mind,” will unquestionably find itself in the top-selling singles for iTunes, and at the same time, will become an anthem for those who are from New York and maybe even those people who don’t want to admit that they love the place (hello, Bostonians). With his most recent album Jay Z has proven once again why he is still considered one of the best rappers of all time. Whether he is the "king of New York" is another question. It is a question that people will continue to debate as long as hip-hop stays important. It is a question that people will continue to debate over as long as legends like Jay-Z and Nas continue to put out records. I chose Nas. But that doesn’t mean Jay-Z isn’t great. Just ask him. I’m sure Jay Z thinks Jay-Z is the king of New York. On "The Blueprint 3" he makes a good argument. PHOTO from Internet Source
A maddeningly good TV drama series BY DANIELLE GEWURZ Editor
“Mad Men” is without a doubt, the best show on TV that you’re (probably) not watching. A gorgeously shot period piece set in the early 1960s at a dinosaur of a New York ad agency, “Mad Men” is a character drama that’s always placid on the surface, belying an extensive tangle of turmoil hidden just beneath. The first two seasons dealt with the Kennedy-Nixon election and the Cuban Missile Crisis as they influenced this very specific group of people, but until this week’s episode, “The Fog,” it seemed like the show was foundering under the weight of the immense critical acclaim the past two seasons have provoked. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is an imposing figure, revered at agency Sterling Cooper and known for his ability to seduce clients, in more ways than one, with just a few words. But this season, Don’s identity crisis has receded from the show’s focus, leaving it adrift in the confusing time of 1963. Earlier in the season we learned that ad agency partner Roger Sterling’s daughter plans to be married the day after the date of JFK’s assassination, and more hints of changing political issues cropped up this week. After a lackluster opening run of episodes, “Mad Men” has ratcheted up the tension, and I hope we see many of these issues start to play themselves out as we approach the season midpoint. This week Don’s wife Betty gave birth to her third child, and the
PHOTO from Internet Source
show did what it does best, present practices that were unproblematic at the time without comment, while nonetheless conveying a clear commentary on the practice. In this case, Betty goes through some of the most discomfiting, disturbing childbirth scenes I’ve ever seen on television. We see Betty restrained, bossed around by unsympathetic nurses, and drugged beyond reason into Twilight Sleep, even as she begs for her doctor and for her husband. Most notably, we get the image of Betty “behind bars” in shadow at the end of the hour, when she wakes up in the middle of the night to tend to her newborn. Betty’s trapped in the role
of housewife, all the more so with tell Admiral televisions that they yet another infant, and clearly ought to be directly marketing to dissatisfied with the outwardly blacks as a way of increasing market share, only to have his sugperfect life she’s found herself in. gestion flatly More than by his ever this seaAfter a lackluster opening rejected clients, and son, though, dismiswe’re finally run of episodes, “Mad be getting a Men” has ratcheted up the sively referred to as Dr. King glimpse of by his bosses. how the tur- tension. This comes moil of change in contrast to in the early Pete’s attempt 1960s is being to speak to filtered up to these middle-class white cre- Hollis, the building’s black elevator man. Hollis tells Pete that atives. Racial politics are finally bigger things are going on than receiving more attention, after worrying about watching TV, a we’ve seen Sterling performing reminder that all is not well in the in blackface. This week account larger scheme of things. Sally, Don and Betty’s daughter, executive Pete Campbell tries to
is also getting exposed to racial politics. We hear that she’s been asking about civil rights activist Medgar Evers’ murder at school, an event that would have been all over the papers. This is in addition to Sally seeing images of Thích Quảng Đức last week, a Buddist monk who self-immolated in protest of his treatment under the South Vietnamese ruling regime. For Sally, the loss of her beloved grandfather is echoed by increasing amounts of death and chaos in the political sphere. Her parents don’t discuss either event and pay little attention to her connection with her grandfather or her grief over his death. Everything’s changing, and Don and Betty Draper seem almost completely unaware that anything’s different at all. Peggy Olson, Sterling Cooper’s first female copywriter, is also trying to buck the existing power structure, invoking the then-justpassed Equal Pay Act of 1963. But as men like Dr. King and Hollis already know, she quickly learns that legal guarantees of fairness are meaningless while white men still control the power structure, and her bid for fair pay is summarily rejected by Don. There’s a limit to what even Don, the man who gave her the job, is willing to tolerate from a woman working in a “man’s job.” “Mad Men” has hopefully begun recouping from a series of mediocre episodes to build on the momentum established in “The Fog,” a promising start to the rest of this season. “Mad Men” airs Sundays at 10 pm on AMC.
Diverse City 18
September 18, 2009
ENDNOTE Mouthwatering vegetarian pasta BY ANNA JURSIK
Special to Diverse City
Pasta with marinara sauce is great, but not every night! Tomatoes aren’t the only locally grown produce available this time of year. The following meal takes advantage of the fresh vegetables of harvest season. It’s also colorful, simple, and delicious. Each dish uses minimal spices, both to keep the directions short and the cost low. Special seasonings can improve your dishes, but the staples we use here (red pepper flakes, cumin seeds, fresh basil) perform just as well. They enhance the flavor of the vegetables rather than overpower them,
and we’ll be able to use them in many future recipes. Preparing a meal isn’t only about matching flavors and textures. It’s also about timing. Before you start chopping veggies or heating oil, think about how long each dish will take to cook. This meal takes 1-2 hours to prepare, depending on how many chefs you have at your disposal. If you put the vegetables into the oven as you take the sweet potatoes out of the microwave, they should be done roasting around the same time as the gnocchi are done. That way, neither of the dishes gets cold or is neglected by impatient dinner guests.
ILLUSTRATION BY Samantha Shokin/The Hoot
Yet more info about TMI TMI (from p. 8)
Google chat, and silly facial expressions). We had something like an assembly line of information going as I transcribed into a Google doc, Jamie edited and blogged it, and Yale tweeted. By the end of the whole thing I was in a state of computer-vertigo. It was pretty invigorating, though, the energy of it all—the intensity, the speed, the general neuroticism of the event between the typing and the talking and the tweeting and all that madness. At one point, the three of us were chatting in Google chat while a speaker was saying something disagreeable. Yale was typing to me, ragging on the argument being posed while I was looking him dead in the eye. I thought to myself, this is probably not unlike how telepathy feels. Cool. Jamie brought up a funny point: if someone from 10 years ago could travel through time and attend that day’s conference, that person would have absolutely no idea what
the hell was being said. Twitter? Blogs? YouTube? Facebook? Whaa? It’s crazy to think that these terms that are such an integral part of our daily conversations only came into being within the past decade— Twitter, only 3 years ago. It’s a funny and exciting and overwhelming thing. It’s also a bit frightening if you’ve spent your entire life living in a print world to wake up one morning and see newspapers collapsing around you left and right. But that’s not to say there’s no hope for the future—quite the contrary, there’s more hope than ever. Journalism isn’t being destroyed; it’s being rebuilt from the ground up, with a state-of-the-art foundation to support it. We just have to work the kinks out before it takes off. It’s really just mind-boggling to think of the whole thing—today, for instance, I was reading a 19th-century novel and read a sentence that mentioned a bird that was twittering. For a second, I thought I had
B.O.M.S. event bring vibrant poet B.O.M.S. (from p. 8)
gives voice to untold avenues of expression, not only to the poet herself, but to her listeners as well. To paraphrase the president of Vocal, Jason Simon Bierbaum, “to listen as Iyeoka tell her story is to find the courage to tell your own”--a sentiment no doubt echoed by fan after fan who came, some in tears, to meet Ms. Ivie Okoawo in person. “Iyeoka was introduced to Brandeis about two years ago,” Jason recalls. She was one of the many big names of poetry that came out and showed Brandeis love in our first annual Vocal main event. Listening to her latest CD release, a live performance recording simply entitled “Greetings from Hawaii,” it is hard to choose a favorite amongst the impressive display of range in subject matter and Iyeoka's talent as a singer, songwriter, and spoken word artist. The song "Revolution," a personal favorite of mine, wherein, beneath the elements of alliteration, metaphor, rhyme, rhythm and poetry that permeate this half-sung, half-spoken testimonial, Iyeoka provides us with a very simple reminder that, in order to enjoy life, one cannot hope to have their cake and eat it, too. One piece which stood out particularly in Tuesday’s performance was the powerful narrative poem “In the Blink of an Eye.” Therein Iyeoka recalls for us a near-death experience aboard an airplane and relates a visceral, penetrating account of having one’s life flash before one’s eyes. This is then followed by what should be considered a tirade but what is received more as something like poetry
in motion, she tells us to “do whatever it takes, or whatever it is that makes [us] alive,” and we are compelled to do something, anything to appease her challenge. In the words of Rachel Parkin, poet and vocal member: “Iyeoka emphasizes the idea of the "personal anthem," inspired by a mantra or a song or an image. Most of the pieces she performed were "anthems" of a sort, focusing on themes of appreciating the present moment and accepting yourself: roots, culture, mind, emotion. She wants all of the audience members to figure out whatever their anthem may be, write our own pieces, and then send them to her via Facebook.” This statement comes as no surprise to anyone that knows Iyeoka’s work. She doesn’t acknowledge any type of “fourth wall” mentality in her performance; she doesn’t keep a distance. She invites you in and invites you to stay, get comfortable and go on journey; not one where you will not “dress your demons in white” and hope they become angels, but one in which you find “a path, an obvious, inevitable, inarguable truth” about the world around you, and most importantly, about yourself. For more on Iyeoka’s views on Facebook, future tour dates, or to join her list serve you can check her out at www.iyeoka.com. If you’re reading this, we thank you, Iyeoka, and can’t wait for you to come back. Vocal will hold B.O.M.S. events throughout the year on every second and fourth Tuesday, with the next one on September 29th featuring Def Poet George Watsyk.
ROASTED VEGETABLES 1 large eggplant 1 large or 2 small zucchini 1 red or orange bell pepper 1 large or 2 small onions, sliced 4 cloves garlic 1 14-oz can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed 1. Chop the eggplant into even pieces the size of dice. Put them on a cookie sheet and salt liberally, then let them sit. Sometimes eggplants are very bitter; this lets them sweat out the bad taste. 2. Preheat the oven to 400˚F. Chop the onion and bell pepper into strips about ½ inch wide. Mince the garlic and basil. 3. Rinse the eggplant cubes and put them back on the cookie sheet. Add the bell pepper, zucchini, beans, onions, and garlic. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle on the cumin seeds and red pepper flakes, and stir gently. 4. Put the sheet into the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes. Stir every 10-15 minutes, and taste test often. 5. When the veggies are done cooking, let them cool about 5 minutes before serving.
PHOTO BY Emily Berk/The Hoot
PHOTO BY Emily Berk/The Hoot
1 tablespoon olive oil ¼ cup fresh basil leaves 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes salt and pepper to taste
PESTO SAUCE 4-8 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped 1 ½ cup fresh basil leaves ½ cup olive oil ¼ cup pine nuts Add all ingredients to blender and pulse until they form a sauce. SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI 2 large sweet potatoes ¼ cup vegan margarine 1-2 cups flour 1. With a fork or knife, poke each sweet potato in several places. This will help avoid explosions. 2. Microwave them on high for 5-6 minutes, or until fully cooked. 3. Mash sweet potatoes and margarine in a large bowl. 4. Gradually add flour to potato mixture, until it has the consistency of bread dough. 5. Put a large pot of water on to boil. 6. Pour extra flour onto a plate, and have another plate ready for finished gnocchi. Form the dough into thimble-sized dumplings and roll them in the flour until lightly coated. 7. When floured, place on a cookie sheet or large platter. Try not to stack them; they tend to stick together and form single, giant gnocchi. 8. Drop them into the boiling water. When they float, they’re done cooking. It only takes 1 or 2 minutes, so stay close! Use a slotted spoon to move them into a colander to drain. 9. Toss with pesto sauce. Eat!