View From The Basement

Jambalaya

This day last year I posted up my recipe for Jambalaya. It's a great dish for a cold day - a day like today - so I thought I'd post it again.

1 large chicken. Take the skin off and cut the flesh from the bone (if you live in Glasgow if you go to an Asian buthcher they will take the skin off for you). Stick the carcase in a pot, cover with water and boil for 1 hour to make some stock. Take the chicken flesh and cut into inch cubes.

once your stock is ready, pour into another bowl and give the pot you've just used a wipe. This is the pot in which your going to cook your jambalaya.

put 1/4 cup of cooking oil into the pan, gently heat and then add your chicken flesh. You don't want the flesh to break up so don't stir frantically, but gently. Brown the chicken till it starts to turn golden then remove from the pot and set aside.

while your stock was boiling you could prepare the veggies.

3 medium white onions - I chop them coarsely, but if you prefer cut them fine.

2 garlic cloves - crush

1 red pepper - chopped 1cm cubes

1 green pepper - as the red pepper

2 long sticks of celery - chopped fine

1 bunch of spring onions - chopped fine.

In the pot from which you've just removed the chicken you've browned add the white onions [you could do a mix of white and red onion] and brown these. Put chicken back in the pot with the onions and add cayenne pepper, 2 teaspoons of granulated garlic, 1 tbsp of black pepper and 1 tsp of Tabasco sauce.. I don't measure this, I just add a dusting that covers everything in the pot. Add 300g of choorizo sausage that you've cut up. Mix together and let this sweat for a couple of mins. Add all the other veg and gently fold. Put the lid on and let this sweat for a couple of mins.

depending on how good your chicken stock is add 1 or two chicken stock cubes to it. Add your stock to the pot so it covers everything in it by a couple of inches. Add 2 tbsp of salt.

Bring to a gentle boil and let it simmer for 20 mins.

I use the coloured kids plastic drinking cups from Ikea to measure my rice. Add three cups this size of american long grain rice. Do not stir but gently fold the rice in. Cover and simmer for 15mins. Taste the liquid and decide if you want to add more Tabasco.

Remove lid and see if the rice is ready - let it cook for the remainder of the time with the lid off so the liquid that has not been absorbed by the rice reduces. Once the rice is ready, put the lid back on and remove from the heat for 10 mins before serving.

Enjoy!

Political Classes?

The reading I’m doing at the moment is from the 1930’s. Theologically, philosophically and politically rich they also give a remarkable historical insight into that period. It was a period of struggle and change and the rise of three differing forms of totalitarianism – i.e. Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism. In order to talk about these political ideologies and the political and social history of 18th and 19^th century Europe there developed key terms for describing man. There was therefore the bourgeois liberalist of Capitalism, and the proletariat of Marxism. I’m trying to figure out who the bourgeois liberalist is today and who the proletariat are?

Is Rorty’s liberal ironist today’s equivalent of the bourgeois liberalist? And what of the proletariat – is this a political class that effectively died when the Berlin wall fell in 1989, and if so what has filled this vacuum? Does, in the West at least, the hegemony of the globalized market and the ongoing individualisation of identity mean that there is no longer a politically disadvantaged socio-economic class who can congeal and bring their mass to weigh upon the dominate political system?

Is the conflict between radical Islam and ‘Western Capitalism” the ideological and political conflict that will define our age? Is this then a clash between American style liberal democracy and religious conservatism – and if so how do we describe China and India and the growing influence they will have on the world stage?

Also if anyone out there in cyber-space is an expert on, or knows an expert on Jacques Maritain and his political philosphy then it would be great to chat.

The Demon Drink?

 

Citizens, Consumers and Producers

Jason wrote a rather good post the other week there on the theme of the loss of Church as Public. Much of this thinking was shaped by Wannenwetsch's book Political Worship : Ethics for Christian Citizens. I doubt this book will ever be a top seller, if for no other reason than it's hard to buy a copy for under £95! It is also, to quote Hans Boersma a "daunting book". That said I think its an important book and one that those who have been influenced say by Yoder or Hauerwas would find much that they could agree on and something of a challenge as well.

However my point here is not to review this book, I'll perhaps do that when I've more time but to pick up on the idea of Citizenship.

This has become something of a political buzz word in recent years here in the UK, and we now have citizenship classes both in the schools in England and Wales (don't think we have them here in Scotland but I could be wrong about this) and for those who immigrate to this country. I think however that there is a deep problem with trying to recover the concept of citizenship by teaching it in a classroom. Citizenship is something that is not so much taught but formed and therefore key to forming any positive sense of Citizenship are formative practices that embody a concern for the common good.

Now here's the rub - in our liberal individualistic late capitalist society the two main formative practices that shape us are our roles as consumers and producers. This is not only true at an economic level but as Zygmunt Bauman points out we have now become consumers and producers of identity. A consequence of this autopoiesis of identity is that we no longer know who we are (given our identity is constantly changing to meet the requirements of the situation) and there has been a loss of any conception of the public good. One therefore has to ask, "are there any Citizens, is there a public" or is there merely an aggregation of self's who cannot connect as they are coated with the impenetrable barrier of individualization?

Hobbit Moive

I'm reading The Hobbit to my oldest boy atthe moment. We decided to go on-line and see if there was any new news on the possible making of a movie of The Hobbit.

It looks like good news, Guillermo Del Toro looks like he could be the man to bring The Hobbit to the big screen. You can see an interview with the Pan's Labyrinth director here where he talks about his hopes for The Hobbit.

Kingdom Values @ Work?

Big Stuart came to the Church I go to on Sunday night to be part of a service taken by the guys on our year out discipleship course.

He talked on a Theology of Work and in particular, using the example of how Zaccheus' encounter with Jesus transformed his work, got us all thinking about how we live out kingdom values at our work.

Studying theology in an academic setting is work, but how do kingdom values apply in how we do academic theology?

I'd welcome others thoughts. I few things I've been trying to practice to try and live this out are;

(1) Being fair - its easy to quote a source out of context and twist it to suit our argument. But we need to be fair to the person we are quoting.

(2) In a similar vain one of the things the Prof's at New College are big in is showing respect to those you engage with in an essay. Sure you can strongly disagree with someone but this should be done respectfully, gracefully and skilfully.

(3) Share - it's easy to either be competitive or get stuck in your own we tack of what your looking at. One of the advantages of studying theology in a college or uni setting is that your part of a learning community that should seek to support each member. So its good to take an interest in other peoples work. If you find a good book, tell other and don't keep it to yourself. I've really appreciated the suggestions of things to read from a couple of guys in particular who are in their first year of doctoral studies.