Hijacking, a Legacy in Many Parts

30 March 2012

(originally posted to my Tumblr)

I logged on to my computer this morning, and of a whim, I decided to check the tag for “#adrienne rich” here on Tumblr, because I am curious how the wider feminist community is handling the news of her death, since her legacy is so very problematic concerning trans women. I wish I could say that I was surprised to see that there was little mention of the conflict, yet one post caught my eye, a post complaining of “transjacktivists” by an 18-year-old Australian woman:

hedonisticparadise:

Seriously, transjacktivists? You’re discrediting her years of work for the feminist movement by claiming (on the day she died— have some respect) she was a transphobe?

I assume, since I am a fair hand at the English language, that this person means to say that trans activists are somehow hijacking this conversation, as if we have no right to comment upon the legacy of Adrienne Rich. First of all, we are not “claiming” any such thing, the evidence comes from the woman’s own hand and hands of her closest associates.

Not that I am going to allow the words, let alone, the arrogance, of an 18-year-old child to stand in my way. I have a few things that I wrote this morning in regard to Adrienne Rich that I would like to share with you, because there seems to be some misunderstanding about how Adrienne Rich is viewed in the trans community, simply because some of us have felt the need to express our anger about her, which is not an unusual reaction when hearing about the death of a controversial figure. The same sort of debate surrounded the deaths of Mary Daly and Andrea Dworkin. The same sort of debate will surround the deaths of Janice Raymond, Julie Bindel, Germaine Greer, and many others, when they, too, are gone from this life.

Adrienne Rich, much more so than any of the figures I named just there, is as revered by many in the trans community as she is in the wider feminist community. The shock and anger, the denial, that is evident in the wider feminist community at learning of Adrienne Rich’s contributions to the battle against trans women’s participation in the feminist community, or in womanhood, is being played out in microcosm in the trans community. Some of us are quite familiar, overall, with both the bad and the good of her work. Others found out just the other day.

Still, and I don’t expect an 18-year-old from Australia to have any real conception of what it was like to be a trans woman in the United States in the aftermath of the publication of Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire in 1979, there are those of us for whom familiarity with Rich’s stance on trans women was part and parcel of any appreciation we might have had for her work or her life. I am one of those people.

I was born in 1968. I am 43 years old. This is not some ancient history which has no personal meaning for me. This was the reality of my life, growing up. I was 11 years old, hitting puberty, at the time Empire was published, and Raymond made her thanks to Rich for her contribution. In 1982, I entered high school, and by this time, this strain of radical feminism exemplified by Empire was in its ascendancy in academia, such that by the time I entered college, it was one of the dominant lines of feminist philosophy. In these days, only a handful of local jurisdictions in America offered anti-discrimination protections to people on the basis of gender identity, beginning with Minneapolis, MN, which passed such laws in 1975. There was yet to be a single state which enacted such laws.

By my tenure in high school, Adrienne Rich was already considered to be one of the most important American poets of her generation, and given that I attended high school at the very well advanced Stuyvesant High School in New York City, I was exposed to her poetry even before the age of 18. I did not yet really understand my need or my ability to transition. I only knew what most people would have known about transsexualism, except that with a physician for a father and a Registered Nurse for a mother, as well as a scientific bent of my own, I had more knowledge than most of the risks and dangers of medical transition, which given the treatments available at the time, were significant, and extremely rare was the medical practitioner who professed any expertise in the matter. I also knew that I was deeply and profoundly uncomfortable in my own skin and that I had an affinity for women, and a longing for their sisterhood, but it seemed almost preposterous to me that I could possibly be “one of those people”.

Until I read the poetry of Adrienne Rich. I did not immediately know of her precise connections to the lesbian and feminist communities, but I was aware, peripherally at least, that she was so connected. I will leave it at that, and return to my discovery of her work, below.

I should say, perhaps, that I am a poet, myself, as well as a songwriter, so poetry has always captured my attention. I began writing songs at the age of 16. A friend of mine on Facebook, a fellow Stuyvesant alumna of near vintage who is also trans and also a poet, was hosting additional discussions on the life of Adrienne Rich. We have been arguing for the last couple of days about this. I am also, if you are unaware of this, a mildly well-known activist for the equal protection under the law of the rights of all people, and for this, I have received the dubious honor of being personally attacked by certain members of the radical lesbian feminist community simply because I have dared to put forth the proposition that trans women are women.

Part of the argument with my friend happened, I think, because she was under the impression that my antipathy toward Rich and others was more of a theoretical issue. It was only after I pointed out the fact that I have been personally, individually targetted by name and by publishing my likeness that she began to look into this and express her support for me.

I would like to share with you something of what I said in our conversation. Perhaps it may lead to better understanding.

I doubt I will ever be able to ignore the knowledge that Adrienne Rich spoke of things which she meant not to apply to me, things which she meant to keep from my ears. Why is this so important to me? Because the damage she caused directly affected my life, and continues to affect my life in a daily and personal manner. … With Rich it is different, and when I read her, the anger and disgust I feel informs every word, my knowledge of her hatred for my womanhood destroys any connection we might have had, because it is a connection through the shared sisterhood that she repudiated.

…

…your comment, above, is representative to me of the quandary I find myself in, when you say, “But with respect. All who pass, even those we don’t agree with deserve respect and dignity.”

Why? Why does she deserve a dignity which she actively worked to deny to me, to you, to us?!

…

i want you to know that I am literally crying as i write this.

do you think i do not also love her work? how else would it cause me so much pain? do you know that when i read her work as a teenager, knowing that she was a woman, and lesbian, but nothing else at first, that her words resonated in me in a way which i will never be able to fully describe because it was so profound? in a way which began my journey toward my own womanhood?and then, discovering the truth of her, that she believed that never could i be what i felt, what i knew for truth inside, to have that joy ripped from me, was a pain so terrible that to articulate this pain was impossible. her words, her influence, echoed through every attempt i made to access my very being, turned me away from myself…

sometime in the mid-late 1990′s, i wrote a song, because it was the only way that i could express what i was feeling inside about who i was. that song is called “if i were (a girl)”, and i lied to everyone for over ten years about the meaning behind the lyrics just so that i could get it out into the world, to stand on a stage and sing out my heart, even if only i knew what i was saying.

This is quite a different picture than you will get from some others about how reading the words of Adrienne Rich had a different more positive effect upon them, no?

I do not really expect that if you yourself are young, as our 18-year-old Australian example above is young, and you identify as a radical feminist, that you really have any idea what the term “radical feminism” even describes. The funny thing is, most people don’t. Most women don’t, and most feminists don’t. They think it just means that these people are just “really, really, like super feminist”, or perhaps particularly vocal and strident about their feminism. This has lead to a very wide misunderstanding of what radical feminism is all about and why it comes into conflict with the rights of trans people, everywhere.

“Radical Feminism” means something very specific in the schema of Feminism. I find myself quoting and re-quoting a specific passage by Emi Koyama, from her 200 essay, “Whose Feminism is it, Anyway?”:

“Radical feminism, in its simplest form, believes that women’s oppression is the most pervasive, extreme, and fundamental of all social inequalities, regardless of race, class, nationality, and other factors. It is only under this assumption that the privilege transsexual women are perceived to have (i.e. male privilege) can be viewed as far more dangerous to others that any other privileges (i.e. being white, middle class, etc.).”

As I have yet to see this passage contradicted by those who self-identify as radical feminists, save to hear them protest that only radical feminists have the authority to identify what radical feminism means, I think it a functional definition, if an incomplete definition. Why incomplete? Because as a trans woman, I see that it leaves out any mention of the fact that radical feminists by and large hold a specific belief that trans women are not women, but in fact men, and that never, ever, under any circumstances can any child born “male” become a woman. The justifications for this belief are varied, but none of them are considered to be available for debate.

And so, in a related discussion today, I found myself saying:

“…in light of this knowledge of the tenets of radical lesbian feminism, you can see that in their day, these women of their own volition and accord chose a definition of “femaleness” which was absent any real scientific basis in fact, a definition which rejected science, actually, on the grounds that science is corrupted by patriarchy, and therefore “women’s mysteries” are the only trustable source of knowledge.In this system of quasi-religious belief, there is an ineffable mysticism about femaleness that cannot under any circumstances be acquired by anyone not “born woman”, and thus the claims of trans women to womanhood are inherently invalid, appropriative, false, and oppressive to “real women”.

And because it is their central belief that oppression of women by men via patriarchy is the most fundamental oppression that exists, their resistance to comprehending our reality rests upon the fact that they do not acknowledge that we are, in fact, women.”

On the one side of this debate, we have trans women who believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that sex and gender are concepts which even in human biology are far more complex and varied than has been previously thought in earlier times, and therefore, we should embrace the diversity of human development as natural. On the other side of the debate, we have radical feminists who assert that they “just know” that trans women are male.

Belief, of course, cannot be countered in the mind of the believer by externally verifiable fact.

In the minds of trans women, we are women. The scientific community agrees with us, the medical community agrees with us, the psychiatric community agrees with us. Every competently conducted study recently performed confirms the basis for this. We realise that this is a difficult concept to grasp for many people. After all, for many of us it was a terrifying leap of faith we had to take to become the women we are. But it is true, verifiably so. Trans women ARE women.

So, when we see soi disant radical feminists dishing out hatred toward trans women, what we see is that this is exactly equivalent to the hatred that is directed by a patriarchal society toward all women, and we say, “Radical feminism equals patriarchy. There is no difference.”

I do not really expect that this is going to change the mind of any person who prefers the comfort of ignorance to the liberty of knowledge, the false certainty of religious belief over the uncertain conclusions of an imperfectly rational mind. What I have to say here is an attempt to reach out to those who are shocked by the level of anger that I have directed at the legacy of Adrienne Rich, and by the anger displayed by other women like me all over the world.

And so, I ask you this: How much longer? How much longer will trans women have to wait for equal rights? How much longer before we collectively put the legacies of these women whose destructive ideas form so much of the foundations of modern feminism behind us? How many more trans women will die from despair, lack of housing, lack of jobs, lack of healthcare, and from outright murder before that day comes?

I ask you this, because *this* is also a part of the legacy of Adrienne Rich, along with all her wonderful, soaring poetry, her inspirational words which have lifted up generations of women, and you do a terrible disservice to women everywhere when you ignore it.

Sincerely,

Gemma Seymour-Amper

Pro Choice

“The only reason why we worry about whether or not being homosexual or transsexual, or being in any other way in conflict with the normative strictures of sex and gender, constitutes a so-called “lifestyle choice” is because kyriarchal cultural standards dictate the semantic framework of our communications. Choice is a fundamental human right, and even within the frame of reference delineated by kyriarchy, should be recognised as irrefutably valid when applied to self-identity. We choose, and live by, the words which are available to us, and we both embody and imbue their meaning, but the constructs by which we communicate are by no means an all-encompassing description of the reality of our Existence. Be true to your choices, and hinder not the choices of others concerning their rightful spheres.”

-Gemma Catherine Viola Seymour-Amper, 14 February 2012

 

What Kind of Femme Are You?

13 February 2012

My friend from Tumblr, Amy Dentata, posted something kind of wonderful to her blog today. Here is my version…

What Kind of Femme Are You?

I am “say that to me again, and I’ll make you regret it” femme.
I am “always walked this way, and always sat this way” femme.
I am “lost my stage fright at an early age” femme.
I am “yes, but this one goes to 12” femme.
I am “I’ve got a fuzzbox, and I’m not afraid to use it” femme.
I am “knows how to make it from scratch without a recipe” femme.
I am “keeps her knives sharp, and her wit sharper” femme.
I am “don’t call me ‘Sir’; I am not Peppermint Patty, and you are for damn sure not Marcie” femme.
I am “Be Prepared” femme.
I am “six-foot-six in heels” femme.
I am “not afraid to cry in public” femme.
I am “afraid to be truly alone” femme.
I am “yin-haan” femme.
I am “you really need to call me something other than Daddy when we’re in public, now” femme.
I am “never again will I pretend to be something I am not for your comfort” femme.
I am “you will never understand what I gave up to survive until this day” femme.

You know what to do, so keep it goin’…XOXO, Gemma

Yang Soup (Chinese Cinnamon Beef Noodle Soup)

10 February 2012

This is what I’m making for dinner tonight. I have a tendency to use my blogs as recipe storage, so I was surprised to find when I went looking for my recipe for this that I had only posted it to my Facebook Notes, so here it is…

This is a classic of Chinese cooking, and also similar to the Vietnamese Phở bò. Here’s my version, which is a modification of Nina Simonds’ recipe in Asian Noodles. The way I make this, it can be served either as a soup, or as a braise, by simply making less stock, or reserving most of the stock. Either is delicious. This is a perfect dish for when you’re feeling a bit under the weather, or for a cold winter evening, any time you need a little more yang.

Yang Soup (Chinese Cinnamon Beef Noodle Soup)

Serves 8

240 ml (1 c.) chicken stock
240 ml (1 c.) vegetable stock
480 ml (2 c.) beef stock
1440 ml (6 c.) water
120 ml (1/2 c.) soy sauce
120 ml (1/2 c.) shiaoxing wine
2 T.    fish sauce
1 t.    toasted sesame oil
8        slices peeled fresh ginger (about 1/8″ thick)
8        cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
3        sticks cinnamon, broken in half
3        whole star anise
1        bunch green onions, chopped

1 kg (2.2 lbs) beef chuck roast, cut into 1″ cubes
2 T. peanut oil

hot chile pepper to taste (optional, may be added at serving time)

1        package baby spinach, 10 oz.

1 lb.   wide egg noodles

Combine liquid ingredients (except peanut oil) in large soup pot (6 qt.) with half the ginger, half the garlic, half the scallions, and half the spices. Bring to boil, reduce heat and keep hot.

Heat saute pan, add peanut oil, brown beef over high heat in large saute pan until excess liquid evaporates and caramelizes.

Add half of herbs and spices to beef in saute pan. Add sufficient stock for braising to meat in saute pan (about 2-4 cups), cover, reduce heat and simmer. Braise meat until tender (about 2 hrs), check every so often (15-30 min), stir and add stock, if necessary.

If serving as soup, remove cinnamon, star anise, ginger, and garlic from meat and stock and add combine meat and stock. You may also serve meat and stock separately to allow guests to adjust proportions to their liking.

Add spinach to meat (optional, or may be reserved for addition at serving), cook until wilted (a few minutes).

Boil egg noodles in water until al dente, drain and reserve.

Divide noodles, spinach (if reserved), chile (if desired), and meat into separate bowls, add stock to taste, enjoy

Less Than I Would Have Thought, or What I See When I Walk Down the Street

In my travels this evening, I happened to come across a statistic that is actually quite startling, and I would like to bring it to your attention, because I think it is connected to a very important topic.

Some of you are probably aware that I am a transsexual woman. For those of you who are reading my Tumblr for the first time, I hope you were sitting down, and I’m sorry to have to break it to you so suddenly, but it’s true; I am what in our culture’s normative and ciscentric parlance is called a “male-to-female transgender/transsexual woman”.

People like me are fairly rare in our society, although we are less rare than you might think, given all the media hype that surrounds our lives. According to a study undertaken by the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles Law School and published in April of 2011, people like me in one way or another make up approximately 0.3% of the adult population of the United States. This means that there are, approximately, seven hundred thousand (700,000) adult people like me in this country, with a goodly number more who are still minors.

This same study also shows that approximately 3.5% of the adult population identifies as LGBT in one way or another. This compares with 8.2% who have engaged in homosexual activity, and 11% who admit to homosexual attraction. Those last two numbers are just points of interest, but I want to direct your attention to the fact that out of all the people in this country who identify themselves as LGBT, less than 1 in 10 of those people are transgender or transsexual people like me.

Knowing this, it should not then come as a surprise to you that trans people have a difficult time making progress in securing the equal protection under the law of our basic human rights, when we are competing for attention even within the LGBT community, where we are grossly outnumbered by cisgender/cissexual homosexual and bisexual people, whose interests often seem to take priority over our need for legal protection.

Recently, I came across a post here on Tumblr asking the LGBT community to do a better job of recognizing and accepting people of color in our community. An admirable call, to be sure, but there is something that I would like to say about this, as well.

New readers, I am sorry to have to do this to you again, but I must inform you that I am a person of color. Shocking, isn’t it? But that’s not all. I’m not your run-of-the-mill person of color. You see, I’m a special snowflake kind of person of color, if you will, because I am a person of mixed race. I will pause for a moment to allow you to catch your breath; I know that these are difficult concepts to swallow for a lot of people.

People of mixed race are often in a precarious position in our society. If we are not being exotified as “the best of both worlds”, or some other such nonsense, then our existence is often being outright ignored. The few role models we can find to admire often have their heritage erased, as well, such that they are viewed as being of one particular type of background, despite the reality of our lives. Such is an environment in which we hear endlessly that Barack Obama is “the first black President”, despite the fact that he is as much white as he is black. We see Tiger Woods held up as the first black man to dominate in professional golf, despite the fact that his racial background is one of the most diverse that can be found in this country.

It can be very difficult for people like us, because we are expected in an oppositional and racist society to be either fully one thing, or fully another. Our realities are often quite different, having been raised in simultaneous traditions, or living in isolation from one or more of our antecedent cultures. Because of our unusual heritage, we are often not fully accepted in any of those communities, and for those of us raised in isolation from our community of color, we often are left with no touchstones by which to discover our heritage. I have often said of my life that I found it difficult to find dates, because I am too Asian for the white girls, and too white for the Asian girls. I have been lucky to have eventually found a few women who were willing to look past the surface.

Oh dear, I’ve done it again. I’ve just outed myself as a lesbian woman, and an Asian one at that! Well, I should think that by now you ought to be used to these little surprises from me, dear readers. This new fact about me, however, has little to do with what I am trying to convey here, so rest easy for the nonce.

Even within the LGBT community, a community (or communities, if you prefer) which is far more accepting of diversity than the general population, when the issues of people of color are granted space, the needs of people of mixed race are inevitably forgotten.

The statistic I found earlier this evening, the one to which I was referring when I began this post, is that there are, apparently, according to a study originating at California State University, there were only approximately 727,000 people based on data from the 1990 and 2000 US Censuses as being of, like myself, European and Asian mixed descent. That number looks very familiar, doesn’t it?

Trans people are considered fairly rare in our country, but people like me, so-called “Eurasian” people, are just as rare. This makes the approximate prevalence of Eurasian trans people in the United States about 0.3% of 0.3%, or nine ten thousandths of one percent of the population. That’s 0.0009%, or 9 in every 1,000,000 people. Statistically, this means that there are only about 2100 people like me in the entire country. Well, of course, it’s now 2012, so maybe there’s 2700 of us now.

And here I was wondering why I sometimes feel so alone…

2700 out of 8 million LGBT people. 2700 out of 300+ million Usamericans. It’s a big country for people like me, with familiar faces few and far between. As far as I’m concerned, you should all feel lucky to know me.

You know you love me…XOXO, Gemma

(originally posted on my Tumblr)

Size Isn’t Everything, Or Is It?

5 February 2012

As an INTP, I frequently find it frustrating that many things in this world seem to have been designed by committee in the worst sense of the word, rather than by someone pofessionally trained in Design, Engineering, or Architecture. The latest annoyance which has captured my attention is my kitchen, in particular, the sizes and dimensions thereof. I am not speaking of the fact that, being a person who is well above the average height of a human adult, it is a given that the standard heights of work surfaces are inevitably going to be an ill fit with my body. No, I am speaking of more fundamentally inscrutable dimensions.

I have never been a fan of the metric system, despite the fact that all too many of my more mathematically and scientifically minded colleagues are drawn like moths to the flame of the convenient Base-10 arithmetic embodied in that system. The difficulty I have with the metric system is that it bears little to no relationship with the human body. The metric system is based on arbitrarily selected dimensions that have no physical relationship to the state of the Universe. At some point, a Frenchman decided to create a new system of measurement based on a unit called a “metre”, and set the length of that metre as one ten-millionth the distance from the Equator to the North Pole, on a line running through Paris, as the French are wont to insist upon.

The systems which this metric system replaced were by and large, based on measurements that had some relationship to the human body. We call these “customary units” and they have been standardized to various quantities in different societies such that they reflect the nature of the population of those societies to a great extent. The metric system can make no such claim. In a similar fashion , the measurements by which we build and operate our kitchen really have very few significant relationships to the needs of the human body, and appear to have been selected more on the basis of the convenience to manufacturers presented by a system of cabinet measurements based on increments of three inches, at least here in the US. The strength of the US market, of course, is such that it exerts wide influence around the world and other markets often comply with Usamerican standards, or feel compelled to manufacture two completely different lines of equipment to satisfy Usamerican demands.

As a result of this system of kitchen cabinet design, kitchen appliance manufacturers tend to manufacture major appliances in sizes which comport with these cabinets. This means that the vast majority of residential cooktops, ranges, and ovens are all manufactured to fit within the space that would normally be occupied by a 30″ cabinet, with certain cheaper models intended for rental apartment kitchens sized to fit a 24″ space. No one really knows why these two dimensions were settled upon, save that a 30″ wide oven is perhaps the narrowest oven in which one can cook a large turkey in the Usamerican Thanksgiving holiday tradition.

Standard 30" Residential Oven

One overlooked consequence of the selection of the 30″ wide cabinet and the realities of the laws of thermodynamics is that the available interior space of most ovens is approximately 18″ deep by 24″ wide. Because the margins of this spaces are often occluded by the upturned edges of racks and other impedimentia, as well as the need to maintain good air circulation for the purposes of convection while cooking, this means that the maximum available footprint for cooking is generaly about 16″ x 22″. Sounds simple, right? So why don’t ovenware manufacturers seems to account for this when designing their wares, and what relationships if any, do the sizes of their subsequent dishes bear to the appetites of the average human. The answer is, of course, very little, if any at all.

That said, we are, at least for the time being stuck with our standard 30″ cabinet, bar larger ovens that may be used in commercial kitchens or those ovens which are designed to look like commercial unit, but are really just substandard residential units gussied up with an exhorbitant price tag. Before you consider buying one of these, I would highly recommend you investigate the reliability rating of these units. You may be shocked to find that your $7K range is less reliable than a $700 dollar unit from a mass-market retailer.

Back to our ovenware! The largest thing I am likely to cook in an oven happens, of course, to be a Thanksgiving turkey. In my case, I prefer to spatchcock my turkey for even and efficient cooking. This involves removing the backbone of the turkey, breaking the breastbone, and laying the turkey flat in a roasting pan without a roasting rack. This past Thanksgiving, I cooked a 16 lb (as packaged) turkey in 2 hours, and it was perfectly done all the way through without drying out the breast meat. This was done, mind you, without brining the bird. The process could not be simpler or more foolproof. I laid my spatchcocked bird on top of a shallow bed of mirepoix vegetables, and roasted it for 2 hours at 375 degrees F. Perfect.

There was just one little catch. There isn’t a roasting pan in my house large enough to sit that bird flat. Fortunately, the largest pan we hapen to have is somewhat bigger than the average roasting pan, measuring. If you look at most high-end cookware lines, you will find that their roasting pans all seem to measure about the same. For the famous All-Clad Stainless Roasting Pan with Rack, that size is 13″ x 16″. For the famous Emile Henry line of French pottery, it is about 12″ x 18″. This is absolutely fine, even for a large turkey, assuming you are going to roast it whole, but once you spatchcock, you’ll never go back, and in order to spatchcock, you’re going to need to bring out the big guns.

All-Clad Stainless Roasting Pan

What, you ask, could be a bigger gun than an All-Clad heavy-gauge multi-ply stanless steel roaster? These things, after all, cost over 160 USD from Amazon! Well, funny you should ask. While the All-Clad roaster is certainly among the finest pieces of cookware known to humankind, these fact is, you don’t really need a heavy gauge pan to successfully roast a bird. Another little secret of the culinary world is that commercial kitchens don’t usually use cookware the quality of All-Clad, because the stuff is just too damned expensive and heavy to lug around for 12 hours at a clip. Fortunately, the Internet comes to the rescue of the home cook!

Because commercial cooking is all about efficiency *and* quality, commercial ovens are made in a range of sizes, many of which are far larger than the standard sorts of ovens available on the residential market, and the Internet now allows us to access the commercial marketplace to find larger the usual equipment. The pan in which I cooked my Thanksgiving turkey was just large enough that I didn’t feel like things were going to automatically turn into a disaster. It measures about 13″ x 19″. The funny thing is, this pan is actually too large for even a very large turkey, yet it is not quite big enough for a medium-sized, spatchcocked turkey. This pan is, by the way, a thin gauge carbon steel pan that performs admirably at its task.

Still, a proper pan would have done that much better. Luckily for me, there is a commercial cookware company called Johnson-Rose which just happens to make a steel roasting pan in the 16″ x 22″ x 3.5″ size, the maximum size that will fit into my oven and still allow for convection currents, and just the right size for a spatchcocked turkey. This pan costs about 52 USD through Amazon.

Johnson-Rose 16" x 22" Steel Roasting Pan

If you have ever attempted to cook for a large number of people with only one oven, scratch that…if you have ever attempted to cook a meal for a family of four to six people in a kitchen that contains only one oven, you will know that compromises often have to be made, and even plans for the perfect side dish will often have to be scrapped in favor of something else because you just don’t have the space/time/temperature in your oven to have that side dish cooking concurrently with your main dish. Perhaps you hae also found yourself in the position of needing to make a double batch of a particular dish, but without the over realestate to do it. You will know that cooking things on multiple layers in the oven will often require drasticaly rethinking cooking times and temperatures, as well as the juggling dance from top to bottom shelf, in an effort to get things to cook evenly.

If any of the above sounds familiar to you, then I feel almost certain that at some point, you have probably scratched your head in bewilderment at a regime which produced such a thing as a 13×9 baking dish. If you haven’t done this, let me explain. A 13×9 baking dish is too large to fit two of them side-by-side in any dimension of a standard home oven without cutting off airflow in at least one direction, if you can even get them in the oven side-by-side in the first place. You certainly aren’t going to get two 12×18 or 13×16 pans in there, if you find yourself needing to go with two turkeys at once!

If we take it as a given that we want to leave a 1″ air gap around all sides of our pans, then we can fit the following sizes of pans in our standard 18×24 oven interior:

One full-size pan at 16″ x 22″
Two half-size pans at 10.5″ x 16″
Four quarter-size pans at 7.5″ x 10.5″

Given that this is the case, why then do not cookware manufacturers make pans in these sizes, as opposed to the oddball sizes they do make? Goddess only knows. To make matters even worse, the dimensions I specify here are exterior dimensions, and cookware manufacturers often specify by interior dimensions, leaving out the widths of handles and the like. One famous brand of ovenware that I use myself very often is Pyrex. Originally made by Corning Glass, but now sold off to another company, the Pyrex line has for many years consisted of the following three sizes, 7″ x 11″, 9″ x 13″, and 10″ x 15″. That 10″ x 15″ pan actually measures 10.75″ x 17.5″ overall. Anchor Hocking, another similarly long-lived brand of glass cookware, sells a pan marked 10.5″ x 14.75″, but which is reality measures 11″ x 17″. As you can see, both of these pans is slightly larger than the maximum dimensions of what I would call a “half-size” pan.

Pyrexware 4 Quart Baking Dish

To complicate matters even further, bakers often refer to “full sheet” and “half sheet” pans, which have their own system of measurements, usually 18″ x 26″ for “full sheet”, 13″ x 18″ for “half sheet”, and 9.5″ x 13″ for “quarter sheet”. Never you mind the fact that the math doesn’t add up, they just don’t fit in a residential oven!

Now that we have a better grasp on pan sizes, here is how I like to think of them:

Full Size is 16″ x 22″, fits a spatchcocked turkey, or two whole turkeys in a pinch.
Three-Quarter Size is about 12-13″ x 16-18″, or the size of most large roasting pans for the residential market. These will comfortably roast a whole large turkey.
Half Size is 10.5 x 16″, and will be perfect for a spatchcocked chicken. You can have two of these cooking at once in one layer of a standard residential oven.
Three-Eighths Size is about 9″ x 13″, is the standard size for a sheet cake recipe, and will comfortably roast a whole chicken.
Quarter Size is 7.5″ x 10.5″, and makes a nice side dish like a gratin. You can get four of these going in one layer of your oven.

As I mentioned with the glass bakeware, above, dimensions will vary ever so slightly from brand to brand, and the same is true of ovens, so it is worth your while to measure your oven exactly, taking into account all interior obstructions, and only then go looking for the exact right size pans for your kitchen. Take the time, and you will be rewarded for years on end with the increased efficiency in your cooking routine. You will come to greatly appreciate this the next time you’re serving twelve or more at your holiday table.

Enjoy the Big Game…XOXO, Gemma

Quick Cook Three Tomato Pasta Sauce

Quick Cook Three Tomato Pasta Sauce

by Gemma Seymour-Amper
19 November 2011

Serves 6-8

120 ml (1/2 c.) extra virgin olive oil
500 g chopped yellow onion
8 large cloves garlic, minced
240 ml (1 c.) unsalted beef stock (substitute vegetable stock for vegan)
2 envelopes (1/4 oz. each) Knox unflavored gelatin (if stock is not homemade) (omit for vegan)
1 T. beef stock concentrate (I use “Better Than Bouillon” brand) (substitute vegetable stock concentrate for vegan)
4 bay laurel leaves
500 g grape tomatoes, halved
500 g cherry tomatoes, halved
1 kg paste tomatoes, diced
a handful, or so, of fresh basil leaves, chopped
sea salt, to taste

In a large sauté pan, cook onions over medium-low heat in oil until well-browned/well-caramelized. Add garlic, and sauté a few more minutes. Add stock, gelatin, and stock concentrate, and stir to combine. Reduce until liquid is mostly gone. Add tomatoes and basil to pan, stir to combine, reduce heat to low, and simmer, stirring frequently, until tomatoes are softened and have released some of their juices. Season to taste with sea salt, and serve with pasta of your choice.

#food #foodie #cooking #yum #omnomnomnom #recipe #recipes #cuisine #cucina #Italy #Italia #possibly_vegan #Mediterranean #Mediterraneo

NB: I am not explicitly tagging this one “vegan”, preferring to stick with “possibly vegan”, because this recipe was really designed for beef stock. You can substitute vegetable stock and vegetable stock concentrate, omitting the optional gelatin, but it’s just not going to have the same depth. It’ll be good, though, so feel free if veganism is your thing, or even if you just want a break from meat.

For this recipe, it is absolutely critical that the tomatoes be ripe. Make sure you leave them out of the refrigerator (never refrigerate tomatoes!) a few days before cooking, if you need to, seal them in a paper bag to help. If you can’t get decent tomatoes, by all means use canned.

Usually, the fresh grape tomatoes available here are pretty good, as are the cherry tomatoes, but my local supermarket has an excellent house label canned cherry tomatoes that they bring in from Italy, and canned paste tomatoes are easy to come by everywhere. Substitute a 15 oz. can for the 500 g of cherry tomatoes, and a 28 oz. can for the 1 kg of paste tomatoes. The measurements aren’t quite the same, but it’ll be fine. If it bugs you that much, make up the difference with extra grape tomatoes (another 250 g or so ought to do it).

In fact, the first version of this recipe used canned cherry and paste tomatoes with fresh grape tomatoes, so don’t feel bad. Everyone knows that the tomatoes in cans are better than what’s in the produce aisle unless you are very, very fortunate. Of course, for the best results, you’ll have to grow your own…

Until next time…XOXO, Gemma

No-Knead Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Honey White Bread

Above: No-Knead 50/50 Caraway Molasses Rye (left) and No-Knead Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Honey White (right) Breads, fresh out of my oven.

No-Knead Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Honey White Bread

by Gemma Seymour-Amper (after Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery, New York, NY)

Makes 1 loaf

9 December 2011

This bread is close to perfection. The honey imparts a touch of sweetness, and the EVOO gives it a pastry-like crumb, flaky and tender, because the oil reduces the formation of gluten somewhat. The crust remains crispy, but not as thick as the standard no-knead recipe.

400 g King Arthur unbleached white bread flour
300 g water
1/2 t. Red Star instant yeast
2 T. EVOO
2 T. honey (substitute agave nectar, golden syrup, maple syrup, or other acceptable liquid sweetener for #vegan)*
rounded 1/2 Tbsp. La Baleine sea salt
white wheat semolina (Farina) and/or additional flour for dusting

Combine all dry ingredients, and in a separate bowl, combine all wet ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, stirring until well-incorporated. Cover, and allow to ferment at room temperature for 12-16 hours.

Remove dough to generously floured work surface, and dust top of dough generously with flour. Gently press flat, and fold in thirds in both directions. Dust a cotton or linen pastry cloth with Farina (you may substitute durum semolina or corn meal), and place dough seam side down on towel. Dust top of dough with Farina, fold towel over dough, and allow to rest for 1/2 hour.

Place cast iron Dutch Oven in cold oven, and preheat to 450 deg F. Allow to heat for at least 1/2 hour. Remove pot from oven, and invert dough into pot so that seam side faces up. Cover, and return to oven. Reduce oven heat to 450 deg F, and bake for 35 minutes, or until loaf sounds hollow when rapped on bottom and crust is deep golden brown. Remove from oven, and cool on rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

#food #foodie #cooking #yum #omnomnomnom #recipe #recipes #possibly_vegan #bread #baking #noknead

*NB: The hashtag “#possibly_vegan” is what I use to denote recipes which are not vegan, but can be easily made vegan without compromise by omitting or substituting certain ingredients. In this case, I prefer honey, but honey isn’t vegan, according to pretty much everyone who responded to my question on the topic, so I suggest substituting agave nectar, golden syrup, or even maple syrup. There are other possible substitutes.

Stagione Estiva

Stagione Estiva (The Summer Season)
a raw pasta or salad dressing

by Gemma Seymour-Amper
9 December 2011 

Serves 4 -ish*

80 ml (1/3 c.) extra virgin olive oil
4 anchovy filets
1/2 large shallot (~ 20 grams), peeled and sliced paper-thin
2 cloves garlic, peeled smashed and minced finely
24 red grape or small cherry tomatoes, halved
12 yellow grape or small cherry tomatoes, halved
12 seedless white grapes, halved
80 ml (1/3 c.) vino bianco
1 T. fresh parsely, chopped finely
1 t. fresh rosemary, chopped finely
1 t. fresh thyme, chopped finely
zest of 1/2 lemon
1/8 t. hot chile pepper, minced (optional)

Mash anchovy filets in EVOO until fully incorporated. Combine all ingredients in a non-reactive dish, and allow to rest for 24 hours.

Toss with baby spinach, baby arugula, and shaved fennel, or toss with fresh pasta, and top with shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano or aged Asiago, pitted olives, pignoli, walnuts, or whatever else takes your fancy. May also be tossed with bread for a delicious bread salad. Would also make an excellent topping for fresh sardines or other fish. Squeeze the zested half lemon and sprinkle a little sea salt at serving time, if/as desired.

NB: You can leave out the anchovies to make it vegan, but then it wouldn’t be quite the same dish. It’ll still be good, though. Just add a bit of sea salt to compensate.

#food #foodie #cooking #yum #omnomnomnom #recipe #recipies #cuisine #cucina #Sicily #Sicilia #Italy #Italia #raw #vegan #possibly_vegan #Mediterranean #Mediterraneo

* (I’m not really sure how far this will go, but my mother and I split it between us at dinner as a salad dressing for the baby spinach/baby arugula salad I made, and as a condiment for Tortilla Espagnole, with enough left over for at least two more of us, so it should serve at least 4 people).

 

Tortilla Espagnole

Last night, I managed to make the best tortilla espagnole that I’ve ever made. I decided to go with the following proportions, which shall now be my standard. I have found that most restaurants tend to make their tortillas more dry and less eggy than I prefer, so if you are at all familiar with tortilla espagnole, this should give you an idea of what to expect from this recipe.

Tortilla Espagnole

by Gemma Seymour-Amper
8 December 2011

Serves 8

500 g red potatoes, chopped and sliced very thinly (unpeeled)
375 g yellow onion, chopped and sliced very thinly (about 2 large onions)
400 g whole eggs, scrambled (about 8 large eggs)
100 g whole milk
10 g sea salt
120 ml extra virgin olive oil (1/2 c.)

Equipment needed:
Large, covered, non-stick skillet (6 qt. size)

Sauté potatoes and onion in 80 ml of the olive oil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until fully cooked through. Whisk eggs, milk, and salt in a large bowl, and add potatoes and onions. Combine ingredients thoroughly. Ensure pan is clean of any stuck food before proceeding. Add remaining 40 ml of olive oil to pan, and return egg, potato, and onion mixture to pan, distributing evenly. Cover pan and cook over low heat for about 15 minutes (I used the lowest setting on my largest burner), until eggs are set through. Invert tortilla onto an oiled platter, and slide back into pan. Cover and cook over low heat for an additional 15 minutes. Remove tortilla to platter, and allow to rest 15 minutes. Sprinkle top with a pinch or two of coarse sea salt before serving. Cut into 8 wedges, and serve with aioli, and/or other condiments of your choice (I love my Patatas Bravas sauce).

#food #foodie #yum #omnomnomnom #cooking #cuisine #cucina #recipe #recipes #Spain #España #Spanish #tortilla #tapas

NB: To clarify, the potatoes should be cleaned and chopped/sliced before weighing, and the onions should be peeled and chopped/sliced before weighing. The eggs obviously, are weighed out of the shell. I really need to be a little more consistent in specifying where the weighing should take place. As the recipe reads above, this is the order usually used to denote weighing prior to chopping/peeling. I should have written it “500 g of chopped and thinly sliced red potato” and “375 g chopped and thinly sliced yellow onion” to indicate peeling and chopping first. Since chopping and slicing an onion generally implies peeling it first, it’s usually unnecessary to mention it explicitly when specifying things in this order. Don’t ask me why I’m writing this diatribe instead of just fixing the original language. That would have been shorter, but far less useful and entertaining, don’t you think?

You know you love me…XOXO, Gemma

Sauce Mémoire, in Honor of Those Who Have Been Taken from Us

Sauce Mémoire (Sauce Moutarde à la Gemma)

by Gemma Seymour
20 November 2011

Today is the 13th annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. I created this recipe while making dinner tonight for my family. I was unable to attend any vigils or memorials this weekend because I have been suffering from a herniated disc, so I name this recipe in memory of my brothers and sisters who have been taken from us, and who shall never be forgotten.

Makes about 1/3 cup

1 T. dark brown sugar
1 T. Calvados or Laird’s Apple Brandy
2 T. apple cider vinegar
3 T. Colman’s mustard powder
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1/4 t. sea salt (ground ultra fine)
1/4 t. garlic powder

Mix all ingredients thoroughly, until smooth, and allow to rest for 1 hour.

Patatas Bravas

28 September 2011

I first encountered the concept of tapas at a restaurant called Pamplona in Philadelphia many years ago, and I immediately fell in love with Spanish food. Unfortunately for me, Pamplona soon went out of business, and it was many years before another tapas bar opened in Philadelphia, but every time there’s been a new one, I’ve been right there, and every time I go travelling to a new city, one of the first things I look for is a tapas bar. In Philadelphia, I have been a regular at Bar Ferdinand and Amada. Blake Joffe, the original chef at Bar Ferdinand, used to use me as a guinea pig for trying out new dishes!

I now have a healthy selection of Spanish cookbooks, but the interesting thing is that unlike many other regional cuisines which I am easily able to cook at home, I never tire of also going out for tapas, because tapas is as much a social event as it is a culinary event, be it on the way home from work, or late at night.

I adore the flavors of the Mediterranean, Italian, French, Middle Eastern, and Spanish alike. The olives, the olive oil, the lemons, the herbs, the wines…I could go on and on. Tonight for dinner, I decided to make a couple of my favorite dishes, Lemon Rosemary Chicken (because of my unholy attachment to the Tuscan Chicken Wings they serve at Bertucci’s, the only chain restaurant I actually like), and Patatas Bravas, a classic tapa consisting, usually, of fried potato chunks served with a spicy, tomato-based sauce.

I like to make my potatoes in the oven, because deep-frying is such an effort, and the oil is quite expensive when used like that. I cut my potatoes into chunks, swirl them around in a bowl with some EVOO and sea salt, and bake them at 400 deg F for about 40 minutes, or until I think they’re brown and crispy enough, giving them a turn or two for even cooking. Actually, this has always been my go-to method for making potatoes, because not only is it easy, it’s delicious, and makes a beautiful side dish for near any roast.

In any case, now that I’ve covered the potatoes themselves, allow me to introduce to you my version of the bravas sauce. Patatas Bravas is traditionally also served with a bit of aioli and well as the red sauce, but we don’t really need to cover aioil, do we? Beware of many recipes on the Internet you may come across which use mayonnaise or ketchup. These things have no place in an authentic dish. There are many different versions of the red sauce, depending on region in Spain, but my version is thick, heavy on the pimentón, and requires no heating. Feel free to play around with the proportions, depending on whether you discover you like it a bit thinner, a bit sweeter, a bit saltier, a bit hotter, a bit more tomato-y, what have you. You might also notice this recipe is vegan, as well.

Sauce for Patatas Bravas
(Makes about 1 cup)

4-6 large cloves of garlic
1/4 c. EVOO
1 T. smoked sweet paprika
1 T. sweet paprika
1/4 t. ground chipotle
1/2 t. fine sea salt
3 T. red wine (a Rioja would be appropriate, of course)
3 T. sherry vinegar
2 T. tomato paste
2 T. sugar

Mash garlic until a smooth paste forms. Stir in all other ingredients, and allow to stand at least two hours for flavors to meld.

 

In Memoriam

“Peace be upon you this day, and upon all the face of the Earth, and let there be happiness all the days of our lives. Do not fear to love one another, even in the face of death, for love given shall be returned to you in uncounted ways.” – Gemma Catherine Viola Seymour, 11 September 2011

 

Added to My Sites

Added to My Sites: Posterous

In Which Gemma Becomes the Target of a Ridiculous…I mean, Radical…Feminist Disinformation Campaign

6 September 2011

So, Zoe Ellen Brain brought to my attention earlier today the fact that I have been mentioned, and specifically, by a certain radical feminist blogger, who I will neither link nor name. The first because that entity can be responsible for that entity’s own promotion, and second because that entity is of the variety which cravenly hides behind a pseudonym, unlike those of us who expect to be taken seriously by others in a public debate.

I guess this means I’ve hit the big time! Woo hoo!

In any case, here is the text of my reply, as I have come to expect from entities of that sort a refusal to allow comments from those with which they disagree to pass moderation in an unmolested state. I will refer to that entity only as an entity, without naming and without gendering that entity, because that entity is so disrespectful of me as a human being and as a woman that the entity refuses to acknowledge my womanhood, the fact that I am lesbian, or even to use proper pronouns when referring to me. In retaliation, I remove from that entity any identity whatsoever.

Just so you know, and for the sake of accuracy in reporting, the closest I have ever come to setting a single foot on The Land is when I was leaving Camp Trans this year, I stopped for a moment to inquire of a Fest worker about the possibility of obtaining a Fest program. This took place in the middle of the road, which I will note is within the bounds of a National Forest and not within anyone’s private property.

I have also never even walked the line to talk with Fest attendees about anything at all, let alone any subject which they, or you, might find discomforting. So, as you can see, I have never entered the MWMF, sneaking, or otherwise, and I always make a point of waving to Fest workers and attendees as I pass by the gates on my runs into town.

Not that I expect you are interested, but for my own edification, I will note that your depiction of what actually goes on down at Camp Trans, and between Camp Trans and Fest, doesn’t quite match up with the reality of my experience. It makes me wonder if you are relying solely on third-party accounts. If you ever want to hear what actually happened at Camp Trans last year, feel free to contact me. The truth is both less, and more, interesting than many accounts have depicted, but no one who was actually there can deny that I was the strongest voice in opposition to actions that might have led to a violent confrontation.

Journalism tip: If you want to be taken seriously as an opponent in a debate, it is usually customary to use actual quotes from your target. The words you attribute to me have neither left my mouth, nor my pen. (Correction: I did actually say the thing attributed to me, or write it, rather. I had forgotten it was over a year ago, and it was actually somewhat out of character for me.)

You don’t have to agree with anything I have to say to get to know me. I invite you to do so.

The conversation went on for awhile, with all of my comments civil and on point, but as is usually the case with the TERFs (that being, for the unitiated, the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, see below), they cannot help but resort to the solace of the weak minded and cowardly, and soon begin deleting any response one might make. I am, in fact, amazed at how many of my comments the entity allowed to be seen. Here are some selections from the deletions, starting with my last post just a few minutes ago, a response to what appears to be an inaccurate quote of me:

Once again, I do not believe that I have used the words “not a valid experience on which to meet”, and I did Google my name in this instance with the phrase “valid experience” this time. I did say in the comment you linked before:

“Womyn-born-womyn is NOT a valid identity to base an exclusionary policy upon, because it is an identity that is specifically designed to exclude a class of women who are at even greater disadvantage, namely, trans women (and for those who may not understand the distinction, yes, it is two fucking words, not one thank you very much).”

However, what I did say, just this evening, in fact, the which I am wondering if it was relayed to you by a third party, was, and I should probably edit this for clarity, as I dashed it off in a hurry in the middle of installing a new sump pump for my mother, but I’m kind of out of energy, so I will quote it verbatim for you, even though it was said in *my* private space:

“I do not view the trans exclusion policy, or the idea that any woman necessarily needs space away from other women as a valid boundary. I see it as oppression. I protest this oppression with peaceful means, and if you came there, you would see that there is a huge contingent of support for trans women within Fest, by attendees and by workers.”

Now, you may excoriate me all you like for disagreeing with your point of view, but please at least do it based on what I actually said, rather than putting words in my mouth.

Hmm…it seems that all my other comments were made from the other machine, so I’ll have to try and recover them in the morning. In the meantime, here’s some comments I made on Facebook tonight, edited to remove references to more personal topics I was discussing with the person to whom some of this was written:

The vast majority of the propaganda strewn about so carelessly by these TERFs is nearly 100% inaccurate, and exaggerated by several orders of magnitude. Most of the TERFs suffer from a deep-seated, self-imposed, and paranoid victimization complex that makes them see enemies under every skirt.

The TERF dogma rests on one principle–that trans women are not women, but men. It is my view that trans women are women, and that excluding trans women or forcing trans women into a second class status harms all women. Make no mistake they don’t view us as a different kind of woman; to them, we, you and I both, are The Enemy.

and

I am a woman, and I do not accept that another woman has the right to judge whether or not my support for women’s rights qualifies as good enough in her book.

…

I am not outside anything, insofar as womanhood is concerned. The only people that think I am are those who have victimized themselves in their paranoia. I stand by my statement. I am a woman. I was born a girl, of a woman, and like every other girl who has ever lived to become a woman, I became a woman exactly the same way–I learned to become a woman. My childhood was the childhood of a girl, even if no on was aware of that fact, even me.

I do not accept that I ought to slink quietly away from the communion of my sisters merely because my path to womanhood took a different turn or two. No two women are alike, and no two reached womanhood the same way.

What is more, there is a large percentage of the community of our sisters who agree with my stance, and I am thankful every day that they work to end this ignorance and bigotry as and when they can.

also

Aggression? You seem to have a strange notion of what constitutes aggression. [The Entity] specifically and personally targeted and slandered me, and has adamantly, purposely, and consistently disrespected my womanhood.  [The Entity] has absolutely declared, falsely, that I have entered MWMF in an inappropriate manner, when I have come no closer to The Land than drive past it on my way to Camp Trans. All I did was tell the truth. Is Truth now equated with Aggression?

* and an explanation on the subject of TERFs, from a humorus post, “#1 Question to enrage a TERF: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to be rude; what pronouns do you prefer?’”:

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. These are typically cissexual/cisgender females who consider trans women to be abhorrent, some going so far as to describe us as rapists for merely being women. They subscribe to the anathema of feminism, the idea that biological attributes determine one’s destiny, the very same thing that feminism has fought against for so long. Because of this, the suggestion to them that their sex, gender, or preferred pronouns are not self-evident is as abhorrent to them as the fact of our existence.

Many of them believe that there is a mystical, supernatural quality that cissexual/cisgender women alone possess, that those of us who came to our womanhood from a different path can never possess the understanding of this ineffable fairytale magical essence. Many of them even believe that the source of this sacred power is a goddess, the one great mother goddess. As an atheist and a rationalist, I find all of this laughable, even if it is true that I profane and invoke the names of gods and goddesses in all the pantheons at will.

 

Update, 8 September 2011: After going through what can be recovered from my posts, there doesn’t seem to be much more that sheds any light on the discussion, so never mind.

You know you love me…XOXO, Gemma

Zeph Fish on the Inclusion of Trans Women at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival

4 September 2011

This year, Camp Trans 2011 turned out to be a very small affair, indeed. Because of the controversies of last year, a decision was made by the remaining organizers to move the dates of Camp Trans up one week so as not to coincide with the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, in an attempt to lessen the possibility of conflict and allow us some space in which to discuss the future of Camp Trans.

One wonderfully serendipitous result of this decision is that we were privileged to be visited by a number of Fest workers, who otherwise would not have had a chance to come by, busy as they would be with their duties on The Land. One such person camped out with us for several days before reporting for duty down the road, and I am honored to have made their acquaintance. That person is Zeph Fish, a genderqueer dyke from San Francisco who has attended Fest many times over the years. Yesterday, Zeph posted an open letter to the community on her Facebook page and her blog concerning the inclusion of trans women at Fest. Zeph’s letter is insightful, thoughtful, and caring, and I hope it will help create some badly needed healing on all sides, healing I certainly need myself after witnessing the aftermath of Alice Kalafarski’s article at Pretty Queer, both at PQ and on the MichFest forum site.

Here is an excerpt:

In the last decade and a half, the trans controversy is one reason I haven’t returned–I just found it so disappointing that the politics of the festival seemed so static and insular when other activist communities I’ve been involved with have become more inclusive and intersectional, a shift made possible by the successes of second wave feminism and GLBT organizing. I found it hard that dykes who had created such an strong radical space for building female power and confidence and networks were choosing to focus on fear, on border defense, and a flavor of gender policing that reminds me all-too-strongly of the ways my own gender gets policed in the mainstream world. I found it especially hard that the “womyn-born-womyn-only” adherents further marginalize a group of women who are targeted by the same hatreds, the same misogyny, the same narrow-box ideologies that make my life hard as a genderqueer/butch dyke. Many trans women are already survivors of patriarchal and sexual violence, poverty, homelessness, and discrimination. I may have a different experience of femaleness than a trans woman, but then again, as a white class-privileged able-bodied person I also have a different experience than a woman who is Latina, or disabled, or working class (or a femme!)–and yet we are able to create community together and (hopefully) work out our conflicts under the umbrella of the festival.

 

Thank you Zeph, thank you from the bottom of my heart. XOXO, Gemma

 

Braised Whole Chicken With Ginger

A few months back, I managed to score a Calphalon enamelled cast iron Dutch Oven on the clearance rack at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It’s a beautiful piece, the particular example having been used as a display and which has a couple of chips out of the enamel on the outside of the lid. It has cast-in handles on both the pot and the lid, unlike many of the cheaper examples you find these days, but what I really like about it is the under side of the lid has little spikes, which serve to allow condensation to self-baste the contents.

For some reason, I didn’t use the pot right away, something having to do with the number of pots and pans already in the kitchen, but I had been thinking of making a whole braised chicken in this pot. I finally got around to it, and here is the result.

Braised Whole Chicken With Ginger

Serves 4-6

by Gemma Seymour
2 September 2011

4 slices bacon, chopped (or a couple ounces of ham plus 1/4 c. EVOO)
1 whole fryer chicken, 3-4 lbs.

2 onions, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
6 cloves garlic, crushed

2 c. chicken stock, unsalted
2 tsp. vegetable stock concentrate [Better than Bouillon]

1 tsp. poultry seasoning [Bell's]
1 Tbsp. ground ginger
3 bay leaves
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400˚ F.

Sauté bacon, or ham and EVOO until crisp in enamelled cast iron Dutch Oven. Add onion, carrot, and celery, and sauté until soft. Add garlic and sauté a few more minutes. Make an even layer of vegetables on the bottom of the pan, and place chicken on vegetables. Mix vegetable stock concentrate with chicken stock, and pour over chicken. Add spices, dusting chicken liberally.

Cover Dutch Oven, and place in oven. Cook for 30 minutes, then baste chicken with juices. Cook for an additional 30 minutes, and baste again. Check temperature of chicken, and remove from oven when internal temperature reaches 160˚ F. Check seasoning, correct if necessary, and serve with steamed white rice, egg noodles, or potatoes.

Added to the Blog Rolls

Added to the Blog Rolls:

My cousin, Jill Seymour’s new vegetarian food blog, Vegetariabean

Ashlin Phillips’ blog, Actually, It IS Rocket Science

Tab Kimpton’s Khaos Komix

Aloo Matar (Or, My Cousin Has a New Food Blog!)

In honor of my cousin, Jill Seymour, who recently launched her new vegetarian food blog, Vegetariabean, here is my vegan recipe for Aloo Matar…this is dead simple to make and very, very tasty. Don’t forget to check out Jill’s blog for more recipes!

My cousin, Jill Seymour, vegetarian and now, fellow food blogger. No, I'm not setting you up with her...

Aloo Matar (Potato and Green Pea Curry)
by Gemma Seymour
Serves 4-6

1/4 c.    peanut oil
2        medium onions, chopped
1        medium carrot, chopped
4        cloves of garlic, minced
4 T.    curry powder*
hot chile to taste

1        15oz. can of diced tomatoes
4        medium potatoes, cubed
1/2 lb.    frozen baby peas
2 c.    unsalted vegetable stock or water
1 t.    sea salt

Heat a large sauté pan and add peanut oil. Sauté onions and carrot until well-browned. Add garlic and sauté a minute, then add curry powder and hot chile and sauté a couple more minutes. Add tomatoes and sauté another couple of minutes. Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer until potatoes are cooked, about 20-30 minutes. Check seasoning, correct if necessary, and serve with rice and/or bread of your choice.

* I make my own curry powder from individual spices, so it varies from batch to batch, depending on my mood. No self-respecting Indian cook would use store-bought curry powder instead of individual spices, but here in Usamerica we can claim ignorance if we like and go for the convenience of a pre-mixed curry powder, and no one will ever be the wiser, unless they happen to be familiar with the real deal. This is a surprisingly small number of people in most of the US, so I take the middle road, and assemble my own curry powder from pre-ground spices. I also have been known to use Patak’s cooking sauces from the UK, which are quite good. Don’t expect me to apologize for my laziness! Sometimes, convenience is a Good Thing. The subject of spices for Indian cuisine is far more complex than I can go into here, but I would recommend the excellent best-selling cookbook by Camellia Panjabi, 50 Great Curries of India, for an overview of how it’s really done in the sub-continent.

Namaste…XOXO, Gemma

Amerikanische Braune Zipfel

12 August 2011

The other day, I had to make a run to North Jersey to check out an accessibility van for my wheelchair-bound mother, and on my return trip, I decided to stop by a German butcher shop that I had passed several times while traveling that way for other purposes in the past. Since I had neglected to defrost anything for the evening meal, I decided to pick up some Nürnberger Bratwürste und Kartofflesalat, along with a jar of Hengstenberg Beets for dinner. My mother loves beets, and being half German, she also naturally loves German food, as do I (German food, that is, beets not so much).

Of course, being in a German butcher shop staffed by people who are clearly of German descent, I couldn’t help but practice my very rusty German on the unsuspecting shop assistants, and was pleasantly surprised to be complimented on my excellent German accent. The shop lady filling my order asked me if I had lived in Germany (I don’t look very German, so it didn’t surprise me that she didn’t assume I was German). She remarked that my accent was so good, she thought I must have spent years living in Germany.

My German teacher was a gentleman by the name of Dr. Rolf Schwägermann at Stuyvesant High School, and 25 years ago, my German was so good that I won, along with my classmate Robert Aftel, a prize from the German-American cultural society, the Goethe-Institut, which consisted of a trip on a Hapag-Lloyd container freighter from Philadelphia back to New York City. We got to dine with the captain and crew, and drink beer (being in international waters), and a good time was had by all.

Dr. Schwägermann taught me well, and also told me back in those days that my accent was very good. It probably didn’t hurt that in high school, I was living with my German-born great-grandmother, Nanny Patocka, who was still living at that time and who emigrated to the United States along with my then 4-year-old grandmother, Anna Seymour (née Patocka), in 1928. Unfortunately, I no longer have much cause to use my German language capabilities, so they have fallen into a state of utter disrepair.

I grilled a good portion of the Nürnberger Bratwürste for last night’s dinner, but I had neglected to pick up any sauerkraut. As far as sauerkraut is concerned, I only use German brands of sauerkraut that are packed in glass jars, because they are superior to anything I’ve been able to acquire since Karl Ehmer’s closed their shop in Flushing, Queens, where we used to get our German specialties.

Speaking of German shops in Queens, remind me to talk about Stork’s Bakery in Whitestone sometime, the best bakery I’ve ever patronized in my life; the only bakery I’ve since used that compared is Bobby Bennett’s Miel which now has at least two branches in the Philadelphia area. I used to sell Bobby gold leaf for his confections when he was still a pastry chef at Le Bec Fin.

All day today, I’d been thinking about what else I could do with the rest of the Nürnberger Bratwürste, and I came across a recipe for Blaue Zipfel, a specialty of the Franconia region of Germany, which includes Nürnberg. Blaue Zipfel is Nürnberger Bratwürste simmered with onions in a vinegar and wine broth. I had originally thought of perhaps combining the concept with a Choucroute Garnie, but once I got partway through making the dish, I decided to nix the idea of Choucroute and just go for the Zipfel. I figured I could always add the sauerkraut to what was left over, and there are plenty of leftovers, because my mother had cold bratwurst and potato salad left over from yesterday, and the rest of the family went to play mini golf this evening.

I like onions, I really do, but I only like them if they are well-cooked. Because the traditional recipies for Blaue Zipfel call for the onions to be simmered only, to my eye, they come out looking like tape worms rather than something I want to eat. In my experience, when onions look like that, I don’t like the way they taste. So, I decided on a modification that I call Amerikanische Braune Zipfel, in which I use Wisconsin-style bratwurst and brown the onions and the bratwürste very well before adding the vinegar and wine.

The result was delicious, although once again, I have failed to actually take a pictured of the finished, plated meal! It’s so good, I would actually order this at a brasserie or bistro if it were on the menu. (Are you paying attention, Georges Perrier, Olivier de St. Martin, Keith McNally, and Stephen Starr?)

Amerikanische Braune Zipfel
Serves 3-4
by Gemma Catherine Viola Seymour
12 August 2011

4 slices American-style streaky bacon, cut into chunks

1 pkg. (about 20 oz, or 5 large links) Wisconsin-style bratwurst *

2 large onions, sliced thinly

4 bay leaves
1 t. black peppercorns, ground coarsely
10 juniper berries, or 1/2 t. dried rosemary
1/2 t. caraway seeds

1 c. white wine
1/2 c. apple cider or white wine vinegar
1/2 c. water or unsalted chicken stock
2 T. brown sugar

Sea salt to taste

Sauté bacon over low heat until nearly crisp, remove bacon and reserve.
Sauté bratwurst over low heat in bacon fat until browned on both sides, remove sausages and reserve.
Sauté onions over low heat in bacon fat until deeply browned.
Return bacon and spices to pan, stir to combine.
Return bratwurst to pan, poking several times with a fork to allow juices to escape into broth.
Add liquid ingredients, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes, or until sausage is cooked through.
Test seasoning, correct, if necessary, and serve. The broth should be strong and salty/sour, with a touch of sweet.

Serve one or two sausages per person in a deep dish with some of the onions and broth spooned over the top. Suggested accompaniments are a good loaf of crusty bread or freshly baked soft pretzels, good German mustard, and a green salad. I enjoyed my meal with a bottle of Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat beer, an excellent Wisconsin-made Belgian witbier-style flavored with coriander. I also highly recommend Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy seasonal beer flavored with lemon.

* These are more fatty and heavily seasoned than the German styles of bratwurst. I also threw in a couple of Nürnberger Bratwürste from a local German butcher that I had hanging around, which is what would be traditionally used in Blaue Zipfel, although mine were fully cooked from the butcher. The Wisconsin-style bratwurst around here is usually Johnsonville brand, from Sheboygan County, Wisconsin. The Sheboygan area is responsible for popularizing this style of bratwurst all across the United States.

You can also toss in a jar of good German sauerkraut, and let it simmer until the liquid is mostly absorbed for a more Choucroute Garnie type of dish.

You know you love me…XOXO, Gemma

WPS Philadelphia Independence & the LGBT Community

It’s funny, you know, before transition, I really kinda hated sports, team sports in particular, but somehow, I seem to have turned into a huge fangirl! I have had my eye on a WPS Philadelphia Independence jersey for quite some time, and you can now add a USA Women’s Soccer jersey to that, as well.

I would really love to go see the Independence play a home game, but I’m troubled by a small detail. The stadia where the Independence play their home games, at Widener University and PPL Park, are both in Chester, PA, a city which has no anti-discrimination legislation guaranteeing the rights of LGBT people, in a state which has no statewide LGBT protections, despite overwhelming support for such laws, even in the more conservative areas of the state.

Accordingly, I have written the following letter to Danielle Duff, the Independence’s Operations and Outreach Manager, in the hopes that she might be able to shed some light on the conditions trans women and lesbians like myself might face should we decide to attend a game.

Dear Danielle:

The promotion of women’s sports is a endeavor which I believe to be of great importance in advancing the standing of women in our society. As an activist for issues which affect women, and as the parent of a six-year old daughter, myself, I am deeply gratified by the efforts of Women’s Professional Soccer and the Philadelphia Independence to demonstrate to our country, and indeed, to the world, the excitement of women’s competitive sports. The entire country recently sat up and took notice of our national team as they fought their way to the FIFA Women’s World Cup Championship Tournament and found a new generation of soccer heroines to admire and emulate.

I would like to be more involved as a fan, and I am sure many other women like myself in the Philadelphia region would join me in enthusiasm for our local team, however, women like myself face some difficulties in Pennsylvania.

You see, I am a transsexual woman and a lesbian, and Pennsylvania, the state in which the home venues where our teams hosts their games reside, does not have anti-discrimination legislation in place that guarantees the equal protection under the law of the rights of all people, regardless of sexual or affectional orientation; or gender identity, expression, appearance, or behavior, regardless of the traditionally-held relationship of any of those to the sex a person was assigned at birth.

Fifteen states around our country now offer such protection for the LGBT community, as well as over one hundred municipal and county jurisdictions around the country, including in Pennsylvania the cities of Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Easton, Swarthmore, Bethlehem, Lansdowne, West Chester, Scranton, Allentown, New Hope, York, and Erie County.

The lack of a statewide anti-discrimination statute in Pennsylvania is particularly odd given that, as reported by Equality Pennsylvania (http://www.equalitypa.org/discrim.html), according to polling data from Susquehanna Polling & Research gathered in 2007, there is overwhelming support for such a law in the state, even in the more conservative areas of Pennsylvania. Additionally, the neighboring state of New Jersey offers a comprehensive statewide anti-discrimination law which ought to serve as the model for such laws around our country.

Transsexual or transgender people, and transsexual women like myself, in particular, face extreme discrimination and hardship in our society, which even this 21st Century, still enforces normative standards of gendered behavior and traditional sex and gender roles in a way that discourages our full participation in society. The final report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, entitled, “Injustice At Every Turn” (http://endtransdiscrimination.org/report.html), was recently jointly published by the National Center for Transgender Equality (http://transequality.org/) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (http://www.thetaskforce.org/). It documents the pervasive discrimination faced by trans people in our country. Among it’s findings are:

Trans people have a 41% suicide attempt rate, compared with 1.6% of the general population.

Trans people are unemployed at approximately double the rate of the general population.

Trans people are four times more likely to have a household income of less than $10K/year than the general population.

90% of trans people responding to the survey reported experiencing harassment in their jobs due to their gender identity or expression

The list goes on and on, and I would encourage you to read not only the website, but both the Executive Summary of the report, as well as the Full Report.

This brings me to the most important reason why I am writing this letter. Fifty-three percent (53%) of respondents report experiencing verbal harassment or disrespect in places of public accommodations. Because both venues, (Widener University and PPL Park) where the Philadelphia Independence play their home games reside in a jurisdiction which does not protect the rights of trans people or homosexual people to access public accommodations, such as sporting venues, restaurants, hotels, or public restrooms, the idea of attending a game in support of our local teams is one fraught with difficulties and dangers.

I am unclear, currently, as to the official policies of Widener University and PPL Park concerning the equal treatment of all patrons, nor am I aware whether or not the Philadelphia Independence has promulgated an official policy on the subject which affects events held at either of these two venues, but I would greatly appreciate it if you could clarify the position of your organization and the positions of the venues in question. It would also be helpful if you could provide me with any official policy of Women’s Professional Soccer, if extant. Because I am an activist as well as a fan, I will be certain to publicize this information to help the LGBT community participate in supporting WPS and the Philadelphia Independence.

As a final request, I have not been able to locate contact information for your counterpart at the offices of the Philadelphia Union, and I would appreciate it if you could either share this letter with the management there, or provide me with any contact information for a person to whom it would be appropriate to address a similar letter.

Philadelphia is a city with a long and celebrated history of promoting freedom and equality. Although I no longer reside in Philadelphia, until recently I resided in the Philadelphia metropolitan area for approximately 20 years, including 7 years in Center City, and I still reside in what is considered the Philadelphia Metro market area. All the teams I support are Philadelphia teams. I would hope that any team that represents Philadelphia would also hold in high regard the values upon which the City of Philadelphia was founded 350 years ago and continues to promote.

Thank you for your time and any assistance you can provide in clarifying my questions…and GO Independence! I hope to see you at a home game, soon!

Sincerely,

Gemma Catherine Viola Seymour

Heading to Camp Trans later today.

I’ll be heading to Camp Trans later today (assuming I actually sleep at some point), so don’t expect anything from me this week…

Womyn-Born-Womyn

I am a woman.

I was born of a woman, as a girl, even if no one was aware of that fact at the time.

Like every other girl in history or herstory who has ever lived to become a woman, I have had to learn to become a woman.

The only difference between you and me is that I never assume that respect for my womanhood will be automatically granted based on my superficial attributes, because I have never been granted that privilege by other people.

 

You know you love me…XOXO, Gemma

Al-Baqara 2:8-12

And there are some people who say: We believe in Allah and the last day; and they are not at all believers. They desire to deceive Allah and those who believe, and they deceive only themselves and they do not perceive. There is a disease in their hearts, so Allah added to their disease and they shall have a painful chastisement because they lied. And when it is said to them, Do not make mischief in the land, they say: We are but peace-makers. Now surely they themselves are the mischief makers, but they do not perceive.

-Al-Baqara 2:8-12