Monday, November 30, 2009

“Dear Abby: Best wishes of the season bring out scrooge in critics - Alexandria Daily Town Talk” plus 3 more

“Dear Abby: Best wishes of the season bring out scrooge in critics - Alexandria Daily Town Talk” plus 3 more

Dear Abby: Best wishes of the season bring out scrooge in critics - Alexandria Daily Town Talk

Posted: 30 Nov 2009 12:56 AM PST

Dear Abby: For 20 years I have gone to considerable thought and expense to carefully select nice holiday cards to send to a varied client base. I have tried to be considerate and sensitive to any cultural and religious differences.

My Christian friends wanted explicitly religious cards, the Hanukkah cards were not religious enough, and the middle-of-the-road "Season's Greetings" were termed "wishy-washy secular." My own family is a feuding stew of different faiths.

This year? I've had it. I sent Thanksgiving cards with the following quote from Theodore Roosevelt: "Let us remember that as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds."

It bothers me that a simple delivery of good wishes was met with such a resounding show of bad manners and ill will, and I see no point in continuing. My mother says I expect too much of people and that this will backfire. I'm past caring and have no more cheeks left to turn. I agreed to abide by your advice. What say you? -- Steamed In Van Nuys, Calif.

Abby: I don't blame you for being offended. The complainers were extremely rude. If you've sent cards only out of fear that if you didn't it would somehow "backfire," then you shouldn't have sent them. And if anyone is presumptuous enough to raise the subject, tell that person it's because your selection was criticized last year, so this year you decided to save your money.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, Calif. 90069.

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Using your roots to flavor Thanksgiving dinner - North County Times

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 12:11 AM PST

Nothing says Thanksgiving like ---- pastitsio?

"For Thanksgiving, my mother actually did a turkey, which was a pretty big step for her, but everything else on the table was Greek," said Michael Psilakis, the chef behind New York's Anthos restaurant.

For his family, pastitsio, a lasagna-like dish of noodles and eggy, Greek bechamel sauce, was just as important as the bird.

Thanksgiving called for a similar blending of cultures in the Korean household of chef David Chang, who dubs the famous pork buns, ginger scallion noodles and ramen of his Momofuku restaurants "American" food.

"Thanksgiving was almost a potluck," Chang said, remembering the dozens of relatives who tottered in with heaping trays of short ribs called kalbi-jim, the pickled cabbage called kimchi, and the noodle dish chop che. "We would have Korean dishes that were traditionally cooked on celebratory occasions and your Thanksgiving go-to classics. It was a feast."

Americans come from more than 125 nations, according to Census figures, and more than 299 million people ---- or 97 percent of the population ---- claim ethnic roots. So it's only fitting that on this iconic American holiday people draw on the melting pot for inspiration.

At the turn of the 19th century, Thanksgiving was appropriated as a way to "Americanize" new immigrants, said Sandra Oliver, the editor of Food History News and co-author of "Giving Thanks," a history of the holiday.

"There was considerable effort put into teaching these kids about the Thanksgiving holiday ---- it was done in the schools ---- and attributing all kinds of virtues to the sainted pilgrim forefathers, really elevating them beyond their significance," Oliver said.

"There are pictures of these little kids kitted out in pilgrim hats, no matter who they were. It met with some success. Kids are really good about going home and saying, 'We have to have turkey on Thursday.'"

The founders probably didn't count on the ingenuity of the newcomers, many of whom did adopt the holiday, but in their own way.

Marcela Valladolid, author of the cookbook "Fresh Mexico," grew up crossing the U.S.-Mexico border every day, leaving her Tijuana home before dawn to attend school in San Diego. She said she absorbed both cultures "100 percent" and so has her Thanksgiving celebration.

"We don't segregate it," she said. "It's not like the turkey is American and then there are tamales. There's chile in the turkey."

Valladolid glazes her turkey with an apricot, tequila and chile sauce and serves it alongside roasted chipotle acorn squash and Brussels sprouts in morilla cream. Valladolid said the feast was inspired by her cross-border experience, but also was a way to make the holiday truly inclusive for everyone in the family.

"My father barely speaks English," she said. "This holiday is very new for him. He started celebrating Thanksgiving when he married my mom. Try to sit down and have Thai food for the first time. It's intimidating. And I imagine that was the way my father felt the first time he sat down in front of a big fat turkey."

If Valladolid sees ethnicizing Thanksgiving as a way to bring the family's older generation into the new tradition, others see the reverse: a way to preserve and communicate culture to the next generation.

At New York's Tabla, Bombay-born chef Floyd Cardoz is known for merging Indian spices and sensibilities with American ingredients. After more than 20 years in the United States, he does the same at his Thanksgiving feast.

Cardoz brines his turkey in a pungent solution of fresh ginger and bay leaf, then dry-rubs it with black pepper, chiles, fresh garlic and crushed bay leaf. "I rub it all over the bird and under the skin too," he said. "It makes it more flavorful."

His stuffing spikes a cornbread base with Goan-style pork sausage, redolent of vinegar, garlic, cloves and cinnamon. The homemade cranberry sauce has touches of ginger, black pepper, cloves and cinnamon. "So it's a little more interesting than plain old canned cranberry," he said.

He also makes sure there's lots of heavy, Indian-style snacking on items such as samosas and spiced potato dumplings before the meal, and that there are plenty of Indian specialties as well, like rice pulao and a Goan pork stew full of pork belly, shoulder, liver and chile.

"By putting our beliefs into a meal, it ties my past with my kids' future," said Cardoz, whose sons are 12 and 16. "At some point when they have their kids and they're doing their Thanksgiving tradition, maybe there will be something from India in there, and it will bring them back. It ties up the generations when you do this."

Give your Thanksgiving stuffing a taste of Mexico with this recipe from Susan Trilling, who runs a cooking school in Oaxaca, Mexico. The stuffing has a sweet and spicy flavor from a combination of chiles, fennel, prunes and cumin.

RELLENO DE PAN (Oaxacan Stuffing)

One 12-ounce chunk whole-wheat bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 7 cups)

14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) unsalted butter

2 large white onions, chopped

2 ribs celery, chopped

1 bulb fennel, cored and chopped

4 apples, cored and chopped

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

2 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, stemmed, seeded and chopped

6 ounces pitted prunes (about 26), halved

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus more to taste

1/2 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh chives

1 tablespoon orange zest

Kosher salt, to taste

3 eggs, lightly beaten

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spread bread cubes on large baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted and dry, about 15 minutes. Transfer bread cubes to a large bowl; set aside.

In an 8-quart Dutch oven over medium-high, melt butter. Add onions, celery and fennel and cook until soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Add the apples, garlic and poblano chiles, then cook until apples are tender, about another 10 minutes.

Add prunes, cumin, pepper, parsley, chives, orange zest and salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until hot, about 2 minutes.

Transfer mixture to bowl with bread cubes. Gently stir until combined. Let cool for 10 minutes.

Stir in eggs and season with salt and pepper. Transfer stuffing to a 2-quart oval baking dish and bake until browned, about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving. Serves 14.

---- Recipe from the November 2009 issue of Saveur magazine

Marcela Valladolid, author of "Fresh Mexico," uses a version of this glaze to combine her Mexican roots with the classic Thanksgiving staple. The turkey also can be stuffed, but will take longer to cook.

ROASTED TURKEY IN APRICOT-CHILE GLAZE

3 cups chicken broth

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 cup tequila

2 Anaheim chiles, stemmed, seeded and cut into large chunks

3/4 cup apricot jam, divided

One 12- to 14-pound turkey

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

In medium saucepan over medium, combine broth, butter, tequila, chiles and 1/2 cup of apricot jam. Bring to boil and cook until chiles are soft and tender.

Transfer mixture to blender and puree until smooth. Press mixture through fine-mesh strainer. Discard solids.

Return 1 1/2 cups of mixture to saucepan, reserving the rest for gravy. Simmer over medium for 10 minutes, or until reduced by half. Stir in remaining 1/4 cup of apricot jam to make glaze. Season with salt and pepper.

Place turkey on rack set in large roasting pan. Carefully separate turkey's skin from flesh, trying to avoid breaking skin. Pour half of the glaze under skin and rub it into turkey.

Replace skin, then rub remaining mixture over outside. Wrap wing tips in foil and roast for 1 hour. Cover turkey with foil, then roast for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours, or until breast registers 160 degrees and thickest part of thigh reaches 170 degrees.

Allow turkey to rest in pan for 10 minutes. Transfer turkey to serving platter and let it rest another 10 minutes.

While turkey rests on platter, place roasting pan with drippings on stovetop. Bring to a simmer over low, then stir in reserve chile sauce. Scrape bottom of pan with wooden spoon or silicone spatula to loosen any brown bits.

Simmer for 10 minutes, or until thickened, then season with salt and pepper. Strain out chunks or leave them in to add texture. Makes a 12- to 14-pound turkey with gravy.

---- Recipe adapted from Marcela Valladolid's "Fresh Mexico," Clarkson Potter, 2009

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Need for Mechanics Drives Students To Community College Facility - San Diego Business Journal

Posted: 30 Nov 2009 08:30 PM PST

By Mark Larson

Despite the slump in the auto industry, demand for certified auto mechanics is forecast to continue, and a newly built San Diego mechanics school is fully enrolled with a waiting list of students.

The San Diego Community College District's Ocean View Boulevard campus opened a $21.7 million environmentally friendly complex in September. It's an addition to the main continuing education campus that has been there since the '70s.

Its Educational Cultural Complex Skills Center is touted as the largest automotive technology skills center in the nation.

The 67,000-square-foot complex at the South San Diego continuing education campus of the district was built with bond funds from Proposition S, approved in 2002, and Proposition N, approved in 2006.

O'Connor Construction Management Inc. was the general contractor and NTD Stichler Architecture the architect.

The facility features three single-story buildings and three covered repair areas. Included are repair bays, drive-in spray paint booths, shops, labs and classrooms. They provide space for training in auto technology, mechanical and electrical repair, auto body repair, upholstery, graphic printing and arts, welding technology, a technical repair library and parts storage.

It also offers a business computer technology lab for students, business information technology training, and space for faculty and staff.

Lectures, Hands-On Work

The continuing education program, which is free of charge, offers auto technician training in courses lasting from 25 to 40 weeks. Thirty percent of class time is spent in lectures, and the rest with hands-on mechanical work.

"They learn about engines, brakes, suspension, electronics, fuel systems," said Jane Signaigo-Cox, dean of career technical education at the school district. Graphics and computer courses are also offered.

Though the school's auto-related course work is not nationally certified, students must pass standards of the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation. The foundation, as well as the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, certifies auto repair schools.

"In the past, we've been a best kept secret," said Signaigo-Cox. "But with the new facility we are really drawing a lot of people and community interest in this."

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Medical Students Don't Report Needle-Sticks - Ivanhoe

Posted: 30 Nov 2009 08:37 PM PST

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Medical students are commonly stuck by needles, putting them at risk of contracting dangerous blood-borne diseases, but many of them fail to report the injuries to hospital authorities.

Researchers surveyed surgery residents at 17 medical centers.  Of 699 respondents, 415 said they had sustained a needle-stick injury as a medical student, many more than once. Of the surgeons-in-training whose most recent needle-stick occurred in medical school, nearly half of them failed to report their injuries to an employee health office, avoiding an evaluation as to whether they needed treatment to prevent HIV or hepatitis C.

An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 needle-sticks and other similar injuries are reported annually among U.S. health care workers, and there is evidence of vast underreporting, Martin A. Makary, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead researcher for the study, was quoted as saying. "Medical schools are not doing enough to protect their students and hospitals are not doing enough to make medical school safe," he said. "We, as a medical community, are putting our least skilled people on the front lines in the most high-risk situations. Most trainees are still forced to learn to sew and stitch on patients, which puts both providers and patients at risk."

Makary said medical schools should take advantage of advances in simulation technology and do less training on actual human patients until medical students develop their skills.

The most common reason for medical students' failure to report a needle injury was the amount of time involved in making a report. The authors believe needle-sticks go unreported because of cumbersome reporting procedures, fears about poor clinical evaluations by their superiors, or embarrassment.

The survey did find, however, that medical students were much more likely to report the needle-stick if the patient was at high risk for having a virus like HIV or hepatitis. Still, prompt reporting of all needle-stick injuries is critical to ensuring proper medical prophylaxis, counseling and legal precaution, Makary said. Very few people who follow proper protocol and seek treatment after a needle-stick get sick.

"Hospitals are not creating a culture of speaking up," said Makary. "If people are not speaking up regarding their own safety concerns, it's probably a surrogate marker of people not speaking up about patient safety concerns."

Most of the needle-sticks among medical students occurred in the operating room when the student felt rushed. Makary says that needle-stick injuries in surgery can infect patients since the provider's blood can enter the patient's wound. He argued that hospitals need to create a culture of reporting errors and stop placing their newest trainees at the greatest risk for infection. He also said that since medical students are at significant risk of personal injury during clinical training, more needs to be done to educate them about the importance of reporting any injuries.

SOURCE: Academic Medicine, December 2009



If this story or any other Ivanhoe story has impacted your life or prompted you or someone you know to seek or change treatments, please let us know by contacting Melissa Medalie at mmedalie@ivanhoe.com

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