Month: December 2019

Crabby Miso Soup

(prepare ahead) 2-4 cups shrimp stock – boil the arthropods’ exoskeletons, preserving the liquid;

Reheat shrimp stock, but DO NOT BOIL as you add the rest of the ingredients:

1 dollop red miso
1 handful mushrooms, sliced
6 scallions, sliced
4 Napa cabbage leaves, diced
1 palmful dulse flakes (yep, seaweed; sea vegetables go naturally with sea food)
1 can coconut milk
1 lemon, juiced
optional: garlic and/or ginger, sauteed

1/2 cup crab meat (add last, removing from heat)

Paul Guernsey,  © 2019

Scandinavian Winter Start

Some wonderful photos from Scandinavia by U.S. Nordic ski Olympic veteran, Caitlin Patterson.

I love all these shots, but was especially charmed by the humility of style designed into the “warming hut” in Beitostolen, Norway, about 1/3 of the way down Patterson’s post. I love how the doorway is framed by the roof-line, accentuated by the contrasting cone of snow.

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True Human Rights

And so,
as men, we should not be so quick to take
upon ourselves the robes of our Creator.
Declaring rights upon oneself derived;
for Man is ever prone to seeking power
greater than his own, and power's lust
can cause a blindness darker than the night
depriving all of liberty and life,
depriving all of any happiness.

Nor should we be so quick to make demands
of those with pockets deeper than our own.
I have no right to ask that someone else
give me the very shirt from off his back
so diligently paid for with the sweat
that dripping fell from off his furrowed brow.

I have no right to ask, nor to demand
a single thing from anyone, except
for that respect with which a human should 
regard his mate, his fellow human being.

Respect, not money, home, nor health, nor food,
nor education dear, are yours for free,
enslaving someone else to pay your bill.
Your human rights do end precisely where
the knot that binds my purse strings tightly starts.

But when the help is volunteered and free
from forceful seizure by the well heeled state
unburdening the yoke of human strife,
one's own responsibility to bear,
then human rights convert to human kind.

by Paul Guernsey, © 2019/11

Read by the author at the 13th Annual Anita McAndrews Poets for Human Rights
and
The Rene Duke Youth for Human Rights Poetry Contest
at the Scone Age Bakery*, 2019/12/08

*The home of the finest Original Scottish Oat scones in town.