During a recent trip to the grocer we got talking about Sloppy Joe sandwiches. Early in our marriage we would buy a can of Sloppy Joe sauce and mix it with MorningStar Farms Recipe Crumbles to make a sandwich filling. It was the basis for many a quick, tasty meal. We discussed adding it back into our meal rotation for “something different.” We read the ingredients on the name brand and store brand cans of sauce and decided to make our own.
What distinguishes a Sloppy Joe from a Maid-Rite (a.k.a. loose meat sandwich) is the tomato sauce. Following is the recipe I put together from an online recipe modified to match our preferences and what we have on hand in our pantry.
Sloppy Joe Sandwich
Ingredients:
One small onion – diced
One medium bell pepper – diced
Two cloves fresh garlic – finely chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Half teaspoon chili powder
Teaspoon paprika
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon vegetarian Worcestershire sauce
One 15 ounce can of prepared tomato sauce
One 12 ounce package of MorningStar Farms Recipe Crumbles
Sandwich rolls.
Mix the dried spices, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, water, mustard, and brown sugar in a small dish and set aside.
Sauté the onion, bell pepper and garlic until soft over medium high heat in a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
Add the spice mixture and stir to incorporate. Add the Recipe Crumbles and incorporate. Finally add the can of tomato sauce and stir until incorporated.
Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook until the sauce thickens and extra water evaporates.
Serve on a toasted bun with any desired condiments and toppings.
Ambient temperatures were in the mid-40s yet it was the wind, gusting at 25 mph, that made garlic planting impossible. I rescheduled. The soil is right, but I didn’t want to fight the wind. This year’s garlic is an experiment. It is not going as planned.
This excerpt from my journal seems apropos for today.
So be it, a life of creating starts. Here a thermometer installed on the kitchen awning. Here some seeds planted, a corner raked. A book read, a lifelong process, never ending, of small acts, viewable only with an eye more omniscient than mine: as the nuns taught, “All for the honor and glory of God.”
To live a life: this is what is presented.
Like a pioneer, I step into the wilderness. Though others may have lived here before, my presence gives new life to the present. Not forgetting what my ancestors have created, I strike a new path, and though a crowd goes the main road, I’ll take the paths still traveled by deer and rabbits and birds.
I feel the number of people who live engaged in life is diminishing. Many seem to accept that society is a prioiri. What we do takes place in a context set by others. They do not realize that we are the set designers, as well as the authors of this drama. And drama only comes as we will.
We must make a sculpture of the clay of our lives. Something created in a manner that will yield beauty and worth to the observer. Whether that observer be society’s poor or rich art patrons, or God alone. It is critical the creation be made. We must attempt it. Though only God may be watching, in his eyes, our lives, small and made of clay, have purpose, and worth. But the charge is ours, each one to live a life. (Personal Journal, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, April 13, 1986).
Ambient temperatures were in the high 70s on Friday. I walked out to the garden and had a look. After dumping the compost bucket into the bin, I turned over a spade full of soil in this year’s garlic bed. The moisture level is about right for planting. I thought I’d give it the rest of the day’s high temperatures to dry and plant garlic today. Last year was such a mess, I didn’t get garlic into the ground in November as usual. My farmer friends tell me with late planting, I will still get a crop.
Some parts of the garden have two years of clean up to do. Tearing down fencing, pulling up fence poles, recovering plastic sheeting for another use, and taking care of the vegetable stalks will require a multi-day project. I’m determined to get a garden in this year.
My views about the garden are changing. For example, the last year or so we have had something digging tunnels in the lawn just under the surface. I don’t know if the pest is eating the roots of grasses and other plants, or what it is doing. I’m inclined to not plant potatoes this season because they are cheap at the farmers’ market or grocer, and it will give the little animals one less food source. Potatoes have never been a main crop for me.
It was good to be out in the warm sunlight with a fresh breeze blowing against me. The soil felt good, the way it should feel after a mild winter. Once I get going, it should take me about 90-120 minutes to get the garlic in the ground.
After planting, it needs mulching. I plan to use last year’s tomato stalks and leaves and grasses mowed into a bag from the lawn. I have to watch this type of mulch more carefully so it doesn’t get matted and prevent the garlic shoots from getting to the light as they grow. With wheat straw you can just mulch it and forget it until harvest. I want to avoid this input cost.
Off and gardening we are. I expect I’ll need more time working the plots to get away from the national news. Respite, as good as it gets.
Would I call Senator Elizabeth Warren’s office and tell her how to vote on the pile of crap that is the House continuing resolution to keep the government open? No, I would not. Same goes for Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and others. Senator Chuck Schumer? Especially after he announced last night he would be voting for the House CR? No I would not do anything there either. It is important to look at Schumer’s stated reason.
“For sure the Republican bill is a terrible option,” Schumer said on the Senate floor, according to the Washington Post. “But I believe allowing Donald Trump to take … much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option.”
It is what it is, although Schumer’s announcement provides cover for some Democrats to vote yes. If every senator shows up for the vote, and the two independents side with Democrats, (I think one Republican is absent). Republicans need 8 Democrats to file cloture before the actual CR is up for a vote, passing with a simple majority. So they have Fetterman and Schumer. That leaves six more.
Progressive personalities were out after Schumer’s announcement last night.
“Should Schumer and Jeffries be replaced?” Stacey Walker asked on Substack. ” Instead of leveraging this moment to demand real concessions, Schumer has once again capitulated without a fight, proving that Democratic leadership is not just ineffective but woefully complicit in the assault on our democracy. At what point do we demand a change?”
“Tonight, Chuck Schumer announced that he is going to vote in favor of the Republican budget resolution, which includes massive, unprecedented cuts to social services like SNAP benefits (better known as food stamps), Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, all so that billionaires can get even richer through tax breaks.” Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin wrote in her weekly newsletter about Trumpland. “Reportedly, Chuck is doing this because he’s afraid of what the American people will think of Democrats if the government shuts down. That is complicity. It is cowardice. It is shameful.”
I’ve already written my U.S. Senators and Chuck Grassley wrote back already. There is no changing Republican minds on the CR. So we wait. The vote is expected today, and if there is no CR, the government begins shutting down a minute after midnight tonight.
In addition to calling the American Library Association a “Marxist” organization, and asserting librarians should be arrested for materials found within the walls of spaces they manage, there is an anti-intellectual movement in Iowa to eliminate public libraries. There isn’t a bill for that, because it is a sub rosa campaign. The intent is there, yet supporters hide it because they are dishonest.
Our local library community responded to the bad bills filed by members of the Iowa legislature. They sent an email to patrons and published a guest column in the March 11, Cedar Rapids Gazette. Click here to read the guest column. Shedding light on what this small minority is attempting is the best way to defeat these bills. Anyone with common sense realizes the value our libraries represent in our communities.
I sent this email to my district legislators:
Dear ___
I live in your district urge you to vote no should HF521/SF235 come up for a vote. The bills would repeal current exemptions from Iowa obscenity laws for educational institutions and libraries.
Here is my reason.
The basic question is who should decide what content is available in public libraries and schools? I submit it is someone trained in library science and rooted in the community. We should empower librarians to do their job and settle any disputes regarding content, including those relating to obscenities, without getting run out of town on the rail. The obscenity exemption protects government employees who seek to do their job.
Should we have public libraries? I believe we should because they benefit the entire community, especially those who have limited means. We need an arbiter of what resources are in our libraries, and that person should be a trained librarian.
Vote no on HF521/SF235.
Thanks for considering my request.
Regards, Paul
Supporting your local library includes standing up for them when an unreasonable minority tries to impose their values on the rest of Iowans. The time to contact legislators is now.
My credentials to write a review of Romney’s book are somewhat chary. I have never read a book by Jane Austen (Gasp!). When on vacation in Stratford, Ontario, our family attended a dramatization of Pride and Prejudice during which I promptly fell asleep. Yet here I am saying Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend is one of the best books I read this year. Why is that? It is easy to get caught up in Rebecca Romney’s quest.
There is a lot to learn in Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: about rare book collecting, about Jane Austen, about approaching books through multiple media, and about the women she found with connections to Austen. For a general reader, this was the best introduction to all these women born in the 18th Century who lived until the 19th who experienced success as writers.
The most interesting questions Romney answers is why the well-known authors she identifies fell out of favor among readers. She also explains the role of re-prints in perpetuating a writer’s legacy.
From beginning to end, Jane Austen’s Bookshelf was captivating, informative, and fun to read while following along with the author. If you care about books, this is one you will want to add to your to be read pile.
On Thursday, the University of Iowa announced a funding cut for the International Writing Program founded by Paul and Hualing Nieh Engle in 1967.
The U.S. Department of State notified the University of Iowa International Writing Program on Feb. 26 that its grants through the department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs were being terminated, stating that the awards “no longer effectuate agency priorities,” nor align “with agency priorities and national interest.” (U.S. Department of State halts International Writing Program funding, Iowa NOW, March 7, 2025).
Termination of funding caused immediate elimination or curtailment of multiple planned activities. While I viewed the program as a vanity project by its founders, the IWP added to the cachet of Iowa City as a writing community. In the early days of the program, the IWP housed its writers at the Mayflower dormitory as a method of creating community. It was that. Indeed, more than 1,600 established writers from more than 160 countries have participated since the program was founded, according to Iowa NOW. The annual funding loss will be almost $1 million. That amount doesn’t seem like a lot, and could likely be made up through a new fundraising effort by Director Christopher Merrill. I hope the program endures.
I remember attending a lecture by Merrill when he described traveling to exotic locales to find writers for the IWP. I suppose his recruitment methods were considered favorably by the State Department at the time and that is why the grant was renewed year after year. In a society where many close friends are being impacted by federal budget cuts today, losing funding at the IWP is just one more thing.
When I finished graduate school in 1981, I decided to stay in Iowa City and live a writer’s life. I had no interest in formal writing programs and carried a bit of residual skepticism about the Writers’ Workshop and the IWP from my days living with some Actualist writers and artists I met in 1973 and ‘74. Instead of following a formal program, I sought to enable my native, if somewhat naive impulses and culture. I hoped to discover what that meant, yet not in the context of formal writing programs. Except for the impact on local culture, it made no difference to me whether the IWP existed in 1981, and that feeling continues through today.
It seems clear that many activities in our culture, from education to farming, to health care, to every aspect of involvement by the federal government are subject to game-changing loss of funding. The IWP can recover from this setback. What about the rest of us?
Waiting room at the University of Iowa Health Care Radiology Clinic.
When the University of Iowa bought Mercy Iowa City Hospitals and Clinics in November 2023, we were thankful our hospital of decades did not close the doors because of bankruptcy. We haven’t had major health issues, yet our child was born there 40 years ago, and they kept the facility up since then. Why ruin a good thing?
Now called University of Iowa Health Care, there are changes to accommodate. For example, we have to wear a wrist brand inside the 2,828 square foot building when we are at an appointment. I suppose practitioners might confuse us with the other patient seeking treatment at the same time. It’s not like we are a small town. We’re up to 3,182 people according to the most recent census information. Hell, I don’t know the half of them! There were questions about the wrist bands at first, yet we didn’t want the administrators in the county seat to get mad at us and close the only clinic in this rural part of the county. We now wear them when asked.
I’ve been treated in our local clinic since we moved back to Iowa in 1993. The doctors and nurses used to be good. Nurses still are, but the first impulse of recent physicians seems to be to refer us to another clinic in the university system for a test or consultation. Hang on to your wallet, because if you don’t have good insurance, these referrals can run into the thousands of dollars.
Some practitioners, the male ones anyway, give me the wooden Indian look when I ask about my records from before the acquisition. They don’t say, but I think there is an issue with integrating our old medical records into the university system. No worries, though. Doctors today seem to live in the moment. They might say, “Don’t worry about those old records. Let’s take a look at you now!” That’s fine with me because I live in the now. I’d just as soon forget about all the ailments for which I have been treated in the last 32 years. The only major health concern from the old days is my being obese. That persists, yet the university has a solution.
I first noticed the double-wide waiting room benches when I went to the podiatry clinic. A six-hundred pounder could fit into one of those no problem. My spouse and I can share one since there is room to spare for the two of us. In another context, we might call the double-wides “accommodation.” I suppose the doctors get tired of telling patients they need to lose weight, therefore let them have double-wides. Now that I’m thinking about it, some of the examination chairs I’ve been in are double-wide as well.
Obesity is a problem in the state:
Iowa currently ranks 11th in the nation for adult obesity, according to the latest Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data. However, Iowa is one of 19 states with an obesity prevalence rate of at or over 35 percent. (Iowa Department of Health and Human Services website).
It is good the hospitals and clinics try to accommodate people with every characteristic. The University of Iowa is a teaching hospital that accepts patients from all over the state. That is, they accept people if there is room and sufficient staff to treat what ails them. Otherwise, we go to Illinois, Nebraska, or Minnesota. Anyway, if obese Iowans make it through the maze to treatment, they will be comfortable while they are at the clinics.
There is a dark side to all this, and that is people are getting fed up with all the accommodation in society. It’s not just the double-wides. It’s everything. It’s like we returned to the 19th Century world of the great novelists with their chatty gossip and sexual double entendres. Where wit and morality are front and center in books that purportedly corrupted youth. I’m thinking of Charlotte Smith, who promoted women’s rights as long as women knew and kept their place subservient to their husband and produced a large number of children. It is as if to say, “Here! You have a right to this double-wide. Also know that we are better than you and will lord it over you.”
Sorry for that last paragraph, which was a bit of a stretch. Sorry, not sorry.
Let’s face it, though. Some in the Iowa legislature and the Congress definitely want to tell us how to live. In many cases, it has become a big morality play in which we have to hear their values and comply… or else! Here I am thinking of the state bill to repeal the obscenity exemption for schools and libraries. Our local library emailed us:
While the intent behind these bills may be to protect community standards, the broad language used could lead to unintended consequences. By altering obscenity exemptions, these bills could subject libraries and educational institutions to increased legal scrutiny and potential penalties for materials deemed inappropriate by subjective standards. This shift could result in self-censorship among librarians and educators, limiting the diversity of materials available and hindering the open exchange of ideas that is fundamental to educational growth. (Email from the Solon Public Library, March 7, 2025).
They expect us to comply and remain in our station in society. They assert in this, they are better than us.
All of this said, I like the new arrangement with the University of Iowa Health Care organization. The people are friendly and helpful, and if something is wrong, and we can afford all the tests and consultations, problems can be detected early and addressed before they get out of control. That’s what we want with our health care. Double-wides are optional.
Editor’s Note: On Friday, FOX News mentioned President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, seeking a new deal with Tehran to restrain its rapidly advancing nuclear program and replace the agreement he withdrew America from in his first term in office. Iranian state media immediately picked up on Trump’s acknowledgment, though there was no confirmation from Khamenei’s office that any letter had been received. This seems largely a head fake. The real issue is the nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia.
When the president mused about all the money the United States was spending on refurbishing our nuclear weapons complex, he can’t be taken seriously. This is what he said:
There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many. You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.
What motivates this comment? Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. I plan to view it with a skeptical eye until the discussion gets beyond the type of public brainstorming the president is known for. This is what he meant:
The U.S. House is having trouble coming up with enough savings to fund my $4.5 Trillion in tax cuts, so maybe we could use some of the nuclear complex monies.
Cognizant there is a national security issue around the use of nuclear weapons, the president’s team developed a policy. Invoking the failed Reagan missile defense policy, the administration proposes we try it again under the aegis of an “Iron Dome for America.” As Stephen J. Cimbala and Lawrence J. Korb point out in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the plan has serious technology and policy problems. What needs to happen is renewal of discussions between Russia and the United States concerning arms control. If nuclear arms are eliminated, there would be no need for a missile defense system by any name.
Daryl G. Kimball of the Arms Control Association said, “a dialogue between Moscow and Washington could lead to negotiations to maintain or lower current limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals before the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) expires in February 2026.” If the president is serious about reducing the number of nuclear weapons, this is a reasonable approach. I don’t think reason can be applied to the current administration when they lust after tax cuts for the wealthy.
While public oxygen is taken up by the uninformed chopping away at the federal government by Team DOGE, the country could be working on arms control. In a recent substack, Joe Cirincione opined that to keep Europe safe, two things were needed:
For over seven decades, there have been two basic frameworks that have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in Europe. One is NATO, founded in 1949, that provided positive security assurance to Europe. America assured European NATO members that if they were attacked, the United States would defend them, including with our nuclear weapons. So, these countries did not need to get their own nuclear weapons. America would protect them.
That extended deterrence, as it is called, was not, by itself, enough to stop countries from considering their own nuclear arsenals. The United Kingdom got nuclear weapons in 1952 and France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.
We all know how the president feels about NATO. He doesn’t care for treaties any better. As we have seen, he appears to be forsaking Europe for his new relationship with Vladimir Putin.
So what is the administration doing to control nuclear weapons? Short answer: Nothing. He should be doing more, and elected officials need to hear from us on this topic. The U.S. Capitol Switchboard is (202) 224-3121.
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