One of my favorite characters in THE LEMROW MYSTERY, Wellington Chen, would have been intrigued by the Museum of Chinese in America. It’s in a small building on busy, chaotic Centre Street. I was especially interested in the The Lee Family exhibit. The Lee family have been in New York’s Chinatown since 1888. To this day, they have an important presence. After visiting the museum, I walked past Lee Insurance on Pell Street. It was painful to read and to see exhibits about the discrimination the Chinese endured. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 denied the Chinese the following: entrance into the country, testifying in court, owning property, voting, or marrying a non-Chinese. The Magnuson Act repealed the law in 1943.
If you squint you can see Isabel Allende being interviewed by Amy Goodman at the Americas Society. The meeting was organized and run like a strict convent school or the est training, but the audience was good nature and docile. Isabel Allende is a spitfire. Dramatically, she explained that she was always a lousy journalist because she never told the truth. Pablo Neruda told her to get out of journalism and do what she did so well, story telling.
I got this recipe from Detective Steve Kulchek’s Aunt Bess. It was her way of getting him to eat vegetables. I call it mystery peppers because the mystery is how something so good can have only two ingredients: sweet peppers and sweet potatoes (or yams). Parboil the peppers for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, roast the sweet potatoes (not skinned) in aluminum until soft. After the peppers have cooled, stuff them with the sweet potatoes. Put this into the oven for about twenty minutes so that the two ingredients marry. Done!
Query: Is it fair to have Wall Street close down on Good Friday? Since when has Wall Street gotten religion?
For Easter let me quote W. H. Auden:
“Leave the dead concerns of
Yesterday behind us,
Face with all our courage
What is now to be.”