My calendar: Feb 10-23

In addition to work, I plan to visit the Georgia Aquarium, a hands on science exhibit in San Francisco, and, weather and time permitting, maybe a zoo or art museum.

My time is pretty booked in LA and Atlanta, but I’ve got 8 days in San Francisco. Let me know if you want to meet up or if there’s something you think I absolutely must see/experience/eat!

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Jazz makes me move, and sing, and I can see the sinuous pattern of the music dancing, and it feels like home, and heartbreak, and love, and Carnival, and family meals, and dancing in the streets with strangers.

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Ingredients
For vegetable filling
1 globe eggplant (1-1.5 lbs)
2 zucchini squash
1 cup chopped, raw spinach

For cheese filling
8 oz ricotta
1 cup shreded mozzarella
Parmesan or asiago to taste
1 large egg (beaten)

For sauce
Prepared tomato sauce of choice (I use a garlic mushroom)
.5 lb lean ground meat (I used beef)
1 cup diced mushrooms

.5 package whole wheat lasagna noodles
Olive oil

Method

1. Slice zucchini and eggplant into 2 inch thick slices. Salt liberally with kosher salt and let stand for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425F and oil a half sheet pan.

2. Wipe excess salt and water from the zucchini and eggplant and arrange in a single layer, flesh-side up, on the pan and brush or spray with oil. Place into the lower half of the oven for 20 minutes, turning the pan once, until flesh is soft, golden brown, and skin is wrinkled.

4. While vegetables are roasting, prepare the sauce: Brown the meat and mushrooms, adding the prepared sauce and reducing heat to low. The sauce should have an excess of liquid– add vinegar, dry red wine, or broth to thin if necessary.

5. Return to the roasted vegetables after they are cool enough to handle. Scrape the eggplant flesh from the skin, chopping into rough cubes where the flesh is still firm. Grate the zucchini and squeeze excess water out (another excellent thinning liquid for the sauce). Combine the grated zucchini, eggplant flesh, and spinach in a mixing bowl.

• 2/3 of the vegetable filling
• raw lasagna noodles to cover
• 2/3 of the cheese filling
• raw lasagna noodles to cover
• mixture of remaining cheese & vegetable fillings
• half of the meat sauce
• Raw lasagna noodles to cover
• remaining sauce
• Remaining mozzarella cheesse, with parm or asiago to taste

7. Allow lasagna to sit for at least 30 minutes so the noodles can begin to soften.

8. Place lasagna, uncovered, in a 350F oven for 45 minutes, or until top is golden brown and bubbly. Allow 10-15 minutes to cool and set after removing from the oven before cutting.

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Inspired by Eric Rice who was inspired by the NYT Slideshow

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I was pursuing Jezabel for my mid-afternoon smug, self-satisfied laugh at celebrities and pop culture when I came across a link to the New York Times. Oh, fun, Trojan has a new ad campaign out. I clicked through to the article, Pigs with Cellphones, but No Condoms expecting to continue my daily work break with more amusement. Oh, it started out well enough,

IN a commercial for Trojan condoms that has its premiere tonight, women in a bar are surrounded by anthropomorphized, cellphone-toting pigs.

but the news, the actual news, that followed is horrifying. Not only do only 1 in 4 American sexual encounters include the use of condoms, not only do we have the lowest rate of condom usage in the developed world, and not only does the US condom market barely make enough money to justify network television ads, it seems that some networks feel that condom ads that promote pregnancy prevention are not fit for TV.

A 2001 report about condom advertising by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that, “Some networks draw a strong line between messages about disease prevention — which may be allowed — and those about pregnancy prevention, which may be considered controversial for religious and moral reasons.”

Let’s review that again, shall we? Ads that show condoms as a contraceptive are too controversial for late night network television. CBS simply declined the commercial as inappropriate.

CBS, home of the gruesome CSI series (and its five bazillion spinoffs) and FOX, home of the uber-classy “Trading Spouses,” find what’s basically a Public Health Announcement (Trojan’s logo appears only briefly, and the tagline for the spot is “use a condom every time”) too offensive to air on late night television.

Ignoring, for now (and believe me, just for now), the fact that we are now relying on condom manufacturers to deliver public health information, it’s ridiculous that a completely non-sexual advertisement for condoms is rejected as too controversial. Sexual health, personal responsibility, and public safety are matters that affect everyone, whether or not you are having sex, are in a monogamous relationship, are straight, are gay, are genderqueer, are 90, or are 10.

I encourage you to email askfox@fox.com and fill out the CBS feedback form to express your disappointment in their refusal to run the Trojan: Evolve ads.

(The ad can be viewed at TrojanEvolve.com and is a pretty great short)

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