My Prayer for President Obama Post Cambridge Gate

I am one of those Christians who prays just about every day. I’m a very regimented person who follows the same pattern of prayer most mornings: I pray for those in authority at the local national and international level, then the same for those in spiritual authority, followed by prayer for family, extended family, friends etc. Since the now famous Cambridge Gate incident and President Obama’s comment in which he called the Cambridge police handling of it "stupid" thereafter (For those who don't understand the term Cambridge Gate check out this link: http://www.theroot.com/views/accident-time-and-place?auto=true), I have not prayed for improved race relations in our nation. Which- as an African American male about the same age as the president-is important to me of course! But since Cambridge Gate, I pray for President Obama to remain focused. Focused on getting a piece of national health care legislation signed, reducing the nation’s unemployment rate, and helping the Iraqis and Afghans get a credible and functioning police force up and working and thereby ending the need for U. S. troop presence within their borders. That’s my prayer for President Obama Post Cambridge Gate.

1 First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 2 for kings and all those who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good, and it pleases God our Savior. . . . 1 Timothy 2:1-3 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Chocolate and Mexican Cuisine

This is a photo I took at a meal served at La Villa Maria, Santa Fe, Mexicio. Chicken covered with Mexican mole Poblano sauce. Mole Poblano, from the Puebla region of Mexico, principally contains chocolate. To the chocolate bar or coco powder one adds various spices such as cloves, cinnamon, parsley, pepper, and onions, garlic, almonds, nuts, raisins, and sesame seeds among other ingredients. Here is one chicken covered mole recipe among many: http://dontsalt.blogspot.com/2009/04/mole-poblano-sauce.html

Iberians in colonial Mexico delighted in American chocolate. Mateo, Mariana’s Iberian born brother in law, drank and ate so much chocolate that her father asked him what doctors in Spain thought about chocolate. Mateo, who argued that Spanish food was better than Mexican, replied, “blessed be the Lord because he put on the earth blessed chocolate, and the doctors say that there is nothing better in the world on which one can get fat, and because fat is pretty, we all eat a lot of chocolate.” (Dario de Mariana: La vida de una joven en la sociedad colonial del siglo xvii, editorial por Carmen Saucedo Zarco (México, D.F.: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 2000)

The Popularity of Tamales Then and Now

A demolished tamale at Cafe Popular in Mexico City's historic district, recipe below

The diary of fourteen year old Mariana Calderón y Oliveira provides important insights about cooking and eating in sixteenth century Mexico City. Elite Mexico City families like Mariana’s generally used Indian, Spanish commoners, and casta (people of mixed heritage) wage laborers to perform domestic chores like cooking. In the 1690s, Mexico City cooks prepared various types of corn tamales. At first Indians loathed the pork fat that Iberians enjoyed so much; later they incorporated them into their cuisine when they learned that using them in tamale batter improved the tamale’s texture. Typically they served these tamales with chilly salsa too hot for the average new comer from Spain. But the children of the first Iberian settlers such as Mariana grew accustomed to eating foods like tamales served with spicy hot salsa.

Plantain leaf tamale recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/food/Guatemalan-Tamales-with-Ancho-Chile-Sauce