I was at the supermarket today and had already put some diced prosciutto in my cart for the Spaghetti Carbonara that I was going to make for tonight’s dinner, when I saw the veal shanks in the meat case. I thought about buying them in order to make Osso Buco, but passed them by, probably because the recipe calls for several items that I wasn’t sure that I had at home, and it takes a long time to make it properly. If you’re unfamiliar with the dish, and find yourself in a good Italian restaurant that offers it, give it a try. Basically, it’s slow-cooked crosscut veal shanks in a wine sauce. Tasty stuff.
I can’t think of Osso Buco without remembering the first time I was ever made aware the dish’s existence. I was 16 or 17 at the time, and my brother was going to school at West Palm Beach Junior College (at least he was enrolled there, no strong evidence exists of any significant attendance on his part) in Florida. Mom, Dad and I flew down around Thanksgiving to visit him, and the first night we were there, we went across the bridge for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant in Palm Beach, where the really rich people live.
Even at my young age, I was not a stranger to fine restaurants. We dined regularly at the Mergus in Canton, which had a menu more than a dozen pages long, offering well-prepared specialties from various cultures, and my parents were kind enough to take me along to other great restaurants wherever we visited. The place we found ourselves at in Palm Beach was only mildly intimidating, with tuxedo-clad waiters (no waitresses) and a suitably dark and refined atmosphere. The menu had mainly recognizable entrees, and we sipped our cocktails (losing one’s hair at a tender age does have certain advantages, along with having liberal parents) and scanned the offerings, each of us making our choice in silence, without discussion.
The waiter came to take our orders in his very professional manner. Mom went first (we later learned that her menu didn’t have prices on it, since she was the lady and thus unconcerned with such trivial matters), then Gary and I, and finally Dad gave his order. “I’ll have the Osso Buco,” he said with the utmost confidence.
“Ah,” the waiter smiled his approval with a knowing nod of his head, then added, “the gentleman knows what he wants.”
We handed back our menus and waited until the waiter had returned to the kitchen before one of us asked: “What’s Osso Buco?”
“I have no idea,” Dad confessed. We all got a good laugh out of that, especially considering the waiter’s comment.
But it didn’t really matter to him. He reasoned that a dish listed as a “specialty of the house” in a really good restaurant would probably taste somewhere between good and exceptional, and he was right. His portion was adequate enough that he allowed us all a taste. I’ve ordered it in a few other restaurants, and made the dish at home, and I’m pretty sure that the first time I tasted it was the best I’ve ever had.
You see, there are times when it makes good sense to take a risk and try something new. What is there to lose? If Dad found his entrée lacking, he could always order a spectacular dessert (we had already seen the dessert cart circulating the restaurant and it was packed with goodies). He might be out the cost of his meal, but it was only a relatively small price to pay for an experiment that had a really good upside potential.
There are other choices we make in life that have more far-reaching consequences, and far worse negative outcomes. I’m reminded of the guy I knew who voted against every single incumbent in office, then found out that he had voted against his own interests in several cases. We face major choices in the upcoming election as well.
The incumbent candidate for President seems to have a less than stellar record with regard to our nation’s economy, until you consider the situation he faced when he took office. Having faced a financial abyss brought on by the previous administration’s lax oversight combined with a love of deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy, our current President has done the best possible job that he could, under the circumstances that he operated under. Our largest bank, once on the verge of bankruptcy and requiring government assistance to stay solvent, has declared a record a profit. It cited an improving housing market as a major contributing factor. Manufacturing is improving, and unemployment is gradually trending downward.
The challenger in the race for President says that his opponent hasn’t done enough, and promises more action. He has promised that cutting taxes for the truly wealthy of our country will free-up capital that will be used to create more jobs. He doesn’t add that more action will only be possible with cooperation from our legislature, which currently has a terrible record for both action and cooperation.
What is the right solution? Who gets the most precious thing we have to offer in this situation: our vote? I read recently that history is circular, and often repeats itself. Having seen this phenomenon, I tend to agree. History tells us that cutting taxes for the wealthy usually results in a large amount of money seeking speculative investments, not in job creation. If tax cuts did work as promised, why did we just go through the most adverse economic period since the Great Depression? The wealthy got their tax cuts, but we got the Housing Bubble and a stock market crash.
The last time we had a two-term Democrat for President, we got a budget surplus, a healthy economy and more peacetime jobs created in the private sector than at any time in our nation’s history. The last time we had a two-term Republican we got the Housing Bubble and the Financial Meltdown. The time before that, a two-term Republican left us with a devastated Savings and Loan industry, a ballooning deficit and a stock market crash.
Former Governor Romney has made lots of promises, but they are built on a foundation of speculation and half-truths (not to mention a few outright falsehoods). True, he seems so reasonable and so presidential. He better, he has billions of dollars of the best media money can buy behind him. The one thing he lacks is a strong foundation in historical perspective. Our past experience points to the flaw in his argument, but are enough people paying attention to reality? Let’s hope so.
So what do you plan to do with your vote? Should you throw caution to the wind and try something new? When Dad did that at the restaurant, he knew that if he left hungry there was a McDonald's that he could stop at on the way back to his hotel. If you try that at the polls this election, you may not even be able to afford to stop at McDonald's in the near future. Choose wisely.
Osso Buco (veal shanks)
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