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A Thanksgiving Recipe

Years ago, at the top of the 1960's and the bottom of the 1970's, when I was living in Santa Cruz, California, there was there an organization called a food conspiracy.  There wasn't really much to this food conspiracy.  It was the shadow side of small neighborhood food co-ops that ran out of people's garages,  churches, etc.  Under this style food co-op, buying clubs, someone would get a order list from each member in the neighborhood, based on what was available to buy in bulk, and money from each member.  Then they would meet together to fill the orders.  On the shadow side, some of the Peace and Freedom Party types would let people know about places they could get free food.

The big suppliers of free food for the food conspiracy were the huge piles of brusell sprouts piled up between the beaches and the growers fields along the north Santa Cruz County coasts.  Really I don't think anything illegal was really going on; the growers didn't care if you took the surplus sprouts.  It just gave an aura of revolutionary conspiracy to the whole matter, a dash of romance.  Santa Cruz had a lot of romance and some revolution in those days.

Brusell sprouts were ubiquitous in Santa Cruz county, a leading growing area for them due to the salty, sometimes foggy, usually sunny and moderate coast. Once when I was at the beach with my friend Dave Foster and his brother we had a bottle of wine and some baby cabbages from the pile.  We meet Asian farmworkers, I think Filipinos who perhaps only spoke Taglog. They definitely did not speak English but food has a common language.  They were cooking rice and fish.  We added our veggie and wine and all of us had a feast together.  Maybe that is a sort of conspiracy to break bread together, I don't know.

Later, in the mid-70's I meet my friend Betty A. Carey, of whom I have already written.
(see these posts:
http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2010/11/green-bullets.html
http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2010/11/more-on-betty-carey.html )

Betty, as I have previous noted, loved brussell sprouts even more than I do and she called them, curiously, green bullets.  I have never heard this vernacular nomenclature for the green pygmy heads from anyone else before or since.

Today my plans have changed and I am eating at home, giving me a chance to try a recipe in Betty's honor. I was going to my brother's house, but foul weather has changed plans. Fortunately I have someone to try my cooking on, and I will let you all know if he survives.   My friend and roommate Scott left for a family dinner, giving me the opportunity to feed the homeless guy that Scott has been helping.

So I am going to share my recipe with you  and you let me know also, if your guests survive.

Betty A. Carey Green Bullet Goulash

Steam 1lb of brusell sprouts until tender.
Sautee 1/4 of a red onion, one can mushrooms, or fresh mushrooms, a jar red bell peppers chopped (or fresh, the sprouts and one half lb of shredded pork until ingredients tender and well mixed.

Happy Thanksgiving for everyone except the turkey and God Bless.

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