Nothin' much to be said

I know it’s Friday and I’m supposed to be funny. But I haven’t found very much of this week amusing, so you’re on your own today.

It's all happening at the zoo

Ah, those merry folks at Copenhagen Zoo are at it again. You recall them—the ones who killed a healthy young giraffe last month because his genetic makeup was already represented in their breeding program, and then butchered his carcass in front of a crowd of families out for a Sunday jaunt. Then they fed Marius to the lions.

Well, turns out that this week they put down four of those very lions because they’re now surplus to requirements. At first I thought maybe they'd run out of ungulates to slaughter for lion chow, but it turns out that's not it.

They’re introducing a new male into the population—I guess for genetic reasons—and to make way for the import, two older and two 10-month-old males were, ah, terminated with extreme prejudice, as we’d say in another jungle.

This is on account of…well, I’m not entirely sure. The old ones might have objected to the new punk in the hood? And consequently the zoo’s ROI in the stud feline (well—isn’t that what he is?) might have been adversely affected? As for the cubs, described by the zoo in a statement as “not old enough to fend for themselves”, they would have been killed by the new male “as soon as he got the chance.”

Now there are some things about this that disturb me. The zoo’s statement says that these animals had to be killed “because of the pride of lions’ natural structure and behavior”. But there’s nothing natural about a group of lions (or any other type of animal) in a zoo. They are not in their natural environment, they enjoy none of the conditions they’d experience in the wild, their behavior is de facto not what it would be on their home turf, and none of those lions (of any age) probably knows how to fend for itself because they’re (supposed to be) looked after by humans.

Even their sex lives are controlled. That’s presumably why the new breeding male was brought in; as with Marius, evidently the existing genetic composition didn’t suit zoo management’s purposes. (I mean—they didn’t import him because he has some skillset not already present, right? He doesn’t speak rhino, for example, or know how to macramé?)

So citing a need to honor “natural structure” is bogus on the face of it.

They also used the term “euthanize” to describe the killings, which, as with Marius, I object to, since these lions’ lives were not ended “In order to relieve pain and suffering”, which is the definition of the term. They were killed because the zoo’s product roadmap has changed and they no longer fit in with the offering management thinks will provide the best customer experience.

The Guardian story mentions that Danes did not get the international reaction to the killing of Marius—some unnamed “leading expert” on animal ethics denouncing the “Disneyfication” of zoo inmates. Actually, while there might be some of that, the outrage encompasses the very anti-Disneyfication of animals—because not anthropomorphizing them is what makes you realize how much is wrong with the whole zoo setup. If you see them as members of species that were never intended by nature to live in small enclosed spaces for the entertainment (or even the edification) of humans, then you realize that killing them because they’ve become inconvenient for the institution’s breeding program is neither humane nor natural.

(Even in the horse-breeding business, once a stud has fulfilled his part of the bargain, they don’t slaughter him; they put him out to pasture. Of course, since all the wild animals kept in captivity have no residual notion of what their natural “pasture"’ looks like, much less how to survive in it, I do see the problem facing the animal keepers who want fresh bloodlines in their limited populations and constrained spaces. It’s like moving out the old sofa to make room for the spiffy new three-piece suite you think will look better in your living room.)

And it’s a good thing that the animals in the Copenhagen Zoo aren’t Disneyfied. Because if they were, there might be some yelps, screeches, roars and hisses of organized mutiny around the place. I mean—if this were a Disney movie, the critters would start to notice and remark on their comrades who keep disappearing. ‘Cause clearly ain’t nobody safe there.

Recruiters 36

I’m “working” with a recruiter for a solutions marketing position with an ad tech company here in the Valley they call Silicon.

Well, by “working” I mean she contacted me initially, couldn’t manage the schedule of the phone conversation she dictated, and when I did reach her, she neither gave nor solicited information.

If you don’t know, the recruiter’s job is much like a matchmaker’s: gather all relevant information from the hiring company/hiring manager about the company, the department, corporate/divisional goals, job requirements, what they’re looking for by way of background and personality, compensation budget, etc. Thereupon s/he trawls the jobseeker pool to find candidates that at least match the basic requirements.

But there’s more—now the job is to supplement the information on a prospect’s CV, find out where this person came from, where s/he wants to go; and determine whether there’s enough of a fit to pass on the credentials to the hiring manager.

(This obviously doesn’t apply in the contractor/body shop sphere, where all the recruiters care about is flinging CVs with some of the job listing’s buzzwords on them at clients, and hope that out of 50 one may stick. And that they can pay that person as little as possible.)

But this chick—oh, I’ll call her Myra—was having none of that. In the 12 minutes I spoke with her (these conversations usually last a minimum of half an hour) she asked me no questions about my background, what I’ve been doing or what I’m looking for. And when I asked about the corporate culture and what they’re looking for in the candidate, her answer was (and I am not making this up), “Well, I don’t live there, so I don’t know.”

She also said, “I don’t negotiate salaries”, which is interesting because generally recruiters for this kind of search get paid a percentage based on the offer salary, so it’s in their interests to try to get you as much as possible.

But, as I’ve noted in these pages in the past (just search on “Recruiters”), I long since gave up the notion that I could make sense out of these people. I just hope to God that the hiring manager has more skin in the game than Myra.

Spicy stuff

Yesterday’s post about recipes—particularly for French apple pie—put me in mind of a rather recent Muppet moment.

When you fling about half a teaspoon of thyme on your slice of French apple pie because the bottle of TJ’s thyme looks a lot like the bottle of nutmeg and your hand is moving faster than your brain or eye, what do you do?

If it’s the last piece of pie, you use your fingers to scrape off as much of the thyme as you can, slap on a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and eat it.

A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

Gratitude Monday: the gift of recipes

You know how you can tell the best recipes? They’re the ones on yellowing paper with the tattered edges, stained and sticky from reuse. And today I’m grateful for all the ones in my collection, for the ones shared by and with friends.

Recipes are powerful things. They invoke much more than lists of ingredients and preparation instructions. They tie you to memories—not only of the actual food, but to who gave it to you and whom you’ve shared it with. Maybe to meals or occasions shared with them.

They are so evocative that women in the Terezín ghetto during World War II reconstructed menus and recipes for meals in their past, meals that they would have no hope of actually preparing in their present circumstances. But remembering and recording those recipes sustained them in different ways than actual food would have done.

A few years ago I went through my recipe box and got rid of maybe a couple hundred cards; the ones I have left definitely fall into that yellowed-and-stained category.

I have a recipe for fresh strawberry pie that came from our family friend, Mrs. Dyo. You can substitute ripe peaches for the strawberries, but only if the peaches are really, really ripe and flavorful. Then it’s about the best summer dessert ever.

My carrot cake recipe came from a colleague of mine at Fort Lee, Virginia (you know—where I learned to drink coffee next to the Chemical Capital of the South). The only reason my copy of this is readable is that some years after I got it, I shared with colleagues at Hughes Aircraft Company, and one of them typed up and distributed new copies of it. That puppy’s been sent out across two continents; it’s that good and that easy.

I got the recipe for red beans and rice from Mary Pyke in grad school. The first time I tried making it I kept having to move it to larger pots because it just wouldn’t stop expanding. When I yelped to Mary about my predicament, she replied, “Oh, yeah. I should have specified that ‘Serves six’ means ‘Serves six Viking warriors.”

I’ve had my recipe for French apple pie since I first discovered that pie didn’t have to taste like the God-awful frozen things my mother passed off as dessert. It came from my friend Leilah, and has recently been amended to include variations that she and her husband John use to make regular two-crust pie. (Major up: use tapioca instead of flour to keep the juices from making the bottom crust all soggy.)

Then I adjusted the crumb topping based on input from a couple of friends who responded when I put out a Facebook cry for help. Now the topping is loose and crunchy, not hard and resembling something Xena Warrior Princess might wear.

Maybe one of my newest acquisitions is a lovely salad of grilled steak and asparagus on cress with mango slices and a ginger-hoisin dressing. That came from my friend Danger Girl, via Twitter. It’s wonderful. You’ll know that even before you stick a fork in the salad because the recipe—not six months old—is already stained from splashes of the dressing.

I don’t know where I got the recipe for English toffee. The card is not only sticky and yellowed (even though by now I can make it from memory), it’s got a scorch mark from me leaving it on a burner I didn’t realize I’d turned on. I also don’t know how many times I’ve shared that recipe—people love it, and it’s easy as pie to make.

(Although, actually, pie isn’t all that easy. At least not pie crust. You need a “touch” with pastry to get it right. But I have a great recipe and I’m happy to share.)

Cornish pasties (oh, lord—the pastry has both lard and suet; I swear the filling is just my socially-acceptable rationale for making and eating that tender, tasty crust) from my grandmother, bread dressing from my great grandmother (marjoram instead of sage), cottage pie (lamb is expensive, so no shepherd’s pie) from Hugh Featheringill-Whittlestonefordly (whatever his name is), shortbread from my friend Bridget Navarro in Korea, fresh cranberry relish (mash-up from several sources)—I’ve shared them all with friends, who now have them in their collective memory.

Going digital—putting recipes on computer—is good, because I have a tendency to scribble things on paper, clip stuff out of newspapers, etc., which I often lose. But the recipe you look at on your device is never going to be an indicator of how good it is—you wipe the floury fingerprints off the screen after making it, and move on. It looks the same whether you’ve made it once or once a month. The ingredients and instructions are always neutral; no scribbled annotations of variations you’ve tried or outcomes. No memos about which occasions you served them on—they’re just there, like any other domestic tool. So I’m always going to have printouts to carry around with me when gathering the ingredients.

So, really grateful for recipes that nourish me and connect me in so many tangible ways with my friends and family. As an aside—if you know anything that smells better than apple pie baking, I want you to tell me what it is and give me your recipe for it.