It's a boy!

Our fourth grandbaby, due September 9, is a boy. His parents saw his anatomically correct picture yesterday, and his father posted it on the refrigerator. His grandfather and I have taken to calling him Cholmondeley (pronounced Chumley), which goes very well with his last name.

Naturally, I’m thinking about gender.

We’ve been keeping track of Cholmondeley for three months, ever since he was the size of an almond. As he grew, we called him the Kiwi, the Peach, and the Hamster. But now that we know his gender, he’s a person.

I know, I know. Depending on your philosophy, he’s been a person since the moment he was conceived, or possibly from all eternity. Or, on the other hand, he won’t be a person until he’s born, or possibly later, but is in the process of becoming one. Gender has nothing to do with it.

But I’m not speaking scientifically or theologically or philosophically or politically. I’m just saying how I feel, as his grandmother. I can imagine him now, this second grandson of mine. I can think about how he’ll look in those little-boy outfits at Carson’s that line the aisle between women’s lingerie and the women’s lounge (their marketers know that grandmothers are likely to walk that way). I can wonder if his tastes will run to stuffed bunnies or board books or finger paints or drums.

Some years ago, when I was working for a religion publishing company, several authors and I got into lengthy discussions about gender pronouns. Our editorial policy insisted upon gender neutrality in referring to people, but we were fuzzier about how to refer to God.

One author upbraided me every time she noticed a book of ours using masculine pronouns for God. God is neither male nor female, she rightly observed, and using he, him, and his when writing about God perpetuates misleading stereotypes.

Another author rightly observed that we simply can’t speak of an individual person without gender references. To refuse to use personal pronouns for God, this author insisted, was to rob God of God’s personal characteristics and to turn God into some kind of impersonal force – besides, of course, butchering the English language.

I agree with both authors, and I suggest that for the next four millennia – equal to about the amount of time we monotheists have been calling God he – we call God she. Feminine pronouns are as inaccurate as masculine pronouns, they do an equally good job of emphasizing God’s personal nature, and for many people they make God seem warmer and more accessible, sort of like the Blessed Virgin.

Myself, I like to think of God as a large, comfortable, but no-nonsense woman who hugs me when I need to be hugged and chews me out when I need to behave. I call her LaHoveh. She’s certainly a mother and, given how long she’s been in business, she’s clearly a grandmother too. I imagine she’s already looking out for Cholmondeley.

What civil discourse sounds like

Like you, I have friends who lean left and friends who lean right. Sometimes we all get along just fine, sometimes we annoy one another, and sometimes we de-friend each other on Facebook. I've been thinking about what makes the difference, and I decided to try to write something that we all might confirm - unless, of course, we would really rather rant than communicate. Wouldn't it be lovely if we could combine conviction with passionate intensity - and still talk peaceably with one another!

Choose your column ...

Food bullies

Back in the 70s, a little truck-stop restaurant in the wilds of Eastern Washington became locally famous because its French patronne did not mind insulting her clients. Order wrongly, and she would refuse to grant your request. Salt before tasting, and she would angrily remove the salt shaker from your table.

When Mr Neff and I finally worked up enough courage to go to her restaurant, which was reputed to have excellent food despite the neon Pepsi sign in its front window, I decided to hedge my bets by talking to the dragon lady en français, which I spoke rather well at the time. Predictably, she was thrilled - finally someone who might understand her cooking!

When it was time for dessert, we ordered the small cup of ice cream that came with our prix fixe meal. La patronne vehemently disagreed. "You must have the tarte aux framboises," she told us.

"Oh, but Madame," we protested, "the meal was so satisfying that we couldn't possibly. All we want is a small dessert."

"No," she insisted. "You must have the raspberry tart. The people in the booth behind you wanted it, and I told them they couldn't have it. There are only two pieces left, and they are yours."

We had no choice. She brought the tart.

I have never, before or since, eaten anything like it. Each slice was a perfect triangle of raspberries arranged like a dry-stone wall with no visible mortar. Each raspberry was small and bursting with flavor (I suspect the raspberries came out of her garden). The crust was light and sweet and perfect. The first bite was exquisite, and every subsequent mouthful was even better, pleasure layering on pleasure.

So I am somewhat sympathetic to the chefs I read about in Diane Cardwell's article, "Have It Your Way? Purist Chefs Won't Have It," in yesterday's New York Times:

New York has spawned a breed of hard-line restaurants and cafes that are saying no. No to pouring takeout espressos, or grinding more than a pound of coffee at a time. No to taming the intensity of a magma-spicy dish. And most of all, no to the 21st-century conviction that everything can be accessorized to the customer’s taste.

If you want excellent food, why mess with the recommendations of experts?

On the other hand, if you know what you like, why let experts bully you into eating or drinking what you don't want?

OK, there are several good reasons: (1) to learn to like something new (isn't this what we tell our children when we offer them, say, their first bite of avocado?), (2) to learn why we like what we like so we're more sure of getting it next time, (3) to discover that food we don't think we like, prepared brilliantly, is actually quite good ... well, all the reasons seem to come back to learning.

And learning is why I checked out Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl's Drink This: Wine Made Simple when I saw it on the new-books shelves at the public library - and why, after reading a couple of chapters, I actually bought my own copy. Grumdahl is hilarious. She knows wine. She explains things well. She has devised a clever system to help wine novices have fun while learning much more than they're likely to learn from more exhaustive books.

And yet, bless her, she doesn't suffer bullies gladly. From her "Wine Drinker's Bill of Rights":

Your whole life has been one cumulative process adding up to your own taste. No person, critic, wine shop clerk, or anyone else has a right to disparage or discount it. If you want to drink Bordeaux with your oysters, Port with your burger, or Chardonnay with your fried chicken, it is no one's business but your own. No one lives with your taste buds but you, so no one really knows what you are experiencing except you. It's your taste!

Right on, Ms. Grumdahl. Life is too short to drink wine you don't like because it's popular or snobby or expensive, or even because the server raised one eyebrow when you started to order a different wine. In fact, despite wine's popularity, why drink it at all if you don't like it? As Grumdahl advises,

If wine can't provide happiness, it should get out of the way and let something else do it, like chocolate.

Or like that heavenly raspberry tart - even though I allowed a stubborn restauratrice to bully me into eating it.