Fried Chicken Cutlets & Fuck Yes Ohio
Buckeyes vote to establish a constitutional right to abortion!
Hi friends,
I make sandwiches and chat about sexism, misogyny, reproductive rights, and other stuff on TikTok and Instagram. I wrote about how it all started in this post. Thank you for being here. Please tell your friends, if you dig my sammies. There’s a recipe for an extremely delicious one below!
Ohio Voters Tell the GOP to Get Bent
Abortion rights activists were screaming with joy and relief when the results of Tuesday’s election in Ohio were announced: voters said YES to Issue 1, giving individuals the “right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions.”
From APNews.com:
Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment that ensures access to abortion and other forms of reproductive health care, the latest victory for abortion rights supporters since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
Ohio became the seventh state where voters decided to protect abortion access after the landmark ruling and was the only state to consider a statewide abortion rights question this year.
It's a huge deal, and the battle to get there was fought uphill against a torrent of crap from anti-abortion groups and the GOP. In August, the Republican-controlled state legislature called a special election that was aimed at undermining Issue 1 by making constitutional changes more difficult to pass, requiring 60% of the vote rather than a simple majority. Voters resoundingly rejected that special election question, and they hit the polls on Tuesday to pass Issue 1, 57 to 43%.
Of course, fuckery abounds. Just two days after the citizen-led ballot initiative was approved by voters, four weaselly Ohio Republican state lawmakers released a statement that they will seek to strip judges of their power to interpret the abortion rights amendment in order to prevent it from being enshrined into the Constitution. As Aaron Rupar put it:
It would be funny, if it weren’t so deadly fucking serious, and getting worse all the time. Did anyone catch Trump’s Veterans’ Day speech? It chilled me to the bone when I listened to a portion of it, and it was 76 and sunny here in Los Angeles.
I know I’m all over the place here, like a flea-ridden cat on a hot tin roof, but I have been thinking about how bad it all seems, how bad, and then, how awful it all has been, throughout history, for centuries and millenia… and that’s sort of calming, in a way. Do you know “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats? He wrote it in 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War.
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
It’s a terrifying poem, but it gives me a small measure of comfort. Over one hundred years ago, Yeats was horrified by the world around him. As we are horrified by events unfolding in our time, we can’t let them paralyze us. We can’t become the best who lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
The rough beast is always slouching towards Bethlehem, isn’t it?
Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos & A Tale of Coming Home
I co-host a podcast called Weed + Grub with comedian Mike Glazer. We’ve got upwards of 350 eps available wherever you get your pods! Sometimes it’s just the two of us, talking about very important topics like corn-loading (basically a DIY colon cleanse before a road trip, very handy to know about); sometimes we have a wonderful guest, like Roxane Gay or Trixie Mattel or Megan Rapinoe. This week, we had the wonderful, magical, brilliant and weird Reggie Watts on!
I met Reggie in 2003 or ‘04, back in my Seattle/NYC theater days. We had a bunch of friends in common, and I loved going to see his shows. I spent a month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006 going to his show after my own show wrapped because it was so much fun to watch him create a new set every night. I did a show called RADIO PLAY with him in 2011, and it was a true joy. (My contribution was a high-octane 10-minute solo version of Fatal Attraction. That movie is perfect.) If you’ve had the good fortune to see Reggie perform live, you know how fucking awesome he is.
Anyhow, Reggie has written an absolutely beautiful book called Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again. It’s his story of growing up in Montana as a biracial oddball struggling to navigate life, girls, drugs, and his own identity in America’s heartland. And a super cool bonus to the book is that he’s included QR codes to his music so you can play the soundtrack as you read. Great Falls, MT would make a great gift for anyone who loves cool shit. Get two copies!!
Fried Chicken Cutlet Sandwich with Sriracha Mayo
Ok, sammy time! This was a particularly satisfying recipe, because the topic I was making a video about was so damn infuriating. Lubbock County, TX became the fourth county in the state to vote for an ordinance that would bar pregnant Texas women from traveling through the county for an abortion in another state.
What. The. Fuck.
So, I pounded chicken cutlets. I fried them up. And I ate the sandwich with my eyes closed to shut out the patriarchy. I got this recipe from the recently released cookbook Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods by Alex Guarnaschelli and Ava Clark, and tweaked it very slightly.
INGREDIENTS (yields 4 sandwiches)
For the chicken:
2 large eggs
1½ cups plain breadcrumbs
1½ cups panko breadcrumbs
4 chicken cutlets (from the breast), 5 to 6 ounces each, pounded thin
1/4 cup olive oil
kosher salt
For the mayonnaise:
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I used Kewpie)
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon Sriracha
For the sandwiches:
1 medium head iceberg lettuce, shredded
4 brioche buns
12-16 pickle rounds
Make Yourself a Sandwich
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a plate with a paper towel.
PREP THE CHICKEN: In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs. In another medium bowl, combine the plain and panko breadcrumbs. Dip each cutlet thoroughly in the eggs and then through the breadcrumbs so both sides are well coated. Feel free to press the chicken into the breadcrumbs so they stick better on each side. Place the chicken in a single layer on a baking sheet and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
COOK THE CHICKEN: In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. When the oil begins to smoke lightly, remove the pan from the heat and add the chicken pieces carefully in a single layer. Return the pan to the heat and cook on the first side until golden brown, 5 to 8 minutes. Use metal tongs or a large metal spatula to gently turn them on their second side. Cook for an additional 5 to 8 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Transfer the cutlets to the prepared plate to drain slightly. Season both sides of each cutlet with salt.
MAKE THE MAYONNAISE: In a medium bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, red wine vinegar, Sriracha and garlic powder. Taste for seasoning.
ASSEMBLE THE SANDWICHES: Sprinkle some lettuce on the bottoms of the buns and top with some of the Sriracha mayo. (That way the lettuce protects the bread, and the mayo directly connects with and moistens the chicken cutlets.) Place a cutlet, more of the mayo, and the pickles on top. Top with the other half of the bread.
This recipe is so good that I’ve made it 4 or 5 times. Send me pics of your sandwiches!
Last Licks
Merch! Don’t you just love merch? Don’t you want a My Sandwich, My Choice T-shirt? Just look at how cute these are! Wouldn’t this make a perfect stocking stuffer for that person in your life who loves reproductive freedom? Wouldn’t you look fantastic in one? Get your T-shirt here!!!
https://itsthemayoforme.myshopify.com/
Thank you all for hanging out with me. More soon. - MJ ❤️🥪