Snowed in! Time for some hot-weather inspired comfort food.

Read on for how to make these babies in your own oven!

Hello readers, and welcome once again to the life of Bonnie. When I'm not thinking about politics I am living life, and today that means I got sent home from work early due to an impending blizzard. After having a serious bike-ride home in the snow (wow, what a rush!) I decided to make some comfort food and chill. Things turned out so delicious, I decided to share my creations with the world.

1. Mediterranean-inspired white bean hummus

Ingredients:

1 can white beans, drained with water set aside (sometimes called cannelini, sometimes called white kidney beans)

1 T tahini

2t lemon juice

2 cloves garlic

2T olive oil (or more if you're feeling it)

A nice smattering of the following (I didn't measure, just do about a teaspoon of each except the cayenne and black pepper, which you should just sprinkle in).

paprika

cumin

black pepper

ground coriander seeds

cayenne pepper

fresh or dried parsely
Salt to taste

Method:

Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend. If the consistency is too dry or sort of "cakey," add small amounts of the bean-water you set aside. When desired consistency is achieved, taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. Add salt if needed. Enjoy with pitas or crackers or veggies!

2. Baked curry fries

Ingredients:

2 medium sized russet potatoes or whatever you have

olive oil, enough to coat potatoes (probably about 1/4 cup or less)

3 T curry powder, or make your own! I do equal parts cumin, ground coriander, and turmeric, plus cayenne, black pepper, garlic powder, salt, onion powder, and maybe a little cinnamon if I'm feeling it.

Method:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees farenheit. Cut the potatoes into sticks, about 1/3 inch in width. I leave the skins on for extra flavor, but peel if you'd rather. The best way to cut the potatoes is to cut off the ends, slice them the long way into planks, then separate your planks into 2 piles with flat bottoms, and cut into sticks. Place your sticks into a large mixing bowl and pour the olive oil over them. Then add some of your curry powder, a little at a time with mixing in-between to ensure that all your fries are coated. Arrange them in one layer on a cookie sheet lubricated with cooking spray, or on top of parchment paper. Bake about 30-40 minutes until crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Serve immediately with a nice yogurt sauce or just ketchup. Yum!

Please ask if my recipes don't make sense! I'm a new blogger and all that. I hope you all are having an excellent leap day, and if you prefer politics to cooking, don't worry, there will be more to come.

Transvaginal ultrasounds and state legislatures. What do I think?

As a follower of several news blogs on reproductive health (not to mention my part-time life as a public health student studying such topics), I have been thinking lately about the transvaginal ultrasound bill that has been generating buzz in Virginia. I understood from the news that the debate was over the fact that the bill included language about showing patients their fetus as an ultrasound image and having them listen to the heartbeat, something the pro-life side thought might deter them from going through with the procedure. The pro-choice side seems to be saying that forcing women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds is akin to forced vaginal penetration (some are even saying rape). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that a nutshell would encase as much.

You can read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/sunday-review/ultrasound-a-pawn-in-the-abortion-wars.html

My feelings are somewhat mixed. I do not feel that the legislature has any right to dictate what a doctor or health center's steps should be in providing abortion care, and I think this is the heart of the issue. But to compare transvaginal ultrasounds to forced penetration or rape sends the wrong message to women. My thought process is thus:

When I worked at reproductive health clinic that provided abortions in the first trimester, we always did a transvaginal ultrasound before the procedure. Of course, women always have the right to refuse medical treatment (see cobbs v. grant, etc.) but if one of our patients refused an ultrasound, she would not be allowed to obtain the abortion procedure. Ultrasounds were necessary because we needed to medically determine that the pregnancy was inside the uterus: Ectopic pregnancy, or pregnancy implanted somewhere other than the uterine wall, can be fatal. Not only will the ectopic pregnancy go undetected without an ultrasound (a pregnancy test will still show up positive in this case), the abortion will not work. In addition, certain types of abortion can only be performed when the fetus is a certain gestational age, and ultrasound is one of the most accurate means of measuring the length of a pregnancy. In other words, it must be determined that the dating is sufficiently early to have the either a vacuum aspiration or medication abortion successfully. In our clinic, if a pregnancy was not found in the uterus or if the pregnancy was too far along, we would refer the patient elsewhere for more advanced care.

Again, I do not believe that the legislature belongs in the exam room during an abortion procedure. Every health center must have the freedom to make their own rules, as mine did, about what medical policies should be. But using words like forced penetration and rape make it seem to the general public that transvaginal ultrasounds before abortions are always bad, when in fact, they can be quite helpful. The issue seems to be instead the idea of forcing women to look at the images and hear the heartbeat. In my clinic, we offered women a chance to see the image, but did not force them if they declined. Many wanted to and expressed relief at it not looking like they expected (e.g. not looking like the images on the signs of protesters they had seen).

I understand opposition to this bill, and I myself stand with such opposition. But we must be sensible in our arguments and think about the message we are sending to women about abortion. What are your thoughts?

Welcome!

Lately I have been toying with the idea of making my thoughts and opinions public on the internet, for, if anything, to have a record of what I thought about things as they happened. I don't have a specific theme for these posts as of yet, but I have a feeling the topics will come down to my favorite things: reproductive health politics, bikes, vegetarian cooking, and the higher education system (which I am currently a part of). I'm also a feminist, listener of music, sex-positive thinker, and intellectual. Got me? Good.

I prefer to use the term curious because I like to wonder about things, and my opinions are almost never fixed. Please feel free to comment and I will consider what you have to say and respond if I have the time and energy. I'm almost always willing to see all sides of an argument, or use new pieces of evidence to reconstruct my thoughts. This is my academic side and I like it until it gets me in trouble for seeing things in too many shades of grey.

That's all for now, check back soon!