The Best Vegan Zucchini Fritters and God Bless Lin Manuel Miranda

I served, on a glorious bed of fresh chard, sauteed with ¼ cup small chunks of white onion and topped for color, steamed beets. Guys, it doesn’t get much better.

Speaking of getting much better. 

Did any of you watch Hamilton on Disney+? If you haven’t, and you have the station, sit down and treat yourself to this super-musical. Once I wrapped my head around the hip-hop rap, I was transfixed as pure unadulterated energy seemed to boom out of the screen. From the very first wild minutes to the heartbreaking end, we didn’t move.

And what a story! 

I had no idea about the scope of his romantic life (I won’t spoil it, but Elizabeth’s and Anjelica’s love songs were heartstopping) Did you know? Hamilton brokered a deal with King George, after delivering England a sound defeat; making them one of our key trading partners. By doing so, it enabled both countries to recoup from the monetary losses of the war, and America began thriving as an independent new country. (Rick and I spent Sunday morning reading about Alexander Hamilton and his wife, who deserves a musical about her long life. She worked until she was ninety-five in the first  orphanage in the Americas. BTW she founded . It was a great read. I encourage you to do the same.)

With raucous and joyous music 

and that unbelievable thrum of a beat we celebrated along with the cast. And the timing too, couldn’t have been more perfect. The words of one of the first numbers sung,“Talk less, listen more” resonated with me…

When Hamilton opened in NYC,

I fantasized about going. And then when I saw how much the tickets cost, I switched from wanting to go, to being good and pissed off that we couldn’t afford it. I contemplated writing a letter to Lin Manuel Miranda, full of self-righteous indignation about the exorbitant ticket prices, but like a lot of those kinds of letters, it didn’t get written, but I complained to anyone who would listen….When it was announced it was going to be streamed on TV, I cheered, Mr. Miranda, the producers and Disney+. Later, as I enjoyed every second of this production, I was reminded of the value of live theater. Huge! But, seeing it streamed on TV, and making it accessible to the masses, freaking brilliant!

It was a perfect end to an unusually quiet 4th.

Though we did get into a rousing game of Monopoly Frozen with our two grandkids, not a firecracker was heard. Rick’s unused water balloon and ingenious water balloon filler are still sitting on the counter. I keep thinking about all the payback we’ll get from unsuspecting neighbors who we are planning on bombarding. I overheard Jon Easterbrook (the mandarin grower, I wrote about in a previous blog; Warm Grains are the Shit Literally and Figuratively), talking about building a catapult with Rick the other day…It’s great to be alive..