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I hope you are all surviving our long Rochester winter. We are returning to the tropical environment of Pineapple Jack’s for First Thirstday this month to help shake off the winter doldrums. Our IFN stop this month is in warm sunny Thailand with a visit to The King & I restaurant in Henrietta. I hope these events will help you make it through the long winter stretch before spring.
We will need some volunteer judges to help Steve Lindsey and Praveen Tyle with the 2007-08 MERF Essay Scholarship Contest. The judging can be done with a group or a packet of essays can be mailed to you if a group setting isn’t convenient. This is an important cause and one of the finest things Mensa does. If you have some time to spare to help with this very worthy endeavor, please give me a call @ 216-9017.
As always, if you have an idea for an event or know of a fun place to hold an event please let me know about it. This is your group, have fun with it and share your experiences with the rest of us. I hope to see you at this month’s events.
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Best regards, Jeff Gould Rochester Area Mensa Locsec |
Member input for the newsletter is welcome. Deadline for publication in the March newsletter is February 17, 2008.
Email either a Microsoft Word document or .rtf file
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Welcome to New Member: Casey L. Cazer |
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Welcome to Move-In Members: Jorge L. Avila Rebeca N. Marquez |
As of January 1, members have a new privacy release option available to them: “Release my contact information to candidates in American Mensa elections.”
The default for this option is “release to candidates”. If you do not want to receive election-relation material from AML candidates, uncheck the box in your online profile (www.us.mensa.org/profile) or select “no” on the PDF Scantron form after you renew. You can also contact the national office directly to change this and other releases.
Good Wine Cheap (and good food to go with it)
By John Grover
This month’s column is again inspired by our recent trip to Russia. River cruises in Europe are a wonderful way to travel for an aging baby-boomer. And, beginning every day with a Mimosa at breakfast is a delightful bit of decadence.
The Russian and German culinary staff on the ship produced some excellent meals. A notable highlight of each meal was the soup, whether emphasizing a meat, vegetable or fish. Borscht is probably the most recognizable and traditional of Russian soups with as many variations in recipes as there are Russian Grandmothers. Our friend Mandy cooked the recipe below to rave reviews at our last gourmet club.
This month’s wine is a flavorful red recommended by our friend Tina. It is the 2005 Windmill Estate Old Vines Zinfandel bottled by Michael-David Vineyards of Lodi, California. This wine starts out with a nose that gives a striking expectation of a big fruity wine. But, it has a smooth almost mild taste more like a good Merlot, except with a tad more fruit. The taste is a subtle berry with a hint of vanilla and a bit of pepper at the finish. It will go well with the hearty soup below. I have found it in several stores for between $8 and $11 a bottle.
Russian Beet Soup (Borscht )
(adapted from the recipegoldmine.com website)
Ingredients:
Heat water and beans to boiling in Dutch oven (a soup pot about 4 to 6 qts.); boil 2 minutes. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 1 hour. Add beef, pork, beef broth, salt and pepper to beans. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer until beef is tender 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Shred beets or cut into 1/4-inch strips.
Remove pork from Dutch oven; cool slightly. Remove pork from bone and trim fat; cut into bite-size pieces. Add pork, beets, onions, garlic, potatoes and cabbage to beef mixture. Tie dill seed and pickling spice in cheesecloth bag or place in tea ball; add to beef mixture. Cover and simmer 2 hours. Stir in vinegar; simmer 10 minutes. Remove spice bag. Serve with sour cream; sprinkle with minced dill weed, if desired. Yields 6 servings.
I hope that you will contact me with your comments and favorite wines at I will be happy to share them with the broader Mensa group.
John Grover is a member of Mensa of Northeastern New York. He lives with his wife Sharon in the Hudson Valley of New York.
Thursday, February 7th @ 8:00 PM, “First Thirstday” at Pineapple Jack’s, 485 Spencerport Rd., Gates (in Colonial Plaza just west of Long Pond Rd.) 247-5225. Come out for an evening in the sunny warm tropics with a visit to Pineapple Jack’s. The winter’s been long enough and it’s time for some palm trees and margaritas.
Saturday, February 9th @ 12 Noon, “Lunch & Winter Outing” meet at Bob’s Diner, 2199 East Henrietta Rd. (in Suburban Plaza), 334-4170. Lunch will be followed by a winter walk at Tinker Nature Park where snowshoe and cross country ski rental is available at the Hansen Nature Center, 1525 Calkins Rd., 359-7044, for $2 provided there is at least 8” of snow. Half mile nature trail is generous boardwalk through woods; peripheral trail is just over a mile long. Bambi & Rudolph (alias Sue Keller & John Bland) look forward to seeing you.
Thursday, February 21st @ 6:30 PM, “International Food Night” at The King and I, 1475 East Henrietta Rd. (just south of the railroad overpass on the west side of the road), 427-8090. Come out for an evening in warm sunny Thailand with a visit to The King and I. The food is excellent and the atmosphere is warm and casual.
Thursday, February 28th @ 7:00 PM, “Fold, Spindle & Mutilate Party” (newsletter production) at The Walton’s Home, 33 Whippletree Rd., Fairport, 377-1686. Come for snacks, pop, conversation and a first look at the March newsletter.
Thursday, March 6th @ 8:00 PM, “First Thirstday” at Woody’s II, 2758 West Henrietta Rd. (about a quarter mile north of Brighton-Henrietta T.L. Rd.), 424-6440. Come and enjoy a fun evening of good food and good company at Woody’s II.
Note: In the unlikely event there is a problem with our reservation when we arrive we may need to make a decision to move to another venue on the spot. We will wait a half hour before moving to allow for late arrivals so try not to arrive later than this so you know where we are in the event of a move.
Guests are welcome at all events, unless noted otherwise.
Please call the Mensaphone, 251-4167, for last minute changes in time or venue.
RVC 3 Thoughts, Winter '07 - '08
Hello all! Another year draws rapidly to a close and a new one is dawning. Please accept my sincerest wishes to all of you for a rewarding and fulfilling New Year. With a little luck and a lot of personal effort, we should all be able to achieve just that.
Your AMC had a productive meeting the first weekend in December. While no single topic was of extraordinary importance, cumulatively a lot of ground was covered. The mini minutes of the meeting are posted on the national web site and the following comments are my take on the issues and topics presented. As usual, opinions and reasons for positions were all over the map. With a twenty-one member board, that should be expected.
Item 7, Change to Bylaws, designating the head of a local group as chief executive instead of the current local secretary, was postponed. This was to be a housekeeping item but a lot of spirited discussion arose concerning the need for this and the burden and cost of changing all the references of local secretary. Goes to show that any item can be contentious.
Items 8 & 9 were sent back to committee. Changing the way RVC vacancies are filled is necessary because the current method is not in compliance with New York State corporate law (Mensa is incorporated in New York). Having a special election among regional loc secs is less costly than a special election involving the regional membership, but this might not hold up if challenged in court (who would do such a thing?). The AMC wants to get this one right, because it is the type of procedure that one wants to remain stable. However, if the relatively new Planning Committee is energetic enough to tackle restructuring the AMC, the RVCs might not be in the mix; only nationally elected officers. More on this thought later.
Item 11, Nominating process changes was voted down and item 12 withdrawn accordingly. Some on the AMC favor strictly controlling who gets to run for national office and how. Some of us favor opening up the field as widely as possible. I'd much rather see four or five candidates for each office (or even more) than the current one or two. It's healthier for the organization. Keeping the nominating procedure user friendly will help accommodate this.
Item 14, Alcohol Consumption Policy, was a real sleeper and drew the most discussion and debate. Does Mensa strictly speaking need such a policy? Of course not. Is it a prudent idea to have some kind of formal stand on the issue recorded? You bet. After many tortuous hours in the hot, unyielding Florida sun, with food and fresh water running low and the surf beginning to kick up in advance of an imminent hurricane - oh, just kidding. I'll get a work of fiction written based on an AMC meeting yet. Seriously, this topic took the most time to resolve. It is a fine example of trying to balance the freedoms and rights of members with the need to limit the liability of the organization as a whole. Ultimately, paragraphs 1 & 4 were adopted, the others discarded. This will arise again, to be sure, but at least a lot of thought has been given to it.
Finally, a vision statement and short and long term goals were approved. Not very exciting, but under the short term goals there is a sleeper. The goal of assessing the structure of the AMC could lead to positive changes. In my humble opinion, having a board of twenty-one members accomplishes nothing that a smaller board of perhaps fifteen, thirteen, or even eleven could. In fact, it is a hindrance since most topics don't warrant the input of twenty-one persons. It's not as if twenty-one original, unique ideas are created. There's two or three and the members of the AMC take sides with one of them. It is costly to transport the current board to their meetings and provide meals and lodging. In this age of e-mail and computers, fewer can often do more. What are your thoughts on this?
Please share your thoughts or concerns on any topic with me. Also, candidates for national office will be announcing in just five or six months. Start giving this topic some serious thought. Are you totally satisfied with the administration of Mensa? If so, there will be candidates admirably suited to maintaining the status quo. Would you like change, a breath of fresh air perhaps? Then look for and support those candidates of change. Only your vote will make a difference.