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Will You Be My Valentine?

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While most Parisians were Saint Sebastian-ing the onslaught of bows Cupid shot off at sunrise, I had my nose in a troubling article in The Guardian Weekly:  “Afghan law allows men to attack wives.”

Apparently Afghanistan’s parliament has passed a law that leaves wives, children and sisters free game for violent hombres and their prized “honour killings.”   Under this law, relatives of accused people will be banned from testifying against them, leaving the vulnerable victims no hope for recourse to justice.   The law is now on the desk of President Karzai awaiting his veto or approval and the world is wondering if the man has a modicum of sanity and decency.

Things are not looking good for our sisters in Afghanistan.

And what this makes me feel, alongside my rage, is a burning desire to fan the flames of love, to round up the pudgy Cupids of Europe and get them employed pummeling that parliament and its president with arrows till their hearts break and something sensible, clean and sustainable enters them: love for their sisters.

Will love conquer all?  Of course!   We just forget it will about 99% of the time.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD3v5Cn8BGE

To express my love for my sisters and my brothers I’ve made a valentine cake.  In the batter I placed a prayer for that veto.

If you’d like to make one too, here’s the recipe.

Solidarity Cake

To make this cake you start by adding the yogurt into a mixing bowl, then save the yogurt pot to measure the rest of the ingredients.  For those of you familiar with the classic “gâteau au yaourt” and perhaps bored with it, I urge you to try this recipe because it’s so much better than the usual. It comes from my friend Vania who writes cookbooks.

– 1 small, individual size pot of yogurt

– 2 pots of sugar

– 1 pot of melted butter

– 2 pots of flour

– 1 pot of ground almonds

– 1 teaspoon of baking soda (or 1 packet of “levure”)

– 3 eggs

– a small bowl of raspberries or blueberries

Mix together all ingredients, then add the fruit lightly at the end.  Bake at 180 Celsius (or whatever that might be in Fahrenheit) for about 20 min.