As caucus feeding frenzy comes to a gluttonous end in the inland state of Iowa there are likely more coastal journalists, consultants, and other out of state lookie-loos there than native caucus-goers. Last night from several states away I watched Chris Matthews and other television hosts broadcast their shows from local restaurants and cafes across Iowa. I was reminded of my many gourmet dinner outings with my mother who retired back to her native state of Iowa. On my visits from California we often ate dinner in a small cafe. It had a separate "salad bar" and the entrees never changed---Chicken, Beef or Fish, no need for further amplification, it was all---Fried.

The salad bar consisted of patches of iceberg lettuce, sweet green beans, fruit-cocktail, onion slices in a sweet dressing, a sweet corn relish, vanilla pudding with wafers and ambrosia fruit salad---all of which, in my experience, was the basis of a typical Iowa diet. If any candidate who is not used to a farm-hand dinner expects to surge late in an Iowa primary, say Santorum, he would have had to learn how to casually pick at his food on the campaign trail to avoid late onset diabetes, or a stroke. Concurrent with the Santorum surge there was a surge of ambrosia fruit salad of at least 10 tons.(*) (**)

As a boy Iowa seemed like a magical place to me. Every year we would load up the car in Ohio and drive out to see all the relatives. We stayed on a working farm and my sister and I would poach class in a one room school house across the road. I remember when we were taken out of school in April and driven to Iowa in an old Ford for a visit because my Dad's draft number was likely to be called. Home radios were run on car batteries, runt piglets were put in a warming oven to try to save them. My uncle, sitting on the front porch, knocked off a chicken from fifty feet away with a 22 rifle---:"Now, Oxy, run out and get that chicken so we can fix him for dinner." My Dad wasn't drafted and I'm not sure of all of the details about why we went to Iowa. Those are questions I wished I had asked my parents.

Reflecting upon Santorum's mini surge in Iowa and watching interviews on MSNBC and elsewhere I have many mixed emotions about the culture there---particularly the prevalence of the religious right and the host of social conservatives. I know that Iowa also has many liberals and centrists, particularly in the Eastern parts, and that the upcoming election will be close. I am bothered by the overt religion among my distant cousins but I am also drawn to their rural and clannish natures, the core of the Santorum supporters---there is a comfort there, like they and their sweet salads are an important part of my heritage. They do in fact have strong family ties and they do not squeal with delight over sushi or escargot, nor fuss over wines. 

Just now I had a yen for sliced roast beef from a large square tin with mashed potatoes and gravy, instead of the sauteed sea scallops on a bed of orange wedges, caramelized onions, and capers---drizzelled in rice wine vinegar---that I had to endure for dinner this evening. 

I watched interviews from towns whose names I first heard when I was four years old---Atlantic, Avoca, Shelby, Neola.  The people seemed different, more forward, more harsh. Iowa folks haven't given up their sweet salad bars and iceberg lettuce---so my memories of the cafe near my mother's house are real. But I wish my distant relatives had not traded what I remember as their keep-it-to-yourself religion for the wear-it-on-your sleeve brand of Jesus-rhetoric.

One "pastor" in Iowa who has suggested executing homosexuals made big headlines last night when he endorsed Ron Paul. That's the kind of awful speech that masquerades today as teachings from Jesus. My grandfather was Irish and a mason, built many churches around Iowa. I often wonder what my grandparents would think of a "pastor" who used such invective and I trust he doesn't inhabit one of the churches my grandfather built. Hopefully craftsmanship, hard work and the fair minds of Iowa will outlive the blasphemy of this so called pastor.  

Santorum is,imo, the most self-righteous Christian and biggest homophobe on the planet and he is surging among the Christian right wing who espouse a kind of scapegoat religiosity I can't abide. It all  makes me wonder if I actually ever understood my people there. Perhaps it was all an illusion. I could work up an Irish moroseness here if I continue this line of thinking. Things could go to hell quickly. Wait a minute, a pox on both Santorum and sauteed sea scallops---there's a family recipe guaranteed to up my mood. It's time to rustle up an ambrosia fruit salad on a bed of iceberg lettuce, with a side of butterscotch pudding and vanilla wafers.

(*)Family Recipe for Ambrosia Fruit Salad.

One can Mandarin oranges (or one can fresh fruit cocktail).

Half can of fresh shredded coconut.

One can fresh pineapple chunks.

Two cups miniature marshmallows. 

Three large containers of Cool Whip.

Place ingredients in large Tupperware Bowl and fold in Cool Whip. Chill and serve on a bed of iceberg lettuce, sweeten to taste. 

(**) There was a report than an elderly woman in Des Moines who appeared to be in good health died of malnutrition. It was discovered that her entire diet consisted of bologna sandwiches on white bread and ambrosia.