In
these days of social distancing and enforced confinement the walls
can start coming in on you. Shake things up with a production meal!
We dedicate this recipe to the rather tragic figure of Cyril Wilcox,
a young gay student at Harvard who's grief and suicide brought about
a “Secret Court” to root out all the homosexual students one
hundred years ago.
This
full meal of roasted chicken thighs, broccoli, escalloped potatoes,
and simple peach halves represents the kind of production you should
do once in awhile to show love and appreciation. Mixing simple butter
with olive oil and the addition of Gruyere cheese into the thighs
elevate this into a gourmet delight.
Ingredients:
4
boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Smoked
Gruyere cheese
½
cup olive oil
½
salted butter, melted
squirt
of lemon juice
½
tsp garlic powder
1
lbs fresh broccoli
1
box pkg escalloped potatoes
grated
cheese for a topping
1
can peach halves in juice
Directions:
Pre
heat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a baking pan with foil and
spray lightly.
Do
your cutting, cut the broccoli into florets and slice the cheese into
thin (less than a ¼ inch) slices. This cheese does not melt well.
Put
the broccoli into a large bowl of water with ½ cup vinegar and let
set for about 15 minutes. This will clean off any impurities from
the garden.
Melt
the butter into the olive oil. Add the garlic powder and blend well.
Rinse
the broccoli and pour about half of this oil mixture over and stir
until well coated.
Lay
out some foil on the counter and open up the chicken thighs with
their inside up. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Lay a slice
of cheese on each piece and fold them over to cover.
Place
the chicken wraps down the center of the baking sheet and arraign the
broccoli on either side. Coat the chicken well with the rest of the
oil mixture.
Prepare
the potatoes according to package directions and place everything in
the preheated oven with potatoes on lower rack.
Let
that roast for about 40 minutes. Check the chicken with a thermometer
to read 155 degrees for doneness.
While
that cooks prepare the “desert” of peach halves sprinkled with
cinnamon. Chill in the refrigerator.
When
done, remove everything from oven and let sit for 10 minutes.
You
an go ahead and use a slotted spoon to place the broccoli into a
serving bowl. Put out the peaches. Pour drinks.
Use
a spatula to place the chicken wraps onto a platter.
What
a beautiful and comforting meal.
For
our music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdaxqfV4SKQ
So
deeply honored to serve my Master Indy.
socialslave
To
satisfy and restore.
To
nourish, support and maintain.
To
gratify, spoil, comfort and please,
to
nurture, assist, and sustain
…..I
cook!
Please
buy slave's cookbook:
The
Little Black Book of Indiscreet Recipes by Dan White
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F315Y4I/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_vAT4sb0934RTMvia @amazon
=========================
The
Harvard Secret Court
In
1920, Harvard
University set
up what they refereed to as The
Secret Court. It
was an ad hoc disciplinary tribunal of five administrators formed to
investigate charges of homosexual activity among the student
population.
During
two weeks in May and June, "the Court", headed by the
Acting Dean, conducted more than thirty interviews behind closed
doors and took action against eight students, a recent graduate, and
an assistant professor. They were expelled or had their association
with the university severed. The proceedings were kept a dark secret
until the whole affair was unearthed in 2002! But lives and families
had long been ruined. The loss of careers and the suicides, were all
a direct result of this homophobic endeavor. It is no wonder that
the University kept this quiet for over 80 years.
The
“witch hunt” began as a result of Cyril Wilcox, a Harvard
undergraduate, who committed suicide by inhaling gas in his parents'
house in Fall River, Massachusetts. Unable to cope with the pressures
of hatred and guilt over his sexuality.
Away
at a university, he had met, for the first time, other men who also
liked men. This is a powerful, life changing event in a young gay
man's life. He started to spend time socializing with these other
outcasts. Dances, parties and other in-dorm “get together”s took
place, often forsaking studies. His grades slipped. His family had
no idea what was going on. Reading about it now we can guess the
young man may have fallen in love with a man he was seeing. He had no
one to talk to.
In
May Cyril confided in his older brother George. We can only assume it
did not go well. The next morning Mary Wilcox smelled gas from her
son's room. When she opened the door. Cyril was dead.
The
medical examiner wrote “most probably accidental, change of
pressure in gas pipe extinguishing light, allowing raw gas to fill
bed room”.
His
family and friends, as well as Harvard administrators, knew that his
death was self-inflicted.
His
brother George, shortly after the death, intercepted two letters to
Cyril, one from Ernest Roberts, another student, and one from Harold
Saxton, a recent graduate. Their candid and detailed gossip convinced
him that Harvard was harboring a network of homosexual students.
Filled
with moral outrage, George Wilcox located Dreyfus, and beat out of
him the names of three other men involved. Later that day, he met
with Harvard's Acting Dean Greenough and shared what he knew: his
brother's admission, the contents of the letters, and what Dreyfus
had told him.
Harvard
President Abbott Lawrence Lowell immediately impaneled a group of
four administrators and one professor, to address the situation.
For
months, the Secret Court called both students and Boston residents to
appear and interrogated them behind closed doors about alleged
homosexual activity.
They
would use a piece of information, whether from someone previously
called, or from a Harvard hall proctor asked to log entries into a
room suspected of harboring homosexual activity. This would pressure
a witness into revealing his personal activities and identifying
others engaged in these monstrous activities.
What
happened derailed the lives of the young men caught up in the
school’s disciplinary dragnet. Those convicted by the court were
cast out of Harvard, out of Cambridge, and frequently out of academia
entirely, because of the university’s determination to warn other
schools to which the men applied.
The
fallout of the investigation, included the headline-making death of a
second student, Eugene Cummings, in June 1920.
The
Harvard administrators’ actions in 1920 were a part of the then
widely held view that homosexuality was both immoral and an influence
that could spread like a contagion.
If
anybody wrote to ask about these men, they were told by Harvard that
these men were not of good character, and that they were not to be
trusted.
According
to newly released documents the court received an unsigned
letter from someone who identified himself only as a member of the
Class of 1921. The anonymous student claimed to know all the details
of Cyril Wilcox’s suicide and told of how Cyril first got involved
with the underground gay group.
“While
in his Freshman year he met in college some boys, mostly members of
his own class, who committed upon him and induced him to commit on
them ‘Unnatural
Acts’ which habit
so grew on him that realizing he did not have strength of character
enough to brake away from it concluded suicide the only course open
to him,” the anonymous letter read.
“the
most disgusting and disgraceful and revolting acts of degeneracy and
depravity took place openly in plain view of all present.”
Over
the next two weeks, The
Court handed down a
verdict of “guilty” for a total of 14
men: seven college
students, a Dental School student, an Assistant in Philosophy, an
alumnus; and four men not even connected with Harvard.
Then an article came out in the Boston American:
“According to friends of the two, Cummings, who was said to have been mentally unbalanced, told a story of an alleged inquisition which he claimed was held in the college office following Wilcox’ death,” read the article. “He said that he was taken into the office, which was shrouded in gloom, with but one light dimly burning, and there questioned exhaustively. This story, which was denied by the college authorities, was said to have sprung from his disordered mind.”
On
Sept. 8, 1930, Keith Smerage became the third member of the circle to
commit suicide. The New York Times reported that he was found dead of
gas asphyxiation in an apartment he shared with Philip Towne, a
government clerk. The police listed the case as a suicide.
The Harvard Secret Court was despicable yet hopefully today we can learn from the tragic life of that young university student Cyril B. Wilcox.
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