Rafael Duran, co-founder of a New York organization that champions justice for restaurant workers, is the 2005 recipient of the Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award. The annual award, presented since 1998, honors young Catholics who demonstrate leadership in fighting poverty and injustice in the United States.

Five other young Catholics from across the country were recognized as finalists for the award: Francisca Cortez, Diocese of Venice; Ebony Ellison, Diocese of Wichita; Dario Josue Muralles, Archdiocese of Washington; Sarah Silva Nolan, Archdiocese of San Francisco; and Aquilina Soriano-Versoza, Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award is presented each year by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), a national program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), which provides grants to community-based, self-help groups that are addressing the root causes of poverty. The program also works to educate Americans about social problems that contribute to poverty in order to raise awareness about poverty and its deep impact on this country.

The award honors Joseph Cardinal Bernardin (1928-1996), former archbishop of Chicago and a leading voice on behalf of poor and low-income people, who understood the need to build bridges across ethnic, economic, class and age barriers. The award will be presented Sunday, November 13, in Washington, D.C., during the USCCB’s annual meeting.

Food from the Philippines is a spicy blend of cuisines that the country has come in contact with through the centuries. Dishes are now a mix of Malay, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, and American flavors. For example, the use of coconut milk as a cooking ingredient is of Malay origin. Lumpia or lumpiang shanghai (similar to spring rolls) and pancit (noodles mixed with pork, shrimps and vegetables) are Chinese in origin. And several Filipino traditional dishes still retain their Spanish names such as mechado (beef with pork fat), menudo (diced meat and potatoes stewed in tomato sauce), and pochero (a blend of pork, cabbage, green beans and other vegetables).

However, according to Asian Food expert Charmaine Solomon, “when families get together their favourite food will be those dishes which owe little, if anything, to outside influences. Even if they were originally borrowed they have been ‘re-composed’, adding new flavours and generally acquiring a new personality.”

Though Elaine Kaufman loved her male guests, she had little fondness for their female dates. One evening Norman Mailer visited Elaine’s for a late dinner with a fiesty young woman who immediately raised Elaine’s hackles by complaining about their table, the slow service, and the lighting. When the woman unscrewed the bulb in an overhead fixture, Elaine promptly appeared to screw it in.

Some time later the woman unscrewed the bulb again, whereupon Elaine unleashed a torrent of invective which she had never heard before. “As I was turning away,” Elaine later recalled, “this ditsy broad hit me with her elbow, gave me a whack, so I spun around. ‘Listen, sweetheart,’ I said, pointing at Mailer. ‘Him I have to take it from, but no half-a-hooker is going to with my light bulbs!