Satisfying Hunger and Other Related Pursuits

New Website

2011-09-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

If you find yourself at this address for my website, you will still find my current posts, yet I have given my energies to another service which I find more attractive. I hope you do as well.

satisfying hunger and other related pursuits

See you on the other side.

Cycled and Pickled

2011-09-27T19:04:00.001-07:00

The bike is still in process, as you may or may not be able to tell, but it now is rideable. I still need to rig up the front derailleur to the STI shifter, as well as mess around with how the rear derailleur is cabled to the shifter. It is a Frankenstein sort of ordeal, but I've thus far learned a lot about how to build a bike. At this point, I've replaced a bottom bracket and crankset, quill stem adapter and handlebar, cassette, derailleurs and chain. On top of that, I went through the barbaric motions of coldsetting the rear of the frame, in order that my wheel would actually slide in without undue force. It worked. I am now riding it and have forged through the first downpour of the long season to come. Speaking of, I just ordered my rain gear. A cycling jacket, helmet cover, and rain pants - all breathable and waterproof.

See the full gallery on Posterous

As far as pickling is concerned, I have been equally busy. There are, as I speak, jars and buckets bubbling away with special bacterial activity. Following the tongue-tingling excitement of my first peppery relish, I decided to go hotter, make it into some sort of mind-bending hot sauce with the added benefit of probiotics. It worked, to a point. It was delicious and hot, but the bend it inflicted on the mind was mild comparable to a true hot sauce. All the same it worked deliciously as a sort of face-reddening chip dip. I started pickles, and finished them. They have been steadily escaping the jar since arriving in the fridge, mostly due to my own insatiable urges. I am fermenting another bucket right now. It sits atop the fridge, silently vibrating. Also going right now is something new. A local seller of fermented things made something that intrigued me. Salsa, without the tomato, fermented. I used the hot peppers, cabbage, beet, carrot, onion, garlic and lemon zest. I have yet to truly try it, but I am hopeful. It looks gorgeous. This last Saturday, at the farmer's market less than a black away, I crept up to the stand where they sell peppers. When I say they sell peppers, I mean it. Something like twenty feet of doubled up boxes of peppers, arrayed in order from sweet to mild to hot to uber-hot. I hit the latter of these, and was greeted by the beautiful bulbous bodies of the different habenero varieties. I touched them longingly, knowing what lay within, the amount of pain and pleasure it was able to inflict. My seratonin levels surged a bit just to feel. These still sit on my counter, ready to be used, to be bathed in brine and given to the spirit of the ferment. This will happen. Soon.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Briefly Living in the Forest

2011-09-26T19:16:00.001-07:00

We camped amongst massive Douglas Firs and a veritable carpet of mossy growth. Also, we watched whales. We went whale watching and camped amongst big trees and moss. We didn't know it then (and I hope I am totally wrong in this) but we found ourselves camping on the best weekend of the "Summer" and seemingly the last. The first night we arrived at the campground just after the sun had fallen over the horizon. Expertly we assembled our tent and set a fire to blaze and glow on our city-ripe faces. We fed ourselves on previously concocted tuna salad and cracked open hoppy beers which hissed slight cold mists as we did so. The cold light of the LED lantern blanketed the rough wood of the picnic table pocked with the darkened writhing spots of bug shadow. This was the woods, where perfume wouldn't penetrate and phones could barely dial out. This was a separation (albeit an extremely temporary one). We sat and drank and thought and were quiet. There wasn't pressing media to attend to. Except the fire, the silence, the breath, one after another. Then we played shadow games in the tent and found sleep.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Fast forward past the morning stuff (camp stove boiling water for the french press, masterful breaking down of tent, simplistic food-making procedures, repack car and head North) to arrive at the boat times. We acclimated ourselves to the place, pushing slowly along with the bulbous tourism of the thing to find a table of our own in the lower cabin, insulated from the cool ocean air. The heavy-set and red-faced were all about, families of them, settling down to watch other large mammals from the comfort of this boat. I learned stuff. An Orca, the so-called "Killer Whale", was not in fact a whale at all, but a whale killer, a type of giant dolphin with scary big teeth. Screw up Whale Killer just a little and you're left with a great deal of misinformed people. As if it really mattered to the dolphin what the human thought. But, that is that. We saw these massive dolphins, finally, after a few hours of leisurely drifting through the waters, passing along the gorgeous landscape of tree-heavy islands and vanishing-point expanse of amazingly still water. With my humble camera I was able to catch of few of these animals, slick bodies peeking out of the water two hundred feet away from us. There was a mother and her kid that would bob out of the water, one after the other. We kept up with them for awhile and at one point they were literally feet from our boat. I didn't get a picture of it, of course. My pictures don't do much justice to the experience (those above). Anne's camera caught things mine couldn't (below). To really appreciate it though, you'd have to have been there. And you weren't.

See the full gallery on Posterous

We made some friends too. Dan and Maria from Vancouver, B.C. He was originally from Serbia, her Mexico. They randomly came to sit at our table with us and soon we were talking. They make kefir, which I've mentioned and linked to previously, and drink something like four liters of it a week. He said that it contains something like 30 different strains of probiotic bacteria. I now want to make kefir. Dan told us stories of death defiance against all odds while at sea as an engineer on a sailboat out of Serbia. I couldn't tell them if I tried, which I won't, but trust me, they were wholly entertaining. We drank half liter cans of Stella Artois and became better acquainted with our new friends, all the while scanning the horizon for whales or sea lions (which we also saw, the Stellar Sea Lion, splayed out on some nano island, half-heartedly butting heads with each other). As we were leaving, slightly buzzed and exhausted from staring out into the nothingness of water, our new friends told us that they believed we stumbled into each other for a reason. Out of all the people on this boat, they said (and we looked around at the over-made-up and the under-walked, the oddities of a day-long boat tour), we happened to sit by you. He believed in energy. I liked that. I liked them. He gave us his number and told us to call if we were in Vancouver. They would show us a good time. We parted ways and were a little sad/disappointed that we didn't also give over one of our numbers. Social interactions are rarely perfect.

See the full gallery on Posterous

It took some time to get to our next campground. We hit the ferry in Anacortes at about 6:00pm and the ferry didn't leave until 7:20pm. So we sat around in the car. I read the New Yorker article on Scientology called The Apostate, which I highly suggest you read. Finally we got our ferry to Orcas Island, which took another hour. We got to our campground at Moran State Park after sunset, at nearly 9pm, with just about zero help from any of the barely visible street signs. But we made it. Again we set up our tent and started a fire. I got out the cast iron pan and prepped some cheese and veggies for an absolutely wonderful rendition of quesadillas, which were accompanied with my recently fermented carrots and jalapenos, plus some vodka drinks with freshly muddled ginger and squeezed lime. It was one of the most enjoyable meals I have had in a while, out amongst the little bugs and the overwhelming scent of pine and smoke. We got a little drunk and took many pictures. A doe and her baby walked right up to our campground, wondering on us as we were wondering on them. The mother apprached cautiously but rather fearlessly. Anne beckoned to her with that voice you use with babies or dogs. It actually walked closer. Anne got some pictures with the fancy new camera I got her, but mine was much too overwhlemed by the dark. Eventually the deer grew bored of us and took their leave. Eventually we had had enough vodka, so we cleaned up and went to tent.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The next day, we woke up and had field roast dogs and it was delicious. I had some more coffee. Woke up and cleaned our temporary home. As we cleaned our dishes another doe sauntered by us, vaguely interested. We left with enough time to go on a hike and catch the 2:20pm ferry. We decided to go on a quick one mile hike to a waterfall. The forest was so alive, covered in moss and fungus and humming with all sorts of animalia. Along the way we saw another doe with her kid. The images give an idea of the hike. We saw the falls and momentarily contemplated them. We had to get back so that we could catch the ferry, so that we could get home, so that we could unload and wash ourselves and get ready for another week. Pulling up to the line, an older man with a white beard informed us that the 2:20 ferry had filled up an hour before, at noon. We would have to take the next one. At 5:35pm. It was a beautiful day though and what better place to be stranded. There was a cafe in an old hotel, where we sat and played Trivial Pursuit (circa like 1975). They had coffee and fish and chips and beers. The sun was out and there were bunnies frolicking in the yard. It was a great time. We got home late and slept hard.

Another Video, But A Good One

2011-09-20T16:25:00.001-07:00

The following is a session video from the record company 4AD. They represent several amazing artists, of whom there are many amazing sessions to ogle. Right now you should ogle this Tune-Yards session, as Merrill Garbus is obviously some sort of musical prodigy.

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If you prefer, you could view this video at the 4AD website. Further than that, be encouraged that a more personal and substantial post is forthcoming.

Dance in France

2011-09-18T00:23:00.001-07:00

via youtube.com

This is some really amazing stuff. If you like it, dig deeper, it can get cooler.

Wasting Food

2011-09-05T18:53:00.001-07:00

via youtube.com

This series, or at least what I've seen of it, is really great. Very informative and very pretty.

You Were Promised Sailing

2011-09-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

And sailing you get. Well, at least pictures of us sailing, having tremendous amounts of fun, living like seafaring royalty with our beers and our crackers and our big silly smiling faces. We sat around while we were sailed about the Puget Sound's Elliott Bay. We drank and took pictures. This next weekend we are going whale watching near the San Juan Islands. And sleeping in a tent in the middle of an island forest. Summer has visited the Northwest it seems.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Music

2011-09-02T08:50:00.001-07:00

Dinner

2011-09-01T20:38:00.001-07:00

See the full gallery on Posterous

Tonight, this is my dinner: one beer (Double Take IPA), a salad consisting of green romaine lettuce, spinach, beet greens, radish, onion, tomato, carrot, cucumber and home-made croutons (all organic, save for the bread). The dressing was complex but has notes of mustard, jalapeno, truffle, lemon, onion, garlic, olive and includes chia and flax seeds. It is really good. Secondly, there is one regular hot dog bun encasing one apple-sage Field Roast sausage, with home-pickled peppers, mustard and ketchup. How about that?

The Slippery Slope of Language

2011-08-31T07:23:00.001-07:00

via treatloaf.com

This is from my friend's website, which can be found handily just to the right of each new post.

Pictures of Pickling and Sailing

2011-08-30T19:55:00.001-07:00

The sailing pictures are only to whet whatever appetite you may or may not have. The pickle pictures are to give an appropriate aftertaste to the previous. I will post about this enigmatic sailing experience soon.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Perfecting the Art of Pickling Peppers

2011-08-30T18:57:00.001-07:00

So, I may have done it. Or came very close. It does things to the tongue, to the mind, pricking them both up as with a thousand pinching fingers. But in a good way, the way that refreshes, brings one back to life, in a fashion. Maybe I am overstating it, but then again maybe it is a cure-all. Anyway, I have now done something like six batches of pickled peppers. It is incredibly simple too. I've begun to cut out the sugar though. Initially it was in order to stave off the yeast during its short fermentation, after which time I would then add it, but it seems as though I don't really need it. The carrot lends its innate sweetness to the peppers who lend their spiciness in turn. A wonderful trade-off. I brought a batch of these peppers over to my friend Jamil's house, along with some sort of curry potluck dish, for his birthday celebration. You will see his pretty face pictured in the following images. Those who want to try this (and you should, really, really should), look back a couple posts at my approximate directions, or comment with some earnest question, or try one of many explanatory sites, like this: http://nourishedkitchen.com/pickled-jalapenos/.

As for the site change, let me know what you think. I am feeling it out and could change back at any time. It is a much easier way to blog, so far, and I am excited to do something different. Not totally sure about my color choices either. Life is hard.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Comic Sans Mystery Solved

2011-08-30T17:32:00.001-07:00

via theonion.com

Finally we know.

Colbert on Queer

2011-07-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

I must say that I haven't been paying the closest attention to the It Gets Better project. But, I know what it is and I know what the videos are saying. They aren't aimed at me. I am to be inspired by them, as a person of the world. And, knowing what they are, videos of people (celebrity and not) empowering gay, lesbian, transgendered and otherwise to not be ashamed of themselves, they give me hope for a world less barbaric, less thoughtlessly ideological. People are people, as Depeche Mode says, and if one happens to be born (yes, born, you thoughtlessly ideological among us) sexually attracted to another of the same sex, or possibly (the horror!) a color other than white, it doesn't fucking matter. We are one species among many and we won't be here forever. Live this life like it is the only one. If you think there is a heaven, act like there isn't. The Golden Rule and all that. Anyway, here is Stephen Colbert on the It Gets Better project:

And I am happy to say that this project was founded by Seattle native Dan Savage, of Savage Love fame. Enjoy!

Current State of Stuff

2011-07-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I haven't written anything substantive in awhile (and I am not exactly promising that now), instead leaning on fun and interesting videos in order to entertain or expand your mind. I hope you were entertained and/or expanded. A great deal of stuff has gone on in this world (the general world and that more internal one which takes place inside the boundaries of this country's wet Northwest and my own mind) and I can say things about that stuff. Let's go through some things.

Muammar al-Gaddafi

Libya is a goddamned mess and so are we. Gaddafi (or Qaddafi) is still alive and NATO's concerted efforts to cease his heartbeat have resulted in many other stopped pulses. I think they should go after him, personally, but for a coalition of futuristic military forces the attempt seems rather sloppy and dangerous (like all those special secret wars of the Clinton era). Now, don't get me wrong, I'd rather we all, worldwide, dumped our collective weapons caches into some well-contained blackhole to be effectively dismantled, molecule by molecule, but we don't live in such a world where this could be the case. We are a rather unevolved species for all of our loud celebration of technological supremacy. Give up your cell phone and be a bonobo. Yet, to live in the world we do, we must think about the world we live in and work at things from what's there. This isn't to say that we can't aid our own evolution by fostering progressive ideas and tossing those which obviously lead to dead ends. We can. Certainly. I won't get into what those dead ends are as I hope they are obvious.

We are a mess, as was said before. Here the "we" I unfortunately automatically use is to mean the United States of America. This is a large country with wildly divergent and polarized political beliefs (which I think are a result of a mostly worthless though otherwise motivated news media and an incredibly dumbed-down electorate). Political wins from these polarized points are more prized than the enactment of legislation which will help the people as a whole. This is a country where a politician's sex life is more damaging to them than the awful things they do in the name of their constituents. I know that the temptation of writing a Weiner headline is tremendous, but we are adults here. Can we not get over the fact that men have penises and women have vaginas? A good politician was brought down by some silly personal thing which the public shouldn't know or care about. Shame on us all.

Debt ceiling? Yeah, really stupid. China is even telling us to raise it. How ignorant can the GOP be on this front (let alone all the other fronts)? I will leave it there.

At least we saw American progression recently in New York. Men are welcome to join in matrimony with men, and women with women, in that state's legal eye. This is wonderful. Another stepping stone towards real equality in a world somehow mystified into thinking they are already free and equal. I am sure Pat Robertson will soon be shaking violently in prayer for some natural disaster to befall that small state. What a small and ridiculous old man. Anyway, congratulations to the many gay of New York.

More personally, I have been recently enthralled with Neil deGrasse Tyson, poetic astrophysicist. This is to say that recently I have been becoming a science nerd, and as a result, there was Tyson.

I volunteer at the Space Travel Supply Store in Seattle and we carry many science books which are fairly digestible by the not-so-astrophysicist. We carry two of Tyson's books, the last of which is called Death by Black Hole, and I am super excited to read them both. I am now reading Brian Greene's The Hidden Reality, which deals with the field of quantum physics and the insane implications of these theories. It is thoroughly blowing my mind. That is all I can say semi-intelligently about the subject. In keeping with my earlier hope that people would take responsibility for our species' evolution (and that said evolution must first take place in the realm of ideas), I am doing my damnedest to flood my gray matter with the particulars of our physical universe, domestic, extra-terrestrial and intra-cellular. This education of self must also take into account all that came before us and thus I am itching to better inform myself on the science of evolution. I am tasking myself with reading On the Origin of Species in the next year if all goes well and accompanying that with a side of Richard Dawkins. OK, enough science nerd stuff.

Notice the fancy new wheels

Bike nerd stuff. In the past few months I have been riding my bike to work and going on occasional "big" rides just outside of the city (the quotes around big meaning that twenty to forty miles isn't anywhere near a big ride for some particular readers). My bike is thoroughly vintage, and though this has an allure for a certain type of rider, it means to me that my bike is old. In fact, the whole thing looks to be from the mid-seventies, perhaps 1976 if you are to believe the internet. I have begun to augment my ride, starting with new wheels. All that should remain of the seventies by the end of this will be the old steel frame, a beautiful maroon ordeal that calls itself "Shogun". It is exciting for me. I can understand if it isn't for you.

One week in, spicy and delicious

Food nerd stuff. Not too much on this front, though I am now an entirely free man in my vege-/pescatarian world, roaming the naked streets of Seattle in search of yeast-risen buns and cloudy dry-hopped grain fermentations. I will soon be biking to wine country in order to further indulge. Things are good, for the most part, in that way. My culinary pursuits, however interesting, have mostly been toward the simple function of pleasantly sating the hunger of me and mine. I have, though, started the lacto-fermentation of some jalapeno peppers to start the fermentation season in a real spicy way. This was easy and anyone with a mason jar can play. A pound of peppers, half an onion or less, 1-6 garlic cloves, a tablespoon of sea salt and a few tablespoons of whey (or the juice from some previously fermented concoction) will do the job. I added some carrot and sugar to the mix for a little sweetness. All things go into the jar, sprinkling salt as you go, and then some spring water (no tap water!) until about an inch from the top. I left it out with the lid screwed down just a little so that gas could escape. Then you just watch it over some days. Sniff it. Be a tactile creature. This is an ancient practice. Soon you will have pickled jalapenos, but not sooner than me.

That's the state of some stuff as I know it right now. Hope it was worth reading.

Western Spaghetti

2011-06-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

Beautiful.

And yes, I've been lazy, putting up a bunch of interesting videos instead of some personal invested thought-forms. But I have been busy. Kind of. I will write something interesting soon. Hopefully.

Change to Heal

2011-06-23T22:22:00.000-07:00

Gary Shteyngart is Funny

2011-06-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

Gary Shteyngart writes books. He is from Russia. His latest book is called Super Sad True Love Story. I haven't read it, though I did read his previous book, Absurdistan. I liked that one and I think I would like the new one. The following book trailers for Super Sad True Love Story don't elucidate much about the content of the book. They do, however, show how funny Sheyngart is.

Hope you liked it.

Solstice Celebration in the Rain

2011-06-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

Today, moist and gray, was the Solstice Parade in Seattle. Not a parade of tired old men driving SUVs with lazy designs plastered on the sides. No engines at all actually. All floats are required to be powered only by the petroleum-free machinations of the human form. Pushed or pedaled, brilliantly designed, the floats are a celebration of the sun, the day during which we see the most of it (which is actually the 21st). But today that sun didn't come out to be praised. We did it anyway. Further, people get naked. And ride bikes (which I will add after the jump).

Naked bikers after the jump...

Assange in England

2011-06-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

House Arrest from Winston Burrows on Vimeo.

Beautiful

2011-06-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

Random, Cool

2011-04-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

Yeah?

Potato Pancakes

2011-04-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

I haven't yet tried this particular recipe, but I have used other recipes from this series and I really enjoy it. It always seems easier when you can see it happen.

I will be trying this soon.

Open-Source Futures

2011-04-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

This gives me hope for the future of humanity. There is reasoned sanity. There is people caring for people.

Enjoy.

The Side Effects of Sitting

2011-04-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

Can sitting kill you? Yes, in a way. From the New York Times, Is Sitting a Lethal Activity?

Some highlights:

"This is your body on chairs: Electrical activity in the muscles drops — “the muscles go as silent as those of a dead horse,” Hamilton says — leading to a cascade of harmful metabolic effects. Your calorie-burning rate immediately plunges to about one per minute, a third of what it would be if you got up and walked."

"The men in the study who spent six hours or more per day of their leisure time sitting had an overall death rate that was about 20 percent higher than the men who sat for three hours or less. The death rate for women who sat for more than six hours a day was about 40 percent higher."

"Another study, published last year in the journal Circulation, looked at nearly 9,000 Australians and found that for each additional hour of television a person sat and watched per day, the risk of dying rose by 11 percent."

Yeast

2011-04-10T14:07:00.001-07:00

These eukaryotic micro-organisms make our beer, our wine; they leaven our bread and make our pitas pocketed. Yeast, a significant member of the Fungi kingdom, has been in use for thousands of years, much of that time without our understanding of the why or the what. You let juiced grapes sit out for awhile, and ta-da! we're incredibly ebullient and talkative (or possibly asleep). Live yeast, bought in paper packets from the grocery, bubbles and foams when reinvigorated in warm water, and inflates balls of dough triplefold. Don't forget vinegar either, which itself is only possible through the tireless efforts of these singular creatures. These little unicellular beings sustain themselves on sugars, and depending on the venue (i.e. drowning in a sweet grain or grape soup or enveloped in wetted flour) defecate alcohol or carbon dioxide or both. It lives in our guts, on our skin and in the barely visible particulates of the air.

Imagine France without yeast. Or say, any other place wherein good things are had. The wines, the breads, the dipping vinegars. The flavor imparted upon baked goods is palpable, it is the identity of the thing. To take it away from that bread or roll or bun is to be left with not only an uninspired and airless slag of grain, but also one without that thick and succulent je ne sais quoi flavor. To leave it out of wine or beer is to leave them out entirely, to be left with grape juice and soda. Vinegar, pivotal in most common condiments, is the most unavoidable though, seconded only by soy sauce. Try to go to a restaurant and order around these obvious obstacles. Forget Chinese. No more casual sushi (not only the problem of soy sauce here but also the vinegared rice). You'll have difficulty eating Italian too and most salads are out of the question. You might even go home and attempt to hobble together a ketchup or mayo analogue, in hopes that you could carry it along in a to-go bottle and again enjoy slathering fries in dip. It won't be the same though. You'll notice the unfettered joy on the faces of your devil-may-care companions as they swallow down goblets of wine or pints of beer, getting it on their upper lips or spilling it down their faces, and smiling as they lick it or wipe it away and go after another handful of sweet potato fries in curry ketchup or pesto mayo. You'll know. And you'll cordone yourself off at the bakery, investigating only the scones and the cookies, the muffins and cupcakes (all the while you wanted something savory). You'll take to the internet on fruitless searches for those yeasty borderlands (does rindy cheese have yeast? which restaurants use liquid aminos?) and come out less informed, more confused and in want of all those things you can't have and all the stuff you aren't sure of. Then you'll pull the vodka from the freezer (as it is distilled and filtered) and make a drink. These are the facts and my impressions upon denying it past my lips the last weeks.

Just over a month ago, after completing three fruitless months of a gluten-free life, I got my food-panel blood test back. Yeast (brewer's and baker's) among other less dramatic items showed up as an allergy for me, which I hadn't ever considered previously. A daily fact of my life, from nutritional yeast to wine and beer to vinegars and kombucha, had to be eliminated for an indeterminate period of time. It is still indeterminate, but there has been marked improvement in the state of my digestive system, in the state of that overraw length of piping from throat to gut. And that is where I stand, or sit, or lay. I've friended distilled alcohol and lemon juice. I sigh less when my friends eat things I can't. I am attempting creativity in the kitchen in the face of this adversity, and when all is said and done, it is a hell of a lot easier than divorcing gluten. We've become great friends again. Absence makes the heart grow fond, and the stomach grow wanton.

Facts, Not Sensationalism

2011-04-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Just a pie chart:

Panarama-mania

2011-04-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

Look at this:

Midnight on the top of mt. Sinai, in Egypt

And this:

Glodok Jakarta Indonesia in Indonesia

This too:

Spice Shop in the Souq, Aswan in Aswan - Nile River

And there are much more, here (under the amazing 40 Gigapixel picture of the Strahov Philosophical Library).

Krugman on Political-Economic Ignorance

2011-03-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/worse-is-better/

Absolutely Devastating

2011-03-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

This really gives you an idea of the scope of damage incurred in Japan, satellite images before and after. Whole homes ripped from the ground like loose debris. Beyond that, they are estimating 10,000 deaths and climbing, radiation sickness from overheating and exploding nuclear plants, and it is being called the country's worst disaster since World War II. In the whole scheme of things, looking out over geological time, this is a hiccup. The Earth has made no promises to us about our survival. We are just another animal, susceptible to extinction. This shows that no matter how advanced we become, no matter the supposed strength of our structures and the robustness of our technology, it can all come down in minutes. Be thankful for this moment, for those that surround you, the food and drink you get to enjoy and the comings and goings of the sun. The present is the only thing that we can be sure of and revel in. Enjoy it.

In other news, Libya's revolutionary spirit isn't ebbing a bit, with some youth turning it towards rebel violence (interactive map of the clashes). And the protests are spreading across the Arab world, from Yemen to Bahrain to Tunisia and of course, Egypt. Things are happening. The people are realizing that they outnumber the ruling class. This should be infectious and empowering. Hopefully some beneficial outcome will sprout from this unrest. Hopefully this can be an example to us as well. We should be the ones who dictate our existences, not power-hungry and greedy politicians. They are often in it for themselves, as we have seen countless times globally and in our own country.

Thanks to the New York Times and their wonderful resources, which I linked like crazy.

Ridiculousness, Starring Bottled Water

2011-03-12T16:20:00.000-08:00

Most bottled water is just bottled tap water anyway. A lot of petroleum for a little bit of convenience.

Let's talk about the supposed cleanliness of bottled water vs. tap water:

How about we pull out those metal bottles and stop adding to this pointless waste.

ZUPPA!

2011-03-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

So, I have had some people (for whom I've made soup of varying shades and flavors) ask that I give them a recipe for vegetable soups, to which I say, there is no recipe for my soups. The way in which I make soup is to first check the fridge and pantry, extricating the vegetables that most urgently need cooking or that I most would like to use (as decided by the interface between those numerous taste nubs and my sensitive head organ). There are some things I always do, such as sauté copious onion and garlic. Mostly from there it is intuition. Today, though, I happened upon another Mark Bittman article, which much more eloquently (and with prettier pictures) illustrates the simplicity of this intuitive kitchen maneuver. He splits it into four categories: creamy, brothy, earthy and hearty. Here are the corresponding pictures for those categories (three soups per):

Hungry anyone?
Check out the article.

Why Save PBS?

2011-02-28T06:55:00.001-08:00

How To Make Oatmeal Unhealthy (Brought To You By McDonald's)

2011-02-23T16:44:00.000-08:00

This is just unbelievable. Eating healthy is as difficult as one's ability to discern ingredients. Oatmeal is oatmeal. Fruit is fruit. Honey, anyone? Read this article by Mark Bittman called, "How to Make Oatmeal...Wrong". And here is a small snippet:

The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger.)

Obesity is not a wonder. Diabetes (type two, that is) can be a result of decisions, bad ones, made time after time. Look at the ingredients. Or, better, buy things that are the ingredients (i.e. oats, tomatoes, cherries, potatoes, etc.). That's it.

Oh, How I Love Books

2011-02-23T16:29:00.000-08:00

Wonderful...

Yeah?

Arguing For A Robust Public Media

2011-02-23T07:28:00.000-08:00

There's been much threatening from the political right in Senate on cutting everything they can (save, of course, for the massive and unrivaled amount set aside for wars, secret and reported, reasoned and industrially motivated). They would love to cut anything too high brow, say education and the arts, and while they are at it, PBS and NPR. This comparably small sum given over to these organizations (in relation to the aforementioned sum for sanctioned murder) should not be taken away. Who wants to live in a world without Sesame Street or All Things Considered? NPR is a bright light in the increasingly dim world of news. They have journalists all over the world, reporting on events as they happen, without surrounding each item in a cultural and political aura based on any particular bias. This cannot be said for many other sources, and one in particular. Read this article out of The Atlantic concerning this very issue. Here is a segment:

There are jobs where people are mainly motivated by the hope of big money. (Finance in general.) There are jobs where the main motivation is job-security. And there is a category of jobs where, as absolutely everyone recognizes, it makes a tremendous difference that "employees" care about something beyond pay, hours, and security. Teachers. Soldiers. Doctors and nurses. Judges and police. Political leaders, if they want to be more than hacks. And, people in news organizations.

Comment away.

Unhealthy, Unsafe and Unsustainable

2011-02-02T07:27:00.000-08:00

Our food system in America. What do we do about it? Well, Mark Bittman writing for the New York Times has a few good ideas. Here are a couple:

Tax the marketing and sale of unhealthful foods. Another budget booster. This isn’t nanny-state paternalism but an accepted role of government: public health. If you support seat-belt, tobacco and alcohol laws, sewer systems and traffic lights, you should support legislation curbing the relentless marketing of soda and other foods that are hazardous to our health — including the sacred cheeseburger and fries.

Mandate truth in labeling. Nearly everything labeled “healthy” or “natural” is not. It’s probably too much to ask that “vitamin water” be called “sugar water with vitamins,” but that’s precisely what real truth in labeling would mean.

Now, go read the rest.

Bread, Sans Gluten

2011-01-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

I made some gluten-free bread today. I used garbanzo bean flour, brown rice flour, buckwheat (not related to wheat) flour and cornstarch, among other various things (xanthan gum, for one). It turned out pretty well. Dense, not crumbly. I used banana instead of egg, so it was vegan. I have some work to do to make it perfect, but it's pretty good.

Things I Saw Today After Sleeping Only Five Hours

2011-01-22T18:54:00.000-08:00

Awning for American Artificial Limb Company

Moss near Madison Market (also known as Central Co-op)

More moss

I like moss

Sunchokes, Who Knew?

2011-01-22T18:45:00.000-08:00

So, I have done this twice now. Sunchokes, AKA Jerusalem artichoke, AKA Helianthus tuberosus. It looks like if tumors and babies were combined, then dug up from the ground, but much more delicious. It is a tuber, a root. Specifically, it is the root of a certain species of sunflower. And, as the Israel-themed nomination indicates, it tastes like its above-ground namesake, the artichoke. If you like artichokes, but hate the dedicated defense system, I would defer to this ugly cousin (they are actually unrelated).

What do I do with it? Well, wash them first. Then slice them up a little and put them in a bowl. Olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic. And mix.

Put it all on a baking sheet and spread them out. We want to roast them, not steam them. If they are bunched up they will steam and not get crunchy and beautiful. Then, at 375 degrees, cook for some time. Maybe twenty minutes or longer. Check it every once in awhile and take them out when they look ready, soft and caramelized.

What you end up with will be great. You can thank me later.

A New Website...

2011-01-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

I found a new website. It is called typetrigger.

So, every six hours a new trigger word or phrase is given (say "dog collar" or "remaining nameless") and then you (or someone else) write up to 300 words from it. This can be shared with no-one, only members or everyone. You pick.

I have done two so far. It's nice to be able to just write a little, without any express impressive purpose. Try it out yourself or tell someone about it.

You Have To Watch This...

2011-01-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

I just watched the short documentary Stress: Portrait of a Killer, and I loved it. Was supremely engaged. Best of all, it had to do with life as you live it and how it seriously affects your health. Seriously.

So, if you have Netflix, wonderful. Watch it here. If you don't, watch it on YouTube.

Motivation, Animated

2011-01-11T21:37:00.000-08:00

This is an extremely interesting lecture about motivating creativity and innovation. It is animated and fun and the answer is not what you would expect.

Pretty cool.

Looking Back to Look Forward

2011-01-09T16:47:00.000-08:00

Currently, like as I type, I am watching the film The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. It is engrossing and disturbing and illuminating. To understand the past you have to have a relatively trusty barometer of the present. Turn this around and it is equally true. Daniel Ellsberg with his release of the Pentagon Papers illustrates the incredible importance of governmental leaks. It is proof of the enduring moral spirit of humanity. We are not yet robots, though it seems more and more that this is the goal. The government -- as it is, as it was, as it will continue to be -- functions as a business does and would benefit greatly from the demoralization of those in their employ and those which would be in the position to point the big finger (namely the media). We, as thinking and feeling humans with a sense of right and wrong, should be proud, existentially, of those who leak. This should never be criminalized.

The Pentagon Papers was a top-secret study on the history of U.S.-Vietnamese relations, prepared by the Department of Defense. It was commissioned by then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, seemingly in order to understand why it was that, opposite all public knowledge, things were going badly in Vietnam. The study was operated without the knowledge of President Lyndon Johnson or Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Daniel Ellsberg photocopied the 7,000 pages and in the middle of 1971 the New York Times began to publish. This was swiftly met by resistance on the part of the Nixon administration, who had continued the failing war despite his campaign pledges to find a way to end it. Many Nixon tapes are evidence of his extreme anger at the release, with conversations between the foul-mouthed president and Henry Kissinger (who had dubbed Ellsberg at the time, "the most dangerous man in America") or Alexander Haig. The government went to work prohibiting the papers from printing and Daniel Ellsberg being indicted under the Espionage Act of 1917. A precedent was set when the Supreme Court ruled that the leak and its publication were not illegal in the case of The United States vs. Daniel Ellsberg and Anthony Russo (Russo being his fellow RAND employee, researcher and accomplice). Papers resumed publication and Ellsberg and Russo were freed from their possible 30 and 115 year stay in prison, respectively.

There are many facets of this historical event that could be discussed which I won't here. The leak, among many other things, illustrated that the U.S. was involved in a wrongful war for reasons divergent from their public statements and that these lies spread across three decades, being spewed from the mouths of five presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon). Not even America's fallen golden boy, Kennedy, could be trusted on this front. That, in itself, should give pause to anyone who overly praises and trusts any politician or leader. This country was built on the idea of a questioning citizenry and that shouldn't be given over under any circumstance. The Supreme Court at that time set an important precedent for the exercise of the First Amendment. Yes, that one about free speech.

Now, 40 years later, that precedent must be respected. Wikileaks are in the frying pan now, just as was Ellsberg at that time. The U.S. government is as rabid as it was then, although they muffle it publicly just the same. They are again attempting to massage the Espionage Act into this issue. Beware. Our right to know and a leaker's right to bravely exercise his/her morality should be protected absolutely. The releases of the current leak, that of the diplomatic cables, are not being controlled by Wikileaks (i.e. redactions and editing) but rather by the publications they gave the responsibility. This is exactly the same as any type of leak, just on a much grander scale. Although many so-called "journalists" (a great deal of whom are from the American media and whose overlords gleefully collude with massive corporations and government) are happy to through Assange and Wikileaks under the bus on this, it says more about those journalists than it does about Wikileaks.

I have to say, repeat, that this is important, so very important. We can't lose our morals and ethics to programmed autonomy or ambivalence. We need to support, as Ellsberg himself is now doing, the actions of organizations like Wikileaks and all the others that are beginning to pop up. Truth is a worthy goal.

So, watch the movie. Get a perspective. Don't get your news from a single source. Shop around. Assume everyone is biased and figure it out yourself. And, your politicians are most likely lying to you.

An Unfortunate Journey

2011-01-07T13:56:00.000-08:00

I am beginning a trial-run of a gluten-free diet today, to resume for three months' time. I am not very energetic about this. Nor do I enjoy the amount of research it is taking to do it right. If it is that I have Celiac's (which given my Irish and German roots, is a good genetic possibility) then, I am told, even a thimble-full of something containing that special protein would set me back 6-8 weeks. It is a sparse possibility in my case that I do have this, but a possibility all the same. I won't see a change for at least 4 to 8 weeks apparently, if there is no accidental hiccups in my ingestion schedule. Damnit.

If anyone has any tips, give them to me. I want them. I love bread and beer and they can't have me for at least three months. I am looking towards sake and wine for respite. Maybe brown rice pasta, corn and potato chips and corn tortillas. That's all I got for now. Thanks for your ear.

Seattle's Got A Superhero!

2011-01-06T12:07:00.000-08:00

Up in the Northwest, along with the comic book nerds comes heroic vigilantism. I love it.

Yep.

That Button Just Makes You Feel Better

2010-12-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder why the elevator doors don't close right away when you push that "Close Door" button? Because it does nothing. Here is a great post about this and other non-functioning buttons in your life:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/02/10/placebo-buttons/

Enjoy!

Shifting Educational Paradigms or Are Our Kids Learned Much?

2010-12-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

So, Western education. How is that going for us? Well, the U.S. consistently falls way behind in tests given internationally. And, generally, many parents must rely on expensive private schooling. That shouldn't be. Maybe, instead of enacting legislation that assumes all kids are the same and patting oneself on the back for that crippling maneuver, we should change the way in which we teach. Maybe we should spend less on war and more on arts and education. I know, it sounds crazy. Check out this video. It is not only entertaining but informative.

Feel free to leave comments.

Writing 50,000 Words in a Month

2010-12-12T17:52:00.000-08:00

So, for the month of November, I wrote. I wrote a lot. I wrote about 55,000 words in total. The event was the National Novel Writing Month, or for those in the know, NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words in a month (30 days) equals out to about 1,667 words a day on average. This means about an hour to two a day for a month. I must say, it was difficult. At first. But, after doing it for awhile and foregoing social events, I felt inspired by my own abilities and I wrote with relish most days following the initial ten or so. This was what I was engaged in while I was leaving this blog to disuse. So, now I have spent the day logging posts for the possible enjoyment of my small crowd. The novel in question is a ramshackle affair whose parts may be stronger than its whole. A rubric of ideas from which I may pull, if you will. I will share a small section and cease my bloggish rambling.

"The bus was an experience which truly showed the heart of the city and which varied depending on the part of the city the bus was in. In this section, the University District to Ballard, it tended to be quiet weirdos, loud weirdos, totally middle of the road new generation business men (who read the Seattle Times and tried not to look uncomfortable in their suits), or students. His experience on the bus was mostly one of scholarship, or rather he would read vigorously, shutting out the world around him and occasionally peeking his head out of the words to check his location. To be able to read on a moving vehicle, he had had to train himself, tune certain parts of his brain into not reacting to the movement of the bus and rather focusing on the movement of the eyes across the landscape of words. He was very pleased with himself whenever he thought of it. The bus allowed certain opportunities such as this which were not an option on the bike. This made him feel less guilty about leaving his spry little bike hiding in the bike room, gathering dust. He read and sometimes wrote. When he wrote he would look out in front of him into the infinite cave of thought, or observe his neighbors for inspiration. At this moment, on this day of his riding, just in front of him, in the seat before him, were two young men, students it seemed, who thought everything was funny and whose laughs were an awkward ordeal that couldn’t hide their own uncomfortableness with their own man bodies and man voices and man to man relationships.
One of the two man-boys was a small giant with knobby sausage fingers, whose nails looked like small square plates pushed deep into putty. These fingers were the outlet of his insecurities and his uncomfortableness. He grabbed the purple plastic handle on the seat in front of him like he was grabbing the ears of a small child, big putty hands on each side of the thing, and he began to thumb at the middle for no reason at all, his oily thumb tips massaging the hard plastic. He would do this and also use his thumb-looking fore fingers to roughly stroke the thing with outward motions. The third and grossest of the activities with this poor plastic handle was a right handed twisting and stroking, some unconscious masturbatory gesture he hadn’t yet excelled from expressing. Henry’s face twisted up in disgust. This was not the morning image that he wanted. He couldn’t stop watching though. The man-boy couldn’t stop molesting the thing either, like there was still some un-oiled surfaces he had to cover with the sick ritualistic gestures of a pastor with his altar boy. Henry began to express his feelings of disgust on the page, describing the display very much similarly as this narrator has done above, his script jarred often by the bumps.
When he was reading on the bus, he always got the feeling like something was going on that he needed to see, some scenery or event, something he couldn’t see just anytime. He could have gone without the man-boy event. But, when he was not reading, just staring, and nothing happened, as it was apt to, he felt as though he should be productive and read. He couldn’t win, even with himself. There were always at least two books to read, and two notebooks in which to write. Besides that he kept a camera. He liked to take pictures and didn’t care if they turned out to be anything or spent an eternity catching byte dust on his computer. The act itself was enjoyable. He knew nothing about framing, technically, or really what many of the settings did. He just took the pictures how he thought they looked good. It wasn’t an analogue for experience though as it is for many these days, the Asian tourists and the Hipsters in particular. He felt that they never actually lived life but rather made proof of a life lived. They weren’t there for any of it, personally, just their human forms. There were all the Asian tourists with their factory smiles giving the V for Victory sign with their hands in every single shot, waiting until they could get home and put it on their social networking site. The Hipsters as well just made evidence of life in order for it to be posted online, going further though into that sickly realm of irony. The ironic mustaches and poses, the ironic mimicry of Asian tourists even possibly, creating some facsimile of reality that seemed labyrinthine and inescapable."

I must say that I have done no editing and would be so very fine with anyone telling me if something sounded weird or was just outright wrong. It is very possible that both things have occurred, possibly simultaneously. Anyway, that's all I got. Plus this cartoon which identifies my situation near perfectly:

That Whole Wikileaks Thing...

2010-12-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

So, unless you are a cave-dweller (in which case you wouldn't be reading this right now), you know about Julian Assange and his secretive assemblage of super-hackers. In the last few months, several thousands of documents have been released, some of which have shown the public things they assumed but didn't have proof of directly (like say, from the horse's very own mouth where the horse is the government or the Pentagon). People have been stunned and appalled by the relish with which innocent people were mown down with helicopter super-machine guns (whose bullets are made to pierce tank armor). Yes, we all know that war is hell, but we all hope that the mindset which made the Third Reich possible wouldn't seep so easily into the skulls of our supposed protectors. From "Collateral Murder" to the more recent slow dissemination of diplomatic cables, Wikileaks has made a name for itself.

Ridiculous calls to action by certain entertainers/politicians, calling Assange a traitor (which he isn't, obviously, not being a U.S. citizen or acting within the U.S.), a terrorist (again silly and ignorant), and targeting him for assassination, show that this has stirred some pots and some people are scared about the implications (not to the structure of foreign relations, I'll say, but to their own exposition possibly). Wikileaks has so far put out more leaked documents than have all the news organizations combined over the years. This is significant. That the current leaks, the cables, haven't turned out to be shocking or game-changers exactly, doesn't mean that they don't have huge implications to not only government transparency but also the meaning of free speech and the function of an increasingly impotent journalism. These leaks reveal something of all shades of government, throughout the whole world, no matter what ideology is at work. Therefore this has the amazing ability to surpass political identity within the public and let them see exactly in what their representative government has been engaged, be it bad or good.

Already, those who didn't agree with the secrecy of the transparency-obsessed Wikileaks have split off to create Openleaks, which will launch tomorrow. The basis of this more transparent organization would be to act as a protected go-between for leakers and publications, where they themselves publish nothing at all. This is a good thing. And this is not to say that I don't agree with the secretive workings of Wikileaks, but it means that the ideas are finding footing in which to evolve this beneficial process of stopping illegalities on the governmental level. Julian Assange, the media doll, has added mystery-novel flourishes to the story with the news of his insurance file (his "poison pill"), a 256-bit encrypted file (called "nearly impossible to crack" by a major cyber security expert) which includes 1.4 gigabytes of leaked material which may include information leaked from Bank of America and BP and the convenience of the Interpol warrant's timing on spurious charges. The key to the encryption lies with him and will be released to the thousands who have downloaded the archived file from the site in the event of his indictment or murder. That is, I have to say, pretty cool. Since his arrest, so called "hacktivists" have attacked the sites of Amazon, PayPal, Mastercard and Visa for pulling their services from Wikileaks. It looks like an effort by a small and mobilized group representing goals antithetical to the overly secretive governments. This I can applaud, no matter how little it will really affect those companies' abilities to make money.

What does it mean? What will happen in the long run? How will this affect the happenings in the worlds of government and journalism? This is not yet apparent. But, at the least, Wikileaks has garnered a response by the U.S. government and its allies which shows their disregard for transparency and how easily they can slip into tyrannical muscle flexing. Whatever happens, it will be something to watch.

Here are some articles and websites of note:

Beet Kvass and Other Fermented Goodness

2010-12-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

About two weeks ago, I started something called beet kvass (it is the jar in the picture which looks like it has beets in it). The beets came into the kvass picture later in the game, as kvass was a fermented drink birthed out of Eastern Europe and Russia using mainly rye bread and water, with various other spices and fruits used as well. The point of the bread was that it had live cultures in it, like say, sourdough does. When soaked and left to ferment, those cultures are awakened and thrive. It was something often drank by the peasants after long days of work, as it was extremely nutritious and had a small amount of incidental alcohol. Lucky for them. Beet kvass uses a similar idea. It can include bread but many now prefer to use whey (as in the liquid stuff which pools in your container of yogurt). I myself, already steeped in a great deal of fermentation projects, have used just a couple tablespoons of the juice from one of my other pickles as starter. It needs a starter to begin its wonderful process.

Now to start this process I had to chop up the beets coarsely (after the strenuous act of peeling them), as you can see in the picture, and put them in my clean jar. This is three good sized beets, like softballs. It is ill-advised to shred the beets, as every site has warned me, since the beets then let off too much juice at once, sugar as well, and it turns into something more alcoholic. Not to say that it wouldn't be good, I just don't know. If anyone tries that method, let me know how it goes. So the beets are cut and in the jar, good. Now I add one tablespoon of salt and one or two tablespoons of starter (this can be your pooled liquid from yogurt or raw milk, or like me, some sauerkraut or pickle juice lounging around the fridge). You want to have spring water, void of that anti-bacterial chlorine which will destroy our wonderful bodily allies, and fill it up to about one inch from the top. My jar is two quarts. This space between the water and the top is where the excess CO2 created from fermentation will go. If you are using a mason jar, you might keep the lid just a little shy of tight, so as to allow for the escape of the CO2. With my clamp jar I haven't had any issues but do open it each day to release any pressure it builds. Wouldn't want a hole in my jar.

Beets are an extremely healthy vegetable, with implications for use in prevention and healing of cancers, the lowering of blood pressure, the increase of blood flow to brain, alkalization of blood, etc etc etc. It has many vitamins and minerals as well as antioxidants and other compounds of great benefit. Go here to see all the numerous benefits of this gorgeous vegetable. The fermentation of this concoction further increases the nutritional benefit, with the addition of probiotics which not only benefit digestion but help process the nutrients within for greater absorption. The tonic becomes red with time. It needs only three or so days outside of the fridge to be considered ready. The taste is salty and earthy sweet, like you are sucking down the very soul of the beet. If the taste is too salty, then the next batch should be prepared with that in mind, decreasing the salt to your taste. When the first batch is downed, the beets within can be given one more go, a little bit diluted from the first but still extremely beneficial and thirst-quenching.

The picture above includes the second chapter of my beet kvass (on the left, with golden beets this time), my newly fermented sauerkraut (middle, with the addition of organic Gala apples this time for sweetness) and a compendium of various vegetables set to ferment in a mason jar (right, the scraps of the moment are carrots, turnips, celery, brussel sprouts, red pepper and ginger). The last one is an ongoing experiment, which I pull from randomly and drop extra vegetables into. Fermentation is ridiculously easy, one just has to try it out. And let me know about it. Here are a few links to help you along:

I hope that this starts some on a fermentation frenzy. I can vouch for its enjoyment.

Cool Video Amongst Many

2010-10-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a cool video of Yeasayer, a capella in the subway:

#87.1 - YEASAYER - No need to worry / Redcave
Uploaded by lablogotheque. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

The website is called La Blogotheque, some French concoction, and it has videos of various great bands making music out in the open, say the street or someone's house, the subway or a backyard. Something like that. You should check it out.

Everyone Should Be So Happy

2010-10-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

My favorite video of right now.

Yessssssss.

Though You May Have Seen It...

2010-10-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Here is what a so-called "Happy Meal" looks like after 180 days:

Just search for "happy meal" on the Google and you will get the story, which is essentially the same as this picture, but with rabble.

Ways in Which One Can Make Food

2010-10-10T17:04:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to my previous post about the pathetic state of American eating, a state which could be helped immensely by the actuating of those common sensibilities built (though sometimes hidden deep within an overlarge shell) into each person with thoughts, I figured I would put up some recipes that represent vegetables as a main event. We are just coming into Autumn and as such many of the recipes are attuned to that season's fare. Each week, with our produce box, we get a sheet of recipes which more often than not has saliva-producing effects. The following are four such sheets.

Each image can be clicked to enlarge and printed out. I would love it if someone made one of these recipes and commented (just below the post) with the results. Enjoy eating healthy.

Eating and Sleeping...

2010-10-05T18:53:00.000-07:00

I have recently been looking at the New York Times' most popular health-related articles while vegging out before my computer. I find it funny and strange that there are so many fad diets and "miracle" pills when eating normally can be so easy. OK, normal nowadays is a relative term. Many Americans, most Americans, have a particular difficulty with looking back into their own cultural ancestral history and seeing what normal food eating looks like. Normal should be common sense but it no longer is. Common sense and normality have been violently blurred by modern day marketing, that apparatus of total deception. Processed food has taken the average American and run their entire system (beginning with digestive and continuing on to the cardiovascular, nervous, lymphatic, endocrine, muscular, skeletal and reproductive) through the proverbial mud. Flavorists can control taste and smell, fooling the mind into thinking that McDonald's fries (which never decompose) or Burger King's patties (guaranteed to be part feces) are good. They are not good. You are being fooled.

The common sense part: eat vegetables and fruits, walk around, sleep right. Meat, although extremely popular, is not the end-all be-all of food. It isn't very good for you. Eat some fish. Eating bad fats makes you fat. Period. Stop it already.

Here are those aforementioned New York Times articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/05brody.html?src=me&ref=health

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/health/research/05behavior.html?src=me&ref=health

So, eat right and get some sleep already!

Everyone Should Read Banned Books!

2010-10-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

In Springfield, MO, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse Five was recently pulled from high school curricula because of the opinion of one man. This man is a professor at Missouri State University, my alma mater. He is part of education, ladies and gentlemen. Scary. He believes it is "filthy," the book that is. As well as others. Here is the link to the story in Springfield's "newspaper." And here is a good analysis of the action. The following is from the Vonnegut book in question. Beautiful, smart, peaceful. And apparently part of a larger more evil and pornographic work, if you want to believe a guy named Scroggins.

"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored nearly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the rack and shipped back to the United States, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous content into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed."

Read GO SEE ART Post!

2010-09-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

I just posted on the GO SEE ART blog about Banned Books Week. Go read it!

Here is the poster for it, with robots!

A Day in the (Work) Life

2010-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Although this was created before my employ at Espresso Supply, the following video shows what happens on a daily basis at work in the shipping department. Enjoy it.

Also, if you have any need for coffee making things, here is the site: http://www.espressosupply.com/

Bike to Wineries, Check.

2010-09-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (Saturday, the 11th), we biked to the wineries. Myself, Anne and our friend Zack. This was an event that we had been wanting to do for some time and only ended up doing as a result of our panic that Summer was in its death throes. The ride was about 18 miles there, but we got off the trail too early and added nearly five more to that. The Burke-Gilman Trail runs through Seattle, beginning at 11th street in Ballard and ending above the Northern finger of Lake Washington at Bothell. From there it is replaced by the Sammamish River Trail, which continues to the wineries accompanied by the Sammamish River, whose banks are crowded with small bungalows and scrappy boats. Both trails are rail trails, conversions of unused railroads, which make for very evenly graded paths.

It was a gorgeous day, luckily for us. The ride was relaxing and surprisingly easy. We rode into our usual winery destinations, starting at Columbia Winery. I am a member there, thanks to my mother, and enjoy two free tastings for four people each time I go. We were joined, via her car, by Zack's girlfriend, Jamie.

We brought various farmer's market fare to eat. A baguette filled with olive oil, basil and garlic. A creamy spreadable fromage with truffle salt in it. Some fontina cheese. Plums, various berries, heirloom tomatoes and lentil sprouts. It was decadent and delicious. We got our tastings at Columbia, our heads humming with wine, then we headed across the street to Chateau Ste. Michelle.

Anne walks with determination near the plants of her Spanish ancestry. Here, at Ste. Michelle, the grounds are much more exciting and decorative. They even have a stage for the big name bands of yesteryear to play such as Crowded House; Steely Dan; Earth, Wind and Fire and Chris Isaak to name a few. And they have fowl. Ducks, geese and peacocks. The vines on the property are decorative only, as the real grapes are grown in more sandy, loamy soil on the other side of the Cascade Mountains. As such, these grapes are a little sour...

... as can be seen in the above picture, in Jamie's face.

There are the ducks, which seem to piss Zack off, or at least make him uber-serious. This is our second eating session, because drinking wine is a task that famishes.

And the following are some of the fowl we encountered.

The ride back was less invigorating than the ride there. We were beat. And there was a football game at UW's stadium so the trail became inundated with drunk, inconsiderate sports fans. We walked our bikes the last mile for this reason. Our final mileage was sitting at about 41 miles. We swelled with pride before succumbing to exhaustion and finding bed.

Currently Reading: Love in the Time of Cholera

2010-09-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the two most well-known books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and one of the most beloved books of literature in all the world. This Nobel Prize-winning novelist's prose sings. He is a reason for the popularization of the gorgeous literary style of magical realism. The other novel for which he is so well-known is One Hundred Years of Solitude. That book may be my favorite of all-time, sitting close to Milan Kundera's Immortality and Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (let's stick George Orwell's 1984 in there while we're at it). I just wanted to share a clump of prose from the early pages of the book that I thought were beautiful and important, as well as indicative of Marquez' prose.

"Along the rough cobbled streets that had served so well in surprise attacks and buccaneer landings, weeds hung from the balconies and opened cracks in the whitewashed walls of even the best-kept mansions, and the only signs of life at two o'clock in the afternoon were languid piano exercises played in the dim light of siesta. Indoors, in the cool bedrooms saturated with incense, women protected themselves from the sun as if it were a shameful infection, and even at early Mass they hid their faces in their mantillas. Their love affairs were slow and difficult and were often disturbed by sinister omens, and life seemed interminable. At nightfall, at the oppressive moment of transition, a storm of carnivorous mosquitoes rose out of the swamps, and a tender breath of human shit, warm and sad, stirred the certainty of death in the depths of one's soul"

It is also important to note that this English translation of this Spanish text is made possible by the ever-important translator of Latin American literature, Edith Grossman. Also, this is a mantilla.

"Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen"

2010-09-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

The following is the poem, "America," by Allen Ginsberg accompanied by a video montage that I enjoyed. It is one of my favorite poems of all time.

"...they sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party was in 1835..."

Just wonderful.

By The Way, How To Cut An Onion

2010-09-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

This is the best way, as shown by a French guy, then an English dude.

I like how the French chef says "onion."

I Watched This And Thought Of You

2010-09-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

This is possibly the funniest (seemingly unintentionally) video I have seen in awhile. Don't worry about understanding them.

Enjoy.

My First Real Weekend

2010-09-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

After my first real week of work (i.e. the whole Monday - Friday, leave at five bit), I have been graced with my first real week-end. Here is what the Google says about the week-end:

Okay, now add rain and subtract sun. Here is what my window says about it:

Yesterday, it was nearing 80 degrees. And sunny. Today, we won't even come to the heels of 70. The Rain City is again earning its name.

Finished Pickles, More to Come

2010-08-25T15:25:00.000-07:00

I have, so far, finished two batches of pickles. They are beautiful. And they taste really good while canoeing around Lake Union. Three men, one boat, seven hours, four pickles, seven hard-boiled eggs, at least four sunburned thighs, etc. Anyway, the following picture indicates my work in the realm of pickling. I have two further gallons fermenting atop my fridge.

And here is another gallon making its way towards deliciousness (this time with half the salt and fresh jalapenos):

Externally (meaning separate from pickling and concerning the out of doors), this is a picture of our bikes (Anne's and my own) hanging out in Gas Works Park, dwarfed by Kite Hill and the Aurora bridge (second most common bridge for suiciding oneself):

Hope that was enjoyable! Off to a sherry tasting!

Video: Orange Chair Placement and Human Psychology

2010-08-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

For those who live in Seattle or have been to Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park, I have got an interesting video for you. It concerns the placement of those ubiquitous orange chairs and how that affects park-goers movement throughout said park. Now I want to go there and interact with those chairs. Here is the video:

Turning a Cucumber

2010-08-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

The season for pickling cucumbers is upon us! Although odd and crazed, this exclamation did erupt in me, albeit mostly internally or not around many people. Since my excursion into the fine art of fermentation, I have wanted to make my greatest foodstuff addiction. Pickles. Real and sour pickles. Too long has man settled for vinegared cucumbers in America. We've only to look back at our ancestral history to see the true and truly delicious ways, back to Germany or Poland or Hungary among others. To make the distinction, they can also be called Brined Pickles. As this fermentation takes place because of the natural lactobacillus from the skin, it is filled, like sauerkraut, yogurt and kimchi, with probiotics (gut flora if you like). An acquaintance from the Ukraine told me years back that the resulting brine (pickle juice) was used for a hangover cure in Russia and Eastern Europe. Prior to this, I myself had often craved this special drink the morning after a night of too much. It seemed to work for me.

So now I have started my very own pickles. It excites me just to think about it, to see the jar of them processing above my fridge. I started one batch on July 31st, in the same jar I used to make sauerkraut. On Thursday I got some more cucumbers and so had to find another receptacle to make into a fermenter. I went to the home brew store just down the hill from my apartment to get some airlock and grommets. The airlock lets carbon dioxide, a natural byproduct, escape while keeping oxygen from getting in and creating yeasty scum on top. At the brew store I picked up a one-gallon bucket and the proprietor drilled a hole in the lid and fitted a grommet in there for me. It was perfect.

Making pickles is easy. I have linked to this site previously, because it is good and the book is better. Wild Fermentation. This has a recipe specifically for sour pickles, simply spiced. It also explains brine strength, which dictates the sourness and saltiness of the resulting pickle. I used the salinity of the linked recipe, 5.4% precisely, making for fairly salty and sour pickles. Yum. Some have used a salinity of up to 10%, where the pickle has to be rinsed off to be bearably eaten. I began my pickling by washing out my fermenter jar/bucket and adding the herbs and spices (flowering dill, two peeled bulbs of garlic, some peppercorns, mustard seed, caraway seed, chili flakes). Next comes the cukes. I put them in their in such a way as to fit them as tightly as possible. Finally the brine. Use spring water or some filtered water free of chlorine. Chlorine could kill all the bacteria you want to bolster. No tap water. I used six tablespoons, or 3/8ths cup, of kosher salt per liter of water. (OOPS! The previous sentence, although true to what I did, does not actually represent the 5.4% salinity I wanted. Rather it is closer to that 10% salinity in which eggs can float. I read wrongly and doubled the salt. Three tablespoons per liter is a 5.4% salinity. Take notice.) Kosher salt is a great salt to use as it has no iodine added and won't stain or darken the end result. When the brine covers the cucumbers and nears the top, I cap it and fill the airlock with a little water. Then wait. The airlock will bubble and brim. This is fermentation. I leave it be, let it bubble and dribble over. I know that no air connection is possible inside this way. I want to hear about it if anyone tries this. It is easy and fun. Like a science experiment you will get to eat later.

The following are pictures of their humble beginnings. I will report in a couple weeks as the fermentation becomes evident, or nears finish.

Poaching an Egg

2010-07-30T15:57:00.000-07:00

If you lack the certain finesse and knowledge needed for the successful poaching of an egg, you can find out how at Beyond the Hunger, which I will call the little brother blog of Satisfying Hunger ... It is operated by Lucas Cain, a fellow Seattlite and food enthusiast among other things. I am sure that posts will be added with increasing frequency as he gets the hang of the blogging thing. I also link to his site on my sidebar. Go over there.

Nature's Newest Horror Flick

2010-07-22T10:40:00.000-07:00

Infinite Jest, Finished

2010-07-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, big as a baby, though denser and more verbose, and I finished it. For my first time. I know that there is a second and even possibly a third time in store for me, somewhere in the future, a year past or more. I read every one of the one-thousand-seventy-nine pages (this including copious endnotes, of course) and was delighted and appalled and confused and suffering and entrenched and invested and in love throughout, in turns.

I looked everyday (nearly) at a web page which defined and explained words and acronyms and references which I hadn't the personal latent knowledge to know myself. It helped immensely and I learned a great deal of words, many of which I have still retained I hope. Post Jest I am looking at sites which dissect and analyze bits and pieces of the narrative which I may not have gleaned from the first go around. There is a lot of conjecture, but it is satisfying. It keeps me within the book I was reluctant to finish, to put down to sit there as another inert and mysterious object, a thick monolithic thing of weight. I suggest it to anyone with patience and a certain brand of literary commitment. Don't look at other books during this time. It needs your attention. Also, look to online resources and avoid spoilers. Maybe join the mailing list, like I did, and then observe or interact with the thoughtful and measured obsession that is DFW (also known as David Foster Wallace).

A website that is currently sitting on one of my Firefox tabs, running in the background, is The Howling Fantods. This specific link goes to the IJ Notes and Speculations page which I am now reading from time to time to extend my experience. It has spoilers, so if you haven't read it and want to, click to the main page. I was lucky enough to be linked on that page for my previous Infinite Jest post, in which I also linked The Howling Fantods. Another site I suggest, and have already, which is useful throughout the book is the David Foster Wallace Wiki. Super site for a supplemental. Anyway, I just wanted to publicly congratulate myself on this accomplishment. Tell me if you have read it or if I have convinced you to start it yourself. I will conclude this post with a small segment from the book which I loved the language of, so much so that I remembered the page number, which number I will not divulge.

"Then the number of times I would have to repeat the same processes, day after day, in all kinds of light, until I graduated and moved away and then began the same exhausting process of exit and return in some dormitory at some tennis-power university somewhere. Maybe the worst part of the cognitions involved the incredible volume of food I was going to have to consume over the rest of my life. Meal after meal, plus snacks. Day after day after day. Experiencing this food in toto. Just the thought of the meat alone. One megagram? Two megagrams? I experienced, vividly, the image of a broad cool well-lit room piled floor to ceiling with nothing but the lightly breaded chicken fillets I was going to consume over the next sixty years. The number of fowl vivisected for a lifetime's meat. The amount of hydrochloric acid and bilirubin and glucose and glycogen and gluconol produced and absorbed and produced in my body. And another, dimmer room, filled with the rising mass of the excrement I'd produce, the room's double-locked steel door gradually bowing outward with the mounting pressure....I had to put my hand out against the wall and stand there hunched until the worst of it passed. I watched the floor dry."

Thanks for listening.

Vulture

2010-07-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

Vulture

by Robinson Jeffers

I had walked since dawn and lay down to rest on a bare hillside

Above the ocean. I saw through half-shut eyelids a vulture wheeling

high up in heaven,

And presently it passed again, but lower and nearer, its orbit

narrowing,

I understood then

That I was under inspection. I lay death-still and heard the flight-

feathers

Whistle above me and make their circle and come nearer.

I could see the naked red head between the great wings

Bear downward staring. I said, "My dear bird, we are wasting time

here.

These old bones will still work; they are not for you." But how

beautiful

he looked, gliding down

On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering away in the

sea-light

over the precipice. I tell you solemnly

That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak

and

become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--

What a sublime end of one's body, what and enskyment; what a life

after death.

One of my favorite poems ever.

GO SEE ART

2010-07-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

Just posted over at GO SEE ART about fiction in The New Yorker. Go have a look:

goseeart.blogspot.com

Thanks.

Creme Brulee, For Real This Time

2010-07-04T00:18:00.000-07:00

Alright. The Burnt Cream post is finished on Sir Lucas' blog. I promised it before and gave little pictures of joy and hope. But, now, it is real.

Link to it here. And enjoy.

Beyond The Hunger

P.S. He actually isn't knighted.

Poetry, Paragraphically Formed

2010-07-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

Here is poetry made from the gray folds of my own mind.

A Sycamore Lives Inside of Me

A sycamore lives inside of me. I trim my leaves daily. Sometimes, I chew them off. Like hangnails. I know it symbolizes growth. It is growth. But who else must deal this way. Never have I peeked a sprout on someone else’s person. Not like the man on the bus who shuddered at the foliage spitting unkindly from my ear. I stopped drinking water for a week, traveled only at night. It stopped its punching youngness, that spurting spirit of youth. But I became listless, lonely and dry as bone. We live together, and so we die.

And so I traveled to the countryside. And so I planted my feet in rich soil. And so I stopped caring and became a forest. At least I am not alone.

Now

I remember the fluorescent glow of inside employment, scraping the concrete with razorblades and sweeping up after myself. I remember the day blinking out before I came to glimpse it, a four o’clock sunset and sleep, so much sleep. I remember drinking too much and loving it and still loving it now, living what fraction of life is left like a life worth living, not saving for an immutable immeasurable future, a thing spaced off and far away and never ever real, merely a penumbra of hope that more resembles discontent than progress. Blink out the unfolding of calendar reveries, you’ll die tomorrow! Everything begins and ends right here.

Somewhere Upward

Stocking shelves, blankly staring, my mind somewhere upward of me, in concrete, parking structure, working ever upward, trying for sky, wisp of cloud, my hands are functioning, muscle memory, I notice I am stocking toast tongs, yes, tongs for toast, and in noticing this I feel the dread, feel the insistence of the inevitable apocalypse, I feel we’re closer than ever before, and no shit, everyone’s scared but it’s a latent fear, living somewhere under our ribcages, behind our hearts, a dull ache, it’s in the toast tongs, the teabag squeezers, yes, there is teabag squeezers, the little things, the knowledge and image that people are delicately pulling toast with stylish bamboo tongs or are afraid to squeeze out their teabags with fingertips or spoon, too elegant, and I think this world is too fragile and the monkey in us is both too present and entirely gone, and I’ve got a goddamned hangnail and I feel my mind will never successfully navigate those halls of cars, never find the sweet air of sky.

by Sean Flannigan

A Poem

2010-07-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Bar Time
by Billy Collins

In keeping with universal saloon practice,
the clock here is set fifteen minutes ahead
of all the clocks in the outside world.

This makes us a rather advanced group,
doing our drinking in the unknown future,
immune from the cares of the present,
safely harbored a quarter of an hour
beyond the woes of the contemporary scene.

No wonder such thoughtless pleasure derives
from tending the small fire of a cigarette,
from observing this glass of whiskey and ice,
the cold rust I am sipping,

or from having an eye on the street outside
when Ordinary Time slouches past in a topcoat,
rain running off the brim of his hat,
the late edition like a flag in his pocket.

Infinite Jest, Rightly Named

2010-07-01T15:55:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I decided to pick up a mammoth book that had been sitting on a bookshelf, weighing down a bookshelf, in my apartment, to commit myself to this book fully, as full commitment is required before taking on such a task. This book, as mentioned in this post's title, is Infinite Jest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest) by the late great David Foster Wallace or, more intimately, DFW. And I have enjoyed it greatly ever since. For the most part. The beginnings were rocky for me as it takes place in a world set apart from our own, although based on our own. A world in which there is something called the O.N.A.N. (supposedly the Organization of North American Nations), Anti-O.N.A.N. Quebecois groups, a Great Convexity/Concavity (a great swath of land between Canada and the U.S. occupied by waste, both nuclear and domestic, which both sides try to claim is the other's, with the name variation dependent on which side one lives on), and years that are no longer numeral but nominal and subsidized (i.e. instead of 1998, Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment or Year of the Tuck's Medicated Pad) among other things. To synthesize these and many many more pieces of information into an understandable whole was difficult, as the writing, though engaging, is dense and it took about two hundred of the thousand pages to grasp the world of IJ. He also uses a variety of obscure words and numerous endnotes, with further endnotes and footnotes attached sometimes to the original endnotes. There is a website, I think there are many actually, that helps guide one through the reading of Infinite Jest, in which each page is broken down with definitions of words and explanations of phrases or dialectical difficulties (i.e. the Brogue monologue at an AA meeting). It helps and I have come to see this book as an education. I am learning words and ideas which I didn't know before. There is homework.

Here is an image of the book that I will insert to break up the text of this post:

Ever since I began reading this monolithic book, many other people I know or have met have also starting reading David Foster Wallace works. I am on a mailing list now. I am part of the cult. We have a secret handshake. He is dead, but alive in this silent network. I was outside during my lunch some days ago, with my book open, seemingly unidentifiable, enjoying the sun, when a man walked by, stopped and came back to ask me if I was reading IJ. We conversed and he confessed to being on page 108 very specifically, and we nodded to each other knowingly, holding special DFW knowledge. He walked away, stopped and turned, yelling something back to me. I couldn't hear him. He walked back to me and told me cryptically about the mailing list and how to find it. Now, I am on the mailing list. Involved in the cult, happily.

I am now on page 788 myself. Seven hundred and eighty eight Biblically-thin pages crammed to the margins with small text. And this doesn't even include the endnotes I have tackled. Even smaller text. I do love it though. Thinking about the book excites me. A central character in the book is something referred to throughout variably as "The Entertainment" or "samizdat." It is a weapon of sorts. It is a film that is so addictive to watch that the viewer no longer wants anything but to watch it, and invariably they, the viewer, ends up dying from malnutrition or thirst or destruction of self (an act referred to in the book as obliteration of "one's own map" or their own personal "cartography"). This idea of the "entertainment" is so original and refreshing, as a literary idea, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it lately.

Wallace has an amazing voice throughout. It is one of total experience and depth. The novel's meat is primarily divided between characters at the hilltopped Enfield Tennis Academy (a place of grooming teenagers to go to "The Show," i.e. professional tennis) and those of the Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House which sits at the bottom of said hill in Enfield, MA, a suburb of Boston. Wallace's ability to dive into the psychological minutiae of both the teenagers of the tennis academy and the dark and addicted husks of people at the Ennet House was surprising and emotional, involving a large amount of personal investment. He seems to know so well the internal world of addiction, depression and abuse, as well as the whole realm of competitive tennis, mentally and technically. There are so many intricately laid out literary parallels between storylines of the separate locations and people, which gives the reader a seeming direct connection between themselves and the narrator, a little wink and nudge from the fifth wall where the audience and the writer both sit. There are numerous articles and message boards and dissertations and mailing lists that all deal with these intricacies and themes. They are too numerous to even begin to deal with inside of this post. The story is too vast to even outline in this post. I am doing injustice to it by even discussing only this much.

I would highly suggest this book, with a caveat. If one is interested in taking on such an adventure as this, they should first read some of DFW's essays and short stories (for David Lynch fans, read "David Lynch Keeps His Head" from A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again). This will allow one to get an idea of his writing style and his predilection for foot- and endnotes. He was a genius, as judged by the MacArthur Fellowship in 1997. One shouldn't feel bad about having to look up some words, but know that one is probably going to have to look up those words. Think of it as learning. Remember doing that? Crosswords aren't enough, despite what you think. Sudoku, the same. Then, seeing that you have a liking for his writing and his incisiveness and his big words and his sort of comedy, you should find resources for support during the reading. I will link to some at the end. Then, after reading it, and hopefully enjoying it, tell me about it. I would love to hear from a fellow cultist.

Resources:
http://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.thehowlingfantods.com/inf.htm
http://infinitesummer.org/

David Foster Wallace himself had depression issues and, after bad luck with various anti-depressants, ended up "eliminating his own map." He hung himself on September 12th, 2008. RIP DFW.

Entertainment From Me to You

2010-06-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Yes:

Yes:

And yes:

Musically Inclined and Smelling of Campfire

2010-06-15T21:40:00.000-07:00

This past weekend some weary travelers bearing a closed trailer full of instruments rode into town and onto our living room floor. Exhibit A:

They are called Karma Vision. They played two shows in Seattle, one in some hidden hallway between two bars, and the second at a restaurant down the street from us. We went to both shows, Anne and I, and enjoyed them both thoroughly. I recommend that others listen to them as well. Here is their MySpace and Facebook respectively: http://www.myspace.com/karmavisionband; http://www.facebook.com/pages/Karma-Vision/42580729821.

Enjoy.

American Economics 101

2010-06-15T20:43:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately for half of the country in which we live, life kind of sucks. And, unfortunately, that is by design. Or, at least it would seem so. As we all love a good pie chart, eat it up:

This from an article called "15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth and Inequality in America," shows a sickening trend toward some sort of feudal system we thought we had escaped long ago. We didn't. Look at China. They do feudalism better than any modern-day super power. And all the while the uber-capitalists are damning the spread of socialism (these being those perhaps in that top percentile or even in the following nine). To learn more, go here: Wealth Distribution and Inequality In America.

Music I Ignored Two Years Ago

2010-06-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well, The National has a new album out, called High Violet, and back when they were impressing everyone two years ago, I was ignoring it. I am very good at that skill. I shined on a certain video the other day and found, within the next two days of watching it, that I had gained some sort of crush upon the band, without my knowing it while it was building up within me. Now, maybe it was merely the effect of the video and the lead singer in the video, a mister Matt Berninger, whose strange little non-committal dance-and-sing act throughout the video was mesmerizing, but I think that I have to get all of their albums, all five of them, and probably illegally. Here is the video:

I hope it is enjoyable, or at least ignorable.

Island Wilderness Camping

2010-05-27T15:47:00.000-07:00

Recently, we went on a camping trip. On the Island of Whidbey, just North and West of Seattle. Half a mile from a beach that looks out on the Puget Sound and behind that, the great Pacific Ocean. Accompanying us on this sleeping-in-the-out-of-doors expedition were two other couples, whose celebrity mash-up names would be Zamie and Aargan (pronounced air-gun). Here are shameless plugs of their websites: Zack, Jamie, Aaron, and I don't know if Meagan has a website. Anne's is on the sidebar.

We camped, specifically at South Whidbey State Park. It was fun though there was little in the way of hiking, unlike the massive forests of the Olympic Peninsula, still my favorite place to camp. We set up camp, each couple with our own four-person tent, and set to making food before the sun fell too far down over the horizon. Then we drank around the fire. The weather was nice, though a little cool at night, and the beach was beautiful, full of various beached life-forms ready to have their pictures taken. We, the boys, threw rocks at inanimate objects until we were tired and wanted beer. We, the boys, played with the clay that made up the cliff abutting the beach, and formed it into unidentifiable nothings until our hands were covered in clay and we were wearing stupid smiles. We, all, took pictures of the oddities of the beach (including ourselves) as the tide was at its lowest. Then we walked back up the hill to our camp, in order to sate our desires for food, booze and the mesmerizing behavior of flames. We slept in between eating and playing and drinking, such an insignificant detail though.

I felt like life should be like that more than it is. Void of bank statements and the forty-hour-a-week deal. Just throwing rocks at things and making food. Simple and wonderful. But, I must say, the shower was amazing when I got home, as well the warm bed and the laying about in front of a movie. The camping was fun, for awhile. And it didn't rain. I have sloppily explained the whole thing but the following pictures will help.

The Tent!

More After The Jump

Zack and the Other Trees

Man Taming Fire

Burning Meat in the Dark (Aaron Mason's Autobiography)

Odd Sweating Tree Mushroom

My Back and Forest

Laughing For No Reason on a Beach

Crazy Many-Limbed Starfish (recently viewed 2D on Planet Earth DVD)

Dead(?) Crab

Awkward Man Surveying Water

Untitled With Barnacles

Happy Beach Couple

Elephant Man Emerges From Sea to Take Revenge

Rarely Glimpsed Interpretive Dance Performance With Kelp

Art

Driftwood Tee-pees

The Last Thing You Will Ever See

Drinking Rum Cider on the Beach at High Tide

And thus concludes the camping adventure.

Also, by the way, sorry to anyone who ventured to Lucas' website to find no information regarding the making of Creme Brulee. He will be getting a visit from thick-armed monkey-suited men very soon. The Creme Brulee details will be featured on his website hopefully soon and at that point I will make light of it. Thanks.

Burnt Cream, a la Francaise, or Something

2010-05-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Creme Brulee (i.e. Burnt Cream) is a custard, Frenchified and toasted on top with a hand held flame. We made this. By "we," I mean Lucas, and an observing me. Lucas, the Cain that didn't kill his brother, is the non-French French chef that created this masterpiece under the keen observatory eye of I. I will defer to his blog to explain the particulars, but all the same I wanted to highlight my experience of brulee-ing the creme. One day, the first day of the experience, I watched as Lucas separated the egg yolks from the whites, leaving the whites alone from their yolks to be cooked in some other separate dish (a later breakfast sandwich for me two days later), whipped the yellows with sugar until they formed distinct lines, heated the cream with excessive and decadent amounts of vanilla (twice the usual, and rightfully so), mixed the whole mess together, and poured them into their receptacles for refrigeration. The following day the magic happened. Crystallization. The top of sugary glass. The joy on each of our delighted faces. This is an end point. This is a result. I will share pictures illustrating what came of the experience. The rest I will leave to Lucas. Learn the secrets of joy-making at http://beyondthehunger.blogspot.com/. Here are pictures:

Local Food and Good Beer

2010-04-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

This is a good mantra, I think. Anne and I patronize the services of a local farm (Full Circle Farm) that delivers digestibles to us weekly (actually to the community center a block away from us). It is one of many CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) that Western Washington has to offer. Every week, for thirty one dollars a week, we are provided with a bounty of fruits and vegetables, about 12 to 14 different food items per box, which is more than enough. Plus, it is all organic. This is what I do every Thursday upon getting the box to our kitchen:

Many cities enjoy these programs. It feels good to know you are supporting your local economy and also eating damn good organic produce. The average American meal travels thousands of miles to get to one's plate. A lot of calories to bring a few. It is uneven. Local economies suffer for global markets. Much of the viable land in the Midwest is being used for inedible corn, #2 corn they call it, for use in thousands of super-processed foods. Anyone who gives a damn should look up CSA's in their area, or farmer's markets. They are your neighbors. Even in the very rural Barnard, MO, where much of my family lives, and where much of the farmland is #2 corn, they are putting together a farmer's market where people can sell their own garden's produce, and to their neighbors nonetheless. It is important. To further explain my point, I would suggest watching the movie Food, Inc, and reading books by Michael Pollan. Also, a very funny and food-smart guy, Mark Bittman. Here is a good, funny and important video by Bittman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YkNkscBEp0

Second to food, beer is also important. Drink good beer. I drank a good beer the other day. I often do. But a certain beer stood out. It wasn't local, but oh, well. It is a Polish beer. Find it and drink it and tell me what you think. Tell me what you think about any of this. It is easy.

South Park, Muhummad and The Stranger

2010-04-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

On April 14th, the infamously controversial and insanely entertaining animated show, South Park, aired their 200th episode in which the Prophet Muhammad is heard speaking from a U-Haul trailer and later comes out dressed in a bear costume. I have not seen this episode as it is not available to watch online as the episodes usually are. I am betting it was funny. Comedy Central, in responding to threats from a humorless group called Revolution Muslim, took the episode down and in the continuing storyline of this week's episode both the visual depiction (in a bear suit, nonetheless) and his name were blacked and bleeped out. A member of this group said that it was an insult to the Prophet and warned the creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, that they might end up like the filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker, was stabbed killed in 2004 by an Islamic militant for making a movie critical of abuse of women in some Islamic societies. Ridiculous. These incidents and threats are horrific and in no way represent the actions of people with 1) brains and 2) hearts. 1) If any religion has so affected one's mental faculties in such a way that they can justify murder (or for that matter, fleecing anyone else's rights), then maybe it isn't the best way to get to one's own personal heaven. 2) Anyone with a scrap of emotion (i.e. a heart, see "Tin Man") knows that they shouldn't kill other people who presumably have emotions and hearts. Heartless and brainless people aren't supposed to be the clergy, they are supposed to replace us in the work force and are fueled by old people's medicine (i.e. they are robots, see Saturday Night Live Season 21, Episode 6). Anyway, here is a link to the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/arts/television/23park.html. And if you'd rather, the British version of things: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/22/south-park-muhammad-episode-censored.

The Stranger is Seattle's local weekly. They often have cool/funny/relevant covers. This week the cover is all three.

If you can't see it, up in the corner it says "It's Wrong To Draw Muhammad! Don't Connect The Dots!" This is obviously a plea to connect the dots, vis-a-vis reverse psychology. So I did.

Truthfully, it looks more like a Santa to me. If no one was ever supposed to draw the Prophet Muhammad, then how would anyone know what he looked like? Mentioning that it "is" Muhammad inside that bear costume means that it is a valid depiction worth killing for? This religion stuff can be exhausting to understand sometimes, I think, because each person has a bit of their sacred book to back up any action they take. Next thing you know someone is going to religiously justify killing a doctor. I am glad that day has not yet come to pass.

------------------------------

Addendum to post now considering a comment made concerning post -
There is apparently, in a certain old text, a description of what our old friend the Prophet looks like. The Shia do not forbid his depiction I have been told. The Sunni then must make up the radical perspective of "No Connecting The Dots or Pay With Death!" I think I may have found, based on the descriptions, a painting of Muhammad, or at least a likeness. Let's see:

Thanks to the beautiful artist, Anne Petty, for her rendition of this fellow, also known more casually as simply "Lucas."

-------------------------

Further addendum:
The connected dots figure, after a long look, is actually the Burger King. It has a BK on the crown that is on its head. Hmmm... even better.

DOSA!

2010-04-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

Indian food can be delineated by the region from which it is born. Northern Indian, I think, is what is usually seen. Cream is used more often in this Punjabi or Kashmiri cuisine. Very good cream dishes. A lot more meat is used as well. I love Northern Indian but have an especially fond place in my heart for Southern. The cuisine of this region, also called Dravidian, is known as the spiciest of India. Overall it is a much more Vegetarian-friendly India. One of the items made and used most exclusively is the dosa, a spiced crepe made from lentils and rice. Incredibly nutritious and fabulously tasty, the dosa is eaten with a variety of different foods at all times of the day. It is usually stuffed with a sort of curry or masala (the one I get at the place around the corner is a potato masala), but can also be used to dip in chutneys or lentil soups. The possibilities are nearly endless. While I still had the Wild Fermentation book on loan from the library, I noticed a recipe for dosa. This is how I did it.

First, your ingredients:
- Two Cups Rice (brown works nicely)
- One Cup Lentils (any kind you want, I used red)
- One Cup Yogurt, Kefir or Water (I used yogurt)
- Some Cilantro and Fresh Ginger (for later)

The first step is easy. You put the rice and lentils into a big bowl with water to soak. You will want to put a bit more water in than rice and lentils because they will expand. Let this soak for eight hours or overnight. It will sour a little. This is good and natural.

After this soaking, grind or process into a batter with the yogurt, kefir or water. It should be smooth, not chunky, and barely pourable. Put this into a big bowl, if it isn't already, with room to expand. The fermentation begins. This can be left to ferment on your counter or out of the way somewhere for one to two days or more (if you like it more sour). Forget about it. Set an alarm on your phone. Whatever. It will smell more and more sour as it goes. That is wonderful.

This is what my batter looks like after two days of fermenting. At this point, after the waiting, you can add spices. The recipe called for cilantro, grated ginger and salt (teaspoon or so). You could also add fenugreek, cumin, curry leaves, curry powder, asofoetida (hing), cayenne powder, fresh peppers, turmeric, etc. It is your dosa, do what you want. But, ginger and cilantro are definitely good. I added a small bunch of chopped cilantro and about an inch of grated fresh ginger. You want FRESH ginger. Also, add enough water to thin out the batter. We are making crepes, not pancakes. Mix this through and find a good ladle. You got it? Great.

Heat the skillet or pan (cast iron works great, or a good non-stick pan) and add some oil or butter. I used butter because it is good. On the topic of butter, buy Irish butter. Kerrygold is good. It has a better stronger flavor and it is squeezed from grass-fed cows, which is healthier. Here is a site I found talking about the benefits of eating from pastured animals: http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm. Anyway, heat the pan with butter or vegetable oil and let it get hot. Keep it around medium heat. Then ladle your beautiful batter right in there, spreading it out with the bottom of the ladle until it is nice and thin. It will act like a pancake, bubbling up through the top and giving you some idea as to when to flip it. Flip it. Cook it until it is golden brown and make some more.

You may want to test it before you flip it to make sure it is holding up and cooked enough. If you are successful, it will look like this.

Yum. After you have cooked them all and turned off that hot burner, what will you do? Enjoy it with yogurt? Stuff it with some savory Indian fare that you either made yourself or obtained through a local Indian restaurant? Dip in chutneys? Fill it with eggs and potatoes and have a breakfast burrito? For my meal, I enlisted my friend, Lucas Cain, White-Boy-Indian-Food-Extraordinaire, to help with a decent accompaniment. This is the result.

I made the whitish potato dish (Potato and Spinach Coconut Curry) and Lucas made the reddish Paneer dish (Mutter Paneer in Tomato Curry Sauce). The dosa is located under the fork. Try this recipe if you dare. The hardest part is the wait. Really. Do it.

And now, some food poetry.

Ode To The Onion
by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

NPR contest

2010-04-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I submitted a little (and I mean little) story for an NPR contest. Three-Minute Fiction, I think it is called. Six hundred words or less. Including the words "plant," "button," "fly" and "trick." It was novelist Ann Patchett's (writer of Bel Canto) as the judge. I am not sure that it will see the light of public radio day, but this is the one that I put in, with the editorial help of Ms. Anne Petty:

Flight

Where emotion was concerned, the man was a plant. He stared at things as though they had no innate emotional condition within him. He could name them off like anything else. This is my mother's handkerchief. This is my father's wristwatch. But, they were like other people's parent's things. He walked along heavily, enumerating not the quantity of beauty within the trees' myriad blooms with their myriad colors, but only the things he needed to do that day in order to live. These things were: drink three cups of water, full to the brim; eat four square meals; do twenty push-ups and twenty pull-ups (on a bar he bought at the drug store because it was on sale and he felt that exercise was important based on the facts) which he did not for the sake of flattering himself in the mirror or attracting women he might only have casual sex with (which he didn't do), but because he felt exercise was important based on the facts; cross the street if he saw anyone smoking cigarettes to avoid second-hand smoke; avert eyes from intimidating looking people which might cause harm upon him; wear sunglasses to preserve his eyes; have a child to carry on his name (this was one thing which he hadn't done much legwork on achieving seeing that he had little to no social skills); sleep seven hours and forty-five minutes because eight made him feel tired the whole day and seven did the same .... And this list went on in his head while he stared forward. This man has little to no social skills, and even has trouble purchasing gum from the corner store. He can't form sentences and is only really relieved when it is a foreigner taking the money he puts on the counter, even though foreigners also make him nervous. He felt he had many nameless diseases and disorders, all of which racked him with a vague dread that almost approached emotion yet not in any substantial or winning way. He stayed in his apartment most the time and worked from home. He ate nuts and fruit and chicken and wheat bread. These are things that were supposedly good for you. He didn't keep chocolate bars or ice cream. He didn't eat out of desire but only to create a working person and stop the aching that sometimes pained his gut. Sometimes, without his approval, his dreams would bring him to the skies, that is, he would fly. Once he dreamed he flew across America, seeing the delineated states as on maps pasted on high school geography walls, skimming over the topography of that U.S. map, seeing the sites that made America famous. That is to say: the Grand Canyon, the Twin Towers before they were exploded, Mount Rushmore, the hills of San Francisco, the ocean to each side, the sunsets from all angles the country afforded in the late Spring. In his dreams he felt a rushing uncomfortable strain on his chest, stomach and mind. Emotion. He wanted. He wanted to do stupid things like tear his shirt off, not caring about the falling buttons, and make love to a woman or climb a mountain and get a little hurt in the process. He wanted to be a kid and walk the neighborhood with other kids yelling, "trick or treat!" and smiling for no good reason. He wished, in these dreams, to be reckless, and was, in his dreams. Then he would wake up and enumerate the ways that he could stay alive that day, dreamless and careful and very very logical.

Just under six hundred words and initially realized on 750words.com. It is what it is.

Cheese, Words and Spring

2010-04-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

OK, I have neglected this blog recently. Busy. You know. But, I have had things to say, just not the time to say them in an HTML format. I write this now remotely. Across the street to be precise. The computer can still pick up our wireless signal. So, not too remote.

Firstly, cheese. Everyone should make some farmer's cheese, as it is extremely easy. The idea of making cheese, I will say, is a big and scary one. The good news is that the actual execution of cheese-making, at least this type, is not big and scary. What it takes:

- One Gallon Whole Milk
- One Half Cup of Vinegar (cheap distilled vinegar is great)
- One Tablespoon Salt
- Cheesecloth
- Strainer

Now, bring milk to a slow boil (or, as I have found, a frothing you can barely control), stirring frequently to avoid burning, and remove from heat. Then, slowly add vinegar whilst stirring until curds develop. Congratulations, for this has been the hardest part. Pour this mixture through a cheesecloth within a strainer inside of a sink. What will collect are the curds. What won't is the whey. Goodbye whey! Anywhey, what you now have without the addition of salt is essentially ricotta cheese. If that is your stop, then go ahead to the next enlarged first letter. The rest of you will add the salt and mix it through. This works to further void the curds of liquid resulting in a more solid product. You can also add herbs, spices or even colorful flowers at this point which will all inform your cheese. I haven't yet elaborated on the plain cheese. Gather up the corners of your cheesecloth and tie them together, opposite to opposite, tightly. At this point, one can either hang this ball from a hook elevated over a bowl for the drippings, or one can put it on an angled cutting board (a lego or wine opener under one end) with another cutting board or pan or whatever on top, weighed down with any heavy thing you can find (I put my cast iron pan and a pumpkin on there). Wait two hours or more. Free it from its cheesecloth cage. You have made cheese! This cheese is often called paneer, used frequently in Indian cuisine. It can be cubed and toasted in a frypan, which really brings out its flavor. It doesn't melt and acts much like tofu. It is wonderful. The picture above is not of my own, though I do have pictures. They are not available to me at this remote location. Here is some paneer in action:

This, as well, is not mine. But it will suffice. Comment on this post if you make this cheese.

Secondly, words. I have recently, via the blog of Seattle' The Stranger, found a website called 750words.com. It works like this: you identify yourself by signing in through either Facebook, Google or Yahoo; you write 750 words or more a day and in doing so gain points that multiply in the way of bowling; when finished you get to view your stats for that day; etc. The statistics are your words-per-minute, amount of time taken, amount of words, number of distractions (three-minutes of idleness), weather while writing, rating (i.e. PG, PG-13, R, etc.), and more intensive analyzations like emotion of the piece, tense used, mindset, primary sense, frequently used words, etc. There is much going on here and it is very rewarding in some way to see how your writing is interpreted. These statistics are consolidated into all-time statistics also.

My all-time mindset is Extrovert, Positive, Certain, Feeling whereas the World's mindset is Introvert, Positive, Uncertain, Feeling. I have a PG-13 rating. I have written 27,376 words, which will increase fairly soon by about 750 words or more. I have taken the April challenge, meaning that I will not miss one day of April's writing. I will buy myself an Indian feast if I am successful. If not, I will buy Lucas Cain a beer, maybe more. Lucas has also taken this challenge, but alas, he has failed. He now must buy me the liquor of my choice. I still have to figure out what that choice might be.

All in all, I feel that this site has helped me immensely in my writing. Unlike a document file, I don't feel like what I write has to be anything absolute and final. It really helps stream of consciousness thrive. It is sort of a jump-start for writing. Ideas come out more easily. It can also help in a confessional sort of way, getting things off your chest and forming them into sentences and paragraphs and ideas. If anyone starts doing this, please leave a comment on this post with what you think.

Thirdly, Spring! The blooms are weighing the trees branches down, the sun is high in the great blue sky, people are out with their babies and their dogs and occasionally their rats and joy is finally coming out of dormancy. Tulips and Rhododendrons and Japanese Magnolias. The air smells amazing. There is also these tiny little flowers that look like many white bells and they smell of honey, right next to my living room window. I need soon to visit the wineries and revel in this gorgeous weather. There is no point to this third section. I am drinking green tea in a cafe and my day off just so happens to be a day of clouds and looming sprinkles. Not like cupcake sprinkles either. Drizzle.

I hope this was all appropriately informative/entertaining. If it wasn't, comment and say as much. Tell me how much you love Spring. Tell me that I have taken up a great deal of your time with my rambling. Whatever you want. Have a good day. Enjoy this poem that I am throwing in just because.

Country Fair

by Charles Simic

If you didn't see the six-legged dog,
It doesn't matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

Make Bread

2010-04-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

OK, this will be quick. The post and the bread you are about to make. Your effort will be minimal and the bread will be amazing. The most straining thing you might have to do is wait. Which I am doing now. This is a no-knead bread. When done it is airy and beautiful. The bread I am now making (and by now making, I mean waiting for it to bubble and rise) is going to be entirely made of whole wheat. I am letting it sit for two days so it can ferment a bit and maybe impart a sourness that will subsequently please me and make me smile. I will just post the link for this super easy bread.

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/kitchen-hack-one-minute-ciabatta-bread.html

When I get some more time, I will blog the cheese I recently made. It is also easy, but not nearly as easy as this bread. Enjoy.

Making Kombucha and Other Fermented Pursuits

2010-03-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Kom-bu-cha (kŏm'bōō'chä') : n. A lightly sparkling beverage made by fermenting black or green tea and sugar with a culture of various bacteria and yeasts. (compliments The American Heritage Dictionary via Dictionary.com)

n. a gelatinous mass of symbiotic bacteria (as Acetobacter xylinum ) and yeasts (as of the genera Brettanomyces and Saccharomyces ) grown to produce a fermented beverage held to confer health benefits. (compliments Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary via Dictionary.com)

This is the culinary adventure that I am currently undertaking, among other feats of the fermented type. To make Kombucha, you first must obtain what is called a Mother, or a SCOBY in general. SCOBY stands for Symbiotic Community of Bacteria and Yeasts. And I know that in this country as a whole, with a few very small exceptions, we are deathly afraid of things bacteria and yeast related. This, unfortunately for us as a culture, is stupid, especially as we are a culture of cultures, and ones in which the tradition of fermented foods is robust and evidentially healthful. As my last post gives notice to, bacteria are so much a part of us that we would not work without their even balance. And, in actuality, anti-bacterial soaps are dangerous in that they kill the weaker of the bacteria, leave the stronger bacteria, and without the weaker bacteria the stronger is able to assert itself more fully, then becoming problematic.

This "mother" looks like a slimy pancake, sort of, and comes in about a cup or two of the last tea batch it created. The second step is to make tea, it prefers black I hear, but any tea leaf tea, such as green, white, oolong, etc. is acceptable. To the tea you add some sugar (one cup to one gallon tea and divided or multiplied accordingly for different quantities). This sugar isn't for your sweet tooth but rather food for our SCOBY. It will eat the sugar, much like the yeast in beer to create alcohol, and output enzymes, B vitamins, anti-oxidants, and those uber-helpful probiotics. When the tea is made and the sugar dissolved, the tea needs to cool. When cool, the tea in which the mother currently lives is poured in. Then the mother itself is put on top, smooth side up.

I am currently waiting the prescribed ten to fourteen days. In this time, a skin will form on top of the tea, which has been kept around 75 to 85 degrees with a cloth rubber-banded to the top to provide oxygen yet keep out flies and dust. This skin is what is referred to as, appropriately, the baby. It piggy-backs on the mother and can be separated and used as the mother for a subsequent batch while the first mother can be given to a friend or person through craigslist (as I was). After all this, which so far is very simple, the mother is taken out and the tea is put into bottles where it can ferment longer and become fizzy naturally. Apparently, you can add juice at this step to add flavor and more sugars that will feed further fermentation.

Besides the Kombucha, I am also pickling a mixture of cabbage, cauliflower and carrot (accompanied by whole garlic cloves and whole unbroken Serrano peppers) in the same fashion as I did the Sauerkraut in a former post. My future in fermentation may hold possibilities such as yogurt, kefir, kvass and sourdough. On this topic, if any are interested, I would highly suggest reading the book Wild Fermentation. It looks like this:

And it is amazing. Here is a link to the website for it: http://www.wildfermentation.com/

Hope that this was enjoyable, interesting and not at all boring like it has the great possibility of being to many.

Stop It Already With The Antibacterial Soap

2010-03-18T21:18:00.000-07:00

This just in*...

In our bodies, human cells are outnumbered by bacterial cells ten to one. You are less you than you are bacteria. Chew on that.

Here is the link to a story about it:
WE ARE BACTERIA

Also, I suggest reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. The above fact is one of many in this mind-blowing science book.

*Not exactly just in. More like, in several years ago but you probably don't know about it yet.

San Francisco Pt. 3

2010-02-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

Today will concern the our initial day in San Francisco. It will be briefer than other posts. We were tired and it was a bit of a gray day. It seemed as if the landmarks of Seattle had merely changed for the sky looked exactly the same. Regardless we had a good time. Our hosts, Jill and her boyfriend Jade, gave us a walking tour of their neighborhood (near Golden Gate Park and the famed and drug-addled Haight-Ashbury) after a wonderful breakfast of homemade (Jade-made) crepes, which were delicious. We had been to SF before but didn't make it to Golden Gate Park and only saw a little bit of the Haight. The Haight itself is known for its Beat and Hippie constituency back in their heyday, the 50's and 60's. Now, though, it seems it has partly gentrified and partly become a sad advertisement for its famed anti-consumerist former inhabitants (a store covered in one too many peace signs and selling bad crepes comes to mind). Despite the bad, it still houses some great bookstores and boutiques as well as an amazing plant culture. I became quite taken with the plants that took over this part of the city. Jades and other Succulents flourished on sidewalks and porches. It was, for me, truly beautiful.

We ended up heading towards de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The building itself was a work of art on its own, as you will see. Anne and I, being Bank of America users, got in free by some great luck. The museum's tower looks out over the whole city, which despite being clouded over was beautiful. Then we perused the art downstairs, including an exhibition of Amish quilts that I found very cool in their own right. There was a good deal of great art, most interesting of which, in my opinion, was the work by the artists of the Bay area such as Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and David Park. This was the highlight of our day. Plus, the sun began to peek its head from the clouds and the clouds gave way to blue. This was nice.

The highlight of our night was a restaurant that I had been dreaming of since my last SF experience, three years before. The restaurant is called Dosa, located in the Mission District of San Francisco. Indian food varies greatly from region to region. A lot of Indian food hails from the Northern Indian tradition. This restaurant was of the Southern tradition, which is mostly vegetarian and uses dosa (rice and lentil flour crepes) as a vehicle for tastiness. In my mind, this is the best region for Indian food. It was delicious but I have no pictures. Also not pictured is our full-bellied stroll to a bar in the "deep Mission" (i.e. part of the Mission less subjected to gentrification than other parts and therefore covered in neon-lit nail parlors and authentically and prominently Mexican bars) where we drank a few beers and couldn't keep from watching the muted cheesy horror flicks on the TV in the corner. Then sleep. A long day, well-spent.

So many plants.

More after the jump~

Pre-Valentine's practice.

de Young Museum.

Deep in thought.

The view from above.

With Golden Gate Bridge in background.

Yeah.

Elmer Bischoff and Anne Petty.

David Park.

From inside, second floor window.

Goodbye.

Interlude Accompanied By Pressure Cooker

2010-02-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

To momentarily deflect attention from my increasingly distant San Francisco visit, I will take a moment to praise the culinary efforts of my trusty pressure cooker by way of the presentation (with obligatory photos) of the meal I quickly made up last evening. I will not name it for to do so would be to diminish it to some easily identifiable and therefore hum-drum existence. It, like much in life, is a construction of parts, of which none can lay absolute claim for its eventual resulting texture and flavor, in the way that a swingset is a swingset and not a metal tube or a plastic seat. My rhetoric, I am aware, is becoming ridiculous (though true).

These parts are: 1 cup dry brown rice (Basmati), 2 cups dry red lentils, two medium orange carrots (chopped), one medium russet potato (chopped), half of a yellow onion (diced coarsely), five to eight cloves of garlic (minced), three-fourths of a bag of frozen spinach, fourth cup of olive oil or so, splash of balsalmic vinegar, fourth cup of sesame seeds (ground fresh), some nutritional yeast, maybe fourth cup sugar, five cups of water, one cup soy milk and spices (details forthcoming).

The spices I used are the following: mixed peppercorns, cumin seed, black mustard seed, asafoetida a.k.a. hing (interesting history behind this special spice), curry leaf, coriander seed, toasted lentils, cayenne powder and coconut. Hence this bowl of spices:

More after the jump~

Which, with the help of my wonderfully simple mortar and pestle, became this:

So, this sets up the profile of the dish's flavor, helped along by the addition of the previously stated ingredients. For the fun of it and because it was on hand, I also ground up some sesame seeds into an oily mash. I don't know if this did anything. All the veggies were chopped or minced and placed into a nice white bowl. See:

As the Indians and their cuisine have taught me, I get the oil hot first. The spices come first and the place gets fragrant. I said what the hell and threw in the sesame mash as well. It smells fantastic, let me tell you. By the way, I am starting and ending in the pressure cooker. No other pot or pan needed. If smell-o-vision were a real thing this picture would make you really hungry:

The vegetables in all their variousness are then added after about three to five minutes, including the frozen spinach. I allowed them time to cook and smell up my apartment some more. I like to add my lentils and rice to the oil with the veggies before adding the water. I feel it adds some nuttiness or something. Regardless, I do it. Then the water and soy milk are added. All these things you will see in the upcoming pictures:

Vegetables.

Pretty with lentils and rice.

Liquids.

At this point, it is boiling. I place the lid atop my pressure cooker, lock it, set it to high pressure and wait for pressure to be attained. When this occurs a little yellow button pops up and I turn down the heat to medium-low and set the timer to twenty minutes. This turns out to be a little shy of the time it wants to take, so I gave it about ten additional minutes. When complete, I pull out my immersion blender (a.k.a. stick blender) (courtesy of Renee Petty) and blend the hot soup into a mush, a texture which I have come to love more and more. See for yourself:

Pressure cooker.

Me and my appliances.

My kitchen, complete with wine, cookbooks and garlic.

The resulting flavorful mush!

To top it off, I obsessively tallied the nutritional profiles of every item that went into this nameless vegan glory. Here are some approximate highlights:

Per bowl:

305 calories

1.4g saturated fat

7.3g monounsaturated fat

1g polyunsaturated fat

94mg omega-3

1,118mg omega-6

6.6g of dietary fiber

12.7g or protein

4,815IU of vitamin A

5.7mg of vitamin C

96mg of calcium

3.7mg of iron

8.8mcg of vitamin K

69.7mg of magnesium

182.8mg of phosphorous

476.4mg of potassium

Too much time wasted on that internet adventure.

San Francisco Pt. 2

2010-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

This second installment of Northern California, going along in an intentionally non-chronological order, concerns our last full day in that beautiful and sunny city, because I want to. We were left to our own devices that day (these devices, in this case, being our own feet and wavering senses of direction) and Jill parted with us in the Fisherman's Wharf area (which according to this website is the suckiest part of Frisco, and I agree). Before our paths diverged, we went to the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, which features an enormous clock tower front and center and sits right at the edge of the water. This former ferry terminal now is host to shops and restaurants inside, which center around local and sustainable fare, and a three-day-a-week farmer's market just in front. As some of the pictures will attest, there were shops dedicated to meat and lard, "Tasty Salted Pig Parts," fresh baked breads, gelato, fresh mushrooms and mushroom growing kits, as well as newspapers and assorted tourist detritus.

We were given a simple explanation of the SF Muni train system, by which we were to travel back for dinner, and then the aforementioned devices of ours took over. We traveled around in the Fisherman's Wharf area for a bit, passing the entryway for the Alcatraz tour and stopping in at a sourdough bakery called Boudin (they made their breads into various shapes and sizes such as a larger boule and an alligator) where we got a large sourdough wheat to bring home and a small one to eat as we walked. Sourdough has a special stake in San Francisco for nowhere else is there the same bacteria floating around in the fog-laden air. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is key to the sourdough starters there and it supposedly imbues these breads with a sourness not found outside the city. We chewed on the bread and honestly were not impressed. No extra sourness that I could detect. Maybe there is a secret place we didn't go.

Chewing mindlessly and wandering about the Wharf area, we began to feel like everything around us was merely high-priced San Francisco advertisements -- shirts with Golden Gates hanging from awnings, chain restaurants, street performers whose allure only works on tourists -- and we quickly made flight towards Coit Tower, a defining landmark which would bring us into North Beach and closer to City Lights Bookstore. We didn't go to Coit Tower since we went last visit, but found our way out of the tourist trap nicely. Before reaching City Lights Bookstore (the place of Beat legend and publisher of many a Ginsberg poem) we stumbled upon two churches of classical enormity and style. The first was the church wherein Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were married called Saints Peter and Paul Church. The other church was less about the church and more about the section attached to its hip. Inside there was the city's as well as the national Shrine of Francis of Assisi, which was a 75% reproduction of the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. The man inside who showed us around and explained the history (as well as the papal decree which would absolve all who entered that they never see Hell i.e. us) we found out was a Knight of St. Francis as outed by a young and overly zealous Catholic boy who knew all the ins and outs of the transportation of religious iconic statuary.

Now that we would never see Hell, we walked a little lighter on our toes. It took some time to locate it, but we finally found City Lights. We searched the shelves lazily but were really hoping for used books which they didn't have. Quickly soaking up the history of the place, including the basement section where I could feel the quiet energy of jazz poetry spoken live 50 years prior bouncing off the walls, many people clapping with their fingers. We left and didn't get far. Next door was a bar. It was called Vesuvio and it felt good to know that Beat legends such as Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady spent nights writing and drinking there. I got Merlot. Anne got beer. It was around 3 o' clock and the sun poured in on us where we sat upstairs. Regulars lined the bar and spoke about things we didn't understand in grizzled happy voices. It was fun.

After this, a little buzzed, wine-toothed and sun-touched, we walked to the train and went back for some amazing soup Jill created, which we accompanied with bread from the bakery around the corner and some Portuguese beer that was $5.99 a six pack at the wine shop. Our night finished at a bar with some strangers where our team got second place on Trivia Night.

Beauty.

More after the jump ~

Continued.

This has not been verified by the FDA.

Mmmmmmm?

Streetcar.

North Beach from Embarcadero.

Angels.

Great tourist shot.

Ditto.

Anne had some problems to get off of her chest.

Busy man.

Classic.

Eclectic Beat bar.

Quote on Jack Kerouac Alley by the co-founder of City Lights.

Trivia Night with beer and strangers.

Stay tuned for part 3 where we might see the beginning of the trip or whatever I feel like showing.

San Francisco Pt. 1

2010-02-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

I quite recently vacationed in the beautiful city of San Francisco. It was terrifically soothing and ultimately the antidote to former stresses which lived still in the damp suit of Seattle. Girlfriend Anne and I enjoyed a nearly perfect California week, only given to one day of precipitation. Not bad. As we did quite a lot of things, I will segment it into appropriately short portions. They will not occur in any particular order but they will all concern San Francisco or its outlying areas.
One day we set off to see some redwoods (precisely the Coast Redwoods) at the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, which is the home to the largest continuous stand of ancient Coast Redwoods south of San Francisco. It takes much driving on winding roads to get there and as long as you don't sit in the back seat (like me) you won't feel dizzy and weird (like I did). Getting there, we paid the people and ate some of the snacks we brought. In a sort of random way, one of many trails was chosen and we walked around and up to the top of a little mountain where we could see the ocean or, more precisely, imagine the ocean sitting beyond the fog. We imagined it was gorgeous. Along the way I took many pictures of strange things I couldn't always identify.

Enormous.

More after the jump~

Anne is such a treehugger.

This crosscut had metal labels indicating time specific events such as the crowning of Charlemagne. Very old tree.

Black Trumpet mushrooms, I think.

Inside some burned out Sequoia.

Tree fungus of some kind.

Burn.

Fungus flower.

Who's that little kid?

Prideful conquerors.

Banana slug

Strange gelatinous fungus.

Odd growths covering nearly everything.

A friendly newt.

That sums up part one of my San Francisco series. Hope it was enjoyable.

The Best Shucking Time

2010-02-04T16:52:00.000-08:00

Oysters. Sake. Three men. The Waterfront. I could think of nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon. I was accompanied by the Cains, a motley pair born from the same woman, for a leisurely and, in part, aimless stroll about the avenues of Downtown Seattle on this somewhat sunny and absolutely perfect day. We found our way, as is customary, to a wonderful place of Asian delights called Uwajimaya in the International District south of Downtown. For seafood, there is no better place I know of. Further, their sake diversity is unmatched. While there we picked up a dozen Olympia oysters and a dozen Quilcene oysters (from the upper Hood Canal fjord). In addition we each picked up a personal sized sake, all of different brands, and a jar of MSG-less kimchi. Plus one lemon and some hot sauce begged from a food stand in Uwajimaya. Then we set off and found a perfectly empty pier with benches and a great view of the partly clouded Olympic mountain range on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a beautiful time. Simple. Sating. Cheap.

Train tracks.

The notorious Cain brothers.

Olympic Peninsula from our sweet little benches on the waterfront.

More after the jump~

Again, but with boat.

Oyster Lucas shucking with a Swiss Army knife.

My knees, Merlin's knees, public kimchi eating, public drinking.

Olympia oysters. Delicious.

Quilcene oysters. Larger, yet slightly less delicious.

City picnic.

Bashful Merlin.

Fuzzy man with scenery.

And that was the day. As the camera-man, I was not pictured. Alas.

BORSCHT!

2010-01-29T19:12:00.000-08:00

I cut vegetables, however I wanted. Carrots, Celery, Onion, Garlic, Orange Bell Pepper, Potato.

With the scraps from the vegetables, I made broth, later scooping out all the solids with a sieve.

Beets.

Lots of onion cooked up with Kerrygold Irish Butter, then adding all the other vegetables excepting the potato, which just went into the hot broth. After sauteing these veggies, I added some of the broth, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, some beer that happened to be in my hand and lots of dill.

Everything was then amassed together and set to simmer. This happened until the potato was soft. I then added the remainder of my homemade sauerkraut including all the juices.

Next up, the immersion blender took everything to pieces, nice and consistent.

No more chunks here.

Then cream was added.

And it was good.

Supplemented here with a baguette of fine sourdough.

Delicious.

Two Giants Fallen

2010-01-28T18:33:00.000-08:00

This is to commemorate two great men: Howard Zinn, the historian of the people, and J.D. Salinger, hermit novelist extraordinaire. Zinn (author of A People's History of the United States among many, many others), a well-spoken, intelligent and unabashed liberal, gave the people a voice in a world stricken with the history of the conquerors. Salinger, author of Franny and Zooey, Nine Stories and most famously, Catcher in the Rye, also gave voice to the discontent and lived his life in extreme obscurity from that world from which Holden Caulfield was surely escaping. There is only one known recording of his voice, which he had not allowed to be aired since. There is much more to say, but I won't.

J.D. Salinger (January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010)

Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010)

Affectionate Portraits of Houseplants

2010-01-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

Now that we have gotten to know each other, who ever you are reading this right now, I can expose my inner world to you. Inner as related to inside of my apartment, and outside of my kitchen. Over the last two and a half years I have hosted various potted lifeforms, some going by the way side (Scott, the spiky devil has been relinquished, only to possibly haunt our nightmares from the beyond the dumpster) and some becoming bonafide characters of the household. Although the following cast may not all become these iron-clad members of my abode, they all have a portrait as realized by my new camera (which I may or may not be using overzealously). So, either pass by this post with haste if it is that the simple idolization of various plants isn't your "thing" or enjoy the small glimpse into my living room. Without further ado:

Motley Crew.

Gentle Loner.

Mother-In-Law's Tongue and Wine.

Awkward Pariah.

More after the jump~

Untitled.

Erykah Badu.

Dumb Cane.

Persistent Rubber.