Old Food

For lunch today, I dolloped kim chi onto egg-roll wrappers, rolled them up and fried them. I made the kim chi myself. This evening, I jarred and refrigerated sauerkraut that I made myself and I pickled some fresh beets. One jar of beets I am pickling with vinegar, sugar, and spices. The other, I am pickling with whey. I "made" the whey myself from yogurt. Typically, I think of whey as a byproduct of cheesemaking, but in this case the cheese was the byproduct--a tangy cream cheese. Before going to bed, I set some black beans to sprouting.

So, what's going on?

Well, for most of my adult life, I have enjoyed cooking and food prep. and I have always felt like the way we buy and prepare food around these parts is pretty disconnected from they way most humanity has and does handle food. I am grateful for the grocery store and that is still where the majority of my food comes from. But I do think that, when the way we approach food is radically different than most of human experience, we have to be somewhat alienated from that experience and the humans who are part of it. As someone who values tradition, I really want to better understand food traditions.

So last year, Skylar and I started a garden. This year it is about double the size but still pretty small. We also got off to a bumpy start with the summer crops, so while dad is Tweeting that he has green tomatoes on the vine, we are thrilled that our plants have cleared eight inches. However we did plant early and late spring crops this year, which is progress.

But the whole preservation and fermenting kick comes from my recent read of Nourishing Traditions (subtitle excised because it is self-contridictory and embarrassing). This is where have learned about fermentation in the history of food culture. So far I have fermented carrots, cabbage, and beets. I look forward to cucs (pickles), tomatoes (ketchup), mushrooms (mushroom ketchup, if you can imagine), and just about every other vegetable I can get my hands on.

Also, we are kombucha-brewin' nuts now. I don't know where I first heard about this fermented tea, but Nourishing Traditions talks about it and I educated myself on the Web. Coincidentally, cousin Zach took a class, so a got a starter culture from him, have multiplied that, and now have three gallons fermenting on staggered schedules.

We bought a dorm fridge at a pawn shop to hold all of my glass jars of fermented/brewed stuff.

Sprouting nuts, seeds, and legumes is apparently another traditional way of getting max nutrients from those foods.

There is a method to my madness. Jaime has a crazy digestive system and it seems that Simon may have inheritted some of it. We have verified via testing by a gastroenterologist that she has an over abundance of some sort of bad flora in her gut. She had begun a regiment of heavy-duty antibiotics to kill this off, but had to stop it due to other health issues. Well, fermented foods are a benifit here in a couple of ways: fermenting using the methods I am learning is pro-biotic. Fermentation increases the growth of the bacteria that are beneficial to your digestive system--some of the same bacteria in live-culture yogurt. Additionally, fermentation is, essentially partially pre-processing food, making it easier for your system to digest.

Anyway, all that stuff is out there on the nets and in various books. Fact is, I love the taste fermented foods like kim chi and kraut and I love making stuff from scratch as much as possible. I am spending scads of time in the kitchen, but I find it very satisfying.

Then of course, there is bread making, which has actually slowed down for me since determining that really great tasting bread requires long rising times. I need to work out the best way to work my schedule with that.

I dream of a life of growing things--vegetables fermenting, kombucha brewing, cheese aging, bread rising, and beer brewing in the house and fruits, vegetables, chicken, rabbits, and whatever else growing outside. Children and grandchildren growing both in and outside (but mostly outside). I have been reading Sharon Astyk's blog and would love to have something similar, but in town. Whether or not I realize that dream, anything I do to grow/make my own food is incredibly satisfying.

I'm hungry now.

To Switzerland, and beyond

Seriously, this should not even be possible. I am amazed, and envious. I'll survive, but please, no one tell David.

Very briefly on economics

Back in May, the best show on the radio, This American Life, dedicated an entire episode to the most comprehensive and comprehensible explanation of the Housing Crisis I have heard. The popularity of this episode has spawned a new podcast and blog on NPR--Planet Money. One particular entry, "Who Can I Blame?" is particularly timely as the McCain/Obama show attempts to entertain us with stories about how the other is to blame and how they themselves are not.

Good reading although I don't know if I can go along with the bit about how other countries share the blame for limiting investment. Part of me reads that as "shame on you for being wary of the possibly corrosive affects of the Global Economy and exercising some of the same regulations that may have kept us out of this mess." But I could be wrong.

This is our Topeka

Check out this video. It is nothing exciting, but it gets really great at the 2:18 point but don't blink; it goes back to the mundane around 2:19.

Quote of the day

From Crunchy Con (the comments): "I have a friend who won't eat tongue either--he says it's just too strange to taste something that might be tasting you back."

Burton Depp

Seven Children's Tales That Tim Burton & Johnny Depp Should Remake.

Of course I generally disagree with the author's assessment of the Burton/Depp corpus (no pun intended). While it is a mixed bag, I quite like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Nightmare before Christmas. To this list, I would seriously restate my desire to see them remake The Wizard of Oz.

Silence

God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you. It's flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.--Brian Cox, "Adaptation"

While over-analyzing WALL-E with some friends last night, I suddenly hit on a heretofore unmentioned point of bold genius in its creation--it has no voice-over narration.

Since viewing "Adaptation," voice-over narratives have bugged me. I ask myself, "could I understand what is going on in this film without the voice-over?" The answer is almost always "yes." And when the answer is "no," it is because the voice-over does not make sense with what is on the screen. I think to myself, if that is what we are supposed to think is going on, then the film-maker and screenwriter need to step back and rethink some creative decisions.

"A.I." is a perfect example of unnecessary voice-over. Steven Speilberg is a master visual story teller. If you aren't following, then a narrator will not help. David is at the bottom of the ocean staring at the Blue lady, time is passing, and all the visuals are of silent, lonely, blue, reverence. On top of this a narrator is droning on and on and on and oh-my-god-will-you-shut-up-already. Of course, "Blade Runner" is the most famous example of unnecessary voice-over. On the other hand, "Perfume" is a fairly mysterious story with a mystifying ending. The narrator is telling the audience what we are viewing, but I am not convinced. I recall thinking that, if I am supposed to buy what the narrator says is happening, then we need to back up 60 minutes and add in a few more elements to lead the film's thesis to this conclusion.

Back to WALL-E.

People are speculating whether or not it could earn a "Best Picture" Oscar. Probably not, but I would give them one based simply on the decision not to use voice-over. As I said, this film has very little dialog around the central plot of WALL-E's relationship with Eve. We have to understand what is going on from the action, which is pretty easy for an adult, or even an older child. But I would bet the temptation to use voice-over narration was strong. I can hear it now, a soft baritone voice prattling on and on in soothing tones about how WALL-E wishes more than anything that he had someone to just hold his hand. Kudos to the creators for not doing it. Kudos for doing the more difficult work of giving us plot, back-story, and WALL-E's and Eve's inner life with clever and well-crafted visual elements. There are a few times when a well-place newspaper or holoscreen is obviously there just to catch me up, but these are not nearly as interfering as a narrator. I would love to know if voice-over was suggested or debated.

All of that being said, the DVD could maybe use a voiced-over option for the very young viewer. There are themes that I would like David (my son, not the "boy" from A.I.) to be a bit more aware of and the voice-over could help him along. Fortunately, he will not suffer in his life from a shortage of media extolling the pleasures of hand-holding.

later, silent film fans.

Wall-E

I first saw the Pixar's animated short film, "Luxo Jr." at Liberty Hall in Lawrence as part of one of the "Animation Celebrations"--a collection of award-winning short animated films. I remember clearly how it amazed and charmed me. I was impressed by the studio's ability to evoke so much emotion from a pair of computer-animated swing-arm lamps and a ball. I was envious of the mastery of story telling this 90-second film revealed. In the 22 years, since, I have been generally impressed with the quality of Pixar's visual story telling. But the first trailer for Wall-E gave me the same thrill I initially felt after "Luxo." Wall-E is a metal box on treads, with what looks like a pair of R2-model periscopes on its head. In 30 seconds, they transformed this box into a character--a person with a story. The more trailers I saw and the more I heard about it, the more I was convinced that Wall-E was going to live up to the promise and spirit of the studio's breakthrough short film.

I was not disappointed. There is no shortage of praise on the Interblags about Wall-E and I affirm all of it. My favorite review/discussion is Crunchy-Con's Aristotalian interpretation and the comment war that follows (serious spoilers alert!). Interestingly, Frederica Matthews-Greene is a softly dissenting voice, and I think that she may have missed a couple key plot points. However, we do share one concern--I'm not sure kids are going to get this film. It is visually rich--full of detail and texture, but the plot is minimal, with some plot points turning on subtle visual clues, and there is relatively little dialog. David seemed to enjoy it enough but he has not talked much about it since seeing it--especially considering the amount he talked about it before seeing it. He got word on the day of its release and asked daily when we would be seeing it for the entire weekend until I finally took and afternoon off so we could go to the matinée.

Of course, it is not perfect. There is a great deal of back story that is left out. There are many implausible technology issues and I agree with one of Crunchy Cons detractors that humans would never let themselves be lulled into the state we find them 700 years hence. I wondered uncomfortably how the bariatric group would feel about this vision. But I was able to set those concerns aside by the end as we see what ultimately will happen to humanity. The film's creator is interviewed in "Christianity Today" and has some very nice points to make about what the film is trying to do.

I look forward to seeing it again and being able to pause occasionally just to enjoy the lush graphics. I bet you a dollar that Luxo's ball is in Wall-E's cave somewhere.

This has gotten me to thinking about how I would rank Pixar's output over the years. It would be something like this:

"Luxo Jr."
"Toy Story,"
"The Incredibles,"
"Wall-E,"
"Boundin'"
"Finding Nemo,"
"Toy Story II"
"Knick Knack"
"Presto"
"Jack-Jack Attack"
"Geri's Game,"
"For the Birds"
"Ratatouille"
"Monster's Inc."
"Tin Toy"
"Lifted"
"Bugs Life,"
"Mike's New Car"
"One Man Band"
"Cars"
(hot pokers to the eyeballs)
"Mater and the Ghostlight"

Pregancy Pact

I have been waiting for someone to articulate clearly my own response when I first heard about the Gloucester Pregnancy Pact (which was apparently a fiction).

FIRST THINGS: On the Square: "So there’s something reassuring about the idea (and perhaps reality) of the crazy Gloucester “pregnancy pact.” I find it so much brighter, so much more hopeful, than the alternative, which is the “sterility pact” of those so committed to controlling their futures that they can’t risk the uncertainties of children—or worse, the death pact of a society that seems either too self-centered or too pessimistic to venture the hope for the future that a new generation always evokes."

lightnin lightnin

As we all know, David is a great fan of the movie Cars and all things Cars related. In spite of my continual forbidding of any more Cars stuff in our house, it continues to poor in like so much sewage. At some point during the transition out of diapers, he acquired a half-dozen pair of Cars underwear (as opposed to an underwear car), which he wears backwards so that he can see the larger picture that is supposed to be on the rear. This is so much a habit for him that he even puts underwear on backwards that does not have a picture on the fanny.

I have to pause for a moment and wonder if I am violating my son’s privacy by telling you that he wears his underwear backwards. What will his friends say in a decade when they find this blog? Is he going to be victim of wedgies from jerks claiming to check if his underwear is on backwards (and I assume it still will be)?

Stuff to think about.

Anyway, David’s love of Cars has taken hold with Simon, who currently imitates everything about David except his eating habits. So Simon has began insisting on wearing Cars underwear as well—over his diaper. But not backwards, yet. The other day, Simon was walking around in his diaper and underwear when he found another pair of Cars underwear in the laundry basket, pulled it out, sat down, and commenced with trying to put it on over the underwear he already had on over his diaper while saying plaintively, “Lightnin’? Lightnin’?”

"Precisely"

Another ego post (as if there is any other kind). Once again, GetReligion covered a story I sent. This time, as part of a larger discussion of the media coverage of Obama's closed-doors, off-the-record meet with prominant religious leaders. Somewhere in the middle of the post, Mr. Mattingly refers you to NPR's coverage and quotes a at length from a "private email" from a GetReligion reader. He affirms the quote with one word: "Precisely."

Terry Mattingly is a syndicated religion columnist, an Eastern Orthodox Christian and a very good writer--precise, insightful, intelligent, and clear. "Journalist" is in my top five list of things I might want to be when I grow up and Mr. Mattingly is my hero in the profession. To be quoted by him and told that I nailed the issue is the best internet affirmation I have received since the Patriarch of Moscow sent me a Hallmark "E-card" for my name day.

Cowpooling

Word Spy - cowpooling

For several years now, we have discussed this, but we never seem to plan adequately to have the cash on hand at the same time the cow is available.

Thrift

The Return of Thrift

Personally, I don't think thrift is going to make any huge comeback on a large scale. We, as a culture, cut back our overspending for short periods of time but our economy is robust enough nowadays to withstand ebbs and flows so I seriously doubt that we'll have the kind of economic disaster that turned my great-grand parents to thrift. Thrift as a virtue is going to go the way of sexual morality--something old-fashioned that was necessary in the bad old days before sexual equality and the pill.

On a personal, moral level, the stakes are different. We are trying to learn thrift--or relearn it, I was pretty frugal before college--even if it kills us.

counterpoint: high gasses prices

Postmodern Conservative.: Blue collared (II): "the realization that somewhere else in America there are people spending as much as twenty percent of their income on gasoline hits me like a blow to the gut, and the post-petroleum future suddenly looks a lot less bright."

Thinking about sports.

With luck, the line of cowardice stops here.

Touching read.

Last weekend, David was whacking balls off his tee when he decided that he wanted to dispense with the crutch and swing at pitches. He recently watched a tee-ball game of Issy's where an adult pitches a dozen or so times and if the hitter just can't do it then they bring out a tee that practically has the word "SHAME" spray painted in big red letters down the side. So I removed the tee. David assumed the position and then reached out with end if his bat and tapped the plate a couple of times. I pitched. Pretty much any pitch that I could manage to get within a yard of him he whacked, including couple line-drives that gave me flash-backs to helping my own dad warm up by tossing him softballs from the mound and taking the hit with my thigh. I think David is ready to graduate from the hollow plastic bat to something with slightly more substance. However, buying sports equipment is not in my job description. Hint hint.

I was just talking recently about how I don't have much desire to get David involved in team sports. I question how much good they really do in character-building, the schedule seems enslaving, and it seems that a lot of games happen on Sunday mornings, when we are busy. Coincidentally the the Topeka Capital Journal ran a story on that topic that is unenlightening. Basically, there are others with my Sunday concerns. How do they resolve this crisis of Faith and Sports? They skip the Sunday games. And does this heroic stand for their faith make them outcasts in society or get their kids benched by heathen secularist coaches? No, they have full support from the coach. There is apparently no social or competitive issues involved. If true, that is good. I'm happy to have the information. But they dedicated the feature area of the religion page to a plotless "story" that could have been a one-inch public-service announcement: "Want your kids to play team sports but have conflicts with church schedules? That's ok! Sign up and leagues will accommodate your needs."

Nevertheless, martial arts is more appealing to me as an activity for the kids. I haven't fully investigated it but it seems more flexible, less tied to teams and seasons, etc and there is more focus on character and discipline built-in. Brooke and Jason (the boys' godfather) both teach/have taught karate to kids, which might help.

The boys themselves may have something to say about this, eventually.

UPDATE: Of course, if the paper runs a religion story about which I have a thought, I submit it to GetReligion.org. They ran with it, and I made further comments. Go and read.

Doctor Beef's slideshow on Flickr

This is not the humorous break you are looking for.

This is not the humorous break we are looking for. Move along.

Sounds Melodious

Go listen to Sounds Melodious lovely.

Peak-Season Map at Epicurious.com

I intended to sign us up for the Rolling Prairie Farmer's Alliance but didn't get around to it. It would have provided us with fresh, seasonal produce into the fall. I've done it before and it produces interesting results. Unexpectedly, you have endive. What to do with endive? Makes you think on your feet. It is a backwards way of thinking about food for the modern Midwesterner. Normally, I think about what I want to eat, buy the ingredients, and make it. Spring mixed greens salad in the winter? Sure, why not? Having food presented to you and figuring out what to do with it is different--as in, 99.9% of all people who have ever lived are different from us.

Well, I didn't sign up for the local produce, but I vow to pay close attention to the Peak-Season Map at Epicurious.com

The Skeptical Inquirer

The Skeptical Inquirer:

“If this religion boasted that it had a clear sight of God and plain and manifest evidence of his existence, it would be an effective objection to say that there is nothing to be seen in the world which proves him. . . . But . . . on the contrary it says that men are in darkness. . .”
------
"What reason do I have to subordinate the possibility of God’s existence to the powers of my senses?"
------
"Ask any sensible person if it is possible that God exists, does not present himself to us by way of material evidence, and yet seeks our acknowledgment on some other basis, one in which we are more deeply invested. Could there be a God who does not want to be known the way the facts of nature are known or sums are known? The rational person will say, 'Yes, it is possible.'"
------
"There are only two kinds of people one can call reasonable: those who serve God with all their heart because they know him and those who seek him with all their heart because they do not know him."
------
"His rational power of imagining has atrophied from selective use in the service of his pleasure."

These are excerpts from a great article. It is not clear writing but it is worth untangling.

Of the two kinds of people that one can call reasonable, I would (humbly or not) put myself in the second category--seeking, but not knowing. It may seem strange to those who would know me to be (humbly or not) a devout believer. Fact is, I have searched my mind and my heart for that organ which "feels" belief like my fingers feel the keyboard or even like my mind feels a memory. It isn't there. And no one I know with a firm belief in a God they "know" can describe that sensation to me either. No one can point to the organ I need to tickle in order to stimulate belief. I even tried for a time to simply be an unbeliever but it didn't work. My body doesn't cooperate. My mind may thrash and doubt, but my body dresses me and takes me to church where my lips kiss, my hand genuflects, my waist and neck bend my forehead to the floor, and my mouth confesses. So I stopped struggling against this other part of me that believes. I threw my lot in with the believing side against the side that does not believe. Bishop BASIL tells me that the fight will get easier with time. Father Joseph tells me that I'll simply get used to the struggle.

Articles like this one help me. They are no foundation--the only foundation is prayer--but well-put-together intellectual arguments deal a heavy blow to the strongest doubter inside of me--my intellect (humble or not). Actually, it is not even my own intellect, when I think about it. It is someone else's intellect--some imaginary person who is smarter than I am and who is demanding and smart defense of faith from me. Once, in the line for recess in the third grade, someone asserted that I am not smart. I insisted that I am and he quizzed me "what is 9 x9?" I couldn't pull up the answer on the spot and he took that as demonstrable proof of my stupidity. I have been doing imaginary battles with some form of that kid my whole life (even though I have not adequately memorized my multiplication tables). It is the problem with priding yourself on your intellect--constant fear that perhaps you aren't so smart after all. A fear fueled by the fact that, in the real world, your IQ and a $0.81 won't even get you a cup of coffee. So, these articles at least give me this: I'm not smart enough to articulate an intellectual foundation for belief, but someone else is and you'll just have to read that until I get smarter.

Enjoy

friends

After getting several requests from people I would otherwise expect to be above this sort of thing, I have created a Facebook profile. I highly recommend it. Setting up your own profile combines the white-knuckle thrill of creating an Ebay account with over-the-top excitement of filling out an online resume for employment with Kinkos. I would imagine it is a lot like creating a WoW character and then never actually getting to play WoW.

Then, THEN, after you have told the world all about yourself, you regularly update a little box telling the world what you are doing RIGHT NOW. It is like being spied on. Or wishing you were spied on. Like "well, I'm against the government tapping my phones without a warrent, but if they are doing that, it must mean they think I am dangerous, which ROCKS."

Finally, you engage in a perpetual game of "Red Rover" with the whole Intarblag.

Really the whole thing seems a little childi----wait---I'm up to 25 friends now! Go join! Then poke me! Hurry!