i mewn ‘r ardda

We are eating many more vegetables recently and much more Indian food which requires hours of dicing and slicing. A food processor will fix that.

Kitchenaid food processor

For allegedly fluffy mashed potatoes. Potato ricer.

Because I’ve always been dissatisfied with all measuring spoons I’ve ever used….. measuring spoons!!

Where this is a test.

The chile is not as drab as the title suggests. In fact it’s awesome.

• 3 cups pintos, or red/kidney beans, or some of both
• 1 1/2 quarts water
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, or a nut oil like walnut would be even better I betcha
• 1 large onion, minced fine
• 1 package (8 ounces?) of morel mushrooms
• 8 ounces of sliced porcini, portabello or other mushrooms
• 1/4 cup sweet IPA beer, like Double Take. Or a Belgium ale would work.
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon vegetable boullion
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon mustard
• 1 tablespoon ketchup

1. Rinse the bean and then put them in the 1 1/2 quarts of water. Soak the beans for 18 – 24 hours.
2. Set the oven to 280.
3. In a big pot, saute the onion, paprika, black pepper and morels in the oil and a tablespoon of the tomato sauce for about 15 minutes or until the onions start to turn brown. Stir once in a while.
4. Deglaze the pot with the beer, scraping up the fond.
5. Drain the beans and add them.
6. Add the 3 cups water, and add everything else. Bring to a boil. Keep at a medium boil for 10 minutes.
7. Put the pot in the oven covered for a few hours. Done.

This soup is good by itself. It’s thick, creamy, rich. It can also serve as a soup base for meat like shellfish or poultry.

• 1 cup oatmeal
• 4 slices bacon, chopped
• 3 large carrots, diced
• 1 large onion, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup vermouth
• 3 1/2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Better Than Bullion chicken bullion
• 1 medium potato, diced.
• pepper

1. In a big stock pot on medium high, toast the oats.
2. Set all the water to boil in a different pot.
3. Add the bacon, carrots and onion and fry until the bottom of the pan starts to brown.
4. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and garlic and fry until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
5. Deglaze with the vermouth.
6. Push all the ingredients to one side of the pot. Add the remaining butter and flour and make a light rioux.
7. While quickly stirring the rioux, add some water and then the egg yolk. Add the rest of the boiling water while stirring the rioux until all the water has been added.
8. Add the bullion and potato and simmer for about an hour.

Anyone who lives in San Diego County knows that Mexican taco shop refrieds taste different, and arguably, better, than canned refried beans. The humble taco shop beans typically also stand apart from chain restaurant refrieds not better, but different from them. Chain restaurants usually make their beans in a more Southern/Tex-mex style, with more whole beans and more black pepper. Ham or pulled pork often end up in the sauce, pushing the dish into a different category altogether.

The true San Diego/west coast border refried is a nutty, hearty slop. It is easy to approximate, and while I haven’t perfected the recipe, the following is good enough for government work.

Makes about 6 cups of refried beans I think. You can easily halve the recipe.

6 cups dried pinto beans
10 cloves whole garlic, crushed or rough chopped
1 tablespoon salt
6 quarts water
4 tablespoons lard (aka manteca) (substitute which actually tastes better: 6 tablespoons olive oil)
2 tablespoons beef bullion (I use the brand Better Than Bullion)
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika (or other mild red pepper, this is just handy for most people)
1 teaspoon cumin, powdered

1. Rinse the beans, then put them in 3 quarts water along with the garlic and salt.
2. Soak the beans for 18 – 24 hours.
3. While the lard is heating, strain the beans and garlic from the water, discarding the water.
4. In a big pot, put the beans, garlic, lard, bullion, spices, and 3 quarts water.
5. Bring to a roiling boil, then turn the heat down to a low boil.
6. Boil, stirring every half hour or so, until the beans are soft and don’t crunch or break apart all when eating. You may need to add water while waiting for the beans to fully cook.
7. If necessary, continue to boil until there is only a little bit of water still covering the beans. Then, pour all the water/sauce and most of the beans into a blender. Blend on high until the mixture has a smooth consistency. Should take 10 seconds or less. Pour the mixture back into the pot. You’re done.

When the beans are done they will be wetter and more runny than you might imagine. This is good because for two reasons: refried beans tend to firm up quickly, and the beans shouldn’t really be a stiff paste anyway. That isn’t appetizing.

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle

When:  1778-1841

Why: Instrumental in defining methods of plant classification

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle  was a French taxonomist whose principles of plant classification are still in use today. He is the one who coined the word “taxonomy” in 1813 for the study of plant classification. His belief was that plant structure, or morphology, should be the basis of plant classification.

1650 – 1718

Thomas Savery was an English military engineer and inventor who in 1698, patented the first crude steam engine, based on Denis Papin’s Digester or pressure cooker of 1679. He had been working on the problem of pumping water out of coal mines when he designed the steam engine.

Anwar al-Awlaki

Background: American born cleric, now in hiding in Yemen.

Why: Al-Awlaki issued a fatwa for anyone to kill Molly Norris for declaring “Everybody Draw Mohammed” Day. Nobody backed her up and eventually Molly changed her identity due to the threat.

Vinton Cerf

Born: 1943

Background: An American computer scientist, now working for Google

Why: Vint is one of the fathers of the Internet. He participated in ARPANet hardware design, and also co-designed the TCP/IP protocols.

This one finished with cream and egg yolks… Well.. it was supposed to be egg yolks but it turned out to be eggs because I forgot to coddle the yolks. Still good. I started the chicken brother with fresh garlic, rosemary and thyme. The methods are simple and produce amazing results. Methods like.. stirring while waiting for the veloute to come to a boil.

Made fried chicken tenders from the chicken I boiled to make the broth.

Sauce Bechamel, Sauce Veloute

It came out tasting much like packaged gravy. Probably because I used vegetable Better Than Bouillon rather than make the white stock (that was the base) out of fresh vegetables or chicken stock. However, it tasted like really good gravy

Lesson 1

Know what you don’t know.

Understand the topics and fields in which you have little understanding. Seek counsel from those who know. Bad decisions and all associated pain are the fruit of the neglect of this wisdom.

Without authority people act chaotically and do not like it. Authority provides and understanding that the path chosen is a good one, and that groups of people can act, more or less, in concert. The resulting harmony (such as it may be) is precious, desirable and sought out.

Authority as such does not determine the actual virtue of the chosen path. This caveat I wish to make clear. I am not saying that authority is sufficient for goodness, merely that it causes people to believe that such and such is good.

Authority for most of civilization’s existence issued overwhelmingly from religion. The decline of religion’s influence and power has changed that. I suspect that the secular state retains more and more moral authority. And it sucks. It is fickle, depending on personal morals of those in power which are determined by a mishmash of ideas incubated in schools, churches, loose affiliates, and of course the State.  It is, minimally, undesirable authoritarian, because it is imposed on people who have not chosen it. At worst it is tyranny.

Here is an example of the State’s moral authority in action. Some city in LA banned new drive throughs, citing obesity and traffic problems. That it is even considered good for a city to determine the eating habits of it’s inhabitants is evidence of the existence of the State’s grip of the stave of moral authority.

On the spur of the moment I wrote this review of The Wrangler, a BBQ restaurant in Escondido, CA. It is good enough to put here too, so enjoy.

The Wrangler is a symbol, indeed a bulwark that stands against the contemporary and all that change entails. The decor hasn’t changed much in 30 years and the food hasn’t changed at all.

Imagine: you drive up to a 60′s strip mall and true to form there is no vegetation in the parking lot. Apparently all the trees where cut down by The Wrangler to feed the interminable fire that smokes all their meat deep and black. It is the only place I know that smokes food only with oak. That might be by necessity since Southern California has no other plentiful source of hardwood. Carrying on, you approach the storefront and see by the cheeseball sunworn cartoon decals that this ain’t Starbucks, it ain’t froo-froo; priggery simply isn’t tolerated here.

Inside one is immediately struck by the blandness of color and texture. You sense that someone put an eight-track in a loop and it has been playing ever since. Even the radio dial hasn’t changed. There is a water spot in the ceiling that hasn’t ever been fixed. The cement block wall lining one side of the long room has been painted and repainted in the same cream–no–soft mustard hue. The knick-knacks on the walls have been updated to kitschy country circa 1983. Rafia. Pie plate art. Painted wood scrollwork.

The food is well-smoked. For the longest time it was one of the very few places in San Diego county where one could get pit-smoked authentic barbeque. Beef, ham, and beef ribs are listed as the main entrees. The beef is sometimes a little dry, but always has good flavor. The baked beans are good, dark, a tad spicy, but a little too sweet. The slaw is well done, no weird stuff in it, and not too sweet. I don’t order the other side dishes enough to recall them, but I would expect similar results. The iced tea is not overly strong. They do soup pretty good too.

For barbeque the prices are excellent. The most expensive thing on the menu is the combo platter at $10.99 (December 2008) which is a good load of all three entrees. Lunch item for about $5 include a sandwich and a side and drink.

Strangley, there is no place to leave dirty dishes even though you aren’t served at your table. This leaves you with the idea that you should clean up after yourself but at a loss as to where to leave your leavings. I’ve concluded that they want you to bus your own food, though if you leave your mess on the table they’ll gladly clean up after you.

Take the time to use the bathroom as a pretext to see the large brick lined pit in the back. It impresses me.

Eat your food at the restaurant if possible because the smells contribute greatly to the flavor.

The best part: it happened on Halloween!!! Also, check out what happened to our fridge:

No big deal, it looks like a fridge, but woah, whats this!!!

It looks like someone got their letter posted up on the fridge next to the kids’ drawings. Yayyy!

Enjoy.

Amidst all the hubbub surrounding purpose driven lives, abortion, homosexual marriage, seeker-sensitive churches and Lord knows what else there lies a common and quiet thread. I don’t know if the many of the church know about it. It may be that I am pointing out the obvious and everyone will just say DUH WE KNOW THAT! I suspect though that few are cognisant of this fact. This suspicion is rooted in the behaviour and attitude of our churches.

The main reasons humanity is on earth comes to us from Genesis 1: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Not much in Judaism or Christianity conflicts with this edict. Also please do not understand this in 21st century ecological terms, though I will not argue that now. All the world’s purpose is to rule over the earth. I suspect that means we are to make it like a beautiful garden filled with every good thing. But what precisely it means isn’t necessary for the purpose of my point.

The proximate cause for our existence isn’t to be happy, or even to be good; it is to be kings and queens over a great earth. Goodness of course is the way we are made to be. It is impossible for us to have been made for evil. Happiness is like food and sex: a great thing to possess but by no means a necessary trait for ruling. And yes food for some people is not required.

Yet don’t you think many people who are against homosexual marriage are against it merely because they are against homosexuality? At best, at least, the point should be reiterated: homosexual marriage directly conflicts with our stated purpose. You cannot be a fruitful homosexual. Homosexuality requires a great turn inward and you cannot subdue the earth when so positioned.

The Church says be happy when it should say “Rule this place the way you know it should be ruled.”

Just image a person going to work not knowing what it is they are supposed to do. They get different directions from three people, attend a meeting they know nothing about, and accomplish nothing. Imagine doing that job for a lifetime. It would confound the soul utterly. Yet we live like this.

There is more to say on this, this writing is a bit fragmented.

It is fairly indisputable: Jesus is the smartest man who ever lived. Think about it. According to humanity’s standards he has succeeded. He is the most talked about man of the last two thousand years. Enduring fame? Check. Immense power? Check. Serious partying? Check. About the only thing he didn’t get was money, but with fame and power, who cares?

According to lots of Obama supporters, that puts him in the running for the POTUS. “Intelligent” they proffer, when queried about the biggest reason to vote for him. “Brilliant” TMWO (Oprah) has bellowed. But you know Jesus wouldn’t get the same treatment. So what is the real reason to vote for him? What is the elephantine idea in the 2008 election room? I really want to know but if I had to guess I’d say… he doesn’t judge you.

Now I happen to think that Obama judges people a-plenty. It must be done. But in certain areas – sexual behavior, US image, money problem people and Islamofacist relations he comes across as the candidate who empathizes and cares.

Is there more to it? Am I wrong?