From Old Notes of Yesteryear

anti-existential exercises

I don't mean anything to him -- never have.. just those lonely moments when he has nothing else to turn to, i am always there... and i'm there because all i have are those moments...

is that enough? maybe it is not enough... but it is enough when those are all i have left, why should it be any less if i have all the world?

i've run out of things and people to fill the gap... cuz for me, like him: nothing means anything...

embrace the nothing? 

 i wrote this little mantra... and i've basically refused to allow myself to legitimize the meaning of anything - it's validity and implications (specifically) are meaningless...

if i start thinking about something, i'll stop myself, think 'no, cuz that means you're thinking (i.e. making stuff up to justify something i don't understand)... if i get emotional or defensive, i'll stop myself and think 'no, cuz that means it means something'... and i take a deep breath, and think about sunflowers or gaillardia and some faceless chick with long brown hair strolling in a field of flowers instead

and if i want to tell him something or send him a pic or something funny, i just think about all the emails i just deleted from my sent box that he never replied to, and that post i had on his profile that was the 2nd post he ever commented on in 2 years... and i tell myself 'fuck it'... i think about gaillardia and a chick strolling through a field... and carry on doing something else, cuz whatever i wanted to put out there doesn't mean anything... just the field of flowers and the girl with the long brown hair

the gap is disappearing... not being filled.. but imploding...

Food for Krampus

got my list of food to serve at a post-xmas party:

MARINATED BACON-WRAPPED STEAK/SHRIMP SKEWERS
BLUE CHEESE & LEEK-TOPPED YAMS
CHICKEN PAI MAI
ARTICHOKE TAPENADE / LEMON ARTICHOKE DIP
IRISH CHEDDAR MAC N CHEESE
COCONUT MILK RASPBERRY FOOL

CRANBERRY SAUCE
LAMB W/ CHERRY REDUCTION
HOMEMADE STUFFED MUSHROOMS

NEW MEXICO GREEN CHILE TAMALES

mixed drinks:
White Sangria
tequila sunrise
vegan eggnog-ish rum drink

Pics will be forthcoming - well... was too drunk to take any... sorry

Inept Comprehension

 ugh! people are such subjective readers... years ago i had to remind someone who admonished the theory of 'holy blood holy grail' that throughout the whole book the authors professed that they weren't trying to prove anything, they just wanted to see if any accepted history supported or contradicted their theory... today, some asshat sees me with 'chariots of the gods' and says it was a favorite of his until he learned all the facts were falsified... um... the author states where there's ambiguity in accepted archaeology, and is adamant that his postulations are just that... in fact, his whole book revolves around the question How? that he thinks archeologists have failed to answer and for them to admit that they need better theories... he interrupts his recitations of historic anomalies to do this, it really is a bit scattered, which is a better argument: not well organized to support his ideas... so... what 'facts' exactly are there to be falsified?

people wantonly make the association of belief with books others read... unless one is capable of being an objective reader, there is so much being missed in the analysis of the author's statements... do i believe what i read? that is the least of my objectives; i see their motivation, how minutiae is twisted, how theories are made and later support is scrounged for, or how theories come to light from 'coincidences' that are blatant but somehow ignored. my drive is to learn of sources that i don't get to learn about from narrative history and high school science because neither need to prove where their facts and ideas come from... but alternatives to 'accepted' thought do.

historians and scientists fight like old toothless women over what 'truth' is, and 'accepted' theory is only what they can get most of their colleagues to agree on... what laymen consider history and science to be is a definite that does not exist - the only fact is that it is always changing

Letter to the Student

Your learnéd naïvité is so endearing. Just because one reads something and embraces it doesn't mean one needs to carry some label. Thoreau was a transcendentalist, which though endeared in this century, is heretical to 1800 years of church tradition; by adopting labels, one also adopts the label's history. I am fond of some christian works such as The Cloud of Unknowing and the Dark Night of the Soul, and in being a stoic I identify significantly with Hellenic and Gnostic concepts of life and the universe (which are in part associated with Pauline Christianity, as Paul was born into Greek Hellenic society). As much as I may be able to call myself gnostic or hermetic, I know that it adopted names and literature of the christian era which turned it into a christianized philosophy. It was kind of a Batman and Joker (from the Michael Keaton Batman) relationship: Joker before he was the Joker is responsible for making Batman, and then later when they interact again, Batman is responsible for making Joker into what he is now.

Transcendentalism (which was consequently something English Celtic churches never relinquished and were always bordering on Heresy because of) does not require christian myth, and is oft rather at odds with it. BUT because most of its adherents grew up in a christian environment, it assigns christian names and definitions to its concepts. Additionally, the Western christianized concept of god and how his nature is classically defined is a result of Greek and Roman thoughts on the benevolent vs. the malevolent nature of deity hypothesized to explain why bad things exist in the world; this is wholly unrelated to Jesus or jewish traditions, and dates from centuries before Jesus' time.

Jesus was never the savior of mankind sent to redeem sins, and the apostles and jewish religious leaders never saw him as such. He was someone who could legitimately consider claiming kingship and be anointed as such (in the Messianic tradition) to re-establish jewish independent sovereignty and oust roman imperialist occupation. Everything Jesus did including his attempt at surviving the crucifiction and asking jews to seek redemption and ritual cleansing was to "force the end", force god to act to redeem jews from submission to foreigners.

Paul made a shit ton of money in a kind of pyramid scheme for the Jerusalem church headed by the Pharisees and the very pharisaic political following Jesus left behind. Paul himself was never inducted and initiated into the cadre of Jesus' following; he made enemies everywhere and played both sides of everything - essentially the poster child for late antique douchebaggery.

Converting gentiles to judaism was common and there were 2 kinds of adherents: the 'god-fearers' who believed in jewish theology but did not abide Torah law, and full converts who underwent circumcision, adopted Torah law and abided dietary practices. Paul played to the god-fearers, abrogated jewish law and 'converted' them to what was otherwise an anti-roman movement turned into a theological one on the basis that adherents could be 'saved' not from Rome but from existence not by acting on proscription but by faith alone. He then tried to enforce new rules when he realized people acted how they wanted to, playing to their saving through faith alone, and not by acts. Paul did lots of other novel things that have no basis in the life and works of Jesus and his apostles - it would take a book to explain them all - but the take-away here is that christians forever after are confused by the nature of their faith and law and how they're supposed to follow, and most attempts to explain it make no logical sense.

The overall take-away from all of this is that I am not a dissuader or an atheist; I have a relationship with the universe. I will never admonish one for self-exposure, exploration and education wherever it may take one, but I will forever caution against subscriptions and labels. Their dependency on definitions fabricates illusion and misshapes reality for convenience.

UPDATE : So, how does food affect your life?

So, I've been playing around with adding raw veggies and more nuts and fruits to my life... and I have to say, those days where that is primarily what I eat, I feel amazing. if I stop eating veggies, I start feeling like crap:  like I'm running a marathon with my legs tied together; it's just miserable. The easiest way I've found to ingest large amounts of veggies is in juicing and smoothies.

The key to any eating habit (aka diet - but here without the connotation of fads and restrictions for the sake of losing weight) is diversity. It's important to not get settled into only a handful of dishes at the beginning; boredom always sets in and one strays to a diversified pallet after a short while. Once a week at least, experiment with something new, something never tasted before, something that stretches the limits of what 'food' means (for our society, this often means something that is less processed and packaged, and more actual, living, fresh food).

There will always be those things one clings to for comfort food - the best thing to do is to modify those things to meet a new standard. My two are mac 'n cheese and chips and salsa:

1. For me, even though I'm not vegan or vegetarian, I do refrain from eating high starch and boxed products. In more recent years I've also stopped ingesting milk because it started causing me to have cystic acne (I know this because if I refrain from eating dairy I stop getting acne). But, cheese is another matter... I love cheese, and I love kefir. So, the two part to this is that I've had to find a pasta base (rice or whole wheat) that doesn't affect me as much as semolina, AND I've had to find properly cultured cheeses that have broken down the casein protein and fats in dairy that causes my acne (for instance, Cabot's white cheddar). So, to fully enjoy mac 'n cheese without adverse effects, I make my alternative pasta, make a béchamelle from scratch using irish butter, coconut milk and Cabot's or other aged cheddar. which is neither difficult or time consuming.
2. Though there are usually no additives in canned salsa from the store, the veggies have all been cooked, and therefore will cause the stomach to react to it as though it were a foreign substance. Additionally, all tortilla chips are made out of corn, at least until recently. And based on my previous experiences with corn, the hindrance to the digestive system is not limited to whole corn kernels, but also translates into corn meal and flour. So, the easy part was to transition to bean/rice-based tortilla chips that are now available, which are very tasty and don't leave you with that feeling of bloaty fullness. The slightly more involved step was making fresh, home-made salsa -- my first batch was a failure, then I remembered that putting tomatoes in a food processor in general is a no-no because it releases all the water and loses its flavor. Subsequent batches (thanks to my friend making some from an old-style recipe) turned out absolutely flavorful and awesome. The key was to not give up. Another part of my chips 'n salsa binging was the use of sour cream and it's creamy sweet goodness... This I've amended in using avocados splashed with lime juice to top my fresh salsa instead.

Almond or Hazelnut Milk

to make home-made almond/hazelnut milk:

1. soak nuts 5-8 hours, reserve liquid for plant fertilizer
2. blend almonds in 4 cups of water for 2 min
3. add extract (vanilla) and dates, agave, or cane juice to sweeten
4. strain through milk nut bag or cheese cloth - reserve nut pulp, and dehydrate to make nut meal
5. keep milk refrigerated up to 4 days

Smoothie I gotta try

neon-pink-smoothie-juice

• ½ cucumber, peel and chop
• ½ small raw beet, scrub and chop
• 1 apple, core and chop
• ¼ fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice
• 4 ice cubes

- in high-speed blender or bullet blender, add cucumber and blend on low.
- add the beet and apple and blend, increasing speed until smooth
- add grapefruit juice and ice cubes, blend on high until smooth

Green 'n' Creamy Pasta

1 ripe avocado
1/2 lemon, juiced
lemon zest
3 cloves garlic
½ tsp salt
fresh basil
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 oz of spinach or gluten-free pasta
fresh cracked black pepper

Fill medium pot with water 3/4 full, bring to boil. Add pasta, and cook to package specifications, or al dente
Pit avocado and scoop out the soft flesh from the skin. Add avocado, lemon juice, garlic, salt and a hand full of basil leaves to food processor and pulse until smooth
Place cooked pasta in a large bowl, add the avocado mixture and toss until pasta is evenly coated
Garnish with lemon zest and black pepper

Vegan Cool Cucumber Soup

1 small cucumber
1 litre plain coconut milk or soy yogurt (for non-vegans, I find plain Kefir the best to use)
¼ c. dates (finely chopped)
¼ c. golden raisins
¼ c. walnuts (chopped)
fresh mint
ice cubes

Slice cucumber in half short and long ways - take each quarter and with a spoon, gently remove watery middle where seeds are
Over medium mixing bowl, grate cucumber with small-gauge grater down to the skin
Mix in yogurt, chopped dates, and raisins
Stir and then chill to let flavors combine for ~ 1 hour
When serving, drop in 1-2 icecubes, and garnish with mint leaves, whole or chopped, and chopped walnuts

Stuffed Figs Dessert

8 fresh mission figs
¼ c. black currant juice (cherry juice as a substitute)
½ tsp coriander
¼ c. walnuts or almonds (raw, unsalted)
1 Tbsp raw sugar

Preheat oven to 300°F
Remove stems and cut X's across tops of figs - to make a tulip-like cup
Gently use a spoon to scrape out seeds and pulp and place in small mixing bowl, keeping cups intact
Combine pulp with currant juice and corriander
In separate bowl, toss raw nuts with sugar - add a drop of safflower or sunflower oil if necessary to get sugar to stick
Place fig cups in ramekins (1-3 depending on size), place 1-2 nuts in each fig and then fill each with pulp mixture
Bake until just tender

Vegan Raspberry Fool

Raspberry Fool
1 lb of raspberries (fresh)
2 Tbsp + sugar
vegan whipped cream (see below)

Wash and put ½ lb of raspberries in a bowl, mash and mix in sugar, add more sugar to taste if necessary. Set aside and allow to macerate for several minutes
Meanwhile, make whipped cream (below)
Then gently and sparingly fold macerated and fresh raspberries into whipped cream, DO NOT over mix

Vegan Whipped Cream
2 cans coconut milk
1/3 cup powdered sugar

Put coconut milk in fridge for up to 12 hours. Chill whisk in freezer for a few minutes before mixing.
Remove cans from fridge and open -- being careful not to shake. Skimming thick coconut milk solids from the top, leaving liquid/water. Mix coconut cream in medium mixing bowl with sugar
Whip just until it thickens, ~ 20 seconds. DO NOT over mix
Can refrigerate up to 4 hours

Atop the Naan, recipe II

Home-made pico atop extra-sharp cheddar cheesy naan

3 tomatoes diced
1 onion diced
1 jalapeño diced
1 bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tsp vinegar
salt/pepper
extra-sharp Cabot white cheddar
some pieces of naan

Mix diced veggies, cilantro, and vinegar in a bowl, toss, and allow to sit for 1 day to marinate. When ready to eat, slice sharp cheddar atop naan and toast until cheese is just softened. Top the toasted cheesy naan with the pico and enjoy!



If you're unfamiliar with Cabot: they are a cooperative of Vermont dairy farmers which produce an amazing variety of cheese available at almost every grocery store across the country, even Costco. It's a high-end cheese without the high-end price, found with the specialty cheeses in the deli.
http://www.cabotcheese.coop/

How to Cook Tofu Right

2 Different recipes for tofu
try it cubed or sliced for sammiches



1.  Italian Flavor
½ lb firm tofu
2 Tbsp white wine
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
3 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp coriander, salt, pepper

Drain tofu and cube or slice. Mix together wine, oil, and seasonings and cover tofu in bowl or container. Marinate for 10-15 min. Heat medium non-stick pan to med heat. Add  tofu and the marinade. Let brown (~5 min) and toss or flip; brown second side (~5 min). If cubed, continue to brown, if sliced, make sure it's warmed through and nicely browned. Remove from heat.

2.  Bragg's and lemon
½ lb firm tofu
1-2 Tbsp Bragg's
1-2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp lemon pepper
salt, pepper

Drain tofu and cube or slice. Mix together Bragg's, zest, and seasonings; cover tofu and marinate for 10-15 min. follow the same cooking instructions as above.

So, how does food affect your life?

When I was growing up, my mom noticed my sister and I reacted poorly to artificial sweeteners and colors; this was the single best thing she ever did, in addition to stripping our diets to avoid those particular things. Consequently, we grew up not eating a lot of high-fructose corn syrup, saccharine, phenylalanine, or any of those red/yellow dye thingies. By reacting poorly, I mean to say that my sister would run in circles until she fell down and I would get mean, grouchy, and depressed to an extreme rather uncommon to a 5 year old female child. Because most sugary foods also contained some other unnatural ingredient, we didn't eat a lot of sugary foods either.... at least not until I was in my late teens...

After 4 long years of unhappiness, mood swings, angry depression, sinus problems, and general gastrointestinal discomfort, a friend who studied eastern medicine recommended I go on a candida diet. This means stripping sugars and fast-burning carbs to avoid exacerbating the normal yeast humans have in their gastrointestinal system. I played with this diet, and ultimately 'failed' at it for years. But I learned a lot about how food can produce adverse reactions to your system, and not all are noticeable within the same day of consumption -- and that's the big part...

If you truly want to experiment on yourself to know how you react to a diet or to a particular item of food, you need to monitor over at least 4 days after 'exposure.' The effects of excessive sugar-eating for one day can result in up to 3 days of withdrawal, culminating in severe moodiness on the 2nd and 3rd day. AND these are not simple cranky moods... these are fits of mood and depression that I've seen other people also do on a regular basis, and that can go on for days and weeks -- imagine if they had the presence of mind to know that it was all a reaction their body was having to something they ate a couple days ago.

So, how do I avoid sugar? I don't eat packaged foods! Read all ingredients labels! I avoid caffeine and alcohol, which disrupt the body's pH. I eat hardy, whole-grain breads with no added sugars if I eat bread at all, and less ripened fruits and vegetables with less natural sugar: berries, mangoes, avocados, zucchini, eggplant, greener bananas, red/purple potatoes, yams. I also need to (and am diversifying my diet enough to allow it) eat more raw veggies and nut-based meals with some good probiotics that will keep the yeast at bay.

Atop the Naan, recipe I

1 lb sunflower seeds (no salt, no shells)
¼ c cucumber, diced
½ c eggplant, diced
¼ c bell pepper, diced
¼ c onion, diced
2 cloves garlic
2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 Tbsp Bragg's
½ lb sharp cheddar cheese (or any cheese)
several naan bread

Soak sunflower seeds for 6 hours, then strain. Combine seeds, cucumber, eggplant, bell pepper, onion, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and Bragg's in food processor and pulse until well ground. Heat skillet to medium heat, add ground seed mixture to pan and lightly brown. Meanwhile in (toaster) oven, toast naan covered with sliced cheese. Once cheese is just softened, remove and top with seed mix. Serve hot

Importance of Vegetables

I would generally consider myself the last person on earth to advocate eating a large percentage of vegetables... I don't subscribe to vegan or vegetarian lifestyles -- bacon doesn't grow on trees -- but from what I've learned on my own about food, my own personal trial and error, and the basics of how food affects your mental and physical state that I was taught growing up, I have a lot to say when it comes to the eating of vegetables.
There are a few things that need to be said first about 'Vegetables'

1. corn is not a vegetable - it is a grain, a grass, and from what I've seen in myself and animals, causes a whole lot of avoidable digestive problems (if you've noticed it often comes out whole... this is not a good thing) because as a seed it contains toxins that are designed to keep you from digesting it
2. Tomatoes, zucchini, squash, eggplant, avocados, etc are also not vegetables. They are very good fruits, but are not to be confused with what vegetables really are
3. Legumes and lentils are additionally not really vegetables, but I'll have a separate blog on them later, cuz they're complicated in the guise of the types of toxins they produce (seeds). For my purpose here, I will concede that the pod is veggie, and unquestionable if ingested before the seeds develop (I have a life-long hatred of legumes, as well as the filthy dirt-legumes known as peanuts)
4. Vegetables are the leaves, roots, stems, and maybe even buds of plants - the following are only a few of oh, so many
• spinach, chard, arugula, cabbage, lettuce, dandelion, water cress, sprouts, herbs
• yams, tubers, carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips, potatoes, onions, garlic, shallots
• rhubarb, celery, asparagus, bamboo
• broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, capers, brussels sprouts

Veggie need-to-knows:

• 50-80% of a human daily diet should be a RAW form of fruit and vegetable -- these contain micro-nutrients that a human body needs in order to repair and defend itself, and generally be healthy

• the more ripe the fruit/vegetable the higher the glycemic index (more sugars) and the lower the nutrient and enzyme content

• simply adding dark green vegetables to any diet (eating habit) can go a long way to improving health, metabolism and weight loss - and i don't mean a little... i mean like a cup of broccoli every meal...

• pasteurizing, though a saver of many lives in the pre-refrigeration age, kills necessary enzymes and breaks down nutrients

• most grocery store (aka non-organic, commercial farm-grown) vegetables are grown with fertilizers containing mostly only potassium, phosphorus and nitrogen... at the very least you should be getting calcium, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum and zinc - not to mention the 30+ other nutrients a human body needs

• any vegetable is better than none - if you have to cook it, steam it, bake it, frappé it, juice it, and all you have is the corner grocery: take it and run with it. Getting used to eating veggies is the first hurdle, experimentation is the second

• if you can keep the temp under 120°F or better yet 105°F, that's generally considered to be raw enough to not break down vital nutrients... but it's enough to warm up a raw veggie-frappé soup

• heat destroys vitamin C -- C is one of the vitamins that do so many things to support health in the body, but is also on of the most easily deficient... IT IS READILY AVAILABLE IN RAW FRUITS & VEGGIES... GET IT IN YOU! they say too much causes kidney stones, but there is not a single medical study that proves it does; it was used extensively in studies in the early 1900's to cure viral illnesses, and is currently being used outside of English-speaking countries as a part of nutritional therapy to let the body heal itself of cancer and other ailments -- with no side-effects

 ** I am not a medical doctor, nor am I stating that vitamin C cures cancer**
*** image above obtained from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L%C3%A9gumes_01.jpg***

Basic Knife Skills

Dani Spies offers awesome starter tips for those new to cutting up veggies
Good Housekeeping also offers several videos breaking down techniques such as mincing, dicing, and quick methods of chopping

Raw Veggies II : Zucchini

1-2 of your favorite kind of zucchini, sliced
1 lemon, juiced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil

Throw it all in a bowl and toss
stays fresh in the fridge, covered, for a week


Zucchini Rolls

1 zucchini
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic (or other aromatic)
fresh basil
fresh arrugula

Slice zucc lengthwise into strips, soak in lemon juice/oil/garlic.... [they say dehydrate, I think it's overrated]... just roll with basil and arugula and serve al fresco

Simple Naan

2.5- 3 cups flour (use gluten free if you like, and I like to add flax seed or flax seed meal)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
tumeric or herbs of choice (optional)
1 cup plain yogurt
1 Tbsp safflower oil

Sift together dry ingredients. Add yogurt and mix until doughy. Add more flour by Tbsp until dough just stops being sticky-wet, and knead, knead and knead. Form into round ball, place in a bowl, drizzle oil on top, cover with a towel and rest for 1 hour. Remove dough from bowl, separate into 8 sections. Roll each section flat (can stack using parchment or wax paper to separate). Heat 10" non-stick skillet to med, and turn oven to broiler setting, or heat broiler to 500°F. Gently place one piece into skillet - cook until bottom has brown spots, remove from pan, place on foil in broiler and brown for ~2 min (make sure rack is low and away from heat source). Once you see spots (as above) remove from broiler - repeat for each piece.

The thinner the dough is rolled, the crispier it will be (I like it crispy; it's easier to eat like a pizza)

Now that you've got naan... what do you do with it?
- substitute for tortillas or pita
- used for chips
- covered in homemade minced raw veggie mixes and cheese (recipes posted soon)
- Rachael Ray has an awesome Naan-cho recipe

Stuffed Squash

1 acorn squash
spinach
Gorgonzola - or sharp cheese of your choice

- cut squash half on the equator - cut off point at the bottom so the bottom half will sit flat
- roast in oven at 400°F until just tender (20-40 min depending on size)
- fill with spinach and cheese
- return to oven until spinach is tender and cheese is melted
- add bacon ;)

Veggie Pizza

large tortilla
favorite spaghetti sauce (I prefer Classico)
mozzarella
spinach
kalamata olives, halved
1 clove garlic, minced
artichoke (canned and quartered)

- lay tortilla on baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- smear tomato sauce over surface to coat
- add olives, garlic, and artichoke
- roll spinach up like a cigar and chop, scatter over pizza
- evenly coat mozz on top
- bake at 400°F until edge of tortilla is browned

Portabello Sammich

1 large portabello mushroom
olive oil
1/2 fire-roasted red bell pepper - enough to cover slice of bread (see below for roasting instructions, or buy canned fire-roasted red peppers - just as good)
spinach - enough to layer on sammich
2 oz goat cheese
1/2 Tbsp minced garlic
tsp lemon juice
2 slices of hardy bread

- slice portabello
- in med non-stick pan - lightly coat with olive oil, bring to med heat - add sliced portabello
- 2 minutes and flip
- 2 min and flip
- remove from pan and dab dry with paper towel
(cooked mushrooms can be refridgerated for sammiches for a few days - taste just as good cold)
- in small bowl combine goat cheese, minced garlic and lemon juice - mix thoroughly
- toast bread if desired
- slather on goat cheese mixture
- lay on spinach
- lay on pepper
- lay on portabellos

broiler roasting peppers
- remove top of pepper by cutting downward at the crown and cutting around the stem (like a pumpkin) - pop the top out and the placenta and seeds should follow (slice long-ways down the side of the pepper if it doesn't come out easily)
- cut pepper in half, place open side down in the broiler set to 500°F or oven broiler setting
- broil for up to 15 min, keep an eye and remove when most of the pepper is blackened
- remove and let cool under a paper towel
- remove skin, pat dry

gas stove-top roasting
- turn on burner to med-low
- place whole pepper on burner's grate
- turn with grilling tongs until most of the pepper's skin is blackened
- remove and let cool under a paper towel
- remove skin, pat dry

Stuffed Eggplant

stuffed eggplant:
1 eggplant
1 lb fresh mozzarella
3 tomatoes
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes
Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, diced
fresh basil bunch
salt/pepper

2 methods:
1.    slice eggplant long-ways in strips ~2" wide and the full length (mandolin works, or mad knife fileting skills)
       - warm in oven (300°F) just until soft and flimsy
       - slice mozz and 2 of the tomatoes, tear off several large basil leaves
       - lay warmed eggplant strips in 2s in a cross, lay 1 slice tomato, mozz and large basil leaf in the middle
       -  fold over bottom-most strip, then fold over the other strip to make a square packet
       - flip upside down, put back in oven for 5 min (optional)

2.     slice eggplant in medallions, leave raw
        - slice 2 tomatoes, mozz and tear off several large basil leaves
        - stack slices: eggplant-tomato-mozz-basil-eggplant
        - leave raw or heat in 300°F oven just until cheese starts to warm (fresh mozz gets watery if melted)

top with Relish:
(i don't recommend a food processor, it breakes down the tomatoes too much and waters down the flavor)
- dice 1 tomato, garlic, and mince sun-dried tomatoes and 3 large basil leaves
- put in medium bowl, add balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper
- mash with wooden spoon or tenderizer

The Perennially Apposite

"Most daemoniacal of all shocks is that of the abysmally unexpected and grotesquely unbelievable."
"... this comfort in suffering is the last resort of the hopelessly trapped ego, trying desperately to find a way of doing the right thing..."
"... wait without thought... so the darkness shall become light, and the stillness the dancing..."
"... some sort of passive mirror which merely reflects experience..."
"Look as I may, I will find no knower - only knowing; no doer - only doing."
"... the Indestructable dares all extremes..."
.
~HP Lovecraft


disappointments will be your failure; your own self-deception and self-doubt will condemn you
Only those that truly see what it is to climb - only those who are the best of themselves can surpass their doubts and inhibitions, and join me for the spectacular view from here. It's getting awfully boring looking at it alone.
I wait to be truly surprised by something - anything - because there really is nothing else that matters.

I abandon myself to inanition - it reigns me as my purpose, then.

Patience is my absolution, and I quietly watch the rare and beautiful forms of humanity play out before me; there only for me to appreciate, because I can no longer touch them - I could never touch them. My smile protrudes as my heart sinks, knowing all too well that its saturnity is the consequence of my own delight. How silly such a feeling is, however, even as rich and bitter food, so too is all feeling better when noted and savored but cursorily.

I know there are those that would contest me on a philosophical and political basis for this, but I think that most people would behoove themselves to take one simple thing into consideration: objectivism - in the sense that one is completely and irrevocably accountable for oneself and no one else.
If one fails to be responsible for oneself, regardless of fault, one cannot possibly be of any use to anyone else - one would be a potential hurt to all others, despite well-meaning intentions.

Be honest to the point of pain; be detached to the point of objectivity; be understanding and compassionate to yourself so you may be compassionate and understanding with others; face your fears; once you have passed through them, you'll realize that it wasn't so bad after all, that the darkness really wasn't there. No matter what the outcome, it was the journey that matters.

From love to peace: a response to the error in the practice of detachment:
Be careful: detachment and deprivation/isolation are not the same thing. Detachment doesn't mean that you can't have enjoyment and be sociable; it means that you are not affected in negative ways by what goes on around you because of a lack of control over how you feel. When you are attached to something, it clouds your judgment: you anger easily and love passionately (passion means misery) because of need and dependency. This usually results in defensiveness and unhappiness. Detachment is a lack of dependency on those things around you and the reactions to which you cannot control. It is the allowance of taking pleasure in small things that might not always be good, but they are only capable of affecting you in ways that you permit them, because you are detached from dependency.
This, like most things, constitutes a semantic misunderstanding. Detachment in a general understanding of one ignoring the world around him and aspects of one's own existence is not healthy. Detachment from dependencies, however, allows for operating freely without constraints of defensiveness and fear. Thus, you should be able to detach yourself from a situation in order to observe its nature with as little bias as possible. To do so, you must not be emotionally invested upon the outcome.
A healthy detachment comes when you can quiet your mind from emotional excess so that you can allow yourself to see what is really there instead of what you tell yourself. Emotions have their purposes, but they are bombarded and wholly over-extended because of the environments, "entertainment," and food chemicals we are subjected to. To quiet the mind allows you to detach from some aspects and reattach to others: such as the "universe" as Crowley describes it, or "source" as does Wayne Dyer.

Having peace and quiet around you and your being is not easy to live with; things become futile and purposeless because there's no reason for it all except what reason you allow it to have - it becomes painfully obvious that all your suffering is meaningless, and that is also hard to accept. This is why most people strive to maintain a religious faith, because that degree of futility and self-definition is hard to live with: namely, can one live happily without mattering?

But what of the ability and power to define the entirety of your own existence...

How divine

quotes from Critical Appendix, "The Birth of Christianity: Reality and Myth"

1. 

"...Thus, the family of Jesus is presented as having thought him out of his mind, to begin with, and as explicitly repudiated by Jesus. This is complemented by the contemptuous description of the Apostles, who also constituted, together with Upright Jacob [Jesus' brother], the core of the Jesist coterie in Jerusalem. They are constantly described as bickering over precedence and rewards..."
"... The counterposition of these two attitudes--that Simon the Rock recognized Jesus as Messiah but denied the salvational function of the resurrection--is no more than a way of indicating that the Jerusalem group headed by Upright Jacob did not believe in Jesus except as the Jewish Messiah [the bringer of the very terrestrial Kingdom of God that would simply restore Hebrew sovereignty and defeat the Romans]. His role as Lord of the Universe, of Divine Savior of Mankind, meant nothing to them. In short, the viewpoint of Paul is put forth in Mark in such a way as to take advantage of the Jewish debacle. The ground plan of Mark goes far beyod details; it has a profound apologetic aim..."
.
.
2.

"After almost 2 centuries of the most painstaking, intense study by scores of thousands of able, conscientious scholars, the amount of information refined out of the sources can be contained in a few lines.
"There is no assurance of the most primitive facts about Jesus the man: the significance of the word "Nazarene," the date and place of his birth, his parents, his family, his milieu. All such information is summed up in a disconcertingly barren statement: in the words of Charles Guignebert, Jesus was 'born somewhere in Galilee in the time of Emperor Augustus, in a modest family that aside from him numbered a good half-dozen children.'
"Moreover, the paucity of information about the background and personality of Jesus the man is reinforced by the utter absence of any indication of original teaching; whatever Jesus thought about religion, and in particular about Judaism, his own ideas failed to survive his death. He could neither have foreseen nor desired the state of affairs that replaced the Kingdom of God he was promoting, and even though the genetic relationship between himself and Chrisitanity is evident, it can only be in the narrow sense that the new religion coagulated through speculations around the meaning of his death."
...
"Generations of higher critics have stubbornly disregarded the titanic fact staring at them from out of the desert of the documentation-- the causal connection between Jesus's initial emergence as a herald of the Kingdom of God and his execution by the Romans as an insurrectoinist-- and have accepted as plausible what was a mere apologia on the part of the believers of the first phase of the evolving faith [roman converts]."
...
"But once it is accepted that the thought of founding a new religion never even crossed Jesus's mind, it becomes obvious that Christianity derives not from anything Jesus did but from what happened after his death. Thus it was after his death that the germination and efflorescence of a new religion took place, rooted in the primordial vision of Jesus resurrected and glorified... 'If Jesus was not resurrected the faith was in vain.'
"But if this is so, it means that the entire vast library of literature on Christian origins, to the extent that it struggled to fling a bridge from the religion itself to the figure of its putative founder, was condemned to sterility... Jesus had originated nothing in the religion that sprang up over his dead body."

Veggie Tomato Soup

24oz creamy tomato soup
12oz roasted red pepper soup
1/2 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1 chopped zucchini
1/2 pint chopped mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic
1 chopped tomato
1/4 cup slivered sun-dried tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 lb raw shrimp - skinned/deveined
Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp chili powder
stale baguette/ stale sourdough bread

Rinse and chop all veggies and set aside. Heat large pot and add soups and stock. Once simmering, add chopped veggies and olive oil. Heat sauté pan, add enough oil to coat pan - once hot, add shrimp : pink shrimp on both sides, then add to soup pot. Simmer just until all ingredients are hot ~15 min. Salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat, cut stale bread into 1" cubes. Dish soup and add bread cubes on top to serve.

Roast Veggies/ Fruits

Roasted Heirloom Tomatoes and Plums
[seen w/ Morrocan spiced short ribs]

Tomatoes are actually fruits, work with their sweetness and acidity when preparing with heavier foods like red meats to give a warm and light flavor contrast

the key to great veggies is to not overcook and let their naturally delicious flavors come out

1 qt heirloom tomatoes
3 plums cut into ~1" cubes
1 Tbsp honey/agave nectar
grapeseed oil
sea salt

place tomatoes and plum cubes in roasting dish, drizzle with oil and honey/nectar, dash of salt, toss to coat the fruit
roast at 350°F and remove as soon as tomatoes start to split

Raw Veggies I

raw veggie dip

3 raw Brussels sprouts

3 green onions

1/2 avocado

2 garlic cloves

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbsp grape seed oil

1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

salt

steak seasoning



put all ingredients into food processor

[to prep avocado: slice in half around pit, twist the two halves, use spoon to remove flesh from skin]

season to taste

eat with naan, rice crackers, or celery

or leave corsely processed and serve as a slaw

Preparing Veggies I

simple salads: dark leaf base, 2+ tasty veggies, protein / starch, acid, and oil

here:
baby spinach
1/2 bell pepper-julienne
1/2 onion- sliced
toss with 1/2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar and 1Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, pinch sea salt/cracked pepper
topped with roasted red potato and white cheddar wafer

to make cheddar wafers: heat small non-stick pan to low-med, lay single layer of shredded white cheddar. allow to melt, use paper towel to soak up extra oil. once it can be moved with a spatchula, flip for 10 seconds, remove from pan to paper towel, and shape quickly while warm

Preparing Veggies II

easy tasty veggies... if they were this good when i was a kid, i woulda eaten 'em

Green Beans

4 Red Potatoes

1 lemon cut in wedges

1 TBSP butter

Blanch a hand full of whole green beans :

- use beans at room temp

- bring pot of water to a boil

- add green beans and boil until they are neon green ~5 min, quickly strain

- cut red potatoes in ~1" cubes
- heat non-stick pan med-heat, melt 1 TBSP butter
- add lemon wedges and potatoes - once potatoes start to brown, add blanched green beans
- toss in the pan until potatoes are just browned ~3-5min - don't need to be cooked through, the raw crunch adds to the texture
- pinch salt/pepper