01.25.09
A Non-Negative View of Humanity
It occurred to me this fine Sunday that a lot of my posts to the world are of a typically negative demeanor, especially my last one of berating the denizens of the internet. I’m not a pessimist, quite the opposite actually. I hope for the best in nearly every regard and situation. I admit that I am a cynic though. I don’t like to take experiences and situations at face value. There’s something more to what’s going on all the time. I contend that such a view is actually quite optimistic, if in a roundabout way.
I believe that things happen for a very real reason, though we don’t often know why. I don’t mean this in a drug-induced cosmic-binding idea of fate or karma, just that the choices we all make result in connections to others in far deeper ways than we realize and I’m optimistic that we can find a way to use that. Let me try to clear some of this up by saying that if I act pessimistic it’s not intentional. If I were to say that the glass in front of me is half empty, it’s only because I’m optimistic that I can finish that remaining half of my drink.
In light of happier posts I wanted to share a series of pictures with you. They were taken some time ago, almost a year. I just never got around to doing anything with them. For your viewing pleasure I am letting you see the making of a fine curry dish. I loves my curry. It all starts with a mess on the counter like this:
Not pictured is the giant stock pot used to contain it all. That looks like this:
I’m browning some garlic in canola oil. Everything needs a little garlic in it so why not start with it? After the garlic has had its share of the heat I add the cut up onion and some peanuts.
Let that heat up and start to play together.
This picture is after the curry paste and stock have been added. While I let that heat up to a boil it’s time to turn to the meat portion of the meal which for this particular instance of curry was shrimp and soybean protien. If you’ve never been to Evergreen in Salt Lake City this is what I’m talking about:
This little ball of a mess is pretty much what is left of soybeans after they have been pressed for oil. Basically it’s a lump of protien, and quite delicious. I used to drive into Evergreen all the time just to order the number 7 for these. Then I found out they sold them in huge bags. I need to head up there sometime soon and pick up another bag. Also, rumor has it the number 7 has changed a bit.. an investigation will need to be done.
When the meat has had time to cook and soak up some of the curry it’s time to add the veggies. This time around it consisted of potatoes, carrots, and corn. Yes, corn. Super sweet white corn to be precise.
That picture is somewhat deceiving. I didn’t add a mountain of corn, it’s sitting on top of the more abundant carrots and potatoes. Stir that up and let it cook together for a half hour or so and it starts to look like this:
One more thing to add though to make it nice and creamy (and frightfully less healthy); coconut milk.
Now it’s pretty much ready to eat. Of course, the longer you let it all stew together the more the flavors saturate and get absorbed into each individual component. I typically let it cook from this point on low for about an hour and a half to two hours. If I had a crock pot I’d cook such curries all day.
Once you decide it’s had enough time, cook up some rice and plop the two together in a bowl.
You can see a little hole in the curry down to the brown rice. I tend to go through phases where I prefer brown rice over white. Regardless of which kind of rice you choose, you should get the same result:
Mmm, mmm, good.
Curry is a pretty simple dish. You’d have to try to mess it up, and even then it’d be sort of hard. If you’ll notice, I didn’t indicate any measurements of the ingredients. That’s because I don’t use any. Like I said, it’s a pretty simple dish. I got the recipe from Patrick Wong and after a couple times of making it his way I picked up the ball and ran with it.
I recommend to everyone (who likes curry, and with many different kinds everyone should like at least one) that they should try making their own. It’s easy, fun, and so much cheaper than going out to eat. Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually have another curry on my stove right now.
01.24.09
I’m Surrounded by Idiots
I want to first acknowledge the possibility that this post and all other posts/statements/arguments/anything else I have said in the course of my life could fit the mold of what I am about to rant about. That being said, I would like to think that all such comments made by me were either sufficiently backed up with some form (a flawed form is still a form) of reasoning where another person who either agreed or disagreed could at least say something akin to “You’re wrong and an idiot yourself, Neal, but I can at least see how you got to that erroneous conclusion.”
Why am I making the point to clear this with you, you might be asking right now. Because I am about to make one of the most profound statements that we as a civilization of human beings could ever realize even though most everyone has already stated it themselves, myself included. It’s still a statement that warrants saying though, such as a warning that something is hot and best not be touched. It’s a voice of warning for all others who for a split second may have forgotten.
This profound voice of warning is this: the internet is full of morons.
There is a reason which has recently reaffirmed my stance on this. Allow me to share it with you.
The other day I was reading a post made on Wes and Sandy’s blog. It was one posted by Sandy about some recipes they had tried and enjoyed. One of the recipes was for a butter nut lasagna which sounded particularly interesting since: 1) I find lasagna to be a marvelous dish; 2) it’s a vegetarian lasagna (if you recall I have been veering away from red meat and even meat in general of late); 3) I enjoy the taste of butter nut squash; and 4) I happen to have a large butter nut squash sitting on my cold kitchen floor right now.
I looked over the recipe and thought to myself, “Yes, this looks good. I wonder what others have said about it” and foolishly clicked on the comments made. The top comment is the one that caught me off guard with its low score and explanation. In short, it related the story of this person removing the cream from the recipe to make the meal more healthy, after which they were disappointed with how dry the dish was, and then proceeded to direct readers to another lasagna recipe which they classified as being even less healthy.
Perhaps you can follow my dismay at this comment by my paraphrasing of it. If not, allow me to walk you through why I wanted to slap this individual and their faulty thought processes. This person wanted to make the recipe a little more healthy by not using the fatty cream which the ingredients call for. Fair enough. However, cream adds more than fat to recipes and one of those things it adds is moisture. He/she must have not recognized this as he/she did not choose to provide a replacement for this ingredient, or at least failed to mention it. This lack of moisture in the dish as it baked resulted in the lasagna being more dry than they would have preferred.
This is the beginning of where I was so dumbfounded. They, by their obvious and deliberate choice removed the cream from the recipe. Yet this person faulted the recipe for being dry. They did not score themselves low, they scored the recipe low. That is enough to make me wonder what they were thinking, but they immediately proceeded to tell people not to make this recipe but to instead look for another particular recipe on the website which they admitted to be far less healthy.
What?! You ruined this recipe yourself to make it more healthy than it called for and faulted it, but yet you are directing other people to another recipe which you are clearly saying is even less healthy? How does that make any sense? I wanted to reach into my monitor, grasp this person firmly on the shoulders, and shake them while saying “YOU are the one that ruined this recipe to make it more healthy! It is YOUR fault that it turned out to be dry! And now YOU are the one telling others not to use this recipe but another one that goes even more against the reason why YOU changed this recipe in the first place!” Then I would have slapped them across the face and left them alone to wallow in their own stupidity while I marveled at how I had reached through a monitor to someone else.
If you take nothing from this story but a slight smile at the idiocy of this person then I’m glad for that. If you want to take something else with you, take this piece of advice:
Watch yourselves out there. The internets are filled with the social rejects of our day which hide behind anonymous User IDs while they spout illogical rhetoric and bigoted remarks. They are not to be trusted.
If I could, I would transfer myself to their computers andhave a battle royale amid their circuitry as the Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad would do.
