Month: November 2024

November 6, 2024 – My Greek Table: Authentic Flavors and Modern Home Cooking From My Kitchen To Yours

November 6, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Welcome to the November selection for the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. This is once again a cookbook with the focus on Greek food. Of course I have heard of Greek food, but I never realized that there was a show on PBS focused on it.

When a cookbook is a monthly selection, I usually read the text but not all of the instructions. I read the recipe header and scan through the ingredients list. This one is no different. I try to pick a few recipes that I might want to try as well as keep an eye on what I might want to make to share at the monthly meeting.

Truthfully, I haven’t quite finished reading all of it, I will but I have read enough to get the gist of what is going on. This cookbook is self described as not specifically authentic but ‘in the spirit of’ Greek food. It is meant as more of a framework to get started. This isn’t an exhaustive list but I have determined that the common thread is tomato, artichoke, cucumber, olive oil, oregano as the primary flavors. It does appear that most recipes have one or more of these ingredients.

I suppose I can blame my heritage and upbringing that is northern European. As a result, I definitely don’t groove on Mediterranean food. I don’t find my tastes to be universally one deminsional however. Mexican, Indian and Korean are cuisines that I find myself drawn to. I suspect that Mediterranean is close enough but not quite what I expect or want.

That being said, I can always find a few things to try. I haven’t totally decided but I think that I am going to make either meatballs or a Greek sloppy joe. Reading the book, I learned that there is a concept called Meze which is like sharing small plates. This is like the more familiar Spanish tapas with a group. It is small bites with a lot of variety. Sounds perfect for a group setting.

We have some frozen pastry that I would desperately like to get rid of but I haven’t found the right recipe yet. Maybe by the time I get to the end of the book, I will find something. By the way, this technique ends up driving a lot of my cooking decisions. ‘What do we have that I would like to get rid of before it goes bad or I am tired of it in my way.’

What do I think of the book? Given that it is not my first choice of cuisine, I have to say that it is not my favorite. There are a lot of recipes that are all variations of the same kind of ingredients. I guess to me, it doesn’t seem given so many recipes (400+ pages), the variation is not very different or novel.

It’s nice to have choices. It sure beats not having any. Like most cultural cookbooks, there is an emphasis on good ingredients. Using tomatoes in mid winter kind of degrades the overall quality of the recipe. In my climate, there is probably only a couple of months where ‘good’ tomatoes are possible. That kind of narrows down the window to make a lot of these recipes as they are intended and likely best.

I’m sorry, the book just wasn’t for me. The truth is, a helpful review would have something to compare and contrast. If I didn’t like this one then what would I recommend? This is my problem with a lot of Amazon style reviews. The evaluation is only made on limited experience with one product. Powder puff reviews just talk about what you would find in the book and real vague language. I will let you do that.

End Your Programming Routine: This review is only my opinion, so don’t get hurt. If you like Greek food or if you are a fan of Diane Kochilas then by all means check this book out. We make gyros from time to time (I have no idea if these are officially Greek) and I like them. I have said this before, I usually find two or three recipes out of a particular cookbook. That shouldn’t be offensive, but a fact. I have stacks of cookbooks now. Some of them, I barely open.

November 5, 2024 – Happy Election Day, We Are Living 1984

November 5, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I have been looking forward to this day for quite a while. I have been getting phone calls and text messages heavily since our primary in May. No matter what the results are, it will be over. That is something to celebrate.

I hope that you enjoyed yesterday’s podcast. I have linked to other podcasts before but this is the first time I have featured someone else’s work. This is a podcast that I subscribe to so the message was not new to me. In previous references, the host never referred to such specifics like the uniform, when and where to wear etc.

Read the story here.

Today we are going to go back to an old friend, George Orwell and 1984. If you remember, the main character Winston worked for the Records Department at the Ministry of Truth. His job primarily was to read through published work and look for words, slogans etc that do not conform with Newspeak. Newspeak was the official, approved language of the regime. Secondarily, if the work he was reviewing was somehow non-conforming in other ways, for instance economic news that was inaccurate, Winston was in charge of modification and document control.

This practice led Winston to change the copy and then go back into the archives and modify any existing documents. Anything that was now obsolete was thrown away in a device called the ‘Memory Hole’ which ostensibly was destroyed and gone forever.

What makes this tactic useful is not that it is accurate but that it frequently changes. This makes it impossible to actually know what the truth is. As you can imagine, it is not easy to recall all of the published newspapers so that one day it might state that we are at war with country A and another day, it might stat that we are allied with country A and at war with country B.

If this practice goes on long enough, it is like playing a shell game. If you didn’t come in from the start and pay attention all along, you will never know what is happening. Combine that with stiff penalties for descent or even questioning, there is no point in trying to guess the truth.

Circle back to today. Based on this story I have linked to, we are living 1984. Honestly, I don’t really care what Biden said. I do believe that he spoke his truth. What is more concerning is that fact that the record was changed. Not only that, the administration is in on the cabal. Karine Jean-Pierre is quoted as saying “… just to clarify, he was not calling Trump supporters garbage…” But in fact Biden did. If he really meant something different, then the proper action is an apology with clarification, not clarification with a changed record. Everybody know that is wrong.

This is dangerous precedent. They will get away with this and a few more times and this will become routine. It is convenient to rail against it when the situation is in favor but both sides now have a new technique to deal with uncomfortable situations.

Do you honestly not know why healthcare mandate was not repealed or government will never stop getting bigger? It will never have to as long as people are willing to accept lies. They don’t care. They don’t care about deficit spending, they don’t care about the environment, they don’t care about LGBTQ+ rights or voter fraud or unions or anything else because we are stuck in our positions and cannot see the forest from the trees.

End Your Programming Routine: You know what they say about sexual assault in therapy? Being angry continues to give the abuser the power. Do you not see the correlation here? Be as mad as you want about your pet issues but I am telling you now that this is a watershed moment. We just took another step toward totality of autocratic rule. Just change the record and deny it happened.

November 1, 2024 – The Art of War, Maneuvering the Army

November 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

There is no mystery here, the title of the chapter is actually what it is about. Some translations call it Army on the March or something of the like. At least in my translation, I would say that it is a little more than marching but what to do on the encountered terrain is included. At least this chapter is not a complete mystery.

Once again, I would say that the advice is pretty common sense (at least I thing so). It is such things like, if you are in swamp do whatever you can to get out of the swamp or try to pick the higher ground for encampment. It also offers some intuitive advice like if you end up fighting in a swamp, move to end it quickly or get out of the swamp. Or in other words ‘don’t get bogged down’ do what you can to stay in strategic advantage.

There is also some tactical tips in this chapter. Some examples include frothy stream water means that it is raining upstream. Certain dust cloud formations indicate chariot direction and army composition. I would say that this kind of advice is not terribly practical at this point in history. We don’t have too many chariot armies to deal with. It is possible that tanks make different clouds than trucks, I just don’t know. Reading Sun Tzu, I can only comment on what is written.

It doesn’t mean that this line of thinking is totally devoid of value, we just have sift through the non-applicable to the applicable. For instance when I am in the woods, it is often the case that when we humans (me) blunder into the area, animals are disturbed. As long as you sit very still, things will start coming back to normal (before blundering in the woods). I take from it that humans interact with the environment. Knowing the impact of our interaction gives us a strategic advantage over those that do not.

Since playing army and tactics are not super relevant to most of us, there is probably something else that we can get out of this chapter. It reminds me of a saying that is common in self defense circles. ‘Don’t go to stupid places with stupid people and do stupid things’. What that means is that if we knew the future, smart people would not get into trouble.

Said another way, if you knew that going to a certain location was going to get you mugged, a smart person wouldn’t go. We can have all the bravado about concealed carry and BS but wouldn’t it just be better to not be there in the first place? I think so. So, if you are getting the sense that a situation might be trouble, this is your first indication to avoid it. Speaking of which, I would avoid downtown of major cities just after the election Tuesday night.

Using an example from the recent news, Kyle Whittingham. He went to a riot with a rifle under the auspices of protecting a friend’s property. Stuff went sideways and fortunately for him, he got out unharmed physically. But, it sure doesn’t mean that he didn’t have consequences. After having to stand trial and being exonerated, he is now somewhat of a social pariah. When you have to stand and fight, I get it. But that is going to stupid places. I suspect that he wishes he would have just stayed home.

What I think Sun Tzu is saying is that he willingly went into the swamp. Then a fight started. Whittingham fortunately followed Sun Tzu’s advice and got out of the swamp quickly, hence he is still with us. March through the swamp as fast as possible, if absolutely necessary.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to say that it is refreshing to not have to read a lot of other’s interpretations to understand what is the point of the chapter. That is giving me flashbacks to Dante. It is just that I am not versed in eastern philosophy so I don’t recognize what is happening even when it is hitting me in the face. Machismo of the past might call my advice cowardly. But, you never know who is bringing a gun to a fist fight. There is a pretty good chance that I will.