Category: Review

October 28, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:7

October 28, 2022 /

If you pay attention to the title of each chapter, it kind of gives you insight into what the chapter is going to be about. This one is titled, “The Moratorium On Brains”. More on that in a minute.

The last chapter was titled “Miracle Metal” which was about forcing Reardon to give up his intellectual property. Reardon metal will be renamed Miracle metal. Makes sense. The chapter before that was titled “Account Overdrawn” which was the production threat that lead to the initiation of Directive 10-289. The next chapter is titled “By Our Love”… I wonder what that is going to be about?

As with all chapters in this long book, there are multiple things going on. The title of this chapter refers to the incident in the second half of the chapter. An entitled bureaucrat is travelling on a Taggart train to a political event. The train is stopped at a station in Winston, Colorado because of track conditions and derailment. The bureaucrat insists that this is some kind of political ploy and demands that the train continue.

Taggart employees afraid of changing rules, sliding scales of justice and unclear authority are afraid to do the right thing. Ultimately, the parties involved barrel to their death. Hence, some knew this was going to be the case, the others refused to believe that this was a real problem. Either way, the result was the same.

Normally, I would pick that part of the chapter to draw some analogy to current day issues. But, it is so easy to kill sitting ducks. That is why we have the phrase in the first place. Make no mistake, this is the major theme of the chapter. However, I am going to talk about the first part of the chapter instead.

We have heard a little about Ragnar Danneskjold. Apparently, he was a peer of Francisco D’Aconia in school and a general enigma. The word on the street is that he is also a fearless pirate. In this chapter Henry Reardon meets Danneskjold and it was rather interesting.

We grow up with the paradigm that the story of Robin Hood is just and correct. Danneskjold bills himself as the anti-Robin Hood. And his reason being is that we have our Overton Window in the wrong perspective. It’s not the rich stealing from the poor that is the problem, but the poor stealing from the rich.

Huh. I had never considered to perspective that the fairy tail is actually a classist agenda. I really think that there are points on both sides here. On one hand, there is no doubt that this country has a large welfare state. That is certainly stealing from the rich (the government that is). Does the rich actually steal from the poor?

I would contend, that both sides steal from the middle class. One, the middle class is the largest socioeconomic group. Two, the rich are the ones writing the rules (read loopholes) as well. They can afford to hire attorneys and accountants as well as build tax shelters on a routine basis. The poor of course have nothing to steal. The middle class has no time to fight, not enough assets to protect and not enough insight to know that they are getting screwed.

To make things worse, class warfare works perfectly. By keeping the middle class siding with one side or the other, they are so busy fighting in their hypnotic trance for the side they believe represents them that they are missing the fleecing that is happening.

For instance, the “Trump Tax Cut” that occurred in 2017. Without the SALT deduction (that was the deduction for mortgage interest), I now pay $10,000 a year more in federal income tax. I have heard business owners say that they now have a significant reduction in taxes (35 -> 21% on profits as well as a increased expensing allowances to lower profits). Nothing especially precludes me from becoming a business owner, but that doesn’t pivot on a dime. My point is, business owners are more likely to be high income earners, maybe rich. There are a lot more middle class home owners that fall into the strictly middle class ranges and the burden was shifted with that tax change.

End Your Programming Routine: I cannot be convinced that the rich do not pay their fair share. If we are only talking about income taxes maybe, but all the businesses certainly donate, pay, employ, etc. That is certainly fair share in my book. The truth of the matter is, as long as we all have equal access to take advantage of the rules, then who can really complain? Honestly, what I think the middle class needs to focus on is not getting rooked into picking a side when either choice looses.

October 21, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:6

October 21, 2022 /

As I said last week, it seems now that we have passed the high tide line for hope. In fact, in this chapter Dabny quits her job as Vice President for the railroad. It isn’t written explicitly, but it has to do with the outcome of a special council of industrialists and government have produced. I am going to talk about that today.

By Executive Order and declaring a State of Emergency, it is officially titled directive 10-289. Below is a synopsis of the contents.

  1. No wage earner is allowed to leave their job nor be terminated under penalty of jail.
  2. No business owner is allowed to fail and cease to exist or to transfer the entity in any means.
  3. All patents, trademarks or intellectual property will be surrendered to the government for the free use by all.
  4. Nothing new is to be invented or marketed or even investigated
  5. All manufacturing is to maintain the exact same output year over year.
  6. Prices will remain the same from this point forward.
  7. Wages will remain the same from this point forward.
  8. Any disputes of edge cases will be overseen by an entity called the Unification Board.

To me, this is clearly a larger than life framing of the transition from free market to communism. Not being a total expert, I assume that all of these things are an exaggeration of state controlled economic system. Will prices never change? I don’t think so, but they wouldn’t change without governmental review. Will nothing ever be invented? I doubt that is even desirable. At the very least, new military technology was invented but I think that science was highly valued in the USSR (granted it was probably state generated).

There is nothing like doubling down on failed policy to make things fail harder. If we look at our current financial system we can see the madness of it all. At a high level, this is how it works.

Banks qualify someone for a loan and they create a ledger entry. That loan then creates money into existence because they don’t actually have the cash liquid in the bank. This is the entire concept of fractional reserve banking. The US government borrows that money from the bank (also creates money), which they are charged a fee. They then raise money to cover the debts by issuing the bonds, which largely the banks purchase. So the banks make money ‘selling’ it to the government and they also make money by buying the debt. This is a Ponzi scheme.

When we have inflation, we have too much money in the system. Interest rates are raised to slow down some of the borrowing and additional creation of money. Inflation devalues the currency and while a small amount of continuous inflation is desirable (from a monetary policy standpoint), a large amount is not.

I suppose that you might be asking what does failure and our current financial system have to do with each other? Well, it hasn’t failed yet, but it will because there is no possible way that it will not. We cannot create money from loaning it to someone else and charge for it both ways as any sort of rational logic. The relative strength of the US Dollar is only backed by force.

What is the Petrodollar? Did you know that all oil transactions from everywhere in the world needs to be done with the US Dollar? This means that every country needs to convert their currency into USD to perform the transaction. That activity keeps the value of the dollar relatively high compared to most. This is the activity that requires force to maintain. Why do you think we are in the middle east in the first place? It is certainly not to promote freedom and liberty.

Bringing this all back around now. The central economic control of communism like the USSR, the move to communism in Atlas Shrugged and the US financial policy are all flavors of the same thing. They are all attempts to manipulate a systems for goals. The goals may not all be the same but the results are. There are too many variables and inputs for this to ever work in perpetuity.

End Your Programming Routine: At this point, I am not sure that there is a perfect economic system. I want to say free market is the best, but that has a lot of issues itself. You cannot predict boom/bust risk free. Who knew that Beanie Babies was going to be a thing? So, when you invest your entire retirement in those things and they become worthless on the whim of a trend, things go south in the entire economy. It is looking like an un-manipulatable currency like Bitcoin is looking like the way to go, but it still wont avoid the Beanie Baby crash. So, emulate the people doing well; make money and build wealth within the framework available but keep your eyes and options open.

October 11, 2022 – The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

October 11, 2022 /

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks by Kathleen Flinn is the Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection for September 2022. In many ways, this is a follow up to The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry. It picks up where that book left off in Kathleen Flinn’s timeline.

I have found this book very interesting because I identify very much with Kathleen’s psyche. Here she goes to Le Cordon Bleu kind of on a whim, gets her credentials and then immediately writes a book. She is interested in food and cooking but really doesn’t want to put those skills to work traditionally. She even says it herself that she doesn’t know what she want’s to do. Sounds like someone I know.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but Kathleen has an epiphany while grocery shopping. She observes how much junk people are loading into their carts and begins asking the question of why. The most pervasive answer is that people don’t know how to cook. This book describes a social experiment, bringing in nine people that had little to no skills to see what happens. I will let you read the book to find out the methods and how it went.

This made me think about our current society. We live in a world that is surrounded by information. We take in the information as entertainment and so my analysis here is that whatever happens on the screen is not reality. Therefore, we have programmed our brains to say ‘that all happened in fantasy land, I will now operate in the real world’. What I am trying to say is that we cannot make the link between what I can do and what I see. Channels such as Food Channel, HGTV and MotorTrend can be entertaining and informative. But, I feel like their best disposition is really as inspiration.

Couple that with product marketing and misinformation. Unless people really study the information and use critical thinking, of course they are misguided. I hate to take this back to the tired old Covid analogy, but here we go. We are entering the ‘flu season’ of 2022. Pretty much what I see now is that everything is back to the way things were pre-Covid with the exception that masks are now permitted in banks, schools, etc. I just heard the commercial to get your fourth booster.

How do we rectify the crisis that was with the ambivalence of today? In my opinion, what we thought we knew in 2020 was wrong. Notice, no one is talking about why we are behaving differently today then we were two years ago. This is what brings us back to food. Even the supposed experts on health were wrong with Covid. What make us think that they are right about die?

Kathleen Flinn is not getting her due from my side trip. But, she did inspire it and she is right that the vast majority of people don’t know how to cook. Some of it is their fault and some of it is not. For instance, even I have heard numerous chefs recommend soup base as a starter. To me, that is fine for a restaurant because their number one priority is profit whereas a home cook’s number one priority is nourishment; and that ain’t in soup base.

I want to be careful, I am not denigrating anyone’s choices. I sometimes use shortcuts too. But, I know how to cook and my choices are made by circumstances like I don’t have time to defrost stock so I use soup base, not by lack of skills. It’s like I wrote about salad dressing in the past. Back when I was a child, buying salad dressing was a convenience but now it is a lost skill.

This is a book that is an easy read. To get the full impact, you have to be ready for it. It’s like watering dry ground, it is just going to run off. But, if your soil is a little bit moist, then it is going to soak that water deep to the roots.

End Your Programming Routine: This is the last scheduled book of the year. I have to say that I was really not excited about any of the selections, surprisingly I have warmed up to all of them. I am really glad that this was how we finished the year because this is the kind of stuff that I am really into. I love a good dinner, but I really enjoy changing the status quo, even if it is for nine people.

October 7, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:4

October 7, 2022 /

The fact that I am already looking at the other Ayn Rand books leads me to believe that I am going to be reading more from her. I can say that I am astounded at how astute she was and how this all dovetails together with today. Look closely, this is social justice at work. It is just cloaked in a less, in your face manner.

The chapter starts out at Thanksgiving which happens to be the night before the Reardon trial. The family members behave as poorly as normal with their normal snarky platitudes. Henry listens to one last jab and lays down the line for his brother.

This is human nature. It also seems to be the way that ungrateful dependents act. Having raised a number of other people’s (adult) children, they either get it or they don’t. And when they don’t, they are pretty self righteous about how their problems are someone else’s fault.

But when you look at it objectively, you can understand. They wouldn’t be ungrateful dependents if they didn’t have some sort of deficiency. A lot of it is the lack of ability for self-reflection, accountability and a drive to do better. This causes them to be deluded into the fault of the problem. Of course, they forget about how they got into a shouting match with their boss because they were doing something they weren’t supposed to do which got them fired.

I almost feel sorry for them until I remember what indignant assholes they are when they are in this mode. At some point, you have enough with their pity party and get tired of them not taking a wiser counsel. After being threatened with violence or just tired of confrontation and volatility, you just have resolve yourself that you have done what you can. It is time for them to leave. I don’t consider that a major theme of the chapter, but clearly it struck a nerve in me.

So, now the real theme, the Reardon trial strategy. During the trial, Reardon offers no defense for his trial. That tactic befuddles the judges, who cannot comprehend the situation. Now, as a quick aside, I do not believe that this would ever work in some sort of trial. But, it is an allegory for life.

When you are in the pool, it is customary that when someone yells ‘Marco’ the other people respond with ‘Polo’. If you don’t respond, you have broken the object of the game and it doesn’t work. I talk a lot about the left/right dichotomy and this is the perfect strategy. Picking a side puts you in the game and no matter what side it is, you are involved. Once in the game, the only way to play is with the established rules.

Naturally, if you want to break the game, you cannot operate within the boundaries. You have to stay outside of the game to change it. If you catch my drift, you cannot elect the right people out of the game because they are all playing it right along with you. I suppose that if it your desire to win ‘Marco Polo’, then you have to play in order to win.

Using something more colloquial, imagine a fantasy football league. Assume the premise that all of the players are motivated to win, all are ostensively educated in the rules and ‘game pieces’. What are your chances to win? What happens when someone quits actively playing mid-season and how does that effect the overall outcome?

There is some skill but also luck in winning. If I was tied for first place and lost to the guy that quit earlier in the season, yet my competitor is playing the guy that quit and I am playing the second place guy, he will likely win and I might lose, My point with all of this is we can’t go into a season and know the outcome because we can’t predict how the other players will act, let alone injuries, etc from our teammates. Enough fun and games, I think that you get the point.

End Your Programming Routine: Some very interesting revelations in this chapter. I debated even cutting the enough is enough comments before I started writing. Then, I thought I would just mention it but once I started writing, I debated writing the entire post about that and cutting the second section out. Not playing the game is a theme that was too important to not give full attention. I think that the enough is enough is on my mind, because that is the podcast on that I talked about on Monday.

September 30, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:3

September 30, 2022 /

There is some interesting stuff in this chapter. In fact, we get the explanation of the book title here. I won’t spoil it for you but I am going to talk all around it.

In a related note, I was looking up the other books by Ayn Rand and I ended up reading a little bit of bio on Wikipedia. She is originally from the Soviet Union so that explains her super keen insight into socialism/communism. I guess what I find bizarre is that 2020’s USA is following in the very same footsteps (insert forehead slap .gif).

If I skip what I think are the inconsequential events like Reardon gets caught cheating by his wife Lillian, that will keep me focused on the heart of the events of the chapter. This is what happens of significance.

Reardon refuses Dr Ferris’ (SSI) blackmail attempt. Reardon purchased more coal than allowing under Fair Competition Act. Ferris tries to use that information to get Reardon to sell the SSI the metal that he previously refused. Ferris implies that everyone who is successful (and not going to jail) falls in line with this quid pro quo line of actions.

Ken Danagger of Danagger Coal who was Reardon’s co-conspirator in the situation also was threatened by the SSI. The pair of them are put on trial for refusing to cooperate in the blackmail situation. As a result, Ken abruptly quits his business after a visit from a mysterious stranger. This is reminiscent of the Wyatt Oil situation at the end of section one, ‘Let er Burn’.

Finally, I will end the chapter summary with another insightful conversation between Hank Reardon and Francisco d’Anconia. Francisco seems to see the world here as Reardon just plows on through it. Meaning, he is just going to keep going no matter the obstacles in the way. Francisco term’s it as morality or that Hank is willing to work harder to make up for other’s deficiency.

This is eerie. When I look back at my un-happiness at my previous job, this is precisely why I was unhappy and I just figured it out after reading this chapter. I kept working harder to make up for other’s deficiencies. The more I worked, the more success I had but it still didn’t change the paradigm. Once you realize that the situation will never change no matter how hard you work, the only thing left is to pull the chute.

My mental state was definitely a result of morality. I am not going to expose anything here but there was definitely some shady dealings going on. Nothing was illegal, but morality is usually not a legal question but an ethical one. In my book, an unethical action is also a stupid action and that I can’t stand to be around. I see it as guilt by proximity. I guess that is why I kept fighting for change. And because it never did, I was miserable.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not happy with my new job either. The difference is that I am not really vested in the outcome. I have no power or responsibility other than to do my job. It very well may be the same thing, but ignorance is bliss.

End Your Programming Routine: Wow, I really got a lot out of that chapter. I don’t know whether to be angry or cry or be triumphant. In some ways, this book is getting depressing because all of these things are happening despite what we know. Rand wrote about this in the 1950s, we saw the fall of communism, we heard the stories of depravity and dysfunction yet we double down on the path of failure. I suppose the path to happiness is staying aloof of the outcome, just like my job.

September 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:2

September 23, 2022 /

This is one of those chapter’s that I struggled with a bit. I struggled to make time to read and I struggled to pull something out meaningful. The subject matter was a little dull as well. But, I think that there was something to pay the fuel bills here.

When I was a child, grade school to middle school, my uncle bought a fishing boat. With that boat was also a commercial fishing license. At that time, salmon fishing lasted two weeks. We would go out at least once while he fished for money, we fished for sport. A day was measured by whether your catch met your expenses or not. A good day exceeded your expenses (hopefully significantly).

So, Jim Taggart is marrying the dime store girl. Not much is written about him or the relationship in between the time that they met and actually getting married. The book feels like it has been about a year but the truth is that very little is spoken about time. It seems like it is always fall whenever the weather is mentioned but there is very little actually marking time.

Because Jim has really evolved into an insignificant character in the book, this wedding has to have a higher purpose. After all, there is over forty pages about it. Wouldn’t you know who shows up? Francisco d’Anconia of course and he ends up with a hard hitting soliloquy.

As is customary, the minor characters behave as snooty, intolerable children. They talk in empty platitudes. You know the kind where people say something rude out load without addressing a person specifically or making eye contact. “Money is the root of all evil” within earshot of Francisco. That set him off into some real insightful analysis.

I have heard it said that money is a measure of work or better yet energy. The reason money works is that I don’t necessarily want a bushel of apples for my beef every time. Money equalizes the peaks and valleys that bartering cannot. And, not all work is as equally valuable. While you may not want to throw hay on a trailer all day, there are plenty more people that can actually do that job than fix your automobile. Hence those jobs command different rates.

I am going to kind of go back and forth between the book and reality here. Francisco sets off to dispel the myth that money is the root of all evil. I tend to agree with him that people with money are the ones that subconsciously understand the value proposition of job rates being unequal. However, the balance of power is changing to people that are gaining money by changing the laws. He calls them ‘takers’.

We do not have to look far to see this in our own lives. This was the first article I looked up on congress people’s net worth changing while in office. I am willing to concede that there are no poor people running for congress but I think that it is pretty apparent that there are a lot of people somehow increasing wealth while in office.

“Money is the barometer of societies virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce, you need to seek permission from those that produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors – when you see that men get richer by graft or pull, not in work, and your laws do not protect you against them, but them against you – when you see corruption getting rewarded and honesty a self-sacrifice – you may know that your society is doomed”.

So, let’s see here, we have health insurance as a tax. That sounds like trading done by compulsion, not by consent. Then we have Monsanto suing farmers for their genetics interbreeding with non-Monsanto grains because the wind blew the pollen into other’s fields. Meanwhile, the USDA is a revolving door “experts” that come from the major agriculture companies. The same with the FDA. This sounds like seeking permission to produce. By the way, these were just the first things I saw when I looked for supporting evidence to my claims.

I have one more thing to say so I can get to the end here. Let’s get more local rather than the US Department of…, landlord tenant law. In my state, this is quintessentially law protecting the pullers rather than the producers. Fortunately, the pullers don’t seem to be smart enough to actually capitalize on getting richer but for no good reason there is a perception that tenants are always the victims. Let me state that there are very few circumstances that landlords want good tenants to leave. There are literally hundreds of reasons that they want bad tenants to leave.

End Your Programming Routine: Francisco d’Anconia seems to have a pretty good read on the tea leaves. What is interesting is that Ayn Rand saw this over sixty years ago. At this point, I am not yet convinced that all of these things happening today were already growing at the point this was written. I assume that concepts in the book were largely the growth of European socialism and communism. However, I do think that the ignoring of the Constitution goes back to Abraham Lincoln as the tipping point.

September 20, 2022 – Cannelle et Vanille, Part 2

September 20, 2022 /

I wasn’t the only one confused. It seemed as though most of the book club members weren’t sure if it was one book or both. So, most of them looked at both. This was the first cookbook that Aran Goyoaga wrote and it is all about dishes but includes baking.

I think that it is natural that everyone wants to put a stamp on their work. In this case, I saw something that I had never seen before which was about ten different meals. They included the entre, salad and drink/desert/side. This was the last third of the book. I suppose kind of like wine, pairing everything together.

I kind of like the concept. At least it makes the decision making kind of easy. I guess what makes the book speak to me more is that the ten dinners seem to have a Spanish bend. There is paella, tortilla de patata and various seafood, pasta and Mediterranean vegetable dished that are in Aran’s culture. I made the tortilla for our dinner and I feel closer to these Spanish recipes than I did with the Jose Andres cookbook.

If there is any downside to the cookbook, I would say is that it shares content with the baking cookbook. So, there is some duplication in the introduction fundamentals and the baking sections. I suppose that it is nice to know that she sticks to her principles and has found something that works. The other thing that I found a little too much gluten free baking in this particular cookbook. Since this one was written first, this is a much more comprehensive cookbook and I could see the other one as a niche reference.

Just like the others, there are a few things I am interested in trying. I am definitely going to give paella a whirl. I have made it before and after feeling disappointed in Spain, I feel like I can do it better. I mentioned after reading Self-Reliance magazine that I would like to try to make yogurt. There is a recipe here as well. I also saw a very approachable ragu using beef roast. I am always looking for more ways to focus on the primal cuts besides just Sunday roasts.

Once you start getting so many cookbooks, it is difficult to invest much unless it speaks to you. I was not excited when I saw the list and this one included. However, after giving it a chance and our connection to Spain, this one is stack ranking on the higher third on the list. What I am saying is that I don’t think that this cookbook is going to appeal to everyone but it seems to be the right mixture for me.

End Your Programming Routine: I feel for those that have a severe gluten intolerance. I know other chef’s that are absolutely tortured by situation. So, for that reason alone, I applaud Aran for attempting to solve the problem. As I said last week, I am going to keep trying things until we can eliminate some of the extra ingredients around or give up. If this is you, then I would give a recommend to the book at least for experimenting.

September 16, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:1

September 16, 2022 /

As we transition into part 2, things begin a little slowly. Where we left part 1, Ellis Wyatt was giving the middle finger to the establishment, namely the government and central planning. Most of the chapter is centered on the consequences and the domino effect of the political changes.

In my mind there are two things in this chapter that are significant. The first one is the State Science Institute (SSI) attempts to order some Reardon Metal. Presumptively, the reason this is happening is because Reardon seems to be the only one producing raw material in any quantity. Reardon stands by his principles and refuses to sell product based on the smear campaign SSI launched against the metal.

It’s hard to say whether Barrett firearms took a page out of Atlas Shrugged or not, but there is plenty of this kind of sentiment in the firearms world. There are some pretty strong stances amongst manufacturers, dealers and other resellers about selling into the California/New York/New Jersey markets. Ironically, at least with the first two states, they keep doubling down on their failed policies with each iteration.

The second subplot occurring within this chapter is the interaction between Ferris and Stradler of the SSI. I haven’t talked about Ferris before, but you will remember Stradler as the head of the organization. Ferris is the one that released the opinion about Reardon Metal to the press. From reading previous chapters, you may also recall that Dabny and Stradler discussed the smear campaign.

It seems as though Stradler is a bit of a dupe. His initial impression of Reardon Metal was favorable, but his trust in Ferris is unshakeable. Ferris seems to be a bit of a chameleon. What I mean is a partisan masquerading as a scientist. Once again, I am talking about the practice of ‘science’ justifying politics. Because of Stradler’s implicit trust of Ferris, he doesn’t bother to question his work or opinion. Ferris has now written a book extolling the virtues of central planning and the government science.

This is a round about way of talking about authorities. Truth does not have any authorities and science has very little truths. Science has data where qualified scientists offer opinions. The validation of the method is called peer review, but not the validation of hypothesis. The phrase ‘the science is settled’ fools the average citizen into elevating various figures in demi-gods. Politicians masquerading as scientist use the bully pulpit to manipulate data into policy. All the while, the population’s malaise and lack of critical thinking just swallow up the opinions as truth and fall in line.

For sure, the first issue mentioned would not occur without the second. Once again, we have abdicated our responsibility as citizens to follow data on any level. I think that most people assume the language and the vocabulary is too technical to even begin to validate facts. We find it much easier to accept that someone else has done the work and we call that person an authority.

One last thing about this subject. Not everything is wrong or malicious. I like to use the intent barometer when forming an opinion. Some topics lack data or are extremely convoluted or maybe only have lose-lose outcomes.

Take the subject of mask mandates for instance. The data was known even before mandates were implemented that cloth masks were ineffective. This is the reason why the requirement was slow for initial adoption. If you recall, it took weeks of debate before the mandates became policy. The problem I have with the entire situation was it was all about appearances. Once implemented, the government was not going to backtrack despite what the data says.

The initial intent at least was good, the execution draconian and the result was evil. All of this behavior netted people scared to death and doing something that had no real benefit. Meanwhile, the government would only save face on policy rather than admit they were wrong and end the division among the people.

End Your Programming Routine: I realize that there is only so much time in the day to do things. What seems to be most important is binge watching the latest season of Yellowstone rather than becoming educated to our societies downfall. Admittedly, I choose to work on my own projects and pursue my interest than research political statements mostly. At least, I spend time on this forum trying to encourage you to check the data behind ‘the facts’.

September 13, 2022 – Cannelle et Vanille, Part 1

September 13, 2022 /

This is the September 2022 selection for the the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. Now, all of this is a bit confusing, at least to me. Because I missed the initial meeting this year when the selections were made, it appears that there are multiple books in the series as well as a blog. I went ahead and purchased both.

One book is a gluten, vegan, dairy free baking cookbook. The second and more difficult to find is a more traditional cookbook. Hence, why I broke this review up into two entries. It also appears that there is a third on the way.

The official title of the book is Cannelle et Vannille Bakes Simple: A New Way To Bake Gluten Free by Aran Goyoaga. The cookbook contains 100 recipes for breads, deserts and all things baking using alternative ingredients. Her blog is a two time James Beard finalist. Those are pretty high marks in my book as those awards are the best of the best. I will say, the blog hasn’t been updated since 2019, so I am not sure what she is currently up to besides writing a third cookbook.

I started with this one because it was the one that I received first. The truth is, I don’t think that this was the actual choice of the month but it was ubiquitous compared to the other cookbook given that it is the latest publication. And the only reason I actually bought it is because my son says that he wants to open a bakery with all of these particular traits. I figured it was worth having as a reference and a starting point for him if nothing else.

In my life, my wife has inflammatory responses or another way of saying immunodeficiencies. My research into food has convinced me that gluten, sugar and carbohydrates do play a large role into triggering that. I don’t think that it is really good for anyone and it particularly worse for others with immune issues. For that reason, I have cut way down on bread and pasta. What was at least one sandwich a day has gone to a couple a month for instance.

My own experiences with gluten free has left me less than impressed. One, I don’t think fake food ever replaces the real thing. Gluten plays a role in bread and pasta that is really irreplaceable. In order to make up for the things the real ingredients are missing, a lot of chemicals and other bad (or worse) ingredients are used.

To be honest, I have yet to make anything. As I stated earlier, I bought this for my son. That being said, we have most of the flour substitutes hanging out taking up space, I might as well use them up. The area that I feel like the best place to start are items that are more dense, like pound cake. That way, we are mitigating the things that gluten bring to bread such as elasticity.

As stated earlier, I personally know people that have sensitivity to certain things. They can even have a reaction by touching particular chemicals. Did you know that Play-Dough has flour in it? The thing that I think this cookbook does well is touching on all the particular substitutions like flour, eggs or dairy. There is no judgement offering flour equivalents as well.

Aran was originally from Spain. Most of the recipes have a European feel to them. Truthfully, I only have one other cookbook that is exclusively baking but I found that over half of the deserts had fruit incorporated in them. Outside of substitute flours and dairy products, everything else seems pretty natural and oriented toward lower sugar. Those are pluses in my book.

One thing that I found surprising were the recipes containing ‘sourdough’ starter and the use of yeast with the flour substitutes. I guess I didn’t think that they would actually work. Once again, I can’t vouch for anything yet but I do plan on trying a few things. I might make the blueberry coffee cake for our monthly dinner considering it is coming up in a just a few days and I have some blueberries to finish off.

End Your Programming Routine: I get turned off by evangelists, maybe it is the holier than though or the aggressive nature of their chosen religion (like veganism). Because the approach is pretty universal and inclusive, I am more inclined to give it a shot. The truth is, I would like to do a side by side with substitutes and real ingredients just to see if there is a taste and texture difference. Maybe that will be in the near future as the weather changes.