In which I got packages that weren’t stuff I ordered myself from Amazon!
Okay, I got presents, for basically no reason beyond the greatness of other humans, but first I gotta bitch about humans being stupid about THE TRANSMISSION OF A KILLING FUCKING DISEASE:
The governor let my county move to Phase 2 re-opening last week so restaurants are open at 50% capacity, you can get your hair cut, bars and tasting rooms are open, small gatherings are permissible, blah blah blah.
I’m back to working my full schedule (part time, under 30 hours a week) and the cheese shop is open its regular hours for customers again. We’re filling a lot of orders, making cheese three times a week rather than just once, and everything’s pretty much humming along as it was before the pandemic. Last two days have been busy as hell and I’ve personally handled hundreds of pounds of cheese!
But. I observe that fewer than half of the customers who come into my cheese shop wear masks (and I’m convinced that non-mask wearers are probably also non-hand washers, and have been having fucking parties the entire time). I saw one person sanitize their hands since this began, and it was a child whose mother made her do so before eating. Two separate customers told me today that they were entertaining this weekend. None of my customers are distancing in the store or observing maximum occupancy.
All my co-workers save one won’t wear masks, don’t appear to be doing (or, for that matter, to have done) any distancing, and I saw one today hug some friends she clearly hadn’t seen in awhile. Only two of us ever sanitize per official CDC recs (although our regular standards are already high because we’re a food manufactory), and basically it’s a free-for-all. Everybody’s acting like it’s over.
Well, it’s not over. It hadn’t even gotten here yet. The Umatilla county COVID map shows cases growing steadily.
Anyway, so, based on the humans I see at work and while shopping (I’ve been to Safeway and the hardware store since March), I’m finally about to be exposed. Might be asymptomatic, might not be. My lungs aren’t great to begin with, so I wish people would wear masks and wash their hands, but apparently, they don’t. Not until people they know start dying. Maybe that person will be me!
Ugh. Anyway. Out of my control, no point in worrying too much about it.
In better news, I had the most awesome mail week EVER!
First: I asked someone I follow on Instagram to send me a little doodle of Ganesh; he shipped me seven pieces of art and some sour gummi worms. All the way from Great Britian! How awesome is that?!?!
I bought a couple little frames. Gonna hang that toilets one in the bathroom. Because it’s toilets!
Second: Not too long ago, an ex-coworker said she was doing a book stash reduction and I signed up. She shipped me some Octavia Butler!!!
Fuck yeah!
Third: There hasn’t been any yeast at my local grocery store since March, and even Amazon was out until just recently. So one of my online friends took pity on me and sent me some from her grocery store!
Art! Books! Yeast! YAY!
Oh, ALSO: my dad showed up and is living in his RV in our driveway. Not only did he pay us rent (for water, power, and internet) so my utility bill’s half covered, but he made us dinner last night! All I had to do was load the dishwasher!
And also-also: I finally made a dental appointment. Next Tuesday I’ll go in, get x-rays and a consult, and they’ll give me a treatment plan that will allow me to spend hours in a chair under local WHILE getting rid of that two grand burning a hole in my savings account! Certain my gum disease is all the way into my jaw and I’m going to get Very Serious Lectures About Dental Hygiene. Sigh.
is on fire, and it’s a nuanced and complex situation ranging the gamut from genuine societal rage and a systemic cultural reaction to entrenched oppression, to boredom from lock-down, spring weather sprung, opportunistic bullshit by outside actors, and a pinch of actual anti-social behavior. (after all, young men aren’t known for their self-restraint in emotionally-charged mob situations, that’s why all nations use them as soldiers.)
now, [white and other privileged] people are blowing off all that complexity because they’re focused on how… holy shit commercial property is being destroyed!!!
really.
you think it’s fine for the state to REPEATEDLY use lethal force against non-violent black and brown and poor people, but god forbid anybody torch a fucking walmart? THAT’S what’s utterly beyond the pale for you? not the literal state-sanctioned brutal loss of human life without any repercussions, but destruction of… commercial property bothers you?
REALLY?!
people don’t destroy their communities; there’s no community there to destroy. there’s pan-national corporations sucking wealth up from the bottom to the top, shitty jobs, dangerous intersections, racism, stagnant wages, lack of health care, late busses, racism, shitty landlords, food deserts, class divides, racism… you can’t possibly believe that healthy communities fucking BURN THEMSELVES DOWN for absolutely no reason, can you?
no. you think they’re burning shit down because they’re, you know, just intrinsically LIKE that. them. not us, them. basically animals, which is why it’s fine to kill them
review your comfortable beliefs and learn about complexity, bitches: turns out you’re classists and racists.
In which holy shit THIS REALLY IS A RECIPE BLOG NOW.
Okay, not really! This isn’t a proper recipe as much as a reminder to myself for the next time. The smoked paprika and yellow mustard really made this dish.
Heat:
butter & olive oil
Add chopped:
onions
carrots
celery
Saute until soft. Add:
dried split peas
water + vegetable bouillon
smoked paprika
prepared yellow mustard
Herbs de Provence
salt
Simmer or pressure cook until the split peas are soft.
Season with salt & freshly ground black pepper.
Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a garnish of fresh thyme.
In which it was deeply relaxing and refreshing.
With the world on varying levels of lock down, Amma’s stuck in Amritapuri for the time being, and Her tours, including the summer North American Tour, are postponed (if not cancelled). So She’s directed senior disciple talks and local satsang (“a spiritual discourse or sacred gathering”) meetings to move online.
The North American e-newsletter has sent out a massive calendar of online offerings. It’s so great!
The closest Oregon satsang is in Bend, and tonight I joined their live stream for chants, bhajans, and meditation. (Meant to join last week, but stayed at work doing cheese affinage stuff.) There is, of course, no local satsang here.
Tonight’s online virtual satsang was lovely!
I rarely ever live near an active satsang (there was one in Fairfield, but I lived in Batavia so never went; and there was one in greater Minneapolis but it moved every month and was never near me, so I only attended once in five years), so this online stuff is really wonderful for me. So many options I wouldn’t have otherwise! Silver linings and all that.
Anyway, if you want some spiritual nourishment, Amma’s talks are here and the senior disciples’ YouTube channel is here. It’s really good viewing.
ॐ AMRITESHWARYAI NAMAHA
In which it’s a recipe!
Now, this dish doesn’t look much in this photo because I was too lazy to properly plate or garnish, but it’s nutty, incredibly rich, earthy, and awesome.
Soba is a Japanese pasta made with buckwheat flour, wheat flour, and sometimes yam. It’s often served chilled in summer with a tamari-based dipping sauce, but you can also use it hot, as in this recipe.
(There aren’t any measurements because you can just choose ratios that make sense to you and/or please your palate.)
-
Bleu Cheese Soba
1. Boil soba noodles according to package directions.
2. Mince onion and celery, and saute gently in butter in a small skillet.
3. Drain soba, return to pan, add the sauteed vegetables and butter. Add half and half and crumbled blue cheese. Toss ’til the blue cheese is melted, and season liberally with cracked black pepper.
Soba is an odd color, so this dish would probably look best served with a garnish of minced parsley, cracked black pepper, and shaved parm-reg.
This is a very rich dish with strong flavors, so maybe try a sauv blanc or a hoppy beer? And because it’s so soft, something crunchy alongside, a salad featuring pear or fig, or possibly a fresh spinach salad with a grapefruit viniagrette, would be excellent.
So easy to make, and so delicious!
In which there’s a TINY GRILL!
So I use a Chase VISA that gives me points. I spent some on this little grill and it arrived today.
I realize it’s a pandemic and I probably should have turned those points into cash but JUST LOOK AT THIS ADORABLE, PORTABLE LITTLE THING. Holy shit. Smitten.
Now I know people often shop specifically for foods to cook on the BBQ, but I want to play with this thing NOW and I’m not going to the store unless I really, really need to (because nobody out here is social distancing for SHIT).
So I rustled up some stuff and tossed it all in a bowl with olive oil and salt & pepper.
Potato, tomato, mushrooms, garlic, onion, jalapeno, halloumi, and a 2-day old baguette.
FIRE! WHOO!
We already had charcoal, lighter fluid, and a grill set in the garage because my aunt gave them to us last year.
Is there anything more wonderful than sitting next to a little grill on a blanket next to an irrigation ditch on an absolutely GORGEOUS, BREEZY spring day?
No, there is NOT.
Ate this smoky bounty with some garlic tomato sauce I keep in the fridge for pizzas. (Recipe is canned tomato, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, salt & pepper, in the blender. Super easy and super delicious.)
Grilled bread and halloumi with garlic tomato sauce is FANTASTIC. With mushrooms and garlic and onions? Sort of a deconstructed grilled pizza!
Put the tomato, jalapeno, and some of the onion and garlic in the blender with a can of diced tomatoes and some cilantro, for salsa.
Possibly the very best afternoon EVER! Just sittin’ outside, slowly grilling (I only used 15 briquettes because there’s no point in wasting fuel) and eating, enjoying the creek and the breeze and the warmth and the green and some pink wine.
FUCK YEAH TINY GRILL!
Bonus salsa!
I AM SO HAPPY!
In which I’m on about the anti-vax movement again because really can’t figure out how it attracts so many otherwise normal human beings. Like, most of the people I loved during my Fairfield/TM days.
No SHIT, right? Right?
Antivaxxers and alternative medicine quacks are attracted to simple solutions. Reinforces their worldview, which is that they’re personally capable of expertise without earning any qualifications beyond google university.
They don’t like complexity (unless it’s the pseudo-scientific nonsense they make up themselves), and they don’t like nuance or method. They like bad guys and easy solutions, they like victimhood and keeping their (almost overwhelmingly white, middle-class) privilege at all costs.
So we’ve got wholly unqualified keyboard warriors promoting a medicine they know fuck-all about for use in a disease they also know nothing about, because… they read some dumb shit in their online echo-chambers.
Which are supplement stores, by the way. That’s where they get it. Mercola, Natural News, whale.to, Oz, Chopra, Oprah, Goop: they’re all stores. It’s like getting your worldview and ideology from Safeway and then deliberately exposing your children to potentially fatal diseases because of something you read on a pop tart box.
Then there’s this: “President Donald Trump on Sunday once again touted the potential life-saving benefits of treating coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine, a powerful anti-malaria drug, despite a dearth of medical professionals or clinical evidence supporting his claims. It just so happens that one of the largest manufacturers of the drug, Novartis, previously paid Trump’s now-incarcerated former personal attorney Michael Cohen more than $1 million for healthcare policy insight following Trump’s election in 2016.”
They’re literally supporting what they claim to hate, the whole “evil big pharma” thing. Mostly because they can’t discern between Citizens United fallout and, you know, the whole of scientific method.
What a time to be alive.
In which these are just baking notes (I’ll want to know what ratios I used if this batch is either a raging success or a terrific failure).
Grocery store’s been entirely out of flour the last few times I was in there, but last Sunday’s paper had an article about a local wheat farmer. Visited the website and guess what? FREE LOCAL DELIVERY! Thanks, pandemic!
I bought some flour online, and he dropped it by on Monday. (His truck wouldn’t start, so I made him a cup of coffee while he waited for his son to rescue him, and we had a quick chat. He’d like the cheese shop to carry his flour, but the owners are already planning to carry another local farmer’s flour.) Yay, local wheat farming people!
Last night I used up the last of my refrigerated dough on a pizza (which we ate immediately) and a demi baguette (which I used for lunch sandwiches this afternoon). Now I’m totally out of King Arthur all purpose flour, so this is my first time using this local flour with higher protein and lower gluten.
3 c. warm water
1 packet yeast
1-1/2 c. white grocery store flour
1/2 c. atta
4 c. Joel’s Organics bread flour
1 Tbsp. salt
I suspect it’ll be fine because of the long hydration time, and with what was left of my white flour for the added gluten. I was tempted to add a bit more water, but decided to make my recipe as I usually do as a baseline.
I’ll try a baguette with it tomorrow and see what I get!
I also bought 5 pounds of buckwheat flour, because I had a brain fart and got it mixed up with spelt. I’ll have to figure out how to make buckwheat muffins or pancakes or whatever. Might just add a cup of it to the next batch of dough to see how that tastes, maybe instead of the atta?
—
THE NEXT DAY:
Dough looks good, lots of activity and air bubbles:
Made a pizza, the crust was lovely and soft, a bit more like whole wheat.
Decent oven spring on the boule.
Looks like previous first-day boules. The crumb is really soft, flavor’s nice. Really fantastic crispy crust! Excited to try a baguette with it after the dough’s had a few more days to ferment.
In which, okay, I know I’ve posted too much about bread lately, and some of these pics are recycled, but this is my adaptation of someone else’s adaptation of the ‘Artisan Bread In 5 Minutes A Day’ method.
I think I’ve got my dough recipe dialed in! This has amazing crust and crumb. Here we go!
One part hot tap water (3 cups).
One packet yeast.
Two parts flour (about 6 unsifted cups):
– 50% King Arthur all-purpose
– 25% atta (whole wheat flour, used to make Indian chapati)
– 25% grocery store white all-purpose flour
Salt (a tablespoon or so).
In a large bowl, place the water (100F or so, no hotter) and the yeast. Dump in all the flour, then the salt. Stir together into a shaggy, wet mass (I use the handle of a spatula, it’s chrome and sort of like a dough hook).
Cover loosely and let rise at room temperature for two hours (I put mine in the oven with the light on, and use one of those plastic bowl covers with elastic) and then refrigerate.
When you remember it’s there later (as soon as a few hours, as late as ten days), use kitchen shears to cut off a chunk of the dough, maybe the size of an apple. It’ll be really sticky, so flour your hands. Shape it into a ball with the tuck-and-turn method shown here (I do mine on a pastry mat, but you can do it anywhere, really).
Put a metal bowl or pan into your oven, big enough to hold at least a cup of water, but larger is fine (I use a stainless dog bowl). Also place a baking stone or cast iron (shallow frying pan or griddle) into your oven.
Set the oven temperature to at least 450 (I do most of my baking between 450 and 500F).
When your dough’s warmed up some (you don’t want it super cold in the center as that will affect how it bakes, especially with boules, but you don’t need to bring it all the way to room temp), put it on a piece of parchment paper. Then score the top with a serrated knife. This is to allow for oven spring, but you can get all fancy decorative if you’re like that.
Get a cup or so of hot tap water.
Open your oven, and quickly put the bread on its parchment directly on the hot stone or cast iron, pour the hot water into the pan or bowl, and close the door.
If you have a clean spray bottle, fill it with water, and spray the inside of the oven thoroughly at least three times during the first seven minutes to keep the loaf moist and encourage oven spring. After 7 or 10 minutes, you can quit spraying and let the crust develop.
Bake your bread until it’s a light golden brown, somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes depending on the size of the loaf.
Cool on a wire rack.
To make baguette, I let it sit in a round for about ten minutes, dust it with flour again, and roll it out gently with the palms of my hands. Sometimes I pick it up and let its own weight stretch it out a bit. You want to handle it gently so you don’t pop all the air bubbles inside, so getting an even baguette is tricky; mine usually have a big lump somewhere but they taste fantastic.
To make pita, flour the hell out of the dough and roll it into thin rounds. Bake at 500F on the hot stone or cast iron; no water pan or misting is needed. The moisture in the dough will be trapped by the flour cloak, and the pita will steam inside. Keep in a tea towel so it doesn’t dry out.
For pizza, let it sit in a ball for ten minutes, then roll into a thin round and top. Bake on the stone or use a separate cookie sheet or pizza pan. I do the water pan but it’s not strictly necessary.
For naan, roll it into an oval and cook in a hot, dry pan on the stove top. When it’s done, brush with ghee. Keep in a tea towel until service.
In which we’re having a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, guys.
In case you haven’t had time to stay caught up, here’s a quick pandemic data dump.
Oregon governor today bans dine-in, gatherings over 25
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/amid-coronavirus-oregon-will-not-yet-impose-curfew-on-restaurants-and-bars-gov-kate-brown-declares.html
Multiple states following CDC recs (the dumbass White House: ‘fake news’)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/15/coronavirus-bars-restaurants-closed-states/5055634002/
Even fuckin’ Vegas is closing tomorrow?!
https://vegas.eater.com/2020/3/15/21181058/mgm-resorts-closes-vegas-properties-march-16
Overview:
-
– the R0 for Covid-19 is estimated at 2.2, so it is almost twice as contagious as H1N1
– current estimates of mortality rate is conservatively 10 times that of H1N1
– the 2019 flu jab offered no protection against this novel corona virus, so the entire population is susceptible
– there is no Tamiflu-like drug treatment for this disease, only symptom mitigation (we have only a single anti-viral, still in trials, with no proven success against Covid-19)
– causes mild or asymptomatic infections in a large percentage of those infected, which contributes to spread
– we don’t have anti-virals available to reduce the number of days of viral loads high enough to infect others
– there is possible evidence of reinfection which implies surviving it doesn’t convey immunity (but this is likely a testing error)
– there is very little testing in the US, so population infection rates are likely significantly higher than reported
– working estimate of the total infections in the US today is 670,000 or 1 of every 485 people
– hospitals in Italy, an estimate 10-14 days ahead of us, are so overwhelmed by the ill they forced into wartime triage protocols
Coronavirus survives on hard surfaces for days
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/14/811609026/the-new-coronavirus-can-live-on-surfaces-for-2-3-days-heres-how-to-clean-them
CDC sanitization guidelines (KILL IT WITH BLEACH)
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/organizations/cleaning-disinfection.html
White House today, fucking finally, steps up
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf
Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs (like ibuprofen) may aggravate Covid-19, so stick to Tylenol
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/14/anti-inflammatory-drugs-may-aggravate-coronavirus-infection
SARS-CoV-19 has a super awful rally-then-decompensate feature
https://www.roi-nj.com/2020/03/14/opinion/life-at-the-epicenter-of-n-j-s-coronavirus-outbreak/
https://twitter.com/ianmnoone/status/1239236932372172800
How to flatten the curve
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/
CDC to employers: minimize exposure between employees and also between employees and the public
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/guidance-business-response.html
Deeper dive: WHO stats & research
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
In conclusion, STAY THE FUCK HOME. #StayTheFHome
– San Francisco is shelter in place
– Dubai is closed
– France is closed
– Porn is closed
