Jan 06 2010

Cornbread (and Bison Chili)

The success of the Homemade English Muffins, had me wanting to explore the Bread Baker’s Apprentice even more.  It being winter (a relative term in Southern California), a dinner of Chili and Cornbread seemed like a good idea.  The BBA cornbread is no Jiffy Mix cornbread though.  It takes 2 days to make and has a special ingredient full of win.  Yes, the love of hipsters from SE Portland to Williamsburg, Brooklyn…Bacon!

The night before baking, I started a soaker of polenta and buttermilk.  After soaking overnight the rest of the ingredients are mixed together and crumbled on top, 10 slices of thick cut bacon.

In the spirit of trying to eat locally and ethically, I picked up a pound of ground bison at the Hollywood Farmers Market.  With this I made a simple red bean and meat chili to have alongside the cornbread.  Both were excellent, especially as leftovers the next couple days (though the chili did outlast the cornbread).

I made this almost a month ago, so unfortunately the details of the cooking/baking are a little short.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2010/01/cornbread-and-bison-chili/

Dec 31 2009

2009 Project

My book list for 2009:

Total pages read: 20,396
Shortest book: 77 pages
Longest book: 1014 pages
Non-Fiction: 19
Fiction: 34
Cookbook: 6
Poetry: 3

Last book read:
62.  Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison. 
The older brother of Augustin Burroughs tells his story of growing up
with Asperger’s (though undiagnosed until he was middle aged).  288
pages.  (Finished 31 Dec 09).

Full list below the cut:

Past Lists:
2008 List
2007 List

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/12/2009-project/

Dec 15 2009

Reader Stereotypes

Shamelessly stolen from here: http://laurenleto.wordpress.com/readers-by-author/

Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Author

by Lauren Leto

(by the way – I respect every author on here, kind of)

J.D. Salinger

Kids who don’t fit in (duh).

Stephanie Meyer

People who type like this: OMG. Mah fAvvv <3 <3.

J.K. Rowling

Smart geeks.

Jack Kerouac

Umphrey’s McGee fans.

Jeffrey Eugenides

Girls who didn’t get enough drama when they were younger.

Lauren Weisberger

Girls who can’t read. Or think.

Jonathan Safran Foer

30somethings who were cool when they were 20something.

Jodi Picoult

Your mom when she’s at her time of the month.

Chuck Klosterman

Boys who don’t read.

Chuck Palahniuk

Boys who can’t read.

Christopher Hitchens

People I would love to hang out with.

Leo Tolstoy

Guys I want to date.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Guys I want to sleep with. (The difference between the two Russian
authors lies in the fact that I think the Underground Man is sexier
than Pierre Buzukhov).

Christopher Buckley (or William F. Buckley)

People who love excess verbiage.

Ayn Rand

Workaholics seeking validation.

David Foster Wallace

Confirmed 90’s literati.

Jane Austen (or Bronte Sisters)

Girls who made out with other girls in college when they were going through a “phase”.

Haruki Murakami

People who like good music.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

People who can start a fire.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

People who used to sleep so heavy that they would pee their pants.

Charles Dickens

Ninth graders who think they’re going to be authors someday but end up in marketing.

William Shakespeare

People who like bondage.

Mark Twain

Liars.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

People who drink scotch.

Joseph Conrad

People who drink old fashioneds.

Dominick Dunne

People who get their class from Vanity Fair.

Anne Rice

People who don’t use conditioner in their hair.

Edgar Allan Poe

Men who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders.

Michael Crichton

Doctors that went to third-tier medical schools.

John Grisham

Doctors that went to medical schools in the Dominican Republic.

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

Dave Eggers

Guys who are in the third coolest frat of a private college.

Emily Griffin

Women who give their boyfriend marriage ultimatums.

Richard Russo

People whose favorite day in elementary school was “Grandparent’s Day”.

Anais Nin

Librarians.

Margaret Atwood

Women whose favorite color is hunter green.

William Faulkner

People who are good at crosswords.

Jackie Collins

Your drunk stepmother.

Nicholas Sparks

Women who are usually constipated.

James Patterson

Men that score a 153 on their LSAT exam.

Sylvia Plath

Girls who keep journals (too easy).

George Orwell

Conspiracy theorists (too easy).

Aldous Huxley

People who are bigger conspiracy theorists than Orwell fans.

Harper Lee

People that have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill
A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).

Nick Hornby

Guys who wear skinny jeans and the girls that love them.

Ernest Hemingway

Men who own cottages.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

People who get ARM mortgages.

Vladimir Nabokov

Men who use words like ‘dubious’ and ‘tenacity’.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sommelieres.

Bret Easton Ellis

Foo Fighters’ fans.

Hunter S Thompson

That kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo.

Cormac McCarthy

Men that don’t eat cream cheese.

Thomas Aquinas

Premature ejaculators.

Pearl S. Buck

Women whose favorite president was Harry S. Truman.

Toni Morrison

Female high-school English professors that only have an undergraduate degree.

Thomas Pynchon

People that used to be fans of J.D. Salinger.

Elizabeth Gilbert

Women that liked the movie “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” but didn’t read the book.

Rebecca Wells

Women on the East coast that wish they were from the South.

Tama Janowitz

Cougars that went to an urban college in the 80s.

Alice Sebold

People that liked Gilmore Girls – even in the first season.

Michael Swanwick

Men that argue that Neil Gaiman is overrated.

Terry Goodkind

People who have never been dungeons master but still play D&D.

Stephen King

11th graders who peed their pants while watching the movie It.

H.P. Lovecraft

People who can quote the Comic Book Guy from Simpsons.

Brothers Grimm

Only children with Oedipal complexes.

Lewis Carroll

People that move to Thailand after high school for the drug scene.

C.S. Lewis

Youth group leaders that picked their nose in the 4th grade.

Elmore Leonard

People that know how to perform a “Michigan left”.

Shel Silverstein

Girls that can’t spell “leheim”.

Douglas Adams

People who bought the first generation Amazon Kindle.

Tucker Max

Guys that haven’t convinced their girlfriends to try anal yet.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Political theory and constitutional democracy majors.

Tom Clancy

People that skipped school by hiding out in the gym.

Herman Hesse

People that own one straw chair in their house.

Phillippa Gregory

Women who have repressed their desire to go to Renaissance Festivals

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Men that can’t lie but will instead be silent if they know you don’t want to hear the truth.

Susan Wiggs

Older women who are surprisingly loud during sex.

Nicole Krauss

Girls that intern at Nylon but end up moving back to the Midwest for their real job.

Mitch Albom

People that didn’t go to college but do well on crossword puzzles.

Stieg Larsson

Girls that are too frightened to go skydiving.

Sue Grafton

Women that have an @aol.com email address.

Seth Grahame-Smith

People that own a smart phone which requires a stylus to use it.

David Baldacci

No one. Even the police say Clancy before they’ll say Baldacci.

Michael Pollan

The girl that just turned vegan to cover up her eating disorder.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

People who refer to themselves as “playing devil’s advocate”.

O. Henry

Men that have names like Earl or Cliff and were really close with their paternal grandfather.

Virginia Woolf

Female high-school French teachers that have their master’s degree.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/12/reader-stereotypes/

Dec 02 2009

Humpday Haiku: LA Freeways

hit the brakes! avoid
the woman switching lanes
with me still beside.

—

Ah…driving in LA, always an adventure.  Do the holidays make us drive worse?  Today’s near miss was at least the 4th time in the past couple weeks where someone has attempted to change lanes despite the presence of my vehicle next to them.  Most of the time, they realize their blunder and quickly move back to their lane.  But the woman driving the Jeep today, just kept coming, completely oblivious (at least by appearances), never fully switching into my lane and cutting off the person who was in front of her in her original lane.  To be fair…I did this to a motorcyclist myself in the past couple weeks, but he was sitting in my blind spot splitting lanes.  I was driving the vanpool minivan.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/12/humpday-haiku-la-freeways/

Nov 25 2009

Humpday Haiku: For Grandpas…

fall grieves the loss of
family covering earth
with tearfull leaves

—

ahh…the best laid plans.  I had intended to make this a weekly feature with the posting of the first haiku on Nov 4th.  But then I was called to jury duty and the past two Wednesdays were my only days in the office (and therefore quite busy).

This weeks haiku is inspired by Alicia’s grandpa, Stan, who passed away last week, my grandpa, Harold, who taught me what it meant to love (and passed away in August 1991), and my other grandpa, Mike, who is facing the upcoming second anniversary of my grandma’s death.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/11/humpday-haiku-for-grandpas/

Nov 04 2009

Humpday Haiku: A Foggy Day

fog filled mornings a
reminder so. cal. summers
do indeed relent

—

I’ve decided I need to get back to a habit of writing more.  Both on this blog and in general.  So to help kickstart this goal, I’m going to start posting a haiku every Wednesday on the blog.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/11/humpday-haiku-a-foggy-day/

Oct 21 2009

Homemade English Muffins

My friend Nicole is behind this little event called the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge (aka BBA Challenge).  Basically, she picked a cookbook about bread baking and is baking through the recipes.  When she posted this idea on Twitter, it took off, and now folks around the world are baking alongside her.

After a few months of seeing (and tasting the Focaccia) the wonderful breads Nicole was making, I decided to pick up a copy of the book myself.  I’m may not end up baking completely through the book, but I’m going to try to make it through most of them.

I decided my first bread would be English Muffins partially because the recipe was pretty simple, but also because you grill them instead of actually baking them.

Mine ended up a little denser than Nicole’s English Muffins looked, and definitely denser than store bought, but they still tasted really good.  My muffins also were a little inconsistent on the color, but I attribute that mostly to the fluctuating temperature on my gas stove/cast iron pan.

For that first one, I toasted it and spread some butter and my grandpa’s homemade huckleberry jam.  It was fantastic!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/10/homemade-english-muffins/

Sep 10 2009

Loving Everyday

I think I need to spend some time sitting (reading) with Richard Rohr.

Graciously stolen from this post by Gareth Higgins: How are We Present to Reality?

A remarkable thought from Richard Rohr, which, if I read it thoughtfully enough, I think might get me through the day:

“Somewhere each day we have to fall in love, with someone, something, some moment, event, phrase, animal, or person. And it must be done quite definitively! Somehow each day we must allow a softening of our heart, which usually moves toward hardness and separation without our even knowing it. We can now prove neurologically that it is easier to move toward cynicism, bitterness, fear and despair than it is toward goodness, beauty, or appreciation. All spirituality is intended to help us recognize and counter our downward spiral toward smallness.

The world often tries to conjure up life by making itself falsely excited, by creating parties, even when there is no actual reason to celebrate. I have often noted in poor countries how people create fiestas because they have survived another season or even another day. We create fiestas to create fiestas, which I guess is not all bad; but after a while the ungirding of joy and contentment is not there. We have to create and discover the parties of the heart, the place where we know we can enjoy what is, and that we have indeed survived and even flourished another day of our one and only life. Just make sure you are somewhere, and always, definitively in love! Then you’ll see rightly, because only when we are in love can we accept the mystery that almost everything is.”

(Read the rest of Gareth’s thoughts)

An interesting thought indeed.  It seems somewhat appropriate for me in relation to my recent spiritual struggles.  Living in a place like Los Angeles can be quite the beast.  Its a tough place to find your niche.  At least for me it is.  I’ve been here just over two years now and still haven’t found my “community.”  Sure there are a handful of acquaintances and even a few friends, but for whatever reason it just hasn’t gelled into a community for me.  Perhaps the comparison to my community in Portland gets in the way of this.  Perhaps the struggles of my first nine months working here and what that did to my confidence in myself…to my self-esteem…is sub-consciously hindering me in my relationships.  I don’t really know for sure.  I know my internal life has struggled and I’m sure it has affected my external presence.

In reality, things aren’t that bad.  I’ve got a job that pays well enough for a level of financial security I haven’t really had since leaving my parents house.  I’ve found love that is amazing and surprising in so many ways.  I just sometimes need to remind myself of that.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/09/loving-everyday/

Sep 01 2009

(Not) Eating Out

Inspired by my friend Nicole (@PinchMySalt), I’m not going to eat out during the month of September.  She had a good thought about it…”Remember when going out to eat was kind of a big deal?”  Its true, I think even up to when I was in high school going out was a pretty big deal.  Even just getting Dairy Queen (especially for lunch) was kind of a big deal.  So September will be the time to really discover the kitchen in my new apartment.

I’ve been going to the Farmer’s Market in Hollywood the past few weeks regularly.  I’ve been most excited about the Huckleberries one of the mushroom guys has had.  They’re expensive ($10 for about 2/3rds of a pound), but so good.  A little taste of Oregon in the midst of the never ending summer of Southern California.  The first bag became a batch of Huckleberry Ice Cream.  Though the recipe I used ended up being more of a sweet cream ice cream with huckleberries in it.  Bag number two is currently in the process of becoming Huckleberry’cello.  I picked up a couple more bags this past weekend (probably the last week he’ll have them), and I’m going to make a Huckleberry Granita out of it.  Mmm…I do love the huckleberries.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/09/not-eating-out/

Aug 26 2009

Maybe

Maybe

Sweet Jesus, talking
   his melancholy madness,
      stood up in the boat
         and the sea lay down,

silky and sorry.
   So everybody was saved
      that night
         But you know how it is

when something
   different crosses
      the threshold–the uncles
         mutter together,

the women walk away,
   the young brother begins
      to sharpen his knife.
         Nobody knows what the soul is.

It comes and goes
   like the wind over the water–
      sometimes, for days,
         you don’t think of it.

Maybe, after the sermon,
   after the multitude was fed,
      one or two of them felt
         the soul slip forth

like a tremor of pure sunlight,
   before exhaustion,
      that wants to swallow everything,
         gripped their bones and left them

miserable and sleepy,
   as they are now, forgetting
      how the wind tore at the sails
         before he rose and talked to it–

tender and luminous and demanding
   as he always was–
      a thousand times more frightening
         than the killer sea.

            –Mary Oliver from House of Light

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2009/08/maybe/