There are web-based tests for everything, what Tarot card or superhero you are, which flavor of peanut butter you most resemble, or even how White and nerdy you are. The fine folks at the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society have a useful test. They will tell you how sane you are.
In the spirit of full disclosure...Your SaniTest(TM) Results
Your score is: 159
For easier understanding, the HPLHS SaniTest assessment algorithm converts your raw score to a scale of 1 to 10. This number is your INSANITY INDEX.
INSANITY INDEX 9.41 This alarmingly high score suggests that you are moderately psychopathic: emotionally and behaviorally disordered. You seem to have a clear view of reality, but not of your own place in it. Your desire to lash out in violence might be kept in check by your deep-seated fears of other people. Other notable people who scored this high include Mark David Chapman, the assassin of singer John Lennon, and Aaron Spelling, producer of such TV hits as 'Beverly Hills 90210.'The HPLHS has been trying for years to put on their delightfully eldritch musical A Shoggoth on the Roof. Unfortunately, the cock-sockets who own the copyright to Fiddler on the Roof always show up with corporate lawyers, cease-and-desists and huge lawsuits whenever anyone tries to do a production. Parody is protected by law.
That doesn't mean diddly when the big money guys can spend
whatever it takes to destroy a small community theater.
May their souls be devoured forever by the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua. And not in a good way.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The SaniTest
Cult Classics - Old School and New School
Following along the lines of the last post, I've read a couple books recently which have much to say about fear, control and knowledge. One of them is a Cult Classic in the literal sense. There are cults and cultists. All the classic tropes get explored. I'm hoping the other one will become a cult classic the usual way, by selling lots of copies.
Anyone who has been around Your Humble Amphibian for more than about ten minutes will know that I like lots and lots of tentacles, especially when they are attached to shambling, hopping mind-blasting Eldritch Horrors. When I was just a tad my father read me H. P. Lovecraft stories at bedtime. People say this explains a lot. Dunno what they mean by that. In any case, for those who are mercifully innocent of sanity-shredding Reality and the Angles outside of Time, most of the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos have strange books of forbidden lore that tell Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know. Chief among these is the unspeakable Necronomicon written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. There have been about a thousand Necronomicons written. Most of them are dog-lame. Everyone knows HPL made up the book, so there's no need to pretend it's anything but fake. The authors should feel free to make up amusing interesting fakes. Almost none of them do.
A few months ago someone recommended Al-Hazred: Author of the Necronomicon by Donald Dyson. I have to admit, I was skeptical. Dyson is a long-time writer for the usually insipid New Age publisher Llewellyn Press. It's hard to imagine someone who write for the crystal-gazing bark-eater crowd appealing to the tentacle and unspeakable horror set.
It may be hard to imagine, but it's true. Dyson has done a fantastic job. I had no trouble turning every one of the 666 pages. Mythos stories are full of deranged cultists, evil necromancers, vile cultists and ravening ghouls. This is one of the very few I've seen that gets inside their head and lets you see the world from their admittedly wild eyes. We see Al-Hazred's origins as a stupid, self-absorbed young man horribly punished, mutilated and driven insane by the King (and he deserved every bit of it) and left in the desert to die. From there everything follows naturally. His adventures make sense once the reader decides to step over the edge and abandon humanity, conscience and a useless sanity. In fact, a couple hundred pages in I was beginning to be worried at just how reasonable it all seemed.
The author takes us through a lot of the classic elements of the genre. Cults hiding under the Sphinx. Hideous semi-human shamans. Elder horrors. Unspeakable deals with terrible gods. Murder. Cannibalism. Torture. Opposition to everything that is good, wholesome and human. Necromancy. Voluntary demonic possession. And it all follows completely naturally which makes for horror of an unusual sort.
It's an awfully fun and twisted ride.
Dyson has written his own Necronomicon. It's a summary of the other book and contains spoilers, so be sure to read Al-Hazred first. It's head and shoulders, or at least pseudopod and pale leprous polyp above most of them.
John Twelve Feathers' first novel, The Traveler, doesn't have any slithering shoggoths. Its horror is a little more early 21st century more of David Brin's Transparent Society and 1984 than alien monsters. The monsters are here. They are the forces which want the world to be predictable, controlled, under surveillance and efficient. Over the centuries they've come awfully close to that goal. The only really random factors left are those few who choose to live off the grid as well as the mysterious Travelers who can travel to levels of reality beyond this one and the nearly extinct secret society which protects them.
Most of the elements are all familiar to readers of science fiction and thrillers. Somehow Mr. Twelve Feathers presents them in a way which has immediacy. The message is nothing new. People need to wake up and open their eyes if they want even the hope of freedom. It suits those in power to keep the sheep stupid, distracted, afraid and unaware of just how badly they're being screwed. When everyone believes that he is being watched there really isn't much need to watch the people. The victims will do the heavy lifting themselves. The one thing that must be prevented is the knowledge that anything else is possible, that there are facets of existence outside of socially-approved authorized reality.
We have a powerful Conspiracy, genetically engineered monsters, a beautiful but emotionally stunted lady assassin, a roguish martial artist, a Magical Negro or two, amoral scientists, wise Native American Elders, a Good Girl who will almost certainly end up in bed with the roguish martial artist by book three, mysterious aliens from other dimensions, enchanted swords and astral travel. He makes it work and doesn't let the somewhat shop worn trappings detract from the story or the message. The Nobel Committee isn't going to be calling him soon, but the series is worth reading, even at cover price.
Anyone who has been around Your Humble Amphibian for more than about ten minutes will know that I like lots and lots of tentacles, especially when they are attached to shambling, hopping mind-blasting Eldritch Horrors. When I was just a tad my father read me H. P. Lovecraft stories at bedtime. People say this explains a lot. Dunno what they mean by that. In any case, for those who are mercifully innocent of sanity-shredding Reality and the Angles outside of Time, most of the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos have strange books of forbidden lore that tell Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know. Chief among these is the unspeakable Necronomicon written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred. There have been about a thousand Necronomicons written. Most of them are dog-lame. Everyone knows HPL made up the book, so there's no need to pretend it's anything but fake. The authors should feel free to make up amusing interesting fakes. Almost none of them do.
A few months ago someone recommended Al-Hazred: Author of the Necronomicon by Donald Dyson. I have to admit, I was skeptical. Dyson is a long-time writer for the usually insipid New Age publisher Llewellyn Press. It's hard to imagine someone who write for the crystal-gazing bark-eater crowd appealing to the tentacle and unspeakable horror set.
It may be hard to imagine, but it's true. Dyson has done a fantastic job. I had no trouble turning every one of the 666 pages. Mythos stories are full of deranged cultists, evil necromancers, vile cultists and ravening ghouls. This is one of the very few I've seen that gets inside their head and lets you see the world from their admittedly wild eyes. We see Al-Hazred's origins as a stupid, self-absorbed young man horribly punished, mutilated and driven insane by the King (and he deserved every bit of it) and left in the desert to die. From there everything follows naturally. His adventures make sense once the reader decides to step over the edge and abandon humanity, conscience and a useless sanity. In fact, a couple hundred pages in I was beginning to be worried at just how reasonable it all seemed.
The author takes us through a lot of the classic elements of the genre. Cults hiding under the Sphinx. Hideous semi-human shamans. Elder horrors. Unspeakable deals with terrible gods. Murder. Cannibalism. Torture. Opposition to everything that is good, wholesome and human. Necromancy. Voluntary demonic possession. And it all follows completely naturally which makes for horror of an unusual sort.
It's an awfully fun and twisted ride.
Dyson has written his own Necronomicon. It's a summary of the other book and contains spoilers, so be sure to read Al-Hazred first. It's head and shoulders, or at least pseudopod and pale leprous polyp above most of them.
John Twelve Feathers' first novel, The Traveler, doesn't have any slithering shoggoths. Its horror is a little more early 21st century more of David Brin's Transparent Society and 1984 than alien monsters. The monsters are here. They are the forces which want the world to be predictable, controlled, under surveillance and efficient. Over the centuries they've come awfully close to that goal. The only really random factors left are those few who choose to live off the grid as well as the mysterious Travelers who can travel to levels of reality beyond this one and the nearly extinct secret society which protects them.
Most of the elements are all familiar to readers of science fiction and thrillers. Somehow Mr. Twelve Feathers presents them in a way which has immediacy. The message is nothing new. People need to wake up and open their eyes if they want even the hope of freedom. It suits those in power to keep the sheep stupid, distracted, afraid and unaware of just how badly they're being screwed. When everyone believes that he is being watched there really isn't much need to watch the people. The victims will do the heavy lifting themselves. The one thing that must be prevented is the knowledge that anything else is possible, that there are facets of existence outside of socially-approved authorized reality.
We have a powerful Conspiracy, genetically engineered monsters, a beautiful but emotionally stunted lady assassin, a roguish martial artist, a Magical Negro or two, amoral scientists, wise Native American Elders, a Good Girl who will almost certainly end up in bed with the roguish martial artist by book three, mysterious aliens from other dimensions, enchanted swords and astral travel. He makes it work and doesn't let the somewhat shop worn trappings detract from the story or the message. The Nobel Committee isn't going to be calling him soon, but the series is worth reading, even at cover price.
The TSA and Boiled Frogs
"Boil 'em Slow and They'll Never Know" goes the saying. It's not completely true. Frogs will hop out of water when it gets too hot. They are simple, straightforward creatures without enough brains for self-deception. Humans aren't as lucky. We have a nearly infinite capacity for, well, exploitation.
From the little bit I've learned about hypnosis and propaganda the most important key to success is to get the subject to do something. Once that has happened it becomes progressively easier to get him or her to do the next thing. Every Army in the world does this. Basic Training isn't about developing skills. It's a process of destroying the capacity to say "No" much less "Screw you. That's insane!" and replace it with immediate obedience to authority.
Since the middle of September in 2001 we've been subjected to an increasingly bizarre sequence of instructions and demands. First there was the cessation of all air travel. Then there was increased surveillance at the airport "Has anyone else touched your bags?" It became illegal to sell tickets (which pleased the airlines). Then there were explosive tests everywhere, random surveillance and searching of all luggage. Airport security kept growing although it was mostly pointless since they weren't hiring skilled investigators. They were loading the airports down with barely trained idiots. We went from metal detectors to shoes off, to partial strip searches in public to TSA drones groping women's breasts and having the victims arrested when they objected.
Restrictions on what we can carry started small. The hijackings may have been carried out with knives or box cutters. So they were banned. Then extra-sharp knitting needles, the tiniest of scissors, cigar cutters, screw drivers and an ever-growing list which we have learned to accept. Now flights get diverted when someone finds a utility knife left by maintenance workers. A sane person would just stick it in his pocket or point it out to the flight attendant. People have been arrested for trying to wear shirts with Arabic writing into departure gates. Then a scare about binary explosives allowed them to ban liquids. Even after the explosives experts repudiated it as utter bullshit the regulations remained. We were used to bowing to further limits which now extend to carrying food onto the plane. In the UK they've gone even further. Books, electronics, magazines, and toys are all forbidden. When one considers the prospect of a trans-Atlantic flight with two toddlers and a five year old with nothing to do, no snacks, and a government-mandated minimum of diapers the prospect of being blown up in mid-air begins to sound attractive.
The right to travel has become a privilege subject to arbitrary revocation by anonymous authorities. One need not be suspected of a crime. In fact, given the nature of Type I and Type II statistical errors it is inevitable that thousands of innocents will be wrongly detained or denied for every potential evil-doer who is stopped, not to mention the ones who slide through.
"Total Information Awareness" with its Eye in the Pyramid (I shit you not) logo was condemned as a totalitarian wet dream. When they changed the name to "Terrorism Information Awareness" last year the nation didn't even blink. They didn't even have to change the office stationary.
Now we are at a point where the Attorney General can say that habeas corpus isn't a right, the President can disappear, torture and kill anyone at his whim with no judicial review no matter what law Congress passes. The government has copped to secret prisons in Indiana for specifically for Muslims which almost certainly violate the Constitution. The Republican Lie Machine is saying quite literally that disagreement with the President is literally the crime of treason.
If any of this had been proposed even five years ago the person suggesting it would have been shown the door at least of his office if not the door to an asylum. Now we say nothing. Every time the head of the Department of Homeland Security, which translates nicely to Committee for State Security, reaches into his bag of M&Ms or the mantra "9/11! 9/11!" is bleated a few times we have been conditioned to submit and surrender a few more of our freedoms in the hope of a feeling of safety which we are never allowed to experience.
I'm convinced that Terry Pratchett is this generation's answer to Nasrudin, the Turkish mystic who was cursed with supreme Enlightenment but was only able to express it in jokes and pranks. Mr. Pratchett summed it up beautifully in his book "Interesting Times"
From the little bit I've learned about hypnosis and propaganda the most important key to success is to get the subject to do something. Once that has happened it becomes progressively easier to get him or her to do the next thing. Every Army in the world does this. Basic Training isn't about developing skills. It's a process of destroying the capacity to say "No" much less "Screw you. That's insane!" and replace it with immediate obedience to authority.
Since the middle of September in 2001 we've been subjected to an increasingly bizarre sequence of instructions and demands. First there was the cessation of all air travel. Then there was increased surveillance at the airport "Has anyone else touched your bags?" It became illegal to sell tickets (which pleased the airlines). Then there were explosive tests everywhere, random surveillance and searching of all luggage. Airport security kept growing although it was mostly pointless since they weren't hiring skilled investigators. They were loading the airports down with barely trained idiots. We went from metal detectors to shoes off, to partial strip searches in public to TSA drones groping women's breasts and having the victims arrested when they objected.
Restrictions on what we can carry started small. The hijackings may have been carried out with knives or box cutters. So they were banned. Then extra-sharp knitting needles, the tiniest of scissors, cigar cutters, screw drivers and an ever-growing list which we have learned to accept. Now flights get diverted when someone finds a utility knife left by maintenance workers. A sane person would just stick it in his pocket or point it out to the flight attendant. People have been arrested for trying to wear shirts with Arabic writing into departure gates. Then a scare about binary explosives allowed them to ban liquids. Even after the explosives experts repudiated it as utter bullshit the regulations remained. We were used to bowing to further limits which now extend to carrying food onto the plane. In the UK they've gone even further. Books, electronics, magazines, and toys are all forbidden. When one considers the prospect of a trans-Atlantic flight with two toddlers and a five year old with nothing to do, no snacks, and a government-mandated minimum of diapers the prospect of being blown up in mid-air begins to sound attractive.
The right to travel has become a privilege subject to arbitrary revocation by anonymous authorities. One need not be suspected of a crime. In fact, given the nature of Type I and Type II statistical errors it is inevitable that thousands of innocents will be wrongly detained or denied for every potential evil-doer who is stopped, not to mention the ones who slide through.
"Total Information Awareness" with its Eye in the Pyramid (I shit you not) logo was condemned as a totalitarian wet dream. When they changed the name to "Terrorism Information Awareness" last year the nation didn't even blink. They didn't even have to change the office stationary.
Now we are at a point where the Attorney General can say that habeas corpus isn't a right, the President can disappear, torture and kill anyone at his whim with no judicial review no matter what law Congress passes. The government has copped to secret prisons in Indiana for specifically for Muslims which almost certainly violate the Constitution. The Republican Lie Machine is saying quite literally that disagreement with the President is literally the crime of treason.
If any of this had been proposed even five years ago the person suggesting it would have been shown the door at least of his office if not the door to an asylum. Now we say nothing. Every time the head of the Department of Homeland Security, which translates nicely to Committee for State Security, reaches into his bag of M&Ms or the mantra "9/11! 9/11!" is bleated a few times we have been conditioned to submit and surrender a few more of our freedoms in the hope of a feeling of safety which we are never allowed to experience.
I'm convinced that Terry Pratchett is this generation's answer to Nasrudin, the Turkish mystic who was cursed with supreme Enlightenment but was only able to express it in jokes and pranks. Mr. Pratchett summed it up beautifully in his book "Interesting Times"
The Empire's got something worse than whips all right. It's got obedience. Whips in the soul. They obey anyone who tells them what to do. Freedom just means being told what to do by someone different.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Scott and Mushtaq Travelling Knife Show
A while back Mushtaq Ali Al-Ansari, wandering Dervish (semi-retired), martial artist, cook, knife-maker and many other things convinced us to go to the first PATH seminar run by our old Silat training bro' the writer Steve Barnes and Coach Scott Sonnon of RMAX. I have to admit we were skeptical. But we went, we learned a lot, and we were very impressed.
This time around Tiel had a shoulder injury and I was playing host, so we missed the seminar. We were able to make it to a special training event afterwards. Mushtaq and Coach Sonnon did what I hope will be the first of many knife workshops.
These days everyone has a knife workshop and a special secret sacred edged weapons combatives system along the lines of "Fear No Man. Add Inches To Your Penis." But Mushtaq is old and cunning and knows way too much about sharp things after decades of bumming around the world getting into trouble and learning local knife arts from the Mescalero Apache Reservation and Indonesia to Persia and South Africa. He's the embodiment of the Capoeira saying "Old holes have snakes in them." I'd never seen Scott's martial arts in person. On the other hand, he's a frickin' genius. His Sambo, Hardwork and other material are impressive. He's had the best training the old Big Red Soviet Sports Machine ever produced. It was worth a look.
I'm glad I took that look.
The first good thing was that there wasn't anything stupid. Ego just doesn't enter into what they do. It was simple (but not easy). It made sense. There wasn't any nonsense of the sort that can get you killed. It was lines of attack and defense, distance, timing, body mechanics and drills that you can build off of on your own. There were a few moments when I was afraid that the two very different backgrounds wouldn't mesh, but they did.
Mushtaq covered basic lines of motion, body mechanics and Silat knife fundamentals. Scott emphasized commonality of training, more body mechanics and the essentials of distance, timing and targeting. I found myself having saber and epee flashbacks which isn't surprising. Much of the Russian knife footwork is related to fencing. I learned a fair bit. Ideas like moving between rather than at the joints and sensitivity drills to minimize damage by moving with the attack were very thought-provoking. More to the point, people who have been and done like Terry and Bobbe left the seminar nodding their heads and smiling.
My only concerns were time and depth. Two hours wasn't nearly long enough for the material they were presenting. I've had a fair amount of exposure to Southeast Asian martial arts and Western fencing and was able to keep my head above water. Without the background it would have been hard to absorb that many important concepts in such a short time. And this stuff was deep. Some of the things they mentioned casually require a lot of time to bring out and mature. Without more time for explanation, demonstration and practice a beginner could get lost.
So yes. It's good. It's not perfect yet, but it was great for a first try. If they come to your area and you have an interest in bodywork, martial arts, or self protection you will find this valuable, especially if they expand the class to the length the material demands.
This time around Tiel had a shoulder injury and I was playing host, so we missed the seminar. We were able to make it to a special training event afterwards. Mushtaq and Coach Sonnon did what I hope will be the first of many knife workshops.
These days everyone has a knife workshop and a special secret sacred edged weapons combatives system along the lines of "Fear No Man. Add Inches To Your Penis." But Mushtaq is old and cunning and knows way too much about sharp things after decades of bumming around the world getting into trouble and learning local knife arts from the Mescalero Apache Reservation and Indonesia to Persia and South Africa. He's the embodiment of the Capoeira saying "Old holes have snakes in them." I'd never seen Scott's martial arts in person. On the other hand, he's a frickin' genius. His Sambo, Hardwork and other material are impressive. He's had the best training the old Big Red Soviet Sports Machine ever produced. It was worth a look.
I'm glad I took that look.
The first good thing was that there wasn't anything stupid. Ego just doesn't enter into what they do. It was simple (but not easy). It made sense. There wasn't any nonsense of the sort that can get you killed. It was lines of attack and defense, distance, timing, body mechanics and drills that you can build off of on your own. There were a few moments when I was afraid that the two very different backgrounds wouldn't mesh, but they did.
Mushtaq covered basic lines of motion, body mechanics and Silat knife fundamentals. Scott emphasized commonality of training, more body mechanics and the essentials of distance, timing and targeting. I found myself having saber and epee flashbacks which isn't surprising. Much of the Russian knife footwork is related to fencing. I learned a fair bit. Ideas like moving between rather than at the joints and sensitivity drills to minimize damage by moving with the attack were very thought-provoking. More to the point, people who have been and done like Terry and Bobbe left the seminar nodding their heads and smiling.
My only concerns were time and depth. Two hours wasn't nearly long enough for the material they were presenting. I've had a fair amount of exposure to Southeast Asian martial arts and Western fencing and was able to keep my head above water. Without the background it would have been hard to absorb that many important concepts in such a short time. And this stuff was deep. Some of the things they mentioned casually require a lot of time to bring out and mature. Without more time for explanation, demonstration and practice a beginner could get lost.
So yes. It's good. It's not perfect yet, but it was great for a first try. If they come to your area and you have an interest in bodywork, martial arts, or self protection you will find this valuable, especially if they expand the class to the length the material demands.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Molly Ivins, Requiescat in Pace
Molly Ivins, the sharp-tongued warm-hearted columnist who covered the Texas Legislature and national politics for years has died of breast cancer at the age of 62. Her satire was funny, humane and intelligent and her politics unabashedly liberal.
Goodbye and Godspeed, Molly. We'll miss you.
Goodbye and Godspeed, Molly. We'll miss you.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Fish fly. Sun rises in the West. Seattle reaches Espresso-Saturation
For years I've been wondering if the Northwest would ever reach its limit for espresso joints. Now it has, at least in Seattle. How do we know? Simple. Coffee shops have all been pretty similar. There are a few different styles, but they follow a pretty similar pattern. And mostly they've gotten by without the cheesier gimmicks.
That's changed. A number of caffeine dealers including Cowgirls, Natte Latte, Bikini Espresso, Best Friend and Moka Girls are offering your favorite morning drug served by scantily clad girls. It was inevitable. Eventually sex will be used to sell everything. It's significant because it offers pretty clear evidence that new shops are surviving by getting consumers to switch for something other than coffee rather than serving unsatisfied demand.
That's changed. A number of caffeine dealers including Cowgirls, Natte Latte, Bikini Espresso, Best Friend and Moka Girls are offering your favorite morning drug served by scantily clad girls. It was inevitable. Eventually sex will be used to sell everything. It's significant because it offers pretty clear evidence that new shops are surviving by getting consumers to switch for something other than coffee rather than serving unsatisfied demand.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
A Failed Experiment
Back when I was just a tadpole my parents got me a history of the Civil War with songs. I must have played that LP to death on a kid's record player. Two of the songs were about food, a Confederate one about peanuts and a Union one, to the tune of Hard Times, called "Hardtack". I hadn't thought about it for years until the Portland Pirate Festival last Summer. There was a contingent of British Navy re-enactors complete with ship's biscuit. I'd always heard that the biscuit was full of weevils. They assured me that they had done experiments. As long as the bread stayed dry the weevils dehydrated and died.
A few months later I was messing around in the kitchen and thought "Why not?" Searching online yielded three different recipes. One was the classic ship's biscuit - white flour, water, salt, a little soda. The second was the official Union Army hardtack - whole meal flour, water, salt. The third was a Swedish military version - rye and wheat flour, buttermilk, water, honey, salt.
The marine version was a bit like an overgrown saltine. Hard, pale, crisp, bland. I can see as how it would keep forever as long as it stayed dry. Of course, that's easy to do on land, not so easy at sea in a hull full of wooden kegs. Boring, but it will keep you alive with enough grog.
The Swedish version was dark and very slightly flexible. It made a good cracker and actually had a little flavor. It probably wouldn't keep nearly as well as the other two. The extra moisture and sugars would provide a better medium for mold and insects.
Then there was the Union Army hardtack. If an army travels on its stomach we can only hope that the Yankees had steel-rimmed all-weather, deep-tread studded tires. It's not much of a food, but you could use it to shingle houses. I quite literally had to break it with a hammer and was in serious fear for my teeth. After I went through one four inch square and three expensive ceramic crowns it was transferred to the dogs' biscuit box. They seemed to like it. The stuff has a lot of salt which they don't get very often. It makes a little bit of history more comprehensible. Union troops saved their bacon grease to cook the hardtack in. It was pretty much the only way to make it edible day in, day out.
A few months later I was messing around in the kitchen and thought "Why not?" Searching online yielded three different recipes. One was the classic ship's biscuit - white flour, water, salt, a little soda. The second was the official Union Army hardtack - whole meal flour, water, salt. The third was a Swedish military version - rye and wheat flour, buttermilk, water, honey, salt.
The marine version was a bit like an overgrown saltine. Hard, pale, crisp, bland. I can see as how it would keep forever as long as it stayed dry. Of course, that's easy to do on land, not so easy at sea in a hull full of wooden kegs. Boring, but it will keep you alive with enough grog.
The Swedish version was dark and very slightly flexible. It made a good cracker and actually had a little flavor. It probably wouldn't keep nearly as well as the other two. The extra moisture and sugars would provide a better medium for mold and insects.
Then there was the Union Army hardtack. If an army travels on its stomach we can only hope that the Yankees had steel-rimmed all-weather, deep-tread studded tires. It's not much of a food, but you could use it to shingle houses. I quite literally had to break it with a hammer and was in serious fear for my teeth. After I went through one four inch square and three expensive ceramic crowns it was transferred to the dogs' biscuit box. They seemed to like it. The stuff has a lot of salt which they don't get very often. It makes a little bit of history more comprehensible. Union troops saved their bacon grease to cook the hardtack in. It was pretty much the only way to make it edible day in, day out.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Sauces again...
The last few weeks have been hard on the appliances and the kitchen. First we had to replace the furnace. Then the kitchen floor. And last Wednesday our stove, which was old enough to run for President, gave up the ghost and would have cost as much to replace as to fix. Now we're cooking with gas! With that and the cold weather I've been staying in and cooking more, which means a chance to go through a few more classic sauces courtesy of Raymond Sokolov.
So far so good. The recipes all work. I haven't managed to screw one up yet. Tiel is surprisingly open to them.
Brown Sauces Derived From Demiglace
Every over-priced restaurant serves something-something demiglace. It's not usually worth eating, especially with what they charge for it. The thing is, demiglace is the basis for dozens of sauces. It wasn't meant to be a finished sauce itself. Take a cow. Boil it down until it fits in a jar. That's a wonderful flavor and color, but it doesn't stand on its own. It's like saying serving spaghetti with plain tomato paste or passing off plain ground meat as sausage.
Sauce Bigarade There is no comparison. I've tried Duck a l'Orange in restaurants. It's usually a gelatinous and too-sweet mess. Getting the real Seville Oranges, degreasing the stock and using tapioca flour instead of cornstarch made the difference. The recipe makes about twice as much as you need. Make the recipe a few times, keep the extra and have a big dinner where you use the reserved sauce and precut duck breast instead of cooking the whole bird. This sauce is a little involved, but the citrus and vinegar cut just enough of the duck's oiliness to complement it without overpowering.
Sauce au Madere Unfortunately his recommended recipe is based around ham. Lord, why couldn't You have forbidden okra or eggplant? Goes perfectly well with braised beef. Childishly simple - just add Madeira to the demiglace.
Sauce Robert Sauce Robert may be the pork sauce, but it goes wonderfully with rib roast. He's right. The stuff they sell under the same name in the yuppified food stores isn't the same color, flavor, smell or texture. The FTC and the CIA (the other CIA) should take out a hit on the people who make it.
White Sauces Derived From Velouté
There are all sorts of sauces based on velouté. It's easier and less time-consuming that demiglace. It's also so expensive I screamed like my nadgers were caught in a vice. It uses veal which has gotten unbelievably expensive lately. This Spring I'm going out to the dairy farms near Tillamook and picking up a couple newborn bull calves. They won't have that much meat, but they are cheap, and I can make a freezer full of jus de veau and velouté and maybe a dish or two out of sweetbreads without taking out a second mortgage.
Sauce Andalouse Better than we'd expected. The flavor was just enough to go with the chicken. With a stronger meat it would be lost. The leftover went well with eggs.
Sauce Aurore The sauce was simplicity itself. Heat velouté. Add tomato paste. Swirl in butter. The recipe, Poularde a L'Aurore, was the tough part. In essence you turn the chicken into the casing for a big veal sausage by filling it with a veal forcemeat - make that a chopped beef forcemeat. The price of veal has gone from outrageous to downright unchristly. Make sure you sew the chicken up! Otherwise you will end up with your sausage filling leaking into the stewpot.
Other Sauces
Bechamel There are about a thousand ways of making Bechamel. Every single one is The One True Way™. His is easy and cheap because it doesn't include veal. It goes very well with mixed vegetables.
Hollandaise Hollandaise is supposed to be very difficult and finicky. The directions worked beautifully as advertised. It might have been a little tarter than ideal, but it's the way I like it. The way authors talk about Hollandaise you'd think it was anhydrous sodium. The slightest hint of water and boom! The souffle d'asperges worked well. Everyone says "Hollandaise" in the same breath as "Eggs Benedict". The problem with that is that no matter how careful the preparation, how delicate the sauce or how artful the presentation there's still a poached egg in the middle of it.
Mayonnaise The Hellman's and Best Foods don't make mayonnaise. They make a white goo that will last forever in the fridge. It is not the same thing at all. The real stuff isn't immortal. It tastes much better. It's almost as cheap as the ersatz mayo. It's surprisingly easy to make. Raymond Sokolov's secret is a teaspoon of Dijon mustard for each cup of oil. I can't taste the difference. You can't taste the difference. But I can tell you the difference. You don't have to fiddle over a broken, separated mayonnaise.
The Extension Agent will probably come and take away my Master Food Preserver badge for the raw eggs. And they'll probably run me out of town for trying it the way he suggests - on very thinly sliced raw beef. But man is it good.
Before we go too much further we'll have to come up with a few substitutes. Lots of recipes call for larding something, usually a bird, with bacon or fatback. Cooking parchment soaked with olive oil works well enough, but it's not quite satisfactory. The game sauces look spectacular. Finding partridge and quail and rabbit and venison trimmings will take some work. It's not like there's a deadline.
So far it's all been pretty easy and straightforward. Sauces are an almost-lost part of the art of cooking. It's a darned shame. I hope a few people will be amused enough to try them out.
So far so good. The recipes all work. I haven't managed to screw one up yet. Tiel is surprisingly open to them.
Brown Sauces Derived From Demiglace
Every over-priced restaurant serves something-something demiglace. It's not usually worth eating, especially with what they charge for it. The thing is, demiglace is the basis for dozens of sauces. It wasn't meant to be a finished sauce itself. Take a cow. Boil it down until it fits in a jar. That's a wonderful flavor and color, but it doesn't stand on its own. It's like saying serving spaghetti with plain tomato paste or passing off plain ground meat as sausage.
Sauce Bigarade There is no comparison. I've tried Duck a l'Orange in restaurants. It's usually a gelatinous and too-sweet mess. Getting the real Seville Oranges, degreasing the stock and using tapioca flour instead of cornstarch made the difference. The recipe makes about twice as much as you need. Make the recipe a few times, keep the extra and have a big dinner where you use the reserved sauce and precut duck breast instead of cooking the whole bird. This sauce is a little involved, but the citrus and vinegar cut just enough of the duck's oiliness to complement it without overpowering.
Sauce au Madere Unfortunately his recommended recipe is based around ham. Lord, why couldn't You have forbidden okra or eggplant? Goes perfectly well with braised beef. Childishly simple - just add Madeira to the demiglace.
Sauce Robert Sauce Robert may be the pork sauce, but it goes wonderfully with rib roast. He's right. The stuff they sell under the same name in the yuppified food stores isn't the same color, flavor, smell or texture. The FTC and the CIA (the other CIA) should take out a hit on the people who make it.
White Sauces Derived From Velouté
There are all sorts of sauces based on velouté. It's easier and less time-consuming that demiglace. It's also so expensive I screamed like my nadgers were caught in a vice. It uses veal which has gotten unbelievably expensive lately. This Spring I'm going out to the dairy farms near Tillamook and picking up a couple newborn bull calves. They won't have that much meat, but they are cheap, and I can make a freezer full of jus de veau and velouté and maybe a dish or two out of sweetbreads without taking out a second mortgage.
Sauce Andalouse Better than we'd expected. The flavor was just enough to go with the chicken. With a stronger meat it would be lost. The leftover went well with eggs.
Sauce Aurore The sauce was simplicity itself. Heat velouté. Add tomato paste. Swirl in butter. The recipe, Poularde a L'Aurore, was the tough part. In essence you turn the chicken into the casing for a big veal sausage by filling it with a veal forcemeat - make that a chopped beef forcemeat. The price of veal has gone from outrageous to downright unchristly. Make sure you sew the chicken up! Otherwise you will end up with your sausage filling leaking into the stewpot.
Other Sauces
Bechamel There are about a thousand ways of making Bechamel. Every single one is The One True Way™. His is easy and cheap because it doesn't include veal. It goes very well with mixed vegetables.
Hollandaise Hollandaise is supposed to be very difficult and finicky. The directions worked beautifully as advertised. It might have been a little tarter than ideal, but it's the way I like it. The way authors talk about Hollandaise you'd think it was anhydrous sodium. The slightest hint of water and boom! The souffle d'asperges worked well. Everyone says "Hollandaise" in the same breath as "Eggs Benedict". The problem with that is that no matter how careful the preparation, how delicate the sauce or how artful the presentation there's still a poached egg in the middle of it.
Mayonnaise The Hellman's and Best Foods don't make mayonnaise. They make a white goo that will last forever in the fridge. It is not the same thing at all. The real stuff isn't immortal. It tastes much better. It's almost as cheap as the ersatz mayo. It's surprisingly easy to make. Raymond Sokolov's secret is a teaspoon of Dijon mustard for each cup of oil. I can't taste the difference. You can't taste the difference. But I can tell you the difference. You don't have to fiddle over a broken, separated mayonnaise.
The Extension Agent will probably come and take away my Master Food Preserver badge for the raw eggs. And they'll probably run me out of town for trying it the way he suggests - on very thinly sliced raw beef. But man is it good.
Before we go too much further we'll have to come up with a few substitutes. Lots of recipes call for larding something, usually a bird, with bacon or fatback. Cooking parchment soaked with olive oil works well enough, but it's not quite satisfactory. The game sauces look spectacular. Finding partridge and quail and rabbit and venison trimmings will take some work. It's not like there's a deadline.
So far it's all been pretty easy and straightforward. Sauces are an almost-lost part of the art of cooking. It's a darned shame. I hope a few people will be amused enough to try them out.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Disturbing Pamphlet. Is it the NRA?
It's not hard to be a pro-gun liberal. Most of my friends are. I'm one. The good people over at the Oregon Democratic Party's Gun Owners' Caucus are. What's difficult is dealing with some of the people who support the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Somehow during the seventies it got tied up with Right Wing politics, and many of the major gun rights organizations started getting into unrelated issues like immigration, tax cuts, religion and foreign policy. Lately it seems like they've been genetically grafted to the Republican Party.
It's a shame. Essential civil rights shouldn't be a partisan issue. It does nobody any good when they're used as a wedge to divide people. The NRA has been falling closer to that trap, but they've mostly stayed focused on firearms. That may have changed.
A couple days ago Wonkette's blog posted pictures of a pamphlet supposedly from the NRA. The art is excellent. The text is disturbing. The artwork is very high quality and utterly disgusting. The race-baiting isn't even a subtext. The good guys are always White. Every single dark-skinned person except one is a member of an (and I quote) "Alien Gang". The one exception is a huge demonic head bursting out of the television set to snap its enormous teeth at the White suburban family. The police officers holding the helpless (White) little old lady down with guns to her head are dressed head to toe in black. The nameless hordes descending on the (White) homeowner are silhouetted so as to appear, you guessed it, black. George Soros appears in as a grotesque caricature with an exaggerated hooked nose.
Since then it's been all over tha Intrawebs. An African-American NRA member on Daily Kos expressed some skepticism. There were more comments on Wonkette, Boing-Boing and Raw Story - both of which are hosting the whole document. It's probably discussed been on every single forum that even touches on self defense or guns. So far it's all conjecture. Nobody knows who the real author is or where it came from.
There are references to the National Rifle Association and NRA logos throughout including several pleas that only the NRA can save our precious freedoms and one would assume our precious bodily fluids. Several people including me have called to ask if this is a real NRA publication. The responses have ranged from "No comment" to "I'll have to get back to you." I got through two layers to someone who wouldn't give his name but said it was the first he'd heard of it and the NRA's publicity people would issue a statement as soon as he could do some research and find out what was going on.
At some point you've got to take people at their word. If the NRA comes out in the next day, two at the outside, and says "It's not ours. We never had anything to do with it. We're going to sue whoever it was who used our name and trademarked emblems without our permission. That's a disgusting piece of tripe," or "Someone in our organization did it. We didn't realize what he was up to. He's been sacked and has moved on to bigger and better things in his new job with the Ku Klux Klan. So have the people who green-lighted it," that should be enough. If they weasel and say something like "This has never been an officially released document of the National Rifle Association" or "We consider many options for getting our message across" or just say nothing we'll have to assume that it's theirs. If it is I'm sending my membership card back and will not renew it next year. This is some really hateful race-baiting crap, although the vicious lobster scuttling out of the water to pinch with its tiny claws and the Spotted Owl carrying a dynamite bomb are pretty funny. And the hairy-legged environmentalist chick looks kind of cute even if we can't see her face.
It would be a real shame if the NRA has stooped to the worst excesses of current American politics. I'm still holding out some hope that this they haven't but not for too much longer.
It's a shame. Essential civil rights shouldn't be a partisan issue. It does nobody any good when they're used as a wedge to divide people. The NRA has been falling closer to that trap, but they've mostly stayed focused on firearms. That may have changed.
A couple days ago Wonkette's blog posted pictures of a pamphlet supposedly from the NRA. The art is excellent. The text is disturbing. The artwork is very high quality and utterly disgusting. The race-baiting isn't even a subtext. The good guys are always White. Every single dark-skinned person except one is a member of an (and I quote) "Alien Gang". The one exception is a huge demonic head bursting out of the television set to snap its enormous teeth at the White suburban family. The police officers holding the helpless (White) little old lady down with guns to her head are dressed head to toe in black. The nameless hordes descending on the (White) homeowner are silhouetted so as to appear, you guessed it, black. George Soros appears in as a grotesque caricature with an exaggerated hooked nose.
Since then it's been all over tha Intrawebs. An African-American NRA member on Daily Kos expressed some skepticism. There were more comments on Wonkette, Boing-Boing and Raw Story - both of which are hosting the whole document. It's probably discussed been on every single forum that even touches on self defense or guns. So far it's all conjecture. Nobody knows who the real author is or where it came from.
There are references to the National Rifle Association and NRA logos throughout including several pleas that only the NRA can save our precious freedoms and one would assume our precious bodily fluids. Several people including me have called to ask if this is a real NRA publication. The responses have ranged from "No comment" to "I'll have to get back to you." I got through two layers to someone who wouldn't give his name but said it was the first he'd heard of it and the NRA's publicity people would issue a statement as soon as he could do some research and find out what was going on.
At some point you've got to take people at their word. If the NRA comes out in the next day, two at the outside, and says "It's not ours. We never had anything to do with it. We're going to sue whoever it was who used our name and trademarked emblems without our permission. That's a disgusting piece of tripe," or "Someone in our organization did it. We didn't realize what he was up to. He's been sacked and has moved on to bigger and better things in his new job with the Ku Klux Klan. So have the people who green-lighted it," that should be enough. If they weasel and say something like "This has never been an officially released document of the National Rifle Association" or "We consider many options for getting our message across" or just say nothing we'll have to assume that it's theirs. If it is I'm sending my membership card back and will not renew it next year. This is some really hateful race-baiting crap, although the vicious lobster scuttling out of the water to pinch with its tiny claws and the Spotted Owl carrying a dynamite bomb are pretty funny. And the hairy-legged environmentalist chick looks kind of cute even if we can't see her face.
It would be a real shame if the NRA has stooped to the worst excesses of current American politics. I'm still holding out some hope that this they haven't but not for too much longer.
Technorati Tags:gun control, wonkette, raw story, boing boing, nra, national rifle association, race-baiting, racism, rkba, guns
Generated By Technorati Tag Generator
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
