Christmas 2017 Lists

The 5 things I’m grateful for:

·      The safe return of my brother and sister-in-law from the zone in Asia getting stricken with typhoons currently

·       Another birthday for my Dad

·       That the last Monday of the year is Christmas, making the year end at least with one less dreadful form of Monday. An added bonus is that New Year's Day is on Monday, and I'll start the year off with one less bad one.

·       Taking time to visit with an old friend from my past

·       Finding sleep, and shaking off a long, bad, stretch of insomnia, even though I’m still waking up at ridiculously early hours.

The 5 gifts I gave myself:

·      To the kid/history geek in me, a game console with two games: Wolfenstein II, The New Colossus, and Call of Duty, WWII. Deck the Halls with shooting Nazis, Fa La La La La  . . . La La La . . . Blam! I’m trying not to let this become some addiction. This was bought back during a Black Friday sale. I’m still a fumbling newbie. I promised myself to make more moments for fun this coming year, so I’m loosening up a little and granting myself this little indulgence. For the anthropologically curious side of me, I have Civilization VI lined up (whenever it becomes reasonably discounted) in PC format. If I indeed have a limit as to how smart I’ll really be, then I at least must find some way to apply my current intellect for some sort of interactive entertainment. I’ve had too many bitter lessons lately as to how short and fragile life really is. Too much reading is boring me (and probably making me boring). Television, as it is now, is doing nothing but rotting my mind, given all the horrid news to watch and the banality of the influx of “reality TV”. As much as I’d like to divert myself and be more engaged with getting into playing some good old-fashioned traditional board/analogue/parlour games (cards, backgammon, darts, billiards, Scrabble®, etc.) the reality is that I have no readily available company for them in my free time. This is the next best thing.

·      To the history/science geek in me, a discounted offer for a DNA test (Ancestry.com). Why? Because genetics are cool, that's why. If I’m not going to have some sort of spawn or clone of me being left on this earth after I’m gone, I’d like to at least know how far back, and from which regions my particular genome came from, and what it is comprised of whilst I’m alive. I reason and conclude that collecting my DNA and doing a simple test like this for the sake of uncovering my heritage is far less costly than perpetuating those genes by siring a child. Maybe I'll find out through the results that I wasn't fit enough to beget one to begin with. However, it might spark stupid ideas of how I can use these kits to replicate those significant other people who I totally want to have cloned (a possible next sequel of Bladerunner happening, or something).

·      To the travel geek in me, my passport application.

·      To the booze connoisseur geek in me, my traditional bottle of Scotch for year’s end.

·      The couple hours taken to reunite with someone from my past after long lapse amounting to decades, and seeing that she’s doing OK. That satisfied all the geeks in me.

The 5 Favourite foods of this Christmas (presently having and anticipating):

·         Butter tarts

·         Oysters

·         The Swedish meatballs and rice pudding I had on Christmas eve*

·         Rullepolse* (from the largely Icelandic community of Wynyard)

·         Stuffing and gravy

Concerns and condolences (thankfully, a shorter list):

·       As I come here to celebrate the birthday of my own Dad along with Christmas, I learned of the passing of the father of one of my Union siblings just before the holidays. This person has brought me nothing but fun and cheerfulness since the time we’ve been acquainted, and it’s not fair that someone like her gets to endure this now. Thinking of you HJ.

·       The passing of the wife of my sister-in-law’s brother, again, something that doesn’t make the season better for them. Thoughts and prayers for them.

·       My dog seems to be stricken with a new health problem, hopefully it can be rectified without too much stress to her or myself.

*-This stuff is traditionally fare served at a Scandinavian table around Christmas, and seems to be stuff we as a family are adopting and enjoying. Perhaps another reason for me to question our true heritage and to do the DNA test.

Crafting Smörgåstårta

I started off this weekend quite bitter and disappointed. Given the course of how Friday closed for me at work, I was in real need of something more relaxing to do for leisure . . .  but that shit wasn’t happening. Instead of getting to check out the massive indoor flea market, or maybe the pet expo at Prairieland that I wanted to see, or skiing with my friend, or getting the chance to reunite with my brothers and sisters-in-law to finally go on a whiskey tour at Lucky Bastard distillery, I’m left being obliged to review, study, and attend workshops all bloody weekend at Saskatchewan Polytechnic* for not just one, but both weekend days. My Sunday isn’t even sacred for my quality weekend time, and I’ll be missing out on the Roughriders vs. Argonauts CFL semi-final, while I’m being fraught and tortured with test anxiety. That’s like bloody sacrilege to have such a workshop on this very day! I left SaskPoly on Saturday afternoon, too deflated and de-energized to do much of anything. I also had the aggravation of needing to do some grocery shopping for some protein afterward, by the way, a terrible idea on late Saturday afternoon if you hate crowds like I do.

I had a bear-like craving for either smoked or cured salmon, along with some other elegant form of seafood for some crazy reason (but not sushi, oddly enough . . . something more novel and different from that). If not for Saturday, then for my Sunday. I found a deal on smoked salmon and some shrimp on sale, and . . . Merry-flipping-early-Christmas to me . . . I also discovered a real rarity for these parts . . . whole crayfish! I always wanted to experiment with these little devils. I think I’m going to put them into some Spanish paella. I remembered that there was an odd inventory of eggs, veggies and other things to use up first as well in the fridge. I also reminded myself of my brewing project schedule, and reminded myself that should find something that accords with the non-wastage of the by-products of that after the first racking. Getting the crayfish reminded me of something about Sweden** (they have an annual festival there devoted to the eating of these little buggers). The thoughts of Swedish cuisine made me recollect flashes of some other inspirational things I glimpsed once on Pinterest as to what to do with my salmon and shrimp, and in this convoluted way I got an idea rolling and all these things coalesced in a lightning flash. My next culinary experiment was going to be making a Smörgåstårta: Swedish, for “sandwich cake”. I collected a couple more elementals for the project, and got the hell out of that store in a hurry.

The process went as such for innovating my version of a Smörgåstårta:

Step 1 – Crafting the “cake”: Knowing that I had to transfer (rack) my beer wort from a primary to secondary fermentation stage, I took and exploited the residual trub (mucky looking sediment residue) which is loaded full of live yeast, to serve as the leavening agent, along with some buttermilk for my “cake”. As it was loaded with more hoppy flavour, I added sweetened and aromatic caramelized onions and poppy seeds to the all-purpose flour dough to tame down some of its bitterness. I fashioned a dough and cooked it in a round, straight-sided baking dish. After baking it until done, I trimmed away the excess and the crusty surface (to be used as croutons). I don’t remember how long this took between the kneading, rising, and baking, but it was long enough for me to consume a couple of casually sipped gin and tonics. For an easier way to do this, you’d probably just buy a round bread loaf of whatever your preference is (like sourdough or pumpernickel) and trim it such that you get a wide cylindrical loaf.

Step 2 – Section the Loaf:   I made three horizontal cuts across the loaf, dividing them into four even sections.

Step 3 – Select and spread your fillings: You can use any damn filling you want, provided that it doesn’t make the bread layers too soggy. My choices for this particular experiment were: Herbed Liver pâté and chopped peppers spread evenly, add a bread section, then smearing on egg salad (flavoured with a small pinch of curry) over that, then layering with another section, then avocado and shrimp spread evenly, topped with the last layer section.

Step 4 – Making the “icing”: That was made with a 3:2:1 ratio of cream cheese, crème fraîche, and mayonnaise respectively. For this project, ¼ cup proportions were used for those ratio numbers. Sour cream might work if you don’t have access to crème fraiche, bit if you want to know how to make it, read further below. I reckon for an even more authentic icing ingredient, skyr could be used. I mentioned it briefly in another post. I may try that some day. Anyway, mix those three ingredients together to an even consistency, and chill for an hour before Icing your cake. Chill the iced cake for another hour before the next step.

Step 5 – You garnish that bastard like crazy! – Or at least this is the way that the Swedes seem to like to do it. Use whatever is edible, not just like what I have in the picture; use whatever it is that turns your crank. I used my smoked salmon, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, capers and some dill for this one, crowned with one of my new little friends. Once that is finished, put it back in the fridge and keep it chilled before serving.

Oh yeah, for making your own crème fraîche, follow these steps:

1.       Scald a litre capacity mason jar with boiling water, filling it to the brim and emptying it. Also

immerse a sealer ring (and airlock if you have one) under boiling temperature water as well.

2.       Once the jar is emptied, pour in a litre of whipping cream, add to it 2 tablespoons of buttermilk and stir it in.

3.       Place airlock and sealer ring on the jar, and leave it at room temperature for at least 12 hours, if you don’t have an airlock like the one pictured, place a clean double folded cheese cloth across the lip of the jar and the sealer ring on it, not allowing the cheese cloth to contact the mixture. Be aware that the fermentation process will be about 4 hours faster this way. The airlock method will be slower, but purer (less contaminated) with native culture.

4.       Once the cream has a stiffened viscosity, put a clean, sterilized jar lid over it, seal it with the sealer ring, and store it in the refrigerator until ready to use it. Try to use it within a week stored this way.

The nice thing about this dish is that, like sushi, simple things can be used and made to look absolutely decadent. Like pizza, or soup, it allows for ingredient variability. I know it’s one that I’ll probably attempt again. The thing I'd do next time around would be to use my own homemade gravid lax instead of smoked salmon. The fact alone that one can take brewing slop and convert it into a classy party dish is cool trick in and of itself. As recipe concepts go, I’ll be definitely filing this one under “panty melters”. It was super delicious, and it would be nice to see an idea like this catch on. I'm glad I tried this out, as it would probably be the only way I'd get to sample some of this aside from actually going to Sweden.

*- I'm not really bitter or hateful about the workshops per se: they were useful with new tricks and techniques to learn, the instructor was good; it's just that the timing of them was bad.
**- I don’t keep it a secret, or apologize for being a bit of a Swedophile. I’ve made an effort to learn some of the basics of the language, and tune into some of the cultural aspects of that country. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps I listened to a little too much ABBA as a child to get this indoctrination happening. It turns out that I have much in common with the typical Swedish mindset, I think their women are gorgeous, and as I don’t really like tropical weather, I could easily adapt to their winters, which are a lot less severe than the ones here in Saskatchewan.

Restless Browsing

This is not good. It's only 11 days into winter and I'm already climbing the walls. The good news is that I managed to cram and jam my skis in this new car despite it's smaller interior space. The bad news was that after doing that, and cruising to the ski trails, I found out that they were still lacking enough snow depth to be groomed properly. I went home disappointed, forcing myself to do responsible adult stuff when I returned there.

As much as I abhor giving patronage to any shop on Remembrance Day, I cracked - after being penned up inside, constraining myself to focusing on household tasks for the entire day, seeing that I couldn't go skiing. By the time evening came, I needed to flee from here.

The problem is that there's nowhere to really retreat to at night when lots of businesses and restaurants are closed, even when a statutory holiday falls on a Saturday. My appetite was sated and I was full and had no need to eat anywhere, but I found out that Indigo was open, and my restless mind was hungry; so I stepped into there. I just purged my place of a huge whack load of books, but I couldn't resist seeing what I would alternatively collect for my shelves. Touring the bookstores and libraries isn't just a quest for good material to read; it's an effort to discover the kind of book I'd like to write. This entry is a visual collection and reflection of what my literary tastes and other entertainment modality was shifting to as I browsed the store.

The book best suited for me

on this kind of evening.

A cookbook that I should be

learning from

The kind of cookbook I should

be writing - Sample 1

Another sample of the kind of 

cookbook I should be writing.
There is more profanity in this
one book than what I think I
used in my entire lifetime.
It gets the point across though.

Three books I'd want for a prolonged

trip to my desired European destinations.

The Joy of Less appeals to my philosophy of minimalism.

Another alternate form of porn
of stuff I'd lust for, besides for
whatever's in the Best Buy flyers.

The poetry I might be able

to appreciate.

A comical journaling

exercise book  in a format

that I wish I dreamt up of first.

The magazine I should be reading

A preformatted checklist that I

should have. However, the items on it

aren't 'weird' enough for my place.

There were also games I noticed that I'd be interested in collecting too . . . from old school to ancient school.

Ultimately though,  I ended up shaking off the urge to do any mindless consumption, realizing that what I probably most needed to do was retreat into re-reading and reviewing my own journal notes: ones loaded full of half-cocked plans, semi-mapped ideas, hair-brained schemes, and other lists that I wouldn't share here and the beginning of solutions to other challenges I may have ahead.

5Q5A: Winterlude

Again, this is mostly for the benefit of my non-Canadian audience. 

I’m not trying to react too negatively about it, but It’s back, and being that I should be better prepared for its coming is neither here nor there. Of course, I’m talking about winter: and no matter how well prepared I am for the physical and logistical rigours of the season, like any savvy Canadian should be, ultimately, I am never prepared for it psychologically, despite having lived here all my life. Things like the extra darkness, the featureless snowscape, the extra work shoveling and blowing away accumulations, the treacherous driving from idiots who aren’t adapting to slick road conditions, and the augmented stretches of isolation and being penned indoors are already getting to me, and we are only four days into the season since the snow came. Knowing that there is 32 times that of a duration yet to endure until spring isn’t making me any more cheerful. I don’t feel anymore thankful or blessed in knowing that Halloween was snow free, and it could have come much sooner by one or two weeks, which is not uncommon in these parts to expect. It’s just here, and I have no will to deal with it. It’s going to be hard to find pleasure in this one. The title above is more of a note of sarcasm than anything.   

Q1. How is this going to be an even more challenging winter?

A1. What’s even more foreboding about it is that now that I’m a member of the Condo board, I’ve been bestowed some responsibility of assuring snow removal around the building on days like these; dealing with the gray areas of how responsibly the owners and the people contracted to remove it for us are going to interact. To do one home is enough, to be responsible an entire building complex is another thing. Plus, along with dealing with some residents and board members, some of whom are bickering with each other, and being caught between their petty conflicts, doesn’t make me enthused to pursue this endeavor. It makes me a little regretful that I’ve yupped myself into this.
As usual, the missing of like-minded intimate female companionship is at its worst when enduring this phase of the year*.

Q2. What do you tolerate best about winter?

A2. Strangely enough, the cold really doesn’t bother me much physically. Genetically, I suppose I just turned out to be a very warm-blooded person. It’s just an element that one dresses right for. I don’t give it a second thought or complaint about those instances, like this morning, where I’ll march out in -30 C wind chill to help relieve the dog. The whining and complaining everyone else does about it, and its resulting negativity, is more what gets to me when it’s overplayed. I get grumbly when I have to remove snow, or be forced to travel by foot or vehicle over ice, but cold temperature itself isn’t the bothersome factor to me directly, just what results in its influence in other things beyond me. I get pissed off at the failures and foibles of some mechanical and technical things like cars, cell phones, and other devices that aren’t as resilient as I am when the temperature plummets, but not with the cold itself. Personally, I find brisk, cold air cleansing and purifying. I’m one of those weirdos who favours an extremely cold day over an extremely hot one. I can dress better for a really cold day; I can’t undress further for an extremely hot one. If I ever find it too cold for my personal liking, it’s just a good excuse to have a hot bath, or use the sauna, or enjoy some tea or soup.

Q3. What are your personal betterment projects going to be for the season?

A3. I’ve sorted things out to the following.

1.       Language project – Learning (some) Russian. What more appropriate language is there to learn in the harshest and most bitter of seasons such as this? I’ll expound more on the reasons why and my progress in future entry.

2.       Cooking – Becoming a better saucier. To take ordinary cuts of meat and vegetables and elevate them to another level of amazing with a simple formulation of a sauce seems to be worthwhile doing. I’m reckoning on learning about 20 – 30 different sauces, dips, and glazes during the season.

3.       Studying – I have a big, stupid hoop to jump through with some required courses. It’s actually a form of hell and punishment to me, and a reminder of collective ineptitudes which, unfairly, other parties aren’t being held accountable for. But, I’m challenging myself in creating some weird and wild mnemonic systems to help me remember this stuff, which I can hopefully transfer and apply to other things more meaningful and valuable to me.

4.       Writing better  – I’m considering workshops for it.

5.       Continued involvement with my Union

Q4. What fitness and leisure are you going to try to pursue more of?

A4. Things like:

1.      X Country Skiing – If there is an ideal weekend for it. I might travel up to Elk Point to experience the trails there. Otherwise, I’ll try to keep regenerating my lung tissues with the circuits here locally. Running on icy streets and sidewalks is too much of a risk given that I need non-sprained ankles and unbroken legs for work.

2.      More sauna time – and with that, to pass the time better while sweating out toxicity in there without boredom, it seems fitting to read . . .

3.      More Scandinavian crime fiction – I built up a rather large extensive syllabus of books by Nordic writers. After reading a few, I totally get why people have commented that I think more like a Northern European than a Canadian.

4.      Shooting Nazis – Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, a video game, has been released. I really don’t want to offend my German friends after saying this. Please remember that I’m shooting at Nazis, not the good Germans. The first-person shooter gameplay for this series is awesome, and I’m sure I’ll need some form of quasi-destructive cathartic release of anger towards something representing oppressive evil sometime throughout this season. I wish I knew more people who like to play board games and cards; I would welcome that too. As for now, the dog is lousy at dealing cards, and doesn’t really have a grasp on how to play chess or backgammon.

5.      Designing and building furniture – mostly shelving and table options (solutions).

6.      Cocktail Bar Development – gradually accumulating the essential ingredients for a fuller and varied personal mixology lab experience. If I can’t have quantity, I at least want quality on the minimal level.

Q5. Let’s end with being positive, what are the better or favourite sensations of winter that you enjoy?

A5. Sensations, as in what appeals to the five senses, could be summarized thusly:

1.      Sounds – or rather the absence of it when the first snow comes. Walking outside in the darkness on the morning of the first snowfall of winter, where the light snow absorbs all acoustical aberrations. On the opposite side is listening to blizzard blowing outside whilst being with a warm beside warm, crackling from the fireplace. It’s the winter equivalent of listening to thunderstorm for me, which I also find pacifying. The only time I really appreciate classical music is during winter. Ella snoring by my feet after a long cold walk, either her effort to warm up, or to warm me up.

2.      Textures – the mass of a super heavy quilt draped over me. This is only appreciated on the super cold days of course.

3.      Smells – Birch firewood burning, conifer trees (the only non-dormant plants during the season; a good whiff of pine sap is intoxicating), fresh bread baking and soup cooking, any incense that masks months’ worth of smells of kitchen grease, other malodorous stenches and other volatile organic compounds (from not just my suite, but others’) that get trapped inside because you can’t really open the goddamned windows for fresh air for the risk of freezing the pipes.

4.      Sights – Hoarfrost, like everything outside gets encrusted with diamonds after a good freezing fog. Christmas lights, or any extra light that brightens the evenings before and after solstice.

5.      Tastes – For some weird reason, I tolerate red wine better during winter than at all other times of the year. As forms of alcohol go, ordinarily red wine seems like it is to me like what Kryptonite is to Superman. Anything fat and sugary is more pleasurable on an exponential degree during winter. If the only feast I had for Christmas was Butter Tarts, I’d be happy with that. I drink more coffee and tea during winter as well, perhaps to trick my brain into making the cycle of daylight longer than it really is.

*- I’m not going to be prideful, or be feeling ashamed, or hiding anymore about the fact that at times I get terrible spells of feeling weaker and vulnerable about being very lonely. Winter here is the worst for experiencing that, but some how I endure.

The Last Cruise of Itaru Maru

Saturday, Thanksgiving Weekend

It’s one of the last few lovely sunny days left of this year before drearier or winter-like weather slams the door shut on this autumn. I was awake since 3:00 AM for some crazy reason, so I phased my paperwork and other chores of the day in much earlier, so I now have the liberty of the rest of this Saturday to chill and maybe nap before catching a ride for a road trip to be with family for Thanksgiving later. One of the things done today was to have Ella accompany me for a car ride to my other errand stops, as it helps to pacify her before I trick her into having a bath. Ella, loving car rides as she does, fancies this car almost as much as I do, so I couldn’t let her miss out on having the possibly the last cruise in Itaru with me. I’ll elaborate on that in a moment. I try not to be either sentimental about cars I have had, or covetous about the ones I’d like to have, but I realize that today was special in that it probably is one of the last drives, if not the last drive with my current vehicle. This is the only car that I’ve had enter my life that I’ve truly appreciated.

If there is one thing I am thankful for during this Thanksgiving season is that I can officially put an end to the hell of shopping for another vehicle. I sure as hell don’t want to be bothered with it when winter comes. As much as this one has delighted me, my needs are changing, and rather than having to contend with another round of maintenance for this one, I decided to front up for an investment into another one. Another has been found, and I’m acquiring it this weekend. The hell of car shopping, and my spiel of kicking tires yielded to me three choices: a nice little VW Golf (but with lots of kilometres racked up on it), a sweet gently used older Volvo S60 (one of the reliable ones made in the factory in Gothenburg, Sweden; not one of those inferior ones assembled in a Ford plant in America), and the one I ultimately purchased (keeping this private). It beat the other two out because of the lower mileage and price, and cheaper future maintenance costs. I got practical instead of lustful, but now not disappointed with going that route. I’ll just say that I got lucky.

I don’t often admit that I’ve given my car a proper name, but it has been christened Itaru. I don’t see why there should be any weirdness or shame in admitting that. Before we drove cars, we named the horses we rode, and ships we sailed have been somehow given more animacy through christened names for millennia. Hence, where is the wrong in giving one’s own personal vehicle a name? We go so far as accepting that the model is a distinct name (like Tiguan, Mustang, or Renegade), with the exception I suppose of the blander series numbers of some European makes (like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo*), and in that case, they sound like names for Star Wars droids. Why not go further in naming the vehicle as a distinct individual apart from its other cloned brethren manufactured models?

The practical side to giving my car a name is that it’s a convenient mnemonic device (though a cryptic one) to help me remember things like my plate number and some other VIN info and spec details. It’s a proper Japanese name assigned to a Japanese make of car. It’s a complicated story of how and why I chose the full name, Itaru Maru, for my current car; only that I noticed that many Japanese sea vessels** are christened with “<some Japanese name> Maru”, and Itaru was conveniently an authentic Japanese name that suited my other mnemonic purposes, and sounded quite lyrical along with Maru. As silly as this all might sound, in that name are 16 other mnemonically tagged pieces of information about the vehicle that I can have instant access to should there ever be an accident or incident to report for my car. Out of curiosity, I researched why many ships hailing from Japan have Maru in their name, and it still isn’t clear to me why that is so. The Japanese word Maru itself means “circular” or “round”, and another meaning of the word is for “excrement”. When referring to my car, the round pieces of shit that the word Maru may directly be describing is probably the state of my tires. With crappy malfunctioning tires, my car might as well be a drydocked boat. Just when I was ready to put it up for sale, it came to be my typical luck with tires (bike or car) that one should be irreparably flattened before that could happen. Thankfully, I found a good deal on a suitable replacement. As much as one tire has given me grief lately though, I still love the car itself, it makes me a little sad to have to part with it.

This next car I believe will be named Kikuchiyo; I’ll probably drop the Maru this time. Because again, it’s another Japanese make and model, and the name accords well with some of the specs I want to tag and process mnemonically. If you have seen the classic Akira Kurosawa movie The Seven Samurai, you may remember that Kikuchiyo (played by Toshiro Mifune) was the wild, undisciplined, impulsive and rambunctious bugger of this septet. Those qualities (I hope) won’t be seen in this next vehicle.

UPDATE: Tuesday evening, the day after Thanksgiving

Itaru Maru was sold tonight, to a guy who works as a mechanic specializing in Volvos, oddly enough. We had a great chat, and reached a deal that was mutually convenient and satisfactory for us. I am grateful that Itaru will be well cared for in the hands of somebody who will appreciate him as I did.

*- If I had bought the Volvo, I was going to name him Ingvar: the combined characteristics of the car being Swedish, and the owner being notably frugal and thrifty, like Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA. The Volvo I could have been driving away would actually have been newer than the Volvo that Kamprad, as multi-billionaire, drives for himself ( the cheap old bastard . . .). If the VW was purchased, Heinrich was going to be its name . . . long story there.

**- Including fictional spaceships, like the Kobayashi Maru, mentioned in Star Trek.

Autumn Equinox Weekend 2017: Getting Bitter, Getting Sour

Friday

It was actually one of my more pleasant Fridays of this year, and counting in last weekend’s effort to re-organize stuff from Fall cleaning, and successfully riding out a storm of some other bad karma, I feel more able to do some steps toward other forms of betterment. I thought if I’m going to do more Fall brewing of beer in the days ahead, I should make an effort to craft it in such a way where it’s more therapeutic. Google flashed a dedication to Asima Chatterjee, a noted medicinal plant researcher and organic chemist from India, as it would have been her 100^th birthday today, and it strangely coincided with my recent interest in researching the healing power of hops: the getting bitter part of the weekend.

Back in the days when I was on a property on which I had access to garden space, my efforts to cultivate things were pretty much reduced and restricted to plants that were necessary staples for

bachelorhood, i.e. the crop outputs were the elemental ingredients for making pizza and beer. I was hit and miss with growing my tomatoes; a complete failure with herbs like basil and oregano. The only thing that I really had success at growing there were hop vines, which came from cultivars that I mail ordered from the Richter’s seed catalogue. I was tempted to go by the old place a few days ago and see if the plants were still there, and to perhaps snip a few away that were straggling into the public space of the back alley. I remembered though that a friend of mine said that she had some vines at her place, and she offered me a few cones. I happily accepted. She didn’t know what variety they were, but after some research on the visual and aroma profile (low bitterness, earthy, herbal, no real citrus notes to them) plus the elimination of varieties that wouldn’t thrive in this wretched climate of ours, and memories from previous experience, I think I narrowed them down to being maybe Hallertau or Saaz hops; either variety is most likely used for lighter lagers and Pilsners. Thankfully, the cones were not touched by frost yet*, and I got them at their peak ripeness. They needed to be dried before I can use them. I picked, sorted, and checked them for insect hitchhikers, and so now I’m experimenting with using a food dehydrator setting for a milder desiccation temperature rate: starting at 50 degrees Centigrade. Too low and slow risks incubation of molds; too high and dry risks the same sort of damage to the oil glands as freezing them.

If I am already regulating myself on the amount of alcohol I’m allowed to drink, then enhancing the sedating properties of beer in other ways has to be done if drinking more of it isn’t an option. Hops are supposed to have the natural properties of reducing anxiety and eliminating insomnia. Adding more to my brew kits seems to be the way to receive the benefits of them. For flavour, I’m targeting for somewhere a third of the way between the bitterness of what I remember Big Rock Traditional Ale tastes like, and that kicked-in-the-face-by-Satan-himself kind of bitterness found in Double India Pale Ales. There is no doubt about the medical potential of hops because they belong in the phytochemically super-rich botanical family of Cannabaceae, the same family as that of Cannabis Sativa, which is of course marijuana. I’m surprised that, or I at least don’t understand why, there is not more research done on hops, because we’ve only been using them since beer was invented 6000 years ago; it being such a pivotal beverage for civilization and all. The priority for research attention between the two plants shifts to hemp because there is more pressure to either discover more benefits of the plant by pro-hemp/marijuana legalization institutions, or for taking a contrarian stance for more research dollars focused to find evil in it by the forces that want to justify keeping it suppressed and criminalized. Either way, hops aren’t controversial enough to get the same attention. The side effects of higher intake of hop extracts, from what I’ve read, is like that of using too much refined soy products: a greater potential of overconsuming phytoestrogen. It seems growing beer titties might be more of a risk than growing a beer belly if your ale is infused with more hops.

Saturday

The getting sour part of the weekend. I made cabbage rolls today, with soured cabbage leaves and pressure preserved the sauerkraut that was being brewed under them in my fermentation crock. I already described the process involved in the previous entry, Fermentation Experimentation (On Baba’s Magic Rocks). The effort to clear out older bulk dry stock from my pantry is almost complete. Other results from that: Dutch Style Split Green Pea Soup with my remaining bacon, and my rendition of chili con carne with the remaining beef, tomatoes, onions, beans and other odds and ends. 

Sunday

I wanted to get sweet today, but I can’t let go of sour quite yet. I was gifted some sour apples (Battleford variety) I need to use and not waste, and there’s sour cream in the fridge, plus some raisins in the pantry. This means aggravation, because I settled on making pies with this stuff, which means messing around with goddamned pastry dough. I don’t know why I have no patience for it. Making regular bread or pizza dough isn’t a big deal for me. However, if there is any one thing I do in the kitchen that has me so challenged that I’m swearing like a salty sailor, it’s trying to mix and feel out that right interplay between flour, lard/shortening, and the exact amount of moisture and temperature It needs to bind it all together perfectly to allow it to be rolled out right for a pie. It’s somehow too technical for me. I committed to it today in the spirit of practice and persistence. If I screwed up the pastry, I at least have a crack at redemption in trying to craft a good filling. My sour apples were doctored up with plenty of cinnamon, and the sour cream and raisin filling for my other pie was spiced up with vanilla, cardamom, and cloves, and minimal of brown sugar was used for both.

My Sour Cream and Raisin Pie, so far my best attempt at

using a meringue. My apple pie was OK too taste-wise, but an

embarrassment to the visual aesthetic, and far too damn

fugly to add to this gallery.

The proof of how infrequently I cook with sugar, i.e.

brown sugar that looks like it needs to be dynamited out of the jar.

That's what the good old mortar and pestle is for.

Maybe my waning interest and ability in baking dessert-like things is perhaps a sobering and humbling indication that I’m aging. It’s a scientific fact that the taste palette shifts more from the sweet to the bitter and sour as we mature and approach middle age and beyond. I can only concur given that my taste for beer is stronger now than it was when I was a younger adult (I was more into rye whiskey at that age). I try more bitter things and am more forgiving of the pungency of other things now (like certain cheeses with their sudoriferous, or even fecal-like, stenches) that I would have been revolted by as a teen. I suppose I made pies to feel younger and spark a sense of a sweet tooth that I'm losing. At least I’m finding out that the aging tongue is nothing to be afraid of, it just gives cause to make one more adventurous. Coming to a point of appreciating things like more bitter beers, astringent wines, and smellier cheeses may be a sign of maturity.

*- I shouldn’t have to mention this to experienced brewers, though I suppose it could be done, but never should one use frozen hops for brewing, or store them in a freezer for later use, even if they are in pellet form. The humulone and lupulin glands in the flowers that produce their characteristic bitterness profile are essentially ruined when crystalized and then ruptured by frost and ice. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t do it myself. What’s the point of going through all the effort of searching for an ingredient with a specific aroma and flavour profile, a rarer commodity at that, only to destroy that which you’re seeking for the greedy act of preservation? After drying them and letting them cool to room temperature, refrigerate them for a short while in a vacuum pack if you can if their usage will be delayed, but don’t freeze them.

Labour Day 2017: The Future of Labour

I booked this day off, and I’m trying not to think of work; I’m not doing that successfully. My weekend was loaded with enough tasks that constitute a full few days of putting chaos to order. Long story short, I was dealing with the results of electrical and steam pressure explosions, plus putting out fires in the floor below me. Add the shooting that happened down the block last Thursday, and it makes me think I'd be safer in Afghanistan. I exaggerate though. The electrical explosion was more like a humongous zap from the power supply in my 10 year old desktop PC, the steam pressure was from a weakened emergency release valve on an old pressure cooker I had, and the fire downstairs was a lapse in judgement from an elderly resident who left the building without shutting her stove off. The shooting, unfortunately, was real. Gang related methinks. I've been fixing everything around here including the kitchen sink, quite literally. The corroded drain fell apart, and on top of salvaging components, hard drives and data from my desktop, I was soldering screwing in and soldering pipes. I'm not really bitter about it all though. It was stuff that I should have done late last year/early this year: things that were already on my to do lists before my arm was injured. I welcomed the escape into doing something more logical and methodical with materials aside from just cooking and writing. 

My thoughts stray to the state I was in around time last year, and remembering the fears that I had about having complications from my surgery, and not recovering fully, with the possibility of rendered to a state where I’d be partially disabled. If this aspect of the past wasn’t enough to bother me, even though I recovered fully from it, thoughts of what the future possibly holds in terms of work and labour in general are sparking in my mind as well. These thoughts were also prompted from me perusing science and tech magazines and periodicals during my down time. Tinkering with and pulling the guts out of my old computer was a prompt too.

I also blame it on a program on CBC radio I was listening to yesterday for getting this all started, which was an interview with a leading intellect and authority about the very real possibilities and global impacts of the further exponential advancement of AI (artificial intelligence), cybernetics, and robotics in sectors the work force, where there are scenarios of human labour being rapidly rendered obsolete due to more efficient computers, the inexhaustibility of machine power, and the increasingly more intricate and variable operations that robots are being designed to perform. It is already making an impact now. White collar jobs are even no longer safe. There is a computerized AI ‘lawyer’ now operating in New York which can review and summarize law matters many times more faster and efficiently than any human attorney. Banks and investment firms are relying on computer algorithms more and on humans less to make many times faster than lightning quick decisions on where and how to invest capital. What does this mean for our economic system based on the need for humans to make an income to consume stuff, the distribution of wealth, and purposeful creation of services and resources to give our currencies value; our sense of welfare and job security based on employability and ridiculous standards of meritocracy, our standard of health and education and how they would radically change, our sociological and psychological well-being, or our remaining services that can’t simply be replaced by microchip loaded black boxes. What role is left for a human where the machine not only replaces the worker, but no longer is in control by a human being because of ever advancing AI? What does that all ultimately mean for whatever progress was made by the Unions and labour movement on behalf of human labourers?

Elon Musk, Stephan Hawking, and other intellects and innovators are already beginning to warn us about unchecked development and advancement of AI, and the approach of the singularity*: the point in our history, where as futurist Ray Kurzweil said, when all computer technology and their networks would be in a state of being fully integrated and able to operate autonomously. This leads to all sorts of scenarios, mostly negative, including the extreme of purposeful AI generated enslavement or extermination of human beings, like the futures in the Matrix or the Terminator movies.

There are too many questions with too many vague and abstract answers to these matters for me to entertain. If there are any positives that I’d like to see happen from the inevitable displacement of people by cybernetics it would be the following:

·         More time on our hands to create purpose in designing and building sustainable communities and environments

·         Less wasted and expended time and energy just for the sake of presenteeism

·         The reassessment of the value of the low-paying, yet intricate and essential jobs that a robot can’t do for people, like assisting sick and disabled people with heavy care needs.

·         Less accidents and injury, because robots replace humans in high risk work environments

·         More time to devote for securing and raising families better, the most essential job, instead of being divided from them all the time with commitments at work

·         A change in school curricula that teaches kids to behave like human beings, instead of preparing them to be just a bunch of hypercompetitive tools to be exploited (or exploiters) as they develop into their adulthood.

·         A radical change in a culture of elitism, with (hopefully) an implementation of UBI (Universal Basis Income) strategy to divide and distribute wealth generated by automatons.

Some of these things are just in the sky, others I’m probably looking upon naively, but whatever the case, I sense a great and massive upheaval in the very near future centred on this very issue. One that I haven’t even scratched the surface of.

*- Ray predicted that the level of technology that would allow this to happen will be available sometime between 2040 -2045, some pundits say it may happen even sooner. Whatever the case, there may be a chance that it will occur in my lifetime, thus there is merit into thinking about such matters and scenarios.