Tonight one of the problems of being an atheist was brought to the forefront of my mind. You see, being an atheist is a serious problem when one of your friends has some kind of difficulty. Anyone else can say, “I’ll pray for your safety” and their commitment is pretty much taken care of. But what have I got?

What the other friend has said is, “Your plight is so bad that I’m going to call in the aid of an all-powerful deity to make sure that everything works out in the end.”

What I have is something akin to, “I’ll give you some thought, but that’s about it because you’re really far away.”

So, when I read a post about someone’s neighbor holed up with a gun in an apartment mere yards away, the believer gets to unleash a deity to cover them with a divine flak jacket until the morning.

Meanwhile, I look up a streaming police scanner in the hopes of finding out just what the fuck is going on, since the cops are obviously a little too occupied to go around reassuring the other residents.

But here’s the other odd thing. Say another friend posts about Mittens having ear mites again. And here comes the believer with a plea to some divine being to make the poor little kitty better. Really? I don’t think the creator needs to get involved in something that can be sorted out with a bottle of eardrops and some Q-tips. But I know if I mention the overkill of calling in god I’ll never hear the end of it. Instead, I give advice about using a headlamp while cleaning Mitten’s ears and hope everything works out.

Granted, to the outside observer the believer’s “I’ll pray for you” and my “hope everything turns out okay” look almost identical. (Okay, the believer might have some muttering with words like “thy” and “art,” but that’s the only measurable difference.)  However, the “pray” sentiment has more cultural currency than my firm hope that nothing bad happens.

Consequently, I rarely say anything when people mention their hardships. I’m always worried about starting some religious fight on someone’s wall while trying to be supportive without flat out lying. But sometimes it’s hard not having that easy out of “I’ll pray for you.”

Before I go on I do have a bit of a confession, I have a bit of an obsession with shoes. I have lots of pairs of shoes. I think I have more shoes than my wife does at this point. So, any chance to get a new pair of oddball shoes is pretty exciting. With that being said, on with my discussion.

I got a pair of the Crocs Bistro clogs for class the other day. I’ve had some off brand Crocs before, that were pretty nice until the foam started to deteriorate and the shoes became a bit sloppy, but before that they were fairly comfortable. Frankly, I was tired of wearing leather boots into a kitchen in the middle of summer and wanted something a bit cooler to wear, and Crocs are sufficiently peculiar to make me happy.

The fit on these things is a little bit odd. Clogs nearly always feel like they are going to fall off of my feet. However, with the strap down, I can’t get the Bistro to go anywhere, which is pretty nice. The strap doesn’t really rest on my ankle, but hangs out waiting for its chance to be useful. The loose feeling didn’t take too long to get used to, maybe an hour, and after that my brain accepted that my shoes weren’t going anywhere I didn’t want them to.

The Bistro has an oddly patterned sole that is meant to be slip resistant, and so far it has performed like a champ. Granted, the kitchen I work in is probably cleaner than nearly any other professional kitchen out there, but the floor still gets wet and I’ve yet to feel my footing was compromised. The only place I felt myself slide a bit was on the ramp coming out of the walk-in cooler. But once stainless steel gets wet, you’re sliding no matter what you are wearing.

My biggest concern with the Bistro is the fact it is a completely closed toe clog, no vents at all. The closed toe is important because nothing brings down a day like spilling boiling milk right onto your exposed feet, but that also means your feet are encased in closed cell foam. I tend to be a fairly sweaty guy (I’m sure you wanted to know that), and so the plastic wrapped feet were definitely a concern. So far, however, the shoes haven’t proven to be unforgiving in terms of ventilation. On reviewer elsewhere said he’s socks were damp just sitting at the computer. If that’s the case, he must have SCARY sweaty feet, as I have not experienced anything like that.

I’m not sure where to place the comfort of these shoes. I spend most of my time outside of class in shoes that are the equivalent of being barefoot, so anything with a sole greater than a quarter inch feels a little weird. That, and the first day I wore them was the first full 10 hour day of class, which is a hard task for any shoe to master. My feet hurt that day, but I’m not sure it would have mattered much what I was wearing.

In the grand scheme of things, I think these were a worthwhile pair of shoes. They’re comfortable and keep me from falling on my ass. Plus they clean up with a hose, something my Doc Martens can’t claim.

Another video of me more or less talking to myself about my class. A brief discussion of mixing methods and how to bake an apple pie. Lots of ums and ahs, sorry about that.

So, I made a half recipe of Baklava and a Morrocan dish called B’stilla Bhedren (sp). Below are pictures of both, but I’m only posting the recipe for the Baklava as the B’stilla came from the book Cooking at the Casbah.

Phyllo dough was a bit of a bother to work with because the sheets were fairly temperamental and would crack or tear on a whim. Butter is brushed between each layer of phyllo and the subsequent layer of phyllo really liked to latch onto that butter, so failure to drop the dough right where it needed to be meant further danger of scooting things around and tearing. On the bright side, most things involving phyllo dough use lots of layers (Baklava starts with ten), which means a little tear isn’t a big deal as long as you orient the next piece so no other tears line up. While that may sound like a bit of a dodge, really no one will no if some of the dough is a little cracked, as long as the top piece looks good. The whole point behind all of these layers of this incredibly thin dough is to create a crunchy, flaky crust, so the first time someone inserts a fork or knife the stuff shatters, hiding any evidence of a dodgy layer of dough.

One big piece of baklava

Not Quite Baklava

2 oz Macadamia nuts

6 oz pecans

Confectioners sugar

7 sheets phyllo dough

honey

Lemon juice

cinnamon stick

Melted butter

I’ve been sitting on this post for probably a month. I keep forgetting to put in the instructions for how to make it. I think I’m not particularly inclined because I discovered I don’t really like baklava. I’ll get the instructions up at some point, I’m sure.

B'Stilla: Kind of like a sweet chicken pot pie

The Chicken B’stilla was really quite tasty. The chicken and turmeric flavors really played well off of each other. I would post the recipe and how to make this, but that seems a little rude since I pulled it straight our of Kitty Morse’s cookbook.

And as an FYI if you are going to garnish with 10X sugar, sift it first, otherwise it looks just like my picture.

Salmon with quinoa

Salmon filet

olive oil

maple syrup

sea salt

lemon pepper

Pre-heat oven to 425. Lightly coat salmon with olive oil then drizzle maple syrup and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake on a cedar plank for 10 minutes or until salmon starts to flake with a fork.

Another nice and easy seafood recipe. The cedar planks are usually used for grilling, but I didn’t feel like fighting with charcoal so I just stuck this in the oven. I could have broiled it instead, but that would involve me flipping the salmon over halfway through. I don’t like flipping anything on the cedar planks as I’m always worried it’s going to stick. If it sticks when I’m serving, I can probably save it, but if it sticks while I’m turning and I still have to serve it, my chances of having a presentable bit of food drop pretty quickly.

Sea Scallops with couscous and salad

2-4 green onions

Clarified butter

4 Sea Scallops

1/2 c honey

juice from 1/2 lemon

1/4 c almonds

Saute the onions in the clarified butter until they start to caramelize. Add the Scallops to the same pan and sear on one side. Mix together the honey, lemon and almonds. Add the honey mixture to the pan when turning the scallops. Simmer until the sauce starts to thicken.

I made this recipe after I got my copy of the Flavor Bible. A cool book that doesn’t have any recipes, just a list of ingredients and flavors that go well together. So, I took my main ingredient of Scallops and cross-referenced stuff that played nice. My version was a little different, in that I used the juice from a whole lemon, which didn’t want to reduce very quickly and I was afraid I would end up with overcooked scallops before the sauce was thick enough. I figure dropping half of the lemon juice will maintain the flavor while giving the sauce a little more substance so it doesn’t get all over the place.

The Eristic lie describes the universe as it appears: random and chaotic. All we need as evidence of the lack of a pattern is a weather map. No clear edges to storm fronts, no uniformity to temperature or rainfall, just random spikes of wind, rain, and sun.

Of course, we can’t forget that the Eristic lie is a lie. Go back to the same weather map and look at it over time and patterns do emerge. Patterns, but not steps. As we gain data the patterns become clearer and soon we can make educated guesses about tomorrow’s weather, but they remain guesses.

I’ve found that an awareness of, or affinity for, the Eristic lie has proven to be advantageous in cooking. Foods cook at different rates and reach doneness at specific times that a chef or cook must attempt to reconcile these time discrepancies in order for food to arrive in a suitably small window.

Cooking times are chaotic. When preparing a meal for dozens of people, the nature of what happens next after any one action in the kitchen can be a bit overwhelming; a random sample of short and long cooktimes with multiple complicated steps of prep-work interspersed. Cooking seems to be another example of the universe’s Eristic nature, but remember, the Eristic lie is still a lie.

Step back and look at the whole project. What are the parts? Where are the holes? Yes, the cooktimes are random when looked at side by side, but time is linear (at least, we can only perceive time as linear) so why stack times like Legos when they should be beads on a string? By acknowledging the chaos, we can start to see a pattern. Not a pattern we necessarily want, but the pattern that already exists.

And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, abstaining from divisive speech, abstaining from abusive speech, abstaining from idle chatter: This, monks, is called right speech. SN 45 Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Right Speech is probably one of the easiest parts of the path to contemplate. First, don’t lie. Lies nearly always end poorly. Lies complicate ones life to an absurd degree, even if the lie does not cause any apparent harm, there is still the problem of keeping track of who knows what.

When we speak what we say should be beneficial, or put another way, we should talk about things that help people rather than injure them. Refraining from gossip is probably the most obvious way to perform this facet of right speech. Not only does gossip do injury to the person talked about, it injures the person gossiping. When we spend our time talking ill of other people we are focusing on things that upset us or annoy us. Gossip forces us to look for the unseemly in the world. In doing so, we become more unseemly.

That which is endearing improves the world we live in. Does this mean we should only say nice things to people? Certainly not, but criticism should be given in a spirit of charity, not as a way to degrade someone. Frankly, the world is full of horrible things and people, right speech asks us to help them out of their despair, not make it worse with harsh language.

Of course, propriety is also important. Telling the world that a woman used to beat her children, which is why they hadn’t talked to her in years at the woman’s funeral is inappropriate and useless. Timing is difficult no matter what you have to say. Despite the fact what you have to say is beneficial and true, if it is said at the wrong time, nothing will be gained.

I really do think that right speech is probably one of the easiest of the Noble Eightfold Path to perform, and also one of the most important. Your speech is everyone’s first impression of you. While it is certainly true that actions speak louder than words, your words are what people take away most readily.

For some reason, whenever I attempt to remember all of the parts to the path I can only reliably remember view, action, speech, and livelihood. (I cheated up above and looked them up here.) I think I only remember those few because these particular domains are of a particularly physical nature, and thus a little more rooted in my present reality. In order to correct this problem and help cement the rest of the path in my head I’m going to write some comments over the course of the next few weeks concerning each of the steps of the eightfold path, starting with the ones I know and moving onward.

But right now, grading must be done.