And what, monks, is right action? Abstaining from taking life, abstaining from stealing, abstaining from unchastity: This, monks, is called right action. SN 45 Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Another of the rather physical portions of the Noble Eightfold Path is Right Action. For the most part Right Action is also fairly easy to achieve, kind of. When the Buddha says “Abstain from taking life,” he means all life, which is why a vast number of Buddhists are vegetarian. Of course, some Buddhists are not vegetarian, including the Dalai Lama and Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha himself. In some respects, certain parts of Buddhism lean towards a Deontological ethics. What matters most is the person applying their ethical nature to a situation. So here, it is wrong for the practitioner to take life, but not wrong that life has been taken. My abstinence from eating meat alters the death of a chicken only if I have convinced everyone else to no longer eat chicken. I know that situation sounds a bit like a dodge, but it does have a certain degree of sense to it. Broadly speaking, we should not harm, nor cause harm to be done, to living things. And that puts another wrinkle in the ethical situation. I can eat the chicken from the store with a clear conscience, as long as I don’t specially request a certain chicken to be killed for me to eat, which really sounds like splitting hairs, but there is a difference. In the first situation the animal is dead, nothing I do will alter that fact. In the second, the animal is alive and through my actions I have altered that fact.

Killing might also fall into the category of theft. One of the other instances of the Buddha talking about Right Action he refers to theft as “taking what is not given,” which I think might be a little clearer definition. Though I don wonder what the Buddha’s thoughts on assisted suicide might have been. After all, at that point, nothing is being taken that has not been given. Who knows?

We should also avoid “unchastity.” I believe that part is also translated as “sexual immorality” elsewhere. The Buddha leaves this bit more than a little vague for anyone not a monk. (Monk=no sex) However, in a different Sutta Thanissaro Bikkhu has a passage that has some slightly more specific prohibitions. The way I see it the prohibitions still fall under the “do not take what is not given.”  The Sutta specifically mentions sex with those under the care of another (parents or spouse) in that sense, their body isn’t really theirs to “give,” which simplifies matters. While not specifically mentioned, I think it is well within the realm of good sense to include the infirm in this prohibition, as well. After all, they are incapable of consent (like a child) so can, in fact, not “give” anything.

Like most things in Buddhism the general rule applies that if your actions will make your life suck, or the lives of those around you, you probably shouldn’t do it. The Buddha is intentionally vague about those action (barring killing and stealing) because cultures change and what is problematic in one may not be so in another. What we should do is look at our own lives. The last time we did action “x” what happened? Are we happy with that outcome? If not, don’t do it again. Easy enough. Until you are doing it.

The pattern is pretty simple:

• Day 1: Footwork
• Day 2: Weight training
• Day 3: Blade work
• Day 4: Technical training
• Day 5: Cardio

Koby’s footwork suggestion was three 10 minute bursts of a particular foot work pattern that slowly increased in speed, with each successive pattern becoming more complicated.

For me, I tried to focus on the smooth transition from one particular piece of footwork to another. For example, I started with three advances followed by two retreats (as suggested). Unconsciously, I tend to pause at the beat between advance and retreat, which is pretty much crap, and where I get touched. So, I tried to make that direction change as “in time” as possible. I think I was getting a little better at it near the end of the ten minutes.

The other thing I noticed was that footwork drills for ten minutes suck. Doing the same thing over and over for that long gets a little boring. And why do most people quit an exercise program? Because they get bored. So, for the next rounds I dropped it to five, which seemed long enough to get tired and stop thinking about what I was doing, but short enough to not annoy me to death.

I also must note, my lunges still suck. But I have all summer to deal with that.

Day 2 is meant to be weight training. I have a ridiculous amount of heavy things to pick up and put down around the house, but, again, the idea of 45 minutes of lifting weights is incredibly dull. Instead of dead lifting things I mowed the lawn and cleared weeds from the driveway (which is about the right size and shape to be a fencing strip) and then came in and did a couple Sun Salutes, which kicked my ass more than they should. After that I did some fairly basic leg stretches. My intention on subsequent weeks is to increase the diversity of yoga used as well as including some lankahs from Silat and knee walking from Aikido, both of which should increase my lunge distance and stability.

Today is bladework/point control. My new sabre is supposed to be delivered today, so now all I really need to do is find something to stab. I may swap back and forth between foil and sabre if for no other reason I’ve noticed most of the sabrists I deal with are accustomed to just using the edge of the blade and when the point is used they get a bit confused. I may as well take advantage of that.

My biggest concern is to make sure I don’t get bored, which happens so easily. And 60 days is a long time.

Start to finish: 1+ hours (active time @10 minutes)

Servings: 8+

Ingredients:

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup honey

2/3 can whole cranberrys

1/4 teaspoon curry powder

1 bag shredded cabbage

Method:

Um, not really rocket science here. In a large mixing bowl combine everything but cabbage until fairly consistent, then toss with the cabbage. Let rest in the fridge for at least an hour.

Comments:

I came up with this after one of my culinary classes on meat fabrication (of all things). The instructor was really fixated on creating a variety of slaws to compliment the meat entree. So, I thought I’d give a cranberry slaw a run when making turkey cutlets one day. I personally think the addition of curry powder really makes this recipe stand out.

I have to say, I’m not really a fan of the cranberry jelly. I would prefer to use something like frozen cranberries, but those don’t seem to be available year round or in all locations, so the canned stuff it is. I’m also not a fan of the fact that a chunk of the can gets thrown out (or used for something else). But as it stands this recipe makes somewhere around 8 servings. Adding in the whole can of cranberries is just going to make the dressing really runny.

Obviously you can shred your own cabbage (I think it’s somewhere between 5-6 cups) I’m just lazy.

One of the most important things to happen is the fact I left the Culinary program I was a part of. Largely I bailed because the idea of working 10-12 hours a day six days a week for the next 30 years didn’t really appeal to me. Couple that little fact with the fact I was in classes with people who really just irritated me, and a strategic retreat was the best option.

You see the idea of going through Culinary school to be a cook in someone else’s restaurant is, frankly, a little silly. But the work involved with starting my own restaurant is not only silly but ridiculous. I love the idea of learning all of the “secret” stuff of being a chef, but the possible outcomes are things I don’t want to consider. As a consequence I’m going to stick to things like the Stella Culinary Podcast where I can learn all of the cool stuff I want to know for free, and if I suck at any particular technique, no one needs to know. Honestly, a win/win all around. Plus, Chef Jacob is way more entertaining and informative than most of my in person instructors ever were.

However, I still love cooking. So, I intend to keep on doing so and posting more of my recipes and such here.

I have a sneaking suspicion posts will be a bit more free-form until I get settled into something else, but we’ll see.

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.