Just to let everybody know, I am trying to work on doing this on some kind of schedule but I am not quite there yet. This weekend was filled with work and this week and next look to be much the same.
While I have you here, I would like to pose a question to you all...
It has been brought to my attention that the blogs I have been writing are somewhat longer than what a lot of blogs tend to be. With that in mind, my question is this:
Would it be better, in your opinion, if I were to keep my blogs shorter? Or is what I am doing working out just fine for you?
That's all. I don't know if you answers will actually change what I am doing here but I am moderately curious. I know I can be a bit full of wind from time to time.
In other, more exciting news... Aion open beta is going on right now and I actually managed to get my hands on a key today! I have mentioned before how excited I am over the games release and getting to take part in beta testing for it is a huge win for me. If you like gaming, you should definately check it out!
That is all I have to say for the time being. Talk to you all soon!
May you be forty years in heaven before the Devil knows you're dead.
-Old Irish well wishes-
Showing posts with label Prayers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayers. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The World has issues... Episode 1...
Alrighty! This is my take on one of the ways that the World has gone all wonky!
Today's topic?... Spirituality.
It seems to me that this is one of those key elements indicative of an individual's humanity. Sadly, it seems that it is also sorely lacking throughout much of today's society.
Let me see if I can explain.
First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am not Christian.
I am also not Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist or Wiccan. Hell, if I am going to be honest here, my spirituality and beliefs fail to line up with any particular established set out there.
So where does that leave me?
Well... In most situations I use the word Pagan because it tends to cover a wide variety of belief systems, many of which I draw from in an effort to define my own spirituality. Maybe spiritualist would be a better term but I hate to come across all new agey.
The bottom line here, however, is that I am a spiritual individual. Not as deeply spiritual as I used to be but spiritual none-the-less.
Alright then... Why am I saying that spirituality is something that has gone wrong with the world?
Because it occurs to me that most people are lacking in this area. I mean, people swear to have faith and live by His word and all that but, for the most part, it appears to be an empty faith. People are told to do this, not do that and believe in this because it is what He wants. "You have to have faith," they say. "Have faith and He will deliver you."
Only on rare occasions have I met someone who truly felt and believed in all of this. More often than not, it seems, people go to church on Sunday, not because they know deep down in their souls that it is right, but because they have been told that it is right and they never thought about it again from that moment to this.
Even more distressing to me are the number of people I have seen desperately seeking for something that felt right to them and wound up clinging with all their might to the elusive olive branch offered to them from this or that religious institution. It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot.
It looks, to my eyes, as if religion has taken up a post as Keeper of the Void. People have come so very very far from our animalistic roots that something basic is now missing and rather than look deep inside of ourselves to see that void and learn best how to recapture that missing essence, we turn to religion as a crutch or a bandaid.
Now, I am not saying that religion is bad. If you have faith in something, by all means keep it close to your heart and never let anyone tell you that you are wrong. What I am saying, is that faith is not the only ingredient. There is more missing from us than words and ritual can replace.
For example, look at the food we eat. Not only is a hardy portion of it unnatural but there are words in ingredient lists that 9 out of 10 people can't even identify! And as if that weren't bad enough, those people who strive to maintain an organic diet are ridiculed for doing so. The same thing goes for vegetarians and vegans. It is more than a little bit distressing that those people who are doing their damnedest to live a healthy, natural lifestyle are being put down by people who are living lives so far removed from nature that they no longer have so much as a frame of reference.
Hell, I am as guilty of this as anyone and still it disgusts me. I really need to try to keep that in check.
Please understand that I am not a health food nut. I eat the same crap most other Americans eat. All I am saying is that I can see where the desire and need is coming from. In a way, it is almost as much a religion as Catholicism. It is choosing to live a life style based on the truths held closest to someone's heart. Seems to me as if they are more or less the same thing.
Need another example? Talk to your parents... Hell talk to THEIR parents and ask them what community means. Friends? Family? Probably not followers...
Social media is an absolutely wonderful thing but once again, it is only guarding a void.
At this point, so many people live their lives through the internet that it is a wonder anyone goes out of their houses anymore. I for one, have friends I would never have known if it weren't for this machine. I mean GODS! I live with a person I met playing World of Warcraft!
I think my Grandfather would be appalled. (Of course, he would have to bite me and get over it but that isn't the point I am trying to make today.)
When my parents grew up, their friends were the people they knew from school. Everyone was in the same geographical location and, unless they had close ties to family elsewhere, that was their world. Their family were the people related to them and that they knew in person.
Followers weren't even something that existed back then. (Unless you knew some o' them freaks up the block what wears der funny lookin' robes an' calls 'emselves the Followers o' Brother Zeke or some such nonsense. Don't go near em', don't talk to 'em, don't meet their eyes, and whatever you do, don't drink their Koolaid!)
Now each of us has a million followers on Twitter, 497 friends on Facebook and Myspace, and my family are people who are 2000 miles or more away and who I talk to once a week on a phone I keep in my pocket. Shit, I get to watch my sister grow up on Skype for fucks sake!
My community is made up of thousands of people I have never even met. Yet, I don't think that I know more than a handful of my neighbors and I have lived here for well over two years now.
Once again, let me point out that I do not mean to disparage these wonderful social networking tools we have arrayed before us. I use them daily and I have no intentions of giving them up. I am merely trying to find ways to illustrate how our spirituality is suffering from the fact that we have moved so very very far from our roots in nature.
Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Spiritualism, I think, is an extension of the closeness we feel with the world around us; An extension of our humanity and as we have grown farther and farther apart we have lost something so basic that most people don't even realize that it is missing.
Maybe it is time we stop and examine that a little bit.
I'm just sayin'.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
-John Muir, letter to J.B. McChesney, 19 September 1871-
Today's topic?... Spirituality.
It seems to me that this is one of those key elements indicative of an individual's humanity. Sadly, it seems that it is also sorely lacking throughout much of today's society.
Let me see if I can explain.
First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am not Christian.
I am also not Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist or Wiccan. Hell, if I am going to be honest here, my spirituality and beliefs fail to line up with any particular established set out there.
So where does that leave me?
Well... In most situations I use the word Pagan because it tends to cover a wide variety of belief systems, many of which I draw from in an effort to define my own spirituality. Maybe spiritualist would be a better term but I hate to come across all new agey.
The bottom line here, however, is that I am a spiritual individual. Not as deeply spiritual as I used to be but spiritual none-the-less.
Alright then... Why am I saying that spirituality is something that has gone wrong with the world?
Because it occurs to me that most people are lacking in this area. I mean, people swear to have faith and live by His word and all that but, for the most part, it appears to be an empty faith. People are told to do this, not do that and believe in this because it is what He wants. "You have to have faith," they say. "Have faith and He will deliver you."
Only on rare occasions have I met someone who truly felt and believed in all of this. More often than not, it seems, people go to church on Sunday, not because they know deep down in their souls that it is right, but because they have been told that it is right and they never thought about it again from that moment to this.
Even more distressing to me are the number of people I have seen desperately seeking for something that felt right to them and wound up clinging with all their might to the elusive olive branch offered to them from this or that religious institution. It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot.
It looks, to my eyes, as if religion has taken up a post as Keeper of the Void. People have come so very very far from our animalistic roots that something basic is now missing and rather than look deep inside of ourselves to see that void and learn best how to recapture that missing essence, we turn to religion as a crutch or a bandaid.
Now, I am not saying that religion is bad. If you have faith in something, by all means keep it close to your heart and never let anyone tell you that you are wrong. What I am saying, is that faith is not the only ingredient. There is more missing from us than words and ritual can replace.
For example, look at the food we eat. Not only is a hardy portion of it unnatural but there are words in ingredient lists that 9 out of 10 people can't even identify! And as if that weren't bad enough, those people who strive to maintain an organic diet are ridiculed for doing so. The same thing goes for vegetarians and vegans. It is more than a little bit distressing that those people who are doing their damnedest to live a healthy, natural lifestyle are being put down by people who are living lives so far removed from nature that they no longer have so much as a frame of reference.
Hell, I am as guilty of this as anyone and still it disgusts me. I really need to try to keep that in check.
Please understand that I am not a health food nut. I eat the same crap most other Americans eat. All I am saying is that I can see where the desire and need is coming from. In a way, it is almost as much a religion as Catholicism. It is choosing to live a life style based on the truths held closest to someone's heart. Seems to me as if they are more or less the same thing.
Need another example? Talk to your parents... Hell talk to THEIR parents and ask them what community means. Friends? Family? Probably not followers...
Social media is an absolutely wonderful thing but once again, it is only guarding a void.
At this point, so many people live their lives through the internet that it is a wonder anyone goes out of their houses anymore. I for one, have friends I would never have known if it weren't for this machine. I mean GODS! I live with a person I met playing World of Warcraft!
I think my Grandfather would be appalled. (Of course, he would have to bite me and get over it but that isn't the point I am trying to make today.)
When my parents grew up, their friends were the people they knew from school. Everyone was in the same geographical location and, unless they had close ties to family elsewhere, that was their world. Their family were the people related to them and that they knew in person.
Followers weren't even something that existed back then. (Unless you knew some o' them freaks up the block what wears der funny lookin' robes an' calls 'emselves the Followers o' Brother Zeke or some such nonsense. Don't go near em', don't talk to 'em, don't meet their eyes, and whatever you do, don't drink their Koolaid!)
Now each of us has a million followers on Twitter, 497 friends on Facebook and Myspace, and my family are people who are 2000 miles or more away and who I talk to once a week on a phone I keep in my pocket. Shit, I get to watch my sister grow up on Skype for fucks sake!
My community is made up of thousands of people I have never even met. Yet, I don't think that I know more than a handful of my neighbors and I have lived here for well over two years now.
Once again, let me point out that I do not mean to disparage these wonderful social networking tools we have arrayed before us. I use them daily and I have no intentions of giving them up. I am merely trying to find ways to illustrate how our spirituality is suffering from the fact that we have moved so very very far from our roots in nature.
Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Spiritualism, I think, is an extension of the closeness we feel with the world around us; An extension of our humanity and as we have grown farther and farther apart we have lost something so basic that most people don't even realize that it is missing.
Maybe it is time we stop and examine that a little bit.
I'm just sayin'.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
-John Muir, letter to J.B. McChesney, 19 September 1871-
Sunday, August 30, 2009
And for tonights dinner...
We have Venison Sauce and Pasta!
This sauce came out differently from my usual sauce. Which I suppose makes a degree of sense when you consider I didn't make it anything like the sauce I generally make.
Tonight we started at around 11am my slowly torturing myself. No wait! I mean slowly caramelizing 3 medium onions. The torture was merely a by-product of being unallowed to eat the onions while having to smell them cook. (In case it isn't abundantly clear, I have a great love for onions done this way.)
From there we add the freshly thawed venison. For those of you who have never had venison you are missing out. For those of you who want to talk to me about Bambi, FUCK YOU! I mean, uh, you are missing out too and I would appreciate it if you keep your silly ass, Disney fanatic comments to yourself.
Venison cooks up like beef but has its own unique flavor. It should be said that venison does NOT taste "gamey". The gamey taste come when an animal is shot but not taken down right away. The adrenaline floods the animals blood flow and thereby winds up suffusing the meat. When an animal, in this case a deer, is taken down cleanly, the adrenaline never has a chance to sour the meat. What you wind up with is a very fresh tasting red meat that can be handled similarly to beef but imparts a slightly different taste that is a pleasure to the taste buds.
Sorry... Couldn't stop the tirade there.
Moving right along...
The venison was added to the newly caramelized onions and allowed to cook thoroughly before being drained of most of the grease that had cooked out of it.
After that we started adding tomatoes.
Now, by all accounts, I make some pretty damned amazing tomato sauces but i was working with a different meat here and therefore a different flavor. Not having used venison in this capacity before I had no idea where we were going to wind up, but I did have a pretty clear idea of the direction I wanted to take it in.
After adding a can of diced tomatoes (drained... I didn't want all that juice in there at this point), I started with seasoning things up.
I added some lemon pepper to give things a nice round tang.
Garlic to give it some garlic.
Garlic powder because I ran out of garlic.
A blend of red and black pepper to give things some kick because I was upset at having just polished off the garlic powder as well.
Cayenne pepper, because the red and black hadn't quite done enough to mollify me.
Then I rounded things off with a generous helping of parsley flakes, oregano and dill.
I am sure there were some other things in there too but off the top of my head, that is as complete a list as I can come up with.
I stirred it up and let all that simmer for a little while before moving forward with more tomatoes.
This time I added some more drained diced tomatoes and some dice tomatoes with chilies that I left the juice in. (Partially because I was at the point where i wanted some more moisture and partially because I didn't want to loose any of that chili infused flavor!)
Once again, we let that come to a simmer and basked in the slightly acidic aroma of a project well under way.
After a good fifteen minutes or so (and after watching Julia Roberts portray a character trying to impersonate Julia Roberts... My brain melted a little bit in there somewhere) we added a little bit of brown sugar to bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes and to kill off a little bit of the acidity. Generally I use a bit more than I did this time but, as I said before, this time we were aiming for something different so I didn't want to over sweeten it.
We let the sugar cook into what we had for a while then we added a good sized can of crushed tomatoes.
Finally our sauce was about to become more recognizable as sauce and no longer just a bunch of crap in a pan with meat.
Around now was also when I said to myself, "Oh shit! Bay leaves!" and dashed off to the pantry to get several to add hastily lest I be made fun of for forgetting. Again.
Here comes the slow part. Once things came to a simmer I had to back the heat down as far as I could while keeping it bubbling. Several hours like this and the flavors had begun to marry into something very much like the final goal I had outlined for myself.
Finally, around 4pm (5 hours after we have started, lest we forget) I added in two small cans of tomato paste to start pulling things together.
Around 4:30 we added in some cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. Now, for those who don't know me or who are unfamiliar with my cooking... Just about EVERYTHING needs to touch cheese at some point in its life or it can't be considered done. Much like the way that anything that has ever lived near a pig can be added to and considered part of sausage.
5 o'clock rolls around and we throw on some pasta to cook and at 5:30 dinner is served.
Now, as I look back at this post and read it over, it occurs to me that many of you will be trying to duplicate this and will assume that I forgot to mention salt and therefore will be adding some yourself at some point along the way...
DON'T!
Salt isn't something I just conveniently forgot to mention. I honestly didn't use any. All the flavors combined into something that carried itself just fine without it. If it is a concern for you, I suggest putting a shaker or mill at the tabe and allowing everyone to salt to taste. It is already pretty close to where most people are going to want it to be.
Now, because I feel it deserves to be mentioned (and if you don't then to hell with you), I served this dish on plates with some shredded mozzarella on top and some chopped green onions to garnish. I like to serve food that looks as good as I hope it tastes so I generally try to make things at least moderately pretty.
So, that is more or less what my day today consisted of. I share this with you all because, well, I want to and since you are still reading I am hoping you aren't too terribly pissed off at me for doing so.
I am going to leave you with a prayer. (Insert maniacal and infectious laughter here from anyone who knows me.)
Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with Give us pasta with a hundred fillings.
-Robert Farrar Capon-
This sauce came out differently from my usual sauce. Which I suppose makes a degree of sense when you consider I didn't make it anything like the sauce I generally make.
Tonight we started at around 11am my slowly torturing myself. No wait! I mean slowly caramelizing 3 medium onions. The torture was merely a by-product of being unallowed to eat the onions while having to smell them cook. (In case it isn't abundantly clear, I have a great love for onions done this way.)
From there we add the freshly thawed venison. For those of you who have never had venison you are missing out. For those of you who want to talk to me about Bambi, FUCK YOU! I mean, uh, you are missing out too and I would appreciate it if you keep your silly ass, Disney fanatic comments to yourself.
Venison cooks up like beef but has its own unique flavor. It should be said that venison does NOT taste "gamey". The gamey taste come when an animal is shot but not taken down right away. The adrenaline floods the animals blood flow and thereby winds up suffusing the meat. When an animal, in this case a deer, is taken down cleanly, the adrenaline never has a chance to sour the meat. What you wind up with is a very fresh tasting red meat that can be handled similarly to beef but imparts a slightly different taste that is a pleasure to the taste buds.
Sorry... Couldn't stop the tirade there.
Moving right along...
The venison was added to the newly caramelized onions and allowed to cook thoroughly before being drained of most of the grease that had cooked out of it.
After that we started adding tomatoes.
Now, by all accounts, I make some pretty damned amazing tomato sauces but i was working with a different meat here and therefore a different flavor. Not having used venison in this capacity before I had no idea where we were going to wind up, but I did have a pretty clear idea of the direction I wanted to take it in.
After adding a can of diced tomatoes (drained... I didn't want all that juice in there at this point), I started with seasoning things up.
I added some lemon pepper to give things a nice round tang.
Garlic to give it some garlic.
Garlic powder because I ran out of garlic.
A blend of red and black pepper to give things some kick because I was upset at having just polished off the garlic powder as well.
Cayenne pepper, because the red and black hadn't quite done enough to mollify me.
Then I rounded things off with a generous helping of parsley flakes, oregano and dill.
I am sure there were some other things in there too but off the top of my head, that is as complete a list as I can come up with.
I stirred it up and let all that simmer for a little while before moving forward with more tomatoes.
This time I added some more drained diced tomatoes and some dice tomatoes with chilies that I left the juice in. (Partially because I was at the point where i wanted some more moisture and partially because I didn't want to loose any of that chili infused flavor!)
Once again, we let that come to a simmer and basked in the slightly acidic aroma of a project well under way.
After a good fifteen minutes or so (and after watching Julia Roberts portray a character trying to impersonate Julia Roberts... My brain melted a little bit in there somewhere) we added a little bit of brown sugar to bring out the sweetness of the tomatoes and to kill off a little bit of the acidity. Generally I use a bit more than I did this time but, as I said before, this time we were aiming for something different so I didn't want to over sweeten it.
We let the sugar cook into what we had for a while then we added a good sized can of crushed tomatoes.
Finally our sauce was about to become more recognizable as sauce and no longer just a bunch of crap in a pan with meat.
Around now was also when I said to myself, "Oh shit! Bay leaves!" and dashed off to the pantry to get several to add hastily lest I be made fun of for forgetting. Again.
Here comes the slow part. Once things came to a simmer I had to back the heat down as far as I could while keeping it bubbling. Several hours like this and the flavors had begun to marry into something very much like the final goal I had outlined for myself.
Finally, around 4pm (5 hours after we have started, lest we forget) I added in two small cans of tomato paste to start pulling things together.
Around 4:30 we added in some cheddar and mozzarella cheeses. Now, for those who don't know me or who are unfamiliar with my cooking... Just about EVERYTHING needs to touch cheese at some point in its life or it can't be considered done. Much like the way that anything that has ever lived near a pig can be added to and considered part of sausage.
5 o'clock rolls around and we throw on some pasta to cook and at 5:30 dinner is served.
Now, as I look back at this post and read it over, it occurs to me that many of you will be trying to duplicate this and will assume that I forgot to mention salt and therefore will be adding some yourself at some point along the way...
DON'T!
Salt isn't something I just conveniently forgot to mention. I honestly didn't use any. All the flavors combined into something that carried itself just fine without it. If it is a concern for you, I suggest putting a shaker or mill at the tabe and allowing everyone to salt to taste. It is already pretty close to where most people are going to want it to be.
Now, because I feel it deserves to be mentioned (and if you don't then to hell with you), I served this dish on plates with some shredded mozzarella on top and some chopped green onions to garnish. I like to serve food that looks as good as I hope it tastes so I generally try to make things at least moderately pretty.
So, that is more or less what my day today consisted of. I share this with you all because, well, I want to and since you are still reading I am hoping you aren't too terribly pissed off at me for doing so.
I am going to leave you with a prayer. (Insert maniacal and infectious laughter here from anyone who knows me.)
Give us this day our daily taste. Restore to us soups that spoons will not sink in and sauces which are never the same twice. Raise up among us stews with more gravy than we have bread to blot it with Give us pasta with a hundred fillings.
-Robert Farrar Capon-
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