tylik

Hey, who all is going to SICB?


(Me. I am going.)


This used to be so much easier prior to the undeath of Twitter. I'd still be posting multiple places, but this is kind of ridiculous.

I've been thinking about writing periodically (er, most likely with a Poisson distribution) about things I like. And I have this whole list in my head, but one of the more recent ones is Straight White American Jesus.

It's largely about White Christian Nationalism (yes, I kind of like saying Christo-Fascism more, but I'm a known bitch). From two former evangelical ministers turned scholars of religion who are willing and able to critique their former sects. It's not entirely even - there's a big attempt to slow down and make things relatable, and aimed towards people who aren't academics. I can't really say how well that goes - maybe pretty well? But I am an academic, and there are times I feel like I'd like the aimed at academic version, TYVM.

That being said, I mostly enjoy it. There are a number of interviews with authors and scholars, and some of those have been great (I really enjoyed the one about Asian American college admissions.) There's also a ongoing series called "It's in the code," which is about a lot of the coded language and concepts inside evangelical culture, which has been at times fascinated.

One of the things that was brought up in one of the segments - I forget which one, but could probably find it, wait, I think it might have been in the coding for what non denominational means - is how the anti-clericalism that was part of many of the more extreme protestant groups fed into the anti intellectual sentiment that you see broadly in American culture. This has been percolating in my head for the last bit - especially with some of the anti-science discussion one sees. (There's some particular gruesome stuff going on related to the shooting on campus on Monday, because the grad student who shot his advisor did his undergrad in Wuhan, so something something covid conspiracy.)

Does anyone know what to do about an incomplete import from LJ?

I was just going over some history... and noticed that a bunch of posts were missing. (All of December 2005, for instance.) I've never killed my LJ, so they're all over there... but I don't know if a reimportation will work, or just totally bork my journal. Anyone

On the self-proclaimed inferiority of men.
(a rant)

With the leaked draft aimed at overturning Roe, there's been a lot of talk about the usual suspects - by which I mean christian conservatives, especially rich white ones, and the politicos who have been using banning abortion as a carrot to keep their plebes in line. And really, here we are with a majority of justices on the court who lied to congress about their take on Roe to get their current jobs, two of whom are well documented as not having respect for the bodily autonomy of women in a deeply personal sense.

We know these folks. I learned about them in the eighties, mostly, being a bit too young before then. (And, well, the eighties.) They're pretty much the old white guy in the monster mask from all the scooby doo shows.

I want to talk about another group of people who may or may not have a problem with abortion per se, but find the idea of it not being an option for women actively pleasant.( Read more... )

I just posted a bunch of recipes on my friend Cindy's page, so I'm going to re-post them here. (The first and last are summer favorites, they're all garden themed, and bread salad is a great thing for folks who have been baking and done make it all the way through their bread.) I'm being super undisciplined about amounts but if you have questions, ask?

Yum Woon Sen
(from memory, used to make this all the time...)

- Soak your glass noodles
- Cook your protein of choice (finely cut chicken or beef is most common (I used to use lentils and quinoa when vegetarian) with onions and garlic, and some minced lemon grass and galangal if you have it handy.
- Add noodles, and soy sauce and/or fish sauce to taste (and a little extra water or broth if the noodles need it) cook until tender, adding chopped green onion partly through
- Remove from heat, and add handfuls of coarsely chopped basil, cilantro, mint and lime juice.
- Correct seasonings, and then dress with a bit of toasted rice powder and a sprig of fresh herbs on top
Can be served warm, or cold.

Mousaka (okay, a bit more of a winter thing, maybe?)

- Chop and cook an onion. Saute ground lamb (or beef...) in the same pan.
- Add garlic, paprika (a minced red pepper won't be amiss, either), oregan, a touch of cinnamon, a bunch of chopped tomatoes, and a few glugs of red wine. Let it simmer to make a nice sauce.
- Now, you basically build a lasagne with the above sauce and long strips of veggies. Eggplants are a must, and if you're being a purist, just use eggplants. But you can work some layers of summer squash, jerusalem artichokes, potatoes - whatevs. It's super flexible. A little sauce on the bottom (just so things don't stick, a layer of eggplant, a layer of sauce, rinse, repeat.
- (Often, if I'm not using any starchy veggies, I'll mix a bunch of rice into the sauce.)
- Top with bechamel, stick it in the oven. (45 minutes at 375, maybe? It depends on how much you make. I often made this in my brick oven...)
...and, not only is it dinner with just a salad, but it makes great leftovers.
- Do not undercook the eggplant. If in doubt, cook it some more. Millions of the children of hippies were traumatized by undercooked eggplant, which is an abomination against nature!

Bread salad

Have you been baking? Do you not always finish your bread? This is one of the classic ways of coping. Look, the idea of bread salad is pretty much like a pasta salad, in that it's really about theme and variations, rather than specific ingredients.

Except, I almost don't want to say that because there are so many really gross pasta salads in the world. So, here's a basic one.

-Take some chunks of dried out bread. Not only dried out bread, but a good sturdy peasant bread, dried out. (A nice dense sourdough works great. Keep in mind that traditionally there's a whole cuisine around stale bread.) Soak it in water. Then wring it out to get most of the water out. (This is why you need it to be bread of substance. Light puffy white bread will just fall apart.) Pull apart into bite sized chunks.
- Meanwhile chop up a bunch of pepperoncinis. Grab some marinated artichoke hearts (slice them finer if needed). Throw some capers in there. Chop up an onion. If you the sharpness of fresh onion isn't your thing, put it with the other sour things, and add some balsamic vinegar - it will tame the onion. (If you like your onions fresh and sharp, keep them to the side.) Be generous!
- Mix the above stuff together with the bread chunks. Keep mixing, while drizzling with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and salt (if you haven't already added it.) Throw in a big handful of coarsely chopped basil and fresh ground black pepper. Sample as you do this - It should be flavorful, but not a sodden mess.
For a cold lunch, this mixes very well with canned tuna or salmon. (Though if I'm making a bunch, I never add the fish until right before I eat it.)
...sun dried tomatoes are also great. Or grilled red peppers. Or... well, you get the idea. And you can take this is so many directions - I had an autumnal bread salad with winter squash and green olives, years back, that was particularly memorable.

Anyone interested in playing a game with neural nets? Particularly, in getting them to come up with rousing speeches exhorting us to stand firm and be brave during battle? Have any favorite books, plays, movies, or historical scenes in which such things happen?

I'm looking to put together a collection of rousing speeches before battle, historical or fictional, for Janelle Shane (for neural net knitting fame) to train a neural net on. This insanity will only work if we get enough contributions. The project is described more below - please share!

https://diasp.org/posts/033c43b02ee601377fc4047d7b62795e

Anyone who is not aware of the macabre but wonderful best carcass hashtag trending on twitter right now is missing a hell of a show. (Biologists have the best twitter wars.)

https://twitter.com/hashtag/bestcarcass?src=hash

(It is possible that I think I have too many friends and am trying to get rid of some. This is exactly what is sounds like, plus weird inappropriate biologist humor.)

Apparently I totally overlooked my 14th LJ-versary.

*blink*

(I am still a firm believer in the LJ/DW renaissance. Also, I mostly post under filters - part of why I like the platform. So.)

So since last time around I was just playing and having fun (the soup was awesome, and I enjoyed cups of it for the next few days, but it was composed, and not the most minimalist version of itself) I decided to focus on two things: getting a somewhat thicker consistency, and going for simple.

If you can chop vegetables, and have a soy milk maker, you can make this soup, and it is fabulous.

What I did:

Chop up two medium leeks¹
Chop 6 smallish yellow finn potatoes²

Okay, really, I chopped up the leeks, and then I added potatoes until the chopped veggies filled the soy milk maker more or less to the water line.

Pour a generous amount of olive oil over the whole thing (1-2 T?)

Fill with water to the higher water line. Put on the cover/grinder piece, and start on the porridge setting.

When it beeps, add salt and lemon to taste, and garnish with fresh herbs if you're feeling fancy. (I add salt and lemon right before I eat it, not to the quantity, the rest of which is now in my refrigerator. Except I think I need a second bowl. Ah, bliss.)

¹ Usually after I remove the rooty bits on the bottoms and the tough upper leaves, I'll cut them open lengthwise to see if any dirt has gotten inside, and then wash them further if needed.
² I didn't remove the skins. Flavor and vitamins, I say! Also, laziness!

A couple of days ago a friend posted about making juk (or jook, or congee - savory rice porridge goes by many names.) And I was reminded that my soy milk maker makes any entirely decent juk within its limitations, and its limitations work very well for me. It will not support all varieties of juk - it's probably best to think of it as a cooking blender. But as I'm making vegetarian versions anyway, and I'm just cooking for me, it's wonderful. I just finished a bowl made with this recipe:

Into the soymilk maker went

1.5 cups uncooked rice (brown basmati, because it was on hand)
a few cloves garlic
a couple of slices ginger
a couple of walnut sized chunks of miso
several fresh shiitake mushrooms.

Water was added to the marked line (About 1.5 liters total?) and the porridge setting on the machine punched.

When it came out, I added a handful of chopped jiucai, a bit of salt, a bit of lemon, and some pepper oil.

The big limitation is that you can't simmer things that you don't want pulverized (or, as in the case of ham bones, that the machine can't pulverize). And the texture of the rice is much smoother - you don't get that halfway dissolved texture that I so lovingly recall. I can imagine that a crafty person who lived alone could make stock some yummy broths, and then use them in place of water to make a nice fresh bowl of juk as needed, though. ...that it's so little work when I'm not feeling so great, or am short on time is just wonderful.