Chili

Made the chili a long time ago and froze it. Bought the tortillas today and I was surprised at the little bodega across the street for having the good kind of large thin flour tortillas, and not the medium size thick kind that the grocery stores have. 

Spaghetti

Ebi

The shrimp are merely shown the boiling water and they instantly denature.

Not really. I exaggerated again by a million percent. The shrimp are dunked in the boiling water but only for less than one minute. They turn opaque white and orange immediately and you can see this coloration carry through to the center. It's done. And anything beyond that is simple shrimp-abuse.

The shrimp are de-veined by the underside.

Tonkatsu

🙋‍♂️Sir, what do you intend to do with this pork?

     👨‍🍳I intend to bread it and deep fry it. But I must also shred some cabbage and I must prepare a sauce made from commercial sauces.

Peaches and cream with blueberries

👨‍🍳What happened?

🍑I got beat up. Then neglected for a week. 

👨‍🍳Pineapples were meant to go in here too but the jar opened with a pop and with a strong fermentation smell. And I was all, "Don't even taste that."  

The farmer's market is operating across the street right now. It's only four hours, and honestly, I can do as well otherwise and have fresh Colorado farm goods delivered directly to my door.

But then I wouldn't meet all the splendid people. 

Meatball sandwich

Chinese dumplings

Cop out.

There are three of these packets inside the larger bag. Up to now I ignored them.

I'll look on the package and see it has a bunch of chemicals that we would not put in our own food, but I am too lazy right now. It tastes like soy sauce, and something acidic, and something a tiny bit floral and something sweet.

My lettuce is old but so what, so am I.

I didn't make nuth'n. Although I do have a little pot to rinse out. 

No little green onions for decoration, no herbs, no microgreens, no fruit or berries, no additional vegetables. Just these pre-made dumplings and old browning lettuce.

Imagine what could be done with fresh lettuce!

For me, today, this is perfect. 

Fried rice with chicken thigh and zucchini

This is leftover sushi rice so it very sweet/sour.

Japanese cooks start with the egg and I do not understand that. It violates western ideas of egg delicacy preservation. I wonder what they say about that but none of the people in the videos ask them.

Toast

Tomato sandwich

In this household, step one of making a sandwich is to make bread.

Yeast into sweetened water. What are these things doing? 

Salmon, farm-grown cucumber and tomato, rice, seaweed, horseradish

I used apple cider vinegar instead of rice vinegar because I'm down to last tablespoons of that, and because I'm American, and equal amount of sugar, microwaved, for a sick golden sweet/sour syrup.

This is usually done in a broad low bamboo barrel, to spread the syrup evenly and to cool the rice. It is a temperature thing going on, the rice must be hot to accept the syrup but the rice must be cooled to be used in sushi.

Or else it will cook the delicate fish, duh.

And I don't have one of those Japanese bamboo barrel things. Oke bowl. Kotobuki hangiri sushi rice mixing tub. But you can get them on Amazon, a household size for $25.00.

A handmade bamboo tub for $25.00. Sounds pretty reasonable but we abjure these one-purpose kitchen things. Except the garlic press, of course. If it could be a salad bowl too, if I could use it for laundry or something then fine, otherwise, fegetaboutit.

And Japanese cooking is filled with these one-purpose kitchen items, like that square omelet pan and rice steamers.  You guys are freaks.

The Woods

I got picked up and took out today.

A friend of mine did. 

Our two birthdays coincide and we've known each other for forty-five years. I bought him a pair of pants and a shirt and a few days later he brought me here. 

It's lockdown. Everything is weird. The place wasn't right. The ride wasn't right. Our driver wasn't right. The city isn't right. Our waiter really wasn't right, at first. 

This is RINO, an explosively developing area. Murals all over the place. Modern architecture. Modern design all over. Young people. Tiny balconies everywhere.

Everywhere.

Tiny balconies make me sad. 

     "Why?" The driver and Bob both really did ask why. 

Just seeing them makes me sad. Seeing people using them makes me more sad. You see people trying to use them but it is reasonably impossible. And there they are out on a balcony with no room to move among thousands of other similar tiny useless balconies facing each other with each other for views. In a spot with incredible views. But not for these balconies. So then, you are all little ants in your little ant pods.

I want them to be sad too. And our collective sadness will bring an end to this tiny balcony business.  

COVID. We didn't get the table or area due to COVID. So we were put on the other side. The first side has the trains, but those are not running as usual, and the other side has development in action. Very interesting; watching all the little ants. We really are like them, we repeat the same things everywhere. From the height of the restaurant the whole place looks like an HO train set. The hotel that the restaurant is in has changed the entire area for cars. The Lyft drivers were stumped. I think they had to turn into the place and then turn around right in that spot, the entire parking area changed or closed off, then entering the street to return involved heading the opposite direction first and picking a random place to turn around. The whole thing is messed up. 

Tent city arose at Civic Park two blocks north of where I live at the capitol. The whole area looks like a dump. A lot more of that around town as homeless are gathered. 

We marveled how a city can suffer and endure limping along as if that suffering isn't happening. The city can partake a massive national hissy fit, subject itself to ridiculous rules and laws that change on whim, very largely destroy its own economy in huge chunks, shed whole industries and still with enough economic force, enough human need, enough pure human energy to carry on as if all that is just another bump in the road. The city is stabbing itself in the heart as it continues to thrive. And we marvel. 

The murals around the city are stunning. They make everything more interesting. They make buildings speak. They turn dull sides of building into pure humanity. The place pulses with humanity even during lockdown with fewer people visible. 

I don't know why Bob wanted me to photograph his squid. He liked it. He also had a starter plate with shrimp and avocado. That was actually a lot more attractive. But I didn't think to photograph it. 

He thinks the squid plate is beautiful. I think it's ugly. So I told him a joke. This really happened. 

I was on South Beach Miami having breakfast. The place was like a diner. I am sitting at the counter on a colorful plastic seat that is slippery. I ordered calamari for breakfast. Weird. I know. But this is South Beach.

They brought out a large bowl. And the calamari is delicious. But there is only so much of that I can take. The squid is predominantly two shapes, and these shapes become less attractive the more full on calamari you become. I only mentioned to the man sitting next to me that the whole thing is fantastic until the shapes of the cuts start to look like a bowl of sphincters and condoms. The man looked at my bowl and cracked up laughing. Loudly. I do not know who he is. He slipped off his slippery chair into a cartoonish crumpled heap. Other people in the restaurant looked over at his commotion. It wasn't that funny but it did describe them perfectly. I cannot forget that guy thinking that was so funny.

Bob didn't think that was funny at all. He was full and he didn't finish his calamari.

Farmer's market

I said to myself, I said, "Go out there and buy two zucchinis and three tomatoes if they have them." And off I went.

I heard about Farmer's market on the other side of Broadway, very near, but all that was too late last year so I was ready for them this year. I read it on a sign painted on an outside wall while having a haircut. It's right there on the corner. But tucked in the alley. I never saw anything else.

This year I notice activity on the opposite side of Broadway and one block over. Tents. People. Turns out, the Farmer's market group moved. Now I see them from my balcony 1/2 block away.

How convenient.

It's like they followed me here. 

Oh, I love these lovely people.

I really do. We should support them. But everything is like super duper expensive. But they bring fresh farm things right straight to us. It's a lot of trouble and they do it. And, my God, these people are friendly. It is like we are made for each other, the grace, the humor, the ease of comportment.

So the tomatoes were a million dollars apiece. 

And the cucumbers and the zucchinis are, let's see, uh, about a million dollars apiece. 

The corn was a million dollars. 

The peaches are one million dollars each. 

The tiny jar of Bread and Butter pickles with habanero chile pepper was twelve million dollars. 

Quite expensive. Quite the ripoff. But they do bring it right straight to me and it is all natural farm stuff. So how do I react to the cosmos when it aligns for me this way? The cosmos brought me food directly. That's awesome! Please. Allow me to interact with you. 

I can buy all this at Whole Foods at half these prices and they will bring it directly to my front door, but you are here, and you are gorgeous, and we all love your farms, and it is all so much trouble, and this really was very convenient for me.

Nice to get out for a little walk.

Finally. These peaches of yours are awesome.

Gift box, cookies and coffee

It cost $15.00 to send this box to me from California. That's a pretty good price, don't you think? I thought it would be at least $50.00 when you consider all that goes into moving them. It is a remarkable rally of resources.

I send things to my two nephews all the time usually but not always through Amazon. Every month it's something. For I love them so and I'm trying to buy their affection. This surprises them because other than that I am fairly remote. They make my brother and his wife take them shopping. They go out looking for things for me. My practice is forcing them to think about me. They're conflicted because so much of what they want to share are things we all know are not that great for us and they are more serious about diet than I am. So it all has the appearance of carelessness when in actuality I am simply impossible to buy things for. I present my family a very real problem. They don't know what to get me.

Tomorrow is my birthday, shut up, and that might have something to do with this box.

Something.

Cherry pie

The pies all over show lattice for some reason. Cherries do not grow on lattices. Lattices are interesting to do, I suppose. Some show an American flag. Others show a cluster of cherries. Others show cut out stars. The things people do with dough. Just incredible.

None show what the gardener sees; a pile of rubbish branches and leaves.

There won't be any cherries in the gardener's pile of cherry tree rubbish. He does that a different time of year.

This pie crust is actually cookie. Each branch is a cookie. Each leaf is a cookie. That's why there is so much of it. The crust is actually a bag of cookies. The entire bottom is the same cookie pie dough laminated. That has the pie filling on top of it.

The last pie-crust-cookies weren't sweet enough and they didn't have enough body, their flavor profile too flat. They were too much like pie dough. This time the pie-crust-cookies have egg and vanilla extract more like cookies and vodka more like your mom. Kidding! They have cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. They also have lemon rind and lemon juice. How's that for a dunkable cookie?

Egg noodle in chicken broth

"Waiter. Waiter. 

I can pick through the food for the bits I can do and leave the rest. And maybe even do that twice. Or I can just tell you what works."

     "Fine. Shoot. Tell me what works and I'll tell the cook and instead of the menu thing he will make something similar just for you. A tailored meal composed of only things that work for you. Specified by you. We will price a unique thing accordingly just for you."

"Great. That's perfect. That's exactly what I was thinking."

     "That was a joke. That is not possible. It is not reasonable. We are not set up for that. You don't know this cook. He might not be so flexible as you imagine. He's young. Young people are impulsive. You might be inviting a person to spit in your food."

"Come on. Let's try it and see. Maybe he is in a good mood today. It might even be easier. Watch and make sure he doesn't spit in it."

     "Fine. What will you have?"

"Perfect. Good. This is good. We're on the right track. I would like a giant square egg-noodle, rather thick and hearty, floating around chicken broth with bits of chicken scraps on top."

     "Chicken scraps on top."

"Little bits of chicken thigh or whatever."

     "That's all?"

"Yeah. That's all."

     "That doesn't ... come on ... it's not even a real thing."

"I just made it up. That's what I want. That is what I see. That's what will work."

     "You kidney-guys are freaks. The cook is a freak. I'll tell him what you said."

-- pause --

     "The cook is inviting you back to the kitchen to watch him."

Fried potato

"I would like a potato."

     "Yes ..."

"Fried in butter to crispy."

    "And ..."

"With this sauce."

     "And ..."

"Nothing. Salt and this green sauce. That's it. And let the weight of the potato sit in my stomach as my acids tear the pieces to minute pieces and then pass the bulk of stinking mush along through my digestive system, disrupting what is already there, with large gaps between ingestions pushing it along with force by pressure that exceeds slow and steady rhythmic peristaltic motion."

The system breaks down food, extracts nutrients from it, and converts them into energy.
Healthline.

Really?

I thought that energy had already been converted from nutrients. Energy that had died or is passing. Now we are doing that all over again.

The energy was already there, already converted from nutrients. The plants and the animals that we consume already converted nutrients to energy, their energy. Now their energy is dead material. Dead energy. Even with plants we consume dead and dying material that already extracted nutrients from soil or from other plants or animals, and converted it to their energy. Now our material, our energy. We are the same as bacteria in this sense, and as flies and as fungus and vultures that live on dead and dying material, energy that is expiring. We do the same thing. We eat dead things.

Ew, sometimes I just hate myself.

I dislike this scheme.

The idea that I live on dead shit and turn that to living material just really, ew, I just hate that.

Couldn't I do better?

I'd have to eat life. I'd have to eat things as they are living. Eat the plants as they are growing, eat the insects as they are crawling, as animals do. Eat animals as they are living, that would be given up right off. The idea is to live off only living material. To convert only living energy to living energy.

     "But it dies soon as you eat it."

"Shut up."

This is why philosophers always spend the first five hundred pages defining their terms. They're anticipating all the other philosophical assholes protesting every word. The way they do themselves.

It's such a drag. Everything we eat is dead.

I am still waiting for those Colorado peaches of summer that run down my face when I bite into them. (I bought a bag of four peaches a week ago. Took one bite. Threw away the whole bag.)

But they are all dead peaches. Peach corpses. Piled up in a box. Boxes sent across the country. I'd have to climb a peach tree and go out on a branch and eat the peaches as they are growing in order to stay true to consuming only living energy. Come to think of it, the way that we did in our dad's back yard with cherries, with apples, and pears, and with plums. Dad did the same thing that I did, he planted the seeds from the fruit that he ate when he was my age back then. I knew his earlier efforts as trees. He saw his boys climbing the trees that he planted. Barry and I climbed them. They're BIG! And we ate the fruit right off the trees as they were living, stretched out on the branches stuffing our mouths with fruit just as the birds and the insects do.

Fine. Your dead-ass potato will be cooked twice.

That way it will be crunchy. Crunchy with butter. And no cheese, no hamburger, no shrimp, no seafood, no chicken, no sausage, no mushrooms, no nothing. No herbs. Nothing. Just this sauce.

The sauce. To blaze a fiery trail through my G.I. tract so its evacuation is notable as its ingestion such that it can be timed, fire in, fire up and down and back and forth and all around then fire out. And I'll be all, "That was uncharacteristically fast."

Psych! It's not that hot.