12. California Roll

One might think that after over 4 decades of popularity in this country that the stigma over sushi in America would be gone by now.  But many people attach themselves to dumber things for longer than that.  So whaddya gonna do?  The big stigma over sushi is the false  belief that sushi is raw fish.  Yes, there are many kinds of sushi that involve raw fish but sushi does not mean raw fish.  An abundance of sushi types exist that involve ingredients other than raw fish.  Actually I could write volumes about sushi, but I'm going to keep it as basic as I can.  There are plenty of places to go on the internet and books in the library to explore the vast details.  The one thing we can really focus on here is that sushi involves very fresh ingredients that are quite tasty and healty.

Part of the problem with the stigma surrounding sushi is the sushi culture in America.  Back in the 80s sushi became popular with yuppies (You know, Richard Gecko fans), so ever since then the idea is that the more expensive the sushi, the better.  Now with the artistry of the preparation and even some of the ingredients these high prices are justified, but quite a lot of what people are charged for sushi, even in the grocery store kiosks, are a blind ripoff.  When you make your own sushi at home you'll see what a horrible scam it is when you can see how much of it you can make for less than ten bucks.

Another part of sushi culture in America that adds to its stigma is nerds and geeks.  As a nerd and a geek myself I know this quite well because not only am I up to my armpits in nerds and geeks, but I am also guilty of the crime of perpetuating the stigma of sushi.  Nerds are as obsessed with Japan as stoners are obsessed with Amsterdam.  Nerds can't resist a country whose culture loves to make things organized, regimented, and complicated and for some reason the result is ninjas, sexy cartoons, and giant monsters.  Although it's not very polite, Americans associate Asians with intelligence, especially Japan.  So the more excruciatingly obscure the details a nerd can come up with the smarter he thinks he looks.  So they will bore you to death with details about sushi and have no problem with making it seem more complicated, disgusting, and exotic than it is just to appear smart or unique.

So I'm going to send the purists running with the California Roll.  This roll of sushi was developed in the early 70s in the first American sushi bar as a type of sushi that might appeal more to Americans and it did.  The California roll is the sushi that made it popular all over the rest of the country.  So take a breath and relax, because there is no raw fish involved with this one.  It is also one of the "inside out" rolls which rolls the rice on the outside rather than the nori (seaweed).  It was thought that this method would make the seaweed more palatable to Americans.

Here's all the stuff you'll need (hand dipping bowl not pictured).

Sushi Rice (Sushi-Meshi)
When it comes to most sushi, rice is very important.  Once you know how to properly prepare sushi rice then most of your battle is fought and you can make several types of sushi.  First, you're going to need short grained rice.  I have never seen this stuff sold at a standard supermarket, even stores that sell everything else for sushi (what a bunch of assholes), however, you can find it quite easily and for a reasonable price at most Asian food markets, they should be conveniently marked sushi rice or sushi meshi.  The short grained rice available in America is grown in California.  They don't import it from Japan, so don't bother looking for Japanese short grained rice, unless you're in Japan.  While you're at the Asian food market check out the prices on their sushi stuff, it may be cheaper than your supermarket's prices.  


This recipe is for one quantity of sushi rice. 

2 cups sushi rice
2 cups water
2 Tablespoons rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon Kosher salt


Place the rice into a mixing bowl and cover with cool water.  Swirl the rice in the water and pour off.  Repeat until the water runs clear.  The recipe said to do this 2 or 3 times, but I did it 6 and the water wasn't completely clear, but it seemed to work fine.  


Place the rice and 2 cups of water into a medium saucepan and place over high heat.  Bring to a boil uncovered.  Once it begins to boil reduce the heat to the lowest setting and cover.  Cook for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and let stand covered for ten minutes.  

Mix the vinegar, sugar,  and salt into a small bowl.  Use a flat wooden spoon to cut into rice one way, then the other.  Don't stir it or mash it.  While cutting into the rice add some of the vinegar mixture a little at a time.  Also fan with a paper plate to cool the rice. If you have a helper have them fan the rice as you cut into it.  Do this for about ten minutes until the rice until it is about room temperature.  

Here's a bowl of prepared sushi rice.

California Roll
1 medium avocado, peeled, pitted, and sliced into 1/4 thick pieces
4 Table spoons of lemon juice
4 sheets of nori (These are the "seaweed sheets."  You can find these in some supermarkets but most Asian food stores carry it.)
1 batch of sushi rice
1/3 cup of toasted sesame seeds
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into matchstick like pieces
4 crabsticks
Pickled ginger for serving
Wasabi for serving
soy sauce for serving

One thing you want to keep in mind while making your sushi is to keep your hands as wet as possible, mostly to keep the rice from sticking to them to much.  The best way to do this is prepare a water dish with 2 cups of water, 2 tablespoons of rice vinegar, and floating a slice of lemon on top.

Sprinkle the lemon juice over the cut avocado to prevent browning.

Cover a bamboo rolling mat (another thing on the list for your Asian food market trip) with plastic wrap.  Cut nori sheets in half crosswise.  Lay one sheet of nori, shiny side down, on the plastic covered bamboo mat.  Wet your fingers with your water and spread about a half cup of sushi rice evenly onto the nori, leaving some nori exposed on the side closest to you and away from you.  Sprinkle the rice with sesame seeds.

See this isn't raw fish.  It isn't even real crab.  This stuff is cooked before packaging and ready to eat.  I got this in the fish department at Giant Eagle.  It's quite tasty and easy to work with.

Here's what the fillings look like cut and ready to roll!

 
Turn the sheet over so that the rice side is down.  If you did the rice right it should be really sticky and turning over the sheet shouldn't be a problem.  If you rice falls apart you may have done something wrong or you're too rough.  (Remember, impatience is a bad ingredient in cooking.)  Keeping in mind that you're going to make 8 rolls, so take about 1/8 of the cucumber, crab, and avocado and place them in the middle of the sheet.

The rice is on the bottom and the ingredients are placed on the mat ready to roll.  The fillings are placed in the middle.

 
Make sure the stuff is near the edge of the mat closest to you.  Grab that edge.  While keeping the fillings in place with your fingers roll it into a tight cylinder.  Be sure to take out the part of the mat that starts to tuck into your roll before completing the rolling process.  Use the mat to shape the cylinder before unrolling it.  Unroll it and set aside, cover with a clean damp cloth.  

This is about what your roll should look like at this point. 

You can clean your mat with a clean damp cloth but if it remains sticky change the wrap.  Repeat this process until all the rice has been used, then cut each roll into 6 pieces.  When cutting use a gentle sawing action.  If you try to chop down you'll end up with deformed sushi.  Serve with pickled ginger as a side, wasabi (japanese horse radish), and soy sauce or dipping.  Although you may see people eating it with chopsticks, Sushi is considered a finger food so don't worry.

I made this for under ten bucks!  This much sushi at a Japanese restaurant would probably call for another mortgage on your house.

My inspirational hero for this post is Richard Dawkins not only because of his innovations in evolutionary biology and as a popularizer of science, but for his bravery as an open atheist who challenges creationism and intelligent design being taught as science and makes bold statements about religion in his controversial book The God Delusion.  Sometimes somebody needs to say it, and Dawkins is the guy who will do it.

  
o

11. Eggs Over Easy

In my last blog entry, 10. Poached Eggs, I covered a lot of stuff about eggs.  I don't want to repeat myself too much if I can help it.  So, if you haven't read the first article about eggs I recommend clicking over to the entry and at least giving it a skim to catch up.  I'll just write this assuming you know what I've already written there and get on with it.

Eggs Over Easy are considered soft cook eggs, which means that they are lightly cooked and the yolk is still runny when they are done.  There are some precautions you should consider when cooking soft cooked eggs, so go to the link above if you're not aware of the caveat.

For the most part, cooking eggs is simple, the worst part of cooking soft cooked eggs is the delicate job of ensuring the yolks don't break, but, unless you have some amazing agility, you're probably going to break a few yolks trying this.  It just takes practice, I don't believe in born talent.  Even the most famous masters of their craft from cooks to painters developed their skills over time.  Just have some patience and eventually you'll experience the awesome satisfaction of making great eggs over easy.

My mother originally taught me how to make eggs over easy, she is a master at cooking these eggs and even she breaks the occasional yolk.  However, when she makes them right, and she often does, they're great.  Actually, she taught me quite well, but, I don't know how it happened, I lost my knack for it over the years.  It's strange how I was able to make a better fried egg at 15 than almost forty. So I consulted a book by Alton Brown.  His method involves flipping the eggs in the pan like flapjacks rather than using a spatula.  In fact, he advises against using a spatula at all!

Although the pan flipping method defies logic for me, I figured if it's good enough for Alton Brown, it's good enough for me.  So I gave it a shot.  Actually, this blog is the result of many weeks of practice and thanks to my ten year old helper we got some cool shots of the egg flipping.  

First, I start with my ten inch non stick frying pan.  You may want to use a skillet, but that might seem heavy for the flipping.  Maybe a small one will work, I don't own a skillet so I'm not going to deal with that now.  If I had my druthers, I would cook this in a smaller pan, if I owned one.  It just seems like the eggs would be easier to manage.  By the way, I almost always give my pans a shot with olive oil non-stick cooking spray.  Even though I'm going to use oil I just seem to have shitty luck with food sticking to my pans, that's probably because I own cheap shit.  Back when I played an adult on TV and could afford better stuff I didn't think much about it and just got some cheap stuff, thinking it's all the same.  That's bullshit!  With some things you really do get what you pay for, and if you disagree with me you're probably a cheap ass who owns a lot of crappy shit.  Either way, you don't have to buy the most expensive stuff, but don't skimp either.  

I cook my eggs with about 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  You may want to cook with butter, and all my chef heroes say that cooking with unsalted butter is the best.  I'll just have to take their word for it, because this concept is new to me.  I've always used the butter in the fridge and we never bought unsalted butter, but I'm willing to give it a try.  Now Alton Brown recommends using one tablespoon of unsalted butter, but if you have sticking problems like me, I don't think two will hurt.
So, whatever and how much you decide on, you have to heat up your oil or butter over a medium heat.  You want it good and hot but don't wait until your oil smokes or your butter scorches.  Experience cooking the eggs will tell you when is a good time to drop your eggs.

When you crack your egg and drop it into the pan, make sure you get it as close to the part of the pan away from you as possible, like the photo above, then tilt the pan forward as soon as possible so the egg pools in the front.  Hold the tilted pan directly over the heat so the egg whitens quickly.  This prepares if for optimum flipping.  I just drop one egg at a time, my man Alton can do two, but I'm not quite there yet.

  Count slowly to ten, then lower the pan and count to ten again.  Jiggle the pan around so the egg comes loose and slides around the pan a little.  This is when you know you're on the right track.  If the egg is sticking and you feel compelled to loosen it with a spatula, then you probably did something wrong.  Now give the egg some salt and pepper and let it set for about a minute.  I usually take this time to toss out my shells, discard my egg cracking plate, and wash my hands.  When you come back to your egg it should be white with a little bit of clear stuff around the yolk, the edges may even be getting brown.  Slide it around a little and get ready to flip.

Look at that awesome shot!  I can hardly believe a ten year old took that.  So what you have to do is, in as fluid of a motion as possible push the pan forward while snapping the pan upward.  Then try to bring the pan up to meet the egg to avoid yolk breakage.  Fortunately this one did not break.

Hey, the little guy actually got two good shots, so I had to show them both to you.  This was another success!

 When you flip your egg, the clear white may splatter a little but that doesn't mean the yolk is broken, you'll see the yolk soon enough if it breaks.  Now, if the yolk isn't broken, you'll want to slowly count to ten again and slide your egg around to see if it does the same thing before you flipped it.  Now flip it back.  It should be easier this time.  Now you can slide it on to a warm plate or on top of toast or...

Thomas' Betterstart Light Multigrain English Muffins which are highly recommended by the guys who write the Eat This, Not That! books because they're low in calorie and high in fiber.

Here they are on the muffins.  Now, maybe it's because I use a little bit more oil than the recipe, I don't always just slide the egg on to the muffin from the pan because I end up dripping the oil onto the muffin or the plate and if I'm cooking a second egg I don't want to lose that oil either.  I carefully use a spatula.  At this point it shouldn't be too hard after all the sliding and flipping.

I like to break the yolks and spread them all over the egg and muffin while they're still runny.  Then I cut pieces from the outside heading in so I can dip the pieces in the yolk and soak up the yolk on the plat.  I love dunking.

My inspirational hero for this entry is Steve Irwin, who you may know better as the Crocodile Hunter.  I was deeply saddened by his death but I admire the amazing life he led and he seemed to love every minute of the short life he had.  His drive and attitude made him a success and shows how far people can go if they really have passion for something.  His family and everyone who knew him never seemed to have a single bad thing to say about him.  He caused some controversy but never said anything bad about anyone else.  He had his detractors but they were probably more jealous than anything.  The man lived his dream and that's pretty damn cool. 

9. Sesame-Peanut Noodles

Losing 18 pounds in the past two months is a very satisfying achievement for me.  When I started all of this I promised myself I would buckle down and be more strict about my diet, but the funny thing is I haven't needed to be very strict.  I don't know how many diets I tried that involved strict eating routines.  Don't get me wrong, there are certain guidelines I'm following.  One is drinking more water and unsweetened green tea.  I don't gulp water down like its going out of style I just constantly have a cup of ice water at hand and drink from that, then refill it when it's done.  Then I try to get four cups of green tea in a day, which is supposed to be good for just about everything.  What this does for me is keeps my soda intake low.  Diet soda isn't all that bad to drink but it isn't quite the fat fighter that plain water and green tea are.  The only meal that I try to strictly adhere to is breakfast.  I just try to eat something as soon as I get up, which is usually two eggs either over easy or poached and whole wheat toast. 

The rest of the day depends on when I get hungry.  I loosely try to follow a three meal, three snack structure.  I try to keep the meals light, which usually come from the recipes I post here.  The snacks are also light, about 100 to 200 calorie snacks.  The one thing I try to do is not let myself get too hungry.  When I get too hungry I'm prone to cravings and binges.  I used to think that being hungry was good when dieting and just part of the process, actually no.  Everything I read about weight loss says that letting yourself get hungry is not a good thing.  I know it's anecdotal but I had a roommate that ate almost all day long and lost over a hundred pounds to get down to the ideal weight for his height and structure.  His trick of course was eating healthy food and plenty of exercise.  

Another thing I do is not to let the rules make me miserable.  I've always had a hard time adhering to rules and the more they were imposed upon me the more I resented them.  So I permit myself to cheat occasionally.  This may mean drinking the occasional soda or having  some sort of junk food.  However, I try not to over do it.  If I have a soda, it will be just one glass instead of the whole two liter or a six pack.  If I have pizza I'll try to have two or three slices rather than a whole large pizza.  If I have chips, I try to have a handful or two rather than the whole bag.  This is really the way I used to eat.  I try to keep it healthy but there are just certain things I won't turn down: steak (which isn't too bad if you don't eat much with it); sushi (which isn't really fattening); pizza (see above); and free booze.  Fortunately I don't come across these things too readily anyway so it's easy to only have them occasionally.  

Since I'm not much of a rules person this seems to work for me and the main thing that helps is, if I deviate a little I always try to return healthy eating.  I don't know how many times in the past I've cheated a little and then gave up the diet.  Well, if I'm really going to lose weight I have to change my eating habits for life and that means that when I do cheat I just gotta bounce back.  It sounds simple but it is more difficult in practice.

Sesame-Peanut Noodles
 I found this recipe in Ted Allen's cookbook The Food You Want to Eat.  It's healthy, light, and quite tasty.

INGREDIENTS

Here are the ingredients I used to make the recipe.

Kosher salt
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
1/3 cup roasted peanuts
1/3 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of mirin (Japanese cooking wine) or Sherry
2 medium garlic cloves
1/4 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes 
1 English cucumber peeled
1 pound soba noodles
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 green onions, green parts only, sliced 1/4 inch thick on an angle

Bring a large pot of salted water (1 teaspoon of salt per quart of water) to a boil.

Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat.  Stir this frequently until the seeds turn golden brown, about five minutes.

In a food processor, combine peanut butter, sesame oil, peanuts, soy sauce, vinegar, sherry, garlic, and red pepper flakes.  Process to a puree, then stir in half the toasted sesame seeds.

I couldn't find mirin and I don't have sherry.  So I left that out of the mix, but I'm sure it wasn't a huge loss. 

Cut the peeled English cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds with spoon.  Slice the halves crosswise, about a 1/4 inch thick, set aside.  Frankly, I didn't find much of a difference in the flavor of an English cucumber and a regular-ass cucumber.

Here is another one of my kitchen helpers.  He's ten and his favorite job is tasting cucumbers.  It's good to see he likes something other than his usual diet of pb & j and boxed mac and cheese.

When the water comes to a boil, add the noodles and cook until tender, about 4 to 5 minutes.  Drain very well, shake the colander until it stops dripping and dump the noodles into a large bowl.  Add the peanut mixture, cilantro (I used dry cilantro rather than fresh.), and black pepper.  Toss to coat.  

Turn out on a large platter.  Arrange the cucumber around the edge of the platter.  Sprinkle the green onions on top, and sprinkle the remaining sesame seeds on last.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

It's not on a platter but I was the only one eating it when it was done so a single plate it is.

It's nutty goodness with noodles! 

My inspirational hero of the day is Ted Allen.  I first saw him as the food guy from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  His latest claim to fame is the show Chopped on Food Network.  However, my favorite show of his is Food Detectives, imagine Mythbusters but with food.  That's right you may notice a pattern with my heroes being linked to science.  I think science is the best thing humans got going for them.  And check it out!  He's wearing a CBGB apron that is totally awesome!

8. Avo Olive Nori

II went to the cardiologist this past Monday.  You may already know that I suffered from heart failure a few years ago. I also have high blood pressure and an enlarged heart.  So my GP thought it a good idea to see a cardiologist to see how my heart is doing.  The cardiologist was very impressed with the recent improvements in things medically with me and he's started some tests to have a look at things for himself.  He had some blood drawn and an EKG done.  Next Thursday I'm supposed to go in for a stress test and eventually they want to do an ultrasound to look at my heart.  

However, the really good news is, they weighed me and I lost another ten pounds.  That makes for a total of eighteen pounds in just about two months.  So, I'm pretty happy about that and I hope to keep losing more weight.  For my height and frame I still have about two hundred pounds to go.  

Avo Olive Nori
Ingredients

Here are the ingredients I used for the dish.

1 large ripe avocado
1 small tomato
3/4 cup pitted olives
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
bean sprouts
nori sheets

Split avocado witha knife and discard the seed.  Spoon the flesh from the peel, cut it into small pieces, and place it in a large bowl.  You'll want room for mixing.  Pour the lemon juice over the avocados to prevent oxidizing. 
Dice the tomatoes and olives and place them in the bowl with the avocado.  Then add the soy sauce and stir for about ten seconds or so.
 Place a nori sheet onto a clean, dry cutting board. Nori is the same seaweed sheets they use to roll sushi.  You should be able to find this stuff any where sushi fixin's are sold.  This can be rolled with a bamboo sushi rolling mat, but I did it just fine with my bare hands.  Besides, I don't have one of those mats so I didn't have a choice.

Here is the avocado olive mixture.

Take a cup of the mixture and place a half cup of it onto the nori sheet and spread it to the sidest.  Leave about an inch at the top and bottom.  See photo.
 
Place a handful of beansprouts on top of the mixture.  The original recipe that I took this from called for sunflower sprouts.  I changed it to bean sprouts because I think the only way you can get sunflower sprouts is to grow them yourself and most people won't do that.  So I figure bean sprouts should be fine because, even if I am wrong and some store out there carries the sunflower sprouts,  the bean sprouts are easier to find, even if you have to buy them in a can!

It rolled quite well when I spread the mixture like this.

Now roll it very carefully because the nori can tear easily.  The mixture is about enough to make three or four rolls depending on how you spread it.

At this point it looks like a big green cigar.

Slice the roll into about five to six pieces.  When cutting into the roll gently saw into it.  Cutting down hard into the roll as if it were a salami or something, will pinch the roll and just be a mess. 

Place the rolls on a plate and enjoy.

It looks like sushi, but there is not rice, so it's not.

My inspirational hero of the day is Dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and futurist.  He is a popularizer of science as well as an advocate for the ethical use of science.  I first heard of him as a guest on the wildly woo-woo late night radio show, Coast to Coast with Art Bell.  He was quite a breath of fresh air among the usual line up of charlatans and pseudo-scientists on the show.  Although he works on the fringes of science and ponders some things that may be far out, he bases everything in solid real science.  I admire his persistence in popularizing science to make it more understandable and accessible to the layperson in a time when we surprisingly need him and others like him to combat the harm pseudo-science and superstition can do.

6. Lentils

I haven't worked a job job since October of 2004.  The reason why I say job job is because I have worked miscellaneous jobs since then.  I had two temporary jobs with Maumee Valley Country Day School in 2005 and 2006 as an assistant teacher, but those were 4 week stints each.  I've been a concert promoter and I was making some money as an artist selling stuff to people I know and at tables and booths at conventions.  However, those last two weren't really paying the bills.  The apartment I had before I moved in with my dad in 2003, it was the last time I paid rent and utilities.  In fact I stopped paying all of my bills I slipped slowly into a mental breakdown.  It was the kind of quiet mental breakdown that started with my divorce and career crash and slowly led to me living off the kindness of others.  

But the last punch in/punch out, work evenings and weekends, and wish I would die on the way to work or while working job job I had I was a delivery driver at Papa John's Pizza for an excruciatingly long October in 2004.  The last morning I worked I went in before open with the asshole of a manager.  Well, apparently some huge order came in that was twice what he thought it was going to be and he panicked because he only had my under-trained ass.  At this point, all I knew how to do was deliver pizzas and fold boxes and I didn't do that very well.  Of course, like every asshole I ever worked for, he blamed me, even thought it was very much his fault I was under-trained.  Up until this point he only worked me on busy nights to whip me into shape for delivery. During this there never was enough time to get me on the phones or on the pizza line.

I used to take a lot more shit from bosses at jobs like this in my twenties, but now I was 34.  I had 8 years of college under my belt and two bachelor's degrees in useless subjects.  I was no longer a kid using a job as a stepping stone to a brighter future.  I was in "the future" and not so starry-eyed about it.  I hated life and mostly I hated myself and I certainly stopped giving a shit about what some shithead manager thought.  So he says to me, "Is this all you can do?"  I replied, "Look, if you give me something to do, I'll do it but it's not going to be perfect right away."  To which he further replied, "Well, if your stupid ass learned this stuff when you were supposed to we wouldn't have any of these problems."  At that point I took my Papa John's cap and shirt (I had a t-shirt on underneath) and threw them to the floor, "Fuck you!"  

"You can't talk to me that way!" he screamed.
"Well, I just did," and I gave him the finger and walked out.  He was yelling shit like, "What am I supposed to do?"  Hey, if he was smart enough to call ME stupid, then he could figure it out.  That cracks me up when people whine like that. Why should I give a shit?  For all I cared I could have drowned that guy in the bathtub face up to watch his expression as he died.  I didn't just say "Fuck you," and give the finger to just that guy that day.  I did it to every boss I ever had before him.  That order I left him alone with was for almost a hundred pizzas.  I still think he didn't suffer enough.  That was the last time I had to work a job like that.

That was about the same time I started drawing comics again, doing art, and selling at ska shows.  My friends started taking me to conventions sharing or actually renting me tables at them.  I used Tony Steele's method for packaging and selling autographed prints of my work and I started making more money.  Then I was given a chance to have a one night showing of my art at the coffee house where I hung out and did a lot of business.  Somewhere in there I did the temporary teaching gigs.  Then when the ska concert promoter left for college I took over and started booking shows.  I wasn't making a steady living but I was bringing in some money for myself doing what I wanted.  It wasn't going to take much more of a boost before it became really lucrative, but then I hit a wall with two things. 1. My car died 2. I came down with heart failure.  Those two things really set me back.

I didn't just give up right there.  I kept booking shows and got rides from friends, but the club I was booking at lost their liquor license and closed.  I couldn't find another club to book all ages shows during the weekend.  I started taking Zoloft for my depression but I was one of the few people that the drug made more depressed and it also gave me a voracious appetite and I started gaining weight.  By the time I figured out what the Zoloft was doing to me I had gained over 40 pounds.  The depression from the Zoloft killed my drawing urge too.  Not too long after that I got into a car wreck that injured my ribs and back.  The back injury limited my mobility some and I gained more weight.  I topped the scales at 373.  I could hardly walk, I was wiped out all the time, and I felt like shit.  I won't even go into the details of how moving out of town made things difficult for me.  That's another entry.  Either way, I thought I was done.  I figured I wouldn't have very much longer to live.  So I applied for welfare and social security disability benefits.  I have been on food stamps for over a year now, but none of the other assistance came through.  I just didn't see my life going much of anywhere.

Now, I have this recovery. A second chance I never thought I'd get.  I am very glad it came and I'm glad I'm getting another chance, but it's kind of frightening to me.  I was preparing for the last few years of my life and didn't have to worry about my future any more.  I'm pretty sure that my social security application will be denied, because almost all of them are the first time, but I am now in no position to make an appeal.  I thought I was going to get the disability in about a year then move back to Toledo to be close to family and friends in my last few years.  However, now I won't be able to make an appeal if I'm getting better, which means I'm going to have to start thinking about working again.  

There's no way in hell I'm ready to go back to work now.  I'm better but I need to be in better shape and slim down.  I hope this will take about a year to get to a reasonable shape.  In the mean time I have to give some serious thought to what I'm going to do.  As it stands now, I really don't know.  I know a lot about what I don't want to do.  

It was suggested I go back to college. Well, I have some serious financial troubles with college.  I've already got a six figure debt with college loan people.  I got a degree in philosophy but I hate philosophy now with the same passion I liked it when I started it.  I also have a bachelor's in English but why get a graduate degree in something that would never be able to pay off my loan.  Besides, if I really want to write I should just write instead of hiding in school like I did eight years.  Aside from all of that I have no idea what I'd do with it.  Again, I don't want to repeat the mistakes of my past and hiding in college was one of them.  I'm not saying going to college is hiding but the way I did was.  I would go back to college if I had a serious goal and I needed college to achieve it.  I'm not going to college to find a goal.  

It may seem ironic that it's taken me this long to bring up cooking, and the most obvious topic of working as a cook.  But the most available jobs for cooks is to work in restaurants, ugh.  Restaurant work, especially in the kitchen, is hot, smelly, tense, and rushed.  Everything weighs on speed.  I'm not a fast worker.  That's one of the reasons why I have such a bad track record with jobs.  I'm that guy at every job that just can't catch up.  If anything I'd like to work in the front as a server or bartender but speed is pretty intense there too and its all nights, weekends, and holidays.  I'm not doing that again, it was never worth missing the good times.
 
I just don't want to work a job I hate.  It doesn't even have to be super awesome but I need to like it.  I like working with people and I like being creative.  I don't like a lot of authority or pressure. It would also have to be something flexible enough to let me go to cons and be with friends.  I know I can't ask for the perfect job to just fall into my lap right away, but it's got to contribute some way to what I will do in the bigger picture.  I just don't want to repeat my past mistakes.  All this and I've barely considered the money factor.  Oy vey!

So I've got a lot to think about but I do have some time to think about it and plan.  This is why I'm spreading on the tabsle now.  Just to see what I have working for me.  I need to really consider what are my strengths, passions, and weaknesses.  At least I have nothing tying me down to where I live in fact I think I need to get the fuck out of Ohio all together.  I'm making decisions here that could be the next twenty or so years of my life.  The years fly by quicker at my age, but they can still punch as hard as ever.

Lentils 

I never heard of lentils until they were mentioned on the British comedy The Young Ones that showed episodes on Sunday nights on MTV back in the 80s.  Neal, the hippy of the group was supposed to prepare them for dinner and did just about everything but that.  Even then I didn't really see a lentil until years later.    Lentils are a high protein legume that come in a variety of colors, most commonly brown or red.  There are countless ways to prepare lentils but the following is a simple and tasty way to prepare them.  You can serve them with just about anything.  The last time I had them I ate them with herbed quinoa.  Do not soak them over night.  Just rinse and drain and they're ready to cook.

The stuff for making lentils.

1 cup of red or brown lentils, rinsed and drained
1 quart (4 cups, 32oz) unsalted chicken broth
1/2 cup of diced onions
1/2 cup diced carrots
 3 teaspoons of minced garlic
red wine vinegar

-Bring the chicken stock to a boil in a large pot.

I reduce the sodium content with an unsalted chicken stock.

  
-Add the lentils, onions, carrots, and garlic.  Allow to return to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
-Cook for about twenty minutes and taste the lentils for tenderness.  I like my lentils very tender, so I usually cook them another ten minutes.
-When your lentils reach your desired tenderness turn off the heat and let set for about five minutes to allow thickening.  
-When it has reached a desired thickness, add a splash of red wine vinegar and serve.

I found this dish quite tasty and filling.

There were only 12 episodes of The Young Ones, but they hilarious and my favorite British TV show.

5. Guacamole!

Not only do I want to share my cooking experiences in Cookin' with Plaid, but I also want to share milestones in the progress of my self improvement project, and I'm definitely losing more weight!  Unfortunately, I still outweigh my bathroom scale's max. capacity of 330 lbs. and I haven't been weighed since I went to the doctor.  However, I have another indicator of weight loss.  Some of the following story I wrote about in my first entry of this blog.  It was about how a debacle with my pants really got me motivated on my weight loss program.  However, I assure you most of the following is new.  It just rings a few bells.

Over a year ago, I ballooned to a size that limited me to one pair of Levi's 505, with a waist of 54.  Actually, they got to a point where I could fasten the top button and bring the zipper up to within an inch of the top.  Absolutely humiliating, but the truth.  I think it was last November or December that my roommate in Columbus offered to get me more jeans as an early X-mas gift.  I told him that our best bet would be to go on the internet and order them rather than running all over the city of Columbus on some wild goose chase for jeans.  

I went to the Levi's website assuming that I could find every kind of Levi's made in every size they made.  The largest size I could find were 54 waist in any style.  I guess the assumption would be that Levi's "Loose Fitting" 560s are the logical choice for a fat bastard like me, but those jeans are actually made for people with protruding asses.  Despite the fact that I'm morbidly obese, I still have a flat cracker ass.  If anything, I'm a muffin top.  My fat bulges out from about where the top of my ass is all the way around and then droops as if my legs were in some sort of baking cup and the rest expanded from there.  So the jeans fit strangely on my strange body shape and tend to slip off my ass even if they're snug.  I know it barely makes sense, but try telling that to my almost amorphous body.  So I ordered the straight fitting Levi's 505 with the 54 waist.  

I guess the jeans I had been wearing stretched or something (despite the fact that Levi's are more notorious for shrinking), because when the TWO pairs of jeans my roomie so generously bought me came in the mail, they didn't fit.  They really didn't fit.  I couldn't fasten the button at all.  I had a good four inch gap that I could not bridge, much less zip them up.  Even back then I was trying to lose weight (Although it wasn't working very well.  I was still dealing with some health problems that seem to be better now.  I was also battling with a bout of my depression and feeling very self destructive at the time.)  So, I sucked it up and hoped that I would fit in them after some progress with my weight loss program.

Yet, just over a month ago, I developed the rogue-ish tear that I spoke of in the first entry of this blog that inspired this whole project.  Mind you, even after I had a large tear in the back of my pants with a patch sewn on it, I still couldn't zip my pants all the way up.  The first week of August my roomie, a couple of our friends, and I traveled together to Indianapolis, Indiana to attend Gen Con Game Fair.  The trip lasted from Wednesday until Sunday of that week.  Early in that trip my patch came apart again.  It didn't fall off completely but the stitching along one of the long sides came undone.  The only repair I could think of at the time was to buy a box of safety pins at the hotel gift shop and pin the patch to my pants.  It wasn't a very good repair and started to look mangled too.  Mind you, I didn't go to this convention with money that I should have used for pants.  I worked the con for Mayfair Games and they covered the hotel and admission costs, even some food costs.  The rest of the expenses were provided by my generous friends.  Speaking of generous friends, on the way home one of them gave me some money and told me to get some pants without holes in them.  

Just a couple of days after my return from Gen Con I tracked down some Levi's at XL Casual Male that were 60 waist, but 560s.  Now while I was at Gen Con I noticed that I could start zipping my pants up all of the way.  I didn't know if this was weight loss or maybe the tear in my pants provided some give.  So I got the larger pants thinking that if I got the same size I'd be screwed like the jeans my Columbus roomie bought for me.  I went to the store and tried on the jeans and they fit rather comfortably.  I could sit down in them comfortably too.  See, because of my drooping gut my waist expands a few inches when I sit down.  (Yep, this is the gross stuff that makes you hate fat people!)  So I happily bought them.  When I wore them out for a real test drive I didn't notice until then, I was swimming in these jeans.  It's all I can do to keep them from falling down when I walk.  But when you're fat, too big is always better than too small.

So this odd dilemma got me thinking about the 2 pairs of jeans that didn't fit me last November. I figured I could try them on to at least gauge my progress even if they didn't fit.  I was happy to find that they not only fastened but I could zip them up and sit in them.  Mind you, they're a bit snug and I haven't washed them yet so I'm sure I'll lose an inch to shrinkage, but this also tells me I lost about four inches!  It just feels great to makes some progress and to know that if I keep this up, I'll have more than one pair of pants to wear.  Stay tuned for more milestones to come!

Guacamole!

"Then there are foods that sound too humorous to eat.  Did you ever hear of something too funny to eat?  Guacamole!  It sounds like something you wear to a dance.  May I borrow your green guacamole?"

--George Carlin

Carlin at Carnigie Hall

1982 

As funny as it may seem to comic genius George Carlin, guacamole is primarily made of avocados, considered one of the super foods by the likes of Men's Health Magazine and other sources.  Although avocados have some fat content to them, it's the good fats, like in olive oil.  I've been eating a lot of foods with olive oil and I'm losing weight.  Now I can't say much for the pre-packaged guacamole you buy in stores, except read the labels closely and use your best judgment, but when you make it from fresh veggies and spices you have a great dip or sandwich spread that's much healthier than most.  Only hummus or salsa can beat this stuff and that's saying a lot.

Ingredients

3 avocados

lime juice (I get the lime juice in the plastic lime shaped bottle)

1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1/2 medium onion, diced

2 roma tomatoes, diced

1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic

AVOCADOS

Much of what I mentioned in my Avocado Kale Salad recipe goes for avocados in this recipe.  This time I got some perfectly ripe avocados and I took more photos.

Cut into the avocado from the top until you feel the pit and cut all the way around the pit.

Then, you separate the two halves and get one half with a pit.  If it's ripe enough you can gently take the pit out with a spoon without taking too much avocado flesh with it.

Now when they're really rip you should be able to maneuver the spoon between the flesh and the skin of the avocado and work around until you take out all of the flesh at once.  When you put it into the bowl, liberally squeeze some lime juice over the avocado to prevent oxidation (or browning).  You should be able to repeat the same thing with the next avocado.

  Now set aside your lime coated avocado and dice your tomatoes and onions.  

SPICES

Now place your avocado into a large bowl separate from the lime juice, but save the lime juice.  Before you add your onions and tomatoes add the salt, cumin, and cayenne.  Take a hand potato masher and mash it up.  I haven't tried an electric mixer.  So if you do, let me know how it came out.  Mash it up into a gooey mush with as few lumps as possible.  

To the left is a 14 oz bag of cumin powder my roomie had lying around his kitchen.  This is the most cumin powder I've seen in someone's kitchen.  The 3 oz. jar to the right is the biggest container I've seen prior to the other one and that one was a cheapie at just over two bucks. 

 THE FINISH

After you have a good green mush add your tomatoes, onions, cilantro, garlic, and  a teaspoon or two of that leftover lime juice you saved.  Then stir it to a nice consistency.  I used dried cilantro from the jar rather than fresh and it turned out just fine.

Another Kitchen Outlaw tactic I use is a jar of minced garlic.  It saves time and keeps from having fresh garlic around to spoil.  Fresh garlic is still the best but this isn't so bad.

Here's the finished product.  I let it marinade in the fridge for at least two hours before eating.

Men's Health Magazine says this is the best kind of tortilla chip you can buy for the low calories and low fat.  So this should be pretty good for dipping.  Pita chips work well too.

I was 12 years old when I saw the HBO comedy special Carlin at Carnegie Hall and never laughed so hard at a comedian before.  Even then, I knew the guy wasn't just a master of using filthy words but a true genius.  I was lucky enough to see him live in concert before he died.  It is amazing how he could breach topics both mundane and heavily political and make them equally funny.