Corona | Coming Attractions

Sweet and sour cabbage = love.

I've been experimenting with pancakes. I can't get them to completely cook, but I kind of like them when they're not done all the way through. I just hate that I can't flip them without getting batter everywhere -- is there some kind of secret to that or is it just a skill borne of vast experience?

Also, how hot do you guys get the stove when you make pancakes? I think part of my problem is that I'm cooking them too hot -- the outside finishes before the inside does. I usually have it at a six or seven on my stovetop. I have no clue how hot that is.

I find a medium-low heat works best. Also, don't let the pan get too dry. and margerine when needed.

There's a couple of tricks to pancakes. Test a small amount of batter to check your pan's temperature. Better to throw away a tiny pancake than a whole pan- full. You know it is ready to flip when the outside edges are dry and there are bubbles throughout the middle. Also, if you want to make blueberry pancakes, add blueberries to the batter. Bananas or apples, lay on top of pancakes after bottom starts browning, or even lay down a bit of butter and cook slices for a minute before pouring batter over them. It all depends on how tender you like your fruits. I like adding a touch of vanilla or cinnamon and applesauce or even shredded zucchini. Pancakes are the best.

I made a ribeye for lunch yesterday. Yummy. I used a new seasoning... worcestershire black pepper (OMG!) and lots of butter.

I have $9 in my bank account and am rapidly running out of groceries. My loans hit in three weeks. I have some staple condiments a bag of lentils. What can I do with them other than trap vampires?

kah wrote:

I made a ribeye for lunch yesterday. Yummy. I used a new seasoning... worcestershire black pepper (OMG!) and lots of butter.

Spammy -- can't you get like 600 packages of ramen for $9?

Ramen isn't vegan. I mean, if I get too desperate I'll just start eating my absent roommates' food, but I'm sure I can do something with the back-of-the-shelf crap.

Vegan. You dang college chicks and your "vegan" stuff. Sheesh.

You know, I don't like to make a lot of stereotyppical judgements about people, but you vegans are certifiable. I get that you can't walk up to a baby cow in a box, pat it on the head, and enjoy a guilt free weinerschnitzel a half hour later, but no animal products at all, right? No milk, cheese, bacon? Insanity.

Dirty Harry Potter wrote:

Fifty bucks for a steak? Where do you eat, in Manhatten?

Yes.

Also: Berlin.

kah wrote:

You know, I don't like to make a lot of stereotyppical judgements about people, but you vegans are certifiable. I get that you can't walk up to a baby cow in a box, pat it on the head, and enjoy a guilt free weinerschnitzel a half hour later, but no animal products at all, right? No milk, cheese, bacon? Insanity.

I have a number of friends who are vegan. It goes beyond diet--and the diet, alone, can get expensive, since (some) retailers of vegan foods prey upon the brand of vegan they know will pay (and can pay, as they tend to be educated whites with money from parents, decent jobs, or student loans) ridiculous amounts of money for food that would otherwise be inexpensive. The claim for driving the price up is that the demand is high and the output low. The claim for the reasoning behind low output is that the quality is high. Whether or not the quality is as high is as claimed is a matter of some debate. Whether or not the high cost (on the environment, too, since something only manufactured in a specific region has to get to a far off place via the same fuel-burning, air-polluting methods as all goods) of getting the vegan products to its destination is better on the environment in the long run is also a matter of some debate.

One problem is that even when the vegan consumer is well-meaning (and I separate the well-meaning [typically well-educated white] vegan from the trend vegan), it may not be the case that the manufacturer is. The vegan industry is still an industry, and industries are industries. This is a conflict many vegans carry with them. To cut down on the cost of transportation, some vegans insist on only buying locally. In rural regions where veganism is unheard of, buying locally may not be an option. The result of this is that the typical vegan is a city vegan, and city living is anathema to the lifestyle the well-meaning vegan wants to perpetuate. Since the typical vegan is a well-educated white, though, the city is where the typical vegan ends up planting roots.

Despite typical vegans being a well-educated, white city dwellers (in the U.S., at least), I suppose they should be applauded for doing what little they can not to destroy the universe. (Seriously, though, I don't see why that shouldn't be humanity's end goal. If we have the power to destroy the universe, we should. What exertion of free will could be more awesome than utter destruction? What makes the universe so special? I think it's pretty damned smug in its vastness. It needs to be taken down a peg.)

Again, serious veganism is more than a diet. No honey, no cars, no wool, no pets, no products of any kind that they feel exploits non-plant carbon-based lifeforms (whether living or dead, and whether dead by natural or unnatural causes) with verifiable thought processes dictating their abidance to survival instinct. Do all vegans meet the serious vegan standard? No. It's hard to, especially if they want to continue living in the metropolitan environment for which they have been intellectually groomed. But trying counts for something, right?

Unless you're Yoda.

I watched the Goode Family.

I'm pretty sick of typing out thoughtfully constructed responses just to have them disappear when I hit the save button.

Unfortunately, I'm going to sum up. Again.

http://www.farmers.coop/resources/farmer-links/

Organic farmers and their consumers... :applause: Wish it was more widespread, and less expensive.

I get the animal treatment argument for choosing vegetarianism. I even get some of the health benefits. But, not using an animal derived product that doesn't adversely affect the health of the animal to collect or produce, doesn't make sense to me.

Explain it, Spammy.

For me it's not really about the ethics of consuming a living creature as it is about the environmental costs of producing meat and animal products. I eat carmine, a food dye made from a bug, because farming that bug doesn't really have an effect on the environment (and, I mean, it's a bug), but dairy farming produces massive manure runoff and methane, which are some of the biggest (if not THE biggest, I forget) contributors by humanity to the greenhouse effect. Also, 40% of the world's grain harvest goes to livestock raised for meat -- that 40% of the grain harvest would probably be appreciated in any of the many regions where there are huge food shortages, but instead, a lot of the world's food is allocated to animals that aren't as vital to basic nutrition and can usually be replaced in the diet of a healthy person by vitamins. (Not everybody can healthfully cut out meat -- for instance, usually diabetics can't -- but honestly, most people pop a B vitamin and do just fine. Cutting dairy also does wonnnnnders for your digestion.)

Also, assuming that collected products don't have an effect on the animal is usually false -- with the exception of small farms with high ethical standards, dairy farming and egg farming are among the nastiest, most disgusting types of farming, worse by far than your average slaughterhouse. It's possible to draw milk and collect eggs from perfectly healthy animals (I have family in California who collect all their animal products from their own farm, and they do have very happy cows there), but the kind of milk and eggs I have access to in the city are almost always going to be collected from animals in terrible living conditions (who are also consuming tons of feed and contributing to the the destruction of the rainforest for grazing land, pollution of water sources, global warming, etc. etc.). Like Goiter said, many vegan products are also produced unethically, so I try to read up on the companies I buy from. For me, veganism is a lot about the pure power of capital -- I don't agree with certain companies' ethical standards, so I buy from other people in order to strengthen brands whose policies I support. I even eat local honey, because bees don't have brains and I have a hard time believing in the ethical harm of killing something without a brain, and local bee farming is pretty environmentally friendly.

Also, as Goiter pointed out, very few vegans can really accomplish everything they want to. I have a car, I use plastic, and I have a dog (though she was a rescue and is now spayed). I contribute to systemic oppression by paying huge amounts of tuition to an imperfect institution and I spend money on movies and World of Warcraft rather than dedicating all of my paycheck to PETA or AIDS relief or any of hundreds of other great causes. But I do volunteer with a local homeless shelter, I avoid as many exploitative products as I can, and I donate a little money. It's about minimizing your ill effects as much as you sustainably can. There are selfish things, like my desire for fancy boots, that inhibit my ability to do good, but I'm okay with those sacrifices because I don't think anybody can be all ethics, all the time. The reason I'm vegan is basically that all the reasons I had for vegetarianism also applied to veganism, and I realized that I could fairly comfortably be vegan. It makes me cook more and keeps me from ordering tons of Jimmy John's, which is always a nice side benefit.

The reason it's environmental rather than murdering baby animal-related is that I'm not completely sure what I think about the value of animal life, but I AM completely sure that animal-based farming is really, really bad for the earth, which is not practically sustainable. I don't think anything that doesn't have a brain has any inherent moral value (which means bugs are fair game for hasty death if they come inside my house), and I'm not convinced that a chicken or even something "smart," like a dolphin or a dog, has AS MUCH moral value as a person -- and, I mean, what constitutes moral value? -- but even if I did decide everything with a brain is sacred, nothing would change. I do want to read more on that, but everything other vegetarians give me is usually based on a feeling of OMG BIG PUPPY EYES rather than logic. It's an interesting question, though.

I made grilled chicken, alfredo pasta, and roasted red new potatoes last night. Yummy! It was the first time making the potatoes, and they turned out damn good.

The human/animal/soul argument is an interesting one. Environmental conscience is a good reason, but not a good enough one for me to stop eating meat. I'd rather use microfiber cloths than paper towels, combine all my errands into one trip to cut down on gas mileage, shorter showers, etc. Good for you for going to so much effort, though.

But if there is no robot heaven, then where do all the calculators go?

Hmmm...why should we eat animals?

They taste good?

Seriously, I have tried all the different ways to obtain protein (shut the fuck up Jakester) other than eating meat, and they just do not cut it. Nothing is a good replacement for actual animal flesh when it comes to protein. The body craves that stuff, not some friggin bean or lab-created-algae mung.

I have cut out all the fatty stuff, the fast food and other garbage, lost 30 pounds in 60 days, and replaced my body fat with a lot of lean muscle. The only way I could do that was eating lean protein such as birds and fish. The weight loss was due to the diet, but mostly the exercise. If I was eating a vegetarian diet my body would have been protein starved during the workouts and recovery.

It may work for some people, but not for me.

I made muffalettas for the Cowboys game yesterday. Didn't eat any cause my Dad made pizza, but I've got them in the fridge now for lunch.

What's in a muffaletta?

All of the people I see at the "natural food" store are fat and haggard.

Bill_the_Only wrote:

What's in a muffaletta?

Nothing. What's the muffaletta with you?