Requisite Christmas Music Review!

  So someone else beat me to the punch this year, but happily he didn't write about the musicality of the season.  Check out his article on the storied ghosts of Christmas here, much recommended!  I know Charlie Brown really tried to get the true meaning of Christmas, but it's depressing.  I know the Grinch hinted at it, but the roast beast just doesn't cut it.  Even my local Christian radio station seems to be missing the boat, literally playing things like "Let it snow' and "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" endlessly but ignoring the many great sacred classics save an occasional instrumental nod from the Trans-Siberian Light Orchestra, at least there's no Santa Baby, that's a plus, right?  It sounds more like a seasonal mall sound track than anything else, especially a Christian station at Christmas!  While I don't mind that stuff, sadly, like Charlie Brown, I am more than a little frustrated with our whole culture focusing on the tinsel and the glitz and ignoring the glaring ache that this season entails for many.  It seems we can either be insipidly happy or alone in our grief which often manifests as anger towards the season in its entirety.

But if you hate Christmas because you hurt, you aren't alone!  It is a problem native to all humanity, not just the modern post-christian west, our problem is the same as the ancient pre-christian east or even the insipidly pseudo-christian America of our nostalgic recollection.  While Charlie Brown thinks he hankers after that nostalgic, idyllic ghost of Christmases past, there is no such history, no such reality, because that has never been what Christmas has been about nor is it the ache that haunts his heart like Marley in Ebenezor's bed chamber.

Many of the secular Christmas haters are happy to proclaim that Jesus wasn't really born on December 25th and that we're simply recycling an old pagan holiday, and I'm most happy to agree with them, and their point is?  Men have always been religious, keenly interested and much afeared of the supernatural, at least until our materialistic modern age with its electric lights to forever drive off the dark of superstition and the utter night of ignorance, thinking we are quite something, as if we invented the physics behind the phenomenon, content in our assumption that it 'just happened,' and never questioning the Light behind our light and little realizing that by blinding their own eyes thereby, they are now the ignorant!  That is why we demand a Light in the darkness, and celebrate its coming at the darkest time of the year, not because we know Jesus was born on that particular day but rather that His coming at the appointed time relieved the spiritual darkness in which the whole world languished and we celebrate the fact as his first coming at the darkest time of the year.

But our problem is we forget why we celebrate His coming, yay a baby, a light of the world, but why is that significant?  His birth, while miraculous and marvelous and bright, is nothing, does nothing, rather it is His sinless life, His atoning death, and His conquering of death and darkness and sin forever by rising again to new life that we can sing and rejoice and make merry this time of year and all the year long!  But we'd rather sit with our glitz and jingle, aching inside, making merry without, and wondering why we can't be happy when everybody else seems to be as well.

This is where the great sacred Christmas hymns come in, look past the first well known verse or chorus or the haunting instrumental and delve into the depth, the mystery, the sorrow, the joy, the meaning of this babe's incarnation, the very word made flesh.  Only therein can we find meaning and true joy in this paradoxical season of utmost joy and aching loneliness and unrelenting sorrow, only in Him can all find their true 'comfort and joy.'  Santa and Grinches are fine and fun, but let us not forget the true meaning behind it all!

I fell in love with a smoker...well, actually it is a grill with a bad habit! A review of the Ninja Outdoor Smoker/Grill

 I don't grill.  Too much work and fuss and mess for usually unreliable results.  A propane grill is expensive and doesn't add much flavor.  A charcoal grill is time consuming and fussy.  And actually getting into the smoker craze looks a bit intimidating.  I remember charred, dry burgers from my childhood.  Steak that was burned on one side and raw on the other.  No thanks!  Did I mention we have winter here: feet of snow and negative temps and lots of wind?  

A year or two ago a distant relation made supper on an electric grill, and we briefly looked into getting one, but never bit, it wasn't all that different than stovetop or broiler.  I did buy a ninja foodi (pressure cooker/air fryer combo) last summer and have been super happy with that, but a grill?  Then ninja decided the world needed their own version, and I was curious, but the price was a bit steep.  I kept an eye on it but even on sale it was around $300.  But I finally found a basic version (refurbished) for significantly less and  gave it a try.

It is an electric grill with a smoker function used solely to impart flavor, the heat is all electric.  I bought it in November (we had a foot of snow the week before Halloween but strangely moderate temps after that). I've used it weekly (including temps in the 20s F) since.  I think I'm in love again, if one can have an affair with a kitchen appliance.  Like the foodi, it has a plethora of functions, but you pretty much only use it for grill or smoker, like the foodi is either pressure cooker or air fryer and you don't use the other settings.  I tried the air fryer but wasn't impressed, I'd rather do it in the foodi.  I also haven't used the smoker setting on a long low temp yet, instead I stuck a 7 pound pork butt in the pressure cooker for an hour and then smoked it for an hour and the results were pretty good without having to cook it in the smoker for 6-8 hours.  

It is small and portable, but it is also large enough to do quite a bit of meat at one time.  Clean-up is a snap and you don't have to stand there watching the thing, just check it every so often, turning as needed, which is why I can use it in December!  It gives a nice smoked flavor to things but isn't a true smoker, this won't replace your Traeger but it is a nice option for beginners and the timid or people with limited space/time.  It cooks fast, food comes out tender and juicy (I do brine my meat which probably helps as well), and it is simple, easy, and fun to use.  Definitely a great investment, especially for the first time griller/smoker!

Pressure cooker stew!

 Now that I'm officially a 'sports-mom,' (please see my former post on our new status as a hunting family!), I need a good way to use up all that venison we now own, what better way than a hearty venison stew on a cold, dreary November afternoon, hunting or not, ready in a relative jiff thanks to the pressure cooker!  But you can use pork or beef too.  The veggies and broth and seasoning are also completely modifiable.  You can go from raw meat and veggies to savory, thick stew in about an hour or less (5 minutes to sautés the meat and onions, 15 minutes to build up to pressure, 10 minutes to cook, 15 minutes for natural release) instead of several hours or even all day!

1-2 pounds pork, beef, or venison cut into 1" cubes

1 pound potatoes (skin on or peeled, as desired) cubed

1 pound carrots cut into bite size pieces

1 small onion, chopped

1 stalk celery cut up into bite size pieces

2 cups beef broth

2-3 Tbsp soy or Worcestershire sauce

2-3 Tbsp oil

salt, garlic pepper, basil, thyme, parsley, etc. to taste

1-2 cups water, if needed

3-4 Tbsp cornstarch and 1/4 cup cold water (mix together after cooking is finished and add to hot broth) 

Could also add tomato sauce or canned tomatoes, garlic, peppers, etc. with the root veggies, add soft/already tender veggies like peas or mushrooms or corn with the cornstarch, stir in after cooking!

Either in the pressure cooker pan or on the stove top (if yours isn't so equipped), sauté the meat and onion (and garlic if using) in oil until browned on all sides.  Scrape up all the drippings and brown bits and make sure it gets into the pressure cooker pot.  Add all ingredients except cornstarch/water and tender/delicate veggies (if using) and mix.  The extra water is if you need more liquid to make your pressure cooker run, the liquid should only come 2/3 of the way up veggies/meat, you don't want to dilute the flavor!  Season as desired and close the lid.  Pressure cook on high for 10 minutes, then allow to sit for 15-25 minutes before opening the valve.  Once you open the pressure cooker stir in the cornstarch/water and any tender veggies, stir and close the lid for a few minutes to activate the cornstarch.  Open the lid and stir well, should be ready to serve!

An unlikely sportsman!

 It was just another day: laundry, pick up kids, gut a deer, make supper...wait, what?!  I don't know about your neck of the woods, but around here hunting doesn't mean stalking the clearance aisle at Target, it is sort of a regional epidemic.  We actually have people driving hundreds of miles to do just that, my favorite story was the guy from Alaska (moose, wolves, grizzly!) who came out here to hunt doves (?!).  Pheasants are popular but it is deer season that really gets the locals enthused.  We aren't a hunting family.  We live in town, we don't own a gun, neither of us ever went hunting as kids, basically we didn't have a clue.  But we wanted our kids to take hunter safety, sort of like swimming lessons but for things that go boom, so if they ever did want to hunt, they could get a license.  I never took it, not sure if I ever will, but like swimming lessons, it is a good thing to learn (and get out of the way) as a kid.

I didn't realize that once your kid took it he could qualify for a youth deer license.  And my youth (aged 11) was interested in getting one.  This was back in June, and as the deadline was approaching, I figured at worst we'd be out $30.  There were so many things against him actually getting a deer: clueless parents, nowhere to hunt, no rifle to go hunting with, we had a family vacation planned for half of the youth season, he'd never shot a large gun before (air rifle doesn't count!), I didn't think he had the grit to actually kill a deer (he's a soft-hearted nature lover and irritated that people kill his beloved ducks!).  So he got his antlerless whitetail permit and we had to figure out if we could actually even try this peculiar autumnal ritual.  The local farm store ran a good sale on deer rifles so after consulting some friends, we purchased one, we were halfway there.

The next question was where and who?  We knew people who have land so that was easy enough to settle but who?  Usually it is the dad who takes the kids hunting, but though our dad had had hunter safety and had fired a gun a couple times, he had about as much idea how to do this stuff as I did.  And strangely, I was possessed of professional skills that might be useful in this particular case.  I was pretty good at cutting stuff apart (usually a cow that had been dead for two days) to see why it died, I was probably the most qualified to take care of the deer if we actually got one.  And while I've never hunted with anything but a camera, I've spent a good portion of my life in the woods and understood animal behavior (another professional plus).  So lucky me got to be the hunting mom!  I didn't know a thing about guns, I couldn't tell a shotgun from a rifle.  I had used a BB gun and a tranquilizer pistol but not a big mean gun thing.  Guess I'd have to learn and it really wasn't rocket science.  We bought some fake bullets (Snap caps) and both practiced loading and 'firing' the thing until we were comfortable.

I had made some 'camouflage' for out spring duck photography trips out of some ugly shower curtains and old sweatshirts (an arm transplant!) so figured we could sit in a couple canvas chairs and hide under that.  We had never tested it before and it actually worked out pretty good, we went out two days during September during the youth season and the second day two gorgeous bucks came right out of the woods on top of us, probably 25 feet away, they just stood there for 5 minutes staring at us, not really knowing what we were but knowing it was weird but apparently not a threat (they didn't run) before continuing on their way.  We froze and could only admire them, our hearts pounding in our throats.  Any movement would have spooked them and we had an antlerless tag anyway, these boys were not on the menu!  Lesson #1: Don't park yourself right on a game trail, find somewhere close but with enough room to shoot.

The first night we had a decent shot at a doe probably at 75 feet, but my poor nervous kid was too anxious to pull the trigger and when he finally did, didn't hit anything but we learned immediately why we should be wearing that hearing protection we brought along!  Lesson #2: Big guns go boom!

That was the end of youth deer season but happily his tag was still valid during the regular gun season (versus an irregular gun season?).  It snowed (a lot) over Halloween and we went trick or treating in snow pants, not looking good for the mid-November deer season, I wasn't going to trek through feet of snow or freeze to death for this.  But the weather warmed up, the snow vanished, and it was about 50F when we went out for day number three.  We found a spot with a good 180 degree view where we were out of sight and wouldn't cause any collateral damage if we missed and set up camp.  Lesson #3: if you know the deer come out an hour before sunset, you don't need to get there right after lunch.

It was a little chilly sitting there in the wind and the kid was getting antsy/bored/cold and was ready to start wandering around looking for stuff, but I told him to sit tight and keep watching, he sat but he didn't do much watching.  A few minutes later I saw a nice doe come running over a distant hill (probably startled by some hunters to the west), dash across the field and into the trees where we were sitting, I poked the kid and made him turn his chair in that direction just in case she came our way.  He sort of looked at me as if he wanted to argue but wisely just did as I told him.  We got settled and waited, a minute later she came slowly through the trees towards us and at 125 feet, turned broadside to head south.  I was watching through the binoculars, it was a perfect shot, nice range, she didn't stop but she wasn't moving fast, and I kept wondering if he'd take the shot.  Then I saw the shot in the flank and wondered if we'd have to track the silly thing, but she leapt three feet in the air, bleated in surprise, turned a somersault and went down, I saw her head up for a moment but then I lost her entirely in the tall grass.  I couldn't tell if my son was trying to laugh or cry, probably both, the adrenaline was certainly high for both of us.  As we stood up to get a better look, I saw another doe 250 feet in the other direction also standing broadside, but she was only there for a few seconds before vanishing into the trees with one of our buck friends in close pursuit!

We cleaned up our stuff and just let her be for 15 minutes and then went to inspect the damage.  She hadn't gotten up or raised her head again, which I took for a good sign.  She must have died pretty quickly, I think he hit an artery in the hindquarter with his flank shot, not bad for a kid who has only fired his rifle once before this!  Lesson #4: practice with rifle before going hunting.

She was a big girl, probably 200 pounds, and now I'd have to see if I knew how to gut a deer.  It was actually much nicer than all those cows I necropsy, mostly because she was 1/10th the size, wasn't covered in flies, and mostly rotten.  The mighty hunter wasn't happy to be asked to help but I certainly couldn't do it alone, and this was his deer!  He held legs or the belly cavity open while I did my thing, and even sans her innards she was heavy, I wasn't sure how we'd get her in the car, but happily our landowner friend had heard the shot and came over to see what had happened, he helped me lift and maneuver our trophy and got us on the road!  I called another friend and said we were incoming, her husband processes deer so they could deal with the rest of the messy details.  Lesson #5: make sure you know some big strong people in case you actually shoot something.

I wasn't sure if my family would eat venison, but I brined it overnight and then fried it in the air fryer and they thought it was great, which is a good thing because we have a bunch to eat!  My mighty hunter was excited but also went to bed in tears, she was a beautiful animal and he has an artistic soul, but he plans on hunting again!  I never really understood this whole hunting thing, it is a lot of money, time, work, and mess, and we don't as a rule like wild game, but that isn't the point.  It is pretty cool to be out there, especially with those you love, and not knowing what might happen, even more so than with a camera, this is life and death pure and simple.  But also to know how deeply those who do it feel about nature and the land.  It seems counterintuitive, but as my weeping minion proved, it can be both/and no either/or.  It isn't just to get a trophy or feed your family (groceries are much cheaper!) or to prove your manliness (which a kid and a woman probably aren't going to do!) but it touches something deep, at the very heart of what it means to be human, to be a steward of creation, because that is what modern hunting is.  Nobody makes money hunting X or Y to extinction in the US these days, no true sportsman could or would, but rather our money goes to support conservation and preserves the very critters we hope to kill.  For every deer killed by a hunter there are 10 more that can live out their natural lives because hunters have taken the time, energy, and finances to encourage conservation and habitat preservation.  Just like a farmer should get a cut of his beef, so too does the sportsman harvest a small percentage of the game he has invested in.  Lesson #6: hunting is kind of cool after all! 

Influencers beware!

 First, read this awesome article.

Second, you may need to reconsider your career choice, I'm looking at you Gen Z, most of whom apparently are going to be either social media influencers or professional gamers if they ever grow up.  The rest of us must 'abandon hope all ye who enter here' or something if this is the future!  But then we all wanted to be astronauts or professional athletes in our turn so we'll probably survive this too, probably.

I'll let the gamers off the hook in this post at least, but you future influencers have a hard row to hoe, as everybody is literally doing it, you have to do more and more outrageous things to attract attention.  It is sort of like the ebook bubble.  Back in 2012 you could make a couple hundred bucks a year with a decent book because it was still a fairly new concept, but now it seems most everyone has an ebook they are trying to hawk and if I make ten bucks per annum I'm doing great, and I have 40+ books on the market!  Now people are setting themselves on fire, committing crimes on video and other crazy stuff just to be seen.

Compare that to the above article.  Now go rethink you life!

Beware the frilly dress, but mosquitos are awesome?

 Do you know what a 'trad wife' is?  Yeah, me neither.  But apparently it is a very dangerous and repressive social phenomenon practiced by thoroughly primitive and ignorant human cultures for most of time.  Yes, there is nothing more dangerous to women than traditional gender roles.  If you are of the female persuasion and married to a male human organism, especially if you have biological offspring and you spend more than 51% of your time caring for anyone's welfare other than your own, witting or not, you are in the middle of an existential crisis!  This terrifying phenomenon is apparently trending right now on certain far left and ultra progressive media and social outlets as the worst thing to happen to humanity since the domestication of wheat and holsteins (that would be gluten and dairy type products for you far urbanites).  So the real threat to women is not entire societies declaring that there is no such thing and saying that a man can be a woman if he really feels he is one but rather an XX chromosome possessor acting out traditional gender roles?  Can this get any stranger...wait, PETA just came out in defense of mosquitos...I give up!  Mosquitos are okay but being a mother who actually raises her own kids is bad?

I've noticed the 'raising your own kids is bad' phenomenon for a decade or more, at least if you are a female professional who chooses to stay home and raise her kids versus work so you can pay someone else to do it.  But then most of the people complaining about it are people who are only concerned about their own convenience, ie. I need to work not just full time but every evening, holiday, and weekend because they might just need something on a whim, but then I also can't charge whatever it would cost me personally to make such astounding sacrifice or they'll complain about that too. I think the main issue here is an innate tendency towards selfishness and the thought of someone doing something selfless makes one uncomfortable ergo we must shame the selfless individual into selfishness too so we can feel better about ourselves!  Do you have any idea what sort of a world that would beget, oh, you've noticed all the cultural shifts in the last decade too, okay, nuff said!

Moms are bad.  Dads are bad.  Marriage is bad.  Family is bad.  Police are bad.  Kids are bad. Church is bad.  Parents are bad.  Traditional gender roles are bad.  Jobs are bad.  Personal responsibility is bad. Math is bad.  Everything is bad except mosquitos and men who wear dresses?  Yep, welcome to a progressive utopia!  I actually got the idea for this little post from an article about an article proclaiming that 'trad wives' and their frilly dresses are racist, but I wonder if the writer of said article thinks men in frilly dresses are racist, probably not.  Nothing like sitting at the apex of western culture and chipping away at the foundations of the society that gave you the prosperity and education to do just that!  The worst part is that people like this can't laugh, they should be rolling on the floor, clutching at their bellies at such absurdity, but all they can do is frown and glower and complain about all the things that make life worth living (most especially cows!).  Would a cow in a frilly dress be racist?  Are cows or white people the worser evil?  Are mosquitos okay because they carry diseases that kill people?  If so, why are we not celebrating anaplasmosis or some other bovid bane? Do mosquitos ever wear frilly dresses?  What about the gender roles innate within dipteran societies?  Only the females bite, aren't we supporting 'trad flies' by supporting mosquitos?  Preposterous yes, but there are people out there that take this sort of stuff seriously!  Like the chick who wrote the original anti-frilly dress opinion piece.

I love how you can go from being just a 'normal' human being, doing life like we've done it since before recorded history (albeit with varying levels of technology) and all of a sudden you are a nazi evil racist homophobe just for living your life the way you think you should and not really caring what the ultraliberal end of society and the academic think tanks are musing upon these days.  I thought their whole thing was 'we want to live like we want to live' and the vast majority of humanity is like 'sure, you do you just leave me out of it' but that isn't enough.  Now it is 'you need to celebrate and approve what I do or you're evil' and it looks like soon we'll be entering 'live like we say you have to or you're evil.'  What happened to all that 'live and let live' and tolerance mumbo jumbo?  How come I can't live the way I want but I'm supposed to not only let you do whatever you want but celebrate it and not only celebrate but I can't embrace a different lifestyle because you find it offensive?  Noticing a trend here?  You can live any way you want as long as it is the way they want you to live.  Even reality itself must bend to their perception of it, and woe betide anyone who has a different worldview or accepts life as we know it to be!

So being a married mother who doesn't have a full-time job makes me evil and radical and countercultural and bigoted and racist and homophobic and ten thousand other pejoratives?  I'm evil just for being me.  The sad thing is they won't like me any better if I conformed, because the person they are actually unhappy with is really themselves but it is somehow my fault, so I guess I'll just go on being me and enjoy my wretched little life whereby I offend so many!  But unable to comprehend their own unhappiness and accept responsibility for changing it, instead they will destroy everyone else's.  I really wish I could laugh, but really, I want to cry.

Update on the 'zipetty chrome thing' aka the ninja foodi

 So I absolutely love my new kitchen assistant.  I wrote previously that I didn't like it for rice or pasta, the caveat being cooking either with some sort of meat or veggie at the same time.  I do like it for a noodle casserole, it cooks the pasta fairly quickly but you have to watch it closely to make sure you don't have too much or too little water and adjust accordingly.  The pressure cooker is also fun, I can make applesauce from little scrubby apples that aren't worth peeling, I can just core them and toss them in then run the resulting mush through the blender and have nice smooth applesauce without the work and with the most nutritious part of the apple intact.  I love it for homemade French fries (the air fryer) and pressure cooking a whole chicken and then browning it under the air fryer makes it very rotisserie like at home!  I don't need to bread chicken any longer, you can make juicy inside, crispy outside chicken tenders with the steam and crisp function.  You can do bone broth in an hour with the pressure cooker instead of overnight. It also does great things to baby carrots (and undoubtedly other strange and exotic veggies we don't eat!).  I also love it for croutons, much less tedious than doing it in the oven.  Overall, whatever  your dietary needs/preferences or your kitchen skills, this thing has something for everyone.

Gluten Free Hard Pretzel Recipe, updated with honey mustard (Snyder of Hanover) version!

 Nothing has been sadder on this gluten free journey than discovering even Snyder of Hanover can't make a decent gluten free pretzel.  I love their honey mustard real pretzels but the gluten free version is basically crunchy, tasteless potato starch.  There is no bite, no flavor, no depth.  Just a brief crunch and the flavored coating doesn't stick to the surface.  I've made soft pretzels and bagels, both wheat and gluten free, but never thought to make a hard pretzel, could it even be done?  I found a promising looking wheat recipe but nothing real great in the gluten free department, so I thought I'd try modifying the wheat recipe and see what happened.  It works!  These aren't going to be Snyder of Hanover Pretzels, rather you get a nice crusty shell and a chewy interior, think of a good French baguette crossed with a soft pretzel but a little more crunchy and without the bready interior.  Feel free to add salt to the outside, I can't ever keep it on so I just put it inside, if you salt them, decrease the recipe salt to 1/2 tsp.  Feel free to substitute flour for flour and starch for starch but not flour for starch.

1 1/4 c oat flour

3/4c corn flour

1/2c brown rice flour

1/2c tapioca starch

3/4 tsp salt

1 tsp instant yeast

2 tsp xanthin gum

4 tbsp psyllium husk

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 egg white (save the yolk for the egg wash)

1 1/2 cups hot water

Whisk together the dry ingredients then mix in the wet with a high power mixer or a danish dough whisk.  Cover and let rise in a warm, moist place for 45 minutes.  Meanwhile, bake 1/2 cup baking soda at 250 degrees for one hour.  Once the dough has risen, divide into 24 balls and roll into thin, long ropes (1/2 inch by 6 inches or so) and place on a greased cookie sheet.  Cover and let rise for 1/2 hour.  Meanwhile preheat oven to 425 degrees and bring a large pot containing 8 cups of water, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and the baked baking soda to a boil.  Drop 4-6 pretzels in the boiling water for 20 seconds and then remove to a greased baking sheet, repeat with remaining pretzels.  Brush each boiled pretzel with egg wash (egg yolk plus a tablespoon of water).  Salt or top as desired.  I used two large cookie sheets with 12 pretzels each and rotated them top and bottom during the baking process, don't crowd the pretzels on the pans.  You also want to flip each pretzel halfway through baking as well.  Once you place the pans in the oven, reduce the temperature to 325 and bake for 45 minutes plus or minus 20 or so, rotating as necessary.  You want them to be hard on the outside, not squishy, and they will be darker than wheat pretzels thanks to the psyllium husk.  Cool completely on a wire rack before serving and freeze any extras.

Update: They are pretty good fresh, chewy, slightly crunchy, but still reminiscent of a soft pretzel.  I really wasn't excited to eat the thawed ones, so thought I'd try getting a real hard pretzel by 'twice baking' them.  To get a true 'hard' pretzel you'll want to treat them like homemade croutons: cut them into 1 inch lengths, mix with desired flavoring, and either bake on a cookie sheet at 325 or I used my ninja foodi with the crisping plate on bake/roast at 325 for about 15 minutes for a single layer batch (the whole batch of pretzels took 3 batches in the foodi), stirring occasionally and cooling on a wire rack.  I wanted a honey mustard pretzel so I mixed a couple tablespoons yellow and dijon mustard with a couple table spoons brown sugar, a little salt, and garlic pepper and a couple tablespoons of canola oil.  I mixed each foodi batch with the mixture, stirred to coat and cooked them in the foodi.  You get excellent flavor, great chew, and a nice crunch!  Feel free to try barbecue, salsa, cheese, ranch, terriyaki or whatever your heart desires or just a little oil and salt.  These totally blow Snyder of Hanover Gluten Free pretzels out of the water, they are real pretzels not just potato starch!

AI art generators and their actual impact on art and life

 By now we all assume the robots are taking over, jobs and perhaps even human life are likely doomed, so I'm not sure why you're even reading this, but then again this sort of complaint and end-of-the-world prediction has been bandied about with most every new invention since fire came into vogue.  I remember life before the internet, I was in college when the internet actually became a normal part of life, and now I'm watching the same sort of cultural acceptance of AI, AI art generators in particular.  And from the little experience I've had, I can assure you that as cool and interesting as this technology is, it isn't poised to destroy either art or life as we know it.  It is just another tool in our creativity kit, much like adding the camera to our skillset didn't destroy but rather expanded our concept and understanding of art.

The computer can only assess millions of known images, it can't think, it doesn't have an aesthetic sense, it doesn't even really care if a hand has five fingers or ten.  It doesn't care if you want a picture of a screw or a vivid scene out of a fantasy novel, it is all the same to the generator.  You still need a human artist directing the production of the image, selecting which images to edit, and then doing the necessary editing.  The results can be astounding, but it takes a lot of work, patience, and luck to get there.  I'm not sure it is all that different from taking a picture, in theory all I do is push a button and bam I have art, but I need the right equipment, the knowledge to use that equipment, something to take a picture of, and an eye to see how it is worth picturing, and then the discernment to edit and select the final image.  AI is the same, but instead you come up with an image in your head and turn it into a descriptive phrase the computer can understand and then hit the button and hope you aren't ending up with something completely strange.

I've been using Leonardo.ai and it has been a blast, if occasionally grotesque.  The images are beautiful but they do have their quirks.  If you are an artist, a writer, or a connoisseur of either, I think you will be ahead of the game because you already have a vocabulary and an eye for good art, so you only have to learn to translate that into something the computer can use to make it real, but if you have neither, you have to learn what makes a good image and then how to translate that into words the computer can understand.  I think it is a great tool existing artists can add to their toolkit and something, that if diligently  used, may even help develop a whole new generation of artists.  Instead of just being consumers of art, it is now very approachable for anyone to become a creator of art.  Just like the ubiquitous phone camera has birthed many an amateur photographer, so too does this have the potential to create more creators!

An honest review of the 'Zippety Crome Thing' aka the Ninja Foodi

 If you are familiar with the classics, you should immediately recognize our family's pet name for the Ninja Foodi, but if you were so unfortunate at not to grow up with Satudary morning cartoons, namely the original animated Garfield and Friends (think 1989 here!) then I am truly sorry for you but happily you can redress this terrible wrong and find it on DVD for a reasonable price (there I go dating myself again!). I didn't know this thing was actually Crome until I opened the box, but before it ever got shipped to our house we had already christened it, and no, sadly I am not an affiliate who gets paid for this sort of thing or gets free kitchen gadgets for reviews, rather I'm just a hungry slub with a family to feed.

I wasn't sure what to expect, as like the original, it slices, it dices, what doesn't it do?  The story behind the fabulous name stems from one Roy the Rooster, a rascal and a rogue, trying to get his friends' money back after they were swindled by another rascal and rogue.  He enacted a live action infomercial for 'the zippety Crome thing' and convinced the scoundrel he couldn't live without one, thus selling him an empty shell and retrieving the stolen money.  The story behind my personal investment therein was simply seeing one in action at a friend's house and becoming curious.  I had no interest in either an air fryer or an instant pot but the combination was intriguing.  Then I saw they were drastically reduced in price of late and decided to try it.

I'm not much of an appliance or gadget person.  If something is going to take up counter space it needs to earn its keep.  This thing is 20+ pounds and involves water and grease, it's a monster and no little hand mixer that will tuck nicely in a cupboard.  It was time to put it to the test.

First off, don't connect it to the same electrical circuit as your microwave (or other major appliance) and run them both at the same time or you'll trip the breaker!

I tried the proof function, as I bake a lot of bread, and wasn't really impressed.  It maxes out at 90F whereas I preheat my oven to 165 and turn it off.  My bread didn't rise noticeably in an hour and a half whereas the oven gets it done in 45 minutes.  It is also pretty small so you'd have to do half a loaf at a time.

I don't like it for grains/pasta either, especially if you are trying to do meat and carbs at the same time.  It is either too wet/dry or over/undercooked.

Don't run the steam/bake function for gluten free bread, I think it would be nice for actual wheat bread but gluten free dough is super moist already, but it does a great job if you use the bake function and do small portions like 3-4 bagels, a small focaccia, or dinner rolls.  The crust is crunchy and the inside soft and chewy, definitely a win there.

It doesn't really save time on most things, yes I can bake a bagel in 4 minutes but I can only do 3 at a time thus it still takes 15-20 minutes to bake a whole batch.  If you are going from frozen to done and using the pressure cooker function, yes it will save time, as it is also awesome for bone broth (1 hour versus 12-24 in the crock pot), but for the tender crisp or bake functions or air fry, it doesn't cut any time off.

It doesn't heat up the whole house like the oven does, which is nice in the summer.

It does small batches well, I wish I had one of these when I was single!

It does amazing things with meat!  I love the tender crisp function for just about any meat you can name, especially chicken breasts.  Also great for roasted veggies!

I can 'fry' my chicken without frying my chicken.

You can now have an oven without having to have an oven!  Think camping or small apartment.

I can even 'fry' raised donuts, though they aren't quite as good as truly fried donuts.

The pressure cook setting is amazing for baked apples (5 minutes!).

Overall, I love the thing, and it is a great fit for our family's needs and tastes, but it doesn't quite do everything but what I need it to do it does well!

  

Update

 If you are into gluten free baking (or soluble fiber) you absolutely need to try adding psyllium husk to your favorite recipes, it will revolutionize not just the texture (more like real bread) but also your ability to handle, manipulate, or otherwise torture the dough into croissants, cinnamon rolls, and more!  I've just updated the Haphazard Guide to Gluten Free Baking with a psyllium husk section, including new recipes for Naan and raised donuts.  Give it a try!

The Long Awaited Addendum?

 So after the worldwide lackluster appearance of my first cookbook, I am very pleased to announce the advent of my second (and even more obscure) culinary title: The Haphazard Guide to Gluten Free Baking with Psyllium Husk.  Yes, after a few weeks of dubious flirtation (and lots of baking) I have become an expert (not!) on this very obscure topic.  I'll make an addendum to the original Haphazard Guide as well as release a stand alone cookbooklet.  If you are a fan of fiber or do any gluten free baking, it really is an intriguing ingredient, check it out!

Please note I won't be updating the smashwords version of the original GF Baking Guide as I have struggled with their wonky conversion platform for years.  The draft2digital version has been updated and that is where I also published the psyllium cookbooklet.  The two companies are merging so hopefully there will be a smashwords version without wonky navigation and a psyllium update available sometime this year, but during the transition things are just awkward!

Both versions are out on amazon (the original with update as well as the psyllium stand alone).