The Emperor’s New Food

Posted on December 24, 2013 by joegergen

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Imaginary Chicken Broth. Brilliant. Imaginary chicken broth, i.e. vegetarian broth, is fun, catchy word play. Good angle by the vegetarian crowd.

At least that’s what I thought the label said, whereas in fact it actually was chicken broth, the brand name being Imagine.

Then I thought Imaginary is good but they should call it The Emperor’s Chicken Broth because then it wouldn’t even have to be broth at all but maybe just fortified salt water, like placebo broth.

Our mind can play tricks on us and we can play tricks on our mind, so why not placebo cooking. Is the power of suggestion stronger than the power of our senses?

Placebo cooking. You order some food at a fancy restaurant and the chef comes out and explains what he has just prepared for you. “Here is our wonderful soup of the day, a cream chicken leek asparagus puree made with our own homemade chicken stock with a dash of coriander and some chives sprinkled on top. Enjoy.”

And you try it and it is wonderful. And you think it is everything the chef promised.

The cook is in the back laughing. “Ha! There is no chicken stock at all in the soup. I used the Emperor’s Chicken Broth. So much cheaper and healthier.”

So in order to get people to eat healthier we need placebo cooking.  You tell them how good it is going to be and exactly what it will taste like. Play tricks on their minds. In other words, lie to them.

You can’t lie to the people, you say. But it’s for their own good. They won’t even know it. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

And think of it. The placebo foods will be fortified with all the nutrients the people need. We’ll all be healthier.

But then if we are going to trick the people’s minds we’ll have to come up with different brand names. Imaginary just gives the trick away and too many people will get the Emperor’s reference.

I’ll leave that to the brilliant PSYOP people. They’ll know what to do.

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The Curse of the Garlic Memory

Posted on December 22, 2013 by joegergen

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Garlic is awesome. Anyone who knows garlic knows this is true. Anyone who does not know this has not been exposed to enough garlic.

I’m sure many people have proclaimed that you can’t have too much garlic. I know I have. Though I must admit one time I think I put too much garlic in a dish.* I put an asterisk on it because it’s highly probable the dish failed due to my cooking skills and not the garlic, but we have no way to verify that now.

But I have a memory. An awful memory. A cursed garlic memory. I don’t wish to have this memory. I work have worked diligently to suppress it, to block it, even erase it. It’s buried deep, but not deep enough.

The worst thing about this memory is that it’s an olfactory memory. It doesn’t happen often but when it does it’s triggered by smell. The smell of garlic. But not just garlic. Some combination of smells that I haven’t pieced together. And when the memory surfaces, it’s not pretty.

I smelled that combination this morning. I was prepping some garlic. Peeling the cloves. Then BAM. There it was, like a Balrog from the deep. I yelled “You shall not pass.” But it passed and I was filled with a feeling of disgust. And urpiness. Don’t forget the urpiness.

The memory comes from when I lived in a multistory apartment building many years ago. We lived on the second floor. There were some plumbing problems going on in the building. Sinks were backing up. Then they were really backing up. Things started to gurgle up into the kitchen sink. Stuff from other peoples apartments. Foul things.

Foul remnants from someone who liked to cook with garlic, lots of garlic. Garlic that had been sitting in the plumbing for some time. I tried to stop it but it kept pressuring its way into the sink. One inch. Two inches. Three inches. When would it stop? And that smell. The whole apartment smelled of rotten garlic and cabbage and God knows what else.

The windows had to be opened. But there were no windows near the sink. Fans had to be put in the windows. Noses had to be pinched.

And the guests. Yes, I had guests. They were merciless. No, it was not my cooking. Sure it wasn’t.

Then it passed. The backed-up muck stopped at about 5 inches. Then subsided. The worst was over.

But I remember. And now garlic has a dark side. A demon ready to jump from the darkness without notice.

Yet don’t so many of the really worth-while things in life, the interesting things, have a dark side? A risk?

Yes they do. And sometimes they show up in the strangest places. What’s in your dark place?

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First Cut is the Deepest

Posted on December 21, 2013 by joegergen

 

knife

 

Fortunately I never had aspirations of being a doctor.

Some might think it is fortunate because I probably wasn’t smart enough anyway. I probably wasn’t smart enough, but I suspect strong aspirations would have spurred the pursuit until my intellectual capacity was clearly a barrier. So that’s not where the fortunateness comes into play.

Some might think it is because I am horribly squeamish. That infamous incident during the 4th grade trip to the slaughterhouse I still haven’t lived down. Or the dissecting the frog incident in the eighth grade.  Or countless more. Maybe. Though I’ve heard you can get past that. A little desensitization goes a long way. Tough determination might have made it possible.

But alas my downfall would have been more mundane.

You see, I can’t use a knife. Only in the strictest definition of “use” is this not true. Yes, I can hold a knife. Yes, I can make it come into contact with desired object. But it so lacks any semblance of coordination, purpose or control that it becomes rather impressive in its futility.

Yet it’s not as if I lack motor control or eye hand coordination in many other aspects of life. I know how to use power and hand tools. I can play a musical instrument. I can throw a ball. I can catch a ball. But I cannot use a knife.

A couple months ago I was eating with a nephew. We were eating some pork cutlets. The cutlets were tender and didn’t require much cutting, but they required some. I’m not sure how long my nephew had been watching but he eventually started to laugh and offered to cut it for me. I had to laugh. It did look like someone was going to get hurt.

Now I do know how you are supposed to hold the knife and the fork and all that. It’s not a lack of intellectual understanding. It’s a complete inability to control the situation. I can only imagine what a colossal klutz I look like while eating in public.

Maybe it’s like stage fright. Maybe the fear of the pointy object just closes down all my motor skills. Clearly a good case for psychoanalysis.

So you see this is why it’s fortunate I didn’t become a doctor. Who knows what damage could have been inflicted by this motor skill shortcoming. People would have called me The Butcher, which would have been an insult to all butchers, ever.

So if you ever invite me out to eat make sure there are no knives required. Otherwise, things could get dicey.

 

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Beware the Justification Hydra

Posted on December 19, 2013 by joegergen

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“You need more antioxidants,” my doctor said.

“Is that like chocolate?” I asked.

“Something like that,” he replied.

I thought maybe if I had the best chocolate ever how could anything be bad. And even if things are bad, I’ll feel good. And when you feel good, you have less stress and when you have less stress your body heals better.

Maybe that’s how comfort food works. Even if comfort food is technically “bad” for you, the cheesy, starchy, gravy-laden goodness does such a wonderful job of making you feel so good that it all evens out.

Is this how justifications begin?  Perhaps. We have deep wells of ability to structure our arguments in favor of what we already know we want. Or as Niccolo Machiavelli might say “Justifications begin when you will but do not end when you please.”

Yes, when do those justifications end? They become living, breathing entities whose only mission is one of survival. By any means necessary is the justification’s mantra.

The comfort food justification has warning signs: lethargy, butter shortages, an unexplained fifteen pounds. As you notice these warning signs the justification battles back by creating sub-justifications: butter is on sale, the cold and snow are dangerous, the weight hoarding is a genetic left-over from cave man days. Things start to get complicated.

That’s why you need to keep your justifications simple at all costs. A good strong and simple justification is easy to stand behind in the beginning and the desire of what you want can rally behind it. Be strong. Don’t let the justification hydra breed in your fertile subconscious.

And when you grow weary of the justification’s side effects, a simple justification is so much easier to attack. Perhaps there is more force needed to topple the beast but it is just one single-headed beast. Look that justification in the eye and say “I don’t believe in you.” You can do it.

So choose wisely and be simple and true in your comfort food justification.

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Size Matters When I Close My Eyes

Posted on December 18, 2013 by joegergen

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Just close your eyes. Trust me. You see, I’ve recently started a new routine of closing my eyes when I eat. Not through the whole meal but once I’ve gotten the victuals to my mouth. I close my eyes and try to appreciate the flavor.

It’s amazing how much better the food tastes and how much more satisfying it is to eat. This is significant because when I eat by myself I’ve fallen into the habit over the years of feeling the need to multitask: surf the Net, read e-mail, watch TV. I want to blame my years in corporate America but at the end of the day I can only look to myself.

I am sure I got to the point where I wasn’t even tasting what I was wolfing down, except maybe for that first bite. I was missing out on what could’ve been a wonderful sensory experience that carried me away from my dull routine.

So here I am late to the game. And glad to be here. Closing my eyes has always been a good way for me to focus on music, whether playing or listening the degree of focus afforded is wonderful and rewarding when not distracted by the powerful visual sense. I never really applied it to taste and smell. But here I am.

Perhaps this epiphany has been brewing for a while. I have over the past couple years found a fondness for small plate restaurants.  Now I am by no means a restaurant critic and have been known to have very low standards so am not vouching for the varying qualities of the local small plate restaurants. I cannot recall the last time I found a food product lacking enough to call it bad, though I can probably guess with confidence that it was something I concocted.

My fondness for the small plates is not about quality but about concentration, my concentration. You see no matter how good a dish is after some said number of bites my ability to concentrate on its unique character diminishes rapidly. So a pound and a half of even the best pasta in the world will lose my attention long before it is gone.

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Bring in the small plates. Four or five bites. Close your eyes and enjoy. Bam it’s gone! But each bite was so good. Oh hey, the next plate is here. Nummy.

Small plates are like the ultimate dining experience for the ADHD crowd. Close your eyes and enjoy. But briefly, ever so briefly.

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A Dream Well Narrated

Posted on December 17, 2013 by joegergen

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Someone narrated my dream last night. It was not me.

I might have suspected Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones, the prefect narrators. But it was not.

The narrator, instead, was from a book I am reading by Andrei Bely, a Russian fellow who wrote during the last years of the Czars. The book is “Petersburg.”

The narrator is a personable and rather omniscient fellow. He is inviting and though rather formal at times but not without a bit of the wink-wink-look-what-we-know-that-those-within-the-story-do-not sort of charm.

Anyway, he has a voice. I can hear him telling the story to me. The voice is not me. I can’t really explain the voice in my head but it’s not like someone with some fake Russian accent. But it is distinct and fully embodied with the style of the Bey’s narration.

I don’t recall particularly what the dream was about. Just that it was the narrator of “Petersburg.” Of that there can be little doubt.

I felt the voice so strongly and so clearly that I abruptly woke up and thought “Holy shit, this book is affecting me way too much.”

It was like a hallucifuckination. It was weird. I was kind of freaked out.

But then I though, I need to read more books like this. How often do you get to experience that? I don’t know. Maybe a lot. Maybe you’re all onto this. Maybe I’ve been missing out on something. Not part of the club.

Let’s see. “Petersburg” is a symbolist novel. Hmm, maybe the Symbolists were on to something. Perhaps writing hypnotic, trance inducing narration they were.

I need to learn to write like this. Just send people into hallucitory spells. I mean without having to lace the pages with acid, of course.

In honor of my weird dream.

I had Too Much to Dream Last Night

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Five Easy Steps to Awesomeness

Posted on December 16, 2013 by joegergen

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Just kidding. There’s no five easy steps to awesomeness. In fact there are probably not five easy steps to anything you want.

Yet as I stumble around the Internet I see article after article on five steps to something desirable.  Granted sometimes it’s more than five steps but there’s always a list of proscribed actions that will get you were you want to go.

Wealth. No problem. Follow these steps. Zen. Even easier. Flat abs. Only a loser wouldn’t be able to achieve awesomeness.

These guides aren’t all bad. And I’m definitely more skeptical of some than others.

Granted, I’m not actually reading most of them. Especially ones aiming at wealth accumulation. Really, if the person writing it was so successful, would they really be writing a hackneyed guide to achieving wealth in hopes of driving traffic to their website or their book? I think not.

In college my theory of calculus professor often told us struggling students as we began a proof that to each problem there was a simple, easy-to-understand wrong answer. I always took that to mean that you were just going to have to work at it.

Does working at it mean it will be hard? I don’t know. Hard is a relative thing. Does it seem less hard if you are finding fulfillment in it? Perhaps if you know what will fulfill you. If I develop good habits will it be easier? Maybe.

See. No clear answers. No easy steps. Maybe Nike had it right: Just do it.

Because everyone is different, only one way to answer some of these questions : Just do it.

You ask, Do what? I say, well something made you read this. What was it? Do that.

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Faking is not Making It

Posted on December 13, 2013 by joegergen

faking it

I just made it up. I say that a lot when I’m cooking.  When I cook (if I dare call it that) I often don’t know what I’m doing or have any set plan. I tend to make split second decisions when I come to crucial points in the cooking process, whether it involves ingredients or next steps in the process. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes bad.

I hate to call this making it up. Making it up, to me, should involve some thought or intention. Like a real chef might think “Oh, I wonder if ginger, cardamom and chicken bouillabaisse will go good together” or something like that and hope to concoct something delicious.

Whereas, I’m just being lazy. Slapping it together. Not that one can’t gain some skill in the art of slapdashery, but it’s just not the same.

In making something up you have visions of greatness. In slapdashery you just have hopes of averted failure. You hand too much control over to your fickle friend Luck.

I will say that in other endeavors I am much better at making it up, much better at having intentions and visions. Though there are times when I’m lazy and convince myself that my slapdashery contains some intention. And sometimes it’s hard to tell the results apart because slapdashery sometimes excels. But deep down inside I know, oh I know.

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Attraction on the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Posted on December 12, 2013 by joegergen

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“You’re so sexy when you’re angry!”

That was the quote from the romantic comedy. I think I’ve seen that same basic scene in dozens of movies and TV shows. Usually the ones where there is the whole love-hate theme going on where the lead actors start out hating each other and then end up in love. That whole “Much Ado about Nothing” theme Shakespeare loved so much.

For some reason today I stopped to ponder that statement longer than was probably warranted and thought: That’s just wrong.

Apparently Shakespeare and these other writers seem to think this sentiment is romantic. What the hell? Did these guys actually ever engage with with real people, with really angry people? The answer is obviously not.

Anger is a seriously negative emotion. It isn’t fun to be around. Sure, there are ranges of anger but I don’t think any of that range shows up on the positive side.

So these writers are telling me they think it is romantic to be attracted to something negative? That’s messed up.

I mean I know we’re often attracted to people that have negative qualities because we all have some. Yet I used to think we were attracted to people in spite of their negative qualities not because of them.

Perhaps I’ve gotten it wrong though. Shakespeare was a lot smarter than me after all. And those witty exchanges between the characters is so captivating.

I might have to re-write my Match.com profile: Looking for angry person; sharp tongue a bonus; villainous love-to-hate mystique and infuriating personality a must.

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The Dreaded Butter Loop

Posted on December 11, 2013 by joegergen

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I’m an awful shopper. I often have to be forced to shop for even the most bare essentials.

When I do shop, I can only shop for a little while. I am usually drained when I’m done.

For the most part this has minimal negative consequences. I usually don’t think I need anything. The challenge to my existence arises when applied to grocery shopping. I do need to eat.

I prefer eating a fairly simple diet. This takes some fuss out of shopping. The fact that I never make a list adds the fuss back in. This usually means I miss something.

Even in my simple diet there are some staples required for cooking: butter, eggs, oils, etc. When you find you don’t have one of these in the middle of a dish preparation (no I didn’t check before I started), things can get dicey and improvisations occur. The improvisations are not always good.

So as best I can I make a mental note that I am out of that staple in hopes I will remember next time I go shopping. Strangely enough the mental note seems to work most of the time. I will remember that I ran out of butter and I will buy butter.

The problem is that these mental notes are not very good with time. They do not understand that time for me is still mostly linear and they were placed in my subconscious on a timeline for a reason.

They are also apparently created (like Twinkies) without an expiration date. They don’t seem to want to go away. They are like poorly constructed computer code that gets caught in a loop.

So I am at the grocery store again and my mental note tells me I need butter. Now I did indeed buy butter during my last trip to the store. My mental note does not seem to care. And I, wisely or unwisely, trust my mental note more than I trust my memory. I buy more butter.

Now after I’ve done this the third time and see the almost three pounds of butter in the fridge I make another mental note: I do not need more butter.

The next time I am at the grocery store my mental note tells me I don’t need more butter. I don’t buy butter. And the next time and the next time: no butter. This mental note stays in place until the next time I go to make a dish with butter and there is no butter. Note to self: need butter.

While there are obviously significant flaws in this method, it does seem to create a predictable pattern that supplies me with butter most of the time. Though I suspect if you used these methods in the laboratory, you would end up with a rather neurotic mouse.

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