Day Three

Day Three: Part of the challenge of eating a vegetarian diet is to invent new meals every night. Of course I could go to the local supermarket and buy some veggie burgers or veggie frozen dinners but that's just not challenging. I went to an asian food market and purchased some lo mein noodles and some vegetable dumplings. The vegetable dumplings were a classic case of poor thinking on my behalf. I like vegetables, I like dumplings, put them together and I should have a good time.

Unfortunately that was not the case. Aubrey steamed the dumplings and made the lo mein. The lo mein was manageable but the dumplings were tough to choke down. I had, at the most, three and then gave up. Just thinking about them my throat gags just a bit. Besides this meal, things have been ok.

Weight is now 186 and hunger wasn't so bad today.

Day Two

Day Two: So far so good. After one day my weight is still 187 lbs. I have noticed that I am hungry much sooner after a large meal consisting of vegetables than after a meal with meat. Aubrey has been great with the meals. Tonight was mushroom risotto with some peas. It was very tasty. What awaits me tomorrow, I can only wonder.

Day One.

Day One: The objective is to abstain from the eating of meats for five days. Meats include; fish, chicken, pork, beef and hot dogs.

As part of this abstaining from eating meats I will try to track any physical effects that may come to my body and if I feel they are detrimental then I will immediately eat a hamburger.

So far my weight is 187 lbs, and I am hungry. This does not surprise me because I am usually hungry.

I believe that this diet (not diet as in I need to lose weight) will pose certain culinary challenges that I and Aubrey (my wife) are willing to face. So far so good.

Cookies

If there is one thing that I look forward to doing during the Christmas season that is baking. I like to whip up some tasty treats and share them with my friends, wife and mother. The treat of my choice is chocolate chip cookies. I wouldn't being lying if I said that I make a pretty good chocolate chip cookie. In fact at the RVCC radio bake sale in 2000 my chocolate chip cookie's were the first ones to sell out. I don't try to toss in any crazy spices or secret ingredients to wow any would be eaters. I have learned that the best ingredient in chocolate chip cookies is talent, and you can't buy that anywhere.

I used to make the cookies by hand. I'd get out the sturdiest wooden spoon I could find and start churning the cookie dough over and over again. My wrist and forearm would cramp, shoulders would burn but a delicious treat was just a few short oven minutes away. Since my wife has a Kitchen Aid mixer those old days of working by hand are gone. Just a simple drop of the ingredients and in no time there is cookie dough. With all of the advancements in cooking there is a still a crux to making good food or making bad food. That is the directions.

For chocolate chip cookies you need to use two sticks of butter. But not just any two sticks of butter, the butter has to be soft. I'm the type of person that "reads between the lines" of words. If you ask me to describe soft I would say something like pillows or Kenny G music. I guess with food my understanding of soft was not what the directions had in mind. After removing the butter from the refrigerator I decided to put the sticks in the microwave to soften them. One minute later I had a bowl of melted butter. My immediate thought, "That's soft enough."

After the mixing was finished and the dough placed on the cookie sheets I waited the alloted baking time. To my surprise the dough flattened out on the sheets and the cookies connected themselves. Okay, no problem, just separate them when they cool and enjoy. Unfortunately the cookies fastened themselves to the sheet with a grip stronger than any glue known to cookies. My error become instantly evident, the soft butter had created flat cookies. To remove these cookies I would have to use my expertise in removing ice from a car windshield on the cookie sheets. I scraped the cookies off onto a plate and made a crumbly mess in the process.

And so I was left with a pile of sad looking chocolate with cookie bits around them, stacked and mushed together on a plate. At least the concoction tasted like chocolate chip cookies but bore no resemblance to what cookie eaters are accustomed to. When I offered the cookies to my friends there was a bit of confusion but after an explanation and assurance that the cookies were safe the cookies, some of the cookies were eaten.

I wouldn't say that this was a failed attempt at cookie making but another example of discovery in the ongoing exploration of cooking. I don't know if it would be possible to do the same thing again but this time putting the dough into a cake dish and seeing if a chocolate chip cookie cake would come out. I guess that would be called a cakie. Maybe next time.

Taking matters into their own hands...

Yesterday students of the New School had themselves a stand off with the President. Over 50 students took over the cafeteria on 65 Fifth Ave. and insisted that they be heard. There was to be a student meeting with the student government but that was cancelled by our President over safety concerns. With growing admonition and curiosity a group of people gathered around the building on Fifth Ave. When the President appeared out of the building he was chased down 5th Avenue by a mob of angry students. Fortunately for the President he was surrounded by bodyguards and made an escape.

Not being one who resides in New York City but still a student, I cannot help but think of the limits that people will take when times are difficult. History shows that when the masses are upset over their leaders they take action. The semester is over at the New School and the student senate is negotiating with the President. If by January things are not settled what will happen? I know that in the United States there is a growing animosity towards leaders and governments. Check the news and you'll see those who've waisted their money away only to ask and receive money that all of us have given to the government. Time moves slowly but anger is like a fire in a field of dry brush.

Some info on the New School President

Kerrey himself was installed as president of the New School in 2001 in the face of widespread dissent by faculty and students. At the university, he is widely despised as a war criminal for his role in a raid on the village of Thanh Phong in South Vietnam in 1969. By Kerrey’s own admission, the raid resulted in the deaths of at least 13 unarmed women and children.

His appointment as president marked a significant shift to the right in higher education, bound up with an effort by the American ruling elite to sanitize the intervention of American imperialism in Vietnam, which resulted in the deaths of over three million Vietnamese. Protests at the New School over Kerrey’s appointment were only quelled by the events of September 11, 2001. Kerrey today defends the occupation of Iraq.

Full article at: (Mostly dealing with the May 2006 commencement ceremony)

www.wsws.org/articles/ 2006/may2006/mcca-m23.shtml

Dare to move?

If you have looked at my Bio on this blog you will see that I am currently a student at the New School University in New York City. The New School is not all that new. The University has been around since the early twentieth century and has always prided itself on being an institution that is willing to explore the issues of the day. Creativity seems to be an impetus to developing new ideas, whether it be in social research, fashion, film, history, psychology, music and etc. Behind the ideas and academic development are those who undertake the politics of the university. There are those who deal with satisfying the professor's demands, student demands, trustee demands, and staff demands. Colleges and University's are an interesting web of management but a web nonetheless. A web unfortunately spun by a poisonous spider.

Certainly this web may have had the intention to protect the university from becoming "status quo." To be on the cutting edge of academic ideas and lead the way in developing curriculum is exciting and very much the vein of the New School. Unfortunately the web so delicately spun has encased student, faculty and workers upon themselves.

The President of the University has plans and ideas for a better University. There are designs for larger buildings with state of the art equipment, a twenty-first century gym and a unique building facade. Along with this undertaking are the improvements to other buildings which have already begun. These improvements have left many students wondering "what has actually been improved?" There are card activated gates that allow access into some of the buildings. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't and if you don't have the card you are a nuisance to the security guards. If you do have the card and it doesn't work you are still a nuisance to the security guards. There are flat screen televisions displayed throughout some buildings. Most have nothing to offer on them. No information or broadcasting of television networks. I assume an aesthetic choice for art students?

In an attempt to quell further dissension, our President has decided to conduct an open dialogue with the students and faculty with a daily blog. The students have protested with a sit in and are to conduct a meeting with the student senate. Some have displayed their angst on the Presidents blog. The President is making an open gesture to have contact with students but many students are better at hitting and running with complaints online than rather discussing the issues. Many students have voiced their frustrations but have left themselves as "Anonymous" on the Presidents blog. Here is where we fail as students.

We have a voice, so use it. If we are Anonymous then we are no one. Maybe there is a fear that if you complain and put your name down that the school will get you somehow. I don't know anything about that but I do know that if you care about something deeply you let whoever it is know. Anonymity castrates the student body and leaves us as a mass of differentiation. It is easy to look up to those in history who have stood up against opposition. You may know there names. Martin Luther King Jr. Rosa Parks, Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon. There names can conjure action and reflection. But imagine if they were Anonymous. We could never harken back to them for impetus.