he vuelto//bagels.

He vuelto {I'm back}.

Yes I'm learning Spanish. But how do I learn during the summer, without formal classes to guide? One way is to regurgitate everything I am thinking in English into Spanish.

solid method.

I haven't posted in a while, and that's because posting hasn't been my priority. Traveling as a Teaching Assistant, you reserve less time for what you're doing and thinking and spend more time doing and thinking things with your colleagues and students.

But ahora, he vuelto. So, I'll indulge. With bagels. Let's begin with this short video:

Food Science understanding adapted from thekitchn.com

Ingredients. 

This recipe is adapted from Margaret Anne's "Best Homemade Bagels".

Yield: 8 bagels [Today's making yielded 7 –– we lost some dough along the way]

Time: at least 3 hours.

Le Dough:

• 1½ CUPS warm water (Margaret's recipe calls for the water to be 110° F – I didn't have a thermometer)
• 1 TABLESPOON active dry yeast (a little more than the yeast in one of those Fleischmann's packets)
• 1 TABLESPOON brown sugar (I didn't have brown sugar either – scroll to the bottom for what I did to cope)
• 4 CUPS flour (I used all-purpose unbleached)
• 2 TEASPOONS salt

Le Water Bath:

• 8 CUPS water
• 2 TABLESPOONS brown sugar (one again, what did I do to cope? scroll down)

Directions.

1.) Pour the water into the bowl, and sprinkle in the yeast and brown sugar. Let sit 5 minutes. Add in the flour & salt and mix (you can mix with a mixer, but I don't like to use mixers. I use spoons & hands). A dough is now formed. Knead the dough gracefully for 10 minutes, like I did below: 

2.) Place the dough in a greased bowl (I greased the bowl using the bare end of a stick of butta), cover with a kitchen towel or cling wrap, and let rest for 1-1.5 hours.

resting just to rise. so poetic.

eyes targeting individual messes. not so poetic.

3.) Transfer the dough to a floured work surface. Divide the dough into 8 equal parts to shape into balls. Punch a hole in the middle of each ball and swirl the thing around your finger with its tip on the top of your work surface. Cover whatcha got with a kitchen towel and let rest for 30 minutes.

it's the bro. 

his hands were too lovely up there to the right so i made them black & white

these are my hands tho.

4.) While the dough is resting (to save time, of course), prepare the water bath by heating the water and brown sugar to a gentle boil. I was going to use a large pot, by Margaret recommended a wok. I didn't have a wok, so I used a large sauté pan.

upstage – what i was going to use

downstage – what i actually used

5.) Preheat the oven to 425° F. Re-poke a hole through the center of each ball, as some holes may have closed over. Swirl the dough on your finger to stretch the hole, like you did before.
Place each newly-swirled bagel on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.

6.) Transfer the bagels to the simmering water, four at a time. Simmer the bagels for 2 minutes, flip over, and simmer for another minute.

7.) Use the end of a wooden spoon to remove the bagels from the water and return to the baking sheet.

8.) Ah! Because you preheated your oven, it is now hot. Bake the bagels for about 25 minutes, or until they look like the best NYC bagel you've never had.

9.) Transfer the bagels to a cooling rack 5 minutes before serving. Serve with whatever you'd like. You probably already have something on your mind...

Cream cheese ~ Lox ~ Butta ~ Bacon ~ Eggs ~ Cheese~ Bacon, Egg, & Cheese ~ Peanut Butter.

Y'all know I tend to opt for the PB. I won't add an end photo here because I don't want to perpetuate bagel paragons. You make what you make. 

enjoy.

****brown sugar note:

this was why I did not have brown sugar.

so I made brown sugar instead! 1 tbsp molasses for every cup of white sugar.

All videos made with Splice Video Editor by GoPro. Download it here --> it's free!

one-liners//this is a food blog again

I've been dipping into old notes I wrote on my phone...some of them seem pretty insightful and o.k. i think of how "young" I was at a time stamp of two years ago. but if i didnt know anything about who wrote these notes, I wouldn't feel a temporal connection:

(I am pairing these with pictures of food because I want this to become a food blog again.
More culinary efforts to come.)

why do i feel the need to peruse your daily
hourly
minutely posts when I
have Maya Angelou right next to me

Mediocre fried chicken and decaf Americano.

at night, she blocks the time box~

reverberating through a light wooden headboard

To John Belushi,

this library is like a stuffy nose.

a pound is 454 grams

lemons

oh. so you need your coffee in the morning//well, maybe you really do.

BEFORE I IMPLANT my arduously-researched two paragraphs about psychological dependencies on coffee, let's gorge:

classic.

look at that angle.

I'm LinkedIn.

ooh, switching it up now.

that's it.

okay, guy.

"you take cream, but that's okay."

Now, a sentimental account of your psychological dependence on coffee:

Another study followed 83 college students across two days to see if physical experience facilitated explicit memory recall (Kelemen & Creeley, 2003).  All participants were asked to drink a beverage before studying 40 pairs of words, with about half being given a caffeinated beverage and the remaining participants a placebo (Kelemen & Creeley, 2003).  Participants were also given one of the two beverages the next day, right before a an assessment testing memory of the words studied the day prior (Kelemen & Creeley, 2003).  Data showed that those who were given the same beverages, caffeinated or not, on both days recalled more word pairs than those who drank different beverages between days (Kelemen & Creeley, 2003).  

         

This study suggests that the ability to perform a task is influenced by the completion of tasks associated with it.  Despite societal beliefs and jests surrounding caffeine in the United States–that coffee enhances mental ability at no effort of the consumer–a “need” for coffee may be created through more than a chemical dependence.  The act of drinking coffee in the morning may enhance the individual’s apparent cognitive ability by simply fulfilling the necessitation of routine.  Ironically, modular views are aided by the perception of the mind as independent of the body–that is, unless a foreign substance is introduced.  Here, embodied cognition triumphs the mind over the body. 

*******the above was extracted from Sarah Simon's term paper

do your little bit//not food related\\a definitely food-related challenge

"Do your little bit of good wherever you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." ~Desmond Tutu

Can you tell I copy and pasted the above from a PowerPoint>

Well. I'm going to do my little bit of good right now. 

And it's funny what we decide to be "good"; the term is subjective, left to contingencies, spliced on situational dependencies.

Can you think of something that seems to be "good" in your life right now that, at other times, hasn't been so good?

coats, for instance.

Because I began this thing with claims that it was and would forever be a food blog, for the first time in a battery of posts, I'm going to be discussing food.

Here's an instance I can picture now, where the "good" is entirely reliant on disposition or situation. Look at this:

This is my left hand, holding a jar of cashew butter in a health food store. My right hand is busy documenting what my left hand is doing.

In my opinion then, and in my opinion now, this jar of cashew butter is good. But what if I was severely allergic to cashews? Or take this:

A turkey, stuffed to the brim by my father (whose hand I physically impeded from additional stuffing action). This image, while it was taken, reflected something I thought was good. Half an hour later, a picture of food was the last thing I wished to see. 

One last one, not food related:

or I hope you don't consider it food related. That's not good.

When posing for this high school prom picture, I didn't consider the act particularly good or bad. I remember feeling a dullness that I thought should resemble excitement.

Now, I look back on prom and I think it was pretty good.

Anyway, speaking of good. I hope my ostensible displays of culinary mediocrity will inspire a little somethin' in your kitchen.

make it good.

Credit for this pie goes to Mehdi, who made it without following a recipe.

And so I challenge you. Make a pie. Don't measure anything.

See how it turns out.

Maybe your expression will resemble his.

inside/out/food

NOTE: This post about Disney-Pixar's Inside Out contains spoilers.

About a week ago, I traveled to Nebraska to visit family. As a tradition, we always go to the movies together. 

catch the flicks

see the sights

Even the twenty-five-year-old in our cousin bunch was set on Disney/Pixar’s latest production, Inside Out; even the twenty-five-year-old pleaded for tissues by the end, a popcorn bag becoming ersatz Kleenex. 

As the studio conglomerate’s first psychology-conscious film, Inside Out embraces the complexity of everyday emotions—especially those experienced by a pre-teen unaware of impending puberty. The movie’s psychoanalysis—sans a Freudian couch—begins with a zooming in on the characters’ head-quarters, or brain. Inside, five key emotions hover over a control board, waiting for a turn to govern it. In Riley Andersen, the eleven-year-old protagonist, Joy is often at the helm. 

she's the blue-haired pixie-lookin thang up above, but if you don't recognize that, I suggest watching the freakin film

Throughout Riley’s mid-pre-life crisis, she experiences a whirlwind of emotions, to be expected. Her coming-of-age is nonetheless heartwarming, but what my own analysis of psychoanalysis centered on was the portrayal of Joy; she’s yellow and glowing, donning a summery green dress. She’s often jumping about and smiling, marveling at Riley’s experiences, playing Dr. Pangloss at the unfortunate ones. But she has blue hair. In fact, her pixie do is the same shade of Sadness’ hair, who is completely blue. The very tip of Joy is Sadness.

After mulling over emotional complexity in a cavernous G-rated theater, I went home and searched Reddit.

As usual, the a forum pushed me even further:

Question: “Since Joy has blue hair, does that mean that there is a little bit of sadness in joy?”

The user with the greatest evidence of family movie-brooding is rewarded to SunshineAndGoldfish: 

I think you might be on to something. If we take it a step further...

Joy's Colors: Yellow body- Joy Blue Hair/Eyes/Eyebrows/Flowers on Dress- Sadness Green dress- Disgust Red Tongue- Anger Purple Lips- Fear

For extra credit:

Disgust has Purple lips, scarf and shoes. I am having a hard time telling if her tongue is Purple too or Pink/Red.

Anger has Yellow flames, Purpleish pants and it looks like the zig-zag of his tie has a Blue tint to it (possible Green).

Fear has Blue stripes on his sleeves and a Red tongue

Sadness has Purple glasses and a Red Tongue

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixar/comments/3bpm2c/since_joy_has_blue_hair_does_that_mean_that_there/

Self-titled Disney/Pixar Fans deserve some sort of credibility, and so do their own answers:

I would also argue that the blue hair symbolizes that the two share a special connection. A huge theme in the movie is that emotions are not single shades but rather a mixture. This is most notable in that without Sadness, we cannot properly appreciate Joy.... Both as characters and as emotions.

Source: http://www.quora.com/Inside-Out-2015-movie/Why-did-both-Joy-and-Sadness-have-blue-hair

Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman expands on the question, relating it to Jewish philosophy: There is no such thing as “pure joy.” Happiness is borne by sadness.

(click on the photo for a debate on the subject)

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-geoffrey-a-mitelman/why-are-joys-eyes-blue_b_7688406.html

Rabbi Mitelman includes a snippet of a New York Times review:

"The movie suggests that the bittersweet is a step up from untarnished joy and shows how frantic cheerfulness can stand in the way of genuine connection."

With that said, Joy would look terrifying without a little sadness anyway:

as for food, make an egg. poached

answer//respond//Purkinje fibers could be a good band name.

respond or answer?

last week, I began a Human Biology course at a city college. To welcome her students to the content, the professor began by asking a series of general questions.

"What do humans do to survive?" was one of them.

I thought of donuts. Then I really thought about them; the archetypal fried "O" haloed by questionably-strawberry-definitely-pink icing, and sprinkles. 

Then I thought about Bostonian vernacular--about how chocolate sprinkles are referred to there as "jimmies." But I'd rather have rainbow ones on my pastel, faux-fruit glaze.

  eh it's really not all that great

  that's different.

Anyway.

In the five minutes she kept us guessing, we stressed the same answers while increasing in frustration. they were:

1.) "answer"

2.) "adapt" 

3.) by God I even tried "regulate"

"to survive, we regulate everyday."

in some way.

Our top three answers, as a class, yielded no approval from the professor. So why did we keep repeating them?

Breaking it down, blogolysis style:

(the breakdown of chemical compounds is referred to as hydrolysis~~see what I did there~~)

2.) maybe we kept howling "adapt" because the term is vaguely sciencey; Darwin was a guy.

3.) maybe I yelled "regulate" (followed by a bashful giggle--I dont know why I felt embarrassed but I kinda do) because homeostasis was on my mind. homeostasis is the one and only bae, truly.

1.) "Answer" was the most common response. It seemed unquestionable that answer was the answer; we chorused it with momentous frequency, maybe convinced that the professor couldn't hear.

after we learned that the answer the professor was looking for was respond ("humans respond everyday to survive"), our obsession with "answer" seemed to make sense. "Answer" is:

a.) direct, like many of us have come to expect the responses of this world to be. when you connect to WiFi, it's frustrating sitting around, waiting for the little signal waves to figure themselves out.


b.) connotative of clarity. when movie plots are mysterious and hard to understand, they seem unnecessarily obscure compared to the directness of action movies or billion-dollar blockbusters

c.) immediate. why spend time on a thirty-minute meal when your microwave pot pie could go through all the stages of matter in four minutes?

so much of what we experience simply requires pressing a button. survival, however is day by day; no, as a population we haven't adapted to keep up with what we've created and maintained.

I made these the other day, they are vegan and gluten-free.

but i didn't take pictures because i wanted to avoid pushing buttons. these are taken from the website (link embedded in the images):

now here i come, pressing an alphabet.

Purkinje fibers could be a good band name.