tofu breath and all...

so i have a deep affection with coagulated soybean curd.

perhaps, dear reader, you also share this devotion to the multi-faceted culinary swiss army knife. or perhaps your face contracts in a distasteful recoil from that bad experience you had in college experimenting with substituting tofu for chicken in a stirfry and it completely fell apart.

which brings us to the point. like aficionados of other delights in life, one must understand the subtle nuance of each nigari-laden cut off the block.

many of the bad tofu experiences can be chalked up to a misunderstanding of the "field meat"(as the japanese sometimes refer to it). that tofu that fell apart in your stir fry was most likely mori-nu soft tofu, which is available even in south dakota. you gotta seek out the goods in the refrigerator section of your local health food or asian grocery store. stick with the firm or extra firm, and leave the soft for your baking needs.

you can use it for tofu scrambles, in desserts, cookies, spaghetti sauce, smoothies, frozen and then thawed and marinated, baked, straight up, in soy "ice cream," dehydrated (tvp)--virtually anything, really.

i don't really have any favorite recipes, as my cooking style is very much ad lib. that said, i did adapt a ginger snap recipe not long ago that got some rave reviews from my vegan pal and fellow aficionado, sean.

a bit off subject, but has everyone read those chain letters about the neiman marcus $250 cookie recipe? i remember my dad receiving a photocopied version of the letter in the usps mail back in the 80s. that hoax has been around for awhile, eh?

science center sunday

yesterday, we went to the maryland science center with alexis and ankit.

ankit had free tickets, so we arranged to go. it was the first time that any of had been to a science center since our youth.

there were several interactive stations, all engineered for a younger audience, but it was fun to walk around for a few hours and play with some of the stations.

this picture taken by the hubble telescope is fodder for the curious thoughts of wonder that lie within.

darth tater

----->this is 'effin sweet!<-----

my stimulant of choice

coffee is one of the few simple pleasures that i imbue great passion therein. it has long been a love-hate relationship of addiction for me.

the dark, gritty pleasure of a rich robust cup of carefully-crafted beans. soon comes the stream-of-consciousness conversation and obligatory philosophical montage.

perhaps i am a coffee slut? i bounce around from venue to venue, drinking house swill for a buck, holding a captive audience with semi-entertaining banter with increasing fervor and use of facial acrobatics.

let me publicly apologize to you, my good friends, for dragging you (past, present, and future) to a neighborhood coffee house, heavily critiquing the brew and ambiance, and proceeding to commence in a logical-empiricist monologue. coffee, anyone?

a current ahair

what exactly happened to my hair? doesn't it know that i love it? why does it seem to have been slowly moving out over the past decade? it is as if it can't really deal with an abrupt break-up and feels the need to insecurely drag us both through a long drawn-out ordeal.
the really odd thing is, i have a theory that the hair that flees my head is so utterly co-dependant and unsure of itself that as gravity has its pull down a few stray hairs decide to grab onto my shoulders in a last feeble attempt to root itself. the male of the species is not, by any means, the most enticing, wouldn't you say? 

fire in hampden, hon

so amy and i were watching a film last night as it was approaching midnight. we had the sound playing through the stereo, and there was a scene in a park that was strangely interrupted by a loud siren.

for a brief moment, it seemed like the film was going to take an abrupt twist. in some ways the siren even fit with the context on the screen.

we quickly decided that it was reality that was beckoning our attention to the street outside. 2 fire trucks quickly unloaded their cargo, and helmeted men ran toward the rowhouse 3 doors down from ours.

we tumbled out onto the sidewalk and saw that black smoke was pouring out of our neighbor's house. another neighbor was standing in similar confusion and shock, her house directly next door to the one ablaze. she awoke to her fire detector and a bedroom thick with smoke.

the firefighter's scaled the house and smashed in the windows entering from the second floor. a total of 5 fire trucks arrived at the scene, along with 1 ambulance. 2 firehoses were strung out from the main engine, and it to the hydrant.

what was particularly curious about this whole event was the causal nature of the firefighters themselves. another day at the office was the expression amongst their countenances. perhaps it was also because this seemed to be a minor blaze, reported early and not yet out of control.
nonetheless, the firefighters worked on the fire until about 1:45a.m. when they wound up their gear and left.

we received quite a bit of smoke in our rowhouse, being 3 doors down i thought it a bit odd, but after all we are separated by only two-layers of brick.

it was a rough night trying to sleep. this morning both amy and i blew our noses and found soot. great for the old lungs, eh?

what was also unusual is that the firefighters threw out all the belongings in the house on the front lawn and hosed it all down, i guess to ensure it was out. incidentally, the owner of the home is apparently out of town. rough way to come back from vacation...

all-in-all, a very odd evening.

agriculture waste = biofuel

right on volkswagen.
perhaps there is a bright future ahead.

as long as we steer away from those nasty animal-human hybrids...

falafel joy فلاف ل, פלאפל, طعمية

patties of fava beans and cumin bring me great joy in life. it is my vegan steak.

i am particularly fond of falafel with a firm, yet moist and meaty consistency with light green hue. the ideal texture is one that is characterized by stereotypically hand-ground artifacts: pebble-sized bits of the raw ingredients, evidence of freshly chopped herbs peering at you so green, a lightly-kissed-by-the- fry-pan exterior for a satisfying crunch.

the pita must be made on-site, only 4 minutes prior to the construction of the pinnacle sandwich.

opened up like a clamshell, a slightly runny robustly garlic, yet tangy and lemony hummus is slathered on the bottom of the inside of the pita. romaine lettuce sliced in 1/8" strips is draped evenly on top of the hummus, covering it somewhat like cheese covers the tomato sauce of a pizza. then comes a freshly diced, in-season tomato salad which has been mixed in with parsley and cubed, peeled, and seeded cucumber.

where is the falafel? right here. i prefer three or four patties placed carefully inside of the pita atop of the condiments. the finishing touch is a light tahini sauce with a pronounced sesame aroma and flavor.

and the key element... all this for under $5. culinary bliss.