Gyoza

Baked potstickers. I'm not going to apologize for not ranting anymore, because it implies that I intended to rant and not just make food.
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From right to left we have:

2 packs Gyoza wrappers, thick

1 bunch Chives

>8oz Smoked tofu>

3 cans of "mock duck"

chili peppers for the sauce

Sesame oil

2 packs Tofu shirataki

Soy sauce

~9 heads Baby bokchoy

~12 green onions (3 bunches)
The chilis in the middle are just for aesthetics; you use 'em in the sauce.

Small things are cute.

Pull off their legs and chop them fine. It is best at this point to stop thinking about how cute they are, or referring to them as babies.

Squeeze out some of the liquid. Danger: prolonged exposure to bok choy may lead accute cabbage infection; I'm now 4% cabbage by mass.

This photo makes it look pretty ok, but I compared it with the image on the can so y'all won't be as disslolusioned as i was the first time opening a can. It is vegan, but also a product of Taiwan so I don't have any illusions about its sustainability; its ingredients don't seem scary, but there is some mysterious "salad oil" in it, which I hope isn't petroleum.

Mince the mock-meat and mix your mock-meat-heap with the gyoza making mix. Then, repeat that sentence 4 times quickly.

Tofu shirataki; it even says vegan in the ingredients. Shirataki are chewy yam noodles; these ones are made with soy. I probably eat too much unfermented soy, but I don't really mind the breasts so I'm ok with that.

Rinse your shirataki, then massage them with some soy sauce, a dash of sesame oil, and some apple cider vinegar. Sorts like your making a cold noodle salad; these noodles are great for a very filling cold noodle salad; asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and a tahini pesto... mmmmm

You don't really want any noodles longer than a few inches, so chop 'em accordingly. Then, throw them to the cabbage.

Some delicious P-town-made, smoked tofu. It tastes kinda like a tofu dog, but with less mysterious chemicals.

Cut the tofu into spears, then cut the spears into little cubes. Throw your smoked tofu boxes in with the cabbage mix.

Time for no-recipe chili carlic sauce:

Soy sauce

Apple cider vinegar

Oil to cook with

Starch!

Sugar

1 head Garlic, all of it

~12 little Chilis

Every queer should know the importance of using protection!

Pepper montage! Decapitate them, halve then quarter them, and finally, scrape out the placenta and seeds.

Slice the quarters; this is just so you don't get big hunks of skin in the final sauce.

Denude a head of garlic, and process until sorta smooth; add a little oil so you don't have to scrape down the sides so much.

Mix in the sugar, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar. Add some starch and water; the above is a picture of what too much starch looks like; keep it to about a teaspoon and a half.

Apply heat 'til it bubbles and gets gooey. Add about half to your cabbage mix, reserve the rest for dipping.

Hand chives!

Mince chives; I only used a buschel about the size of quarter. Throw them in with the cabbage mix.

Slice the scallions, the thinner the better; this knife sucks so they came out kind of thick. Mix them in quickly or they start to taste funky (a little like soap?), and season your filling with soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, sesame oil, and a little sriacha. Its important that the mix tastes a little salty 'cuz the cabbage sorta sucks up that flavor when they cook.

To keep juiciness to a minimum, you may wish to drain your filling mixture. Add a tablespoon of starch if you want your insides to be gooey.

Go with the thick wrappers unless you know for certain exactly what you're doing; they don't tear as easy. Evergreen is made in Portland too.

They look a little like starchy tortillas.

Pick 'em up carefully or they can tear.

Always aim to underfill your potstickers, or they're impossible to seal.

1. Add filling to the center of the wrapper.

2. rub a small amout of corstarch dissolved in water (approximately 1:1 by volume) around the outside; try to keep moistness to a minnimum or you'll get leakage.

3. Fold your gyoza in half and press the edges together tightly; don't fuck around, it likes it rough.

4. fold the corners up, about a half centimeter.

5. make a series of crimping folds along the edge, like the picture. Make a little z, then squish it.

6. Press your folds together.

Isn't it cute? Repeat ad nauseum. I made about 80 last night.

Baste 'em with a little olive oil before they go in. I normally steam them, but my wok and bamboo steamer are lost in the move at the moment, when steamed the outside is a lot chewier and I really like that. These are probably less healthy too.

Into the fire!

All done.

Golden brown on the crispy side.

They're great for parties. I served them at my wedding-of-convenience.

Neila is our guestmouth today, is she lending queer authenticity, or just being reduced to discrete sexualizable objects? You decide.

This recipe gets the seal of approval.

Get Saucy! in 37 Easy Steps

Another non-rant, please forgive me, but I really like food:

Soooo much.

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Tomatoes!

Cut in half.

dun! dun dun dun,

dun dun DUN, dun

dun dun, dun dun

dun duh-duh-dun

dum TETRIS SONG!

All halved-up! I had to add a couple of non-roma tomatoes to even things up, making about 20 in all.

"You don't have to help me peel garlic mom... really, its fine I don't mind... alright, then I'm putting you in the blog"

"What's a blog?"

I sliced the garlic thin like one recipe suggested. Seasalt and pepper liberally.

I pressed garlic for the other one, to see if it made a difference.

Ow, garlic fingers. I guess my skin is sensitive.

Vertical cut.

Horizontal cut. I used two medium-to-large-ish onions.

Finished up the dicing and onionized both pans evenly.

Rosemarinization. I also drizzled some really good olive oil over the top + more salt and pepper, a little dry oregano, and the last of the herbs de provence.

Roasted for about an hour at 375, this is at the 40 minute mark.

All roasted.

Detail shot; Food Network, eat your heart out.

I then conducted a study of the to pans to see if the garlic strategy made a difference. It didn't; I reccomend pressing because its alot faster.

I scooped it into a bowl and hoped I could mash it so I didn't have to run the blender late at night.

I'm not stirring, I'm agitating.

Denuding the basil.

Basilicious.

Basilfetti!

Chiffonadization.

Tongue's-eye view of the course sauce.

No dice on the mashing, but the blender didn't even take 30 seconds.

It was a little chunky and the smell was fucking out-of-this-world.

Naturally, I had to investigate. It was amazing.

FINISH! Or, well, almost there.

A little basil-love to garnish.

Then, reality set in. It did need a little more salt, but I usually feel things need a little more salt.

Om-fucking-nom. A little time-consuming, but it was worth it. I was really surprised at how sweet the sauce came out, it was like condensced summer.

I hope you all abandon your jars, and celebrate the late-summer tomato glut with sauces of your own.

"Six Reasons God Exists"

This is a response to an ad I keep seeing offering "six reasons that 'prove'" God's existence. You can find it here: http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html?gclid=CM2bh_3i1JwCFRgSawodw2RNEA

I'm not here to disprove God's existence, as that is pretty much impossible, but these claims to evidence are demostrably false and misleading. God's existence isn't provable, some religious people say that this is the point. Further, this advertisement posits the existence of the Christian God specifically, but I'll deal with its egocentrism later in this post. I think for clarity's sake it would be best to address the claims in the order they were presented:

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1. "The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today."

The Earth... The author suggests that the earth's size and distance from the sun are "perfect" for humans, because it keeps the planet at a livable temperature and holds a thin atmosphere of gaseous Nitrogen and Oxygen. This begs the question: "Why did this same God make the fossil record appear as though life was responsible for creating these livable conditions?" The fossil record suggests that most of our atmosphere's gaseous Oxygen and Nitrogen are byproducts of the metabolism of primeval bacteria, algae, and fungae, and further suggests that life adapted to these conditions and not the other way around. The author also suggests that without the moon the oceans would "stagnate," which simply isn't true; ocean currents might be different without lunar tides, but they wouldn't go away.

Water... The author has transposed cause and effect again; she notes some of the remarkable properties of water which allowed life to develop, as though water was made to suit life. Even in the bible God makes the waters first, before he even gets to people. The author also notes that

"Ninety-seven percent of the Earth's water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people"

This begs the question though, why make 97% of the water marine? Why, if land life is so special, not make more land and more fresh water. Why make the seas saline at all? It seems rather inconvenient if we're supposed to have dominion over the whole earth.

The human brain... The author points out that the human brain is extremely complex, and that "[t]he brain functions differently than other organs. There is an inteligence to it..." Why, in all its complexity, does our nervous system have all of these apparently vestigeal bits? Why are there so many substances capable of immitating neurochemicals and impairing or altering the brain's function? Why would we hallucinate? And while it is complex, the author points out a great deal of information that the brain receives it ignores; why were we not designed with a prefrontal cortex capable of cognizing more information per second?

The eye... Which "can distinguish between seven million colors" and processes millions of messages per second. The eye certainly handles a lot of information, most of which the brain ignores, which begs the question: why doesn't the eye only perceive relevant stimuli? As for the millions of colors; colors are not categories which exist objectively in the world, they are constructions of the human mind; the eye can dectect very subtle differences in light wavelength, but this seven million number is meaningless. The author goes on to suggest that evolution cannot fully explain the "initial source" of the eye or brain, or the start of life from nonliving matter. Assuming that the assertion about evolution "not fully explaining" is true, suggesting that there is not an adequate explanation does not mean God is the explanation, it merely means that there is not currently an adequate explantion. However, evolutionary biology can model very well how the eye might have originated as a simple light detecting cell or cluster of cells like the maggot's eye, which they use to avoid light by bobbing back and forth. For a video of a rather handsome young Richard Dawkins illustrating such a model click here.

2. "The universe had a start - what caused it?" The author points out that science has yet to answer this question and then quotes several scientists out of context about how powerful the big bang was, and how we cannot fully know its cause. The problem with her suggestion is two fold: 1. If there is no explanation for the cause of the universe coming into being, it does not mean that God is the only explanation, or even that God is a good or probable explanation. 2. If God did create the universe from nothing, what caused God to come into being. While the cause of the universe is unknowable, and conluding that it must be due to God without providing an explanation for God's own existence is patently ridiculous.
3. "The universe operates by uniform laws of nature. Why does it?" The author points out that the same natural laws apply everywhere, and quotes Richard Feynman "The fact that there are rules at all is a kind of miracle." Bringing up Richard Feynman (by quoting him out of context) undercuts the author's assertion fundamentally, because Feynman is talking here about the fundamental strangeness of quantum electrodynamics; there aren't definite particles in specific places, and the forces that apply on the scale that we're used to, cannot be easily reconciled with the strong and weak forces. Why aren't the uniform laws of nature on the quantum scale, the same on the macroscopic scale?
4. "The DNA code informs, programs a cell's behavior." The author simplistically explains that DNA is a "programming code" for the cell that are "chemicals that instruct" the cell, dictating its behavior. "Natural, biological causes are completely lacking as an explanation when programmed information is involved. You cannot find instruction, precise information like this, without someone intentionally constructing it." First of all, DNA codes for protein. Period. Protein synthesis is pretty well understood, and while it does dictate much about the cell's behavior, the programming language analogy is erroneous, because DNA is does not code for behaviors, but rather, components. Secondly, if this precise code so clearly points to an intentional constructor, like God, why would DNA have so many blunders like genetic disease, transcription errors, mutations, and DNA for unexpressed proteins? Finally, even if natural, biological causes were inadequate when "programmed information" is involved, that does not mean there aren't any sufficient natural, biological explanations that have yet to be proposed, and it is utterly absurd to conclude that because one does not understand any natural, biological explanations for natural, biological phenomena that the only alternative is a supernatural explanation.
5. We know God exists because he pursues us. He is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him. The author suggests that atheists are interested in refuting religion, because God is present in their thoughts. She posits further that God created us with the intention of having us know him. I am interested in refuting religious claims, because the onus of proof for any claim lies on the one positing the claim, and religious ideas dominate every major institution in society, with no evidence to speak of. I am bombarded constantly with theist propaganda, and every media representation of Atheists paints us a amoral, bitter curmudgeons. On that note, if God created us with the intention of having us knowing him, why require this irrational faith business; why not simply make himself known to everyone by manifesting conclusively in everyone's lives (booming voices from the sky, burning bushes, impregnating virgins, dictating stone tablets and the like). Why does God appear to Christians as Jesus or YHWH, but to Hindus as Shiva or Krishna? Why didn't Jesus, when resurected, just go tell everyone his good news, and why, if he controls everything, did he prevent testimonies of his acts from being written until at least 30 years after his death. It seems to me, that if God wanted to be known, he sort of confused things a bit.
6. "Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God revealing himself to us." What? Why are their contradictions between the gospels? What the hell is with this God, but the son of God thing, and how the hell could something so essential to God's nature only be described in the vaguest terms? If it is a revelation from God, why wasn't it written sooner, and what makes the testaments of the bible more legitimate than their contemporary gospels. Really, most other religious texts are equally aged and ambiguous, but the claim to the uniqueness of the bible in clarity, or specificity is plainly a contrivance.