Reason and Freedom

I have been baking sourdough bread every weekend, following the Cooks Illustrated recipe as a basis for what I do. I basically have been repeating it, trying to make slight changes from week to week to enact changes from one loaf to the next. Here is the most recent iteration of the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 c active sourdough starter
  
• 10 oz distilled water
  
• 24 oz bread flour
  
• 1.5 t table salt
  

Procedure:

1. With dough hook on KitchenAid mixer, put starter and water in the bowl and mix with the machine until combined.
   
2. Slowly add flour until combined
   
3. Knead for a while, say 10 minutes
   
4. Put dough in straight-sided, tall container, cover with plastic wrap
   
5. Wait for a long time
   
6. When dough has doubled (or more than doubled) in volume, remove it onto the counter, squish it alot with your fingers (think of it like playing a piano), divide it into two blobs of equal size, then put those blobs on lightly-oiled plates, lightly oil the tops of the blobs, cover the blobs with plastic wrap, and put them in the fridge overnight.
   
7. The next day, take out the blobs, remove the plastic wrap, take them off the plates, squish them alot with your fingers again, put them into two separate loaf tins, and cover the loaf tins with plastic wrap. Let them sit there until they bulge over the tops of the tins. (Did you remember to lightly oil the tops again so the plastic wrap doesn't stick?)
   
8. Preheat oven with pizza stone (I use a terra cotta planter base inverted).
   
9. When the loaves are bulging over the tops of the loaf tins, remove the plastic wrap, slash the tops of the loaves a few times with a serrated knife, and then bake them in the oven for an hour.
   
10. Use an instant-read thermometer to check the internal temperature of the loaves. They should be between 200 and 212 degrees.
    
11. Let them cool completely before you cut into them.
    

And they kick butt! They have a soft, sandwich-bread like texture with an even crumb and a wonderful sourdough flavor.

Here are my observations about baking:

1. Bread flour can make loaves that are both tough and rustic as well as soft and sandwichy.
   
2. Giving the bread three rises and two punchdowns seems to yield a more even crumb.
   
3. Cooking at lower temperatures yields softer crust and softer bread.
   

I posted this on atlantacuisine.com on a discussion about foie gras, and it pretty well sums up my thoughts about why using animal products is not "cruelty", as PeTA cultists like to claim.

Cruelty is deriving pleasure from causing pain or death in another living thing. The reason why cruelty is wrong is because such an individual might later do the same thing to a human being.

For instance, I have actively maintained a parasite-host relationship with several plants (where I was the parasite, mind you!). Was that cruel? No. But what would others think of me if I grew plants and then torched them all, bragging about how ending the lives of the plants brought me great pleasure? They would rightly be frightened by my behavior, and they would be frightened for the reason that I might decide to expand my sadistic impulses to affect their loved ones.

That said, foie gras production would be cruel only if the individual doing the force feeding was finding joy through causing suffering. And, in that case, the only person to be prosecuted for such cruelty would be the perpetrator of the cruelty. So to call foie gras production "cruel" makes no sense. To label me as "cruel" for enjoying foie gras makes no sense. I don't enjoy causing pain in other creatures. In fact, I'm mostly numb to the idea (which still isn't cruelty). I merely enjoy the yummy, succulent flavor of foie gras and many other products derived from animals.

PeTA is a misanthropic pseudo-cult that deserves to be exposed, ridiculed, and prosecuted. The fact that they would impugn me with the actions of a sadistic killer to support their anti-human zealotry excuses them from rational discourse.

Americans still feel safe. For now.

What happens when a group of a few muslims decide to detonante a few bombs in several busy shopping malls at the same time? It will get huge press, the Leftist media will highlight it as a failure of the Bush administration, people will be afraid and stop going to malls, some businesses will fail, and many jobs will be lost.

We just don't have the resilience that Londoners have. They have the unfortunate status of being accustomed to their city being bombed by terrorists (not to mention the Luftwaffe). We Americans feel safe so bombs scare us much more.

I think we are all on the front lines of a religous war: a war of violent jihadists against us and our allies. They started the war, not us. And they view all civilians as soldiers. Until we realize that we *are* on the front lines by virtue of our target status, we're not going to have any chance of defeating the enemy. There are still far too many Americans who are weak and think that our failure to defeat the enemy is solely drawn from a lack of understanding. On the contrary, I understand the mindset of the violent jihadist perfectly.

They hate me and want to kill me and all my loved ones. They will do anything and stop at nothing to achieve this goal. They will happily exploit all of America's liberal cultural sensitivies in order to implement their wicked, life-destroying plans. I don't have to be in the army to be fighting the war. I merely have to live. I don't particularly like it, but they have made the choice and I will not go quietly.