Month: April 2023

Vegan sausage muffin

Whoever invented sausage was a genius. If we saw it made, we’d never eat it again. And yet, as long as we don’t think about what’s in it, it’s delicious. The real thing is also extremely unhealthy. I never touch the stuff.

The key to vegan burgers is gluten. The other essential ingredient is soybeans. Gluten flour stirred into the mixture doesn’t work very well. The only way to get a proper “bite” is to pre-prepare the gluten.

Make a thick dough of gluten flour and water, with seasonings such as bouillon in the water. Knead the dough for a minute or two in a light puddle of olive oil. It’s the rubberiness of the gluten dough that gives your burger a meaty bite. Shape the dough into something that isn’t too thick, then drop the dough into boiling water. A few minutes of boiling is all it needs. Cool the gluten on a paper towel to remove the water, then chop it. Now you’re ready to mix the gluten into the other ingredients for the burger (or sausage).

About half gluten and half mashed soybeans is a good mix. For sausage, you want pepper and sage. I also happen to have fresh thyme growing in the herb trough, so I added a bit of thyme. Some nutritional yeast helps add umami. You need a binder; a little flour will do for that. Moisten the mixture with olive oil. The mixture should be fairly thick, and fairly dry. Fry it slowly in a generous amount of olive oil.

Vegan sausage is scary good. McDonald’s would have me shot if the secret got out. It’s much cheaper than anything you can buy at the store — whether real or fake — and much healthier. The muffin, by the way, is store-bought. It’s a whole wheat English muffin from Dave’s Bakery.

Buttery chardonnay, and air fryers

Suddenly the wine shelves at the grocery store have multiple varieties of “buttery chardonnay.” It’s as though some California winemaker did a market survey and asked all the people who live on chardonnay what they look for in chardonnay. They all said, “buttery!” I would add one more adjective: fruity — as opposed to heavy overtones of vinegar, vodka, and grapefruit skins.

I never pay much for chardonnay anymore. During my California days, when I lived a little higher on the vine, it was only the pricier chardonnays that were fruity and buttery. I’m very happy, actually, that California winemakers are trying to get these qualities into their lower-priced wines, including the wines that come in 1.5 liter bottles. Big winemakers such as Mondavi are in on the act. And I would have to say that industrial winemakers such as Mondavi and Gallo actually are pretty darned good at making affordable table wines.

For a long time, I had ignored all the chatter about air fryers, figuring that it was just another way to get another useless white elephant taking up space on our countertops. But a review in the New York Times “Wirecutter” section led me to give in and take a chance on a cheap air fryer — $45 from Amazon — to see what all the chatter was about.

I haven’t decided yet whether to keep it in the kitchen or send it to the attic. I’ll say this for it, though. It’s fast. It’s a good toaster. It’s good at warming leftovers. It’s great with potatoes, which is probably 99 percent of what American air fryers are used for. For anything else, though, I’m not so sure. I’d love to hear about your experience with air fryers, in the comments section.

A half Norfolk jacket

I have mentioned here in the past that, on a visit to the Isle of Harris in Scotland in 2019, I got bitten by a bug for collecting Harris tweed jackets (and also some Irish tweed). I stopped collecting jackets (by buying them secondhand on eBay) quite some time ago, not least because I have so little closet space for properly storing them. But I have been on the lookout for a Norfolk jacket ever since.

A full Norfolk jacket (as opposed to a half Norfolk jacket) would have a belt, buckled in front. A half Norfolk jacket has only half a belt (in the back) and fewer pleats. All Norfolk jackets have roomy patch pockets, ostensibly for stashing hunting gear and such. Back in the 1970s, when American companies actually made Norfolk jackets, I had two. Both were full Norfolk jackets. One was of corduroy, from L.L. Bean; and the other was of green cotton moleskin, from Orvis. Hardly anybody makes Norfolk jackets anymore, if at all. But there is a good market for them on eBay. Full Norfolk jackets of any quality will sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Half Norfolk jackets aren’t as pricey.

I bought the jacket in the photos from an eBay seller in England. Shipping took about two weeks. It’s Harris tweed, made by Dunn & Co., a British clothing company that started in 1887 but which was on the rocks by 1991. My jacket probably was made in the late 1970s. But, like all Harris tweed, the jacket has the magical property of continuing to look new decade after decade. The jacket has leather elbow patches, a nice tweedy touch that has been out of fashion for about a million years now.

The nice thing about Norfolk jackets is that they’re meant for the country. They’d be suitable attire for hoeing one’s garden or laying brick, not to mention target practice, or just a walk in the woods. I’m old enough and odd enough to get away with wearing one, even though this is 2023. Judging by the brisk eBay market for Norfolk jackets, which seems to have far quicker turnover than tweed jackets in general, I’m not the only one.

Some recent eats


Asparagus quiche with Bigonda cheese and olive oil crust

It’s asparagus season. Asparagus and eggs were made for each other. Bigonda cheese with herbs (from Italy), is, I believe, a new item at Trader Joe’s. I’ve never had Bigonda cheese before, but, upon tasting it, it seemed to me to be more suitable as a melting cheese than as a nibbling cheese.

If there are cooked soybeans and leftover rice in the refrigerator, you’ll always have something with which to make a quick meal. I’m of the opinion that the lowly soybean makes the best veggie burgers.

Lentils are remarkably nutritious. Green lentils cook quickly — 20 to 25 minutes. They love to be curried (as do soybeans). I only recently learned how important it is to keep garam masala on hand to use along with curry powder. The two together give a really authentic Indian taste.

If you use apple sauce in your brownies, you’ll still get moist, chewey brownies, but with less butter or oil.

I mentioned a few days ago that I would write a letter to Amon Hen, the journal of the Tolkien Society, asking them to do an article on Tolkien’s typewriters. The U.S. Postal Service, by the way, no longer prints “Par Avion” stickers. I scanned some legacy stickers, and I print my own on label stock. An international letter just wouldn’t look right without a sticker.


⬆︎ I no longer have chickens, but a neighbor now gives me eggs.


⬆︎ Curried soybeans


⬆︎ Soybean burger with mustard greens and Basmati rice, with olive oil gravy. A neighbor grew the mustard greens during the winter and only recently plowed them up for this year’s garden.


⬆︎ Curried lentils. The curry includes carrots and lightly browned onions.


⬆︎ Apple sauce brownie


⬆︎ International letters are pretty enough to eat!

The Bulletin of the Tolkien Society

A few weeks ago I mentioned having joined the Tolkien Society. Today I received in the mail a welcome letter and a copy of the April 2023 Amon Hen, the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society.

The packet was hand addressed, with nice U.K. postage stamps. International mail always looks so exotic!

Amon Hen is very nicely printed on heavy paper. The April issue contains some beautiful artwork, a photograph of Tolkien, and seven articles.

Soon I will write a letter to the Amon Hen editor begging them to do an article on Tolkien and his typewriters, hoping that photos of Tolkien with a typewriter exist.

A strange book about fairies


Source: eBay

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. W.Y. Evans Wentz, Oxford University Press, 1911.

Gutenberg.org edition

The English historian Ronald Hutton has persuasively argued that there is no continuous history of paganism in the British Isles. Rather, during the 19th Century there was a revival of, and a romanticization of, interest in Celtic paganism. This book, published in 1911, is almost certainly a product of that romanticization and revival. Yet, despite the apparent credulity of its author, W.Y. Evans Wentz, there is much in this book that is genuine, in that Wentz’s interviews were with old folks who were describing actual folk memories as opposed to any new material made up by 19th Century romanticizers.

My biggest surprise with this book is that it is superbly written. The first few chapters are lyrical, picturesque descriptions of the places where Wentz traveled to do his interviews — Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, Wales, Brittany, and the Isle of Man.

First editions of this book are rare and very expensive. At present, two first editions are listed on eBay, one at $750 and the other at $999.95. Because the book has been in the public domain for quite some time, there are many reprints for which the text, I assume, was taken from Gutenberg.org.

Wentz, though he obviously was very intelligent and wrote beautifully, must have been quite a poseur. One of the photos of Wentz on Wikipedia shows him dressed in an elaborate Tibetan costume. It seems there wasn’t any form of mysticism that he wasn’t into, including Theosophy. Yet I think Wentz’s book about fairies contains real scholarship with his snapshot of folk beliefs — folk beliefs that I suspect actually were continuous and accounts of which he captured from about 1907 to 1910. Wentz’s papers are at Stanford University and Oxford University.

Only for the woke

I was greatly amused a few weeks ago to read that right-wingers were having fits because Chick-fil-A, a company that struts its “Christian” right-wingery, was market-testing a cauliflower sandwich. I had never been to a Chick-fil-A for two good reasons: I don’t want to patronize a company that struts its right-wingery, and I haven’t eaten chicken for years.

But today, while on a grocery run to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in Winston-Salem, I felt a bit peckish, and I happened to be near a Chick-fil-A. So why not try out the cauliflower sandwich and have a bit of fun thumbing my nose at the deplorables? It seems the test sandwich is available only in Denver, Charleston, and Greensboro/Winston-Salem. Those three places are places that vote blue.

Surprise, surprise. It tasted just like fast food, though fortunately it didn’t taste like chicken. If the cauliflower sandwich is still on their menu a year or two from now, perhaps I’ll even go have another one.

The Tolkien Society


Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to an American fan. The letter was posted recently to the Reddit group /r/typewriters.

After I saw this letter in the Reddit /r/typewriters group, I Googled for Tolkien’s address to have a look at the house. In that search there was a link to the Tolkien Society.

A Tolkien Society! Now that is cool. According to the web site, the Tolkien Society has existed since 1969, with Tolkien’s blessing. Tolkien also was the society’s first president and remains the honorary president today. It seems to be a fairly small, but viable and active, organization.

One of the first things I noticed is that, each year, they have a gathering at Oxford called Oxenmoot. This year’s Oxenmoot is August 31 through September 3 at Saint Anne’s College. Next year’s World Science Fiction Convention will be in Glasgow, August 8-12, 2024. So I immediately wondered whether an American traveler might be able to attend both WorldCon and Oxenmoot next year on the same trip. I have emailed the Oxenmoot chair to encourage that.

I instantly joined the Tolkien Society for a year, to see what they’re like and what they’re up to. They create some printed periodicals, and I’d paid a bit extra to have those mailed to me in the U.S.

Tolkien, by the way, is known to have loved typewriters. His favorite typewriter was a very expensive Varitype. He did use other typewriters, though, and the letter above clearly was not typed with a Varitype. The characters are very sharp and even, so my guess is that the letter was written with an electric typewriter. Tolkien was known to have had some painful rheumatism in his hands, so an electric typewriter would have been easier for him to use.

The media are blowing it again

It was of course a given that yesterday’s indictment of Donald Trump would be a media circus. The media are addicted to Trump, not because Trump matters anymore (he doesn’t; he’s ruined) but because of the spectacle that Trump has always created as a way of seducing and using the media. Truth is, the media (especially cable news, which I don’t watch) would do just about anything to keep the Trump circus going.

So while the media were focused on the circus, the real story yesterday was submerged.

The most important part of the real story from yesterday is that Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal, was elected to the state supreme court in Wisconsin. And it wasn’t that she merely squeaked by. She won by 11 points. In the 2016 presidential election in Wisconsin, Trump won over Hillary Clinton by a slim margin — 47.22 to 46.45. In the 2020 president election, Wisconsin started to recover its sanity. Joe Biden beat Trump by a slim margin, 49.45 to 48.82.

Yesterday’s 11-point margin says a great deal about how fed up this country is with Trump and with Republicans. At this point, except in the reddest of places, Democrats can win just by fielding candidates who are reasonably sane and sensible. As MAGA Republican clowns flaunt Republican meanness and know-nothingness in front of the cameras, Republicans are doing all of Democrats’ campaigning for them. Does anyone see a trend that would indicate that the Republican Party is capable of squelching the clowns and finding a presidential candidate for 2024 who can expand the appeal of the Republican Party rather than causing voters to beg Democrats to save them?

While the media ran photos of Marjorie Taylor Greene in her aviator glasses screaming into a megaphone, Heather Cox Richardson calmly reports in this morning’s newsletter that “There were far more Trump opponents than supporters in the crowd outside the courthouse.”

As I see it, here is where we stand today. Trump is defunct. There will be more indictments in Georgia and from the U.S. Department of Justice. Even if Trump somehow got the Republican nomination for president in 2024 (are Republicans that stupid?), Trump would lose in a landslide. Whatever happens with Republicans in 2024, Republicans are probably fatally split. MAGA Republicans probably would just stay home if Trump is not on the ticket. Democrats certainly have a problem to solve, because of Biden’s age and the lack of a younger rising star (at this point, anyway). But the Democratic Party of today has much smarter leadership than, say, the Democratic Party of 2015.

The media, no doubt, will continue to try to scare us by saying, for example, that the New York indictments are weak. That line keeps the circus going by flattering Republicans while keeping Democrats scared. What the media want is turmoil and circus, with story lines that tell us that the elections of 2024 are going to be really, really close and that Trump might be on the ticket.

Yesterday’s election in Wisconsin tells us something else. It tells us that most Americans are horrified by what they’ve seen of Republicans and what Republicans do with power. Not only that, the Republican Party is split. Trump, who you will remember did not win the popular vote even in 2016, is a guaranteed loser.

If the leaders of today’s Democratic Party are as smart as I think they are, then in 2024 we should see a Democrat in the White House and Democratic majorities in Congress. This country’s fascist nightmare will be over. As for the Republican Party, should we call it suicide? Or should we say that Trump destroyed the Republican Party the same way he destroys everything he touches?