Last winter there was this woman out panhandling, closer to the Subway Sandwich place than the Starbucks, who said she was homeless. But I thought she was too young, too well dressed, and frankly, too fat, to be truly homeless. Besides, she was rude as all get out, giving the guys working at Subway a real hard time. They were much nicer to her than I would have been. A sincere smile might have caused me to part with a buck, but not an angry scowl, sorry. She hasn't been around this winter; maybe word has gotten out that the pickings have gotten slim in my neighborhood.
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These prolonged discussions of theological matters have gotten me to think of our good friend in northern Michigan as Rabbi Beagles, in the sense that he is a teacher (not affiliated with Judaism in any way) and quite knowledgeable. To me it sounds better (and a little in jest) than the Rev. Mr. Beagles, which may imply preaching rather than teaching. For secular matters I will continue to refer to him as Mr. Beagles.
Nothing is known about the life of Jesus from the ages of twelve to thirty, and I've always wondered about that. Since his earthly father Joseph was a carpenter he probably picked up the trade and made a good living as he traveled about, making stuff, fixing other stuff, and making toys for children.
Decades ago I read some of the Analects of Confucius, who lived about 500 BCE. I was struck by how much seemed familiar, very like the same stuff Jesus was talking about, but written centuries earlier. It seems likely to me that Jesus picked up a lot of spiritual notions as he traveled. I don't know of any Hindu influences on his later teachings but it seems likely he made it to China and paid some attention to the local beliefs. He could have walked back and forth to China a few times during those missing eighteen years.
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The concluding chapters of "The Good Place" took me by surprise; didn't see that coming. Another ethical concept came up, Consequentialism, which I had to look up. The pre-successful DJ surprised me when he came up with the line "The morality of an action is solely judged on its consequences." This is pretty heady stuff for a network sitcom and the full season stands as a good primer on ethics, in my opinion.
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Made a couple of small batches of ice cream this afternoon, with only a couple of stumbles. After perusing dozens of recipes I decided to use my own, right off the bat. All recipes share the same general proportions of liquids and sugars so I pretty much eyeballed a lot.
First I made a basic vanilla with heavy whipping cream, buttermilk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and the secret ingredient of cornstarch for enhanced smoothness. I put half of the mix aside to cool, and added some unsweetened cocoa powder for the second batch. Turns out there was a little too much sugar for my taste, and I forgot to add the salt. Too much cocoa, too, like twice as much (slipped my mind that I only needed enough for a half batch). Oh, well...should still be palatable even if it is quite intense.
Because the batch size was so small it churned up really quickly, less than fifteen minutes. It went past the soft serve stage to hard ice cream, which was a big pain to remove. I broke my plastic handled spatula getting the stuff out. Somehow I managed to add some mini chocolate chips.
After removing the vanilla I added the chocolate mix, figuring there would be enough residual coldness in the container for another successful batch. It worked, and I was able to add some chopped walnuts before it hit the hard ice cream stage.
Both batches are in the freezer now. Getting the flavor right is the easy part; keeping it smooth and creamy is the big hurdle and I'm curious to see how they will hold up after a few days and whether or not they will get grainy with ice crystals.
According to one source, "Water is the enemy." There is a lot of hard science involved with the binding of the water to get the smallest ice crystals possible to yield a good smooth product. You need stuff like fats, sugars, proteins, and starches; other stuff too, but I'm still learning.
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Remember all the "small hands" talk during the campaign? I saw this image from the inauguration and I had to smile. Sure, Melania is wearing gloves but she's behind him and those hands do look small.
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