Kick-Ass Salsa Recipe

Let me begin with a disclaimer that will be old news to pretty much anyone who knows me: I really don't like onions. More specifically, I can't stand raw onions. If I run into a chunk of raw onion in a salad, my meal is ruined. If I have a burger and the jackass fry cook puts an onion on it, in general I can't eat that burger. Once in awhile the onion will be sandwiched between a piece of lettuce and a slice of tomato, so I can throw out the contaminated bits and still enjoy the burger, but I'm not usually so fortunate. I really like eating at Burrito Boy here in Eugene, but the motherfuckers seem to have a listening comprehension problem. I tell them, "un burrito adobado sin cebollas" and inevitably it comes to me loaded with little bits of onion, and I can't even pick them all out. McDonald's is the worst restaurant about onions, though. Their default burger comes with a slew of dehydrated, rehydrated, rice-sized pieces of onion. It's pretty much impossible to disinfect a McDonald's burger with onions, but I avoid that problem by avoiding McDonald's burgers.

Moving on. Despite my strong aversion for onions, I realize that in some circumstances there is no option but to use onions or make a substandard dish. So now I do use onion in my salsa, but I puree the shit out of it to ensure there are no offensive chunks to ruin my day. Still, I try to pick the sweetest, mildest onions in the produce section. Vidalias (named after Vidalia, Georgia, where they are grown) are the most tolerable, along with Maya sweet onions. I hear that in Vidalia, the locals eat onions like non-psychotic people eat apples.

Ingredients

5-6 Medium Tomatoes
Several Hot Peppers (5-6 Jalapeño, 1-2 Habañero or Chipotle)
1 Large Sprig Cilantro
1 Medium Onion
4 Cloves Garlic
2 tsp. Coriander
1 tsp. Cumin
1 tsp. Black Pepper
1 tsp. Salt (or more)
2 tsp. Mexican Oregano (or other oregano, if you must)
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
2 tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tbsp. Sugar (preferrably brown sugar)
Baby Carrots (optional)
1 shot Tequila (optional)

Instructions

There's not a whole lot to the preparation, because everything goes in the food processor until it is well blended, but I do have a few preparation tips. First, concerning the tomatoes: I'm usually lazy, and leave the skins on. Some people blanch the tomatoes and drain them to remove liquid. It depends on how thick you want the salsa, and whether tomato skins bother you. I add baby carrots until the consistency is thick enough for me, but if you have the time, it's probably better to remove the tomato skins and seeds. The bonus from using carrots instead is that you get extra vegetables in your diet. Second, concerning the peppers: remove the seeds, unless you are a masochist. Especially if you are using habañero peppers. I like the flavor of habañero, but when I use one, I also throw in a few jalapeños for taste. Third, concerning the oil: it acts as an emulsifier, to keep the salsa from separating into solids and liquids.

Besides eating my salsa with chips, it makes a great marinade. Or just a way to add flavor to other foods without having to do a lot of work. I made some makeshift salsa this weekend and marinated some pork in it for a few days, then pressure-cooked the mixture last night and had wonderful tacos for dinner.

On an unrelated note, I apologize for the pathetic number of entries in May. It could have been worse, though. I could have written twice as many entries, but just blabbered on about nothing the whole time. Quality trumps quantity, here. I meant to say something about Deep Throat because that's big news. I also intended to mention some recent articles about government "intelligence." One talked about the CIA's charter airlines, that they use to transport prisoners to other countries to be tortured--excuse me, I meant to say "interrogated"--and there was an article about how the FBI wants more authority to get records about what people do on the internet. They had that authority (to seize records without a court order), but it was overturned on appeal by my favorite people, the ACLU.

That's all, folks.

In Case You Missed It

Often I am plagued with trying to find something interesting to say. This problem generally manifests itself as an absence of these postings, because I'd rather write nothing at all than tripe. This week, however, there have been enough interesting things going on that I have no shortage of writing material.

1 - What's So Icky About Breasts

On Tuesday there was an article in the NY Times entitled "'Lactivists' Taking Their Cause, and Their Babies, to the Streets". The problem was a remark made by Barbara Walters on "The View," which is a show I hope to never, ever see. She had "remarked a few weeks ago on the show that the sight of a woman breast-feeding on an airplane next to her had made her uncomfortable" which spurred a bunch of breast-feeding mothers to start protests.

The first thing I thought was "what decade are we living in?" because the article treated this breast-feeding activism (which they called lactivism) as something new! Those dumbfucks (and their editors) apparently have not heard of La Leche League, which, according to the brief history on their website, has been around since 1956 to promote breast-feeding. Anyway, if you've been in a cave since 1956 and don't know why breast-feeding is good, there was one paragraph of the article that was particularly informative:

Just for kicks, I'm throwing in another link I found amusing, for another "lactivist" organization: nurseatstarbucks.com

2 - Bike Messengers Kick Ass, As Long As They Avoid Cars

Yesterday there was a really cool article about New York bicycle messengers who have begun racing their track bikes. In case you don't know what is a track bike, you are not alone. They are funky creatures with a fixed single gear and no brakes. The only way to go is to pedal (no coasting allowed) and the only way to stop is to stop pedaling. Track bike racing used to be a very popular sport, around the turn of the century. It was either horse racing or auto racing that killed it off, but recently there has been a track bike revival. The racing track looks like a giant bowl, and the racers ride around the sides, which are very steep. I've heard it can be pretty dangerous, too. There was a very promising track cyclist named Nicole Reinhart who died in 2000 in a racing accident. However, though she did race in velodromes (those bowl-shaped tracks), she died in a road race. Hit something in the road, flew off her bike into an elm tree. Very sad.

But back to the New York bike messengers--they are now on a team sponsored by Puma, and at least one of them is hoping to qualify for the Olympics in the 200-meter sprint category. Here's a nifty quote:

3 - Why Tweakers Have Rotten Teeth

I have to say, I hate fucking tweakers. There are many types of drug addicts, but tweakers are the worst there are, probably even worse than crack heads. Everyone says a methamphetamine scourge is sweeping the country, but there are few places hit as hard by this epidemic than Oregon. I hear Tempe, Arizona is the meth capital, but that was a couple years ago and may have since changed. Around here, most of the theft is committed by tweakers. They care about nothing but the drug. They orphan their children, become whores, and their teeth rot out. And herein lies the story. Having an interest in chemistry, I have always wondered what it is about meth that causes teeth to rot. There were several theories, but none had been confirmed. Perhaps the stress of staying awake for weeks on end just causes their soft gum tissue to necrotize. Perhaps they forget to brush. Anyway, I was very happy to see today an article all about Meth Mouth. The funny thing is that the dentists in the story only have conjectures, as well. Here are some hypotheses by dentists:

Whaddya know? Mountain Dew is the drink of choice for tweakers. That could be the start of an ad campaign: "You've been up for two weeks, and still feeling on top of the world. Your pimp is out of town for the weekend, and it's time to party! There's one drink that tweakers turn to for total refreshment: Mountain Dew. Snort a bump of crystal, and then DO THE DEW!

That's all I've got. I'm not ignoring Apple's switch to Intel chips, but I'm still parsing through all the information to figure out what I think about it. Have a nice weekend.

Success Is Obedience To a Structured Way of Life

There's a lot to talk about. A lot going on in the news that pisses me off royally--especially the Supreme Court decision saying that cities can take anyone's property and give to their campaign-contributing developer buddies. But I'm not going to talk about any of those unpleasantries today. Instead of talking about what pisses me off, I thought I would talk about one of my strategies for dealing with being pissed off.

There's only a certain amount of navel-gazing that is acceptable in a successful life. I have always wanted to know my origins, in the most philosophical and hypothetical way, but I think that desire can be destructive at times. The biggest philosophical questions are the ones with no answers, or answers that we won't know until we die. It's easy to get frustrated when asking oneself existential questions. Or perhaps it's easy for me to get frustrated like that. Some people don't seem to care at all. I think a healthy medium does exist. In the battle between thought and action, where is the equilibrium? Since I tend to think too much and do too little, one philosophical tidbit that has helped guide me is the principle of karma yoga. What is karma yoga? Well, the internet is such a nifty research tool . . .

A few paragraphs aboutKarma Yoga by Sri Swami Sivananda:

Ah, action done without the expectation of fruits, liberating indeed. That is something that cannot be easily taught. And its a catch-22 because if you do volunteer work--as just an example--with the expectation of feeling good for helping people, then it is no longer liberating. Action without thought.

Would anyone argue with me if I said American culture promotes self- and instant-gratification? What if I also tacked on the assertion that most Americans would gladly skip work or slack off if they could get away with it? I don't really mean to pick on the United States, because I think the same could be said for most of the world. I can sort of understand the sentiment behind communist agrarian revolutions, where the goal was to reconnect with the land, to be directly connected to the fruits of one's labor. Becoming a farmer is not the only solution to being disconnected from one's occupation. But it is a very obvious solution, since farmers very literally reap what they sow.

How is it possible to feel that way when working on a salary? If I work 40 hours, or 60 hours, my pay is the same. In many cases, it would make no difference whether I made my employer millions or cost them thousands, with respect to my compensation.

So that's alienation. That's why everyone is taking anti-depressants. I don't believe what crazy Tom Cruise thinks, that the solution is $cientology, but I do find it disturbing how many people are depressed in this country. What the fuck is up? I'm including myself here, although I am not presently taking any anti-depressants. I feel a general malaise that I doubt could be cured with any pill. Karma yoga, perhaps, but not a tri-cyclic or an SSRI or even St. John's Wort. Existential ailments are not easily treated with Western medicine. I do believe that anti-depressants generally just mask emotions that have arisen from perfectly natural (although not always explainable) phenomena. The question is whether it might still be a good idea to take them, even if they do just muffle feelings, rather than cure them. Psychological barriers aside, sometimes there are physical barriers that keep us stuck in shitty situations. Say you hate your job, but the unemployment rate is so high that check-out clerk jobs are being filled by college graduates. Do you quit? Is that a realistic option, when rent / bills / debt loom over your head? What if you have kids, too? What if you're disabled? Or just too stupid to get a decent job? (I guess that would be a mental disability.)

It's so pleasant to pretend we have no control, because it prevents us from having to make difficult decisions. Physical barriers may exist, but we have some control over what we think. Thoughts flow like rivers, but we can channel our thoughts and filter them if we consciously try. But rather than think, we should do. An easy way to remember karma yoga is to think about Nike's slogan: Just Do It. I think the Hindus came up with the concept a few years before Nike.

There's an anecdote I have mentioned many times before, and am about to repeat again, but that's only because it was very enlightening to me. I used to drive a very old car, and at some point the speedometer stopped working. This was disconcerting at first, but a bit of research showed that it would be too expensive to fix the speedometer to really be worthwhile for such a nearly antique vehicle. So I had no choice--if I wanted to go anywhere, I would have to do so without knowing how fast. It wouldn't do to constantly worry about how fast I was going, so I had to surrender to my intuition. I never got a ticket for speeding by just staying with the flow of traffic. It turned out the speedometer wasn't so important after all, but I only realized that after I had no choice but to do without it.

I don't think that story requires much explanation, other than to say I think it falls under the heading "act as an instrument in the hands of the Lord." Since the definition of "Lord" is so contentious (especially because this is a Hindu text), let me paraphrase it a bit. I think most people are familiar with the concept of "going on autopilot." This usually occurs in the context of being in an emotionally or physically fatigued state. When you must go on, but don't have the energy to do so, go on autopilot. Rather than trying to control what you think, let things happen. Usually people go on autopilot only as a last resort, because they can't continue under standard operating conditions, but that needn't be the case. It's a fact that we have two selves trapped in a single skull--the proof came with experiments on people who had the corpus callosum severed, and that's all I'm going to say on that--and normally one self is dominant. One of these selves is the verbal, the other is nonverbal. Very often we place more of the burden on the verbal self and suppress the other half. My theory is that "autopilot" is when the nonverbal half dominates. Likewise, I think many mental illnesses are a result of disharmony between our two sides. It happens. Each side has its own tastes and personality, and the personalities don't always get along.

At this point, I feel if I wrote any more than my verbal and nonverbal sides would be in disharmony. But a successful essay, like a successful life, needs a structure, including an ending.

Frank Zappa famously said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. That makes writing about existence, well . . . inadequate, in any case. That's why we rely on metaphor and analogy. But memorable ideas need sound bites. A sound bit to remember karma yoga is Nike's "Just Do It," but do what? How does that apply to life in any concrete manner? As I mentioned, I think one cause of depression is the disconnection between people and their jobs. That's not easy to fix, especially if you have a degree in a particularly atrocious discipline with a propensity for nameless, faceless jobs (investment banking, perhaps?). I don't think there is any easy fix, and I am not about to condemn people for taking antidepressants to deal with existential crises, but I do think karma yoga can help. You may not like the idea of two personalities occupying your body, but that's okay. It doesn't matter whether you label it a subconscious or another personality, as long as you accept that thinking occurs without consciousness being involved. And when we are in tune, in harmony with this other part of ourselves, perhaps we'll make better decisions, or at least make decisions without so much worry and stress. Very seldom is worrying productive, so if you find yourself worrying, try to put karma yoga into practice. Stop worrying and do something. Think of what could be a better use of your time than worrying. Yes, easier said than done, but give it a try.

The reason I believe in karma yoga is the reason I believe the ascetic monks have got it all wrong: a life spent solely in meditation is a life wasted. Action is just as important as thought. Verbal is as important as non-verbal. It's when you clear your mind, stop thinking in words and voices, that you can communicate with your other half. That's not as paradoxical as it sounds, but it more than adequately illustrates the inadequacy of words.