China Wins Again

Today, as a favor to my dad, I sat through a Cutco presentation. Cutco is a knife company, and the knives are marketed by an outfit called Vector. Maybe it’s the same company. I don’t know. They hire college kids to go around selling knife sets to people they know. The daughter of one of my dad’s business contacts asked if she could show this stuff to me. Supposedly, she would get paid whether I bought anything or not.

I hate having things sold to me, unless it’s something I already know is worthwhile. I also hate wasting a salesperson’s time. And there was no way I was going to buy anything. I have so many knives. Two Japanese cleavers. A santoku. A Forschner chef’s knife. A $20 Chinese cleaver which is probably the best kitchen knife I own. A 14″ Forschner scimitar. Two bird’s beak paring knives. Two cheap Henckels chef’s knives I rarely use. A Japanese chicken knife. A Tojiro nakiri. Other knives I can’t remember.

I was asked to bring out a steak knife, my favorite serrated knife, and my favorite straight-edged knife. I brought out the Forschner chef’s knife, a cheap Henckels bread knife, and a Henckels steak knife. The rep brought out a piece of rope–same material as baling twine–and asked me to cut it with my chef’s knife, with only one stroke. The idea was for me to get halfway through and look like a boob, so I could then try the Cutco, which would go through effortlessly. Sadly, this is not what happened. I had given my knife a few licks with a diamond hone in the kitchen, so it slid through the rope like it was a Vienna sausage. The cleaver would have bitten into the cutting board as well.

My other knives didn’t do so well, but then, they’re crappy knives I never sharpen. If meat requiring a sharp steak knife ever makes it to my table, I’ve done something very wrong. I don’t use serrated knives for cooking. A really sharp knife will go right through bread without deforming it; serrations are for people who can’t sharpen anything.

The rep also cut a penny in half with a pair of Cutco kitchen shears. This is impressive, although the shears lacked the notch kitchen shears ordinarily have, which catches and holds chicken bones so the shears will cut them. I would not want to cut chicken without that notch.

A lot of people on the web say nice things about Cutco knives. Perhaps many of these things are true. However, it’s very obvious that a lot of these people are shills. Or at least they look that way. Check out this quotation I found:

Besides that though, Cutco knives are really better than ANYTHING else. My parents have owned their set for over 30 years and they are still sharp!

Yeah, I’m sure that’s an honest comment. This person also claims he used to be a rep, and that he sold 29 sets in 40 tries. No salesman is that good. If he had done that well, he’d still be doing it, wouldn’t he? Maybe not. If you have talent like that, you need to forget knives and move up to something like commercial real estate or private jets.

He’s probably telling the truth about his parents’ knives. They stay sharp, because his parents always use their other knives.

Here’s how sales works, in the real world. Make 50 calls, get 5 responses, make 1 sale. Maybe this guy is the Mozart of sales, so the rules don’t apply to him. But I am skeptical.

The Cutco pitch goes like this. Henckels knives retail for $1500 per set, and they sell for $1000 per set, and our way better knives sell for $749 per set, and we’ll sharpen them free, forever. A quick Google reveals that a 9-piece Henckels Five-Star 18-piece set can be had for $560. That’s not the cheap Henckel line, either. Wusthof Classics–better than Henckels–cost about the same amount.

Henckels and Wusthof have forged blades. Consumer Reports says Cutco blades are stamped. Hmm…

I should also point out that the Cutcos look cheap. The web says they’re 440A stainless, which is the cheap grade of 440. What you really want is 440C. And they’re thin. The handles look like plain old plastic to me.

As I have said before, I am no longer a sucker for expensive knives. I have two Shuns, and I would never buy one again. They chip if you look at them funny. The ergonomics are weak. You absolutely cannot put them in the dishwasher under any circumstances, regardless of what the ads say. And a good price for one Shun santoku is $80. These are not knives. These are toys for people who can’t cook. If you spend a lot of time serving bad pretty food prepared with expensive equipment, Shuns are for you. If you want something you can use, get Forschner.

Don’t let what happened to me happen to you. That’s what I’m saying. I was an idiot. Learn from my example.

My two favorite knives are the Chinese cleaver and my Forschner chef’s knife. The cleaver takes an edge fast, so sharp you can hold a sheet of paper in front of you with one hand and swing the cleaver all the way through it. It minces garlic into tiny particles, with shocking speed. You can make sheets of ripe tomato with it. The back side tenderizes meat. The side knocks the peels off garlic cloves. The Forschner sharpens fast, cuts beautifully, and comes out of the dishwasher looking like new. The Shuns…I’m not sure where they are right now.

Total cost for a Forschner and a cleaver, including shipping? About $45.

I’d use the cleaver all the time, if it were stainless. I hate washing things by hand.

I wished I could have bought something the Cutco girl showed me, just as a kindness, but $749 to relearn a painful lesson…bad idea. These knives may be great for people who can’t use a stone or a hone. I can put a razor edge on a dull knife in under a minute. I don’t need something that has to go back to a factory to get an edge.

I admire anyone who has the guts and determination to go into sales, but this product is not for me.

96

Is there anything more wonderful than being up on a Saturday morning, chock full of McDonald’s food, with 96 brownies chilling in anticipation of later use? I think not.

I don’t know what McDonald’s puts in this stuff to elevate my mood like this, but I wish I could buy a pallet of it.

My diet is going well. I’m losing slowly but continuously, and it’s not a strain. I shouldn’t call it a diet. I’m planning to live like this forever. It’s the plan I was on before Mike and the cookbook ruined me, except that I upped the calories. I used to eat 1500 per day, with unlimited Saturdays. Now it’s 1800, which is more realistic over the long term.

Mike really destroyed my life. He showed me how to make pizza. I made it worse by making it fast and easy. Controlling myself was just not an option. I could still eat pizza for two meals every day and never get bored.

As noted yesterday, I decided to make brownies for church. They’re putting on a feed after the service tonight, and I figured this was a good way to be helpful. Maybe people will start to realize I’m there. I just sneak in and out.

It was tough making all those brownies on a diet day. I didn’t cheat, although I did have some batter and include it in my daily allotment. When I woke up this morning, I had brownies on the brain. I could almost hear them giggling at me.

I’m not really a brownie freak. Having made so many of them, I have managed to blunt my enthusiasm. Still, when you’re dieting and you have maybe twenty pounds of them on hand, it’s a little hard to stay on the path.

I decided to update my surprisingly old Garmin handheld GPS. I still think of it as new, and it looks new, but it’s three years old, so it’s an antique. I got my map software running on this computer (I used to have it only on the laptop, because the laptop can be taken on the boat), and I got the updates going, and it turns out you can now put your tracks on Google Earth.

Hmm…the tracks don’t show up, but the waypoints and so on do.

HA! Mike knew I was blogging about him. He interrupted my writing with a long phone call.

I better take a look at one of those brownies. QC is what I’m all about.

Many, Many Brownies

As much as I would like to be dodging hot strips of 304 stainless, I am up to something else today. Making brownies for church. Tomorrow they’re having some kind of feed after the service, and they solicited food from the congregation. I was hoping Mike would come down so we could do ribs, but he’s been delayed. So it’s all me. That means something easier than ribs.

I just plopped two trays of brownies in the oven. The full boat recipe. Nuts, chips, and coconut. I’m resting while they cook. I can’t fix the next bunch until these come out of the pans.

I tried to save time by making two batches at once, but it doesn’t work all that well. I’m going to have to face the fact that the recipe is a little light on batter. If you put coconut in the middle, you have to reserve half the batter to put on top of it, and if you’ve done this, you know how hard it is to spread. The oven’s heat helps, but it’s still a pain. And if you’ve mixed two batches at once, it’s worse, because you are likely to screw up and put too much batter in the bottom layer. If you do that, fixing the top layer is nearly impossible.

My solution: extra batter on the side. Hope it doesn’t mess up the cooking time.

Nonstick foil is a gift straight from heaven. I used to bake these in wax paper, and I always ended up peeling parts of it off with a knife. Now I line the pan with foil and lift the brownies out. Once they’re cold, the foil almost falls off.

It’s a real pleasure, being able to give something back, apart from dry monetary contributions. I hope people enjoy these. I can’t really recommend they buy the book, but the food is spiritually harmless, if taken in moderation.

Plus Impending Mike Visit

I guess I say this every week, but church was fantastic today.

For the last four weeks, the subject was Philippians 4:8, which says we should try to think about things that are Pure, Praiseworthy, Lovely, Admirable, Noble, True, Excellent, and Right (my mnemonic again: PPLANTER). I’ve been keeping it in mind, but it wasn’t all that easy to apply.Try it. Think about something good for a minute. A couple of minutes later, you may be thinking about something horrendous.

Today, we got a clearer idea how to put it to work. Pastor Wilkerson listed three things that oppose the Philippians 4:8 attitude: contrariness, covetousness, and cynicism.

I’m sure glad no one has ever seen those things on THIS blog.

Shut up.

I guess I don’t have to explain contrariness. It means you have to be a pain in the butt all the time, instead of going with the flow. Here’s a clue that you are contrary. People call you “a pill.”

Obviously, you shouldn’t go along with people when you have a good reason to object, but that’s not what he was talking about. Some people have to be an obstacle all the time, just to look smart or feel important. I have heard wild rumors that sometimes people who post blog comments act this way. I have heard–don’t quote me on this–that if you Google some commenter’s names, you will find an endless number of argumentative and smug yet worthless and fundamentally wrong comments on other people’s blogs.

That’s probably just an Internet legend. No one would really do that. I certainly couldn’t name five such people off the top of my head. No, I could not do that. Don’t even ask.

Covetousness means you’re never happy with what you have. But you’re pretty sure you’d be happy with what other people have. I suppose it makes sense to say it contradicts the spirit of Philippians 4:8, because you can’t be thinking positively about the things God has put in your life, if you’re sure they stink compared to the things he gave your neighbor.

Cynicism–I am so glad I’ve never been guilty of this one–means you are suspicious of other people and have a negative attitude.

The notes we were given say, “He is a champion of innuendos, double meanings, and put-downs.” I may know someone that description fits. But it also says a cynic turns people against a person who tries to “think best.” That’s not me.

I know I’ve gone overboard a lot. On the other hand, I don’t consider myself a true cynic. A true cynic is a kind of bigot. You never get a fair shot from someone like that. I’ve been critical of people I thought were con artists and bloviators, but I don’t question the existence of good people. I don’t automatically assume people are lying when they claim good motives (unless they’re emailing me from Nigeria). But I could do better.

The message I took away from this is that I should quit being negative just for the joy of it. And I should work harder to see the good in people and things. I was working on that already, although it may be far from obvious.

On the way home, I heard some guy on the radio talking about our duty to submit to government. I thought that was interesting. I see two main goals in Christianity. First, you want to get eternal life, and that’s easy, because it’s a matter of asking and believing. Second, you want to live in the kingdom of God here on earth. Not so easy. You have to behave and pray and worship and study, etcetera. It’s like being an Orthodox Jew, only with better food.

This guy pointed out that you can’t be lawless and live in the kingdom of God. You have to submit to government. Here’s a depressing extrapolation that occurred to me: we should probably pay tax on Internet sales.

I realize the states themselves are responsible for the Internet tax problem. They choose not to provide a convenient method of paying, and enforcement is nonexistent, and in actuality, they are complicit in the whole business. Legislators routinely shout down efforts to reform the system, because they know everyone will hate it. You could make a very good argument that we are not obligated to care more about this than the states are. It’s like illegal immigration. The law says “do this,” and our lawmakers say “but we won’t help, and if you don’t do it, we won’t do anything.”

Still, the better choice is to look up the silly forms and pay. At least on big items. Arrgh. I would rather have God’s power flowing in my life than save 6%. I want my prayers answered. I don’t want to bring shame on the church. I want growth. I guess I can cough up 6% in order to keep from screwing that up.

My attitude about taxes is as follows. I have never hated paying taxes. What I have hated is saving receipts and filling out forms. I complain about high taxes all the time, because they wreak havoc on the economy and punish productivity and make for creeping totalitarianism. But I don’t get upset when I have to pay. Maybe I should, but I’m always so happy to know what I owe, I hardly care what the number is. I just want to get the check written and kiss the IRS goodbye for another year.

Next week the church is having a July 4 barbecue thing after church lets out. “Coincidentally,” Mike may be in town. I let him know. We started talking about how we needed to take some food. Mike came up with an argument proving it was our Christian duty to humiliate everyone else with our ribs, in order to keep them from having unrealistically high opinions of themselves. I guess there may be some flaws in his theory, but I think ribs would be a good idea. Not sure how many racks I can get in the Hoginator. I talked to one of the pastors today, and he confirmed that they were soliciting food. I might make four or five batches of brownies, since they can be made several days in advance. Cheesecake would be too decadent, and besides, people would get in fights over it.

I’d like to take some food, because I haven’t gotten involved with the church, beyond showing up. I feel like I keep taking without giving anything. Of course, I provide a little financial support, but there is more to supporting a church than writing an occasional check.

Is it okay to smoke ribs over a pan of beer and then take them to church? We may find out.

I hope Mike makes it down here. My diet is going well, so I think I can survive a visit.

Stick This in Your Brain

Someone was asking for a dolphin recipe. I’ll tell you what I like to do with these tasty fish. I adapted the traditional Cuban recipe for fried snapper. Hmm…might as well give you that first. It’s called “pargo entero,” or “whole snapper.”

Take a whole snapper. Clean it. Scale it and remove all the pointy bits. Cut the head and tail off if you want. Make a series of slashes from top to bottom on each side about an inch apart, down to the bone. You can slant them toward the back of the fish as you go down, if you think it looks prettier.

Egg white will make everything stick better, so apply it if you like. Rub salt and crushed garlic into the fish. Pepper too, if you want. Now cover it with cracker meal and fry it in hot oil. Peanut oil is standard. Some people mix parmesan cheese into the meal, but it can burn. Get the fish nice and brown.

Dolphin are bigger than most snapper. For a big fish, you make fingers, which are strips about as big around as a finger. It will be better if you throw out the dark meat. If you do this with a snapper or small grouper, you don’t have to skin it. Don’t eat dolphin skin.

I serve this with lime wedges and tartar sauce. Wonderful.

Deep-frying is best. If you have a turkey fryer with a basket, go for it. Otherwise, pan-fry with enough oil to cover the fish halfway.

Church was wonderful yesterday, as usual. I couldn’t go on Saturday, so I was really ready. I got there earlier than usual. I’m always amazed at the quality of the music. I don’t know where they find these people.

They’re still teaching about Philippians 4:8, which is all about keeping your mind on good things. I made up a mnemonic for the NIV version. “PPLANTER.”

Pure
Praiseworthy
Lovely
Admirable
Noble
True
Excellent
Right

The key is to remember that P is the double letter. You’ll go crazy if you get confused and try to think up two R words.

One of the associate pastors talked yesterday. One of the things he talked about was the problems men face with lust. That’s a tough one, because these days, most women think it’s appropriate to dress and behave provocatively, even at work. Somehow we have turned that into a virtue. Women don’t understand the male mind; if they did, they’d realize what a stupid strategy this is. It leads to problems for both sexes.

He talked about the difficulties men face in certain situations, such as beach outings and web surfing. He said sometimes the best thing is to take a break from the Internet. That’s a great idea. You can’t be tempted if you’re not online. When I got home yesterday, I decided to take his advice. I’ve been overdoing the Internet, so it seemed like a good move. I didn’t turn the computer on once, and I didn’t miss it. I had a very relaxing day, and it was productive as a Sabbath. I got out my Complete Jewish Bible and went through Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, and some other stuff, making notes in the margins.

Ephesians is very useful. Christians don’t have a clearly defined set of laws to follow, but this book lays out very good guidelines for our behavior. Chapters 4 through 6 will save you a lot of page-flipping. I guess I could make a simple list of the guidelines this book provides. You don’t always have to read the text itself to get the benefit.

The Internet is loaded with temptation, and lust is only part of it. Internet rage is a real problem; Christians are not supposed to be angry and abusive, but try blogging or joining forums, and you’ll see how hard it can be to avoid getting drawn into the corrosive spirit. Then there is gossip. Some of the biggest websites are proudly devoted to it, and it can cause you real problems. The ancient Jews believed it caused houses to literally rot. The “leprosy” referred to in the Bible was not always a human disease. Sometimes the word “leprosy” is used to describe this rot. And how about covetousness? Internet shopping is a fantastic resource, but a lot of people abuse it. It has helped me get into a number of rewarding hobbies, but from time to time I’ve bought things that were pretty stupid, and some people shop just to fill time. Worse, they buy on credit, spending money they haven’t earned yet.

I have a rule about shutting down the PC at 8 p.m. I am not doing a great job of following it, but I’m going to buckle down and get serious. At that time, I should be spending time with my birds or doing something else of value. I’ve been getting to bed early for a long time now, on the theory that nothing I need to be involved in happens after ten o’clock, and I’ve been proven right. Abandoning the web in the early evening is also a good idea. I should quit even earlier.

I suppose it would be a violation of Philippians 4:8 to fail to point out the positive things about the Internet. Let’s see.

1. Biblegateway.com and other sites let you browse your favorite version of the Bible online. That’s very useful, and because you can cut and paste, it helps you share what you find with others.

2. It’s easy to donate to charities online. I have a list in my sidebar. Two favorites: World Vision and The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. World Vision will let you choose the gift you give, and they’re not all temporary fixes. You can give things like giving pigs or fruit trees to poor families in Africa. Or vaccinations. Right now, they have a deal where you can donate money for medical machinery and get matching funds to multiply your cash by 14. The IFCJ will move a Jew to Israel from a place like Ethiopia or the former USSR, for $350. You can change someone’s life permanently for a relatively small amount of money. You can save up until you’re ready, or you can partner with friends. You may have doubts about giving people temporary handouts, but when you move someone to Israel, it sticks.

3. A number of ministries have sites where you can download podcasts and videos. Perry Stone has all his TV shows online, if you’re a prophecy buff. Try Voice of Evangelism. And there’s a big site with tons of canned sermons from various people: Sermonaudio.com.

And of course, there are places where you can go to get prayer. Oddly, this site has become one of them.

I got a little out of hand while I was trying to learn about and acquire machine tools. I had to spend a lot of time looking things up and asking questions. It got me in the habit of spending too much time online; I just realized this yesterday. Now I’m more up to speed, so there is no reason to sit glued to the monitor all day.

Hope you find this helpful.

Notice his Hostility Toward Government Employees!

Today Mike and I got to help my dad run his boat up the Miami River to the yard. It was a pleasant ride, tarnished–as usual–by the people who open and close the bridges. The fine person who has the incredibly demanding job of raising and lowering the South Miami Avenue bridge–working a total of perhaps forty minutes per shift–refused to even answer our hail. While I wait for these characters to get it in gear, I often think of the old story about Ted Turner, climbing his own mast just to punch a bridgetender in the face. I don’t know if it’s true. But I would certainly understand.

When we got to the Brickell Avenue bridge, which had a prominent sign saying morning openings were only restricted before 9 a.m., we were told we had to wait until 11. And we had arrived at 10:45. The bridgetender seemed very nice on the radio; maybe the insane unannounced restrictions weren’t her idea.

Anyway, we made it to the yard without incident.

Tonight Mike and I made pizza. I mean we BOTH made pizza. I picked up cheese and sauce during our Gordon Food Service mission yesterday, and tonight we put on a tour de force. I made a pie, and Mike made a second pie plus garlic rolls swimming in Costco olive oil. The cheese was GFS mozzarella/provolone blend. It was excellent. The pizzas were slightly different, but each was sublime in its own way. I felt pretty good about it, because Mike had had to attend a funeral during the afternoon, so I had to make all the dough on my own.

I bought an interesting product this week. Sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour. I created a bigger batch of starter from it, and today I put it in the dough. I only had about three hours for the pizza dough and one hour for the roll dough. It made the pizza dough noticeably better. From now on, it will be standard. I have read that it makes dough’s texture better, and that seems to be true.

I was relieved, because the last two pizzas I made were a little off. I still got it. You can’t touch this stuff at any Miami pizzeria I’ve been to. They’re nowhere near as good. Now that I think about it, even though I lived in New York, the best pizzerias I’ve known were in the northern half of this city. Weird. But I lived near Columbia University, and there were only two pizzerias in my area. I’m sure there were better offerings all over town. And on average, New York wins, hands down.

Mike and I will be going to church either tomorrow or Sunday. I’m all excited. As much as I’ve gotten from my renewed relationship with God, I have been utterly unable to pass that success on to anyone else. Maybe to some extent through my blog, and maybe through prayer, but not directly. Now I have someone who is completely open to it and eager to take a closer look.

I have the funniest idea about my machine tools. Remember how I developed an interesting in machining because I wanted to make a device to crack stone crab claws? I’m thinking I may manufacture a bunch of different cracking devices. All sorts of different designs. They run through my head at night. Electric ones. Ones with gears. Some with cams. I may do it. Although putting them on the web might make it impossible to patent them. I might come up with something that was so much fun to use, it would have commercial value. Let’s face it. Virtually all nutcrackers are garbage. I’m sure it’s fun building weird one-cylinder engines, which seems to be what every home machinist does, but that doesn’t appeal to me.

What am I going to do with that gallon can of hot fudge sauce?

Great Day

Mike and I spent the day running around. The mother of one of his employees died, and she’s Jewish, so you know what that means. A very prompt funeral. We had to run up to Delray to get Mike’s suit. We visited the Fort Lauderdale Gordon Food Supply, which beats the daylights out of the one here on Flagler Street. I took photos of some interesting goodies, and I’ll upload them eventually. After that we hit Sonny’s barbecue.

We talked a lot about our dysfunctional families, and I told him something that occurred to me this morning in the shower. As far as I can tell, families do not work without God, period. You may have some pieces of the puzzle: wealth, fame, looks, or maybe brains. Your kids may be healthy, and they may be achievers. Your marriage may last. But it won’t really work as a whole. There will be significant failure somewhere in the picture. There will be important problems you absolutely have no chance of fixing. I think the reason for this is the same reason we have physical pain. When you have physical pain, it tells you something is wrong. It tells you that you need to fix something. It can prevent you from making a problem worse. Maybe you need to have a tumor removed or a bone set. Without pain, you might not do what you need to do. The failures we experience here on earth tell us we need to turn to God. They tell us our lives do not work properly without him. And as you turn to him, the pain abates or disappears entirely or, very often, turns to joy and peace.

What kind of God would let you and your spouse and your kids and your siblings have peaceful, prosperous lives without him? It would be a disservice. It would prove he didn’t care.

Mike had a lot of insights into my family’s troubles, and I was glad to have his input. He seemed to benefit from what I had to say, too. We’re going to try to attend the Saturday evening service at my church. I told him God has been fixing my family, and I’m hoping he can see the same kind of healing in his own life.

In other news, the guy who sold me my lathe emailed. He’s been looking it over and running and cleaning it and getting it ready for shipping. He says it appears it has “seen very little use.” That’s exciting. I was puzzled at first, because it had sat in a prison for over forty years. I had assumed it had been used a lot in vocational training. Then I realized it might be difficult to get backward, hardheaded criminals to take advantage of a great opportunity to learn a lucrative trade. So maybe their stubbornness will cause me to receive a substantial benefit intended for them. The Bible says “the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.” The lathe sale would be a pretty blatant example of unteachable people ignoring a blessing, leaving it to pass into the hands of someone more open to God’s instruction. Not that I am calling myself just. I do think I’m trying harder than most convicts.

I bought a gallon can of hot fudge today, just because I could. Sometimes I think I have a very big screw loose.

Look Out

Mike is in town, so the overeating started last night. Someone please intervene.

Today we have a number of options. Costco. Gordon Food Supply. And he was so impressed with my trash pile mahogany boards, he wants to make one. Go figure. He also wants to bust out the motorcycles.

I’m trying to get him to hang out long enough to visit church.

With a reader’s help, I think I figured out what I need to do about my router fence. All I need is something that extends out from the back side of the Biesemeyer. The parallelism is outstanding, and the precision is hard to beat. I could add a DRO to the Biesemeyer system, too, or I could must mount a dial indicator and some sort of screw adjustment on the router part. Anyway, this should be very easy compared to the harder solutions I found, and it should be much cheaper than the expensive ones.

I also have 3,000 pistol primers on the way! Do you care? Probably not. But I’m ecstatic. These things have been hard to find. And these are Federals, which may solve the problems I’ve had with .357 ammunition failing to fire properly. Federals are soft, and the new spring in my 27-2 is weak, so this should be a good combination. I also broke down and got a chronograph. There is just no way to avoid it. I can’t keep putzing around, taking a face shield to the range and praying the first shot doesn’t blow my 1911 apart. That is not the right way to work up a load. And I would very much like to create loads for Wolf primers, because they’re dirt, DIRT cheap.

Mike wants to make a video teaching people how to make 10-minute pizza. We ought to do it. I’d pay ten bucks for something like that, wouldn’t you?

Life is sweet

I Plead Guilty

I have depressing news about Mish Weiss. Don’t worry; the news about her health is great. What’s depressing is the way she has been treated.

Many people have been praying for Mish. Many of those people are Christians. And Christians want other people to become Christians. I certainly do; I don’t pretend otherwise. But it looks like some people got overexcited and used poor judgment, going overboard in their efforts to expose her to the gospel.

Mish wrote a polite response on her blog, stating that she did not wish to become a Christian. It’s her decision to make. God gives each of us that choice.

Since then, she has been receiving hate mail from people claiming to be Christians. I don’t say “claiming to be Christians” because I don’t think Christians could do this. They certainly could, and I’m sure some of the responsible people are Christians. I say it because it’s possible that some of the vicious morons who sent these emails were just posing as Christians to make trouble. Like the Democrats who call radio shows and use the phrase “lifelong Republican” to describe themselves.

One particularly fine person sent an email accusing Mish of hating Christians. Wasn’t that helpful and loving? She was also called “Christ-killer.” And worse.

I can’t believe there are Christians so stupid, bigoted, and vicious that they would use the term “Christ-killer.” The fact is, every Christian is a Christ-killer. We believe Jesus had to die, and chose to do so, in order to pay for our sins. That means he is our sacrifice. Our sins caused it. So we are the ones who caused the death of Christ. It amazes me that there are people who don’t understand that. Have you sinned? Have you accepted Jesus and asked for forgiveness? If so, you’re a Christ-killer. Get used to it.

A long while back, I got a ridiculous, self-righteous email criticizing me for not pushing Mish to accept Christ. I posted the text here, and I explained why this person was wrong.

Many Christians are unfamiliar with Jews and the Jewish mind. I’m more aware than most. I’ve been living among Jews since I was three. Half of the students at my high school were Jewish. I spent three years at Columbia University, which has a big Jewish population. I lived in Israel for four months. Aaron even got me in to some yeshiva classes.

I know that Jews feel threatened by Christianity. Christians were responsible for the Inquisition, pogroms, and much of what happened in the Holocaust. Hitler was hostile to Christianity, and he persecuted Christians, but many of the people who did the grunt work were Christians, and it was not unusual for them to tell Jews that persecution was justified because Jews killed Christ (I thought it was the Romans!). Some Catholic clerics helped the Nazis. On top of that, Jews believe they cease to be Jews if they accept Jesus, and they are extremely concerned about their dwindling numbers. They are afraid of disappearing as a people.

I am familiar with the sophisticated objections Jews have raised to the divinity of Jesus. I am aware that most Jews do not take proselytizing efforts gracefully; you can’t just give a Jew the same canned speech you would give any Gentile on the street and expect to get anywhere. In all likelihood, you’ll just alienate them and increase their antipathy toward your religion. I know these things. Many ignorant Christians do not. And I will not be judged by the ignorant.

When I got involved in the prayer campaign for Mish, I also knew that the Bible instructs us to look out for the Jews, without any requirement that they become proselytes. No strings attached. That’s the assignment. So I was perfectly content to pray and offer encouragement; I felt no need to badger this poor sick woman.

There is no Biblical precedent for badgering people. Find me an example in the New Testament. There is none. The early evangelists went from place to place, making their case. Those who chose, accepted Jesus. And that was the end of it.

The Bible tells us God calls people to become Christians. He knows who will listen and who will not. If that is the case, then telemarketer-style sales techniques are unscriptural and ultimately serve to harm the church by giving it a bad name.

I believe you pray for people to give in. You try to live a life that makes them jealous of what you have, so they feel moved to try to get it for themselves. You tell them about the benefits you’ve received. And if that doesn’t work, you need to give it a rest, because when you torment people in the name of Jesus, you only drive them farther away.

How stupid do you have to be to think Jesus wants you to call Mish Weiss a Christ-killer? How can a brain as small as yours even manage to coordinate things like breathing? Explain why you think this is likely to make her want to convert. I’m sure whoever wrote that idiotic email or comment reads this blog. Enlighten us all, oh holy one.

Self-righteous imbeciles have probably succeeded in undoing whatever positive work the rest of us managed to do over the last few months. Here’s what I have to say to them: Chabad should hire you to make sure no one ever converts to Christianity again. You are doing things they could never hope to do. I am ashamed to belong to the same religion as you. You are a disgrace. And you are taking God’s name in vain, pretending to serve him by expressing your hatred.

Okay, enough of that. Here is the good news. Mish’s blast cell count has dropped below 30%. That is fantastic. And her blood counts are up. The stronger she gets–I think I have this right–the better she’ll be able to tolerate treatment that could cure her. So the prayers are working. I mean Christian AND Jewish prayers. Nowhere does the Bible say God only hears the prayers of Christians, or that he only hears when you pray in the name of Jesus.

Let’s keep it up. We can’t ask for better results than this.

You Missed Me

I forgot to blog yesterday. Unbelievable. Maybe it’s a healthy sign. Also, the lathe search is driving me nuts. I keep asking experienced lathe users about the Grizzly G4003G versus an old Clausing 5914, and one day, they say, “The Grizzly is the most amazing tool yet created by the hand of man,” and the next day they say, “Chinese lathes are made from pot metal, plus they cause cancer.”

Mike says his brother wants to see the Hoginator, so here are photos.

That’s before I created the Teletubby smoke box, which can be seen below.

Apparently Mike got a good result on his angiogram, and his wife is annoyed. I think she was hoping for something she could use to persuade him to quit eating 9,000 calories per day.

There’s Some Lovely Filth Down Here!

This is going to be a weird day.

It already started out weird. I got a comment from a guy claiming to work for King Arthur Flour. Apparently they have a very limited sense of humor about their marketing approach. They sent me a junk email advertising a recipe for “doughnuts without frying,” and I wrote a short post saying what a disgraceful and disturbing idea that was. The comment I received was sincerely defensive. I think maybe somebody needs a little time away from the mill.

It’s a bad sign when an executive runs around defending his company in blog comments. Especially when he defends the company from humor instead of serious criticism.

To [probably] misquote Steve Martin in My Blue Heaven, “Everybody thinks they have a sense of humor, but they don’t, really.” A person who laughs when he sees other people fall down thinks he has a sense of humor. But if he can’t take or even detect a joke, he really doesn’t. A person who has a sense of humor laughs when he, himself, falls down.

It’s a wonderful thing. Humor takes the most miserable moments in life and turns them into causes for celebration. It’s bizarre, if you think about it. Think about all those home videos of ruined weddings. The cake falls over. A bird poops on the bride. Whatever. If the people in the video have a sense of humor, they break up. It’s the greatest thing they’ve ever seen. They all want a copy of the video. If they have no sense of humor, it’s a horror that will be relived for 50 years. And as long as she lives, the bride will use it to make life hell for those around her. It will form the basis for her permanent vendetta against fate. It will be her excuse for distributing misery like a runaway manure spreader. A lot of women would give anything for an excuse like that.

For what it’s worth, I use King Arthur flour. If I didn’t think they made good products, I would not be on their junk email list. They make a strange pizza blend which is pretty good, but it’s unavailable except at mail-order prices, so I only bought one bag. It’s long gone. I don’t know if their bread flour is any better than anyone else’s. I have made tons of pizzas for test purposes, and I have not noticed a difference I could put my finger on, but I got in the habit of buying King Arthur for the reputation, so I still have it in the kitchen. I made Texas toast with it last week, and Mike says he’s still in withdrawal. My favorite pizza flour, however, is all-purpose biscuit flour from Gold Medal or Pillsbury. Whatever is cheapest. Anything low in protein, with no leavening. I bought 00 flour, but I used it so rarely, the bugs got it.

Baked doughnuts are an abomination, like soy milk. I stand by that. A baked doughnut is a cupcake with a hole. Okay, sure, I have probably eaten baked doughnuts. I’m pretty sure Entenmann’s faux-chocolate doughnuts are baked. I’ve eaten them, but I have no illusions about what I’m getting. Frying rocks. Especially when you use a particularly tasty fat, like coconut oil.

And–this will make the King Arthur people even madder–the best doughnuts are full of potato starch, which cuts way down on the flour content. Oh well.

The concept of baking things like doughnuts in order to make them healthier is fairly ludicrous. The fat is the least harmful thing in a doughnut. The huge pile of refined carbs that shoot into your bloodstream as glucose ten minutes after you eat…that’s the problem. That and the calorie load. If I had to choose between giving up refined carbs and giving up healthy, versatile, delicious saturated fats, I’d drop the carbs in a heartbeat. Out of fear, more than anything else. You can’t jam yourself full of flour, rice, potatoes, and sugar all the time and expect to be healthy. If you take those things out of your diet, the fats pretty much cease to be harmful. Look up homocysteine.

That reminds me; I have to get to McDonald’s soon so I can get my weekly McBiscuit, dripping with salty grease.

The other weird thing about today is that I have to run down to the warehouse, put a new padlock on it, and figure out what to do with all the junk. If I’m going to have a Craigslist sale, I have to find out what I have and make a list. And I need to make sure that sweet Genie Superlift is safe.

I should take more photos. What do you do with a light globe two feet across? Surely someone will want it. It would be a great planter.

What am I going to do with a ten-foot-long workbench? Even if I get it out of the warehouse, it’s not the kind of thing you can just throw out. Maybe I can bust it up with a crowbar.

Dang, the deadline is drawing near. I better hit the drive-through.

Oh the Wrongness of It

Tonight I got the dumbest junk email. It came from King Arthur Flour. The subject was “Doughnuts without frying? Here’s the secret.”

Why on God’s green earth would I want doughnuts without frying?

FAIL FAIL FAIL

DELETE DELETE DELETE

Nirvana

What a feast. Mike and I cooked for my dad and my sister. Everything was from my cookbook. We had spare ribs, a beer-butt chicken, my Yukon Gold casserole, barbecue beans, and Texas toast. Good God, it was wonderful.

I thought we had ruined the meat at one point. We had to leave the smoker unattended, and when we got back, the meat was very dark. I figured creosote had attacked. But at dinner, it was sublime. The best barbecue I’ve ever had, far and away. I didn’t notice any creosote flavor. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe it was residue from burned Budweiser.

The Teletubby smoke box is magical, but I need to fix on an on-deck box for getting the wood burning. As it is now, you get some bitter smoke whenever you add fresh wood. Still, the results were magnificent.

Mike claimed the wood was the problem. We started with Publix Greenwise hickory, and then we had to change to something from Home Depot. I wasn’t there when he changed over, but he said the Home Depot wood gave off much less dark smoke.

Whatever. This was a dining experience I will never forget. It’s sad that I didn’t have time to make the macaroni and cheese. But then human beings were never intended to know that much pleasure here on earth.

Mike made some good contributions. He showed me that high heat is best for frying hash browns. I didn’t know that.

Don’t listen to the foodies. You don’t have to use liquid nitrogen or squid ink to make good food. Just pick something simple and do it perfectly. That other stuff is for idiots.

Pork is Everywhere

Mike is in town. Last night, we hit Gordon Food Supply. For us, that’s like going to a strip club. After that, we dined on masitas de puerco, moros, and yuca at El Exquisito in Little Havana.

We’ve been working on barbecue all day. The Hoginator has been revived, and I’m burning hickory chunks in the Teletubby smoke box!

What a pleasure it is to have Mike here. Who else will go to GFS with me? Who else completely understands why I smear beef fat on my ribs while I smoke them? Who else agrees that removing the membrane is for girly-men?

We have two racks of spare ribs and a Budweiser beer-butt going right now. Everything is rubbed, and the chicken has been injected with Jack Daniel’s, dark maple syrup, cider vinegar, and a few other things.

It’s beautiful. Now I have to start planning the Texas toast and other sides.

I’m using an open flame for smoke. Bill Karau, inventor of the Karubecue, made me self-conscious about creosote, so I am not doing blue, bitter smoke today. Even though I actually like it.

Bill has spiffed up his site. Maybe we’ll get more info later. Here it is: CLICK.

This is Why I Was Put on Earth

Today I’m doing the unthinkable. Making strawberry cheesecake and Champagne chicken for the second time in a month. A friend of the family lost his wife a while back, and my dad and my sister and I wanted to get him out of his house for a while. Naturally, the cooking fell to me.

I made the cheesecake last night, except for the topping. That’s in the works right now, and I’m brining the chicken.

I wish I could find Lucerne brand cream cheese here. A reader says it’s better than Philly, and that the cheesecake doesn’t crack as much. but I guess I’ll be okay. I also wish I had a Tupperware container big enough to hold the remains of a 10″ cheesecake.

I keep Googling lathes. I’m learning all sorts of stuff.

First, you can rehabilitate a lathe by scraping the bed ways. This costs over a thousand dollars if you have someone else do it. All you have to do is buy some obscure hand tools–not power tools, believe it or not–and get a book and practice for a long time. Weird. I have no interest in doing this, but it’s an interesting topic. I would have thought there was some kind of giant milling machine jig for this purpose. And I can’t understand how you can do this accurately with a blade on the end of a stick.

Second, Atlas lathes aren’t all that great. People who own them complain a lot about flexing and cheap parts that break. Right now, I can get a Craftsman lathe built by Atlas, within two-hour drive, for $850. But it’s only worth maybe $350, and it will never be a good lathe. Atlas did not apply its usual standards when making stuff for Sears, so this thing is a step down from Atlas, which is a step down from South Bend and so on.

Third, Rockwell and Sheldon made really fantastic lathes, but parts can be hard to find and/or expensive. I can’t understand why Delta wouldn’t continue making parts for Rockwell lathes, but that’s the way it is. These machines are supposed to be stiffer than other lathes, and the ways on the Rockwell models are very hard and resist wear. But if you can’t keep them running, what’s the point?

Some retired toolmaker not far from here is selling a huge toolbox full of machining stuff. Maybe I should check it out. I assume it’s things like tooling and calipers. But I really don’t want a freezer-sized toolbox in my garage.

This dinner is going to be TOO good. I really don’t know how food can get any better than this. I just put the goop on the strawberry topping, and I wish I could climb into the refrigerator and swim in the cheesecake.