(not even remotely) Spanish (but at least it has) Rice (in it).

I'm wondering if you guys even need the pics of the ingredients anymore. Well, here they are anyway:


And this, as well.


Brown some ground meat with chili powder. Remove.


Lower heat, soften onions with cumin & salt.


Add jalapeño.


Add garlic.


Deglaze with red wine.


Add rice.


Add twice as much stock as rice, tomatoes & nam pla.


Add bay leaf & oregano


Return meat. Cover and simmer for an hour, or until rice is done.


Add string beans & lime juice, and cover until beans are tender, approx 10 minutes.


Serve with hot sauce, etc.

NaNoWriMo excerpt: Monkeys and their Pride.

The whole damn human race, all of society, those stinking, dirty, human monkeys with their chattering! Prattling on about insignificant bullshit that wasn't anything more than a noise that they made to keep themselves company. It was worse than a herd of parrots, because at least those dumb beasts ("other dumb beasts," he corrected himself) didn't understand the meaning behind the sounds.

Then again, maybe the chattering monkeys didn't understand what was being understood, either. Jack was sure they could probably break down the words into a sort of cheap, illegible dictionary. Maybe they could actually connect the sounds to the base meaning of each step of the sentence. But could they connect the words together? Could they form some sort of deeper meaning behind the sounds? At what point did they perform a kind of self-lobotomy that rewired their brains, bypassing any sort of analysis, and linking what they've heard directly to the vocal cords?

Maybe it was simply a case of self-doubt. There's a lot of doubt in the world, Jack thought, and that's to be expected. But for generations, the monkeys deceived themselves. No, that's not right. They've always been deceiving themselves. It was only natural to make first impressions, and jump to conclusions. Hell, no one would ever get anything done without being able to do that. But there seemed to be something that happened from that point. The monkeys just... stopped. "Good enough" was, well, good enough. They built a wall up, keeping out anything that might tell them they were wrong the first time around. That's where the re-wiring starts, he thought. When they don't want to admit they're wrong.

So it's not self-doubt then. It's pride. The inability to admit mistakes. Maybe that was the original sin. The Sin of Pride wasn't about taking credit for your actions, or about feeling good when you've done well. To be fair, it was true that bragging about it kind of sucks, because it's already happened. You start living in the past; you figure you've got some sort of pass for inaction. But that's not pride. That's what some people wanted Pride to be, because, of, well, Pride. Pride is what keeps you from admitting you're wrong. So, someone twisted it around. Someone fell into a deep pit of Pride, and decided that not only weren't they wrong, they couldn't be wrong. Pride had to be something other than that. So Pride became admitting you were actually good at something, not that you didn't know what was actually going on.

But without the fear of self-doubt, there'd be no Pride. But who isn't afraid of being wrong? If you admit you're wrong about one thing, then maybe no one will ever believe you again. Then again, why should anyone believe anything they haven't already experienced for themselves? Is this where faith came from? Let's say I tell you that just around the corner, a gorilla is waiting to give you a sack full of dead roses and toaster ovens. Whether you believe me or not depends on how often flora-and-house appliance-wielding primates have skulked around corners. Experience, yeah? Both faith and trust come from experience. So, he'll believe you if you tell him something he already knows. That's not trust, that's buying into Pride. That's running head on into your own fear of self doubt.

Jack's head started to spin with the whiskey and coffee. He tried to get his mind around the whole thing. If you can't admit you're wrong, if you won't admit you're wrong, then you simply aren't. You believe anything someone tells you that you agree with, and reject anything different. Until experience comes along again, and kicks the chair out. So, what's the answer? Make everyone experience everything until no one needs to trust anyone anymore? Not enough years in a lifetime. Trust was just as necessary as jumping to conclusions.

Jack took his cup of coffee-flavored whiskey to the ratty, beat-up couch and propped up his foot. "Damn lying monkeys," he thought to himself. When did the lie begin? It could be said that the lie always existed. We’ve been lying to ourselves since we began to receive information into our brains. Because we naturally forget that what we see isn’t all that’s really out there, and we tell ourselves that what we see is Really Real Reality. Even barring things like hallucinations and optical illusions, we’re not really getting the big picture. Take gamma rays for example. Have you ever seen a gamma ray? No. You might have seen a machine that supposedly clicks when it gets hit by a gamma ray, but all that’s really telling you is that "something" happened.

Jack closed his eyes, and squeezed hard on his lids. Behind his eyes, the demon’s face appeared again. It was happening more often now. He couldn’t escape it when he was awake, either. It used to just be part of his par for the course nightmares, but that one face started appearing more often. It wasn’t that unique a demon, either. Typical red eyes, pointed ears, big horns, toothy grin. It wasn’t frightening, it was… annoying. Like when your 6-year-old cousin tries scaring you, but does it over, and over, and over again. Jack was pretty sure it was going to get creepy eventually. The 6-year-old thing can get creepy too, if they keep at it long enough. The fright moves behind the action, into the motivation: Why does he keep doing that? What’s the hell is wrong with him?

In the case of the demon, it was more the insistence of Jack’s own head that was bothering him. Why that image, why so… cliché? It bothered Jack that his brain was being so trite and unoriginal. "I mean, even if space aliens were beaming their mind-control lasers into my head, I doubt they’d resort to cheap tricks like that," he muttered to himself. "I liked it better when it was images of impossible perverted sex acts. At least then it was somewhat interesting." He thought back, trying to remember when the dime-store horror image replaced the contorted writhing. All he could come up with was sometime before That Weekend. Not a "lost" weekend, as much as a "found" one. It was one of those handfuls of days that seem to pop out of nowhere.

But that was a lie, as well. Days don’t just pop up, they happen, over an over again. And even grouping them into 7-piece sections, setting up expectations for certain days over others, that’s just a lie that’s been engraved into the brain so much that the stupid monkeys have made it into a fact. They walk though their lie day, looking at lie things, thinking their lie thoughts. Because when you have deceived yourself with Pride, lying becomes the easiest thing in the world. But wait—doesn’t the lying come first? The deeper lie, perhaps. Somehow, certain people (monkeys) were able to convince other monkeys (people) that what they didn’t experience was true. Then they convinced them that what they couldn’t experience was true. Big whoppers, too. Big enough to blanket the self-doubt, and then Pride comes along and seals the deal.

Jack scratched his head. It was starting to come together now. He put down his coffee cup on the floor and stared out the window. The stupid monkeys. Their lies. Their Pride. Where was he going with this? The whiskey had gotten to him again, making him slow. Jack was sure he was getting somewhere, something to do with why he always felt an impending weight on his shoulders, the imposition of some sort of "almost". That "almost" was trapping him, holding him back, and keeping him in a holding pattern. He waited.

Chanterelles on sale...

Well, there was a nice price on Chanterelle mushrooms. And we had some chicken breast left over from the last time we roasted a bird. What to do?

Well, clean and slice the mushrooms.


Slice garlic, and mince shallot.


Wash & mince parsley.


Chop up that chicken!


Looks like we found some pasta, as well… I can see where this is going.


Here is a scintillating shot of butter melting in a pan.


Toss in the mushrooms, pinch of salt, sauté briefly, remove.


Add chicken, salt & pepper, brown, remove.


Lower heat, sauté shallot.


Add garlic.


Deglaze with wine.


Add some chicken stock, bring to a simmer. Reduce slightly. Add chunks of butter and stir until a light sauce is made.


Dump in cooked pasta, mushroom, and chicken. Toss to combine.


Serve with parsley, parmesan, and ground pepper.

Recipe: Grillade & Grits

A little something called "Grillade and Grits".

Meat. Something like chuck, that can stand up to long cooking times. Season with salt and garlic powder.


Sear it in bacon fat (of course). Remove.


Sautee bell pepper, onion and garlic. Remove.


Make a roux. Equal parts fat and flour; low heat; constant stirring. Slowly add beef stock.


Return meat and veggies, then add this stuff. Cover, and let simmer for an hour.


(That's some fresh tomatoes, by the way)






After an hour, start up the grits. Boiling water, add grits. Stir.


Grate some cheddar cheese. Add when grits starts to thicken, along with some minced Serrano pepper.


Chop up parsley, add to Grillade.


When grits have thickened up, plate that sucker.

NaNoWriMo excerpt: Ideas Storming the Gates

Jack felt his knees pop as he knelt by the window. He figured he could jimmy the lock from the outside and they could make their way to the inner sections through the net of underground connections connecting the buildings together. As he eased the wire picks into the mechanism, he wondered if it were this easy to pick into someone's brain.

It could be easy. All you needed was to find a weak or fragile frame, and then just apply the right pressure in just the right place. Now that doesn't mean you can just shove it in; that's a direct way to a brain collapse; plus, if there's any kind of security, they'll come running in quick, and then you're fucked. No, what you wanted was a subtle slip, a knife's edge into the space. Something simple. Something they'll agree with. That's how you do it. Then, once you get inside, you can start to move around. Find other agreeable things. But the magic was, you didn't even have to find things they agreed with. Once you were inside, no one ever noticed the damage you could do.

It was like people had this heavy security wall that only looked out. They were incredibly skeptical about what was on the outside; that was part of the inertia; it just kept on going, blasting down the outside ideas. Criticizing and shooting them down for any number of reasons, real or imagined. But if something got in, then it was like they had a backstage pass at the Republican National Convention: Never questioned, never accused, never doubted. You were home free. So, first thing, get in. From there, you can start spreading, like some horrifically welcomed cancer. And oh, the things you can do.

See, most people aren't aware of how fragile their own ideas really are. They flit about inside the compound, only bumping into their own kind, agreeing with themselves constantly, and when this goes on long enough, they think they're strong, and assured, and righteous. But what happens when someone gets inside without their noticing? Yeah. Those pretty butterflies of ideas can get clipped so easily. Just... turn them a little. One dark idea can be like a reverse lamp, all the pretty flitting things don't get drawn to it, they turn away, they turn themselves, they turn into, they begin to become like that dark idea. They reflect. Once the dark idea is in there, they start to push a little. And all the flitting ideas agree with each other, so somehow, they have to agree with the dark idea, no?

And here's where the dark rationalization comes in. The immense power of those damn frontal lobes can turn piss into wine. Anything can become anything else, if you just give it a little time and a push. That little idea, that tiny, fragile thing, it so wants to be included in the greater picture, it wants to be part of the whole. But it sees that strong, dark thought and idea, and that idea is nudging. Why not? Why not become part of a larger idea? There's some sense in what they're saying, after all, no reason you shouldn't go along with it.

And all the while, the perimeter guards stand silent. After all, their job is to fight off outside concepts. All the difficult “mental” stuff happens on the inside, their job is just to keep stuff out. There's not upper level thinking going on here. They can't tell the difference between an idea that they started with and one that was snuck in. So when all the beautiful Moon Moth thoughts become flopping vultures, they start giving orders. To the guards. Of course, the guards don't question anything coming from the inside, they only question what's on the outside, yeah? So, slowly but surely, the guards start guarding against what used to be on the inside, and they keep safe what they used to repel. And that's all there is to it. The outside comes in.

But that doesn't account for the subversion through immersion that happens so often. You take a person who thinks one thing, and then you put them in an environment where every other person they talk to thinks the opposite. All day long, they're inundated with the same message; but not confrontational. A confrontation sets those guards up, and protects the flitting thoughts. No, the conversion by immersion happens when it's not even discussed. The constant opinion without rebuttal. It just lives in the environment. The guards, ordered to keep watch over differing opinions, eventually just accept it as part of the background noise. It becomes accepted as normal, and then it gets inside. And without even knowing it, you've become something other than you ever thought you could be.

So, with all of this, all of this mechanical, insidious, unthinking, unfeeling process, where so called “free thinking” people are forced to obey decades old rules they didn't even know they were signing up for, and don't even know how to change it, how the hell do you compete with something like that? By turning the guards around, and by pointing them inside your own head.
Instead of questioning every outside thought that you encountered, you need to question every thought you've ever had. Become a butterfly collector. Nail those fuckers to a board and study them. Where did your thoughts come from? What did you experience that caused you to think like that? And lastly, do you really agree with it, or after breaking it down, does it just not add up? When you start thinking like this, that what you are is a combination of your environment and the feedback loop you have with your environment.

Recipe: Steak Tips with Horseradish Butter Sauce

Ok, time for something simple.

The culprits:


Oh, this too:


The subjects:

(Liberally salt and pepper the meat.)


So. Turn on the broiler, and heat a skillet on high. When really hot, add some vegetable oil, and put in the meat.


Sear for about 3 minutes on a side. It should be brown & crusty.


Remove and let sit. Deglaze pan with red wine (get that fond. Get it!).


Turn off the heat, and add the butter and horseradish.


When melted, add a few shots of Worcestershire sauce. Stir.


Meanwhile, trim tough ends off the asparagus, and season with olive oil and salt.


Place under the broiler for 6 minutes, or until you get a light char.


See? Like I said, easy.