A Little Reminder

JWise Thoughts

Passage from Dialectic of Enlightenment from Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer

I was reading an article titled The Scars of Democracy from The Nation this morning. It was about Theodor Adorno, whose writing I had my first encounter in or around 1986. Back then, I was voraciously reading everything I could get my eyes on that was dealing with ideas of the “Outsider.” From Nietzsche and Schopenhauer to Bertrand Russel, Wilhelm Reich, and Elias Canetti, I was joined at the hip to the British Book Shop in Frankfurt, Germany, my lifeline to English translations of books I’d never heard of. One of the titles I picked up was Dialectic of Enlightenment by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. This was my introduction to critical thinking by people relatively modern in my view. From that book, I first learned about Alexis de Tocqueville and his pivotal work Democracy in America.

Adaptation, forward movement, harnessing new paradigms, and willingness to change were what I took from Tocqueville as he explored the young United States in 1831. In The Nation’s article about Adorno, the words “…embrace the democratic ideals of self-criticism, education, and enlightenment” grabbed my attention and triggered some old memories. One thing led to another, and in a moment, I was once again thinking of The Outsider by Colin Wilson. Years before my encounter with German Philosophy, I learned of this author and his seminal thoughts that I felt pegged my feelings of societal abandonment due to my artistic, literary, and musical interests. During the intervening 40 years since this journey of the mind began, I’ve thought time and again about the bridge between the outsider and the conformist masses.

It seemed to me that acquiring knowledge was the only path of exploration in a world already found. As I sought out answers to what life might be about, I constantly returned to the question of how one cultivates curiosity. How will others search for new possibilities when conformity is dictating that society shares the same love of a narrow set of cultural paradigms that appear to limit what it means to be a citizen of a particular city, state, or country? The article I was reading this morning dealt with a talk Adorno gave in Vienna back in 1967, in which he spoke about the rise of fascism. Naturally, I was thinking of our own recent encounter with populism. I had to stop and wonder about how ineffective I’ve been in communicating a solution to the oppression brought about by intolerance. By bullying those not like the majority, we demand that the potential outsider join ranks or suffer isolation; I chose isolation. But I still believe that the only way forward for a society is to gather around progress and accept the bitter pill of change.

To that end, I’ve tried to refine my skills in writing to obviously mixed results. Six years ago, I embarked on creating a virtual world called Hypatia that was intended to offer those without the means to travel far and who lived in situations where museums, theaters, and concerts were difficult to attend a place in which they could explore the arts, literature, and creativity in general. Personal expression outside of mass culture was my intention; sadly, the desire to learn from the unknown has been squashed to some extent here in the United States. Parents are no longer interested in their children taking different paths in life as they only see economic security with a high-paying job as a future for their offspring. Parents trying to dictate the ambition of a generation to conform have produced kids and young adults who are confused about identity and, instead of marching into the possibilities of expressing one’s self, are more interested in mimicry of influencers who make life look exciting and purposeful. What they are failing to grasp is that those very same influencers are often those who are exploring new possibilities in a digital economy that is still evolving. The VR world I sought to bring into being was meant as a stage for those at risk of becoming followers to shine in their own right.

In 2016, circumstances on our political stage changed the direction I hoped we might be going. Instead of seizing the tools of sharing and learning, populist dogma dragged us to a halt with an appeal to all people who were losing their grip on control of their own lives. By whipping such a large segment of our population into a frenzy about the “Takeover,” the politicians and media who energized this circus were still profiting, and so any thoughts about democracy were placed in a holding pattern until we determined which way the wind was blowing and how populism would play out in early 21st century America. The country where I was born abandoned its ideals of self-criticism, education, and enlightenment. Instead, we embraced fear, hostility, and blame that changes brought by others were responsible for our alienation from prosperity or the perceived threat from lifestyles and cultures that didn’t mesh with ours.

Our country was founded on those very principles of different people coming from other continents, religions, ethnicities, and cultures in order to find a place in a wide-open land where horizons were broad, and self-realization was to be found in carving out your spot in the sun. In our technological rapidly evolving world of today, it is difficult to keep up with the pace of change, and when that change was rising on all fronts, from sexuality, job security, entertainment, music, food, and education, to ever-increasing diversity, some of our population lost their grounding in hope. Unable to adapt due to the poor distribution of financial resources, the trapped were only becoming squeezed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Even those who are financially well off, which often means their education is lending itself to better opportunities, they too felt trapped by a culture of influencers, viral videos, music, fashion, and even the change in transportation to feel that they understood the world around them.

Humanity has always been changed by the need for adaptation to shifting currents. The turn to populism, a.k.a. fascism, is a way to dial back progress and, for a moment, freeze society in the familiar, even if it requires violence to do so. Today, we stand on the precipice, in danger of falling into the abyss of hatred due to our fear, and the opportunity to accept the outsider is more distant than ever. Intolerance is never the way forward and must always be atoned for, and while this message has been sifted into the minds of the few, it largely falls on deaf ears as to embrace change often is perceived as a dangerous step to embracing the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Far greater minds have had platforms that allowed them to reach a wide audience, and while my optimism has been slow to dwindle, I have to admit I see little hope that there’s an interest among our political and financial elites to see us drift away from the script of mediocrity, even at the risk of self-immolation.

Birthday Stylin’

JWise Photo of the Day

Caroline Wise in Mesa, Arizona

Who needs birthday cake when you can have corndogs? While Caroline and I were up in Oregon a new Korean corndog joint called Two Hands opened a few doors down from H-Mart in Mesa. When I saw this last week I held back and didn’t go in figuring Caroline would like to try them too, nor did I share the news with her. So today on her 21st birthday, oops I mean 53rd, we needed to visit H-Mart again, because not only did we need more provisions for sundubu but Caroline likes looking at the Korean goods in their stylish packaging. And as soon as we arrived it was clear that we were not going to pass up the opportunity to try a reinvented classic. From left to right you have the German corndog holding the box containing a Crispy Rice Dog, a Potato Dog covered with Two Hands Dirty Sauce and Cheetos powder, and finally the Two Hands Dog with a drizzle of sweet ranch sauce. All three were great but the Potato Dog was greaterer. We’ll be back.

Now, what about the packaging comment above? Caroline isn’t only enamored with Koren packaging as any Asian, South Asian, or Mexican packaging will draw in her interest. It’s the bright colors and often cute or humorous graphics that are used in the design. Our dominant grocery stores are boring with limited selections although they do feature 100 variations on some puffed grain sugary cereal. Essentially they are created for people with narrow expectations when it comes to their palate. But in other countries, they aren’t afraid to put cheese and corn in ice cream, use red beans in cakes, or roll corn dogs in French fry bits topped with Magic Cheeto Dust. Innovation in teas, drinks, and fast food is big business in Asia where a ballooning population of young people is willing to try non-traditional things on a quest to be hip. While we celebrate the comeback of the McRib or a variation on a chicken sandwich, places like India have been mashing up traditional items into Chinese dishes to create Indo-Chinese dishes and Korea fills up a fish-looking pastry with purple yam ice-cream topped with Fruity Pebbles. (By the way, the ice cream is called Ah-Boong if you are interested.) So, take the vibrant colors, peculiar ingredients, and playful packaging and Caroline is super happy to explore what’s available and on occasion try some rather peculiar things, such as the squid-flavored Lays potato chips she recently had.

So John, is that seriously how you celebrated your wife’s birthday? Well, yes. We’ve done dinner at gourmet restaurants, I’ve given her an extraordinary number of gifts for her 40th birthday, 40 as a matter of fact. We’ve gone to Disneyland, Disney World, and Euro Disney to mark the occasion of her birth. Cakes? We’ve had fancy and plain but Korean corndogs are something out of the ordinary so why be ordinary? If you marry someone extraordinary you should do things and share times that step out of the mundane such as that year we went snowshoeing in Yellowstone for our wedding anniversary. Someday we’ll look back and cherish this memory of our first ever encounter with Korean corndogs and it’ll make us smile in much the same way as when I posted that photo of Caroline sitting on an outdoor toilet on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Okay, there was also that time up in Alaska during a white water rafting trip where I caught her reading the paper sitting on the can 🙂

How Do You Do Food?

JWise Food, Thoughts

Pantry of John and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

In only 95 days, Caroline and I will have been self-isolating for one year. First of all, the definition of self-isolation for us is along the lines of being aware of our proximity to others, always wearing a mask when near others, walking for exercise much more than ever before, being aware of how much sunlight we are getting while supplementing it with vitamin D, not being as spontaneous to go places as we’d like to, staying out of as many businesses as possible, reducing how often we shop in person, and essentially eliminating visits to restaurants.

What this post is really all about, though, is our relationship with food during the pandemic. We started hoarding food (I hate to use that word, but it is what it is) in January. Back then, I’d say it was more like putting some extra things to the side just in case what was happening in China started spreading. By February, I’d have to admit that I hit the panic button a little, and unbeknownst to Caroline, I started squirreling stuff away in the nooks and crannies of our cabinets as I shifted stuff and packed food supplies in an ever-increasing density. When March rolled around and the first wave of panic buying hit the general public, our freezer was packed solid, and I really couldn’t reasonably store anything else in our kitchen. I was guessing that we had enough food on hand to last us a solid 90 days.

Pantry of John and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

We then encountered a logistical problem; we didn’t know where, in 9 cabinets spread between 19 shelves, we’d find stuff. The fridge was easy because that was all fresh food that needed to move out before it rotted. We needed an inventory, and that’s just what we created. A simple affair built in a spreadsheet with over 400 line items. We put a piece of tape at the corner of each door that had food behind it, numbered it, and counted the shelves from the bottom up, starting with the number 1. If we needed a jar of pickled asparagus, we could see that there should be a bottle in cabinet 6, shelf 2. This became our grocery store.

When we needed fresh foods I tended to try and use Costco as much as possible as they early on asked customers to wear masks and put up plastic dividers between customers and cashiers. Even though it’s only two of us, 10 lbs of onions could be gone through, and usually, only one onion would go bad while we worked through them. Six avocadoes paired with two containers of cherry tomatoes to make tomato/avocado salads to accompany meals or to eat for lunch. Two dozen eggs last us three weekends as we only eat a hot breakfast on Saturday and Sunday to make up for not being able to go out for a traditional breakfast at some favorite local joint. Fruit, some veggies, and meat were mostly coming from Costco. Things we wanted in smaller amounts, as we really couldn’t eat 4 lbs of bell peppers fast enough, were gotten from a nearby grocery store, typically right after opening or after 8:00 p.m., so I could avoid the crowds. Caroline very rarely, if ever, went to the store with me during the first 4 or 5 months of the pandemic.

Pantry of John and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

While the kitchen is my responsibility, the data is Caroline’s. As I’d ask where the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce are, she’d give me the coordinates, and then she’d remove it from the inventory, eventually adding the item to the “Removed” page in our spreadsheet. This week, the “Removed” page surpassed the “In Inventory” page, so I thought I’d take a closer look at it, and this is what I found.

The first item was consumed and removed from inventory on March 24, 2020. Looking at what followed, I am surprised by how much we’ve consumed or, in some cases, how I thought we ate more of something, but the data doesn’t support it. Somehow, we’ve eaten 4.6 lbs of nopalitos, aka cactus pads. Not too surprising we’ve used 9.5 lbs of bacon. In no particular order, we’ve consumed 12 lbs of canned black beans, an amount of butter I’d rather not share, only 6 lbs of chicken, 19 quarts of chicken stock (we make a lot of bean dishes starting with dried beans), 24 filet mignon, 4.5 lbs of ground beef, 28 hotdogs, 2.6 gallons of pasta sauce, 24 pork chops, 50 ounces of pozole, 4.5 lbs of prunes, over 15 lbs of brown rice, almost a gallon of salsa, countless tomatoes, avocadoes, six cans of spam, nuts and seeds for the roughly 12 lbs of granola I make a month and probably about a gallon of soy milk per month to accompany it. I also know we’ve been through about 4 lbs of crunchy stuff that’s an integral part of Burmese salads, 5.5 lbs of coffee beans, eight cans of enchilada sauce, and 13 packages of preserved Chinese vegetables.

With more than 400 line items, often with multiple units of particular things, we need to keep in mind what’s languishing and at risk of being forgotten lest we have to throw a spoiled product away. The inventory isn’t enough to keep us aware of how things move out of our kitchen, so every couple of weeks, Caroline sends me the updated list that I scour to find things to throw into our meal plan. At this point, since fresh food is easily available in our markets, using some foods that we collected early on that have longer shelf lives, such as our 24 ounces of soy curls meat substitute or nearly 2 pounds of canned ground beef, is becoming a challenge. We loathe throwing food away, though, and sooner or later, we’ll get to these ingredients, but with fresh options easily at hand, it’s a bit difficult.

Pantry of John and Caroline Wise in Phoenix, Arizona

The point of my blog entry here is that we have never been so aware of what and how much we eat on a regular basis. That wasn’t possible when the majority of our meals came from restaurants. Had you asked me a year ago what the percentages were, I probably would have said that 20-30% of our meals were at restaurants, but now, after so many months of cooking and cleaning dishes, I’d say that probably 75% of our meals were prepared by someone else.

To this day, we still do not opt for convenience by purchasing fully prepared foodstuffs aside from pasta sauce, some soups, or pasta. As much as possible, we use whole foods, starting with fresh, before we resort to frozen or canned. Today in our freezer are nearly 5 lbs of walleye filets, 5 lbs of perch, 9 lbs of ribeyes from Texas, a lamb roast, 4 lbs of pork belly, skirt steaks, filet mignon, chicken thighs, various sausages, scallops, and ground beef. Our pantry is still overflowing with a bunch of Chinese veggies, dried matsutake, porcini, boletes, red reishi, and morel mushrooms, six flavors of spam, and a bunch of other things that came from the shelves that others don’t typically shop from.

Where to go from here? I want an app that follows my eating habits and brings me into new food experiences. Finding recipes from other countries requires us to have an idea of what we are looking for when we may not have a clue as to what’s popular in the homes of the people from Pohnpei, for example. While we have almost every spice available in one of our cabinets, and I’m not afraid to shop at Eastern European, Middle Eastern, Asian, South Asian, African, and Latin American stores, I still feel that our reach into the various ethnic cuisines from around the globe is too limited. We have the financial resources to explore, but without the general curiosity of the masses for something similar, it doesn’t seem like there’s a market yet for tasting authentic flavors from distant lands.

Settling In

JWise Thoughts

Phoenix, Arizona sky in fall

The trees are giving up their leaves late this year; not that that means it’s true, it’s just my impression. A calm morning breeze is busy cleaning the tree in front of me, and although it’s only 13 days until the official start of winter, I’ve taken up my place on our balcony enjoying the pleasant 73-degree temperature (23c) that promises to not go above 77 (25c). It’s just beautiful out here today, with me reflecting on the calm of both the weather and the hoped-for relief from stress that accompanies the end of vacation.

The falling leaves often create two sounds: the first is the collision with other leaves on their way to Earth, and the second is their landing on it. Those sounds are preceded by the swoosh of wind in the leaves that are staying attached to the tree for an indeterminate length of time, holding fast against the air that is playing a kind of Jenga with nature. The other background sounds are the ever-present road noises from tires that roar while speeding by and the occasional songs from nearby birds. To some extent, I’m able to blur the traffic sounds into my memories of the ocean crashing onto the shore. For that moment, I have another bit of time in Oregon, next to the sea.

Punctuating the din is the passing motorcycle or the aggressive exhaust of a car that breaks the spell of meditation I am indulging in when I should be writing. Then, a dove with its distinctive whistling-while-flying sound flutters by to land for a second before taking off again, carrying its whistle along as it goes. A lone grackle bleats out its screech and then falls silent as nothing responds to its call. Similarly, my mind seems to fall silent following my call to head out here and write.

The carniceria at our corner has stoked the fires of its charcoal grill and its distinctive smell wafts over on the wind; just thinking of what might be cooking has me thinking of food and not words. I know that this is somewhat futile, but on such a beautiful day, after realizing that I could be sitting out here working, I’m determined to give it a go until I figure out how my time could be better used.

Maybe the fact of it all is that I want this time to charge my batteries by feeling the breeze on my face and arms as I listen to the little clicky sounds of the leaves dropping in on me. For the entire week after our return from vacation, I was catching up with the tasks that are required to keep life flowing at home. Today can be considered my day off. Then, just as I think I’m out here for daydreaming, Caroline lets me know it’s time for lunch and that I need to offer the kitchen my attention.

Gochugaru

JWise Food, Photo of the Day

Korean Red Chili Flakes or Gochugaru

A side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, which I’m sure is the same for me as for others, is the amount of cooking we have been doing. We’ve always branched out of the foods we are familiar with, which over the years has brought us to eating things such as grasshopper, horse, donkey, veal nerve, duck tongue, bullfrog, javelina, pig eyes, brains, and ears, and most recently a Cajun Turducken.

Back in June, I made our first bowls of kimchi sundubu-jjigae and we fell in love with it. How in love with it? We just finished our second pound of gochugaru chili powder. At the base of this hearty Korean stew lies sundubu paste and that paste relies on a large amount of chili powder. I wasn’t very discriminating the first time I bought gochugaru; I went to a nearby Asian store and grabbed what I thought was “the real thing.” Getting back from vacation this week, I needed to make a fresh batch of sundubu paste which required me to revisit the YouTube video that got all of this going. I knew I would be finishing an opened bag of chili powder (our second bag this year), but I was prepared as I’d bought another bag at H-Mart some time ago just for this moment.

Watching the video the guy suggested going through the trouble of getting “real” Korean gochugaru. I thought I had the real thing as it had Korean writing on the package, so what else could it have been? It could be from China which was exactly what I saw on the older package and the new one I just opened. I consulted Amazon to rectify this and found out that authentic Korean chili powder is not all that easy to obtain. When I did find it the price made me think twice. The new “Korean Origin” chili powder costs $30 a pound compared to $10 a pound for the Chinese stuff. I had to remind myself that Asians pack and price spices different than the American market and on checking out my local store with the name-brand stuff on offer I discovered that a pound of regular old ground chili costs between $20 and $55 a pound when bought in those small bottles.

So, obviously, I was making sundubu paste because we were looking forward to our first bowl of kimchi and tofu stew since getting back home. For that, I needed to head out to H-Mart to get the rest of the ingredients but this time I decided to also stock up on about a month’s supply of silken tofu. The tubes are 11oz each or 312g; I bought 10 of them which will let us make 5 portions each of sundubu-jjigae. Come to think about it, we’ve eaten more than 25 pounds of tofu during this last half of the year. I needed another quart of kimchi, our 4th this year which is probably 4 times more than we’ve bought in our first 50 years on Earth. While this may sound mundane, I bought some fresh American- and Chinese-grown shiitake mushrooms; they were sold out of Korean shiitakes. My local “American” grocery stores don’t carry fresh shiitakes. If you sense a bit of incredulity in that, you’d have heard it right. Yes, my cynicism sometimes has me feeling like the local stores only sell Wonder bread, peanut butter, hamburger, chicken, frozen pizza, Ragu pasta sauce, and 94 types of sugary breakfast cereal.

Regarding the sundubu-jjigae with the “fake” chili powder: It turned out great, and now, with about a pound of paste in the freezer, it’ll be a few weeks before I can make a new batch but when I do, I’ll be using Korean-grown gochugaru. Maybe I’ll blog again about our experiences with this fantastically umami stew once the new chili powder comes in but how much can one write about this stuff?

Oh, there’s a downside to this return to blogging about normal life, each new post moves down my masterpieces of eulogistic praise regarding our recent trip to Oregon. I sure would like to recommend that you take the 2 hours to read the 32,956 words of my screed, but short of that you could also just check out the wonderful photos. I can’t emphasize how much more interesting that other stuff is compared to writing about kimchi and tofu stew.

High Value Targets

JWise Photo of the Day

Parking lot mobile security camera in Phoenix, Arizona

I had to go shopping today, not Christmas shopping, just grocery shopping. You read that right, I went grocery shopping at a regular grocery store, not Whole Foods either. When I walked in, masked-up of course, I didn’t think twice about anything other than that we are just back from vacation and need food this morning so we can eat today. Having been gone for 19 days, we came home to the empty fridge, just as we left it. I grabbed a few things moving quickly to minimize my time in-store, used the self-checkout, and had placed my bags in the car when I realized what I was looking at: a security camera.

I told myself, “Hey, wake up John, that’s a mobile security camera setup….at your grocery store!” It’s the holiday season so I remember from way back when the sheriff’s department putting cherry-pickers in mall parking lots to monitor the safety of shoppers, but back when malls were a thing people might be walking to their cars carrying hundreds or thousands of dollars of goods. If some nefarious type person wanted a good haul robbing someone, a mall would be the place to target some easy victims. BUT I’M AT THE GROCERY STORE!

I had to go take a closer look at the solar-powered D3 Edge Security Platform from LiveView. Three hundred and sixty degrees of view, infrared camera, lights, speaker, microphone array, and its own power source driving this thing wirelessly so someone in the store can have their eye on the parking lot – I was somewhat impressed. Thinking harder about it, I started questioning, why is this really here? A couple of answers became clear: 1st, during a pandemic and hoarding there are things that have greater value to those that can ill afford them such as toilet paper, diapers, sanitizers, etc. and 2nd, we have a serious unemployment problem and reduced wages that put pressure on people to acquire foodstuffs in any way possible. So instead of heading to the mall, which nobody does anymore anyway, head to the store and rob someone of their $300 in groceries because beef and eggs are expensive these days.

Now I have to stop and give some hard thought to this. I think about what we saw in the Bay Area of Northern California where some freeway offramps are appearing like trash explosions, but when you look closer you spot encampments of homeless people in ramshackle tent communities. Bizarre eye-sores have spread across hillsides, among the brush along the freeway, and are nestled in tight spaces under bridges. It really is astonishing to see the level of homelessness spread from slum areas to the edges of major highways. If these are the signs of those who are at the end of possibility, what of those who are struggling and at risk of falling to the edge? They have to pay rent; food becomes a secondary expenditure if you can find things at Dollar Stores. When those are too expensive you head to the food bank, but what happens when food banks are running short due to holiday demand? Head to the grocery store parking lot and snatch a couple of bags from someone’s cart who looks vulnerable, that’s what you do. Grocery stores must be aware of this and hence Robo-D3 Edge Security Officer is on duty and standing by.