Have you been watching Iran? Want to know if there is something that is relevant, but not arrogant?
Right, I should probably be writing about my trip to heidelberg and post pictures, but I’m not going to. Why? Because I’m tired, that takes more energy, and I can do this one fairly quickly. Also, I didn’t take any pictures for this foodsploit. Sorry!
I was trying to use what I had around the house, which happened to be pork steaks and spinach (and other veggies, but nothing worth cooking. More salad type stuff. Which is why I had the spinach.)
For the pork, after letting it thaw all day so it was more or less at room temperature, I decided to go with my favorite, reasonably quick method of cooking: pan frying. Which, incidentally, is almost the only technique I’ve used for these things. I should branch out. I hit the steaks with canola oil and some store-purchased spice grinders: A steak one for one of the steaks, a steak one with chili pepper added for the second, and garlic/sea salt/chili pepper/pepper combo for the final one. I used the canola oil because I didn’t want the oil flavoring the steaks this time, and that was the highest smoke point oil without much flavor that I’ve been able to find at the store, thus far. Apparently, according to this random and unknowably accurate website, I should try and find some semi-refined sunflower oil or something.
Anyway, I left that to sit for awhile to draw out the juices, and played some video games.
I came back after 20-30 minutes, put a fat chunk of butter in the cast iron skillet on low-ish heat. I melted the butter all the way, and had a small pool of it consistently across the pan. I then turned up the heat, and right as the butter started browing, I put the pork in. The theory was, that I’d give it a nice crust, and then turn the heat down to finish the job. Probably would’ve worked better with a different pan and a gas stove, come to think of it.
For the spinach, I cooked it down in a mixture of olive oil, butter, and garlic from a chili garlic oil jar. It was surprisingly bland, actually. Sadly. Some salt and a little vinegar made it better, but it wasn’t special.
The pork turned out ok. It was not tender, but not tough, and the flavoring was more delicate than I’d been hoping in terms of spices. I think I need to marinate the thick pork steaks, and maybe even beat them up a bit. I need to read my alton brown again.
Anyway, not a total success, but a good meal non-the-less.
As I was preparing my dinner,* I was allowing my mind to wander back over the preparation of the dinner. I had invited jeff over for dinner, he joined me, then helped me clean up. Given jeff’s house’s proximity to my house, this is likely to become a relatively frequent occurrence, and then my imagination took over and proposed the scenario of some of the folks from work coming over and observing jeff and me cooking and cleaning efficiently together, and then the inevitable gay jokes that would accompany the observation. Why my mind wander like this, I haven’t the faintest idea.
Incidentally, the riesling spätlesse that I bought on saturday has a decidedly peachy flavor that I only noticed now, but not at the tasting.
Anyway. pursuant to the above flight of fancy, my imaginary counterpart of myself gets irritated, rolls his eyes, and mocks the gay jokes. My co-workers, no doubt mere maligning shadows of their actual selves, respond in a manner paraphrased adequately as, “light up, dude, it’s just a joke.”
Now, I have, over the past..mm…5-6 year or so, lost some of my sense of humor, especially or, hopefully, exclusively when dealing with people I don’t know. So I asked myself….what is the big deal? Why am I making such a big deal out of gay jokes, even in stupidly pointless near-future fictions that I’m telling myself to pass the time?
As I opened and poured the wine, the answer came to me. The reason that it’s worth posting is mainly because this isn’t the first time that this question has bothered me, but I’ve never managed to come up with a response that I felt was adequate. I think many of you, dear readers, especially those of you who think for a living (my academic acquaintances, associates, allies, advisory friends), will have had this revelation long ago and wonder why I’ve spent all this time building it up. Chalk it up to wireless, wine, and winded mind. Anyway, the revelation, the deep thought, was this: that humor that understands is funny. Humor that the listener believes** to be based in ignorance is not. This is why I usually get annoyed or even offended when most of the folks I know from the Air Force community make gay jokes…they rarely show any understanding of the gay folks that I’ve known. Further, reinforcing this belief of mine, they often make serious references to show that they do not understand the truth of the matter, but are operating out of fear or ignorance.
As an example, it’s why when Chris Rock or Dave Chapelle make a joke about blacks, it’s usually pretty funny to most of it. Their humor seems to convey understanding, even when it is a harsh or satirical humor that exposes or questions even as it entertains. It’s why people inside of a group are more able to make jokes at that groups expense…their audience will feel, rightly or wrongly, that their joke is based on understanding and truth. Conversely,*** when people like George Allen or Rush Limbaugh (or, really, any republican) make a joke about black people, it comes off as in poor taste at best, and deeply racist at worst.
Back to the original fiction. Despite the fact that I believe that I’m right in this, I may not be giving my peers from work the benefit of the doubt. If their understanding is greater than I suppose, than I am guilty of having no sense of humor. Which, these days, seems likely.
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*…by which I mean pulling yesterday’s pork out of the fridge and putting it on a plate for the purposes of consumption.
**I wanted to use “knows” here, but it wouldn’t be accurate enough. It’s why the cultist cannot see the humor when his cult is mocked, or the nationalist her nation, or the starry eyed lovers their childish romance. The truth and fact of the matter, objectively or subjectively, don’t matter. Only the audience’s perception of it, individually.
***Ok, is that the right usage? My logic usage of conversely, inversely, etc., has never been accurate.
I have internet back. This is a short post, and I haven’t skyped anyone yet because I need to buy myself a new headphone set, but I do have internets and will be in communication again. Yay!
Ok, so I don’t know if he’s actually a professor or not.
What I do know is that he is tall, blond, and stereotypically german in a actually positive, but negative seeming way. He’s (mildly) psychotic. He’s (seemingly, but not really) violent. He’s brash and crude.
Of course, more of this can be chalked up to the fact that he’s ex-bundeswahr more than his germanness. :-)
I’m gonna try and keep better track of his quotes, but a smattering of generic examples.
- He repeatedly calls anyone he thinks is stupid (not in the class, but references to people out side of the class retarded. (His word choice, verbatim)
- He told us that the rheinland area of germany (where I’m at) is full of retards, and also mentioned that they had thought about making it a parking lot, but that had fallen through.
- He told us in order to get the sound of ch in words with long vowels (a u and au, I’m missing one…), that we should go home and choke our significant other. The sound that would emerge is what we’re going for.
- He also repeatedly referenced choking us out if we mispronounced certain words, to include pronouncing them like a pfalsich local (ie., the people we’re most likely to talk to.) This especially includes Vogelweh. (fogulveh, in real haphazardly done amateur phonetics).
- I was able to go through what the basic (real basic) grammatical structures were, so he tried to get me to jump on gerund (I failed.) Just after that, he started talking about a dipthong, and then said to me that I shouldn’t get excited, he wasn’t talking about thongs. And oh by the way, rhineland women were lawfully barred from wearing thongs, because their asses are too big.
In short, he’s frickin’ hilarious. Class is going to be fun. And not studying, I am QUITE sure, will be met by a merciless mocking. Which is awesome.
