Vegi-Nazis

- Welcome to Peter Luger's. How may I help you?
- Hi. I'm a vegan, what can you do for me?
- I can open the door and hail you a cab.

Vegans have become the newest incarnation of Born Again Christians. Zealots at war with the common folk that don't believe in the same way as they themselves do. God forbid we use an animal for our needs. God forbid my sustenance comes from another living thing. God Forbid, God Forbid, GOD FORBID!! But let me tell you something. Show me one ancient civilization that was 100% vegan. I'm sure you can't. But of course, back then, we used the whole animal for everything; its meat for food, its skin for clothes, its bones for tools and weapons, organs for bags, sinew for rope. Nowadays, we are charged for all of this and maybe this is where the biggest argument for veganism starts... but without the scientific breakthroughs of the modern world, vegans would be chowing down burgers and dogs with the rest of us. AREN'T YOU SOOOO GLAD.... we live in a world that permits you to live such an unreasonable lifestyle. So I am not at all sympathetic to your cause. Don't come to my restaurant for a vegan offering. I don't do it. Never have and it doesn't look like I ever will.

But, but its wrong to kill animals for your sustenance, especially since we have the technology to circumvent it. Fuck you. I will not turn my back on what I am. I am an animal that feeds off other animals and plants. Everyone has to come to terms with the fact that they need to live off someting else to survive. We are all parasites. Every single thing on this planet feeds off of something else. To paraphrase a friend, "The sooner you realize that you are a walking contradiction to your beliefs, the better the world will be and you'll be able to move on." If we were meant to eat only vegetables, fruits and texturized vegetable protein, there would be no seasons, everything would be plentiful, we would have the correct organs to breakdown leaves and grass and texturized vegetable protein would grow as wild as weeds.

And one more thing that really bothers me. If you are a vegan, then WHY THE HELL are you eating a meat substitute such as Tofurkey or Soy Dogs?? These things should be totally off your radar. If you decided to become a vegan, the whole concept of replicating eating a turkey or chicken or hot dog should totally go against your beliefs and you all deserve to drown in beef consommé

it is 32 o'clock

Apparently, sleep is a luxury I can not afford. For real, its like 9 billion euros per 15 minutes. THINK OF THE CONVERSION RATE! Thats like too much money. Oh well, who needs sleep anyway. There 24 usuable hours in every day. So that just begs the question, how should I be using my usuable hours now? "YOU SHOULD BE SLEEPING!" but that is too easy of an answer. How about I learn how to give massages? That could be interesting. I could moonlight as a masseuse in the wee hours of the morning, fending off impressionable young men who want a happy ending and are willing to pay. I guess it would depend on how much they're offering. Everyone has their price, right? Mine just happens to be at 36 billion euros. Hey man, don't judge. It's an hours sleep. But what if I get repeat clients? Won't they get tired of my callussie hands? That means I'd have to spend money on lotion and stuff. And what if they want me to use girly smelling lotion. Well, thats where I draw the line. My hands should not be smelling like lilacs or Sweet morning dew. Ofcourse they could request some kind musk/old spice scent. I think I could do that. I mean, thats pretty damn manly, right? And then, when I go out to da club, I can rub it all over muh body and let the womenses flock to me like I was kobe beef in the meat market. So maybe this plan has some merit, plus my hands will be soft. The End.

Vanilla = Exciting, Chocolate = Mediocre

Why is vanilla used as a term to describe something as boring, uninspired, basic and/or plain?  In my view, vanilla is one of the most exotic things in this world.  The scent, the flavor, the texture of a pod exudes a sexiness that chocolate can never emulate.  Chocolate on the other hand is bitter and harsh. In fact, it is soo horrible that one needs to roast it before they would even consider it edible and then you have to mix it with other stuff to keep it from separating from itself?  Honestly, chocolate is nothing more than a mean bean with multiple personality disorder syndrome. Liquid chocolate always gets everywhere, no matter how careful one is.  Cocoa powder follows suit AND, because is not friendly with water, makes things even dirtier. Plus, it is everywhere and rarely adds anything to the ingredients it is mixed with.  What's vanilla got??  It just has to sit out in the sun, read a book and develop a tan.  Everybody loves tan people, why not tan pods?

Also, in the world of pastry, vanilla is on the same level as salt is in the savory world.  It can be added to pretty much anything to enhance its flavor.  Take a strawberry for example.  How many people fool themselves into liking chocolate covered strawberries?  First off, most people buy these abominations in February, WHEN STRAWBERRIES AREN'T EVEN IN SEASON!!! But let's give the benefit of the doubt here.  Say someone buys perfectly ripe, fresh picked 2 hours ago, strawberries and dips them in chocolate...  you get the sweetness of the strawberry and the wonderful flavor and then the chocolate hits your tastebuds and flavor receptors with the force of a 80 pound sledgehammer because chocolate wants all your attention.  Its needy and insecure and wants to make sure that all you taste is him.  Ultimately, you ruin a perfectly good strawberry.  However, you take that same strawberry, add a little vanilla sugar, give them some time to become friends and BAM!!! next thing you know, you wake up two days later in Mexico, overcome with happiness in your mouth.  It's the same thing with pineapple, citrus, stone fruit, etc.  Chocolate is always in the spotlight, but Vanilla is the supporting cast that makes everything possible.

As Alton Brown states:

"Imagine a flower: A climbing orchid, to be exact; the one of some twenty thousand varieties that produces something edible. Now imagine that its blooms must be pollinated either by hand or a small variety of Mexican bee, and that each bloom only opens for one day a year. Now imagine the fruit of this orchid, a pod, being picked and cured, sitting in the sun all day, sweating under blankets all night for months until, shrunken and shriveled, it develops a heady, exotic perfume and flavor. Now imagine that this fruit’s name is synonymous with dull, boring, and ordinary. How vanilla got this bad rap I for one will never know."

And for those of you that still maintain Chocolate's superiority:  take a close look at the ingredients of your little bar there.  No doubt there will be either: vanilla extract, vanilla bean or vanillin (which is a compound of, guess what...  Vanilla.)

Cold feelings in the night

Finally, a cool breeze passing through my window, with the scent of
rain that is sure to follow and a motion picture of leaves blowing in
the wind projected on my wall that mother nature has seemed fit not to
charge me for. The solitude of the night is an interesting thing. It's
like the calm before the storm. Perhaps that's why I find it hard to
sleep lately. I am trying to embrace this calm, feel it, take it in me
and never let it go... perhaps to have some calm for myself before the
craziness starts all over again. A little sliver of quite to reflect,
a moment to collect my thoughts and feelings, an instant to breathe
and remember why I do this. Maybe tonight, instead of just dreaming
old dreams, I will dream new ones.

Fire Burn

Today was the first outdoor grilling adventure I've had since I moved back to Brooklyn.  My roommate had some fire wood, so we put it in the little charcoal grill we have and lit it up.  5 minutes later, we had a mini bonfire and we both just sat around watching the flames.  There is something mystical in watching fire burn.  The way the flames dance and stagger, the colors of the flames.  It becomes an immediate gateway to meditation.  Watching the flames always seems to bring me into oneness with my surroundings.  There is no time. There is no cold weather. There is no stress, no hurry, no to-do lists.  There is just me and the flames, dancing for my amusement, as if I had some inkling of control over them.  There is definitely a respect there though.  Its like playing with a friendly snake.  There is a chance it might turn on you, but if you take care and respect it, great enjoyment can be had.  Fire: the first "television set".  I guess that is partly why I became a cook.  I get to play with fire.  Sure, I've been burned, but that is just part of the learning process.  How is it something so intangible can hold so much beauty?

What kind of a world do we live in where one needs to buy pizza from a truck on the street??? It's not like pizzerias are scarce in La ciudad de Nueva York