August 30, 2010

August, 30th, 2010:

After staying up till 3AM, writing, reading, talking on the phone...etc. I woke around 10 AM, and felt a need for strong coffee and exercise. I phoned my old buddy "Larry", the 62 year old ex-Mormon apartment maintenance man, and Prince of a human being. I have previously described Larry, he is a semi-reformed Alcoholic, and one of the best people that I know. We used to hang out at the same pool hall, but I don't do the bar/pool hall scene anymore. We did manage to get together for breakfast at "Angies" this morning, and had the "double barrel", which consisted of two eggs, two sausage patties, and two bacon, and the gigantic two pancake, complete with three ramekins or syrup. I like to carve a big hole in the center of the pancakes, pull out the core, then: fill the hole with all the syrup and just let it sit for awhile, since I eat the sausage and eggs first. Once that's done, I pick around the borders of the "caldera", until new real-estate gets marinated. By and by the entire circle of the center of the pancake (Aka "the caldera"!), gets eaten away, the remains are deliberately left on the plate, so as not to appear as a hungry pauper! Actually, I eat very little, so I can't handle a giant breakfast such as this.

While going to the grocery store a few hours later after making a shopping list, which I generally do not do. The ingredients of "Falafel" equal, the object of my main destination.

So at the store I bought a hand mixer which doubles as a blender. I also bought "Falafel" spices, and raw ingredient mixtures. Stuff for the accompany Falalfel sauce was purchased as well. I do tend to spend a couple hours when shopping at a grocery store, and slowly check out all that the store has to offer. Most people are in and on=ut in fifteen minutes, but I read every price, every mark down, I compare each and every product I require, then decide whether the quality is worth the quantity. Grocery shopping is one of the few social activities I have and I find it quite enjoyable. Today I bought 4 large sacks of stuff and had a heck of a time fitting them all on my bicycle. Thank god for that bungee cord I brought along, it managed to hold two heavy paper bags of groceries onto a little book rack, while the other two got stuffed in the pannier bags. I did have to tie the blender and a loaf of bread to the handle bars, I could actually feel the spokes groan as I slowly headed home with a 400 pound load on my bike (including me). People were staring and grinning when I passed by, it was very comical.

I tried making "Falafel",. using the ready made mix (not recommended). Falafel, is used all over the middle East between Greece and Persia, and down to 'Egypt. Falafel is truly an Egyptian dish which consists of either fava or garbanzo beans, mixed with onion and spices then rolled up into little balls and fried. Consider the "Scarab" or "dung beetle". The sacred Scarab was revered in ancient Egypt because they turn piles of human and animal shit into spherical objects which resembled other planets, which were also round and spherical. The Egyptians considered the Scarab to be the creators of the earth! Falafel and the other bean recipes, enabled the Ancient Egyptians to get enough protein power to move all the large stones, obelisks, sculptures, and pyramids. Today, Egypt doesn't stand a chance at these endeavors. Think! 5 thousand years of a huge assed civilization, now unable to even remove trash from the streets. Egypt was built on beans. Fava, Garbonzo, Lentils, peas, kidney, navy, you name it, Beans were the king of Egypt, and at least 4000 year of our ancient history. I am a firm believer in the power of beans and attribute thousands of years of Egyptian dominance, a result of bean cultivation. Ancient Egypt began as a few farming communities which depended on the Nile river for everything, initially didn't built grand temples and obelisks, nor did they build the great pyramids, Once the agriculture became successful , the rulers could expect the citizens to live off little or nothing, Beans, way cheaper than meat, became the fuel of the ancients, Meat protein became an elite sort of thing, the rest of the people ate little meat, and continued to tend the reliable fields which coincided with the floods of the Nile River for thousands of years, With food costs down to pennies a day, the Pharaohs could focus on more important things such as tomb construction.

While cooking up the packaged Falafel and the cucumber/yogurt dressing, I was listening to old Garrison Kieler on the radio, who said something I had to stop and think about. He said something to the effect of "I used to think that Faith, was doing what is expected, following the traditional guidelines in order to gain faith, that one has done well. The older I get I realize that that isn't "Faith" at all. Faith is having the courage that you will succeed no matter what others think or say about the path you have chosen. Faith is the confidence when you know that everything will be alright no matter how bad it looks to the outsider". This made me worry less about my children who all seem to have faith in their futures despite what I may think.