Holy cow! I can make them! Whoa!
In high school, when I was first trying to get into cooking for myself--baking wasn't as central as it has since become--I became interested in making croissants. For some reason, I got into it even after reading the directions, greatly underestimating the commitment and travails involved in preparing the dough, folding in butter, rolling out, cutting and shaping properly; not to mention the rather intense amounts of butter that go into them. (I am pretty sure that commercially made croissants use oils, hydrogenated and otherwise, as well as post-baking preserving techniques to end up with buttery-tasting but not exactly greasy results. Real croissants, as in those of a French style, use strictly butter because the French love their butter so.) All in all, that attempt took me about eight hours of regular but not full-dedicated work for small, pretty hard, and rather measly croissants. They were poorly folded--which I partly blame on the recipe I used--so that butter cooked out of them and into the oven and I underused or did not treat the yeast properly or under proofed them making them less than ideal in appearance.
After watching It's Complicated, in which Meryl Streep and Steve Martin make "spur of th moment" chocolate croissants, I felt inspired to give what had been my biggest frustration again. I checked two different recipes (Budapest Croissants from Wolfgang Puck and Bernard Clayton's French Croissants) and then gave them--predominantly Puck's recipe--a twist of my own by using honey, less butter, and whole wheat pastry flour. In the end, I also played with some of the refrigeration times and roll-outs, which I may continue to do. I used fillings that are absurdly easy to make or improvise. One, of course, was chocolate and the other was a walnuts and brown sugar blend. This recipe is riddled with notes because, if anything, I feel that baking croissants has illuminated how much I have learned about reading recipes, making my own, and interpreting the moods and stages of the ingredients and dough and the like.
Before getting into the recipe itself, I have this to say about succeeding with this recipe. First, don't expect great results if you are doing this by yourself for the first time. It is a time consuming and frustrating recipe and as I said before, the first time I made croissants, it took about one third of the day. This recipe I have gotten down to about a three and a half to five hours period of time; it is an investment and don't doubt it. In addition, I expect this recipe to fail me once or twice as I play more with it, but take it as play, not as work and you can have fun doing it. On my second batch yesterday, after finally rolling out and cutting the dough, I paused the book on CD I was listening to, took a breath, enjoyed the house's silence, and enjoyed the peace of mind and quietude of a particular place at a particular time, doing something I love. It was wonderful and I am absurdly thankful for it. And finally, more practically, use a pastry cloth if you're going to bother to make croissants; they are pretty cheap and make it so much easier.
Enjoy!
~~~
Whole Wheat Croissants (with optional filling)
From 23 January 2010
1/2 cup warm water
1 Tablespoon dry yeast
Blend together thoroughly with a whisk or fork in a bowl, make sure there is enough space for the yeast to bubble. This won't get too active because it does not have any sugars in it, but it will kick in when mixed with the rest. Set aside.
1 pound of whole wheat pastry flour (optionally mix in white all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 c honey, warm
Optionally, warm a large mixing bowl but running hot water in it and swirling it, then quickly drying it with a clean towel before use. Mix flour and salt in the large bowl, then stir in honey, mixing slightly. An electric mixer may be used.
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cream
or, use 1 & 1/4 cup whole milk
Blend together and warm in the microwave or in a pan. Do not overheat, just warm to the touch.
"Dig" a well in the flour and pour in milk and cover with a layer of flour, then add dissolved yeast and stir together with a wooden spoon or electric mixer until even. It will be wetter than you might expect (it is wetter than I expected), more like a batter than a dough. Place in the fridge and allow to cool 45 minutes; if your fridge has any odors, cover it with plastic wrap to avoid flavor contamination.
(The below has been changed slightly from the original.)
10 oz or 1 & 1/4 cup or 2.5 sticks (they are all the same) of butter
Prepare the butter for placing in the croissants. You can choose to warm and mix the butter together into one pat of butter, or cut into small chucks, or long slivers (I will try the long slivers next time) in preparation. When the dough has cooled, roll out the pastry cloth (or use a clean counter, but the dough is much more likely to stick) and sprinkle generously--and yes, I mean generously--with flour. (I usually use white because it allows more flexibility since white flour absorbs less water than wheat and, therefore, has that little bit more flexibility for error.) Pour out the dough, scraping out the edges of the bowl and set aside the bowl. sprinkle the top with flour as well as your rolling pin, and roll out, forming a rough four-leaf clover, or at least a rectangle, it doesn't matter that much. Place the prepared butter in the center and fold the "leaves" or corners over it entirely; then, loosely wrap the cloth around the dough "parcel" and refrigerate. If you have a large resealable container, place it in there, or otherwise cover, but this is not necessary. Allow to refrigerate another 45 minutes, which cools the butter to the temperature of the butter and dough to make rolling, folding, and turning easier.
Here is "turning," though it probably has other names. This process builds the layers of pastry and disperses the butter evenly, but not uniformly the way it is in breads with oils baked in. After the wrapped dough parcel has cooled--some recipes call for as long as six hours in the fridge, but I do not think that that is strictly necessary--pull out and unwrap gently. Using plenty of flour to avoid breaking the dough's surface, roll out the dough to about 16x9 inches; exact measures are less important than making the dough pretty thin to ensure good folding. Fold the long edge one-third of the way over, then fold the bottom third over that, as you might a letter; then turn the dough and fold the short edge, now about 3 inches wide, over similarly to make another small parcel of dough. If you are feeling tricky and the dough is particularly cool, you can try to repeat this process again; if you do, check the edges for enough flour to avoid sticking and breaking the dough. Wrap up the parcel again and refrigerate for another 30-45 minutes, then repeat the folding. You should make at least five rounds of folding, but you can repeat more to make slightly yeastier and increasingly flaky croissants.
1 egg white
About 1 tspn of honey
Refrigerate one final time, start the oven at 400 F, place baking sheets in the oven, mix the egg white and honey for an egg wash, then roll out the dough as you have done before. Fold the top side down, then the bottom up as you have done, then roll out to the left and right. You may want to cut the dough in half to give yourself more space, and half the dough will fill most baking sheets with a dozen small croissants, so it works out pretty well to do so. Cut the dough in triangles, either by a zigzag or by cutting rectangles and halving them with a diagonal cut. These can be of various widths, but four inches on the triangular base makes a good size croissant. Take one triangle, optionally fill the base to midway up the triangle with a filling, and roll from the base to the tip tightly. Bend the ends around to make the crescent shape and set aside. About a dozen fit on baking sheet. Pull out one of the hot baking sheets and grease--try using the butter wrapper and run it over them, but they will sizzle, so be careful. Place the croissants on the hot, greased baking sheet, allowing space for them to proof. Spread egg wash over the croissants using a cooking brush or a paper towel. Allow to proof briefly, 5-10 minutes, before baking for about fifteen at 400 F. Remove them when they are golden brown and lightly crisp. Slide to cooling racks and allow to cool slightly before serving because the butter makes them very hot.
You can also freeze the dough in an airtight container. Feel free to lengthen refrigeration times for more "authentic" croissants. I plan on making up some fruit fillings, but chocolate is a great fall back anytime. I'll take pictures of the next batch, I promise.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Language from Ben & "Redes"
Here is a link to my friend Ben's recent update. His comments articulate some of my own thoughts about language, but succeed better than I have managed before in clarity and concision. Brazil was a markedly creative time for me as well, which inspired writing and autobiographical fiction that I had fallen out of the habit of writing. Even now, my fiction tends more toward the fantastic than the realistic and lacks the cut that autobiographical work usually contains. I wanted to post a story I wrote there, from the time we spent living on an Landless People's Movement/MST community, Palmyres II (the spelling of which eludes me at the moment).
As always, reposted with love to Ben.
Note: The word "rede" refers, usually, to hammocks, but it is also similar to "net" or "network" and is used for "internet" sometimes.
---
Redes
18 April 2008
I woke without knowing it, the thin sheet spun and twined around me like a thick, patiently breathing python. Air had gathered stiffly in the room, rough and heavy with the death of the fan. As I spun in my waking the great boa constricted and I could not breathe, and I thought desperately of slowly broken ribs and asthma. I coughed and felt it on the inside of my arm, a hot gust and small splash of spittle crashing into my skin. My eyes opened to the unwelcome ambient light from the main room, spilling over the incomplete (never-complete?) wall and seeping around the edge of the door-less doorframe.
I gasped before unwinding the sheet from around my arms and between my legs. From somewhere inside the mosquito net came a buzz and I swatted at emptiness. The net was structured by a rectangle and the edge had small frills like a doily or child’s dress; small tears further punctuated the small holes. It felt like a cheap imitation of a four-post bed, like a toy for children and not something to save a day’s work or teetering lives. As I shifted, kicking slightly along the edge of the bed, my skin ran along the net making it sing faintly.
Sitting up only aggravated my lack of fortitude. My head ran wild for a lasting moment, then the stirred humidity circled about to collide with my face in a sad mimic of a breeze, and the sheet fell like iron on my lap and legs. With one hand I yanked off the sheet and threw it to the foot of the bed, with the other I pulled at the tucked edges of the mosquito net. Across the room my host-sister, one year older than me, stirred but fell back to sleep. Somewhere on the other side of the wall a cow bemoaned its generous lot. Outside the net and my bed, I walked in the dark, with a mild daze, for the kitchen door. When I stepped into the hammock with my host-brother, two years younger than me, it began to swing and he woke to murmur at me.
“Como? Quem é?”
“Eu, só eu. Banheiro, banheiro.” And he rolled over and fell back asleep. In the next hammock my host-brother’s uncle (it seemed inappropriate to claim him as my host-uncle when I couldn’t remember his name) snorted and snuffed in air in between snores with the inharmonious sounds of unrelieved congestion. The day before he had sneezed and I ached with a sympathy sneeze, while he just shuffled his nose around, sneezed four more times, then five more times, then once, and then three times again, without ever acting to seriously change the situation in his nostrils. I almost threw tissues at him. The whole affair smacked of the absurd: the creation of something large and daunting, of a joke or taunt, out of something small and petty. I hated the possibility of insisting on one custom as superior to another, though in this case it seemed the locals had the wrong idea entirely. I had said nothing and thought for a moment that his snores were just the continuation of the frustratingly unending battle with his sinuses.
Light flooded out into the dirt-floored kitchen, the tough little survivor kitten scurried to the dark behind the door, and cast itself onto the table against the house wall. When I reached for the flashlight I knocked it over and it cackled with laughter as it jumped and danced on the floor. Inside someone snorted and outside a sow trumpeted its own dream-heavy response. I swept my hand down and picked up the light, somewhere noticing the long, eight-legged shadow cast on the floor. I forced myself to forget it, or whatever the mind does when it insists on the impossible.
On the other side of the little gate that kept out the sow and piglets, and some of the other nighttime concerns, I clicked on the flashlight, stepped over the trail of always-wet mud, and strolled to the outhouse. Despite its regular and real functionality, I was unable to move past the whole notion of the outhouse; it is temporary and small, smells of human waste, likely grows terrible microbes and pathogens, and is something for construction fields and arena rock shows, not for a home. It was never too difficult to make use of the facilities, but the notion that this is how things work here went far beyond my comprehension. In some way, the idea of a Port-a-John as a house necessity just made me laugh and gag slightly.
Afterward, I rinsed my hands from the plastic faucet outside and stood for a moment, looking out at the community and thought for the time of where I was. All of this had been made in the course of a decade; a whole community had grown from next to nothing into a school and real stores and real houses. It had, in fact, made homes. The language lacks a difference in the two words, but I know the difference and I think my brothers and sisters would understand it, too.
Tomorrow I would leave, having only briefly crash-landed here and now all-too ready to leave again. We moved with an external determination through this landscape, through this world of people we had only known in documentaries and books about global poverty. In many ways these families were poor; they were being deprived of many basic social services, there water was dangerous at times, treatable and avoidable diseases were major problems, and I couldn’t forget the public urination for long. In other ways, it was easy to see wealth, the wealth of families and of the community, the interest in making something rich in opportunities and choices, the faltering and uneven passions for making a new place in the world. They were pioneers politically, socially, and ecologically; though it had been decades since “wilderness” grew here.
The televisions flashing telenovelas had blinked off hours before. Somewhere near the main road a bar played music, though most of the dancers and patrons had gone to bed. The music was fast and maddening, like a fever or a seizure, but had the sharp inspiration of movement, the mutual goal of moving others and being moved. Somewhere a rooster crowed and one returned its call; so it was past three in the morning. (We quickly learned the joke of the picturesque call of the rooster at dawn. Roosters call out competitively, and here it seemed they started at around three o’clock and continued until mid-afternoon.) Some houselights shone light into the soft, velvet blue night; perhaps my friends were sleeping with the lights on. A faint, old scent of stewed chicken hovered in the breeze, and then smothered by a moist and uncomfortable earthy aroma. The stars were spotty from high, wispy clouds and a thin, partial ring of refracted moonlight slowly formed and faded.
When my youngest host-sister had learned of my departure—now only a few hours away—she expressed distress. I shared her sadness, but then I flashed with a secret smile that my brief stay had rippled into her life. I am a traveler here, a visitor and often a guest, and my time is perforated with goodbyes. Perhaps it was a little cruel, to come and go so quickly, with only the time to make my existence known, and then smiling that at least that had happened. Sitting up in my netted bed, I felt the clear extensions of feeling, of knowledge, of life between her bed and mine, like a vine or vein trading a thin, ethereal fluid between us. And then I felt for further extensions; to my older sister and my brother, rocking slightly in his hammock, to my friends I had only made months ago in other houses in the community, and they had their own channels to their families. The wind shuddered in from between the roof and the wall and I thought of home, of my adopted one here with the sisters in two other cities, of my father working in small towns nearby. Briefly, with the knowledge that all things turn that way, I thought of my real home and how they were pulled here too in some way, pulled here by me and by the people I know here, though a phone call is an email is hardly clear evidence of that, just a hint, like a dream or a collision in the night.
As always, reposted with love to Ben.
Note: The word "rede" refers, usually, to hammocks, but it is also similar to "net" or "network" and is used for "internet" sometimes.
---
Redes
18 April 2008
I woke without knowing it, the thin sheet spun and twined around me like a thick, patiently breathing python. Air had gathered stiffly in the room, rough and heavy with the death of the fan. As I spun in my waking the great boa constricted and I could not breathe, and I thought desperately of slowly broken ribs and asthma. I coughed and felt it on the inside of my arm, a hot gust and small splash of spittle crashing into my skin. My eyes opened to the unwelcome ambient light from the main room, spilling over the incomplete (never-complete?) wall and seeping around the edge of the door-less doorframe.
I gasped before unwinding the sheet from around my arms and between my legs. From somewhere inside the mosquito net came a buzz and I swatted at emptiness. The net was structured by a rectangle and the edge had small frills like a doily or child’s dress; small tears further punctuated the small holes. It felt like a cheap imitation of a four-post bed, like a toy for children and not something to save a day’s work or teetering lives. As I shifted, kicking slightly along the edge of the bed, my skin ran along the net making it sing faintly.
Sitting up only aggravated my lack of fortitude. My head ran wild for a lasting moment, then the stirred humidity circled about to collide with my face in a sad mimic of a breeze, and the sheet fell like iron on my lap and legs. With one hand I yanked off the sheet and threw it to the foot of the bed, with the other I pulled at the tucked edges of the mosquito net. Across the room my host-sister, one year older than me, stirred but fell back to sleep. Somewhere on the other side of the wall a cow bemoaned its generous lot. Outside the net and my bed, I walked in the dark, with a mild daze, for the kitchen door. When I stepped into the hammock with my host-brother, two years younger than me, it began to swing and he woke to murmur at me.
“Como? Quem é?”
“Eu, só eu. Banheiro, banheiro.” And he rolled over and fell back asleep. In the next hammock my host-brother’s uncle (it seemed inappropriate to claim him as my host-uncle when I couldn’t remember his name) snorted and snuffed in air in between snores with the inharmonious sounds of unrelieved congestion. The day before he had sneezed and I ached with a sympathy sneeze, while he just shuffled his nose around, sneezed four more times, then five more times, then once, and then three times again, without ever acting to seriously change the situation in his nostrils. I almost threw tissues at him. The whole affair smacked of the absurd: the creation of something large and daunting, of a joke or taunt, out of something small and petty. I hated the possibility of insisting on one custom as superior to another, though in this case it seemed the locals had the wrong idea entirely. I had said nothing and thought for a moment that his snores were just the continuation of the frustratingly unending battle with his sinuses.
Light flooded out into the dirt-floored kitchen, the tough little survivor kitten scurried to the dark behind the door, and cast itself onto the table against the house wall. When I reached for the flashlight I knocked it over and it cackled with laughter as it jumped and danced on the floor. Inside someone snorted and outside a sow trumpeted its own dream-heavy response. I swept my hand down and picked up the light, somewhere noticing the long, eight-legged shadow cast on the floor. I forced myself to forget it, or whatever the mind does when it insists on the impossible.
On the other side of the little gate that kept out the sow and piglets, and some of the other nighttime concerns, I clicked on the flashlight, stepped over the trail of always-wet mud, and strolled to the outhouse. Despite its regular and real functionality, I was unable to move past the whole notion of the outhouse; it is temporary and small, smells of human waste, likely grows terrible microbes and pathogens, and is something for construction fields and arena rock shows, not for a home. It was never too difficult to make use of the facilities, but the notion that this is how things work here went far beyond my comprehension. In some way, the idea of a Port-a-John as a house necessity just made me laugh and gag slightly.
Afterward, I rinsed my hands from the plastic faucet outside and stood for a moment, looking out at the community and thought for the time of where I was. All of this had been made in the course of a decade; a whole community had grown from next to nothing into a school and real stores and real houses. It had, in fact, made homes. The language lacks a difference in the two words, but I know the difference and I think my brothers and sisters would understand it, too.
Tomorrow I would leave, having only briefly crash-landed here and now all-too ready to leave again. We moved with an external determination through this landscape, through this world of people we had only known in documentaries and books about global poverty. In many ways these families were poor; they were being deprived of many basic social services, there water was dangerous at times, treatable and avoidable diseases were major problems, and I couldn’t forget the public urination for long. In other ways, it was easy to see wealth, the wealth of families and of the community, the interest in making something rich in opportunities and choices, the faltering and uneven passions for making a new place in the world. They were pioneers politically, socially, and ecologically; though it had been decades since “wilderness” grew here.
The televisions flashing telenovelas had blinked off hours before. Somewhere near the main road a bar played music, though most of the dancers and patrons had gone to bed. The music was fast and maddening, like a fever or a seizure, but had the sharp inspiration of movement, the mutual goal of moving others and being moved. Somewhere a rooster crowed and one returned its call; so it was past three in the morning. (We quickly learned the joke of the picturesque call of the rooster at dawn. Roosters call out competitively, and here it seemed they started at around three o’clock and continued until mid-afternoon.) Some houselights shone light into the soft, velvet blue night; perhaps my friends were sleeping with the lights on. A faint, old scent of stewed chicken hovered in the breeze, and then smothered by a moist and uncomfortable earthy aroma. The stars were spotty from high, wispy clouds and a thin, partial ring of refracted moonlight slowly formed and faded.
When my youngest host-sister had learned of my departure—now only a few hours away—she expressed distress. I shared her sadness, but then I flashed with a secret smile that my brief stay had rippled into her life. I am a traveler here, a visitor and often a guest, and my time is perforated with goodbyes. Perhaps it was a little cruel, to come and go so quickly, with only the time to make my existence known, and then smiling that at least that had happened. Sitting up in my netted bed, I felt the clear extensions of feeling, of knowledge, of life between her bed and mine, like a vine or vein trading a thin, ethereal fluid between us. And then I felt for further extensions; to my older sister and my brother, rocking slightly in his hammock, to my friends I had only made months ago in other houses in the community, and they had their own channels to their families. The wind shuddered in from between the roof and the wall and I thought of home, of my adopted one here with the sisters in two other cities, of my father working in small towns nearby. Briefly, with the knowledge that all things turn that way, I thought of my real home and how they were pulled here too in some way, pulled here by me and by the people I know here, though a phone call is an email is hardly clear evidence of that, just a hint, like a dream or a collision in the night.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Tumblr
So, I created a Tumblr account. All posts on this blog will end up there, but this blog will remain for the more prosaic types of posts. What Tumblr allows/supports/does is allow me to link/post/reblog various other forms of media (music, photos, quotes, etc.) and doing so quickly and easily from my iTouch if I so choose. I have attempted to synthesize my Google Reader with Blogger, but it hasn't been what I expected and now I intend to put both that and this, as well as other tidbits on the Tumblr.
This new account maybe just one more thing to tend to, like a new, needy pet. On the other hand, I hope to create something a little more substantive and a little more articulate that just another gewgaw. Generally, I write here in a considerate and thought-out way; I want to present myself in that way when writing herein. With Tumblr, I can exhibit a bit more of that psychological bounciness and energy that I get when I bounce around between blogs, news articles, and the rest. If I make a trend of it, I tend to post future GoodReads reviews there--though the widgit works better here, as far as I can manage.
You will likely find just as many posts here as usual, but if you want a bit more than just long journal entries, try subscribing to the Tumblr feed.
This new account maybe just one more thing to tend to, like a new, needy pet. On the other hand, I hope to create something a little more substantive and a little more articulate that just another gewgaw. Generally, I write here in a considerate and thought-out way; I want to present myself in that way when writing herein. With Tumblr, I can exhibit a bit more of that psychological bounciness and energy that I get when I bounce around between blogs, news articles, and the rest. If I make a trend of it, I tend to post future GoodReads reviews there--though the widgit works better here, as far as I can manage.
You will likely find just as many posts here as usual, but if you want a bit more than just long journal entries, try subscribing to the Tumblr feed.
Review of Plenty (from GoodReads.com)
Note: Minor spoiler alert; some comments refer to events that some readers may not be interested in before hand. Such comments are brief and ought not to diminish the pleasure of reading the book if you so choose.
4 of 5 stars
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, other...more My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, others by hearsay--of seasonal eating: the struggle of early fruitless spring, the richness rhubarb's vegetable sweetness, the canning and freezing of late summer that lasts into the fall, the preparation of jams and other preserves, and so on. Alisa Smith and James B MacKinnon recounts these in their turn, slightly different due to their more northerly clime, but familiar all the same.
What stands out all the more are their private accounts of these tasks in the context of their lives. A dear family member passes away, another struggles through a relationship failure, the two deal with each other's painfully quiet feuds, and eventually enjoy the commencement of friends' weddings. In addition, they provide some suggestion and some clarity on their own insights as they go about the labors of their professions; from the indigenous people of the Salish Sea to the famine and climate crises in Malawi, the two manage to write eloquently and passionately of their own fortunes and shortcomings.
It is not uncommon for a good book to have its emotional effects on me, but in the most sincere way, Smith and MacKinnon bring the reader into their lives. Comparisons to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver are expected, but what stands out is the richness of encountering the people of their landscape; the farmers, fishers, and friends are as honestly and successfully portrayed as either of the writers, for which I am immensely grateful. Unlike some seasonal eaters, I am not among the new wave of future farmers--though I know a few who are. What I find herein is hope on the scale of a modest urbanite, an earnest eater, someone who experiences the seasons with hands, stomach, and heart.
Though I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested, and thoroughly commend the writers, its prose wavers at times and its multi-centered focus can occasionally confuse rather than elucidate. In certain ways, such commentary is hardly a criticism as much as a recognition of the complexity of Smith and MacKinnon's task. Covering a personal culinary memoir, the frustrations of a maturing relationship, the history of modern agriculture, the food politics of British Columbia, and the hardships of people one encounters along the way is simply monstrous. It is, indeed, miraculous that these two intrepid souls succeed as well as they do. I cannot say that the task might be better done or appropriately lessened and still be what it ought to be, and so I add this critique with its own grain of "sinner's salt."
4 of 5 stars
Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith & J.B. MacKinnon
My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, other...more My expectations for Plenty were high and, having read a number of related books, I felt prepared to jump into it. What shook me, despite my familiarity with the subject, is the profoundly personal nature of Plenty. This humble record not only tells the story of seasonal food in British Columbia, it tells the story of the real struggle of its protagonists and co-narrators. In this way it diverges from my expectations in the most delightful of ways. I know the realities--some personally, others by hearsay--of seasonal eating: the struggle of early fruitless spring, the richness rhubarb's vegetable sweetness, the canning and freezing of late summer that lasts into the fall, the preparation of jams and other preserves, and so on. Alisa Smith and James B MacKinnon recounts these in their turn, slightly different due to their more northerly clime, but familiar all the same.
What stands out all the more are their private accounts of these tasks in the context of their lives. A dear family member passes away, another struggles through a relationship failure, the two deal with each other's painfully quiet feuds, and eventually enjoy the commencement of friends' weddings. In addition, they provide some suggestion and some clarity on their own insights as they go about the labors of their professions; from the indigenous people of the Salish Sea to the famine and climate crises in Malawi, the two manage to write eloquently and passionately of their own fortunes and shortcomings.
It is not uncommon for a good book to have its emotional effects on me, but in the most sincere way, Smith and MacKinnon bring the reader into their lives. Comparisons to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver are expected, but what stands out is the richness of encountering the people of their landscape; the farmers, fishers, and friends are as honestly and successfully portrayed as either of the writers, for which I am immensely grateful. Unlike some seasonal eaters, I am not among the new wave of future farmers--though I know a few who are. What I find herein is hope on the scale of a modest urbanite, an earnest eater, someone who experiences the seasons with hands, stomach, and heart.
Though I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested, and thoroughly commend the writers, its prose wavers at times and its multi-centered focus can occasionally confuse rather than elucidate. In certain ways, such commentary is hardly a criticism as much as a recognition of the complexity of Smith and MacKinnon's task. Covering a personal culinary memoir, the frustrations of a maturing relationship, the history of modern agriculture, the food politics of British Columbia, and the hardships of people one encounters along the way is simply monstrous. It is, indeed, miraculous that these two intrepid souls succeed as well as they do. I cannot say that the task might be better done or appropriately lessened and still be what it ought to be, and so I add this critique with its own grain of "sinner's salt."
When In Spain: Report from Castellon, Valencia
A windstorm blows outside and I have already had to barricade a window that broke. Up until I heard it break, I had not touched it in the least. It acts as a painful reminder of the door that shattered on me in Brazil in my host-family's home. This, at least, was not my fault. It does say a little something about Spanish design, at least in Castellon. In the apartment, the floors are nearly all stone tiles, which look rather chic and clean. Except that they are terribly cold and continue to absorb any heat in the rooms themselves. I spent four years in Minnesota and have become wet with rain while camping (in Nebraska) with my brother and father; yet none of those times have been as cold as I am when I try to sleep in a sleeping bag underneath a sheet and three blankets. Valencianos (I am in the state of Valencia) can easily and simply make things look good, but seem to consider comfort a secondary or tertiary quality of a living space.
Other than that, my stay has been rather wonderful. Castellon (or Castelló in the Catalan) is about two hundred thousand people--really just a shade under Lincoln--with both a more or less pleasant beach and enjoyable hills. In the hills, great bushes of rosemary and thyme grow, as well as wild sage, though it does not really compare in quality. I am inspired to make herb soaps with it if I can harvest enough and smuggle it back in; in the meanwhile I might make a fresh herb focaccia. Even more surprising are untended orange groves from which one can pluck the tastiest wee citrus fruits I have ever had; occasional grapefruit and almond trees also dot the landscape. I have never lived somewhere where I might pluck oranges from the tree; to say the least, it is a delight.
This is the coldest part of the year and it ranges from a chilly mid-autumn Minnesota day, or maybe a late one in Lincoln. Yesterday was the warmest day I have experienced in months. It was, at its peak, likely in the mid-fifties which for me means a simple sweatshirt. The locals bundle up in layers with fancy scarves and plain to chic jackets. Dustin, Miss Lauren (aka, Dustin's Lauren, Lauren George, and eventually Lauren Phillips; not to be mistaken with Miss Lauren Fulner, aka My Lauren), and I on the other hand leave the apartment or climb the stairs to the roof to warm up. Apparently, it snows a couple times a century here, but I don't know if I believe it, except in the mountains which were picturesquely flecked with a light dusting.
Time spent with Dustin and Miss Lauren is time much valued. They are fine company and have treated my generously. I met Dustin's best Spanish friend, Tomás, who is a well-traveled, seventy-five year-old man who seems to be acquainted with every other person in Vallencia. He helps Dustin with his Spanish, recently using an analogy to "test" Dustin's skill. The trick, for Dustin anyway, is to say, "Si, si," every ten or twenty seconds; to be more authentic, he ought to say, "Valé," which means something like "Okay." They have very light schedules allowing them a good deal of leisure, which is just their style. The city provides public bikes given that you register and return them after their use for others at various bike racks, and buses get you where you mostly need to go, though walking is hardly a chore here.
Being here inevitably recalls Brazil and the reality of language immersion. I could, given some time, probably pick up Spanish pretty well. I may just do that. Simple sentences make sense and often a word or two provide an easy anchor to the meaning of a phrase. All the same, Spain feels much easier that Brazil ever did--save for the company and encouragement of my companions. Poverty feels like a rarity instead of commonplace, even though Spain is not one of the wealthier countries of Europe. In a way, the lifestyles tap into simplicity and calm in an enviable way. This is particularly true following the "lived-in" feeling (i.e. abundant clutter and that feeling of thorough use) of other places I have stayed in. Oddly, this city feels "lived-in;" that is, its tightness, the pedestrian boulevards and wide sidewalks, the light on the buildings even suggest a self-assuredness that wide roads and parking lots, chain stores and sprawl fail to entail.
I would love to be here in a certain way, a manner I cannot easily articulate. I envy Miss Lauren and Dustin for the place and am then dismayed at the struggle they are experiencing it. My envy, though, is not green or negative; rather, I see their position as one slightly more comfortable and flexible, in many ways much easier than what I recall from Brazil. All the same, this is a big first for Lauren, and a smaller one for Dustin who has always been markedly well-adapted to the stations in which he finds himself. I know the feeling of yearning for the familiar and the need to relax one's brain after the perpetual effort of translation. All the same, the... escape, perhaps... novelty as well... sense of exploration and change of pace, the ability to look back and to peer forward from that vantage that a foreign place allows has such richness, such exuberance that I cannot help but acknowledge that I miss it in my own way.
Rugs and comforters would help, though.
Other than that, my stay has been rather wonderful. Castellon (or Castelló in the Catalan) is about two hundred thousand people--really just a shade under Lincoln--with both a more or less pleasant beach and enjoyable hills. In the hills, great bushes of rosemary and thyme grow, as well as wild sage, though it does not really compare in quality. I am inspired to make herb soaps with it if I can harvest enough and smuggle it back in; in the meanwhile I might make a fresh herb focaccia. Even more surprising are untended orange groves from which one can pluck the tastiest wee citrus fruits I have ever had; occasional grapefruit and almond trees also dot the landscape. I have never lived somewhere where I might pluck oranges from the tree; to say the least, it is a delight.
This is the coldest part of the year and it ranges from a chilly mid-autumn Minnesota day, or maybe a late one in Lincoln. Yesterday was the warmest day I have experienced in months. It was, at its peak, likely in the mid-fifties which for me means a simple sweatshirt. The locals bundle up in layers with fancy scarves and plain to chic jackets. Dustin, Miss Lauren (aka, Dustin's Lauren, Lauren George, and eventually Lauren Phillips; not to be mistaken with Miss Lauren Fulner, aka My Lauren), and I on the other hand leave the apartment or climb the stairs to the roof to warm up. Apparently, it snows a couple times a century here, but I don't know if I believe it, except in the mountains which were picturesquely flecked with a light dusting.
Time spent with Dustin and Miss Lauren is time much valued. They are fine company and have treated my generously. I met Dustin's best Spanish friend, Tomás, who is a well-traveled, seventy-five year-old man who seems to be acquainted with every other person in Vallencia. He helps Dustin with his Spanish, recently using an analogy to "test" Dustin's skill. The trick, for Dustin anyway, is to say, "Si, si," every ten or twenty seconds; to be more authentic, he ought to say, "Valé," which means something like "Okay." They have very light schedules allowing them a good deal of leisure, which is just their style. The city provides public bikes given that you register and return them after their use for others at various bike racks, and buses get you where you mostly need to go, though walking is hardly a chore here.
Being here inevitably recalls Brazil and the reality of language immersion. I could, given some time, probably pick up Spanish pretty well. I may just do that. Simple sentences make sense and often a word or two provide an easy anchor to the meaning of a phrase. All the same, Spain feels much easier that Brazil ever did--save for the company and encouragement of my companions. Poverty feels like a rarity instead of commonplace, even though Spain is not one of the wealthier countries of Europe. In a way, the lifestyles tap into simplicity and calm in an enviable way. This is particularly true following the "lived-in" feeling (i.e. abundant clutter and that feeling of thorough use) of other places I have stayed in. Oddly, this city feels "lived-in;" that is, its tightness, the pedestrian boulevards and wide sidewalks, the light on the buildings even suggest a self-assuredness that wide roads and parking lots, chain stores and sprawl fail to entail.
I would love to be here in a certain way, a manner I cannot easily articulate. I envy Miss Lauren and Dustin for the place and am then dismayed at the struggle they are experiencing it. My envy, though, is not green or negative; rather, I see their position as one slightly more comfortable and flexible, in many ways much easier than what I recall from Brazil. All the same, this is a big first for Lauren, and a smaller one for Dustin who has always been markedly well-adapted to the stations in which he finds himself. I know the feeling of yearning for the familiar and the need to relax one's brain after the perpetual effort of translation. All the same, the... escape, perhaps... novelty as well... sense of exploration and change of pace, the ability to look back and to peer forward from that vantage that a foreign place allows has such richness, such exuberance that I cannot help but acknowledge that I miss it in my own way.
Rugs and comforters would help, though.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Asta Manana
Tomorrow is something of a holiday and with it I have a few things to cover:
Bake cinnamon honey bread for my kind, familial hosts;
Write a review of Plenty on GoodReads.com which I will subsequently post here;
and write here about my stay in Espana (sorry, accents are too much trouble from the iTouch) so far.
In brief, Plenty was wonderful and inspiring; avoid marble floors, especially when lacking central heating; and my friends feel painfully distant even while I enjoy my stay here. Also, I don't think Spanish is all that hard.
Good night and much love to all,
c
Bake cinnamon honey bread for my kind, familial hosts;
Write a review of Plenty on GoodReads.com which I will subsequently post here;
and write here about my stay in Espana (sorry, accents are too much trouble from the iTouch) so far.
In brief, Plenty was wonderful and inspiring; avoid marble floors, especially when lacking central heating; and my friends feel painfully distant even while I enjoy my stay here. Also, I don't think Spanish is all that hard.
Good night and much love to all,
c
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Departures & Arrivals
I made it to Spain following about a week in the District, so to speak. My brother and his lady love live in Castellon (Cas-teh-yon) where it is rather gorgeous and mellow. They're teaching English in high schools here, or in nearby towns, And taking advantage of the lifestyle of the sufficiently employed in foreign parts. Their apartment, to say the least, is frigid and it is often slightly warmer--and distinctly sunnier--outside that inside. Tile floors everywhere absorb what little heat gathers from a space heater, and the only time I am particularly warm inside is in a bustling kitchen or steamy bathroom. It is good to be here all the same.
This past week was spent in the company of Miss Linnea McCully in the greater D.C. area. We explored the Terra Cotta Soldiers exhibit from China in the National Geographic Museum, wandered about in the DuPont Circle neighborhood where we ate wonderfully at Teaism--which I highly recommend for tea aficionados in the area--and visited American University with its Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs graduate program. Though it is a bit of a walk from the Metro station, it is a beautiful campus and worth visiting, perhaps waiting for warmer weather would be nice.
More so than when I have visited D.C. in the past, I wished for further and specific company to show up and join me. The Terra Cotta Soldiers reminded me of Miss Leigh Clanton who knows more than a little about the archaeological dig around the first Chinese Emperor's tomb. Teaism recalled a few tea fanatics, including Miss Clanton, but also Miss Lauren Fulner & Miss Haven Davis. DuPont Circle has in the past, and more recently, the company of Miss Anna Tibstra, who would enjoy much of the architecture of cramped streets and campus buildings at American, too.
Which in turn, brings to mind something I said to Miss Linnea. She teaches children in Colombia at present and manifests personally what many of my friends are increasingly all about: personal momentum. So many important people in my life are on the road in their specific ways, discovering certain outer bounds of their worlds. Such is their motion, that I do not doubt them to lose much of it on the way. On the other hand, I am more and more concerned with finding a certain place or world in which to set up walls and set in roots. What I told Linnea, who I expect to continue to work internationally for a good long while (to which I must respond in patience since I cannot respond in frequent flyer miles), was that I expect to be a sort of way-station for many of those wonderful people my life entails. At school and on my recent birthday in Lincoln, I seem to practice a open-home-ness where people rest, converse, recover, bond, build, and share with one another. In part, my passion for food is because of just such an interest in this sort of personal-social construct.
Honestly, I expect to go to graduate school this following fall or the next, complete whatever program I find there, and then stay there or move only once more--preferably the former. Why is this? Well, it has to do with how I want to live my life. I want my life to be tied to a place, to a set of familiar faces and locales, and I want to build a home, a home that extends beyond the walls of a building, but into the soil and lives of others. To do so, and to do so well, strikes me as something that takes a good long while. I am comfortable with this; in fact, it inspires me with comfort. To know a place takes years, if not decades, and I suppose (and I mean that, as an unsupported assumption about myself) this in turn means and contributes to knowing myself.
For the moment, though, I am traveling in my typical wintertime style. In the past, my winters have included India (most recently) and Brazil, with a few brief stops on the way or around them, and there was that January internship in St. Paul, but I don't know if I would normally count that. I am happy traveling and discovering, flexing some Portuguese in to Spanish and learning the roads of a new city; but eventually I am happiest returning to a warm home.
This past week was spent in the company of Miss Linnea McCully in the greater D.C. area. We explored the Terra Cotta Soldiers exhibit from China in the National Geographic Museum, wandered about in the DuPont Circle neighborhood where we ate wonderfully at Teaism--which I highly recommend for tea aficionados in the area--and visited American University with its Ethics, Peace, and Global Affairs graduate program. Though it is a bit of a walk from the Metro station, it is a beautiful campus and worth visiting, perhaps waiting for warmer weather would be nice.
More so than when I have visited D.C. in the past, I wished for further and specific company to show up and join me. The Terra Cotta Soldiers reminded me of Miss Leigh Clanton who knows more than a little about the archaeological dig around the first Chinese Emperor's tomb. Teaism recalled a few tea fanatics, including Miss Clanton, but also Miss Lauren Fulner & Miss Haven Davis. DuPont Circle has in the past, and more recently, the company of Miss Anna Tibstra, who would enjoy much of the architecture of cramped streets and campus buildings at American, too.
Which in turn, brings to mind something I said to Miss Linnea. She teaches children in Colombia at present and manifests personally what many of my friends are increasingly all about: personal momentum. So many important people in my life are on the road in their specific ways, discovering certain outer bounds of their worlds. Such is their motion, that I do not doubt them to lose much of it on the way. On the other hand, I am more and more concerned with finding a certain place or world in which to set up walls and set in roots. What I told Linnea, who I expect to continue to work internationally for a good long while (to which I must respond in patience since I cannot respond in frequent flyer miles), was that I expect to be a sort of way-station for many of those wonderful people my life entails. At school and on my recent birthday in Lincoln, I seem to practice a open-home-ness where people rest, converse, recover, bond, build, and share with one another. In part, my passion for food is because of just such an interest in this sort of personal-social construct.
Honestly, I expect to go to graduate school this following fall or the next, complete whatever program I find there, and then stay there or move only once more--preferably the former. Why is this? Well, it has to do with how I want to live my life. I want my life to be tied to a place, to a set of familiar faces and locales, and I want to build a home, a home that extends beyond the walls of a building, but into the soil and lives of others. To do so, and to do so well, strikes me as something that takes a good long while. I am comfortable with this; in fact, it inspires me with comfort. To know a place takes years, if not decades, and I suppose (and I mean that, as an unsupported assumption about myself) this in turn means and contributes to knowing myself.
For the moment, though, I am traveling in my typical wintertime style. In the past, my winters have included India (most recently) and Brazil, with a few brief stops on the way or around them, and there was that January internship in St. Paul, but I don't know if I would normally count that. I am happy traveling and discovering, flexing some Portuguese in to Spanish and learning the roads of a new city; but eventually I am happiest returning to a warm home.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Non-Traditional Jigsaw Puzzles
Time & Date: 3 January, 5:01 am
Yesterday afternoon, I left for the airport with the onset of a surprising snowstorm. My folks and I made it to our immediate destination without incident, but following an extra two hours spent in the plane on the runway at Lincoln Municipal, I missed my connection that would send me to Washington D.C. Such is the way of the world, at least for those who are running Lincoln Municipal Airport; I mean to say, we stayed on the ground because of over-booking and ineptitude at de-icing the plane. It was all a bit of a disappointing mess, particularly since easily half of the passengers were then destined to rebook connecting flights.
I have traveled more than most and for that opportunity, I am thankful. Traveling has always been one of those precarious tasks for people. One decides on important articles here and there, arranges them just so, and leaves the familiar for new discoveries both grand and minute. On the way, one runs into barriers—climatological, mechanical, personal—but more often than not, one gets to the destination with most of the original pieces, or at least the intended pieces. My brother-in-law made an astute remark about flying the other week, that we have been flying for over a hundred years, you would think we would have it figured out by now.
Here, I wish to express my gratitude for those underpaid, overworked, and poorly compensated employees of the commercial aeronautics enterprises. Pilots are severely underpaid and, with the ever-feverish race for cheap tickets, that is unlikely to change. As for flight staff and other costumer/passenger service associates, I have seem them remain calm in the face of overwhelming numbers of frustrated, angry, exhausted, and thoroughly disheveled masses. The poise and competence required is more than I can muster so, following those particularly dastardly expeditions, I try to express my thanks more sincerely than usual.
With that said, Mr. Joe Bain, my brother-in-law, has a point: Shouldn't we have gotten this right by now? Flight is an especially hectic means of travel and, given that, sometimes—even at a sleepless four o'clock in the morning in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport—I have to take a breath and think how miraculous it is that I get to go anywhere at all. If I were to brush of the glamor of flight—which a night in the airport is likely to do—it does make one wonder what we have been doing for the past few decades that makes it so difficult to count passengers on a plane or use standard maintenance hardware that will get us in the air.
My current frustrations are not simply bound up in getting off the ground at appropriate, previously stated deadlines, but has to do with the simple statements given by others connected to the business. After our late arrival was brushed off as a weather issue—which it wasn't, but rather a failure on the part of ground crew to maintain their de-icing equipment and figure out who was staying on an overbooked plane—I was given a number to call to set me up with a nearby hotel at a discounted rate. That was all well and good, except that the shuttle never showed up to pick me up. After over an hour, I decided I would rather find a quiet nook in the airport and sit down to read, play games, and watch some videos rather than stand aimlessly by a window any longer. Had I been able to make it to the hotel, I would have probably been able to make a nice little night of it, but such was not the case and so I find myself more or less sleepless in the airport.
This, I suppose, is a simple gripe. (I just saw what was probably a mouse run through the airport, which may make my gripe more pertinent.) I am not generally prone to these, but after a long night I feel like I deserve it. What strikes me so thoroughly is the nearness to quality the whole endeavor gets. All the pieces were in place, but just askew; the puzzle pieces just are not intended to fit together that way. With just a little jiggle, some finagling, it very well might fall into place. As it is, the picture is pretty far from appealing.
Yesterday afternoon, I left for the airport with the onset of a surprising snowstorm. My folks and I made it to our immediate destination without incident, but following an extra two hours spent in the plane on the runway at Lincoln Municipal, I missed my connection that would send me to Washington D.C. Such is the way of the world, at least for those who are running Lincoln Municipal Airport; I mean to say, we stayed on the ground because of over-booking and ineptitude at de-icing the plane. It was all a bit of a disappointing mess, particularly since easily half of the passengers were then destined to rebook connecting flights.
I have traveled more than most and for that opportunity, I am thankful. Traveling has always been one of those precarious tasks for people. One decides on important articles here and there, arranges them just so, and leaves the familiar for new discoveries both grand and minute. On the way, one runs into barriers—climatological, mechanical, personal—but more often than not, one gets to the destination with most of the original pieces, or at least the intended pieces. My brother-in-law made an astute remark about flying the other week, that we have been flying for over a hundred years, you would think we would have it figured out by now.
Here, I wish to express my gratitude for those underpaid, overworked, and poorly compensated employees of the commercial aeronautics enterprises. Pilots are severely underpaid and, with the ever-feverish race for cheap tickets, that is unlikely to change. As for flight staff and other costumer/passenger service associates, I have seem them remain calm in the face of overwhelming numbers of frustrated, angry, exhausted, and thoroughly disheveled masses. The poise and competence required is more than I can muster so, following those particularly dastardly expeditions, I try to express my thanks more sincerely than usual.
With that said, Mr. Joe Bain, my brother-in-law, has a point: Shouldn't we have gotten this right by now? Flight is an especially hectic means of travel and, given that, sometimes—even at a sleepless four o'clock in the morning in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport—I have to take a breath and think how miraculous it is that I get to go anywhere at all. If I were to brush of the glamor of flight—which a night in the airport is likely to do—it does make one wonder what we have been doing for the past few decades that makes it so difficult to count passengers on a plane or use standard maintenance hardware that will get us in the air.
My current frustrations are not simply bound up in getting off the ground at appropriate, previously stated deadlines, but has to do with the simple statements given by others connected to the business. After our late arrival was brushed off as a weather issue—which it wasn't, but rather a failure on the part of ground crew to maintain their de-icing equipment and figure out who was staying on an overbooked plane—I was given a number to call to set me up with a nearby hotel at a discounted rate. That was all well and good, except that the shuttle never showed up to pick me up. After over an hour, I decided I would rather find a quiet nook in the airport and sit down to read, play games, and watch some videos rather than stand aimlessly by a window any longer. Had I been able to make it to the hotel, I would have probably been able to make a nice little night of it, but such was not the case and so I find myself more or less sleepless in the airport.
This, I suppose, is a simple gripe. (I just saw what was probably a mouse run through the airport, which may make my gripe more pertinent.) I am not generally prone to these, but after a long night I feel like I deserve it. What strikes me so thoroughly is the nearness to quality the whole endeavor gets. All the pieces were in place, but just askew; the puzzle pieces just are not intended to fit together that way. With just a little jiggle, some finagling, it very well might fall into place. As it is, the picture is pretty far from appealing.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Turing Machines (1 January)
If you are unaware of the notion of the Turing Machine, allow me to elucidate the subject. A Turing Machine is any contraption that, when fed an typical input from a person (person meaning a being with consciousness), the subsequent output is insufficient for an observer (who may be the person inputting the data) to identify the Turing Machine as a machine or as a person. Alan Turing--incredibly important for a handful of other reasons--came up with the notion a little after World War II, presupposing the issue of artificial intelligence and its effect on humanity's centrality in the intellectual cosmos. That may have all been somewhat heady, so here is a narrative description: In front of you are two computers and you are told that connected to one of those computers is a human person and connected to the other is a computer; you strike up a conversation--as far as typing allows--with one, then with the other, and if you are unable to decide which computer is connected to a person and which to machine, the Turing Machine passes the Turing Test.
So, the Turing Test, as described above, suggests a few things about consciousness and artificial intelligence. First, if we cannot discriminate between "a" and "not a," then we have no grounds in saying that they are categorically different; for the Turing Test, "a" and "not a" are entities with which you are striking up conversations. Therefore, if "a" is a human person and "not a" is a computer (that is, if we can agree that a computer is "not a human person") and we are trying to say that only one is a conscious being, but we can't decide which, then we very well may be forced to say that both are conscious beings. (Notice some of my diction here: "A" is still a human person, and "not a" is still a computer, but if what makes either interestingly communicative, the similarity lies in our notion of consciousness; that is, "a" and "not a" remain distinct but share "consciousness, which makes them good conversationalists.) In addition, the Turing Test--in its very nature--means that what we identify with the term "consciousness" is not specific to certain types of persons--human, animal, vegetable, mechanical, organic, artificial--and can allow a multiplicity of types of persons.
This is all pretty odd to bring up in the dawning of the New Year, I recognize, but after some wonderful festivities, I am struck with the story of Alan Turing, his machines, and his test. If you are curious why, it is because, despite my best efforts, I do not know if I pass the Turing Test in the company of friends. Sure, friends of mine may vouch that I have a certain kind of personage behind my skin, mouth, and eyes; but in the company of strangers, what is someone to say to one such as me? I stand quietly, batting my eyes at newcomers, books on shelves, hung photos and art prints, maybe even locking eyes now and then; what in that makes someone think, "Oh, there is someone, a person"?
I recognize a melancholy flipside here. That flipside involves me reading into some serious shortcomings in my sociability. Often, I find myself flummoxed by the humdrum rhythm of acquaintances conversations. If I do not share in the certain academic environment, that particular clique of comrades, that cadre of leisurely lounges, and just such is the subject of conversation, then I can feel myself gradually vanish. I know that I experience some social anxiety issues; I know that because I feel them pretty regularly and have to handle them in this or that way. Something about the feel of a situation where I might attempt to navigate others' social fields just wearies me, it just buzzes like a gnat, a gnat I can ignore entirely if I so choose.
This is not where I want to end, but it is important to me to remark on one other little realization. I found myself, at the end of this evening, very literally muffled by the some aspects of my social environment. It is, as if, an event transpires and it forces a wad of cotton over my sense organs; it is akin to discovering that light makes you blind, but that your eyes do not easily become accustomed to the brightness. Or, it might be trying to handle the delicate tools of stitching, drawing, or calligraphy, and feeling thick callouses on your fingertips and--though you might comprehend and have even practiced the feat--you are unable to practice what you have once done without pause.
I choose not to post this immediately and will plan on posting it with the appropriate post-date. This is not the sort of post I wish to open the year to and is not descriptive of the fine company of which I enjoyed this evening. All the same, it is where my thoughts, my feelings, my consciousness has moved with the night's termination. If I might, after all that I have already said, I wish many blessings on all my friends and loved ones, and a particularly affectionate one on someone specific especially, someone I get to see very shortly.
So, the Turing Test, as described above, suggests a few things about consciousness and artificial intelligence. First, if we cannot discriminate between "a" and "not a," then we have no grounds in saying that they are categorically different; for the Turing Test, "a" and "not a" are entities with which you are striking up conversations. Therefore, if "a" is a human person and "not a" is a computer (that is, if we can agree that a computer is "not a human person") and we are trying to say that only one is a conscious being, but we can't decide which, then we very well may be forced to say that both are conscious beings. (Notice some of my diction here: "A" is still a human person, and "not a" is still a computer, but if what makes either interestingly communicative, the similarity lies in our notion of consciousness; that is, "a" and "not a" remain distinct but share "consciousness, which makes them good conversationalists.) In addition, the Turing Test--in its very nature--means that what we identify with the term "consciousness" is not specific to certain types of persons--human, animal, vegetable, mechanical, organic, artificial--and can allow a multiplicity of types of persons.
This is all pretty odd to bring up in the dawning of the New Year, I recognize, but after some wonderful festivities, I am struck with the story of Alan Turing, his machines, and his test. If you are curious why, it is because, despite my best efforts, I do not know if I pass the Turing Test in the company of friends. Sure, friends of mine may vouch that I have a certain kind of personage behind my skin, mouth, and eyes; but in the company of strangers, what is someone to say to one such as me? I stand quietly, batting my eyes at newcomers, books on shelves, hung photos and art prints, maybe even locking eyes now and then; what in that makes someone think, "Oh, there is someone, a person"?
I recognize a melancholy flipside here. That flipside involves me reading into some serious shortcomings in my sociability. Often, I find myself flummoxed by the humdrum rhythm of acquaintances conversations. If I do not share in the certain academic environment, that particular clique of comrades, that cadre of leisurely lounges, and just such is the subject of conversation, then I can feel myself gradually vanish. I know that I experience some social anxiety issues; I know that because I feel them pretty regularly and have to handle them in this or that way. Something about the feel of a situation where I might attempt to navigate others' social fields just wearies me, it just buzzes like a gnat, a gnat I can ignore entirely if I so choose.
This is not where I want to end, but it is important to me to remark on one other little realization. I found myself, at the end of this evening, very literally muffled by the some aspects of my social environment. It is, as if, an event transpires and it forces a wad of cotton over my sense organs; it is akin to discovering that light makes you blind, but that your eyes do not easily become accustomed to the brightness. Or, it might be trying to handle the delicate tools of stitching, drawing, or calligraphy, and feeling thick callouses on your fingertips and--though you might comprehend and have even practiced the feat--you are unable to practice what you have once done without pause.
I choose not to post this immediately and will plan on posting it with the appropriate post-date. This is not the sort of post I wish to open the year to and is not descriptive of the fine company of which I enjoyed this evening. All the same, it is where my thoughts, my feelings, my consciousness has moved with the night's termination. If I might, after all that I have already said, I wish many blessings on all my friends and loved ones, and a particularly affectionate one on someone specific especially, someone I get to see very shortly.
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