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Messages - TheEndingChord

#1
- Beer bread

Ingredients:

Flour - 3 cups
Baking Powder - 3 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1/4 cup (I use 1/8 white and 1/8 brown. Makes a heavier, more flavorful loaf)
Beer - 12oz. (Stout, Porter, and Pilsner are the best types I've used. A Belgian Ale would be fantastic. The bread will take flavor from whatever you use, but remove the bite. I've never tried an IPA, but I wouldn't be against it)
Soft butter - 1/2 cup (There are three different methods I use. Crusty: all the butter is melted and poured over the dough before it's cooked. Soft: all the butter is incorporated into the mixture. Perfect: Half in, half out.

Instructions:

Get a loaf pan and a big bowl for mixing. Preheat the oven to 375F.

Blend the dry ingredients. At this point you may make a well in the dry ingredients, melt whatever butter you want to put in, and just chunk it in there. That's the easy way. (The hard, but fun way: Take room temperature butter and incorporate it into the dry mix with your hands, rubbing and compressing it into the flour until it becomes coarse and crumby.)

Dump your beer in there. Doesn't matter if it's cold or hot and the head is supposed to be frothy. Don't worry about it. Mix it till it makes a runny dough.

Now, the loaf pan should be greased beforehand if you're using the no-butter method or the half-and-half method. As always, I would stress you use Crisco instead of canned grease sprayers of insufficient testicular fortitude. If you left out the butter and plan to pour it over the top, put about half of it into the pan before you pour in the dough.

It cooks in roughly fourty minutes to an hour or as long as you can contain the erection.
#2
Bit of an amorphous phrase, that. The observation is somewhat connected to this feeling, yes, but is informed by it rather than predicated. In example: Pain should be real. A marker. Something that ties us inextricably to the world of the material. It's how you know that you're dreaming. Pinch yourself, is what we say. Yet, pain, too, can be subjected to enough scrutiny that it ceases to affect us physically.

It's more of a generalization. Nothing seems real *enough* for tradition. The satisfaction of innate human biology to make what seems good and right or feels good and right a constant thing. Tradition. For our kids.

The 80's and 90's taught us that nothing matters and that everything should be treated with skepticism or sarcasm. It's in all the angry and disenfranchised music. It's in all the shows. Married With Children takes an archetype and makes a parody of it. Sure, it's understood as a parody, but how long before people forget what parody means because the meme of that worldview (Living a parody based upon an appreciation of irony that went a little too far and dug some roots in your greater perceptions) made it funny to have experiences that mirror the TV. You become the popular one at the water cooler if you can regail your workmates with stories of your life and progeny that 'beat all I've ever seen.'

About 10-15 years, it seems. In many cases, instantly.

Small part of a larger puzzle, yes, and some things do seem more real and worthy than others. But as I consider the origin of things more, they seem less so. Imposed. Just like the pain that you can see through if you try.

Does that help?
#3
Quote from: LMNO on March 29, 2017, 05:24:37 PM
Hold on - are you talking about physical pain here, or life being generally shitty?

Yes. There is no tangible difference.

EDIT: At least in the method of approach I espouse.
#4
This is a place for bread and bread accessories. I plan to post more recipes from my notes on bread (Like Irish Soda Bread and Beer Bread) and add pictures as well. If you've got ideas or a recipe or some critique or questions, g'head.

Keep in mind, please, that bread is not an exacting science. It is the opposite. It is a capricious notion that likes to let you think you know what you're doing (until you run outside to smoke for five minutes) and then turn into a heap of mess that looks like a brick factory caught fire and tastes like a shoe. There is an art to it as much as a science.

- Tom's Anti-Temporal Loaf of Floofy Goodness
(quick, simple, light bread)
ETA: ~1 hour

Ingredients:
Bread Flour - ~5-1/2 cups
Water (Baby bath warm ~100F) - 1-3/4 cup
Honey - 1 Tbsp
Olive Oil - 1 Tbsp
Fast rising active dry yeast - 1-1/2 Tbsp
Salt - 2 Tsp
[insert random spice] - 1/2 Tsp (I generally use pepper or paprika if I'm pairing the bread with something savory. For sweet pairings, lean toward something like cinnamon or clove with a powerful basic flavor. You may omit this ingredient)

Instructions:

Grab a large mixing bowl and put 4 cups of your flour into it. Save the other cup and a half in a separate bowl for later. You will need a surface for kneading and rising.

Mix the dry ingredients together in your bowl with whatever implement makes you comfortable. Form a well in the center of the mixture with your implement.

Add the honey and the olive oil to the well in the center.

Begin to pour the water slowly into the mix as you stir, incorporating more flower from the sides of the well that you formed until the mixture begins to pull from the sides. If needed, add more flour from what you have stored off to the side.

Now's when the other flour comes in: Dust your kneading surface with it and coat your hands up to about your wrist. Scrape that shit in the bowl out onto the table and pour the rest of the flour on top and around the dough. Knead it 'til it sticks to itself and not the table, incorporating more of the flour on the table as needed. You may need more. (I don't ever put the container away until the bread is in the oven; I also don't usually measure, so feel free to improvise. I always do.)

Wash your fucking hands. It's important. Dry them on a kitchen towel. Put that slightly damp towel over your loaf and let it sit for about 20- 30 minutes- until its doubled in volume.

Now is the time to preheat the oven to 375F.

When it's done rising, shape it however you like. Make rolls, use it as pizza dough (if you coat a pan in Crisco, it turns into Pizza Hut pizza crust), or make a loaf of French Bread. This is the recipe I use for meat bread and homemade hot pockets. Throw that bitch in the oven and cook it til it looks like something you would want to eat. (~20 minutes) Golden brown on the top and bottom and light and floofy on the inside.

As with all bread, cool for at least 10 minutes on a wire rack or something similar before slicing or trying to eat it. I usually turn over some mini-muffin tins for this as I'm too cheap to purchase a kitchen utensil with only one purpose.

BONUS: Pads of butter placed on top of this bread before it's stuck in the oven only ever make it better.
#5
Quote from: LMNO on March 29, 2017, 04:44:34 PM
This sounds like a form of Buddhism, but with a whiff of masochism.

Not a negative criticism, just getting a feel for the concept.

I've always thought of it as truthism.

Been a martial artist all my life and I looked for those techniques everywhere. Never found any that worked. Maybe I didn't believe hard enough. Then, I was put in a few positions to do nothing but feel the Pain. We talked. He's not such a bad guy. He's been through some shit. Taught me some cool things.

Criticism isn't ever negative when looked at in the appropriate light. You're not gonna step on my toes by speaking the truth.
#6
Quote from: Ziegejunge on March 29, 2017, 04:09:56 PM
Quote from: TheEndingChord on March 29, 2017, 03:36:05 PM
Pain is just another illusion that disappears as you embrace it.

I've never tried hugging the barstool after it was thrown.

You'll find plenty of pain here. There's happiness, too, but ya gotta take a deep breath and look for it. Which, really, isn't so different from life outside this site.

There are also some bits and pieces here that are a bit different from the world at large. In my opinion, those differences are vital, challenging, and generally life-affirming. Your mileage may vary.

In any case, welcome!

What is meant, for clarity, by the embracing of pain: Stare at it. Make it all you can see. All you can feel. All you know. And it disappears. Simply becomes a fact and has no control over your decisions farther than the desire to move around it. It becomes a part of you as you absorb the pain and the lesson it brings. There is no little mental trick that can block out pain. There isn't some ancient Chinese secret to pain relief and there isn't a pill. It's only ever this. Knowledge of how to proceed now that the pain is known.

It is kind of like hugging the barstool, now that I think about it. Thank you. I'ma teach my students that as a conceptual aid.

Thank you. Genuinely.

I'm not here to add to the pain. Only to understand it. Maybe make it a little weirder.

--

The rambling wasn't a request. It was just a statement. To show where I'm at and who I am in an abstract and metaphysical sort of way. I agree that the words carry connotations that would lead you to ask such questions, but such is the nature of words.

I agree that I struggle with this ideal in a world that rejects it by and large, but there is no doubt in my mind that compassion is one of the few worthy emotions in this respect. It simply hurts that it leads me to so many walls. The pain I'm looking to understand, if you will.

I'm sorry that I came off like a whiny twit at first. In my defense, I got some ditch smoke last night.
#7
Quote from: LMNO on March 29, 2017, 03:41:59 PM
Hi, new guy!

You sound upset.

Hi there, old guy.

I seem to get that a lot and it baffles me.

I'm fairly sure that its because I talk about upsetting things like I want to deal with them rather than ignore them, but I may not have all the information.
#8
Making assumptions before replying to a genuine desire to speak with like minded people is a sure way to never speak with a like minds person again. I hardly fit the bill of a maudlin koan. I'm seeking answers and ideas and people that aren't still asleep.

I didn't speak my piece because it's an original story of pain and woe. Because I'm fragile and need validation. Because I need someone to whine with me. I spoke my piece because it was asked of me. "Why am I here?" I told you. I'm sorry you don't like it, but I had kinda hoped that it would resonate with someone who wanted to talk about ANYTHING else.

Nothing seems real. I've lost teeth to objects aimed at my face. Nobody ever learns. It's like the hardest part of the body. You're more likely to hurt your hand than you are to hit the 2 square inches of valid target area on the head.

Pain is just another illusion that disappears as you embrace it. Just like fear. It's motivation to run, fight, or die like a little bitch. But the really important bit? It's a lesson. If you don't die from it. The lesson you learn, however, doesn't teach you that anything is actually really real. It just shows you that the unknown can hurt from time to time. That you should probably not lead with your head. Or at least raise your hands like you care to put up a fight.

Pain shows you how to fight. Not why. Not ever why. Because there is only ever another type of pain to embrace.

My desire to find something real isn't for me. It's for my children and my wife that I care about. Its for all the love I now hold for those in this world that cant see beyond what's put in front of them.

I'm trying to be happy so that I can show them how. It would appear that I've come to the wrong place, but I cant quietly accept that the only people I've found in the world with a modicum of sense would simply act like everyone else without. So take this as you will and delete what you want. I'm done.
#10
Who the hell am I? Who the hell are you and how did this ubiquitous leaping cockroach of a religion manifest from the anals (yes) of my mind into someone else's and onto paper? I feel as if I've been living my life knowing all these truths intuitively and come by this site and the things that entails the same way. That's not to say I ever really listen to that intuition that has done naught but guide me true when indulged. With every reason and every obvious benefit, it still looms oppressive that I stick to what I know rather than what I KNOW.

Which brings me to why I'm here, ultimately: Nothing seems real anymore. Sure. A common lament among the dreamy-eyed, lazy-ass ponderers with no actionable experience from which to draw that conclusion. So, too, is it nonetheless true that, in the course of my day-to-day, I pour untold amounts of energy into the world around me- The people that populate it for me; with me; against me; at my side, behind, and before me- and feel a right Quixote* when they look at me like I'm an idiot for caring about their wellbeing, happiness, and soul when they don't have time for that.

Which pisses me off like nothing else when I didn't have to bother to take the time in the first place. So why bother?

Which seems like an answer to the question in its own right, but what the fuck. I didn't care like this at one point in my life; had never felt the unyielding, burning energy of true and unconditional love. Never asked to. Now I've got these feelings and shit and no one gives me nothing but grief for them.

I don't want to leave those I care for behind, but what shall I do when they wont come with me where I'm needed? Neither can I hate them, for they are only living to their nature.

Also, I can cook. Like I was born to. Should I start a thread for simple recipes and dumb cooking questions? I'm a big user of 'scratch' methods, so be prepared to do the work to get the food just like the hunter gather-ers of old.

If anyone is interested, I also know a bunch of odd-and-end stupid human tricks and ultimately useless but intriguing knowledge that may or may not be true, and have a few unmarketable skills for curio.

Hi, Y'all. My name is Tom. Probably.

*(Here referenced for his Massive Genital Relative Gravity and it's propensity to attract only small bits of metal and debris rather than an appreciative, oiled, and [redacted] girl named Dulcinea. It ultimately caused his death a few kilometers south from La Mancha when, passing a free-energy windfarm, he was impaled about the crotchal region with a number of steel turbine blades)