Monthly Archives: June 2020

Anthony Bourdain: Chef, Writer, TV travel show host. A role model.

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Anthony Bourdain smoking a cigarette from the No reservations era.
Image credit: Here

               

Here is what I wrote about Anthony Bourdain on June 8th, 2018 in a journal entry: Another person I idolized was found dead by his own doing.  Anthony Bourdain, dead at age 61. Bourdain joins Robin Williams, and Chester Bennington as cultural icons that I admired… All dead from suicide. Despite seeming to have it all, none could continue living. Depression makes it seem like it will never go away. Like there is no point to life. Maybe there isn’t, but when in the darkness, you feel the weight of its nothingness. Welcome to the suicide generation…

I tried to write a post on June 8th this year, but couldn’t. Instead I turned to cooking for comfort. I turned my horror at the world that week into a present for a friend. (Which she said was exactly what she was craving… Really chocolatey brownies) Anthony Bourdain ended his life by suicide. A tragedy as suicide always is. I’d rather celebrate his life, his birthday, today June 25th. While alive he taught me through his travel shows how to cook dishes from around the world, and showed me what a big world we live in. To be honest, I haven’t yet read Kitchen Confidential, the book he is most known for, (I finally bought it last night on Audible!)  and which gave him a second career in his 40s. 

He opened my eyes to the world through food. He was no nonsense, tell it like it is, not afraid to swear, adventurous, and compassionate. He could sit down, eat, and talk with anyone from former president Barack Obama to rock stars, to local people in any country.  It’s been two years since he died, and this year is the first time I’m not sad by his death. He was a role model to me. A model of how to be a good human being, a good man, an example that you can be successful from nothing later in life. Him dying, and from suicide hit especially hard because I struggle with depression, and had close calls with suicide before. I hope his tragic death was a wake up call to others who looked up to him, who also struggled with depression and suicide. 

To my friends and family that read this blog: It’s hard to admit I have been suicidal before. It’s not something I wish anyone to feel. Depression is hell. Yet many people struggle with it in silence. I’m feeling like I fit in with the world for the first time in a long time, right now in quarantine, which is strange. All the feelings others are experiencing now… The fear of dying, the paranoia, the fear of the unknown future, feeling confined, trapped, lonely, anger, frustration, and despair is what it feels like to be suicidal. Sometimes my fight with it feels like a Muay-Thai fight. You survived, but I’m sore, worn out, exhausted. But I’m alive. I’m so grateful that I haven’t done it, because as strange and stressful this year has been, I’ve never felt closer or more connected to you and the world. Ironic since we are stuck at home. Therefore I need to apologize. I’m sorry I never told you. That I didn’t reach out in my darkest moments. It’s impossible when fighting it to think of anything else. It creates a dark tunnel where you see nothing else but the void. The hard part is that you “think” you have to break out of this darkness alone when you are vulnerable. Which is a lie. Thankfully I have a therapist I fit with now, which was the major reason I haven’t received the help I’ve needed for years for my depression. That is not having a therapist I click with, or the therapist leaving for many reasons. You can’t do therapy without a consistent therapist, or one you don’t click with like a friend.

If nothing else, in my darkest moments, it’s 1 more reason to live. He taught me that everyone has an impact on others even if it isn’t clear to the person in the darkness struggling with mental illness. It ‘s hard to watch the later seasons of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown because you could physically see the toll on him. Watching his shows helped me become a better cook, a better person, a creative mind I could emulate. Gave me hope that I could still be successful later in life, despite struggling professionally.

Takeout food from Rainer Restaurant tonight. From right to left: Salt and Pepper Prawns, Sizzling Pepper Eel (the first time I have had cooked eel before), and Stir Fried Garlic Ong Choy. Also shown is a pink flower in a plastic planting pot.
I went and got takeout from Rainer Restaurant tonight. From right to left: Salt and Pepper Prawns, Sizzling Pepper Eel (the first time I have had cooked eel before), and Stir Fried Garlic Ong Choy. Everything was delicious! Also, the restaurant was giving away the pink flower in a pot. Guest starring, our messy kitchen table.

My mother and I went to Rainier BBQ (https://www.rainierrestaurant.com/) that Friday for dinner after I found out it happened. The place was filled. It was the first time I had been there before. I ordered the Beef Ong Choy salad, which Bourdain had while filming the segment there for his tv show The Layover some other dishes which were delicious. A person at another table told a server working there about Anthony Bourdain, and she cried. I still haven’t watched the final episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown. Thank you Anthony Bourdain. Rest in Peace.

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom…is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”

― Anthony Bourdain”

Songs of the post: 

On the street by The Stooges

Across 110th street by Bobby Womack

Anemone by The Brian Jonestown Massacre

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Glassblowing (NSFW, but who’s working?)

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                Glassblowing (NSFW, but who’s working?)

Am I crazy to think of my broken heart… 

My broken soul,

 Like glass, broken five times will heal?

My soul exploded like Mt St Helens.

The pieces turned to molten glass, scattered to the winds, buried.

I’m not trying to be found, but I’d like help.

An adventurous soul willing to help me be reforged anew.

I need a glassmith.

A glassmith interested in my glass.

Someone with a love for me, as hot as a furnace, patient enough to work me through the process. 

I’ve been through the crucible furnace. I am open to molding myself anew. Don’t test my integrity. 

I’m as much glass as the glassmith.

For a relationship is both.

I’ll only be myself, not what you want me to be. 

Just as I want you to be yourself, and not what others think you should be.

I’m… I’m open to your “gloryhole” furnace. (suggestive eyebrow gif)

…LMAO, I can’t believe it’s actually called that!

Believe me, I need to be tempered as much as possible. Got some catching up to do with the other glass.

Please feel free to leer at me suggestively, without malice.

I’ve shattered far too many times from the thermal stress.

Waiting for the right glassmith.

I’ve broken and broken up because…

Right when I heat up for them, they cool off on me, and  I break again.

No more. 

Why doesn’t anyone want to take the time?

I was hooked onto a furnace which was cold to me.

She was warm every so often… but that ain’t enough for love. 

That leads to fragile glass. 

That broken glass leads to broken hearts.

Broken hearts, broken glass , leaves pain. 

I haven’t been formed before by a glassmith, so feel free to use your tools on me.

We’ll find out what I prefer with time, and I’m good with that.

All I want is for someone to choose me, and be patient.

This glass needs some white-hot love so I can feel bright pink hot.

Beneath our sandblasted surface hides delicate emotions and a glass heart.

Men’s feelings are glass too. 

So, if it ain’t too much, I’d like to ask the ladies of the world interested in my glass….

Would you please…

Run me through your furnaces, and:

Blow my glass! 

The end.

Inspired  reading from wikipedia: “Glassblowing involves three furnaces. The first, which contains a crucible of molten glass, is simply referred to as “the furnace”. The second is called the “glory hole”, and is used to reheat a piece in between steps of working with it. The final furnace is called the “lehr” or “annealer”, and is used to slowly cool the glass, over a period of a few hours to a few days, depending on the size of the pieces. This keeps the glass from cracking or shattering due to thermal stress. Historically, all three furnaces were contained in one structure, with a set of progressively cooler chambers for each of the three purposes.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glassblowing

As I was finishing this post today, I realized that I did not have any relevant pictures of glass, glassmithing, or things to take photos of. So, I worked with what I did have, the roses outside my room which bloom every June. This is the most sexual, or lewd thing I have written so far.

Songs of the week:

Kiss from a rose by Seal

Forget you by Ceelo Green

Somebody to love by Queen

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Brownies – A comfort food poem.

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Oh Brownies I made two weeks ago. I dream of you now as you are all gone. Oh wait, I bought chocolate chips again yesterday! Soon… I can eat you again.

    I hear the glass pan of the brownies, cut into a dozen, the top covered in plastic wrap. It’s whispering to me seductions of chocolate dark as night. Sweet, vanilla, bitter, complex chocolate. A hint of cayenne pepper. The line between comfort and addiction is teetering on a cliff. I resist bungee jumping into the crumbly, fudgey, canyon. Not quite cake, not quite cookie… I must ration you for the mysterious week ahead.

I can’t eat brownies that aren’t homemade. It’s close to lunch now, so I’ll eat.

Oh brownies, you are comfort in a world of intolerance, racism, and darkness. For a few hours, I melt away into the joy you give.

I don’t know why I was so embarrassed to post this poem online. Something silly. Maybe what’s that what we need as America moves forward, finally, for change. A little silliness so we can be calm to work through the problems. The violence wasn’t necessary. We just wanted to sit down and talk about issues. Peacefully.

Want to make them? Here is how: https://theunknownreillyblog.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/brownies-for-a-friend/

Seattle in June 2020

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It’s a rainy June day in Seattle.

Today the grey clouds and rain, a welcome change.

The peace roses outside my window in bloom.

Hues of yellow, cream, and pink.

A welcome break from the police violence.

All the protestors want is to be heard, peacefully.

Rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and gas warfare are unnecessary.

Please take off your armor.

Disarm your weapons, throw them to the ground.

March with us. 

I’m at home in my green walled room.

I’ve been too afraid of covid19 to march in protest.

I must manage my mental health.

While an excuse, it’s still giving in to fear.

Fear that if I’m exposed that I will put my older mother in danger of dying because she is part of the vulnerable group.

But that is what the civil rights movement, Black Lives Matter movement is all about.

It’s about showing us white folk the fear, violence, and injustice that Blue folk have been doing to them since America started. Blue uniforms with red on the mind.

Facebook posting isn’t enough.

You gotta show up too.

Voting will help… But that’s months away.

March in June.

In the name of love.

Song of the post, Pride by U2:

Song of the week: Pride (In the name of love) -Live- By U2.

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Don’t forget to wash your hands, clean your cell phone, and keep your physical distance from others to fight Covid-19! The facebook page is also what I use to post updates if late, like I was last week.

The last at bat

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How could you respond to a handwritten letter… with a text message?

Your throwing at my head, but I swing and miss as I fall backward into the ground to avoid your fastball.

Strike 1. Fastball. Swung and missed.

Surprise me with your relationship status, yet keep it vague?

I mutter to myself in the batter’s box that no answer is an answer.

I dug in my back foot in the dirt of the batter’s box as I have done every at bat in my life. Slide my left foot parallel to my back right foot. Wind my bat in a circle clockwise. I’m in my stance ready to hit. 

Love isn’t a game to me.

Strike two: A slider on the outer corner of the strike zone. 

You can’t fool me with your knuckleballs. 

I fouled both off in the upper decks. Would’ve been a home run if they’d only been 2 feet closer to the foul poles.

I’m not going to strike out again.

Everyone was fooled when I bunted strike two.

I knew I’d be out if I missed the sweet spot of the barrel of the bat.

I simply didn’t care anymore.

This is the kind of hitter I am. 

I’d rather it could be a productive out than not.

Strike 3: a fouled off fastball inside. Foul tip caught by the catcher.

That’s 3 outs! Game over!

I’d rather be out by you, and never face you again. 

I’d rather try someone else. 

I now know I need further seasoning in the minor leagues. 

Going 0-5 will do that.

I’m tired of this organization, and it’s tired of me.

I’m looking to start fresh with a new one. 

They thought I was worthy of a shot at the Major Leagues, and I never appreciated them for that. Though they drafted me, it was time for change. 

I still have a shot with someone else. My batting mechanics need work.

But I can still play defense.

I guess it was a long shot to hit a home run off of a Major League all star as a pinch hitter.

I’ll tip my cap to you if we ever meet again.

And that folks is the end of tonight’s game. 

It was a cold sunny February day.

The roof was closed in the stadium.

This has been your Announcer, Reilly Anderson.

That’ll be all from me,

Now for the post game show.

Click!

The end.

PS thoughts

I’m taking a different approach today since last week’s post was 2 days late. I’ll be busy today, going to a local protest march and errands, so I’ll be doing a couple small posts in the time between stuff.

If you enjoyed reading this, give it a like, comment, follow and share on Facebook, and subscribe to my email list!

Don’t forget to wash your hands, clean your cell phone, and keep your physical distance from others to fight Covid-19! The facebook page is also what I use to post updates if late, like I was last week.

Brownies for a friend

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Slice of delicious Brownies.

Photo from the brownie batch I made for myself earlier in the week.

Brownies

3 cups almond flour (if substituting for regular flour, use 2 cups)

4oz butter (or one stick)

1 cup cocoa powder (The quality of your cocoa powder makes the difference in how tasty your brownies are. I haven’t found a cocoa powder as good as this one yet… https://amzn.to/3gYL6a9

3 whole eggs (2 if using regular flour. Almond flour needs an extra egg in the recipe to have the same consistency)

1 cup chocolate chips

1.5 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Pinch cayenne pepper

Equipment needed: A whisk, a spatula, mixing bowls, glass 8×8 pyrex pan, a metal pan if using stove melting method.

Start by combing the almond flour, salt, cayenne, and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl.
Mix together with a whisk, or fork.
It needs to look close to this to be mixed properly. It’s okay if there are little chunks of cocoa powder. Mixing properly ensures that the brownies turn out.
Add the eggs,sugar, and vanilla extract into a bowl, and vigorously whip them with a fork or whisk. Unrelated, but also included in the pictured… A dirty cutting board from cooking dinner, and 70% isopropyl alcohol for cleaning.
This is the consistency you are looking for your egg mixture to be after whipping. It should run in a stream like this when lifted from your mixing instrument, in this case a fork.
Add the chocolate chips and butter into a pan on the stove on low heat. The goal is to emulsify the butter and chocolate into a new mixture. You can also do this in a microwave. If you done in a microwave, slowly heat in 20 second increments, stir, then melt another 20 seconds, stir, until it is the same consistency as this picture. Low and slow melting is the goal.
Pour the egg-sugar-vanilla mixture, and the chocolate-butter mix (also called a ganache!) into the center of the bowl of dry ingredients.
Mix the shit out of it with a spatula. Note: if using regular flour, you must be careful of over mixing as the gluten in flour changes the process. Almond flour doesn’t have gluten so you don’t have to worry about this.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, or 176 C. This is the batter partially mixed.
Your brownie batter should look like this when fully mixed. Before spooning it into the Glass Pyrex pan, spray the Pyrex with nonstick oil spray.
Spread the batter around the pan with your spatula. This is how it looks when ready. Bake in your oven for 45 minutes at 350F/176C
This is how they look, hot out of the oven. To tell if they are ready, poke the center with a toothpick or thermometer, and it it comes out clean, they’re ready. It’s okay if it has cracks like this. Once cooled the cracks should recede. Its important that you allow the brownies to cool for a minimum of 1 hour. Almond flour brownies are much more delicate hot and will fall apart if not given enough time to cool. Its hell when they smell so good, but patience is key.
Money shot at my computer desk of the finished brownies.

A look into America this week…

My neighbors tribute outside her house to George Floyd.

As American as….

    I first must acknowledge that I despise the current format for recipes rewarded by google in food blogs, so I’ll leave this entry after the recipe for those interested in reading it. Gimme the damn recipe, not your story about it. Put it after the recipe. So I will, even if I get less views. Be the change you want to see in the world. I apologize for being two days late on this post.

As a white man of privilege on the autistic spectrum, I only know a little bit about being an outsider, to be considered different from society. I’ll never know what it feels like to be a person of color in America. I’ve been absolutely ashamed and disgusted at America since 2016. Growing up, it seemed like things were finally getting better for everyone in this country. I thought the future was finally here in 2008 when our first black president, Barack Obama was elected. That change was finally on the way. Like many progressives on the left, I was disgusted at the outcome of 2016’s election with POTUS 45. I never thought things would be this bad. 

I’m 34, so the first election I could vote in was in 2004 with Bush v Kerry. I didn’t agree with George W Bush’s policies, but at least he cared about America. At Least he considered the voices of everyone, and reached across the aisle when things got tough. POTUS 45 never  has given a fuck about anything other than himself since 2016. Republicans took their masks off, and fell in line treating him like a king. This is a direct attack to the very soul of being American. Our country is built upon protesting the King of England, “No taxation without representation!” Where the hell is the representation? Seems rich old white men continue to rule the world, while everyone else is supposed to beg for scraps with the government. 

Image source: https://wyrz.org/governor-mike-pence-directs-flags-flown-half-staff-statewide-honor-law-enforcement-officers-killed-dallas-shootings/ Thanks Pence, we can use this image to honor those brutalized by police too!

    “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” – Neil Armstrong

This week I have been questioning how I can make an impact. How I can best use my voice to help those that are struggling. It felt like a weight too heavy to bear alone. So, after running into paths that led nowhere, I had to simplify things and recharge from this emotional ride this week. I felt like I had to be there for my family and friends. I didn’t know what to do, thoughts racing, feeling paranoid even going outside at night past curfew to smoke so I could even sleep… When every other self care method I used wasn’t working. I realized that I was overwhelmed by PTSD from this traumatic week. I needed to recharge. Making decisions while angry isn’t productive if you aren’t able to use your anger in a healthy way. 

Sometimes, the answer to what to do is right in front of you. My answer to all this is: Meditation, cooking, music, and anime. All of which are cultural symbols from across the world. I’ve learned from meditation that you can always close your eyes and focus on breathing to calm yourself. To clear your mind of  thoughts. It is our ultimate privilege as the living. Nothing made this more apparent than the murder of George Floyd. Unfortunately kneeing a person on the neck is common practice by police across America, as demonstrated as the protests amped up and police brutality escalated by the worst departments such as the Seattle Police Department.  Maybe all this suffering will finally lead to an overhaul of the American police system. November can’t come soon enough. While dumping the current POTUS will greatly help, even more important is to vote in your local elections. Change starts at the local level, and every vote counts. As broken as voting for president is, it’s still effective in enacting change at the local level. Vote!

Voting info below:

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