Boeuf Bourguinon

Today marks the 47th anniversary of the premier of Julia Childs' "The French Chef."  I point it out because we had a curious little coincidence last night.
As one can tell by my blog, besides offering a different viewpoint on various topics, I also like to share the results of some recipes I attempt.  In this endeavor, my mother has been coming over about once a week and we have determined to cook the "most complex thing" we can think of.  This is where my christmas present, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," comes in.
Last night, as Julia's recipe for Beef Bourguinon was in the oven, my mother read me something from a magazine I've recently been receiving free on my front porch about once a month.  The magazine is MIX & it is about "Portland's food and drink scene."  Anyway, she just happened to pick up the mag and just happened to read that TODAY (Feb 11) is the anniversary of Julia's revered program; and to celebrate, they encouraged everyone to make Julia's famous beef recipe (as popularized in the movie "Julie and Julia")!
We found it quite odd, coincidental and entertaining that we JUST HAPPENED to have already had that dish cooking on the eve of the show's anniversary.  Cool.
And as for the dish itself?  Besides being a savory sensory experience, it was fun and educational too. Oh, and of course it tasted fabulous!
The smells wafting through the house were utterly amazing.  To sniff the air as each procedure's result released its own wonderful aroma, co-mingled with the previous and following step... it was an odiferous orgasm of the finer things.  I only wish words could convey smells.
We also learned some very cool things (once again) by following Julia's book.
-- We have been "crowding our mushrooms" all our lives.  Anyone who likes sauteed shrooms might benefit from this tidbit.  If one puts too many mushrooms in the pan, they end up sitting in their own liquid and they end up boiling or steaming each other.  Cook less mushrooms at one time or use a bigger pan.  (For example, it took me 3 batches to do 1 lb of quartered mushrooms with a 10-inch skillet-- although I probably could've done it in 2).
--Also, combine 1Tb oil to 2 Tb butter over high heat and add the shrooms when the butter "just stops foaming."  It is then hot enough to cook them properly.
--  The shrooms will immediately soak up the fat (butter/oil) as you keep tossing them.  Soon they will release the fat again and start to brown.  This is what you never see if you sautee too many shrooms at once or don't use the correct heat.
-- Don't salt shrooms until just before being served.  I assume it's because, like a slug, they will shrivel and release their moisture in the cooking process.
(For my little secret of sauteed mushroom seasoning: make the oil garlic infused oil-- that's how I store my garlic cloves in the fridge.  Peel 'em, put 'em in a jar- usually a smaller empty olive jar- and fill with canola or vegetable oil.  It keeps the garlic & infuses oil for ready use.  Just add more oil whenever you use some.  Back to seasoning shrooms: you can add a few finely sliced shallots (or onion) just before the shrooms in the pan, and just before the shrooms are browned & done add a couple splashes of red wine vinegar + a dash of Tabasco.  Salt and pepper just before serving. YUM!)

Anway, the whole thing turned out perfectly.  I wish the above photo could ooze odor. Oh-- you have no idea!

Comment Comments

There was a comment from my last posting on Intelligent Design (ID) & the movie "Expelled" that I thought deserved a reply.  I'm not sure how many people actually read the comments, but they can add flavor to the main course sometimes... as in this case.
Too bad I can't actually reach "flippertie" to reply since the hyperlink she left leads me to the blog she already suggested I check out-- which I did.
I also have to say, even though we apparently disagree, that I really appreciate her even, respectful tone-- which is something I don't tend to see in most atheistic darwinists.
Anyway, here is her comment and my reply:

flippertie said...

dont believe everything you see in the movies - especially propoganda pieces like this. Dawkins does not believe aliens (or god) started life on earth. He was responding to a very specific 'science fiction' type scenario put to him by Ben Stein. The movie producers then cut and edited the interview to make it seem like those were his views. For Dawkins side of the story, and the way he and others were lied to and tricked into taking part in the movie you could google "Dawkins Expelled Crossroads Ben Stein" or look up the website ExpelledExposed.com

Troy said...

Dear flippertie: In having productive discourse, there must be give and take. As such, I will concede a few unarguable things, hoping you are willing to do the same (rather than staunchly entrenching oneself in a position that cannot be reasonably or rationally defended-- thereby losing all credibility). That said, & having visited your suggested sites, I concede:
-- Although there are two sides to every story, there may have been "false pretenses" by the film-makers in setting up interviews with scientists they KNEW would disagree with them. However, have you considered that had the producers laid claim to who they were and what they were doing, they would NEVER have been granted ANY interview with the opposing personalities? ...and THUS, would actually have ADDED EVIDENCE to the point that there is a stonewalling & ignoring of voices who would discuss ID? And IF the producers had been granted interviews as "adversaries", would the darwinist scientists have been as CANDID as they were? They would not have been at all! And they are proving it by their offended reactions.
Trying to claim moral high ground here while basically admitting that their answers might have been different if they knew who they were talking to (ie, their OWN duplicity) is ludicrous.
-- Editing does happen in any movie. I read Dawkins' blog recall of the interview & his quote. The point of his UNCUT quote-- which is rife with "I suppose", "probably", "perhaps", "possibly", "possibility", "might" & "could" (in other words, clearly stating personal detachment from the theory yet ALLOWING FOR IT)-- is that he believes aliens seeding life on earth is POSSIBLE (however 'improbable', as his blog later claims he meant)... "an INTRIGUING possibility" no less! Yet the idea of God is IMPOSSIBLE as he clearly states over and over and over again. No matter how Dawkins spins it, his logic allows for aliens & disallows for God. Period. No one can rationally argue that point based on his own quotes.
-- Whether "Expelled" had another working (or 'sinisterly veiled, false') title when pitched to the interviewees or not is pointless. Articles, books, movies, documentaries, taste tests, blind studies, etc. do it ALL THE TIME. Foreknowledge skews the results. Scientists especially know this.
And actually, with all Dawkins et al's whining, it frankly strengthens one of the movie's points that said scientists say quite different things about their theories when caught off guard!!!

Intelligent Design

Last night my wife and I watched the Ben Stein documentary "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." It has been out for a couple years now, but we finally just got around to watching it and and it was fascinating!
In the video, Ben (the actor/comedian made famous by his 80's role as a teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" saying: "Bueller? Anyone? Anyone??") investigates the topic of "Intelligent Design" (which may not be defined as you think it is) and how the scientific community is basically showing itself closed to opposing theories of Darwinism-- contrary to what science is supposed to be! In interview after interview, Stein illuminates well-known (to scientists) unbridgeable gaps in Darwinian theory (which is nonetheless still propagated as hard fact), how there is a concerted effort to rid the scientific community of all credible dissent, and how such a disservice to the very INTENT & definition of science (ie, advancement of an ideal with intentional disregard of counter-evidence) has very dark and historically dangerous eventualities (Yes, I said "eventualities" and not "possibilities").
I suppose I have garnered an interest in the topic since an atheist friend of mine on Facebook has been (seemingly) baiting me and other God-believers with his dogmatic & pompously denigrating status updates every so often. I appreciate a give and take exchange of ideas immensely; and it bothers me to the extreme to experience someone who demonstrates such an obvious degree of closed-mindedness... ESPECIALLY when they purportedly pride themselves on being SO open-minded & intelligent! So I take up the gauntlet whenever it is thrown down.
One of my fiend's (Freudian slip? I meant, "fRiend's") gurus-- and the neo-atheist/darwinists do have the dogmatic fervor equal to or surpassing any religious leader-- is the current poster child for the advancement of atheism, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins has all the bluster and arrogance that make him a perfect fit in today's sound-bite media forum. He refers to religious people as "psychotic" and portrays anyone who dares challenge the veracity of strict darwinism as "stupid & uneducated."
To Mr. Dawkins I would like to introduce David Berlinski. Berlinski-- who orates in English & French & reads in German-- is a post-doctorate in mathematics, molecular biology and philosophy, as well as having taught at many prestigious universities & written numerous books on analytical topics that would numb the mind. It is amazing to watch an interview with him as Ben Stein asks him to compare Darwin's understanding of the complexity of the single cell life form that had to spontaneously burst into life ("if that were a Buick") to how molecular biologists understand single cell mechanisms today (it would be "a universe").
In other words, Darwin did not understand how incredibly, minutely complex even ONE SINGLE CELL is. Not even remotely.
What has happened since Darwin's time is that science has advanced enough to discover that a single cell is not the "smallest/simplest" form of life as Darwin & his contemporaries thought. They understood "one cell" to be just that: ONE cell. Simple. But now we know about DNA, RNA, the double helix, genes, ribosomes, chromosomes, mitochondria, proteins, amino acids, etc, etc. All these things exist WITHIN a single cell. It is these things that have necessary prerequisites to exist: over 250 different proteins, for one example. So, certain amino acids (which came from somewhere themselves) had to spontaneously order themselves EXACTLY CORRECTLY in order to form ONE protein... and then it had to happen 250 times over again to complete each OTHER required protein... & each preceding protein had to somehow stay viable until the other 250 were completed... & they had to happen in the same primordial puddle or find each other in the earth's pre-continental ocean.... all to simply have the BASICS for the POSSIBILITY of life! What you get is the mathematical equivalent of ZERO percent chance of science's best explanation of being true.
An opposing theory is of course "Intelligent Design" whereby the things required for even the simplest life cell are SO complex and specified, that even on a molecular level these things have the indicators of an "intelligent blueprint." But only idiots believe that, right? Stein spends no little time documenting many who have lost their jobs or been ostracized from the scientific community for even MENTIONING "I.D."
The BEST, best, BEEESSSSTTTT part of the movie was when Stein sat down with Dawkins and had an eye-opening discussion, a part of it which I will quote here:

Stein: "[What is] the possibility there that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in Darwinian Evolution?"

Dawkins: "Well, it could come about in the following way: it could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved by probably some kind of Darwinian means to a very, very high level of technology and designed a form of life that they seeded onto, perhaps, this planet. Now that is a possibility; and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it's possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry/molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer."

Stein (as narrator): "WAIT A SECOND! *Richard Dawkins* thought Intelligent Design might be a legitimate pursuit?"

Dawkins: "And that designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe; but that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable-- or ultimately explicable-- process. It couldn't have just 'jumped' into existence spontaneously. That's the point."

That tete-a-tete was worth the price of rental alone for me. The world's premier atheist spokesman basically says that intelligent design IS an "intriguing possibility" (in scientific terms, a "theory"). BUT-- and it's a BIG but-- his 'intelligence' is ALIEN intelligence?!? REALLY?!?!?
This guy who ruthlessly mocks anyone espousing faith in God thinks that ALIENS "seeding" life on earth is a viable and "intriguing possibility"?? And he dares call me "nuts"??!
OH!  And let's not forget to mention that Dawkins also says that something cannot just spontaneously jump into existence.  What?  Like a single celled organism in a pool of amino/protein ooze for instance?

But thanks to Dawkins for also making my other point: atheists/darwinists HAVE to have ANY other theory besides God. God CAN'T be the answer (because you can't "prove" him). There HAS to be SOME OTHER 'natural explanation'-- no matter how illogical. "NOT God!!!! But possibly aliens."
And the part that Dawkins and others of his ilk do not understand: the SUPERNATURAL defies natural explanation! OF COURSE you don't get it, man!  It is BEYOND you!! But that doesn't mean we shouldn't investigate, theorize, research, and strive to understand to learn more about this amazing place created for us!
There is so much more to say on this topic with all its implications... But I think that's enough for our minds to munch on right now. I know I'm jello.
Suffice it to say: Watch this video!