Under the Autumn Trees

I dag ble det en «man tager hva man haver»-dag på kjøk­ke­net — og det ble fak­tisk svært godt! Så jeg tenkte jeg skulle dele opp­skrif­ten her (den kan anta­ge­lig for­bed­res med litt bedre plan­leg­ging ).

Jeg hadde litt olje, sitron­saft og timian på et stykke laks og la det i en ild­fast form (fort­satt fros­sent). Der­etter hadde jeg grønn­sa­ker rundt (frosne grønn­sa­ker — gul­røtt­ter, brekk­bøn­ner og mini­mais) og blan­det over rømme. Jeg hadde i litt mango chut­ney og sam­bal oelek (chil­lipurrè), samt selv­sagt salt og pep­per. Til slutt rev jeg ost over. Det hele ble satt i ovnen på 180 gra­der i ca 30 minut­ter (siden fisken var frossen).

Nam, det ble skik­ke­lig godt!

I går så jeg Ava­tar for andre gang. Jeg hadde først sett den på KINOKINO i Sand­nes, da med et fore­drag om begre­pet ava­tar først. I går så jeg den i Stav­an­ger i 3D. Dess­verre fikk jeg ikke noe ut av 3D-effekten. Anta­ge­lig fordi jeg har skeive horn­hin­ner, er nær­synt og har diverse andre feil og mang­ler med øynene. Bil­det ble vel­dig uskarpt med bril­lene på, og jeg synes fak­tisk det ble kla­rere og skar­pere uten. Det visu­elle og gra­fiske impo­nerte meg jo meget, jeg har aldri sett så vir­ke­lig­hets­nære vese­ner i en film før. Om man har kunn­skap om CGI, så kan nok mange lage et vak­kert land­skap. Pro­ble­met kom­mer når man skal lage liv og få det til å virke tro­ver­dig. Det syn­tes jeg abso­lutt de fikk til her. Read the rest of this entry »

I det siste har jeg ikke hatt tid til annet enn å ta Vin­nie med på små­run­der i nabo­la­get og i den lille, lokale par­ken. Men på søn­dag fikk jeg ende­lig tatt en skik­ke­lig skogs­tur med henne, og det er fan­tas­tisk å se for­skjel­len når hun får lov til å løpe løs i store skogs­om­rå­der i ste­det for fem minut­ter løs her og der i par­ken.  Hele henne strå­ler der hun byk­ser og spret­ter, snu­ser og mar­ke­rer, fin­ner pin­ner og løper frem og til­bake som en ung­hund. (Ikke ofte hun hus­ker at hun er 12 år gam­mel). Masse bil­der under her –> Read the rest of this entry »

Nå er ikke dette en opp­skrifts­blogg, men jeg måtte bare ta med mine første veganske bur­gere også. Jeg har lest flere opp­skrif­ter på nett, og kom­bi­nerte dette med «man tager hva man haver»-prinsippet, og kom opp med følgende:

Til 2 personer

1 boks svarte bøn­ner
1/2 løk
1/2 rød pap­rika
1 fedd hvit­løk
chili
brød­smu­ler (jeg brukte et pølse­brød)
tomat­purè
krydder

Skyll bøn­nene og mos dem. Fin­hakk løk, hvit­løk, chili (ca. 3–4 rin­ger av en hel chili) og pap­rika, og ha alt i en bolle. Pølse­brø­det var­met jeg over svak varme for å gjøre det tør­rere og let­tere å smuldre, men det ser du selv etter hva du veler å bruke. Ha også brød­smu­lene  i bol­len. Krydre så etter smak — jeg brukte salt, pep­per, basi­li­kum og cayenne­pep­per. Rør alt sam­men og til­sett tomat­purè til det får en rik­tig kon­sis­tens. Sett så røren i kjøle­ska­pet ca 15 minut­ter. Form små, flate bur­gere med hen­dene og stek dem i olje på mid­dels varme. Av dette fikk jeg syv bur­gere. Jeg synes de ble svært saf­tige og smakfulle.

Veganske bur­gere basert på svarte bønner

I have to be honest to myself — and others. As of now, I am not able to live up to my own stan­dards, and it’s bet­ter to face it than to try put­ting up an untrue facade.

My goal these past few years have been to slowly and ste­ad­ily move away from the meat industry, not buy­ing any­thing from it — a long with egg and milk — unless it’s orga­nic. And per­haps even move away from even the orga­nic ani­mal pro­ducts eventually.

I stop­ped eating chicken per­haps five years ago. I stop­ped eating every other type of meat almost four years ago. Ear­lier this year I stop­ped eating non-organic eggs and milk (dairy pro­ducts) and every pro­duct that con­tai­ned non-organic egg and milk. I only made an excep­tion when I was visi­ting some­one and they served somet­hing con­tai­ning egg and/or milk, or if other cir­cums­tan­ces made it exce­e­dingly dif­fi­cult to overcome.

Unfor­tu­nately, those «cir­cums­tan­ces» increased until I reached the point yester­day where I just had to face that it sim­ply wasn’t true any lon­ger, the goals I thought I had reached.

I do not eat or buy non-organic meat

I do not eat or buy non-organic dairy pro­ducts or egg

I do not buy, and only very rar­ely eat, fish that weren’t caught in the wild

i do not buy, and only very rar­ely eat, pro­ducts con­tai­ning non-organic egg

How­e­ver, I do buy and eat pro­ducts con­tai­ning non-organic dairy pro­ducts, and I do it more often than I can excuse. For some this might make eve­rything I stand for regar­ding ani­mal wel­fare meaning­less and hypocri­ti­cal. For some it might be a so small a detail that they don’t under­stand why I make a fuss of it at all.  To me, it is a dis­ap­point­ment that I have taken one step back­wards, but oddly enough also a relief to have admit­ted to where I stand instead of excu­sing it all as «exceptions».

I am not sure where I am going to go from here. I am cer­tainly not going to con­ti­nue going back­wards, and I have no plans what­so­e­ver to start eating non-organic meat or egg in the fore­se­ea­ble future. But I haven’t yet deci­ded for myself how big an issue this is. What some see as being con­sis­tent, other see as being a fana­tic. So some might find this no big deal at all, and per­haps see being more «relaxed» about it as posi­tive, while other will see the rest of what I am doing as rat­her pat­he­tic in the light of my non-consistency.

So this is where I am at now. I am not yet sure what my next step will be, only that there will be a next step.

I don’t really under­stand the logic behind the phrase «get a life!». Who is to decide what con­sti­tu­tes a «life»?  If some­one spends two hours pain­ting their mina­tu­res, play­ing a game/role play­ing game or fidd­ling with their blog/homepage, some people might roll their eyes and say «get a life!» while spen­ding two hours watch­ing tv or a movie is never sub­jected to the same ridicule.

One can even watch a movie and con­clude that one doesn’t like it, or admit that one sees tv wit­hout really enjoy­ing what’s on, and no one will tell them to get a life. But people who hone­stly enjoy and have a lof of fun doing other hobbies (minia­tu­res, role play­ing games, com­pu­ter pro­gram­ming, etc) are told that they don’t have a life, despite enjoy­ing what they do.

Is it all just due to some old pre­ju­dice? Why is watch­ing game shows an accep­ted form of enter­tain­ment and spen­ding of your life while other forms of enter­tai­ment are not?

I find it impor­tant to take respon­s­i­bi­lity for ones actions — or lack of such — even when that means shy­ing away from all the «shoud-do’s». Some­ti­mes, when I talk about not eating meat from the meat industry, I get the respo­nes such as: «Oh, I could never do that!» or «I could never manage wit­hout my Chris­t­mas tur­key!». Say­ing «I could not» takes away the per­so­nal respon­s­i­bi­lity, because if somet­hing is impos­sible to you, it’s not your fault, right?

To say «I choose to eat meat» is fair enough. That’s being honest. My point here is not that eve­ryone should choose to not eat meat, but that people are aware that it actually is a choice — a choice you and I make every time we go into the grocey store and decide whether we are buy­ing the chicken or not.

The same goes for mostly eve­rything else in life, as I see it. Of course, we all have our boun­da­ries, whether they be phy­si­cal or men­tal. Some bound­ries are things we really can’t do any­thing about, and some boun­da­ries can be pushed over time. And it is ok to not push them — as long as eve­ryone is aware that we choose not to do so.

This is a rat­her deman­ding way of living, as that means that eve­rything I do — or don’t do — is accor­ding to my own choice, and I can’t blame that on anyone else than myself.

Some­ti­mes I make choi­ces that some of my fri­ends and family might not under­stand - or might not even like. Sometimes I might even do
somet­hing that is right for me and which might make some­one dis­like me or my actions.

Should that make me not do it? If my actions can lead to an uncom­for­table
confrontation, should that be the reason alone for not doing it?

Doing what’s easy and com­for­table for the people that sur­round you is safe. It’s
scary to ques­tion that, and to find out that what is right for me
and the direction I am heading might lead me to break with those safety standards.

People might dis­agree with me, or even dislike me. And that is ok.