In work on recent posts and posts scheduled for release in the near future, I am finding many, many old, forgotten posts that actually remain current.
Newer readers aren’t likely to have seen these, however, nor are they likely to see them — unless I take ACTION!
So, I’m launching “Recycling Wednesdays.” Every Wednesday, I’ll re-post some “oldie but goodie.”
That’s all, folks.
talk radio, talk show host, on air talent, the homeless blogger
I have been asked to share my vast wisdom on the subject of yeast breads (chometz).
I’m not a big fan of lots of different recipes for bread. My philosophy is to find one basic recipe and then do variations on it: experiment with different ratios; stir in a cup of raisins or nuts or grated cheese; make rolls, using cinnamon, sugar and butter, or jelly, or peanut butter and jelly; use milk or evaporated milk or even fruit juice or cream instead of water; and so on.
I’ve forgotten the basic recipe I used before becoming homeless. One could start with this one, and experiment with different ratios until one settles on one one likes.
½ cup butter, melted but not hot
1 cup warm water
¼ cup sugar
1 large egg
1 package commercial yeast
flour: I don’t know how much. Have at least four cups available.
This is destined to produce a small loaf. You can increase amounts later.
Put all the ingredients but flour in a bowl and mix well. Begin stirring in flour, a little at a time, until the dough is firm enough to knead. (Note: There is not, and never will be, an exact amount of flour to use, as the right amount on any given day will depend on the humidity in the room, etc.)
Dust a cutting board or tabletop with flour; turn the dough out onto this, and knead. Sprinkle flour on the wet or sticky spots as needed. Kneading is done when the dough has become springy and elastic.
Put the dough into a greased bowl. Coat the surface with vegetable oil to keep it from drying out. Cover with a cloth, and put in a warm place to rise.
When it has doubled (about two hours), punch it down. At this point, you’ll form it into any special shapes you want, or make the jelly roll, etc. Put it in or on a greased baking pan, cover with cloth, and put up to rise for another two hours.
Bake at 325⁰ for as long as necessary, which will depend on the size and shape of what you’ve made. It’s done when it sounds hollow if you tap on it.
Using store-bought yeast, one can start a batch at noon and take it hot from the oven at supper; in which case the whole will probably be consumed that night.
Clean all surfaces and tools a.s.a.p. after use. Once the traces of dough begin to harden, they’re much harder to clean.
Be forewarned: you WILL “waste” flour; it’s inevitable. You WILL make a mess; it’s inevitable. Determine from the get-go to regard cleanup as fun rather than as a chore.
The biggest difference between sourdough and other bread is that sourdough takes much longer to rise. If I start a batch this morning, I will anticipate baking it tomorrow night.
To make sourdough starter: half fill a small jar with flour, and stir water in until it becomes a paste. Cover loosely and put in a warm place, like the kitchen window. After 2-3 days the wild yeasts already in the flour will have become active, and it will be bublly. Now it’s ready to use.
You can keep it in the cupboard, loosely covered, indefinitely and it won’t go bad. Every day, discard 1 tbsp. of what you’ve got — our use that much to start a batch of bread — and stir in as much new flour to replace it. Thus you’ll keep the sourdough starter fresh and active.
How much water to use is up to you. The thicker the starter is, the less sour your bread will be; the thinner, the more sour.
(1) All activities associated with breadmaking provide an ideal occasion for presence or mindfulness meditation: one focuses one’s attention wholly on the activity at hand, giving oneself completely to the experience.
(2) It’s a good time to maintain an attitude of gratitude. Give thanks to God for providing the materials. Thank God for, and pray for, the farmers who produced it. Thank yeast (or “Yeast”) and wheat (“Wheat”), who have been staunch friends to our species for thousands of years. Pray that your taxes, tithes and activities may so create shalom as to make bread more accessible to the hungry. Praise God that you can so pray.
(3) Love for “the least of these.” I’ve always made it my business to actually love the yeast. These tiny fun guys (fungis) are actually right to stand tall and take pride in themselves. No less than the Blues Brothers, they are “on a mission from God,” to destroy complex starches and create simple sugars (cf. Jeremiah 1:10); to consume those sugars and produce ethanol (:)) and carbon dioxide.
(4) The Parable of the Yeast —
Matthew 13:33: He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and [hid in] three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.”
— illustrates what happens when one begins to establish presence. A little harmony and peace facilitates greater harmony and peace, and one’s motivations become increasingly coherent, until one’s whole being is transformed.
Why shouldn’t I dream about these things?
Previous pertinent posts:
Jesus’ outrageous parables
What a homeless man dreams of
(Reblogged 02/02/17.)
on air talent, radio talk show, talk show host, the homeless blogger
(Originally published 09/28/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
Prayer for myself often takes the form of imagining myself climbing up a ladder out of a pit, the pit being my current circumstances of poverty and homelessness. Getting out at the top represents a return to the normal life of the American mainstream. I didn’t start with a ladder in there, but I decided to add one to symbolize the various structures and tools that others have made available to me — and eliminate the possibility of clawing at loose earth.
Here begins a list of “rungs” on the ladder that I’ve become aware I need to “overcome.” Each one takes effort, exertion, to get over. I will update this list from time to time as I learn of others.
| 1. | Fear of the unknown. See From my diary: Learning to pray. |
| 2. | Jealousy of others who seem to be prospering more quickly than I am. Details here. |
| 3. | Times of despair. I guess, from time to time, they’ll happen. Details here. |
| 4. | Incidents of utter selfishness. Details here. |
| 5. | Moments of unusual hardship and sacrifice. Details here. |
| 6. | Cut loose the losers. Details here. |
| 7. | Smoking. See posts tagged “Smoking”. |
on air talent, talk show host, talk radio, the homeless blogger
(Originally published 09/28/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
(Saying “part 1” just in case. There may or may not be a part 2, etc., in the future.)
My patronage has changed, and as a result I must quit smoking. As of 09/27/13, I have not managed this very well. As a result, I’m now in a terrific financial bind.
Forget about not having any more money for smokes; in this coming week, for financial reasons, I may have to spend several nights at a much less desirable shelter; where I don’t want to use the bathroom, haven’t figured out how to shower, and clean clothes aren’t available every day. Then there are the issues of getting prescriptions filled and buying disposable underwear, of which I’m almost out.
Motivation doesn’t matter when one’s facing necessity. However, I have had ample reasons for motivation:
Continue reading * Smoking, part 1
(Originally published 08/14/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
Prayer for myself often takes the form of imagining myself climbing up a ladder out of a pit, the pit being my current circumstances of poverty and homelessness. Getting out at the top represents a return to the normal life of the American mainstream. I didn’t start with a ladder in there, but I decided to add one to symbolize the various structures and tools that others have made available to me — and eliminate the possibility of clawing at loose earth.
Here begins a list of “rungs” on the ladder that I’ve become aware I need to “overcome.” Each one takes effort, exertion, to get over. I will update this list from time to time as I learn of others.
| 1. | Fear of the unknown. See From my diary: Learning to pray. |
| 2. | Jealousy of others who seem to be prospering more quickly than I am. Details here. |
| 3. | Times of despair. I guess, from time to time, they’ll happen. Details here. |
| 4. | Incidents of utter selfishness. Details here. |
| 5. | Moments of unusual hardship and sacrifice. Details here. |
| 6. | Cut loose the losers. Continue reading o Jacob’s Ladder 08/14/13 |
(Originally published 07/01/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
One of my buds came into McDonald’s this morning looking for me. I’d not seen him in about a week. He’s in really good shape today, but it turns out that, as I’d supposed, he’d been on a bender.
We went out front to smoke and talk, and the time came for him to get on his way. I expected him to turn to go back upstairs to get his stuff. He did not. “Where’s your stuff?” I asked.
He’d lost it. Again. Everything. Kept only his I.D. and Independence card. Somewhere, sometime, while blacked out, he’d got up and left wherever he’d been, leaving behind all his belongings in a forgotten place.
In my immediately last prior post, “Me, me, me,” I said:
It’s not that I despised material possessions; I did not value them nearly as much as I (overwhelmingly) valued relationships. What I did despise was the desire for material possessions. As a result, now I have none.
Relationships are what I do have. They are my treasures in heaven.
(Reblogged 01/19/17.)
on air talent, talk show host, radio talk show, the homeless blogger
(Originally published 06/08/13 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
In recent days, I’ve spent much time trying to sort out my understandings of Good and Evil, order and chaos, darkness and light. I read a lot about Zoroastrianism, wanting to be sure my thinking isn’t “dualist” like that religion. On 06/11/13, I wrote:
Like Manichaeism, a truly false religion, Zoroastrianism emphasizes a conflict between Good and Evil, which is absent from my thought. I prefer to think of something more like Yin/Yang.
Yin and Yang are both necessary, and alternate but don’t necessarily conflict. Yet the traditional concept of them also errs, trying to connect that same dichotomy to almost every other one imaginable:
| hot and cold | life and death |
| female and male | young and old |
| too much and too little | north and south (magnetic) |
| stability and change | negative and positive (electrical) |
| past and future | truth and error |
| large and small | night and day |
| wet and dry | creation and destruction |
| grace and works | mercy and justice |
I wrote 06/12/13:
So, needy people fail to make the transition from infantile to post-infantile behavior. Regardless of worldview, and contrary to the notion that self-love is subconscious, Christianity’s teachings would tend to facilitate that transition; people can consciously learn right conduct.
Transition is a key concept. One could ask if Good and Evil don’t just correspond to stability and change; Vishnu and Siva. But the nutrients in my bloodstream are destroyed and converted into wastes as I use them. Fire releases light and heat, but destroys that which it consumes; and, in most cases, produces wastes.
Many of these dichotomies are independent, and many — as with fire — involve ambiguities and shades of gray.
(Reblogged 01/05/17.)
on air talent, talk show host, radio talk show, the homeless blogger
At work on Tuesday 05/08/12, the radio station they had on the PA played Genesis’ “Giving it all away.”
People see things different ways given their personal circumstances.
I know nothing about Phil Collins personally. But in all likelihood, were he to “give it all away” as he understands it, he would probably have a lot left.
Not I.
All I own is the contents of two heavy bags. Giving it all away would be a simple gesture. And afterwards, I would have nothing.
———— ♦ ————
That afternoon, as usual, as soon as I got to my bunk I sat down and got out my medications for the evening. The guy assigned to the bunk above me was a newcomer, real clean-cut, a Jake Pavelka lookalike.
“Got any goodies in those pill bottles?” he asked.
“No,” I answered.
“It’d been cooler if you’d said yes,” he said.
As usual, I put my meds back in my zipper bag when I finished, and, as usual, I locked it.
Because of guys like him.
(Originally published 05/09/12 at Trojan Horse Productions. Reblogged 12/29/16, 09/14/17.)
talk show host, on air talent, radio talk show, the homeless blogger
(Originally published 08/11/12 at Trojan Horse Productions.)
If you go into a men’s room and see that someone’s taken his backpack and perhaps suitcase with him into the stall, you can conclude two things: (1) He’s homeless. (2) In his world, squalor is so intense he can’t leave his bags anywhere, or things will be stolen.
All kinds of people steal from the homeless.
They’ll steal your socks. It may only be a pair of socks, but if it’s your only pair of socks, it really hurts.
I stood smoking outside Dunkin’ Donuts and this man came up to talk. He was looking pretty rough. Walked on crutches, and one bare foot. He told me he’d spent the night outside, and while he slept, someone stole one shoe.
One of the few shreds of dignity left to me is that I don’t have to take my bags with me into the bathroom stall. At Dunkin’ Donuts or Lenny’s or the library, I leave my bags in a certain place and they’re all still there when I return. At the shelter, I stash my bags under the bunk, and no one disturbs them. I do lock the bag that has my phone, my cash and my prescriptions (link).
———— ♦ ————
I knew I was likely to become homeless months before it actually happened. I had contacts with the City’s Office of Homeless Services and obtained a list of shelters Continue reading * Must I work for Rent-a-Bum?
(Below appears a tract I passed out with the Hallowe’en candy in 2007. “Chaos overwhelms the poor” describes that neighborhood.)
Hallowe’en is the night before a Christian holiday. The name of the holiday is “All Saints’ Day.” Years ago, they called it “All Hallows’ Day,” and the night before, “All Hallows’ Evening.”
Trick or treat, jack o’ lanterns and all the stuff with ghosts, come instead from a pagan holiday called Samhein. These customs became attached to Hallowe’en, but are not really part of it. Hallowe’en comes on October 31 every year. Samhein comes on the first full moon after September 21, which can be any day between September 22 and October 19.
A jack o’ lantern is a pumpkin with the insides carved out, and a candle or other light inside. What about the light inside of you?
It was to people just like you, that Jesus said these words:
You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
These words aren’t about believing anything. They’re not about going to heaven after you die. They are instead about what you are, here and now, and what you do, here and now.
On “All Saints’ Day,” the church remembers all those Christians who have gone before, who worked so hard to be faithful to what Jesus taught. The “communion of saints,” mentioned in the Creeds, means these souls are still available today, to support those who seek to continue in the same work they did. And it is work. Minimum requirements for anyone who wants to be about these things, include these four:
Your home, your family, the ‘hood all need your light and your good works.
Don’t wait for anything to change, before you will begin.
Do it now.
Start today.
(c) 2013 William Tell
(Reblogged 10/27/16.)
talk show host, on air talent, radio talk show, the homeless blogger
The Homeless Blogger 