Category: Uncategorized

Homemade Seitan

Homemade Seitan recipe If you’re in the same boat as I am, where you don’t really eat a lot of meat at home, but when you cook something like a stir-fry, you like to have meat-like lumps of protein. But you also don’t like to buy heavily processed meat substitutes. Well, you’ll like this recipe. It’s really easy to make. The vital wheat gluten flour and nutritional yeast flakes can be tough to find. I got mine from iHerb.com, and you can get them from Amazon, too. And you must bear in mind that this stuff looks kind of disgusting as it’s cooking – you’re basically putting a doughy blob into water and simmering it for an hour. It looks like something you’d put out at an elementary school Halloween party, telling kids it’s brains. The recipe makes a lot. It instructs you to cut the dough into three pieces before you simmer it, and each one ends up being a pretty good-sized hunk of meat substitute. I made stir-fry with one chunk, and we ate it last night, and both have lunch for today. The other two thirds are still in the fridge. And it’s quite good. I’d heard that some vegetarians/vegans won’t eat seitan because it’s too much like meat. I did not have that reaction to it. It’s probably a little more meat-like than typical store-bought extra-firm tofu (I think I have more hyphenated compound words in this post than anything I’ve ever written), but you aren’t going to sneak this in to a dish and fool meat-eaters into thinking it’s steak. According to the comments on the recipe, it sounds like you can do a lot of tweaking the recipe for different dishes. Since the seitan soaks up a lot of the broth in which it simmers, I imagine that you could play around with the flavor a lot. And I’m sure we’ll try.

More Orioles crap

Marred with a possible drug suspension, Orioles release Gibbons

Gibbons is owed $5.7 million this year from the Orioles and $6.2 million for 2009.

That must be kind of depressing for Jay Gibbons. The Orioles have told him they’d rather just throw away $11 million than have him on their team. I’m not terribly sad to see him go. Even though his picture in MLB 2005 for the Gamecube looks just like my brother’s friend Jay, he’s only managed 500 at bats in a season once. His OPS+ last year was 62. Since 100 is average, it follows that 62 is bad. He’s 30, so his durability is unlikely to improve. Still, he was a career Oriole – all his major league at bats are for Baltimore. And you hate to see the guy just dumped so unceremoniously. Oh, well. I’ll write about something non-baseball related tomorrow.

Please, just get this over with

The Official Site of The Baltimore Orioles: News: Roberts seeks closure on trade front

“I don’t know what the resolution is — I haven’t heard anything except what somebody told me,” Roberts said Thursday. “[Andy and I] talked for two minutes here yesterday. ‘Highly unlikely’ doesn’t seem like a resolution to me.”

I still think this trade is going to happen. And quotes from Roberts, obviously unhappy that it’s not resolved, reinforce my point that he’s not going to be on top of his game. No one wants to be strung along, not knowing what city he’s going to be in next week. At this point, it’s ridiculous not to trade him. Just make the deal already. I think it sucks if he leaves this way, but I don’t see how you can salvage much of anything at this point. The whole situation is soured.

Now that they’ve said that . . .

The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Roberts deal appears unlikely

Baltimore manager Dave Trembley has consistently said that he can’t imagine his batting order without Roberts, a switch-hitting fixture at the top of the lineup. However, he’s also said that he’ll do whatever he needs to do.

Now that they’ve said that Baltimore is unlikely to trade Brian Roberts, I expect a trade to come through in the next day or two. I mean, why wouldn’t the Orioles get rid of a switch-hitting second baseman who stole 50 bases last year with a 112 OPS+ and happens to be one of the biggest fan favorites on the team? I mean, everyone in the league gets 42 doubles out of their second baseman, right? I know, it makes sense to deal him if you’re rebuilding. And if the Orioles aren’t rebuilding, then they’re completely insane. I just don’t see his value going up as the season progresses. The team is a mess, so I don’t expect a career year out of him. The Orioles should probably take whatever the best offer is right now and call it a day.

You want to see something scary?

Go to Google and type in “mccain nude” without the quotes. You’ll see that, as of today, this is the very first hit. You may ask how I know this. No, I was not searching for nude pictures of John McCain, or of anyone else. But someone else may have been, because someone found my site with that Google search. I’m only sixth when you search for “mccain hates bears” without the quotes, but first if you include them. I’m first for “nude mccain hates bears”. Anyway, none of this is really that important, but it’s amusing.

I’m so glad baseball is back.

Even if it’s just Oakland playing the f’ing Red Sox in Japan, I’m so happy that the baseball season has started again. Just looking at box scores, seeing that Daric Barton walked twice more, bringing his OBP to .444 despite not getting a hit yet, and seeing Rich Harden make the Sox look silly, striking out nine in six innings, it just brings a smile to my face. Never mind that the Orioles aren’t expected to win even 70 games this year. I’m not going to worry about that right now. Instead, I’ll point and laugh at Jason Varitek, 0-8 with six Ks so far. And who knows – maybe the Orioles will flash back to 1989 and unexpectedly make the playoffs. I can’t imagine Jeff Ballard is too busy these days . . . Edit: Article here mentioning Barton as an AL Rookie of the Year candidate.

Barton has never hit up to corner-infielder standards — though he’s still young enough to develop the power — but he has never not hit, topping .300 everywhere he has been. He is a remarkably disciplined hitter at a young age — his Minor League totals show 303 walks versus 255 strikeouts.

I like this kid more and more. He’d probably be the poster boy for Moneyball II – What Can Billy Beane Get for Huston Street?

Complaint about merchandise that has never been sent

I have come down to the place of complaining about the Astorclub.com. I purchased a fire place insert from this company back in January. They were paid. The money has been taken from my account. I have never received the merchendise. I have tried to call them. Each time they are closed, or will not be open until Monday. They are never open. I have emailed them and they never return their email. I want to warn people to never shop with the AstorClub for anything. They will take your money and you will not receive what you have ordered. Thank you for listening. I just want to keep someone else from loosing money to this company. Thanks, Wayneb

I am literally floored by this stunning news flash

In Obama’s New Message, Some Foes See Old Liberalism – washingtonpost.com

But as Obama heads into the final presidential primaries, Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have already started to brand him a standard-order left-winger, “a down-the-line liberal,” as McCain strategist Charles R. Black Jr. put it, in a long line of Democratic White House hopefuls.

OMG, I am totally in shock. The Washington Post is breaking the staggering, unforeseen, and totally unbelievable news that Barack Obama is a liberal! Tomorrow, they plan to announce that water is wet, the sky is blue, and George W. Bush is a miserable excuse for a President. Does this come as news to anyone? Really? And then the Clinton camp is jumping on the bandwagon and saying he’s too liberal. That’s like the Yankees complaining that the Red Sox spend too much money on player salaries. I can’t speak for all of the Obama supporters, but I can speak for me. I am not supporting Obama because of where he falls on the liberal/conservative spectrum. I often don’t agree with him on policy, especially fiscal policy, because I think he’s too liberal. I support Obama because I like where he is on the reasonable/unreasonable spectrum. I like where he is on the trustworthy/untrustworthy spectrum. I like where he is on the “I can see this person as the leader of my country”/George W. Bush spectrum. I think Obama understands that his policy isn’t always what’s right for America, and that sometimes, you have to listen to the other side and make some major concessions. I think if you can’t concede that there are times when liberal view is the right one, and times when the conservative view is the right one, then you aren’t being honest with yourself. More than either of the other candidates, I think Obama understands this, too. When Obama is President, I believe he will push for policy that I think is a bad idea. He will probably implement some policy that I think is a bad idea. But that’s okay. I think he will be a good President, and I certainly think he will be a better President than Clinton or McCain.

Why the save is a stupid stat

So, Oakland and Boston opened the baseball season with a game in Japan at what is, in the US, a ridiculous hour. The ten inning game just finished around 930AM Eastern. It gave us a good look at why the save is a ridiculous stat that tells nothing about the usefulness of a pitcher. Sure, good closers get a lot of saves. But that doesn’t make it a good measure of the quality of the closer. Take Jonathan Papelbon’s performance this morning. Now, I won’t argue that he’s not a good closer, because in his three seasons, he’s been utterly absurd. But this particular save he “earned” is absolutely in no way a reflection of a good outing. He came on to start the tenth, Boston leading by two. He began the inning by walking Daric Barton, who must have read Moneyball dozens of times. He then struck out Jack Cust (Who was 0-4 with 4 strikeouts. What a wonderful way to start the season). Then he allowed a double, scoring Barton. The hitter, Emil Brown, was thrown out at third trying for his 11th career triple in his 620th career game. Good job, clown. The next two batters singled, meaning that the game would have been tied if Brown had just held up at second. I didn’t see the game, so maybe he made the right call to try for third and it just didn’t work out, but I think that’s unlikely. Finally, Papelbon got out of the inning. Three hits, a walk, and only a baserunning mistake away from an eleventh inning or a loss. But he gets the save! Way to accurately measure the quality of a pitcher’s outing, save. Really. Nice job.