Greens the easy way

Rapini, celery, red onion, and diced lemon, after being cooked

I got a nice big bunch of rapini at the produce market the other day, and when  I took it from the refrigerator I discovered also a big bunch of celery I forgot I had. It had been very fresh with lots of greens, but it had wilted somewhat into limberness, so I thought I’d include it now rather than letting it age further.

I used the 6-qt wide-diameter All-Clad Stainless pot, and tonight I went with rather more olive oil:

1-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, chopped
~2 tablespoons dried marjoram
a pinch of salt

I sautéed that until the onions softened and became transparent, then added:

1 bunch of rapini, rinsed well multiple times (a fair amount of dirt came out) and then chopped
1 bunch celery, rinsed and chopped
2 seedless lemons, diced
good splash Red Boat fish sauce (about 2 tablespoons)
good splash Bragg’s apple-cider vinegar (about 1/4 cup)
water (about 1/2 cup)

I covered the pot and simmered it for 30 minutes stirring a couple of times. It’s quite tasty.

Tomorrow I’m going to cook some grain, and make fasolada. I’ll have some grain (probably Kamut) with the greens and a bowl of fasolada. I’m going to take a little break from tempeh and return to eating beans and grain separately.

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Later: 500g navy beans with 1 teaspoon salt soaking for the fasolada I’ll make tomorrow. 1 cup Kamut simmering in a covered pan. After it’s cooked, I’ll refrigerate it overnight to make the starch resistant.

Covid is a vascular disease

This very interesting thread on Twitter is worth reading. Click the date link below to see entire thread of 11 tweets.

1/ 11🧵 Covid is a vascular disease 🩸. We need to stop thinking of it primarily as a lung 🫁 disease. I hear lung Doctors says ‘we don’t see much on the chest X-rays in #longcovid’. The rheumatologists say ‘we don’t see raised inflammation on the blood tests in #LongCovid’

— Dr Claire Taylor (@drclairetaylor) June 8, 2022

What the Mona Lisa originally looked like

Actual reconstruction (not Photoshop bullshit):

Government regulations vs. Business incentives

This is quite an interesting video. Greger points out that sometimes government regulations do indeed work — for example, the banning of trans fats in the US and the UK’s reduction of salt content in food. But sometimes regulations struggle, particularly when they strike more directly at the profit sources of powerful interests. 

Capitalism is set up to generate profit, and it lacks any mechanism to evaluate the source of the profit. Capitalism operates from a simple criterion: “Profit good, more profit better,” and thus we have companies that unabashedly profit from products and services that destroy lives (cigarette companies, Purdue Pharma, and others, along with companies that create (and abandon) enormous toxic waste dumps or destroy the Amazon rain forest).

The video is short and worth watching. 

What trauma does to your brain and body

As pointed out in the video, post-traumatic-stress disorder (PTSD) is now recognized as being much more common than we once thought. It does occur in soldiers as a result of battlefield stress, but it also occurs in survivors (both adults and children) of domestic violence or natural disasters. 

Understanding that PTSD is much more common than we once thought makes developing effective treatment and care that much more urgent.

Monday morning’s superb smoothness, today via RazoRock’s German 37

The first step today was to wet well the knot of my Omega Pro 48 and let the razor stand soaking on its base while I showered. Then, as always, I began the shave proper with Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave. With that applied, I loaded the brush with Grooming Dept’s excellent Mallard Corretto, fantastically good in both formula and fragrance.

The lather was first-rate in every way, and my German 37 slid smoothly through the stubble with nary a hitch. This, IMO, is the design the Merkur 37 should have used: three pieces (cap, baseplate, and handle) rather than the design they chose, which does not allow swapping handles. The two razors do share the same head design, and it is an effective and trouble-free slant, a format I particularly like on Monday mornings.

My aftershave today is EDT-based, using Bulgari’s Pour Homme Soir, whose fragrance BaseNotes.com analyzes as:

Top Note: Darjeeling tea
Heart Note: Papyrus wood
Base Notes: Amber, Musk

I took the edge off with a couple of squirts of Grooming Dept Hydrating Gel, which has no scent.

The tea this morning, in celebration of shave quality, is Murchie’s Ode to Joy, a Christmas tea from a few years back. “A merry blend [“merry” = Christmas – LG] of aromatic jasmine and apricot makes an enchanting green-black tea. The fruit and floral notes enhance those naturally detected in black and green teas. Ode To Joy pairs well with food or it can be enjoyed on its own.”