Archive for January 6th, 2023
Chickpea-Rye Tempeh done
The batch of tempeh that I blogged earlier is now done. It took 72 hours, the usual time for the method I follow. At right is a photo of the tempeh still in its Ziploc Fresh Produce bag; above is the tempeh cut free of the bag and the first cut made to break it down to fit my storage jars. The chickpeas are the large beige blobs, with the grains of rye smaller and darker. The mycelium has filled the interstices nicely.
This is a very good batch: solid, rigid slab. I really like the TopCultures starter. It produces a vigorous mycelium.
Once I finish the lentils and the cooked amaranth (seed) I have on hand, I’ll use this tempeh for the beans and grain in my meals.
Basic Beet Ferment
I just started the ferment described in an earlier post. I of course varied the recipe a little, mainly by using a little more garlic and adding half a large red onion.
I sliced the garlic a little thick and put the slices into one of the jars. I then diced beets fairly small and added to the jar until it was filled.
Next, I halved the red onion vertically and cut one half vertically in half again, then sliced it into fairly thick slices, breaking them into strips, which I put into the second jar. I used just half the onion. I diced a couple more beets and filled the jar. There were 3 beets left unused; those, along with the other half of the onion, will be cooked with some red kale I have in the fridge.
I put a large bowl on the scale, tared it to zero, then added the contents of the two jars. That weighed just over 1kg — 1033g. 2.5% of that is 26g, so I measured out 26g of grey sea salt, which was about 1/4 cup (but I was going by weight, not volume). I sprinkled the sea salt over the contents of the bowl and used a silicone spatula to toss and mix well.
Then I used a canning funnel to load both jars. I had started some of the starter culture I use in 1/2 cup water. I stirred that and added 1/4 cup to each jar and then filled the jars with a 2.5% brine. I used my kraut pounder to compact the beets, and then placed a red-cabbage leaf in each jar to cover the diced beets and put the fermentation weights on that. I finished by screwing on the lids with the fermentation airlocks.
This batch will be read on January 20. I have a post that lists all the ferments I’ve done and also includes the reference information I use.
Update 17 Jan: A guy on Mastodon says that he always goes longer than 2 weeks, so I’m going to stop one jar at 2 weeks and go 4 weeks (to February 3) with the other.
Why the Godfather of Human Rights Is Unwelcome at Harvard
The establishment exists to protect the powerful. Michael Massing provides an example in his article in the Nation:
Soon after Kenneth Roth announced in April that he planned to step down as the head of Human Rights Watch, he was contacted by Sushma Raman, the executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Raman asked Roth if he would be interested in joining the center as a senior fellow. It seemed like a natural fit. In Roth’s nearly 30 years as the executive director of HRW, its budget had grown from $7 million to nearly $100 million, and its staff had gone from 60 to 550 people monitoring more than 100 countries. The “godfather” of human rights, The New York Times called him in a long, admiring overview of his career, noting that Roth “has been an unrelenting irritant to authoritarian governments, exposing human rights abuses with documented research reports that have become the group’s specialty.” HRW played a prominent role in establishing the International Criminal Court, and it helped secure the convictions of Charles Taylor of Liberia, Alberto Fujimori of Peru, and (in a tribunal for the former Yugoslavia) the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.
Roth had been involved with the Carr Center since its founding in 1999. In 2004, he participated in a debate before 300 people with Michael Ignatieff, then its director, over whether the US invasion of Iraq qualified as a humanitarian intervention (Ignatieff said it did; Roth said it didn’t). The debate was moderated by Samantha Power, one of the center’s founders.
In a video conference with Raman and Mathias Risse, the Carr Center’s faculty director, Roth said he was indeed interested in becoming a fellow; he planned to write a book about his experience at HRW and how a relatively small group of people can move governments, and he could draw on the center’s research facilities. On May 7, Raman sent him a formal proposal, and on June 9, Roth agreed in principle to join the center. Raman sent the proposal to the office of Dean Douglas Elmendorf for approval in what was assumed to be a formality. On July 12, Roth had a video conversation with Elmendorf (a former senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers and a director of the Congressional Budget Office) to introduce himself and answer any questions he might have.
Two weeks later, however, Elmendorf informed the Carr Center that Roth’s fellowship would not be approved.
The center was stunned. “We thought he would be a terrific fellow,” says Kathryn Sikkink, the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School. A leading academic in the field, Sikkink has been affiliated with the Carr Center for nine years, and during that time nothing like this had ever happened. As she noted, the center has hosted other prominent human rights advocates, including William Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International USA from 1994 to 2006, and Salil Shetty, the secretary general of Amnesty International from 2010 to 2018.
Sikkink was even more surprised by the dean’s explanation: Israel. Human Rights Watch, she was told, has an “anti-Israel bias”; Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern. Sikkink was taken aback. In her own research, she had used HRW’s reports “all the time,” and while the organization had indeed been critical of Israel, it had also been critical of China, Saudi Arabia—even the United States. . .
Grooming Dept shave
I had quite a wonderful shave this morning with my new haul of Grooming Dept products. First up is a tub of Ketoret shaving soap, a special edition of his Kairos formula, using lamb tallow for the tallow and emu oil in addition. The lather (and skin effect) is wonderful, and I very much like the fragrance: “Balsam, Galbanum, Spices, Costus, Spikenard, Frankincense, Myrrh, Saffron.” My Yaqi Target Shot brush easily worked up a particularly rich lather, and the double-open-com matching razor provided a comfortable yet highly efficient shave.
“Aion” is the new name for Grooming Dept skincare products, so this Aion Hydrating Gel is much the same as the Hydrating Gel I previously used. I added a couple of squirts of the Hydrating Gel to a little TOBS Shave Shop aftershave and applied that to cap off the shave. I’m really glad to be restocked on Hydrating Gel — this time I bought a couple of bottles so I have a spare.
The tea this morning is Murchie’s Library Blend: “a blend of Ceylon, Jasmine, Keemun, and Gunpowder teas.” I decided this morning that I’ll go sequentially through every tea I have on hand. This is No. 1 in a series. (I really should plan it to have Murchie’s No. 10 as the tenth in the sequence.)
Later On 