Sauerkraut: 5lbs. cabbage, 3 tablespoons sea salt, and 1 tablespoon juniper berries (opt). Other ingredients can be added such as carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips, beets, apples, raisins, spices (caraway sees, celery seeds, garlic). Ours had beets, see how it’s purple.We haven’t tried the Sauerkraut really – Needs more time to my tastes so far.

We also made Kimchee, which had Napa cabbage, bok choy, radish, carrot, onions, scallions or leeks, garlic, ginger root, red chilies dried or chili flakes, and sea salt. We made a salt water brine rather than mashing the cabbage as we did with the sauerkraut. We were told to let it ferment for a 2 weeks but we eat it about 8 days later and it was so good. We eat some with a veggie hot dog and then the second night we eat it with my favorite dinner inspired by Cafe Gratitude: Quinoa, black beans, kale chopped fine, shaved carrots, kimchee, garlic tahini sauce.

I’m still a little confused on the Kombucha Tea. I’ll try a tester with one of the two we got at the class. Hopefully I don’t kill the bacteria ‘mother’ that ferments the tea to the tangy beverage that good kombucha reminds me of ginger ale or something special like friendship cake.

Kombucha Tea

So tasked with the goal of cleaning up all these books, and organizing them, I thought to myself, what skill could I use to make it easier to do this. Obviously, being a software engineer I thought… I’ll just write a program. My wife has heard all my stories about bad clients and the things that annoy programmers, so she would be the best client, someone who wouldn’t want to demand the weird changes.

With a clear explanation of what to expect, what would take a lot of time and easy work around. Thankfully, my wife is able to navigate a computer so I wouldn’t have to idiot proof it too much. So below is the first demo-able version of the program.

Demo Screen Shot

Basically it works as a database, storing all the information local. This makes it able to be put onto a jump drive and taken with you anywhere. Ideally there is a plan to get this on a mobile device, but that is later. For now it just allows you to upload an image, a recipe, time, and a file. The file is in the event you want to save a recipe or a webpage, and then in the recipe section you can write a quick list of just the ingredients, leaving the directions in the file.

If you would like a copy of the program to play around with, feel free to download it: RecipeBook

Realize that the program might be buggy. The good news is that any bugs can easily be fixed without losing any data.

Warning: clicking the edit button under “Add Recipe” tab will open the raw xml. You can do a find to find a recipe to edit it, but improper xml may result in loss of data. Make a backup of the program before editing if loss of data is a concern. 

Soba noodles with walters spicy sauce, fried tofu, baby bok choy, mushrooms, onion, garlic, radish, and roasted cashews.

Vegan sandwich, yumm. Pesto “chicken” sandwich.

This was super easy way to make cabbage. Slick thinly keeping the core somewhat intact so it doesn’t fall apart. I could hae sliced it a little thinner, the salt size was perfect. I ended up used red wine vinegar at a reduced amount because we didn’t have any cider vinegar. Whoe would have thought you have to refriderate cider vinegar after opening.

Squash & Spinach Soup

4 cups vegetable broth
8 cloves garlic, depending on your taste, peeled and left whole
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 medium squash, seeded and cubed into 1″ chunks
2 cups spinach leaves, more or less
Salt/Pepper
Cashew Cheese or ‘sour cream’

Bring to a boil the broth, garlic, onion and squash. Reduce heat and simmer on a low boil for about 15 minutes, until the squash is soft. Mash the contents of the pot with a potato masher. Add in the spinach and cook 2-3 minutes until tender. Season with salt and pepper. Laddle into soup bowls, garnish with cashew cheese or ‘sour cream’. You can also top with crutons as if it was a french onion soup. Serves 4

Cashew Cheese: Recipe to follow

Tonight for dinner I made Summer Squash dish inspired by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s Color Me Vegan (pg 90). I used some amazing home grown squash supplied by Randy and Kathleen and our own cherry tomatoes from the garden. Very good. It could have used more of the toasted pine nut and nutrtional yeast crust.

One point of view suggested that we can easily figure out how to act moral simply by logic. By putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes, we could act in their best interest. This is basically the golden rule, treat others how you want to be treated. He defined it as such and stuck by it; declaring that if you act kind towards those people around you, then you have the highest chance of them acting kind in return, therefore allowing for a high rate of mutual benefit.  As someone who acts poorly towards the other one, then the likely hood of that person wanting to help you is at a minimal.

One objection to this golden rule is that it simplifies people into fitting your mold. You assume that if you were in their place, you would want someone to do a certain action, and so you do so, when in fact they did not want that action to be done. It could even have been considered rude. Lack of knowledge of a culture can easily lead to this. If an American were to go to Japan, and do everything like in America, he would be considered very rude. It is simply a different moral code.

Based upon a different view, that of the nihilist, they would say that how you view others as wanting to be treated is based on education, and is not an actual moral code. That if you were to teach people that one thing was to be good, or to be bad, that when they grew up, applying the golden rule they would act a certain way. With the nihilist point of view, there is no absolute good or bad, but it is taught, or done through learning. Much as in how slavery being abolished didn’t suddenly change everyone’s morals.

So this lead me to thinking about the subject matter, and why is it we feel that acting kindly towards others is the right thing to do. And why did we start being moral?

Well the first question I had to answer, was how did we start to become moral. To my understanding, it was basically a mutual beneficial relationship, and by holding up your end of the deal in helping, you got part of the benefit. The first primates developed this social contract. So move along a few thousand years, and we have today a virtual, unwritten agreement, known as the social contract living today. People, by the millions, agreeing to not steal, not kill each other, etc. A basic leave me alone to live my life, and I’ll leave you alone.

Now remembering back to the primates, it was found that if a monkey killed another monkey, he would be cast out from the group. This makes perfect logical sense, and we can see how morality started to develop with this social contract. But there is one key thing that I noticed, and that was that the primates could hold that monkey accountable. So I thought back to current time, why do we act moral? Is it only because we fear being punished? I would like to argue in a sense, yes.

A common rebuttal is: “if there was no god, would you suddenly go kill someone?” or “if there was no law against killing someone, would you?” and most would say no. But they are saying no from their current world view. The morality taught to them. Think about it a little more. If there was no law, would you violate the law? why wouldn’t you? if it was acceptable, as there is no law on the matter, odds are you still wouldn’t. But why? and that is what lead me to today’s topic.

It is my belief that the reason why is because of accountability. We know, that even without laws, we can be punished via various means. People can cast us out, ignore us, or even harm us back. But that is only if you are caught. If theft was not illegal, it was on your honor to pay, and you were a long ways off from home, and you know you would never see anyone again, odds are you might take more than a share fair. We can see that today, when people take more than their share in anything. The guy who eats two times as much pizza as anyone else, and didn’t even chip in for it. People will take advantage if they feel that they will not have to pay the consequences. So in a world where killing is legal, the person who wishes to get ahead, would lead a life of taking advantage with the fact that he can gain from murder when in an area that he cannot be held accountable.

I think that people who believe in a higher power will act with the sense of that accountability. Now some people get twisted morals to believe that they are acting moral when they are not, but the key is to remember that to them, they have someone to answer to in the end. That accountability most likely influences many people to act better in situations, even if they are not thinking they are.

So to address the golden rule and the nihilist, I would say these two things;

To the golden rule: People who wish to gain the most in the life will violate this moral code and exploit it, to the point of accountability. They will lie, cheat, oversell, and take you for a ride as long as they know it will not come back to bit them later.

To the Nihilist: while moral code is not set in stone, it is taught as part of a social contract. The social contract changes from time to time, but those who live under its domain must live by it. But we can realize that people do not strictly adhere to the moral code of the social contract, as long as they feel they can get away with it.

The amount of money someone pays for something, is based more on perception than value.

Now that you have that, you can stop reading, meditate on that and maybe discover a truth in it. For those other people who like to know what I am thinking, can read on.

So the idea is that objects have inherent value. If you look at a fork, you “should” know the value of the fork. You know you can eat by hand, or by other instrument, but when you look at a fork, you know it will allow for a more enjoyable meal. But how much more enjoyable? How much is that fork really worth? I am not going to put out any solid numbers, I just want you thinking of a fork. If you were without a fork, and I walked up to you and said, “i have a fork for sale!” how much would you pay me? Okay, got that number in your head?

Now lets look at what it costs at “retail” or new. We should notice a significant difference in price. The moment you buy it, the value instantly drops. What causes this? To me, this loss of value is the perception value. The perception of new, and unused. The moment you own it, it suddenly becomes worth less. You cannot sell it for the same amount, yet if you paid its real value, wouldn’t it sell for the exact same amount?

The above highlights what has been going on in my mind lately. Take a car for example, we know for a fact that the moment you drive it off the lot (aka own it), the value drops by some 20% or more. Why is that? Why is it that someone would buy something that instantly lost 20% value? Would you buy a stock knowing that after you bought it, it would drop 20%? So by these examples, we can determine that a object has two sets of values. The actual value, and the perceived value. The reason I use perceived is because people are looking at it, and thinking it is worth more than it actually is. There can be a number of reasons why the new value is more, but it is really just in the mind of the buyer.

I have been running into this more and more lately, maybe because I am learning what it takes to create something. Take soap for example (as i make my own soap now), and the cost is insanely cheap. I made about 20 bars for the cost of about 8 bucks. That is less than 50 cents a bar. Yet soap in a store will run 3 bucks a bar. Does it clean any better? does it function differently? not really. It is soap. But some reason, people will look at a bar of soap, and pay a wide range per bar depending on what they think the value really is. But here is the catch, lets say you spend 3 bucks on a bar of soap, can you walk up to someone and offer it for 3 bucks and make the sale? not if it is the same cost as the virgin, unused material. Yet it functions the same, but owning it makes it worth less. This confuses me greatly.

I guess what it comes down to, is that there was a time, when people paid for a product based on its functional worth. A car is a car, it gets me from point A to point B. But somewhere along the road, some cars become worth more. How is it that it costs more for a Ferrari vs a VW bug? Sure, the size is different, but really, it is an engine, fiberglass, and wheels. Both cars are most likely 80% identical, yet the price difference can be over 1 million. Does it really cost 1 million, or even half that to make that car over a VW?

What I think this all relates to is scarcity. All value comes from scarcity. How much do we value our air? no one is going to buy air from you, because it is not scarce at all. So with the above example in mind, the only reason it costs more is because of scarcity. This is artificial, and people buy into this virtual scarcity. So if you are still reading, and following, let me point out that people buy virtual things. I know many people, as I am sure you do, that have bought something virtual at some point. It has no value, it is merely bits in a computer, when arranged that way will always produce the same result, the virtual item. So what we are seeing in society is people buying virtual value, thinking it is value. Someone buying a game rationalizes it away that “if I bought it, someone else might buy it from me”. And in the case of a sports car, it holds value, but only because it holds it’s scarcity. If they mass produced sports cars, would it cost as much? of course not. So you are buying into a virtual scarcity, and not the value. The value of a car, while it can very depending on things like leather seating, when rooted down to earth, is merely to transport a person between two spots. The value of doing that is the same for every single car.

I don’t know why people buy into this false scarcity, but I do know one thing, it produces a lot of trash, as old things that are perfectly fine are tossed out for the new. The old DVD player in the garbage and not resold. I believe this squandering of wealth, into this false virtual value, is what causes many people to live above their means and get into debt. It is a mentality that needs to change, but I fear that humanity may be too may generations away from knowledge of value of objects and now must trust the person selling them to inform them. And it is a very dangerous idea

There is a key point that needs to be mad, due to one of ou bikes being stolen the other day, make sure you buy a good lock and remove the front tire. We bought 4 star locks, and it took 30 seconds to break it. As much as I hate combo locks, I think this is what will work best. Key locks are just vulnerable to locksmith tools.

That warning aside, the bikesare great. Living close to work an to a grocery store makes hauling food easy. Carrying a full bag each, my wife and I had no trouble. By full bag, I mean my bike bag, which is equal to 2 grocery bags. Given full load, each bike can do 4 bags with no trouble.

The best thing, even with the theift, is that the bikes are only about 400 new. So even the loss is annoying but not horrible. My phone costs more than a bike. Next time, I might just paint it pink.