A Genuine French Omelette

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One of the reasons the practice of meditation made such an impression on me was the accidental results I got from reading the instructions in a book. What was more startling at the moment was that what happened that afternoon happened the first time I tried to do it. It was the breathing technique that was different from what I'd already tried before. Those previous efforts too came from reading the instructions in a book. The crossroads and rural villages in the Bible Belt didn't have many meditation teachers around.

By following the instructions I read in this book I "fell" into a deep, meditative state of being in which, for as long as I remained there, I found that I didn't have to breathe, and I could stop my heart from beating as long as it pleased me. I did stop it from beating an impossibly long time, but eventually I felt like I should be reasonable and start it up again. I've never gotten back to this garden again by my own volition.

I've been to similar gardens using different methods of approach. Unsurprisingly, I never got back to each of those similar states of being either. Most mystical events only happen once in my life. Yesterday, however, I heard this comment about how certain animals bring about hibernation. They slowly restrict the intake of oxygen to induce it, but they have a skin flap they close to do it. Homo sapiens don't have such a flap, but they don't need it. I've contemplated the notion of hibernation and it's possible relation to the various meditation states frequently since the heart-stopping event I describe above.

During that singular experience I was fully aware of what my opportunities were in the real time that rare state of being allowed. By that I mean that when I got into this state of being I serendipitously discovered that I could slow my breathing down to the point of actually stopping it. I decided to see if my heart would stop beating. I'd never been in a place like that where I could do that before, but the very first time included my awareness of being able to do that. I wouldn't bet the farm on it, but I almost knew the results I'd get if I did it.

After hearing that comment about how certain animals induce hibernation by deliberately slowing down their breathing to restrict their oxygen intake, I suddenly remembered the point of breathing a specific way to slow my intake of oxygen down. through that original, but specific breathing method. I've been playing with it off and on ever since. Basically, it's an exercise in visualization and focus. I've tried to explain it before using the holiest spot in the body as an example. I've never felt as though I ever got my point across. It's too far-fetched and intimate for many people.

The fact that I concluded that I brought my rheumatoid arthritis into such a drastic state as to have it cripple me by eating a bunch of pre-processed meat doing the Atkins diet has had me thinking about what role that played before refrigeration came into being.

Preserving meats to last through the winter, in the past, was a tedious process that mostly employed using lots of salt, pepper, and smoke houses. When I was a kid a lotta people had smoke houses in their back yard. Smoked bacon and fatback that was used to flavor vegetables made life easier for everybody. It was even easier if you had a profession like doctoring, lawyering, or fixing teeth for which people would trade or barter their work for the product of your smoke house.

In other words, if pre-processed meats are unhealthy for a body, then everybody who couldn't kill an animal every three or four days for fresh meat was living on a diet that eventually killed them. Refrigeration was definitely one of the reasons human being are living longer,

Waxing nostalgic is not one of my better talents because I don't care to do it so much. I feel contempt for nostalgic people, and when I rule the world, they all going to the gulag where they can do things the old fashion way until they drop dead from sheer exhaustion. '-)

I'm hardly eating anything at all. With the side-effect of the methotrexate I don't even like looking at food. I ate little meat, then bought a steak and cooked it, and then threw it away for to my brother's dogs to eat. They gulp it down like it was cheap hamburger. Dogs gulp everything down.

I was really disappointed to find out that bacon is considered pre-processed meat. It obviously makes sense that it is when I think about how it's processed or was processed back in the day. Who doesn't like bacon?

One thing that did catch my attention today was a cooking show that promised as soon as I tuned into it to show the viewers how to cook a genuine, Julia Child's french omelette. It's so simple even a simpleton can do it. The most interesting thing was the chef's statement that a "genuine french omelette" shouldn't have any burned or brown spots on it.

This was something I noticed the other day when I went to this new restaurant where I got a great veggie omelette. The next day I went back to the same place and ordered a Western omelette, and it did have those burned spots, and that queered the deal for me.

Other than not burning them, the most useful tip I may have gotten from this foodie show was the omelette skillet. Yeah, they got skillets made just to cook omelettes in. The real difference seems to be in the thickness of the metal of the skillet. They have to hold enough heat to cook the omelette after you put all the ingredients together.

It's essentially scrambled eggs with a sprinkling of your favorite cheese, a green spice or two, and then it is rolled up in the pan, the lid is put on, and the stove turned off. Its the residual heat in the thick-metalled skillet that finished the job without burnt spots.
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