Humanity's Level Two: Unlocked?

When some people speak, they simply say what they have to say in whatever manner they happen to say it. They blurt. Others consider the listener and adjust themselves accordingly. There's a significant difference between the two, both in intention and in effect.

The second is difficult. It requires several concurrent mental processes. First, you need to hear yourself as you speak, which is mentally taxing. Second, you need to be able to shift to the other person's perspective - a very specialized (and likely unexplainable) feat of reframing. And, third, you need to factor the input (from your self-monitoring) into your output (your speech). And you must do all of this simultaneously as you speak. Speech and language alone are difficult - we're the only species that can do it with any complexity. But these additional processes require a whole greater level of sophistication.

Extra processes require greater horsepower. But I believe it's like supplemental battery range on a Tesla - the capability is built into the hardware, but must be unlocked. The price, in this case, is simply wanting to. Empathy is the trigger.

There are countless instances where humans may choose to apply an extra level of thoughtfulness...or else to take the easy way out by doing what comes naturally, without the reflective add-on. Viral forces affect this choice. In other words: it's contagious.

People under 50 may not realize that, during the Vietnam War, our armed forces were disrespected by civilians. Why? Because many of us didn't approve of the Vietnam war. It made fuzzy sense:

I don't approve of war.
Soldiers are part of war.
I don't approve of soldiers.

As a ten year old, I remember jeering at people passing by in uniform. I wasn't thinking deeply. It just seemed like the thing to do, man. Peace 'n love and all.

Similarly fuzzy reasoning makes some Americans hate Muslims:

Muslims drove planes into buildings and killed Americans.
Fuck Muslims.

It's the sort of lazy conclusion a human mind whips up when it's not trying hard. If you imagine you don't harbor a multitude of similarly lazy conclusions strewn around your brain like sugary sprinkles, you're fooling yourself.

But something's happening. To be sure, gargantuan stupidity is still on display every nanosecond. However, an additional layer of mental sophistication has arisen and spread. Even the most ardent anti-war protesters nowadays are (properly) grateful and appreciative of servicemen. And a large number of people decline to hate a billion Muslims just because a few thousand of them are terrorists. In fact, many of us must work hard to even relate to the other perspective. Maybe a corner has been turned.

I think Stephen Pinker's right. The marvel isn't how many yahoos are caught up in nonsense like anti-Muslim bigotry. It's how few. Very many people are opting out of lazy knee jerk reactions, and that's new. It's unprecedented, really, in human history. I frequently despair at our failure to react to extremism with enlightened moderation rather than with reciprocal extremism. But maybe my dismay stems from heightened sensitivity to a shrinking problem.

Are we becoming more intelligent? Nah. Human faculties don't improve in fast gulps.

Are we becoming more high-minded? I hope not. That would be nothing more than a social trend, and those are cyclical (some believe Trumpism reflects a cycle's downturn, but the smart money suggests it represents the un-self-aware assholes' last hurrah).

I believe it's something more fundamental than a passing social trend or anything lofty. Mind frame and perspective have dilated a notch. A critical mass has opted to unlock an extra iota of innate cognitive horsepower, allowing them to think in a slightly more nuanced way....because they want to. The driver is a mere speck of empathy, but the end result is an abundance of it.

And I'd argue that Trumpism is the inevitable counteraction, fated to be seen, in hindsight, as laughably feeble.

It's a first step; humanity weening off diapers rather than achieving real maturity. And the public will continue, as always, to be morally ahead of its leaders and trendsetters.


So if it's getting better, why does it all feel so awful?

We don't thrill to the emerging light as readily as we sensitize to the remaining darkness, so it paradoxically hurts more as things improve. Again: heightened sensitivity to a shrinking problem. A Trump would have pained us far less in 1920, and I remember a time when a mere few dozen Nazi morons in Charlottsville would have seemed pathetic rather than shocking. By 2040, Marx Brothers films and Road Runner cartoons will be seen as brutal, unfunny relics of a barbaric world. Really, I'm not entirely sure I like where this is going.

"WUWT FOODIE FIND! Joey Skladany of Chowhound!"

Kill me.


How this happened

Cassini's Death Plunge

Cassini, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, was so great. I'll miss it. See a terrific overview (with well-chosen links and photos) here.

The following is the current schedule (subject to adjustment; updates posted here) for Cassini's final depth plunge into Saturn's atmosphere.

Why the death plunge? NASA takes way greater pains than you'd imagine to avoid infecting bodies like Titan and Europa - which might host primitive life or building blocks thereof - from microbes which, believe it or not, might remain intact despite twenty years in the harsh vacuum of space. By crashing into Saturn, the immense gravity and atmospheric pressure will ensure safe disposal. As for the metals, fuel, etc., there's nothing to Cassini that Saturn doesn't already boast in profusion.

In its final week, Cassini will pass several milestones en route to its science-rich Saturn plunge. (times below are predicted and may change slightly; see https://go.nasa.gov/2wbaCBT for updated times.)

Sept. 9: Cassini will make the last of 22 passes between Saturn itself and its rings: closest approach is 1,044 miles (1,680 kilometers) above the clouds tops.

Sept. 11: Cassini will make a distant flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Even though the spacecraft will be at 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) away, the gravitational influence of the moon will slow down the spacecraft slightly as it speeds past. A few days later, instead of passing through the outermost fringes of Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini will dive in too deep to survive the friction and heating.

Sept. 14: Cassini's imaging cameras take their last look around the Saturn system, sending back pictures of moons Titan and Enceladus, the hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet's north pole, and features in the rings.

Sept. 14 (5:45 p.m. EDT / 2:45 p.m. PDT): Cassini turns its antenna to point at Earth, begins a communications link that will continue until end of mission, and sends back its final images and other data collected along the way.

Sept. 15 (4:37 a.m. EDT / 1:37 a.m. PDT): The "final plunge" begins. The spacecraft starts a 5-minute roll to position INMS for optimal sampling of the atmosphere, transmitting data in near real time from now to end of mission.

Sept. 15 (7:53 a.m. EDT / 4:53 a.m. PDT): Cassini enters Saturn's atmosphere. Its thrusters fire at 10 percent of their capacity to maintain directional stability, enabling the spacecraft's high-gain antenna to remain pointed at Earth and allowing continued transmission of data.

Sept. 15 (7:54 a.m. EDT / 4:54 a.m. PDT): Cassini's thrusters are at 100 percent of capacity. Atmospheric forces overwhelm the thrusters' capacity to maintain control of the spacecraft's orientation, and the high-gain antenna loses its lock on Earth. At this moment, expected to occur about 940 miles (1,510 kilometers) above Saturn's cloud tops, communication from the spacecraft will cease, and Cassini's mission of exploration will have concluded. The spacecraft will break up like a meteor moments later.

Testing for Genuine Awfulness

Do you have someone awful in your life? Someone you're forced to deal with, to your pained displeasure, certain that nothing good can ever come from them?

If you do, does it compound your pain and displeasure to worry that maybe this person isn't so awful, but that you've let your irritation get the best of you? Hey, nobody's all bad, right? "Shades of grey" and all that!

In fact, maybe you are the awful one, for having given up on this person! If you consider a fellow human "awful", that's downright dehumanizing, no? Perhaps you should add "shame" to your feeling of pain and displeasure!

This calls for a test! And here it is: Does the person still disappoint you?

If so, then you're not underrating. On the contrary, you're overrating. So don't sweat it.

The day an awful person stops disappointing you is the day you need to start questioning your assessment.


Here, fwiw, is the test for hatred.

Cooking Tip Applied to Eggs

More expansion of Frank's cooking tip, and the subsequent discussion of other ways a bit of steam can be a cook's best friend.

A reader writes:

Have you tried cooking eggs with a bit of water? Back in college my buddy was cooking his eggs, sunny side up, and showed me how does the water/cover trick to get rid of the runny stuff on top.

Paul Trapani (quoted in the previous posting on this topic) replies:

Yes, learned from Rouxbe course. It's called "basted eggs" or else "steam basted eggs" (to distinguish this from oil basting).

More on Frank's Cooking Tip

Yesterday, I wrote about a cooking tip I'd gotten from Frank, renowned chef/owner of Francesco's, the last great Italian-American restaurant .

Here's some interesting response from friend-of-the-slog Paul Trapani:

The latest rage in ovens is what's called a "combi" oven - an oven that also produces steam. You can set a humidity level. The thinking is that air makes a terrible conductor of heat, whereas steam is awesome (consider: you can put your hand in a hot oven, but not in a hot steamer). The "modernist" cooking people are all over this, and it looks like Frank hacked into it on his own.

This is the combi equivalent for stovetop cooking. Increasing conduction via water droplets. And the advantage here is that when you're working in a pan, you're simultaneously searing, which is good on its own, but it also ensures the meat doesn't over-moisturize. So it's kind of like deglazing but with the added benefits of steam (it will also unstick the meat if your pan wasn't heated to the exact right temperature to begin with).

A genius move by Frank, and I have not seen it anywhere before!

I've randomly bumped into another, similar, move over the years, come to think of it. As a restaurant critic, I've had many terrifying experiences of beholding a fridge stuffed with several dozen takeout packages (investigation leftovers; if I'd eaten every bite I ordered, they'd need to lift me out of bed with a crane). I tried every possible reheating technique, and finally settled on the following (which actually makes food better than fresh:

Heat a quality non-stick pan to medium-high. Add a tablespoon or two of water. Throw in leftovers (putting meats and other items requiring thorough heat at bottom). Cover, wait for sizzling sounds, then reduce heat to low. Don't touch it! You'll know it's ready when the kitchen is full of aroma.

Again, that bit of humidity appears to be a big trick.

The Pivotal Slog Posting

When I first posted my essay "The Deeper Implications of Holiday Blues" in 2009, I realized I was on to something. But I never imagined the extent of what I was explaining.

The essay - which has nothing to do with holidays, per se - describes, quite matter-of-factly, how we create drama, and then identify with that drama, and then make ourselves needlessly miserable by getting lost in it all. It pinpoints the very moment of choice, where we opt to make ourselves slaves to drama...or else to remain free. Choose your perspective: hell or heaven?

In hindsight, though it wasn't my intention at the time, this turned out to be a surprisingly illuminating examination of the source of human misery. Working gradually from this (like many Slog postings, it intentionally rewards multiple re-readings), things can be understood re: who we are and what we're doing here.

To trace where I gradually took this insight, read this essay about our predisposition for drama. And then this one on what happens when you get lost in drama. And this broader overview of the whole enchilada. And, finally, this emergency strategy for those so utterly lost that they're unable to see anything beyond drama.

Food Porn Addendum

I added a pork tenderloin shot to the previous posting.

Revelatory Cooking Tip: Throw a Little Water

I've been doing a few weeks of Blue Apron (see my notes), just to expand my cooking perspective. Nothing they offer is surprising or even particularly interesting. But it's a different thing to actually do a cooking move rather than to just know about it.

(My father's cousin Manny would always drive to a destination the day before an appointment, just to orient himself. I always chalked this up to neurosis, but, I have to admit, there've been restaurants I'd known about for years which I'd never tried...and, having drove by the place - even if I didn't go in - it would suddenly became a concrete entity, much more likely to be visited in future.)

One such move: slap a steak, or some chicken thighs, or a pork chop, into a hot pan. Cook a while. Flip. Cook for a slightly shorter while. Serve.

Naturally, I'm aware of this technique. I think of it as the classic 1953 bachelor approach, performed with dangling cigarette and a tumbler of whiskey. But this is not usually my thing. I broil, I grill, I sauce, I cut up and stir fry. I never do steak at home (home is for health), and I'm generally not a guy who slaps flesh in a pan, sprinkles salt and pepper, and walks away to clean my revolver or holler out my window to the neighboring tenement.

It works ok, but, by coincidence, I was recently talking to one of my hero chefs, Frank, the owner of Francesco's in White Plains (see photo essay here), who was explaining how he cooks meat at home. It's exactly this move, which makes sense given how old-school Frank is. Except....he splashes a little water in the pan toward the end, when the meat starts to look slightly dry. Then he covers it for a while. And then uncovers again.

It's the sort of suggestion that seems too slight to really matter. But I did it, and it's a miracle. It utterly changes everything - texture, flavor. It's the missing piece. A little water!

A recent example
(accompanied by pan-blistered shisitos, this roast potato recipe, sliced cukes,
and scraped up scallions and garlic from the pan).

Same treatment with pork tenderloin.
Note that I've seasoned both meats with Penzey's Ozark Seasoning. Also: the combo of blistered shisitos (you can get them at Trader Joe's) and roast potatoes is great, and reheats like a dream.

Per my nature, I've been giddily expanding on this. If I'm preparing chicken thighs, I'll smash cloves of garlic, and throw one under each thigh to start. Plus a couple bay leaves. I've used white wine instead of water, and I've started dumping leftover starches (rice, chopped-up baked potato, whatever) into the pan alongside the meat at the flip point (I'm not cooking particularly greasy meats). Maybe some frozen or leftover vegetables, as well (though more often I'll steam or roast separately).

With the wine and garlic version, I've sort of reinvented chicken scarpariello. If I keep going, I may reinvent lots more things...just as my year of total panini immersion led eventually to tacos (but that's another story).


Follow-ups:
More on Frank's Cooking Tip
Cooking Tip Applied to Eggs

Francesco's: The Last Great Italian-American Restaurant

Francesco's (600 Mamaroneck Ave, White Plains, NY; 914-946-3359) is the last surviving great Italian-American restaurant, to my knowledge. It's what everybody hopes Rao's to be, and, in its own way, it's just as elusive.

The restaurant is set up pub-style, a la 1961. A dim, gloomy bar with blaring TV occupies one half, and tavern-style tables fill the other. It's not cheerful. And prices are two or three notches higher than you'd expect - the natural course of a restaurant that's been around for ages taking the easier route of creeping up prices rather than changing habits on their end. If Francesco's was amenable to change, it wouldn't be what it is: a living museum of Italian-American cooking from a half-century ago.

I'll let the photos and captions do the talking, food-wise. But here's the thing to know:

When chef/owner Frank cooks, it's like angels singing. But Frank's getting older, and lets his assistants do most of the cooking. And they're good-not-great. Which, per my theory of the non-linearity of deliciousness, means their food's about 1/10000th as good, though still the best Italian-American in the county.

Frank almost never cooks dinner, and only sometimes cooks lunch. Your best bet is to show up around 3:30 pm, when the place is dead and Frank's doing paperwork at the bar. Then, he has no choice but to cook for you. Just don't make him feel pressured. Order some wine (Pinot Noir is your best choice) and chill until Frank can muster the energy to go hit the kitchen - and be damned glad that, creeky and recalcitrant though he is, Frank is still doing this at all.

However you try to game it, odds are high you'll wind up being cooked for by Frank's minions. Price that in! It's worth multiple visits to strike gold. Results this good should never come easily.

The restaurant offers a large menu, but I suggest sticking to the following dishes. A smart first-visit order would be pasta with (hot) sausage and broccoli rabe, garlic bread (with or without cheese), and a bar pizza (bathe in the carbs). Those are can't-fail greatest hits - especially if Frank's cooking.

Ok, let's go to the videotape:

Penne with broccoli rabe and hot sausage. I wasn't aiming for photogenic results from my shakes of cheese and chili flakes, so ignore the porny element and just behold the underlying food.

Same dish, another day. Not made by Frank. Broccoli rabe appears to be mourning. But still worthy!

Tripe, a special. GAWD. I never remember to order this, or to recommend it to others, even though this photo always makes me shudder (I revisit my Francesca's photos often). It was so good that it sort of burnt out my memory circuits as I ate it. No trace remains, just a shudder response.

One of Frank's "creative" specials. Only he can get away with such a thing. You can imagine what happens when a non-Frank attempts this.

Cautionary tale. You don't want to stray too far on the menu. This is one of Francesco's myriad chicken dishes, and while it's certainly not bad at all, you'll instantly wish you'd ordered one of the hits. All the more so if Frank's not cooking.

Sicilian baked ziti, with eggplant. Nobody makes it like this anymore.

The thin crackery crust bar pizza is perfection, baked in the ovens in Plato's cave. I've settled on meatball/onion (not garlic, because I often accompany with garlicky food like that pasta dish). With any other restaurant, this would be the headline. Also, the minions do a good job with pizza.

I haven't had great garlic bread since early childhood, the era when 2nd and 3rd generation Italians were going to law or medical school rather than working in restaurants. 1st generation Frank is a holdover. If you remember 1970s garlic bread, this will be like a homecoming. Cross this off the "extinct" list.

Cheesy garlic bread. Remarkably different effect. Is it great cheese? No. Is it even good cheese? Uh-uh. Yet Frank's alchemy evokes grandeur.

I type through tears: in-progress meatball parm with broccoli rabe hero...on....wait for it...garlic bread.

Broccoli rabe with garlic. I know.

Mashed potatoes. Francesco's, as I said, serves Italian-American food. Not Italian. Frank was born in Italy, and has a heavy accent, but he long ago took the plunge and cut the cord. However, these mashed potatoes might have been made by any nonna back in the old country. Only here does Frank reveal his roots.


For an awesome cooking tip from Frank, see here.