Recipes

Some dal notes

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You make a dal by cooking a lentil/mix of lentils and seasoning it with a mix of spices (or tadkas). So, the possibilities are endless. Some quick notes

Lentils

  • Use any lentils you’d like. I’ve used Toor dal, which is a kind of yellow split lentils, moong dal, both split (yellow) and unsplit (green), red lentils (masoor), black eye peas, it does not matter. They all have a distinct taste and tend to pair with different kinds of spices.
  • Use whole (with skin) lentils if you want more texture and nutrition. They will take a little longer to cook. If you do not have a pressure cooker, you may have to soak in warm water for a few hours before cooking.
  • Use split and skinned lentils for a more soupy, creamy consistency. They tend to cook faster
  • I have always owned a pressure cooker, so I do not know how long it takes to cook lentils without one, I guess it depends on the lentils. In general, simmer covered until soft is the rule, I guess (I’ve never had to do it!). But, a pressure cooker is a great thing to have if you will eat lentils a lot.
  • Using a mixture of one faster cooking and one slower cooking lentil will give you lots of texture, good if you’re looking for almost a one course meal.
  • Adding fresh spinach, or kale, or any other fast cooking green is a good way to use up old greens.
  • Feel free to add vegetables as necessary, it’s your dal!
  • Tomatoes are useful for providing some tartness. I put tomatoes in almost every dal I make.

Spices

  • Depends on how intense you want the dal to be. In most meals, the dal is a complement, and is not meant to overwhelm the flavours of the other dishes. In this case, go easy on the spices. If you’re looking for a one course meal and a hearty one, make your dal nice and spicy. It all depends!
  • Most whole spices keep for a long time if well covered.
  • I rarely use powdered spices in dal unless I’m going for an especially unsubtle dal.

Cooking tips

  • Using fresh green/red chillies usually provides enough “hot” spice. Use them whole/slitted for a subtle flavour and chopped fine and sauted for a bigger bite. I use thai green/red chillies, they’re usually more predictable. You will not need more than 2-3 for 1 cup of uncooked dal. Chillies are usually the first “wet” ingredient added, as you need some oil to release the spice and if there are too many other ingredients present, they will not pick up enough heat.
  • Cilantro – Some like it, some don’t. I don’t think it adds much in taste, but it sure as hell improves the visual appearance. Always chop fine, some of the juices should come out when you chop. This avoids that dreaded “soapy” texture. Add at the end.
  • You can also use the green tips of green onions to provide some colour.

Some classic combinations

  • Yellow lentils with ginger, garlic, chillies, lime, tomato and cumin.
  • This is a good complementary dal, goes great with rice or chapatis and home style fried potatos, or pretty much any vegetable dish with a bit of flavour. The dal itself will not have too many aromatic flavours.

Serves 4

Yellow lentils (toor dal or similar – 1 cup)
Ginger – a 1-2 inch piece grated
Garlic, a few cloves – chopped fine, minced or pressed.
Cumin seeds, a couple of tea spoons
Tomatoes – Enough to provide the dal with nice texture. Do not chop fine, halves or quarters work better.

  • Cook the yellow lentils until soft, mash coarsely. Texture is a very personal thing. I prefer a dal where there is enough fine particles to make a stable suspension gravy, but enough coarseness so it is not baby food consistency. You get to pick! Same with the amount of water, you pick. Most lentils will absorb water as they cool and thicken, so you’ll need to add more next time you eat it any way.
  • To a warm pot, add a few teaspoons of oil, once the oil is warm (never needs to get too hot here as you’ll be adding all the ingredients quickly) and you don’t want anything to be over done), add the cumin seeds and let them fry for a bt till you can smell the oils releasing and the cumin changes colour.
  • Add 2-3 slitted green chillies to the oil, and let the oil release some of the chilli goodness.
  • Add the garlic and ginger, let them cook for about a minute or so. If you’re partial to one or the other, mix and match them up as you see fit. A warning, too much ginger will make the dal bitter.
  • Add the tomatoes, cook till they soften up a little bit and the skin is starting to separate from the body
  • Add the lentils, mix in, don’t break up the tomato too much, you want enough tomato gravy for the flavour, but you also want large bits to chew on.
  • Add water, salt to taste and bring to a boil, turn off.
  • Season with cilantro
  • Add lemon juice to taste. I like it lemony, some people only want a hint.

A Hearty, bold Dal

This one’s a meal. I made one for a potluck the other day with blackeyed peas and a kidney bean type lentil that was quite loaded!

  • 1 cup dry blackeyed peas (or 2 cups canned), half a cup of any other slower cooking lentil. Note, if you don’t want to cook the lentils together (especially if you don’t know what will cook when), just cook them separately. Cook the blackeyed peas to a mashable consistency and the other to a chewy, but not mashable (think chickpeas in chickpea salad) consistency.
  • One medium sized onion, chopped fine
  • As much ginger or garlic as you need. The usual amount for a 4 serving meal is about a 2 inch piece of ginger and 3 cloves of garlic.
  • 2-3 green chillies, red chillies, chooped fine, or just use red chili powder to taste
  • 1 Tablespoon of coriander powder
  • 1 teaspoon of cumin powder

(note – this is considered one of those classic ratios in North Indian cooking, the 3:1 coriander:cumin, don’t know why, but it works, so I don’t mess with it).

  • Garam Masala, or any aromatic spice mix. I sometimes put in some ras el hanout, ) to give it an extra aromatic kick, very optional, your dal will just taste different, not better or worse!
  • A couple of medium sized tomatoes, quartered. I usually use a juicy tomato (roma, etc), not a sandwich type (beefsteak).

Directions

  • To a warm pot, add a few teaspoons of oil, medium heat. Once the oil is ready, add the chopped chillies, fry for about 10 seconds or so (feel the sizzle!), then add the onions and saute until transluscent.
  • Add the ginger and garlic, saute for another minute or so (you’ll smell it when it’s done!).
  • Reduce the heat and add the dry spices, cumin powder, coriander powder (and chilli powder if you did not use the chillies in the beginning).
  • Immediately add the tomatoes and cook till a little tender (skin separation is always a good sign).
  • Add the lentils, mix in, don’t break up the tomato too much, you want enough tomato gravy for the flavour, but you also want large bits to chew on.
  • Add water, salt to taste and bring to a boil, add the aromatic spice mix (optional) and turn off.
  • Season with cilantro or green onions. As always, feel free to add greens, or soupy vegetables for more texture.

Environment

Better Place electric car experiment not in good place

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You may have heard of Shai Agassi and Better Place (link’s to a TED talk, so you know he was important!), the car company that was going to revolutionize electric cars by separating the battery infrastructure from the car and setting up a number of battery swap stations. The goal was to remove “range anxiety” as batteries could be swapped out in 5 minutes or less. Their first experiment was in Israel and it appears to have not worked.

Why a Promising Electric Car Startup Failed – Yale E News

But such rosy projections never came close to materializing. One of the unexpected things to go wrong was that the company didn’t get much help from Israel. Although Shimon Peres, the former Israeli president, was an enthusiastic Better Place supporter, Israel — unlike the U.S. — provides no subsidies to EVs. Local authorities, whose permission was needed to build battery-switching stations, put up unexpected roadblocks

Not surprised one bit. System change requires institutional support.The status quo bias in favour of the current infrastructure is massive. Gasoline cars work well for people who drive cars, regardless of the expense, which is incremental, hence easily disregarded, or pollution concerns, which are unseen and to which people only have shallow affinities for. People don’t like uncertainty or novelty in routine. If we want to produce less pollution in travel, electric cars cannot just be plugged in to the current infrastructure. This quote from David Roberts of the Grist explains it well:

Lurking in the background is the notion that the “promise of electric cars” is false until an electric car can plop down in America’s current transportation system and do everything an internal-combustion-engine car can do. <snip> The problem, however, is not merely that our cars consume too much oil. It’s that our transportation system consumes too much oil. A better system won’t merely involve better cars, it will involve driving less, telecommuting more, using more public transportation, sharing cars, making cars smarter, and building more and better electrical infrastructure.

betterplace

The current infrastructure was built with sustained government support over decades and is propped up by trillions of dollars in taxes, subsidies to fossil fuel industry and such. It works for the people using it, if not for life on this planet in the long term. If I was driving, if my commute is 20 minutes, an electric car will still only take 20 minutes. If you’re stuck in traffic in a hellish commute, an electric car doesn’t help you at all. An electric car would save some money in the long run, but  no individual or market is going to build me a charging station in my apartment or workplace, or set up a range of battery swappers from scratch. 

Building a sustainable infrastructure is not something a market can do, or is designed to do. It will be up to us to visualize where we want to go, and spend the money, time and effort needed to make it happen. We are also up against a large and well established system that does not really want this change to happen, and has spent decades eroding trust in the institutions that would have to make this change happen.

Looking forward

What needs to happen for electric cars to be a small part of the solution? The larger part involves system change to reduce daily transport needs, de-emphasize private transport and encourage bike, bus train and walk. For cars to be a part of the solution:

  1. Governments/communities will need to build millions of charging stations (no, markets will not make this happen magically)
  2. Regulations must force electric car companies to provide standard battery replacement systems (imagine a different battery compartment for each battery operated appliance you own!)
  3. Gas stations may need to be retrofitted and eventually replaced with battery swap stations for longer distance private travel.
  4. We need to fund research in better electricity storage and continuous charging using existing road infrastructure.
  5. Money? The true social cost of carbon could be $250 a ton, BC’s carbon tax is at $30 a ton, clearly we are all free-riding. Carbon taxes, financial transaction fees, taxing the rich and more need to happen.

Are our governments and institutions up to this massive task?

Environment

Climate change infographic

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This infographic came my way via Learnstuff and it looked interesting. I have a love-hate relationship with infographics and this one evokes the same feelings of “I really appreciate the effort someone put into this and it looks great” vs. “how is this going to influence our policy makers, or create the intensity (read this link, it’s really good stuff by David Roberts of Grist) that is required to foster the system change we need”?

Climate-Change

Open Data

Open Data: Let’s talk about more than just government

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Victoria is hosting its open data day and Hackathon Saturday the 23rd (Facebook Link). I plan on being there because I support openness and transparency, I’d like to learn more about available data sets, and hangout with like-minded people. The City of Victoria has taken steps since 2011 through Councillor Marianne Alto‘s initiatives and more to facilitate more open governance. Like any other government entity, there is valid criticism and issues to navigate, but stated goals exist and progress can be tracked and critiqued.

Enough people talk about open government data, and there’s consensus that governments should be more collaborative, open and participatory. But most of us spend more time and money interacting with non-government entities than we do with government entities. Look at your monthly budget. You will spend 30-40 percent on your mortgage or rent, goes to a non-government entity. The next biggest line items, probably groceries, car payments are all to private entities. Should we as consumers not expect the same open data sharing standards from our private entities as we do from government? The book Open Government, released for free by Safari books after Aaron Swartz’s death (does not appear to be free any more) has one chapter by Archon Fung and David Weil titled Open government and Open Society, which outlined my concerns very well:

Enthusiasts of transparency, which most readers of this book are, should be aware of two major pitfalls that may mar this achievement. The first is that government transparency, though driven by progressive impulses, may draw excessive attention to government’s mistakes and so have the consequence of reinforcing a conservative image of government as incompetent and corrupt. The second is that all this energy devoted to making open government comes at the expense of leaving the operations of large private sector organizations—banks, manufacturers, health providers, food producers, drug companies, and the like—opaque and secret. In the major industrialized democracies (but not in many developing countries or in authoritarian regimes), these private sector organizations threaten the health and well-being of citizens at least as much as government.

Open Government – Chapter 8 – Open Government and Open Society – Fung and Weil

I wrote briefly about one aspect of open data in our private interactions, shopping receipts. We spend a lot of time, effort and money shopping, yet we’re very unlikely to leverage the power of data to help us shop better because our individual decisions are captured in paper receipts. But there are many more examples.

  1. Mortgages – Do you have to go to every bank/lender’s website to do a comparison? Ratehub is a start, is there an API or download capabilities?
  2. Real Estate Data – Realtors control real estate data in Canada, I would call this a major conflict of interest. There are efforts to open this data up a la the US, but slow going. This is the biggest market transaction any of us will undertake in our lives, but information is controlled by the agency that benefits most from our lack of knowledge.
  3. Rentals – Craigslist is notorious for hoarding data and going after people who want to present data in more useful formats. Community posted information is created by the community, but captured by private entities due to network effects (everyone’s on craiglist, so I need to be there too, regardless of their data policies).
  4. Insurance markets – Government provided insurance information (ICBC – Car, MSP – health) is transparent. Try getting insurance in the open market for condos, homes and more, you’ll find the same pdf/paper quote formats that make it difficult to compare and choose wisely.
  5. Corporate governance – There is so much information missing on actual corporate structures, ownership, directorship, brand ownership and lobbying
  6. Pollution and resource use. Do we have a good idea what companies pay for water or power? Do we have a way of understanding who pollutes what and where?

My goal on open data is to advocate for openness in all of society, not just in government. Also, just because data is available does not mean it is open. APIs and download capabilities are key.

So, when you think open data, do try and shift your gaze away from government occasionally. Remember that your housing decision is much more critical than the salary information for the assistant city manager, so openness is vital everywhere.

cart

 

Update: as Kevin pointed out on twitter, the federal tax bill is pretty big. I was talking more in terms of the municipal parts like property taxes. The point nevertheless stands, we pay private entities large sums of money under poor data transparency conditions.

Environment, Immigration

Chinese coal mines in BC: Missing the forest for the trees

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The story of a Chinese company in BC hiring Chinese workers has received a lot of attention. Much of the attention has focused on the company’s decision to game the temporary worker system in order to avoid hiring “Canadian” workers. Many of the objections are made on nationalistic grounds, “OMG, THEY”RE TAKING CANADIAN JOBS”, which then leads down the path of racist anti-Chinese sentiment. This Tyee article (disclaimer: I am a Tyee monthly funder, but obviously have no editorial input!) summarizes the issues involved very well. Recent changes to Canada’s immigration laws make this kind of hiring logical, because it is now okay to pay temporary workers with little/no bargaining power 15% less than you would pay locals. Of course you have to document that there were no qualified locals, but as this particular incident indicates, there’s little/no actual enforcement unless a fuss is made.

I find temporary worker programs to be problematic because they provide no path to citizenship, no permanence for the people who want it, and cause ugly divisions in the community. If you think there are not enough “workers” in your community, open your borders, let them in and pay well, you’d be surprised.

I wanted to highlight two obvious issues that to my mind are as important:

  1. Carbon Bomb. It’s a coal mine! How many people in BC, which preens gloriously on its carbon tax, are aware that coal is BC’s Number One export? What is the point of having a carbon tax for consumers when producers get to make money off that carbon for free? Whether the coal is burned in BC, or in China, it causes the same damage. Whether the coal is used to generate power, or to make steel, it puts out the same amount of carbon dioxide. Whether the mine uses Chinese workers or locals, it produces the same climate changing emissions. So, why instead of making coal producers pay the real costs of their product, are we enabling them to evade carbon taxes, royalties, and save even more money by reducing wages? Also, coal mining is not employment intensive, as countless other people have pointed out. So it’s not really about the jobs either. Kevin Washbrook of StopCoal made this point as well in the Tyee article I linked to earlier.
  2. Does this mine have right to be there? The West Moberley First Nation, part of a Treaty 8 band is opposed to the project on its land. That should be the end of the story. The state of Canada has responsibilities as a settler entity to obtain free, prior and informed consent on development from the people it colonized. The US is a bit more honest in this regard as it regards the colonization as a thing of the past and gives its indigenous peoples little/no rights. Canada’s different, the indigenous here have specific standing because of Canada’s existing colonial links and Canadian governments and courts routinely confirm this standing. The BC government is currently negotiating treaties with many First Nations communities including the West Moberley First Nation.

We’re trying to set up a climate and environment disturbing, cost and tax evading coal mine on land that belongs to someone else using easily exploited temporary workers we can be racist towards.

coal

Energy, Environment

Methane Leakage, again

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In a sane world, we would be very concerned about measuring, reporting and closely regulating methane releases during its extraction and processing, especially if we claim that it is clean energy. This is nothing I, or other people haven’t said before, but here’s more research summarized in the very respectable Nature Journal indicating that measurable leak rates of methane can vary widely.

Preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage — an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data — which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado

via Methane leaks erode green credentials of natural gas : Nature News & Comment.

10% is a large number. I’ve posted this picture from Wigley (2011) previously. At any leakage rate other than zero, which no one claims, the benefits of switching from coal to methane are very modest.

It's all about Methane leakage

It’s all about Methane leakage

We absolutely need to measure, control and regulate fugitive methane emissions from every BC site, and need to have solid regulation in place before we keep expanding natural gas infrastructure. We need our political leaders to start talking seriously about capturing methane leaks when they talk about BC’s natural gas “play”.

Politics

It’s not the policy, it’s the racism

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Articles on people of colour and voting patterns in the recent US election don’t touch on the racist rhetoric that the right has used for years. People of colour are frequent recipients of racist actions against them and the right’s use of racist language is completely internalized into their discourse and worldview. Just look at what Bill O’Reilly said post election:

“Obama wins because it’s not a traditional America anymore. The white establishment is the minority. People want things.”

The republican party thinks hispanics are not part of a traditional America. People of colour tend to notice these things. Obama has deported way more hispanic people than Bush ever did, and has not used his executive discretion to slow down enforcement till the DREAM act deferrals. But the democratic party has not been captured by the ugly racism that pervades  anti-immigrant rhetoric in the US.

So, change positions all you want, and help pass real immigration legislation that helps the millions of Americans living a difficult undocumented life get documented. But, the right needs more than that. It needs to convince its supporters that racism is unacceptable and to punish, not reward people for saying racist things and acting in racist ways.

The attorney general of Utah, Mark Shurtleff, a conservative Republican, said he was part of an “education campaign” to persuade Republican officials that “they need to reject the run-’em-out, deport-’em, enforcement-only approach that people think is the only voice of the Republican Party.”

Republicans Reconsider Positions on Immigration

Update: Mitt Romney’s post election statements where he labels everyone other than White people “special interest groups” are yet more evidence.

Photo courtesy Lorenzolambertino photostream used under a creative commons licence.

Transit, Victoria

Made in China buses: Is the fearmongering necessary?

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If you live in greater Victoria, you must be aware that BC Transit and CAW Local 333 are negotiating a new contract. Like a number of contracts negotiated in this time of fake austerity,  the negotiation is contentious because there are actual mandates from the government that salaries cannot increase unless “savings” are found elsewhere. I am not privy to how these negotiations are going, so no second guessing here on strategy or tactics. I hope things get settled, because I travel more than a thousand kilometres by bus every month and driving to work is not what I want to do, neither is crossing a picket line.

All that being said,  this new tack is disturbing.

Williams said B.C. Transit “wants the unrestricted right to bring in Chinese-built” community shuttle buses with lower safety standards, which could be piloted by part-time drivers “at a significantly lower wage rate than conventional bus drivers.”“B.C. Transit literally had to go to China and get these buses designed and built there to get around higher safety requirements,” Williams said in the release.

via Victoria bus drivers set for overtime work ban starting Monday, union says

Yes, China bashing is a quick way to gain sympathy. and happening quite a bit this month because the Chinese and Canadian governments are negotiating a secret trade agreement (Leadnow campaign link) that gives corporations of both countries all kinds of rights and privileges that we could only dream of getting for ourselves.

Is there any evidence that Chinese made buses are unsafe, especially when they need to conform to Canadian safety standards? Is there any evidence that these standards are being gamed? These are different questions from “are these buses suitable”? “Are the lifecycle costs for these buses being understated”? I wish CAW Local 333 would take the time to frame this issue more accurately, because this issue is not about China, it is about us.

Lost in all this China bashing and a cynical attempt to appeal to our “other” phobia is the obvious conclusion that it’s not the “made in China” aspect of manufacturing that makes a product less durable or of poorer quality, it is the insistence of markets to lower standards on the products to cut short-term costs or to increase profits. China, like many other countries, probably more than Canada, manufactures large quantities of high quality products routinely. It’s not China’s fault that your crappy London Drugs coffee grinder can’t actually grind coffee and breaks when your cat sneezes near it. It’s the fault of the companies that sell you stuff, and our own inability to balance short-term price vs. long term cost. It is also the oppressiveness of the Chinese government combined with consumers need for cheap, and market profit needs that exacts a high price on the Chinese makers of the high quality IPhone.

So, ask hard questions about the suitability of the buses, and question the market mechanisms that brought us here. Unions are a very necessary buffer against market excess and corporate control. But do we have to use “made in China” as a cudgel again? As my friend says,

Made in China has become a short form for criticisms of the market, which are credible. But the problem is that it slips in the othering too

 

sea turtles

Robot sea turtles for ocean Safety

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I have only one question: Will these cute robot turtles come up to shore every year to lay eggs that will turn into cute little robot turtle hatchlings?

I have to remind myself sometimes that this blog is named after a sea turtle and that my turtle overlords demand a post or two once in a while that propitiates them.

Robotic sea turtles, on the other hand, can do all sorts of things. They can find out where a pipeline or a ship hull is damaged. Or the extent of an oil spill, or locate bodies in the wake of a disaster.

via Robot sea turtles could help keep the ocean safe and clean | Grist.

twitter

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-10-07

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