SciFriday: So long and thanks for all the fish….
Tomorrow is International Towel Day! For all you geeky folks I need explain no further but to any readers who aren’t officials on their British SciFi—Towel day was started in 2001 to commemorate the passing of author Douglas Adams. Adams wrote perhaps one of the keystones in geek lit—“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”—which has failed for the most part in making a popular film adaptation and so most folks still haven’t heard of it. That’s not to knock the film made a few years back; it just hardly reached the same level of non-geek audiences that say Avengers did last summer.
Hitchhiker’s Guide begins with the demolition of earth for the construction of an interstellar highway—galactic eminent domain. Unfortunately humanity failed to notice the memo (hey it WAS posted) and gets subsequently wiped out. All humans that is except for Arthur Dent who discovers in his local pub that his good friend Ford of many years is in fact, an alien, and is whisked away just moments before earth goes all kablooey. Thus begins their travels hitchhiking across the universe. Along the way they travel with the President of the Galaxy (who has kidnapped himself), a stolen ship operating by Improbability Drive, the last remaining human female in the galaxy (I see where this is going), and a depressed robot named Marvin. You find out a certain species of whiskered four legged animal is smarter than humans and very, very evil? Can you guess which animal this is—hint it’s NOT cats. The second smartest species being Dolphins (humans are third you see) also escape the demolition of earth after thanking humans for all the fish we fed them over the years.
Oh and the earth was actually just a giant supercomputer designed to determine what the ultimate question is after a super computer determined the answer to the ultimate question regarding life, the universe and everything is….42. It’s pure, delightful space nonsense. Yet it manages to also pack some really great punches that are surprisingly on point, make you think and will be quotable even in non-geeky circles.
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Tomorrow will also be “Geek Pride Day” which I just always kind of lump into Towel Day. I mean what could be more geek pride-yer than running around singing So Long and Thanks for All The Fish? If you planted a geek flag it would be a towel, with the words “Don’t Panic!” waving proud and high for all passing spaceships to see. Why a towel? Ah I see you haven’t read the book. Well did you know that a towel is the most important thing for a space traveler to carry?
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
Hitchhiker’s Guide is pretty pervasive in our culture even though you might not have noticed it. I know of a chemistry professor for example that made sure that he always had a question whose answer was 42 out of homage to the book. Most of the kids in the class didn’t get it…. It’s somewhat sad to me that so few people still seem to have heard of this book—at least in America—when it’s such an international phenomenon. 
Originally written in the 70’s, Hitchhiker’s Guide has been made into several radio shows, stage adaptations, lp compilations, films, tv series, comic books…. I’d argue it’s the British culture equivalent to Star Trek except they also have Doctor Who so I’m not sure which one wins out there for most popular, British geeky space epic. I wonder if they have the animosity competing Star Wars and Star Trek fans do….
If you are looking for something to do to celebrate the holiday tomorrow there are numerous events going on globally if you check the official holiday website. Me? What will I be doing? What do I ever do when I have a day or even to commemorate? I cook of course! Since the book is oh so british, and Arthur Dent is always on a quest for that good English Cuppa, and since the dolphin song is so infectious, I offer to you the official dinner of Towel Day: Tea Steamed Mackerel. Mmmmmmm. Tea because duh, British and Mackerel because it’s not only one of the fish that Dolphins in captivity are fed, but because they are one of the more sustainable options at your seafood counter. I love it when all my passions collide on a plate. While a good solid English Breakfast tea is great, I really wanted something that would stand up to the strong salty flavor of mackerel. After sniffing my way through the loose leaf tea section at Whole Foods, I discovered this smoked variety: Lapsang souchong. It is remarkable with the fish. Really, truly remarkable. As it turns out this variety of tea was Winston Churchill’s favorite so I officially consider it British enough. The best part is that this recipe is simple and fast, so you can easily make it with only a few minutes to spare before the demolition of your planet.
Hitchhiker’s Tea Steamed Mackerel
An Olivia Original Read more
No I’m not currently the victim of an alien abduction. I don’t actually mean to blame this epidemic of culinary ignorance on moms; certainly not with mother’s day approaching. I once had a professor who blamed our overweight, convenience food culture on women’s lib. This wasn’t a soapbox about forcing women back into the role of housewife mind you. He was just trying to grab our attention and demonstrate how a shift in family structure created the opportunity for the fast food market, also known as the fat food market, to gain a stronghold. Prior to the 40’s, women stayed at home and family meals were a daily job. Food was made from scratch, at home, and generally was more nutritious as a result. It wasn’t a matter of grabbing a box of processed junk from the drive thru window while juggling teleconference calls. Don’t go rushing off thinking your shrink is right and that all your problems are rooted with dear old mom. There’s no reason Dad can’t stay at home instead and make those meals for the kidlets. Sadly in today’s world having either parent out of the workforce just isn’t really a possibility even when/if a parent wants to.
The first step was to eliminate the “Crispy Rice” of a certain name brand cereal well all grew up snapping along with. Instead of using fried bits of white rice, high in fat and low in nutrition, I went for 
This doesn’t pertain to all of you, or even most of you, directly but I think you all need to be made aware of this so you can understand women and stop this behavior when you see it. Now I will make small talk when I’m in a good mood with my cashier or the cab driver. I know that it breaks up the monotony of the day in the service industry to have someone friendly engage you for even a few minutes. I’ve been there. I had my high school stint as a worker bee at Mervyn’s. But if there is a woman you are ringing up, or helping, or in a car with who is clearly having a bad day–leave her the frak alone. Seriously. Don’t make it your job to cheer her up because if she’s anything like me she really, really doesn’t want you to. In fact having a strange male approach me when I’m in that mood doesn’t help me feel better–it puts me on edge.
Then I thought about it some more and realized that if you consider insects “people too” you basically have to desist from eating anything manufactured. In fact even growing a backyard garden and employing some organic tricks for pest control would mean impacting and killing the insect population should be disallowed. At what point do you draw the line? In a normal day any plant processing your vegan agave nectar is going to kill a thousand insects simply as a side effect of running the plant. Bugs get in the gears; bugs get in the food; bugs get everywhere and they get filtered out. So I can’t really get on board with the anti-honey vegans. The issue of animal-cruelty hypocrisy has been pretty prescient lately when PETA was exposed for “putting down” up to 
I accept that in the natural order of things some animals eat other animals—and that I am one of those predators. That doesn’t limit my desire to see these animals raised humanely and slaughtered as painlessly as possible. I think of this way: torture is often seen as something worse than death. Keeping someone in a state of constant pain and agony until they desire to no longer exist is horrible and overall we tend to object to torture more vehemently than even death itself. I accept this because, as with the honey issue, finding a way to eliminate any negative effect of our human need to eat on other living creatures is impossible. I’m not convinced that honey farming, especially the small scale local level, is particularly harmful to the mental state of the insects. I do buy locally sourced honey and not just because I try to be a locavore, but because eating local honey has been demonstrated to help with allergies—local pollens and all that.
‘So it is,’ they answered, ‘But we call it lembas or way bread, and it is more strengthening than any food made by Men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts.’
Oh and by the way, the fertilizer to make that corn each year? It requires oil. That stuff we get from the middle east. Conservative estimates show that 1 bushel of corn = ¼ gallon of oil. How much corn do we produce in a year? Well in 2007 we grew over 13 billion bushels. The number has come down to closer to 12.5 in recent trends. That’s still well over 3 billion gallons of oil in a year…to grow a crop we have too much of and lose money on. And that doesn’t even account for the other hidden oil costs—like how much we need to run the plants that process that corn into things like corn syrup; the cost of the machines to farm it; the cost of healthcare as consumers eat excessive amounts of cheap sugars and get fat and sickly.
I don’t necessarily believe in veganism as a sustainable whole-lifestyle choice. At least not for me. I certainly think it has applications; it’s a good diet model for people with serious obesity health concerns. With respect to animal welfare it is possible to find animal products from humanely raised animals so I don’t think someone has to cut all cheese out of their diets for this reason. As for killing animals for food…well I don’t have a problem with that aspect of it but I’m not going to judge anyone who does. Still that only means that people really need to go vegetarian if they are controlling where all the animal byproducts they consume come from. But again that would be at home. I really doubt Denny’s is getting their half & half from free-range, grass grazing cows
Yet still it has happened. I’m a social vegan. Oh you’ve never heard that term? Well basically when I eat out I stay on a vegan diet but at home I’m happy to go about my omnivore ways. Strange isn’t it? Typically you’ll hear about people doing the opposite—eating vegan at home but relaxing out in company because eating vegan socially is fucking hard. But my reasons make sense I swear… See here’s the thing I don’t have a problem with eating meat or byproducts from livestock. I do have serious problems with how the majority of livestock in this country is raised. I object to it on a number of levels and decided that if I’m going to be morally consistent at all then I need to start really watching what I eat when I’m eating out because that is where I have no control over where my food came from. Thus when I’m at home and I’ve bought the food myself, I’ll grill up a steak and slather it with blue cheese and runny quail egg. But if I’m out grabbing a bite at some corner diner? Odds are I’m asking for salad and a fruit cup. So what prompted this?
What makes dancing so cathartic, so therapeutic and just so damn much fun? It’s the release I think. It’s physical, if not always sexual, and requires that you trust in your body rather than letting your mind do all the work. Overthinking means you lose the beat. If you have a partner you need to be able to really let your body win out and react to theirs. If you let your brain worry about where his or her foot is going next, by the time you figure it out they are already two more steps ahead. That’s not to say it involves totally turning off your mind because I certainly feel like mine is still racing but it’s in a reactive mode rather than predictive. That’s a rare thing for me to be able to do and enjoy. As such a Type-A(sshole) I find myself craving the ability to plan and control the majority of the time so finding a situation where I can be comfortable not doing that is rare and worth relishing. In retrospect I wish I had taken ballet lessons when they had been offered as a child.
Going on Saturday didn’t cure all my problems. It didn’t end my celibate streak. The fact that I haven’t even so much as kissed someone since July rather horrified one of my friends. But it did reconnect me a little with the girl I’m supposed to be acting the age of. Plus the nice part about being on the dance floor is that no one is talking. No one is asking me what I do for a living and being impressed, or intimidated or suffering inferiority complex. Instead it’s pretty simple: can you keep up? For some reason people seem to be more up to that challenge on the dance floor than anywhere else with me. Of course that might just be because I’m not a very good dancer…. White girl dancing isn’t exactly that poetic or challenging is it? But I do it with gleeful abandon regardless of how good I am.
My number one piece of advice to someone looking to force themselves to get more active, and also save a little money, is this: cut the cable. Do it. It’s scary I know and if you are a sports fan…well I can’t help you there as much but if you aren’t addicted to ESPN cut the damn cord. Cable is expensive and with the myriad of online subscription options expanding every day you don’t need it. Add them up and they are still cheaper than your hundred dollar plus Comcast bill. Do you own a tablet of some sort that streams video? Even more reason to get unhooked to the actual idiot box. Not being stuck in front of the tv all night after work will get you moving and doing other things. The advantage to streaming is that you can watch when you want—catch up on a day when you are genuinely immobile or commuting on the metro. Take it with you on the plane. When you don’t have a choice about being immobile, that’s a good time to watch.
But Olivia I don’t want to fall behind on my shows. In fact I like watching them LIVE when I can. Fine you whiner I already thought of the solution to that AND it gets you moving. Ready? Now here’s what you do with that money you saved: buy a gym membership. There are a lot of cheap deals out there for 30-40 bucks a month. Spend the money on online subscriptions and gym membership. How does a gym membership help? Well with the exception of certain premium stations like HBO, big gyms with cheap fees like 24 hour fitness have cable subscriptions. If you want to watch oh say, Glee on Thursday night at is actual broadcast time—go to the gym and use their television. Hop on a treadmill and walk a light pace; you don’t have to break a sweat if you don’t want to. 3 miles an hour is fine—hell 2 if you’re really lazy and an annoying as fuck slow walker…. The point is you save money and instead of sitting on the couch eating, i.e. gaining weight while actively doing nothing; you can get a little bit of electrical activity in your legs and watch the show. This way you aren’t munching away an entire bag of potato chips. I mean we’ve all done it. Instead you burn maybe 100 calories that hour, keep your metabolism awake and get to watch your favorite tv show for half the cost.
I think it is so shut up. This plan works really well for people who just abhor cardio with a passion. If you just can’t find the enjoyment in going for a run, cycling classes, aerobics or swimming and you need to distract your mind to get your body moving this is the perfect fix. It’s not going to get you Spartan abs ala 300 and it won’t result in significant weight loss in the long run, but it will help you lose a few pounds or just avoid the late night vegetative stupor that comes with primetime tv. If you hate gyms and can afford it then just buy a damn treadmill/bike/stair climber…whatever you prefer and put it in front of the tv but you better use it. Typically I see people buy equipment with this intent and get lured in by the seductive nature of their couches. Just can’t resist those alluring fibers and springs…. I like the gym membership because it really forces you to go get moving. You can’t sit on a couch and use the gym tv. And for those channels that air our favorite shows but aren’t carried by the gym’s cable? Well that’s where your PC tablet comes in handy. I’m not going to tell you how to get ahold of Game of Thrones without a cable subscription but I know some of you have it so…get walking.
Yup. It’s not just an easter thing though I’m guessing some of you have leftover pastel colored eggs that you’ve got to use up dontcha? Well let’s talk a wee bit about the significance of the egg in Judaism and then I’ll share with you a great skinny recipe for deviled eggs—half the calories!—that embraces all the delicious flavors of a good Jewish Deli.
My last piece to offer up is that the traditional seder plate contains all the items we discussed here but in recent years reform Jews have added a last element to the plate: an orange. The orange symbolizes women, as well as homosexuals, in the Jewish faith and their fruitfulness. Some families choose to incorporate this addition. Others don’t—either because they are more Orthodox or just more traditional about their practices. I’m not going to judge either way…at least not publicly. Though I may have an orange Passover friendly recipe to toss up here this week just to be fair—almond cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting anyone? Just depends on how much time I have and if I figure out something to do for SciFriday this week. But enough public pontificating. Mazel Tov! You made it through our Virtual Seder. Now use up those hardboiled eggs and join me for some pizza and beer when the sun goes down because DAMN I could use a beer.
