Dinner Plates of Delight

Dinner Plate One

For whatever crazy reason, I've been CRAVING hot wings.  I've tried dipping pork into the hot wing sauce, and while its tongue tingling exciting, it's not hot wings, if ya know what I mean.....  So, I began a quest of re-inventing hot wings without any food cheats.

Up first was to pull out the chicken....ok now this was a stumper.  Pork would fill in for the protein aspect, but what about that crispy skin holding the sauce, and providing a secondary flavor and texture profile. 

A few weeks ago, I found a vegetarian making "fried chicken" on youtube.  She took fakey chicken pieces coated it in egg and then dredged in a flour and fried it.  It was crispy!  It clung to the meat!  But she used egg and wheat flour, and if you minus those and substitute other items it all goes south quickly.  And tis battered, not what I'm after at all.  But it did get my brain working......

Saturday was "Operation Hot Wing".  I took pork, cut them into finger sized pieces, flavored them with salt, pepper and onion powder and let sit for a bit.  Then I placed corn starch on a plate, filled a plate with hot water and dipped a rice paper wrapper, let soak then rolled a piece of pork into it, dredged it with the corn starch, and fried it.  After coating it with wing sauce, I was ecstatic! The coating started out crispy and the sauce clung to it wonderfully, and after it sat a bit it turned chewy, just like actual chicken skin!

 w00t!!!!!

FTW!

A few changes will occur the next time I make them, and there WILL be a next time!  Next time I'll bake the pork until nearly done, that way I dont have to fry them quite so long to ensure the pork being fully cooked.  I'll do it ahead of time, let them cool, and dry and then coat and fry.  Also, will make the cornstarch coating lighter so that it doesnt build up such a mucky mess in the bottom of the fryer leading to burnt oil.  May try using potato starch for a few to see if that produces a superior chew.  Potato starch makes a chewier coating on fish, and I don't enjoy that on fish, but maybe on hot wings it will shine!

Dinner Plate Two

Left to my own devices, I trend towards not eating much meat, nor fat.  Yes, yes I know the previous bit of this post was about fried pork, but I only ate a few and was satisfied.  A small steak usually lasts me 3 - 4 meals.  When I don't eat meat, I dont miss it, and rarely think about meat, except for the love of my life, Bacon!

As the weather got became colder and darker, I began to wind down, until I was again marooned onto the island of our sofa again.  Last weekend, TH took one look at me and decided I needed a shot of protein, and then stopped and said, "I don't think it's protein you need, I think its the fat, I'm buying you a fatty steak and you're going to eat some of that fat!"  And so he did, and I ate some of both, and within a few hours I had energy again....Weird as hellz, yeah?   I don't get it either, all I know is it works.  The next day I ate it for breakfast and lunch and felt well enough to go for a 1 1/2 mile walk!  Now I'm trying to make sure I consume a certain amount of protein and fat each day, and am feeling better even as the weather chills further. 

Dinner Plate Three

While reading an milk allergy blog recently the author talked about being able to eat all sheep milk items without any physical issues.  On my weekly trip to the natural grocery store, I scoured their chill chest for anything made from sheep milk.....looking, "no that's cow,......goat.......goat....raw milk...SHEEP!!!  I bought a single container of sheep milk yogurt.  Brought it home, and worried about eating it, but maned up and stirred the fruit up from the bottom and hesitantly took a bite,  and it's YUMMY!  It didnt hurt my tummy!  Didn't make my ears ring, or stuff up my sinuses!  A few days later found some sheep milk feta and came home and whipped up a greek salad, oh my gawd was it fabulously fabulous! 

As you can see, our snow melted away, only to return a few days later, and melt off later that day as well.  But with highs in the low 40's and night time temps in the low 20's, a lasting snowfall isnt far away.

The Door Slams Shut

on fall.

Hello winter!

Gender/Sex/Sexuality 2.0

The comments on my last post rather confused me.  I know that gender lies in the brain and sex is a physical expression of genetic coding.  Believe me when I tell you that I am all the other trans folk are walking expressions of that definition.  Our meat suits don't fit our gender, a gender which we know to be truer than true.  My gender is male, no question about it.  However....

What I was asking, what is it that makes a male, a Man.  Is it solely the having of a male body?  Can one be a man while living inside of a female body?   This might be a tricky concept for gender/sex matching humans to understand, due to the fact you've never had the need to question where you lie within the male/female continuum.   A time before your memories, you KNEW yourself to be male/female.  Just like myself and other trans folk knew, the only difference is the entire world, including their bodies told them otherwise.

No, what I'm asking is more basic.  If I were to show up in my girl suit to a gay men's group would/should I be accepted?  What are societies rules about claiming to be a man, but not looking nor sounding a thing like a man? 

Sexuality is yet another question.  Merriam Webster defines homosexual thusly:

1

: of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex

2

: of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex

Technically, I'm straight as my sex is most definitely unarguably female.  Wikipedia mentions gender with sex in its description of homosexuality.  I'm going with the wiki definition, as it fits my world view. 

I KNOW who and what I am, male and gay, what I'm asking is about validation and acceptance in society.  There is a still a wide swath of GLB that hate up on all transgender humans.  If I've read it once, I've read it thousands of times from both sides of the gender aisle about why the T is even included in GLB because they aren't a sexual minority.  Honestly, from my side of the fence, the T's ARE a sexual minority, folk born within the wrong sex, and an even tinier minority than GBL's are.  One thing that really hurts T's  within GLBT groups, is that many of them categorically refuse to define their sexuality, straight, gay, bi, lesbian or asexual.  What's the major malfunction in labeling who excites you sexually?

At the core of my questionings is what is it that defines the state of being male, or female?  What makes a male a man?

Sex/Gender/Sexuality Existential Thoughts

While over leaving a comment at Jay's blog, I realized that there is a subject I've yet to discuss here with y'all.  Does having a male gender truly make someone (ie me) a man? 

Does owning this

make someone a man?

Or can one be male/man without it?  


Because men who have lost their penis due to injury or disease are still considered MEN.  But what if one isn't born with one?  Is it something more than physical characteristics, or is sense of self enough to be counted as male?

Trans folk have to come out twice to everyone.  Once as trans, and then as to what sex you're attracted to.  I've been asked by GLBT'ers before if I'm gay or straight and usually my answer is "yes".  

"Yes?"

"Yes.  Meat suit girl is straight, cause she likes dudes.  Gendered male me is gay, because I like dudes.  So, yes."

But does having a male gender enough to be able to walk about calling oneself "gay"?  What does being gay actually mean?  Feeling romantic and sexual feelings towards one own sex.  But my sex is female, only the gender half is male........ 

Round and round like a carousel,

but never quite closing the question loop.

                               One of the major malfunctions of modern society is the strict adherence of two sexes and genders.   While there seems to be only two sexes, genders like sexuality come in a wide arc.

Kinsey helped the masses decide where they fall on the sexuality scale.  I feel that a gender scale is needed as well.  Boiling down feelings and expression would be far harder than what Kinsey invented, but classifications of gender is just as important.

Kinsey's scale helped rank and file Mary and Bob understand that homosexuality is common human condition, not an abnormal one.   It helped parents and families to come to grip with a gay kid, knowing that they were "normal", not a deviant or recruited by a pervert, but normal.

Gender scales would not only help trans folks be more easily accepted, but would slacken the chains on people who are straight but perceived as being not, our gender expression brethren.  Butchy girls, femme boys.  Boys who don't like sports, roughhousing but dream nightly about pussy, pussy pussy.  Girls who hate the kitchen but love the garage, the woodshop, and lust after guys.  Those femme boys and butchy girls could now be considered "normal", not freak shows like now.

If humans were allowed to freely express both their true genders and sexualities, what changes would occur?  I would imagine bullying incidents would drop dramatically, when one counts gender expression and sexuality only.  Sadly we still have acres to go in reducing racial bullying, I'm looking at you GOP......  Would society stop stifling males emotions, allowing our boys and men to cry and express nurturing, allowing a disinterest in all things considered typically male without being labeled "a nancy boy"?  Could girls finally stop equating their physical beings with their inner selves, and know that they are more than a pretty shell to look at, would that reduce women's unhappiness?

Which brings me back to what makes men, men and females, female?  Is it more than our meat suit?  Does what lies inside trumps the outer?  Society lags behind on this conundrum, and I've yet to find a way off the carousel of what it means to be a man and a gay man at that.