Color me surprised

Gummi goodness does make a difference when you bake without wheat.
I was resistive to trying a gum in my baking. It’s on the expensive side. Besides, do you know what xanthan gum is made of? It’s a fermented byproduct produced by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris. No spank you.
Now guar gum [...]

Good on you, Stirling; you got me

Just finished Meeting in Corvallis and drew the curtain on Emberverse 1.
Didn’t end as I suspected. Good on you, S.M. Stirling, even if I personally didn’t like all the ways the bones rolled. It’s hard to say good bye, even with the most noble of intentions.
I need to reread Christopher Vogler’s [...]

Maybe you’re not the friend I want to lean on

Tangled Up in ME, an article I found on Utne Reader, is actually a bit dated. It originally appeared in the September/October 2007 issue.
Take a gander at the whole article, despite it’s origination date. Its tone is pithy but on target, in my opinion. The author, Joseph Hart, discusses flower child/ hippie [...]

A new, little feature

Would you like to say hey, maybe discuss a current topic on Yak Attack, suggest a recipe, ask how the pups are doing? If you take a gander to the left sidebar, I added information about how to email me. PGP your gold standard for emailing? My public key is in the [...]

Another “Papers Please” article

If there are people out and about who do not think we live in a police state, they must spend much of their time under a rock. Take a gander at this Hearst Newspapers story, penned by Nadja Drost:  Heightened security at U.S.-Canada border catching few terror suspects Agent calls it ‘immigration dumpster diving’ [...]

Care to come into the kitchen?

One of the huge benefits of my self-imposed, wheat-free diet is all the new recipes I’m trying. Last night, I roasted a batch of sweet potatoes, using this Thyme-Roasted recipe. Wow! They were amazing.
As usual, I changed up the recipe slightly. I had two quite large sweet potatoes, that was all I [...]

Nanny? No thanks.

I’ve been working on a post on point #2 of the What We Believe over at Free and Unashamed. In light of the post below, moving on to point #3 makes more sense.
#3: We do not believe that our way of life, or any other, will make life perfect or
trouble-free. We [...]

Land of the free? Home of the Brave?

Video of Pastor Steve Anderson relating the tasering and beating he received at the hand of authorities in Arizona.
This happened on Tuesday, April 14th. This week. In a state of a country that’s supposedly free. He broke no laws, he just refused to be interrogated by border patrol at a check point they [...]

Declaration of Separation

Free and Unashamed is making some waves in the blogosphere.
The content of the website appears on the first glimpse to be simple. There’s one lone, uncategorized entry, which is repeated in the blog’s “About” section. It’s a Declaration of Separation. A separation from what, you might be wondering. That’s where the [...]

I hope you are as blessed as I feel today

The sun is shining; finally, there’s a slight, yet distinctly warm, breeze wafting. Despite it being a bit of a drudge to work every weekend, my commute is gorgeous, rain or shine. Today it was nothing short of glorious! Soft sunlight, framing majestic Mount Rainer to the south; a hint of wild, rustic Mount Baker [...]