Yesterday I went downtown for a batch of food I cannot get at the regular supermarket. Some of those items I can get, but at a bonus price ranging from 150-200% of the price I buy it. The Arab Market isn’t a bad place to do your groceries then. Especially if you aren’t exactly rich like me. When I returned I plurked I just returned from that market and had a nice talk with the Muslim shopkeeper. That sparked a host of reactions about halal meat and animal cruelty. I didn’t expect that, so I felt the need to explain my reasons to eat halal meat only (if any) as a Christian. It has to do with finances and the way animals are treated.
The debate focused on the question if animals need to be stunned before slaughter and whether they suffer more if they aren’t. First, let me explain what halal slaughter means. Let me use some Wikipedia quotes to explain it:
Several other conditions are also stated: the knife’s blade should be extremely sharp yet not be sharpened in front of the animal, the animal must not be slaughtered in front of other animals, and the animal’s eyes and ears must be checked to ensure its health and suitability for slaughter. If it is deemed to be healthy, it is given water to drink (to quench its thirst). (…) [Before] the actual slaughter can begin.
and furthermore:
The act of slaughtering itself is preceded by mentioning the name of God. Invoking the name of God at the moment of slaughtering is sometimes interpreted as acknowledgment of God’s right over all things. Furthermore, it is an asking of permission to take the life of the animal to be slaughtered, and endows the slaughterer with a sense of gratitude for God’s creation, even prior to partaking in the meat of the animal.
The people slaughtering want to make sure they do it in a reverend way. There’s a reason why stunning is frowned upon in this regard and I quote Wikipedia again to explain:
According to Islamic tradition, the conventional method used to slaughter the animal involves cutting the large arteries in the neck along with the esophagus and trachea with one swipe of an unserrated blade. Muslims argue it provides a relatively painless death, but some veterinary and animal rights groups dispute this claim. It also helps to effectively drain blood from the animal. This is important because the consumption of blood itself is forbidden in Islam. Muslims consider this method of killing the animal to be cleaner and more merciful to the animal. While the blood is draining, the animal is not handled until it has died.
Stunning the animal with a bolt-gun, as is the standard practice in FDA-approved slaughtering houses, may cause instantaneous death. Some Muslims regard meat from such a slaughter to be haram, (…) In some animals with thicker skulls, the bolt-gun has to be administered more than once, causing harm and suffering to the animal, which goes against the dictates of an Islamic slaughter.
I think Wikipedia makes it very clear what Dhabihah (Islamic slaughter) is and why this produces halal meat. In Germany a vet did an investigation for the federal court to determine if this practice is cruel and should be forbidden. I won’t quote the whole thing, just link to it so people who are interested in it can read it. Click here for more information. It states the source, so if you are able to read German, you can trace back to the original text.
Now, why would a Christian want to eat halal food? Didn’t Christ make all food clean? My answer to that is that Christ indeed declare all food clean. But that has nothing to do with my decision to eat halal meat. My rationale has to do with us being stewards of the Earth (see Genesis for that). God gave us the earth and everything on it to use, but we don’t own it. So we have to be careful using something that’s not ours. We don’t want to give something back that’s broken or defaced. Here’s where my drive to live eco-green comes from, and why I eat only organic food and halal meat. I want to be sure the animals I eat are being taken care of properly and were treated with dignity when slaughtered. The practice of dhabihah meets my demands, so if I eat meat, it’s halal only.
Just my two cents, feel free to comment if you disagree. We all can learn something when exchanging our thoughts.
1 teaspoon of lemon juice or try lime juice which gives it a different zing!
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1 tablespoon of olive oil extra vierge (cold pressing)
bread crumbs, about 1/2 cup or 115g (dry)
peanut oil for frying (do NOT use olive oil!)
Tip for vegans: leave out the egg and try agar agar or something similar instead to bind the mashed chickpeas.
Directions:
In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don’t use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties. In the middle of each patty, press a small hole with your thumb. This will help keeping the patties flat while frying.
Heat 1/2 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides.
Every summer, my to-do list contains some nasty chores, but I know doing them will save me money. There’s a reason I do this chores now, just days before I go on vacation. Most people who read this know I live together with two students in a condo. During the summer, my roommates are away for weeks. They are on vacation themselves or stay at their parents’ place for a couple of weeks. Before they leave, they empty out their shelves so their groceries won’t walk away all by themselves.
For me this is the perfect time to unplug the freezer and clean it out. During the year layers of ice typically pile up, not making opening the drawers harder, but also causing the freezer use up extra energy. So cleaning it out saves energy, lowers our energy bill and is better for the environment. I don’t really have to bother about the latter since our household runs on 100% renewable ‘green’ energy, but savings on the bill are nice anyway. The downside is the gigantic mess the dripping water creates. So usually I have to clean the whole kitchen too. Well, I do that next week, knowing I’m relieved from that duty for a long, long time.
After cleaning out the freezer cabinet, I also clean the fridge since it’s almost empty too. Both jobs are nasty ones, but they need to be done, and I will be grateful to myself I did it when we discover our energy bill isn’t as high as we anticipated. Did you know your freezer uses up to 20% extra energy when thick layers of ice are present? That’s quite a lot of money going down the drain, considering the current soaring oil price!
Today I returned from a VERY busy weekend, full of travels, meeting friends, meeting new people, vacation planning, Mass and lots of talking. On Sunday I even anticipated a travel of NINE hours in the train. Not in one go, but I bought a ticket from Amersfoort to Groningen via Bunde (in Limburg). So what drove me to go from Groningen to Ulestraten in Limburg with a stop in Amersfoort? Vacation.
From August 16 until August 29 I planned a vacation with a group of friends to Eastern Bavaria and Sunday after Mass a meeting was scheduled to discuss our plans. It’s great to do so, but the downside was that the place we were to meet was in the deep South of the most Southern province of the Netherlands, over 300 kms from where I live. Since I am dependent on public transport, the trip would take 4.5 hours by train to get there and of course another 4.5 hours to get back home. Since we scheduled a meeting at 2pm I never would make that in time after attending Mass. That’s why I travelled via Amersfoort to go to E. a friend of mine living there. She also will go with us to Eastern Bavaria plus we used the occasion to meet each other.
We met on Saturday evening. I left a bit earlier to explore downtown Amersfoort on bargain hunt. I didn’t exactly find what I was looking for, but dinner with E. and the video we watched was a lot of fun. We went to bed early because we had to be in time for the 9:30am Mass of course. E. had to do Confession, so she made an appointment to get the sacrament before Mass. Which meant we had to be there at 9am. That’s early. We were very lucky, because some people had an anniversary and treated the parish on coffee with cake. Mmmm! We couldn’t sit there very long, because we had to catch our train (which we nearly missed, by the way).
We were an hour late in Ulestraten because our bus didn’t show up. It turned out to be that’s very normal in Limburg. Lucky us that we will leave from Heerlen train station in August, so we don’t need to bother again with the unreliable bus system over there. The priest who will be our tour guide was very nice and German. I liked that (of course ). We had dinner at the rectory and it was past 8pm when we were back at our train, so I never would make it back home in time. Therefore I had to spend another night in Amersfoort. Good thing I didn’t have anything scheduled on Monday!
While on the train, I realized I would be still in Amersfoort on Monday and I didn’t have had the chance to talk with an acquintance there, so if he would be around in the morning I could catch up with him. Thanks to the mercy of having wireless internet I could contact him and make an appointment. I so LOVE my hotspots account! We had a cup of coffee at the railway station and a very nice conversation. And after putting me on the train to Groningen I really had the feeling I got everything out of this weekend I possibly could get. I felt very satisfied.
Back in Groningen I discovered a new hideout: Puur! Natural Food. It’s a place you can hang out to have coffee, smoothies and sandwiches for lunch. And everything was fair trade or organic. It’s a brilliant place, not too expensive and I definately will visit again!
Before getting the shoarma I intended to buy first, I suddenly realised it was Friday today. And on Fridays Catholics have a good custom to eat fish instead of meat. It’s a sacrifice made to remember the event of Christ’s crucifixion. In the old days fish was cheaper than meat and considered as inferior ‘poor people’ food. So eating that instead of the better meat is a sacrifice. The state of affairs here in The Netherlands is currently reversed. Fish is insanely expensive and considered to be food of the richer people. So for me eating fish is a sacrifice, because I will spend more money on a Friday meal. Funny how things can change while the sacrifice aspect stays the same.
I wanted to try out something new and saw a new kind of wok meal on discount. So I was able to eat reasonably priced, but still slightly expensive fish. The stuff I tried was deep frozen tilapia wok menu with Hoi Sin sauce and vegetables. It had to be served with rice. I had Fair Trade Basmati Rice to go with it. The Fair Trade rice is more expensive than the regular kind, but it helps farmers earning a decent living. To me this suited perfectly to the Fish on Friday occasion.
It tasted actually very good. So good that I intend to have it more often, but I won’t buy the instant meal kit anymore. I will get frozen tilapia filets, get my own chinese vegetables from the freezer and make my own Han Soi sauce. This will be slightly cheaper. I found a recipe to make the sauce and am planning to make a bigger batch, divide it in smaller portions and freeze it.
Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons Soy sauce - dark/light/usual
2 tablespoons Peanut butter - or black bean paste
1 tablespoon Honey - or molasses
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons sesame seed oil
20 drops Chinese-style hot sauce
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
Directions:
Add everything in a food processor / blender and blend until a smooth sauce forms. Divide into smaller batches and put in the freezer.
The other day I noticed people at FriendFeed plugging songs using a service called ‘Last.fm‘. It intrigued me, so I decided to sign up and now I’m absolutely hooked. With your account you can listen to full-length streamed songs from all contemporary and past artists as well as independent music. While listening last.fm saves the kind of music you are listening to your profile and extrapolates your music taste from that data. It will suggest new music you probably like too. You can add friends and recommend songs to them. Also the service will select users with a similar taste as your ‘neighbours’ and enable you to listen to their songs. It’s absolutely brilliant! If you didn’t already, I highly recommend trying it!
Every summer I try out a new kind of chutney because I just love it. When I try it for the first time, I usually make 8 small (0,2 l) jars (1/5 quart) to try it out. After I discover how often I use it, I wait until next summer to make an appropriate batch. Because I use specially made glass jars (so called Weck-jars) I can preserve it as long as I want, because it’s sealed in a vacuum. It’s ideal! This time I tried out the following recipe from my favorite allrecipes.com website. Usually I adjust it a bit, so here is my version:
Ingredients
30 g / 1 oz diced dried apricots
450 g / 1 lb dried cranberries
70 g / a bit more then 2 oz raisins
2 g / half a teaspoon ground cinnamon
a dash ground ginger
a little bit ground allspice
a little bit ground cloves
250 ml / 1 cup water
150 g / 1/3 lb caster sugar
125 ml or 1/2 cup cider vinegar
Directions:
In a medium bowl, mix together the apricots, cranberries, raisins, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves.
In a medium saucepan, boil water and sugar until it’s dissolved. Add the fruits and the vinegar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Serve immediately, or use weck jars for preserving.
I first noticed a few weeks ago. The trees in front of our kitchen started to wither away. Slowly but surely the leaves turned from fresh green into autumn-like brown. The trees had died. Since the landlord ordered them to cut down within days, I suspect they were affected by some disease. From now on, the morning sun will burn into our kitchen merciless every morning until noon, not to mention the full view we now have on the parking lot and the condo at the other end of it.
Watching the trees being cut down saddened me. I love trees.
While browsing the web, I bumped into this site. It’s a pillow with built-in-speaker that can be attached to your music player. This way you can listen to your favorite tunes before going to sleep. I usually listen to podcasts and soothing music before sleeping, wearing earbuds, but after a while they are starting to get very annoying. I never knew you actually could get a pillow with a speaker built-in. So tempted to try it!
Last night I went to see some friends again. Fortunately these friends live in Groningen, so I could bike there. We had dinner and we watched a film. I wanted to write a review, since I thought it was a very good one. The story is set in Brasil, and revolves around an old spinster who earns her living writing letters for illiterate people. Her life will take a dramatic change when she meets a boy and his mother who want to write his father. The son wants to see him. So when the whole story hits close to home to her, she gets more involved with the events following than she actually wants.
It’s a beautiful picture. I liked the cinematography and especially the psychological side. The characters develop during the story and in this way the storyteller gives a beautiful, sometimes gruesome insight in human nature, in Brasilian society and a bit into the way religion is experienced too. The actor being casted for the character of the boy was actually a boy working on a railway station to shine shoes and was casted in favour of lots of (professional) actors.
The film made me feel like I actually was in Brasil. I loved how it literally breathed Brasilian culture, I so want to visit the place once in my life! Hugely recommending this movie.
Yesterday I went downtown for a batch of food I cannot get at the regular supermarket. Some of those items I can get, but at a bonus price ranging from 150-200% of the price I buy it. The Arab Market isn’t a bad place to do your groceries then. Especially if you aren’t exactly rich like me. When I returned I plurked I just returned from that market and had a nice talk with the Muslim shopkeeper. That sparked a host of reactions about halal meat and animal cruelty. I didn’t expect that, so I felt the need to explain my reasons to eat halal meat only (if any) as a Christian. It has to do with finances and the way animals are treated.
). We had dinner at the rectory and it was past 8pm when we were back at our train, so I never would make it back home in time. Therefore I had to spend another night in Amersfoort. Good thing I didn’t have anything scheduled on Monday!
