SON OF SEITAN: THE SEQUEL 

vegetarian steak

Some say Converts are the worst. When you’re born into the cults, and reared in them, you learn to take some things for granted. But fuqqin Converts? Hell, no. They’ve got no sense of the lay of the land. When accepting new authorities, you’ve got to learn the difference between a captain and a private. It takes time since when first starting out all anyone sees is people wearing the same color. And after a while you discern they’ve all got badges and stripes stuck to their clothes. Then, cleverly, you interpret a few have more clout than the more. Then which badge associates with which amount of given clout. And then you see which of them with the same clout badges has the better presentage. And so on, and so, on. Takes a while for the new Convert to figure these distinctions. Some never do. Zealots.

Steak. Burgers, not missed as much. Basically bread crumbs and egg along with some bad meat, or numerous variations. Steaks remain a whole different foreign ball game. There’s “the whole blood and rip ‘em apart with your teeth” shit. Those were the days. The blood will never be replaced but there are other delights. Like the chew. Like sinking your teeth into once vital flesh, giving you vibrant bits of resistance you have learned will soon give way, but, for the moment, the meat fights back the best way it knows. 

Possibly the muscle. The sinew. Connective stretched biologic gluten. There are parallel universes in every con-artist’s repertoire.

Taste will not be the same but there are other rewards.

To begin. 

A little less than what passes for a cup of cooked black beans, rinsed and admired. (There are toasted variations but they are not for you. Not now. Maybe later. Maybe never.)

Vital wheat gluten. An extraordinary, truly amazing product. Not gluten free. Not at all. All gluten all the time. You can make some at home but quite a few projects are best left to professionals. Do not rewire your house on your own. Do not set aside decades to create your own Vital Wheat Gluten. 

Vital wheat gluten: a skosh under two cups.

You like ketchup? Again you can make your own. Easier to create at home than VWG but you know it’s already in your fridge. Dead on half cup.

Spice, spice, baby. Garlic powder (or the real thing for the more advanced), paprika, cumin, blackest of pepper. 1, 1, ½, ½. Approximations. As you wish. As you spill. Measuring spoons are like training wheels.

And now the tricky part. 1/4 cup vegetable stock (homemade is the absolutely easiest and cheapest item in my icebox) and 1/4 cup beet juice. I know, I know, you don’t have beet juice. If you come across some, great. If not you can just use more veg stock making sure to don your rose colored glasses. We are talking cosmetics here. The beets will contribute to the disguise but only by a minute percentage. However, you will come off tres chic in your new pink shades.

Did I say liquid smoke? Again you can make your own, but.... Smidge less than a teaspoon. Wicked, wicked stuff. Buy some. You’ll like it.

Know how to make a marinade? Maple syrup, ketchup, olive oil, soy sauce or Braggs aminos. Double the soy sauce and the rest are about two tablespoons. Go all Pollock using the confines of a suitably sized pan for your canvas. 8x8=64. 9x9=81. So maybe 9x9 you go a little heavy handed.

Got it?

Let’s go.

Beans. Dump them into a food processor. Don’t have a food processor? Buy one. Give this machine a few spins and when the last of them has suffered at least one killing gash, proceed from there. Stay on board not over.

Gather the rest of your ingredients and place them all into the place of spinning blades.

Crank that sucker up and watch ‘er rip. Every so often come to a screeching halt and expertly scrape down the sides using your favorite spatula. 

After a shortish spin all will come together, looking like a brownish sun with smaller planetoids scattered about. That’s cool. It’s where you want it to be. Stop the machine!

If you don’t have a nice, clean, dry, flat surface available, make one available. 

Dump the brown ball and its satellites onto the surface. Shouldn’t be too soggy, shouldn’t be unmaleable. Go back to childhood and think about pliable modeling clay. Carefree and clean. So far.

Need to knead a minute or two. Keep going until you start getting some resistance and the dough becomes slightly schizophrenic. It won’t quite come together as one. You’ll see what I mean. Remember the feeling. Later remember as your jaw has a smooth ride or your muscles get a workout.

If you don’t know how to knead, might I suggest YouTube.

Punch it down and flatten it out a bit. Then take a bench knife or something sharper and then omni Gallia en quatro chunkos.

Punch it down again, flatten a bit,  then step away. Give your opponent the space to loosen up and chill. If you want to step away for 10, 15, hey, it’s your video.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. Get your self a pot, water, and a steamer basket, or something like it. Once again, there are videos. Bring that water to 212 and let the mystical vapor arise. 

Make those 4 piles of something or other stretch out to a shape approximating what a steak might look like. Creativity. Sometimes having these puppies a half inch thick works well for me Sometimes. Sometimes. 

Arrange these guys in the steamer and cover the pot and let steam stream all over the not flesh of your not steaks like you used to know them. 30 minutes for this confined sauna.

Remember the Marinade! Was the battle cry of no war I know of. When 30 be gone, uncover and using tongs, or other implement, you can transfer those hot, hot, hot faux filets into the mix of soy and friends. Sit down. Relax. Get up now and then and flip them over so the marinade marries the meatlike. 

If you’ve a cast iron frying pan with ridges running across so you can have something like grill marks on your steaks, well, so be it. If not any frying panlike object will do. Heat ‘er up, oil a bit, and toss those juicy meatless objects into their own little hell for, let’s say, three minutes a side. Up to you. None of this is financial advice. Brush, you really should have some kind of brush, I don’t know if I advise using an old toothbrush but what the hell, some of the marinade on the steaks as they cook and when you flip them over. 

Mashed potatoes. Something of the greenish persuasion. Steaks. Chewy steaks like your grandma never imagines. Eat. 

These darlings are damned good. If you disagree, you’re entitled.

 BROTHER ELI ADDRESS THOSE WHO HAVE GATHERED

When you hear the sounds of new experiences arriving, do you shut your ears, lock the doors, and hope by distractions to keep unknowns at bay?

It’s challenging enough perceiving all of this world's wonders. When all our sensory inputs are dialed down to zero, when all we hear is a low blue noise, when our vision becomes only starring oncoming headlights, when touch, smell, and taste become a similar numb, where will we stand?

Perhaps all that remains is the a conceptualized fully encompassing dark blue void. Where all thought and beloved memories sail to differing unknown shores. Where exists naught but awl. There will remain no expectations.

No memories. Neither wins nor losses. No superficial pain. No recalled agonies. Gone are bothersome itching limbs, along with departed friends and family. 

Bruises. All bruises will dissipate. Those constant minor irritants projecting us from one location in time to the often following site. Lesser things. Editorial selection. Close-ups, decidedly not panoramas. 

Such minuscule egos. No tightrope walkers they. Fear preceding confidence excepted only as victory assumed. Never confident in abilities. Only in outcomes. Perhaps for victory within the game. But never to design a board. 

Blue. Or must it be blue? Or red? Yellow? Or chartreuse? To tell the truth? 

Only existing as it comes to exist. Ne’er before nor since. And then not. 

To return to blue. 

All blue.

Or nothing. Or anything. Or most. Some of something or nothing of naught. 

So, there’s no blue. Must be the last hope. Something in the nothing. Blue is the nothing. Can nothing be something simply by being called nothing? The concept of nothing is certainly something. So there is no blue.

There is no nothing. But the concept of no nothing does not bring something from the non-nothing. 

We exist here now. Focused on what is. What will come. As long as senses to perceive endure and minds to assimilate.

Looking to the future, myths are created. Cheap fictions redesigning ancestral tales. Create while you can. The killers are out there. Dance on their graves. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7aOan-lds