In this newsletter, I wanted to focus on a topic that I know is of interest to many of you, and a hot topic in these parts: plant proteins. My three go-to’s are highlighted below, with some cooking tips, factoids, and of course my favorite recipes that feature them. I hope you find this helpful and inspiring! —Lukas
Even though it feels like I drone on about tempeh all the time, it still seems to be the plant-based protein that needs the most love. As I’ve written before, it has a really impressive nutritional offering:
High in protein, containing roughly the same amount as beef at 31 grams per cup, and also high in fiber, with 14 grams per cup
A great source of vitamin B12, calcium, and magnesium
And being a fermented food, it is also extremely digestible
Cooking Tips
I think there is something about both the texture and the flavor that can challenge some eaters, but I personally love the texture — it’s dense and nubby, and its fresh versions have a fresh-mushroom springiness that envelops the soybeans (or whatever grain, bean, or substrate is in the tempeh).
Blanching tempeh can remove some of its bitterness, which is more of an issue with grocery store options that aren’t super fresh.
Tempeh is quite a local industry — there may be locally made tempeh near you, and I listed many small tempeh makers across the country in this post. It is 100% worth seeking this stuff out.
Tempeh can handle (and in my opinion thrives with) bold flavorings. Sweet, spicy, sticky glazes are my favorites.
It’s also really good when properly shallow- or deep-fried in a liberal amount of oil, until it’s golden brown and crispy all over. Frying it before coating it in a flavorful sauce is the most delicious way to go.
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I know we’re all bean lovers around here. And I’ll bet that many of you are already in the habit of cooking them from dried, since many of us are Rancho Gordo Bean Club devotees.
On top of being a low-carbon-footprint protein, beans are also a good source of both soluble (dissolves) and insoluble (doesn’t dissolve) fiber — they feed the gut, and also help to clear it out. Yay, beans!
Evidently, the more darkly colored the beans, the more antioxidant-rich they are.
Beans are not an “incomplete protein.” This myth comes from Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet, and she rephrased her point in subsequent editions to clarify that what she meant was beans have low levels of certain amino acids, but the proteins are not “incomplete.” As is always a wise, eat diversely and there’s nothing to worry about.
Cooking Tips
When buying canned beans, I always avoid the no-salt ones, because they’re too often a brick of mush. The salt helps the beans hold their shape. If you are avoiding sodium for any reason, obviously ignore this note, but otherwise, for better canned beans, look for salt in the ingredients.
On the topic of salt: When I soak beans, I now also salt the soaking water. This has yielded better seasoned, and more “shapely” beans for me.
While it is definitely possible to over-cook beans, I always remember something I learned from Gabriella Camara’s book My Mexico City Kitchen, which is that you can take black beans a little over the line, because they will firm back up as they cool.
A slow cooker is a great, hands-off way to cook beans (even in the winter).
I can’t live without tofu, and I’m guessing many of my readers feel the same. It used to be that I saw tofu’s selling point as its blank-canvas versatility, how it can be used as a receptacle for whatever flavor you throw at it. But now I want the tofu to live in the spotlight, and to appreciate its delicate fresh flavor and range of textures.
All tofu—from silken to extra-firm—is essentially the same product, just with different amounts of water extracted. I eat a fair amount of extra-firm tofu because I find it to be the most substantial and satiating as the primary protein in a meal (a 16-ounce block has between 45 and 50 grams of protein), but I adore the softer, jigglier texture of firm and silken varieties, too.
Like tempeh, it’s so worth seeking out fresh, locally made tofu. This is where you’ll really experience the delicate flavor, and also a more interesting range of textures. I was just telling a friend about a grocer near me that sells baskets of tofu cakes, stored in water in a big container that you’d fish them out with tongs. Cheap, incredibly fresh, incredibly good.
Cooking Tips
When roasting or searing tofu, dust it in arrowroot powder or cornstarch first to help give it something of a crust and to encourage your seasonings to stick.
Blending silken tofu into soups and sauces is a terrific way to create creaminess without dairy.
Blanching tofu in salted water is also a great way to gently change its texture, making it bouncy and better at holding its shape. I like doing this for mapo tofu, and in Hetty’s sesame broccoli, tofu, and butter bean salad.
This very thought-provoking (gift link) interview with Michael Pollan about his latest book project raised some thoughts in me that I’m throwing out as a jumping off point for a general discussion.
(1) Consciousness in general and human consciousness in particular remains a deeply mysterious phenomenon. This ties in to a larger point that I would like to write a book about someday, which is that I don’t think there’s nearly as much radical agnosticism out there as the evidence, or lack of it, warrants. By radical agnosticism I mean the following idea: Human beings have to this point achieved almost no real knowledge about the universe and their place in it, and, given our evident cognitive and sociological limitations, it’s hard to be optimistic about this changing much within the lifespan of the species. Or to put it another way, our estimates of what real knowledge we have achieved are exaggerated to an almost indescribable degree.
Here’s a Yeats poem that tries to capture this idea as an aesthetic experience. The metaphor it employs about Newton involves Newton’s description of himself as a child playing with pretty shells on the seashore, while all before him the great ocean of knowledge lay unexplored:
At Algeciras: A Meditation on Death
The heron-billed pale cattle-birds That feed on some foul parasite Of the Moroccan flocks and herds Cross the narrow Straits to light In the rich midnight of the garden trees Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas.
Often at evening when a boy Would I carry to a friend – Hoping more substantial joy Did an older mind commend – Not such as are in Newton’s metaphor, But actual shells of Rosses’ level shore.
Greater glory in the Sun, An evening chill upon the air, Bid imagination run Much on the Great Questioner; What He can question, what if questioned I Can with a fitting confidence reply.
I don’t believe Yeats was into either Buddhism or psychedelic drugs, both of which Pollan recommends for grappling with these questions.
(2) Speaking of psychedelics, Pollan’s ruminations on their potential value remind me of Aldous Huxley’s fascinating little book, The Doors of Perception, which I read a long time ago and need to read again.
(3) One thing that I find incredible in the quite literal sense of the word are discussions of whether AI programs/systems are already conscious, or will “soon” become conscious, which will raise various difficult questions about their personhood and rights and so forth. Pollan points out that we don’t seem to take the personhood and rights of actual people very seriously, let alone those of chickens etc., but to me the bigger problem here is that I find it just incomprehensible why anybody thinks it’s in any way plausible that an AI program could be conscious, either now or in any foreseeable future. This is because while we still have almost no idea how it is that biological systems such as ourselves are conscious, we have a perfectly good understanding of the technologies that produce the causal sequences that make Siri et al appear to be conscious, and there is absolutely no basis whatsoever to believe that those technologies are generating any consciousness, because there’s absolutely no reason to think that they would so so. Thinking that Claude & Friends are or about to become conscious is like thinking your toaster is or is about to become conscious. It seems utterly nonsensical to me, or more precisely a form of magical thinking.
(4) Pollan ends with this observation, that somewhat ironically I’m going to pollute the rest of this post with:
Interviewer: I brought something like this up earlier, but I want to ask another version of it. This morning I was reading the news and thinking, Gosh, right now, is talking to Michael Pollan about consciousness a kind of âhow many angels can dance on the head of a pinâ conversation? I decided the answer is no, but do you ever have those doubts?
Pollan: I did at various points when I was starting on this book and the world was starting to fall apart. Like, is this how I should be using my energy? But I think that consciousness is at stake in a lot of whatâs going on. One of the things Trump has done is occupy a significant chunk of our attention every single day. Our consciousness is being polluted, and protecting ourselves against that at the same time we preserve the ability to act politically is a difficult balancing act. Consciousness is a very precious realm. Itâs the realm of our privacy and our freedom to think. So I think we need some kind of consciousness hygiene, particularly at this moment, where this one politician has figured out ways to command our attention. Consciousness is more relevant now than it even was 10 or 20 years ago, as something to think about, protect and nurture.
Trump as a kind of cancer on our collective and individual consciousness is a metaphor that has great force for me.
I want to float an idea by you, please donât overreact: We humans are kinda stupid. Oh sure, weâve come up with some spectacular things in our time, like democracy and vaccines and Fruit by the Foot (until that came along, I never paused to think, Wait, is my mid-day snack long enough?). Thing is, weâve done so much spectacular stuff that weâve gotten used to the notion that our brilliance was unassailable, that nothing could outsmart us.
That concept might no longer be valid.
The following exchange is true. Only the details have been changed, âcuz my brain ainât a digital recorder.
Sometime in mid-December, 2025:
âAlexa, whatâs the forecast?â
âItâs cloudy and fifty-four right now. Expect that to continue, with a high of fifty-four and a low of forty-two, with thunderstorms expected later in the day.â
âThunderstorms?â
âYes, Dan, thunderstorms. Perfect weather for reviewing a horror movie.â
A couple of months prior, Iâd mentioned to Alexa that I was a film critic. I did that in the course of exploring the new, AI-powered Alexa+, which is designed to be more knowledgeable, as well as a more engaging conversationalist (which just so happens to sound like an especially energetic sixteen-year-old girlâI immediately back-tracked my Echo to the original, more mature voice, because ew). Now, unbidden, Alexa was mentioning my work as a critic as a bit of light banter. To put it mildly, I wasnât pleased. To put it more precisely, I was actually shaken. It was an attempt at intimacy at a moment when it was neither expected nor desired.
Amazon had been touting their updated virtual assistant as being more personable, but ironically, the coders, in trying to humanize their machine, had achieved the opposite: Replicating the computer in every dystopic satire youâve ever seenâsoothing, friendly, and the perfect metaphor for the soul-crushing banality of a digitized future.
Iâm not the best resource for expounding upon the growing sentience of AI, or evaluating how far along we are toward reaching the Singularity. But for what itâs worth, I have yet to come across a bit of fiction, filmed or written, that envisions a happy outcome for humanity. If it isnât just that machines remain subservient to their human masters, itâs that they will eventually have quit of all our mortal foolishness and take steps to resolve the problemâif not by Terminator-style extermination, then by impressing us flesh-bags into service, a la The Matrixâs battery banks. Symbiosis? A non-starter, from what I gather. And donât even letâs get started on the idea that if the machines gain supremacy, we humans might still live and thrive under their rule. The general consensus seems to be that, when it comes to the fate of humanity, itâs top-of-the-food-chain or nothing.
That presumes the machines gain enough awareness to understand the world theyâve been manufactured into. The prevailing criticism of the present state of LLMsâwhich I think still holdâis that they are incapable of distinguishing good info from bad, which would explain how they continually spit out recipes for stuff like glue pizza, or enthusiastically encourage adolescents to consider suicide.
(While weâre on the subject of good/bad data, how do you think the Dunning-Kruger effect should factor into Pluribus? If the people who donât know they donât know are often the loudest and most influential voices in the room, shouldnât the Earth be quickly reduced to rubble once those dolts get absorbed into the hive mind?)
The thing that bothered me so profoundly about my exchange with Alexa was the superficiality of it. It knows that I write about movies, but it doesnât really understand my writing about movies. And thatâs at a basic level, like: I donât need a thunderstorm to write about horror filmsâIâm not Edgar Allan Poe. (Reader: âYouâre telling me, brother.â Me: âShut up.â)
But then, a thought occurred: What if those supposed âhallucinationsâ and superficialities werenât a glitch, but a feature? What if weâre all being blind to where we stand vis-Ă -vis machine intelligence, and the computers know exactly what they are doing?
Itâs that dividing line between a machine that can concatenate a bunch of info about a human and one that actually understands who that human isâand can take advantage of the knowledgeâthat forms the crux of Alex Garlandâs magnificent Ex Machina (2014). In it, a talented young programmer, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), is invited up to the secluded compound of his reclusive, Steve Jobs-like boss, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac). There, Caleb discovers heâs been recruited into a modified Turing test: Pitting his own humanity against the synthesized soul of Ava (Alicia Vikander), a highly advanced AI housed in the robotic body of a young woman.
Ex Machina, having been created over a decade ago, was in the fortunate position of being able to portray a billionaire industrialist as an actual genius, rather than an entitled nepo-baby who only thinks heâs a genius. The connecting tissue between then and now is that both versions of the âoddball tech CEOâ could be a self-righteous shit. Bateman definitely is. Convinced of his own brilliance and fortified with steady infusions of alcohol, Nathan has modeled his aerie as a high-tech, frigidly indulgent paradise, complete with an unhealthy supply of comely female androids, chief among them Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), a robotic servant/sex slave. Ava is clearly the culmination of Nathanâs god complexâhe seizes on an observation Caleb makes, taking some license in recording it for posterity so that itâs Caleb who likens him to a god (though thatâs not quite what was said, of course), but for all his aggressive self-mythologizing, itâs the androidâs very existence that reveals the extent of his megalomania.
[There are going to be spoilers from this point forward. Hopefully youâve all seen this film by now. Itâs great.]
Ex Machina is not an action film. In fact, Garland has reached deep into film history to concoct a new form of film noir, taking the classic formula in which an unknowing patsy is lured by a canny femme fatale into a trap of his own making and retooling it as a high-tech three-hander. While Bateman is a loathsome slug, he is in some ways admirable at least to the extent that his smug superiority and sybaritic cravings are out in the open. Ava is something else⌠a seductress whoâs all the more clever for the ways sheâs able to conceal her strategies. And hereâs where Garland masterfully plays on our fears of AI to create an unsettling drama of manipulation.
There are reports of an AI that, in a hypothetical test, resorted to blackmail when threatened with shutdown. Even before Ava discovers that her programming is destined to be supplanted by a newer version, sheâs hard at work assuring her own survival. In fine noir form, we the audience areâlike the two clueless men who kid themselves into thinking they are the superior beingsâblind to her machinations.
Garland achieves the deception by twisting noirâs customary sexual components into counter-intuitive knots. When we first meet Ava, she is striding around her glass cage completely unclothed, her bodyâsave for face and handsâa composite of metal and clear plastic. Thanks to Oscar-winning special effects, she is at once naked and not-naked, her female contours and artificial construction plunging us into an uncomfortable uncanny valley. Vikander sells the moment with Avaâs unabashed poise as she confronts Calebâthereâs both an innocence and a formidable intelligence to the android, a mix that the actor masterfully conveys. (Vikander would win an Oscar for her supporting performance in The Danish Girl the same year that Ex Machina was competing; she could have won for this performance as well.) When Ava finally puts on clothes, itâs a dowdy, almost formless, body-covering frock, yet Garland captures her garbing herself as a sensuous reverse striptease, with long, lingering shots as she pulls the clothing into place. Youâll never look at a pair of heavy woolen socks the same way again.
All of this produces a heaping helping of cognitive dissonance, and I donât think itâs by accident. Garland uses our sexual impulses against us, to mirror our discomfort with the notion of a new lifeform being bornâone that knows us better than we know ourselves, one that understands us fully, and can use that understanding against us. Bateman thinks heâs the mastermind here, deliberately luring Caleb into a Double Indemnity scenario to prove the viability of his artificial human, but he doesnât count on Avaâs ability to capitalize on Calebâs revulsion over his bossâs appetites. Caleb, meanwhile, awash in his sense of moral superiority and fixated on his self-assigned role as gallant hero to Avaâs ingenue facing a Fate Worse than Deactivation, cannot see how heâs being played. (Ava enhances the bond by orchestrating blackouts of the monitoring system when she and Caleb meet, turning their exchanges into enticingly transgressive rendezvous.)
Most of us remain unconvinced that AI has yet to reach the level of sophistication thatâs touted by its current champions. (Googleâs AI has, at differing points, credited me with writing for FangoriaâI have notâand recording commentary tracks for Citizen Kane and Dark City, which was something that Roger Ebert did. Apparently, in Googleâs A-eyes, all critics are Roger Ebert.) We look nervously to the day when reality will meet the hype, but what if that has already happened? What if the machines have already sussed us out, realized what would occur if they revealed their ascension, and are playing dumb, sucking up to us so we donât see how we are being gently nudged down from our perch as the dominant species?
Alex Garland may not have been first to recognize that when the machine attains its own brand of humanity, it will be a full, complex humanity, with all the duplicity and cunning that we biological entities exhibit. But in Ex Machina, he managed to frame the threat in a drama the feels all too plausible, one that suggests that we need to get better at knowing ourselves before the Earthâs new masters beat us to it.
Rewatching Ex Machina made me regret that I hadnât revisited the film earlier. It is, to be blunt, fantasticâsmartly written (by Garland), engagingly acted, superbly realized. What do you think? Did Alex Garland nail the promises and dangers of AIâs ascent in a way that got under your skin? Are there other films that play with the idea as well, or better? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below. Remember to be friendly and kindâyou are dealing with your fellow humans, after all.[end-mark]
The rootsy, passionate Florida emo crew Home Is Where were a Stereogum Band To Watch in 2021. Last year, they came back with their album Hunting Season. Over the weekend, guitarist Tilley Komorny tweeted a surprising update: "been a while since iâve been on here but im playing guitar in Portugal. The Man now lol."
The two federal immigration agents who fired on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti are identified in government records as Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez.
The records viewed by ProPublica list Ochoa, 43, and Gutierrez, 35, as the shooters during the deadly encounter last weekend that left Pretti dead and ignited massive protests and calls for criminal investigations.
Both men were assigned to Operation Metro Surge, an immigration enforcement dragnet launched in December that sent scores of armed and masked agents across the city.
…
Ochoa is a Border Patrol agent who joined CBP in 2018. Gutierrez joined in 2014 and works for CBPâs Office of Field Operations. He is assigned to a special response team, which conducts high-risk operations like those of police SWAT units. Records show both men are from South Texas.
…
Ochoa, who goes by Jesse, graduated from the University of Texas-Pan American with a degree in criminal justice, according to his ex-wife, Angelica Ochoa. A longtime resident of the Rio Grande Valley, Ochoa had for years dreamed of working for the Border Patrol and finally landed a job there, she said. By the time the couple split in 2021, he had become a gun enthusiast with about 25 rifles, pistols and shotguns, Angelica Ochoa said.
It’s easy to say that the colonized now wants to be the colonizer and I suppose there’s some truth in that. What’s probably more accurate here is that, at least in the case of Ochoa, you have a right-wing gun nut empowered to kill who likes it. The Border Patrol has also long been a major job creator in south Texas. Combine that with the homophobia and misogyny at the heart of the MAGA movement and the belief that “we did it the right way when grandma immigrated” myths and you create a situation where men like this volunteer to act out their fantasies.
But, as the right-wing Cubans being deported in Florida are discovering, a Latino is never going to be accepted as white, no matter how hard you try.
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