I want to share this with you.

I read this.. it’s amazing and deep. It’s darkly beautiful and I wanted to share.

On Dry Gagging

 Field notes from Hypersensitive Gag Reflex.

 

Nov. 8, 2011

By Jimmy Chen

Jimmy Chen writes short fiction, short essays, and shorter haikus.

 

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In the months preceding my ex-wife’s psychiatric collapse, she dry gagged every morning on white knees in front of the toilet. The knees came up with little red patches made by the linoleum floor. I remember checking my early morning email, still in a robe, and imagining drops of my urine on the rim, as she was always considerate enough to lift the toilet seat. In the months following said collapse, I latently researched symptoms of severe clinical depression to learn that such behavior was a common well-documented symptom. As for the drops of urine, those yellow tears from a man without aim, they follow me everywhere.

And in the months after our divorce, I too began dry gagging (though less committed, I simply heaved over the sink). It’s like you’re brushing your teeth, and you feel violated by the toothbrush — it flashes in your mind as a knife, or a weasel’s dirty long nail, something dangerous or disgusting — and the reciprocal part of you that you hate, as your own stubborn viscera, dies to come out. If the day ahead is putrid, it may call for the disfigured smiley-face of vomit on the ground. It’s less cathartic than nauseating, the involuntary apparition of oneself as formed by airless gasps emitted into the world.

Clinical psychologists have provided the term “emotional memory” to explain Hypersensitive Gag Reflex (HGR), asserting that our brains store unresolved — truncated, not fully developed — responses from past traumatic experiences, and that these involuntary gags or heaves are responses to the resultant acute anxiety. I only developed this after my ex-wife did, as if discovering the deep ravines of my own viscera from her, and our respective pleas for expulsion. Perhaps the divorce was in itself the traumatic experience, or it simply elicited the calm reservoir of my childhood, stirred its still waters into acid and bile.

Every morning I wake up and sigh. I look at the package of light in my window, some gift, or bomb. I walk naked to the bathroom and weigh myself, obsessed with controlling the digital numbers conveyed with little black slashes. I raise my arms and look at my ribs in the mirror, that bloody aviary for the small blind bird inside my chest. The protrusions look like a xylophone, in a minor scale, of course. I form a caterpillar of toothpaste on my toothbrush, insert it in my mouth, and begin moving my arm. The trick to being alive is to simply start moving and to not stop, to impersonate a functional human being, to get off the bus at the right stop, to take your food out when the microwave beeps, to smile when others smile, and to cry alone. The mirror hosts my greatest critic. If a million mornings stacked together into a life is sad, then it deserves a prayer. My ex got on her knees in so many ways, and sex was the last thing on our minds.

If the world is amiss, and you miss something, or someone, or some part of you. If is a word I could ask myself forever, a word that is in the dead center of life. If we were still together, if it was even possible to love her more. On her behalf, to commemorate my regret, and the monsters we became, I lower my face into the toilet, reduced to the same level as my future and earlier fecal detritus. “I am shit,” this seems to be a common sound bite around here. A tear forms, but only because I’m squeezing my face so hard, as some dry lemon in the desert denying the mirage of another life. A distant one that looks better, with softer edges and someone waiting. Then finally, the deep passionate one way kiss as I crane my neck, close my eyes, open my mouth, and excise the sharp nothingness within. Nothing comes out, but I flush the toilet anyways, as she had always done.

Chicken Fried Seitan Recipe

So I made something new the other day and it’s been on my mind for a while to make different versions of it. And after being asked for the recipe, I thought I’d share it.

Making Seitan isn’t difficult. In fact once you have made it a few times, you will find that you no longer have any desire to pay the high prices for it in the trendy vegetarian shops. It’s easy and actually pretty cheap.  Seitan is made from Vital Wheat Gluten, and that can be found in most health food isles or you can actually order it online from places like VegWeb.com. Seitan has the ability to take on many different tastes with just adding the right ingredients before cooking. But for this recipe we want to have that “beefy” flavor.  So I used a vegetarian beef broth.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Seitan:

• 2 cup vital wheat gluten
• approx. 1 3/4 cup vegetarian beef broth
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp ginger powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 6 cups broth ( we like the imitation beef broth) for cooking

Breading and gravy

• 2 eggs and 2 tablespoons of milk or no eggs and soy milk if going vegan.
• 1 tsp salt or seasoned salt
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp black pepper
• dash cayenne (optional)
• 1 1/2 cups biscuit mix ( bisquick)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)

Get started:

Combine gluten flour and dry spices in a medium-sized bowl. In a separate bowl, mix soy sauce and broth.

Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir gently to combine. After a few initial stirs, you’ll probably need to use your hands for this. Do not use an electrical mixer! Gluten will have a rubbery consistency. Add more water a tablespoon at a time only if needed.

Once mixture is well combined, knead seitan for about 2 minutes. Pull and stretching out the seitan gives it a “meatier” texture.  Allow to sit for 5 minutes, then knead a few more times before cutting into cutlet sized portions. While this mixture sits, it’s a good time to get your “beef” stock boiling.  I usually use a pressure cooker and bring to pressure my seitan for about 30 minutes before releasing the steam.  But you can use a deep pot and cover the seitan and this works just as well, however you’ll need to allow it to cook for an hour or more. Be sure to use a large pot and plenty of broth, as seitan will expand. Seitan is done cooking when it has firmed up and expanded. SAVE YOUR BROTH!

Once your Seitan has finished cooking, you will need to cut into 1 1/2 inch thick cutlets.

Now mix together you dry ingredients.

If using eggs and milk, make a wash by stirring together eggs and milk.  Or if going vegan, simply add the soy milk to the bowl to dip your cutlets in before covering each piece with your flour mixture.Let your oil heat up in your frying pan while you begin your dredging. I love my cast iron pans, but you can use whatever you are most comfortable with.

Fry your Seitan cutlets in olive or vegetable oil on medium-high heat in a large skillet for 3-5 minutes, turning once until golden brown.  For me it ends up being about  3-4 minutes. Flip, fry another 3-4 minutes. Remove to a draining paper towel. Place in a 250 degree oven to keep warm. If you need to add more oil in between, make sure you bring it up to temp.

Once you are finished, pour out as much of your oil as you can without pouring out the crumbles. Now I heat up the pan with about 1/3 cup of my leftover flour mixture and stir it up til it starts to brown. Then add 2 cups of my leftover broth from making the Seitan, stirring constantly, using enough broth to make a medium consistency.

And TAA DAA!  You’ve made chicken fried seitan!  Now.. you can add BBQ sauce, Marinara and cheese, or make this a great sandwich meat.

Pretty easy, and once you make it.  You will find yourself adding it to the monthly menu.

Related articles

• Stroganoff with Seitan and Peas (plantbasedparadise.com)
• Super Seitan Recipe (claraweygandt.com)
• meatless monday recipe: seitan and brocollini with clementine teriyaki… (modernest.com)