31 October 2009

Swept Under the Rug

When I took the course on Existentialism, we read some Heidegger. If you can slog through the word-salad of his book, there seem to be interesting and even useful ideas in it. Even before we started in on it, though, Dr. Levenson warned us about Heidegger's history, and commented that generally when Heidegger was mentioned in public forums, the conversation tended to degenerate and focus solely on what he called "The Catastrophe," rather than on Heidegger's actual ideas. The Catastrophe was that Heidegger, whose philosophy seemed to offer a broad and nuanced view of humanity, fell in with the Nazis.

For a while, the tendency was simply to claim that, well, he had no choice. He was an intellectual in a Nazi-run country, so of course he had to appear to conform to the mode. Sometime in the '70's, that view was overthrown by some of Heidegger's own writing and speeches coming to light. These were not merely spouting the party line, but willfully and cheerfully advocating it. Complicating the picture, Heidegger apparently engaged in a long, torrid affair with a Jewish woman, who ardently defended him.

Dr. Levenson, himself a Jewish rabbi, said that the thing that troubled him most was that Heidegger never recanted any of his pro-Nazi propaganda. He also claimed that Heidegger was against the extermination camps. So Levenson tried to take what he saw as the good in Heidegger's philosophy, and mention, but otherwise ignore, the fascist tendencies. I have a few problems with this. First, somewhere I ran across a claim that Heidegger's primary work (Being and Time) was translated into Japanese and used to justify the extant fascist regime. Second, the English translation is, as I said above, mostly word salad. If you think you find a thread of an idea, you can then look for it in the rest of the salad and probably find similar enough threads that you think you're justified in thinking that thread was intentional. I don't know if the original German is any better, though Dr. Pelletti claims that it's just as bad, but the English translation... I saw some of the parts with threads that seemed to suggest a near-humanist philosophy. I also saw some that could much more easily be taken as fascist.

I don't feel like beating my head against the wall of his text to go dig up examples, but I suspect that the truth of the matter is that the apparent humanist strains were accidental, artifacts of the difficulty of translation and Heidegger's own peculiar use of language, and the fascist strains expressed Heidegger's actual ideas. I could be wrong. Possibly he himself was confused, and reasoned to something more humanist, but simply couldn't get past his own fascist tendencies. The result is a confusing, beguiling text, with hints of greatness obscured by darkness.

There's a great deal of irony to think that a fascist helped shape, and even begin, a philosophical movement that is very much humanity-based. What brought all this to mind this morning was an article discussing new revelations about Heidegger and his Jewish mistress. Some of its claims directly contradict Levenson's. I don't have the source-material to know which is the true account, but I suspect Levenson is determined to give Heidegger the benefit of the doubt, due to the positive threads he sees in his work, while others without that axe to grind are likely to be more objective. HT: Evolving Thoughts

Inquire Further

30 October 2009

Dream

Bit of an odd dream segment last night. I have no idea why, but I was driving a van, and Fibonacci and Abe (Shenron's OOC counterpart) were passengers. It was late at night, and we were in the parking lot of a veterinarian. I had received a notice that I'd been hired by this place (and even in the dream I was puzzling over (a) the fact that I'm not remotely qualified for such a job and (b) the fact that I couldn't remember applying for a job there), and if I didn't respond quickly, I would lose the job opportunity. The problem was that I was still under contract to teach at ISU, so there was no way I could take the job right then and there.

So I go into the vet's office. It's after midnight, but there's still someone on duty keeping an eye on the place overnight, and there are hundreds and hundreds of games, CD's, and DVD's on shelves lining the walls in the office, presumably to help this caretaker stay awake. That's all I remember about the inside of the place. Fibonacci complained that there was no place there that he could practice his speech for the next day and was very agitated to get some place where he could practice it. I told him that if he was that antsy, he could walk, but that I had to get this job-thing settled right now. I remember a conversation to the effect that he might as well wait, since the walk would take at least as long as getting the job sorted out. Not sure what Abe thought about all this. He mostly seems to have been set dressing.

I have no real idea where any of that dream came from. The van might be Andrew/Horgta's van, and the shelves of DVD's reminds me of the one time I was at an astronomical observatory on nightwatch (might have been interesting, except the equipment was cantankerous and the head researcher swore at it nearly continuously), but the rest? No real clue.

Inquire Further

Ain't It the Truth



Okay, they don't always get their statistics straight, but they're more than willing to take another look at something they've previously believed was settled, and that makes all the difference.

Inquire Further

29 October 2009

Better, Mostly

I seem to be 90% over whatever I had/have. My mom is still feeling pretty lousy, though. She's got the sinus symptoms on top of everything else. A few odd things that I've noticed. With most illnesses, when my blood sugar drops below some threshold, I suddenly feel 10 times worse. This one started off that way, but since Tuesday, it's been the opposite. If my blood sugar rises too quickly (say from drinking something sugary, like juice), I become light-headed. I didn't realize that was what was happening on Tuesday, or I might have had a more pleasant day. Yesterday, I had some juice and shortly after that felt dizzy. Later I started on another serving of juice, but felt the same thing start, and stopped before I'd had more than a sip. So...no juice, or massively sugary snacks, until this thing is well and truly gone.

Caffeine helps, but I know better than to subject myself to large doses of caffeine too often. If I get too much, when it wears off it triggers a much worse case of dizziness than anything I've had from the flu. Think seasickness, where it feels like the floor is moving, but on dry land. I try to limit things containing large quantities of caffeine to once or twice a week because of that.

I did finally develop a very mild fever, but it was so mild that I don't know if it even counts. This was certainly not the worst illness I've ever had, but I may have just been lucky. And the more I think about it, the more I think it actually hit last Wednesday, not Saturday. Wednesday my head was feeling odd and somewhat painful, to the point that I debated not going to my philosophy classes after I was done teaching. I did go, and made it through them. Thursday I felt somewhat better, Friday somewhat worse again, then Saturday I felt like death warmed over. Lacking a fever, I assumed it was allergies...until I talked to my mom Monday and found out her diagnosis.

So the progression for me looked like:
(1) Sudden sharp back pain (about a week before the rest hit)
(2) Oddness in the head with headache.
(3) Fatigue, lethargy (felt fine so long as I didn't move much)
(4) Very mild fever
(5) Milder fatigue, occasional head twinges
(6) Subsidence

I have no idea if that's typical, though I have read that swine flu does not consistently produce the high fevers seen with most cases of flu. On the plus side, I've just caught and gotten over the worst disease known to be going around this year, so I should be scot-free the rest of the year. Hopefully. ^!^

Inquire Further

26 October 2009

Caught

It's probable that I have H1N1/Swine flu. My mom went to see a doctor today, and the doctor told her she had it. My symptoms are very similar, but milder. No lab test, so I'm still somewhat reserved about the diagnosis, but all in all it seems quite likely to be correct. My mom's case first manifested as sudden back pain. She thought her back was just out of whack, but neither a chiropractor nor some pain meds helped very much. Apparently this was the "muscle ache" phase of the illness kicking in, and the rest hit her about a week later. Mine started similarly. Week before last, I got a sudden twinge in my back while giving a lecture. No obvious trigger, and, by concentrating on relaxing the muscles in my back, I was able to make 90% of the pain go away. That was the extent of the muscle ache portion for me, and I didn't think any more about it until I heard my mom's diagnosis tonight. Other than that, I've had fatigue, headache, and very mild nasal symptoms. The headache is gone now, thankfully, and the fatigue is subsiding.

Note that the new vaccine was not available here until after my mom and I started exhibiting symptoms, so there wasn't much we could do. I'm very glad that I stayed home on Saturday and hence avoided exposing Don to it. I actually thought it was just allergies, then, but I was unusually tired for allergies. At any rate... neither my mom nor I are getting any of the major complications thusfar. Hopefully that continues to hold true.

Oh, one other item of interest. I have not had a fever from this. If anything, my body temperature has been lower. No clue what that might actually mean.

Inquire Further

24 October 2009

Forging Ahead

Part of the reason I haven't been posting much here lately is that I've been working on maps for my eventual D&D campaign. Most of them would give plot points away if I posted them, but this one shouldn't. The players already know that the next campaign will be in a small town of some sort, and I assume most of them will want to look for weapons, etc, on which to spend their gold, so today I worked up a blacksmith's shop. I've been stealing shamelessly from tiles posted online, btw. In fact... everything but the grey anvil, the swinging door, and the weapon tables at the side of the room was taken from dungeon tiles I found online. The side weapon tables are from the Adventurer's Vault, the grey anvil was from a page on blacksmithing, and the swinging door was a shape built-in to Printmaster. If you look closely, you'll notice it's a curvy arrow, but I thought it worked well as a showy metal door. I did not post the full-size version of this, mainly because I didn't want to worry about loading time, but you can see something close to full size if you click on the image.

Inquire Further

23 October 2009

Elemental Escargot

On the way up the stairs to the tower, Shenron disappeared*. IC, we had no idea what had happened to him, though the speculation was that he had probably been teleported somewhere by the wizard. The rest of us made it up the stairs and into a room with a magic symbol in the center flanked by two staircases up to higher levels. The symbol was glowing, and an arcana check told us that it was connected to the four elements. Allonar was being extra cautious, and planning to climb over railings to avoid the symbol. Horgta was impatient and just pushed him into the symbol (OOC explanation: "Shenron isn't here, so someone has to act rashly"). This summoned four elemental snails: red for fire, blue for water, white for air and green for earth. They didn't do that much damage, partly because Allonar multiclassed as a shaman when he leveled up and his spirit-guide stayed in close to draw fire, but they were very difficult to hit. Also, they left slime trails which we couldn't cross without taking damage, and that they could suck back in and regain hit points if necessary.

While this fight was going on, Heian was trying to pick the lock on a door leading out of this room to... somewhere. After his first successful pick, his next attempt resulted in a lightning attack from the door, so Dovra went over to help with the Arcana aspect of the lock. I can't remember if it took 3 and 3 or 2 and 2 thievery/arcana attempts at it to get it open, but we did get it open, and found Phoenix Darksoul/Blue Cheese's private room, complete with alchemical kitchen. He was not there, and from the looks of things, leaving wasn't his idea. The room was a shredded mess: papers and broken glass everywhere, along with an icky brown substance trailing across most of the room. There was a trap door at one corner from which disturbing beastly noises emanated. As there wasn't anything immediately useful to the fight, Heian and I left the mess and headed back to work on the snails.

We finally took all of the elemental snails out, and then the bodies were drawn back into the circle and reconstituted into a Death Snail. This thing has an aura that makes you want to stay close to it, and does an attack on anything not close to it to make you want to get closer. Luckily, Allonar has a rather powerful radiant attack, and it was vulnerable to radiant damage.

Dovra, muttering to herself about the death-snail-aura, went back to the lab to search it. There were quite a few goodies, and some puzzles that we'll have to look at next week. She also leveled up during the fight, and the setup couldn't have been better. I'm having her multi-class as a cleric to get a heal-spell, and I needed an IC reason for her to do so, as it doesn't obviously fit with her established character. I'd already planned for her to have a fit about all the killing, and how she's killed more things since becoming Not Evil than ever she did when she was Evil, but the death-snail-aura was the perfect thing for sending her over the edge in this direction. More on that after it plays out in-game.

*Oops. Forgot to add in this sidenote. Shenron's OOC counterpart had a conflict, so he went on his own private adventure earlier in the day. Apparently he ran into four copies of himself (two of which eventually turned evil), several dinosaurs, and enough gold to make himself sick. Literally. He completely filled the bag of holding, his backpack, and his stomach with gold. It was both amusing and unpleasant when he showed up with gold leaking out of his backpack and, well, himself. On the plus side, he did share. I'm sure Dovra was fastidious enough to avoid the predigested bits. Even after paying Allonar back for his share in her cloak, she's got 1000 gp.

Inquire Further

15 October 2009

Of Dragons and Ants

A much more productive night tonight. We got out of the labyrinth, intending to take another long rest before confronting the blue dragon. This time we holed up in the secret room we found there and got through the long rest uneventfully. As it turned out, the blue dragon had recruited some rock monsters (not sure if that's the technical name or not; they can generate rocks and fling them, creating difficult terrain) and used them to dig its way out of its cave, and some goblin hexers to try and reverse the portal that had taken us to the cave in the first place.

So, we wake up from the long rest, poke our heads out, and discover the blue dragon, four hexers, four warrior bodyguards, and something like six rock monsters are now just outside the secret room. We send our thief to sneak around, and he sneaks the opposite way and finds Shenron's bag of holding (minus the gold and a mouse familiar that Shenron was very attached to), which negates most of the reason for confronting the dragon in the first place. Meanwhile, the hexers succeed in switching the portal, and we discover that the burrowing has collapsed the tunnel that led to the other three dragons, so we go back into the labyrinth to get back to that cave and switch portals with them. They had the "out" portal, and we traded them so that they now have the "in" portal, and can use it to get out if we open up our end of it. We're only likely to do this if we think we need them in the wizard's tower, as we're not entirely sure we trust them. Actually, no. We're entirely sure we don't trust them.

Anyway, by the time we get back through the labyrinth to where the blue dragon had been, all the rock monsters are gone, the dragon is asleep on the portal, and there's one hexer keeping watch. Shenron is still out for blood, and we have a bit of an advantage with the dragon asleep, so we, tentatively, try to attack. Dovra's sleep spell does not hit, so there's not much chance. The sentry rolls a natural twenty for perception when our avenger tries to stealth past and deliver a coup de gras. At that point, everyone but Shenron is ready to give up and head through the door to the tower, which is now open. Finally he gives in and comes with us, and, conveniently, that happens just as it's time to quit for the night anyway.

So next week, we get to find out what's in this mysterious Wizard's Tower. Meanwhile, I need to get my city map finished enough, and get enough random encounters set up, that the group can get started there. The city is called Ridol (ri-DAHL). I'm thinking "The Riddle of Ridol" would be a good name for the campaign. ^;^ Hmmm... I also need to work out the details that will lead to the final location. There are still a few snags in it.

Oh, one encounter involved giant ants, and wasn't otherwise interesting enough to describe, but they made for a good title.

Inquire Further

Cats, Ladders, and Heights

I had to rescue Jilly from the roof of the garage this morning. I'm not entirely sure how she got up there, but when I went out to get the cats in, there she was. My best guess is that she climbed up the neighbor's fence and jumped from there. She was meowing plaintively, like she didn't know how to get down, so I went into the garage and got the ladder. I don't like ladders, but I can use them so long as I feel stable enough on them. I got her down, found Princess hiding between the garage and the fence, and took off for work with the wrong set of keys. Thankfully, the secretaries get here before 8:00 am and have keys.

My first real indication that I have a minor problem with heights came when I was seven or eight and at my grandma and grandad's house in Akron, Colorado. There was something we had to climb up onto the garage for, and I got nominated because I was the smallest and lightest. I hated it. Give me handholds and rocks and ledges, and I'm perfectly happy. Put me on a ladder and I'm miserable. I think it's the same issue as with the stairs: all the open space makes me feel unstable. On a ledge, I feel more secure because I have the rock-face/building/whatever right next to me.

Interestingly, having the cold and medication nullify the effect for a day seems to have resulted in it mostly abating. Or, it might be more accurate to say that I've found a way to feel stable despite the open air of the staircase, and I think that I would not have done so without that moment of drug-induced clarity. That let me know that it was possible for me not to feel the effects, so I went looking for a way to duplicate the "cure" without the drugs in my system. Essentially, it's a mental image of dropping my root into the structure of the stairs, rather like the sensation I get whilst rooting against a taiji push. I wonder if that would work on the catwalk at the Minidome?

In rock-climbing, we climbed up the catwalk, which runs across the very center of a large stadium. It's probably a 100-150 foot drop. Climbing up the catwalk was much harder for me than rappelling down from it. Okay, the first time I said something like, "I'm a little bit terrified here," to the person who was helping me secure my harness, but, seriously, the rappel down was fun. The climb up...not so much. Incidentally, part of the reason I took rock-climbing was to work on my fear of heights.

Inquire Further

10 October 2009

Sleeping in a Depot

Our party needed a long rest last night. Since we were still in the labyrinth, we decided to take the long rest in the labyrinth. Turns out, this isn't a good idea. We've modified the official rules a bit, in that we take 9 hours, with watches in 3 hour shifts, and the person with the middle watch is still considered to have gotten sufficient rest. Which would be all fine and good, except that we kept having creatures wander in while we were sleeping. On the plus side, Dovra leveled up and is halfway to leveling up again. On the minus side, the entire evening was spent alternating between trying to sleep and fighting off creatures that wandered in. We didn't even make it to talking to the blue dragon again, let alone to the wizard's tower. Still, we did finally make it all the way through a long rest last night, so next week we can attempt to confront the blue dragon, and hopefully then head for the tower.

I have to say that it is very handy to have a ranged attack that is vs. Will rather than Reflex or AC. Oh, we found out after all this that having all the gems activated increases the probability of encounters in the labyrinth. So it's definitely not a good place to sleep. We don't know this IC, but presumably the four encounters while we were sleeping will convince us not to sleep there again anyway.

Inquire Further

09 October 2009

Looking at Stairs

This has me wondering about my reactions to high, unenclosed spaces. The linked article discusses cases where the sight of stairs triggered seizures in some people. Now, it's not the sight of the stairs themselves that triggers my reaction; rather, it's the sense of being unanchored when I'm up high with no support structures in my field of vision. At least, I think that's what's going on.

But it has me wondering. Is vertigo itself a kind of seizure, triggered by a visual cue? Apparently there are cases of epilepsy where the form of the seizure is an intense sensation of vertigo, but that doesn't mean that all vertigo is connected to seizures. The thing that really puzzles me is the way it just disappeared last Friday when I had the cold coming on and was full of cold medication. If it were nothing more than a fear of heights, why would a physical change affect it? Also, I'm much less likely to experience vertigo if I'm up high on a naturally occuring structure, like a rock, or mountainside, or even a cliff face.

Okay, I've been habituating myself to the open staircases, but you expect gradual change from that, not a sudden reversal. It's come back somewhat since then, but not as bad as before. The cold is mostly gone now. I'm sort of wondering if the vertigo will come back full strength when the cold is completely gone.

Hmmm... one other possibility comes to mind. Vertigo can be linked to inner ear problems. Possibly I have these constantly but only notice when I feel unsteady due to external circumstances, and the cold medicine cleared out the inner ears enough that I no longer had problems. I don't know enough to know how plausible that is. *shrugs*

Inquire Further

08 October 2009

The Five Browns

There was a concert tonight at ISU, and it's one of the best I've ever gone to. The Five Browns are a family of five siblings, and all were piano prodigies. They started learning at age 3. It's awesome to hear a symphony piece rescored for five pianos. I found a few YouTube clips on them. Be warned, the pianos in the clip are a bit out of tune, but you still get a feel for how good these guys are.

In the Hall of the Mountain King:


I was trying to find them playing Beethoven's Fifth, as well, but if it's there, I'm not seeing it. That one was awesome.

Inquire Further

06 October 2009

XDM

Fibonacci loaned me his copy of XDM: Extreme Dungeon Mastery, as it's likely that I'll be DM for the next adventure. "Likely" because another player had asked for it, but he's the one currently out of commission due to Life Circumstances. Back to the book. The story is that the Hickmans had shopped the idea around but couldn't find any publishers who wanted to take it on, then at some point they met up with Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary fame, and he suggested they do a self-publish module. Now, the book isn't bad, but it really could have used some professional editing. Among the more glaring mistakes are spelling errors that any decent word processor should have caught.

The good: In the main, XDM is a fun, light-hearted look at what makes for a good RPG. It's full of random footnotes, most of which are there for humor value, and awesome anecdotes. Mostly, the advice to DM's is helpful, though sometimes presented in such an over-the-top manner that it's hard to figure out what the advice is. The artwork, of course, is entertaining, but that's no surprise considering the artist.

The bad: The merchandising jokes got old fast, so old that it was hard to think of them as anything but advertisements. The sections on atmosphere and random tricks felt like an interruption, and would have been better put in an appendix. Worse, some of the card tricks were so poorly described that it's unlikely anyone without prior experience or an outside source of information could figure them out. They needed to do a novice test: pick someone who's never done any card tricks, give them the instructions, and see if said instructions are actually usable. That the authors came across as ridiculously egotistical makes this all the more glaring (the egoism was, I think, intended to be humorous; I got tired of it). Finally, typos, typos, typos, typos, typos.

The questionable: Is the simplified XD-20 game better than the games that require extensive purchasing of extra manuals? Er... not necessarily. Simpler, yes, and easier for a player to get started on, but it's rather handy to have a world already built to use. Otherwise, the DM has to come up with everything, and that can be a bit of a pain. With a framework in place, it's a lot easier to get things going. In the campaign I'm attempting to build, I'm perfectly happy to be able to just take stuff off the shelf from the D&D books without needing to modify/simplify it. I've got enough work trying to get a believable town constructed without also having to construct the world that contains it. Fine, you can insert any material you like into the XDM system, but if that system is your starting point, you're not going to have any such material to use.

So, overall... worth reading, some useful advice, but annoying in many aspects.

Inquire Further

05 October 2009

Self Experimentation

The annoying staircases at the Rendezvous Center on campus have given me a chance to play around with my minor fear of heights. I've figured out the combination that results in vertigo almost every time: looking up while being in a high, unenclosed location. The main staircases there are lined with a sort of mesh that does not block the view much at all. The lack of enclosure is what makes me feel unsteady when I look up towards the ceiling on those stairs. I have no problem looking down.

For comparison, I tried one of the enclosed staircases in the same building. Looking up from the midway platforms there doesn't bother me at all: those staircases are enclosed, so I feel steady. I'm not sure why looking down doesn't bother me on the open staircases, but maybe it's because the solid ground below also provides a sense of stability. I've also played around a bit on the way down the open staircases. There are some lights mounted high on support columns. So long as I'm looking down at them, I'm fine. But, even on the way down, as soon as they are higher than I am, I get that unsteady/vertigo feeling again.

In general, to go up those open staircases, I have to keep my eyes focused down on the surface of the steps below me and avoid looking towards any part of the railing that provides an upwards view. Amusingly, on Friday I had a cold coming on, and wound up climbing up those stairs. I could tell as soon as I stepped on them that something was different. That time, I could look up freely and feel no more vertigo than I do when looking down (not quite zero, but close enough). Between the cold medication and the cold, whatever it is that induces the vertigo wasn't functioning. I have no idea what to make of that, except to note that it's actually a rather nice view when it doesn't make you nearly lose your balance.

Inquire Further

04 October 2009

The Princess and The Squirrel

I looked out the window yesterday afternoon to a rather surprising sight. There was a squirrel eating spilled birdseed from the bird feeder, completely unaware that Princess was less than two feet away from him, behind the sack of sunflower seeds. Princess watched the squirrel intently, and I kept expecting her to pounce, but she seemed to be waiting for something. As far as I can tell, she was waiting for the squirrel to notice her and run. So either she wasn't interested in catching the squirrel—she only wanted to chase it—or she doesn't quite get how one actually would go about catching something. I'm really not sure which.

What makes it even funnier is that Dovienya passed about eight feet behind the squirrel, and he turned to keep a close eye on her, completely unaware of the cat much, much closer to him. After about five minutes, he finally noticed Princess, and scurried up the clothesline pole. Then when I went out to get the cats back in, he used the distraction to make a mad dash for the elm tree. Princess scampered after him and up the tree, finally getting her wish to chase him. I don't feel like going to the trouble of putting a caption on it, but if I did, it would be "Run, dammit! I want to chase you!"

Note that the picture was taken through a window and its screen, so it's a wonder it turned out as well as it did. This is after Princess had worked her way out from behind the sack:

Inquire Further

02 October 2009

Zucchini Bread

For the first time in a while, I tried making zucchini bread. I'd been having a problem of it not getting done, so I modified the recipe a bit. To convert it to gluten free, I'd been adding an extra egg (adds protein and helps hold it together), but, on the suspicion that there was too much liquid in the mix, I did not do so last night. Instead, I added two teaspoons of dried egg. I also increased the leavening (from 1/4 t baking powder and 1 t soda to 1/2 t baking powder and 2 t soda + 1 t egg replacer) and replaced half the oil with butter. The resulting batter was considerably thicker than the batter I'd gotten in the past, and seemed to bake much better. I was still cautious and only put one inch of batter in the bread pans, but, as it got done with no problems, I think it would be safe to increase that depth next time. Oh, I also increased the baking temperature from 325° F to 375° F. So here's my grandmother's zucchini bread, modified to be gluten free:

Gluten Free Zucchini Bread


3 eggs
1/2 c oil
1/2 c butter (softened)
2 c sugar
2 t vanilla
2 t soda
1/2 t baking powder
1 t egg replacer (or other leavening agent)
1/4 t salt
2 t dried egg whites
2 t xanthan gum
3 c featherlight rice flour mix*
3+ t cinnamon
2 c grated zucchini
1 c chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease pans and dust with rice flour. Put the eggs into a stand mixer and let them beat while you mix soda, baking powder, egg replacer, salt, dried egg whites, xanthan gum and flour together in a separate bowl. Add the oil and butter to the eggs. Add the sugar and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mix to the mixture. Add the cinnamon. Add the zucchini. Add the nuts. Mixture will be very thick. Distribute amongst three 8" by 4" bread pans and bake for 1 hour.


Note: If you make smaller loaves or muffins, you'll need to adjust the cooking time. I only needed 45 minutes last night, since nothing wound up more than an inch deep.

*Featherlight rice flour is one of Bette Hagman's mixtures. I've modified it a bit. Instead of white rice flour, I use brown rice flour. Instead of potato flour, I use rice protein powder. Since a lot of the GF flours are low in protein, I figure adding a bit in, particularly rice protein to a rice mix, is a useful thing to do.

Inquire Further