I can’t remember the first time I ever had a doughnut, but I can certainly remember the best time. I was young—young enough that I still wore overalls and an ID bracelet and play online casino—but old enough to know that doughnuts were a treat.
My dad was a baked goods connoisseur: Burgermaster had the best bear claws, Leonard’s had the best malasadas, and the best old-fashioned doughnuts. It was on a ferry ride to Orcas Island that I discovered the beauty of the day-old doughnut. “Saran Wrap is the trick,” my dad said triumphantly, picking up a mummified doughnut in the galley and shaking it gently. “It keeps the doughnut moist.” When we got to the cash register, the woman ringing us up said, “That’ll be a quarter.” My dad glanced gleefully down at me with a look on his face that implied we had basically robbed them blind. On top of being a baked goods connoisseur, my dad was also incredibly thrifty. A doughnut that was cheaper but a day old was undoubtedly tastier than a fresh baked doughnut that cost double. Sitting down with our doughnut, my dad allowed me the pleasure of slowly unwrapping the plastic until a perfectly moist old-fashioned doughnut was revealed to both of us. He pushed it toward me. “You do the honors,” he said, and I did, carefully breaking it in half. One side came out bigger than the other, so I handed that half to him. Naturally, he wound up giving me the bigger side that's just the type of dad he was. Many years and many doughnuts later, old-fashioneds are still my favorite. I even prefer them wrapped in plastic, then broken in half. (But I will take them fresh, too!) When we decided to publish Lara Ferroni’s cookbook, Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home, I wondered if I’d ever leave my house again. Sure enough, Lara’s recipes are easy and delicious, and the doughnuts are fresh and moist even without Saran Wrap. They aren’t cutesy like a cupcake, and they go better with coffee. What’s not to like? I do wonder what my dad would think about this cookbook; I wonder if perhaps it would provide the inspiration he needed to actually make something in the kitchen other than a PBJ. I can only wonder as he passed away in 2007. But I do know that he will be smiling down at me next spring as I cut my wedding cake. A wedding cake made entirely of doughnuts. Old-Fashioned Sour Cream Makes 6 to 10 doughnuts Active time: 15 minutes | Ready in: 40 minutes 1 1/4 cups (160 grams) all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon cinnamon Pinch of salt 1/3 cup (75 grams) superfine sugar 1/4 cup sour cream 1 large egg 1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter or vegetable shortening Vegetable oil for frying
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The suffering that exists in the world comes in two kinds: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is suffering caused by the actions of others (e.g., murder, rape, war, etc.) Natural evil is suffering which comes about by natural means (e.g., disease, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.)
So why does evil exists? The most common response to the question about moral evil is the Free Will Defense. It goes something like this: Moral evil exists because it is impossible to have free will without admitting the possibility of doing evil (i.e., misuse of one's free will.) Because free will has such value God permits the moral evil that results from misuse as an unfortunate byproduct of this great good. But two smart philosopher friends of mine Kurt Liebegott (Keystone) and Mickey Lorkowski (Akron) brought to my attention a few years ago a clever response to the Free Will Defense. (I do not know where this objection originates.) It goes something like this: The ability to do evil is not required for free will. God could grant free will to his creatures by giving them the ability to choose only from among a range of greater or lesser good options. All choices are constrained. We do not have unlimited free choice. All that is required for real freedom is the ability to choose from among a range of options. God could grant this freedom without making any of the options evil. Take a simple example, God could grant everyone the ability to give to charity either $100 or $1,000 or $10,000this is a legitimate choice and some are morally better than others, but none are choices to do evil. Thus, granting real free will does not require permitting evil choices. This is a clever argument and I think it succeeds in showing that free will per se does not require the option to do evil. It is possible to grant legitimately free choices among only good options. Nevertheless, I think that the Free Will Defense can be fixed by changing free will to morally significant free will. The good that God wants on this view is a legitimate choice between good and evil. Allowing this choice does, obviously, allow for the possibility of moral evil. Morally significant free will makes us truly responsible for one another in ways that only-good-options free will does not. Now there are varying levels of moral significance. God did not grant his creatures the ability to choose to destroy the whole cosmos, for example. He granted us the option to do only some goods and only some evils. So on this modified account God wanted to impart only a particular level and type of moral significance to the choices of his human creatures. |
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