now picnic

Dear Elephants Larry

2010-03-17T11:51:00.005-05:00

The Elephants Larry have a new podcast, and when the fourth episode was released last week, I noticed a trend in the length of the podcast. I decided to go all "Nate Silver" on them and make some predictions based on the data at hand.

As you can see in the graph above, the length of each episode has increased, compared to the one before. When this trend continues, after just 38 weeks of podcasting, their show will be 5 hours long. This will be a big commitment for the guys, I'm sure, but it's nothing compared to the commitment 27.5 years from now when they'll have to start recording their entire lives for one week in order to post that week-long episode at the end of the week. They'll also have to start recording the next week's podcast BEFORE they finish the previous one, since that next week's episode will last longer than the week between episodes. Whoa. I just blew your mind.

In case you haven't seen it yet, you should also check out their pilot "The WOW" in which I play not one but two small roles! One where I have a line and one where I am blindfolded. See for yourself! (Note: Contains swears.)

still here.

2009-11-12T23:06:00.004-05:00

In case it's been a while since you talked to me, we're in NY now after Spoons' graduation, a fun summer in/around Geneva, a 3+ week trip to Southeast Asia, and a transcontinental move.

For more on these adventures, see:

Spoons' Graduation

Southeast Asia

Moving to NY

Halloween in NY

NEXT!

2009-03-25T15:51:00.001-05:00

I recently finished writing up my February trip to Morocco. You can see all the photos and my comments on them at flickr:

djemaa el fna at dusk

Now for food, let's get right down to it!

Sunday: A good food day. Bittman savory breakfast -- whole grain (this time it was barley) with soy sauce, sesame oil, a fried egg on top, and scallions. Super tasty! It reminded me how much I like Bi bim bop, and how I should try to make that sometime. (Bi Bim Bop is great at University Cafe in Ann Arbor and Oishii Cafe in Pittsburgh.)

Lunch: met miniGrollman and walked around Geneva, trying to find someplace open on a Sunday. Ended up getting pizza at Molino on the Place du Molard -- the best thing about it was that it was open. :)

Dinner: Red thai curry (used curry paste from the asian grocery store) with eggplants, peppers, basil, coconut milk & shrimp.

Monday: I made enchiladas! We don't have good tortillas here (too far from Mexico, I guess) so we brought some corn tortillas back with us from the US when we came back from Christmas. After using a bunch for tacos, we tossed them in the freezer and I got them out this week for enchilada-making. For the insides, I used roasted chicken that tossed with a lot of lime, cilantro, and green onion, and something like this mole sauce for the top. I also got some tips from a Rick Bayless enchilada recipe -- warming up the tortillas in the oven before making the enchiladas really helped stop them from breaking up.

Tuesday: Leftover enchiladas. As sides, we served rice with tomatoes and butternut squash. I have always really liked butternut squash and Mexican food -- especially with black beans.

Wednesday: Tofu fried up in a pan, miso eggplant, rice. We have a lot of LHC Memorial Miso (from people who've moved back to the US) so this seemed like a good way to use some of it up. The eggplants were way tasty, but so, so sweet. Next time, less sugar.

Thursday: Dinner in Geneva at Little India with S&N. We liked it, though the Geneva prices for Indian (30-40 CHF (about $30) per person) still seem a little steep, even after 2 years.

Friday: Friends arrive from out of town -- our first attempt at making rösti. It's a German/Swiss dish that they have a lot in the mountains. Basically, it's hash browns. And then you put stuff on it. We had an excellent one in Bern that was potatoes with a little bit of applesauce on them, then bacon, topped with melted raclette cheese. There was another good-looking version recently at the CERN cafeteria -- really nice, crispy potatoes with a creamy mushroom sauce on the top and hot sun-dried-looking tomatoes. At our place, we offered applesauce, cheese, a fried egg on top, some broccoli that we'd already cooked, and maybe a few other things. The potatoes came out OK, but not as crispy as I would have liked. I think I need more patience. :)

Saturday: Veggiefest! Vegetarians in the house! A bunch of people came over (maybe there were 12 of us?) and everyone made many excellent dishes including indian cauliflower and lentil ones. G&J brought chocolate chip cookies that had as bonus ingredients: almonds, dried cherries, and cointreau. I thought they were super-awesome. Rose was saying she enjoyed the indian dishes, did we know how we cooked them? The answer was ... no. Katrina, Toyo, and I were all seasoning and stirring as we went by, but this was one case where many cooks did *not* spoil the soup.

the veritable dorade rose

2009-03-19T09:11:00.001-05:00

These are some food thoughts from a few weeks ago... will catch up to this week soon, I hope:

Sunday: Anchovy pasta for lunch (something like this), dinner of barley cooked with savory veggie broth, topped with green onions, sides of butternut squash and broccoli rabe

Monday: A bunch of people came over for BSG watching, and we made Texas beef chili with cornbread and vinegar-y cole slaw, AKA "Brassica Mixta." I think we cooked the chili for about 5 hours on Sunday and shredded it on Monday. It was a hit!

Tuesday: Salted and pressed, thin-sliced, floured, skillet-cooked, oven-finished eggplant, chickpeas with a bunch of random stuff (red pepper, tomato, ginger, unsweetened coconut...) and rice. As I was cooking this and thinking about how I would describe it, I realized how little I use recipes sometimes these days. I used to use them *all the time,* so it's a pretty big change for me. I did glance briefly at a recipe using unsweetened coconut, to see if I should add it early or late (answer: late. toasted.) The eggplant dish is one we make with really fresh eggplants, and the salting + draining thing really does seem to matter. They turn out with the best outside-crispy, inside-soft texture.

Wednesday: Dinner at "O! Canada!" House, followed by Karaoke. On a Wednesday! I know. The Baum made some kick-ass food, including steaks with a lot of Roquefort sauce.

Thursday: Spoons and I went out to dinner in our own hood. We went to a vietnamese place I hadn't been to before. The vinegar-y salad was deeee-licious and the other dishes were good, too. All those hot, sour, salty, sweet flavors.

Friday: Pasta with some kind of a red sauce that we made quickly. I remember there was a little bacon involved. And salad. I made a few things to take to a housewarming party, including a big batch of Sidecars -- a great thing to make when you have just TOO MUCH Cognac around. Spoons and I tested a few different proportions -- 1 cognac : 1 cointreau : 1 lemon juice tasted best to us. 2 cognac : 1 : 1 was a bit too alcoholic (just drink the cognac, then) and 1 : 2 cointreau : 1 tasted too syrupy. We also added a little sparkling water to the finished bottle of drinks and shook it with lots of ice. It was enjoyed by many.

Saturday: Everything Italian looked amazing at the farmers' market, and I relized it's probably because it is a lot warmer there! I got a bunch of lovely greens labelled "minestra," which I thought was the name of the kind of greens, but it turns out that "minestra" means soup. Oh. Ok. For dinner we had fishes: dorade/sea bream baked whole with rice and the undetermined "minestra" green.

Here is a picture of our fish, "Veritable dorade rose Bretonne" which means "Genuine pink dorade from Britanny." This fish was OK, but it had a texture a lot like chicken breast meat.

I'd been looking for a while for a guide to choosing fish here, something like the awesome Seafood Watch in the US, but hadn't found a good one until I googled "dorade rose." I found this one, for the WWF Switzerland, which says to avoid Dorade Rose AT ALL COSTS. Oh. Well, now we know where to look. Sorry, Dorade Rose. We didn't like your chicken-texture that much anyway.

two! two! two weeks in one!

2009-02-22T14:50:00.007-05:00

I'm still working on the Morocco 2009 wrap-up, but in the meantime, here are some food thoughts from the past two weeks.

Sunday (Feb 8): Arrived home from Morocco! After a week of tagines and cous cous and meat, meat, meat, all I really want for lunch is plain pasta with butter. For dinner, we made some indian food: tofu, red lentils, and spicy broccoli rabe. Vegetables taste good.

Monday: Duck breast with red wine sauce, served with rice and more broccoli rabe. We made it a lot like this, but not quite as fast:

Or, take a look at the actual recipe (which we didn't use at all) and a higher-quality video. For the duck that we get here, we find that putting it in the oven makes it too overdone, so we just finish it in the cast iron pan and let it rest.

Tuesday: Pasta with saucisson (AKA cured sausage), tomatoes, onions, pecorino romano, red wine.

Wednesday: Chicken leek barley soup. There's no chicken-broth-in-can here, so we make our own, usually on weekends. After dinner, chocolate cake sounded like a really good idea.

Chocolate cake:

Combine the following dry ingredients:
1 c sugar
1 c flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients:
1/2 c milk
1/4 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, stir in 1/2 cup boiling water. Put batter into, for example, a 9" round cake pan. I used a non-stick one, so I didn't bother to grease/flour it. Bake about 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

When I made this, I didn't have a lot of the ingredients, so I substituted whatever sounded good. It may seem like a bad idea to mess with recipes when baking, but I just tossed in some (unmeasured) melted chocolate for missing cocoa powder, crème fraîche and water for milk, less oil, and I rounded all the dry ingredients to those shown above (the recipe called for 7/8 cup of flour or something silly). The resulting cake was tasty and moist, and probably un-reproducible.

Thursday: at Chez Swedes, we cooked for our skiing-accident-incapacitated friend. We made veggie moroccan tagine (recipe) with chickpeas and sweet potatoes and other good things.

Friday: C$ and Jimmy D came over for some mushroom risotto with lots of pecorino romano and 3 mushrooms: Dried cèpes/porcini (courtesy of C$), fresh pleurotes/oyster mushrooms, and fresh cremini. Also salad, and many cheeses for dessert! If you want to hone your risotto-making skills, I highly recommend the chapter in the Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating which explains how fast and easy it can be. Here are the three kinds of mushrooms taken from people's flickr streams:

Pleurotus ostreatus / Pleurote en forme d'huître
Originally uploaded by Jules***

The porcini mushrooms
Originally uploaded by jmvnoos in Paris

010
Originally uploaded by e.sarah.c

Saturday: Fish & chips, using up the last of the french fries in our freezer. We got a good haul of free food before Christmas from people moving or leaving for extended holidays, and a big bag of french fries was leftover from that. Big salad of many vegetables.

Sunday: For lunch, I made salsa and we had polenta with fried eggs and spicy tomato salsa. One of my favorites -- this reminds me of brunch in Chicago at Flo.

Also made rice pudding, based on this rice pudding recipe from epicurious.

New Master Rice Pudding Recipe:

- mix 1 rice : 1 sugar : 8 milk : little butter, little salt, little vanilla
- cook on low, with no lid, for an hour or two - watch that it doesn't boil!
- mix in one beaten egg after you take it off the heat (optional)

I usually make: 1/2 cup rice, 1/2 cup sugar, 4 cups milk, 1 Tbsp butter, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp vanilla for four servings

Dinner on Sunday: Stir fry with tofu, sesame seeds, black bean paste, broccoli, red peppers, cilantro.

Monday: Indian food -- yellow lentils Naveen-style, tiny green eggplants sauteed with ginger, spicy okra & rice. Made lots of leftovers for lunches.

Tuesday: Pasta with egg and cheese (something like this) and salad.

Wednesday: Indian leftovers, now with sauteed spinach instead of okra.

Thursday: Duck confit, bulghur wheat side dish*, and salad. (Lots of salad this week...) We brought some duck confit home with us for Christmas because we like it so much. It's just duck, in a can, ready to eat. The pieces of duck are still whole, so it's not exactly like spam, but it's just about as easy. We usually pull the pieces out of the can and broil them for a few minutes before serving. Gourmet magazine had a Paris issue that I saw last year in an airport, and it had a lot of recipes to use the already-made duck confit that I keep meaning to try. They include one for a white bean soup with Armagnac and the pieces of duck in it, one for asian-style noodles with duck, and another for a salad with oranges.

Friday: Over at D+KW's we had pizza from a place in our little village. They had cooked some other food, but then their power went out! That's another story. One of the pizzas had a very creamy goat cheese on it. It was super-French tasting -- pizza with goat cheese!? -- and totally delicious.

Saturday: Fish from the market: "bar de ligne," broccoli, and the rice dish made by our power-less friends from the night before. "Bar de ligne" -- I think -- is a fish called "bar" (AKA "European Seabass" or "branzino") that is line-caught ("de ligne"). We usually pick the fish that looks the best at the market and then figure out what the heck it is when we get home.

We cooked the fish wrapped in parchment paper so that it steams well. It looked kind of like the branzino in this post, but instead of Thai spices and shallots, we put fennel, onions, parsley, lemon, olive oil, and white wine with our whole fish. One thing that definitely worked was that spoons mixed all this good stuff in a bowl together and tasted it before the fish was even out of the fridge. In the past, I've salted the fish, then put lemon on and olive oil, then tried to add other spices, but by putting all the ingredients in the bowl besides the fish, we could really make sure the flavor was good before it was applied to the fish. After it was cooked, we fileted it and served it with some of the vegetable mixture. Our friend Liz laughed: "It looks like grown-up food!" and said she never cooks fish. We assured her that you can just buy a filet and cook it in a pan... no need to get parchment paper involved unless you feel like it. :)

week in food: end of Jan

2009-02-10T21:51:00.001-05:00

I just got back from a week in Morocco! I was there for work, and I wrote a bit more about it on the US LHC blog, so you can read about it there. I'll post some pictures soon.

Before I talk about all the tasty things I had in Morocco (cous cous, tagines, cous cous, and tagines) I wanted to wrap up the week before I left.

Sunday: Picked spoons up at the airport very early, so we had a breakfast of toast and jam and things, then a brunch later in the day. I'd picked up some smoked salmon at our little local store, so we ate it with eggs and creme fraiche and capers, good toast and potatoes. Salmon breakfast always makes me think of Chloe's in San Francisco, where they had an awesome scrambled eggs with chunks of salmon in the eggs, chunks of potatoes, and chunks of cream cheese! The cheese melted as you were eating it, and it was tasty. I can't remember what we had for dinner that night... leftovers?

Monday: We went to watch Battlestar Galactica at a friend's place, so we had a quick dinner after work of leftover potatoes, rotisserie chicken from the market, and sauteed cabbage with whole cumin and mustard seeds and other good spices.

Tuesday: Dinner was orange-colored indian food: ginger carrots, spicy red lentils, tasty basmati rice.

Wednesday: Our friend HH arrives! We had a bunch of good red wine and a traditional French dinner of barely cooked red meat with french fries (AKA "frites") and sauteed broccoli. Because spoons and HH and I were all talking while we were cooking, and spoons was cooking half the things and I was cooking the other half and not paying attention, I burned the broccoli. It was the first time in a long time that I've burned anything. We cut off the burnt parts and ate it anyway. :)

Thursday: Crazy soup with eggs. This is a favorite dish of spoons' because it has so many great flavors, and because you finish it with a medium-cooked egg. It's a soup from a Paula Wolfert cookbook, The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. You can search inside the book on amazon, so I took these screen shots from there. (Click on the pictures to read the recipe.) You can also use amazon's "Look inside" yourself to search for "chickpea" and find the same pages and the ones around them.

The soup is a slow-cooked one, where chickpeas are simmered for hours to create a delicious broth. For a vegetarian version, just leave out the bones and it will still be tasty. Then, garnish the chickpeas+broth with lemon juice, salty olives and capers, spicy red pepper sauce, black pepper and cumin. Serve over crusty pieces of bread and break a medium-cooked egg over the top to add richness to the soup. If you're like me, you can cook the egg even more, but if you're like spoons, that runny yolk will be the best part!

I also made banana bread that night, with spoons' mom's banana bread recipe. When I am too enthusiastic with my banana purchases, I like to make this. Sometimes I even peel the bananas and throw the mush into the freezer for a while. It will keep in the freezer until you feel like baking.

Mix together the ingredients in a big bowl:
1 c sugar
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1.5 - 2 cups of mashed bananas (as many as you have, really...)
2.5 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Pour into a greased pan of whatever size you like. If you make a big bread loaf, you'll need to bake it for an hour or more at 350 degrees F. When you stick a fork/toothpick in to test for doneness, it's OK if it is a little moist still, but you don't want giant wet clumps of batter to come out.

Friday: We spent Friday night getting ready for a housewarming party - our friend T made delicious spicy pasta (with chunks of potatoes in with the penne!) and pizza at her place. We also made a few housewarming items for the new guys, including a pinata. Long story.

Saturday: We had a bon-voyage breakfast with HH of delicious eggs and bacon from the market - I used brioche bread and tried to make the eggs cook inside a circle cut into the toast: is that called a birds' nest? This was mildly successful. :) For dinner we went over to Chez W to visit with M&C and their kids who arrived back from a long trip to the US.

Sunday was my first day in Morocco... will write that week up next.

weeks in food II & III

2009-01-26T23:37:00.004-05:00

Looks like I'm not the only one on the internet who is blogging about their food choices for other people to ... skim over quickly. Mark Bittman, awesome NY Times food guy posted about all the food he ate while traveling last week. He ends up eating a lot of raw fruits and vegetables during the days -- I often feel like I don't get enough vegetables when I travel, and his approach could solve that. It looks a little rabbit-like at some points, but I do like all those foods.

To see what I think is the best of Bittman, check out this funny, interesting look at his take on eating. Well worth 20 minutes! He goes through a little bit of the history, pitfalls, and ways to deal with the US diet. Similar to Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" but funnier.

So, to catch up on my own list of recent dinners:

Monday: Meatballs, take two. The week before's meatballs turned out good, but strange. This time, we tried to reproduce a Moroccan dish we really liked when we were visiting there last summer.

The dish has a tomato sauce with lots of spices, pan-browned meatballs cooked in the sauce, and, best of all, eggs (one egg per person) poached in the sauce just before serving. You can kind of see them in the photo above.

It came out OK, but there was an unfortunate meatball incident. The meatballs fell apart while I was browning them, so they made the sauce more like a thick meat sauce, rather than a thinner sauce with meatballs in it. I think it was because I added oil that was supposed to be used in the pan into the meatball mixture instead by mistake, and that stopped the meat from sticking together. It still tasted good, though.

We served it with bread and a Moroccan shredded carrot salad. The recipes we used were from the excellent and inspiring Couscous and other Good Food by Paula Wolfert.

Tuesday: Easy dinner of sausages, brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes

Wednesday: Risotto, which I'll call "harlequin risotto" instead of "ugly risotto." We put red wine in, which always makes the risotto come out a funny purple color. Adding bright orange chunks of butternut squash, and mushrooms to the already purple rice wasn't the best choice for a good-looking dish, but it came out with a good flavor. I can only guess what the Top Chef judges would have said about its looks...

Thursday: Chicken tacos, with corn tortillas brought back from the US -- a luxury! They do have tortillas in the grocery store here but they often taste weird/sweet/bad enough that they make you look forward to the real thing. Also had sauteéd red & green peppers, black beans, spicy rice, onions and cilantro and limes.

Friday: on the way to Strasbourg! We arrived and met up with friends and had drinks and snacks. I'll put all the Strasbourg food into a separate post.

Sunday night: back home, quick dinner of soup-from-a-box (something like quinoa vegetables soup?) and salad

Monday: spoons took off to Savannah, Georgia, for a week for a conference. I made a bunch of baked pasta that I could take for lunch. I used something like this vodka penne recipe, with wine instead of vodka, tossed it with already cooked pasta and put mozzarella cheese on top before putting it in the oven. I also mixed in some leftover peppers from the Mexican food.

Tuesday: Inauguration night! I brought another batch of those good brownies from last week to a potluck dinner at D & K's. K made a tasty bean chili dish with rice in it -- I'll try to get the recipe and post it.

Wednesday: Use up rest of Mexican leftovers from last week: black beans, rice, enchiladas, and add butternut squash. Black beans + butternut squash is always a good combination in my book.

Thursday: Out for dinner with friends at a local Irish pub: Paddy's. Had "Irish stew" which is big chunks of potato, carrot, and lamb in a tasty broth, and Guinness, of course.

Friday: not feeling so hot, I don't know if I even ate anything for dinner... crackers? soup?

Saturday: ditto, rice with chicken broth...

Sunday: feeling better. spoons returns. on to the next week!

and... the rest of the Strasbourg pictures

2009-01-21T18:03:00.003-05:00

Click on the photo above to go to my flickr set of pictures and descriptions from last weekend in Strasbourg, France.

happy inauguration day!

2009-01-20T17:37:00.003-05:00

Here's the French/Virgin Records take on the inauguration: Yes We Can sell 24, West Wing, and Foxy Brown DVDs. :)

this week's thoughts on food.

2009-01-13T15:35:00.005-05:00

These are mostly for my own book-keeping, so I won't be offended if you don't pay too much attention.

Starting the new year off, we were in Rochester and then Seattle, where we did a little cooking, but not much. I'll start with Monday the 5th.

Monday: last Seattle dinner with J and Martha - pasta with garlic, bacon, and an egg tossed in at the end. Mmm.... and salad. Tried to make brownies that are better than the ones from the box that Martha loves, ate them while watching Doogie Howser in Dr. Horrible. Recipe at the end.

Tuesday: fly back home to Geneva. "dinner" on Air France was "beef" or "pasta" :)

Wednesday: back home! use (JMSJ memorial* jar of Rogan Josh with chicken), (spinach with some spices) and (crappy Basmati rice from Champion). I knew that rice was suspect when it said it would cook in 11 minutes, but I was deceived by the nice-looking packaging.

* When Jason left Geneva, we got all sorts of tasty things from his fridge, including a jar of pre-made Rogan Josh sauce.

For dessert: Best-ever rice pudding. I usually make half of this recipe, omitting cinnamon, for four servings: Rice Pudding

Mistakes I have made with that rice pudding:

1) The egg goes in at the very end, to add richness. Do not put it in at the beginning by mistake, or it will cook too much!

2) Don't ever let the milk boil too hard. It's tough, because you want to cook it for 1-2 hours, and as the volume of liquid reduces, you need to reduce the heat too. It's best to cook this while you're around the kitchen doing other stuff so you don't forget about it.

3) Don't put a lid on it while it's cooking, or the milk will never evaporate enough.

Other tips:

You can leave out the egg, and the same goes for the cream at the end. I often use the egg but not the cream, just because I'm too lazy to buy cream.

Chill? Really? I almost never bother.

You can reduce the sugar by 1/2 or 1/3 if you will eat the rice pudding warm. If you will eat it cold, I'd use the whole cup. Brown sugar is also awesome if you want to substitute half or all of it.

Thursday: Meatballs sounded like a good idea, make P-Wo parsley-rolled lemon sauce meatballs, served with bulghur and zucchini. These were a little weird -- they looked like green porcupines (the rice in the meatballs was sticking out like spikes), but they tasted good. The lemon sauce was also good but strange, like a savory lemon curd. You can use lots of meats; we used 2/3 lamb, 1/3 veal.

Recipe: Page 347 of Paula Wolfert's Eastern Med. cookbook "Macedonian meatballs rolled in parsley"

Friday: Martin and Sarah arrive, go out to Brasserie du Molard for flammenkuchen and giant columns of beer

Saturday: After going to the market, we made some fish for lunch, with a salad and slices of crusty bread. We just picked a fish that looked good since half the stuff there is new to us anyway, and it turned out to be mild and flaky and tasty, even if wikipedia says it has been considered (until recently) "a cheap fish, regarded as food for the poor or for pets." Funny! For dinner, we just had cheeses and breads and sausages and pickles.

Sunday: Went snow-shoeing for a few hours in order to make our cheese fondue taste even better. First time making fondue! We rubbed a clove of garlic around the inside of a big open pan, then heated about 2 cups of white wine, 2 T of lemon juice, 2 T of eau-de-vie til simmering. Mixed in, one handful at a time, 2 pounds of cheese (Comté and Gruyère) that had been grated and tossed with 1/4 cup of cornstarch. Served with cubes of bread for dipping, and a salad afterwards. This served 5 hungry people with no leftovers. :)

Why cornstarch? Why eau-de-vie? I'll let Alton explain. Fast forward to 1:50 if you already have your fondue pot ready.

For the best fudgy brownies, recipe from Fine Cooking magazine:

8 oz. (1 cup) unsalted butter; more softened butter for the pan
3 oz. (2/3 cup) unbleached all-purpose flour; more for the pan
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2-1/2 oz. (3/4 cup) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. table salt

Make the brownies:
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 350° F. Butter and flour a 9-inch-square metal baking pan, tapping out the excess flour.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat. Whisk or stir in the sugar, follwoed by all four of the eggs and the vanilla. Stir in the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt, starting slowly to keep the ingredients from flyin gout of the pan and stirring more vigorously as you go. Stir until the batter is smooth and uniform, about 1 minute. If you're using the port-soaked cherries, stir them in at this time, along with any remaining liquid from the saucepan.

Spread the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing it so it fills the pan evenly. Bake until a toothpick or a skewer inserted 3/4 inch into the center of the brownies comes out with just a few moist clumps clinging to it, about 40 minutes. Let the brownies cool completely in the pan on a rack.

back by popular request

2009-01-08T15:17:00.008-05:00

A number of people mentioned this (mostly abandoned) blog over the holidays, so I thought I would try to revive it in 2009.

Our holidays, in snapshots:

1) Went to Rochester, NY, to catch up with the Spoons-fam and try their first batch of home-brewed beer, which was tasty! The official "Silver Spoons" brewery glasses were the Christmas presents of the Spoonhower kids. Ours even made it back to Geneva in one piece.

2) Drove to Cleveland to see my family, cooked a great dinner with dad, Eileen, Liz, and friends.

3) After a short trip back to Rochester, flew out to Seattle to see the rest of my family and visit with friends. My niece Isabella is four years old!

(Pictures of John and Candace were taken by my dad on his last trip there.)

And now, we're back home in Geneva, Switzerland. Yay!

To see many more photos from throughout the year, check out my photostream on flickr.

I'll also be writing on the US LHC blog for the next few months, so look for me there.

Happy 2009!

adam visits, takes 1000 pictures.

2008-05-16T13:48:00.003-05:00

Our friend and Reverend, the honorable Adam Goode, came to visit us for 16 hours or so. He was in Paris for a conference and took the TGV to Geneva. He took a bunch of pictures of the area, CERN, signage, etc that you can see on flickr. Here are some highlights. If you ever want to see the Atlas control room, I'm there a lot, and you can see it on a webcam.

Adam, at the site of the web's birthing

A big hole, with ATLAS at the bottom

spoons looks up at a big crane

spoons, copic, and seth in the Atlas control room

CERN in Helvetica !?

hiking in the Jura

january recap

2008-03-25T15:45:00.003-05:00

Hola amigos.

I have a lot of pictures from January that I still hadn't posted, so I put them all together on flickr. They start out at CERN, where I was at the beginning of January (and at the end). They continue by documenting the trip when spoons and I went to pick up our car in France (we could drive to China now!) and the day we drove it home, then my trip to NYC - LA - NYC, and finally there are some more pretty mountains. Click the picture below to go there!

Enjoy!

let's hear it for the alps.

2008-02-11T17:18:00.000-05:00

Me again!

I put together a set of all the lovely mountainy places we've been since we got here. Want to see some scenic shots, sausages for sale, shiny skis, and other stuff starting with the letter S? Here is your chance. Click below, my friends!

Speaking of lovely snow, here is a link to the BEST EVER photographs of real snowflakes and a geek-tastic guide to different kinds of snowflakes.

new digs

2008-02-10T14:09:00.000-05:00

Oh, hi!

Here are some pictures of our new apartment in France. Spoons has been here most of the time since December, and we are happy to be settled in one place for a little while.

Chez Nous

Also! In the interest of science, you may want to sign on to this call for a presidential debate on science and call for a restoration of scientific integrity in U.S. government policy making. I did!

remembering how to subtract six

2007-09-20T13:48:00.000-05:00

Hi folks. I'm back at good old CERN this week, after a few weeks in the US. All day long, I'm thinking of people at home and subtracting 6. 1:29 pm? That's like 13:30, which is 7:30, which is too early to call spoons. Then sometimes I subtract 9. 10 pm? That's 1 pm in Seattle. Lunch time. Maybe I should call mom now?

My sister Liz has her palm pilot show the Seattle, NYC, and Geneva times so that knowing where her family is tells her when her family is. That's a good idea, but I don't really have a device to program like that. I wonder if I'm flexing my "subtract six" part of my brain here. Anybody need someone to subtract six, base 12? I'm your gal.

I haven't posted much here while I've been working on a few new projects: my job at CERN, and Camp Spoonhowopic. Both have been fun so far, and while Camp is over now, my job here is still just getting started.

I have a lot of older pictures to post (all in due time!) but if you are looking for tons of great and silly photos, check out the Camp flickr group.

mmm. cheese.

2007-06-14T16:38:00.001-05:00

Check it out in Bo's photostream... some pictures from a short (almost 24 hour) trip to Paris.

londontastic

2007-05-31T15:42:00.000-05:00

I posted the rest of my photos from London -- click above to see more!

ninja attacks the chutney

2007-05-28T07:58:00.000-05:00

Oh! Guess what? More pictures. This time on flickr. Click the ninja to see more!

We found the orange ninja on the ground in the Mission in SF on the rockin' New Years' Eve trip this year, and it was the Official Mascot of the London trip that HH and I took. In this photo, we've all wandered out from Matt et al.'s place to find a snack (me, HH, and the ninja) and he seemed a bit suspicious of the deliciousness.

lobster in a medical cabinet, jesus on a pool table

2007-05-25T04:07:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday! Here are some photos from trips before I came to CERN. Ann Arbor, Pittsburgh, Last-Night-in-Chicago!, Seattle. I will flickr them eventually, but I am slow.

you know. places. things.

red snapper! very tasty!

2007-05-24T07:27:00.000-05:00

Here are some links for the week:

Can you identify the fish you just paid for? In Chicago:

The newspaper had DNA tests done on sushi described as red snapper or "Japanese red snapper" bought from 14 restaurants in the city and suburbs. Not a single one was really red snapper.

Bacteria hug you! (thanks to HH)

A list of eco-friendly hotels (via Mandeep)

Are physicists taking over astronomy?

"A significant number of astronomers were being browbeaten," White told Nature in an interview. "I wanted to say, 'Hey, there are different ways of thinking about the physical world that are just as interesting as figuring out how particles and forces interact with each other'."

Really? The article contains the first time I've seen particle physicists described as "a glamorous and well financed bunch."

no place like home

2007-05-22T15:47:00.000-05:00

This is from London -- an unusual assortment of names of sauces. The Brown sauce was kind of BBQ-ish, and we didn't venture into the Burger sauce while we were eating our British breakfast of meats and beans, tea and toast, eggs and tomatoes and mushrooms. Somehow we ended up at a ridiculously American-nostalgia-themed diner serving British breakfast, so Nevada license plates, Mickey Mouse, and Marilyn Monroe were close by.

there and back again

2007-05-21T16:40:00.000-05:00

Hey friends -- May has been a hectic month so far, getting to CERN, getting back to NYC and Brookhaven Lab for a short trip, then to Pittsburgh and NY again, to London for a fun two days, and back to Geneva. I've been doing some "moving-in" things this week with Spoons here. Today he took this picture in the Target-equivalent store, Migros:

Robots and casseroles?! For more on French robots, see WordReference...

bonjour!

2007-05-01T05:53:00.000-05:00

I'm off to a good start in Geneva! I'm living in Thoiry, France. Looking at the map in the link, you can see that Thoiry is just to the northwest of the French-Swiss border, and it's only 6 km (4 mi) from where I'm working at CERN. The lab is the triangle underneath the Route de Meyrin in the picture -- it has a circle in the middle, and crosses the vertical French-Swiss border.

I've had some excellent bike rides to and from work in the good weather. There's also a convenient bus to take, and it looks like I'll be getting a car, soon, too. (The first car I will have owned since Pickle Bill in 1999!)

I haven't posted new pictures yet, but you can take a look at these from September to get a good feeling for the lay of the land...

trip to CERN

that band is adorable. i mean, hardcore.

2007-04-16T00:52:00.000-05:00

Howdy picnicians -- happy Monday.

While you are waiting for ``things learned in NY: week 2'' take a look
at some photos of my favorite new band. Which band? No One Has to Know.

(click for more photos!)

things learned in NY: week 1

2007-04-05T00:35:00.000-05:00

You can get an umbrella for $5, but you have probably overpaid. $3 is the going rate, or even 2 for $5.

$3 for an umbrella seems cheap to me, until I realize it is a one-use-only umbrella, and I am the girl standing on the corner of the Avenue with cabs rushing by holding a giant metal flower.

When cabs switch shifts (half switch every 4 hours?) if they don't have the cab back to the place they got it from, they have to pay a fee. So, if you are standing at Columbia trying to get to the airport just before 4 pm with a big suitcase, at least 1/2 of the cabs will not want to pick you up. They don't have time to get you to the airport and get back before shift change. (This wasn't my problem today, since I didn't have to get to the airport, but it seemed like a useful thing to know.)

The A-C-E is the dumbest subway line.
- Do NOT take the E train to get from downtown to Columbia. THE E TRAIN DOES NOT GO TO COLUMBIA! It goes to Queens. Stupid E train.
- The C train does not run late. The A train goes local after some time (10:30?) I watched two A's go by tonight, like a rabbi traditionally refusing to take an A until I realized there were no C's and the third A train came by...
- Beware the stops that go one direction only! What is that about?
Women in NY just can not get enough of tucking their jeans into their boots. I guess when you spend that much money on boots, you make sure everyone can see. Ugg.

big shiny apple time

2007-04-02T00:58:00.000-05:00

Where am I now? NYC! First day of work today. And I will get a new shiny laptop -- very exciting!

Since last I wrote, I was in Seattle and Pittsburgh for some quality time with the fam, rocking-yet-bittersweet going-away parties, as well as some tasty last-week-in-Pittsburgh food at Cafe Zinho and Coca Cafe.

I will probably start posting more locked posts on Live Journal soon, so if you are reading this on blogspot or another RSS reader, think about getting a free LJ account and adding me (nowpicnic) as a friend. Email me if that doesn't make any sense to you. :)

pacific time

2007-03-26T11:15:00.000-05:00

Where am I now? In Seattle. I was in Chicago for the weekend, now in Seattle, back to Pittsburgh on Wednesday.

I have some great photos from the Chicago weekend, but I forgot the cord to connect the camera to the laptop, so you'll have to wait until I get home for those. I can say that an evening that includes the Hop Leaf, Green Mill, and being called up on stage to do the electric slide with Tom, Laura, Mary Fons and others for a two-minute play at Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is a pretty kick-ass last night in Chicago.

And today, some mushroom-themed links for you:

Check out this "All Things Considered" story about a Harvard scientist out in the woods with her student and postdoc, looking for mushrooms. The family she loves is in Massachusetts now, but the mushroom she loves is still in California. The interviewer seems very amused with her group, cavorting through the rain, breathlessly identifying new kinds of fungi. Young mycologist, Fiona, in the Series of Unfortunate Events could use a role model like Dr. Pringle.

And speaking of mushrooms, comments like "Me too on the toilet mushrooms" abound on Tom7's 3+ year-old post on his blog, #1 google hit for "bathroom mushroom.

equinoxical

2007-03-21T21:26:00.000-05:00

Happy equinox to you.

Did you know that the day and night are both about 12 hours long, everywhere on the earth on the equinox? The wikipedia article on equinoxes could use some editing, but the whole thing is kind of neat. (Bonus good word: equilux!) Spoons and I were trying to figure out how the equinox worked on the car ride back from AA yesterday, and we decided a whole semester of high school math/science could be spent teaching geometry and such using the earth and the seasons/days/orbits/etc.

Here are a few other random snippets:

The Cliche Rotation Project is a great idea, and I fully support the use of the phrase "boot souffle" for "kunckle sandwich" and "like trying to find a clock in a casino" instead of "looking for a needle in a haystack." Saying "Well isn't that the bee's pajamas?" with the right amount of snarkiness could be fun, too.

Physics bubble chamber art (click for more):

An article from the UK about John McCain that sums up how eh I feel about him these days: "Some of the old fire that captivated independents even as it upset Republican traditionalists, has gone." He used to be a lot more interesting.

thanks

2007-03-20T16:25:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everybody who called/emailed/commented/text messaged/drove to Ann Arbor (!) to wish me good luck or congrats!

The talk went well yesterday. My thesis committee, some other members of my group, and some family and friends were there. If you want to see more about what I talked about, check out my work webpage.

Afterwards, a bunch of us went out to Ashley's for dinner and a few beers. I have some work to do still on my thesis -- corrections and additions -- but nothing major. So, I'll be all finished soon!

Next, I'll be off to work for Columbia as a postdoc at the beginning of April, spending a few weeks in NYC before I am off to CERN. Right now, I'm back in Pittsburgh.

today is the day!

2007-03-19T11:05:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday to my mom! ... oh, and today is my thesis defense. If you are in Ann Arbor, meet me at Ashley's around 5!

links: not just for zeldas anymore

2007-03-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

When you sit at a computer all day long like I do, you find interesting things every once and a while. Here are a few:

Awesome high-five contest. Are you awesome? Do you like high-fives? (P.S. Listen to the Sound of Young America on the radio or podcast. It is good.)

A list of good things to do in Chicago. (P.S. Listen to Sweet Thighs. She is good.)

I like the idea in the comments for this article about the gender of pronouns. There's no good non-gender-specific word for him or her, so when you need one of those words, you always have to guess, or hedge: "So, did you give the book back to ... your friend?" or you can resort to the plural: "Did you give their book back to them?" even when you know there's only one person being discussed. This Wired article talks about meeting people virtually, when sometimes the gender of the person you're meeting is even more unclear than in real life. For example, if the person's screenname is AHRW28 or the avatar used to represent him-or-her is a flying sofa, what do you use? It would be neat if some other third person singular pronouns would evolve online and become common in the real world.

Here is a picture of my (getting-so-old!) niece Isabella. My dad is visiting Seattle this weekend and sent it to me. So skeptical! And so much a combination of John and Candace. I can't wait to see them all again.

algebraic!

2007-02-28T00:26:00.001-05:00

spoons and I were talking about some math stuff last night, and I couldn't help thinking that it was totally "algebraic!" thanks to Sarah and Brian.

best of the web

2007-02-25T21:03:00.000-05:00

Howdy all -- I'm hanging in there and getting a lot of thesis-writing done these days. Since I don't have much to write here, now, here are a few links for enjoyable things I read last week.

Reflections on Valentine's Day (thanks for the link to Marni):

I think the world would fare a little better if from time to time we looked at a couple swooning with love and instead of drawing pink hearts and singing "all you need is love" at them said "This is all very nice, but you are both going to be needing an education and life insurance."

Her writing reminded me of Matthew Baldwin's excellent thought on marriage:

For some "marriage" is a religious arrangement, where two people are joined together by God; to others it refers to the purely secular tradition of pledging fidelity to one another in the hopes that your friends and relatives will give you DVD players and ice cream makers. Until the two sides in the gay marriage debate agree on a common definition -- something unlikely to happen anytime soon -- we're going to just go around and around in circles on this issues for decades to come.

The gov needs to get out of the marriage business altogether, ya'ask me. ... I think the United States should adopt the Buddy System.

Here's how it would work. When a citizen reaches Buddying age, he or she will receive a charming, hand-written note in the mail from the government. This is what it will say:
Hi there! Welcome to adulthood. You've had it relatively easy so far, all things considered: what with the parents, and the no job, and the not paying taxes, and the ability to eat an entire Italian sausage and black olive pizza without feeling like crap the following morning. ...

Unfortunately things get a little trickier from here on out. You might have to work a job you don't particularly like, or find yourself with all kinds of obligations you'd just as soon avoid. Maybe you'll feel your idealism leech away, and your patience for the status quo dwindle. Perhaps the people who signed your yearbook "2good + 2b = 4gotten!" will move away and 4get you...

Yeah, adulthood is a drag sometimes. And that's where the Buddy System comes in. At some point, you may find it useful to Buddy up with another person, someone you will watch over and who will, in turn, watch over you. Like the earlier version of this system you may have used at school or at camp, your Buddy's job will be to make sure you don't get lost. But less a literal "don't get lost in the forest during a dayhike" and more a figurative "don't get so lost working at a crummy job that you forget how much you like gardening." Or, you know, whatever.

So, at some point, feel free to take a Buddy. Or don't: whatever works for you. But it's a scary world out there, and sometimes a Buddy is just the thing you need to make it seem a bit more manageable.

(I cut a lot of good stuff out of there, so go read the whole thing.)

Other good stuff:

For fans of guitar hero (I'm looking at you, baz and Elephant Larry), there's accordian hero (thanks jcreed)
For fans of pretty letters (stefan! spoons! hphil!) here are many pretty letters (jcreed again)
And here is a list of dicks. Jordi is funny. Not safe for work? Maybe?

new picnic

2007-02-20T23:36:00.000-05:00

I've posted a bunch of new links on the right-hand side of the page -- check them out. And let me know if there are any I should add/edit/subtract!

the beliefs of the Matrix

2007-02-20T12:15:00.000-05:00

(Click images for larger versions)

While I'm busy with other stuff, here are some more things I've found! I found this list in Chicago. I am fascinated by the two columns, and how items in the column range so much from the everyday stuff ("chocolate & red wine") to characteristics of the person making the list ("knows how to listen," "brilliant" which is crossed off) to goals for the future ("give yourself permission to see things from a different perspective free from the pressures of peers and the beliefs of the Matrix").

Even adjacent items are sometimes so different: "feeling disconnected from my higher knowing due to not accepting my inner wisdom" and "paying bills is a struggle," for example. The back of the page is below.

speaking of hearts

2007-02-13T23:54:00.001-05:00

This was found outside my old Ann Arbor house around 2004. I loved that instead of writing HerName HisName, she's writing "cardiologist" and "princess" at the same time, and I thought I'd post it today since it's kind of you-go-girl and all that. Then I found an article from Ann Arbor (where this note was found) that said a 9 year-old girl by this name was given a heart transplant in 2000. A heart transplant. Aw. That makes her about 13 when this note was found in our yard, and it helps explain why a curly-handwriting teenager is dreaming about cardiology. You go, girl.

She was also in a 5K run in 2002. I hope she's doing OK.

Happy Valentine's Day.

it is 1:25 am and two men are exploding the moon

2007-02-12T23:03:00.001-05:00

Soulcialism - Juddy
Originally uploaded by Patrick58.

It was a good weekend. (You can listen to the song "Good Weekend" by Art Brut if you like. Click on "Releases" on the bottom to get to the music! His good weekend was a little different than mine.)

My good weekend started out Friday with some SOULcialism dancing. The Prince Symbol Album served well (as usual) for some pre-dancing funkification. While Soulcialism is open to anyone, the crowd was full of CMU people that we knew -- it felt like someone's really good house party. It probably helped that the venue is "the White Eagle" which is an old Polish bar in what's pretty much ... a house. It was fun to run into lots of people there, but at some points the grad-student-ification was too much. I was going to get drinks at the bar and I walked past two guys having an intense conversation. One guy says to the other, " Let me just say two things. One: Google does not provide blablablah storage." and I kept walking, so I missed thing 2.

Saturday night there was a CMU fancy-ish event at the Phipps conservatory. There were cupcakes and other foods and drinks, and plants, but the room with the food and drink and music was sadly plant-free. The rest of the conservatory was beautiful -- we thought they could have thrown a few plants in pots in the room with all the food and music.

Sunday, there was some spoons-HH-jcreed songwriting at our place. I made chicken dumpling soup and did some work, with the pleasant addition of a house band. Then we went off to see The Science of Sleep and took along some dessert that deserves its own post. The movie was good, but not as good as I hoped. The director (Michel Gondry) also did "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" which I really loved. Eternal Sunshine was written with Charlie Kaufman, while the movie we saw yesterday was written by Gondry alone. It was pretty clear from the DVD extras (and the movie) that the small cast and small crew of friends were having a fun time making the movie, so I enjoyed watching the animation and colors and visual effects vicariously. (Like: "Oh man, that prop looks like it would have been fun to make.") The actual storytelling left something to be desired, though, and it seems like M. Gondry was just too close to the events in the movie to craft a good story that other people (besides him) could really benefit from. In the extras, he keeps talking about how the office of the protagonist has a hallway here because that's where the hallway was in his old office, or that the set design for the woman's apartment had to be just right, because the woman that the character was based on had such a strong visual style. It was almost painful to watch the "making of" documentary, when he's asking the actress who plays the protagonist's love interest "but, do you think she loves him? Does she love him?" So, in many ways we're watching someone else's piece of therapy. And as long as you can enjoy that, I think it's a movie worth watching.

P.S. - If you act quickly, you can be my 4th friend on Barack Obama's campaign website. All the cool kids are doing it! Being passionate about politics is the new apathy, everybody.

guten morgen! schmelzkäsezubereitung!

2007-02-08T23:55:00.000-05:00

This is for the crowd at D's tonight:

It's a McDonald's menu from Köln, Germany advertising an American? French? breakfast sandwich with those great German descriptions... schmelzkäsezubereitung? freetranslation.com gives us: Enamel cheese preparation? Mmmm.

break it down, break it up

2007-02-07T23:59:00.000-05:00

Band of the day: the adorable duo "Mates of State"

I wasn't sold on these guys until I saw them play in Chicago awhile ago. They are just full of bouncy energy -- he plays drums, she rocks out on the keyboard, and they both sing with all their little hearts! I love watching a band that is clearly having so much fun. There are many videos on their website. My favorite song with a video is at the bottom for "Gotta Get a Problem." Seeing the two of them singing together, bopping heads and laughing in that video draws a clear picture of what their life at home must be like... or so I think. It's not great background music, but it's awesome sunny day driving music. Hear more, of course, on myspace.

I think that the best video, visually, is this one for "Fraud in the 80's":

Mates of State are touring this month with This American Life. What a great live show!

Non-sensical spam of the day:

The highlights of the second half for me were "Elation" with Simon appearing to give it every remaining bit of emotion he had, and "Julie". The two others did not respond to phone or e-mail messages.

The two others did not respond to phone or e-mail messages. How often have you heard that about a support band?* Overall I don't know if I'm just a miserable old bastard or what but this gig was a big disappointment.

* a "support band" is an opening band in the UK...

the fort knox of seeds

2007-02-06T23:41:00.000-05:00

This is one of those stories where science fiction becomes science fact. On the island of Svalbard, Norwegians are building an International Seed Bank out of solid rock, to store up to 3 million varieties of plant seeds. Good to know somebody's thinking ahead.

persian posties persist in passing out packages

2007-02-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

It's quite cold: Pittsburgh has cancelled school, though a 'cold day' is not really as fun as a 'snow day,' methinks. We were wondering if we'd get mail today, so I was googling for 'rain, sleet, snow' trying to remember the verse about the postal service. Although there are tons of mail-related hits, according to the National Postal Museum, there's no "sleet" in there:

"The phrase which most people associate with the postal office is that which is engraved on the outside of the James A. Farley Post Office building at 8th Avenue & 33rd Street in New York, New York: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

This phrase was a translation by Prof. George H. Palmer, Harvard University, from an ancient Greek work of Herodotus describing the Persian system of mounted postal carriers c. 500 B.C. The inscription was added to the building by William Mitchell Kendall of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the building's architects."

Huh. "Gloom of night"? Who knew?

In 2006 some friends were doing a "50 Book Challenge," trying to read 50 books in the year. I got to wondering how many books I had read last year for fun, and I could count 30 or so. I thought this year I'd make a list, so you can find it on amazon: Books of 2007. I'm counting books I finished this year, so a few of them were started last year. I'm not trying to get to a specific number, just keep a record.

I thought I'd make a list of movies, too, here: Movies and TV of 2007. We've been watching a fair amount of TV on DVD, so we're in Arrested Development Season 3 (spoons hasn't seen it yet, though I have), Lost Season 2, and Battlestar Galactica Season 1 (which spoons has seen all of, but I'm trying to catch up).

I'll add these links to the sidebar soon -- I have a bunch of people and places and things to links to...

snowboarding. today.

2007-02-01T23:08:00.001-05:00

great! very sore. tired. :)

tell me about it

2007-01-31T23:42:00.000-05:00

This is a definite problem when writing one's thesis on a computer.

Now replace "Tacoma Narrows Bridge" with "Calorimeter" and you can see what's happening to me. It makes this make a lot of sense:

from freezer to oven

2007-01-30T20:45:00.000-05:00

We are still working through our freezer full of vegetables from our backyard + Kretschmann's bounty this summer. We still have a lot of roasted tomatoes in there, and I just pulled out the last of the frozen shredded zucchini yesterday to make some zucchini bread. The cookbook that I used was The Art of Quick Breads by Beth Hensperger. The recipes I've linked to are the zucchini bread one, as well as a few other good ones: lemon poppyseed bread, pear bread with vanilla and ginger, fresh orange oatmeal bread, and my favorite recipes for scones and buttermilk biscuits. The buttermilk biscuits are the best for breakfast with honey and butter, or with a savory dinner. When we make them, we only make four big biscuits from that recipe: two for dinner, and two for breakfast!

just like you and me!

2007-01-29T23:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was talking a little about lab coats, and it reminded me of this funny project Fermilab has online. They asked a visiting seventh grade class to draw pictures of what they think a scientist is like before visiting and after.

The "before" pictures are about what you expect -- almost all Einsteins and Dr. Jekylls -- but I was surprised just how homogenous they were.

"To me, a scientist is bald and has hair coming out of the sides of his head. . . "

"He would also have numerous white lab coats."

Numerous lab coats! Yes, it's true. If you look at all the kids' "before" images, there are numerous lab coats.

Most of the "before" scientists are men, but a few of the girls drew women, too.

The "after" pictures are hilarious in their contrast.

". . . anyone can be a scientist. I saw people walking around in sweatshirts and jeans. Who knows? Maybe I can be a scientist." -- Amanda

"The scientists are really nice and funny people. I first thought of the scientist as a nerdy person or someone walking around with a laptop. Now after I visited Fermilab I know what a real scientist is like. They are just like you and me." -- David

"Actually, they are just people who ask and answer questions." -- Eric (whose "scientist" turned from a nerdy white guy to a black dude who says "sup, yo!")

". . . most of the scientists were in jeans and striped shirts. I even saw a person with a Bulls shirt on. . . . (Scientists are) interesting, smart people who dedicated their lives to what they like with many other lively endeavors, like kids or marriage." -- Kyle

That's right! Scientists can even wear shirts with sports teams on them! Science, contrary to what you might think, is not the opposite of sports.

"The scientists were smart but not like geeks. . . . The scientists were good with kids; they would talk to us so that we could understand them not in scientific terms. . . . The scientists were like me when I was little. The scientists played sports, hung out with their friends and also did not get straight A's in every subject." -- Pat

Again with the sports. Jock OR Nerd: you must choose!

"After today I learned that a scientist is more than a person doing experiments; he is a person with a life." -- Michael (Well, sometimes, Michael, but not always...)

These are Andrea's "before" and "after" -- I think the cool "after" guy looks a little like Bob - no?

While it's true that some of the "before" scientists were women, it was a little sad to see how many kids thought that scientists (of any gender) were all lonely lab types. Like Kyle, who now knows that scientists can have "many other lively endeavors, like kids or marriage." Sandra went so far as to hook her scientist up with a tall dude in her "after" picture.

no lab coat, but...

2007-01-28T23:51:00.000-05:00

Sometimes in my physicist day, I don't do anything really physicisty. I kind of sit in front of a computer and work on crappy C++ code and make graphs of stuff. On those days, it doesn't really feel like I'm helping Discover the Secrets of the Universe or anything. And I never get to wear a lab coat, so if I were on television, I don't think anyone would believe I was a real scientist. ;)

Other days, though, I do feel like I'm doing something interesting and fun, and sometimes I feel especially badass, like when I can solder things together. Today I had a funny moment of scientistness when I was writing an equation in my thesis and I wanted to put in a few numbers to make sure that it made sense. I started looking around for a bit of scrap paper and grabbed an envelope left over from some junk mail. Then I smiled. If you google "back of the envelope" there's 460,000-some entries describing "back of the envelope calculations" (a term coined by Enrico Fermi, says wikipedia) which are rough estimates you use to see if something's working, or figure out the basic idea. And today I did a quick "back of the envelope calculation" on the back of a real envelope.

It's not much, but somehow it felt cool. Sometimes working on computers makes me feel so far away from paper and it was nice to see my old friend, paper, again.

galleries, crawled.

2007-01-27T23:36:00.000-05:00

I'll put these up on flickr tomorrow, but this is easier -->

pittsburgh gallery crawl

Those are some photos from last night's Pittsburgh Gallery Crawl. It was a fun night in downtown, that ended too early! Since it ended at 9, we hung out for a while at Gabe's house (cupcakes! thanks!) and then went to Silky's with the superfamousawesome singer from Selfish Jane.

Today was more laid-back, working on some projects at home.

crawling for art

2007-01-26T16:44:00.000-05:00

I've most often heard the word "crawl" associated with "pub crawl," but in Pittbsurgh there's a "gallery crawl" tonight with free art and music and snacks! We're going to see one of HH's many side-project-bands called "Selfish Jane." (get it?) They're not on the schedule, but they're playing at 6 and 8 at the Watercolors gallery -- we should be there at 6, and then grab some dinner nearby and continue crawling... give a call if you'll be there!

recipe time!

2007-01-25T17:34:00.000-05:00

Here are recipes for a few things we've cooked lately:

I heart hearty wintery desserts, like rice pudding. Feel free to use whatever rice you have around, milk instead of cream, cut back on the sugar if you like... it'll be good anyway.

Delicious Tunisian soup with meatballs: from P-Wo's Slow Mediterranean Kitchen. We used lamb from the co-op this time, which was good. It seems like a lot of paprika, but go for it!

Clafoutis! It's fun to say. This is from the Williams-Sonoma French cookbook. I used raspberries and blueberries from the freezer -- I think any fruit will work. Peaches would be good. Mmmm.

words words words

2007-01-24T23:32:00.000-05:00

demographicize: This ReadyMade article made me feel totally deomgraphicized. I was looking for a recipe for this food I ate in Puerto Rico, called "Mofongo." Apparently other people who might be interested in a mofongo recipe read ReadyMade magazine (oh, me) and cook crazy vegetarian dinners (me again!) and also might like this cookbook called "The Grub Generation." (Recently recommended to me by a friend of mine who knows the author. Three for three!)

ballerina cohomology: spam subject line of the day!

decimate: reduce BY one tenth, or reduce TO one tenth? (That's a great "Usage Note" in the link. I want to be on the usage panel!)

digest: (from defective yeti)

Bush has moved his decision on the Iraq war to January, saying that he needs to digest all the information he has received on the subject.

Yes, this is the typical Bush M.O.: Ingest a bunch of reasonable suggestions from thoughtful and knowledgeable advisers, hunker down with Cheney and the rest of the inner circle for a week or two, and return with the end product of the digestion process.

(The photo at the top is from Puerto Rico - click on it to see the whole set of photos.)

726 days until 2009 inauguration

2007-01-23T23:57:00.000-05:00

Watching the State of the Union tonight at the lovely home of pepperedjane and arh006 made me very excited to have only ... 2 years ... left of hearing Mr. Bush speak in public. Not only do I not believe a word that the guy says, but he's just such an awful speaker. Anyway, more on that tomorrow, maybe.

For 2009, another of our choices is Mitt Romney, Mormon businessman and one-term Republican Governor of Massachusetts. He and his wife are both Brigham Young-graduated Mormons, and has this to say on his own website:

"Last year the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court struck a blow against the family, as I'm sure you know. The court forgot that marriage is first and foremost about nurturing and developing children. Its ruling meant that our society is supposed to be indifferent about whether children have a mother and a father."

Yeah, so, not that guy.

Currently reading: What's the Matter with Kansas? It's interesting so far...

speaking of christmas...

2007-01-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

Here are some representative photos from the Christmas travels.

These Christmas-colored foods are from dinner at my dad's -- the spinach on the left will be used in the Creamed Spinach recipe, and the red stuff is beet soup, which we served as an amuse bouche in a wineglass. It looked beautiful, and it tasted much of delicious beets, but not everyone seemed to be a fan of beets. (Huh?) People also seemed a little confused about drinking a soup out of a wineglass, but I liked the cognitive dissonance of expecting wine and getting brothy beety soup instead.

Don't you worry -- this Seagram's bottle at the spoons-family log cabin was filled with Bombay Sapphire for reasons I'll leave to your imagination. Gin + Christmas Cookies = Happy Holidays? We also got a bottle of Hendricks Gin for spoons' brother for Christmas, so quality gin was all around -- except in the new Bond movie. Gordon's, Mr. Bond? Really!

is it almost christmas time?

2007-01-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

It's been snowing so much here that I feel like it must be time to make cookies and sing Christmas carols... wait. That part is already over? But ... I ... sigh. I'm so confused.

In the last post I was writing about Obama, and today we heard two more announcements of presidential wannabes: Hillary Clinton and Sam Brownback. I watched Clinton's video on her website and read a bit about her life and accomplishments. (Her wikipedia article has 87 citations, to Obama's 141, so I'm putting Obama ahead as the candidate favored more by geeks.) I thought Hillary's video was OK, but she just doesn't seem that comfortable. Too plastic? I feel like people will be looking at her as what a successful woman can be, and I worry that if she looks bad in commercials, interviews, debates, that that might hurt the next viable female candidate.

Brownback is running for the Republican nomination, and I already don't like him. He's already making a big deal about making sure there's no gay marriage. While I'll admit that there are lots of complicated issues: health care, foreign policy, education -- gay marriage is not one of them. There are absolutely zero rational arguments against gay marriage, and it's one of my political dealbreakers.

Also, I mentioned that O'Reilly and Colbert were doing a show swap, and you can see the show (at least you can see them right now) on YouTube: Bill O'Reilly on Colbert Report, and earlier in the day, Colbert on O'Reilly and a not-that-funny panel discussion on O'Reilly's show about why Colbert is so popular. Worth watching!

so, now, my chicken soups...

2007-01-19T00:09:00.000-05:00

I've just returned from D's -- land of 1000 beers! Tonight I had Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, Magic Hat Circus Boy, Troeg's Oatmeal Stout. It was a wintery stout-y kind of day, I guess.

We talked a bit about Barack Obama -- I had just watched this video announcement of his presidential exploratory committe, and I was learning a bit more about him. He's had a pretty interesting life, born in Hawaii, lived in Jakarta as a child, had a Kenyan father and Kansan mother. He went to college in California and NYC, then Harvard Law School. His wife grew up in Chicago, where he's lived the last ten years. That's a lot of places -- seems like a lot of different perspectives in one person. Reading more about him made me more interested in reading his books, especially if he turns out to be one of the 2008 frontrunners.

Speaking of politics, I heard at D's that Colbert was on O'Reilly's show and O'Reilly was on Colbert's show -- sorry I missed that! Sounds like fun. I'm sure it'll be up soon online...

And, another good thing online: Making Fiends -- a flash comic that reminds me at times of South Park (with it's elementary school setting) Homestar Runner (for shear sillyness, though Making Fiends is not quite as quotable) and the PowerPuff Girls (Charlotte = Bubbles?). Here's a favorite episode of mine. Found on Ms. Peppered Jane's website.

picnic on these links

2007-01-18T01:45:00.000-05:00

Today I made: one more chapter of my thesis, enchiladas, chicken stock.

Because I have written enough today, I offer you these delicious links:

Want to read more about the Universal Health Care discussion I went to yesterday? Read Moira's post.

Or maybe you want to read about scientists who made solid red oxygen? So hardcore.

Do you know how great Mimi Smartypants is? (Answer: Huitlacoche.)

get your fuel standards out of my uterus!

2007-01-16T23:52:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I attended a panel discussion on Universal Health Care coverage on the Pitt campus. Many of the talks were overly PowerPoint-heavy and/or data-light, but I still learned a lot. For example, I learned what a single-payer system is, and some of the alternatives. I learned that the biggest two lobbying groups aren't oil or tobacco, but 1) pharmaceuticals and 2) insurance companies!

To get more health care coverage for people, most of the proposals fit into these two camps:

1) The government helps people get covered under private insurance, by requiring employers to provide it, or by providing vouchers that people can use to get insurance.

2) The goverment expands the services it currently has (Medicare and Medicaid) to cover more people, or reforms Medicare/Medicaid into something that covers more people.

There were many goals trying to be met at once: more coverage for more people, better care for people, more simplicity, cheaper health care... the whole thing is pretty complicated.

Afterwards, a bunch of us who were there went out for a drink to talk more about it. At some point, we were talking about the ability of pro-business right-wing groups to cooperate with Christian groups -- like those at the Wednesday morning meetings in DC. Somehow, Republicans can convince Christian groups to oppose fuel standards: "Don't you want the choice to drive what *you* want to drive?" While lefty groups can't get all their constituent groups to get together (hence, "Get your fuel standards out of my uterus!").

Currently reading: The Time Traveler's Wife (so good!)

mlk day

2007-01-15T17:31:00.000-05:00

Hey! If you've got 17 minutes, watch Martin Luther King's speech at the Lincoln Memorial:

If you don't have 17 minutes ... well, what are you really doing that's so important? I bet you have 17 minutes, don't you? It won't feel like 17 minutes once you get going.

Every time I hear it, I notice new things. This time I was surprised to see in the video how much he's consulting his notes (so much that they move the microphones down about halfway through the speech). But then, at the 12 minute mark, he goes from his notes to his memory and his confidence and power increase so much. It's the "I have a dream"/"Let freedom ring" part and it's short but so impressive.

I was also struck by the big words -- I don't know if a political figure could get away with such lofty rhetorical imagery today:

"One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. ... We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism."

I feel like political advisers might caution against words like "manacles" and average out a lot of the good stuff in a speech like this.

It was also sad to hear how many things haven't changed in 44 years: "We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote." At least everyone can vote now, but it is frustrating to think how few people (of any race) do vote. (64% in the 2004 election: 62 million for Bush, 59 million for Kerry, 68 million people for neither?)

where's stefan? he left some cookies in my pocket.

2007-01-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

I am back in Pittsburgh, after being in Chicago to see many friends. The 23 hours that HH and I spent there were awesome, and we saw Elephant Larry. You can see them too!

Spoons has gone to France for a conference (I came from the airport to drive him to the airport so I spent a lot of time in/near/with/by/from airports today) and so I am home alone for another week of Awesome Thesis Writing.

When I got back from the airport (the second time) I went to see The 39 Steps at the cute movie theater down the street and it was great! Funny, well-acted, well-written, great to look at ... all those good Hitchcock things. Very worth-watching and it's hard to go wrong with spies, intrigue, handcuffs, stockings, and chase scenes. It's similar to the 1956 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, and that one was even better, I think, but I recommend both! Your preference probably depends on how you feel about Jimmy Stewart.

tonight tonight

2007-01-13T17:53:00.000-05:00

Tonight, if you are in Chicago, check out Elephant Larry at the Chicago Sketchfest! That's their DVD in some girl's pants last year.

murder suspects and bearded ladies

2007-01-12T19:58:00.001-05:00

I posted some old photos from a murder mystery party today... the genders of the people who wanted to attend the party didn't really match the genders of the people in the script, so hilarity ensued. See for yourself! Click on Marilyn to see the whole set of pictures.

Today, more writing in Pittsburgh, cooking tasty chicken and polenta, rocking out to Gogol Bordello. (Thanks, robots_suck!)

bam! executable binary!

2007-01-12T01:24:00.000-05:00

So, I really enjoy reading my spam. Here's a bit of one that came through today:

"Had Emeril chosen to pursue a career in computer security, we're sure that he would agree."

I realize that a lot of spam messages are just cobbling together bits of the web that they come across, but I thought that particular sentence seemed so bizarre, yet I couldn't figure out where it had been broken in half -- if the two halves came from two places, it still wouldn't make much sense. So, I googled it and found the site it came from: Secure Coding: Principles & Practices.

Here's the whole quote:

That being said, dealing with the problem at the application level should probably involve some sort of input validation mechanism. Any parameter that can be passed to the script by way of a URL must always be subject to intense scrutiny. 'Cause I don't know where you come from, but where I come from, user input don't comepre-screened! (That's an Emeril joke. It's funny, trust us.) Simply placing blind faith in a URL parameter, especially when the user is able to specify a path to an executable binary, is typically not a great idea in our opinion. Had Emeril chosen to pursue a career in computer security, we're sure that he would agree.

So technical, and yet so Food Network at the same time. Weird.

In other news, I sent a piece of my thesis to my advisor, had lovely coffee with HH, and a very enjoyable Thursday evening (as always) at D's.

Other news you may enjoy:

Scorpions on a plane!

Warmest year on record! (AKA "Where is the snow, already?!")

"it's quite hard to destroy the Earth"

2007-01-11T02:14:00.000-05:00

People keep asking me if I'm part of an international conspiracy to create mini-black holes that will destroy life as we know it. While that may or may not be true, we scientists want to assure you that "Any fears that such black holes will consume the Earth are groundless."

I know I'm going to be answering this question on airplanes, in line at the grocery store, and at birthday parties for years to come, so I'm trying to read up. The comments after this article are pretty rich.

Below, you can see circumference of the machine that may or may not make black holes which may or may not eat the earth.

camel! stop!

2007-01-10T03:24:00.000-05:00

It takes a special sense of humor to appreciate this. Or maybe it just has to be really late at night?

It's from Married To The Sea, a comic created with old and bizarre clip art by the Toothpaste for Dinner guy and Natalie Dee. They both post new stuff every day, much like the successful Album-a-Day, EP-a-Month, Song-a-Week, Novel-in-a-Month, Photo-a-Day variety of artists -- getting it out there where people can see, making themselves continue to get work done, to get to the good stuff. Like camels. And junk mail.

... oh, and, a few more that I like! hee hee.

neutrinos are so shy

2007-01-09T02:39:00.000-05:00

It's good to know that sometimes when I'm writing my thesis, I actually learn things. It's true! Today I was reading a really nicely written article online about neutrinos and their masses and implications. I know you are all wondering about the trillions of tiny neutrinos that are passing through your body every second. What's their deal?

You can learn about neutrinos and their friends here. I particularly like this illustration of "Neutrinos meet the Higgs boson" in part 4.

What else? Yesterday morning we had the best blueberry pancakes with HH before she and spoons took off for band practice, and today was another day of reading and writing at home...

birthday feast 2006

2007-01-08T02:15:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed JLQ's recent holiday manifesto parts 1 and 2, including a resolution (a re-dedication? a re-direction?) to spend more time on Days of Importance to her, including birthdays, over days that aren't really that meaningful to her, like Valentine's Day and Christmas. I say "amen" to that!

Since 2001, spoons has been creating his own birthday-holiday tradition, inviting over a few close friends (OK, there were 14 of us this year) for a sit-down multi-course dinner extravaganza. It's the kind of thing that takes a whole day to prepare and five hours to properly eat -- a holiday tradition that I can whole-heartedly support. In the past, we've been cooking fun things that we liked, but not necessarily with a unifying theme. Since he went to Brazil last year, and I went to Puerto Rico this year, we thought we'd try our hand at some caribbean/south american food. There were cocktail umbrellas with the guests' names on them at their seats, and as the evening progressed some of the umbrellas attacked the pineapple, and were left there until morning. (photo above)

The menu, below, has the name of each course with some teaser-trailer ingredients below it -- not necessarily the main ingredients. I should scan a better version...

I've been putting together a list of all the recipes, but haven't quite finished yet. When I do, I'll link it here.

The birthday dinner really is developing its own traditions, too. It's usually the first weekend in December. We start looking forward to it when the weather's getting colder and talking about what we'll cook. Every year, spoons has served a wintry squash soup in some form or another -- last year, inside a pasta, this year with coconut milk and curry. It's always been a vegetarian meal, because of the many vegetarian guests. We have copies of old menus, and I can imagine pulling them out for a "Best Of" in ten years or so!

It makes me think about my birthday, too -- what project do I want to do? How can I do it? Rather than waiting for people to do things for you on your birthday, what do you want to do with your day?

henry the hand wants to be your friend

2007-01-07T02:09:00.000-05:00

Did you know that I have over 50 sad "draft" posts, uncompleted, awaiting now picnic fame? I really should post all these old links and tidbits.

For instance, check out this bizarrely creepy public service campaign for "Doin' the Handwash!":

Welcome Champion Handwashers!

TOGETHER we CAN make a difference in preventing any Pandemic.

Today was one of those days of acquisition: shopping for pants, using Barnes & Noble gift cards. (For a deliciously overanalytical gift card post, see jcreed.) For dinner, there was summer veggie soup from the freezer with grilled cheese and a Bell's Brown Ale. (Sorry, Chicagoans!)

And in case you thought your family was weird during the holidays, here's a glimpse of dinner at my dad's house.

On the menu was tableside caesar salad, a soup with beans and greens, prime rib and roasted potatoes with creamed spinach, cheese from the zing, and nutella and goat cheese empanadas, a la Alice. Delicious, as always.

happy 2007!

2007-01-05T23:27:00.000-05:00

Happy new year to you! I've been inspired by jcreed's tiny little daily posts to try to write more frequently, if not necessarily sesquipedalianly.

I'm enjoying being home in Pittsburgh after much Christmas and New Year traveling. Today, we did home-y things like cooking a yummy and simple pasta recipe from Rose's blog, and starting to watch season 2 of LOST on DVD. Good times.

I should post some California pictures soon, but I noticed that I haven't linked to these fun Chicago pictures yet -- check them out! I took them on a crisp afternoon with HPhil. As we were taking pictures, I got onto a number kick and a lot of my favorite photos of the day have a number theme:

photo booths are awesome.

2006-12-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

(me and my sister at the Double Door in Chicago)

tea? earl grey? hot!

2006-11-10T17:08:00.000-05:00

Location: Ann Arbor, MI, at Zingerman's!
Eating: Latke with sour cream and applesauce
Hours until Patrick Stewart: 2.5

I am very excited to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform The Tempest tonight, with Patrick Stewart as Prospero! Tickets were all sold out quickly, but I managed to get some from a woman in Chicago who couldn't make it to the shows. Tomorrow's shows are Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra (with Mr. Stewart again!).

Otherwise, I've been happily in Pittsburgh a lot, writing a lot. I drove through Cleveland for some visiting with the grandparents and some Puerto Rico with dad and Liz. Best game ever!

And have you voted for the Elephants Larry yet? See the last post, if not!

enough about me!

2006-10-25T20:04:00.000-05:00

All kinds of other people have awesome things going on, and you need to know! For example, Stefan says:

"Today Elephant Larry was very proud to witness the birth of their sketch into the world -- we are part of a thing called "The Great Sketch Experiment" which is being held over at JibJab.com (who, if you recall, made that ubiquitous "This Land is Your Land" animation around 2004). We were one of 6 sketch groups from across the country that were selected to have their sketches filmed and directed by John Landis, who directed Animal House, Blues Brothers, the Thriller video, Coming to America and many others...

So in the first week of September, we flew out to LA, filmed and rehearsed for four days, and the site finally launched today. You can vote on the website for your favorite sketch (I hope it's ours) and if we win, we get $10,000 and a development deal with JibJab. Which is pretty sweet. But mostly I just want you to see the sketch."

So, without further ado:

Tall Cop Short Cop | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

Or, go to the JibJab site to watch it! And, seriously, you should vote so that the guys have a better chance of winning the $10,000! And link to the sketch on your blog or MySpace, my homies. The Elephants Larry will love you for it, and I will too.

P.S. - You have to Register and Log In to vote for the guys -- I know it's a hassle, but you have to give a correct email address to get a confirmation email and all that. But you can do it! For the Elephants Larry!!

sad but true.

2006-10-04T13:22:00.000-05:00

here and there and everywhere

2006-09-30T18:19:00.000-05:00

I have recently posted some pictures of my trip to visit CERN at the end of September. Check them out!

trip to CERN

Sep 20, 2006 - 53 Photos

Currently located: at Fermilab, on CDF shifts
Next: to Madison, Wisconsin for a wedding
Then: back to Pittsburgh for some wild and crazy thesis writing!

beer, for scale

2006-08-29T15:16:00.000-05:00

Some of the beautiful bounty from the garden -- look how big those pink brandywines are! And here's a lovely yellow tomato ...

In case you are looking for something to read, read this. It's about cheeky ATMs. And it is funny.

gazpacho and salsa and stir fry - oh my!

2006-08-27T21:49:00.000-05:00

We have a LOT of tomatoes. We have so many tomatoes, that we have vowed, solemnly, to plant (at most!) half as many next year. We know now: we got a little carried away. While we are raking in the tomato bounty, though, we're looking for interesting ways to cook them. I ran across this recipe for red and green tomato stir fry in the excellent book "Hot Sour Salty Sweet." It's a beautiful book, worth buying for sure. The authors have a new one, too, about Indian cooking called "Mangoes and Curry Leaves" which I'm sure is just as delicious, but this amazon reviewer has got it all wrong: "The book's value as a cookbook is largely lost due to it's unwieldy size and the fear of getting spots of curry paste or yogurt on these expensively glossy pages." You can check out my scan below to see that the value is certainly not lost for me! The spots mark the good recipes, obviously.

I scanned in a few recipes from the book for a stir fry that uses sweet, red tomatos and tart, unripe green ones. It originally had pork in it, but we made a veggie version for tom7 and cortney that came out beautifully. This pdf contains all the recipes you need, and more!

Tips!

If you don't have green tomatoes, ask us for some. :) Or use tomatillos, or leave them out.

If you are leaving out the pork, you want something oily to replace the pork fat, so add a bit of extra peanut oil, and a bit more sesame oil at the end. (I already adjusted the recipe for you.)

The other thing you need to replace the pork is something crispy and brown. For this, we recommend making one recipe of the veggie dipping sauce (below) and marinating some tofu in it for 30 min or an hour or whatever. Then, fry up the tofu with some oil in a non-stick pan or wok until it is crispy and brown in places. This takes a little while, so make spoons do it.

Then, add the tofu into the tomato stir fry where it's indicated on the recipe, and add all the leftover marinade for extra tastiness.

We served the tomato stir fry, yunnan greens, rice, and a bit of the carrot/radish slaw together. The bean sprout/scallion slaw is great, too. You don't have to be such an overachiever, though. You can just make the stir fry and rice. :)

The marked up version makes dinner for four, with rice and a side dish veggie.

All these recipes.

modernize your home

2006-08-23T09:38:00.000-05:00

A few weekends ago, spoons, rose, HPhil and I took a drive to Millvale, PA, a suburb of Pittsburgh which seems slightly lost in time. You can check out my photos on flickr.

why i spent my summer vacation

2006-08-21T16:01:00.000-05:00

I just read a nice article by Case Western physicist Lawrence Krauss about why the basic science that we do in particle physics is worth doing: Discovery for the Sake of Discovery.

Here's the beginning:

"On a summer day, you can ride your bicycle through the narrow lanes that bisect fields of grass on the outskirts of Geneva with no thought that, dozens of meters below, one of the most complex construction projects in human history is underway. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), just one year from completion at CERN, will be the most powerful particle accelerator ever constructed, the largest and most technologically sophisticated machine ever built, and one of the greatest scientific endeavors humanity has yet undertaken.

The late Austrian-American physicist Victor Weisskopf described the grand particle accelerators that began to take shape around the world in the 1950's and 60's as the "Gothic cathedrals of the 20th century." The comparison was, and is, apt. The medieval cathedrals pushed the limits of available technology, involved the craftsmanship of literally thousands of skilled workers, and took generations (and sometimes centuries) to complete. Modern particle accelerators require decades from conception to completion and involve scientists from about 80 countries, speaking dozens of languages, whose separate handiwork must mesh together perfectly on the scale of thousandths of millimeters. The physical magnitude of these distinct public works projects is similarly comparable—just one of the LHC's four detectors is large enough to house the Notre Dame Cathedral."

... read more.

The photo below is the experiment I've been working on, but this time with a person for scale -- in the lower right-hand corner you can see a guy in a blue jumpsuit and white hard hat. The detectors at the LHC are even bigger. I wasn't around the lab when the detector was being rolled into the collision hall (the photo is a stock Fermilab one) but I hope to be at CERN when things start up there!

* Note! This entry was hacked sometime today. Weird. That stuff about "Megaupload! Send your nasty Screencaps to me" was not me. I swear.

what is it that you do, again?

2006-08-21T10:19:00.000-05:00

There's a pretty picture of my experiment, taken by someone at the lab years ago, before it was moved into the 'detector hall' where the proton and anti-proton beams are. I've been working on a work webpage that explains what I do. Check it out and let me know if you have suggestions. I spent a fair almount of time picking out the links on the page, so definitely click around.

it's a great night to be full of basil.

2006-08-17T10:51:00.000-05:00

mmm. pesto.

also. snakes! on a plane! tonight!

also. spoons is awesome. and peppery!

this one is about cake.

2006-07-20T10:12:00.000-05:00

Today, your musical selection appropriate to this entry is Sufjan Stevens' Come on Feel the Illinose! (the second song) followed by more Sufjan.

Who likes cakes? I do, I do! That cake there was made by my friend Kirby for Chicago's birthday. He even iced it himself!

For those not in the know, it's the Chicago flag (or see the offical-er version). The four stars are for four important events in Chicago history: the Chicago Fire (1871), World's Columbian Exhibition (1893), the Century of Progress Exposition (1933), and the Dearborn Massacre (happened in 1812, star added 1939).

To learn more about the Columbian Exhibition, I recommend The Devil in the White City, even though I haven't read it yet. It comes highly recommended by those who have. Daniel Burnham, who was the architect of the exhibition, is one of the subjects of the book, and he was apparently a pretty inspirational guy. I was looking for a quote of his, and I found this extended version on wikipedia:

"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will not die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistence. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty."

It's often abbreviated to just the first part: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood" ... but I like the whole thing. Good stuff.

This is all especially appropriate for this week, since I have returned (triumphantly?) to Chicago. I'm at Fermilab for this week and next week, working hard!

red, white and ... purple?

2006-07-05T22:40:00.000-05:00

While reading, you may enjoy listening to some of Kaki King's new album "... until we felt red". And if you're in NY, you should go see her at the Living Room!

Yesterday, I got inspired to make a salad with red white and blue toppings. For the red: roasted beets. Very red, even if they were kinda purplish-red. For the white: radishes, which even had nice accents of red (well, pink). For the blue... well, blueberries solve pretty much any Fourth of July color problems, but I thought I'd think *outside* the blue-food-box, and think of something else. I got excited about the idea of blue potatoes. The problem is, that they're really purple potatoes, and cooking them makes them even more gray/purple. So, to sum up, I've got Red/Purple, White/Pink, and Purple/Gray instead of Red White and Blue. I solved all my problems by sticking a sparkler in the salad when I served it. (Mmmm, flakes of burning metal! Festive!)

Also! I bet you didn't know that (according to my half-assed Google search) no flag has the color purple. Look at this flag search thing. Purple is not even an option!

Last year, for Red, White, and Blue-ness I did an easy, tasty sour cream/cream cheese graham cracker crust raspberry/blueberry thing. The recipe for that, which I recommend for color and taste, is on epicurious.

Currently in: Pittsburgh
There are 4 days left until I go to Cleveland and then Ann Arbor.

4th of july, 4th of july...

2006-07-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

Happy 4th of July! While you read, I recommend listening to Challenge Club's "4th of July" song -- kind of Bishop Allen/Album-A-Day-ish... it's sweet and catchy. (via The Sound of Young America's blog -- a radio show about things that are awesome.)

This may be a bit of a lazy-blogger's entry today, full of links to things you may have already seen, but here it goes...

Let's see. When I left off a week and a bit ago, spoons and I were off to Florida. We had a good time there, getting slammed about by big (for Florida) ocean waves (we still have scars...) and playing the board game Puerto Rico with the family. (good stuff!)

Here are a few things we've been talking about:

The NY Times review 'The Empire Strikes Back' Strikes a Bland Note: "'The Empire Strikes Back' is about as personal as a Christmas card from a bank." Ouch. (First seen on the Elephant Larry blog, from Stefan.) It reminds me of reviews of the most recent Star Wars movies.

Look Around You, Maths -- first saw this on Landon's page, and then we were talking about it at brunch yesterday at the Square Cafe. It's a really well-done parody of old-school educational broadcasting by the BBC.

Diet Coke and Mentos guys (via the EL blog, then talked much about it in Florida.) Really fun. You must have seen this already.

so pretty liz!

2006-06-21T12:07:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow night, Spoons and I will take off from Pittsburgh for a weekend at my dad's wife Eileen's family reunion. It's an every-three-years thing (triennial?) so this picture of my so-pretty sister is from three years ago. See you again soon, Atlantic Ocean!

books to read on the beach

2006-06-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

Some friends at the lab were talking about book recommendations today, and here are mine!

I love all Neal Stephenson's books -- they are clever, funny, and have awesome characters and interesting research behind them. Sometimes the endings are weird, but I've enjoyed them. I think the best three are these:

"Snow Crash" (take place in the future)
"Cryptonomicon" (an interesting blend of past and present)
"Diamond Age" (an interesting blend of past and future)

Snow Crash is cyber-punkish. Cryptonomicon has some present-day computer hackers, but also WW2 elements (Pacific theater, mostly, so it's not all about Nazis), and Diamond Age is my most favorite -- it has some Eastern vs. Western philosophy and discussion of how people learn and teach that I think about a lot.

I also recommended:

The "His Dark Materials" (Philip Pullman) series is excellent and quick reading for the summer. It's theoretically for teenagers, but I think that's because the protagonists are teens and there's no explicit sex. (sorry!) Everyone I know who's read these has loved them.

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (Mark Haddon) -- worth reading for scientists and those who love them. This book is written by a guy who worked with Autistic kids, and it's written from the point-of-view of a teenage boy with Asberger Syndrome (a milder form of Autism). I think of myself as pretty far from Asberger's (a lot of symptoms have to do with disliking social situations, people, or talking, and I certainly have no problems there ;) ) but there were many parts of the narrative that were eerily close to home for me. The book isn't perfect, but I found it unique and it's a fast read.

"The Last Samurai" (Helen Dewitt) One of my favorite books in the past few years. This is a modern book, set in present day UK, and I really enjoyed the writing. It's not completely linear and her style is unusual. If you flip through it in the library/bookstore, you'll see what I mean. I think the less you know going in, the more enjoyable it will be, but if you must have a plot summary, look on amazon.

Non-fiction:

"Watching the English" (Kate Fox) This book was recommended by a British friend at the lab. It's written for a primarily British audience about the intricacies and explanations of English culture, from an anthropological perspective. The author is funny and casual in her writing, so this is a very easy-to-read, light book, but I still think (and talk) about it a lot -- watching Americans and people in general, not just when dealing with the English. :)

"Among the Thugs" (Bill Buford) I saw Ira Glass (of the NPR radio show "This American Life") give a talk about storytelling in Pittsburgh recently, and one of the questions afterwards from the audience was about recommended reading. This was the book that he recommended. It's a story of a journalist in the UK in the late 80's who tried somewhat successfully to integrate himself with the guys causing all the football violence at the time. Then, he starts looking at mobs in general, and what people get out of being involved in a crowd, so it's about more than just soccer fans. It's another pretty fast paperback to whip through on the plane or something.

And!

Last but not least, the intrepid Tom 7 has written some short books as part of the National Novel Writing Month, which is stupidly in November. (I think it should be in the summer.)

He would say: "Creation over Consumption!" -- spend some of your summertime writing, in addition to reading. Or creating an album in a day and submitting it to his Album-A-Day site.

Or, um, you could read his books (consumption over creation? just this once.) for free on the internet (they are good!) or buy a printed copy online. (I have some -- they come out looking great!)

If you are reading this, I bet you have good book recommendations, too. You can leave them in the comments, or drop me an email...

(from Tom the Dancing Bug, July 12, 2001)

watch out for Drew

2006-06-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

I do have Puerto Rico pictures and stories, but, while you're waiting, enjoy this list. Found on the sidewalk in Ann Arbor, MI.

hot!

2006-06-06T21:20:00.000-05:00

Here's the T-shirt that I didn't buy for you all. (It says "Puerto Rico" underneath the "Caliente.")

So, I made it back to Pittsburgh this morning. I have a bunch of Rainforest/San Juan/Arecibo pictures to post, so I'll try and get around to them soon.

the farthest south I have ever been

2006-05-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

Hola! I have arrived this evening in Puerto Rico, for a "Conference on
the Intersection of Particle and Nuclear Physics," with the unwieldy
acronym "CIPANP."

The flight was very lovely and blue. (That's the Atlantic!)

Once I arrived at the airport, I took a shuttle to the hotel where the
conference is being held, and I snapped a few pictures on the way. You
can see the rainforest-y hills in the background. The air is moist and
hot, and the plants look like they are really fighting to grow over
every inch of ground that people try to carve out. I'm only north of the
equator by 18 degrees -- same as Bombay, in India.

This picture's for Bo:

At first I thought the gas was only 67 cents, but a little googling seems to show that the gas is $2.67 -- they just haven't bothered to put up new signs since gas was less than a dollar. All the gas stations we passed were like that...

Ans my room is a really nice one - top floor (7th), overlooking the ocean and the beach.

Most things are the same here, so far, as other places I have visited... lots of Subway and Blockbuster and Burger King on the way to the hotel. My Sprint PCS phone works just fine -- there's better coverage here in the hotel than in my office at Fermilab. Since Puerto Rico is part of the US, I didn't need to go through any customs or anything to get here, and the currency is the dollar. Though Spanish is the primary language, there are lots of English signs, especially here at the hotel. The most notable difference is the noise of the birds and the insects now that it's nighttime. They are loud and many, and very different from the crickets and frogs that I'm used to. There are some that cheep-cheep quickly (bugs?) and another sound like a goose honking that seems like it would come from a bird (at night?). The roar of the ocean waves provides a bit of bass to the otherwise trebly evening. Some of these sounds are different, but the idea is the same: African Rainforest at night and here are some frogs puertorriquenos. Pretty neat.

what is up with that?

2006-05-20T21:43:00.000-05:00

Looking at the last few posts, it seems like I have slipped a little
bit into High School Diary mode: "Today I went to school, then I went
to the newspaper office for 2 hours. Almost finished with story on
Winterfest - 150 words left to go! Went to see 'Untamed Heart' with
Janet and Marie and Kris at Lakeshore Cinema. It was OK."

By merely listing cities, I give the impression that I've been a lot
of places, but not really much about how I liked it or what was
interesting about being there... kinda lazy of me. Lists don't really
make for interesting reading, unless they are like this one:

Wow. No idea what that's all about. If it makes any sense to you,
please comment away. While the combination of all the Latch Hooking
and the Cock Poster are confusing, I think "What's up w/ cock?
Blender," is the best line. The dangling comma!

slackers.

2006-05-19T01:40:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while, I check this blog to see if anything new has been posted. And when there's nothing new, I think, "Slackers. Shouldn't someone have updated this by now?! Oh wait. There's just me. Nevermind."

I am in Chicago.
I like pie.

off by one

2006-05-09T02:22:00.000-05:00

You can update your NPPS (Now Picnic Positioning System) Tuesday afternoon, as leave NYC and fly back from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

Lots of fun things happened in the past few days, all of which deserve some attention: visiting Michelle's school in Phili, karaoke which was actually fun, a beautiful backyard wedding, pie, frisbee, drinking of tasty liquors, eating of tasty food, and even some useful work. (Hmm. Is "pie" something that really happened? Yes, I think so.)

So, since I don't have pictures from this weekend yet, I'll post some from the last wedding we were in NY for... and when someone else gets married, I'll post some pictures from this one! Dan and Manely, back when she was still laughing at his jokes, followed by some serious gazing:

Episode 47: In which the passengers undertake "fiesta seating" once again

2006-05-05T10:04:00.000-05:00

So. I am at the Pittsburgh Airport again, about to fly on Southwest, again, and I tried to find a link to "fiesta seating" but I think they've stopped calling it that... I swear that when I started flying Southwest ... 4 years ago? ... their boarding style (no assigned seats) was called "fiesta seating," though it never really was much of a fiesta. More like a bunch of crabby and confused people lining up to get on board.

I'm "group A" again today, which includes all the type A people who line up early to get THE BEST SEAT (whatever that is) and I love being in group A because that means I can sit on my butt til all the rest of group A has boarded, then board at a leisurely pace and still get a window seat at the back of the plane.

So, I'm flying to Phili, so visit my friend Michelle and the school that she works at, then to NYC tonight (Park Slope, to be specific) to go to a lovely wedding/backyard bbq tomorrow. Yay!

Electroweak Physics Tour 2006 + a Wedding and Graduation

2006-04-29T18:52:00.000-05:00

So, I was in Chicago last week, then Dallas, now back in Chicago and to Pittsburgh, Tuesday, then Philly and NY this weekend coming up. Rock!

I'm thinking about making up a tour t-shirt for myself.

Speaking of touring, the Tourist highlight of Dallas: this rotating bar in a sphere on top of a tower. Oh yeah.

look at those bangs

2006-04-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

Found at the Heartland Cafe. Well, actually, we went there together, so can I really say I found her there? Happy birthday, K!

watch out for that poo.

2006-04-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

Here's another found list, clearly a "moving in" list. I like the contrast of the little items (lightbulbs, hot sauce) with the big ones (BED) and the doodling that makes me think the person was sitting around waiting for someone, or was on the phone. Maybe s/he started by outlining "CLOCK" at first, then adding the skillet illustration and the toilet brush. And what's "SAL!!"?

Me: Pittsburgh
Sunday: back to Chicago
Sopranos status: finished 7 episodes of Season 5 - I will catch up!

logistics

2006-04-13T00:02:00.000-05:00

Thought y'all might like to see the digs. That's our Pittsburgh place -- on "East End Avenue" just a short walk from D's and the Regent Square movie theater and the Square Cafe. It's a good place - lots of old-house-character, some bright colors thanks to previous tenants, some new bookcases (IKEA grad student standard!), and a computer made almost completely of salvaged parts with 200 gigs of space for music. (The hard disks were the only un-free part, and they were cheap!) (And the unsightly monitor on the floor is long gone -- it was just there for the setup.) There's also a big squishy couch for guests. Come visit!

So, that's where I am now - Pittsburgh. Last weekend Spoons and I were in Ithaca to see his sister's lacrosse team beat Dartmouth (2nd time in 15 years!) and then we drove back here. I'm here for a bit, then back to Chicago this weekend. Then Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Phili, NY, Pittsburgh and back to Ithaca? Hmm.

what's that? it's physics!

2006-04-05T00:32:00.000-05:00

(photo by stefan!)

Many years ago, I spent a wild spring break of museum-going and general awesome learning in Washington D.C.(.?) While Spoons and Stefan and Bawb and I were walking around at night taking in the monumental (ha.) amount of Public Stuff in D.C., we kept coming across strange things in the distance, and a refrain developed. Someone would ask: "What's that?" and we'd get to it and answer: "It's art!" We thought it would be fun to write a book called, "What's that? It's art!" that took bizzare modern art pieces and explained their context and their significance to a general audience. So, I call the picture above "What's that? It's physics!" It's actually the hall where my experiment is. The offices are in the next building over, but that's where the magic happens. Er, the science. That's where the science happens.

And! In case our geeky DC spring break sounds too boring, I hasten to add* that this was the vacation where we kept assigning points to people for oblique references to Stefan's penis. (I promise that if you click that link, you will not see a penis.)(OK. That one has real penises. Watch out.)(That one too. Did someone say penis? PENIS!)(Sorry.) The more subtle your reference to Stefan's cock, the more points. So, "Stefan's penis is big." 1 point. Maybe. When eating at a restaurant, "A 12 oz burger. Hmm. That's a lot of meat..." (with a significant eyebrow raise) would earn more points, since, in basically any situtation, it is assumed that it's a comparison to Stefan's unit you're talking about. Near a sign that says the movie will last ninety-eight minutes? You might say "I know something that lasts longer!" And so on. I think someone managed to reference it wordlessly once -- quite a feat. Maybe it was a glance at the Washington Monument, then at Stefan's pants? Try it at home!

In case you were wondering:
Currently in the state of: Illinois

Don't you have some kind of work stuff going on? Yup! Submitted an internal paper to the 600+ people on our experiment just yesterday about the analysis I've been working on, so hopefully we'll be able to show our result at a conference at the end of April. I have a talk to give about it this Thursday. We'll see how it goes!

How many of the 600+ people will actually read your stuff before the conference? 8? 10? Counting me? Not many.

What's your analysis about? It's about two particles affectionately named "W and Z bosons." And how awesome they are. No, wait, it's about their production and decay -- how often they're made from collisions at Fermilab, what they decay into. I couldn't find any links worth linking to about them, so I will try to write something useful sometime.

* - I hasten to add that so you know that the trip was actually action-packed. Where by "packed," I mean "packing," and where by "packing," I mean "well-endowed." With a large penis. And by "the trip," I mean Stefan. Oh dear.

ouch.

2006-03-31T20:31:00.000-05:00

From the Vancouver Sun:

"And while the physics world has been buzzing since Thursday's announcement of the latest anti-matter find, outsiders have barely noticed.

Why?

The experiment illustrates the difficulty in publicizing work in this abstract world of concepts unknown to most people -- quarks, muons, particle accelerators, and anti-matter itself.

The finding at Fermilab, a U.S. federal physics laboratory, is never going to affect your daily life. Fermilab found a particle called a 'B-sub-s meson.' You won't ever buy an iPod made of B-sub-s mesons. And Fermilab's announcement was pure gobbledygook, which didn't help."

Daaaammmn. You can read the gobbledygook in the Fermilab press release, and judge its gobbledygookyness. Does it make any sense to you?

Speaking of Fermilab, the newest experiment there is one that sends a beam of neutrinos through the earth to a detector in Minnesota. The photo below is the Minnesota site, when it was still under construction.

They just released their first result yesterday, showing that the neutrinos were changing type while travelling along through the earth. (Here's another Fermi press release.) Both of these results have to do with quantum mechanics -- with particles changing from one to another. This description of neutrino oscillation is a pretty good one (if not very in-depth) if you are interested in learning more. It's about a similar experiment in Japan. (Sorry for the Comic Sans, font-aficionados.)

In case you were wondering:
Current Location: Chicago
Happily Drinking Coffee from: Intelligentsia
Eagerly awaiting: Axl Rose's new Album
(thanks Alex)

overly precious child? bingo!

2006-03-28T11:14:00.000-05:00

Did you know you can make your own bingo cards online? Keep it in mind, for the next time that the activity you're attending just isn't entertaining enough on its own. Here's the winning bingo card for the superbowl party at T&L's.

We didn't realize there would be an SUV commercial with a touching father/son moment and an overly precious child so early in the broadcast... although, I don't think it counted for "SUV destroying nature." We had that kind of SUV-racing-across-the-mountainside commercial in mind for that one. And "XTREME!" is meant to be in quotes, but the card generator didn't like the quotation marks, so we had to take them off.

Another thing that would make the generator better is if the free space always stayed in the middle, but since it doesn't we just replaced it with another phrase.

Make your own!

for tom's birthday

2006-03-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

It's my friend Tom's birthday this weekend, and in his honor, I give you two things. The first involves slow-cooking and tasty bacon. The second involves Prince. What more could you ask for?

I've scanned in this recipe as a pdf, so you can print it out. It's truly great winter-time food, but since it's still too cold out, I don't think you have to wait until next winter to make it. Here are some of my notes on the recipe:

- It's very important to use a good pan for the browning of the bacon, onions, and beef. By "good" I mean heavy and non-non-stick. (A "stick pan"?) Spoons and I have been discussing what the right pan would be - I think something like this ridiculously-on-sale calphalon pan would be perfect for the stove top and oven, Spoons says you should do the stove top stuff in a skillet, deglaze it, and then combine everything in something else for the oven part, like a stock pot. Go with whatever you've got.

- "Imported dark beer" is Guinness, or some other lovely stout or porter (not too bitter)

- Beware. This recipe takes frickin' forever, Mr. Bigglesworth. Hours. Like... 3 or 4. Cubing meat/chopping onions takes longer than you think, then browning the beef takes a while if you do it right, then there's 1.5 hours of oven-time on top of that. If you're going to have this after a day of skiing (as suggested by the authors) you better make it the night before.

The recipe's from a book by some of my all-time-favorite cookbook authors, Rosso & Lukins. It comes from the Silver Palate cookbook. I also highly recommend their New Basics book as well -- New Basics is probably the one I would buy first. They are easy to come by used, often for a dollar or two. (But don't you guys buy them, Tom and Laura... they might be on the way to your house already...) There's some sentimental attachment for me, since New Basics is really the first cookbook I learned to cook from in college, but I think the recipes are really solid, and range from complicated ones with weird ingredients to plain old, easy good stuff, like salsa and guacamole.

And! Didn't I promise you something related to his purple-shiny-ness, Prince? Yes, I did. Thanks to Jordi for this post: Prince Made Us Have Sex, since she couldn't have written a better story for Tom if she had known him personally. The page is technically "safe for work," I think, but you may want some time alone afterwards.

In case you were wondering:
I still haven't managed to leave: Pittsburgh
Sometime very soon I'll be flying to: Chicago
If I could choose Flight or Invisibility, I would choose: Flight, in a second. What does that say about me? John Hodgman will tell you on This American Life's Superpowers episode. (soooo good!)

new dress. comes with plastic wrap.

2006-03-25T11:38:00.000-05:00

This one is another Chicago street find. I like the way the
plastic looks in the photograph - so billowy. Do you think the
photo-taker owned the store? Did the owner leave the plastic wrap
on the dress in the window so that it was easier to sell
later?

Completely Unrelated:

There's a monthly email from the people who do the Ig Nobel Prizes for wacky research, and they usually have a limerick contest. Here are some nice ones from a while ago.

The judges in the first and last annual Feigned Depressed, Sleepy Voice Limerick Contest have chosen the winners, who in some sense explored the research report:

"Feigned Depression and Feigned Sleepiness: A Voice Acoustical Analysis,"
Nicole Reilly, Michael S. Cannizzaro, Brian T. Harel and Peter
J. Snyder, Brain and Cognition, vol. 55, 2004, pp. 383-6.

The winners will each receive a free, sonorous issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. Here are the triumphant poets and their limericks:

INVESTIGATOR RICHARD GRANGER:

Her children's yawned lack of ambition
Aroused Nicole Reilly's suspicion.
By studying faking
She got those kids waking
and published in Brain and Cognition.

INVESTIGATOR MIRIAM BLOOM:

If depression's a thing you would feign,
'Tis writ it will all be in vain.
Your claim is refutable,
Your voice is quite scrutable--
Or so Reilly et al. ascertain.

INVESTIGATOR ANGELA MARTIN:

If you're faking that you are depressed
Or in desperate need of some rest,
Your voice may be slow
But Reilly will know
That you're really just feigning, at best.

And here is the view expressed by this year's
IMPROBABLE LIMERICK LAUREATE,
MARTIN I. EIGER:

When people pretend they're depressed,
Or when they pretend they need rest,
Their speech rates will change,
But never the range
Of pitches they use. Who'd've guessed?

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