Unnamed fusion... dish

This will sound weird, but...

To two handfuls of jasmine rice boiling in a little too much water, add

a generous (~3 tablespoons) helping of fish sauce
some (~1 tablespoon) soy sauce
1 bag of cooked salad shrimp
a decent amount (1/4 cup) of shredded sichuan preserved vegetable
~3-4 chopped birdseye peppers (chopped loosely, with seeds)

The sichuan preserved vegetable and the sauces will provide enough salt, no need to add more. boil this until the rice just barely starts to break down (20 minutes?), and then add some ripped-up pieces of high-quality beef cold cuts (like top round). Or if you don't have that, maybe some thumb-sized pieces of roast beef.

Then take it off the heat, let the beef soak up the flavors for a minute or two. it will thicken slightly as it cools.

This is really good. It's kind of like a congee, but the rice still has too much form to really call it porridge. But it is more soupy than a conventional rice dish. I don't know what to call it, but I like it.

I call it fusion because it takes inspiration from Thai, Sichuan, and American.

I think it would be even better w/some lemongrass.

I also think it would be classier to use dry-fried strips of flank steak, rather than the ripped-up cold cuts (ya think?), and just put them on top, pyramid-like, which would also add to the presentation.

Arthur Rackham

After discovering this man's work on the Wikipedia page for the word nicker, it occurred to me that his work would form an intensely rich and complex foundation for stained glass window designs.

Just google "arthur rackham", and look at the images that pop up.

You can even ignore the actual subject matter, and just focus on compositional aspects, like pallete and spatial organization.

High-fat diets make us stupid and lazy?

Ripped that headline right from the FASEB Journal. Link to study here, link to article in NYT here.

Basically, according to the study, consuming fatty foods negatively rapidly affects your short-term memory and energy levels SIGNIFICANTLY.

The conclusion of the study is that "optimization of nutrition to maximize the efficiency of mitochondrial ATP production could improve energetics in athletes and patients with metabolic abnormalities."

Current Running Mix

This is the current mix I use for running. It's 26 minutes, 48 seconds, and I never get all the way through Black Cat (only run for about 20 minutes - 2 miles... for now).

01 - Sweet Spots (The Fiery Furnaces - EP)
02 - Bodysnatchers (Radiohead - In Rainbows)
03 - Cuddle Fuddle (Passion Pit - Chunk of Change)
04 - Black Cat (Ladytron - Velocifero)

This is a good mix.

NPIV - N_Port ID Virtualization

NPIV is a technology standard for fiber channel that allows you to assign multiple initiators (OS instances) to a single HBA port. Each initiator can have its own unique WWPN.

The idea seems to be that NPIV allows you to access the HBA directly from the OS, instead of through a virtualized device provided by a hypervisor. I think it essentially offloads the port arbitration to the HBA itself. Another advantage is that the SAN can now see your OS directly (your OS's WWPN), so, again, you don't have to fumble around w/a virtual device, trying to figure out what is going where.

On regrettable spousal portraits

Brett Molony has this picture of his wife on his desk that looks like a promo shot for an attorney's office. She's in her business suit in front of a splotchy brown background, smiling pragmatically. There is no sexiness or fun to it. It's very traditional.

What would make me want a portrait like that on my desk? I think the charm would have to be in the endearing fact that it was made for me. She probably had a bad day that day, and hated the pictures, but paid for them, and I convinced her she was beautiful, as always, and she reluctantly let me frame it, although she wishes I had a better picture of her, but has not ever gotten around to getting new ones made... Not convincing enough.

How does that man think about that picture? Maybe he doesn't see a need to have a sexy or fun photo of his wife... thinks she is beautiful in her formality... loves her for being so modest and traditional. Is proud of how simple and normal the photo is. Photo was part of a set they got for a discount through the church for the church yearbook. No, church photos should be the whole family, not individuals. Maybe they cut a deal w/the photographer so they could have pictures of each other. No, the discount was through Walmart, or something. He likes the blandness of it. Thinks it's sexy that underneath her austere finish sits the body of a tigress? Thinks her face is so beautiful, her body is no longer what it was in her 20s, so her face is her sexiest part now anyway... Was the same photo she used for her office's web page. She's an attorney. No, a paralegal.

She has a corresponding bland, suited portrait of him on her desk at work. No doubt they gaze at each other through them, blankly, thinking of what to cook for dinner.

I think i'm going to be sick

I just found out here that The Fiery Furnaces just played in Chicago on both the 10th and 11th. I can't believe this. I have been watching their website like a hawk for months for tour dates. I don't think those dates ever showed up there.

Wow, great promotion, guys. Now I feel like a dumbass for sending their promoter an email last week asking to bring them back to St. Louis.

Clay pot rice "Oriental style"

Today I have managed to recreate one of the best Chinese dishes I've ever had.

It was originally described at the bottom of this blog entry, and ever since I had it, and Luke later commented that you can't get greens like that around here, the memory of it grew in my head to lustful proportions, then legend, then yesterday, at Jay's Market, my eyes caught sight of the one key ingredient that would make it possible for me to create... the sausage!

At the hotel, the waiter told me that the dish was one of the chef's favorites, and that the sausage is a special Cantonese sausage. I had the foresight to record the exact name of the dish, shown here, but...

煲仔饭 (bāo zǐ fàn) simply translates to "little pot food." The subtitle is "配 鸡肉, 腊肠, 蔬菜 和 香菇," which, in pinyin, is written "pèi jīròu, làcháng, shūcài hé xiānggū," and translates to "pèi chicken, sausage, vegetables and shiitake mushroom." (That word pèi is not lending itself to translation.)

OK, that translation just took me like 2 hours, but I am now much more proficient with the Yellowbridge handwriting recognition tool. And it's almost dark out now. Awesome.

Where was I?? I had to buy two kinds of Chinese sausage at Jay's because the first one I bought was not quite right. The stuff pictured on the right is the right kind. It has the right amount of fat and sweetness, which are the primary characteristics of Chinese sausage, in my experience.

I also tracked down the baby bok choy, some wild mushrooms, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sherry, and jasmine rice, all pictured here. The only ingredients not pictured here are the chicken thighs.

So, to make this amazing dish (without the clay pot, unfortunately, they were out):

1. Slice one piece of the sausage on the bias (diagonally) and render the fat from it in a pot.
   
2. Remove the sausage (squeeze out any remaining oil so the pan is nicely coated) and put in two chicken thighs, cut into bite-sized chunks.
3. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, and sherry. (This might be slightly better if you actually only added some soy sauce, browned the chicken, removed it, deglazed with the sherry, and then added the chicken and oyster sauce).
4. Set one sausage link gently on top of the chicken, so that as the chicken simmers, the sausage link will steam. Cover the pot, and simmer for 15 minutes.
5. While that's cooking, slice up and render another link of sausage in a sautee pan.
6. While that's rendering, clean up 4 pieces of the baby bok choy and a heaping helping of the mushrooms (chop the bottoms off).
7. Once rendered, remove the sausage and sautee the baby bok choy and mushrooms until they lilt. The mushrooms will release a bunch of water.
8. Remove the chicken and sausage from the heat, remove the sausage and cut diagonally into small pieces. Discard the pieces of sausage that you used to render the grease from. We won't be eating those. I haven't figured out a use for them yet other than dog snacks.
9. Plate it up by making a base layer of rice, then a layer of mushrooms, then the other three ingredients on top.
   
10. Enjoy.

Wild Kingdom in my backyard

I have not mowed my back yard all summer. There, I said it. The neighbors can't really see it, except for the ones in the two-story duplex across the alley, but whatever. It's so tall now I actually can't mow it. The mower would just seize up. I'm going to have to get a scythe or something to whack it down.

Meanwhile, there are some fascinating things going on back there. I spied a small, but menacing mantis perched on my banister, surveying the grounds...


And some... frankly cartoonish yellow bugs attached to a vine subtly subjugating the porch.

They're seemingly useless animals, all rising and falling in unison at times. A soft breeze will cause them perk up, then relax, altogether, breathe in breathe out, toiling away on the vine,


I can't believe how surreal they look. I've identified them as Milkweed Aphids, or Oleander Aphids, Aphis nerii. I accidentally brushed up against some when I was looking for the dog, and some stuck to my pants. They were easily flicked off.


I recently bought a copy of Peterson's Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America, and was able to identify several edible plants growing in abundance back there, including the Sow Thistle and Lady's Thumb (aka Red Leg). I will not be eating them.

The mantis started giving me a dirty look. The females of this species have some extremely disturbing habits. Not that I think this little bug could hurt me, but I'm not sure how freaked out I would be if it suddenly jumped onto my face or something. I should probably back away slowly.

New Fiery Furnaces track!

Free download, lyrics, and video:

http://blogs.wnyc.org/soundcheck/2009/06/11/mp3-the-fiery-furnaces-the-end-is-near/

Album soon to follow... And I REALLY hope those titles are not suggesting something about the longevity of the band.

Shelf life of frozen shrimp

Yahoo Answers... OK idea.

You can only answer the questions for four days, then they are closed, but what if you come up with a better answer a year later? Too bad! That's stupid!

I have had this bag of shrimp in my freezer for about 12 months. Google "frozen shrimp expire". Find Yahoo Answers question "Frozen shrimp... is it still good to eat?" All of the answers are uneducated guesses.

Here is a real answer, presented by a group of scientists who investigated that very question:

Storage quality and shelf life of frozen shrimp

"The shelf life of frozen shrimp determined by sensory evaluation was 2.1 months at 0°C, 5.3 months at -5°C and 6.8 months at -10°C, respectively."

Demonstrandum.

Too bad I can't post the answer to Yahoo Answers, but at least I have my little blog, where I can ventilate such important information. Now I just have to figure out how long a month is in metric...

How to Identify a Hipster

What is a hipster? In the parlance of our times, the word hipster is used to label a set of people who A) generally dress fashionably (perhaps a little TOO fashionably), B) live in an urban setting (perhaps a little TOO urban), and C) hold liberal political views (perhaps... nevermind). There are a few myths about hipsters that I would like to dispel...

Hipsters will not eat your dog. This is an old wives' tale used to create a solid distinction between "us" and "them". Hipsters will not steal your chapstick. I can't really imagine how this one even came into existence, because I know a lot of hipsters, and I leave chapstick laying around all the time, but I have never found it missing (that's an odd phrase - found it missing... a non sequitur).

How do hipsters dress? Imagine a pirate - not a captain, but like a first mate. Now imagine that pirate walking down the sidewalk outside your house. That's it! Hipsters look a lot like pirates. They like to wear deck shoes, long, cutoff jean-shorts that hang just below the knee, exposing the ankle and calf, perhaps a bandanna on the head or around the arm, and a beard, or at least some third-fourth day scruff, and definitely some piercings and tattoos. It's important to remember, however, that hipsters are NOT pirates.

Hipsters are not pirates. A real buccaneer would never be seen driving a Volvo, or wearing a scarf. Likewise, you would never see a swashbuckler riding a scooter. You can't swashbuckle on a scooter, it's too tame. Actually, maybe the connection between pirates and hipsters is why those terrible myths about them stealing your chapstick and eating your dog exist. Ha! I guess a hipster is a scarfy dog. Or maybe they like to scarf some dog. Hm.

Goat Milk

Today I tried goat milk. Why? Because it was there, in the supermarket, and I've never had it before. I love it! I tastes like a milk version of goat cheese - what a shocker! I've formed a mild taste obsession with goat cheese over the past year. Now I can get that awesome flavor in my granola as well! Goat milk is delicious, and some say it's actually healthier for humans than cow milk. Huh!

Savory French Toast

Today the light bulb went on for me with french toast. I had only about a quarter-loaf of this Companion Sourdough Olive bread, and it was about 90% dry, hard as a rock. I wanted to eat an egg and some chorizo, but I needed some toast. You know already where I'm going w/this

I think I remember from an episode of Good Eats that while french toast in America is served dessert-like, some parts of the world (like France, maybe?) eat a more savory french toast. Also, french toast is supposed to be made with stale bread, and one can easily imagine how it was first conceived: You have this stale bread, so you need to moisten it somehow, but then you also need to toast it: bring on the milk-soak and a frying pan. So here I go with this sourdough olive bread, the only bread I have, so I'm forced into it, but you know, it's one of the most brilliant moves I've ever made in a kitchen! I mean this french toast turns out to be the star of the meal!

I just beat one egg (I only had two) in some milk, saw the bread brick into two slices, and soak them in the mixture for about a minute, then fry them in about three pats of butter. It is utterly and completely mind-blowing delicious! I served them with the other egg, over medium, and a nice big patty of chorizo, and my favorite China Keemun tea with honey. The faint smokiness and full body of the keemun mixes with the hearty sweetness of the honey in perfect concinnity, and pairs so well with the sourdough olive french toast and egg, I can hardly believe I threw the meal together with only the last dregs I could muster for breakfast.

Truly a good day when such an unexpected treat is discovered. I will definitely be trying more savory french toast variations.

Dropbox Rocks

You know how it's a pain in the arse to share files with someone several states away? You have to burn a CD or DVD and actually mail it. Ugh!

Now comes Dropbox.

Problem Solved.

Two sauces

Two sauces I've been working on that I should document... Neither are especially original, but they're both very easy to make, and pack a lot of great flavor.

First: Morel Cream Sauce

As you may know, we are in the waning days of morel hunting season. I happen to know that this part of Missouri produced a bumper crop of morels this year because I met two guys in the supermarket who bagged about 7 lbs. Yes, seven. I was standing in the mushroom section a few weeks ago when these two guys walked up to check the price on the dried morels, which was $10/oz. They were like dude! I suggested that they were so expensive because morels are rare and delicious. They were like yeah, we just collected about 7 lbs of them. I was like what? Then he pulled out his phone and started showing me pictures, like the one with the mushroom cap bigger than a PBR can. Sadly, they wouldn't sell me any, but they did graciously invite me to a pot luck where they planned on unveiling them.

Anyway, I went ahead and bought that box of dried morels, as well as a few fresh chicken breasts, a bottle of Louis Jadot Chardonnay, some shallots, and some cream...

You need:
- 1/2 pint of cream
- 1 bottle of white wine
- 1 oz dried morels (or 4 ounces (?) fresh)
- 2 shallots
- olive oil
- 1/4 tsp of minced garlic
- some kosher salt
- Guldens Brown Mustard

1. Dice 2 shallots fine, sauté in olive oil with 1/4 tsp of minced garlic.
   
2. Wash dried morels thoroughly, and then soak them in lukewarm water for 3-4 mins.
   
3. Loosely dice the morels, then squeeze them lightly to get rid of the excess water, and put them in them pan, along with about half the bottle of wine.
   
4. Add kosher salt and Guldens Brown Mustard. The amount of mustard is important. It is definitely an important flavor in this sauce, but you don't want it to be at the forefront. It is third in line to the mushrooms and the wine, I would say... maybe even less. Put in no more than two good sized squirts... probably should be about 1/12th of a cup.
   
5. After reducing by 1/3, add about 1/2 pt cream, and reduce by about 1/3 (or to taste).
   

Serve with rice or grilled chicken breast, or steak, or whatever. It's awesome.

Second: Honey Chile Sauce

For some reason today while I was walking through the supermarket, I suddenly decided I am going to start eating a lot of fish. I bought a fresh cod filet and a flounder filet. Earlier I had bought some honey simply because mine was pretty much crystalized. So when I got home, I noticed that I have like 4-5 different kinds of chile powder, so I decided to do a honey chile sauce. It is perfect for fish, because it gives it a nice sweet-hot zing without adding any fat.

You need:
- Honey
- Ancho chile powder
- New Mexico chile powder
- 1 shallot (or 1/2 yellow onion)
- 1/4 tsp minced garlic
- ground coriander (or maybe fresh cilantro, but I haven't tried that yet)
- olive oil

1. Dice the shallot fine, sauté in olive oil with 1/4 tsp of minced garlic.
   
2. Squeeze in as much honey as you want sauce (say 1/4 cup). Add equal parts ancho chile powder and New Mexico chile powder (about 3/4 to 1 tsp each), and perhaps the same amount of ground coriander, or probably a bit less.
   
3. Let this stuff bubble for a couple minutes, then it's ready.
   

There are dozens of ways to develop this simple sauce even further, or even just alter the basic ingredients. Serve with grilled or pan seared whitefish (like cod). Also good with rice, and probably grilled chicken or pork ribs.

Installing Linux on Eee PC S101

Since the S101 is not sold with Linux in the US, you have to install it yourself. This is actually not very difficult at all, and can actually be completed in a few hours. Here are a list of things that took some time for me to discover that may save you some time:

1) To get to the BIOS screen, press F2 repeatedly during POST.

2) To get the boot device selection screen, first press F2 to see the POST screen, then press ESC to enable the boot selection screen. You will see a message on the POST screen like "Boot selections screen enabled", or something like that.

3) To flash the BIOS, first plug your netbook powercord in. Then partition a USB key with a single partition of type 'b', which, in fdisk, is called "WIN95 FAT32". Turn on the bootable flag on that partition. Next format the partition with mkfs.vfat, and mount it. Now download the latest BIOS from here, unzip the file, and then move the extracted ROM file to your new VFAT file system, renaming it S101.ROM. Finally, reboot the box with the jump drive plugged in, and while it's POSTing, hit ALT+F2. That will put you into the EZ Flash utility, and immediately start loading the new ROM.

4) Install Easy Peasy. This is seriously the easiest, most functional out-of-the-box distro for an Eee PC you could hope for. I installed Arch Linux first, and fumbled around trying to get the touchpad to work for a couple days, had to get wireless working, X, etc. It was definitely an old school DIY experience. Nothing wrong w/that, because you learn so much about the box, like how to prolong the life of your SSD, and how to configure ACPI events, etc. But on the other hand, Easy Peasy has all of that stuff already configured, so you can just have your beautiful new netbook ready to go immediately - wireless, working battery monitor, working ACPI events - everything.

5) To install Easy Peasy using Unetbootin is not as obvious as they make it sound. There are a couple key things you must do with your USB key when using Unetbootin to install the Easy Peasy ISO: Clear it of any pre-existing boot blocks, and format it with a WIN95 FAT32 bootable partition. The reason for that is, in my experience, Unetbootin will not overwrite any existing boot blocks, so if you have GRUB installed on your USB key (like I did), you have to either clear out the GRUB boot block, or (and I haven't actually tried this) modify the GRUB configuration to boot what would be the Windows boot block (i.e. chain-load the Unetbootin boot loader). If you don't fix this, the box will boot from that GRUB boot block every time, and you will never get to the Easy Peasy installer (which is actually a live CD).

Portage Overlay Ebuild Trick

Whenever you put down a new ebuild in your Portage overlay dir, you have to build a manifest for it to use... I can never remember the command for it, so I am putting it here for posterity:

    ebuild filename digest

For instance, for a new ebuild called cedega-000133.ebuild, put it in the appropriate overlay dir, then type

    ebuild cedega-000133.ebuild digest

Done.

Paddy McGinty's Goat

I've been meaning to do this for a long time...

The words to Paddy McGinty's Goat were passed down to me by my grandpa. His father was an Irish immigrant, and I'd like to believe that they were passed down to him as well.

Yes, I remember when Grandpa taught me this song. I was very young, and eager to learn it. And he was eager to teach it! We practiced for days, and I was so happy to sing a song with Grandpa. Well, the gleeful pride was soon replaced with mortification when, at the Kirby family reunion, Grandpa attempted to lead me around the picnic to sing it. Oh, he wanted to be so proud of me! But I didn't know hardly any of these people, and I'm sure there must've been some kind of ice cream bribery because I did sing it for one group. Really it was just to one group of people, I don't remember who, but I do remember they were super enthusiastic to hear me sing that song, and they sat jovially with their legs crossed in their lawn chairs under tall pines with red bark, and I wish I could see it now. I'm sure it stands in history as the most sheepish recital of that tune ever.

I want to write down the words because they're a bit different from the versions I am finding on the Internet. Of course there's nothing profound here, it's just a funny old Irish tune. You'll notice there are two lines missing from the 4th verse. I don't know if that's how it was taught to me, or if I just never remembered them and got used to singing it that way. Also, on that fourth line in the first verse, where I have "it 'twas", that is intentional. Sic. That's how it's sung. Also, I can't fully remember the third line of the third verse. Any help would be appreciated!



Patrick McGinty, an Irishman of note,
fell into a fortune, he thought he'd buy a goat.
"Of goat's milk," said Paddy, "I think I'll drink me fill,"
but when he got the nanny home he found it 'twas a bill.

On the west coast of Ireland one morning there was seen,
Just as plain as a pipe staff, a German submarine!
The coast guard Mahoney fell over in a fit,
"And now," said McGinty's goat, "I think I'll do me bit."

He dove into the water just as frisky as a whale,
He bucked his billy horns, and he wagged his billy tail.
He chased the Huns to Helgaland and then he ________
He chased the Huns to Helgaland did Paddy McGinty's goat.

Now Paddy McGinty's goat had an enormous appetite
And one morning for breakfast he ate some dynamite!

He laid down by the fire and he didn't give a dang,
he swallowed up a spark and exploded with a bang!
So when you get to Heaven, you can bet your bottom note
the angel there with whiskers ooooooonnnnn iiis Paddy McGinty's goat.

Back in STL

After a very long transit back home, I am finally here. I'm extremely tired. I have downloaded the pictures that were on my camera, and will start resizing and posting them tomorrow. Unfortunately, most of the pictures for the trip are on Shana's camera, but hopefully she'll send me a DVD soon.

All in all I had a great time. Sorry I did not have any time to blog because there was so little daylight (like 7am - 4pm), and there were not very many Internet access points on the road, where we spent much of our time. Shana likes to see as many different places as possible. We got to see Riga, which was really great. I would have to say Kuressaare was the best part of the trip for me though, due to the luxurious and inexpensive saunas, and the incredible natural beauty of the place. I may have to move there.