Wisconsin "Budget Repair Bill" Protest from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.
Wisconsin "Budget Repair Bill" Protest Pt 2 from Matt Wisniewski on Vimeo.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Boycott
After a month of travel, working long days in hotel rooms and working more at night (either on computer or, more draining still, in company of dinner work meetings), no dip in the pool (it was winter in Senegal), goofy malaria politics, multiple last minute presentations, and an overall positive outcome, I will be boycotting being awake for the next five days.
See you next week.
See you next week.
Friday, February 11, 2011
All That's Solid Melts into the Olive Oil
Jamie Oliver's recipes are always full of both extraneous detail and approximation. Makes for fun reading, but sometimes a little hesitation once I start cooking-- a "large handful of pine nuts," a "glug" of olive oil. Clearly he wants home cooks to relax--just a glug--whatever, don't worry about the amounts so much. Instead, here I am anxiously wondering, is Jamie's glug bigger than mine? How about his wine glass, since the primary liquid in the pasta con accughe e pomodoro [pasta with anchovies, pine nuts and raisins] is "a large wine glass of red?" As in, filled to the brim, or just a few good glugs' worth? 3/4 of a cup seemed a bit much, but (OK, point Jamie) it also seemed not to matter. And the anchovies truly did "melt" away into the olive oil and if you had a decent exhaust-fan for the cooking you could probably even serve this meal to the anchovy-phobic. Perfectly delicious with half the pine nuts and twice the anchovies, if there are truly 24 fillets in that tiny can. But if you've only thought to check after dumping into the sizzling oil, you can't count them once they're there, because they melt.
How to Pickle Green Tomatoes
1) Try Bittman. Try McGee. Try Vegetarian Epicure. Nope. Now try the internet.
2) Note that all the recipes involve parboiling and spices you don't have and the slicing of tomatoes.
3) Decide that for "parboiling" you will substitute colander-rinse, and for "pickling spice" you will use coriander seed and extra salt because you have coriander seed and extra salt. Re: slicing--oh please, these are tiny green unripe cherry tomatoes. No slicing.
4) Plunk the [rinsed, not boiled] tomatoes into small mason jar containing mixture of white and cider vinegar, salt, coriander seed and a little water.
5) Taste one two days later. It's terrible, but that's because it tastes exactly like a tiny green unripe cherry tomato. What did you expect?
6) Taste one two days later. It's terrible, and this time there is an additional taste. That is the taste of resignation. Acknowledge that perhaps boiling, pickling spice or slicing is as necessary as all of the world's Internets decreed.
7) There's still no pickling spice, there will be no boiling 4 days in, and re: slicing, see 3). Poke the larger tomatoes with a fork on the theory that it will speed the vinegar's absorption into the obstinate and oblong pale green marbles, and return to the fridge door. Then take them back out and add some more vinegar. The extra vinegar will have no effect.
8) Forget about them.
9) One month later, next to barbecue sauce you moved from the old house despite it being a year out-of-date even then, you discover pickled green tomatoes. And you know what? Puckery goodness. Hah! Take that, internets.
10) Eat another. Eat them all, actually, because some folk will not eat pickled things, not even these miracles of edible, crisp-tender jade. Yes, Keller, it gives me particular pleasure that I achieved crisp-tenderness without a stockpot's worth of boiling water or a delta's worth of salt.
11) Rejoice, knowing that the solution, as is always the case when someone is wrong on the internet, is time, vinegar[y prose] and poking with a fork.
2) Note that all the recipes involve parboiling and spices you don't have and the slicing of tomatoes.
3) Decide that for "parboiling" you will substitute colander-rinse, and for "pickling spice" you will use coriander seed and extra salt because you have coriander seed and extra salt. Re: slicing--oh please, these are tiny green unripe cherry tomatoes. No slicing.
4) Plunk the [rinsed, not boiled] tomatoes into small mason jar containing mixture of white and cider vinegar, salt, coriander seed and a little water.
5) Taste one two days later. It's terrible, but that's because it tastes exactly like a tiny green unripe cherry tomato. What did you expect?
6) Taste one two days later. It's terrible, and this time there is an additional taste. That is the taste of resignation. Acknowledge that perhaps boiling, pickling spice or slicing is as necessary as all of the world's Internets decreed.
7) There's still no pickling spice, there will be no boiling 4 days in, and re: slicing, see 3). Poke the larger tomatoes with a fork on the theory that it will speed the vinegar's absorption into the obstinate and oblong pale green marbles, and return to the fridge door. Then take them back out and add some more vinegar. The extra vinegar will have no effect.
8) Forget about them.
9) One month later, next to barbecue sauce you moved from the old house despite it being a year out-of-date even then, you discover pickled green tomatoes. And you know what? Puckery goodness. Hah! Take that, internets.
10) Eat another. Eat them all, actually, because some folk will not eat pickled things, not even these miracles of edible, crisp-tender jade. Yes, Keller, it gives me particular pleasure that I achieved crisp-tenderness without a stockpot's worth of boiling water or a delta's worth of salt.
11) Rejoice, knowing that the solution, as is always the case when someone is wrong on the internet, is time, vinegar[y prose] and poking with a fork.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
