It is the birthday of a friend today, with a party to be held at a beach. The instructions were to bring something French to eat. I was in a baking mood this morning and so I decided, after some thought and research, to make an apple cake as a birthday present. Apparently this is a typical French-style cake. Well, it is French enough for me, with its simple combination of fruit and cake.
(Interestingly it is roughly reminiscent of the apricot/peach upside-down cake I was planning to make when I was shopping in the market, but I could not get a definitive source to tell me whether that type of cake was of French origin or not, so I decided to use the apples instead. I can just eat the apricots and peaches for lunch each day this week.)
Ok, here’s how I made it. Continue reading ‘Beach Time Baking!’
I just felt in the mood, and half an hour later…
…cupcakes, strawberries, and cream. (Click for larger view.)
It all went in like this (after ten minutes of prep* (1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 Continue reading ‘Quick Dessert Treat’
One of the offerings for my 17 guests during my solstice celebratory cooking session yesterday. (Click for larger view.) For background, see yesterday’s post.
I produced five or six core dishes for the menu, overall. Boy, that was fun! (There were also some excellent dishes brought by guests, and I had various other things Continue reading ‘Solstice Salad’
The Sun stood still earlier today! Don’t panic - It is Summer Solstice. I’m talking about an apparent motion of the sun, or, more accurately the migration of its path across the sky. Take a moment to think celestially for a bit and ponder the earth as it goes around the sun on its annual path. There’s a tilt to the earth’s own rotation axis, remember? (About 23 degrees). That tilt results in our seasons, and the path of the sun through the daily sky. Visualize this for a moment and it’ll make sense, if you let it. Today the sun’s path has got as northernmost as it will get, and it is now turning around, being more Southern each day until Winter Solstice. To turn around and change direction, you first have to stop. No way around it. So, the sun stood still today.
So, I decided to celebrate all this lovely geometry on the spur(ish) of the moment. Will you? I’m going to cook up several tasty dishes and have some friends around to Continue reading ‘Summer Solstice!’
What’s this? Pinot Grigio salami? Well, this has to be tried out, I think.
Turned out to be rather good, although how it would have tasted without the pinot grigio being involved in the process, I don’t know.
Anyway, as a result of the successful taste test, this has been a component of my lunch sandwich here a lot. (Click for a closer view and to read the details if desired.)
In related news, the real Summer season is finally beginning here in Aspen, on or around this weekend. Several things that have been 
closed (e.g., the buses up to the trailheads of some of my favourite hiking trails, the weekly farmer’s market on the street), or running reduced hours (e.g. the Explore bookstore) up to now are opening up, and some of the major festivals are beginning. Of course, I won’t be around for most of them. That’s life. Among these is the Food and Wine classic which starts Friday. There are giant tents being constructed around town, and lots of portable industrial grade cooking units being installed in them. Quite a remarkable operation. You can see the full schedule here.
To my delight I noticed that among the numerous chefs flying in for it is one of my favourites, Mario Batali! He and Nancy Silverton (another favourite excellent chef and restaurateur) Continue reading ‘Tastin’’
Having done enough physics for the day and evening, I sometimes just find a nice quiet (but not too quiet) bar and settle into a comfortable chair with a good book and a decent single malt.
Tonight there is rain pouring outside, the air was clear and damp with slight drizzle as I Continue reading ‘On Some Nights…’
I’m a creature of habit, it must be said. Part of my morning ritual while at Aspen is to slowly stir some steel cut Irish oatmeal (click for larger view) for a while (properly spiced, of course, and soaked overnight ), while listening to NPR and making some tea. The tea is also seasoned with spices and finished in a pan for a while. Why?
Tea up here is horrible if you just pour boiled water on to tea leaves (bag or no bag). This is because at this altitude, boiling water isn’t actually very hot. This makes for Continue reading ‘Breakfast Habits’
So I decided to experiment. Saturday started with me spontaneously mixing some ingredients together. There’s about two tablespoons of shortening, and of butter, and a sprinkling of sea salt. I put in one or two of the cups of flour and hand blended this all together. Then I mixed in a cup or so of the yeast culture that has previously featured in a few blog posts (here, here, and here). I’m sort of following my usual bread recipe that I’ve made in the past several years (with dried yeast as a starter) with a few adjustments here and there, trying to accommodate the different kind of Continue reading ‘Bakin’’
Well, on day ten (see the earlier post, and also this one) I had no choice: I had to find the time to make some bread soon. I decided to try the default recipe, even though it was not much like the bread I make. One should try new things. The good news was that it is quick and easy to do, and so I did not need to set aside a huge amount of time. So after a bit of prepping:
…it was popped into the oven. Recipe (”remaining batter” is about 1.5 cups of the yeast starter left over from the doings on day ten… see earlier post) for this “Amish Friendship Bread”:
Continue reading ‘Products of Culture’
Remember the Culture? Not the Iain M. Banks civilization, interesting as that is. I mean the yeast from last week’s post Culture is Science.
You’ll recall I mentioned that its primary role in the whole baking business is the production of carbon dioxide. Well, you only see that indirectly via the results of the baking, of course, but while it was going through the ten day growth phase, I got the chance (after feeding it on day 5) to get some nice pictures of the swollen bag that results from its generation of the gas after its munching down on flour and sugar:
Continue reading ‘See Oh Two’
Well, on my way home on the bus just now I was the one responsible for the strange smell. Guilty as charged.
Let me explain.
This morning, a colleague, one of our teaching lab managers Joe, came by with a surprise gift. It was in a black bag, which I opened. Inside was a transparent bag with a quantity of mysterious looking goop in it. From it came the strong and very familiar smell of yeast. Along with it was a piece of paper with instructions.
Yes, it was/is a living yeast culture that Joe wanted to share with some friends. It was this that was with me in my bag on the bus just now. The idea is that you let it grow over ten days or so, and then you either make it all into a batch of bread, or you leave some over to make new cultures that you hand on to others after ten days and/or bake another batch of bread. What a remarkably unusual (these days) gift! (Thanks Joe!)
I’d actually been planning to start up my bread-making again (I used to do it a lot as a student, postdoc, and young professor-with-more-time-on-his-hands), and had Continue reading ‘Culture is Science’
Polenta Squares with Eggplant and Red Peppers.
One of the offerings I whipped up for a small gathering of friends at my place not Continue reading ‘Edible Squares’
It is just me, or… (#n in a series…)
For those of you who know and enjoy marmite (i.e., you’re in the UK or are probably from the UK), I have an important and most urgent question:
Continue reading ‘A Marmite Matter’
Well, the transformation continues apace. As of last year, North of the USC campus now has the wonderful Bacaro, and as of three weeks ago, we now have The Lab on the Eastern edge of campus. It’s a gastropub (it is quite charming to hear that quaint term from early 90s London being bandied about as new and hip over here out West now), done up with the feeling of a laboratory of sorts. I think it works rather well, and I entirely approve of the science theme.
The good news is that it actually does seem to be trying to do food somewhat a cut above the sort you get at your generic college campus dive. It succeeds with plenty of room to spare. I can see it as another place where both students and faculty can feel at home and find something on the menu that they like. There’s a surprisingly good selection of beers (no Duvel, Hoegaarden or Leffe, but I did spot a Chimay, so they pass) and several wines (did not explore the list on this first visit).
My risotto was pleasantly fresh tasting, with ingredients (including several different Continue reading ‘Back to the Lab’
One of the star items that I brought out during a small food and wine gathering at Continue reading ‘Going, Going, Gone’
Tasty goodies on display at Café Susina, as usual. Some are even appropriate to the day.
Enjoy!
-cvj
It was an evening of reflection, a quick dinner, a nap, and then a moonlight walk until midnight. What was dinner? Some spontaneous improvised polenta squares. It’s been a while since we’ve been to the kitchen on Asymptotia, so come along…
Take some of the coarse ground cornmeal that’s great for making polenta (or tasty breakfast porridge, for that matter), and sprinkle it into some water, stirring immediately. Only then do you bring the water up to a boil, on a low flame. Putting the meal into hot water will make a lumpy mess. How much water to how much meal?
To be honest, I don’t really measure this. Just… enough. I use a small 5 inch shallow Continue reading ‘Polenta Adventure’
Well, I did a bit of an experiment the other day. I tend to have Illy coffee when I am away - Originally in Italy, when I used to visit the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, in the early ’90s. (Sigh….some very happy days were had on those trips…) At home, I routinely have reasonably good coffee made cafetiere style, using beans from GroundWork. Some months ago, however, I rediscovered one of my favourite stovetop espresso makers and started to use it again, grinding my usual coffee finer and getting quite a good cup. It started out as a treat in the morning, but gradually replaced more and more of my cafetiere cups of coffee. (Contrast here and here for example.) Then, after conversation with a friend of mine I found myself thinking about Illy coffee again and getting misty eyed. I got thinking - is it really as good as I remember it? Maybe it is partly just to do with being on my travels - the novelty, and some nostalgia for my days in Italy. Surely, a freshly ground set of good but non-Illy beans is enough to make as good a cup? I decided not to try this out, since I didn’t want to get hooked on the very expensive stuff when I was perfectly happy with my GroundWork beans.
But. I stumbled on a sampler pack of two 4.4 oz. cans of espresso preparations from Illy while browsing in a shop the other day, and so gave in.
Drat. Drat. It is so really very very good. And I’ve gone through one tasty can (the Continue reading ‘Illy Taste Test’
I’ve been meaning to tell you more about Michael Pollan. I’ve been planning a post or two about Summer reading, and was going to discuss the books of Michael Pollan to kick off a possible series. That plan was hatched in the late Summer of 2007… then the Fall came, and then the Winter and Spring… then Summer of 2008… never got around to it. Drat. (Checking back, I see that I started the series by talking about Haruki Murakami, here. So I’ll call this part of the series too, even though it is not really Summer.)
Anyway, the good news is that Pollan was on Fresh Air (NPR) yesterday, and as usual he was excellent:
In an open letter to the next president, author Michael Pollan writes about the waning health of America’s food systems — and warns that “the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close.”
The future president’s food policies, says Pollan, will have a large impact on a wide range of issues, including national security, climate change, energy independence and health care.
Here’s the link to the audio. Before you rush off to that, let me continue what I was going to say, at least in brief.
Pollan has risen to prominence, justifiably, mostly as a result of his excellent book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History Of Four Meals”. It is a delightful examination of the food industry, charting the route of much of the food that you eat Continue reading ‘Summer Reading: Fresh Air From Pollan’
Tomorrow I’ll be doing something a bit unusual, I’ve heard. I’ll be writing lots of equations (so far so normal), but I’ll be doing it on a stage and will be filmed doing it. Should be fun. It’s for an educational TV show that’ll be out some time soon. Will tell you more when I know more. My task later on is to figure out which equations they’d like on camera. It’s been a long day, so I thought I’d sit here with some camomile tea and blog a bit first.
It’s been a while since we’ve been to the kitchen together, hasn’t it? Let me tell you about Monday’s special dish. I was invited by a friend to go to their house and join some others for a Rosh Hashanah gathering. The instruction was to “bring a side dish of your choosing”. Excellent. Well, I’m out of figs now (the main tree has run out of them after a remarkable season), and so could not rely on that. The big problem was really that on Monday I teach until 7:00pm (ugh), and I’d have to go home first to get the food. I certainly could not rely on being able to cook a meal and take it immediately since I’d have about 15 minutes to make everything and get it to my friend’s place. So I needed something good, but something simple and fast.
For some reason I decided on oranges. I don’t really know why. I thought I might do something with oranges, sliced, and then maybe some fresh mint from my garden Continue reading ‘The Beet Goes On…’
Well, since it was the last weekend of the slow Summertime (semester begins - see next post), it seemed a good idea to go out with a party. Silver Lake supplied the party (the Sunset Junction street festival, which, despite my strongly supportive words of the previous post, turned out to be not as good as it used to be [update: The Militant says it well]), and I (well, my garden) supplied the figs and drink. I had some friends come around to the house to raid the fig tree, and to help me consume some bottles of Hoegaarden and Leffe (along with some wine and a little gin later). Seems I threw together a couple of loaves of fig bread as well, while my guests were chatting and drinking.
My guests were nice, in that they said it was delicious (between enthusiastic mouthfuls Continue reading ‘Fest’
Well, for some of this time I’ve been away I’ve been a bit worried about the fig tree. Why? Well, as I was leaving town, it was hugely laden with fruit that looked rather like they were going to peak while I was away. I certainly did not want that to happen since the squirrels and other critters would have a field day (or several!), and get used to the idea that they had full access to the tree with no dissent from me.
Well, it turns out that the tree held out longer than it seemed that it would, so while the peak came while I was away, it was only for a week or so.
So I lost several figs, and had to deal with the sticky, frenzied-ant-infused mess left Continue reading ‘First Fig Fun’
Well, of course I made it to the Aspen farmer’s market. Why would I pass up the opportunity to pay $3.50 a pound for assorted squashes? (And that was some of the more reasonably priced stuff…) I like to support these things, and mingle with the people, so I go anyway. Also some of it is very good, even though there are very few actual fresh produce vendors compared to the farmer’s markets I’m used to in Los Angeles. (This latter fact is not entirely traceable, I think, to having a smaller target population, or being at high elevation.) (Of course there’s a lot of selling of knick-knacks of various sorts of the tourists…. you know: hand carved dual dog bowls with Western outdoor themes and so forth…)
Here’s the (half-folded) bike with some of my findings:
You can get a closeup on the basket by clicking the image on the right. Some apricots, Continue reading ‘Some Saturday Shopping’
…in the kitchen. A friend of mine has a number of banana trees that are producing fruit right now, and to help her get rid of her surplus I accepted a generous gift of bananas last week. (Thanks M!) It turns out that they have a remarkably strong flavour, concentrated a lot by the fact that they were already quite ripe when I got them. That strong flavour meant that I only managed to eat one of them in a given day, even though they are quite tiny.
Well, after some days I still had many of them, and now they were rather far gone down the road of ripeness. Too far, for my tastes, but I did not like the idea of throwing them away. It did not seem in the spirit of the gift at all. Then I hit upon the solution. This means, of course, a long overdue episode of: Asymptotia goes to the kitchen…!
My mum’s recipe could not be used at this point since she was travelling, and there’s an eight hour time difference, so I could not call her to ask for her method. Instead I consulted a replacement that’s sometimes acceptable in times like this: Jim Fobel’s Old Fashioned Baking Book. What was I looking for? Banana Bread.
Most, if not all, of what you need for a quick banana bread is probably in your cupboards already, if you’ve much of a cooking bent, so no special shopping Continue reading ‘Going Bananas…’
There’s something deliciously sinful about polishing off* these tomatoes while they are still warm from sitting on the plant in the afternoon sun… (Click for larger view.)
Continue reading ‘Gorge’
The universe likes laughing at me. In so many creative ways. (See earlier.) Here’s another. Of all the tomato plants I’ve ever grown, the ones that have done best -spectacularly well, in fact- have not been the ones I intentionally planted and 
nurtured but the ones that have grown up in random places. I then take care of them and they end up bursting with fruit. Meanwhile the others produce some fruit, but nothing to write home about, after a great amount of care and worry about how suited the ground is to their needs. You will recall another example: the cherry tomato plant that appeared in a crack in the steps that I was sure could not make it (but lasted for two years, almost constantly producing fruit) - see posts here and here about it.
Well, at some point during the Winter (yeah, yeah, I know) I noticed a new tomato plant Continue reading ‘Wild Irony’
I’ve mentioned it twice (here and here) in other posts, but I think it is worth a post of its own.
Have you been yet? I’m looking at you, USC-area person. There’s a fantastic new wine-bar in the neighbourhood, a relatively short walk north of campus at Union and Hoover. I’m so pleased to see it, and it is extremely welcome as far as I’m concerned. It is called Bacaro, and I’ve been there a lot already with several different groups of friends and colleagues.
Why? Well, the wine is just great (various Italian wines) and the menu is fantastic too Continue reading ‘So Have You Been There Yet?’
Morning cup of tea, and short reflection - coming up for air before diving back in…
It’s a bit of a mess here, time-wise. Just not enough hours in the day. Everything totally fragmented. Yesterday was grueling… here’s some of it:
Up at 5:30am, finding that I’m immediately thinking about a physics project for a bit (I fell asleep doing so, having been the whole evening in the Casbah drinking coffee and doing the same) before having to break off to get ready, get to office early to start an insanely busy day. Answer a ton of email, and deal with other online stuff, planning to ignore it for the whole rest of morning. Note that flimmaker/journalist friend B has sent me an email with a list of comments and suggested changes to my script for the Video. Got to discuss it with A, my collaborator in Chemistry on this. Whenever are we going to meet in the next few days? Sigh. (Must remember to do blog post about this new project, and how I ended up involved with the Chemistry department!)
After some dithering, decided to drive in, since the plan was to stay super-late and probably involve driving someone home.
Cold as I walk to the office from where I parked on the street. Mostly in my mind, and Continue reading ‘Up for Air’
There’s really nothing like a sweet potato roasted in the heart of a wood fire. A wood fire lit out under a clear big sky with a full moon. After a long day of hiking. A day of hiking in the desert on a super hot day of vivid blue, brown, and gold. Delicious flavours, textures and colours.
I spent most of last week on retreat in Death Valley. It was Spring break, and I was Continue reading ‘Potato, Moon’
I find this a bit sad, although most people will say “they’re only bees”. They (and lots of other beekeepers with their bees on trucks) were in the area to help with pollinating crops. I’m very enamoured of the idea that we still need bees to be brought in to perform such a crucial task for our agriculture, which makes it all the more sad to me to hear of the accident befalling the dutiful drones. Millions of bees were released on Sunday (and apparently hundreds of thousands probably killed) after a truck carrying several of their colonies overturned near Sacramento, California. You can listen to the NPR story (here) about the resulting chaos (and the emergency call-out to beekeepers in the area for help) and sting-fest that followed.
You can also read more on this in the local newspaper in the area, er… The Sacramento Bee. (No, really!)
-cvj
Fantastic news! There’s going to be a farmer’s market on campus at USC. The first one is on Thursday this week, and rumour has it that it is expected to be monthly! If anyone has more information about this, please let me know in the comments or by email. (Right, enlargeable image of one of the results of my weekly visits to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. More here.)
Here’s the announcement for Thursday:
Continue reading ‘A Farmer’s Market at USC’
A small Romanesque Cauliflower. (Click for larger view.)
Imagine my delight when I spotted this lovely piece of edible mathematics in the Hollywood Farmer’s Market this morning. The stall has several of them of many sizes (this was a very little one) and of several colours. Wonderful. If you don’t know what I mean when I talk about the mathematics, or use the term fractal, look it up. There are several things of note, among which are the wonderful spiral structures that you can Continue reading ‘A Delicious Fractal’
Being a loyal fan of Scottish single malt whisky, I never thought I’d be blogging about Irish whiskey, but this is why we get out of bed in the morning - we seek the stuff we can’t guess*.
So I was going to point out to you an amusing distraction. The series of radio ads for Jameson Irish Whiskey that you can listen to here. There’s one featuring a physicist, you see, and a friend of mine sent me the link for that reason**. There’s the idea of attraction, and so gravity is brought in by the ad man trying to use the concept to sell the product, and the physicist is obviously not having it… a short bit of fun play between segments of some program on some station somewhere or another. I can see that they’d work rather well. Have a listen.
That was going to be it, until I found another - real - physics connection. Turns out that Guglielmo Marconi - he of the use of electromagnetic waves for telegraph communication, Nobel prize, and so forth - is the the key to the connection. Do you know what it is?
Continue reading ‘Physics and Whiskey’
Well, for some of you, the title of the post should be “Frustration”, since I’ll get to try these (click for larger view) later when they cool down, and (sadly) I can’t share them with you in that way. But I thought I’d share the common and special memory of the warmth of baking smells… good thing to start the year off with. Especially if you’re somewhere a bit cold.
There’s been a lot of cooking and eating here over the last week and a half. I’ve done Continue reading ‘Anticipation’
These figs are for my sister, who’s several thousand miles away in London. Read on for how she might get them.
Talking with my sister on the phone last week, the idea came up (as it has done in the past) that she might come and visit me in December, bringing her toddler son. Maybe Continue reading ‘Hope You Like Jammin’ Too’
My contribution to the food at a party (to celebrate Rosh Hashanah) last night. Took Continue reading ‘Black and Red’
I’ve got to cross town later on to Pacific Palisades to a party, and while I’m keen on the party, I’m not keen on the journey - It is super hot outside, and I have to go via Santa Monica to pick up some tarts to take along. Temperatures are sure to go over 100oF again today, and so everyone and their dog will be heading West to the beach.
I was about to begin my morning mission to get supplies for the party, and I heard that Michael Jackson died last week. Not that Michael Jackson, the other one (see below). It’s quite a coincidence, since I was particularly on the prowl for two of my favourite Belgians, Duvel and Hoegaarden, and maybe one of the excellent Sam Smith’s stouts (from England). I was successful. (The excellent Bev’ Mo’ was well-stocked, and I was the first in the door when they opened.)
(If I may be so bold, you don’t really understand what beer can be if you have not tried Belgian beers. They’re the finest makers on the planet, without a doubt (others may disagree). Even if you think you don’t like beer, there’s probably one they produce that you’d like. The two on the right are among the easier to get favourites from there. Drop what you’re doing and rush out and get some. Go! Now!)
Still don’t know who I’m talking about? There’s a Washington Post article by Adam Continue reading ‘Have One for Michael Jackson’
Here’s something to shake up the cooking doldrums. Rather than bring you a report on one of my own efforts in the kitchen (and rest assured there’ll be more to come), I’ll step back and let you look at 101 ideas from a master. Mark Bittman, the food writer behind (among other things) the column “The Minimalist” for the New York Times, is extremely good at finding ways of producing more (in terms of taste) with less (in terms of substituting less costly ingredients while making a version of a more fancy recipe).
He’s recently tackled another cost factor: time. The claim (I have not tried any yet) is that these are ten minute preparation time recipes. This might be perfect for that busy schedule you have going there, or just a welcome shortening of hot kitchen time during the remaining long Summer days.
Don’t turn your nose up at the substitutions (sometimes discussed in his column) and Continue reading ‘101′
One of my tomato plants has been working hard since the late Spring to produce this single (and I hope tasty) pleasantly coloured tomato (Jubilee variety, I think):
I’ve no idea why just the one (is the unbelievable dryness a factor?), but I’m grateful all the same. I’m trying to not compute the average price per vegetable for this year’s Continue reading ‘Orange’
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