What’s a calorie? Well, it is a unit of energy. If you take a gram of water and put some energy into it, you’ll raise its temperature (assuming it is away from its boiling point). If you succeed in raising the gram of water’s temperature by 1oC, you’ve put one calorie of energy into it.
But that’s not the calorie you probably have used in your everyday conversation. You’ve probably been talking about the Calorie. (Note the upper case C.) The Calorie, or the kilocalorie. It is 1000 times larger than the calorie of the previous paragraph. It’s the energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by 1oC (assuming it’s not at its boiling point). That’s the Calorie you find discussed in the context of nutrition - the energy content of the food you eat.
Without further ado, let me show you what the Calories “look like”. Let’s take a reasonable number of them - 200. Each of the pictures below represents 200 Calories of a food, which you’d get from eating it. Mini peppers, gummy bears, and kiwi fruit:
They are part of a series of rather beautiful photographs of lots of different foods, Continue reading ‘200 Calories’
No, probably not, but we are probably in for a battle. The FDA is said to be about to announce the approval of using cloned animals for food. The announcement will be on Thursday, but there are several news reports about it already. Here is a link to an AP article written by Libby Quaid. (I also borrowed from that article the picture -left, by Chris Gardner- of cloned dairy cows Cyagra1 and Genesis.)
What will the battle be about? Well, Let’s get the fear-mongering (that opponents of this announcement will use to their advantage) out of the way first. If these were indeed clones in the purest sense of the word, produced in unquestionable circumstances, in an industry that did not already have several unsettling and dysfunctional features to it (see for example here) then there would be no issue. The bottom line is that we should be no more scared of clones than we should be of twins.
But it is not that simple. According to the article to which I pointed, here are claims -backed up with documentation- (I have not read the research, so am merely reporting that it exists) that the cloned animals are not produced in a manner that would be acceptable for the production of animals by other means -there are still many deaths and deformities in the process, and these birth defects are still not fully understood.
Carol Tucker Foreman, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, said the FDA is ignoring research that shows cloning results in more deaths and deformed animals than other reproductive technologies.
The consumer federation will ask food companies and supermarkets to refuse to sell food from clones, she said.
“Meat and milk from cloned animals have no benefit for consumers, and consumers don’t want them in their foods,” Foreman said.
That alone might not be so terrible, you’re thinking, but the big thing (to Continue reading ‘Attack of the Clones?’
No, the title is not part of an alternative version of that Christmas song that cumulatively lists things (whatever it is called). It is really that I spotted the display of the entries in something that looked like the aftermath of a gingerbread house bake-off. This was at the Kitchen Academy, the chef’s school next door to the Arclight.
Here are some more pictures, including the top three places, and then I have a question for you:
Continue reading ‘Seven Gingerbread Houses’
It is time for another detailed Asymptotia visit to the kitchen.
Not many days after I showed you that phase diagram for pastry making, Thanksgiving day showed up, and I found myself making an apple pie to take over to have with friends for dessert. Making a pie is a very fulfilling kitchen endeavour that is remarkably simple at the core. The bonus is that with a bit of practice the results are often delightful. Let me show you what I mean.
The summary: You do various “processes” to move around the phase diagam, as with any phase diagram in physics. A phase diagram depicts the various states your working substance can end up in as a result of changing the conditions. Like H2O being able to be ice, steam, water, depending upon things like temperature and pressure. In physics, doing various processes to change your temperature and pressure might involve pushing on pistons, adding energy in the form of heat by applying flames with a bunsen burner, etc.
Here, we will be doing processes relevant to the kitchen. The aim is to find the right path across the amusing phase diagram above (click for larger; origin: Lab Lemming; finding the wrong path is not good since you end up with inedible junk… most paths are irreversible). Anyway, find the right path …and soon after you get to eat something like this:
Motivated? Now for the details:
Continue reading ‘An Apple Pie Process’
Today in my Physics 100 class (I’m preparing it right now), we’ll be re-discovering the structure of the atom… It’s nice to consider the clues that are around us in our everyday life. This picture (click for larger… and yes, I was down at Grand Central Market again on Sunday) will start my discussion of one set of important clues…. Any thoughts about what aspect of it I’ll be talking about?
-cvj
The people of the corn are not the folks in Chiapas, Mexico, who have been known to call themselves that. Or, I should say not just them. Who else? The people of the USA. Maybe much more so than the people in Mexico.
I learned this from listening to Michael Pollan, author of the book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”, who was on NPR’s Science Friday two days ago. His book explores the origins of the food that we eat every day, explaining the changes that have occurred in agriculture that moved us away from the traditional model of a farm (that many of us still have in our heads) to the current model: No animals, no pastures, no variety. Just a few specific crops, like corn. Corn grown for all sorts of reasons, and very few of them for the actual corn itself as a food. Instead, it goes into nearly everything that we eat (and more) in huge quantities. The vast majority of the food that we eat has corn at its base in some way or another. Either directly, such as in the sweeteners added to nearly every procesed food, or indirectly - corn is used as feed for producing the animals that we get meat, milk, etc, from. You can use a mass spectrometer to trace Continue reading ‘People of the Corn’
I love making pies. I perfected my current pie-making technique when I was a graduate student in Southampton. I was in a rented house with four other students, and the house had a splendid apple tree in the back garden. I could not bear to see them all go to waste when it was in full crop. So I made apple pies. Lots of them.
A crucial part of the process of making a good pie is the making of the pastry that will constitute the crust. Very important indeed, unless you are cheating and buying a ready-made crust, in which case you are not making a pie any more - the actual work has been done for you. (Ok, sure, go ahead - shout at me…)
Well, I don’t need to do one of my long cooking posts about this just yet, since the Lab Lemming is concerned about these issues too, I noticed, and has gone to the trouble of preparing what looks like a careful study of the process (including the pitfalls) just in time for the beginning of the primary pie-making season (Thanksgiving, etc…). Here’s a phase diagram from that discussion, which made me laugh quite a bit:
Here’s a bit of the discussions below it, to whet your appetite…
Continue reading ‘A Tasty Phase Diagram?’
Spent most of the daylight hours downtown today. Well worth it.
Been a while since I’ve been to Grand Central Market. Continue reading ‘Grand’
Well, it was only yesterday that I was telling the physics 100 class all about Special Relativity (lots of incredulous looks…. lots of reassurances, including: “You’re confused? That’s ok! It is one of the greatest pieces of science of the 20th Century… It’s not supposed to be trivial….”), but it seems like an age ago, and very distant. That’s because I’m in Dublin today. (Pesky wormholes.)
Just for a few days.
Guinness will be involved, I imagine (yeah!), although it will not be the primary focus. (The pint in the photo to the right is from a previous trip.)
I hope to have at least half a day to walk around in the rain. I miss that.
More later.
-cvj
You’ll recall that I had a fig emergency not too long ago. Too many figs from my tree and (despite commenter Moshe’s suggestion to just eat them all) no inclination to eat them all in one sitting. Recipe ideas were considered (and thanks all of you!), and I made a decision. I was looking for a way to preserve them, not how to immediately eat them, and so sadly I did not take up all the lovely suggestions of things to do. By a day or two later I had several more, and so it became urgent. As hinted at by the post entitled “Jam Tomorrow” (which I took a while to deliver on - sorry) you can guess what I decided to do: Fig Jam, of course!
So I bring you the first of what I expect to be several trips to the kitchen on Asymptotia, where we go through all the steps together (remember the Taiwan-inspired Beef Lo Mein that I did on CV?). So the thing to do is chop up those figs into smaller chunks -roughly eighths (keep halving three times):
I looked at various sources for an idea of the proportions of ingredients, and eventually settled on a few that I decided to hybridize. I’ll leave it to you to google on “fig jam” and find your own ideas, I found that there is a popular Epicurious recipe, which first appeared in Gourmet magazine some years back, that uses roughly the following (I did not do the rum and sesame seeds mentioned elsewhere):
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
2 lb firm-ripe fresh figs
2 strips fresh lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
… proportions that I rescaled (see below).
This meant that I needed an idea of the actual weight of the figs. I don’t actually have any scales in the kitchen or anywhere in the house. (I usually use volume measurements in my cooking.) So this meant that I would have to rush out to the shops to get a scale. This did not appeal to me, and after a short while I remembered that I’m actually a physicist, and so can use other means to get an estimate, fashioning some scales from Continue reading ‘Jammin’’
These tiny tomatoes are a beautiful yellow. I’m actually more captivated by their shape, though. They remind me of the large yellow/orange butternut squashes an order of magnitude or more larger.
I’m going to harvest these guys soon, but it is a bit sad, because they look so lovely on the plant.
-cvj
Well, I noticed a resonance over the last couple of days. In pictures:
I know what you’re thinking. Another exotic place, right? Actually, no more exotic than Los Angeles. Yes, as I keep saying, it is not all concrete, despite what people say. This is essentially in the middle of the Los Angeles area, overlooking the city. The lovely Griffith Park, at the top of Mount Hollywood, where I was hiking with a friend and came upon this scene. Did not have enough camera to make the best of it, but this will do. As confirmation of the central location, you can see the Hollywood sign in the top right hand corner (click for closeup).
Next:
The Rainwater Bluegrass band. They’re part of the wonderful weekly fresh food Continue reading ‘Ranch Style’
…. and er, a dwarf bean. Just remembered to harvest these. Lovely colour:
I think there’s a tasty ham and bean soup in my future, don’t you? Or do you have alternative suggestions.
-cvj
The corn has matured (they’re less full because of low volume of watering while I was away… but that’s ok… they’ll taste great!), and I’ve got a huge corgette/zucchini for my trouble. Must get around to harvesting the peas soon.
Upcoming…. that flower promises a tasty patty-pan squash in my future…..
-cvj
Saturday morning’s fig harvest.
I think you’ll agree with me that this constitutes an emergency. I need to make some tasty thing or other in order to use these up. I’m thinking of something in the pie department. I have a few ideas of my own, but nothing is blowing my skirt up at this point. Recipe suggestions welcome… So dust off those recipes… Help!
-cvj
Speaking of fresh produce, some of you are probably wondering how the garden is doing. I’ve not seen it for a long time. I told you about the fig tree, but not of other things.
Well, there’s more to come, but here are a few pleasant things to come home to (as a result of the improved drip system I mentioned earlier):
I’ve got corn! I have not grown corn since I was a child, so this has an extra buzz for me. If you want to teach a child the value and wonder of gardening -and more seriously, give them a key component of an appreciation of how our planet’s food supply works- get them growing something easy and fast-growing like corn, or beans. It’s just magical, even as an adult, since these things grow and change so fast, you can almost see them progressing in front of your eyes. Please consider getting a child involved in something like this (or just yourself if you’ve never grown anything!) It is fulfilling, and easy - and you don’t need a garden. You can do it on a window-sill, or on the doorstep, with a deep pot or two.
Another good and easy thing to grow that gives results that are easily appreciated are various things from the squash family. Cucumbers, pumpkins, patty pan squash, etc. Here are some zucchini (courgettes) coming along nicely in the shade of the leaves of their parent plant, not so far from the stovetop pot:
Continue reading ‘How Does Your Garden Grow?’
Final day of Summer for me. Second day of my return home from travelling. Market Day! Time for a trip to the market to get supplies for the first week of the semester.
The loot (which includes, hidden under the leeks, some of the last of the white peaches of the season from the peach people I like):
Be sure to note (click on right for larger) these extra extra long beans- Superstring beans I think they must be called (quickly goes back and changes the working title of the post).
(”Chinese long beans” the lady selling them said. My first thought: Sure. Trick from produce-seller-101. If you ever want to sell a slightly unusual-looking vegetable, just make up a name like “Chinese something-or-other”, or “Guatemalan doo-dad”. But it is actually an accepted name, along with yardlong bean, asparagus bean, snake bean, etc. I prefer superstring bean henceforth. Given the popularity of string theory in the popular conciousness now (the horror!)… it might catch on…)
Some other pictures (click on thumbnail for larger):
-cvj
(Update: On reflection (hot Sunday afternoon and don’t want to think about planning the busy week ahead) maybe I should have called them “Cosmic String Beans” since they are much larger than normal string beans, as opposed to having an extra remarkable internal symmetry…. at this point, I’m pretty sure I’m the only one still following the joke, which was already stretching it.)
Last year long after a Summer’s decent crop of figs I heavily pruned back the fig tree, and pulled it clear of some trees it was tangled in, cut those back a bit to give it some light, and tied two if its main branches to a post to try to train it to grow in a new direction.
It’s payback time! All through the Spring this year I’ve been watching it grow back even stronger and more happy, fed by more light and the knowledge that someone cares. It was covered in several tens, mabe hundreds, of green figs when I last saw it. Now that I have returned, (first day back - straight out to the garden to see what’s up) I see that I am more or less just in time! A few have over-ripened already, and some animal or other has helped themselves to several more, but there’s more than enough for desert for me and my guest tonight at dinner. Yum!
There are many more where those came from…. Dee-licious!
-cvj
Ok, after procrastinating the whole afternoon, I’ve finally got around to getting down to phase one of preparing this talk. Going to give myself a few hours of sitting sifting through things I want to recycle from my database of old talks…. thinking of new themes I want to explore which will require whole new slides, etc. Next session will be the design of new slides and updating (if necc.) of old.
I’ve got the pen and paper (essential for me), the computer, the ipod on random (Charlie Parker’s “Billie’s Bounce” playing right now - great early solo by Miles), a supply of Carr’s water crackers, a generous lump of Saint Andre soft cheese, and -I know it might not quite fit- a glass of a Ravenswood Zinfandel. Oh…. and nice evening light on some distant mountain. Surely, I’ll get a lot done…. no?
-cvj
So it was all quiet in the Aspen Center for Physics offices.
Why? Tuesday family picnic outside…!
Was it quiet out there? No! There were science experiments with the food of course!
How did they get the diet cokes to erupt like that?
The instigator of this was Phenomenologist Josh Erlich, who is shown holding the secret ingredient… Continue reading ‘Physics Shoot ‘Em Up!’
Missing from the picture: $7.50 worth of long, colourful strands of flavoured pasta. I forgot them at the market stall at which I purchased them because I got into one of several conversations about the bike. Blast! I shall have to see if they remember me next week and believe that I forgot the pasta there.
Also missing: The roasted peppers! The roasted pepper people were not there! I shall have to roast some of these myself. (No idea what I’m talking about? We had a good discussion about them last year, in the comment stream of this post.)
Other vegetable shopping pics: Hollywood, Santa Monica, Aspen.
-cvj
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