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’
Since, once again, the temperature is knocking on the door of insane outside, I’ll sit here on the sofa indoors for a while and tell you about the really fun thing I was doing earlier today. Back when it was much less hot.
The mission: First show up at Mama’s Hot Tamales Cafe. (So since at the very least, ridiculously tasty tamales are involved, clearly anything beyond this is just a bonus.) This is located across 7th Street from the South side of MacArthur Park, just West of Alvarado (map link).
Next, after saying hello to the friendly people
who are happy to see that you showed up for the event (a friend of mine and I were the first to show up), you sit at a table for a little while and read six plays. Don’t worry, since the average length of one of the plays is less than a page, so it won’t take long -and they’re all rather good!
Next, you go outside, cross the road, and spend some time in MacArthur Park. Why? Well, it is park with a bit of a bad reputation that is seriously underused and under-appreciated by many, so that’s a good reason right there…
…but the main reason for this visit at this point in the mission is to wander the park and see if you can spot some of the performances or, as one woman put it, Continue reading ‘All The Sweet, Green Icing’
… for this year, anyway. The evening out ended with a trip to my primary hideout* of this year’s visit, the nature of which you can deduce from the photo. The barkeep at The Little Nell, Michelle, really knows how to make a decent gin gimlet. I asked for it Continue reading ‘Last Night in Aspen’
I have to go on a trip tomorrow, and so somehow I have to eat all of these tasty beauties before I go. I do not know if it is possible! It is great news that the tomato Continue reading ‘Gold Rush!’
While on the way to see a film celebrating good food (among other things) it makes sense to have some. This is LoterÃa’s taco sampler (click for larger):
I’ve told you about this excellent restaurant before, I think (see the menu* here), but feel compelled to show Continue reading ‘Taco Medley’
The other day in the Hollywood Farmer’s Market I was having my regular moment of pure bliss (spinach and corn tamale from that amazing tamale stand) for lunch after a nice bit of shopping when I found myself sitting at a big outdoor table with a number of other people. Two of them were headed to the convention center for the afternoon and were wondering whether they might be able to find anything good to eat down that way. Of course, as a public-spirited person I had to tell them a bit about the options that popped into my head at that point (starting with La Taquiza of course), and ended up patiently explaining how to squint your eyes to look past all the fast food places to the culinary bliss that lurks just below the surface of the city. We had a delightful conversation and then they moved on, leaving me soaking up the sun for a while longer.
A woman who’d been sitting on her own (also enjoying a tamale) spoke up and said that she’d been interested to hear that I thought there was a lot of good food in LA since she could not really find much of it (and she’d been here for four years). Happily I’d finished my tamale and so did not choke or splutter at this revelation, in equal parts horrifying and deeply sad, and spent a few more moments listing some recommendations at her request. Unfortunately, the conversation turned (as it so often does) to one where I find myself defending LA against someone’s expectations of it based upon their own city, and their own requirements (instead of them learning how to navigate and understand the place they’ve chosen to live). Usually it is New Yorkers I have this sort of conversation with, but this time it was someone from Chicago. Her thesis was that good food is hard to find in LA and you’re just falling over it in Chicago. Two other diners arrived (also with tamales that they loved, I’ll point out) and guess where they’re from? Chicago. And so on it went… next they were bonding with each other about their favourite places in Chicago, which was fine, but… I wanted to get back to this nonsense about good food being rare in LA. I hate that myth almost as much as the “no public transport” one (but not quite since it is not as dangerous and destructive)…and particularly despise that habit people have of worshiping the thing they love about their home city by dragging down LA. Can’t people learn to just like what they like without having to enhance it by trying to dislike something else, as though Nature has a conservation law about the total amount of “liking” that can go on? (Above, Anne Fishbein photo from an article to be discussed below.)
I find it a cheap and lazy practice, in general - although to be fair to the woman of this Continue reading ‘99′
Not exactly a bumper crop in volume today, but definitely in flavour:
Continue reading ‘Gold and Green Harvest’
Eight o’clock on Saturday morning. I’ve been up since before six (I don’t know why) and somehow I’m still late. The car wakes up easily, eager to go for a run. It seems to have extra enthusiasm, as though it knows that somehow I’m going to tear all the way across the city and back as quickly as I can, an adventure it is always willing to participate in. I’ve got a guest coming over for lunch at eleven and I think I’ll assemble a nice meal from scratch. I’ve made my mind up to go for ingredients to the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market instead of the more local, smaller one in Silver Lake. Although I’m more of a fan of shopping locally, my usual market run is on Sunday, in Hollywood, and the Silver Lake one does not have most of the vendors that I know well from the other two markets, and I want to take no chances with my menu today. So, the highway for me this time.
The plan is to wander the market in head chef mode, looking for which items look good, choosing some of them and planning something simple and tasty around them. At the back of my mind is a salad, and maybe asparagus or artichoke as a central feature. I’m open to ideas, however, but the watchwords are fresh and simple. But I’ve got to get there, find the ingredients, and get back and make it all before eleven.
I break some kind of record for getting over to Santa Monica. Road was pretty open, and while I’m not saying whether I violated any speed limits, you can be pretty sure I hurt their feelings a bit. The market is still pretty empty and I can wander through at a good pace with my basket and check out the whole scene, retracing my steps on a second pass in reverse, this time buying things as I go. Three different kinds of tiny potatoes to form the base of a salad (after roasting them) along with two colours of carrot from the same people. For dessert I pick up three types of delicious berries -blackberries, strawberries, and blueberries- making a mental note to get some whipping cream (for hand-whipping later) as a topping.
Continue reading ‘Entertaining Saturday’
Tasty yellow pear tomatoes (click for larger):
They have been showing up all of a sudden (it seems) on this plant from last year. I’d read that this is quite a hardy plant and it certainly is, lasting through from last season, through the cold snap, and now coming back more strong than last year. Apparently, it is quite an old variety, going back to at least the 1750s.
Continue reading ‘Yellow Pear Tomatoes’
Some quick news from the garden:
Continue reading ‘Future Squash’
Well, I’ll leave the hunting aside and focus on the gathering. Some results, from Sunday’s Hollywood Farmer’s Market:
The market was about the same as it usually is every weekend, even for Memorial Day Continue reading ‘Weekend Hunter-Gatherer’
Well, among the many things that took place over the weekend (more later I hope), I found a good chunk of time for some gardening. The primary objective on Saturday was to prepare the ground and plant some young plants for future vegetable goodies. I planted three types of squash, three types of tomato, two types of corn, and harvested some peppers from the pepper tree (I might plant some as seeds for new pepper trees, since they are so beautiful) as it is producing a huge new crop already.
I’ve also planted three types of peas. Here are some pictures (click for a bit larger). In Continue reading ‘Gardening Update’
I learned today that there was a problem with RIM’s Blackberry network for about ten hours yesterday, and the wireless devices were cut off from the mother ship, or each other, or the hive mind, or whatever. (see e.g. a Reuters story here.) My thoughts went out to some of my friends at the PeRIMeter Institute in Canada, such as Bee. I hope the withdrawal pangs were not too severe!
I find it particularly sychronicitous (if it’s not a word, it should be one) therefore that probably during some of that outage I went for a bit of a walk to clear my head last night and found myself at Pinkberry (see earlier post). I had a small “original” flavour with…. blackberries:
It was only looking through some pictures just now that I connected this with the news today of last night’s outage.
-cvj
(The striking central red piece above is by the artist called Alonys (as are the ones surrounding). You can see more things of hers at her myspace space.)
Well, it’s been a busy week here, and I had tons of things to tell you in about five or six extra posts (beyond the quick ones I did) that never made an appearance. I had several for last weekend too. I ought to start by catching up from there. Here goes a bit of recollection and reflection:
Saturday was interesting since I ended up cramming three different activities into the evening, after a day of gardening and errands (mostly the latter), if I recall correctly.
The evening began (as it did the Saturday before) with a trip to an opening at an art gallery. This time it was downtown, near Gallery Row, (it is called Crewest) and it was featuring the work of some up and coming female artists. Overall, I was not overwhelmed with things I thought were great, but the exhibition was not without some interesting pieces on the walls (see above - some of her 3D sculpture-meets-painting works were fun too) and sometimes interesting people milling around. There was even a DJ, but sadly no wine (I’d been spoiled by the last gallery reception, I suppose.)
Continue reading ‘Saturday Scenes’
On Thursday night, I had the unusual experience of having a young woman I had just met offering excitedly -in plain earshot of several other people- to “pop my pink”. Trying not to appear flustered by this (as any Englishman would understandably be), I accepted. Ah, yes … I suppose I should explain.
Continue reading ‘Pink’
Here’s some remarkable news from the garden. You may remember that last April I noticed a tiny tomato plant growing out of a crack in some steps, and that I promised to keep an eye on it? (Picture, left.)
Then later in July I reported that not only had it survived, but it produced tomatoes? (Picture, right).
Well, it just continued on through the cold spells we had here this Winter, and some weeks ago I noticed that it had tomatoes on it again! This is a shot I took today: Continue reading ‘Staying Power’
Yes, Guillermo Del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth is really wonderful. Go and see it!!
However, behold (click for larger):
I forgot to mention these earlier. This was my Christmas present to myself (with some contribution from my mum and sister - thanks!). I’ve been saving up for while to Continue reading ‘Pans. No Labyrinth’
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