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Category Archives: food and drink
Weekend Hunter-Gatherer
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 […] Click to continue reading this post
Gardening Update
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 […] Click to continue reading this post
Blackberry Thoughts
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 … Click to continue reading this post
Saturday Scenes
(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.) […] Click to continue reading this post
Pink
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.
Staying Power
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 … Click to continue reading this post
Pans. No Labyrinth
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 […] Click to continue reading this post
Trimmings
Last week Saturday morning, I stepped out to the garden to do maybe forty-five minutes’ worth of much needed pruning. Sometime late in the afternoon saw me finish. Things just got way out of hand. More and more tools were assembled: …there was much in the way of climbing of … Click to continue reading this post
De-Gaussing
I accidentally used the term “de-gauss” (or perhaps “degauss”) in conversation the other day, referring to something I had to do for my well-being. I was asked for an explanation. Thought I’d explain what I meant to you too:
One of many effective ways to de-gauss: Get the best gin ever (Hendricks’), a decent tonic water, the very tastiest of lemons (it’s from the tree in the garden), a glass, some ice…*
…and a really comfy chair. Hey, it’s been a long and busy day.
-cvj
P.S. Oh. There’s some other use of the word involving getting rid of trapped built up magnetic fields, etc., etc. You can google that.
(*Yeah, I know it’s not a great snapshot, but you get the idea.) Click to continue reading this post
Chilly Market Day
You can tell it was a bleak MidWinter day at the Hollywood Farmer’s market last week. People are actually dressed for outdoor weather for a change. They’re wearing
200 Calories
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: […] Click to continue reading this post
Attack of the Clones?
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 […] Click to continue reading this post
Seven Gingerbread Houses
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: […] Click to continue reading this post
An Apple Pie Process
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 kinds of 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 the 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: […] Click to continue reading this post
