Musings

Am now reading Kurlansky’s The Story of Salt (2006), which I saw recommended somewhere. I thought it strange when I put the hold on it at the library last week that it was in the Juvenile collection, but I plowed ahead, Explorer that I am. Picked it up today and found out what I could have discovered with a quick google—it’s aimed at the Grade 3–6 set. Still, it’s interesting, although Kurlansky too strongly makes the argument that pre-modern history is based on the salt trade. On the other hand, salt is so cheap and plentiful today that maybe I cannot imagine what it was like “in the old days.”

Posted at 10:49 PM | 4 Comments »

Odd things I remember from Decembers of my childhood: clementines and the sturdy wooden crates they came in; brazil nuts and other nuts and those awkward U-shaped nutcrackers and nut picks both with engraved patterns on the handles; refrigerator cookies made from my grandmother’s recipe that we called St. Nicholas cookies; making fruitcakes and wrapping them in brandy-soaked cloths then plastic and storing them in the basement then mopping the kitchen floor because the whole process was so messy….

But now it’s January, and I’m far from my childhood….

Posted at 6:49 PM | Comments Off on Food memories

Today has been so overcast that the outdoors seems like it just quit raining, although it hasn’t really rained since the dark hours. Droplets still cling to vegetation, signs, vehicles—no significant evaporation under these conditions!

In the meantime, I’m trying to track down a good bread machine recipe that uses lots of flax (aka linseed) meal, which is high in omega-3s and fiber, yet tastes good. Historically, flax was a darned important plant in the Old World, for both food and fiber (linen* is flax-thread cloth).

* A bit of etymology: lingerie is from the French linge, referring to washable linen clothing, thus undergarments.

Posted at 3:11 PM | Comments Off on Drippy, overcast

Here’s the fun first step to today’s cooking adventure: making baba ganoush—that is, charring an eggplant right on the burner….

Well, that’s not entirely true, but it makes a good headline!

Cookies that come out of the oven—I like them! (Maybe too much!)

Cookies that result from internet activity—hmm. I delete them frequently.

And just the other day I discovered that there is another kind of cookie that Macromedia hides in its own folder. This explains why I even after I deleted my cookies—the ones that I knew about—a web site would “recognize” me. I now have another set of cookies to deliberately delete, in order to maintain a bit more control over my online persona/profile…. (And, no, I don’t think I’m overly paranoid about this….)

Way back in July 2007, I mentioned another cookie control mechanism—installing a DoubleClick opt-out cookie.

Posted at 1:48 PM | Comments Off on I hate cookies!

We did it right yesterday. Black-eyed peas and rice with a side of collards.

Á la Sammy. Which in this case means I used fresh peas (actually beans, I think, but not Phaseolus) that were much nicer than canned, mixed wild rice in with the brown rice, and added thin-sliced onions and ham to the collards.*

Yummy!

* I admit it; I ran out of steam, so no cornbread…. I trust this won’t compromise our luck in 2009….

Posted at 10:03 AM | 3 Comments »

…magical. Best sorbet I’ve ever had: mango.

And one of my favorite snacks. Fresh or dried (preferably with no added sugar, thank you TJ’s).

This particular specimen was almost perfectly ripe….

It took me a while spending time in rural Mexico to figure out what the 10-cm long fibrous, beige, lozenge-shaped organic discards were that I kept seeking lurking in the dust in villages—mango pits!

Fun mango facts from Wikip: mangos are about 50% of the tropical fruits produced worldwide (>23 million tons in 2001) and the most common commercial cultivar is Tommy Atkins; the name mango comes to English from Asia via Portuguese (those wily traders!); and, apparently there are freestone varieties (never seen them).*

* Watch out for the skins and sap; some varieties contain, uhoh!, urushiol (especially KW!).

Posted at 12:14 PM | 3 Comments »

There are myriad rhyming arithmetic riddles (chistes, I think…) out there, including (possibly especially) in Spanish. I think this is one I heard in Oaxaca some time ago….

Un pato con una pata, ¿cuántos patos y patas hay?

It employs confusion that is similar to that encompassed by this riddle:

What’s black and white and red all over?*

So: patos are ducks and patas are feet, but also could be a female duck. Therein lies the confusion. Anyway, I was always confused by this riddle (they have never been my strong suit), but I think it says, if there’s a duck with one foot (or a female duck), how many ducks and feet are there? Googling suggests one cheeky answer is “un pato cojo“, meaning a lame duck.

Why do I mention all this? The pastry above is Mexican, and called a pato. And, in this case, no feet…. See how my mind works?

* See, this only works if you hear it, because to be correct you have to spell it “read” not “red”…and the answer is: the newspaper. This is the classic version, anyway. There is a subset of versions that actually rely on “red”, and their answers often refer to gruesome penguins.

Posted at 5:35 PM | 5 Comments »

I certainly have a cupboard full of glassware, but I have to admit that if I stumbled across cocktail glasses like this, I might snag them.

These are from my parents’ cupboard, and when I was a kid and first learned about martinis and martini glasses, I always lusted after having a frosty martini in a glass like this. I’ve yet to have one, even now!

We do our ’tinis here in relatively standard old fashioned glasses, which is like a guy’s club, I guess. Nice style, but not snazzy like this specimen.

In the course of googling associated with generating this entry, I have discovered that the official bartender name of the particular variety of martini that’s currently my favorite is, tada!, a dusty martini! It has a bit of olive brine instead of vermouth. I split on several traditional aspects. I like gin; that’s traditional, although many prefer vodka, and increasingly (shiver), flavored vodkas. I make my martini over ice; that’s not traditional—up is….

Posted at 5:31 PM | 5 Comments »

Quadruple batch underway…that is, four boxes of food-processor-pulverized wafers and nuts being added to the sugar-cocoa-bourbon mixture….

Two major themes of interest today: T (aka E) and I had a bourbon-ball party—making them, that is; and, hmm, maybe that was all! The rest was like dusting, uneventful, but you do it anyway.

Posted at 10:14 PM | 3 Comments »

Today wasn’t our first hard frost, but almost. Certainly it’s the first I got outside to record!

I remain amazed that the pansys can survive our winters—and be cheerful about it! (well, wilty until the temps rise).

Trying a new recipe tonight. Chicken (pieces). Roasted. Should be easy. I’ll type it up if it works! (Stay tuned!)

Posted at 5:19 PM | Comments Off on Cold & hot