The Great Adventure
Yep, it’s Bundt Cake Day! Hooray!
Check out this site all this month for all the latest bundt news.
Tonight I’ll be breaking out the camera to immortalize my own sweetie’s bundt masterpiece. Then I’ll be breaking out the fork. Yum!
Posts Tagged ‘food’
It's a team effort - and in this case there's no "me" in "team".
“What should we have for dinner?” my sweetie asks me fairly often.
“Um…” Think! What haven’t we had lately? What complements the weather? Do I have a hankering for something? How much work will it be to prepare? “… chicken?”
“OK, how about chicken with a buttery-garlicky sauce and spicy mashed potatoes? We can have a salad later. Would that be all right?”
Would that be all right. My sweetie is funny sometimes. So after the anguished seconds it takes me to simply name an animal, she dashes off a complete menu that she pulls from thin air, along with a schedule.
I’m eating well these days.
Stories
When telling a story, it’s important to know where to begin. Do you start at the temporal beginning, the moment when, confronted with an idea so mind-bogglingly awesome, so blindingly obvious in retrospect that it must be the work of genius that you lose the power of speech? Or do you start at the other end, a day later, with the moment of truth when that idea faces reality and your own personal test begins? Or do you approach the story sideways, beginning with the thought that defines what it all means?
Or do you find three sentences, one for each of those moments, and let them tell the entire story — a tiny play in three acts:
“Peanut butter banana bread,” she said.
She set the two slices of banana bread — one chocolate, the other peanut butter — in front of me and said, “I really need you to be objective for a minute.”
I laughed and said, “I didn’t think I could love you more than I already did until you said, ‘peanut butter banana bread.’”
Bars of the World Tour
Some Instructions are More Difficult to Follow than Others
May 4th, 2010“Enjoy your hot sandwich” the sticker on my breakfast said. Unfortunately, I failed to follow directions. I did not enjoy my hot sandwich. Despite a rather good supper earlier in the flight, and sevaral tasty things that accompanied the hot breakfast sandwich, the sandwich itself was so ** that the presense of mushrooms only made it a little bit worse.
I expect the sticker was intened to serve as a warning. “Caution! Hot!” is not nearly as friendly (but easier to comply with).
**: still searching for just the right word. it seems that airline breakfasts the world over feel obligated to include some sort of hot egg-based food product. The person who finally comes up with a breakfast product that can be reheated in a microwave, includes egg, and is not so laden in fat (in this case cheese, butter, and oil on a croissant-like bread product) that you start to feel shiny just looking at it, will make a mint. The **ness of the modern options is so oppressive that a token mushroom or two will just vanish in the palatal goo.
Accompanying the sandwich was a cup with a foil lid. On the lid it said (something like) “Breyer’s Premium Smooth And Creamy Extra-Rich Low Fat.” I wondered if anyone in the hype department at the company noticed that they left off the nature of the product itself in their haste to pile on more superlatives. So many adjectives, no noun. (It was yogurt, by the way, and exceptionally good yogurt at that.)
After I wolfed down my breakfast I closed the box it came in (per instructions) and there on the top was the quote “All happiness depends a leisurely breakfast” attributed to some guy named John Gunther. Hm… should have read that instead of the thing about enjoying the hot sandwich.
Observations
... or to write a story about.
I’m sure other people have already thought to be afraid of this, but it’s new for me. I was thinking about genetically modified foods the other day, comparing them to newer, faster computers. It’s not the end consumers who benefit most from either technology; in the case of computers it’s the software and OS developers who win. For genetically modified foods, it’s the farmers and the big agricultural companies who benefit the most.
Sure the end users may benefit indirectly from having more awesome small-shop applications to try (modern power-hungry operating systems are packed with features that make creating robust applications simpler) or less pesticides on the food (plants can be modified to fight back agains pests), but for the most part people are not getting much of a perceptible lift.
Sometimes the practices of the big agribusiness companies like Monsanto don’t even help the farmers. They have now created versions of their big-selling products that don’t reproduce. That is to say, a farmer can’t keep some of his crop from one year to use as seed the next. He must go back to the big seed factory each year if he wants to grow crops that have the other benefits that make his farm profitable. (My information on this is actually a few years old; I don’t know what has happened since, so I might be totally wrong. That happens fairly often.)
I promised at the start that I would give you a new source of fear, and I’m a man of my word. Here’s the scenario: Farmers grow crops that can’t be used as seed. Then Something Happens, and the agri-giants are unable to create seed crops, either. It could be something as simple as bankruptcy or a corporate move to manipulate seed prices. It could be some sort of genetically engineered snafu if you want to Fear the Machine while you’re at it. Whatever mechanism you want to invoke, suddenly all these high-tech seeds that the farmers were counting on are not there. In their place – nothing. As winter comes farmers are reaping a record harvest they can’t replant, and they already know that there are not enough seeds for spring. Not nearly enough. Then what?
To make the story scarier, it would be best to wait until the agricultural giants are more entrenched in developing countries as well, but even if it happened now it would be something to worry about. Worrying is one of the things I do best.
Nothing says "Jesus isn't dead anymore" like gooey, sugary treats.
The Easter Bunny paid a visit last week, leaving a treasure trove of yummy goodies on my nightstand. For whatever reason the leporidal spring icon snubbed my sweetie's nightstand, but being the guy I am, I'm happy to share. Thus it came to pass that we found ourselves with Peeps and chocolate bunnies to munch. As we contemplated our sugar-laden feast The Light of My Life looked at me with round eyes. "We have graham crackers!"
Cracker, bunny head, and peep, ready for the microwave
As every red-blooded American knows, marshmallow+chocolate+graham cracker = s'mores. Traditionally smores are eaten around campfires, where one heats the marshmallow over the flames and then wedges it into a sandwich were the hot marshmallow softens the chocolate. We lacked a campfire, and used our trusty microwave oven instead.
Many of you may be aware of what happens to marshmallows in a microwave. With Peeps it's even better. Let me tell all of you now: Drop whatever you are doing, go to the store, buy some peeps, bring them home, and put one in the microwave. Do it! I'll wait...
You're back? Great! Wasn't that the funniest thing you've ever seen? Ever? Unfortunately, my attempts to photograph the peeps while in the microwave failed, so those of you who did not drop everything to put a peep in the microwave will just have to perform the experiment later.
Once the peep and the chocolate were all gooey and yummy we slapped on graham cracker lids and sat in front of the television stuffing our faces with sugar. And that, dear readers, is what Easter's all about.
Yeah, we know how to whoop it up around here.
For the next couple of days we will be holding the official ceremonies to commemorate my sweetie’s embarking on her fifth decade of life. Heady times! Yesterday I got to meet a sister-of-sweetie, one I had not had the pleasure of meeting before, and tonight we will be gathering at the parent’s house for The Casserole.
I’m not sure what The Casserole is, but when the light of my life mentions it I can hear the capital letters.
Idle Chit-Chat
The national soft drink of the Czech republic certainly has its own character.
Back around 1959 or soon thereafter, the powers that be in the Czech Republic were looking for something to do with some sort of caffeinated byproduct of the coffee roasting process. They turned the problem over to a chemistry lab which developed KOFO syrup. Shortly thereafter Kofola was born, and Eastern Europe rejoiced that their children could also rot their teeth on carbonated sugar water.
Kofola boasts some 14 “natural” ingredients, and while the various references agree on the number, I could find no list stating what all of them were. The Wikipedia article (and the dozen other places that quote Wikipedia without citing it) focuses on things like apple extract, while others mention cardamom and licorice. They are proud to have less sugar than Coca-cola (almost certainly beet sugar in Kofola’s case), and essentially the same amount of caffeine as Coke, which is pretty tame by today’s standards.
According to the boys at Kofola, they are every bit as popular as the American invaders, but in my personal experience I don’t see how that could be true. Maybe it’s a city-country thing. More likely it’s a generational divide, and the people who drink Kofola were the ones who learned to like soda when the western options were limited. Among the people I know, however, Kofola drinkers are rare enough that in my years here I had never tasted Kofola. I decided this was one of the things I had to do before my return to the US.
I went to the corner store to buy a small bottle of the stuff. While I stood scanning the soft drink choices I noticed that the 2-liter bottle was the same price as the 1/2-liter bottle. Hm… I paid my money and hauled the big boy home. After all, if I liked the stuff, I wouldn’t want to regret not getting more for the same price.
I held my anticipation in check, deciding that my first taste of the stuff should be chilled. I wedged the bottle in the freezer next to the carp and waited. Before long I felt tired so I moved the drink from freezer to fridge and went to sleep.
The next morning I was up at the crack of midmorning and ready to try Kofola. I poured a glass, sniffed, swigged. As you might recall from the title of this episode, Kofola isn’t very good. I can also say that it defies description. Anyone who buys into Dr. Pepper’s claim as the most original soft drink in the world has not had Kofola. Perhaps if the communists had asked a kitchen to develop the syrup rather than a chemistry lab things might be different. Perhaps. Perhaps the recipe is “the fourteen things they had a surplus of in 1960.”
Now I have in my refrigerator most of two liters of Kofola (I had a second glass of the stuff to see if it might be one of those flavors that grows on you), and two carp. In the spirit of Communist Czechoslovakia, perhaps I should find a recipe that combines the ingredients I have a surplus of. CArp au Kofola, anyone?
Day three of the Twelve Days of Not Being a Recluse
So far my quest to get out and interact with my friends has been gonig pretty well. I’m fortunate right now that some old friends are back in town, visiting from pretty much the opposite side of the planet. If you drilled directly through the center of the Earth from Prague would you wind up in New Zealand? Is there a web site to show you the opposite side of the Earth from any point? If not, why not? It would be trivial to make. Easier to make than to find, I think.
It was cold today, but a friendly, dry cold. Ice in patches, but no snow. Sunshine. M2&L&m picked me up at the bus stop where I waited, my hands getting cold as they held my book. I was early to get there and they were not. They have an infant. Time works differently.
Lunch was at a restaurant in a Vietnamese market and was quite yummy. The smallest of my hosts, the one only half a year old, watched me with a cool detachment. I’m told she smiles at almost everyone. Almost. Conversation centered around the child. Not surprisingly, she is above average. The parents (one of whom is Chinese) will happliy pay extra for toys not manufactured in China. Baby-therm struck them as a brilliant idea that they would happily pay for. I really should do something with that.
After lunch we drove back to the flat they are borrowing, and while the the parents were dealing with the logistics of getting child and critical groceries purchased and up the stairs I repaired to a humble bar near their place. Surprisingly this humble hospoda is a WiFi Free establishment. Just need a password. Probably won’t ask.
***
Another good day of talking over beers. When speaking with M2 politics is inevitable, and illuminating. Our biggest disagreement: he doesn’t like any politician willing to raise taxes. I would rather pay the taxes now than borrow (stealing liquidity from the market, by the way — there’s a bit of a problem there right now). M2 said it was easier for a politician to spend tax money than borrowed money, but as I ponder this now, I realize that the exact opposite it true. It is much easier to spend borrowed money, where the accounting comes later, than tax revenue, where people feel the hurt now. When you tax, people might say no. Borrow-and-spend, the Republican approach to finance, is cowardly. Wish I’d managed to articulate it better tonight. But enough of that.
At the bar there was a really cool dog, mostly German Shepherd, but big for the breed (still a puppy) and with long silvery hairs accenting his coat. He was all right. We got along great. I’m pretty sure the pup agreed with my views of fiscal policy.
The start of twelve days of being social.
I’ve been even more reclusive that usual lately, and I’ve decided to give myself a challrnge that may prove substantially more diffucult than writing a novel in thirty days — instead the challenge is to get out and see friends twelve consecutive days. Just being in Little Café Near Home working while people are around doesn’t count; I actually have to interact. In fact, I should probably make a rule that LCNH doesn’t count, or I can only count it once, or something like that. I’m making this up as I go along. The goal is to break my bad habit of finding reasons not to go out when friends invite me, and maybe even come up with my own plan from time to time.
Today’s kickoff was easy; I was invited to a family dinner. Historical trivia: “Good King Winceslas” is not a Christmas carol, but a boxing day song. The 26th of December is St. Stephen’s day. While there were no Vaclav’s (rhymes with Winceslas, who was Bohemian) at the dinner, it was still a festive (and belly-busting) affair. Mmmm… duck and knedliky (potato dumplings). Homemade cookies. No carp. One bit of bad planning: I wore my “nice” blue jeans. They’re nice because I don’t wear them much. I don’t wear them much because they’re a bit on the snug side. Not the right outfit for gluttony. Whatever the reason, I was a little concerned when I declined more duck that I might hurt my host’s feelings. I was stuffed.
It was a relaxed and pleasant dinner, some conversation in English and some in Czech, and then it was home to take a nap. (One topic of discussion as dinner wound down: the amount of time different animal species spend sleeping. It’s good to be a lion.)
So day one of Twelve Days of Social is a success! I really don’t know how I’m going to pull all of them off. New Year’s Eve I’ll be going down to the center of town, which I’m told is completely crazy. You know all those warnings on fireworks? They will be disregarded. “Wear eye protection” is a common piece of advice. Not really my kind of thing, but worth seeing once. (At this point it’s such pyrotechnic madness in my imagination that I’m probably heading for disappointment.) Anyway, anyone who reads this is welcome to join me. We can meet at the statue of Winceslas. (Did you see how I brought that back around to where I started? Not bad, huh?)
Not a venerable institution by any means, but one that meant a lot to me. I hope this obit is premature.
Saxová PaliÄinkarna (rhymes with Sax’s Creperie) is under new ownership. There is still a resident pup, but rather than Sax the golden retriever, we have a little dog with a fancy haircut. The dog seems all right, but it’s not the same as being greeted by Sax. (Sax remains in the logo, flipping a palaÄinky, his other paw resting on a big stack of yummy treats.
This was my second visit since the changeover. First visit: Cool! Things are still working here and the old guy with the bushy beard (who I hoped was the new owner) is a hoot. Second visit: Ehh… The food lacked magic, and they had an easy time forgetting they had customers to take care of.
This could be growing pains, just people who thought owning a restaurant would be cool (and rightly figuring grandpa would be great), who still need some time to get used to how much work even a small restaurant generates. I hope they grow into the job and find success; they seem like a good bunch of people.
Perhaps my geekiest episode ever, but I think this way, sometimes.
Yesterday, as I was regarding a bunch of bananas in the kitchen, I mentally dashed off this code snippet:
#typedef enum {
Banana_Green = 0,
Banana_Yellow,
Banana_Spotted,
Banana_Brown
} BananaRipeness;
#typedef enum {
Take_Banana = 0,
Hold_Out_For_Banana_Bread
} BananaAction;
- (BananaAction) takeBanana:(BananaBunch *)bunch
{
if ( (0 == [bunch count]%3) && [bunch ripeness] > Banana_Yellow ) {
return Hold_Out_For_Banana_Bread;
}
else {
return Take_Banana;
}
}
People who live in houses where banana bread is made will, of course, understand at a glance that when the bananas are getting on in ripeness and there is a multiple of three bananas remaining, one does not take a banana, but rather one holds out for banana bread, lest they face the ire of their fellow residents. Some debate is possible whether the ripeness threshold should be past yellow, as in my code here, or whether one should start holding out earlier, even though the bananas still have a few days left.
It is very good to be in a house where banana count is important.
Code notes: this is written in (more or less) Objective-C, and assumes there is already defined a collection called BananaBunch. I generally avoid multiple exit points in a function, but this one is simple enough that I decided it was OK. I haven’t bothered checking the code for errors, it’s just not that sort of exercise.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but this spring has been a prodigious one as far as pregnancies go around here. You can’t swing a cat in this neighborhood without hitting a pregnant lady. Knowing what was going on, I wasn’t terribly surprised to see that the (now-literally) mom and pop palačink
It has lost its coat of Christmas fuzz, and one of the big hairy statues is gone, but it will always be Café Fuzzy to me.
Fresh-squeezed orange juice, a particularly fine cup of Earl Grey, and my breakfast sandwich (hold the ketchup) is on the way. The sound of falling water all around me from the integrated waterfall-sculptures (complete with large hairy structure). It’s good to be back.
Café Fuzzy, complete with big hairy sculptures
I stand out a little bit here. This place is bright and modern, people are dressed for business. I’m a wee bit on the scruffy side. I’m American, though, and the folks here are willing to make allowances for that. In fact, I think I can even take a picture without breaking the Mind Your Own Business code. This isn’t the kind of place where patrons still remember having to worry about who might be watching them.
Local food, local service.
The first billboard for the McDonald’s in Lordsburg, NM is at least sixty miles to the west, somewhere in the trackless deserts of Southern Arizona. I had had only a light breakfast (a chunk of beef jerky washed down with Mountain Dew) and I was starting to have feeding urges. Another hour’s drive sounded about right.
As I approached, I considered pushing on a little farther to Deming, sixty more miles to the east. A timely gastric rumbling decided me, and I signaled to leave the freeway. McDonalds was right there – easy off, easy on.
But, what a minute… McDonalds? What the heck was I thinking? This is New Mexico. I spotted a little food shack just behind the McD’s. Much better choice. Well, it would have been except that it was out of business. Bummer. Then I noticed that in the competition between chains and local joints was far from over; the Dairy Queen had been stripped of its distinctive signage and instead just read, “Don Juan’s Now Open.” I decided to drop in on Juan.
Don Juan’s is a little place, quite obviously a converted fast food joint. There were about ten different kinds of burritos, all three dollars, all with green chile. There were tacos and stuff as well, but I scored a pair of chile reilleno burritos and a coke. Juan and I chatted about the rainstorms of last night, what a nice day it had turned out to be after all, and then my food was ready. I sat and opened my book, which I think disappointed Don Juan, but I was too busy eating some fine home cookin’ anyway. Soon after a pair of border patrol trucks pulled up, then the state police were represented, then a guy from a construction company showed up with a huge order.
My one regret: not getting an extra side order of the green. The chile he used was good, but if some is good, then more is better.
Had I seen the cops and border patrol cars there when I pulled up, I would have know already that Don Jose was the place to go. Those guys know. As it was I was lucky, had some tasty food that doesn’t happen at chain restaurants, along with friendly service. He does not offer Green Chile Cheeseburgers, however. “I used to cook burgers at the old place,” Don Juan told a Navajo couple who were in for the first time. “I’m tired of them.” Yes indeed, the American Dream right there kids, from flipping burgers to having his own place. Please join me in wishing him all the best.
If you’re down Lordsburg way, do yourself a favor and pay Juan a visit.
