Cubano... crêpe!?

So I have a bit of a fascination with the Cubano sandwich and variations... the complexities of cooking eggs also entice me... and my mom gave me a crepe pan for Christmas (not exactly my first choice for a new pan, but still nice)... so the combination seems obvious, no? Well actually, it was an episode of Throwdown where the challenger (and eventual winner) made a Cuban Crepe that made it all click.

I know absolutely nothing about making crêpes, and don't think I've even had them more than once or twice... so maybe I should visit a local crêperie and see what this is all about.

I admit to being intrigued.

Boston burrito fun facts

In pondering a Matt Yglesias post regarding DC Burritos(or lack thereof) I learned that my two favorite local burrito chains(Anna's Taqueria and Boca Grande) are owned by siblings... Michael and Mariko Kamio... and they both modeled their shops after their cousin's in San Fransico. Huh. I guess neither can really be that bitter, since they're both presumably making money hand over fist and have been for some time... but you'd think you might wonder if the other couldn't have opened up a burger joint instead. But then, is there really such a thing as burrito saturation? I say no.

The Joys of Holiday Travel

I'm flying down to Baltimore tomorrow morning and, predictably, it will be in the midst of some icy wintery mix thing. Doesn't sound too bad really... but it would be nice to not be stuck in the airport for any extended periods. The good news is that my flight is early enough (8:30 am) that the plane should already be there, so the fact that the weather will be even worse in the Midwest should have minimal impact (I hope). The bad news is that since it's Christmas Eve, and the roads might be a mess, I'll have to leave so early (even taking a cab) that's its unlikely that any delays will have been announced by the time I have to leave "just in case". Oh well, I have books and a DS so I should be fine... and I have the personality type that would rather sit in the airport than risk missing a flight by cutting it too close... so it's really much better for my sanity this way.

Anyway, I have to pack, there isn't anything I find interesting enough to blog about right now, and I'm strangely tired even though I had an easy night with an early bedtime... so that's probably it for me for a while. My schedule is relatively action packed, so I doubt I'll have much time to update the blog. I'm back in Boston Monday night (weather permitting). Happy Holidays/Merry Chirstmas/Whatever!

1 more minute of sunshine today

Soak it up. Hooray for the Solstice!

Omelette Blogging

I don't really have any problems making your standard American style folded omelette... there's not really all that much to it. The only technique is getting it from the pan to the plate, and that's something even a beginner like me can master pretty quickly. However, the latest Cooking Illustrated has a recipe for a French style rolled omelette that looked pretty intriguing. It was supposed to be a foolproof method that took most of the skill out of the equation, though obviously they weren't planning on me... as my attempt did not turn out so well(pan was too hot methinks). Even though I couldn't even make the "easy" version, I decided to check out my Julia Child's and see how the experts do it... after 11 pages(!) and several snazzy illustrations I'm still pretty confused... but luckily there's YouTube:

That's actually her n00b omelette[UPDATE: I'm not entirely sure about that in retrospect since the n00b recipe involves a fork... hmmm]... not the rolled version, which she still claims you can make with only the flicks of your wrist... which is somewhat hard to believe. See:

Voilà?

I think I need to try and track down some more footage.

UPDATE: I missed this at first on my initial read through of the recipe, but apparently there is a training regimen for the "Look Ma No Hands!" Technique.

The rolled omelette is the most fun of any method, but requires more practice. Here the pan is jerked over high heat at an angle so that the egg mass is continually hurled against the far lip of the pan until the eggs thicken. Finally, as the pan is tilted further while it is being jerked, the eggs roll over at the far lip of the pan, forming an omelette shape. A simple-minded but perfect way to master the movement is to practice outdoors with half a cupful of dried beans. As soon as you are able to make them flip over themselves in a group, you have the right feeling; but the actual omelette-making gesture is sharper and rougher.

OK, I'll be back in 6 months with a Rocky style montage and perfect omeletts.

Warren Redux

Joe Klein lays it down:

I have no problem with Barack Obama asking Reverend Rick to deliver a prayer at the Inauguration. It will have zero--repeat, zero--impact on the policies of the Obama Administration. And it may do some good, especially if it gives pause to all those people who think that I--and the crypto-Muslim Barack Obama--are going to hell...If it causes those folks to give the new President just the slightest credit for appreciating their worldview, if it causes them to give him the benefit of the doubt on controversial stuff like talking to the Iranians or universal health insurance, then it's worth it. If it causes evangelicals to say, "Well, he's not demonizing us, maybe we shouldn't demonize him," it's worth it. If it makes Rush Limbaugh's toxic blather about our next President seem even the slightest bit ridiculous and over-the-top to his idiot legion of ditto heads, it's worth it.

The thing is, Obama is trying to change the nature of public discourse from the raw blast it has been for the past 20 years to something more civil and tolerable. You sense that every time he opens his mouth. He's all for opening doors. I don't know how many of ultra-conservative evangelicals will walk through the door he is opening by having one of their most popular leaders join the inaugural celebration, but I appreciate his inclusive intent. Even if I think there is an insurmountable roadblock to heaven--I'd guess it's about like the relationship between a camel and the eye of a needle--for those who make blanket judgments about which of us is going to hell.

You can see this is both Obama's record on Gay Rights, and his statements yesterday in regards to the OUTRAGE:

I think it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something I have been consistent on and something I intend to continue to be consistent on during my presidency.

There's never been a President who would even dream of of saying something like that... and I'm supposed to get upset because Obama invited a prominent voice of Christianity to the table? Does Warren equate homosexuality with pedophilia? Yes. Does he think Pro-Choice advocates are the equivalent of Nazis? Yes. But so do a lot of Americans. Americans that voted for Obama at double the percentage Kerry got. Now, their views of homosexuality are, by and large, patently offensive and and their statements are often repugnant... but I've got news for you... we're going to have to peel off the moderates if we want to get anything done before the bigots get old and die. National support for gay marriage is quite weak, and even civil unions barely break 50%:

That's just too big a percentage of the population to keep from the table.

The Onion wins the Internet (again)

Area Woman Becomes Republican Vice Presidential Candidate

and

Housing Crisis Vindicates Guy Who Still Lives With Parents

A slap in the face!

Like Jon Cole, I think this is getting to be a bit much. I'm sorry, I just can't muster much outrage about Rick Warren doing the invocation for the inauguration. Who did you think he was going to pick? Are there a lot of high profile religious leaders who support gay marriage and/or are cool with abortion? Not that I've heard of... and even if there were, is his inauguration the right time to lay down the gauntlet for that/those fight(s)? Right off the bat he's going to tell everyone that Culture War is (back) ON? Why doesn't he just have Chis Hitchens come up and drunkenly urinate on the Bible? I mean, really... what did you expect?

Size doesn't matter

Ahem, kitchen size that is.

Apparently, a Mark Bittman blog post featuring a picture of himself preparing his braised turkey recipe in his own New York City apartment generated quite the furor... how could a man who's written so many lovely cookbooks not have a gigantic kitchen with industrial strength burners and granite countertops?!

Because none of that matters. Bittman's rebuttal:

Interestingly, none of the queries, condolences and commiserations came from women born before World War II, women (whom I often describe loosely if unfairly as “grandmothers”) who grew up learning how to cook from their grandmothers. They know that it’s fully possible to cook just about anything just about anywhere, with just about any equipment at hand. I have lovely memories of my grandmother using a beat-up paring knife — which, for all I know, came over with her on the boat — for hacking garlic (she did not mince), peeling potatoes and cutting up chicken. She did not own a cutting board, and would probably be as dazzled by a food processor as by an iPhone.

No calls came from chefs, either, or from fellow food writers. They, too, know that when it comes to kitchens, size and equipment don’t count nearly as much as devotion, passion, common sense and, of course, experience. To pretend otherwise — to spend tens of thousands of dollars or more on a kitchen before learning how to cook, as is sadly common — is to fall into the same kind of silly consumerism that leads people to believe that an expensive gym membership will get them into shape or the right bed will improve their sex life. As runners run and writers write, cooks cook, under pretty much any circumstance.

I’ve developed material for my column and books when cooking on electric stoves (heat is heat, after all), in unfinished basements using hot plates and microwaves, and in borrowed kitchens all over the world. The equipment can make things more or less difficult, of course, but after all, cooking is cooking.

As an urban apartment liver since I reached adulthood, I am quite familiar with small kitchens that lack modern conveniences... though before I started cooking a few years ago, I mostly used my kitchen as a place to store left over take-out and yet to be drunk beer... our current kitchen is the first one I've had that had a garbage disposal, and I've never had a dishwasher. It does seem that the crucial thing is to have an oven and refrigerator that work and maintain the proper temperatures (and you can buy cheap thermometers for both). I've cooked in a few fancy kitchens and on fancy appliances, as my mother has a love of redoing kitchens (for aesthetic and resale value reasons mainly - though she does cook a fair bit), and certainly not found myself to be a better cook in those environments.

The counter argument, unrelated to any real estate considerations, would be that if you love cooking and are going to spend a lot of time doing it... why not make it as nice an experience as possible? Certainly, while an expert cook could whip up a gourmet meal with a Bunsen burner and a banged up pot from Goodwill, I don't imagine they'd want to do it all the time. In addition, that sort of blurs the line between all kitchen equipment too much for my tastes... while "hot is hot", a really crappy aluminum pan with hot spots is going to make it harder to cook well. Yeah, I'm sure Mario Batali and all them wouldn't care, but it seems to me that nice pots and pans are a justified cooking expense... though maybe I'm just trying to rationalize my Amazon wish list.

I guess the take home message is just to keep it in perspective and realize that a 30K kitchen might make you happy because it's so shiny and it might be a good investment... but it's not going to make you a better cook(and I suppose that goes for $200 Le Creuset pots as well). If you can't afford that new kitchen or new pan because your 401K is in the toilet, it's really just not something that's going to handicap you that much... certainly I did fine on a cheap 10 piece cookware set from Target(and still use to this day) until I realized I wanted to invest in something better.

Google Transit

via Matt Yglesias

I noticed recently that Google Maps was starting to give directions by foot, as well as car, but it appears in participating cities you can also get directions by mass transit. Unfortunately, the MBTA isn't participating... I presume because they already have their own "trip planner" on their website which has similar features. If that is indeed their thinking, it seems a little shortsighted as Google has a much larger ability to mainstream this kind of thing than isolated transit websites... if people get used to getting access to bus and train schedules the same way they get driving directions it seems like it would definitely drive up ridership... especially on the less "newb friendly" types of transit, like buses. It's also hard to overestimate how handy the "street view" of Google Maps can be for identifying where a bus stop or subway station is.

Anyway, here's an example from New York, getting from the Met to see the Mets:

View Larger Map

If you click on the link, you'll see you can select up to 4 different routes taking different trains, or only buses, with ETAs. Pretty cool. I do wonder, in the end, how many people besides tourists and new residents would use it that much... for the most part I know how to get around the city... but then, probably if you asked me how often I'd get driving directions when that was new I'd probably have said "rarely" too, where now I often double check directions even to places we go semi-frequently.

No, you're supposed to throw flowers

Still not greeted as liberators. In case you were wondering whether throwing your shoes was a gesture of respect in the Arab world:

Throwing a shoe at someone is considered the worst possible insult in Iraq and is meant to show extreme disrespect and contempt. When U.S. forces helped topple a statue of Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein after rolling into Baghdad in April 2003, jubilant Iraqis beat the statue's face with their shoes.

I have to agree with Josh Marshall that a) I would have taken that shoe right between the eyes, and b) it's a bit disturbing how long it took for the guy to get tackled.

Heart breaker

The Steelers just have the Ravens number this year, it seems.

Still got the inside track for the wild card, I think, but next up Dallas on Saturday night.

UPDATE: Here's Peter King on the controversial call on the game winning Steelers TD.

Last night at NBC, we watched the same four replays Walt Coleman saw at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore in the final minute of the Steelers-Ravens game. You've seen it by now: With the ball at the Baltimore four-yard line and the Ravens up 9-6, Ben Roethlisberger scrambled and eventually found Santonio Holmes just over the goal line in the end zone. Holmes caught the pass very close to the goal line, with the ball appearing to be outside the goal line at first look and his feet to be in the end zone. The head lineman, Paul Weidner, standing at the goal line on the far sideline, peered around a player as he tried to see the play, and he ruled the ball did not touch the plane of the goal line. All the ball has to in this case is touch the imaginary plane of the goal line while the player has two feet down. It was agonizingly close, but Weidner ruled the ball should be placed at about the three-inch line.

The magnitude of the play can't be overstated. If the play is upheld, it's fourth and three inches, and Mike Tomlin has the biggest call of his coaching career to make -- go for the touchdown to win the game, knowing he might end up turning it over on downs, or kick the gimme field goal and play for overtime. A Pittsburgh win would clinch the division title. A Baltimore win would tie the two mortal enemies with two weeks to go.

For the record, I think it was a touchdown, but I agree with King that there wasn't "indisputable" evidence to overturn the call on the field. But oh well, that's football.

The perfect NFL gift for any Rams fan

LOL

(credit to Bill Simmons)

P.S. I know what's on detektor's x-mas list!

Can they do that?

The Illinois AG is asking the Illinois Supreme Court to "temporarily remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office and appoint Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn as acting governor"... apparently because it would be quicker than impeachment, and everyone is afraid Blago's going to appoint somebody to the Senate in the meantime.

Anyway, while I support getting that clown out of power as quickly as possible, it seems a little bit wacky for judges to have to power to change who's running the state... but, of course, I am no lawyer and I have no idea what the Illinois Constitution says, so maybe it makes perfect sense. But according to this, the argument is that he is "unable to serve as governor due to disability and should not rightfully continue to hold that office." Disability? Ehhhh... I guess being in Federal custody does disable your options a bit, but that still seems like a stretch.

Frankly, I think they should impeach him, but still have a special election for Obama's Senate seat... after this mess, and the(while not corrupt) unseemly goings on regarding Biden's seat... it just seems like every state should just go with special elections. Yeah, politically, sometimes you are going to get a Republican from an election when the Governor would have appointed a Democrat, and vice versa... but it seems like that stuff would even out, and it would be leaps and bounds better than inviting corruption and cronyism with appointments.

Detroit Bailout Dead

So, Dems negotiated a deal with Bush and lame-duck GoP Senators killed it.

I have no idea what happens now, since Teh Congress is supposed to go on vacation until January... but the stock market will be fun today! WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Trans-gender WoW

Ta-Nehisi on the new Blizzard option to allow people to re-customize their characters(including gender):

Yeah, they really are. I'm actually playing as a belf chick now, and a week ago, I would have gladly welcomed the chance to wear the pants again. But then something happened. The other day I was doing some PvP in Alterac Valley, when I got into it withe a fellow hordie who kept whining about paladins. It got pretty heated, to the point that I told him I wish I was till Alliance so I could come and kill him. Yeesh. He was prolly a 13 year old kid--at least judging by his response, which was "Get back in the kitchen. Hoes don't play Warcraft!"

It then occurred to me that I, for the first time in my life, had been the target of a sexist remark. And then I started seeing the cool thing about playing a girl in an MMO, the chance to experience life through the eyes of someone else. You guys know me--I'm all about seeing the world in other ways. This is, of course, an imperfect experience--half the chicks running around in WoW are kids who want to watch the back-side of a draenei while the farm.

LOL.

When I first started playing WoW, the gender of your t00n was actually a fairly big deal. Now, I was in my twenties and pretty confident in my sexuality (I wore nail polish for a while there), so the "R U GHEY!?" arguments against a male having a female character never held much weight for me... but some my nonchalance also probably came from being a little too old for the MySpace Generation, where a high percentage of flirting and hook-ups originates online. I'm playing a game, first and foremost... and utilizing a 3D chat room to make friends and meet people somewhere way down at the bottom... so the idea of having a character that "represents me" doesn't really enter into my skull. It seems though, that over the years, as it's become completely obvious that 9 out of 10 times that smoking hot Night Elf with the physically impossible proportions is a 32 year old male biomedical engineer... any previous stigma has basically disappeared.

But anyway... if you always wished your 73rd level gnome warrior had been born a girl instead of a boy, now is your chance to rectify that for a mere $15.

Essential Cookbooks

Ezra has a post at IFA outlining his 5 essential cookbooks... none of which I own, so I have no real comment on the particulars of his list... though I asked for Bittman's latest revision of How to Cook Everything for Christmas, since I generally enjoy his NYT blog, even though I don't consider myself much of a cooking minimalist.

As someone who only started cooking, for serious, a few years ago, I find most cookbook recipes to be garbage for my needs... as they're generally written for people who already know how to cook. I'm also an engineer who works in a research lab, so I tend to get frustrated by the "la-la-la, dash of this, dab of that"... imprecision... in the attitudes of most cooks and their cookbooks. So, from my perspective, an "essential" cookbook has to include fairly explicit directions... there's a fair bit of difference, to someone who's never made a pot roast before, between "cook until done" and "cook until a fork slides easily into the meat"... and also, I like to get a bit of why with my recipes. It's great to have foolproof recipes, but if I don't know why you put the pie crust into the fridge for 45 minutes, how am I ever going to learn to actually cook? All I'll ever do is follow recipes by rote; afraid to substitute or deviate.

To that end, my two essential cookbooks are (to nobody who's read this blog's surprise) The New Best Recipe by Cook's Illustrated and I'm Just Here For the Food by Alton Brown. As a big fan of Cook's Illustrated, I have quite a few of their cookbooks (even an America's Test Kitchen one) as well as a magazine subscription, but the only cookbook they make that I would call truly essential is The New Best Recipe. For one thing, they repeat recipes a lot, so you might have a Four Cheese Pasta that is in NBR that is also in The Best International Recipe that also reappears in Cook's Illustrated from time to time... so while there are recipes in my Soups and Stews cookbook that I love, I certainly wouldn't call it an essential book. The additional factor is that all Cook's Illustrated recipes aren't created equal. The ones in NBR are superior in writing and testing, and always seem to come out flawlessly, whereas I have found other Cook's recipes to be more hit and miss. So I think, really all you need of their massive assortment of published works is The New Best Recipe, to cover every classic and standard American dish, and maybe a subscription to Cook's Illustrated if you like to try out the new variations and more international options... though, if you're a big fan of French cooking, for example, I imagine you could find a better "bible" than Cook's Illustrated's take.

I should note that the one drawback to The New Best Recipe, and Cook's Illustrated in general, is that Rachael Ray they are not. If you are looking for 30 minute meals you need to look elsewhere, as their idea of compromise is often turning the classic three days of cooking recipe from 1470 into a modern version that "only" takes 7 hours. It's not quite that bad, but their idea of a weeknight meal probably takes two hours from start to table. That's the way I like to cook, so it's great for me, but if you don't have that kind of time you might find the book significantly less useful. Another issue, is that most recipes have fairly... New England-esque "restrained" (I saw a commenter on IFA refer to it as "baked Calvinism" lol)... seasoning. As someone who used to put hot sauce on everything they eat, I was surprised at how quickly I came around to appreciate well cooked dishes with subtle layers of flavoring... but if you're a huge fan of big flavors, be advised some of these recipes might need to be "kicked up a notch" at the least, and possibly, just not your thing.

Alton Brown's book is a fairly different beast, with recipes taking a backseat to the science of cooking. They both endeavor to explain why, but Alton lays his book out explicitly around the idea of teaching you how to cook instead of teaching you to execute recipes. I actually don't cook a lot from his book to be honest... though those slow roasted tomatoes kick booty... but I've found it to be more and more valuable as I've gotten more experience cooking. As I've gotten good results and, sadly, made disastrous mistakes, I've understood a lot more of the underlying principles... which someday, hopefully, will allow me to cook effectively without a recipe. Which reminds me that I actually need to get back to reading my McGee, but that's a bit more advanced and dense... Alton Brown is very effective at making similar material easily understood by a wide range of audiences.

So, for the moment, those are my two "essentials" for a newb cook, with a lean towards left brained types.

The only good cucumber is a dead cucumber

I would like to add my name to the list of white people who despise cucumbers and would only eat a cucumber sandwich in hell.

Pickles are awesome though.

Mmm Goulash?

My cooking project for the week, is Cook's Illustrated's version of Hungarian Beef Stew (aka Goulash). The recipe is here, but you'll need to pay to get it... it's in the November/December issue. I've never had goulash in my life, and have frankly been a little afraid of the name... probably some leftover anti-Communist indoctrination from my youth... but also, Goulash is just an unappetizing word. A little too close to Gulag maybe. However, I'm a big fan of all stew like things, so I figured I'd give this a go... it's essentially just beef, onions, and paprika... so I figure I can handle it.

I picked up my Hungarian Sweet Paprika from Christina's this past weekend, so I'll pick up the rest today or tomorrow and report back with my attempt.

"Comically Corrupt"

So the big news this morning is the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, trying to sell Obama's vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder. Now, I don't know much about Illinois politics, but apparently this guy had been under investigation for corruption for the last three years... everyone knew his phones were tapped... and he still had the audacity to try a "pay-to-play" scheme. Unbelievable.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum says he had a 4% approval rating... can that be right?

UPDATE II: It's right. Wow, that's one unpopular dude.

UPDATE III: He was also so out to lunch that he thought, with a 4% approval rating and an ongoing federal investigation, he could appoint himself to Obama's seat and run for president in 2016. The absurdity knows no bounds.

BETRAYED

Barack Obama... Zune owner!?

No, it's not just a comic, "ZuneGate" actually happened. I think I liked it better when we were outraged that his cabinet picks weren't progressive enough... not sure I'm comfortable with outrage over his choice of mp3 player... but then I don't buy Ipods, nor do I worship at the altar of Steve Jobs, so I probably don't have the proper perspective.

Car Czar for Detroit?

Well it has some nice assonance, so that's good. Much more lyrical than "drug czar" or whatever.

The measure being discussed in Congress would put a government overseer named by President George W. Bush in charge of setting guidelines for an industrywide overhaul, with the power to revoke the loans if the automakers fail to do what's necessary to become viable. The White House was seeking tougher consequences, including allowing the overseer — being called a car czar — to force the companies into bankruptcy if they weren't doing enough to cut labor costs, restructure their debt and downsize to stay afloat.

Well, oversight is nice, but as in all things political... let's see how it's implemented.

Rags to riches, a true American Danish story

It's a fairly banal point that being born into privilege sets you up for a life of success... and while there are many stories of people lifting themselves up from poverty by their bootstraps, for the most part, people from rich families stay rich and people from poor families stay poor. That's just one of the imperfections of capitalism, right? Better than Feudalism anyway. Well Ezra Klein puts up some interesting figures from Brookings that show we in the States may be closer to Feudalism than you think, and it's the damn dirty socialists in Europe who demonstrate the most "rags to riches" (and "boardroom to the poor house").

While Ezra showed the pretty graphs, I wanted to point to a table that seems to tell the tale better:
Sucks to be poor here. Damn.

Everybody in the Army wears berets now?

Apparently. Didn't that make the Green Berets kind of pissed?

Banning cigar bars in Boston

Now, I quit smoking a year ago, but even as a smoker I thought that the cigarette ban for bars was a good thing... however, banning cigar bars? That's just stupid. Adults are allowed to do things that aren't good for them... or at least they should be. The argument about second hand smoke for wait staff in bars and restaurants was persuasive to me; after all, while customers can choose not to go to a smoke filled bar, waiters and waitresses often don't have so many options. In addition, it's clear that it had to be an all out ban, and not optional, or it never would have happened. But I don't see how that applies to our 4 whole cigar bars... or hookah bars, if we even have any.

The restrictions, which face a final vote by the commission's seven-member board on Nov. 13, also would ban smoking on outdoor patios at restaurants and other businesses and prohibit tobacco sales on college campuses and by all drug stores in the city.

That's just nonsense. I mean, what's next? Make it illegal to smoke on your own property?

UPDATE: Whoops, as you can see by the date, that was an older article. Here's a new one in Newsweek. The final vote is supposed to be Thursday... and according to the article, Boston has 6 cigar bars and 5 hookah bars.

It's cold.

And it's not even winter yet.

NFL on the Intertubes

I was going to go out and watch my beloved Ravens (hopefully) beat down the vile Redskins, but I guess they've been putting the Sunday night games out for free, live on the internet.  I'm going to see how it is...  probably not awesome, but I watched most of the Euro Cup games over the internet, and it was fine...  so we'll see.

UPDATE: Slide show.  Terrible.  Off to the bar.

BU/BC

I'm off shortly to go to some BU Engineering Alumni tailgate thing... before heading off to the game. I've actually never been to an alumni event, despite living here forever... so I'm somewhat apprehensive about it being awkward and forced, but a couple other buddies are meeting me there and I liked all my professors, so I'm sure it will be fine.

I'm looking forward to the actual game quite a bit, though I'm nervous they're going to get their asses kicked.

I saw something on USCHO.com that said that BU was #7 in the country, and #7 in Hockey East... that should give you some indication of how tough their conference is. BC won the national championship last year, and is #2 right now, so... LET'S GO BU.

6.7%

Yikes. Unemployment higher than it's been in 15 years makes it a wee bit harder to cheer the Big Three on to bankruptcy court... but, man, does that bailout still seem like a terrible idea. It's hard to argue that teaching those guys a lesson is worth a million plus jobs though.

Also, as Jon Cole says, remember this when crazy wingnutters start talking about the "Obama recession" in 4 years.

Barismo coffee

I missed my train this morning because of forgotten workout clothes, so instead of biding my time for the next one at home or at the station, I decided to get a latte at Simon's. I'm not much of a coffee snob... I buy Dunkin Donuts every morning, loaded with cream and sugar... but I do like to have real coffee on the weekends, and even have a burr grinder and weird Scandinavian coffee making device. We used the last of our coffee from our Jamaica trip a couple of weeks ago, but I had yet to restock... Simon's is just across the street, but for whatever reason I haven't made it over there. Besides being close, Simon's also carries coffee that's a cut above meh Starbucks' beans, like George Howell's Terrior coffees, which are delicious, but unfortunately range from $15-20 for a mere 12 ounces (which is why I save them for relaxing weekends). However, today I noticed a new entry in the fancy-pants coffee department called Barismo. They appear to be quite new, but they're based out of Arlington and their packaging is pretty, so what else do you need? Well, probably you want well roasted coffee... so I plan on picking some up this weekend and giving them a try. I'll report back with my completely uneducated opinion, which is what the internet is all about!

I must say that the most fascinating thing about the Barismo website is their "manual brewing" section... now that's hardcore.

Have we hit bottom yet?

via Kevin Drum, Calculated Risk says "look out below":

Using national median income and house prices provides a gross overview of price-to-income (it would be better to do this analysis on a local area). However this does shows that the price-to-income is still too high, and that this ratio needs to fall another 15% or so. The further decline in this ratio could be a combination of falling house prices and/or rising nominal incomes (Note: this uses nominal incomes, and even if real incomes are stagnant or declining, nominal incomes usually are rising).

Of course, the economy could begin to recover before housing prices return to their historical values, and who knows if the current slope of housing price decline is going to stay the same or not?

But, if you think that the housing bubble was the major problem that sent the economy tumbling, and that prices need to stabilize before true recovery can begin... then we still have some ways to go yet... certainly many quarters, and maybe years.

Treasures of the Intertubes: Swedish Dance Bands

Before embarking on a career of intergalactic mayhem, General Zod(two from left) had a successful stint as tambourine player for the Swedish dance sensation Zenits.

More here.

Senator Bush

And you thought we were done with that family. Pshaw.

He'll win it too.

Let's go 60 59!

So Saxby Chambliss won the runoff yesterday between himself and challenger Jim Martin... so no chance at the coveted "60 seats" in the Senate, which, even though everyone acknowledges is kind of a meaningless benchmark because of the way the Senate votes... and was a long shot (I mean Georgia, c'mon!) from the get go... still comes off as a bit of a disappointment.

The bizarre Coleman-Franken recount is still underway... believe it or not.

Give in to your hate

In regards to the scary situation in Mumbai, publius post on how the terrorists win with Jedi mind tricks:

As Daniel Benjamin notes in Slate, igniting tensions between the two countries benefits the terrorists in numerous ways. For one, it destabilizes a relatively hostile Pakistani government. Second, it prevents détente between the countries and thus halts progress on a Kashmir settlement. Third, it keeps the world polarized (the attacks on Westerners were intended to stoke these particular fires).

What’s maddening – and terrifying – is that the strategy might work. It certainly worked on us. And India will have a hard time resisting the urge to do something to avenge the attacks – the political pressure may prove too strong. Iraq was no picnic to be sure, but an outbreak of hostilities between two nuclear-armed states would be a different animal altogether – one that must be avoided at all costs.

Even more maddening though, India’s outrage and desire for revenge are absolutely reasonable. To be sure, revenge will lead to horrible things, but it’s unrealistic to expect a country to stoically endure attacks like these, particularly from groups with loose affiliations with a hostile state. It would have been similarly foolish to expect that Americans would be content to do nothing after terrorists training in Taliban-sheltered camps attacked it.

This whole thing makes me very very nervous. India and Pakistan have been closer to nuclear war than any of us really want to think about, and I'm guessing they're just a hair away now. If India moves troops to the Pakistani border, Pakistan will have to respond by moving troops out of the tribal areas... pushing us to the brink in so many ways. It's a nightmare.

But at the same time, as publius notes, what is India supposed to do? What did we do? You have to respond, don't you? I'm just not sure how Western Countries are supposed to do so effectively, without playing right into their hands.

"Evidence" is for damn dirty socialists

via Ezra Klien

I don't find the story Ezra links to in the New York Times surprising anymore... just exasperating.

The surprising news made headlines in December 2002. Generic pills for high blood pressure, which had been in use since the 1950s and cost only pennies a day, worked better than newer drugs that were up to 20 times as expensive.

The findings, from one of the biggest clinical trials ever organized by the federal government, promised to save the nation billions of dollars in treating the tens of millions of Americans with hypertension — even if the conclusions did seem to threaten pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer that were making big money on blockbuster hypertension drugs.

Six years later, though, the use of the inexpensive pills, called diuretics, is far smaller than some of the trial’s organizers had hoped.

Read the whole article, but things like this are a good way to remind ourselves that just doing more studies of comparative effectiveness won't magically make things cheaper. Anywhere where money and policy meet, there is politics, and biomedical research is big money and big politics. This ends up muddying the waters and making it harder for doctors to really know what they right call is... thus they stick with what they've been doing. Fair enough... to some extent.

I know doctors want to maintain independence and be able to prescribe whatever they want, but if they're not going to keep up with the literature in regards to what they're prescribing... or they think they think they know best whatever the so-called "evidence" says... I'm thinking that responsibility needs to be, at least partially, taken out of their hands. Is it possible to avoid taking away the autonomy, but still tilt things, with reimbursements and whatnot, to get it so the most effective drugs are the first option? Maybe "capitation" like Ezra suggests is the way to change the incentives so that doctors make these changes on their own... but obviously you need to balance cost savings with health outcomes, and I'm not convinced that free market principles can really be harnessed to that end.

Maybe we just need to say F-it and make a pill dispensing version of the Robot Surgeons.

Obama's National Security Team

From the latest Obama e-mail asking for money(come on guys!):

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator from New York and former First Lady, will serve as Secretary of State.

Secretary Robert Gates, the current Secretary of Defense, will continue to serve in that role.

Eric Holder, former Deputy Attorney General and a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, will serve as Attorney General.

Janet Napolitano, Governor and former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, will serve as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. Susan E. Rice, a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor to the Obama for America campaign, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, will serve as Ambassador to the United Nations.

General Jim Jones, USMC (Ret), former Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander of the United States European Command, will serve as National Security Advisor.

I'm fairly happy about all those picks. There are some concerns among Dems about taking Napolitano out of Arizona is going to turn it into some Wingnut Nirvana, but I don't live there, so I have trouble caring about that angle... she seems like she's really competent, and I'd like to see her as a Senator from Arizona after a stint in the Cabinent. Arguably she could accomplish that from the Governor's chair... but an economic downturn is probably the worst time to be a Governor, since it means budget cuts. Get out while the gettin's good!

Gates staying on seems like a smart move, because apparently the military brass really likes him, and he will give bipartisan cover for the imminent withdrawal from Iraq... also, it's probably a good time to have some stability at the Department of Defense. One of the major drawbacks, that Gates might keep all of his deputies and thus lock out Obama people seems not to be a major issue. It looks like a lot of them are leaving, so there should be plenty of room.

Susan Rice is an interesting progressive voice in foreign policy, and a darling of the left, but her resume is somewhat thin, so I'd guess UN Ambassador (elevated to a Cabinet position) is a good spot for the time being.

I haven't given much thought to either Holder or Jones... Holder's involvement in the Marc Rich pardon doesn't really bother me, and they both seem eminently qualified for their posts.

Neither Gates (because he already has the job) nor Jones(nature of the post) need Senate confirmation, but all the others do.

Where Obama wonders why he wanted to be President in the first place...

From the WaPo:

Without greater urgency and decisive action by the world community, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013...

However, from the article at least, it doesn't appear that the report identifies any new threats, it just reiterates that a nuclear armed Iran and North Korea, along with an unstable Pakistan, is really bad news.

Anyway, hoping to avoid the next Depression while fighting several wars while praying nobody blows up my city, sounds like a fun way to spend the next 4 years. At least we'll have an adult in charge. What is it now? 49 days? Can't come soon enough.

In case you were wondering...

...the recession started two years one year (I R SMRT) ago. I think that roughly coincides with everyone, besides economists, agreeing that "Gee, the economy seems pretty sucky." But you can't say recession, because that's a technical term and you need two years to confirm it. Well great. I'm all for precision in language, but if can't use the word until it's blindingly obvious to everybody but Phil Gramm, can we just leave the word out of public discourse?

The fact that everyone spent the last couple years going "Well, technically..." instead of doing something about it is fairly infuriating.

Thanksgiving Postmortem

So The Gameplan(Part I, Part II) worked very well overall, but there were a few bumps in the road (and typos that I'll fix shortly). I'll go over each item in turn, first up:

High Roast Butterflied Turkey
The turkey (left) came out the best it ever has... some of that is probably just the fact that I have much more cooking experience these days, but I also think putting the temperature probe into the breast from the direction of the neck, and close to the bone, helped a lot, as I was much more confident in the turkey's temperature than when I go straight in... but that's a pretty minor point, I'd imagine. I think the dark meat ended up a little under done, though I'm not entirely sure... but the temp readings were more in the low 170's (instead of 175) when I pulled it out. I was more concerned about the best meat being "perfect" than the quality of the dark meat, but in retrospect I should have probably stuck it back in for another 5 to 10 minutes... even though nobody eats the dark meat. The breast meat was perfectly done, however, and super moist so maybe I shouldn't second guess myself too much.

Butterflying the turkey was strangely easy this year... not sure why that was... maybe just because, by now, since butterfly/high roast is my favorite thing to do to poultry, I've cut the backbones out of 6-10 birds? Don't know, but I sliced that bad boy out pretty quickly. I was a little over zealous in trimming down the skin around the neck, which, as you can see from the picture, left part of the breast exposed to high heat... but the meat underneath was perfectly fine.

For the brine, instead of doing two gallons into my 12 quart stockpot, where adding the turkey causes a ton of water to splosh out, I tried starting with a gallon and adding brine one quart at a time... not worth it. It ended up being 1 and 3/4 gallons, and the hassle of measuring out the brine in 4 cup measurements (and doing the math to figure out how many tablespoons of sugar/salt it's supposed to be) was too great to be worth saving a tablespoon of sugar and salt.

Overall, I can't complain about how this turned out... my best effort to date, but still plenty of room for improvement.

Cornbread and Sausage Dressing
My eternal issue with this item is my inability to find an unseasoned plain fresh pork sausage... it seems like all anybody wants is fancy spiced ones. I didn't ask at the butcher counter this year, though I didn't see any on display, and last time I did they looked at me funny. It seems like I should be able to find something like boudin, even up here in New England, but maybe it's out there and I just haven't looked hard enough. Anyway, it's a relatively minor issue, but it bugs me.

My biggest problem was accidentally doubling my finely diced celery... whoops! Honestly, it was so finely diced that I couldn't really detect the effect, but it was still a bit galling when I realized. (Honey, why did I need so much more celery to make 3 cups than they said? Because you only wanted 1 1/2 cups. Doh.)

The only other issue was that it burned a bit on the edges and bottom, which has never happened before. Not a big deal, since there was plenty of stuffing, so I could just leave that in the pan... but I'm not sure why it happened. Did I not spray enough of the cooking spray? Was it the accursed celery? Hmmmm.

Turkey Gravy
My Le Creuset dutch oven was definitely the right call here. I was somewhat worried that things wouldn't brown well with less surface area, but since I was stirring every 10 minutes, it didn't seem to be a problem... it took maybe 50-60 minutes instead of 40-50 to get things well browned, but that's probably not outside the general recipe margin of error. It also seemed to make more sense not to transfer the stock and parts to a separate saucepan after deglazing, when I could just do the deglazing and subsequent simmering in the same pot.

The flavor was fantastic, but I had trouble with the roux for the third straight year. It got clumpy, which I think means I needed more fat, but I wasn't quick enough on the uptake to realize that at the time. I need more study on that one, but I think the fact that I was using turkey fat congealed from the stock, as opposed to butter or something, was the big wild card. It wasn't exactly clear where fat ended and stock began, so the 4 tablespoons I added were probably significantly less than that in actual fat content. I should have kept putting in more until it smoothed out, I guess... or just done it with butter? Something to think on and research.

Another issue was that I kept reheating it, thus causing more thickening... I need to be a little less OCD about that, and wait until the last minute... plus I should reserve some stock to thin it out a bit if I over do it.

At some point I'd like to make some killer gravy.

Pumpkin Pie
This started as a fiasco, but ended in DELICIOUS. You can see my first (partially eaten) attempt to make a "blind bake pie shell" to the left. It actually tasted really good, but had obviously fallen to the point of comical uselessness. To be honest, I have to (partially) blame the author of the Cook's Illustrated pumpkin pie recipe here, as they provided virtually no direction on what you were trying to accomplish and what you were looking for in the various stages of the blind bake. The recipe just calls for putting in some foil with some weights and cooking it for 15 minutes... with no indication that you are trying to get it to set, and should not remove the weights unless that is so. Obviously, the assumption is that you know how to blind bake a pie shell, but I'm not really sure how good of an assumption that is for most cooks. How often do people cook pies? Even Anna, who loves baking, and has blind baked her fair share of shells, was unfamiliar with using pie weights(she pokes holes with a fork), so didn't know what we were supposed to be looking for. Anyway, despite being more than a little despondent at my first attempt, we had already made the filling at this point (which is a pretty huge PITA, but oh so tasty) so Anna suggested refrigerating the filling and retrying the pie shell in the morning, now that we knew we removed the weights way too early (it was almost midnight on Wednesday at this point). Thus I made another batch of dough and let it refrigerate overnight.

One of the advantages of waiting until the next day was that I could look at the New Best Recipe description of blind baked pie shells to fill in the gaps left by the magazine recipe. As a general rule, despite the fact that they're all from the same people, the recipes from the cookbook are almost 100% foolproof while the magazine ones and ancillary books are much more hit and miss... so I should have checked there first and compared the two crusts, but live and learn. Anyway, I ended up doing a combo of the two... basically following the trusted NBR, but going with a vodka/water combo instead of just water. I'll change the recipe I posted to reflect this differing methodology shortly... but in short, after being rolled out and fluted, it spent longer in the 'fridge and a bit in the freezer, and instead of just doing 15 minutes with the weights, I did more like 25, and I made extra super sure the pie was set before I removed the weights.

I had to reheat the filling before baking the pie in toto... but just using a very low heat worked fine, and the crust didn't get mushy at all. Now, after slightly trashing the author of the Cook's recipe for their lack of direction on the pie shell, I do have to say the filling was ridiculously awesome... and using an instant read thermometer to get the pie temperature, before letting residual heat finish the cooking as the pie cooled, resulted in the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. Pushing the simmered filling through a fine mesh strainer took like 30 minutes, but it seriously had a super silky texture... not grainy at all. In addition, having it still "wobbly in the middle" (though not after it cools) made me realize that most of the pumpkin pies I've had have been overdone and curdled.

So in summary, it was really really good, and I learned something about making pies because of the earlier setback... so no harm done... though Anna rolled both shells out, so I still have no skill in that arena (frankly shaping dough intimidates me - even when we do pizzas I make her do it).

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So that's it. Another holiday passed... as I mentioned above, I'm going to go back and correct some typos and change the pumpkin pie recipe to reflect the pie shell I ended up making... but for the most part, it's time to go back to terrorists in India and Obama's foreign policy team. *sigh*