The Uncarved Block

Rose-Lavender Pooh Bear

2011-11-21T20:47:00.000-08:00

Some years back I was playing around with cooking with flowers. I made rose petal jam (the most beautiful jam I have ever made), lavender jelly (smelled of lavender but pretty much tasted like apple jelly), Rosolio (Italian rose liquor), various nasturtium recipes, and so forth. Of the flowers, I most enjoyed using roses as an ingredient. I generally used the flowers of a fairly common but rather old-fashion climbing rose called Rosa 'Cecile Brunner'. My neighbor at the time had a huge plant climbing into a tree that overhung my yard, so it was easy to harvest endless 'Cecile Brunner' flowers. They are quite pale, so they don’t impart much color (a problem for the Rosolio), but they have a nice smell and flavor. When I moved to my new house I planted a Rosa 'Cecile Brunner' vine of my own.

Eventually I decided to go “off the reservation” and start inventing. This “Rose-Lavander Pooh Bear” is my favorite creation from that time.

Ingredients:

Milk (I use whole cows milk)
Honey
Rose flower petals
Lavender flower heads

This is one of those recipes where everything is annoyingly variable based on the ingredients you have available and your personal taste. What kind of roses you are using, what time of day they are picked, how mature they are, and so on, will completely dictate the amount of flavor they produce. Similarly for lavender – varietal, time of year, weather, and so forth will create very different results. Finally the honey is dependent on the type of honey, how much sweetness you enjoy, and how much you want to have the honey flavor balance with, sit behind, or mask the flowers' flavors.

For a portion that I recently made I used about 12oz of milk. I added roughly1.5 Tbs honey, the petals from 6 Rosa ‘Cecile Brunner’ flowers, and 4 lavender flower heads.

Method:

Steep the rose petals (not the stems, sepals, stamens, etc.) and lavender flower heads in the milk over low heat until the flavor is infused into the milk. Probably about 10 minutes.
Taste the milk along the way to see how the flavor is progressing.
When the flower flavor is good, add honey to taste
Bring to a scald to get it nice and hot (do not boil)
Strain
[Optional] After straining you can froth it with an immersion blender if you like. I enjoy it that way, but it is one more piece of equipment to clean, so I usually only froth it for guests.

I used to garnish the drink with a rose flower or additional rose petals, but really they just get in the way. Now I serve it straight up in a coffee or cocoa mug.

Yummy, Pooh!

OAKLAND TOUGHENS IMAGE WITH UMLAUTS

2011-11-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

ÖÄKLÄND TOUGHENS IMAGE WITH UMLAUTS

OAKLAND, CA, 11/4/2011 -- In a move designed to make their city seem more "bad-assed and scary in a quasi-heavy-metal manner," the City of Oakland, California officially changed their name Friday. "Much like Mötley Crüe and Motörhead, the City of Öäkländ is not to be messed with," said Mayor Jean Quan. An upcoming redesign of the city’s official seal will feature the new name in burnished silver wrought in a jagged, gothic font and bolted to a black background. A new city theme song is also in the works by composer Ozzy Osbourne, tentatively titled "Ripping the veins from the neck of Öäkländ (with my teeth)."

Said Sue Piper, Special Assistant to the Mayor for Communications, “Oakland has always had a well-deserved reputation as a bad ass city. From the pirate logo of our Oakland Raiders football team to our best-of-breed riots, Oakland can't be beat for being tough. Add to that the BART Police shooting unarmed citizens, rampant gang violence, and dog fighting, and you can tell that Oakland is an exciting place to live. But the name ‘Oakland’ just doesn't express who we really are. The old name ‘Oakland’ makes people think of forests of oak trees and bucolic landscapes, so we are very pleased about this new re-branding that toughens up our name."

The City Administrators Office noted that all official stationary has been reprinted with the new name and logo, but they may be delayed indefinitely in replacing signs, seals and banners around the city. This due to the ongoing Occupy Oakland protests making it impossible for public works to access certain buildings, and as a result of an unanticipated lack of funding.

<note: this is based on an old piece by The Onion, 04-30-1997 to whom credit is well deserved.>

Debunking the idea that job creators refuse to start businesses if taxes are too high

2011-10-08T11:48:00.003-07:00

Politicians (especially the candidates), pundits, and the media have been telling us lately that “Job Creators” won’t start businesses if taxes are too high. Uh, I deg to biffer.

Point!   I just spoke to a friend of mine that I haven’t heard from for a couple years. He is what is known as a “serial entrepreneur.” He starts a business, runs it for some number of years (usually about 10), then sells it for a ton of money and “retires,” only to start another business some while later. The last time we spoke he had just had a child and was “retired.” His “business” was raising his child. That’s what he said. But, just a few years later he has a new startup and is now up to almost 30 employees.

Did he start yet another company because he was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to afford to send his child to college? Hardly. At this point he can eat money for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he feels the need to increase the fiber in his diet. No, he did it because he is a serial entrepreneur. He can’t help himself – it’s how he’s wired. My friend is a serial job creator and would do it for nothing if he had to.

Point!   In 1964 Warren Buffet purchased Berkshire Hathaway, a failing textile company that he subsequently turned into his famous investment powerhouse. That year the top tax rate for income over $500,000 was 77%. The rate for incomes over $250,000 was 76%. The rate above $100,000 was 66%. At the time Buffet was already a wealthy investor. He didn’t need to buy Berkshire Hathaway, and he didn’t need to grow it into the business it is today. If you believe the theory that top tax rates in excess of our current 35% stop “job creators” from investing, then you have to believe that 1964’s top rate of 77% would have sent Warren Buffet running for the nearest lounge chair with a Mai Tai.

Berkshire Hathaway has made Buffet wealthy far beyond what he possessed in 1964, but he could easily have retired at any point along the way. Since 1964 tax rates have come down considerably. However, only 14 of those 47 years have had a top tax rate at or below today’s rate. If top tax rates above the current rate drive “job creators” out of the market, how do you explain Buffet?

Point!   Goldman Sachs Group’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein’s salary is now $2 million, plus he was granted a bonus of $12.6 million this year. That is on top of last year’s paltry $600,000 salary and scant $8.9 million bonus. Of course, one has to wonder why Blankfein would give a rats ass about his compensation package either last year or this, given that his 2007 bonus was – drum roll please - $67.9 million.

Now, I invite you to notice that Blankfein didn’t take his $67.9 million bonus in 2007 and run. He could have retired the day after the check cleared and never looked back. He could have retired and invited 10 other people to retire with him! To make the example even more absurd, let’s compare his 2010 compensation to 2007 - he effectively took a pay cut of $53.3 million. Since a $53.3 million pay cut didn’t make him call it quits, what makes anyone think that raising his top marginal tax rate by a few percent would make him say “Oh, forget it. It’s not worth it being the CEO of Goldman Sachs if the Federal Government is going to take a few hundred thousand more dollars from me. I quit!”

Put another way, the difference between his 2007 and 2010 compensation is 78.5%. So, accepting a measly $14.6 million this year is the same as if he had been taxed 78.5% in 2007. I have yet to hear that Blankfein is considering leaving Goldman Sachs for either a life of leisure or more a profitable position elsewhere in spite of having his income decrease by 78.5%.

If Mr. Blankfien calls me on the phone and personally swears to me on his mother that a 50% tax rate would make him hang up his spurs, I’ll believe him. But short of that, I stand by my claim that no tax rate, up to an including 100%, would convince him to give up the reins of power at the big GS.

Point!   In 1959 the top tax rate was… wait for it… 91%!!! Yup, 91%. In that year my father was a chemist working at a perfectly good job at a chemical company outside of Boston, MA. But in spite of having a fine 9-5 job, and in spite of the 91% top tax rate, he loaded himself up with debt and purchased a bankrupt chemical factory in what was (at the time) one of the worst parts of Boston. He rebuilt this bankrupt business, hired people, grew the company, and so on.

He is now 82 years old [in fact, today is his birthday.] He still works 5 days a week, 50ish weeks a year, and proudly states that someday we will carry him out of his office in a box. I think he is absolutely out of his freaking mind, but that is for another blog.

If a top tax rate of 91% didn’t inhibit my father from leaving a safe, comfortable job, taking on debt, and working his butt off for 52 years, I am hard pressed to believe that a modest increase in America’s current top rate will change the rate of job creation. He will no doubt piss blood when he reads this.

Point!   When I worked at Microsoft, I, and almost all of the “Software Design Engineers” that I worked with, were complete and total geeks. We loved writing software and would have done it even it if paid poorly. Hell, there are and have always been a lot of people that write “shareware” or “freeware” at home at night after working at some other job.

The people I know that left Microsoft quit for one of a handful of reasons: (1) Burnout (that was me,) (2) leaving to travel for a while, then ultimately returning to the software biz, either at Microsoft or elsewhere, or (3) starting a company of their own. Back in my day, Microsoft paid so well that after a few years people could easily leave. But guess what – I have friends that were there for years before I arrived and are still there years later. I won’t name names, but I promise you that they can afford to retire. But they don’t retire and almost no pay cut or tax increase will make them conclude that working at Microsoft isn’t worth it. A good friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, is currently the longest continuously employed person at Microsoft. If it were just money, he could have retired before I even started at the company.

Certainly Bill Gates could have retired decades before he finally did. The same can be said for Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison (Oracle), Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems,) etc., etc. I have to believe that even if their tax rate was 100% they would be at their desks every day (except for Steve, whom I’m sure would be at his desk today if he could be.)

But, OK, software engineers (other than the CEO’s listed above) are necessarily job creators, so let’s continue.

Point!   Bill “Papa Bear” O’Reilly stated on his Fox News show, The O’Reilly Factor, that if the tax rate hit 50% he might quit his job, because, he said, why work if the government is going to take half of it. Later, in an interview on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart called him on it, asking if that statement were really true. O’Reilly replied that of course it wasn’t – he was just making a point. O’Reilly is a celebrity with a huge following and enormous influence. I guarantee you that he would continue doing the O’Reilly Factor if he had to pay for the privilege. A 200% tax rate wouldn’t get him off the air.

[Aside: I personally have a very big problem with the anchor of a “news” show stating an untruth, even if it is hyperbole during an editorial commentary. If O’Reilly says something like “a 50% tax rate might make me stop doing this show,” and that isn’t true, he should be required to immediately state that it isn’t true as part of his commentary. Retracting it later on another program on another station doesn’t cut it.]

Point!    Celebrities – all of ‘em, just keep on going. You name it, regardless of the time period, regardless of the tax rate, movie stars, musicians, authors, painters, and celebrity chefs, down through the ages have performed their craft regardless of compensation or the need for additional income. W. C. Fields, Mohammed Ali, David Bowie, Jennifer Anniston, and Bruce Willis – not one of them ever quit because their taxes were too high. Does anyone think that Madonna bases her decision to release another album based on a top tax bracket of 35% vs. 36%? Did Leonardo DiCaprio consult with his accountant about how to shield his income from taxation before accepting the role of Jack Dawson in Titanic? When congress and the President were fighting over whether or not to raise the top tax rate last fall, was Frank Gehry poised to close his architectural firm in the event the rate went up?

I gotta say that the answer on all counts is “no.”

I see two main kinds of “job creators” in this country: (1) Individuals who are not rich who start small businesses for the first time, and (2) wealthy individuals who create new businesses or remain in positions at existing enterprises. Let’s look at them:

People without considerable wealth start businesses in America all the time. From taco trucks to hairdressers to carpet cleaning companies to makers of high-tech widgets and low-tech widgets, American entrepreneurs are company-making machines. These people start their businesses for a variety of reasons – they have a dream of getting rich; they hate working for someone else; they see an unfilled niche and go for it; there isn’t a job available that fits their needs; and on and on. The suggestion that high tax rates on the ultra-wealthy would stop these entrepreneurs is ludicrous. They beg and borrow start-up capital from anywhere they can – friends, relatives, neighbors, and if possible, banks – throw caution to the wind, and go for it. They are not being held back by the fear that the taxes on their future incomes will someday be too high.
Wealthy individuals, as I have already shown, start enterprises or remain at work for reasons that have nothing to do with making ever more money. Or, if it is about money, the dollars are just “chips” on the gaming board. They want more chips to prove their self-worth, not because they need to buy something they can’t already afford. They love the game, or are addicted to the game, or don’t know what else to do but play the game. But guess what, if the dollars are just chips in a game of who-has-the-biggest-schlong, raising the top tax bracket will affect everyone playing the game equally – the game will not be affected, and the players won’t stop playing.

So, come on legislators, journalists, and pundits, give me a break. If you want to have an intelligent discussion about fairness in tax rates, the appropriate roles of government, the effects of fiscal policy on the economy, interventionist vs. laissez faire policies, the past performance of the government in utilizing tax revenues, and so on, then I am all ears. But please, knock it off with the “increasing taxes on job creators will kill the economy” bunk. It just ain’t true and we all know it.

Backing up your Facebook data

2011-10-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

Facebook has announced that next week they will be launching the (drum roll please) New Facebook Timeline. There are those who say that the Facebook Timeline will be the most important innovation in computing since Lotus 1-2-3 gave businessmen a reason to buy PCs. That would be totally awesome if it is true, though I gotta believe there's one heck of a lot of hyperbole in that statement. Others say that the changes are so radical that they entire user-base will be completely pissed off and exit Facebook in droves. Undoubtedly the reality lies somewhere in between.

In any case, who the heck knows what's gonna happen to Facebook next week, and how you will feel about it. Maybe it will be love at first sight. Maybe you will run - not walk - to the exit. It is also possible that the upgrade will destabilize the system, making it unusable for some period of time. Or, hackers may be waiting with baited breath to exploit new, untested holes in the system. Or maybe, like Y2K (remember that?) it will be business as usual. Yawn.

Whatever happens, having your data backed up is a good idea. Its always a good idea for every aspect of your digital life. It is doubly important when you are upgrading or changing your system. It is triply important when someone else is upgrading or changing your system, as is happening next week with Facebook.

"But how," you ask, "do I backup my Facebook data?" It turns out that Facebook makes it very easy. They just don't publicize it very well.

Here's what you do:

Launch your favorite browser, navigate to Facebook, and log in as usual (if necessary.)
Go to "Account Settings." How do you go to your "Account Settings?"

At the left edge of the top, blue, "Facebook bar" next to the word "Home" there is a down-arrow. Click the arrow to drop the menu.
Click "Account Settings"

Below the box that surrounds all of your settings, in a nice small font that you would never notice, it says "Download a copy of your Facebook data."

It really is just that easy, but it would benefit from being presented in a nice 20point neon font with giant yellow arrows point at it.

At that point, Facebook will build a ZIP file full of all of your photos, videos, postings, notes, etc, and will email you when it is done. For my account it took over an hour and resulted in a file that was 14MB in size. When you get the email, click on the link, enter your Facebook password, and the file will download to your machine.

Voila.Your data is backed up and in your possession. Regardless of what may or may not happen to Facebook next week, you're covered.

As writer/actor John Hodgman says, "you're welcome."

Those who never drank New Coke are doomed to re-live it

2011-09-23T22:27:00.000-07:00

Mark Zuckerberg is too young. Born in 1984, he was only one year old when the Coca-Cola Corporation released New Coke. During the three months between the release of New Coke and the reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic, Zuckerberg was undoubtedly more focused on New Milk than New Coke.

For those of you who are as young as Mark Zuckerberg, I will give you a very brief recap. In April 1985 the Coca-Cola Corporation decided to reformulate their flagship Coke product, which they have been selling successfully for almost 100 years. I won't go into the reasons - you all have Google and can search for that if you care. The bottom line though is that Coca-Cola decided to change the product that their customers loved, and then was forced to re-release the original formula due to very vocal (and in my opinion very correct) derision by customers and critics alike. The New Coke debacle has entered the canon of marketing lore as a lesson in what not to do to your product.

Recently, Facebook, Zuckerberg's baby, made another in a long line of sweeping (and seemingly pointless) changes. Since you are reading this blog online, it is safe to assume that you are aware of the Facebook, the changes they just made, and the tremendous backlash by Facebook users – myself included. If Mark Zuckerberg were older, he would understand that his company has just released New Coke. He would also know that these changes are a gift to Google, who has just released their Google+ competitor. If you read the history of New Coke, you will discover that after the reintroduction of Coca-Cola Classic, Coke's sales went up dramatically. The net effect of the release and subsequent withdrawal of New Coke was actually very beneficial to the Coca-Cola Corporation. However, somehow I doubt that the customers abandoning Facebook for Google+ will go back to Facebook even if they make a very public mea culpa.

Much has been said about the new Facebook changes and I don't want to bore you rehashing what others have covered so eloquently already. But I would like to talk about an e-mail I received from Facebook the day before New Facebook hit the fan. Here is the message that I and other users received:

Facebook will be sending you less email - learn why

We're trying out a new feature to reduce the amount of email you receive from Facebook. Starting today, we are turning off most individual email notifications and instead, we'll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed.

You can turn individual emails back on and restore all your original settings at any time.

Thanks, The Facebook Team

I think this message is illustrative of the fundamental problems at Facebook. In particular it demonstrates Facebook's spectacular hubris. For some time now users have been able to set their own e-mail notification options – I did so for my account some months ago. Someone at Facebook looked at customer feedback and found the people were upset about the amount of e-mail they are receiving. So they made this change and sent the above message. However, it never occurred to them to ask individual users if that's what they wanted. Every user that enjoyed receiving lots of e-mails now has to go into their account and turn those features back on. Every user that had already customized their email settings needs to go in and see how their settings have been modified.

Here is the message that I believe they should have sent (had they not been so paternalistic in their approach.)

Would you like to get less email from Facebook? We’ve made it easy.

A number of customers have told us that they don't like the amount of e-mail they are receiving from Facebook. We want you to have the best experience possible with Facebook. So, to make it easy for you to decrease the amount of e-mail you're getting from us we put together a quick, one button way to reduce your e-mail clutter.

Simply click here <button>, and we will automatically turn off most individual email notifications. Instead, we'll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed. Or, if you like your current e-mails settings, do nothing and they will stay the way they are.

If you change your mind you can go to the e-mail options in your Facebook account at any time to turn messages on or off.

Thanks, The Facebook Team

Now wouldn’t that have been easy? You learn that customers aren’t satisfied and give them an option to make the change that you think they want. Being so cock-sure that you know what's best for your customers and foisting that upon them on your schedule, not theirs, is the utmost in hubris and a recipe for corporate disaster.

Verizon Wireless Endless Voicemail Prompt

2011-09-03T17:39:00.000-07:00

I've been a Verizon Wireless customer for many years. I like them a lot and don't understand why anyone (in the US) would use any other carrier. But, there is one thing that bugs the crap out of me - the so called "Robo-Gal" that insists on wasting the time of people that want to leave me a voice message.

My outgoing voice mail message is quick, concise, and to the point (concision is a virtue.) "Hi, you've reached Andrew. Please leave a message at the tone." It takes about 3 seconds, at which point the caller should hear "beep!" Unfortunately, they don't - they hear Robo-Gal (should be "Robo-Gall".) She then tells the listener "At the tone, please record your message. When you've finished recording you may hang up, or, press 1 for more options. To send a fax, press pound. To leave a callback number, press five." Then, finally, the beep. Whew.

Robo-Gal's completely unnecessary message takes about 5 times as long as my greeting, and there is no option to turn her off. I say "unnecessary," because, really, I don't want you to send a fax to my cell phone. Who sends faxes anymore anyway? I have a smart phone - send me an email! Geesh. "Leave a call-back number?" You mean take a giant leap back to the early 1990's when people had pagers? (Can you still buy a pager even if you want one?) Press "1" for more options? What options? Sending your message with "high priority?" Don't bother - if I like you I will listen to your message regardless of its priority. If I don't like you, I wont. Nuff said.

Fortunately, I have discovered 2 tricks to make things better, and I pass them on to you now. [Thanks to Elko Wireless for pointing me in the right direction.]

Trick #1 - For people who call any Verizon Wireless customer, at any point in the outgoing message, either the "real" greeting, or Robo-Gal, you can just press "*" to skip to the beep. This works regardless of whether you are calling from a land line or a cell phone, and regardless of your carrier. (You can find a list of the "skip" keys for all carriers in the New York Time's article Cutting Through Voicemail Greetings.)

Trick #2 - For people who have Verizon Wireless service and want to decrease the amount of time Robo-Gal spends annoying their callers, you can turn off the options to accept faxes and "callback numbers." With these turned off, Robo-Gal wont include them in her message, thus cutting the time in half. If you call Verizon customer support, they wont tell you about this - I assume that the average Verizon support associate doesn't even know about it. The steps are buried deep in the Verizon voicemail options. I am including the option numbers here, though I have no doubt Verizon changes this stuff with some frequency. Your mileage may vary.

Call your voice mail and log in
You can listen to any messages you may have, or not. Up to you.
Press 4 to change your "personal options"
Press 2 to change "administrative options"
Turn off the option of receiving faxes:

Press 3 to "establish or change" fax options
Press 3 to turn fax options on or off
Press 1 to turn the fax option on or off
Press 2 to turn faxes off (geesh!)
Press * to exit

Next, turn "callback numbers" off:

Press 1 to "change general options"
Press 7 to turn the callback number feature or prompt off
Press 1 to turn the feature on or off
Press 1 to turn the feature off
Press 2 to actually turn the feature off
Press * repeatedly to exit.

After all that rigmarole, the fax and callback features will be disabled and you're callers wont have to wait through that part of the message. Whew.

PS: I recommend calling Verizon and asking them to change it so that Robo-Gal is an option. Maybe if they hear it from enough people they'll do something about it (like The New York Times wasn't enough.)

Emptying your inbox

2011-08-18T22:45:00.000-07:00

There was a time when I never had more than a few messages in my email inbox. Back then dealing with email was a significant part of my job, so keeping a clean inbox was important. Over the last few years my email inboxes have gotten bigger and bigger. Recently my Hotmail inbox had over 800 messages and my server email inbox had almost 700. I also have inboxes on Gmail, Facebook, and a few others, each with a couple dozen messages that were awaiting my attention. Combined, I had over fifteen hundred email messages in my inboxes.

From time to time I would attempt to clean things up. I'd start with the oldest messages, going through the inbox simply deleting those that were trash – either because they were worthless to begin with, or because they were so old that their value had expired. After an hour or two of doing this I would usually have deleted 25% to 30% of the messages. But it wasn't clear that I had really achieved anything. Sure, I had separated the wheat from the chaff, but I still needed to do something with the “wheat.”

I recently read a blurb in Maximum PC magazine suggesting a strategy for cleaning up your inbox. When I read it, I thought it sounded kind of silly; it seemed like a cheat that wouldn't achieve anything. But, I was desperate, so I thought I would enhance the idea a little bit and give it a try. It proved to be very effective; however, it really is just a way to trick oneself into getting the job done.

Without further ado, here it is:

Make three folders for "deferred" messages. I called them Pri0, Pri1, and Pri2 (you can use other names if you prefer.)
Starting either at the beginning of your inbox (the oldest message,) or the end of the inbox (the newest message,) begin reading your email. The advantage of starting with the oldest emails first (my preferred method) is that if you need to take a break, you know right where to resume and you really see the progress you are making. The advantage of starting with the newest ones is that you are taking care of the your new email as you go. The choice is up to you. For each message that you look at, do one of the following:

If it's trash, either because it was garbage to begin with or because its usefulness is expired (e.g. a Nigerian prince asking you to help him get money out of the country or an invitation to a party that happened a month ago,) then just delete it.
If it's something that can be filed, then file it. For example, a message with the license key for some downloaded software goes in your "licenses" folder; an email from your mom telling you how wonderful and handsome you are gets moved to your "ego" folder (feel free to read it two or three times before filing it away.)
If it's something that can be dealt with quickly, then just do it (apologies to Nike.) Then either file it or delete it as appropriate.
If there's a message in your inbox that's truly urgent, then of course you must deal with it regardless of how much time it might take. For example, if it says "Watch out, Tony Soprano found out where you are and put a hit out on you," you had better deal with it right away regardless of how long it will take (and aren't you glad you're reading your email?!?!)
Lastly, and this is the trick part, if it's something that you either need to handle, or simply want to read but will take some time, then you put it in one of your deferred folders based upon how important it is: Pri0 being very important, Pri1 messages are important, and Pri2 messages you don't really need to deal with but you'd like to if you have time.

You may not skip a message, leaving it in the inbox. You must do one of (a) through (e) before moving to the next email.
Do not give in to the temptation to simply copy all of your messages from the inbox to the Pri0 folder!

It's #2e above, moving messages into “deferred” folders, that is really the “special sauce” here. In truth it is a cheat. Moving messages from your inbox to a folder named "Pri0" doesn't actually achieve anything. However, if you follow the rules it has a really important psychological impact.

If you're looking at an inbox with 800 messages and you just go through and delete the garbage, you end up with five or six hundred messages in your inbox. Looking at what you've “accomplished” is actually pretty depressing – you still have five or six hundred freaking messages that need to be handled! Furthermore, when you return to your inbox to deal with those remaining emails, there is no place in particular to start. By contrast, following the proposed strategy you work your way through your mailbox, making it smaller and smaller until finally it gets to zero. It will probably take multiple sessions, but each time you resume the work you can see the progress you made and feel good about doing more.

For me it actually took a couple of weeks. I could've gotten it done much more quickly, but I was interrupted by house guests and the other endless normal events of life. When I was done I had zero messages in my inboxes (Yay!) a total of 62 messages in the two Pri0 folders, 67 in the Pri1 folders, and 236 Pri2 messages. It is true that this is a total of 365, which isn't zero. In fact it is pretty damned far from zero. So it's a total cheat to say that I got to zero messages. However, I did manage to make it from 1500 to 365, a feat which I hadn't been able to achieve before. More importantly, when I go back to my inbox I know where to start. I now need to tackle the most important messages: those 62 unhandled emails in the Pri0 folder. They will be a lot of work, but it isn’t nearly as daunting a prospect as finding and handling the most important messages hiding in a sea of 1500 emails. Furthermore, those 236 “Pri2” messages aren’t really important – I’d just like to follow up on them. So arguably I got the important part of my inbox down to only 129, which is a number I can think about without cringing.

One caveat – if you are someone for whom “out of sight” is “out of mind,” you might need to copy the Pri0’s back into the inbox when you are done. Otherwise, you might be tempted to ignore them.

Good luck!

FoodPool

2011-08-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

I've just launched my latest project - FoodPool.org.

For the last couple years I have been growing a serious food garden - I have about 800 square feet under cultivation. I often generate much more produce than I can use. Or, more accurately, the garden produces too much of a given foodstuff at one time. I harvested eighty pounds of onions the other day, and there are still more onions out in the field. With onions, I can dry them and hang them in my root cellar for many months. But still, eighty pounds of onions with more on the way is a lot of onions. The same thing happened with chard. Unlike onions, you can't keep Swiss chard indefinitely, and there is only so much chard I can eat before I get pretty darned tired of it.

I think zucchini is the quintessential over productive garden vegetable. Everyone I know who has ever grown zucchini – even if it was just one plant – tells a similar story. In summer you get that first zucchini fresh from the garden. You slice it up and put it in a green salad without cooking it because you really want to taste pure zucchini. A couple more zucchini are produced, so you chop them up and put them in a stir fry. More zucchini grows, which is great for zucchini bread, zucchini pancakes, and zucchini muffins. The next zucchini as you give to your neighbors. After that you give zucchini to your friends. Later still you give zucchini your enemies. Eventually everyone you know, or have ever met, has all the zucchini they can take. Chances are they have zucchini in their garden too. But your plant isn't done - there is more zucchini on the way.

So what do we do with all this abundance?

Thanks to Michael Pollan, Michelle Obama, Alice Waters, global warming and a poor economy, there is a renewed interest in home gardening. More and more people have gardens full of beautiful food. Often people end up with piles of unwanted zucchini, persimmons rotting on the ground, oranges, apples and lemons hanging endlessly uneated on their trees, and many other extra garden products going to waste. These excess fruits and vegetables actually become a problem, attracting fruit flies, rodents, and other pests.

I see the "problem" of excess garden produce as an opportunity! It is an opportunity to help provide those in need with fresh, ripe, homegrown produce. The only obstacle lies in linking home growers with their hungry neighbors. My answer is "FoodPooling." The goal for FoodPool is to become a "carpool for food."
FoodPool.org
seeks to enroll people that wish to donate their extra homegrown fruits and vegetables, and connect them with those willing to collect the food and transport it to the food bank.

Initially FoodPool is centered around the Montclair district of Oakland, California. However, I can't imagine anything more wonderful than to see the idea replicated around the country and beyond.

I would be delighted to hear your feedback and suggestions, and welcome support or assistance in any form. If nothing else, please pass this on to anyone you know that might be interested.

Postscript: FoodPool is up and running and doing great! The original FoodPool Montclair has been delivering fresh produce to people in need for several months now, and FoodPool is expanding with its FoodPool Everywhere campaign. Please join us!

Repairing an Antique Soda Siphon

2011-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

aka, How Andrew Likes to Waste an Incredible Amount of Time.

One of the most dangerous phrases I know is "how hard could it be?" If you ever hear me say that, run away! That was the phrase that started the endless task of repairing an antique soda siphon I bought some years ago.

I found this soda siphon sometime in the 1990's at a thrift shop in Seattle. When I bought it I knew that all the rubber parts were shot, but I assumed that they could be replaced. Way back then the Internet didn't exist - or at least it didn't provide the universal marketplace that we know and love today. When I got my new treasure home, I went to the Yellow Pages to see what I could find [Anyone remember Yellow Pages? Big, heavy, floppy books full of outdated and incomplete information about vendors in a small geographic area, organized by random categories.] I don't recall what heading I thought was appropriate for antique soda siphon repair parts. Regardless, I didn't find what I needed, so it went up on a shelf as an ornament.

Around the middle of last year I went online to see about buying replacement parts for the soda siphon, since now the Internet provided me access to the entire world's bounty. I found a handful of websites that specialize in selling replacement parts for old soda siphons. Unfortunately, none of them sold parts for Sparklets - the company that made my siphon. One went so far as to explicitly state that they didn't carry Sparklets' parts. I can only assume that this is because Sparklets is out of business, and has been so for a long time. Sigh.

Fast forward to a time earlier this year. I was experimenting with making my own custom shoe orthotics. I read about a technique for making a silicone gel that was moldable into any shape and set up in a matter of minutes. The process involved using GE Silicone I mixed with cornstarch (note, supposedly the more commonly available GE silicone II won't work, though I haven't tried it.) Something about the corn starch allowed the silicone to set up in the absence of air - making it moldable. As it turned out, the resultant material was much too stiff to make a comfortable orthotic. But still, it was an interesting substance to work with. I recalled my antique soda siphon and thought "Hmmmmmm. How hard could it be?"

I went to the hardware store to see what interesting bits and pieces might be available for this project. I decided that before trying to make something with the moldable silicon goop, I would carve some rubber corks into the right shapes - possibly augmenting it with my silicone forming material. That was a total waste of time and money. I didn't get close to producing what I needed.

On my second trip to the hardware store I concluded that I would make a plaster cast of what remained of the existing parts, then form entirely new parts from silcone. It would have been a lot easier if I had known anything about plaster casting, but not knowing anything has never stopped me before. So, I bought a box of plaster of Paris and a jar of Vaseline and headed home to figure it out.

Using the bottoms of plastic cottage cheese containers as forms, I covered the dried up old rubber gaskets with Vaseline, mixed up a small batch of plaster of Paris, and formed the molds for the pieces: first I poured a layer of plaster, into which I pressed a gasket piece to its halfway point. After the plaster had dried, I carved some depressions in the base piece to act as registration marks. [I subsequently improved on that by embedding pieces dowel into the plaster.] I covered it with Vaseline then poured a second layer of plaster to cover the original gasket. Returning the next day I was able to knock the plaster molds out of the cottage cheese containers, and then pry apart the two halves with a screwdriver. Removing the old gasket left me with a nicely formed mold. I did have to wipe off all the extra Vaseline, and there was a certain amount of carving and buffing required to smooth out irregularities in the mold, but basically it was good to go. After all, "how hard could it be?"

I made up a batch of my silicone plus cornstarch goop, re-covered the molds with Vaseline, then schmeared the silicone into the molds with tongue depressors. I pressed the mold halves together (which could only go one way thanks to my registration marks,) and let the silicone set up. Of course I was impatient, repeatedly checking the molds over and over again before they were ready. As a result, the first set of gaskets, while the right shape, were riddled with holes and air pockets because I couldn't leave them alone while they were curing. So I cleaned it all up, tried again, and left it overnight.

When I opened the molds next day the parts looked great - though with lots of extra flanges that I had to cut off within X-Acto knife.

I put the soda syphon back together with my new gaskets, filled it with water, charged it with a soda charger, and tried it out. It worked! Except for two problems: first, water was leaking out of the handle. It turns out that I had missed one rubber part. Second, the silicone plus cornstarch gel made gaskets that were just too soft. The gasket that goes around the head of the soda charger deformed and blew out of its seating during the charging. The gasket that sat at the top of the bottle, though it held for that first use, had basically been cut in half when the top was screwed on. Still, it was exciting to see that the concept worked.

To fix the first problem I had to figure out how to disassemble the bottle top mechanism, which looked simple enough, but was thoroughly frozen together by years of assembly. Eventually, with cleansers, oil, and elbow grease I got the thing apart and found the decayed part. This one was a bit tricky, because it consisted of a metal plunger around which a rubber gasket was formed. Thus, I would need to make a mold that would hold the plunger and form a gasket around it. Tricky, but not impossible. The next day I had my new form ready.

Back to the hardware store I went to solve the problem of the soft gaskets. This time I decided to go with gasket forming compound. I bought a tube of Permatex “Blue” RTV silicone gasket maker. I cleaned up my molds, schmeared them with Vaseline, fill them with gasket material, pressed them tight, and left them for the night. The next morning I pried the molds apart only to find that the gasket forming material had not dried at all. I had been under the impression that RTV silicone sets up without air. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work when making an automotive gasket (the real use for this product.) Supposedly you can put it between two engine parts, clamp it down, and a gasket will form. However, I really don't follow why RTV silicone would solidify in such an environment but not get solid inside the tube. The whole point of adding cornstarch to the GE silicone had been to overcome the problem of making silicon cure without air. In any case, the RTV silicone was supposed to set up when clamped between metal parts - perhaps something about my plaster molds or the presence of Vaseline inhibited it curing. In any case, I cleaned the still-liquid gasket forming material out of the molds, schmeared them with fresh Vaseline, then filled them with gasket forming material to which I added cornstarch.

The next day I open the molds again. Voilà! Beautiful bright blue gaskets that were much firmer than the prior GE silicone-based ones. I cut away the excess with my X-Acto knife, installed them in the soda siphon, and had a go. It worked almost perfectly, but again the damned charger gasket blew out during the charging. And, when I later took the top off, I discovered that the top gasket was partially cut - the blue Permatex wasn't strong enough. Fortunately, the lever no longer leaked.

Once again I went to the hardware store. This time I purchased Permatex “Ultra Grey Rigid High-Torque” RTV silicone gasket material. I cleaned up my molds, made a batch of gray silicone with cornstarch, filled the molds, pressed them shut, and waited overnight. The next day I discovered that for some reason the largest gasket hadn't set up. Evidently there's something about the gray high torque silicone gasket material that required either more time, or more cornstarch to make it cure. I'm sure you know what I did next. I cleaned the mold, made a batch of gasket forming material with extra cornstarch, filled the mold, pressed it shut, and waited overnight.

The next day I had a full set of beautiful gray gaskets. No doubt you will be pleased to know that they worked perfectly, and have continued to do so, charge after charge, for the last couple months.

So now I have a working antique soda siphon. Cool. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Why I no longer buy OCZ Technology products

2011-07-27T22:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I decided to build myself a new, screaming fast, ultra-quiet desktop computer. The centerpiece of this new machine was to be the latest and greatest in super-high-speed, zero noise storage devices – the OCZ Technology RevoDrive X2.

The fastest types of storage devices commercially available today are "solid-state drives (SSD's.)" These drives use transistors instead of spinning disks to store data. Thus, they are extremely fast and make no noise. Historically SSD's have been manufactured to look and act just like traditional hard disks drives. This was done for backward compatibility. OCZ realized that they could squeeze even more performance out of these devices by breaking with that constraint. Thus was born the OCZ RevoDrive X2, an SSD that plugs into a PCI slot on a computer's motherboard, thereby providing bleeding-edge performance. Needless to say, it was a must-have for my new über-machine.

I spent a week carefully choosing the components for my machine and placing orders from various vendors. When the parts arrived, I gleefully constructed my new killer computer. After building it and loading all my software, I was dismayed to find that its performance was not particularly impressive. It didn't seem to be any faster than my prior machine. In particular the hard disk access (or should I say SSD access) was no great shakes. Moreover, it would seem to lock up from time to time, especially when installing new software (which I was doing a lot in those first few days.)

I decided to run the Windows Experience Index (WEI) to see how Microsoft thought my machine stacked up. To my amazement the WEI showed a reading of only 5.9 for the drive. [The peculiar scale of the WEI runs from 1 to 7.9 – don’t ask me why.] While a reading of 5.9 isn't dismal, I had assumed that the fastest drive money could buy would score a perfect 7.9. Also, my previous computer with an older, earlier generation, ordinary SSD had scored 7.1 on the Windows Experience Index. Clearly something was very wrong.

I surfed to the OCZ Technology website looking for answers. Unfortunately OCZ’s website is very short on support. There is a lot of information about OCZ products, especially documents explaining why SSD's are so wonderful – in particular why OCZ SSD's are supposed to be so great. There are a few brief FAQs, but not much else. It takes quite some time to discover that there's really nothing there, as there is a tremendous amount of marketing materials and other non-relevant, non-support, information under the “support” heading.

It appears that OCZ wants you to find your answers on their community based forums – hosted on a separate web site. There I found several discussion threads created by people experiencing the exact same problem: strange system slowdowns, lockups especially installing new software, and most interestingly, the same 5.9 on the WEI – everyone was reporting this same odd number. Though it was clear that dozens of people were having the same problem, no one from OCZ tech support had weighed in on the matter. All the forum entries were by consumers.

Reading through the forums learned that the benchmark by which OCZ tests its products is a performance test called ATTO Disk Benchmark. So I downloaded ATTO and ran it. ATTO showed that the drive was running spectacularly fast, as advertised. This confusing result was the same that was reported by the other users having problems with these drives: superfast performance on this ATTO synthetic benchmark, mediocre results on a benchmark created by Microsoft (about which no one really knows the details,) and truly disappointing real-world performance. I posted my own info on the forum in the hopes that yet another piece of data might lead to discovery of a solution.

I waited several days, trying various fixes on my own and looking forward to a reply on the forum, but OCZ support was MIA. Finally I went back to the main OCZ Technology website to see about getting some real support. There they tell you that they want you to create an online trouble ticket before calling on the phone. So, I created a trouble ticket pointing to the forum entry that I had written and noting that OCZ should really pay attention to the fact that there were a dozen or more people experiencing the same problem.

A couple of days later a support engineer replied to my trouble ticket stating simply that ATTO is the benchmark they use. A good performance result on ATTO means the drive is working. They marked the ticket “closed.” That was it. Nothing else. No mention of the slow system or lockups, and no recognition of the fact that others were experiencing the problem. I had spent hours futzing with the machine: moving the RevoDrive card from one slot to another; uninstalling and reinstalling device drivers; downloading, installing and running various diagnostic and tuning software; adjusting configuration parameters for Windows and for the other devices in the system; and on and on. Nothing worked. Getting such a useless reply to my trouble ticket was definitely annoying.

I then called OCZ customer support during their limited phone support hours. The engineer I spoke to was very pleasant. He agreed that someone really should be replying to the posts on the forum. He told me that they have dedicated engineers whose job it is to monitor and reply to postings. He promised me that he would get in touch with them and make sure that someone responded to this issue. With regard to my machine, he told me that these problems were almost always problems with other devices in the system. As a result, he said, it was basically impossible for OCZ support to help customers such as myself. He said that I needed to look in the Windows event logs for errors which would help me figure out which device was causing the problem.

So I spent several hours studying the errors and warnings in the event logs. If you've never done this, it is a very painful process. Some of the errors are clear and obvious, but many are exceedingly cryptic. I worked and worked to correct any errors I was able to decipher, though none seemed particularly pertinent, and none of my changes improved anything.

A couple weeks later, with my system still performing erratically, I went back to the OCZ forums where I found even more customers complaining of the exact same problem, but still no comments from OCZ. I called OCZ tech support once again. Once again I spoke to a very pleasant support agent who agreed with me that this was a problem and assured me that someone would read through the forums and reply to postings, even if such a reply was merely to inform people that we must solve the problem ourselves by examining our Windows error logs.

I never did solve the problem. About two weeks after that call my RevoDrive went kaput. From another machine I went to the OCZ forums looking for advice to see if there was any way to salvage the drive. There I found countless other postings by people complaining of the exact same failure that I had just experienced. [The 240Gb RevoDrive X2 is internally really four 60Gb drives in a RAID0 configuration. The system reported that one of the four drives had failed, rendering the RAID0 inoperable.]

In this case OCZ customer support had been replying to users’ complaints. The standard reply advised shutting down the machine and unplugging the power for one hour to completely clear the memory and system BIOS settings. Everyone who was experiencing the problem and tried this replied that it hadn’t fixed the problem. Failing that, apparently the only option was to return the drive for replacement. According to many posters this could take a month or more (which is completely unacceptable.)

Just for yuks I posted my own information to the forum about my RevoDrive dropping dead. In response to my posting, OCZ customer support told me to unplug the machine for an hour. Surprise, surprise! It did no good. Furthermore, in their reply OCZ tech support pointed me to the forum rules which state, quote:

Moving forward there will be a dual 3 strike rule, you have 3 posts or 3 warnings to add user system details, after that you will be placed under moderation and no help or advice will be offered.

I can't tell you how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel to have a company's customer support organization tell me that if I don't provide them with all of the information they ask for I will be cut off from assistance. So, not only is OCZ tech support useless, they are also rude. . Keep in mind that this is a very expensive drive that didn't work correctly from day one and cost me many hours of my valuable time. This SSD alone costs more than many computers. It is fair to say that I paid a premium price for a premium product. I think OCZ should provide premium support for such a product, and they should provide that support without the attitude. A policy warning me that I am out in the cold if I don’t deign to give them every system stat they want up front is lame, lame, lame.

At this point I had no desire to own another OCZ drive and I certainly wasn’t about to wait a month to get a replacement. Unfortunately, by now I had owned the unit past the point where Amazon will accept returns on computer disk drives. My previous SSD had been from Intel – a company known for the reliability of their SSD's. I decided to just say goodbye to the money I had spent on the OCZ. I went on Amazon.com, where I placed an order for the latest and greatest Intel SSD, which is plenty fast and reputed to have rock-solid reliability. I also sent an e-mail to Amazon.com customer support telling them about my experience and asking if they would be willing to take the RevoDrive back. The next day I received a reply from Amazon with an RMA number and a UPS shipping label to return my broken RevoDrive for a 100% refund. Yay Amazon!

It is important to remember that OCZ technology is a company that relies on "influential early adopters" like me. Their customers are people who are into technology and willing to pay extra for the newest and best hardware products. They are also dependent on the type of customer that Malcolm Gladwell dubbed “mavens,” in his book The Tipping Point – customers who make markets by communicating their experiences to others.

It is suicide for a company like OCZ Technology to ignore dozens of reports on their forums. In most businesses it is assumed that if there is one customer complaining there are probably tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people with the same problem. Those multipliers are somewhat lower in the world of bleeding-edge technology where customers are likely to go to the forums when they experience problems. Still, if there are a dozen people complaining about slow and flaky SSD’s, there are probably hundreds of disgruntled customers out there experiencing these problems to one degree or another.

OCZ is failing to support their most important customers – those vocal, early adopters that make or break a new technology. I have never needed their customer support before, but now that I have experienced the fact that they are clearly shipping out products that are not ready, and are then failing to support them, I have concluded that they are not company that I want to do business with. There are dozens of component manufacturers vying for dominance in this marketplace, so there is no need to patronize one that has failed so badly and with such apparent arrogance.

Normally I wouldn’t write a company off based on one bad experience, but in this case, both the product and support were so bad that OCZ is on my “black list.” I encourage others to avoid the OCZ RevoDrive X2, or, at least to read the OCZ forums to see what users are saying before investing in this expensive, half-baked product.

Dazzled by nature's beauty

2011-07-21T11:16:00.000-07:00

I was making a pot of coffee this morning when I was stopped in my tracks by the view out my window.

I am always fascinated by the fact that humans find things in nature beautiful - even when those things have forms and functions entirely unrelated to us. A spider makes a web to catch insects, not to please people with its geometry. Dew forms on the web because of the laws of chemistry and physics. Sunlight sparkles off the dewdrops, again due to physics, not through a desire to dazzle the human eye.

Enjoying the flowers of a newly developed rose or a tulip straight from Holland is no great surprise. Horticulturalists worked hard to hybridize those flowers to appeal to us. That we find beauty in the unadorned natural world is less clear - though it too makes perfect sense. Assuming that you believe the theory of evolution (which is a safe assumption, given that 100% of credible evidence supports it,) it is clear that everything that has made the natural world what it is, has also made us what we are. The forces that created nature also created homo-sapiens. Form and function, symmetry, color, the signals of ripeness and poison, the scents that attract or repel - all of these things are built in to every living thing on earth.

So really, it is no great surprise to be dazzled by dewdrops on a spider's web in the morning. Still, it is no less a delight.

NAS, Media Servers, Backing up my network, and Norton Ghost 15

2011-07-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

How to make Norton Ghost 15 do a remote backup on Win7 x64, plus thoughts on Network Attached Storage and backing up machines.

Note: This is a very special-interest blog... just passing along some things I learned. This will probably not be interesting for most readers.

A while back I bought a NAS (network attached storage) machine on sale to see how I liked it. It came with Microsoft Home Server installed as the operating system. I liked it, but the NAS itself was quite slow - in particular it had a rather lame network card, which is stupid for a NAS device. I also have a full-blown PC on my network which I was using to serve media. I had imagined moving the media to the NAS and retiring the PC, but the NAS wasn't up to the job. So, I retired the NAS instead and kept the PC server.

There was one thing that I had really liked about Microsoft Home Server on the NAS: it was very easy to set it up to backup all of the machines on my network to the NAS every night. It did this using a "pull" methodology (ie - the NAS grabbed data off of the target machines), rather than "push" (where the machines to be backed up run software that puts data on the NAS's disks.) I liked the pull methodology quite a lot - it offloaded the task to the NAS, centralized administration of the backups, and made it easy to schedule the backups so that they happened sequentially, thereby not overloading the NAS.

I wanted to make that happen with my server machine. I couldn't find any way to get the backup features of Microsoft Home Server onto Windows 7 using any Microsoft product - Why? God knows. I happened to have a copy of Norton Ghost 15 that I got for free in a combo deal with something else I had bought, so I figured I'd try that out. Well, it was a complete and total pain in the ass and took hours and hours including a 1/2 hour completely useless online chat session with Norton tech support, and another 1/2 hour session on the phone with Norton with a support agent who knew about half of the answers I needed.

The following is a writeup of how to get this to work. However, after getting it set up I quickly concluded that Norton Ghost 15 just doesn't cut it. It does not provide the granularity of backup that I want. As far as I can tell, it only allows backing up of a machine's system files, or entire disk(s). You cannot choose specific sub-directories. So, after all that work I almost immediately abandoned Ghost. I am now running scheduled tasks on each of the target machines to push data to shares on my server. That works just fine, though I do miss the centralized administration. Oh well.

--------------------------------

Note: all my machines are running Win7 Ultimate 64bit with Windows Firewall. These steps may or may not work on other versions of Ghost or other versions of Windows.

For convenience I will refer to the machine that is performing the backups as the "server," and the "remote" machines that are being backed up as "clients."

1) You need to have agent running on any client machine. Ghost cannot perform a remote deployment of Agent to a Win7 machine. So, you must install Ghost on each client machine. The owners manual says:

You must purchase a separate license for each computer you want to manage.You can deploy the agent without a license for a 60-day evaluation. After thattime, you must purchase and install the license to continue managing the remotecomputer.

However, apparently you cant buy licenses for just the Agent, you will need a full license for Ghost for each machine - server and clients. Also, the "60" days is incorrect. It is 30 days.

2) There are three services that must be running for this to work. "Norton Ghost", "Symantec SymSnap VSS Provider", and "SymSnap Service". Launch the services panel by clicking the start button and entering "services.msc" Find each of these services and set them to "Automatic" and start them. I have no idea why Norton install doesn't do this itself. Also, on my machines I set the Norton Ghost service to run as myself instead of the default Local Service. I don't know if this is necessary or not, but haven't had the time to go back and try undoing that to see if Ghost stops working. Also, I did these steps on both the server and client machines - it is possible that it is only required on the server machine. Again, no time to research further.

3) If you are running a firewall, you must allow Norton Ghost and its services through the firewall. I am using the default Windows Firewall. On the forums there are threads that talk about opening various TCP and UDP ports (notably 135, 136, 1345, 1346, 1347). I found this didnt work (as well as being a pain in the ass to do all the steps required to open these ports for each of the services.) What worked for me in this configuration is:

Launch Control Panel/Windows Firewall.
Click "Allow a program or feature through Windows Firewall"
Find Norton Ghost in the list and turn on the check mark. If it isn't in the list, click "Allow another program", find your NG15 install, which is normally C:\Program Files (x86)\Norton Ghost, go to the Console subdirectory, and add VProConsole_.exe. (note the "_" in the name.)
You will then also need to allow the following programs through as well:

Console\VProConsole.exe
Agent\VProSvc.exe

You should reboot the clients and servers, just to be safe. Now, finally, on the server machine you should be able to see the client machine and do a remote backup. Whew.

Why Symantec hasn't documented any of this, and why Ghost install doesn't take care of it, is beyond me. My apologies for not refining this further, but I killed too many hours making this work already - just wanted to quickly write this up for anyone else facing this scenario. I wouldn't be surprised if at least a couple of the above steps can be removed. If anyone has time to refine this, please add to this thread.

Strange Fruit

2011-07-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

The tomato plants in my garden haven't quite started producing yet, so, about a week ago I bought two organic tomatoes from my local (non-organic) mega-mart. I used one right away, but found that I didn't need the other, so I left it on my counter (one should never put tomatoes in the fridge - apparently a flavor compound called Z-3 Hexenel is destroyed or hindered by low temperatures.)

Yesterday I wanted a tomato to put on a sandwich. I grabbed the "spare" from the counter and immediately noticed that something was wrong. Very wrong. There were weird green bumps all over the skin (or, more accurately, just under the skin.) Here's a color-enhanced detail:

My first thought was "wow, that's really interesting," followed immediately by the assumption that the tomato was full of insects, which generated the automatic, involuntary, "eeeeewwww, grossssss," reaction.

I took my paring knife and made a slit in the skin while holding the tomato over the sink - I expected that some kind of green grubs would come tumbling out. To my surprise, they weren't grubs at all - they were sprouts! The tomato was red and firm, not mushy or rotten at all, but it was full of sprouting seeds.

I've never seen anything like this happen before, either with fruit from my garden or the grocery store (with the exception of obvious things like onions, garlic, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc, which often sprout if left unused in the cupboard.)

So, I made my sandwich without any tomato, but, at least I got a good story out of the deal.

(PS: FYI, the label on the tomato said "OriginO / Ocia Canada / Organic Biologic" product code 94664.)

Bizarre Flower du Jour

2011-07-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

This strange plant is one of the newer additions to my garden. It is Aristolochia trilobata, a member of a family of vines commonly called "Dutchman's Pipe." I have three different "Dutchman's Pipes" growing in my garden. While they all have odd flowers, this is by far the strangest.

One of the others that I am growing, Aristolochia 'durior x elegans', has a flower that is much more reminiscent of its English namesake.

A. trilobata is named for its three-lobed leaves. Its flowers are apparently pollinated by flies, as it smells (I kid you not) like a nice, fresh pile of dog poop. I'm not sure of the function of the long streamer that hangs down from the top of the flower's bell. Perhaps a ladder for insects to climb? This one has a streamer that is almost a foot long!

You may wonder why I am growing such a plant. Well, ever since childhood I have been fascinated by oddities in the natural world. Besides, A. trilobata is a nice, easy to grow vine with attractive, shiny foliage. So why not?

Happy Pie of July

2011-07-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Pie of July Day, also known as The Fifth of July, or Cinco de Julio. This is an ancient holiday in which we remember the sacrifices Paul Revere made to sign the Treaty of Versailles, which allowed Queensland to become our 21st state. Traditionally we make pies in commemoration of his dramatic declaration, “Ich bein ein fleischpastete,” which is loosely translated as “I am a meat pie.”

The most traditional of all Cinco de Julio pies is Martha Washington’s Turkey-banana-spam pie, which she famously baked for Stonewall Jackson after the Battle of the Bulge. It was at the meal where this pie was first served that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King uttered the immortal words "Let my people go." The recipe follows.

Ingredients:

1 (8-ounce) can Spam, softened
1 Turkey, baked or deep fried, boned
14 very ripe bananas
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg plus 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
1 cup vanilla extract
1/64 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/1492 teaspoon ground ginger, optional
1 piece pre-made pie dough, any size
Whipped cream, for topping

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 141 degrees Reaumur (449 degrees Kelvin)

Place 1 piece of pre-made pie dough down into a 1 cubit pie pan and press down along the bottom and all sides. Pinch and crimp the edges together making a series of smiley faces. Put the pie shell back into the freezer for 1 week to firm up. Fit a piece of aluminum foil to cover the inside of the shell completely. Fill the shell up to the edges with pie weights or doubloons (about 2 pounds) and place it in the oven. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the foil and weights and bake for another 10 milliseconds or until the crust is dried out and beginning to color.

For the filling, puree the Turkey in a food processor or blender. Add the bananas one at a time, making sure that each is fully incorporated before adding the next – this will form a stable emulsion. If the emulsion should break, you will either need to start over, or add a quantity of Jello pudding equal to the volume of the ingredients already pureed. Add the sugar and salt and beat until combined. Add the eggs mixed with the yolks, cream, and melted butter, and beat until combined. Finally, add the vanilla, cinnamon, and ginger, if using, and beat until incorporated.

Using ½ of the can of Spam, make a layer on the bottom of the pie pan. Pour the filling on top, then add slices of the remaining Spam on top.

Bake for 5 to 432 minutes, or until the center is set. Place the pie on a wire rack and cool to 3 degrees Kelvin. Cut into slices and top each piece with a generous amount of whipped cream.

Notes:

Some have suggested that this pie sounds revolting. However, Stonewall Jackson had already had his taste buds shot off by the Viet Cong at Iwo Jima, and so, in making this pie, it really was the thought that counted.
There are those who have suggested that Martha Washington would have used cranberries instead of bananas, but that is of course ridiculous.
No one knows how a pie baked by Martha Washington for Stonewall Jackson at The Battle of the Bulge became associated with Paul Revere’s exploits at Versailles. This remains a culinary mystery.

Wiener's Choice

2011-06-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

or, What Anthony Wiener failed to learn from Lucille Ball

When I was a kid I watched a lot of sitcoms on TV. I Love Lucy, Gilligan's Island, Father Knows Best, The Flying Nun, and so forth. A common theme in this sort of sitcom, showing up over and over again, was the scenario in which the protagonist makes a mistake of some kind then spends the rest of the program attempting to cover it up. Generally the cover-up gets more and more complicated until finally the initial mistake is uncovered, everything is resolved, and life is back to normal. The moral of these stories was about as subtle as an enema: if you make a mistake, fess up, apologize, and correct the problem. If you are Lucille Ball working in a candy factory, and the conveyor belt is moving too quickly, stuffing the candies in your mouth won't work.

In 1998 I was very confused when Bill Clinton lied so audaciously to cover up the Monica Lewinsky affair. But President Clinton is considerably older than I am, and was an inveterate politician (used to perpetual lying,) so I chalked it up to that. Of course, in the end, he got exactly what the sitcoms said he would get. He was impeached for lying to Congress, not for having “sex with that woman."

However, Anthony Wiener is almost exactly the same age as I am. I'm sure he watched the same sitcoms that I did. He hasn't been a politician for nearly as long as Clinton was, and, in my experience of him, he had always seemed like a fairly upstanding and honest guy. When the Wiener scandal began I believe he was entirely innocent; he couldn't possibly be that stupid, and he should certainly know that the thing you do in such a circumstance is to fess up if it's true. But, as in any good episode of All In the Family or The Jefferson’s, he lied and obfuscated and covered up and made a mess of the thing, till finally at the end of the episode the truth came out.

I can't help wondering what the response of the public, the media, and Congress would have been if he had said, at the very beginning, "yes, that is a photo of me. I am having an extramarital affair with a consenting woman, and we have been exchanging photos and messages as a part of that affair. My relationship with her is consensual, it's between the two of us, and it is a private matter for me, my wife, and my paramour."

Following the exposure of the cover-up, instead of backing him up, the Democratic leadership called for Wiener to step down. I wonder what they would have done if he had owned up to it from the start? How would the media have handled it? Would they have praised him for his honesty? Would they have said "oh, well, okay then," and moved on to the next story? What would his constituents have said in that circumstance? "Step down, we don't want an adulterer as our representative!" Or, "er, um, ahhh, gee, well, okay, but keep it to yourself."

There is a third approach that Wiener could've taken when presented with the photos. He could have just said “no comment.” He could have refused to say anything about it at all - ever. Of course, in that case, everyone would have assumed that he was in fact guilty. But who cares? He wouldn't have lied, and with nothing for the media to feed upon it might have just gone away. If the full story had come out in the end, he wouldn't have had to face the accusations of lying, and could even have just continued saying "no comment."

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a set of parallel universes in which alternate versions of Representative Wiener chose these different approaches to the scandal. So, none of us can know how these other tactics would have played out. However, I have no doubt that some future congressperson will do something equally stupid. I will be curious to see if they follow the “do the right thing” morality that was spoon-fed to me in the sitcoms of my youth, or if they will follow Bill Clinton, Anthony Wiener, and the rest of them down the rat-hole of botched cover-ups.

Kero had surgery today

2011-06-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

For some time Kero has had a lump on her neck. It had been presenting as a sebaceous cyst, so our vet was just watching it. The theory was that at some point it would either recede, or get very big and need to be removed, or perhaps it would just stay as it was forever.

Last week I was out of town. While I was gone the skin over the lump got pierced and tore open. It's not clear if that was the result of rubbing by her collar, or fighting or playing with other dogs, or something else. In any case, the skin got torn and then infected. I brought her in to the vet yesterday to look at the injury. I had imagined that it was going to require a few stitches and some antibiotics. However, with the skin open the vet was able to see that it wasn't a cyst, but rather a tumor. It was impossible to tell how far the tumor extended into her neck, and cancer was a real possibility.

This morning I took her back in for surgery. Since she was going to be under anyway I also arranged to have three warts removed from one of her hind legs and some tarter was to be scraped from her molars. There was also an odd piercing on her other rear leg that I wanted inspected. In addition because of the strange weather we have been having, Kero hasn't done her usual spring shed (aka "blowing her coat.") She had developed quite a crop of dreadlocks on her belly, so I asked them to do a thorough exam of her stomach hair to make sure there weren't any "foxtails" hiding in there. [Foxtails are the seeds of one of several grasses, notably Hordeum murinum, that get caught in animal's fur as part of their mechanism for dispersal. Unfortunately, the fur of many dogs captures the foxtails which can then pierce the skin and enter their body, potentially causing significant damage and even death. They also often get lodged in pets' noses, ears, and throats. Kero has had all of these happen to her. A very nasty business.]

The surgery went well, but it was lengthy and extensive. The tumor turns out to have been relatively small. The surgeon did not need to damage any of Kero's neck muscles in the removal. Also, he felt that it was very unlikely to be cancerous based on its location and appearance. Still, it will be several days before we get the results of the biopsy. The scraping of her molars and removal of the warts were no problem. However, upon examining her belly, they found numerous foxtails in her fur. They decided to shave her belly which revealed 6 locations where foxtails had embedded under her skin. They removed all 6 and inspected her remaining fur and orifices for foxtails. They got all the ones they could find, but there is no guarantee that they found them all. The mark on her other hind leg is a problem. It appears to be a foxtail entry site but they weren't able to find the foxtail. Its clear that Kero had been chewing on the wound, so we can only hope that she got it out herself.

Kero is now home and resting with a belly full of pain killers, antibiotics, and dinner. She will be wearing the "cone of shame" for at least a week, which means she can't go through her dog-door and I will have to walk her whenever she wants to go out. I have no problem doing that - I am her dad after all. The only problem is that for her entire life she has had access to a dog-door, so has never learned to "ask" to go out. On the rare occasions that we have been someplace that she didn't have free access to the outside, I have found her sitting quietly near a door looking pitiful when she wants to go out. No barking. No coming to get me. No fidgeting. Just a sad and patient waiting. She is a good girl.

--Postscript - 6/17/11 --

I just heard from the vet. The tumor was NOT cancer. It is a “tricoblastoma,” which, according to Wikipedia “...are a cutaneous condition characterized by benign neoplasms of follicular germinative cells.”

I don’t know what that means, but I like the word “benign” in there.

The Sarah Palin School of Public Speaking Alumni Association Annual Meeting

2011-06-14T09:07:00.000-07:00

God Bless US! That is the Americans, and everyone that loves the Americas and the US. We are so proud to have another year of these great kids graduated, out there, tellin’ folks things the way that people want to hear them tellin’.

This year we’re havin’ the annual meeting again in place of the meeting we couldn’t have last year. Please come join US and the other folks that are comin’ and meet all the kids that have just. ‘Cause you know the kids are our future, and it is so important! We couldn’t be more proud to be Alumni of The Sarah Palin School of Public Speaking and of being American in this country.

We know that you are all out there and talkin’ to folks and listenin’ to folks and talkin’ some more, which is so important to be doin’ and God bless America. We’re havin’ the annual meeting here in the heartland of America so we can listen to you and talk to the folks you’ve been listenin’ to and talk about how we’re all working together to fix this country and the terrible problems its been havin’ bein’ the greatest nation on the planet!

So please join us next Thursday at 9pm here at the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in New York so that we can talk with you and the great folks and you can meet all these special, special kids who are so important and proud and joining us as God bless America. We really want you all to come to the annual meeting here in the heartland of America where we’re so proud to be Americans. If there’s a gotcha and you cant make it the next annual meeting is next month in Orlando where we’re havin’ it and more of these great kids are graduatin’ and talkin’ and comin’ together at.

God bless The United States of America!
Phillip (Jimmy) Ramsbuckler
Secretary, The Sarah Palin School of Public Speaking

PS: Sarah says she'll be sending us a special tweet at the meeting!

Tree Bark

2011-06-08T10:22:00.000-07:00

My honorary parents, Howie and Sue, had a cottage greeting card business using Howie's excellent photographs for the images on the cards. They focused on pictures taken on Martha's Vineyard, but during a trip to Australia they fell in love with textures of bark on the trees. They produced a run of cards featuring photos of Australian tree bark and sent me a set as a birthday gift one year. I've always loved trees, but I have been especially sensitive to tree bark ever since.

Here, then, are some photos of tree bark that I shot at Trail of the Cedars in Glacier National Park. Click on an image to enlarge (but you knew that.)

Why is "seldom" a discouraging word?

2011-05-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

The other day I was asked why “seldom” is a discouraging word. It was a profound and curious question. Personally, I have never found “seldom” to be discouraging; however, I have been told that for some people, when they are at home on the range with deer and antelope playing and the skies are clear for a majority of the day, hearing “seldom” is very discouraging indeed. Some of these people can become bedridden if repeatedly accosted by aggressors shouting “Seldom! Seldom! Seldom!” I have dubbed this condition “seldomosis.”

I promised that I would look into the source of seldomosis, but unfortunately I find myself with more questions than answers:

Is the phenomenon of being discouraged upon hearing the word "seldom" restricted to people who are at home on the range?
Is this perverse reaction to “seldom” weather specific? Among the people get despondent at hearing the word “seldom,” are they only effected if the skies aren't cloudy? If it is a cloudy day, signaling that rain is on the way and the crops will be saved from the drought, does that diminish their linguistic sensitivities?
What is the connection to frolicking hooved mammals? Apparently deer and antelope playing is in some way involved in causing seldomosis. What about other animals? If squirrels and badgers play, but deer and antelope busy themselves with grazing, can that also cause “seldom” to be a discouraging word?
Which of these factors are more significant: weather, or animal entertainment? Or do both need to be in place, at home, on the range, to create seldomosis? Perhaps clear skies without animals playing would make “seldom” only mildly dispiriting.
Is this purely an auditory phenomenon? If a person is home on the range, the skies aren't cloudy all day, and there are both deer and antelope playing, will they be discourage by reading the word “seldom,” or must they hear it spoken to have the wind knocked out of their sails?
Lastly, are there any other words that upset sufferers of seldomosis? If so, is it phonetic or semiotic? That is to say, would “solemn” or “selenium” or “celadon” cause as much dismay as “seldom?” Or would those words be fine, but “rarely” and “infrequently” bring about feelings of hopelessness.

Any assistance that you can provide in unraveling this mystery would be much appreciated.

Despicable IE9

2011-05-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I decided to install the brand new Internet Explorer 9 on my computer. I don't know why. I was very busy at the time, but for some strange reason I decided to do the upgrade from Internet Explorer 8 to version 9. I think I had read about some new feature that sounded great, perhaps tear off tabs, but I don't really recall. It only took me about 20 minutes to decide that I hated Internet Explorer 9. For whatever reasons Microsoft had made some really hideous UI decisions. In particular the tabs weren't attached to the pages – tabs were now up above the toolbars, which makes no sense at all. Also, they had gotten rid of the little drop-down arrow next to the back button which formerly displayed recent history – a feature which I use all the time. They had moved around the address bar and menu bars, and removed several of the customization options that would have let me put them back where I wanted them. I spent about an hour searching online for information on how to fix IE9, then gave up and uninstalled it.

At least, that should be what happened. In reality I spent the next hour trying to uninstall IE9 and get IE8 back again. Since Internet Explorer is a system component, to remove it you choose the "Turn windows features on or off" tool, not the standard uninstaller under “Programs and Features” in the control panel. When you uncheck the checkbox next to “ IE9,” it tells you that it is removing it, (which “could take several minutes,”) and then it cranks away, and then you reboot. Presto, IE9 is gone. But not only is IE9 gone, there is no Internet Explorer at all. If you go back to "Turn windows features on or off", it shows IE9 with an empty checkbox -- no mention of IE8.

So I surfed to Microsoft.com to download IE8. But guess what, you can't get IE8 for Windows 7 from Microsoft.com! Every version of IE8 says that it isn’t compatible with Win7 when you try to install it! On Microsoft’s IE8 download page there is no explanation of why there isn't a Windows 7 version (though there is a reason.) So, I went back to my original installation disks, and tried to find it there. But it's been a long time since I attempted to navigate my way around a Windows installation DVD, and a lot of things have changed, so I didn't find it.

Finally I figured out the secret to getting IE8 back: What you have to do is click on "View Installed Updates" INSTEAD of "Turn windows features on or off". This will allow you to fully remove the IE9, which is an "installed update." (Then reboot -- again!) Now when you go to “Programs and Features” and click "Turn windows features on or off" it will show IE8 with and empty check box. Clicking that box turns IE8 on (and reboot -- again!) The reason Microsoft.com doesn’t have a version of IE8 for Windows 7 is that IE8 never really goes away – you don’t need to ever re-download it. However, would it have killed them to put in a paragraph of text explaining this and describing how to find it after IE9 shrouds it? The ONLY good thing is that when I was all done, IE8 was back the way I left it with all my favorites, toolbars, etc.

Anyway, I went back to using IE8 for the last couple of months, but web sites seem to be loading more and more slowly, and some weird things have been happening in the layout of menu and toolbars, and then the other day IE8 started blocking access to Google image searches (apparently to block cross-site scripting which can be a security breach.) Today I abandoned Internet Explorer and moved to FireFox. I have no idea why Microsoft is working so hard to drive away customers. But that is the subject of another blog…

Excellent garden tour

2011-05-04T11:07:00.000-07:00

Bomaria Spp. (unknown cultivar)

The garden tour was a great success. The Hillside Gardeners of Montclair sold over 350 tickets, which exceeded all prior tours. My garden looked great and everyone had a terrific time. Most of the flowers got the memo and agreed to bloom right on time. One, Sprekelia formossima clearly misunderstood, as it came into bloom literally just a few hours after the tour was over. The other 6 gardens (of 8 total) that I was able to see were excellent. Anyone that got to see all 8 gardens on the tour had an opportunity to see some really amazing plants and garden designs.

Sprekelia formossima

I am finally getting back to "my regularly scheduled life already in progress." Hopefully my backlog of blog ideas will come spilling forth. Thank you, dear reader, for your patience. I can get back to reading, writing, and cooking. I can also get back to harvesting from my garden. I was leaving things in place so that the visitors could see what was growing. Here is a photo of yesterday's harvest.

Spider killing a bee

2011-04-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

I haven't written a damn thing in a couple weeks. My combined email inboxes now contain over 1500 messages. My friends on Facebook wonder what happened to me...

It's spring time here and I have been spending all of my spare time (and then some) in the garden. The urgency is particularly great with the Hillside Gardens tour just one week away (I was interviewed for the local newspaper yesterday - nice.)

While I still have a lot to say, a lot to write, and a lot to cook, spending time outside definitely has advantages over sitting at my desk. Amongst many, many things, I get to see the natural (and naturalesque) world more deeply when I spend my time in the garden. Yesterday I was outside talking to my friend Andy (who is also my landscaper.) I saw a bee sitting on my white lilac but not moving. It was so odd, it was completely immobile, so I went closer to check it out. I realized that it was in the jaws of an almost perfectly camoulflaged spider. Wow! (Note that I cropped the image and increased the contrast in Photoshop to make the spider more visible.)

Creepy but beautiful, and fully part of the natural world. I like the ant peeking out from behind a flower petal just to the upper left of the scene.

Postscript 5/4/11: Found this on Wikipedia. I think it is Misumena vatia. Apparently this spider can change color at will!

Garden Tour

2011-04-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

The water feature in my garden.

photo (c) Acorn Landscaping

Busy, busy, busy.

It's spring here in California, and when California springs, it doesn't kid around. I've completely lost count of the number of hours I have spent in the garden over the last two weeks. Weeding, pruning, fertilizing (organic), spraying (Safer Soap, etc.) Then there's "The Farm" - turning the soil, tilling and cultivating, pulling old carrots and planting new ones, planting corn, tomatoes, peppers, cantaloupe, cucumbers, zucchini, patty pan squash, herbs... Then there's the spring harvests - crazy amounts of chard and fava beans. On top of that I have to do something with all that food.

Busy, busy, busy.

Spring in the garden is always a busy time, but this year it is doubly so because my garden will be featured in the Hillside Gardeners of Montclair garden tour, May 1. This is a wonderful tour of gardens in Oakland's Montclair district that raises funds for various horticultural educational projects. I'm very pleased and honored to have my garden on the tour. However, it is an extra challenge because I want to time things so that by May 1 my garden looks perfect, but I also want it to look untouched. Perfect but effortless. No easy feat.

As if that weren't enough, I noticed that the Hillside Gardener's of Montclair didn't have a web site (tsk, tsk.) To my surprise, HillsideGardeners.com was available! So, I registered it and created a web site for them.

Busy, busy, busy!

Online Bake Sale for Japan (conclusion)

2011-04-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to The Tomato Tart and all the many chef/bloggers who made this happen. Wow!

The Uncarved Block Waffle

2011-04-03T13:54:00.000-07:00

The Uncarved Block Waffle

Aka The "Andrew Needs Adult Supervision in the Kitchen Waffle"

Finally, The Uncarved Block Waffle! It's not an easy waffle to make, but for the official waffle of The Uncarved Block, why should it be? It is fluffy inside, crispy outside, and sweet with a multi-layered flavor. It is a profound waffle. (Not at all modest, am I?)

Wet Ingredients:

1 whole egg
1 13.5oz can of coconut milk (As with so many products, Chaokoh has downsized their coconut milk instead of increasing the price.)
2 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp Tahitian vanilla
1/8 cup Malibu coconut rum
1 cup fresh, ripe sweet mango, medium dice
1 cup cooked white rice (preferably Jasmin)

Dry Ingredients:

1/2 cup rice flour (NOT glutenous rice flower)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp sugar (heaping)
1 tsp baking powder
pinch salt

Method:
Preheat waffle iron (the first step in all waffle recipes, doesn't this go without saying?)

Whisk the egg, coconut milk, vanilla, butter and rum together in one bowl (note: the butter should be melted but not hot). Then gently add the mango and rice. Sift together the dry ingredients in another bowl, making sure they are thoroughly combined. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring until fully combined into a thin batter, but without beating up the mango too badly. Note that there aren't many glutens present, so you don't have to worry too much about overworking the batter.

The last instruction in most waffle recipes is "Make waffles according to waffle iron manufacturer's instructions," or some such. However, for this recipe do NOT necessarily follow the the manufacturer's instructions.

I recently got a fancy schmancy new waffle iron that purports to tell you when your waffle is ready (the Chef's Choice M840.) I don't know how it decides when the waffle is done. Perhaps it thinks it is done when the heating element returns to a certain temp after being cooled by the batter? Maybe it is just a timer? I don't know. But, in any case, this is a very moist dough and the mango and rice are full of water. The Chef's Choice instructions say that you should not watch for the steaming to slow or stop as with old fashioned waffle irons, but rather to open the iron and remove the waffle when the buzzer sounds regardless of steam. With this recipe, if you follow those instructions, you get a waffle that comes out beautifully crisp, but 10 seconds later it is a soggy noodle.

My best results come from setting the M840 at #4 (out of 5) darkness, and letting it go through two whole cycles before removing the waffle. Also, placing the waffles on a cold plate causes instant condensation and sogginess. Resting them first on paper towels cured this problem. If you have an "old fashioned" waffle iron that requires you to pay attention, wait for the steam to dissipate as usual but be prepared for it to take a relatively long time.

Serve with fresh fruit (preferably more mango,) or powdered sugar, or both. Maple syrup is definitely not recommended.

Notes:

The rice must be cooked, but need not be freshly cooked. Last night's left overs are fine.
I like Tahitian vanilla for this recipe. It has a sweet cherry-like tone that I find goes nicely with coconut. If you don't have Tahitian, Madagascar will do.
Don't use glutinous rice flour, it is just too gloppy.

The Uncarved Block Adult Root Beer Float

2011-04-03T09:30:00.000-07:00

Why have I developed this wild craving for root beer floats? I've no idea. If you figure it out, please let me know.

Here then is the official Uncarved Block Adult Root Beer Float (tm)

Ingredients:

1 bottle Virgil's Root Beer (or equivalent boutique root beer or homemade)1 scoop homemade coconut sorbet (see below)1 jigger Malibu coconut rum (or equivalent), more or less to taste1 bendable straw.

Method:

Add Malibu and a few ounces of root beer to a tall glass and mix (mixing destroys the carbination in the soda, so we "sacrifice" a few ounces to help the mix.)

Place a scoup of coconut sorbet in the glass. Top with root beer. Note that with any root beer float, the root beer will foam up quite a lot, so add slowly, and as a precaution do this in the sink or on a towel.

Insert a bendable straw (this is vital!) Enjoy.

------------------------

For my coconut sorbet I start with Ming's Perfectly Simple Coconut Sorbet from Food.com, but there are two things I don't like about this recipe. Most important I feel like there is much too much shredded coconut. I also find it too sweet. Nonetheless, it could hardly be easier. So, check that out and note my comments on that page.

Online Bake Sale for Japan (continued)

2011-03-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

The Uncarved Block is helping to sponsor the Online Bake Sale for Japan!

As you may have heard, there were some technical difficulties with the online bidding software, so the auction was delayed and began yesterday at 12:00 Noon. It ends today at Noon, so, as I write this, you have just under 3 hours to get your final bids in. Already several items have sold through the $250 "buy it now" option! It looks like the auction is going to be a smashing success helping to raise money to feed people effected by the earthquake in Japan.

I want to say "your welcome" and "thank you!" to all the people who have thanked me for my contribution. I am really happy to have been able to contribute to this effort. Thank you for your comments.

I also want to send out my own "thank you" to all the many blogger/chefs that contributed their creativity and labor, and most of all to Sabrina at TheTomatoTart.com. Lots of people have ideas like this one, very few carry through and make it happen! Sabrina is one of those few that can both have a vision and see it through.

Online Bake Sale for Japan

2011-03-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

The Uncarved Block is helping to sponsor the Online Bakesale for Japan!

The Uncarved Block is matching the first $500 that is raised tomorrow through the TheTomatoTart.com's online bakesale for Japan!

Waffle Flavored Gin

2011-03-26T20:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I posted a blog about gin flavored waffles. I decided to submit it to PunkDomestics.com in their "Infusions and Liquors" section. I knew that it didn't really count as an infusion or liquor, but it seemed like such a unique way of using gin that they might like it anyway. Well, it wasn't much of a surprise that gin flavored waffles didn't fit the criteria for PunkDomestics. However, they did say that if it had been waffle flavored gin that would've been another story. Of course, waffle flavored gin is a ridiculous notion. Or is it? Waffle flavored gin? It was too much of a challenge to ignore. So I sat down with some waffles and a glass of gin and thought about what waffle flavored gin would be.

The biggest hurdle was that waffles themselves have a very subtle flavor. They are really much more about texture than taste. Making a waffle flavored liquid inherently eliminates that textural element. Perhaps Nathan Mhyrvold has some magic that will give a liquid the texture of a waffle. If so, I am not privy to it.

But what about the flavor of a plain waffle; assuming there are no berries, nuts, or other flavorings added, an unadorned waffle is slightly sweet and has nice elements of caramelized flour. That's about it. It is a "quick bread," so there is no yeast involved and none of those yeasty flavors that you get in bread that uses "biological leveners." The egg and milk in a waffle seem to contribute little or nothing to its flavor. There are subtleties to waffle flavor that can make one waffle better than another, but unless we're talking about a burnt waffle, they are all so delicate that alcohol obliterates them. I concluded that waffle flavored gin was about the experience of eating waffles and drinking gin, not about trying to actually make gin take on the flavor of a naked waffle.

Most of us in the USA use waffles as a substrate for butter and syrup. A quick survey of some of my waffle-loving friends confirmed that they prefer waffles to pancakes because the texture is crunchy and the holes hold onto the melting butter and maple syrup. Since crunchiness was already ruled out, it seemed to me that it was butter, maple syrup, and caramelized flour that would define the waffle eating experience in a liquor.

The next question was the gin. The most common type of gin in America, London dry gin, is a spirit with a fairly high alcohol content infused with herbs, principally juniper berries. The flavorings other than juniper in gin vary from maker to maker. Taken straight, gin is a very powerful flavor. There was no way that any component of the "waffle experience" would survive infusion into gin. I decided that for my waffle flavored gin I would start with relatively flavorless vodka and add elements of juniper and waffle in a way that would provide a pleasing balance.

What follows is my experiment creating waffle flavored gin. To be honest, when I started I did not expect to succeed. However, to my surprise I did indeed create an alcoholic beverage that I believe provides the experience of waffle flavored gin. Is it good? I think so. Would I want to drink it every day? No, not really, its a bit on the sweet side. Is waffle flavored gin a good idea? Well, that's for you to decide; all I can say is that waffle flavored gin turns out to be feasible, whether or not it is desirable.

I'm afraid there are no measurements here – I played it entirely by taste, you'll have to do the same.

For the "waffle experience" I started by coarsely shredding a waffle and putting it in a pint mason jar. To this I added a couple tablespoons of maple syrup and two or three tablespoons of ghee. I used ghee because I wanted that buttery flavor, but I was worried about butter going rancid. I figured ghee in alcohol in a closed container would last just fine at room temperature, and I was right.

For a mild gin flavor that wouldn't overpower the waffle, I added 4 or 5 juniper berries, a fresh bay leaf (true bay – Laurus nobilis,) some nutmeg, and a sliver of lemon zest. To me, gin always has a certain pine-like quality. I considered adding pine needles, but ruled that out as too unpredictable, so I tossed in a small piece of chios masticha (gum mastic) instead. [Note: all of these quantities are small. I didn't want to make a large batch because I really exected that in a few weeks I would simply be throwing out a jar full of disgusting mush.]

I filled the jar with Smirnoff vodka, sealed it, and let it sit, shaking it and tasting it from time to time. After two weeks I felt like the maple, butter, and mild-gin flavors were pretty much there, but the waffle was almost imperceptible. I strained out the ingredients and then poured the liquid over a fresh waffle in a new jar to double-down on that element. About a week later my palate said that all the elements were there, so I put it through a coffee filter and declared it ready to face a waiting world.

An alcoholic infusion that is reminiscent of gin and the "waffle experience?" Who knew?

One final thought – if I try this again, I might forego the gin infusion elements and simply infuse the waffle flavors then add gin to taste.

Buying from the bulk department

2011-03-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

I replace my herbs and spices on a regular basis. The whole point of herbs and spices is that they're full of volatile flavonoids. If they weren't volatile we wouldn't be able to smell them or taste them as strongly as we do. Their volatility (ability to be easily vaporized) is both their strength and their Achilles' heel – these flavors which we prize breakdown quickly. Unfortunately, herbs and spices have a second drawback: they tend to be expensive.

A couple of years ago I was at my local Whole Foods (then the one in Berkeley, California,) replacing my collection of aged spices. Along with my other grocery items I had a jumble of little glass bottles of spices in my cart. Heading towards the produce department I noticed the display of bulk herbs that I had never paid attention to before. I had often bought cereal, grains, and dried fruit from Whole Foods' bulk bins, but somehow the herb department had slipped my notice (possibly because at the time it was located in cosmetics and medicines, with culinary and medicinal herbs intermingled – in Berkeley it has since been relocated to the same place as the other bulk foods.)

This particular day, having noticed the bulk herbs and spices for the first time, I decided to compare what I had in my cart to what was being sold in bulk. I was stunned at the price differential. I knew that the bulk grains and fruits were cheaper than their prepackaged counterparts, but the difference in cost for herbs and spices was astounding. I filled little baggies with all the products I needed, then returned those little glass bottles to the shelves where I had gotten them. At home, rather than throwing away the old bottles and replacing them with new, I poured out the old contents, refilling the bottles with the fresh, vibrant, herbs and spices I had bought in bulk.

Recently, I was at Berkeley Bowl (a local Whole-Foods-like natural grocery store.) In their bulk department I noticed a bin of large grain sea salt. I was out of sel gros and had it on my shopping list. The price at Berkeley Bowl for sea salt in the bulk department was $.80 a pound. The price for my usual brand was $4.99 for a 1.5 pound canister. So now I am buying my salt in bulk too.

There are two other great benefits to buying in bulk; first, you can buy much smaller amounts of those spices you use infrequently. I’ve never made it through a bottle of cloves before I considered them too old to use. Now I buy half an ounce at a time, so they’re always super-fresh and there is no waste. Also, I am no longer disposing of all those bottles. Sure, they don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but every bit helps.

When I tell people about this they are almost universally as surprised as I was. So I figured I would pass on the tip – just remember, if you're shopping at Whole Foods in Oakland or Berkeley, or at Berkeley Bowl, leave some for me.

For illustration, the following are some of the prices for a few bulk spices and for salt from the Oakland Whole Foods, and their corresponding prices for those products in packages. Note that sometimes there is not a perfect comparison, as in many cases the packaged product is available under different brands at different prices. These numbers are solely for illustration, prices in your area and for your favorite brands will certainly be different. For convenience I have converted all weights to ounces. [Check out the vanilla for the truly crazy price difference.]

Item	Bulk	Packaged	Notes
Allspice	$ 1.75	$ 6.23	2.49/0.40oz bottle
Clove	$ 1.10	$ 3.33	4.99/1.5oz bottle
Ground cinnamon	$ 0.62	$ 3.33	4.99/1.5oz bottle
Black peppercorns (Tellicherry)	$ 0.80	$ 3.33	4.99/1.5oz bottle
Paprika	$ 0.81	$ 2.36	6.99/2.96oz can
Madagascar vanilla	$ 9.37	$ 35.94	5.99/1 bean in a bottle, ~6 bean to 1 oz
Sea salt (gros)	$ 0.05	$ 0.21	4.99/1.5lb package

Improved seed cleaner

2011-03-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my original blog entry about the Herb and Seed Cleaning that I wasn't satisfied with the way I had used a cardboard box to act as the catch basin and hold the levels in place. It worked, but it was a clunky hack. I had a large sheet of Masonite lying around, so I used some of it to make a base for the unit and as side-panels to hold the levels together. It still ain't headed for the Museum of Modern Art, but it is now a much slicker, cleaner implementation, and stores more easily as well.

For the base, I simply cut a rectangle of the appropriate size and nailed it on with 5/8" bright wire nails. The pieces of Masonite that act as guides/braces for the sides are just 3"x3" squares screwed on with a variety of small screws from the big can-o'-miscellaneous-screws.

If you have any more improvements to suggest, please let me know!

Matzah Brie

2011-03-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention that Passover is just over a month away and apparently not everyone knows how to make matzah brie. Thats a shandeh un a charpeh (a shame and a disgrace.) Oy veh is mere, what is the world coming to? Well, since I am such a mensch and a chochem, I will enlighten you. You're welcome.

This is my mother's recipe. I assume that she got it from her mother, who got it from her mother, and so on and so on back through the ages. Or, it could have come from the side of a box of Matzah. Needless to say, this is the only way to make matzah brie - don't even think of making it some other way.

Of course, since you don't know how to make matzoh brie, you probably dont even know what it is. Do you? Oy. OK. Imagine a cross between a scrambled egg and French toast, except the toast is matzah. Got it. Believe me, it's a tam ganeydn ("taste of heaven.")

By the way, I know, I know, it's "matza," no, its "matzoh," no, in plural its "matzot," no its some other damn thing. Genug with the hock mier en chinik! (Enough with the banging on the kettle!) It's a transliteration, give me a break!

Ingredients:

Matzoh - approx 2 pieces per adult size serving
Milk - sufficient to soak matzoh
Eggs - One egg per piece of matzoh (i.e. 2 eggs for 1 serving)
Butter (approx 2 Tbs)
Toppings

Method:

Soak the matzoh in milk for several minutes. Some like their matzoh completely soggy. I prefer mine still slightly crisp. Pour off the excess milk - if your matzoh is soggy, press out some of the milk and discard.

Beat the eggs and pour over the matzoh. Mush it around a bit and allow the matzoh to absorb some of the egg.

Melt the butter in a pan over medium-high heat (imagine you are making scrambled eggs.) I like a non-stick pan.

Yes, my mother is having tsooris over the amount of butter.

After the butter has melted, foamed, and settled, pour in the matzoh and eggs.

Scramble, breaking up the pieces as much or as little as you like. I like my pieces to average about 2" square.

Voila! Wasn't that easy? Voo den? All this time you were so worried that you couldn't make matzoh brie.

Matzoh brie is usually served either with sour cream for a more savory dish, or topped with cinnamon and sugar and/or jam as I have done here. I like it equally well both ways - it is entirely how I feel at the moment.

Ess, ess! The food is getting cold!

Kero has Buddha Nature

2011-03-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

I share my home with a fully autonomous being with whom I cannot fully communicate. Her name is Kero. She's an 8 1/2-year-old copper and white Siberian husky. I've been her guardian since she was about 1 1/2 years old. I don’t say I “own” her. No one owns Kero.

I find it fascinating watching her move around the house. She absolutely, positively, has intelligence and self-awareness. She makes choices. But I rarely understand her choices. She will be lying in the middle of the living room in what appears to be perfectly comfortable position, then, for no discernible reason she will get up and walk over to another part of the living room and lay back down, often in what looks to me to be a much less comfortable spot. It is not uncommon to find her sleeping on top of bone or a toy or with her head on a jagged rock. But she is a sensitive lass – she will often leave the room if I am making too much noise, or should I, god forbid, fart. Sometimes she will sit in the living room staring intently through the dining room and out through the front windows of the house. When I look out I see nothing noteworthy. If I want to look out those windows, I go to the dining room to look out; Kero seems to prefer the view from further back.

There are a variety of decisions that she appears to make with great care. When I take her for a walk, the places that she pees, and the spot where she ultimately poops, are clearly terribly important. There is no whimsy, no snap judgment or impulse action – there is a particular spot where her pee must land to achieve its purpose. Apparently pig’s ears are just no good when they're fresh; they must be appropriately cured. When I give Kero a pig’s ear she takes it and runs out through her dog door to her side yard. I look out the window to watch her. She will walk around the yard with the ear in her mouth, sniffing and tentatively poking the ground until she finds the right spot for the aging of the treat. She will drop it, dig a hole, shove the ear in, then cover it over, returning to the house with her face and paws covered with soil. I never see her dig them back up again, but some time later I will find the soft, spittle covered remains of a well-aged pig’s ear in her yard.

Over the years I have lived with a variety of people; parents, siblings, roommates, girlfriends, guests – but these people were all… um… human. I usually have had at least some idea of their motivations, and when I didn't I could at least ask them what they were doing. If I were sitting on the couch with a friend, and she gets up, goes to the kitchen, and gets a glass of water from the sink, I understand that she was thirsty. If a roommate runs into the house frantic, I can ask them what's wrong. I'm not always going to fully understand another human’s motivations, and I might not agree with their reasoning, but at least there's a general sense of understanding between us.

It is not unusual for Kero to come racing into the house, flying through her dog door at breakneck speed, screaming up the stairs into the living room, and throwing herself onto her bed panting wildly. "What's up? What's going on Kero?" No answer. Nothing. This happens at least once a week. Often I'll look out the window, or even go outside to see what might be going on. Nothing. No neighborhood dogs barking, no cat running through the yard, no thieves, no wild animals, nothing of any note whatsoever. Yet there she is, clearly beside herself. When this happens I usually assume that she was asleep outside and had a nightmare. I love watching her dream. Her feet will start twitching in the rhythm of running, then she’ll begin moaning and whining, sometimes quite loudly, even reaching a low howl. I can watch her nostrils flaring as she desperately tries to pick up some dream scent. Her dreams are brief, rarely lasting more than two or three minutes, but there is no doubt that they are vivid.

Of course it's wrong for me to say that we don't communicate. We communicate quite a lot. She licks my face; I rub her belly; she looks at me expectantly, I give her a treat; when I go away then return home she runs back and forth, spins in circles, and sings a little song. She knows quite a few words, though she doesn't always choose to obey them. Sit, down, stay, shake, high-five, no, out, off, heel, bed time, dinner, this way, up, etc., and of course there is also good sit, good down, good stay, good heel, good out, good up, and on and on. She tries very hard to communicate with me. The communications that are most clear usually have to do with wanting a treat. She almost never barks – she really only barks at other dogs and sometimes at cats or other animals. She never barks at people. But she will sing quite a song when she sees an old (human) friend. Unlike most other dogs I have known, she never says anything if she is stuck outside and wants to come in, or vice versa. If we are somewhere that she doesn't have a dog door and she wants to go out, she will simply go over to the door and look quietly pitiful until I notice. Since she has had access to dog doors everywhere she’s lived since infancy, she’s never needed to learn to ask – plus, she has always been very polite.

She has one particular message that I've been trying to decipher for years. Sometimes when I walk by her she will snap her mouth in the air two or three times. It's definitely not a threat – her mouth is nowhere near me when she's doing this, and she has never threatened me in any way. I can literally take food out of her mouth while she is chewing and she will just look sad, confused, and hurt. No growling, no snarling, no biting. So this snapping at the air is definitely not aggression. But it means something to her. She's trying very hard to communicate something specific. I think it has to do with impatience or frustration – some desire that she's desperate to fulfill, of which I am oblivious. "Hey! Dad! I want ______.” “What Kero? What do you want?” Beats me.

A disciple once asked the Zhaoshou, a Chinese Zen master, if a dog has Buddha nature. Zhaoshou famously replied, "Mu." “Mu,” such an enigmatic word. It is said to mean something like "not," or "without," or perhaps "no thing." It has been suggested that "mu" is the "non-answer." That in some obscure sense the question "does a dog have Buddha nature" is a meaningless question. It is said that if you meditate on this Koan, and on the word "mu,” you will find the light of your Dharma. This “Mu Koan” doesn't work for me. I believe - I am convinced - that dogs absolutely, positively have Buddha nature. For me the answer to the question is "Uh, duh! Of course a dog has Buddha nature. Don't be ridiculous." No need to make up silly answers that mean "no," yet somehow also don't mean "no."

Dogs are aware. They make choices. They want this, they don't want that. They're happy, they're upset, they're glad to see you, they want to eat, they desperately need to pee on that spot right over there and nowhere else. Watching this being move through my world is an endless joy for me. However, there are clearly times when Kero wants something and I just have no idea what it is. "English!” I say to her, “I don’t understand. Speak English." Oh well.

Herb and seed cleaning

2011-03-04T13:01:00.000-08:00

I like to grow and dry my own herbs. No, not that kind of herb. Yes, I live in Oakland, but no, really, not that kind of herb. I'm also a seed saver. No, not those seeds. I am a proud member of the Seed Savers Exchange. I really like letting some of my vegetables go to seed and saving them to replant the next year. The thing that has held me back in doing that more often is the effort involved in cleaning the herbs and seeds.

I recalled seeing something in Mother Earth News a while back for threshing seeds. But when I looked for it, I couldn't find it anywhere. Also, I couldn't remember if it was an article or an advertisement for a product. I searched online for seed cleaning products and herb cleaning tools, but I couldn't find anything appropriate for the small home gardener. So I decided to make my own.

Here then for your enjoyment and ridicule is the step-by-step photo instructions for Andrew's handy-dandy herb and seed cleaner (tm).

Ingredients:

4 1x4 lumber
Hardware cloth in three grades (your choice)
Screws (I used 1.25" coarse thread drywall screws, because that was the most convenient thing that I had laying around. Virtually any kind of screw will do.)
Saw, drill with bits and countersink, metal snips, screw driver (or bit for drill), staple gun

Method:

I measured and sawed my 1x4's into 2 17" lengths and 2 13" lengths for each level in the box. These sizes were convenient for me in relation to the pieces of hardware cloth and the size of the box I wanted. You can make them larger or smaller as you choose.

Here the pieces are laid out prior to assembly of one level of the box.

The pine 1x4's were very soft, so I was concerned about the wood splitting.

I pre-drilled my holes and counter-sank them to decrease the chances of the screws splitting the wood, especially since they were going into the edges of the pieces.

How did I ever live without an electric screwdriver? I used 4 1.25" coarse thread drywall screws on each side. Probably overkill.

One assembled level of the cleaner box.

I measured and cut my 3 different grades of hardware cloth

Then stapled them to wooden box (one per level.)

The three levels of cleaner frames with screens in the bottom of each level.

Looking down into the finished 3-levels of the cleaner from above.

For large seeds/herbs, I will want to catch any duff that falls out the bottom (for discard.) For small seeds and herbs, that which falls through is the end-product. I made another frame (this time with a 1x2 because I ran out of 1x4's - doh!) I took an Amazon.com box, covered the bottom with aluminum foil, and placed the frame in the bottom. This becomes the lowest level catch basin. Any kind of plastic bin would have worked fine. I am planning on upgrading this (see below.)

The cleaner frames set in the box

Carrot seeds dropped into the top

Bits of carrot flower stem caught by the grossest screen

More trapped in the next level

Seeds end up in the finest screen, with duff left in the bottom box.

I'm really happy with how this turned out. The whole thing cost less than $15, and I can customize it as I need, adding or removing levels, or even swapping out grades of hardware cloth if I find that the grades I used aren't ideal. I am planning on getting rid of the cardboard box on the bottom by slapping a sheet of Masonite on the bottom of my lowest frame. Also, I want to put a piece or two of metal strapping on each edge of each layer (except the top) that will hold the frames together in a stack (currently they sit on top of each other through friction.) I'll keep you posted.

Suggestions for improvements are always welcome! Comment below!

Postscript:
I have made some of the improvements I mentioned above. See my blog entry for the Improved Seed Cleaner for more.

Fear of Food

2011-02-27T14:53:00.000-08:00

Recently I received an email from Michael Pollan via the Slow Food mailing list. He is asking for contributions for an updated version of his book “Food Rules.” I submitted a “rule” that I have believed for years: If you believe food is poison it will kill you. If you believe food is wonderful it will fill you. (Perhaps a bit heavy on the rhyming, I know. Another of the seventeen reasons why I am not a poet.)

It reminded me of an essay that I wrote several years ago. I dug it out of the archives. To my surprise, with just a bit of polishing, it still feels fresh today. Presented here for your consideration.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I believe that most Americans are afraid of food. It makes you fat, gives you cancer, mad cow disease, heart burn, acne, and bad breath. It takes time, effort, energy and money. If you are unfortunate enough to be saddled with the responsibility of preparing food, your lot is even worse; should you fail to make food which is healthy, nutritious, delicious, and worthy of Martha Stewart, then your family won’t love you and you will become a social outcast. Though some Americans truly love food, for the rest the Food Network’s purpose is to teach them enough to look savvy on a first date.

By contrast, for the French, adoration of food is part of their cultural identity. The notion of Appelation d’Origine Controlle (a system of regulations that control the places where foods are grown and the methods used to produce them,) speaks to the importance of food in France. That it matters precisely where an ingredient came from, and the method by which it was produced, is quintessentially French. Certainly many Americans care that foods taste good, but few give a damn if their goat cheese is Montrachet, Bucheron or Banon, and they don’t care if it comes from Oregon, Texas, France, Germany or Bulgaria. For Frenchmen, Roquefort is not just another blue cheese - it matters that it came from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon and that it was aged in a particular way. The flavor of the Midi-Pyrénées is in the soil, in the grass, in the sheep, in the unique bacteria of the aging caves, and therefore in the cheese. This is not some academic distinction flaunted by 3-star chefs; it is a matter of significance to the man in the street.

I had the opportunity to experience this attitude first hand at the cheese caves of Aleosse in Paris. It is said that in France you can eat a different cheese each day of the year. If you care to try, there’s no better place to go than Aleosse. There, if you are lucky enough to get an invitation, owner Philippe Aleosse will proudly show off the cheeses that he cures with care and devotion. Scouring France, Switzerland and Spain he acquires the best of the best of fresh cheeses from artisanal farmers. He then ages them – rotating them, spraying them with water or alcohol, and cultivating specific molds on their surfaces. M. Aleosse dotes over his charges, pressing with thumb and forefinger to test for the moment of perfect ripeness. His deep commitment to the ultimate in cheese is infectious; after a day in his caves the notion that the makers of Sainte-Maure de Touraine wrap their cheese around a laser engraved straw to protect their provenance no longer sounds absurd.

In French there is a term, “terroir,” which simply has no true equivalent in English. Terroir embodies the sense that a place imparts its own unique flavor to a food, beverage, or ingredient. It is a combination of the makeup of the soil, the altitude, the timing of sun and rain, the insects and animals, and every other micro-climactic aspect that varies from place to place.

To most Americans such an idea is entirely alien. Sure, you can’t grow oranges in Boston, Maple syrup comes from Vermont not Mexico, and the wines of Napa Valley are considered to be particularly good, but that is as far as most Americans go in thinking about the sources of their food. In France it is important that at a particular altitude on a particular mountain in the Pyrenees, there is a combination of rain and sun that makes a particular type of grass grow in a particular way. The cows that eat this grass impart a unique flavor to their milk, resulting in a unique cheese. The cheese expresses its terroir. It embodies the place and is of the place. It is a flavor that cannot be simulated in the laboratories of New Jersey’s scent factories. Would 21st century homogenized America be improved by the addition of the word terroir to our dictionaries?

I never fully appreciated the meaning of terroir until I visited the vineyards of Chateau Beaucastel in the southern Rhone river valley. Theirs is a craft of subtlety, using up to 13 different varieties of grapes to make their wine, some in very small amounts. To the vintners of Beaucastel the addition of a grape that adds a slight hint of acid might offset some element of sweetness and thus improve complexity. A tiny note of muskiness might combine with other flavors to provide roundness in the mouth. Even flavors that might be considered off or unpleasant on their own are combined to create a greater whole. In this way Chateau Beaucastel is able to create wines that match and compliment food in extraordinary ways.

In addition to the peculiarities of different grape varietals, it is terroir, the unique microclimate of their region, which gives the grapes of Beaucastel special qualities. The land upon which Beaucastel rests is composed of a thin layer of soil on top of fast draining stones. This forces the roots of the grape vines to hunt for water and nutrients, torturing them into producing small numbers of highly concentrated grapes. These aren’t just any stones, they are crescent shaped; convex on top, concave underneath. They are a glacial moraine further shaped by eons of weather. As they rest, water is able to flow downward, pausing to drip along the edges of the stones. This allows the roots of the vines to capture just a little water before it flows away. Were the stones disturbed and turned upside down, each would become a cup, the vines would not have to struggle for their water, and the grapes would not be the same. Though Burgundy, Bordeaux, and Napa produce great wines, they cannot make Beaucastel. It must come from this one spot.

It is no wonder that America invented fast food. The common conception is that fast food is driven by Americans’ obsession with speed, but I believe there may be a deeper element at work: fast food allows Americans to get done with the onerous task of eating as quickly as possible. When food becomes simply fuel, then speed of delivery and consumption is the primary objective. Carnation Instant Breakfast®, PowerBars®, and McDonalds™ all provide ways to consume fuel without truly having to eat. Even without the cost, the notion of a four and a half hour lunch at La Maison de Marc Veyrat is appalling to Americans, whereas the French understand that it is a magnificent experience.

Yet according to Bernard Vigier, a cheese vendor and food connoisseur that I met in the town of Carpentras, things are changing on both sides of the Atlantic. M. Vigier is concerned that the youth of France are forgetting their traditions. He says that the older population continues to see cuisine as an integral part of life, but the youth are allowing their cultural inheritance to fall away. As the old Frenchmen die off, he says, they are replaced by people without a connection to tradition, terroir, and flavor. Meanwhile, he believes that young Americans are gaining an appreciation for fine cuisine, subtlety and discernment.

Cheese is not the only fattening, high-cholesterol food consumed in France. It is said that the people of Gascony, eat exceptional amounts of butter, foie gras, and other fatty foods. Surprisingly, their mortality rates from heart disease are very low. This is the so-called “French Paradox.” Many theories have been put forth to explain this; low stress, the presence of olive oil in the diet, consumption of fish containing Omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants present in red wine, and so forth. Meanwhile, America leads the world in obesity, cancer and heart disease.

Perhaps there is an unexpected answer to this paradox. Perhaps it is neither low-stress nor the presence of particular nutrients that keeps the Gascons healthy. Maybe it is simply that to these people, food is a wonderful thing that gives them nutrition and pleasure, sustaining life. To the American diner, food is toxic, so they turn it into poison in their bodies. Perhaps if Bernard Vigier is right, someday all Americans might make peace with their meals and so live happier, healthier lives. One can only hope.

Bon appetite!

Cardamom Sour-Cream Waffles with Gin

2011-02-26T11:10:00.000-08:00

This morning a friend of mine on Facebook posted that she was making Eggo waffles. I had been intending to make khao thom for breakfast using last night's leftover rice, but instead I thought, "Mmmmmmmm, waffles." Not Eggo waffles, but homemade waffles. Not just any homemade waffles, Cardamom Sour Cream Waffles from a recipe I got from ImportFood.com (which they, in turn, got from Gourmet, February 2008.) Yummy.

I warmed up the waffle iron, started getting my ingredients together, and began toasting cardamom seeds. There on the counter was a bottle of gin. Last night I made a martini nightcap and hadn't put the bottle away. My brain said "No! Don't do it! Go back! It's a trap!" All the while my hands were adding one jigger of gin and then another to the batter.

To my surprise, even with two jiggers of gin, the juniper flavor was surprisingly subtle. Then I had the insight to sprinkle more gin on the cooked waffles. Shazam! [Note: one only wants a light sprinkling – too much makes the waffles, and the diner, soggy.] These are not waffles that I would feed to my neighbors’ kids; the elements of sour cream, cardamom, and juniper are not likely to appeal to children (not to mention the alcohol.) But for adult friends I think I have a new crowd-pleaser.

My recipe, a modified version of the Gourmet Magazine original, follows:

Ingredients:

1.5 C all-purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1+ tsp ground cardamom (preferably, start with cardamom seeds (not the whole pod), dry toast in a pan, then fresh grind in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.
1 C whole milk
1 C sour cream
2 whole eggs
3 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
3 Tbs sugar
2 jiggers gin for batter plus extra to sprinkle on top.
[I wasn't sure what the alcohol would do to the structure of the waffles, but it seems that its rapid evaporation actually made the waffles lighter.]

Method:

Preheat a waffle iron.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and cardamom.

Mix remaining ingredients in another bowl, then blend into the flour mixture until just combined.

Cook waffles according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Serve with butter and maple syrup and sprinkle with gin to taste.

Fishy Film Titles

2011-02-26T08:31:00.000-08:00

Recently someone on Twitter started a thread of punny movie names, replacing words in the movie's titles with names of fish (search on Twitter for #fishyfilms.) Normally I don't pay much attention to such things, but for some reason this one grabbed a hold of my medulla and won't let go.

Here then is the ridiculous set of fishy movie titles that have been spilling out of my brain:

· Of Mice and Minnows

· Forest Guppy

· Angelfish and Demons

· The Crawfish from the Black Lagoon

· The Da Vinci Cod

· Agnes of Cod

· Morays, Inc.

· View to a Krill

· Dr. Ono

· Dolphin are Forever

· The Fry who Loved Me

· On Her Majesty's Secret Salmon

· Goldfishfinger

· Live and Let Fry

· Goodbye, Mr. Fish and Chips

· The Tartar Sauce Affair

· The Beatles: Smelt!

· The Barramundi of the Vanities

· Farewell, My Lumpfish

· The Fishes of Eastwick

· A Clockwork Orange Roughy or A Cockle Orange

· The Day of the Jackfish

· Three Days of the Flounder

· What’s New Octopussycat?

· Death of A Salmon

· Cool Hand Fluke

· Big Gills Don’t Cry

· Bill & Ted’s Excellent Abalone

· Five Easy Perches

· A Fistful of Sand-dollars

· No Country for Old Minnows

· All The Puffer’s Men or All the President’s Minnows

· The Seventh Eel

· Star Trek II: The Wrasse of Khan

· All Quiet on the Western Grunt

· The 5000 Fillets of Dr. T

· The Hake Locker

Ones that I didn’t come up with, but were posted by others:

· When Harry Met Trevally

· When Harry Met Salmon

· When Herring Met Sally

· Guys and Dolphins

· Trout of Africa

· A Starfish is Born

· Anemone Mine

· Eat, Lamprey, Love

· Dr. Roe

· What’s Up Haddock?

· Lord of the Herrings

· Baitman

· Eel Magnolias

· The Karate Squid

· Starship Groupers

· Fish Me, Skate

· Fiddler-crab on the Roof

· The Cod Father

· The Swordfish in the Stone

· Silence of the Clams

… and on and on.

Now maybe I can get a good night’s sleep!

Consistency

2011-02-25T11:44:00.000-08:00

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Says Ralph Waldo Emerson. With surprising frequency I hear this misquoted as "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," but that is just stupid. There are many, many, many things in life where consistency is terribly important (e.g. it helps if the guy that monitors the guages at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant shows up to work consistently.) But foolish consistency is the Siamese twin of dogma, and 2nd cousin to the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.

Early on in blogging I decided to always use one-word titles for my blog entries. It was an interesting constraint to put on myself. A couple of times I dabbled in two word titles, but always returned to that single word idea.

It was, as I noted, an entertaining constraint - but the entertainment was primarily for myself. It makes it hard for readers to know what they might be about to read, and if it will be something that would interest them. I have decided that always using single-word titles is a foolish consistency. So, though I may title the occasional future blog with a single word, this is the final posting that is intentionally monolexical. [Yeah, yeah, I'm slightly misusing the word "monolexical." Well, screw all y'all lexicographers ;-) .]

Ants!

2011-02-24T12:25:00.000-08:00

Here in California we have a really problematic little invasive ant called the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile.) They are real pain in the ass. They look quite similar to what we used to call "sweet and grease ants" when I was a kid back in Boston. But as far as I can tell these little invaders from Argentina are nothing but six-legged sweet tooths – grease doesn’t interest them. There are a variety of interests that are concerned about Argentine ants for a number of important reasons – most notably they drive out native species, thereby unraveling an important part of the natural ecosystems. My concerns are much more prosaic: they are major herders of aphids and scale, and, given the opportunity, they get into my kitchen and start going after anything sticky and sweet.

[For those of you that don't know this, many species of ants actively herd various pests that feed on the sap of plants. Insects such as aphids and scale exude a sweet "honeydew" from their abdomens. The ants feed on this, and will protect and defend their herd against predators. They will even move their wards from plant to plant to maximize their yield. Co-evolution. Go figure.]

I have been battling the Argentine ants in my yard for a couple of years now as part of the overall “low-impact” effort to deal with infestations of aphids and scale on my plants. As needed I would go to the hardware store and buy some ant traps of one type or another to put around the affected plants. They seemed somewhat effective, but not 100%. I assume that this is because controlling ants in the great outdoors without a significant broadcast of very nasty chemicals is basically impossible. But, these little traps did assist in managing the pest problem.

A couple of months ago some of these little bastards found a way into my kitchen for the first time [though technically they aren’t “bastards,” they are “bitches,” since all worker ants are female.] I gotta tell ya, when Argentine ants find something they like their numbers are astonishing. I decided it was time to research ant traps further. Around here the most common brand of ant trap is "Grants." Their tagline is, "Grants! Kills! Ants!" As far as I could tell, with Argentine ants, the Grants motto ought to be "Grants! Thrills! Ants!" Other ant traps sold in my area are branded Raid, TAT, Combat, and Terro. I wanted to see if I could figure out which of the different active ingredients in these offerings would best.

Terro ant traps contain a sucrose solution and Borax (boric acid.) Pretty straightforward. Boric acid acts on ants as a metabolic poison. In larger animals it is basically safe and has been used for ages as an antiseptic, antibacterial, and fungicide for humans. It is only harmful if ingested in very large quantities, or administered in small quantities over a long period of time. If you’re looking for something to off your rich uncle, this aint it.

Grants’ active ingredient is Hydramethylnon, a metabolic inhibitor which is claimed to work against Argentine ants, but either it doesn’t, or the bait component isn’t attractive to Argentine ants.

Raid traps contain Abamectin, a nerve toxin which, though naturally derived from bacteria, is pretty nasty stuff. The small quantities in an ant trap are unlikely to cause harm to a large mammal, but with my lovely dog around, I’m not interested.

TAT traps contain Baygon (Methylcarbamate). Baygon is an Acetylcholinesterase inhibitor – again, a nerve poison. As with Abamectin, a large mammal would have to consume a big dose of Baygon to be harmed, but…

Finally, Combat traps use Fipronil. Fipronil is yet another nerve toxin, attacking the central nervous systems of insects. However, it is also the active ingredient in “Frontline,” the anti-flea medication that I already use on my dog. Apparently Fipronil does not affect mammals, because it acts on a nerve receptor that does not exist in mammals (whew.)

OK, that’s was a really long preamble…

Based on my research, the only two ant traps I was willing to touch were Terro and Combat, which, interestingly, were the two that I had found most effective against Argentine ants in my yard (go figure!) But here’s the thing; all of these traps, safe or not, end up being pretty expensive if you are using a lot of them, and I have an endless supply of Argentine ants.

In the course of all this study I kept running into pages on the web describing homemade ant baits. It turns out that boric acid, aka Borax, the primary ingredient in Terro ant traps, is also the primary ingredient in many roach poisons. It is relatively benign, has been around in use for a very long time, and is really cheap. There are two main differences between Borax-based ant traps and Borax-based roach poison. With roaches you just want the insect die – as fast as possible. So roach poisons tend to be 100% Borax powder. You sprinkle it around where the roaches travel, they walk through it, and drop dead. Ant traps contain both Borax and bait. You need to attract the ants to the Borax. Even more importantly, the Borax is quite dilute. You don't want the ants to die right away – you want them to take the poison and bring it back to the nest where it will be fed to the Queen and to all the developing larvae. 100% Borax, while it will create a satisfying little pile of dead ants, won't ever deal with the actual problem: the nest.

Making homemade ant poison turns out to be very easy and astonishingly cheap. I bought the least expensive bottle of 100% Borax roach poison I could find. It was about four dollars for a 1 pound bottle, which should be enough for the next 30 or 40 years. The formula for the bait is approximately 16 parts water to 8 parts sugar to one part boric acid. For a modest quantity that translates to 1 cup water, ½ cup sugar, and 1 tablespoon Borax. It’s easiest to mix if the water is hot.

For outdoor use I got a (non-medical) utility syringe. I just squirt fresh poison mixture into the old traps once in a while (how’s that for reduce-reuse-recycle!) Inside the house (since I don’t have any kids, cats, or pooka’s hopping about that might get into the stuff,) I put small squares of aluminum foil at the back edges of my counters where the ants are, placing a tablespoon or two of mixture on each one. For two or three days there will be an astonishing army of ants endlessly, tirelessly marching to the pool of bait, drinking, and then leaving. It’s actually fascinating to watch. Furthermore, with this easy access sweet liquid, they leave everything else in my kitchen alone. After about three days suddenly the number of ants goes way, way down. A day or so later there might be one or two ants stumbling around looking confused. I usually put these stragglers out of their misery.

Two days ago a new army of ants arrived in my kitchen, but already this virtually-free mixture is doing its work. Thought I’d pass it on to the rest of you.

Notes:

This mixture is not my invention. I take no credit for it – I am just singing its praises.
There are a lot of different recipes online for Borax ant poison. They mostly differ in the concentration of the sugar solution, ranging from 2:1 water to sugar to 1:2. My ants seem delighted with the relatively dilute sugar solution given here. At my home a higher concentration of sugar just wastes sugar and causes the solution to solidify faster.
Different types of ants are attracted by different baits. They will also require different amounts of Borax to hit that crucial level that is fatal, but not so deadly that the workers die before bringing the poison back to the nest. You may need to experiment to get the right ratios for the ants in your area.

Bon Appetite!

Better

2011-02-22T11:21:00.000-08:00

Each year the Interfaith Study Council holds its annual meeting. Most of the attendees stay at the conference hotel, and most of those take their breakfast each morning in the hotel restaurant. The conference attendees often report that they particularly enjoy this informal opportunity to "break bread" with each other.

One morning at the conference Rabbi Schwartz was sitting alone at a table enjoying a plate of eggs, toast, and a small fruit salad. Father Flannigan, after getting his plate of eggs, bacon, and toast, noticed Rabbi Schwartz sitting alone and decided to take the opportunity to get to know him, joining him at his table.

The two clergymen chatted while eating their breakfasts. At one point, as Father Flannigan was bringing a strip of bacon to his mouth, he stopped. "Oh, I'm sorry Rabbi; I hope you don't mind my eating bacon."

"Not at all, Father, please, enjoy." The rabbi replied.

So Father Flannigan proceeded to eat a couple of strips of bacon. "I'm curious Rabbi, and I hope you don't mind my asking, but have you ever tasted bacon?"

"Well Father, yes, I have. When I was young, my best friend was my next-door neighbor, Jimmy Smith. Jimmy and I often had ‘sleep-overs’ at each other's houses. When I stayed at Jimmy's house his mother always made breakfast and often included bacon. And yes, I did eat bacon at Jimmy's house."

"It's quite delicious, isn't it?" Father Flannigan remarked.

"Yes, it was quite delicious." Rabbi Schwartz replied.

After continuing to eat and chat for a while, Rabbi Schwartz asked father Flannigan, "Tell me father, since we're being so open and frank, have you ever had sex?"

"Well Rabbi, yes, since we're being so honest, I must confess that I have had sex. In high school my sweetheart was Molly Malone, and she was as lovely as the day is long. The night of our senior prom, in the back of my dad's car, well, we did it. So yes, Rabbi, I have had sex." Father Flannigan confided.

Rabbi Schwartz leaned in conspiratorially, "It's better than bacon, isn't it?"

Pumpkin

2011-02-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Shortly after Halloween, Berkeley Bowl, our local high-end, gourmet, organic supermarket, had bins full of pumpkins out in front of the store marked 10 cents a pound. I could not believe it. I don't think you can buy water for 10 cents a pound at Berkeley Bowl. I went in to check with customer service just to make sure that the sign was right. It was. So I bought a couple hundred pounds of pumpkins and put them in my root cellar. This, then, is one of those non-recipe recipes for using a root-cellar full of pumpkins, where everything is approximate and based on the whims of the moment. I heartily recommend that you read this recipe, then throw it away and do whatever you damn well please.

Start with one nice orange pumpkin (not the jack-o'-lantern kind,) weighing somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds (or 30 or 40 or 50 pounds, adjusting everything accordingly.) Using your chef's knife, cut a large round disc out of the top (retaining the stem as a handle if possible.) Scoop out the seeds and guts. Depending on the type of pumpkin, the seeds may or may not be worth saving and toasting as a snack. Pumpkins have good structural integrity, but won't stand up under their own weight through long cooking, so rest the pumpkin in some kind of ovenproof pot, and place, empty and topless, in a 350°F oven.

You will want to cut up some amount of a flavorful, tough cut of lamb. The quantity will depend on the size of your pumpkin. In my case I took a three or four pound hunk of lamb shoulder from my local halal butcher, hacking it to bits, willy-nilly, with a nice heavy Chinese cleaver. This is a rustic dish, so niceties like careful separating of the bones and proper muscling out of meat go right out the window. Salt the lamb pieces and sear on all sides, then set them aside and deglaze the pan with water to create a nice instant lamb stock. [I find that a wok works great for this.] Chop and slice up some vegetables to add to the mix. I used carrots, onions and some rutabaga. I also threw in a nice handful of dried apricots and something like a cup of pecans.

When the pumpkin is nice and hot, toss in the lamb, stock, vegetables, dried fruits and nuts, and whatever else you might be using. I like to add precooked rice (it takes too long for raw rice to cook inside the pumpkin, and it soaks up too much of the juices.) I also add barley, which I par-cook in a pressure cooker (again, I don't want the barley to be undercooked and I don't want it to absorb too much liquid.) My main spices for this dish are sumac (which you should be able to find at any Middle Eastern grocery store,) cumin, coriander, and salt pepper to taste.

Cover with the pumpkin’s lid, return to the oven, lower the temp to 300°-325°F, and cook until done. This is likely to be something like two or three hours depending upon the size and weight of your pumpkin, what you’ve chosen for fillings, and how full it is. You may also find that the ingredients cook more thoroughly if allowed to bake for a longer time at a lower temperature. Again, this is a function of what ingredients you've chosen to use, and if you like some of the ingredients (e.g. carrots) to remain toothsome, etc.

To serve, spoon out portions of the stew and scoops of the inside of the pumpkin. Use care when scooping out pumpkin, as it can collapse if the walls are breached – much like a medieval castle. Garnish with chopped parsley, yogurt, and more sumac. I also like to add sprinkles of ground, burnt mint leaves, especially on top of the yogurt where the black color contrasts with the white background. Don't bother looking for ground, burnt mint leaves in any store, you'll need to make your own.

As always, if you or any of your diners don't enjoy the results, the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This recipe will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Good luck Jim.

Postscript:

Pumpkins in my root cellar

Since posting this blog entry I have received questions about what kind of pumpkins I cook with. It is a little bit hard to say. Some of the bins of pumpkins at Berkeley Bowl were marked, others weren't. Moreover, though marked with individual varietal names, many of the bins were a jumble of different pumpkins. I believe that I purchased Cinderella (used in the recipe above,) Fairytale, Jaradale (not shown - I ate 'em,) Blue Hubbard (unfortunately, a rat got to them before I did - no joke,) and one Sugar pumpkin which, sadly, turned to mush very quickly - quite a mess! I haven't tried cooking any of the pinkish-white pumpkins you see in the photo, and so far I have failed to ID them. Possibly they are Blue Max (suggestions?) [BTW, the plastic container with red liquid is fermenting red-cabbage sauerkraut - the jar in top is full of water and is just being used as a weight.]

Unfortunately, pumpkins are hard to get in the US after mid-November. My understanding is that this is purely a function of demand. Americans only demand pumpkins in October; after mid November they are gone. However, pumpkins store very well. It should not be difficult for wholesalers or grocers to keep pumpkins as easily as other squashes, apples, tubers, etc. Furthermore, pumpkins could be grown in most of the places that we get all of our out-of-season produce. They could be available year-round, they just aren't.

Also, I had always heard that "jack-o-lantern" pumpkins were grown only for size and appearance and not for flavor - thus not worth cooking. Recently people have been telling me that, while not as good as other varieties, jack-o-lanterns are OK to cook with. Your mileage may vary.

P'u

2011-02-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

P'u, often translated as "the uncarved block," is a Taoist idea of simpleness. It refers in a sense to the calm, still, empty mind, unfettered by the judgments that come along with knowledge. The uncarved block has not yet been carved. It can become anything. There are no lines, cuts, or grooves, to guide or inhibit the carver’s hand. P’u isn't something I am – it is more like a state I aspire to and occasionally obtain. If I had been P'u when making my first batch of bacon (see http://andrewsigal.blogspot.com/2011/02/bacon.html,) I wouldn't have screwed up Alton Brown's bacon brine recipe. Without the existence of vinegar in my mind, I would not have been able to mix up "cider" and "cider vinegar."

But I do like to ask naïve questions. My whole entrée into the field of culinary history was based on a set of naïve questions I asked myself several years ago while traveling. First I asked, "why aren’t Chinese food and Mexican food the same?" By which I meant: Chinese people and Mexican people are each Homo Sapiens. They have approximately the same taste buds. They have approximately the same digestive systems. They have aproximately the same nutritional needs. Why would they eat different things?

My next questions were: "Are chimichangas and eggs roll the same things?" Then, “are pierogi and calzones the same things?" And what about Chinese hum bao? Does the idea of wrapping meats and vegetables in dough travel with the dough, or does it arise independently in each place where dough is invented?

A decade later the #1 thing I have learned is the naïveté of those questions. "Chinese food" isn't one thing. Neither is Mexican food. Furthermore, all of these questions ignore the time element: one must not ask merely "which ‘Chinese food,’” but also “at what time in history?" Looking at Mexican food, are we considering food of one region or another? Are we talking about pre-Columbian cuisine? How about cuisine from before or after the Mexican-American war and the annexation of Texas? And so on. Worse yet, a chimichanga (probably) isn’t even a Mexican dish – it is generally thought to have originated in Arizona in the second half of the 20th century. The “egg roll” that I had in mind when I asked my question is also an Americanized food. It has its roots in a variety of Asian wrapped rolls, but it is not Chinese per se. When I asked "is a chimichanga and an egg roll the same thing," I intended to ask a question about the relationship between Mexican and Chinese cuisines. Instead I was asking a question about how Americans have adopted, co-opted, and modified immigrant cuisines and ingredients.

So these questions were in a sense the "wrong" questions. On the other hand, they sprang from a simplicity, from a state of P’u, that allowed me to wonder about such things and started me down a very interesting road. Had I already been aware of the errors underlying the questions themselves, I might never have been inspired to start trying to find the answers, and more importantly to find the right questions.

So here's to P’u, and Pooh too! [With special thanks to Benjamin Hoff.]