Today's Design Divergence

The old ice trays leak.

The new ones are serviceable with one exception: If you stack them after filling, water squirts everywhere as the upper tray nests into the lower.

Ok. The maker wants to save space. Space in the package; space in the container; space on the retailers shelf.

The manufacturer is rewarded for this design.

And the user has to find some sort of rack to keep the trays separate.

Annoyance.

-- ml

Technorati Tags: design, design considerations

Rob's Latest

More from R. H.

Coming soon to teh intarwubes near you.
--ml
Technorati Tags: Rob Hunter, One Tin Leg

Rob Hunter's One Tin Leg

New Links to your right.

Rob Hunter, when I first met him, drove a black van named Dead Ernest Delivers. At that time he was a dj in between gigs. Once, in an alternative universe, he was a drummer for the Grateful Dead (Google.com) Or the founder of Greenpeace. Perhaps a standup comedian from Adelaide, Australia.

Now he writes -- very well, I might add -- science fiction of a kind Rod Serling might want to produce but would know his sponsors would find too unsettlingly true to life to want to pay for.

One Tin Leg offers samples in type and voice with cool interpolations by Rob's son Charlie Hunter.

A Rain of Frogs is Rob's blog.

Go read. I'll still be here when you get back.

--ml

Technorati Tags: Rob Hunter, Grateful Dead, One Tin Leg, Charlie Hunter

Tonight's Opera

Thespis kicked me about 2AM this morning.

Setting: The Izu Peninsula of Japan

Period: Circa 1905 to 1910

Back story: The fourth or fifth son of a British aristocrat, with little chance of succeeding to the title but sufficient income to please himself, becomes a marine biologist and settles on Izu with his wife and small daughter. Before the Opera opens the wife dies. Absorbed in his studies, the father allows the child to grow up at his side and among the children of the fishing village they live near. This is not so much an unstructured upbringing as it is a thoroughly unconventional one.

Plot: At nineteen our heroine is become a beauty and attracts the attention of a young Japanese Biologist who works with her Father. Father is informed that with the death of the last surviving brother he now succeeds to the family title, an Earldom which happens to be full of tin -- literally and metaphorically. This brings the attention of the diplomatic community in Tokyo. Among these is a visiting nob who falls for our heroine. The rest of the opera works out this situation. It does so on two levels: the present and her memories of growing up. So that in the midst of a drawing room scene of wooing, the heroine's memories of racing with her rarely freed Japanese companions over the hills and shores of Izu. Both scenes occupy the stage at the same time with only the heroine and the audience aware of both.

The Music: What a grand blend of Sullivan, Elgar, Holst and Shakuhachi, samisen and koto. But that's only a suggestion to the composer.

Theme: She says: But I'm not English, do you see? I was born here and spent all my life here. I am of Japan. Yet -- you see my dilemma -- I am not Japanese! I am my own peculiar self and you will find it hard to have me to wife. I will be too Japanese or too English and not enough of either to please you or any other.

Then Morpheus reclaimed me. damn.

-- ml


Technorati Tags: Opera plots, cross cultural, British in Japan

Language for Food

Archy posed a challenge to define a certain practice of efficient cooks: multiple uses of ingredients larger than the company can consume at once.
One might call it the canny cook.

My first thought is a bit fuzzy and requires a bit of a bleg. There is a bit of light verse floating about in the fluff between my ears (Did I hear Stanley Holloway recite it?) that I will paraphrase (uhmm: make up) as follows:

Ah the noble joint
Roast on Sunday
Boiled on Monday
Cold on Tuesday
Fried on Wednesday
Hash on Thursday
Minced on Friday
Soup on Saturday
The beef of old England!

(with fulsome apologies to the shade who wrote the original verse I am attempting to remember. Any who recognizes it, please correct me in comments.)
That describes the practice Archy follows with his chicken, but does not give it a name.

The French keep a kettle slowly simmering on the back burner to accept all the liquids used in cooking vegetables and the pan scrapings from meat. The tops of celery and the peel of root vegetables also goes in. When stock is required for a soup or stew or sauce, it is strained from the Stockpot. But never empty it. Like a sourdough starter something is always left over to build the next stock so that every meal bears a faint rolling echo of many that passed before.

The Chinese do the same thing with wok scrapings to create Master Sauce.

Roy Andries de Groot was a noted mid 20th century journalist who wrote a fascinating text for Knopf in 1966 called "Feasts for All Seasons". Not content to provide over 700 pages mostly of recipes he also provides a thoroughly organized 'system culinaire' Which organizes the kitchen, the shopping, the cooking and the eating into the most efficient gourmet mode possible. One more Germanic-organized than the Germans -- as one would expect of a Dutchman. For instance in the section "Epilogue: Appendices and Indices" There is a directory of cheeses which surveys the prospects in firm, soft, fresh and aged. Another on wine discusses color, locale, price and quality up to and including rum as good as brandy and single malt Scotch -- remember this was the age of blends. Marketing and mail order sources are carefully and thoroughly examined for both ingredients and tools. A 'General Index' keys us to dishes by title. A 'Menu Planning Index' divides the recipes by categories: 'Breads and Cakes', 'Breakfasts for Lazy Sundays and Other days', 'Budget Pull-Back Dishes', and so forth. Finally a 'Regional Index parses the catalog by geographic origin.

de Groot's word for Archy's process is Encore Dishes. I submit that this word suffices for all occasions save the snarkiest of sarcasms.

Me Mum fried Sunday's chicken in the sausage fat left from breakfast. The herbs of the sausage made a delightful aromatic oil fit for chicken. Being a moderately large family, there rarely was more than a wing left. As me Dad said: "The pigs'll get it anyway."

One might brown the chicken in sausage fat before roasting and achieve somewhat the same effect?

Speaking of which, it is time to turn the pastry for tonight's party tartlets.
--ml


Technorati Tags: Archy, 'encore dishes'

Today's neologism

dissassimalutionment

-- A migrant's state of being disillusioned by assimilation?

Or is there a more weighty thought to add?

Reader comments invited.

--ml


Technorati Tags: neologism, migration, dissolutions

Can They Implode?

1. To cause to collapse inward violently.

--ml

Secrets of a Tech Master

Del said:
"Read the screen. Then do what it says."
Harder than it sounds.
-- ml

Technorati Tags: tech secrets

Beware the Outliers That Please

Kevin Drum finds an interesting study of studies:
The Washington Monthly

So far, this is unsurprising. Publication bias is a well-known and widely studied effect, and it would be surprising if G&M hadn't found evidence of it. But take a closer look at the graph. In particular, take a look at the two bars directly adjacent to the magic number of 1.96. That's kind of funny, isn't it? They should be roughly the same height, but they aren't even close. There are a lot of studies that just barely show significant results, and there are hardly any that fall just barely short of significance. There's a pretty obvious conclusion here, and it has nothing to do with publication bias: data is being massaged on wide scale. A lot of researchers who almost find significant results are fiddling with the data to get themselves just over the line into significance.

In any system where continued occupation depends on particular results, does it surprise anyone that those results appear to be found more often? It is a corollary of Sinclair Lewis' observation that it is very hard to convince a man of a truth when his livelihood depends on his believing in a lie. (Paraphrase)

This effect is less obvious, and yet stronger than malice in explaining the vast amount of contradictory scientific (so called) facts believed by the general populace.

--ml

Technorati Tags: science skepticism

Cowpoke Beans?

Before this Molly Ivins link slips irrevocably into periodical oblivion I want to use it as a hook for a rant: How can we trust folks that don't know beans?

Cow whisperers against the war

The most amazing part of cow college was meeting the cow whisperer. Think of everything you know about moving cattle from one place to another -- for shots, round-up or loading into trucks for market -- just physically moving a lot of cattle. GEE, GIT ON, GO DOGIE, whistle, whip crack, move 'em out, chase 'em down. Turns out all these years we've been doing it wrong.

What happens when you scare a cow by making a lot of noise and chasing it down and forcing it to move where it doesn't want to go is the cow responds by relieving itself. And since a cow has three stomachs, it can unload up to 20 percent of its total weight at one go, the last thing you want just before you take it to market to sell.

Westerns are less hegemonic today than in my youth. Then the greats, the Waynes, Ladds, Coopers, Carillos, Autrys, Rogers, Reynaldos, and others, with Pavlovian efficacy, instilled the images of the West in our mushy brains.
The vast herd -- sole prop of the widow back at the ranch -- pushed and chivvied through the chaparral desserts by a bunch of handsome *white* galoots, more or less colorfully dressed in hats and chaps and spurs, astride their Appaloosa paints, with Gabby Hayes grumbling at the reins of the chuck wagon in the exact middle of the dust cloud following the last heifer.

At some point in my putative adult existence I began to seriously deprogram myself. Working with Utah Phillips, the Utah Folk Thrush, had something to do with it, though he is to blame for other stuff, not what happens here.

§ § §

Cattle drive hands existed as a serious job description for less than 40 years. This was the time it took for the railroads to complete the exploitation of the prairie between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Nobody moved a herd of cattle because they felt like it. It was the only way to get the herd from the ranch to the nearest railhead. Just as soon as a railroad siding showed up nearby the cattle drive ended. Drives also needed unrestricted open range. The "range wars" were lost as the ranchers gave way to the farmers who insisted on fencing their fields.

Punching cows was not a glamour job the way the films would have you believe. It required long hours in the saddle and months of camping rough in all weathers. Believe me the prairie can hand out some weather. All this came at the meagerest of wages and all found. "All found" meant whatever ground you could throw your blankets on and whatever food could be preserved to last the length of the ride. That's mostly dried beans and bacon. Most hands were Black, Mexican, Indian or mixes. Only the boss was White. Hence "cowboys". Ten or fifteen years was the usual career, which frequently ended in a violent death or crippled. The smart ones -- the lucky ones -- soon found other work. The very few fit for nothing else -- who happen to cook well enough to attract the best hands -- became the "old woman" -- the Gabby Hayes part.

The herd needed grazing. The herd needed water. Push the herd too fast and all the meat turns to string, tough string. So the herd moves slowly through river valleys where sweet grass is plentiful and covers maybe 12 to 15 miles in a day. Maybe a mile per hour. That's why it took 70 to 90 days to traverse the Goodnight-Loving trail from Young County Texas southwest to the Pecos (to avoid the Comanches) and then north through Ft Sumner, New Mexico, to Greeley, Colorado. It ran over a thousand miles including at least 80 miles of the Llano Estacado dessert where the Pecos flows from Texas into New Mexico.

Think about that wagon. Its an open box covered with canvas stretched on ribs but more or less open at both ends. Much of the food hangs free or is loosely covered in coarse cloth. Who would put it at the end of the parade? Riding drag at the end of the herd was the joy of the greenhorns. Nobody who cared about their food was going to bathe it in dust twelve hours a day for three months and call it a treat.

§ § §

Then there's the beans.

They weren't in a can. They were dried. They were in a bag.

Most modern cookbooks will tell you to soak the beans in water overnight. A second option is to cover with water and bring the pot to a boil then let them set for an hour. Drain and cover with fresh water to begin cooking them. The wagon is not traveling on the Interstate. It is traveling a trail. "Trail" is by courtesy. "Trail" means that somebody in the outfit knows the landmarks that show the way. It has nothing to do with any sort of road. So let's set a pot of beans covered in water in the wagon and go for a nice cross country ride of twelve miles. How much water and beans do you expect to find in the pot at journey's end? Enough to feed eighteen hungry people? Not likely.

So I deduce that the chuck wagon moved around the herd. First there was breakfast of biscuits, bacon and beans (Left over from the night before), with coffee. The Old Woman hands everybody extra biscuits, pemmican or jerky for lunch. The hands move the herd off while cookie cleans up the camp, his pots and pans, etc. With the mules hitched the chuck wagon leaves to find the herd. As soon as found, the herd is passed. The mules can do three miles an hour easily, so by lunch time the wagon arrives at the campsite. Hobble the mules to graze, gather firewood, draw water, start the fire, then the beans go on the fire. Two or three hours later they are fully cooked and ready for flavoring.

Now that's another topic. Likely the actual cowpokes were used to what we now call Tex-Mex with its spicy heat. On the other hand a bit of molasses or cone sugar made those beans tastier to the energy starved, just as doughnuts taste good to cops on the night shift. Possible that the boss has roots back east that call for moderation of the spiciness with a nod to the baked beans of New England? Maybe there was a fusion? Flavorings were also influenced by what the cook found.

So I took the needful about three hours upriver into the Mt Baker National Forest and set to work about 3pm with a cast iron Dutch oven and some charcoal. By 6pm when the other campers rolled in there were some beans ready for them. Didn't hear any complaints that night.

Goodnight Loving Beans

Wash and pick over 1 pound of pinto beans. Place in a 4 qt. Dutch dutch oven with water to cover. Place in fire pit with 6 briquets beneath and 12 briquettes on top. When the pot boils remove 3 briquettes from beneath and 4 from the top. This should maintain a simmer fast enough to cook the beans. After an hour, or so, the skin should peel when you blow on a bean. Now add 1 tsp baking soda (softens the beans[?]), ¼ cup sweetener (honey, molasses, cone sugar etc.) a spice bag -- containing allspice, anise seed, cloves, cinnamon stick, cumin seeds, celery seeds, mustard seed and pepper corns -- dried tomatoes, and ½ pound salt pork. Simmer another hour. Add a rabbit or duck, disjointed if necessary, and a spring onion & pasilla pepper chopped. Simmer another hour or 'til done.
Mix 1 cup flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt. Work a ¼ cup butter in to flour mixture. Add enough milk to make a soft dough. Drop spoonsfull on top of the beans. Bake ½ hour, or until done.

§ § §

The Flatulence Question

Lino told me that adding baking soda would prevent gas.
I have not found it to be so. What seems to make the difference is how much I eat and how fast.

How to Cook Beans - eHow.com

2. Soak most beans in three times their volume of cold water for six hours before cooking. (You can cook beans without soaking, but it takes longer, and some people think the beans taste better when soaked.)

Storage and Soaking of Dry Beans

To Discard Soak Water or Not Some people are more susceptible than others to the discomforts of the gas, or flatulence, sometimes caused by eating beans. Flatulence occurs when bacteria normally found in the digestive tract reacts on certain chemical compounds in beans. Some are water-soluble and will be partially removed when the bean soak water is discarded. Small amounts of water-soluble vitamins and minerals are also removed by discarding the soak water. Therefore, many cooks believe it is nutritionally important to use the soak water for cooking the beans. Current research shows that only small amounts of nutrients are lost. For many people, the discomfort avoided by discarding the soak water is more important than the small amount of nutritional benefits from using it.

Entrez PubMed

Consumers do not soak the beans, because it changes the flavor and the aspect of the cooked beans and they do not add salt at the beginning of the cooking process due to the same reason. Organoleptic studies conducted in the laboratory confirmed that soaking of beans or addition of salts in the soaking water or at the beginning of the cooking process negatively affected acceptability of cooked beans by panelists.

Your experience will very. When it is good stick with it. Else, try this and see if its any good for you.
--ml


Technorati Tags: beans, cowpoke beans, Utah Phillips, dutch oven,