<a href="http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/hail_to_the_chef.php" title="Gapers' Block {Chicago, IL}">Ask the Librarian: Hail to the Chef</a>: “Who cooks for the President? Where did he work before? Is he classically trained? Is it the same guy for every president, or does each president bring his own? Does the President have regular hours or a regular menu, or does the chef just sit in the kitchen all the time and wait for a special order?”
I wondered when this would happen…
<a href="http://www.siggraph.org/s2003/conference/etech/food.html" title="Emerging Technologies - SIGGRAPH 2003">Food Simulator</a>: “The Food Simulator is a haptic interface that displays biting force. It is designed to fit to the user's mouth, where it delivers the captured force of real food and auditory and chemical sensations associated with eating.”
Where does butter come from?
<a href="http://webexhibits.org/butter/" title="Butter : Explore the history & making of butter">Butter : Explore the history & making of butter</a>: “Butter is a culinary treasure as old as King Tut’s tomb. ‘She brought forth butter in a lordly dish’ (Judges 5:25). A jug of wine, a loaf of bread — and butter! Pure butter is produced today essentially as it was in King Tut’s time, though butter made of milk from cows instead of camels or water buffaloes.”
Cooking in the Public Domain
<a href="http://www.bartleby.com/87/" title="Farmer, Fannie Merritt. 1918. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book">The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book</a>: “This classic American cooking reference includes 1,849 recipes, including everything from ‘after-dinner coffe’ — which Farmer notes is beneficial for a stomach ‘overtaxed by a hearty meal’ — to ‘Zigaras à� la Russe,’ an elegant puff-pastry dish. Bartleby.com chose the 1918 edition because it was the last edition of the cookbook authored completely by Farmer.”
This sounds good…
<a href="http://shenanchie.blog-city.com/read/407616.htm" title="shenanchie.blog-city.com Midday Snack">Midday Snack</a>: “Place a flour tortilla on the electric stove element (making sure to never leave it unattended); cook very briefly, just enough to lightly brown each side. Remove tortilla from the element and turn off the stove. Peel and slice an avocado, and place it in strips down the center of the tortilla. Using a fork, mash the avocado until it resembles guacamole texture. Lightly salt and pepper to taste, roll up the tortilla and eat to your heart’s content. The combination of toasted tortilla and mashed avocado will definitely tickle your taste buds”
I’m glad some really smart people are in charge in Washington…
I was trying not to say anything about this whole Mad Cow thing… but seeing this bit of confidence building news just pushed me over the edge.
Investigators Say Cow’s Birth Preceded Effort to Stem Disease: “[Dr. Ron De Haven, the Agriculture Department’s chief veterinarian,] said there was no reason for Americans or people in other countries to question the safety of American beef, since mad cow disease is not found in muscle tissue, which is the source of roasts, steaks and other cuts familiar to consumers.”
At least now we know where meat comes from. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/slant.png" height="18" width="18" alt=":-/" />
Oh… and apparently a cow cannot get <acronym title="bovine spongiform encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> more than an instant or so after birth… because, you know, that cow was <em>born</em> in Canada.
Food Log
Breakfast was a glass of orange juice and two refrigerator cookies. I weighed in at 161 pounds.
<ins datetime="2003-12-29T17:55:00-05:00">Lunch was a ham sandwich on a <a href="http://www.panera.com/familynutritionalprofile.aspx?familyid=98" title="Panera Bread® // Nutrition Information">nine-grain</a> bread I got at <a href="http://www.panera.com/" title="Panera Bread® // Home">Panera</a> and a <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a>… that I got from <a href="http://www.nittanybeverage.com/" title="NittanyBeverage.com - Welcome!">Nittany Beverage</a>. <img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/wink.png" height="18" width="18" alt=";-)" /> I had another <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a> sitting on the front porch while reading the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/home/us" title="WSJ.com - U.S. Home">Wall Street Journal</a> this afternoon. Dinner was chili and a slice of that bread, another <a href="http://www.saranac.com/paleale.html" title="SARANAC">Saranac Pale Ale</a>, and two <a href="http://www.godiva.com/welcome.asp" title="Chocolate Gifts from Godiva">Godiva</a> chocolates. Gretchen made the chili this summer using tomatoes from our garden and froze it. Even months later it still has a wonderful fresh tomato flavor that could not be matched with canned tomatoes or even the little red rocks they sell in the grocery store.</ins>
Food Log
No breakfast this morning. I weighed in at 161 pounds. Lunch was a couple of slices of ham and a stale dinner roll.
<ins datetime="2003-12-28T18:40:00-05:00">Dinner was whole wheat spaghetti with pork sausage and tomato sauce, a small Caesar salad, two glasses of Freixenet Brut, a Godiva chocolate, and several pecan crisp cookies.</ins>
Easy-to-Swallow Resolutions
<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107238531439890200,00.html" title="WSJ.com - Tastings">Easy-to-Swallow Resolutions</a>: “<strong>Visit a winery.</strong> There are wineries in all 50 states, but most people we know have never visited a local winery, and, in fact, many look down their noses at them. However, not a day goes by that we don’t get a note from someone saying, ‘Hey, I happened to visit a local winery the other day and the wines and the people were great!’ These letter writers have immediately become convinced that this is the greatest little winery in America, although, in fact, it’s the only one they ever visited. That should tell you something about what a special experience this is.”
The Illusion of Size (a.k.a. Size Doesn’t Matter)
You may <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/2003_11_01_journal.html#id106847240357567848" title="How big is a serving of soup?">recall</a> I wondered how big was a cup of soup. Well, it turns out that a cup of soup is a cup — that is, eight ounces.
Well, Gretchen got me some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000636VM" title="Amazon.com: Kitchen & Housewares: Emile Henry Couleurs 12-Ounce Individual Souffle Dish, Set of 2, Red">ramekins</a> for Christmas, and when I opened them, we both thought they looked a little small. We were almost ready to send them back, when we decided to conduct a little experiment.
<img src="http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/m/h/mhl100/images/bowls.jpg" width="341" height="256" alt="Three soup bowls, apparently of different sizes, all hold the same amount." />
We took one of our cereal bowls (top left), one of our soup bowls (top right), and one of the ramekins (bottom center). We filled the ramekin with water, then poured it into the cereal bowl. It just filled it. Then we took the cereal bowl and poured it into the soup bowl. It just filled it.
So I guess the perception of size is just an illusion.