The New Physics

Larry Spring, the Ft Bragg genius I mentioned before now has added Flash animations to his web site. Take a look if you want to have a good laugh.

PS. Yes, he's serious.

Purple food

No, not jello! Mashed purple potatoes and purple cauliflower with pan fried pork tenderloin. 

I got the blue stuff at the Berkeley farmers market last week and those were the leftovers. The whole process took ten minutes:

1. Cut the potatoes in half inch cubes and separate the cauliflower into small trees
2. Put in a tupperware container and nuke for 10 minutes
3. Add a bit of butter and milk.
4. Nuke for two more minutes
5. Dump in food processor and pulse into the desired consistency
6. Add s&p

The tenderloins were even quicker. 

1. Cut in half inch slices
2. Coat thinly with flour
3. Sprinkle with s&p
4. Fry in a hot pan with butter and olive oil
5. Take out and replace with finely chopped shallot
6. Add a half cup of white wine
7. Reduce, s&p, add a bit of corn meal slurry

Combine and serve with the rest of the bottle--in this case 2006 Clos du Val Sauvignon Blanc.

Art

I bought this Doutreleau poster on sale yesterday. It looks awesome in "person".

  

Lunch and dinner

I picked up some great boule at Model Bakery in St. Helena on Saturday, so lunch was obviously artichoke cheese sandwiches. Two slices of bread, some Dubliner cheese (I was out of Gruyere) and a few marinated artichokes on one of them. Then into the toaster oven at work for one round of toasting. Slap the pieces together and eat. 

Dinner was a variation on this. I don't like pecans, and accidentally chopped a bit of Italian parsley before I noticed, so my version was with walnuts (roasted in the dry pan before the tofu went in) and a parsley/cilantro mix. Amazingly, the end result didn't taste like tofu or Brussels sprouts, but really really good. Oh, I also used veggie stock instead of salt and added a few grinds of pepper at the end. 

It only took six weeks

But I finally got around to uploading the rest of the Big Sur pictures.

Two soups

The first one was the best lunch I had in months: Brazilian Fish Gumbo at Wappos in Calistoga. I still have no idea what was Brazilian about it, but from the taste of it, it was

• A boatload of shrimp and scallops
• A bit of cod 
• Red Thai chili
• Coconut milk
• Fish stock (I guess 1-1 with the coconut milk) 
• Onions
• Plantains (I think)--maybe that was the Brazilian part
• Garlic
• Lemon juice

I'll cook it pretty soon, but I'd probably omit the cod. It really didn't add much and tended to overwhelm the scallops.

The second one was the world's laziest roasted squash soup I just made for dinner:

• Toss two cups of cubed squash (I used butternut), a cup of cut carrots, and a sliced onion with olive oil and pepper.
• Put in a 450 degree oven or under the broiler for 20 minutes or until almost done and caramelized. A baking sheet with aluminum foil works well.
• Throw in blender with a cup of veggie stock
• Warm up in a sauce pan, add parsley, and season with salt and pepper

You could probably add some protein like pork or chicken, butter, or maybe cream, but it really doesn't need it. Total time, 25 minutes, total prep and cleanup: 5 minutes. The leftovers separated a bit, a dash of cornstarch would probably take care of that. 

Politics

I just made the first political donation of my life: a few hundred dollars to Barack Obama. The main reasons were:

1. As a resident, I finally can.
2. I don't want Hillary in the White House.
3. I don't want John McCain in the White House.
4. I don't want Huckleberry in the White House.
5. I want the Dem establishment and super delegates to get hit where it hurts.
   
6. The only other Dem I'd vote for can't run because of the 22nd Amendment; the only Rep I'd vote for can't run because of article 2, section 1, clause 5. (Go Ah-nuld!)
   
7. Getting Obama and a Democratic congress elected will do more for the environment and the disadvantaged than any amount that I can spend on Greenpeace (not the US whackos) or Doctors Without Borders.
8. I don't want any more people who's (trans)forming political experience was Watergate in the White House.