omniphagia

more thoughts on teaching

2007-08-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after a meeting Cynthia and I went over to RUB BBQ for a late lunch where I found the fried green tomato batter to be reminiscent of the crusty deliciousness of McNuggets. I told her stories about teaching and she told me about the N+1 reading last night which she attended with a well-respected, non-best selling novelist. After a while I speculated aloud about teaching and its relationship to professions and fields such as writing, fine art, and architecture. Teaching being the end of what you do rather than a means is what a student needs rather than some guy, no matter how talented, who sees teaching as a way to remain financially viable to finish a book. Of course plenty of teachers just go through the motions of teaching as well, perhaps because we don't really think of something like education to be an art as well.

This morning while brushing my teeth I wondered if how often teachers admit their own mistakes to their students. Since I have such limited experience with teaching I notice these things every day and then try to make corrections. Some, or possibly most, of them are logistical, such as figuring out that I should have had students pick out a debate topic for class before the lunch break rather than after. I told the kids that after we reconvened for the afternoon, and they seemed to forgive my graft when I told them this. Do other teachers do this? I've noticed this a few times in graduate seminars, but I don't remember encountering this before.

I wonder how much we think that we have to present some sort of aura of greatness or infallability as teachers? I wonder if teachers think they need to do this even though I think students aren't going to necessarily respect that aura. So how many mistakes do we disclose to students?

john searle and the piraha

2007-08-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

Reading and trying to write on Habermas created a curiosity about more analytic forms of philosophy of language, which I realize will be a pretty daunting and slow-moving task for quite a while. But John Searle of UC-Berkeley not only has some of his own writing up but a nice and easily palatable piece from the New Yorker I missed a few months ago on the Piraha people of Brazil and what might be their, as far as we know, singularity in the world regarding language and culture. And it's in nice pdf so you can see all the photos.

disorganized thoughts on teaching

2007-08-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Last night for relief from my apartment that has no air conditioning I walked up, as I often do I intolerably hot evenings, to the Barnes and Noble on 7th Avenue to read magazine and gaze, but fail to work up the attention to read the first few pages of books that I really should read. In most case I end up picking a big from the Essays section and sitting in the Romance section, which is relatively untrammled, except by some kids who walk by and giggle at the covers and titles that include the word "sex."

My reading selection was disjunctive as I sat down with Joseph Epstein's Narcissus Leaves the Pool and read an essay on the comparative merits of talent and genius. But mainly I thought about another essay of his I had read, probably in the Weekly Standard, on teaching. In that piece Epstein claimed that the only thing he'd ever learned from any of his students was the fact that he jingled the change in his pockets. That statement is the type I come to expect from Epstein--a slightly disengaged curmudgeon in great style who does have a reason to be against those drippy statements from other educators who claim to learn so much from their students.

So the past two days I've been teaching philosophy to high school students in Columbia's Summer Program for High School Students, and so I've been trying to think what I've learned not only from the students but from the action of teaching. And by that I mean other things than the fact that I realize my voice is pretty shaky when I start talking in the morning.

The first this is that I am spending more time wondering how I appear to those eleven kids. This isn't a self-consciousness I feel around friends, family, or other adults. Mainly, sadly, the thing I think is, "Do these kids think I'm ugly?" Following closely are "Do they think my clothes are ugly?" and "Do they think I'm smart?" and "Am I boring?" This says a lot more about me, of course, than any of the students.

Since we're doing philosophy I've been telling them repeatedly that they are free to disagree with me and be open and vocal about their disagreement. But during lunch yesterday I realized that this was probably a disingenuous claim. Not from me, but from teachers in general who have probably made the very same claim before. So the first thing I told them after lunch was that I realized that a lot of teachers are just lying when they make that claim. They completely agreed.

Perhaps this is irresponsible of me, but I am completely uninvolved with moderating the debates we have during the afternoon sessions. Partially because I don't know anything about formal debate, but I stay out of it even when arguments come close to being racist or generally completely general. Part of me does this because I don't want to be a part of the debate and let the students debate (and I'll add they do a very good job at being respectful of others), but mainly because I (naively or not) figure that my students are 15 years old and have a lot of time ahead of them to become more sophisticated in their thinking, to experience more, and leave some old stuff behind. Trusting their intellectual and moral capabilities isn't difficult for me, and I have no reason to think them to be anything other than talented, sophisticated, and extremely bright students. And for every clunky and arguably offensive comment they make I hear a sophisticated argument, a claim that hadn't occurred to me. So I'm going to be an optimist.

Of course, and this is a strong qualification, I am teaching eleven students from affluent families who mainly attend private schools. And they're lovely kids. That's not a but, but it is something.

old age

2007-08-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week I wandered into the periodicals room at Butler while taking a break from reading and started reading through Granta's issue of Best of Young American Novelists. The introduction notes that the jury chose to lower the age from 40 to 35 because the kids are so precocious these days. But also noted is that sixty percent of those selected for the British edition came from Oxford and Cambridge and many of the Americans came from Ivy League or similar undergraduate institutions. So really it means that the kids are so precocious because they come from the means to be precocious.

I write this while I'm getting ready to teach ninth and tenth graders ethics for Columbia's summer program for high schoolers, which is just about exclusively the offspring of the well-to-do.

modern art

2007-08-02T10:37:00.001-07:00

Christopher Hawthorne is one of the few architecture critics worth reading.

zaha dancing.

2007-07-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Like the secret dork that I am on Friday I was just nestling in for a night of doing work when Jason called and asked if I wanted to go to the ballet. And like a not-so-secret marathon procrastinator I accepted the ticket.

When I got to Lincoln Center Jason was on the phone describing the ballet to a friend. The words "Zaha designed the sets" were uttered which was the first clue that we were going to see something closer to _______ rather than Balanchine.

Now in my effort to become a better student of philosophy I've been trying to take lessons and learn from experiences rather than criticize, but the idea of a dance concert created in collaboration with Zaha Hadid was just asking for criticism.

But here's what I learned:
1. I don't know anything about modern dance. Actually I don't know anything about dance, except that I like to do it. But as to anything factual or academic I'm a blank. Surely this sort of knowledge should make me more open-minded.
2. Video art. Has that ever been good? I tried to engage with Justin on this point by wondering if part of the problem could be that video art has the same conceits as TV and security cameras, but tries to pawn it off as art. But Justin held firm on the essential badness of video art. Also video doesn't seem to have progressed since 1989 or so because all the video in the concert dealt with city scenes, voyeurism, sexuality, and surveillance (or architectural renderings), which seemed less Zaha and more D+S: The Shitty Political Years. The fact that video art made up a substantial portion of the show was a serious downer.
3. Maybe architects who use animation programs are thought of as pretty cool within the field, but outside of architecture animation should be left to the professionals.
4. Rock violin is a pretty bad idea.
5. As is the idea that everyone is a media critic. You're not. Even with that post-graduate certificate in media studies.

But the Times was less charitable than I.

maps, libraries, knitting

2007-07-27T13:08:00.000-07:00

A few months ago during a post-departmental colloquium drinking fest several of us started talking about libraries, education, the uses of information, and the relationship between technology and physical, with-pages books. The main impetus of this conversation was the recent transformation of our library, which has become (or rather tried really hard to become) a technology-focused information hub complete with a cafe. All this would be fine if this were executed with some insight, but instead we still have perfunctory stacks in ugly rooms with dropped ceilings because books are passe.

This can be short-sighted, as evidenced by Carla Hesse's own exhuberance regarding how information and network technology changed San Francisco's library. Ultimately SF's library didn't have enough room in the stacks for books. When designing the main branch of the Seattle Public Library OMA took that information (along with a lot of other stuff) and really did something interesting and insightful with the books.

[Here I will put a place-marker for some comment on being forward-thinking and how it's not necessarily connected to drinking all the technology Kool-Aid and liking it. This is like Kierkegaard saying something like in order to live forward one must look backward.]

But the questions and points that came up during that conversations seem to be clearly to me based on this NYT article on amateurs online mapmakers. I wonder if the point that some make that physical geography is getting progressively less important is just overdetermined, and that the relationship between networks, physical location, and the trading of information is more dynamic--that perhaps we need to appreciate physical geography (and books) in order to go forward.

That's just a musing though.

Last night Mimi and I went to a presentation on crafting and craft culture. The most memorable part for me was a slide of a man in a wet white shirt--the type of man that makes one think of nothing so much as Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. Of course the photo was from the guy's wedding. And Mimi surmised, probably correctly, that he was probably very, very happy in his marriage. Whatever.

data smog

2007-07-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago I took a course on the uses of information and the Internet in education. One of the required texts was David Shenk's Data Smog, which I found compelling and timely even though it had been written several years earlier. One thing I pointed out in my comments to class was the fact that book did not (or perhaps more accurately, could not) address the rise of blogs, which were at the time just reaching popular consciousness. So now, ten years after the book's publication Shenk takes a look back at the book and, among other things, mentions the absence of blogs. Like Shenk I totally agree that much of the book is still worth reading and thinking about--probably more so than in 1997.

sharing meals

2007-04-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

At the start of the semester I mentioned something in my aesthetics class about eating as an art, at least if you consider food to be something more than a necessity in order to survive. A related subject would be the hospitality and sociability related to meals, which a
newish book describes.

Of course, some people might just be like my mom who doesn't really like eating with other people because they distract her from the food.

go to hell duke!

2007-03-16T10:17:00.000-07:00

I noticed that the Duke University homepage has no mention of the fact that the Blue Devils totally sucked it up in the tournament this year, where they had no right to be in the first place.

film and robotic ethics.

2007-03-08T07:59:00.000-08:00

S. Korea gets ahead on robotics and ethics.

My brother's film debut at SXSW.

wfu v. duke

2007-02-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

All you need to know about Wake Forest as opposed to Duke is illustrated in this Vanity Fair article on Harold T. P. Hayes, the best editor ever of Esquire and a fellow alumnus of Wake Forest University. Hayes was up against Clay Felker, a graduate of Duke, for the position of managing editor, and their divergent world views are summed up like this:

"Hayes wanted Esquire to be a magazine of ideas—politics, science, law, religion, sophistication. Felker saw power—and the powerful—as his unifying theme."

So, yeah, Felker/Duke: status quo and ass-kissing; Hayes/Wake Forest: the progression of civilization.

I think you could also make a similar connection between, say, Tim Duncan and Christian Laettner.

dining and wine

2006-12-19T18:58:00.000-08:00

One of my extracurricular activities is a design project for the interior of a homeless shelter across the street from Columbia University. Last week I spent a couple hours with a photographer to take portraits for an upcoming exhibition at the Municipal Art Society and we found the Times' there.

I thought that the story would just be a Metro section piece, but it turns out that the story is in Dining and Wine.

Plug: If you watch the video around 2.40 you can see my argyle vest walk across the room.

non-food note

2006-12-19T16:30:00.000-08:00

I know I'm probably overly sensitive, but I just realized that sitting next to someone who types using the hunt-and-peck method is suprisingly irritating. Especially if they quietly hum the words while they type or read. I believe that these two actions are intricately related.

ABM

2006-12-13T17:08:00.000-08:00

Eric Asimov's column in the NYT today is all about merlots in the part of Washington where I grew up, namely the Columbia and Yakima Valleys. It's very nice to see some of my favorite wineries in the area get some press on this side of the country. Though I do have to admit that it is a bit odd for me to see my hometowns refashioned as Wine Country when, you know, I remember seeing a person being stabbed during lunch my senior year of high school. Napa Valley we are not. But I suppose that could happen.

chef dreams

2006-12-10T12:43:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I copied out a recipe for eggnog cheesecake out of the Wall Street Journal at a favorite cafe. Part of me wondered why I spent time that should have been spent being a Very Good Student copying out a recipe that I have a 85 percent chance of never trying.

And in an act of telepathy today's NYT magazine has an article on just that phenomenon.

high school friends

2006-12-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

A couple nights ago three lawyers and I ditched a (well, their) law firm holiday party to cap the night off in the East Village. One of the lawyers is also from Washington and surprisingly knows a couple people from my high school, including one of my best friends. But he hasn't yet had the pleasure to meet my friend Andy from high school, the most wrong-headed eater I know.

2006-12-07T14:14:00.000-08:00

Although I regularly threaten to leave NYC as it is the most overrated, infuriating city in the entire world as well as one that reaffirms every day the essential thoughtlessness of my fellow human beings I might miss some aspects of New York life. I guess I won't find great Moldovan food anywhere else, although the Atlantic did have a brief piece on the influx of immigrants in places that you wouldn't expect such as the Hmong communities throughout small cities in the Midwest like Wausau, Wisconsin.

Also ain't nothing in New York that can beat Uwajimaya.

procrastination

2006-12-02T15:15:00.000-08:00

Since Wake Forest University spent my college years in an intense competition with Duke to be the shittiest football team in the ACC, if not the NCAA, I really can't fathom the fact that the Deacs are ACC Champions. I would rather us be good at basketball though.

Go Deacs, go to Hell Duke, etc.

Last night Helen, a Duke alum and lovely person, and I talked about our respective issues in making cornbread. We both love it, but neither of us can seem to get a really fantastic loaf. Is there a secret? Should I break down and take a real baking class?

grits and dressing

2006-11-29T08:44:00.000-08:00

Some days ago I was walking past a highly regarded restaurant in my neighborhood and stopped to look at the menu, which is something of a hobby for me. Under the appetizers were Anson Mills grits, which was enough for me to decide to break away from my Al Di La habit for special events at least once.

I didn't understand grits when I first moved to the South to attend college along with all sorts of amazing goodness like fried okra and sweet tea. As with okra the viscous texture had much to do with my aversion, though I can't discount the fact that my introduction to grits was during a late night stop at the IHOP near campus that had its very own security guard posted outside the front door.

Eventually I came around to grits, though I think it was just an act of will that translated into love. Or just the fact that discrimination charges be damned (I know, I know) my friends and I did frequent Cracker Barrel many, many times. But it was there and similar places that I realized that if there is an actually American food it's Southern.

What kind of dressing do you make?

sibling

2006-11-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

My brother is usually tapped as the person who will be the financially and professionally successful of the two offspring of our parents despite (or because of?) the fact that I'm the school nerd of the family. He is charming and kind just like his older sister, but has the added gift of being socially adept.

Early into his college career he thought he might like to be a chef so he worked as a line cook at a restaurant in our hometown where he learned how to debone chickens with extraordinary celerity. Though still skilled in the kitchen he's traded his desire to be a chef for the rare chance to actually use his degree in film studies and comp lit to make money. I don't know either.

He also got to star, produce, and narrate a rather charming short film that is online for viewing.

post-holiday

2006-11-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

Since I've been away from the Internets the past several days due to the holidays I missed out on some interesting and tasty pre-Thanksgiving food writing. But in hopes of being prepared for next year (or perhaps just Christmas)I'll link them soon enougy.

Last week at a Thanksgiving dinner held the Tuesday before Kate and I were waiting greedily and hungrily around the buffet talking about the food with two of the usual suspects--Jewish, Harvard-educated guys around our age. Holiday food, we all agreed, was excellent. Like Christmas, Kate and I added. One of the guys said it was better than Christmas since it doesn't have the religion. This started several seconds of awkward silence.

I wanted to add that I'm from the West Coast and several close friends of mine from Jewish families had Christmas trees galore during the holidays. But I don't think people from the East Coast understand the whole Christmas-as-secular-holiday thing.

B.A.

2006-11-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you're lucky enough to work for Google not only do you get stock options, but possibly the best cafeteria ever.

The literate and cultured twentysomethings apparently think that Buenos Aires is the place to be. This is why we have tenative plans to see what the fuss is about.

So a link just in case we ever make it there. The plan is to spend all of our money on food. But the trip is contingent (at least for me) on my passport coming in the mail sometime in the next few weeks.

thanksgiving!

2006-11-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

Holiday Macaroni and Cheese

1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
4 slices bacon (or pancetta, etc.) cut into 1/2" pieces
1/2 onion diced
2 cloves garlic chopped
2 1/2 cups milk
1-14 ounce can of evaporated milk
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried mustard (or a teaspoon of prepared mustard)
4 1/2 cups grated cheddar
2 cups Gruyere
1-2 large zucchini chopped into 1" pieces
1 onion roughly chopped
1/2 eggplant chopped into 1/2" to 1" pieces
1 tomato sliced
1 pound macaroni

Part One
1. Sprinkle kosher salt on eggplant and set aside for 20 minutes.
2. Let zucchini slices sit on paper towels.

Part Two
1. Cook macaroni for about 7 to 8 minutes.

Part Three
1. Fry up bacon until crisp in a large saucepan. Remove and set aside.
2. Add onion to bacon grease until translucuent. Add garlic and flour to create the roux.
3. Add milk, when is simmers lower the heat and add salt, pepper, mustard, cayenne, 4 cups of cheddar and 1 1/2 cups Gruyere and stir constantly until all the cheese melts.
4. Add macaroni, bacon, and vegetables to cheese and combine.
5. Place mixture in a buttered 9x13 pan, scatter bread crumbs, remaining cheese, and tomatoes on top.
6. Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes.

pumpkin cake

2006-11-13T15:44:00.000-08:00

The recipe is only for one 9" round, but it can easily be doubled and frosted for those who want a complete cake experience. But for someone like me who inhaled one (with some help from Amy and AJ) in 24 hours it's best to do this one at a time.

Pumpkin Cake
1 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup bourbon

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons whole-wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup ground pecans (or other nuts)

1. Place raisins and bourbon in a saucepan and bring to a boil for about two minutes. Cover, remove from heat, and let sit for about an hour.
2. Break up eggs, then add sugar, and gradually the oil and pumpkin.
3. Combine dry ingredients and add to the pumpkin mix.
4. Add raisins, bourbon, and pecans and mix until smooth.
5. Pour batter into a greased 9" round pan and bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes.

Notes: My sugar proportion is about 75% brown sugar to 25% granulated white sugar. Also since I grew up with a Korean mother I tend to think of dehydrated ground ginger as an oddity best avoided. Also my mom never bothers with peeling ginger, so I've dispensed with that annoying step as well.

For some reason I think that cream chees frosting would detract from the flavor a bit, so I would be inclined to do a vanilla buttercream with some pecans on top. I mentioned this to Amy who thought that the result might be a little too rich. After last night's version of the cake came out the oven I remembered that I have a package of cranberries sitting in the freezer that probably would have done well with the raisins and bourbon. Next time.

2006-11-10T08:47:00.000-08:00

The current job is to cleaning up images while watching Ugly Betty.

For Thanksgiving I'm going to make a Derby Pie, which got a mention in NYT this week. It turns out that the company that holds the trademark for the pie is a little enthusiastic with the Cease and Desist.

But this is the Times' recipe from about two years ago (I think I'm going to add Bourbon):
Fannie Lou's Thoroughbred
(Almost Derby) Pie
[serves 6]

1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 cup semisweet-chocolate chips.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the crust in a pie plate and prick the bottom with a fork. Cover lightly with a sheet of foil, pressing it gently into the crust and making sure the edges are covered. Place weights (metal pie weights or dried beans) on the foil to weigh down the bottom and hold up the sides of the crust. Bake for 10 minutes, then remove foil. Continue baking until the crust is firm and has lost its sheen but is not browned, about 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the butter, eggs and vanilla extract. Add the brown sugar and flour and mix until thoroughly blended. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the walnuts and chocolate chips.

3. Pour the batter into the crust. Bake until puffed and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and place on a rack to cool. Serve warm.

Also I'm making macaroni and cheese with bacon, zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes. I'll post the recipe when I work out some issues with it.

Also I think the folks at TNR know I hate them because for the life of me no full-text database will give me the article I need on Scogin Elam.

distractions.

2006-11-09T15:40:00.000-08:00

Jim Webb, you are my favorite former Republican.

As expected Tom Vilsack is in it for 2008. Now we wait for others.

Tonight is supposed to be the night to work on extra-curricular activities, but the two main topics of interest in my life are the increasing disappointment with my chocolate-chip cookie recipe and the fact that I might not like the Beatles.

Regarding the first issue I have no problems with the taste, just the texture in that it's just too chewy and cake-like for a cookie. The next time around I'll change the white-to-brown sugar proportion (currently 3 TS to 1/2 cup) to make it more equal. On the second I have nothing to say except I'll probably be excoriated for holding such an opinion, but there it is.

A small firm I like has the cover to one of the final issues (or maybe the final) of Architecture.

I'll end with a friend's observations from an architecture party even though I believe the architect stereotype is simply lame. I mean, that Fountainhead book totally sucks.

[T]he finance and real estate people embodied their stereotypes to a staggering degree. I suppose we did too, but our stereotype is undeniably cooler. One weird thing: the place was packed with Canadians.

though ...

2006-11-08T12:12:00.000-08:00

I made black beans and chocolate chip cookies last night. I think I put in a bit too much cinnamon in the beans making for some cognative dissonance between the olfactory and gustation. The cookies, though, were better than ever with the addition of coconut and a larger proportion of Grand Marnier.

P.S. Blog Partner Who Hasn't Yet Blogged: I need my 9x13 pan back before Thanksgiving.

politics (and not food)

2006-11-08T11:27:00.000-08:00

During my morning coffee yesterday I sat next to genial artsy guy and nondescript artsy Japanese girl. They had this conversation:

Guy: I mean, like, Ralph Nader.

Girl: [Silence]

Guy: Like, I've never voted before, but I totally voted for Nader. I hated everyone else and I agreed with like everything Nader said. I hate Kerry and I hate Gore.

Girl: [Silence continued]

At this point I physically restrained myself from walking over and ripping out the guy's throat. Certainly the guy has a right to 1. not give a shit and not vote and 2. be mindless and vote for the candidate of his choosing and 3. still be an fucking obnoxious, intransigent asshole about his vote, but someone should take him out back and clue him in on the fact that he's not fucking voting for president of his own navel.

But after watching election returns over fish and chips at Telephone Bar I'm feeling a bit more charitable. At least until I cross the next defiant Nader-voting moron.

My beloved home state did well with the exception of, as usual, my district.

Re: People We Don't Know. So Spencer Ackerman's propensity for referencing Gorilla Biscuits and Avail on The American Prospect's blog and the fact that he got fired from The New Republic already makes him way cooler than me. Then I find that he also cooks. Truly Too Hot for TNR.

And now I'm staring at a grant application that decided not to save itself after I did exactly that last night. For shame.

How Not to Live By Eating

2006-10-31T13:39:00.002-08:00

From The Custom House, the introduction to The Scarlet Letter.

One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren, was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast-meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual endowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher’s meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His reminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or turkey under one’s very nostrils. There were flavors on his palate, that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as fresh as that of the mutton-chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been food for worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him; not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking to repudiate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual. A tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams, would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and all the events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had gone over him with as little permanent effect as the passing breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man’s life, so far as I could judge, was his mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago; a goose of most promising figure, but which, at table, proved so inveterately tough that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcases; and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw.

date lab with grown ups

2006-10-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

The guy in last week's Date Lab in the Washington Post Magazine and I were the same year in college. The one specific thing I remember about him was that he wanted to finish undergrad in three years and then go to med school. I do though admire his attitude towards food and wine now though.

I'm Asian, but I wasn't pre-med in college.

a recipe

2006-10-12T16:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier today as I downloaded photos I took for Open House New York I baked my first Boston Creme Pie with Ashley. We used Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, which is the type of cookbook that needs a little self-editing on the part of the person using the recipe. Although our creation turned out well I was a little concerned about the proportions for her ganache and cream recipes. But these issues were rectified with just a slight adjustment.

Two weeks ago I made red velvet cake twice. The first time I misread the recipe (or rather I stopped reading it) and omitted the vinegar and baking soda. The second time everything was fine. But I came up with a nice buttercream frosting the first time around that was repeated for the second, and the measurements I have are probably similar to the type of sketchiness that comes up sometimes in Lawson's books.

Grand Marnier Buttercream
3 and 1/2 to 3 and 3/4 cups confectioner's sugar
3/4 cup softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon Grand Marnier
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
salt to taste

Combine butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add egg, Grand Marnier, vanilla, and salt. Mix until smooth, then gradually add confectioner's sugar.

I'm sure almond extract would work really well also, especially with red velvet cake.

ethics + beer

2006-10-05T13:46:00.000-07:00

One of these days one of us will get around to writing a real post featuring our food experiments and photos.

In my hometown news a warehouse fire destroyed
4% of this year's crop of domestic hops. When I talked to my parents last night they found it amusing that the fire was notable enough to garner a mention on CNN. But beer should be taken seriously.

Unrelated to food is the fact that my Congressman also happens to be the House Ethics Committee chairman. He also made an impression on CNN with remarks about Dennis Hastert.

Since I more or less believe American regional cooking begins and ends in the South I think I need to try some New Orleans recipes. I used to do a decent jambalaya regularly for a run of three or four months about four years ago, so it's time to go back.

I also want to finally make a Derby Pie that I've been talking about making for two years.

Sundry Food Reading

2006-10-05T09:13:00.000-07:00

Some articles I've enjoyed recently on food:
The Global Gourmand by R.W. Apple (NYT)
Eating Out by Jason Epstein (NYRB)
Alcohol Testing by Randall Lane (Slate)

apple

2006-10-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

I first became familiar with R.W. Apple through Timothy Crouse's great book about journalists covering the 1972 presidential campaign The Boys on the Bus during college. In recent years I found a different R.W. Apple--the peripatetic omnivore of the Times' Dining section with a straightforward, yet conversational writing style, the man who introduced me (and probably many others) to the existence of the mangosteen.

R.W. Apple, a Times Journalist in Full, Dies at 71

Delayed Action

2006-09-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Some weeks ago, despite years of occasional binge drinking, I experienced my first hangover at the hands of a party thrown by a little magazine. How I delayed this event until my late-20s is a curiosity, but a mixture of cigarettes and too much wine, beer, and scotch resulted in a morning lying in fetal position on the floor of my apartment because I couldn’t endure the softness of my bed. I am told that this is a common characteristic. Alcohol was consumed with difficultly for several days afterwards.

And that seems as good a note as any to start this food (and, apparently, drink) blog with KL.

On a completely different note the BBC says that the Lemonheads are coming out with a new album? Hello, 1993.