Later On

First, The Eldest just called to remind me that we tried Glorious One-Pot Meals in the past but found that they didn’t quite work. I have absolutely zero memory of this, but I went to my cookbook bookshelf and lo! there is a copy of Glorious One-Pot Meals in a spiral-bound edition (lies flat).

Still, I’m going to give it a go again, and adapt it as needed to my taste and methods. I do not have a 2-quart cast-iron Dutch oven, but I do have a sturdy 2-quart pan—stainless-clad aluminum. I would think that would work for the experiments.

In my own meal evolution, I realized last night that I have gradually drifted into cooking exactly a “serves 1″ meal: each portion (protein, starch, and veg) is a single serving, so I eat everything I just cooked because I cook exactly one (1) meal—and the benefit for me: no leftovers. At all.

Strictly speaking, of course, I frequently cook food in bulk: I generally cook two bunches of greens at a time (typical: kale and red chard) and I hard-boil a dozen eggs at a time and I poach two chicken breasts at a time. But those are cooked specifically for later use. In the evening, I take out my little 2-quart sauté pan and cook/heat up just the amounts I will eat for dinner: 4 oz protein, 1/4 cup starch, and a cup or so of veg.

Generally speaking, a starch serving is 1/2 cup. I take half that because I’m on a weight-loss diet. Once I reach goal, you can be sure that the starch serving will resume normal size.

A nice review from American Scientist of the novel Flatland:

Flatland
by Edwin A. Abbott

A review by Colin C. Adams

In 1884, the English minister, headmaster, and biblical and Shakespearean scholar Edwin Abbott Abbott produced a thin volume titled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. It was both an introduction to the notion of higher dimensions and a satire of Victorian society and norms. At that time, there was substantial interest in the idea of higher dimensions, both within the scientific community and also in the more general population. Abbott’s work provided a simple story that allowed lay audiences to grasp the idea of dimensions beyond the familiar three. Flatland helped to set the stage for many of the scientific advances to come.

In the pantheon of popular books about mathematics, one would be hard-pressed to name another that has lasted so long in popularity or had such a dramatic impact. Generations of students have gained their first true appreciation of higher dimensions by reading this slight story written by a schoolmaster more than a century and a quarter ago. Of the more than 50 books that Abbott wrote, this is the one for which he is remembered.

The book’s appearance in England was followed a year later by its publication in the United States, where it has yet to go out of print. Just since 2007, more than 20 different publishers have produced editions of the book — a testament to its popularity, profitability and expired copyright. The cheapest version is available from Dover Thrift Editions for just two dollars. At that price, members of my department hand them out to students as prizes, and the students don’t have to impress us all that much to merit a copy. A new edition jointly published this year by Cambridge University Press and the Mathematical Association of America contains enough notes and commentary by William Lindgren and Thomas Banchoff to more than double the length of the book.

Read the rest of this entry »

John Cole defends Wikileaks:

I’m beginning to grow hostile at people who just blindly lash out at Wikileaks or treat this like it is just some radical anarchist with a vengeance to bring down America. The records the DOJ subpoenaed today were in regards to an attempt to prosecute people for the crime of informing us that our government was overtly lying to us about the gleefully conducted murder of innocents:

Those were real people, you assholes. Maybe I feel more strongly about this because I advocated for this war and carry a helluva lot more guilt than some of you. This isn’t about Assange, who may or may not be the world’s biggest asshole and a rapist. It’s about our government lying to us about their conduct, and then launching campaigns against the people who exposed those lies. It’s also about the future of journalism and whistleblowing.

The footage of the actual attack starts at 2:47. The sound prior to that is odd, but the explanation (photos and text) of who the people were whom the US forces killed is useful.

Trent Hamm has an interesting post on change at The Simple Dollar, mainly focused on changes in financial habits. I commented:

Change as a human process has been intensively studied, and the six stages of the process are now fairly well understood. At each stage, the person changing has specific tasks to accomplish and complete before the next stage emerges, so it does take time—and it can be quite confusing if you don’t understand the process that’s underway.

I highly recommend the book Changing for Good: The Revolutionary Program That Explains the Six Stages of Change and Teaches You How to Free Yourself from Bad Habits, by James Prochaska et al. You can find secondhand copies at the link.

When I give you a recipe that I made up, I hope you realize that the whole thing is very ad hoc: what goes in, and how it is prepped and cooked, depends on what’s on hand and what comes to mind. Sometimes I think of alternatives after the fact, thus the options. So when I cut the apple into small julienne, it’s because I now have the Swissmar V-Slicer and so that’s the easiest way to take care of the apple. If I didn’t have the V-Slicer, I would have just chopped the apple.

Kumquats appear in the recipe because I had them one hand, left over from something else, but I really do like them: cooked slowly for a long time with meat or poultry, they melt into a tart, sticky, citrus sweetness.

Tonight’s dinner was, as almost always, totally ad hoc.

Serves one:

2 tsp of a local olive oil infused with cayenne, basil, and garlic. Regular olive oil would do.

Heat oil in 2-qt sauté pan. Add:

1/2 sweet onion, sliced thinly (V-Slicer or by hand)

Let the onion sauté until it turns golden and begins to caramelize. Add a small shake, depending on taste, of:

ground allspice
ground cardamom
ground cumin
ground sumac berries

(I wanted to add a little cinnamon, but couldn’t find my supply. Later I thought of juniper berries as a possibility instead of the spices.)

Add:

4 oz center-cut boneless pork chop, trimmed of fat and sliced as for stir-fry
1/4 head Savoy cabbage, chopped small
6 kumquats, each sliced crossways 3-4 times
1/2 Brae Burn apple, cut into small julienne
1/4 c cooked wheat berries (in this case, spelt, but could use other grain)
Splash of brown rice vinegar

Cover and simmer over medium heat for 30 minutes.

I thought up this recipe, BTW, by first focusing on the skeleton: protein, starch, and veg, then method and condiments.

I had the pork, and that made me think instantly of onion and apple as the veg (and fruit—an extra fruit serving is fine), plus I had the 1/4 head of cabbage to use up. I was already cooking some spelt, so that would be the starch. Protein, starch, and veg—then I just start cooking and adding things as I think of them.

UPDATE: I suddenly realized that my cooking method, as above, cooks a one-serving meal: I eat everything I cook. Obviously, there are exceptions: I hard-boil a dozen eggs at a time, but eat them one by one; I cook up a whole bunch of greens (or two, as now: a bunch of kale and a bunch of red chard that will be chopped and cooked together) but eat them one cup at a time.

Still, many meals are like the above: I measure out a single serving of protein, starch, and veggies and cook them together in some way, and eat the whole thing. And I figured out why I drifted in this direction: no leftovers, so no “bites” after the meal is over. I ate it, there ain’t no more.

Another observation: I got very nice center-cut boneless pork chops, and I noticed that each one was exactly 8 oz: two servings. That’s one reason I got obese: I was eating two (or more) servings of everything on the plate. Now when I use such pork chops, each 8-oz pork chop is cut in two and I get two meals from it.

Yesterday I got my first automated delivery to my Kindle of Web pages I had marked to "read later" via Instapaper.com. This is ultra-slick. If you have a Kindle, you should know about this.

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) loudly called for people to be “armed and dangerous” regarding healthcare, and Sharron Angle talked about “2nd Amendment recourse” if Congress didn’t listen, another call for armed violence. The Tea Party notoriously supports the presence of armed men at their rallies. And this is where all that rhetoric leads.

From a NY Times report on the shooting:

During the fall campaign, Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice-presidential candidate, posted a controversial map on her Facebook page depicting spots where Democrats were running for re-election; those Democrats were noted by crosshairs symbols like those seen through the scope of a gun. Ms. Giffords was among those on Ms. Palin’s map.

I do love a good one-pot meal. (I do dishwashing by hand.) And I hate the suggestion “Serve over rice or noodles” because that means ANOTHER DAMN POT!

So I like the look of the book Glorious One-Pot Meals: A Revolutionary New Quick and Healthy Approach to Dutch-Oven Cooking. Note that it is for Dutch ovens: it is specifically NOT a slow-cooker cookbook.

She calls her method “infusion cooking” and it does seem to be a novel way of cooking. You arrange the food in layers in the Dutch oven, cover it, and then put it in a 450º F oven for 30-45 minutes or so, depending on the recipe. And the entire meal is in the pot: fast, easy, and intriguing.

Full disclosure: I got into this after reading this post on Scott Feldstein’s blog on how to get a good cast-iron enameled Dutch oven inexpensively.

Only those who are poor, of course. And Latinos. And…  Well, here’s the story by Zaid Jilani at ThinkProgress:

As ThinkProgress previously reported, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) advocated for and passed budget cuts last year that cut off urgent transplant funding that was previously promised to 98 Arizonans. In late November, Mark Price, an Arizona father who had been battling leukemia for a year, died due to complications related to chemotherapy treatment he was receiving. Price was awaiting an organ transplant that could’ve saved his life, but he was unable to receive one in time due to Brewer’s budget cuts.

Now, the University of Arizona Medical Center has told the press that another patient passed away in late December because they were unable to get their organ transplant funded. Although the attending physicians declined to release the name of the patient out of respect for the family’s privacy, they confirmed that the patient that passed away was one of the 98 Arizonans cut off from organ transplants by Brewer and the GOP-controlled state legislature. He “was our patient. He was on our list,” said surgery department spokeswoman Jo Marie Gellerman.

Local news station KGUN reported the second death and tracked down two patients who are still waiting for transplants. They interviewed 48-year old David Hernandez, who has a terminal lung disease and will die without a transplant. They also highlighted the case of 27-year old Tiffany Tate, who also needs a lung transplant to save her life. Despite placing three phone calls and an e-mail, the station was unable to receive any response from Brewer’s office.

KGUN was able to interview Sen. Frank Antenori (R) — a Brewer ally who has long fought for provisions to prevent abortions, based on his supposed belief in the sanctity of human life — who told them that he wishes the legislature “had the money and it was flowing from the hills to fund everything we want to fund. Tough decisions are being made because we’re in a budget crisis right now.” Interestingly, the station found out that all state employees are entitled to medical benefits subsidized by taxpayers, and that “yes, they do cover organ transplants.” Watch it:

After learning about the plight of the 98 Arizonan patients, Steven Daglas, an Illinois State GOP Central Committeeman, worked with several others to analyze the Arizona state budget and finances to develop funding solutions that would allow the state to fully fund the transplants for all of the remaining patients without actually raising any new revenue. The possible solutions included using $2 million from an AIG settlement that the state of Arizona will receive or “transferring $1.2 million in funds that Arizona once planned to use to build bridges for endangered squirrels.” Yet even after repeatedly sending his proposal to Brewer since December, Daglas has received zero response from the governor. He told The Arizona Republic that she may be ignoring his proposal out of the fear that he’s trying to politically damage her, but he explained, “I’m a Republican guy from Illinois…We’re just concerned about these transplant patients and want to help“:

Since early last month, Daglas and those with whom he is working have been reaching out to the governor and her staff with the ideas. Among other things, they sent a letter that required a signature confirmation so they knew the information was getting through. But they haven’t heard back.

“We’re worried that maybe her office is thinking that we’re offering these ideas as a way to attack her or make her look bad, and that isn’t it at all,” Daglas said. “I’m a Republican guy from Illinois. We have plenty of problems up here. We’re just concerned about these transplant patients and want to help. We have provided detailed information about the suggestions, the statutes, the original sources and so on.”

The failure of Brewer to respond to the funding proposal has frustrated Daglas, and this morning he joined with five of the patients in need of transplants and launched a website, Arizona98.com. The website lists 26 possible ways that Arizona can shift funding in order to pay for the transplant procedures without having to raise any additional revenue. As the Arizona Republic notes, the savings Arizona is supposed to have by not funding the transplants amount to $1.36 million. As Arizona98.com notes, “The fact our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters (hard-working citizens and good people) have been deemed expendable at a price of $13,877.56 per human life still does not make sense.”

Update: “I refuse to believe that any person or state will spend $1.25 million to save 5 squirrels a year, but not 98 human beings. It can’t be true. That just doesn’t make any sense," Daglas told ThinkProgress.

Via Dan Colman’s Open Culture:

This morning I did the Nordic Track for 30 minutes non-stop. It wasn’t bad at all. I take tomorrow off, and from now on, 30 minutes is the rule. And if any of you listen to audiobooks, I highly recommend  the Edith Grossman translation of Don Quixote, which is indeed available as an audiobook. Try your library.

In my senior year of college (1960-61), I saw A Touch of Larceny, released in 1959 and starring James Mason, Vera Miles, and George Sanders. I was totally taken by the movie. Though in viewing it today, it seems somewhat old-fashioned and slow-paced, back in 1960 it was (it seemed to me) cheeky, modern, and totally wonderful. Some of that is the music in the movie, some is the plot and its working, and some is the situation, for at the time I saw the movie, I, too, was competing for a woman’s affections.

At any rate, I’m a little startled at how well I remember the movie after 50 years. I didn’t recall the first scene—amusing and establishing Max Easton’s character—but I remembered practically all the rest.

The movie is now available on Netflix Watch Instantly, and if you interested, give it a go. I certainly found it enjoyable.

Another pleasurable and close shave. I must say that the Eclipse Red Ring does indeed deliver excellent shaves. I don’t understand all the specifics and reasons of the design, but it works extremely well. The Rooney gathered plenty of soap, and each pass had plentiful fragrant lather. Three of those passes, a rinse and dry, and then a good splash of Klar Seifen Klassik.

Periodically I like to mention that I use MR GLO (Musgo Real Glyce Lime Oil soap) as the first step, to wash my beard at the sink. For me, it makes a positive difference.

Interesting article on the current food-price crisis—the first since the 2008 food crisis. The entire article never mentions global warming as a factor in crop failures, anomalous flooding, and so on. I guess the most effective plan against global warming that we’ve developed to date: Try not to mention it.

In fairness, their graphic hints at global warming as a factor. (PDF at the link.)

Interesting:

Sinn Féin, Ireland’s fastest growing political party, has taken several steps to encourage a more effective, evidence-based approach to tackling the problems of drug addiction and drug-related crime.
In its most recent drug policy document, Sinn Féin demonstrates a welcome and pragmatic understanding of the factors influencing drug abuse, stating:

Harmful drug use has a complex relationship with class, inequality and poverty. Unless poverty and inequality are tackled, the scourge of drugs will continue.

The party’s reasoned stance on drug use continues with the call for a drug policy which is founded on facts rather than ideology:

The administration of criminal justice as it interacts with drug-related crime should be reviewed, reformed and tailored to more effectively address and reduce systemic crime, economic compulsive crime and psychopharmacological crime. A broad societal debate considering every possible approach and all relevant evidence from other jurisdictions including those that have experimented with decriminalization and/or legalization is warranted to this end.

New approaches must be informed by the most credible emerging evidence and international best practice.

Sinn Féin has further indicated its willingness to embrace drug policy reform with the introduction of a bill to regulate the sale of ‘legal highs’. Presented to the Irish Parliament in April this year, the bill proposes the establishment of a Non-Medicinal Psychoactive Substances Regulatory Authority, whose main functions would be: . . .

Continue reading.

And it seems to have clearly been a deliberate fraud, with records altered, false data added, data inconsistent with desired conclusions concealed, and the whole thing. Of course, the idea that vaccines cause autism has long since been debunked—I think the only people who still hold to that are those who inexplicably look to celebs for their scientific and medical information.

Full story here, along with video of Anderson Cooper interrogating the researcher about his fraud.

I’m back to Firefox: Chrome just has too many problems currently, and they are too slow to fix them.

Did 29 minutes on the Nordic Track, no problem. Tomorrow begins 30 minutes, where I’ll leave it for a while.

Almost finished with The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society since A.D. 1000, by William H. McNeill. What an illuminating book! He demonstrates connections and causes among events and movements that were totally new to me. Highly recommended. Secondhand hardbound editions at the link—and I highly recommend reading this one in hardback. I promise you that you’ll be amazed. (I did find the Pagekeeper bookmark useful with this book.)

In truth, I just wanted to show you these two razors, both British Gillettes. One is the Aristocrat Jr., the other the Rocket. Which is which? I have always thought that the flat back denoted the Jr., a diamond back the Rocket. But a commenter once told me differently. I now believe that the commenter was wrong: the Rocket has a diamond back, the Aristocrat Jr. a flat back. I used the Jr. (on the right) for this morning’s shave: three smooth passes, enjoying the stout fragrance of Honeybee Soaps Coffee Mocha shaving soap, a favorite.

I took a center-cut boneless pork chop that was exactly 8 oz, and cut it in half. Half I then cut up as a sort of stir-fry at lunch, and used the other half to make my dinner (recipe below serves one):

Dust chop with a little 5-spice powder.

Roast the chop in 300 º F oven for 30 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Slice thinly for slaw (I actually used my Swismar V-Slicer to cut small julienne):

1/4 head Savoy cabbage
1 carrot
1/4 sweet onion

Slice pork into small slabs. Add that to salad along with 1/4 c lemon quinoa and then toss with this dressing (which I got from TYD, along with the idea for the whole dish):

a little sesame oil [I used 2 tsp – LG]
ground red pepper (I keep a mixture of flakes and small dried peppers in a glass grinder)
brown rice vinegar
low-salt soy sauce

As you see, this has the basic meal skeleton: 4 oz protein, 1 starch serving, and vegetables. The 2 tsp oil are within daily limit of the reducing diet.

Great stuff.

UPDATE: The last-minute additions I did:

1/2 Brae Burn apple, julienned
juice of 1 small Meyer lemon

Additions I thought of as I was eating it:

currants or raisins
pine nuts
lemon zest
Bac’Uns (I now buy these in bulk from Amazon)
capers

This is completely amazing. Our government is quickly becoming totalitarian. Read the whole account. From it:

. . . Approximately two weeks ago (on December 20), Mohamed went to the airport in Kuwait to have his visa renewed, as he had done every three months without incident for the last year.  This time, however, he was told by the visa officer that his name had been marked in the computer, and after waiting five hours, he was taken into a room and interrogated by officials who refused to identify themselves.  They then handcuffed and blindfolded him and drove him to some other locale.  That was the start of a two-week-long, still ongoing nightmare during which he was imprisoned for a week in an unknown location by unknown captors, relentlessly interrogated, and severely beaten and threatened with even worse forms of torture.

Mohamed’s story was first reported this morning by Mark Mazzetti in The New York Times, who spoke with Mohamed by telephone, where he is currently being held in a deportation center in Kuwait.  I also spoke with Mohamed this morning, and my 50-minute conversation with him was recorded and can be heard on the recorder below.  Mazzetti did a good job of describing Mohamed’s version of events.  He writes that during his 90-minute conversation, "Mr. Mohamed was agitated as he recounted his captivity, tripping over his words and breaking into tears."

That was very much my experience as well.  It may be difficult at times to understand all of what Mohamed recounts because he is emotionally distraught in the extreme, but it’s nonetheless very worth listening to what he has to say, at the very least to portions of it.  Mohamed says he was repeatedly beaten with a stick on the bottom of his feet and his palms, hit in the face, and hung from the ceiling.  He also says his captors threatened him with both the arrest of his mother and electric shock, and told him that he should forget his family.

He still does not know why he was detained and beaten, nor does he know what is happening to him now.  Indeed, although Mazzetti writes that he was detained and beaten by Kuwait captors, Mohamed actually has no idea who was responsible, and told me that at least some of the people interrogating him spoke English.  He has been told that he will be deported back to the U.S., but is now on a no-fly list and has no idea when he will be released.  American officials told Mazzetti that "Mr. Mohamed is on a no-fly list and, for now at least, cannot return to the United States."  He’s been charged with no crime and presented with no evidence of any wrongdoing, , .