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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Friday, January 16, 2004

Dubya greets "The Great MG" at Everest 8:05:31 PM    comment []

Pssst…hey, Rove, buy a UPS for his teleprompter "I want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous spacial entrepreneurs who set such a wonderful example for the young of our country."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 14, 2004 6:38:27 PM    comment []

Brown the beef Add the vegetables Pressure Cook A cat could care less. This box, from BJ’s Warehouse has at least two sides removed. This is true of 99% of the boxes they offer as “free boxes.” They are basically useless for carrying your groceries because stuff tends to fall out, but it’s all they have. No bags, no paper, no plastic. This is mildly inconveniencing to a shopper, but a cat could care less. 6:31:38 PM    comment []

Slate all fucked up Does it look like this to you when it first loads? It's doing at on 3 different (totally updated) systems at two locations for me. Refresh the screen and it goes away. It's been happening for two days or so... 6:15:54 PM    comment []

Cold Comfort   It’s going to get down, get down, get down to 20 tonight and if liked the cold I never would have moved to Carolina from Ohio. Running through my head, like an insidious commercial jingle, was a fascination to make pressure cooker beef broth. The pressure cooker, as you probably know, was invented by Denis Papin in 1691 and could be called a Late Baroque Microwave. In fact, I believe they even called it that then back then – it wasn’t as though they were all just sitting around on their hands waiting for the Age Of Enlightenment, they were pretty smart already. Have you seen any microwave broth recipes? You can make broth in a pressure cooker in 50 minutes, though skimming and stirring a pot of hot broth for hours and hours doesn’t sound all that bad in sub-freezing cold.   My recipe is from Alton Brown who, like David Rosengarten, is a food nerd as much as a foodie. I am a lesser food nerd and these guys are role models. My $5.00 pressure cooker from the PTA Thrift Shop is no comparison to the sleek Kuhn Rikon speedsters these guys drive but it will still get the job done in 50 minutes.   Some compromises are being made on the ingredients. I had a real hankering for the oxtails and shanks in Alton Brown’s recipe, but neither was available at the two stores I checked. Liz will be especially disappointed about the oxtail omission. One store had beef back ribs and another had short ribs (these look like exceptional broth fodder). They will do. Odd, while the price of roasts and other boneless cuts has dropped in recent weeks the price of the less popular bony parts has not budged an inch. It is the bony cuts, of course, that are most likely to carry the prions that cause BSE. In fact, these cuts never go on sale – something that’s puzzled me before – and it leads me to believe they are sold on a “take it or leave it” basis and simply discarded or sold to restaurants when they pass their sell by date.   The remaining ingredients are easily identified from the photo: glorious tellicherry peppercorns, garlic (“Garlic Intoxication” = losing the ability to count when the aroma of garlic intoxicates. The recipe calls for 3 cloves. I’m not sure how many are there), parsley, carrots, onions, and celery.   I’m off to cook. 5:15:08 PM    comment []

Zappa News: 13 Jan 2004 22:44 Zappa Widow Gets Apology in Canada Copyright Case QUEBEC CITY (Reuters) - A Canadian furniture store apologized to the widow of Frank Zappa on Tuesday for using one of the late U.S. rock star's signature songs without consent in a television commercial. Ameublements Tanguay Inc. issued a letter of apology to the Zappa family, which owns the rights to all Zappa's work. Other terms of the out-of-court settlement over the copyright infringement complaint, such as monetary compensation, were not disclosed. The agreement came during the second day of the Federal Court of Canada trial in which Zappa's wife, Gail, complained of the copyright infringement. "The unique character of Frank Zappa's work and the importance of recognizing the value of copyrights prevailed," she said in a statement. "It sends a message that if you don't have a copyright, don't copy," Zappa told reporters outside the court. The store used extracts from the 1979 Zappa song "Watermelon in Easter Hay" as background music in a 1995 commercial. Gail Zappa filed the court complaint in 1998 after a local fan notified the family of the commercial. Frank Zappa, known for his inventive guitar playing and satirical songs, died at age 53 from prostate cancer in 1993. "Watermelon in Easter Hay," from the album "Joe's Garage," features a stirring guitar solo by Zappa. 9:41:01 AM    comment []