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Friday, January 23, 2004

David Kay Abruptly Quits WMD Inspector Position For “Personal Reasons” Mr Kay gave no reason for leaving, but the BBC's John Leyne in Washington says sources there speak of a mixture of personal reasons and his disillusionment with the weapons search. "We're seeking all the facts - already the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations. Had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." - SOTU 2004 8:43:29 PM    comment []

Okay, there’s a friggin’ focaccia in the future, one way or the other this weekend. Fine Cooking, which came during the week, has a beautiful pictorial spread – including the almost X-rated close-up of the lower crust you see here, crisply fried in the olive oil at the bottom of the pan. They separate toppings into two categories: (1) Pre-rise toppings which might easily burn and are therefore pressed into the dough and (2) Pre-bake topping which are less vulnerable to burning and can simply be placed on top before baking. The first category includes oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, fresh herbs, roasted garlic, and dried fruits. The pre-bake toppings include moist cheeses, oven-roasted tomatoes, roasted or sautéed bell peppers, eggplant, spinach caramelized onions, partially cooked sausage, and coarse salt.   Then the system breaks down. Two further types of toppings are listed: (3) “Toppings that need to be brushed or dolloped on after the final the final dimpling but before the final rise” (tomato sauce, pesto, tapenade), and (4) “Last minute toppings, sprinkled on just minutes before the focaccia is ready to come out of the oven” (grated cheese: Parmagiano-Reggiano, Romano, Asiago). The Fine Cooking recipe uses a moist dough that rises in the refrigerator overnight.   The David Rosengarten recipe, from It’s All American Food, uses a starter made the day before and allowed to work at room temperature. My plan is to combine the two – make a starter today, the dough tomorrow, then let in rise in the fridge for baking on Sunday. Here’s the starter:   * Bread Starter *   2 cups cool water 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour 1/8 teaspoon rapid-rise (instant) yeast Pinch of sugar   Yield: 3 cups   1. In a large mixing bowl combine the water, flour, yeast, and sugar.   2. Use a fork to mix all the ingredients together until they are almost smooth; the mixture should be the consistency of a thick, slightly lumpy pancake batter.   3. Cover the large bowl with plastic wrap. Poke a few holes in the plastic wrap so the mixture can breathe. Let the mixture sit on the countertop to ferment overnight. (It must ferment for a minimum of 12 hours.)   4. Before using the starter in a recipe, use a fork to stir the mixture to take most of the air out of it. This process also homogenizes the mixture, making it easier to work with and more accurate for measuring. Any leftover starter can be kept in a covered jar in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.   Rosengarten enlightens us (me at least) in the recipe’s preface with the origins of the word focaccia – from the Latin for hearth, or focus. 6:36:02 PM    comment []

Founder of Parmalat Calisto Tanzi, right, is welcomed by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in this photo taken at the Milan San Siro stadium on 2001. Defense lawyers for the now-jailed company founder, Calisto Tanzi, sought to have him placed under house arrest. Tanzi, 65, was arrested Dec. 27. He was denied house arrest earlier this month. (AP Photo/Giuseppe Colombo, File)    - From a slideshow available here. (wonder who the "fall guy" will be...) 3:46:31 PM    comment []

Hmmm…threw himself from off a bridge…   Parmalat aide 'commits suicide' A mid-level executive in the finance department of collapsed food giant Parmalat has committed suicide, Italian police have said. Alessandro Bassi, an aide to the former finance director Fausto Tonna, threw himself from a highway bridge in Parma, the company's hometown. Both Mr Tonna and Parmalat founder Calisto Tanzi are now in jail, although no charges have yet been made. 3:22:38 PM    comment []

July 2, 2003 – Silvio Berlusconi props an eyebrow with his middle finger wile answering reporters’ questions   January 22, 2004 – Berlusconi neither confirms nor denies rumors that he had plastic surgery to remove the bags beneath his eyes. 2:44:46 PM    comment []

The old Honda Civic hit the 60,000-mile mark last week, so I took it in for scheduled maintenance. The local dealer provides a shuttle back home, but it doesn’t leave until 8am so I took a book along – in this case, It’s All American Food by David Rosengarten.   There were dozens of mouth-watering recipes for Chicago style hot dogs, Colonel Sanders style (fried in a pressure cooker) chicken, kimchi, you name it. I got so hungry I almost ate the book. The best idea, used in two recipes (one for minestrone, another for 4-hour Italian sauce, aka “gravy”) was using the rind from hard cheeses like Parmigiano-Reggiano, as an ingredient. I’ve been throwing those away, all these years… 12:48:32 PM    comment []

Tonight on The Food Network…   On Dweezil & Lisa     St. Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast Party There's a Zappa family tradition of pancakes for dinner, and there's a very special story about a very special pancake that led to the famous Frank Zappa song St Alphonso's Pancake breakfast.   That’s a recipe I won’t want to miss. I did miss the season opener last Friday because I set it to record on my ATI video capture card but didn’t do it right. I chose a 720x480 resolution so it would be suitable for dubbing to DVD. Normally, I use a smaller resolution and have no problems, but a lot of frames got dropped this time and it was unwatchable. This week, I’ll use the DVR.   To use video capture effectively on a computer, you also have to shut down anything that might interfere, all those icons in the systray - like antivirus, instant messenger programs, etc. Some utilities (like System Mechanic) allow you to turn startup programs on or off at will (reboot needed), but if you have a computer running Windows XP, you can use the built-in utility, msconfig. Windows 2000 doesn’t include msconfig, but you can copy it over from a Windows XP system and it’ll run. 12:14:11 PM    comment []