skeet's place - tended by ervan

Is it just me or do Ira Glass (This American Life), Jonathan Goldstein (Wiretap), and David Sedaris all have the same cultivated hipster/alterna-voice?

Found while cleaning up the office. From my pre-wedding, Bachelor days.

Eat that shit Mr. President.

Online Translation of Genetic Sequences to Music.

Wild.

Not that kind of fetish... okay, maybe a little bit.

Rice Boy.

Good stuff.

One perk at working for evil is that you get to go to research presentations. Some though, are on topics about which I have no clue.

So, best mind-boggling research title in my inbox today:

How likely is Buffon’s needle to meet a Cantor square?

It certainly peeks my interest!

Recommodify the subversive element.

For those not up on Harper's magazine, put this in your pipe and smoke it:

  

Checkout the whole set of Cartoons by Mr. Fish.

 [via mefi]

or the dirt...

The new Decemberists album reminds me a lot of The Shipping News.

In our organic veggie box this week we got another bunch of carrots. I'm not used to so many carrots. Carrots shall be my friend!

I spent some time looking for new ways for me to use carrots beyond just including them in a Mirepoix and I wanted them to be le spicey. Before I knew it, I had too many carrot recipes to pass up. I reprint them here for posterity and so I don't lose them. Y'know, apparently internet searchers love to find lists of things? It gives them great joy.

On to the untried and potentially false carrot recipes:

• Curried Carrot Soup (duh!)
• Seared jumbo scallops, spicy carrot fritters, yoghurt sauce
• Spicy Carrot Sauce (chipotle-flavored)
• Spicy Carrot Sambal
• Som Tam (Spicy Thai Carrot Salad)
• Som Tam #2 (for good measure)
• Hmong-style Spicy Carrot Salad
• Spicy Carrot Purée with Harissa
• Spicy Carrot Purée with Harissa #2 (adapted)
• Spicy Carrot Pickle (Indian)
• Spicy Carrot Chutney (Indian)
• Spicy Carrot Dip ("American")
• Broccoli and Tofu with Spicy Carrot Orange Sauce (Chinese-esque)
• Roasted Lamb Rump With Spicy Carrot Purée, Couscous & Pine Nut Ciabatta Sauce
• Sweet & Spicy Carrot Pudding
• Spicy Carrot Tahini (but where?!)

That last one, the Spicy Carrot Tahini, eluded me in recipe form, but intrigued me on the menus I saw it on.  One day, it shall be mine!

I shall try and bloggerate whichever recipe I choose for the utilization of carrottage. Gooooo beta carotene!

[x-posted]

Sometimes you stumble across something on the web that makes life just a little bit more worth living.  Other times, you stumble on to something on the web that makes you want to die just a little bit more.

In rare, special moments you stumble across the unholy marriage of both these things and it all just works.

Behold this internet gold--I give you Fluffy Mackerel Pudding!

 This gem comes to us from the Weight Watcher's recipe cards of yester year. Check them out. Oh, and you'll definitely want to recreate them, and photograph them, and upload them to flickr. Yes, you do!

by Mirandala

[hat-tip Rich, x-posted]

Sort of.

In a recurring culinary interest, obsession, and/or perversion, I have wondered whether cooking an animal (for those non-veg folks out there) with it's fetus would make for a tasty culinary advancement.

Imagine if you will roasted pig with piglets basting inside. Yummy!

Anyway, it seems that a creative cook is doing something just like that: unlaid eggs.

Not everybody loves them, but ever since Mr. Barber dropped the term “embryonic eggs” from the menu in favor of “immature,” fewer customers have balked.

I love me some embryos!

Best cooking day ever! In a day of personal indulgence I spent all Friday, 10am to 6pm cooking. Delightfully delicious!

Diced chiles and onions for the Avial

I have to give mad food props to the Demeber issue of Food and Wine, from whence all my recipes were stolen. The article is about this small inn/farm in Southwester Indian and in predictable modern foodie writing talks just enough about the land and people to set the scene for the food. Check it out,

For me the odd name evokes a dreamy paradigm of south India—an arch of vermilion bougainvillea blossoms, the sheen of lake waters interrupted by a dugout’s narrow wake and, above all, the blissful silence, broken only by birdsong, the chatter of women washing clothes along the shore and the chants from a Hindu temple across the canal.

What could be better? The food, silly! For the feasty goodness I made "Red Fish (tofu) Curry," "Curry with Potatoes and Squash," "Anu's Avial" and "Indian-spiced String Beans." Huzzah!

Pineaplle and spices

The dishes were quite good, but very different from what you're probably familiar with around Indian food. Lots of coconut, curry leaves and fresh green chiles. All the dishes were pretty fast and didn't take too much prep work--so it was cool to be able to make so many for one dinner.

I think the best one turned out to be the red tofu curry, which was sour and spicy from the tamarind in it. I replaced the called-for fish with tofu because to make it vegetarian and it turned out quite well.

Curry leaves, pepper and mustard seeds frying

Another winner was the Anu's Avial which was a vegetable and coconut mash but with no mashing, if that makes sense. It was delicious and coconutty.

Yogurt mixed into the Avial to make it tangy delicious

All in all it was a yummy success!

In the "This should make all Hawaiins Happy" department, Gmail now includes SPAM recipes in its Spam folder!

 How does the New York Times get away with headlines such as these: "Haggis, Updated: Less Offal, Tastes Great"?

Anyway, the article, for those interested in The Nasty Bits, is a somewhat interesting tale of a haggis that is easier to stomach... (get it?).  My favorite passage:

A reader then recites the poet’s “Address to a Haggis,” almost certainly the most passionate dialect poem ever composed by a man to a meat product. At the end of the recitation, the haggis — “great chieftain o’ the puddin’ race,” as Burns had it — is punctured with a ceremonial dagger, the better to release its “warm-reekin” steam.

 Mmm, a poem by a man to a meat product. If only such traditions lived on. Ode to a Schnitzel perhaps? A few couplets for a cutlet no doubt? You get the idea.

My new dream is to become the New York Times Dining section headline writer.  Methinks it'll take an offal long time though.

Check out the high-end toilets of the rich and not-so-famous.

Yesterday, I finally understood the minority experience in America. I had to wear a band-aid that didn't match my skin color.