April 2007 Archives

I once spent a good deal of time and $$ buying French cookbooks and experimenting. To a lesser degree, I did the same with Italian and Indian. Ho hum, been there, done that. What's new in food? Spain!!

The New Spanish Table is a fantastic cookbook. It has about 300 recipes from all regions of Spain, and has a good balance betwee traditional and modern. There are even a few contributions from Ferrán Adriá of El Bulli.

Last night I tried one of the tapas recipes as an entree: Salmon with Vanilla Oil and Salmon Roe.

Paraphrasing:

Split two fresh vanilla beans and cut into 1-inch pieces. Place in a glass bowl and cover with 1/2 cup grapeseed oil. Cook on high power in a microwave oven for 45 seconds. Cover, and infuse for six hours. Strain.

Take a 1-inch thick center cut salmon fillet, rub with olive oil and place on a dinner plate, and cover with plastic wrap. Cook in a 180-deg F oven for 15 minutes. Let the salmon cool.

Slice salmon into 1/4" slices and arrange on plate. Place some salmon roe on each slice and drizzle with the vanilla oil. Highly recommended!

This product of the week is about twelve weeks too late, but since it is so interesting, I've resurrected it from my Zombie post collection. What you see here (click on the picture for a larger version) is a box of Buddha's hand citrons (aka Buddha's fingers citron, or fingered citron). They are an Asian citrus fruit, and I am fascinated by them, first because they are so wild looking, and second because I can't figure out what they might be good for. You can't get "Buddha's hand juice" out of them because they don’t have any juice inside; when cut open, they reveal only pith surrounding empty space.

It is enough to think you are exercising. You don't actually have to do it. Click below to read about a remarkable study that claims the placebo effect works for exercise.

Exercise Sizzle Works Sans Steak.

Although it goes against the grain of my overly-logical bent, there really does appear to be good evidence that health is driven by your state of mind.

Saturday morning: South End Rowing Club member on the bay. Angel Island in the background. (Click for larger version.)

The Saturday morning walk to the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Plaza is always interesting. Some days, the early morning light is crisp and clear with the joy and promise of spring. Other days, fog blankets the bay and washes everything with pale shades of gray—San Francisco's version of early morning snow.

Cabernet, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Syrah, and even Palomino Fino I know. But could I list 184 different grape varieties and classify them by color, body and acidity? Not a chance, but if I had DeLong's Wine Grape Varietal Table up on the wall, I'd have a somewhat better chance... though it would take me a little time to memorize everything.

I saw this at Benovia winery and made a note to look it up when I got home. I'm glad I did, it's a major cool item for wine geeks! It is a lot cheaper than the Oxford Companion to Wine (3rd Edition), and unlike that massive tome, you can hang it on the wall.

The DeLongs have also started The Wine Century Club for people who have tasted 100 wine grape varieties. At the moment there are less people in this club, than world-wide Masters of Wine! Download your membership application form here.

You'll certainly want one of these for your own!

USB MISSLE LAUNCHER!

This is clearly a harbinger of a new kind of toy. Since all kids now have computers, why not use the computers to control the toys? Seems logical!

It would probably cost more than $30, but the launcher could have two optical sighting devices on it that would show the target and its range on the control panel. It would adjust the launch angle, depending on the distance of the target, and it would show red when the target was out of range.

Lots of potential here.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee went to sea to make some tea. Being proper British types they would, of course, boil the water in a whistling Simplex tea kettle. But it wasn't as simple at that.

You do know that there are two basic types of Simplex tea kettles, don't you? One is made for electric stoves (never mind about it being highly unlikely that the Tweedles had an electric stove in that boat) and has a flat bottom, and the other is made for gas stoves and has a skirt around the bottom.

"It's marketing," snuffed Tweedledum, disdainfully, "there's nothing to it." "It gives them an excuse to charge more for the one with the skirt." "Balderdash!" replied Tweedledee, "if you trap the hot gas on the bottom of the kettle instead of letting it fly away up the sides, you'll concentrate the heat, and the water will come to a boil faster."

I am guessing that not everyone will find this funny, but for those select few that love Mahler songs (small set) and have seen Butch Cassidy and... (much larger group) I present: Strauss and Mahler Re-enact Your Favorite Movie Moments. What next? Messiaen in The Birds?

(A tip of the hat to The Rest Is Noise, for the link And for more on the Mahler piece mentioned in the cartoon, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen).