Category: Food
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Commercial Holidays
One feature of American life during my half-century in it has been the annual complaints about commercialization of holidays. The primary subject is Christmas, of course. Christmas gift buying is such a key part of our economy that devout believers have given up trying to keep the focus of the holiday on its religious or…
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Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, Day 2
The first day of the Interstellar Workshop featured the Starship Century and Breakthrough StarShot groups. On Thursday the Tau Zero Foundation took center stage. The Tau Zero group aren't as wedded to a single goal or mission profile. Instead they've put a lot of effort into identifying key technologies which will benefit any interstellar exploration, and…
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Kitchen Report: Sous Vide
I know, I know: I'm about ten years late to the party on this one. Sous vide cooking techniques have become universal in the restaurant business, and probably half of the "foodies" in North America have a sous vide gadget sitting in a kitchen drawer somewhere. I'm a late adopter: I prefer to let other…
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What I Saw At The Eclipse, Part 2
Charleston is a fascinating city to visit, but in August its most insistently noticeable feature is the heat. I have ancestors who lived in Charleston before relocating to New Orleans, and now I understand they were looking for a place that wasn't quite so hot and muggy. The high temperatures really weren't all that hot:…
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Convention Report: Albacon 2017
(". . . Featuring ME!") I drove west through sleet, rain, and fog — but no snow, which was a huge relief as I was in a car without snow tires — to Albany, which looks as if someone decided to drop the 1960s capital city of a large post-colonial nation into the middle of…
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Poe’s Law of Tacos
Recently my son and I were driving along the commercial strip on King Street in Northampton when he asked (as teenagers do) if we could pick up some food. One of us suggested tacos, so we pulled into the unnatural hybrid Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken store for a snack. On our way I joked that…
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Most Disturbing Thing You’ll See Today
It's Carnival season again, which means it's King Cake season! Which means it's King Cake Baby season! I love my home town. Where else can one take pride in the "creepiest mascot" in pro sports? Here's a video made by the Pelicans which seems to glory in the unnerving nature of their mascot. Those eyes.…
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Kitchen Report: Timballo
The Leopard, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, is a landmark of Italian literature. There are many reasons to read it, but among others it contains some of the great dinner scenes in modern fiction. The meal in Chapter 2 begins with "monumental dishes of macaroni." But this isn't just a pile of pasta, oh no. Di…
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Kitchen Report: Home-Made Boudin
Boudin ("boo-dan") is a French word for sausage, probably cognate with the English word "pudding" — which becomes less weird when you remember that the original English puddings were a mess of suet and flour wrapped in cloth and boiled. In Louisiana, the term became specific to Cajun sausages using rice as a filler. Boudin…
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Perfection
Some time ago I was making a long trip by car on a summer weekend, and so as I drove I could see a number of families enjoying the nice weather with back yard cookouts. It made me realize something. We will never know who made (or who ate) the greatest hamburger ever. It may…
The Cambias Digression 