Category: Food
-
There’s No Pleasing Some People
I do most of the grocery shopping for my family. Yesterday I went on my usual big monthly run to the discount club, to stock up on stuff that comes in large packages. One of the items my talented wife asked me to pick up was cereal. So I bought cereal. Was my return with…
-
Kitchen Report: Chinese Braised Pork Belly
Warning: if you are interested in healthy, low-fat recipes, GET OUT NOW! I discovered this dish, or something very like it, at the Ginger Garden restaurant in Amherst. When I first moved to the area at the dawn of the new millennium, Ginger Garden was a very ordinary Chinese food joint, with a big all-you-can-eat buffet…
-
An Ancient Dessert
In the course of a recent bookstore raid I got a copy of Arcana Mundi by Georg Luck. The bulk of it is a compilation of writings by classical authors on occult topics. While reading it I stumbled across a passage translated from Homer, describing how the enchantress Circe turned Odysseus's men into swine. To…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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:…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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.…
The Cambias Digression 