Chantal Ackerman

Hands down one of the most interesting interviews I've ever read, especially considering I didn't know who she was.

Weather Report

Beautiful morning. Lots of clouds to the east, so good color. To the west, a big front was rolling in, so really dark lower clouds, and then pink ones above. A cleanup set came in while I was watching at the end of DP, 8' maybe 10'. Impressive. Also had a mini-conversation with the guy who walks the beach everyday, picking up trash. I've seen him for atleast 5 years. It hasn't started raining yet, but should get interesting today.

Liz Clark's Blog

Liz Clark went to UCSB a while ago. Right now she's sailing around the world, mostly solo, surfing all the while. Her blog is wonderful, she's a good writer and she's on a cool trip. Her first posts were on the wetsand website, but they reorganized it, pics are gone, and you can't navigate between posts. But I saved a few direct links to some posts: mex, crossing the pacific, kiribati, to bora bora. A little youtube action, too.

Her blog on her own site starts up summer of 2009. She spent a little time in Oregon, Portland to be exact, working on a book to raise money to continue the journey. She specifically mentioned eating berries, oh those Oregon berries.... blackberries everywhere.... She's currently stuck in a boatyard on Tahiti.

RIP Donald Bordelon

Radio is funny, you make mental images to go along with the stories, and sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. Donald Bordelon appeared on morning edition many times, he was a Katrina survivor in New Orleans, and his voice and general outlook on life always made for an interesting interview. The funny thing is, I thought for sure he was a black guy (big, booming voice; New Orleans resident), so when I was listening to the interview with his wife this morning it was surprising as heck when she said she loved his beautiful blue eyes. Anyway. Give a listen, and they have links to some of the other stories, too.

about Paul McCartney

Bob Edwards Weekend had a fascinating interview with an unauthorized biographer of Sir Paul. Great insights, great music, obviously.

TAL/Prairie Home this Weekend

Maybe it was just because I was having a good saturday, but both shows seemed particularly good this week. TAL had 3 great stories: first was about people who bid on repossessed storage units; 2nd about an archaeologist who dove a Byzantine shipwreck yet was afraid of water, something like that; third about a guy who lost his memory because of taking malaria medicine. Prairie Home did something I wish they would do more -- they incorporated the musical talent into one of the stories: the 'the lives of the cowboys' skit. There also was a cover of an Allman Brothers tune, always good. Perhaps it was cause I was in a good mood, looking over the show summary nothing stands out...

WWSD? -- Venison

New feature for the new blog year. What would Seth do? S of R/S/L fame asked me to suggest a marinade for venison, a little google research found this: an elegant marinade. The name is money, the ingredients aren't really that special, but c'est la vie.

1

The blog turns 1 today.

To celebrate had a simple saute of garlic, a 'cherry bomb' pepper, a chanterelle from the co-op, a buffalo patty, some red sauce and some arugula; on rice. tasty.

Mark Bittman

He is a food writer for the NYT, he's a decent writer, especially good on the ethics of food production.

An earlier post, about a video of a talk he did.

His NYT page. His blog, 'Bitten'

NYT articles: On industrial meat production, on peanut butter, agua fresca, HOMEMADE CRACKERS (I'm going to do this for sure), a well-stocked pantry (good tips), why take food seriously?, no knead bread, culinary uses for lavendar, tomato jam, using less meat -- this is a good one, he talks about how americans eat a TON of protein, and that if you cut back (or eliminate) meat, protein probably isn't going to be an issue for you, yucatecan food (spuds and poblano tacos sounds good), granola, limeade (particularly interesting), tomatillos, on cast iron, thai roasted veggies, tofu in caramel sauce, miso-broiled seafood, on anchovies, on octopus, on Marcella Hazan.

5-4

Bush vs. Gore was bad, but this latest 5-4 might be worse. Unlimited corporate spending --> the death of democracy? We shall see....

The Opposite of Sunny

According to the Goleta weather station we've gotten over 5" of rain this week. The initial storm fronts were quite narrow, so it would rain for 3 hours or so and then clear up. The one on wednesday initially did this, but the backside of it seems to have stalled, and there are little thunderstorm cells that have popped off every once in a while. Thursday morning was the first time I got rained on. Thursday night it started raining as I left the building, and stopped about 100 yards from my house -- I hadn't even put on my rain jacket. This morning my karma failed completely. It looked dry-ish, I even did laundry and have damp clothes strewn about the apartment to dry. I did have the jacket on for the bike ride, but a slow drizzle became hail. I tried to save time by cutting through campus instead of bikepathing it all the way. In going around a hipster couple sharing an umbrella I hit a bunch of rotten 'Victorian Box' tree fruit on the ground, and my front wheel washed out! Then on the ground my left foot wouldn't unclip for a few seconds. Funny and pathetic. So here I am at school, my right side is semi-covered in 'sticky golden-orange seeds.' Oh. And when I opened my backpack my yogurt container had exploded. It's just a #2 plastic greek yogurt container from TJs, but C gave it to me 3 years ago. C'est la vie. Anyway, here are the infrared satellite images for the past 3 days, I think they are thermal IR cloud top temperatures, but not sure.

Wednesday. Just after the front went through.

Thursday. Somehow the junk behind the front on Wed. became organized. Thursday was the rainiest day this week.

Friday. You can see the little thunderstorm cells that nailed me...

Harold McGee

He has written two god-like books on the science of cooking, 'On Food and Cooking' and 'the Curious Cook.' Here are some links to his web presence:

NYT page
curiouscook.com (his website)
news.curiouscook.com (his blog)
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an article on yogurt and creme fraiche, which is how I found his NYT page...

an article on the culinary uses of tomato leaves. interesting.

an article on using less water to cook pasta -- saves energy, less waste of a precious resource. In Baja when making mac and cheese we got it so that we used the water to cook the noodles, didn't drain it, added powdered milk and mystery cheese, and it had the perfect consistency.

an article on not brining the turkey. might have to try this as i've kinda burnt out on turkey the brined way.

an article on nukerwave cooking.

an article on cooking tender octopus.

double dipping, Seinfeld-style. [note that Mythbusters tried this, and found that double dipping doesn't contaminate the dip].

rare apples -- this is a neat article, about heirloom trees, but also about the bizarre flavors that result at a Cornel apple breeding lab.

on using the tomato seeds, too -- my friend Chris cooks in NYC, and he cooked for me once -- 'twas the first time I saw someone blanch tomatoes to peel them, and also cut them in half to squeeze out the seeds. Apparently it's a french cooking thing. I've always used the seeds, I do squeeze them out, but boil them down separately, and add them back at the end. It works a treat. And it adds that 'unami' stuff to the sauce.

the 5 second rule, revisited.

Susan Vreeland / Writer's Almanac

Caught the Writer's Almanac this morning, and he mentioned that today is the birthday of Susan Vreeland. She wrote a book called 'the Passion of Artemisia' which is a fictional biography about a real woman who was a painter during the Renaissance. Pretty interesting book.

Terry Gilliam / OnionAV

Great interview.

The Sea was Angry Today My Friends

Actually not alot of swell, but it's funny when depressions looks like a left pointbreak. Windy, rainy. No sign of the Titleist.

Update: this is awesome. Just now, watching Anthony Bourdain on the travel channel, he was squid fishing in Sicily, and dropped the 'the sea was angry my friends line'. Sweet. Ah, tv and interweb and a nice cat on a rainy day.

Veronica and the Dude on TV

Last year I happened to be catsitting the night of the Syracuse/UConn 6x overtime game, arguably the most amazing college basketball game ever. This morning I caught interviews with 2 of my favorite actors: Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) and the Dude (Jeff Bridges). Very happy.

When You're a Jet....

Super stoked the Jets won yesterday. It was nice to see the NY Jets win the way the NY Giants used to -- strong running game and solid defense. Plus I hate the Chargers. I was living in SD the year they bought a team the same year that getting the public to pay for a new stadium happened to be on the ballot. It was so disingenuous it was ridiculous.

Fresh Air x 2 -- T-Bone Burnett; George Lucas

Great listening. Talking about Jeff Bridges (T-Bone), and the days when Spielberg, Coppola, et al. (Lucas) were young.

New Patty Griffin Streaming on NPR

Love

Alternate Reality Eliza

Listened to a great interview while watching the surf this morning, trying to decide to go out or not. Scott Simon was talking with Ke$ha. Apparently all the kids like her. The money quote from Rolling Stone is, "Ke$ha's music is repulsive, obnoxious, and ridiculously catchy." I was kinda wondering why they had her on at first, but she was a great interview, a really smart person; sounded like a two roads diverging thing with her and my friend Eliza, as Ke$ha is also super smart and likes math and physics, but she decided to do music instead.