Meanwhile... to get my mind off of the news, let me pick some items to talk about at random from my "blog box."
Which came first?
Besides a (kind of) obscene cartoon in the New Yorker, the Smithsonian Magazine published a poem by Stephen Dunn in June 2012. I liked it so much that I want to quote it here so those of you who have not seen it can enjoy it.
The Chicken and the Egg
The chicken for dinner with earnest friends, the egg for breakfast
with folks who like to play with their food before they eat it.
The chicken fills you up so you can't move,
the egg cracks open, and choices begin--
scrambled, sunny side up, Benedict... Throw in peppers,
cheese, slices of onion, and you have an omelette.
One good, narrow pleasure for the ethicist,
many pleasures for the omelette maker.
The ethicist can't help thinking of Benedict Arnold,
the egg -- of Ben, Benjamin, Benny, the varieties
that emerge all gooey, shapeless, to be fooled with.
Yet sometimes the chicken is both necessary and sufficient,
and sometimes your earnest friends instruct you
about how to live with the beak and the gizzard.
The egg allows itself to be hard boiled or deviled.
It doesn't worry. To live right isn't an issue.
...................................................................................
More on Eggs (Reported by Mark Strauss)
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil and egg."
French gastronomist named Herve informed the chefs of the world in 2002 that he had discovered l'oeuf a soixante-cinq degres....the 65 degree egg. Slowly cooking an egg at 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit) in water or an oven, makes it perfect.... Herve said that the time in cooking is not important, "Heat it for one hour or eight hours, the outcome would be the same."
However, renowned Chef Wylie Dufresne says: "When an egg is overcooked, it breaks my heart."
Now... how do I measure the cooking time at a specific temperature? I'll have to Google that.
...................................................................................
Fire! For Food!
John Lanchester wrote a piece in the New Yorker for September 18, 2017 with the title: How Civilization Started.
In it, he quotes people who feel that the greatest technology that has helped man evolve, has been the control over fire by our famous ancestor Homo erectus. In his book, "Catching Fire, Richard Wrangham argues: "... our ability to cook allows us to extract more energy from the food we eat, and also to eat a far wider range of foods. Our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, has a colon three times as large as ours, because its diet of raw food is so much harder to digest. The extra caloric value we get from cooked food allowed us to develop our big brains, which absorb roughly a fifth of the energy we consume, as opposed to less than a tenth for most mammals' brains..."
So.. what about people who just eat salads? Are they members of Densa?
............................................................................................
On a Diet?
Readers Digest for July 2006 had some diet tips. Here are a few I like, but will probably never follow:
1. Stick with bland tasting diet drinks until they begin to taste good. (yuk!)
2. Smash all those boxes of cookies and donuts; ruin them; run water over them.
3. Instead of splurging on high calorie snacks, drink two glasses of water and eat an ounce of nuts. Dr. Michael Roizen says that this will extinguish any cravings within 20 minute. (I'll bet.)
4. Take a power nap and forget about a snack.
5. When you get a craving, brush your teeth and gargle with mouth wash. That way, you won't want to mess up a dirty mouth with junk food.
6. Since cravings usually last only ten minutes, find some diversionary activity to engage in for that time. Listen to music. Do a puzzle. Meditate. Exercise!
7. Avoid passing the bakery shop or the pizzeria!
More on Eggs (Reported by Mark Strauss)
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil and egg."
French gastronomist named Herve informed the chefs of the world in 2002 that he had discovered l'oeuf a soixante-cinq degres....the 65 degree egg. Slowly cooking an egg at 65 degrees Celsius (149 degrees Fahrenheit) in water or an oven, makes it perfect.... Herve said that the time in cooking is not important, "Heat it for one hour or eight hours, the outcome would be the same."
However, renowned Chef Wylie Dufresne says: "When an egg is overcooked, it breaks my heart."
Now... how do I measure the cooking time at a specific temperature? I'll have to Google that.
...................................................................................
Fire! For Food!
John Lanchester wrote a piece in the New Yorker for September 18, 2017 with the title: How Civilization Started.
In it, he quotes people who feel that the greatest technology that has helped man evolve, has been the control over fire by our famous ancestor Homo erectus. In his book, "Catching Fire, Richard Wrangham argues: "... our ability to cook allows us to extract more energy from the food we eat, and also to eat a far wider range of foods. Our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, has a colon three times as large as ours, because its diet of raw food is so much harder to digest. The extra caloric value we get from cooked food allowed us to develop our big brains, which absorb roughly a fifth of the energy we consume, as opposed to less than a tenth for most mammals' brains..."
So.. what about people who just eat salads? Are they members of Densa?
............................................................................................
On a Diet?
Readers Digest for July 2006 had some diet tips. Here are a few I like, but will probably never follow:
1. Stick with bland tasting diet drinks until they begin to taste good. (yuk!)
2. Smash all those boxes of cookies and donuts; ruin them; run water over them.
3. Instead of splurging on high calorie snacks, drink two glasses of water and eat an ounce of nuts. Dr. Michael Roizen says that this will extinguish any cravings within 20 minute. (I'll bet.)
4. Take a power nap and forget about a snack.
5. When you get a craving, brush your teeth and gargle with mouth wash. That way, you won't want to mess up a dirty mouth with junk food.
6. Since cravings usually last only ten minutes, find some diversionary activity to engage in for that time. Listen to music. Do a puzzle. Meditate. Exercise!
7. Avoid passing the bakery shop or the pizzeria!
............................................................................................................
Dirty Tricks
I always thought that Karl Rove was the master of political dirty tricks, but a "dirtier" guy named Allen Raymond "spilled his guts" in a political memoir, How to Rig an Election. He spent some time in prison because of his bad activity and now says that he feels some remorse. Some of his dirty tricks:
He arranged for white ethnic voters to get derogatory messages from someone with a phony African American accent.
He linked Congressmen with rotten real estate deals that they had nothing to do with.
He leaked documents related to "years-old" indictments.
He flooded party phone lines with computer-generated calls.
Allen claims that he has no intention to return to politics, because: "Who would hire me? And why would I want to work for anybody who would?"
Hey.... Allen, I know just the folks who could use you... or, maybe they already have!
.........................................................................................................................
Dirty Tricks
I always thought that Karl Rove was the master of political dirty tricks, but a "dirtier" guy named Allen Raymond "spilled his guts" in a political memoir, How to Rig an Election. He spent some time in prison because of his bad activity and now says that he feels some remorse. Some of his dirty tricks:
He arranged for white ethnic voters to get derogatory messages from someone with a phony African American accent.
He linked Congressmen with rotten real estate deals that they had nothing to do with.
He leaked documents related to "years-old" indictments.
He flooded party phone lines with computer-generated calls.
Allen claims that he has no intention to return to politics, because: "Who would hire me? And why would I want to work for anybody who would?"
Hey.... Allen, I know just the folks who could use you... or, maybe they already have!
.........................................................................................................................
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