Ode to the Joy

Although it has its critics, and lacks the inimitable voice of Irma Rombauer, as the photo attests, the 1997 edition of the Joy of Cooking is my go-to cookbook. That said, I found the recipe for Alfredo sauce--a BG favourite--unacceptable; too much butter, and the sauce didn't hold together. I experimented last night with more of a bechamel type approach, and all (except the OG, who prefers her pasta tout simple) were pleased.

I served this alongside a grilled porterhouse, with steamed green beans (raw for the BG). If you cook the pasta in a saucepan, my preferred method of late, the whole thing can come together in 20 minutes, including time for the grill to heat up.

Here's the recipe for the sauce. The steak I just sprinkled with a little kosher salt and grilled. The beans I steamed in one of those rubber baskets, which I love. I think I bought mine in Chinatown a few years ago.

Melt 2tbs butter in a saucepan. Mix in 2tbs flour and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Add 1/2 pint of whipping cream (you could use half and half or milk, and I ended up thinning the sauce with milk at the end, so I think I'd use the half and half next time). Cook over low heat for 10 minutes, whisking out any lumps). Throw in 1/2 cup of grated fresh parmesan and stir until cheese is melted. Season with salt and pepper, adding more liquid or cheese if necessary for the right consistency.

Hasta la pasta!

To boldly go where traditionalists fear to venture

Time to loosen the noose of the split infinitive. From the Economist's Style Guide:

"Happy the man who has never been told that it is wrong to split an infinitive: the ban is pointless. Unfortunately, to see it broken is so annoying to so many people that you should observe it."


Johnson encourages everyone to break the rule, but be prepared to follow it if you come to work for his newspaper.

Why Nations Fail

I've been scrambling to finish Why Nations Fail before I release my quarterly book list at the end of the month. I've got about a hundred pages to go, but so far what had surprised me is how little economics the book contains. It is more of a survey of history used to support the principle that "inclusive" institutions that allow for competition and creative destruction are the necessary elements of economic growth and prosperity. That strikes me as an insight not worth a 500-page investment, but if you're interested in the Rise of Venice or the Dutch East India Company, among others, it's worth a look, although I suspect there might be better sources.

Here is a review of the book by William Easterly. Here is an enjoyable interview with one of the book's authors.

Talking NASCAR

Getting my hair cut the other day, I decided to initiate some conversation with my barber, a guy in his late sixties who started cutting hair after 20 years on the state patrol. How could I go wrong talking tourney:

Me: See any basketball this weekend?

Ray: No, I went to the race at Bristol this Sunday. That track ain't been the same since they resurfaced it.

Me: Um, yeah.

Turns out, before Bristol was resurfaced a couple seasons ago it was a one-groove track that required liberal use of the front bumper. Since the resurface, it has opened up the track for multiple grooves and side-by-side racing. Apparently, it's a big deal. 

Change Management

The girls and I have enjoyed settling down in the evening with a glass of wine or chocolate milk to watch our (hometown) Washington Wizards, and, with the dismissal of the OG's two favourite players over the last two years, first Gilbert Arenas for bringing guns into the locker room, and then Javale Mcgee for failing to mitigate his knucklehead on-court behaviour (despite his tremendous upside), the team has provided some good lessons about the business world and the consequences of personal actions.


So it's nice to see these guys (along with Nick Young) try to succeed in new environments, and to develop a relationship, not just with our team, but with the people, and we were delighted this morning, to see JVM singled out for Dunk of the Night on ESPN.


Update: Grantland on what it's like to be traded

One bite desserts

It has always been a pet theory of mine that desserts should be one or two bites because the return on investment is greatest at the outset but no-one is going to leave a cupcake unfinished. Now, via Tyler Cowen, comes a book suggesting just that. Apparently the key is maximizing "flavor per calorie."

The Supreme Court

When I was in law school, I thought of legal reasoning as essentially mathematical--that each issue, properly examined, could yield only one conclusion. My criminal procedure professor was constantly making the point that Supreme Court rulings were much more political, and that changes in the fact pattern would not alter the outcome, as the judges would simply adjust their findings to support a pre-ordained conclusion. "It's all policy," was the conclusion to virtually every class.

After Bush v. Gore, and in light of the current matter of the health care mandate, I am troubled by the coverage of the issue from a legal perspective, and by the efforts of both sides to pretend that this is not an examination of the constitutionality of a new law but a referendum on the current president and the role of the government in our country. I am uncomfortable in my cynicism, but even more so at the precipitous drop of my esteem for the Supreme Court. Another argument for term limits.

Fried Rice

One of the things missing from a lot of cooking advice is the idea that you should be a good steward of the environment (not to mention your personal finances) by trying to maximize the yield of your weekly grocery purchase; which is to say that you should try to use up what you've got before it spoils or you grow weary of seeing it every time you peer inside the fridge.


Fried rice is great for this. You can use virtually anything that's lying around, and, if you keep the meat separate, create something that's acceptable to vegetarians like the BG. The secret to good fried rice is to use leftover rice that's had a chance to sit in the fridge for awhile. I forget why, but there's some science behind it, and, trust me, it works. The other thing to keep in mind is that woks are not designed for the average kitchen stove. As America's Test Kitchen says: 


"The traditional wok is designed to sit in an open cooking pit with flames licking the sides of the vessel. Of course, on a flat American stovetop, a round wok wobbles and has little direct contact with the heat source. For these reasons, we prefer a 12-inch nonstick skillet for stir-frying."


So yesterday I was planning to make some fried rice using some leftover cooked shrimp from the other night and a few stray cubes of pineapple that I knew were in the fridge. Finding that the BG had eaten these as an after school snack, I substituted frozen mango chunks, which we always have around for smoothies. I also tossed in some butter and chopped green onions (the bottoms were going into my herb garden) at the end, which, though I think the butter is non-traditional, seems to make it more kid-friendly, and, in all honesty, tastes better. I'll list the vegetables I used in the recipe, but anything will work.


Mango Fried Rice


Heat some cooking oil in a large flat-bottom skillet. Gently fry chopped onions and carrots until soft (3-5 min). Add 2 minced cloves of garlic and a small piece of ginger, zested. After 30 seconds, add 2 cups of cooked rice, stirring to coat with the oil. Add 2 tbs of soy sauce, a dash of Sriracha (or tabasco, or a pinch of cayenne), a handful of frozen peas, a bowl of frozen mango chunks, chopped into quarters, a couple of pinches of salt, and a tbs of butter. Cook over low heat until everything is heated through, adding a little water or more butter if the rice starts to stick. Serve with chopped green onions, reheated shrimp on the side (or toss them in with the peas if that works for your crew).

Name Checking

Experimenting with Spotify. The only problem right now is that the Artist Radio function doesn't work on the mobile app. I've been a big fan of Pandora as a tool for discovering new music, but, over time, I've found it to be overly, and even annoyingly, repetitive with the same obscurities. It was nice, however, to use Spotify, after reading the review of the new Chiddy Bang album in EW, to determine that the album was not worth a purchase, even though the first single is a stone groove, my man. I've been down that road too many times, especially in the single-focused hip hop genre.

Anyway, here's a Name Check playlist. I tried to limit it to titles that featured real (or real fictional) names without further adornment. So "Hey Jack Kerouac, for example, did not make the cut. I've also embedded the "Ray Charles" video below. Worth a listen for all non-spotify users (and fans of the Blues Brothers).

Ray Charles

Chiddy Bang – Ray Charles
Beastie Boys – Shadrach
OutKast – Rosa Parks
Terry Anderson & The Olympic Ass-Kickin Team – Willie Mays
Barenaked Ladies – Brian Wilson
Great Big Sea – Jack Hinks
They Might Be Giants – James K. Polk
The Replacements – Alex Chilton
Jonathan Richman And The Modern Lovers – Pablo Picasso
RUN-DMC – Jam-Master Jay
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five/Grandmaster Melle Mel – Jesse

Song of the Day

I love music and wordplay, so what better way to celebrate that love then to use it in an attempt to add good cheer to the family routine, following the sage advice of my girl Gretchen Rubin to "sing in the morning." Every school day, I get up around 6 and read the Economist until 6:30, when I start making lunch for the Gs. The BG (Evie) needs to be roused around 6:50, so that gives me about 20 minutes to work up a wake up song. I've been doing it for a couple of years, and, although, I haven't tracked it (until now), I don't think there have been any repeats. Past favourites have included "Wake up, Little Evie" (Everly Brothers), We Woke Up Evie (Starship), and I Love Wakin' Up (Joan Jett). Today's song was "The Time is Nigh," a Blondie inspired riff. Here are the lyrics:

The time is nigh and I'm coming in,
I've got to wake up Evelyn.

Every day Evie wants to sleep in,
I'm afraid my dear that's not happenin',
I'm not the kind of dad, who lets his girls sleep late,
Oh No (REPEAT CHORUS)

Living for the City

If there is a better, more thoughtful news aggregator than the Browser, please share it with me. I particularly like the 5 Books interviews, many of which have been the inspiration for my reading list over the last two years.

Today's interview is on the virtues of cities:

It might sound counterintuitive, but living in a city will make you richer, smarter, fitter, greener and more creative. We have to make sure that cities don’t just become vast swathes of anonymity – that as cities grow we can develop communities and a society that is stronger than the one that we have at the moment. We live in cities, but in our minds we live in Victorian cities. 

I would add Richard Florida's, Edward Glaeser and Matt Yglesias' books to this list, and say that I'm not immediately inclined toward anything in the interview. Everybody cites Jane Jacobs, but she always strikes me as someone more interested in what she liked rather than the creative dynamism that produces overall gains, but  at the expense of some. I don't want a high rise on my cul de sac, no matter how dramatic the improvements in public transportaion might be. Well, actually I do, if there's a market driven need, but you see my point.

UNC

So that's it for Carolina. Not a surprise given the injuries. Still there were three projected first round draft picks on the floor last night, and only Mcadoo really showed me anything of import. Count me among the Barnes skeptics, a position which doubtless ensures his selection by the Wizards next year. Can you think of any NBA player that you saw a lot of in college and didn't think he'd be a star in the League, and were proved wrong? I can think of a lot of cases going the other way.

Update: maybe he's a little too focused on his brand

Here We Go

As the blogosphere enters its second decade, I am increasingly convinced that my predictions of its quick demise may have been unwarranted. My joining it seems to be a surefire way to hasten the end of its utility, so here goes. I have all sorts of overly ambitious goals and ideas for sharing my thoughts and engaging friends and family in interesting exchanges, but right now, I just want to try to post a couple of things each day, and to see if there is anything to make keeping it up worthwhile