Caramelized Onions

I love caramelized onions. They are a great addition to family meals because they can be served on the side, jazzing up something that's designed for younger palates. I never used to make them, because, frankly, they take forever, to be done properly, and this is not in keeping with the 20-40 minute chunks of free time I seem to have in the post-school, pre-bedtime environment.

To make matters worse, lots of cookbooks and recipes pretend that the time to make caramelized onions can be simply wished away. As a recent article in Slate ranted:

There is no other word for it. Onions do not caramelize in five or 10 minutes. They never have, they never will—yet recipe writers have never stopped pretending that they will. I went on Twitter and said so, rudely, using CAPS LOCK. A chorus of frustrated cooks responded in kind.

About a year ago, I discovered a recipe on Serious Eats to speed up the process with a little sugar and baking soda. I've used it many times, and, for me, it's been largely foolproof. Today, the selfsame site has a method for doing it without the "cheats" of baking soda and added sugar, but I'm going to stick with what works for me.

The Gs requested pizza tonight, and I'm glad to oblige. I've made pizza dough many times in the past, but it's never been better than the dough balls in the freezer at the supermarket, so I generally use them. I just divide the ball and roll them out into personal size pizzas and top with the items of each person's choosing. Tonight it's italian sausage, caramelized onions and green pepper for me, same for Worldwide (hold the sausage); straight cheese for the OG and a BG experiment with pineapple and vegetarian bacon. All topped with a 10-minute tomato sauce that I make by sauteeing a little onion and garlic in a 1/4 cup of olive oil, adding a can of diced tomatoes, a little oregano, red pepper, salt and pepper and simmering (maybe a squeeze of lemon or a spoon of sugar at the end, to taste) and then pureeing. Doing our own thing, family style!

Quick Caramelized Onions
2 teaspoons sugar
3 large yellow onions, finely diced (about 1 quart)
1 tablespoon butter
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup water

Heat sugar in a 12-inch stainless-steel skillet over medium-high heat until completely melted and light brown, about 3 minutes. Immediately add onions and stir with wooden spoon to coat onions in sugar. Add butter, baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds black pepper. Toss to combine. Cook, shaking pan occasionally until onions release all their liquid and brown coating builds up on bottom of pan, 6 to 8 minutes.

Add 2 tablespoons water shake pan while scraping with wooden spoon to deglaze brown bits from bottom of pan. Continue cooking, shaking occasionally until coating begins to build up again, 3 to 5 minutes. Repeat deglazing and cooking steps three more times until all water is used up and onions are deep brown. Transfer to medium mixing bowl and allow to rest at room temperature for 5 minutes.

Enough With the Jokes

 My general approach with the Gs is to use humor to make life more pleasant. I wake the BG up every morning with a quasi-original song (Today's was "I've been waking up my daughter, every doggone day...") and I try to assuage the OG's surly morning demeanor with levity as best I can.

This morning, she was complaining to Worldwide about her late lunch period and explaining that this allowed her to bring a snack into 5th period. Asked what she brought, she gave a few examples, adding that she didn't like to bring chips with her since they weren't healthy. Buoyed by yesterday's data collection, I rose to the bait, explaining that those bags of chips were not so bad, and that they were actually comparable to the baked variety. "The baked chips taste like crap." she said. "Have you tried crap?" I asked, parsing her simile. This got a laugh, and we moved on to other topics, as I got ready to escort the BG to the bus stop.

When I returned, the OG was scrambling to get her stuff together. Her current regimen requires a phone (to call in case there is a change to cheerleading practice times); lunch; cheer clothes; book bag; and the giant zippered binders (see above) that everybody carries these days. Last year's model, I dubbed the "Green Monster" because of its colour, but this one, in homage to the Barenaked Ladies, I've taken to calling the "humongous binder." When I asked if she had her HB with her, she exploded. "Dad, why do you have to tell so many jokes? Why don't you just tell a few good ones and stop with the lame-os?"

Stunned silence. Could it be that I'm not as funny as I think I am? It is true that my default response in most conversations is humor, but no-one has ever told me to be more serious. Then again, people are generally polite, so who knows?

I mentioned to the BG that "someone on my blog" thinks I try too be funny too much. She was incredulous: "Tell them to stop hating." she exclaimed. That made me feel better.

One of Gretchen Rubin's mantras is that "happy people make other people happier, but you can't make someone happier." Maybe I've been confusing humor with happiness, but I don't think darkening my mood would make our mornings more pleasant. I'd try it, but everyone would think it was me being ironic.

I got a blue and red Adidas bag and a humongous binder,

I try my best not to look like a minor niner.

Went out for the football team to prove that I'm a man,

Guess I shouldn't tell them that I like Duran Duran

Gettin' Chippy

I often send a "fun size" bag (15 chips) of chips in the Gs lunches. I know they will eat them, and they're something low in sugar, unlike many of the other things they prefer. My approach to lunch has always been focused primarily on making sure they get enough calories. For instance, the OG usually takes a slice of pastrami, a soft pretzel, a piece of fruit, a peanut butter cup, and a granola bar. A little heavy on the sugar, but I know from experience that "helpful suggestions" will be ignored and come home uneaten, destined for the compost bin.

Yesterday, the BG, who has a very sensitive demeanor, was near tears when I asked why she had not eaten the bag of classic Lays that I had included in her new lunch box. "The lunchroom monitor told me there was a rule against bringing potato chips." she sobbed. "She's so mean."

That's interesting, I thought, because they serve nachos at lunch, and there was no notification of the change in her orientation packet. I told her that I would contact the teacher and solve the puzzle. That, of course, mortified her, and after shrieking "No!" we did not discuss it again.

This morning I asked my neighbours at the bus stop if they were aware of the rule. Both replied negatively, admitting, somewhat sheepishly that they sometimes included yogurt covered pretzels or something called "Pirate Booty" in the lunches of their loved ones.

So I decided to write the teacher. Trying to be as diplomatic as possible, I sent the following note:

I am Evie LeDuc's father. She was a little upset yesterday after being told that she had violated the rule against bringing potato chips in her lunch. I think she didn't quite understand the context, as I don't think there is any such rule. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this for me, so that I can make sure that I don't send her to school with anything that she shouldn't have.

Thanks.

She quickly responded (it's amazing what email has done for parent-teacher relationships):

Mr. LeDuc,

I am sorry to have caused you and Evie distress. I just spoke to her
and she seems to understand that she is welcome to bring chips with
her lunch, but we would prefer that she choose something a little
healthier for snack. It was snack time when I spoke to her about it.
That's not to say that Evie is not allowed to bring chips for snack,
but we would prefer another choice, if possible. Chips are fine with
lunch. I hope this clears up any confusion.
Thank you for staying in touch,

I always think the speaker is talking to someone else when I'm called "Mr. LeDuc." Anyway, my distress aside, this doesn't really clear up the confusion, but the BG and I settled on the heuristic that "chips are fine with lunch" and she was satisfied. When I pressed her for more information this afternoon (the teacher was verry nice to her today, apparently) she also told me that "baked is OK, but not fried."

So, let's do the numbers. A fun size bag of lays has 160 calories, compared with 120 in the baked version. And the classic version has 10g of fat, compared to only 2 in the baked variety. But the latter has 23g of carbohydrates, compared to 15 in the original. To quote Alan Arkin in my favourite movie. "It's not cut. It's not dried." Especially when recent science has been indicting carbs (and sugar, which is added to the baked chips) over fat.

The Bottom line is that the battle over nutrition and obesity is not going to be won over "chips are fine with lunch" and "baked is OK at snack" and these types of rules are in the end, I think, going to leave kids more confused and misinformed. The Michael Pollan rule of "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" is a much better guide, and I think even he would agree that a potato chip (which contains only potatoes, oil and salt) is a good choice, particularly for someone in the 25th percentile of the Body Mass Index for her age group.

I have not yet begun to fight. I think seriously about diet, nutrition and wellness, and I will not have someone impugn the choices I have made to keep my kids healthy, fit and happy in this world of assorted types of food fascists.

Well, actually, I'm finished fighting. Chips are fine with lunch.

Picky, picky

One of my new regular feeds is the Dad Cooks Dinner blog. This morning, he posted a nice take on how to manage, um, discriminating palates:

Kids aren't all the same; they have a range of taste sensitivity. Some are "live to eat" kids, who will eat anything. Most are in the middle, where they prefer fatty and sweet foods, but can eat vegetables grudgingly. Then you get to the picky eaters, who for one reason or another, view wide swaths foods as "gross". Their tastes, like their personality, are a part of them. Parents can help expand those tastes, but we can only help so much - to a large part, the kids are who they are.

I think this will sound familiar to most, and the righteous few who claim that "kids shouldn't dictate what you serve" or "if they're hungry enough, they'll eat it and eventually learn to love it" are perhaps underestimating the value of pleasant shared experiences and overestimating the long term effects of their choices. I've been eyewitness to parenting styles that involved lots of screaming, undermining and inattention. but it's a ridiculous leap to infer that because the recipient children turned out "OK" that those styles are  therefore  appropriate, or even desirable.

I tend to agree with my fellow blogger that our behaviour has consequences only at the margins, and often, not in the way we intended, and for these reasons I don't push too hard. During my 2009 sabbatical I was obsessed with finding new things that the Gs would like, and the almost unbroken series of failures-that-weren't-desserts produced a lot of tense moments at the dinner table. I really wanted to succeed, and the Gs really wanted to support me. But they couldn't; so I've backed off, and learned the value of a compartmentilization approach to preparation and assembly. I've also discovered that peer pressure can be a major contributor to an expansion of the pantry. Once in a while, after a sleepover, or a lunchroom swap, one of the Gs will ask me to procure or make something to which they've been introduced by a cool friend.

This happened twice this summer. The OG discovered hash browns (admittedly a somewhat incremental improvement from the acceptable potato universe of chips or fries) and the BG discovered tofurky slices, which she requested I wrap around a dollop of cream cheese.

Of course tofu is not something I'm particularly fond of, so I'm not turning cartwheels on the linoleum, but at least it gives me an easy option when I'm preparing a bespoke meal to complement something on the menu that I know or suspect that one of the Gs will decline. And it was enjoyable this morning when she asked, wide-eyed, if I would show her the contents of her lunch box, so that she could gaze upon the thin slices of processed wheat protein and tofu enveloping a soft mild white cheese product with a high fat content.

Dan Ariely 5 Books Interview

http://m.thebrowser.com/interviews/dan-ariely-on-behavioural-economics

I have read and recommend The Invisible Gorilla and Nudge. The library has Influence and I've ordered The Person and the Situation. I've also read and enjoyed Ariely's Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, though not quite as much as some others in this genre.

Nutmeg Oil

Worldwide brought me a bottle of nutmeg oil from Malaysia. According to the Internet (No independent verification):

Nutmeg oil has a warm, spicy, sharp aroma; it has a number of properties including being analgesic, anti-septic, digestive, an aphrodisiac, stimulant, tonic and anti-oxidant. In aromatherapy, Nutmeg is used in the treatment of a number of conditions; it is used to treat arthritis, gout, rheumatism, poor circulation, indigestion, constipation, flatulence, nausea, nervous fatigue and anxiety.

It also is reputed to help with back pain, respiratory problems and kidney disease; and to be a brain tonic that can improve your dreams. Who knew?

My plan is to use it as an aftershave, similar to bay rum, which I've used in the past, and liked. Although not as bracing, it does have sort of a nice aroma. Worldwide says I smell like a cookie. OG says I smell like a rich Egyptian. That's distinctive, if nothing else, I suppose.

Song of the Day

First day of school. 179 to go. Apologies to Maroon 5:

It's time to wake up,
Evie, it's Big D and I am talking directly to you.
Where has the time gone? Daddy, it's all wrong,
There is no way that I'm ready for school.
If happy ever after did exist,
Definitely, I'd be sleeping in.
All those fairy tales are full of it.
Can I have just 5 more quick minutes.
(It's time to wake up).

Filling Buckets

The BG has posted a bucket list--things she wants to do before childhood slips away--on the wall in her room:

In case you can't read the text, it includes decorating a locker; walking dogs for cash; having a lemonade stand; helping out at the animal shelter; being in Schoolhouse Rock; getting fuzzy wallpaper (?); doing something impressive; getting into AIG (the gifted program at school); seeing Ms. Jeffries (beloved 2nd grade teacher); making dinner for the family; inventing a recipe; and doing the splits.

An excellent list, ambitious but eminently achievable. The OG and I like to quote an old Steve Martin routine in these situations. It went something like "I think it's important to have goals. I have two things I'd like to accomplish. First, I want to be master of time, space and dimension. Then I want to go to Europe.

Apparently it's from an opening monologue from a 1977 Saturday Night Live

Class of 2016

Via Farnam Street, a list of cultural touchstones for the people entering University this fall. Highlights:

1. Robert De Niro is thought of as Greg Focker's long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.
2. Bill Clinton is a senior statesman of whose presidency they have little knowledge.
3. They have never seen an airplane “ticket.”
4. For most of their lives, maintaining relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world has been a woman’s job in the State Department.

Created by Beloit College (The Buccaneers), the full list is here

Cheer it Up, D

As the school year beckons, the OG is looking forward to another year in the black and blue of the Smith Middle School Cheer Squad. The rapper in me had a few ideas last year about how to spice up the cheers, but, looking back, I think I may have been more focused on amusing myself than exhorting the Cyclones to victory. For example:

Black and Blue,
We're on you like a bruise.
Come to battle Smith.
You Will Lose.

Perhaps a bruise isn't the best metaphor for middle school athletic prowess, and I suspect that not many of the kids got the Rocky IV reference, which is not surprising, since they weren't born until a decade after the movie's release.

But hope springs eternal, and I've been working on a new lyric for the 2012 season:

Will Smith's the Fresh Prince, but Smith will beat you.
We're not the Men in Black, we're the girls in black and blue;
The jiggy cheer squad and the super fierce crew,
Cheering for the team and looking pretty while we do (Strike the pose)

What do you think?

3 people, 3 lunches, 3 movies

It is only recently, as the Gs get older that I have started to have meaningful exposure to the youth of today. I was astonished--on a trip with the BG to Canada's Wonderland in 2008--to watch throngs of teens waiting in line for the roller coaster staring at their phones, rather than interacting with the friends who had accompanied them to the park.

Since then, there has been lots of research on the topic, and I recently enjoyed a review of Alone Together, although I have not added it to my reading list just yet (but they do have a copy at the library, so I may, if I can ever get through Fish Into Wine). Plus, I live with it every day, as the family sits in the living room staring at their laptops, doing things far more interesting than talking to one another, but desiring, nonetheless, to do it in the proximity of loved ones (with the exception of the OG, of course, who spends all of her time in the fortress of solitude).

So yesterday, we drew another card from the deck of semi-sharing. We decided to go to the movies, and, rather than agree on a film (which I'm not sure we could have done) we confirmed that our local multiplex had reasonably contemporaneous showings of the three movies we wanted to see. So after bespoke lunches from the Food Court (sushi for the BG, burger for the OG, abstention for me) we went to see The Campaign, Sparkle and Diary of a Wimpy Kid 3.

The reactions to all three were muted at best. The OG really wanted to love Sparkle, but there wasn't as much Motown, nor of Whitney Houston, as she'd hoped; the BG pronounced the Wimpy Kid movie, OK, better than the first, but had nothing more to add to her review; I thought the Campaign was funny in parts, but too many of the scenes did not strike me as plausible within the parameters of the script, and that made it a little hard to take.

Nevertheless, it was a nice moment of togetherness, our lunch and movie outing, despite the fact that we all went our own ways. Or perhaps because of it. We stopped at Target on the way home to pick up new lunchboxes, and the reality that the school year starts on Monday is beginning to set in.

News of the Day

I have no idea what this means, but I don't like the sound of it. Apparently Egypt has an interest in rekindling diplomatic relations with Iran. The new president (is anyone calling him MoMo?) will attend a meeting of the non-aligned movement (who are they non-aligned with these days?) in Tehran next week. Unsurprisingly, Israel is concerned. As the U.S. pivots toward Asia, I wonder if the days of generous aid to Egypt are numbered, and if we might see some dramatic changes in the coming years.

Big D's Excellent Adventure

If waterparks existed in my childhood, there were none that I was aware of. The occasional pool slide was as close as I ever got. In fact, I think my first exposure to the concept was Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, where an AWOL Napoleon discovers the joys of "Waterloo" in 1980s San Dimas.

But times have changed, and like the artisanal coffee now available on every corner, the joy of le waterslide has come to almost all parts of the country. So yesterday, I took the Gs and visiting cousin John to Greensboro's Wet 'n' Wild, the best (and only) waterpark I have ever visited.

The park tries to appeal to all sorts of aquaphiles, combining lazy rivers and tame rafts with extreme thrills and adrenaline-pumping endeavors. This proved to be both a blessing and a curse, as the risk-averse OG wanted to bob in the Wave Pool and the BG preferred to repeatedly attack the Daredevil Drop. And Cousin and I--while more inclined toward the "extreme" rides--were more interested in collective happiness.

This meant a lot of time spent in negotiations and compromise, but the lateness of the season, along with the fact that it was a Tuesday, afforded us a sparse crowd and short lines, so I think everyone came away happy,

Cap it off with an $8 piece of pizza and a $6 slushie in a collectible cup (I am looking for a paper on the economics of fair prices--it seems like they are leaving a lot of money on the table by setting prices so high; but they must look hard at the numbers) and you've put a pretty fun day in your rear view mirror.

Not so fast, brother...

The diet of 13th century monks was about 6,210 calories per day, dropping to 4,870 during Lent. "Many of these men did nothing but eat and pray, and their skeletons show that obesity was commonplace."

About halfway through Fish on Friday. It covers some of the same territory as Cod, but the sections on the development of salting and smoking, and the resulting gains from trade, are new to me, and thoroughly interesting.

Grandma memories, part 2

I thought there might be a call for reminiscences at Grandma's 100th birthday, so I spent a morning looking back on the many things we've shared over the years. I didn't get to share them, but thanks to the magic of technology, I can set them down for the ages, and let the roots set for the tree to shade future generations.

I began and ended my list with two of Grandma's signature expressions; the first, an exclamation of wonder, and the last, the punctuation to every trip we ever made together.


Anna Memories

Glory be to Peter Ann! Has it been that long?

Boat rides to the island with Uncle Jim, and my dad making the heroic swim to Astounder Island.

Going to Odessa in the big green Pontiac Lemans to visit Uncle Larry, and maybe getting to ride Wildy.

Swimming at Sand Lake, with Uncle James diving off the dock and swimming back underwater while Ace looked frantically for him in the water.

Going to the dump with Uncle Eddie in his truck.

Bunco, always happy to see us, when we visited Aunt Margaret and Dick.

The beautiful cedar strip boat that Grandpa Hugh kept in the boathouse, and how he liked his newspaper folded just so.

Using fish eyes for bait.

Playing bingo at the Knights of Columbus and being one number away from a win.

Going “up street” in the morning, and invariably running into a few people, and maybe bringing back some apple tarts from Round’s bakery.

A trip to Ste Anne de Beaupre with Uncle Larry and Father Brady.

Those steep stairs up to the 2nd floor of the house on Stone street, and the horn blast of the Boat Line’s new triple decker, which played la cucaracha as it got ready for another day of boat rides.

The skeleton key under the mat and the big red chesterfield in the living room. “Don’t climb on that, lover.”

Riding the scrambler at the Lansdowne fair.

The washing machine in the kitchen with the terrifying wringer that I think someone got his arm caught in one time.

The boathouses, which always seemed like they were going to fall in the water and never did.

That salmon you caught on your trip to British Columbia, and your picture in the Reporter.

Looking through photograph albums at the apartment and talking about Floods, Kelleys, Mcglades, Dempsters and Shortalls.

Going to London with you and my parents in 1975 and trying to make the grenadiers at Buckingham Palace smile.

Taking the water taxi from the old cottage to the inn with you and my new wife on our wedding day in 1997.

Naming my beautiful daughter Anastasia and watching her two-year old self watch you ride in a horse and buggy to the Provincial for your 90th birthday party.

And bringing her back, almost a teenager, with her sister Evie for your one hundredth.

Thanks be to god for that.

We contain multitudes

Fascinating article in this week's Economist about the role of the 100 trillion bacteria in our body, and the roles they play in keeping us healthy and making us sick. Hints that the microbes may even play a part in conditions like autism and multiple sclerosis, now thought to be genetic.

I've heard talk of our "metabolisms" and how they affect our appetite and weight gain. Looks like there may be more going on inside that we thought.

Toast for Grandma

On Friday, my mother asked if I would make a toast for my grandmother's 100th birthday. I had some memories prepared, in anticipation of there being an opportunity for speechifying, but the toast called for something different. I decided to keep it  simple--a summary of the significant events of her life, along with some historical context. Here's what I wrote. Somehow I said "Brooklyn" instead of "Brockville," but in my defense, the great cities are often confused:

Anna and her namesake

Let us celebrate this moment, where past and future are gathered to celebrate the one hundredth birthday of Anna Mcglade. No-one has seen all that she has seen or done all that she has done, but all of us have been witness to parts of a remarkable century. Begfore we raise our glasses to celebrate 100 years and look forward to the years to come, I want to look back a little, and to provide some context for people who may not remember that there was a world before Internet.

Anna Shortall was born in 1912 in Pittsburgh township. She moved to Gananoque in 1916. She had two sisters, Mary and Maragaret, and a brother, Eddie. That same year featured the first National Hockey Association game, the Bull Moose party nominated Teddy Roosevelt for president and the beginning of the Balkan War, which led to WW I.

In 1929 she graduated from Brooklyn Business College. The same year women were recognized as persons under Canadian law, and, important to Jason, the yo yo made its debut.

In 1934, after her father was killed in a tragic car accident, she took over running the Shortall Coal company, providing the fuel that helped people keep their homes warm during the cold Gananoque winters. That same year, Hitler and Mussolini met to discuss their plans for world domination and Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run.

In 1939 she married Hugh Mcglade and in the 1940s, the years of ww ii she had three wonderful children, Helen, Larry and James. In 1946 she moved to the house on Stone st—the house where her children grew up and that her grandchildren came to love.

In 1967, the year of Canada’s centennial, the coal company was sold to the co-op, and in 1973, almost forty years ago, Hugh died. In 1976 Anna retired from the co-op, giving her the opportunity to travel to Europe, and to spend more time with her growing brood of grandchildren.

In 1992, Anna sold the house on stone st and moved to pier i, still keeping, and maybe even improving her view of the river. In 1999, she welcomed the first of 8 great grandchildren, and 10 years ago celebrated her 90 th birthday, riding in style, in horse and buggy, from her apartment.

And now today, 4 generations come together, to celebrate a remarkable person; a business woman, mother, grandmother, great grandmother. A friend to many in town and at church, and someone with much to be proud of.

And so the root
Becomes a trunk
And then a tree
And seeds of trees
And springtime sap
And summer shade
And autumn leaves
And shape of poems
And dreams
and more than tree.

So let's raise our glasses and say happy 100th birthday Anna. We are glad to come together, and we look forward to the years ahead. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

**The poem is by Langston Hughes. I stumbled on it, reading The Warmth of Other Suns on my way to St. Louis. I see in it more celebratory echoes of one of my favourite lines from Four Quartets: "We, content at the end, if our temporal reversion nourish (not to far from the yew tree) the life of significant soil."

High Camp (Finale)

So we're back (except for the OG, who is visiting her Virginia cousin until the weekend), slowly beginning the transition from summer to school year. The extended weekend, centred on my grandmother's 100th birthday party in the 1,000 islands hamlet of Gananoque (more on that tomorrow) involved a ridiculously complicated ballet of pick-ups and meet-ups that, for the most part, ended in success.

The story begins with my 13 hour drive from the Triangle to Gananoque. I left at about 8 AM, armed with music and talk on my Ipad, as the connection on my Iphone cannot seem to abide the use of a mini cable plugged into the AUX jack on the radio. After I lost WUNC, near the Virginia border on I-81, I discovered that the ability to shuffle through my entire music collection (and to thus be surprised with evocative glimpses of past lives) was not as readily available as it is on the phone or the Ipod. So to pass the time, I called up a Genius playlist I had assembled awhile ago, inspired by Edwin Starr's classic 25 Miles. I must admit that, whether due to clever algorithms or lucky guesses, this set is a classic. If you ever want to introduce someone to Motown and 70s-era soul, or to go a little deeper into the genres, I highly recommend this playlist:

So that got me to Virginia, where, while stopping for gas, I learned, via smartphone, that, although the helpful folks at Apple would prefer that you do all of your shuffle-type playing using the genius (which destroys the delightful possibility of highly unlike songs you love being paired together), there are ways to shuffle through mp3s the way our forefathers did.

Beyond one more stop for gas and food in the afternoon, a couple of brief roadwork delays and a series of cloudbursts that slowed traffic to a crawl for ten minute increments, the trip was as smooth as any I've made in the past; and the border guard, on learning that I was headed to a party for a centenarian, expressed no interest in inspecting my luggage, which of course contained two clandestine magnums of champagne.

I arrived at my parents around 9:30, giving me time to socialize, and the freedom to sleep late and relax the following day, before heading off to St. Louis to pick up the BG from Animal Camp. I was scheduled to arrive Friday night, to stay at an airport hotel, and to drive the 2 hours to Rolla Missouri in the morning, where I would be treated to a tour of the facility, an introduction to her chinchillas, and a return to Syracuse, where we were scheduled to meet up with Worldwide, returning from Cambodia.

This is when things started to go agley. I got a message on Friday morning, informing me that my flight was delayed, a fact, which would probably cause me to miss my connection. After talking to an agent, I decided to hope for a commensurate delay on the Cleveland flight, and, barring that, a flight out the next morning, that would still get me to the camp on time.

For reasons known only to United Airlines, the one hour delay in Syracuse turned into four, and I did not get into Cleveland until midnight. I also found out, that, since I had booked my St. Louis hotel through a booking agent (which all of the top links on a Google Search for airport hotels seemed to be), I was obligated to pay for one night of my planned one-night stay. Note to self: I will never do that again.

So I paid for a second hotel, warmed up my first-ever "Hot Pocket" from the Hilton's "Pantry" (disappointing) and went to sleep in Cleveland. For the second time in two tries. The next morning, I caught the 7 am shuttle to the airport, boarded the plane on time, and then sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes, while the airport staff tried to figure out how to get the conveyor belts moving again, so that they could load the bags.

That delay means that I was going to miss the tour, and that the BG and I would be hard pressed to get back in time to catch our 4 pm return to Syracuse. I called the camp to let them know that I would be arriving late, and jumped into my rental car, silently thankful for the state's embrace of the 70 mph speed limit.

I got to the camp at noon, where a teary BG was none too happy about being the last kid picked up. Luckily though, the counsellors, who were surely anxious to get out as well, had packed her up completely, and in ten minutes, we were back on the road, arriving at the airport with enough time for a sit-down lunch and an ice cream cone before our flight left. We made our connection through Chicago (thankfully avoiding Cleveland this time) and Worldwide was there to meet us in Syracuse, groggy from the Phnom Penh-Tokyo-Chicago-Syracuse journey, but happy nonetheless.

We retrieved the car I had driven down on Friday, and drove up to Gananoque for two days of parties, followed by a drive down to DC on Tuesday, overnight at the in-laws', and a return home on Wednesday, after Worldwide finished a morning meeting in Dupont Circle. I did all the driving, as she was still not entirely in the Eastern time zone, and I am awfully glad that it's behind me now.

One can only imagine how we will top this next summer.

Egypt and the Narrative Fallacy

A story this morning about military helicopters in the Sinai reportedly attacking people who might be associated with the recent attack on government posts got me thinking about Egypt today. On a number of occasions over the past two years people have asked me about events there, and I think, by and large they have been unsatisfied with my answer, which has been something along the lines of "Good question. It's hard to know." With so much written about the Arab Spring, the Facebook revolution, loosing the yoke of the repression and cronyism of the Mubrak regime, the rise of a secular Islamist party and the reluctance of the army to cede power, there is a tendency to want to see a story emerge, whether it be the rise of democracy, the voice of a new generation, the gift of freedom, or the winds of change.

But lurking behind all of those possible threads, is something known as the narrative fallacy, the inclination of our brains to seek out a story to make sense out of the uncertainty. As Nassim Taleb explains in the Black Swan:

The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.

A piece in the Financial Times (via Farnam Street) further explains:

We do not often, or easily, think in terms of probabilities, because there are not many situations in which this style of thinking is useful. Probability theory is a marvellous tool for games of chance – such as spinning a roulette wheel. The structure of the problem is comprehensively defined by the rules of the game. The set of outcomes is well defined and bounded, and we will soon know which outcome has occurred. But most of the problems we face in the business and financial worlds – or in our personal lives – are not like that. The rules are ill-defined, the range of outcomes is wider than we can easily imagine and often we do not fully comprehend what has happened even after the event. The real world is characterised by radical uncertainty – the things we do not know that we do not know.

We deal with that world by constructing simplifying narratives. We do this not because we are stupid, or irrational, or have forgotten probability 101, but because storytelling is the best means of making sense of complexity. The test of these narratives is whether they are believable.

People with guns and helicopters make me very nervous. There are so many arrogant knuckleheads who are sure that their actions, whether it be blowing up government stations, kidnapping tourists, deploying attack helicopters or appointing the head of the army Minister of Defense in the new government, will produce the intended results; when, in fact the future is far less certain and much more subject to random events.

I still have no idea where this is going, but it will be interesting to see how the conclusion, which will undoubtedly be viewed  as inevitable and predictable, will come to pass. 

Don't Turn Me Into a Cheerleader

i.e. GET ORGANIZED.

The  Times decodes some of the jargon that is au courant at New York's finest restaurants

What Can Doctors Learn From Restaurants?

Like my recent experience at the Olive Garden, Mr. Checklist, Atul Gawande, has dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and comes away impressed. The chain has successfully commoditized haute cuisine, bringing affordable fine dining to the hoi polloi. He suggests in this week's New Yorker that the same approach can work in the delivery of health care:

Reinventing medical care could produce hundreds of innovations. Some may be as simple as giving patients greater e-mail and online support from their clinicians, which would enable timelier advice and reduce the need for emergency-room visits. Others might involve smartphone apps for coaching the chronically ill in the management of their disease, new methods for getting advice from specialists, sophisticated systems for tracking outcomes and costs, and instant delivery to medical teams of up-to-date care protocols. Innovations could take a system that requires sixty-three clinicians for a knee replacement and knock the number down by half or more. But most significant will be the changes that finally put people like John Wright and Armin Ernst in charge of making care coherent, coördinated, and affordable.

I had been toying with reading the Checklist book, but, after listening to his TED talk on the way to the gym this morning, I think I've learned enough.

Thankfully, we haven't had much interaction with the health care system over the last decade, but what little we have has left me unimpressed. My Honda dealer seems to know more about my car than my pediatrician does about my children, and there's something about that statement that gives me pause; to say nothing of the incomprehensible billing system that my health insurance provider employs.

A lot of the current presidential campaign seems to focus on health care reform. As someone who had to buy his own health insurance both two and a half years previously, and four months ago, I can say that nothing seems to have changed in the interim. Let's hope that the new exchanges spur more competition when they come online in 2014. But I wouldn't bet on it. I very much enjoyed the recent book on the Garfield assassination, not least for its grisly depiction of the state of medicine in the 1880s, when doctors recoiled at the idea of washing their hands and using clean instruments. I wonder if a hundred years hence, people will look back at our system, and its freewheeling drug use, 5 minute doctor visits and byzantine cost structure, with the same morbid fascination. I certainly hope so.

Rock Creek Park

How many of my DC peeps are doin' it in the park?

Blackbyrds: Rock Creek Park

Sunday Swiffing

Careful readers may remember that one of my books last Quarter was It's Not You, It's the Dishes: How to Minimize Conflict and Maximize Happiness in Your Relationship, a Father's day gift from Worldwide. One of the points the authors make in the book is that couples often have a division of labor that is well understood, but nevertheless unarticulated. And though they don't begrudge the division, each harbors a tiny bit of resentment that a given task is not fully appreciated in its contribution to household bliss


In our kitchen, for example, I usually (my estimate is 95% of the time, but people tend to have a higher opinion of themselves than is warranted in these cases) empty the dishwasher, while Worldwide wipes down counters and cleans the floor, although for some reason the stovetop is my responsibility.


Her tools of choice for these tasks are those disinfecting "wipes" for the countertops, and the wet "Swiffer" for the floor. I've never fully understood why the wipes are better than a paper towel and a bottle of cleaner, and I've never used the Swiffer, preferring the traditional mop the two or three times I've cleaned the kitchen floor over the last three years. In fact, on more than one occasion, having been asked to add Swiffer cloths to the grocery list, I have come home with the wrong product.


This morning I was faced with a conundrum. You may recall a June post about our cantankerous coffee maker. I've taken to not setting the timer in order to avoid the occasional Lake o'Joe in the kitchen, but things have been going without incident of late, so, diving straight into the Sunday paper (See how Tom Friedman echoes my position on natural gas) I did not notice the malfunction until I waded into the kitchen for my first cup of the day.


I soaked up the overflow with a sponge and a paper towel, but there was a noticeable brown residue left on the floor. Luckily, Worldwide had arranged for our housekeeping service to come on Monday (ensuring her return to a presentable abode) so I knew that they would handle the unsightliness.


But how in good conscience, could I leave a mess for the housekeepers to clean up? Wrestling with the economics and the psychology of this dilemma, I decided to do a quick once-over with the Swiffer. It took awhile to figure out how to attach the cloth to the mop, but after I did, the tool took care of the problem in two shakes of a lamb's tail, as my grandmother would say.


I'm not making any kind of point about how easy this job is. Our kitchen hosts a lot of activity, so keeping it clean requires continuous attention. I get that. I'm just giving the wet Swiffer a little plug, and I'm glad that I won't have to admit in the future that I don't know how to load it.

Chicken Biryani

One of my favourite things about cooking is the challenge of making something out of what's on hand. I'm a bit of a hoarder, though, so I've usually got a full pantry and freezer to complement whatever's staring back at me from inside the refrigerator. And with Worldwide and the Gs away, I don't run the risk of abuse for one of my experiments going wrong, which they sometimes do. "Really dad? A peanut butter cup smoothie? That's gross."

Yesterday I was looking at a half-empty bag of Trail mix. I had taken out a couple of boneless chicken breasts earlier in the morning, not sure what I was going to do to them. But looking at the bag of raisins, nuts and coconut shreds, I had an idea: The Penzeys Chicken biryani recipe is a good one, although I don't make it too often these days (thanks to the vegetarian and spice averse members of the family). Would a smattering of nuts make it better?

Short answer: not really. Maybe a little. The nuts were a bit stale, and I think if I did it again, I'd toast them first, but that would have involved picking them out of the trail mix, which seems excessive, even for me. But it looked pretty, used up something headed to the compost bin, and I didn't have to make a trip to the store.

*I also used brown rice, instead of basmati, in keeping with my quest to eat more whole grain. That part, I liked.

Go Bullets!

I'm gonna blow your mind...

• 81% of the world's Jewish population (14 million) live in the US and Israel (about 5 million in each).
• There are 12 aircraft carriers in the world. One is under construction in China, the other 11 belong to the United States. T. Boone Pickens on why we need to switch the economy to natural gas now, and not wait for the next big thing.
• Elvis Costello has a lauded autobiography that is not available. His all day playlist is though.

Bunk Notes IV

Hi Sweetie,

Are you chillin' with chinchillas? Have you met the kangaroo?
Are the dinners veggie-friendly? Do you have enough to do?
Is your cabin nice and cozy? Does the girl above you snore?
Do the animals sneak out at night and knock upon your door?

Do polar bears take dips at dawn? Do night owls stay up late?
Do foxes show up unannounced to ask you on a date?
I've never been to critter camp, so I don't really know,
But from the things that you've described, I think I'd like to go!

So do your dad a solid, take a minute of your time
And dash me off a note to help the picture in my mind.

Baggin' Groceries

There are four grocery stores in my life right now: Harris Teeter, Kroger, Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Each has a point of difference: Kroger is the least expensive, but the most inconvenient and I do not like its produce; Whole Foods is the most expensive, but it has the highest overall quality and sells grains and spices in bulk; Trader Joe's has the best selection of value-priced wine, but it is not a real supermarket; and Harris Teeter is the most convenient and has the best overall mix of price and quality, but nothing that stands out. So it's the store I'm in most often. Probably 1.6 times a week, with visits to each of the others every 2-4 weeks.

One interesting thing about Kroger, though, is that it has the best selection of international products. Maybe it has a more diverse client base, or the advantage of a larger distribution network and building footprint, given the size of the company and the store's location in the middle of nowhere. But whatever the reason, the proof is in the pudding.

So I was delighted last week to find a jar of quality jerk paste, straight outta Kingston. I had made a quick barbeque sauce with ketchup, lime juice and the paste for chicken earlier, and last night, I rubbed some of the paste on some lamb chops, which I grilled while my beans and rice were cooking, finishing them up with the last of the sauce.

I usually make this with white rice, and I'll use vegetable broth instead of chicken if I'm making it for the BG, but with the Gs away, and still not too far removed from Food Matters, I made it with brown rice last night, and the results were pretty satisfying. I got the original recipe ten years ago from someplace called caribshop.com, which doesn't seem to exist anymore. I've modified it a little to make it incredibly simple. If you're making it with white rice, reduce the total liquid to 4 cups, and the cooking time to 15-20 minutes.

Jamaican Style Beans and Rice
Put two cups brown rice in a medium size pot. Drain the liquid from a can of pinto beans into a large measuring cup and put the beans into the pot. Add 1 can of coconut milk and enough chicken stock to the bean liquid make about 4 1/4 cups. Add the liquid to the pot, along with one small onion, diced, one clove of garlic, minced, a sprig of thyme and hot sauce to taste (I used about a tablespoon of Sriracha). Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to medium low and simmer until the water is absorbed, about 30-40 minutes.

Big Beat

I've written a couple of times before (here and here) about the annoying repetitiveness of the radio in the Triangle. Taking Care of Business and Margaritaville--both perfectly fine songs, are now ruined for me, due to the fact that the local classic rock station seems to play each several times a day.

In light of this, I was delighted to hear Billy Squier's fist-pumping The Stroke today, a song that I'm not sure I've heard since 1982, when it was a favourite of the DJs at CACH, the radio station at my high school. This, in turn, got me to thinking about Mr. Squier, and I was glad to learn, via Wikipedia, that he's still going strong, most recently as a member of Ringo Starr's touring band. Then I remembered a reference to a "Billy Squier big beat" in my favourite Jungle Brothers song, and when I entered exactly that into my search bar, I came across the following song, which I'd never heard before.

I then wondered if the artist had been sampled elsewhere. Using the invaluable whosampled.com, I learned that he had been sampled hundreds of times, including in the seminal Roxanne, Roxanne, which introduced me to the Educated Rapper (and izzle bizzle) in the 1980s. Plate of shrimp.

Samples

Covers

As an Artist		Tracks that sampled Billy Squier [131]
As a Producer		Tracks that sampled music produced by Billy Squier [125]

Tracks that Sampled Billy Squier

 [131]

Sort		Earliest to Latest  Latest to Earliest  Alphabetically  Latest Additions

		The Big Beat (1980) was sampled in  And It's Us by The Cold Crush Brothers (1981) Live at the Harlem World, Manhattan, NY 1981 by Force M.C.'s (1981) Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse) by Run-DMC (1983) Live at Broadway International (1983) by Force M.C.'s (1983) Roxanne Roxanne by UTFO (1984) So Unselfish (It's Okay,It's Okay) by Full Force (1985) Unselfish Lover by Full Force (1985) Bang Zoom (Let's Go-Go) by The Real Roxanne feat. Howie Tee (1986) Le Deenastyle by Dee Nasty (1987) Three Minutes of Beat Box by T La Rock feat. Greg Nice (1987) Bass (Original) by King Tee (1987) Animal by Kings of Rapp (1987) The Magnificent Jazzy Jeff by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince (1987) Comin' Correct by J.J. Fad (1988) Let's Get Hyped by J.J. Fad (1988) Radio by Eazy-E (1988) Ain't No Half-Steppin' by Big Daddy Kane (1988) Born to Be Wild by MC Shan (1988) Magic Carpet Ride by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five (1988) We Don't Rock, We Rap by Schoolly D (1988) Beats to the Rhyme (Video Version) by Run-DMC (1988) Bass by King Tee (1988) Bits and Pieces by UTFO (1989) Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children by Queen Latifah feat. De La Soul (1989) I Got the Knack by Everlast (1989)

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