lollardfish

Mmmm. Tomato from garden. Basil from garden. Mozarella from Broders. mmmmmm.

As is so often the case, the New Yorker was a week ahead of everyone else on this Castro thing. They published This article - Castro's Last Battle on 7/24, a little before he gave power to his brother, Raul. They've just put it online. I'd read it if you're interested in Cuba, because it talks about all the various candidates who may replace Castro, and at least some of these names will be important in the next few years.

Sadly, the article about the Maine fisherman (with a Masters degree) who has figured out where the cod used to spawn inland, and received a MacArthur (genius) grant for his work in trying to repair the cod population, is not online.

The girl and I went out to a pleasant, pricey, but mediocre dinner at Cave Vin, the French Bistro up the street. The sparkly rose was tasty and cheap (half-price wine night). The garlic frites and aioli were spectacular (cause fries are good!). The salt-cod croquettes on marinated peppers, golden raisns, pine nuts, and some really fresh olive oil were excellent. Shannon's chicken involtini was fine, but prosaic. The gnocchi and the lemony sauce under the chicken was tangy and good. My lamb on mashed potatoes (they probably called it potato puree) on porcini sauce was cold by the time I got it. I complained. They fixed a new plate of mash and sauce, threw my lamb on the grill, and returned it to me. The lamb was, therefore, twice-cooked, tough, and not at all what I wanted. Also the "french-cutting" was done sloppily, so the bone had little bits of stuff on it. At $23, which is a lot for a Minnesota entree, I was displeased. The creme brulee was half great. The other half was over-brulee'd.

All in all, a fine dinner. I wanted great though, and am feeling picky. But I liked my date, I liked the drink, and I liked the frites a lot. It's clearly a glass of wine and appetizer place, not a dinner place.

I think I'll go to France and see if I can find something better.

Chapter 5 done. Working on syllabus for commodities course:

( Course Description Draft )

Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me.

The word of the day is "apotropaic."

davidschroth says it *is* a cool word, and you should all look it up, and I should encourage you to do so.

Curt Schilling decided to spend a lot of time answering questions on NYYfans.com, the Yankees board. The best part:

Re: The Red Sox Thread (cont'd, part 2)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chacon
Hey Curt do you play WoW?
I heard you were heavy into EQ so I was wondering if you have moved onto greener pastures

Gehrig38:

WoW sucks, EQ2 FTW!
WoW is for people still into Tonka and Playschool.

(If you are a foolish red sox fanatic, you can find the thread around <a href="http://forums.nyyfans.com/showthread.php?t=94438&page=288>here</a> in the middle of the page.

So apparantly ZZ was not called a terrorist, but had his mother and sister insulted (or at least that's the latest). I find it interesting though that the rumor flew around, and that an anti-racism group in France hired a lipreader who mislipread the Italian player's insults. On the other hand, it's also suggested that the insults were racist.

The actual story is Here at the NY Times.

Now for the funnies.

Multicultural perspectives.

During the World Cup final yesterday I made pasta. I've gotten good at assembling the dough on the board by hand (really the best way to get the right "feel" for the dough), then letting the stand mixer do the kneading.

I made regular "white" pasta.
I made red wine pasta that came out too brown.
I made tomato-paste pasta that came out a lovely orange.
I made pesto "pantesco" pasta. (Link for pesto recipe).
I made squid-ink pasta.

I then tried to combine them, and I really couldn't come up with a neat way to do it. Ultimately, I made three small rectangles of lightly rolled out dough from white, orange, and black, then rolled them together a little and sent them through the sheet-press. I ended up with tri-colored pasta which I have cut, put into a bag, and shall eat tomorrow, but it's not pretty. It'd make a great halloween pasta dish though.

For dinner last night at lee_os's apartment, I made ravioli of the pantesco dough, and stuffed them with a little more of the pesto and some mozarella (because we had some in the house). I made a sauce of capers, onion, sherry, and hot giardini (and oil), and some basil and tarragon from the garden. Garnished the plates with parmigiano, more of the giardini, and more of the pesto. Tasty stuff.

There's a fat rabbit in the garden, sitting among the basil, epazote, chives, and fennel. So far, he's not eating anything, but I think I'll put up the chicken wire tomorrow.