begin rant

Texas' cultural domination of the American landscape continues: after years of longing, I can finally find my beloved Blue Bell ice cream in south Florida. While this may seem like a small thing, it is a major improvement in my quality of life. This is the best mass-produced ice cream in America, bar none. Made with real cream in Brenham, Texas. I used to drive right past their factory every time I rode to Austin. It is a shame that I never stopped in for the tour. I hear that they let you sample all of the ice cream currently under production at the end...

Posted by Derksen at 5:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Derksen at 12:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I stop to grab a simple lunch in a deli beside a park, and cannot get over the strangely accented spanish that the counter-girl is speaking before I remember where I am. My baguette (which did in fact come with a bag) with ham and gruyere was succinctly tasty, but I cannot get over how much the French love to slather their sandwiches with salted butter as a condiment. I also cannot get over how expensive food is here. It isn't just the appalling dollar to euro conversion that I am fighting - food is just more expensive.

Whatever.

I am enjoying myself, and people-watch in the park. I will discover that the French are remarkably thin, especially given how well they eat. These are a healthy people, running with their dogs in the park over lunch.

Posted by Derksen at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Coffee is the common man's gold, and like gold it brings to every man the feeling of luxury and nobility.... Where coffee is served there is grace and splendour and friendship and happiness."
- attributed to Abd al-Qadir

It is amazing how as little as a quarter cup of coffee can turn your whole morning around. I may someday dedicate an entire sub-category of tag on this website to it, given how frequently the magic drug appears in my musings.

That, and in my old age I am finding that perhaps there is something to this whole "go to bed before midnight" thing. I've been collapsing at around eleven in the evening these days, which makes rising at seven much less of a battle. I still don't think I'll ever be the sort to get up and go running at six - as I suspect that neither coffee nor an early slumber will ever make me a morning person.

After all, phenotype can be limited by genotypic potential, no matter what the environment.

Posted by Derksen at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Nothing stitches a brain back together like two cups of coffee.

Posted by Derksen at 2:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I can not be one hundred percent certain, I suspect that if I were ever to get serious about my plans for world domination, a bowl of jellybeans would be sufficient to distract me and unravel all my evil plans.

All except the popcorn-flavored ones. Those have got to go.

Posted by Derksen at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know, a sure-fire sign of adulthood is when you and your old pals finally start swapping recipes for dinner.

Posted by Derksen at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend, some lucky cads found out quite by accident that the UF graduate student insurance information listserv had been left open and unsecured, and that anyone replying to it could be heard and read by all recipients. This security failure eventually resulted in an amusing series of postings from the very diverse graduate student community. It certainly resulted in an undue amount of what could be considered "spam" in many persons' mailboxes, but it also showed a strong desire among the graduate student body for some sort of forum or mailing list where we could find common cause and to try and connect with one another as just another oppressed minority outside of our own departments.

The messages received contained humor, a request for volunteers at the local homeless shelter, the complete text of Beowulf, an offer for a slightly used Suzuki Bandit, suggestions for Christmas presents, and a recipe for baked potatoes that I will now share with you:

The Perfect Baked Potatoe

"This baked potato has a crisp, golden skin, and is light and fluffy on the inside. Great comfort food!"

PREP TIME 1 Minute
COOK TIME 1 Hr 30 Min
READY IN 1 Hr 31 Min

INGREDIENTS

• 1 medium baking potato
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons butter
• 1 pinch freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Scrub the potato, and pierce the skin several times with a knife or fork. Rub the skin with olive oil, then with salt.
2. Place the potato in the preheated oven, and bake for 90 minutes, or until slightly soft and golden brown. Slice the potato down the center, and serve with butter and black pepper. Sprinkle shredded Cheddar cheese over the top, if desired.

For a treat, try slicing the very top of the potato off rather than slicing it in two, forming a 'lid'. Scoop out the fluffy contents of the potato, keeping the skin intact. Mix the potato in a bowl with butter, grated cheese and black pepper, then spoon the mixture back into the skin. Replace the lid and serve.

Posted by Derksen at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I found an old blender in the trailer's pile of castoff kitchen goods abandoned by prior residents. While it lacked many of the capabilities of a modern space-age food processor, it would certainly suffice for the humble task I would set for it. I endeavored to manufacture a peach-mango salsa - for that Malaysian-Mexican fusion cuisine.

Sweet and spicy peach-mango salsa:

1. Begin with the following ingredients:
   • a mango, skinned and cored
   • one peach with seed removed
   • an orange bell-pepper with the stem removed
   • an optional red bell pepper
   • one serrano pepper for spice (please adjust the number and type of pepper depending on your individual tolerance for spice)
   • one quarter of an onion
   • a third of a cup of fresh-cut cilantro
   • one third tablespoon of salt
   • a quarter cup of lemon juice
   • half a clove of garlic, peeled.
2. Toss all of these guys in the blender, and
3. chop to desired consistency.

Adjust ingredients as necessary to taste and to personal preference. I should note that this recipe was inspired by the recommendations of the inestimable Kyle Beucke, professional salsa chef and insect taxonomist.

Posted by Derksen at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I frequently compare cooking to chemistry, I probably should not. I am far more likely to follow the recipe I have been given for a chemistry experiment, and to employ precise amounts of reagents - whereas in cooking, imprecision is the rule of the day! In that light, tonight's cooking accident with a few modifications that I believe will improve the recipe:

Hastily stuffed Flounder

1. Set that oven to 350 °F!
2. Put two teaspoons of butter in a measuring cup, and let it melt on a burner on low.
3. While you wait for the butter to melt, start mixing the components of your stuffing:
   • a half cup of small "deveined" salad-shrimp
   • half a cup of fresh cut mushrooms
   • a cup of finely ground bread crumbs
   • three tablespoons of freshly-grated parmesan cheese
   • a third of a cup of asiago cheese
   • a tablespoon of paprika
   • a tablespoon of parsley
   • two tablespoons of fresh-ground pepper
   • a third of a cup of water.
4. Pour one and a half tablespoons of the melted butter into your stuffing, and mix it all together.
5. Pop it in the oven on the middle rack for five minutes.
6. While your stuffing warms, rub the remaining half a teaspoon of butter over your flounder, and then rub
   • a teaspoon of salt
   • two teaspoons of pepper
   • a tablespoon of that fresh-grated parmesan cheese
   • and a splash of lemon
   into it.
7. Then carefully butterfly your flounder, or if you lack such finesse, just prepare to roll it around your stuffing.
8. Identify the inside of the flounder, and put two splashes of lemon juice and another tablespoon of the parmesan cheese into it for luck.
9. Carefully remove the stuffing from the oven. It should be warm, but not burning.
10. Turn the oven up to broil!
11. Stuff your flounder with your stuffing - that is what it is for, after all.
12. Pop that sucker into the oven on the top rack and let it broil for seven to ten minutes - or as my mother always says, "until it is done".
13. Take it out when the flesh of the flounder is white and flaky when prodded with a fork.
14. You're feeling crazy! Hit it with another splash of that lemon!
15. Allow it to cool while you monkey with other dishes or while you clean some of your preparatory dishes... and enjoy!

Hope it works - I liked the outcome, and I have yet to kill myself or others with my cooking, so you have my best wishes. Let me know what you think would make a good accompaniment as either a wine or a side dish.

Posted by Derksen at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As a person who does not often rise early to see the dawn, I appreciate mornings.

Even when I am forced out of bed by the inevitable: work, a meeting, a flight, somewhere else I need to be... I appreciate the morning. Those early hours where the road is empty, the sky is clear, and the world is yours, and yours alone. A moment to breathe. A pause before battle. A chance to sample birdsong, and reassemble the moments of the night before. One last opportunity to collect yourself and reconsider the week that preceded you before facing the days that are to follow.

Time to drink your coffee.

As one who fails to rise early, I also appreciate breakfast. I prefer to share it with friends. You can share the recovery of events and reconnect with groggy honesty. The intimacy and the shared secrets of a conveniently local diner. There is often bacon, and someone to pass the sugar for your coffee. If you're truly lucky, there are sometimes even migas on the menu.

So: here is to breakfast.

Salutations, old friend.

Posted by Derksen at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know what I really want right now?

I desire a hamburger.

I crave it.

Mightily.

A half-pound of medium rare meat with a slab of cheddar cheese, slathered with jalapeños and barbecue sauce, all contained within a toasty warm bun, and topped with a freshly sliced tomato. I do not believe that this is too much to ask for, and at some point, I must go in quest of this reward.

Posted by Derksen at 6:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You know, one of the problems with being overconfident in your abilities is that sometimes when you screw up, you literally have to eat it. I'd like to think that I can cook, and this has occasionally resulted in disasters ranging from a mild-case of food-poisoning to severely charred charcoal briquettes that were supposed to have been some sort of bakery product. Fortunately, tonight was not to be one of those nights. I attempted to make satay peanut chicken from memory, and it actually tasted pretty darn good. To the best of my knowledge, the recipe runs as follows:

1. Cut a chicken breast or breasts into bits, and
2. rub half a teasppon of pepper and salt onto it.
3. Oil your favorite eight-inch pan with half a tablespoon of oil, preferably Mongolian Fire Oil cut with a little olive oil (depending on how much or how little one values one's taste-buds) at medium high heat, and
4. brown the chicken.
   
5. Once browned, remove the chicken, but leave the grease and drippings in the pan.
   
6. Slice and toss a quarter to an eighth of an onion into the pan to absorb some of the oil and grease, stir-frying it at high heat to a mild carmelization.
7. Reduce the heat to medium, and then pour in:
   • a third of a cup of peanut butter,
   • a tablespoon of low-sodium soy sauce,
   • half a tablespoon of chili powder,
   • and a third to a quarter of a cup of chili sauce (or if you value your esophageal lining, a quarter cup of water and another quarter cup of peanut butter).
8. Stir this mixture until the peanut butter melts, and
9. toss in
   • the chicken and
   • half a cup of chopped red bell peppers.
10. Cook until done, and serve over rice.

Should anyone out there attempt this recipe, please let me know how it went - and feel free to vary the ingredients. Cooking is an improvisational form of art as much as it is a science, and the best recipes are robust and either survive or are improved by individual variation.

Posted by Derksen at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Coffee may be a magical brew given to us by the old ones to stave off the demons who stalk us in our sleep, but you still can't breathe it, no matter how many times I try. I'm not even sure that growing gills would solve this particular problem, as I believe the low pH would impair gas exchange.

Posted by Derksen at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pickmeup in a cup:

Don't leave home without it.

Posted by Derksen at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sun, iced and spiced coffee, David Bowie on the radio, and another four hours of hammering at my proposal. I've managed to refine it to three major topic areas, but defining specific questions to answer and hypotheses to test has proved somewhat difficult. I am a creature prone to wandering from one idea to another as part of an interconnected whole, but science is better written when it is focused and addresses particular details instead of drifting aimlessly across the map. It does not help that at least two of my major topic areas experience some significant overlap, and extracting the effects of particular variables is either going to require a lot of little experiments or one massive multivariate mess that may not be able to extract the significance of any particular element. In this light, writing my proposal has been a bit like biking uphill: you'd best switch major gears before you get there, because changing topics in the road is likely to slip your chain and find you going nowhere.

Posted by Derksen at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cooking for large numbers of people is a challenge that I have recently enjoyed again. It is at once easier - and yet more difficult than cooking for the self alone. You no longer concern yourself with producing too many leftovers or leaving ingredients out to spoil, but instead begin to worry that you have insufficient kitchen space to maintain and process several dishes. An interesting complication has been the necessity of simultaneously providing for the vegetarian members of my association with the same ingredients available for my normal meal-plan. Do you simply substitute and shift the relative quantities of components, or do you make a unique and separate dish that acknowledges the 'special' dietary requirements of some of your guests which can also be appreciated by 'normal' appetites? Execution requires far more planning, and far more attention to diverse burners and the suddenly smoking oven... but a good time will be had by all.

Posted by Derksen at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Best pizza ever.

I mean that, and I have eaten a lot of pizza in my lifetime. Gainesville does not have a lot of great food, but this place is of special note. The whole establishment reminds me of Austin, with its hippie-ambience, occasionally live funky music, and local artists' work for sale on the walls. You can even eat in one of those old VW breadbox-vans on their front porch. Should anyone ever come to town, and have even the remotest appreciation for the pie - do remind me to take you here.

Posted by Derksen at 7:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)