Go Terk Yourself

This only solidifies Fleet Foxes as my current favorite band.

Hippies were cool, but cocaine destroyed them.

-Robert Pecknold, lead singer of Fleet Foxes, to The Stranger.

My brother Adam graduated from Syracuse this year and he’s been wandering aimlessly around Vermont, New York and the rest of the northeast since then. In September he leaves for what he hopes will be a year long sojourn through Asia. If you’re interested in this sort of thing Adam will be updating his blog, Pan-Asian Gallivanting, with stories and photos from the trip.

David Byrne created a set of nine bike racks for the city of New York (via TMN). Shown here is Old Times Square.

… eventually the earth’s entire biomass will be made out of Jesus (via Kottke)

A new short from Todd, The Cookie Monster: Origins:

Coming early next week:

I have to admit it. I adore Michael Ruhlman. His book The Making of a Chef is wonderful, as are his blog and, the book I’m reading now, The Soul of a Chef. A couple of months ago he posted some photos and a recipe for mayonnaise on his blog. I filed it in the back of my head and promised myself to try it some time. Today was that day. It was more whisking than I’m used to but the work and sweat (it was hot today!) were worth it. I’m going to try the “food blogger” approach to things here so I took pictures as I went.

From the strtok/strtok_r man page:

BUGS

  Avoid using these functions.

Kerri and I had dinner, a bit on the spur of the moment, at L’Espalier last Tuesday. It was our one year anniversary. I just got the menu from Cole over at L’Espalier and I figure I’ll post it here for the sake of saving and sharing. Sadly, I did not bring a camera. I had the Summer Degustation, Kerri the Vegetable Degustation.

Summer Degustation:

1. Butter poached Maine lobster with braised pork belly and sweet corn
2. Torchon of foie gras with candy striped beets and Muscat gelee
3. Air-dried Muscovy duck with grilled escarole, scallion johnnycake and watermelon
4. Pan roasted East Coast halibut with black quinoa, pea shoots and Pat’s baked clams

Vegetable Degustation:

1. Twice baked potato leak soup with shaved black truffle
2. Summer succotash with grilled apricots
3. Roasted cauliflower with patty pan squash, feta and green garlic risotto
4. Herb potato gnocchi with grilled nectarine

In addition to the lists above (all of which was delicious) we also had the following:

• An appetizer of smoked salmon
• Amuse Bouches
• L’Espalier’s signature sorbet.
• Dessert (panna cotta and a flourless chocolate cake)
• Petit fours

I call it 7 1/2 courses.

Heavy Rotation

I did most of the mixing of the dough while it was still wet, using the paddle attachment to the stand mixer instead of the dough hook. I didn’t add as much flour as I normally would in the end, resulting in a wetter dough than usual. These changes resulted in a dough that required no work to stretch it to the desired size, which makes me very happy.

I used the tomato rinsing method for the sauce. It removed the acidity and bitterness quite well, but took a while. Sadly the sauce was under seasoned and the pie could have used a bit more of it.

Hacked to little bits;
this piece of code fits right in.
Fix it later. Right.

I kinda want to take this sign and see if a “Stealing Plants AND Signs is CRIME” sign replaces it.

I’m a big fan of pizza and I like to make it at home. Something I’ve noticed the past couple times I’ve made a sauce though is that it ends up bitter and acidic. Jeff Varasano has what is probably the most comprehensive review of making pizza at home and on his site he talks about something he calls “Tomato Rinsing”:

Tomato Rinsing: All cans have some bitterness. To lessen this I have developed a process that I call Tomato Rinsing. Strain the tomatoes in a fine mesh strainer.. If the mesh is fine, the water will be mostly clear with very little tomato escaping. If the water is very red, pour it back on top of the tomatoes and continue straining. Eventually the water will run almost completely clear. Here’s the key. The water that comes out is completely bitter. Taste it. What I do is pour fresh water on top of the strained tomatoes and strain them again. Taste this second batch of water. It’s also bitter. You are removing bitterness and acid without losing a drop of red tomato. You can repeat this several times if you like, but once or twice is usually fine. The net result is that what is left over, which is all the red tomato solids, is sooooo sweet and yummy.

I can’t wait to try the technique and see if it works.