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• Coca-cola
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• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter

Hmm…

Ten Great Things About My Valentine

This is a weekend of posts devoted to my valentine, my wife.  We are celebrating the ValentOlympics this weekend.

(The following are in no particular order)

1. She cooks wonderful things.  In the past week, we have had a roast, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, zucchini chocolate chip muffins, and sausage soup to name just a few!

2. She supports me in my work and hobbies.

3. She looks fabulous.

4. She listens to my incessant talking.

5. She laughs at my corny jokes (most of the time).

6. She challenges me when I contradict myself.

7. She helps me eat healthier.

8. She deals smoothly with my many unusual querks.

9. She works hard to make fun surprises.

10. She is about to become a certified world-class physician’s assistant.

I love you!

Question of the Day

(In order to avoid undue partisanship and party-bashing, I must mention here that I object to the previous administration’s movements to create a stronger executive branch, larger military and more security oversight.)

The current White House administration has two big agendas that are in conflict with each other.  I’m looking for a little clarity:

First, they are looking to re-tool NASA, to privatize its manned space missions because the current method is both outdated and financially bloated.

Second, they are aiming to create a comprehensive health care plan which will cover all citizens (certainly a good thing) and bring down the overall cost of health care to consumers.

Whether you stand on the side of government control or the side of a free-market economy, I don’t see any way to view these policies in such a way that they are philosophically congruent.  Do you?

Plumbers, Donkeys, Elephants, iPads and Prayer, oh my!

Oh boy, what a day it was!

First, the plumbers tell me that they’re going to actually be ripping down the inside part of one of our walls tomorrow…yikes!

So our shower was suddenly backing up to near over-flow levels.  This led to a pre-liminary investigation by a plumber who, my brute force and I’m sure a minor bit of ignorance, broke something.  One broken thing led to potential leaking into the apartment below us, which now requires the gutting of a wall.  Oh the joys of living in a 90 year old building.  These events certainly put a damper on my hopes of having a highly productive week of research.

Second, the iPad was announced.

Having found myself in the poor farm lately, I see the iPad as one more useless device of Applopulence.  Perhaps after I give one a test drive, I will feel differently.  But for now, I’m giving the iPad two big thumbs down based on it’s price and limited functionality.

Third, the state of the union rocked my socks off.

I know, I know, this probably upsets a lot of you.  I was actually entertained by the state of the union. Having such a suave president makes the rhetoric more bearable, and occasionally even believable. Now we’ll see what happens when the rubber hits the road.  If you’re into grabbing coffee, wine, beer, cheese or anything deep fried and discussing politics, I’m game.

Fourth, I’m reading a book about prayer.

Entitled A Praying Life, by Paul Miller, I’ve mainly been taken in by the book’s treatment of the concept of cynicism.  That, however, is a topic which will require much more space than I desire to devote in this short post.  Thus, I’ll leave you with a definition of cynicism from the American Heritage Dictionary: An attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others.

Walter Day

My wife and I had my parents over to celebrate an official family Holiday:  Walter Day!  The culinary focus?  Two types of chicken legs.

Type 1: Bacon grease coated garlic basil

Type 2: “Tandoori” Style

‘Twas a lovely day, including laughs, ice cream, homemade bread, yummy salad, and farm-opoly.

Return to Normalcy

A number of people have asked about my recent two-week hiatus from blogland.  The following is not a list of reasons why I made no posts until today:

1. My wife and I took a second honeymoon to Cambodia.
2. While in my research lab, I accidentally inhaled highly toxic chemicals.  I was then rushed to the hospital, where I spent the next week and a half being de-toxed.
3. We’re renovating our apartment.
4. The neighbor’s dog bit my leg.  We settled out of court.
5. The Eagles’ wildly successful playoff run commanded my full attention.

Actually, I was focusing all of my efforts on successfully completing step one of three towards my life-long dream of sharing the same name as one of the best basketball players in history: Dr. J.

Life has returned to some semblance of normalcy one again.

Gelatin George

After hearing of my new year’s commitment to using new ingredients, my sister suggested that I use gelatin and make my own mousse.  Once I got past the rather disgusting nature of the origin of gelatin, I thought that a mousse would provide a respectable challenge.

My wonderful wife purchased Gelatin George for me:

Michael Pollan would be proud of the ingredient list:

Now a mousse is a little more involved than my typical cooking, and much more dessert-y than my usual.  Thus, I own no double boiler.  However, I used what I officially dub to be the “poor man’s double boiler.”

I placed semi-sweet chocolate, cocoa powder, Bailey’s Irish Creme and butter into this rig, gently melted it down and then mixed it with a creme, gelatin slurry.  I then whipped heavy cream in a frozen metal bowl until it was mediumly fluffy (which I guess baking people call medium peaks).  Finally, I mixed it all together:

And after an hour of sitting in the fridge, I had a chocolate mousse:

The texture actually came out just right, although it could have used more Bailey’s flavor.  Lastly, I need lessons in dessert aesthetics, as I clearly made not attempt to make the mousse look attractive.  In the future, It’ll sport a smooth top, be in a martini glass and have a raspberry topping.  For now, chocolate goodness will have to suffice.

Charlie the Chayote

As I stated, one of my goals is to cook with new ingredients this year.  More specifically, I am attempting to cook with one new ingredient every month.

Allow me to introduce you to Charlie the Chayote:

Charlie is a native of Costa Rica.  However, he has many relatives from other tropical areas, such as southeast Asia.  My wife brought Charlie home last week, and it was now his turn to grace our table.

As you can see, from the inside Charlie looks to be something of a pear.  However, Charlie is considered a summer squash, and is often used in soups.  My goal was to use his chayote nature in a more bold manner.

After olive oil, salt, sugar, crushed red pepper, red wine vinegar and about 10 minutes of medium heat, we were left with the following side dish:

Charlie’s distinguishing feature is his texture.  Cross a pear and a cucumber and you have something of the texture.  Charlie does not have much flavor, however.  This necessitated the rather bold combination of flavors I used to make this side.