Sunday, April 30, 2006
Stardust
...of a kind. Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 is falling apart (as it has been since '95, when its nucleus split in four). Check out this one-minute video, an animation created from Hubble Space Telescope stills, as the comet sheds some more of its interior on its inward swing toward the sun. (Its period is about five and a half years.)
...And no, it's coming nowhere near us. The calved-off chunks will be passing Earth at something like seven million miles' distance.
posted by Diane: 4/30/2006 04:43:00 PM | link to this post
An orange question
When out in Athy the other afternoon, we managed to score some plaintain from the local African grocery. This is a good thing, and calls for a brief swerve into something Caribbean for dinner.
So the breaded version of Cuban steak (with twice-fried plantain on the side) is on the menu. One thought, though. The recipe calls for the steak to be marinated in "sour orange juice". Other similar recipes give a workaround for faking it with orange and lime juice. No problem: we have those.
The question, though, since I have an interest in rare/unusual citrus: what's the standard source fruit for "sour orange juice" in Cuba? A Seville, perhaps? Anybody have an idea?
posted by Diane: 4/30/2006 02:10:00 PM | link to this post
Peter would like these: chili pens
Must see if I can find somewhere that doesn't want me to buy them in lots of 100.
They'd be fun to have in the kitchen, though.
(I also kind of like this chili bracelet. There's a ton of chili-oriented stuff out there on the Intarwebz, it seems. But I don't have time to go hunting today: I've got a short story to finish.)
(Reminder to self: pull out that half-finished design for the logo of the "Department of Alcohol, Tabasco and Firearms", finish it up, and get it made into a T-shirt for Peter.)
posted by Diane: 4/30/2006 11:03:00 AM | link to this post
Saturday, April 29, 2006
John Scalzi is a smart, smart guy
And an excellent writer. And he just did this wonderful long blog post (okay, it was really a couple of days ago) in which he said just about everything I'd say to a teenage writer (though in a different tone of voice, naturally).
All of you who're teenagers and want to write, go read this.
Now playing: Bonnie Tyler - Here She Comes
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posted by Diane: 4/29/2006 03:38:00 PM | link to this post
"Not that professional writers are 'all that'..."
The only amusing take (with a few home truths thrown in) that I've seen so far on the Kaavya Viswanathan situation:It doesn't help that publishers feel the need to compete with, say, "American Idol" and try to make people famous just because they're young and potentially marketable. There's a difference between a 17-year-old who sings an Avril Lavigne song on TV and one who is faced with the task of generating 314 pages that will be distributed and marketed all over the world.
Not that professional writers are all that, but published authors have to be more responsible than bloggers or MySpace types or clever e-mail writers. Sure, even though a few writers can be really good when they're young -- Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" when she was 19, but that was in 1816 when you weren't always getting interrupted by text messages -- even the most meticulous of them aren't really up to the task until they're in their 20s or even really old, like in their 30s or 40s.
An addendum: The Boston Globe takes a look at how the book deal itself was structured, and raises some questions about this kind of packaged / "cooperative" literary project."They are not paying out that much money to a 17-year-old with no track record," said Boston literary agent Doe Coover. "They are paying it to this organization which has had huge hits aimed at a similar audience." And some wondered who is looking out for the creator of the work...
Interesting point, and one which may have gotten lost in the shuffle. This article points out that the copyright was split between the author and the packager, so that the author wouldn't have gotten more than half of that $500,000 advance in any case. Yet it's Visnawathan who is taking most of the heat for this: whereas (it seems to me) there's been too little inquiry, in the press at least, to the packager's role. (One exception being the NY Times article here.)
This story has a bit further to run, I'd say...Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/29/2006 09:11:00 AM | link to this post
Friday, April 28, 2006
Word of the day: "politicoendomasuchia"
Politicoendomasuchia, n: unease with the concept of politicians in costume. -iast, one suffering from this unease.
(chuckle) Looks like the Prime Minister of Canada may be enough of a Trekkie to have once appeared in a convention masquerade. Gasp! Stagger! Swoon! Yet another sign of the decline of Western civilization. Now Canadian bloggers are trying to find a picture to confirm the rumor. (Photoshopped fakes are already appearing.)
What will people who find this bothersome make of King Abdullah of Jordan, then? Or Stephen Hawking? (No, they'll say, it's OK in his case: he didn't actually dress up!)
(eyeroll)
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posted by Diane: 4/28/2006 02:17:00 PM | link to this post
In the "Gilding the Lily" department: Painting the Apple
I've been thinking about the possibility of an Apple laptop for a while. Now, with the whole BootCamp thing going on, the possibility is more like a probability. And now this:
It seems like the rumors of multi-colored MacBook Pros were true, though Apple wasn't the one who dipped them in paint. ColorWare, purveyors of colorized high-end electronics, has added the 15-inch MacBook Pro (sorry, no 17-inch - yet) to their array of products you can purchase new and colorized. They also offer their colorizing service for those who need to add some colorful zing to that old 'n busted product you bought mere weeks ago.
A nice blue one...hmm. There's a thought. But there's one other change I'd want made that I doubt these folks are equipped to handle: I want the Apple without the Bite.
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posted by Diane: 4/28/2006 11:46:00 AM | link to this post
Now this is interesting: "Caprica"
How about this, then!
SciFi Channel announced the development of Caprica, a spinoff prequel of its hit Battlestar Galactica, in presentations to advertisers in New York on April 26. Caprica would come from Galactica executive producers Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, writer Remi Aubuchon (24) and NBC Universal Television Studio.
Caprica would take place more than half a century before the events that play out in Battlestar Galactica. The people of the Twelve Colonies are at peace and living in a society not unlike our own, but where high technology has changed the lives of virtually everyone for the better.
But a startling breakthrough in robotics is about to occur, one that will bring to life the age-old dream of marrying artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot: a Cylon. Following the lives of two families, the Graystones and the Adamas (the family of William Adama, who will one day become the commander of the Battlestar Galactica), Caprica will weave together corporate intrigue, techno-action and sexual politics into television's first science fiction family saga, the channel announced.Going to be interesting to see how this unfolds...
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posted by Diane: 4/28/2006 11:23:00 AM | link to this post
Thursday, April 27, 2006
A reflection on Narnia
I ran across this the other day, cut-'n'-pasted it into my note area, and now can't for the life of me find the source. Nonetheless, it made me roar. Unknown poster, I salute you!Aslan is what Jesus would have been if the Bible had been written by an American. After his "sacrifice", he comes back with a huge army and bites his enemy's f***ing head off. Much cooler.
(snort)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/27/2006 09:46:00 AM | link to this post
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Chapter Three of "The Big Meow" is now online for subscribers
After a whole lot of antibiotics, some blood tests, and various other craziness...it's up at last. Thanks to everyone for being so patient.
The URL and access information are going out to subscribers right now. As usual (because believe it or not, the mailing list is STILL acting up...), if you haven't seen access information by the morning of April 27th, please email me and let me know. Thanks.
*collapses quietly in the corner*
(By the way: if you're a subscriber, you may get an email that's empty. Wait a while and another one will come along that's not. Sorry about this -- I hit the wrong key and dispatched the message before it was ready. A weakness in the software means it's not possible to catch these mistakes. Mutter...)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/26/2006 08:33:00 PM | link to this post
A fruit less musical
For those of us who can't find the Beano:
Two strains of bacteria have been found to be the key to making beans flatulence-free.
Venezuelan researchers say the bacteria, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, can be added to beans so they cause minimal distress to those who eat them, and to those around the bean lovers.
Now playing: Marais-D'Anglebert-A.Forqueray - La Sonnerie De Sainte Genevieve
posted by Diane: 4/26/2006 04:41:00 PM | link to this post
"Forty points of similarity": or, Look up and see the lawyers circling
Now playing: Ian Lynn - Introduction - Do You See / Seven Bridges
There has already been a fair amount of noise about debut novelist Kaavya Viswanathan over the past couple of days: about her NYT best-seller, and her big two-book advance ($500K) and her film option with Dreamworks...and the fact that she's been accused of plagiarizing author Megan McCafferty's novels Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. (See here for the Harvard Crimson article that seems to have broken the story.)
Interesting enough was the comparison between a statement she gave one of her local newspapers, the Newark Star-Ledger ("Nothing I read gave me the idea for these books") and her letter of apology ("When I was in high school, I read and loved two wonderful novels by Megan McCafferty, 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings'... Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel … and passages in these books…."). But most interesting to me at this point, though, is that the latest statement from McCafferty's very annoyed publisher, Crown, says that they have located "at least forty" incidences of strong similarity or verbatim quoting.
In the screen industry, at least, "Forty points of similarity" is the height at which the bar of proof is normally set for a plagiarism suit to become viable. I have a feeling there is either about to be -- besides the offered revision with "imappropriate similarities removed" -- either a big fat out-of-court settlement, or a yanking of the present edition from the shelves, or maybe both. And Spielberg only knows what's going to happen to the film option. It's so easy for even strong pitches with impeccable pedigrees to get dumped into Turnaround Hell these days... (4/29/06: turns out my guess was right on both counts — the book’s been pulled, and development of the project at DreamWorks has been stopped.)
But either way, I think it's probably going to take Viswanathan's first book a lot longer than expected to earn out, Times list or no Times list. In particular, I'm thinking about language I've seen in some of my contracts that states any lawsuit my publisher suffers due to my work becomes my financial responsibility...
(Side note to all this: It was McCafferty's fans who tipped her off. I've been there, too... Thank you, folks, for watching our backs.)
(Also, a note to "The Big Meow"subscribers: I'm better today -- at least I can see out of these eyes, now. Chapter 3 will be going up this afternoon, and an email with the location and login info will be going out to you then. The "open release" date will as a result be kicked forward to May 3rd, and I'm going to try to get Chapter Four finished early to compensate for this five-day delay. Thanks to everybody for being so patient.)
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posted by Diane: 4/26/2006 12:57:00 PM | link to this post
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Verrrry interesting: Cartoon Network heads into gamespace
Now here’s something worth watching, in an idle sort of way, to see where it goes…
Cartoon Network unveiled an upcoming slate of video games based on its original programming, in cooperation with Midway Games, the Game Factory, Crave Entertainment and D3 Publisher of America. Fans can expect to see titles based on such hits as "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends," "Camp Lazlo," "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy," "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" and "Aqua Teen Hunger Force”…(Thanks to Ars Technica for the heads-up.)
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posted by Diane: 4/25/2006 01:10:00 PM | link to this post
Monday, April 24, 2006
Chapter 3 is late: sorry, all...but I'm getting caught up
I spent the weekend dealing with not only the flared-up ear infection, but also an incipient eye infection. Fortunately the drugs are now taking hold, and I should be able to get the chapter up tomorrow. My apologies.
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posted by Diane: 4/24/2006 07:50:00 PM | link to this post
Saturday, April 22, 2006
More craziness going on
(sigh) Just local insanity, not worth bothering anyone else with. However, Chapter 3 of The Big Meow should be going up late tonight. Thanks for your patience, all.Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/22/2006 03:59:00 PM | link to this post
Friday, April 21, 2006
Aaah, fooey (or: Trouble At t' Mill)
To The Big Meow subscribers: Nothing that I can get into now, but the whole of today has been taken up with putting out a work-related "fire". Chapter Three will go up tomorrow. Many apologies for the delay, all.
(mutter)
posted by Diane: 4/21/2006 08:23:00 PM | link to this post
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Changes coming to the weblog...
We interrupt this morning’s business (draining the fishpond to give it a much-needed cleaning and tend to the aquatic plants, and repeatedly going out to use the slingshot to scare off the starlings that are trying to nest under the roof above the window near my desk…) for an announcement about things that are going to start happening around here on the online end of things. Particularly this: now that DianeDuane.com is starting to look like something, I’m going to begin moving numerous other online bits and pieces over there…the main one being the weblog.
“Out of Ambit” is going to be reincarnated as a WordPress blog over at http://www.dianeduane.com/outofambit/. The present Blogger version will remain where it is at outofambit.blogspot.com for some time, probably several months, until I can get all the old posts imported over there and start feeling comfortable with the way the WordPress edition works. Then the Blogger address will probably be frozen, with a final forwarding post. The new OOA will have a lot less of the sidebar stuff that’s crept in over time (and which has made it slow to load): those frills and furbelows will mostly be moved into other locations at DianeDuane.com, where they won’t get so much in people’s way.
Meanwhile, the “Word Salad” blogs at dduane.livejournal.com and www.journalfen.net/users/diane_duane/ will stay right where they are, and “Out of Ambit” will link to them. And links to the other websites I care for (such as European Cuisines) will be added to all the weblogs. As Peter would probably say had he not been up all night writing, “Interconnectivity rules OK.”
None of this is going to happen overnight. I just thought it would be smart to give people a heads-up so that they won’t be unduly concerned when things start vanishing and turning up in strange new places.
Now back to the fishpond, where I will shortly be ankle-deep in mulm. (Isn’t that a great word? It’s used among fish-keeping people to describe the horrible glop that collects at the bottom of the aquarium. “Organic materials”, says one fishkeepers’ guide with an airy wave of its hand…but that definition covers a whole lot of ground. In an outdoor pond, it means rotted leaves, decaying water plants, infallen dirt, and, you guessed it, fish poop. Fortunately it doesn’t smell really bad, but it’s icky. In an aquarium you usually get rid of it by siphoning. In an outdoor pond, you drain the thing, and then bail or scoop out whatever remains…then scrub with a stiff brush, and rinse down, and bail again… What a lovely day I have ahead of me. Euuuuuuu.)
posted by Diane: 4/19/2006 11:04:00 AM | link to this post
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
"Emergency preparedness toiletry provisions"
That is to say, "buckets".
(growl)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/18/2006 03:28:00 PM | link to this post
Weeping with laughter before noon: must be a good thing
Somehow, while watching this event on "real" TV the other day, I missed this. OMG!
William Shatner sings (for certain values of "sing") to George Lucas
...Worth watching just to see Harrison Ford veering dangerously close to anoxia. George's poleaxed looks, every now and then, are also priceless.
(As it happens, P. and I are co-guests with Shatner at the Fargo Fantasy Festival later this year. I can't wait to sit down somewhere quiet with the man -- whom I haven't seen in the flesh since he was hit with a pie at a very early New York Trek convention -- and talk a little Denny Crane with him.)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/18/2006 11:23:00 AM | link to this post
How on Earth did they put up with it...?
This collection of questions purportedly sent to the organizers of the Sydney Olympics makes me seriously doubt that old canard of my teachers' that "there's no such thing as a stupid question." Yes there is! (or at least that's what I think before having my tea...)Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA)
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.
Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 90 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.
Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed porpoise. (Italy)
A: I'm not even going to ask...
Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in King's Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked.
(Thanks and a tip of the bush-hat-with-corks-hanging-off-it to Khorbin at Geeks Incognito.)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/18/2006 10:16:00 AM | link to this post
Monday, April 17, 2006
Aaah, fooey, I broke my wizardy mug
...my favorite tea mug that said "Caffeine First, Wizardry Later". I got it ages ago to test the CafePress printing system (which is pretty good). Got a little careless this morning, put it down too close to the edge of the counter, turned to pick up the teapot...and crash!
Oh well. The design was a little tired anyway, and imperfect -- the regular Tema Cantante font (that's the one they use for the titles on the YW books) doesn't work too well in smaller sizes or when there's too much text: the thin upstrokes get lost. The sans-serif Cantante, though, works better. So I've pulled the old mug designs and done new ones that wrap right around the cup instead of just being on one side. For anyone who's even slightly interested, they're here, in tea, coffee, cocoa, and generic caffeine versions (just the molecule instead of an image of a cup). You can click on the image below for a larger image showing the tea variant.
...And now I'm gonna go off and order myself one, because all the other mugs in this house are too small for the way I drink tea in the morning.
posted by Diane: 4/17/2006 03:16:00 PM | link to this post
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Today's happy New York cat story
In a purr-fect ending, a miner with a heart of gold...rescued Molly the cat last night.
After spending 14 days stuck in the guts of a 19th-century West Village building, New York's famous fur ball was safe and sound and eating sardines.
The kitty cornered in the wall had drawn such widespread attention that she had become the city's newest attraction, touching the hearts of locals and tourists alike.
...Between yesterday and the day she got stuck (April 1st), here are some of the ways they tried to get her out:
- Humane traps baited with mackerel
- Entreaties from cat therapist Carole Wilbourn
- Mewing kittens
- Tiny video cameras
- Recordings of whale and gull sounds (That was supposed to help how? Someone please explain that to me. Especially the gull sounds....)
- Pet psychic Maxine Albert
- Removing bricks from landmarked building
- Drilling holes in same (Before removing them, I assume.)
- Animal Care & Control officers
- NYPD Emergency Service Unit officers
- Catnip (Yes indeed, when all else fails, try drugs... [eyeroll]))
(See also [if you can get at it without a subscription] the New York Times's take on the story)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/15/2006 11:22:00 AM | link to this post
Friday, April 14, 2006
I think I love this: a fugu teapot
Just too cute.
(NB: this and many other things [some very non-work-safe] are here.Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/14/2006 12:24:00 AM | link to this post
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Something else I missed somehow
Oh, yeah, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I was dealing with requests for help with people's soda bread, or some such.WASHINGTON — President Bush nominated infinitely rapacious cosmic entity Galactus on Thursday to be his new interior secretary.
If confirmed by the Senate, Galactus, 11 Billion, will replace Gale Norton, who resigned last week.
Bush said Galactus, Third Force of the Universe and Devourer of Worlds, wields the Power Cosmic and has broad experience needed for eating the 388 parks of the National Park system, 544 wildlife refuges and more than 260 million acres of multiple-use lands located mainly in 12 Western states, in addition to the rest of the planet.
"Galan understands that those who live closest to the land know how to manage it best, and he will begin preparations to digest our planet immediately," Bush said.
Galactus promised to construct giant machines in the heart of Manhattan in order to "suck the very essence from the land and consume the natural resources with which your planet has been blessed."
His chances of Senate confirmation are greatly increased by his godlike endurance, immesurable intelligence, omnipotence and possession of the Ultimate Nullifier. The Senate rarely turns down cosmic beings of utter destruction, and Republicans hold the majority with 55 of 100 seats.
"Galactus is a strong nominee," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. "I look forward to his swift confirmation by the Senate."
But for some reason, not everyone seems to have liked this idea.Barbara Miller, a citizen activist in northern Idaho who has fought for decades to get more health screening for local people affected by historic lead and zinc pollution from the Bunker Hill Mine, said Galactus has an interest in eating the planet Earth, at the expense of the environment.
See, now, those pesky fault-finding tree-huggers, they'll complain about just anything.Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/12/2006 08:49:00 PM | link to this post
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
The Morning Star has a new neighbor
The Venus Express has successfully gone into orbit. Yay ESA!After the end of the main engine burn, Venus Express still had to perform a few automatic operations. These included re-orienting the solar panels towards the Sun and one of its high gain antennas (the smaller High Gain Antenna 2) towards Earth.
It is through this antenna that the spacecraft established the first communication link with Earth and started to send back information about its health status. The spacecraft data are sent to ESA's European Spacecraft Operations Centre (ESOC) via ESA's Cebreros ground station near Madrid. The data downlink lasts for a few hours.
(Long enough for him to start blogging, it looks like. Wonder if that downlink counts as broadband?)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/11/2006 11:38:00 AM | link to this post
Oh, boy, this one's going to run and run...
Christians Sue For Right Not To Tolerate PoliciesRuth Malhotra went to court last month for the right to be intolerant.
Malhotra says her Christian faith compels her to speak out against homosexuality. But the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she's a senior, bans speech that puts down others because of their sexual orientation.
Malhotra sees that as an unacceptable infringement on her right to religious expression. So she's demanding that Georgia Tech revoke its tolerance policy.
And a little further on in the article we find out why:In their lawsuit against Georgia Tech, Malhotra and her co-plaintiff, a devout Jewish student named Orit Sklar, request unspecified damages. But they say their main goal is to force the university to be more tolerant of religious viewpoints.
So let me get this straight. They're suing to stop tolerance...to increase tolerance? (headclutch)
I have got to stop reading the news before I've had my tea. (staggers off, muttering)Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/11/2006 10:44:00 AM | link to this post
Monday, April 10, 2006
Chapter Two of "The Big Meow" now available to the public
The book's second chapter is now available to non-subscribers. You'll find it here:
http://www.the-big-meow.com/ch2/ChapterTwoGateway.php
The chapter is available in Web-friendly HTML, Adobe .PDF, and MobiMate/MobiPocket .PRC formats (for the Palm OS and other PDAs).
Chapter Three is scheduled to go online for subscribers on April 21.
Enjoy!Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/10/2006 12:03:00 PM | link to this post
Friday, April 07, 2006
"Phoenix systems": planets forming around post-nova stars...
Wowie!NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has uncovered new evidence that planets might rise from a dead star's ashes.
The infrared telescope surveyed the scene around a pulsar, the remnant of an exploded star, and found a surrounding disk made up of debris shot out during the star's death throes. The dusty rubble in this disk might ultimately stick together to form planets.
This is the first time scientists have detected planet-building materials around a star that died in a fiery blast.
posted by Diane: 4/07/2006 11:42:00 AM | link to this post
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The original fish out of water
Yet another cool "missing link":Fossils of a species of fish in the act of adapting to life on land have been found by scientists, shedding new light on one of the most momentous events in evolution.
The well-preserved remains of creatures with a crocodile-like head and flattened body neatly fill a gap between fish and the first creatures to walk on land.
Previous fossils representing this milestone have essentially been fish with a few land characteristics, or slightly fishy land vertebrates. The newly-found fossils show an animal that sits between the two.
Dr Ted Daeschler, of the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia, said: "The find is a dream come true."Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/06/2006 10:39:00 AM | link to this post
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Today's incredibly dumb thing that I did...
Put Chapter Two up for the subscribers very, very early this morning, and then forgot to edit the gateway page so that other human beings could actually get at it.
Many apologies, everybody. It's accessible now. (And I had a chance to get at it again this morning and remove some typos that squeaked through.)
If you're not a subscriber and you'd like to see the chapter before it goes public, now's the time to go to the Big Meow subscriptions page and choose the option that best appeals to you -- single-chapter or full-novel.Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/04/2006 02:27:00 PM | link to this post
Monday, April 03, 2006
"The Big Meow" update: subscribers, please note
Chapter access and location info for Chapter Two of The Big Meow are now starting to go out (as of around 10:00 GMT) via the subscriber/donor mailing list. The directory location and username/password info for the page are different from the old ones. If you're a subscriber to the book (either whole-book or single chapter) and haven't seen an email by 1800 GMT or so with the necessary information, please email me at the address in the sidebar, putting the word ACCESS in the subject line.
The page you'll be directed to is a placeholder page only: the chapter won't be up until late tonight. Sorry for the delay, but as sometimes happens, over the weekend, Life Occurred. (Nothing serious. But things are running a little slower than anticipated, that's all.)
Onward...Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/03/2006 11:17:00 AM | link to this post
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Designer grits
An idea whose time has come.
Don't think I'm making fun of this. I like grits. (The voice from the next room says, "And I married you anyway...!") My mother was a Maryland woman, and passed on to me her great fondness for them. (Before the inevitable question arises: I am a butter-salt-and-pepper-on-my-grits person. I've never understood the sugar-and-milk-on-breakfast-grits school of thought, but in the interests of human diversity, and in a world this size, I'm sure we can all agree to Just Get Along.)
Yes, most commercially-marketed grits have tasted mostly like wallpaper paste for a long time. And forget the "instant" stuff: you could use it for spackle. I prefer the rougher texture of the grits of my childhood...but for a long time they've been nowhere to be found. However, it looks like they're having a renaissance. Something else to add to my next order at Albertsons...
By the way, there's a strange resonance in this issue to something that's been going on in Irish cuisine. There's a dish called champ which was often a kids' suppertime dish here in older days: essentially mashed potatoes with chopped-up scallions or green onions in it. It tends to have been cordially hated by Irish kids whose parents made them eat it. However, it's been having a renaissance as a "cool food": you run into designer champ now in quite pricey restaurants on both sides of the Irish Sea. (Our own St. Patrick's day menu for our restaurateur friend in Basel, when we go over there to cook it next year, includes crown roast of rowanberry-and-red-wine-glazed Wicklow lamb with three champs -- roasted garlic/clotted cream, spinach/nutmeg, and saffron/sweet potato: an edible Irish tricolor.) Yet another manifestation of the way food people keep searching for older, often peasant-based food styles and cuisines that have fallen by the wayside, and revive them as The Cool New Thing. Remember when rocket/aragula was a weed? Remember when people thought corn fungus was icky? Remember when no one would touch a pig cheek, let alone think about eating it?
I have to laugh sometimes at the upmarket pretensions that get heaped on what are often peasant-originated dishes or poor people's food long rejected by those who didn't have to eat "that stuff" any more. But it's nonetheless great to see these solid, tasty foods rediscovered after having been dumped or forgotten for so long. Once the designer madness dies down, we can then get back to eating them just plain the way they are.Tags:
posted by Diane: 4/01/2006 10:50:00 AM | link to this post
That being the case, sometimes I want to talk about anything but writing (at least, writing per se).
This is the old Blogger version of where that would happen. Click here to see where it happens now.
Biography
Bibliography / filmography
2008:
The Geneva Convention
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