Food Experiments This Week
28 Feb 2010 3 Comments
in cooking, Food, Life, Recipes Tags: fish, pasta, pesto, Recipes, teriyaki, yellowtail
February Breakthrough!! How could I have been living without a food processor for the past 26 years??
Broccolini, walnut and garlic pesto. Wooha!
Wow, this picture makes my amazing pesto look like a leftover from Slimer from the Ghostbusters ::le sigh:: There just ain’t no way to do good food photography at 9pm in the middle of February in Japan under a huge fluorescent light ^^;;; But that having been said, this pesto was great! A nice way to get your veg and a little pep into your system. Be careful not to add too much extra garlic though (as I inevitably do) because this is a raw pesto…
Broccoli Rabe and Walnut Pesto (from Melissa Jacobson over at FoodandWine)
* 1/3 cup(s) walnuts
* 2 tablespoon(s) walnuts, combined with above
* 1/2 pound(s) broccoli rabe, trimmed
* 1 clove(s) garlic
* 1/3 cup(s) extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 tablespoon(s) extra-virgin olive oil, combined with above
* Pinch of crushed red pepper
* 1/3 cup(s) grated pecorino cheese, plus more for serving
* Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
* 3/4 pound(s) linguineDirections
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the walnuts in a pie plate and toast for 8 minutes, until fragrant and lightly golden; let cool. Chop 2 tablespoons of the walnuts.
2. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the broccoli rabe until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and let cool under cold water. Squeeze out the excess water and coarsely chop the broccoli rabe.
3. In a food processor, mince the garlic. Add the 1/3 cup of walnuts; pulse until coarsely chopped. Add the broccoli rabe, olive oil, and crushed red pepper and process until the broccoli rabe is very finely chopped. Add the 1/3 cup of pecorino and pulse until just combined. Season with salt and pepper. Scrape the pesto into a large bowl.
4. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the linguine until al dente. Drain, reserving 3/4 cup of the pasta cooking water. Add the linguine to the pesto sauce, then stir in the reserved cooking water and toss until the pasta is well coated with the pesto sauce. Sprinkle with the chopped walnuts and serve at once, passing more pecorino at the table.
Also this week was the (surprisingly late) foray into teriyaki fish.
Teriyaki yellowtail, garlic mashed potatoes and sauteed brussel sprouts.
There couldn’t be an easier way to cook tasty fish in less then 15 minutes. What I cooked was a nice buri fillet, which I think is called yellowtail or sometimes amberjack in English. Trust me here people, even if you abhor fish you will like buri. Number 1: it has no “fishy” smell. This is the only fish I cook that doesn’t leave me house stinking for 10 hours afterward. Number 2: It doesn’t taste like fish. It doesn’t have that oily sea taste that people don’t like. The flesh is firm, white, and juicy – but nothing at all like chicken. It tastes great on its own or with a glaze or (the best!!) as sashimi.
*Makes 4 servings.
Ingredients:* 4 fillets buri (yellowtail)
* 2 tbsps sake rice wine
* 1 tbsp soy sauce
* For teriyaki sauce: 2 tsps sugar, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 4 tbsps mirinPreparation:
Mix sake and soy sauce in a bowl and marinate fish in the sauce for 5-10 minutes. Wipe the liquid from the fish and set aside. Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry fish until browned. Mix teriyaki sauce ingredients to make teriyaki sauce. Wipe some excess oil in the frying pan with a pager towel. Pour teriyaki sauce over fish in the pan. Simmer the fish for 10 minutes over low heat.
I’ll have to post my brussel sprout recipe one day, I just can’t stand when people think they only way to eat the little buggers is boiled into oblivion ::shakes fingers at imaginary over-cookers:: So what are you all cooking to keep away the February blues?
~MS the Perpetually Hungry
Ravelympics 2010 and Crafting Craziness
24 Feb 2010 2 Comments
in Craft, Life, links Tags: charity crafting, craft for charity, crafting, crafts, crochet, fun, links, Ravelry, Ravelympics
Hey all! I’m having great fun this year watching my second Olympic Games in Japan (the first was Beijing). What did you think of the opening ceremony? I have to say I was absolutely floored by it – the colors, the incorporation of different cultures, the dancing (the ballet dancers seriously brought a tear to my eye), the AMAZING PUNK CONTRA-DANCE AT THE END OMG (I think they were called the Fiddlers from the East? Does anyone have a link to a video of that section?)… does anyone else want one of the costumes from that section for Saint Paddy’s Day or just for some awesome fun days out? Holy Moly!! The Boston Globe’s got some great pictures from the ceremony over here.
But that’s all beside the point… because…. I’ve joined the:
Ravelry is hosting this great event for all crafters! Basically, you start a project while watching the opening ceremony and must complete it before the closing ceremony. There are 33 events for people to join like the aerial unwind (for those frogging old projects), skelegurumi (amigurumi projects) and the Hat Halfpipe (which is pretty obvious ^^). I’ve joined the WIPs-dancing category with this lovely yet-to-be-finished project, what I’m calling the “Sunny Sky” baby blanket! It’s for a dear co-worker who’s just started his family with a little baby boy. I hate blatantly “boy” or “girl” color schemes for kids, so I went with this happy sky blue/sun yellow/cloud white combo.
The pattern’s from the Coats and Clark website. It’s a free pattern called the “Hexagon Baby Blanket” and is very easy… as long as you stick to the required six sides… which I didn’t. I was completing the 3rd round at a stitch’n'bitch gathering, which is where you establish the 6 sides… and a week later I looked at the little bugger after adding a few more rows and realized that it was very… extremely… ruffly O.o I passed it to my friend to take a look at. She gave me a funny look and asked to see the pattern. “MS” she said, “What’s this pattern called?” I said, “It’s a hexagon baby blanket.” “… how many sides does a hexagon have?” “6?” “Then, why does your blanket have 14 sides?” We laughed until out sides burst!! …and then I pulled out a mile of yarn and started again!!
The pattern’s completely made of DCs and Chain stitches, combined to make bobbles. It’s really useful to put stitch markers at each of the 6 corners. So you don’t make extras. Unless you like corners as much as I do! ^^
Anyway, I’ve found some freaking amazing websites recently in my trawl of the internet for free crafting instructions. First runner-up
is Craft Hope. The people at Craft Hope collect donations of hand-crafted goods like scarves, sock monkeys, and quilts. Their current projects is CraftHope for Haiti. They collected an amazing array of handmade items and put them into an Etsy store. So far they’ve raised over $30,000 to donate to Doctors without Borders. Head over there quick to see what’s left, they’re closing the store down soon! Head over to their “Get Involved” page if you’re interested in donating hand-made items to their next project. What a wonderful way for people to help out while doing something they love (and finding good homes for those extra scarves and outerwear pieces knitters and crocheters always seem to have hanging about.)
Next is The Cottage Industrialist. I’m loving her blog, with its combination of free printables like that amazing Valentine you see on the left, super fun craft and project ideas, and of course the (necessary for blogs I subscribe to) food references!!! I’m especially loving her printable month-by-month calendar. First, they’re cute and well designed. Second, they include recipes seasonal foods. They’re a collaboration! Which led me to discover the person who put the recipes in the calendar, the lovely lady over at HomeEc101 – all the things you wish your mother had taught you. She’s like Martha Stewart, except without the scary.
Woo, this post is getting a bit long, but there’s still so much to tell you about! Guess we’ll just have to wait for next time. Happy crafting people!
~MS the Crochet-crazy
Related MadSilence post: Knit Your Bit
Related Links:
The 2010 Knitting Olympics
Olympians in magazines – Crochet Today
Victorian fancy
21 Feb 2010 4 Comments
in Art, Life, Popular Culture, Thoughts Tags: collage, Metropolitan Museum of Art, photocollage, Playing with Pictures
Image: www.metmuseum.org
On a recent visit to the Met I discovered this delightful exhibition of Victorian handicraft. I’ve expressed my admiration of assemblage and its components, including collage and photomontage, in a previous post. What’s most engaging about Playing with Pictures is how the exhibition captures the spirit of a pivotal time in art history, resonating with Victorian cultural trends. Late 19th century Victorian visual culture was influenced by a number of factors: the Industrial Revolution; advent of cheap chromolithography; rise of the middle class; evolution of photography; growing demand for artistic skills in the workplace; and the growing popularity of collecting and scrap booking. Add to the mix wealthy Victorian women with the leisure time for creative expression and you have these whimsical photo-collages.
Interestingly, these were private constructions, not made for public distribution. Moreover, how did these products of the decorative arts find their way into a fine arts museum? Being a great fan of Victorian culture I’m glad they did.
The exhibition is funded by The Hite Foundation which makes “grants intended to promote the understanding and appreciation of 19th century British photography” and organized by The Art Institute of Chicago.
According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art:
Sixty years before the embrace of collage techniques by avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century, aristocratic Victorian women were already experimenting with photocollage. The compositions they made with photographs and watercolors are whimsical and fantastical, combining human heads and animal bodies, placing people into imaginary landscapes, and morphing faces into common household objects. Such images, often made for albums, reveal the educated minds as well as the accomplished hands of their makers. With sharp wit and dramatic shifts of scale akin to those Alice experienced in Wonderland, these images stand the rather serious conventions of early photography on their heads. The exhibition features forty-eight works from the 1860s and 1870s, from public and private collections.
Here are two of my favorite collages. I love the sly humour evident in ‘Mixed Pickles.’ And [butterfly] captures the Victorian obsession with natural science.
'Mixed Pickles'
butterfly
The exhibition, Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage, will be on display at the Met from February 2nd through May 9th. View images from the exhibition here. Should you visit the exhibition be sure to view the album of Victorian trade cards displayed in the hallway outside the exhibition room.
Related links:
Project b: Victorian photocollages
Project b is a world of vintage photos for collectors, found artifacts, art and ideas -the obsession of Barbara Levine, curator, collector, and artist.
’Playing With Pictures’ Multimedia from The New York Times
The Weird World Of Photo Collage
The Other Victorians
Image credits:
Victoria Alexandrina Anderson-Pelham, Countess of Yarborough (English, 1840–?), and Eva Macdonald (English, 1846/50–?).
Detail from “Mixed Pickles,” from the Westmorland Album, 1864/70. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. www.metmuseum.org
Image [butterfly]: Marie-Blanche-Hennelle Fournier (French, 1831–1906). Untitled page from the Madame B Album, 1870s. The Art Institute of Chicago, Mary and Leigh Block Endowment, 2005.297. www.metmuseum.org
Spring is Springing!
18 Feb 2010 2 Comments
in Japan, Life Tags: flowers, Japan, kenrokuen, plum, spring, ume
To Spring William Blake (1783)
O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down
Through the clear windows of the morning, turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!The hills tell one another, and the listening
Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turn’d
Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth
And let thy holy feet visit our clime!Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee.O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,
Whose modest tresses are bound up for thee.
A mystery flower - it reminds me of witchhazel.
The ume (plum trees) are getting ready to pop! Give them another week and they'll be turning their cheery faces to the sun!
The little flower that could - opening before all the rest.
This beautiful waxy flower actually was in full bloom 2 weeks ago! It's one of the earliest harbingers of spring here. They smell like a champage and oranges!
I made a pilgrimage to Kenrokuen this weekend to see if there were any signs of spring yet peeking through the snow… lo and behold there were some plant-y rays of sunshine to brighten my day! In another week or two the famous plum grove will be bedecked as gaudily and brightly as any spring bride!
Post pictures of the signs of spring in your neighborhood and link back here!
~MS the Younger (and sun-shine starved)
The homely art of death
17 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Life, Thoughts Tags: funeral, home funeral, memorial
An article in The New York Times reported on the growing popularity of “home funerals, where everything from caring for the dead to the visiting hours to the building of the coffin is done at home…“
An article at Smithsonian.com (The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral) mirrored such sentiments:
A movement toward home after-death care has convinced thousands of Americans to deal with their own dead. A nonprofit organization called Crossings maintains that besides saving lots of money, home after-death care is greener than traditional burials—bodies pumped full of carcinogenic chemicals, laid in metal coffins in concrete vaults under chemically fertilized lawns—which mock the biblical concept of “dust to dust.” Cremating an unembalmed body (or burying it in real dirt) would seem obviously less costly and more eco-friendly. But more significant, according to advocates, home after-death care is also more meaningful for the living.
Nor is the idea new, as reported in The Washington Post.com article appropriately titled, A Movement to Bring Grief Back Home. PBS addressed the topic in the POV documentary, A Family Undertaking.
Apparently home funerals were the norm in America prior to the Civil War.
Prior to the Civil War, caring for and preparing the dead for burial on family farms or in local cemeteries was both a domestic skill and a family responsibility. The trauma of the Civil War created the need for a new profession: that of undertaker. The advent of the undertaker marked a sharp and negative shift in American attitudes toward death. For many, the death of a loved one became an alienating event, sanitized and institutionalized. Americans literally lost touch with death.
And while family stories of an Irish wake in the Bronx where the body of the deceased was propped up in the casket to enjoy a final drink in the living room seem to put the lie to the dearth of such funerals in the 20th century, after some thought I find much appeal to the idea.
~MadSilence
Instructions for Obstruction
15 Feb 2010 2 Comments
in Art, Life, Thoughts Tags: coat hanger, hanger, kinetic art, Man Ray, mobile
Man Ray: Obstruction, 1920
Man Ray’s Obstruction [...] was built up from a pyramid of coat-hangers, each with two more hangers suspended from its ends. Man Ray continued this system in arithmetic progression until almost the whole room was obstructed. Because of its regular structure the pyramid had an even but changeable equilibrium; if only one hanger was set in motion, the whole pyramid oscillated with it. Source: MoMA
Man Ray: Obstruction, 1920; Obstruction, 1964, lithograph.
Images via: Artopia John Perreault’s art diary
Related MadSilence post: And thereby hangs a tale
Let me call you Sweetheart
15 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in Japan, Life, Thoughts Tags: NECCO, Sweethearts, Valentine's Day
If the US Census Bureau is to be believed, there are no romantic-sounding places to spend Valentine’s Day in New York State.
The closest is found in Maryland: Rosemont.
My favorite: Romeoville, Ill.
One place name we all should recognize: Loveland. There’s one in Colorado and another in Ohio.
According to this CBS Sunday Morning News video Share the Love, people from around the world send their Valentines by the boxload to Loveland, Colorado so volunteers can stamp each one with a poem and decoration before it makes its way to that special someone.
Guess us New Yorkers will have to find solace in some Valentine sweet like… NECCO® Sweetheart candy hearts. According to the New England Confectionery Company, Inc. (“NECCO”) website:
Sweethearts Conversation Hearts are an American candy icon – in fact, these pastel sugar hearts with playful sayings are so famous and popular that they were memorialized on a U.S. postage stamp in 2004! Every year, NECCO manufactures over 8 billion Sweetheart Conversation Hearts in order to meet consumer demands for these Valentine’s Day favorites.
NECCO Tiny Sweethearts
You can create your own personalized Sweethearts candies here.
Valentine's Day in Japan
Japan celebrates Valentine’s Day, but how they celebrate will surprise most Westerners.
Valentine’s Day In Japan is for chocolate lovers.
And thereby hangs a tale
11 Feb 2010 8 Comments
in Life, Thoughts Tags: clothes hanger, coat hanger, hanger
The Versailles Hotel, Miami Beach, FL
Is it possible to explore history and art through the study of something as ubiquitous and mundane as the coat hanger? A utilitarian artifact of human design?
While cleaning out our closets I discovered some vintage clothes hangers with aesthetic appeal and a story to tell. A wooden hanger stamped with the name of the Versailles Hotel in Miami Beach (“On the Ocean at 35th Street”) is, I suspect, a souvenir from my in-laws 1940s honeymoon trip to Florida, a memorable event immortalized by a plague of Palmetto Bugs…
Image: Courtesy of Florida Memory State Library & Archives of Florida. http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/
Who Invented The Coat Hanger? Today’s wire coat hanger was inspired by a clothes hook patented in 1869, by O. A. North of New Britain, Connecticut. Albert J. Parkhouse, an employee of Timberlake Wire and Novelty Company in Jackson, Michigan, created a coat hanger in 1903, in response to co-workers’ complaints of too few coat hooks. He bent a piece of wire into two ovals with the ends twisted together to form a hook. Parkhouse patented his invention, but it is not known if he profited from it.
Another hanger taken from our closet, of smooth varnished wood in that familiar flattened bell-curve design, has a wooden dowel suspended by twisted wire to hold the matching pants to a man’s suit jacket: “Look for the Kuppenheimer Label”. Decades ago a suit designed by the House of Kuppenheimer decorated this very hanger.
In 1991, an exhibition titled “Out of the Closet: American Hangers” was held at the Ricco-Maresca Gallery, 105 Hudson Street near Franklin Street in TriBeCa. The exhibition exhibited antique hangers from the collection of Harris Diamant:
These are not the kind the dry cleaning comes on. These are hangers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hangers to be proud of. Shaker hangers. Old-fashioned collapsible travel hangers. Hangers for blocking sweaters on. Even the wire hangers are esthetically pleasing enough that Joan Crawford might have allowed a few into her closets. (Then again, maybe not.)
Clothes hangers do indeed possess aesthetic appeal. Check out these contemporary examples:
This year, Great American Hanger Co. sent out its first consumer mail-order catalog; sales are projected to reach $10 million, up from $7.5 million in 2006. The Hanger Project, a year-old retailer, recently placed a wholesale order for 10,000 hangers; it’s first, last fall. was for 800 Premium hangers boast details like extrawide shoulders, flocked, nonslip trouser bars, a range of widths to accommodate different suit sizes, and a variety of finishes to match your closet. Oh, and they cost as much as $35. Each. Via
Check out this coat hanger art via InventorSpot. And these Clothes Hanger Chandeliers by Organelle Design.
Finally, there’s the hanger that comes from the Renew’ry dry cleaners at 2430 Jerome Ave. in the Bronx (“For QUALITY Dry Cleaning or Pressing, Phone SED 3-2737″). Another family heirloom. The wooden hanger holds its own aesthetic appeal, smooth to the touch, black-inked letters pressed into the wood.
***********************************************************************
Stories: Collecting Old Clothes Hangers
Links:
18 Modern Clothes Hanger Designs
The Clothes Hanger: And Thereby Hangs the Tale
Image credit: The House of Kuppenheimer, 1906. “Courtesy of The New York Public Library. www.nypl.org”
~MadSilence
Find Peace in this Tuna
08 Feb 2010 1 Comment
in Food, Japan, videos Tags: Darth Vader, Food, funny, Japan, Luke Skywalker, star wars, tuna fish, videos
Ah Japan, I love how you find a bandwagon, add something odd and unrelated, and then jump on it. Who knew that Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader could have repaired their familial rift it they just sat down for a nice tuna sandwich with a side of tuna salad? Maybe they put something very special in their mayonaise ^^;;;
At the very end, after C3PO disrupts the (bow-initiated) duel, the narrator says “Peace can be found in this deliciousness.” Maybe they should think about serving this at the COP meetings!
~MS the Hungry-for-a-tuna-sandwich
PS: Don’t forget to take a good look at C3PO at the very end of the video – I didn’t realize that robots had panty lines or boobs XDDD
Back from the Land of Oz
05 Feb 2010 1 Comment
Hey all! Sorry for the exceedingly long break in posting!!! Hope Dad’s been keeping you entertained while I’ve been away ~_^ Where did I disappear to, you might ask… winter vacation featured another jaunt past the equator into the land of meat, meat, meat, a little sun, and more meat! In other words, Australia! We saw lots of wildlife while there…
Ok, so I didn’t see much of this kind of Australian wildlife ^^;;; This is about as close to meeting a hot Aussie boy as I got:
This kangaroo was veeeeeeeery friendly. I guess that old adage “quickest way to the heart is through the stomach” is true for all species. I wouldn’t want to date someone who wanted me only for my alfalfa anyway ^^;;;
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