Lakeshore

Fiction and Culture

A review of the Solaris Book of New Fantasy — With moderately good words for yours truly.

Edible.com — For the truly adventurous gourmand. (Thanks to danjite.)

Where news breaks — Another cool squib from Strange Maps

Oregon attorney slaps cop with illegal parking complaint — My home town...

jimhines with some thoughts on men and rape — Somber topic, worth the read.

Science and Technology

Halftrack Alfa Romeo — :: wants ::

Sexually Transmitted Bug is the Strongest Organism — Gonorrhea-powered machines? Is this what orgone energy has come to?

Laptops as earthquake sensors — Distributed computing using the accelerometers built into laptops to provide seismic data. The Internet is so cool.

Politics and Religion

Muslim call to adopt Mecca time — Uh huh. Nice to see some clear-minded thinking from the spiritual quarter. prof_brotherton is all over it. They must get those Muslim "scientists" from the same place the DI gets their "biologists". (Thanks to danjite.)

Closing the "collapse gap" — Some vestpocket comparative analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the alleged impending collapse of the American empire. A bit on the fringe, but interesting nonetheless.

Rice, death and the dollar — A fascinating piece in the Asia Times connecting the dollar's decline to the growing world food shortage. In general, I find non-US perspectives on American politics and policy very interesting, because they tend to stand outside our baseline assumptions. A lot of Americans don't think we have anything to learn from the rest of the world (and one of them sits in the big chair in the White House), but that's just sheer nativist idiocy. (Snurched from Daily Kos)

George Will moves to the left of Democrats — George Will on the Wall Street bailouts. For once, I think I agree with Mr. Will on something. This just in: snow in Hell.

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4/22/08
Time in saddle: 0 minutes (30 minute walk instead)
Last night's weigh-out: n/a
This morning's weigh-in: n/a
Currently reading: Flood by Andrew Vachss [ Powell's | Amazon ]

Mmm. South Carolina. Which has apparently borrowed Portland's weather.

I'm here, safe and sound. Had expected to meet up with the jeffvandermeers tonight, but they are running rather late. On the other hand, I'm three hours out of my native time zone, so what do I care? Got jet lag?

I passed a likely looking bbq restaurant on my way in to the hotel, so after checking in to both my room and the festival, I betook my rental car (courtesy of the Hertz random upgrade program, a spanking new Mercury Mariner) back to Maurice's BBQ, specifically the Lexington location.

The place is very blue collar. Not that faux blue collar that's popular in the post-fern bar world of semihip restaurants, but the real thing. The interior is a monument to Southern culture, right down to the church basement furniture and the extensive display of Civil War posters, commemoratives and letters. I have a number of relatives who died in the War of Northern Aggression (did you know I am a sixth generation Texan?) so I think I'm on safe ground to observe that celebrating your ancestors' crushing defeat in an unjust war a century and a half ago is a heck of a basis for a regional culture.

However, this same regional culture produces awesome brisket. This being South Carolina, it was lathered with mustard-based bbq sauce, which I am ok with. With some Texas style vinegar-based sauce the brisket would have been heavenly. Decent hush puppies and mediocre fries came with, along with good cole slaw. I'm going to see if I can drag the jeffvandermeers out there some time this weekend. Among other things, the fresh made onion rings appeal.

Maybe I'll take my camera that time.

Bailed on Madness of Flowers a little after 2. lasirenadolce, the_child and I headed for tillyjane's house for Peking duck with AH, lillypond, the Niece, and family friends S and his granddaughter E. W had pot stickers, lo mien, and homemade duck, followed by lemon bars and sorbet. It was all topped off with a rousing game of Apples to Apples, courtesy of the_child.

Back to work tomorrow. In other news, I hear the Giants won something. I didn't realize it was baseball season yet. Go, San Francisco!

Can anybody tell me what burnt or burning saffron smells like? I'll get by someplace and buy some in the next day or so if I need to, but I thought somebody might have experienced this along the way.

Per a request from brisingamen, the current version of the biscuit recipe. This is based on the epicurean.com recipe found here, with substantial input from khaybee and ellameena, and taste testing from the_child and lasirenadolce.

Ingredients:
2 cups sifted pastry flour (cake flour may be substituted, in either case, "soft wheat" flour)
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons turbinado sugar (raw sugar with large, rough crystals)
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using bacon grease)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup of butter chilled (can substitute 2 tablespoons of bacon grease for 2 tablespoons of butter)
3/4 cup whole fat butter milk, room temperature

Sift flour, baking powder, turbinado sugar, salt (if used) and cream of tartar together into large mixing bowl. With pastry knife, cut in butter (and bacon grease if used) until bits of butter are size of rice grains. Mix in buttermilk, only until ingredients are blended.

Do not overmix, do not let be too wet or too dry

Form into a ball; pat out on floured board to 3/4-inch thickness. Cut biscuits using a round cutter (I use a drinking glass dipped in flour). Place on baking parchment on cookie sheet. Bake at 475 degrees for 10 minutes or until golden brown.

Others have suggested lard, goose fat or duck fat as the shortening. Experiment to taste. My next step is to slightly up the leavening to see if I can achieve a lighter density.

( A little bit of food pr0n for you bread lovers. )

The Flickr set

Tried another variation on biscuits today, and have hit very close to home. ellameena's flour recommendations were right on the mark, though I haven't been able to find the brand she suggested. (White Lily, if anyone in the greater PDX metropolitan area has spotted it somewhere.)

Today I used Pillsbury cake flour, and substituted 25% of the butter with bacon grease. If I'd remembered to cut the added salt, because of the bacon grease's inherent salt, they would have tasted close to perfect.

All I need now is to fool with the leavening a little to see if I can make them rise a bit more. Also, the bacon grease makes the dough taste slightly funny, if you're a nibble-as-you-go cook like I am.

We had bacon and fried eggs with, the eggs topped wet in the pan with a bit of curry powder, dried mustard and ground pepper.

Green shortly.

Breakfast:

• 1/4 pound bacon, slow cooked in cast iron pan


• scratch biscuits (which are finally coming out right thanks to some failure analysis from khaybee)


• one egg cracked into small bowl, heavily dusted with curry powder and fresh-ground black pepper, allowed to sit for 10 minutes, then fried over medium in bacon grease


• large glass orange juice

My right knee and right wrist still ache, but I am Comforted.

Writing shortly.

This afternoon while misspending some time, khaybee, danjite and I went by Fubonn, the Asian superstore for all your durian fruit and pig uterus needs. Opting to pass on those items, we scored some other Asian food of various descriptions. Some of this is even now being cooked in the kitchen as I write.

However, in the interests of science and as a public service, ( we decided to taste test some Asian soda pop so you don't have to. )

As usual, more at the Flickr set

Remember, here at this blog we live vicariously through ourselves. This has been a public service bulletin. The comments section is now open for your suggestions about this blog's next tasting panel, to spare you the agony.

Hopping on a plane to Omaha momentarily. Mostly a slow weekend, in which I was unusually low energy and logey. I did manage to cook momos on Sunday over at tillyjane's house, which redeemed me from the awful biscuits I'd made first thing in the am. (Important safety tip — two year old yeast is no substitute for baking powder. Keep creme of tartar around, damn it!) Back on the writing horse today, among other things. Expect intermittent wit and erudition this week,

Wow. Long day at the office. Hours of client meetings. Discovered my job is about to change quite a bit (for the good). Unusual rumblings in the publishing end of life, possibly to the good and in no wise to the bad. I have to do a bunch of writing work real quick, but when is that ever not the case?

After all of that, I hied off to the palatial estates of garyomaha and elusivem to cook momos and ginger chocolate chip cookies for the Omaha Beach Party. That took a long time, slightly burned two fingertips (not so good for the typing) and was fun and delicious.

Back at the hotel, with wakeup for, erm, 5 and half hours from now. I'll fly to Portland, be home for about two or three hours (with an assist from lasirenadolce) before toddling off to Orycon. We go straight from there to Texas Sunday. I won't sleep in my own bed til a week from Saturday when I get back from the Lone Star State.

Whee!

Hover bacon. Turn your speakers up.

Note to self: no more beer, cheese and bacon soup.

Seriously.

Ever.

That is all. You may shop as usual. No need to return to your homes.

Went out last night with dave_gallaher, dinogrl, frankwu, bovil and kproche. We ate Indian food and talked about fan politics, the Campbell Award, video production, jewelry, and I don't know what all else. It was a lot of fun. A nice personal highlight to this hot-turn Day Job trip.

All day meeting here in Pleasanton. Wit and erudition continue in short supply. However, you may shop as usual, there is no need to return to your homes.

Critical questions for Portlanders out there:

Now that Big Daddy's has closed down, where can I find southern-fried pickles in this town?

Ditto Midwestern style pork loin sandwiches like the White Horse used to serve.

And where is there decent, non-chain Tex-Mex out here?

After almost eight years living here, you'd think I'd know the answers to critical questions such as these.

Hungry? Me?

In addition to an unexpected visit yesterday, we spent the day earthquake-proofing bookshelves, unpacking books and baking ginger chocolate chip cookies. ( Photographic evidence of same. )

A while back deedop's excellent food blog Belly Timber covered these same cookies, with recipe.

As usual, more photos at the Flickr sets here and here.