Nelley and Jim, monkeys at Woodland Park Zoo, 1908


Adam & Eve on a raft and wreck ’em: two scrambled eggs on toast
Angels on horseback: oysters rolled in bacon and served on toast
Axle grease/cow paste: butter
Baby: glass of milk
Birdseed: breakfast
Bloodhounds in the hay: hot dogs and sauerkraut
Bossy in a bowl: beef stew
Break it and shake it: add egg to a drink
Bridge party: four of anything
Bronx vanilla: garlic
Bubble dancer: dishwasher
Bucket of cold mud: bowl of chocolate ice cream
Check the ice: a hot woman just walked in
China: rice pudding
Clean up the kitchen: hash
Dog soup: water
Foreign entanglements: spaghetti
Gentleman will take a chance: plate of hash
Hot blonde in sand: coffee with cream and sugar
Indiana Jones: customers arriving just before closing time
Keep off the grass: no lettuce
Let it walk: to go
Lighthouse: bottle of ketchup
M.D. : Dr Pepper
Mother and child reunion: chicken and egg sandwich
Mystery in the alley: a side order of hash
Nervous pudding: gelatin
Noah’s boy: a slice of ham
On a rail: make it quick
One on the city: a glass of water
Shingle with a shimmy and a shake: buttered toast with jam or jelly
Sinkers: donuts
Splash of red noise: a bowl of tomato soup
Wax: American cheese
Whiskey: rye bread
Why bother: decaffeinated coffee with nonfat milk


 






Pilot's Alphabet

A Alpha N November
B Bravo O Oscar
C Charlie P Papa
D Delta Q Quebec
E Echo R Romeo
F Foxtrot S Sierra
G Golf T Tango
H Hotel U Uniform
I India V Victor
J Juliet W Whiskey
K Kilo X X ray
L Lima Y Yankee
M Mike Z Zulu

Earth Day letter, 1970

Mister Microphone














itaru yonenaga from tou




pimp my pumpkin


"a" is for atom

How to make a crispy fruit crumble

How to make a crispy fruit crumble: "

IMG_2260

I don't know about you, but I think all this talk about baking being a-precise-science-and-all-that is scaring a lot of people away from baking. I mean, I'm sure baking a ten-layer wedding cake or five hundred tarts may well be precise science. But baking just a pie or a few cookies, that's hardly more so than making a simple bowl of soup.

So, if you're one of those people, I have just a recipe for you to try. Or even if you're not, try it anyway, it's so simple and so good, you'll thank me for it later. (Hold it with the proposals though boys, I am otherwise occupied.)

This is going to be the easiest dessert you’ll ever make. Really it will. It’s basically comprised of two parts, an unusually crisp crumble topping, which comes together in minutes, and a fruit filling, which can be just about any fruit in abundance at the moment. At my market, stone fruits are just about done. So I'm sending them off with the last hurrah with the French prune plums - quetsches as they're called over there.


IMG_2257

The crumble topping is quite a bit crispier than your usual crumble,
and also quite a bit crumblier than your average crisp. I'm calling it
a 'crispy crumble'. It came together because I always thought fruit
crisps never had enough of the crispy bits to keep me happy. I'm all
about carb, you see. A pizza, for me, is all about the dough, sushi all
about the rice, and pie all about the crust. So I wanted a heftier
crisp topping, but I also wanted to keep the crisp and not just turn it
into a regular crumbly crumble. Hence born this recipe.


It actually came together pretty quickly. Starting with my usual
crumble recipe, I added oats and nuts and a little more butter just to damn
bless myself properly. You can use rolled oats, spelt flakes, or just
about any uncooked cereal flakes or blend you have on hand. The same
goes with the nuts - sliced almonds as I did here, chopped pecans should do well, or walnuts, or just about anything, really. A little bit of spice, a little bit of flour, and a little bit lot of melted butter and you're in business.

As for the fruits, you can use whatever stone fruits still hanging about in your market, or when Fall fruits arrive you can do a quince-apple-prune one like I did last year (but use this crispy crumble topping instead.)

IMG_2314

For the crispy crumble
(This makes enough to top baking dishes like this, and this. It's easy to scale it up or down to fit your appetite.)

1 1/2 sticks butter
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup rolled oats, spelt flakes, or whatever blend of uncooked cereal flakes you have on hand
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
a pinch of clove
1/4 tsp salt

In a small pot, melt the butter over medium heat. In a large bowl, dump the rest of the crispy crumble ingredients and stir to mix. Pour the melted butter over everything and stir with a fork until the dry ingredients are moistened and form clumps. Cover with plastic and let rest in the fridge while you prepare the fruits.

For the fruit filling
Enough fruit to fit your baking dish. In the large Le Creuset dishes I linked to above you'll probably need about 4-5 pounds of fruit. Cut up the fruits to big chunks, juice one lemon over them, toss with a little sugar (a little more if the fruit is sour) and a table spoon or two of flour (depending on how wet you think it might be). That's about it.

Put the fruit chunks in the baking dish, crumble the topping evenly over them. Place the baking dish on a foil-lined baking sheet to catch the drip or you might need to clean the oven afterwards. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350F (175C) for about 50 minutes. (If you're doing it in a smaller dish you might want to check at 30 minutes or so.) You should see some of the fruit juices bubbling over and the topping should be golden brown, that's when you're done. Oh, yes, and your house should smell heavenly too. That's how you know.

Zabars Challah

09/09/2009

Recipe for Simple Sweet Challah

Enjoy this week's recipe from Andrea Watman
Simple Sweet Challah

This is my favorite Challah recipe. It is easy to make – and the sweet taste of the bread is just wonderful. I serve it warm with honey on Rosh Hashanah. Growing up my Grandma Bertha made dinner every Friday night. She set a beautiful table with a Challah as the centerpiece. No, she didn’t bake it – she walked to 161st Street and Gerard Avenue in the Bronx – to The G & R Bakery. If you lived anywhere near Yankee Stadium The G & R Bakery was where you met on Friday’s. You had to go early in the day because there would always be a line. The Challah was so shiny that as I child I thought it was polished. For years I tried to bake Challah and could never master it. This recipe has never failed me – so I hope you’ll give it a try.

450_challah




Ingredients:
2 packages dry yeast
2/3 Cup Warm Water (110 degrees)
5 Egg Yolks – Lightly Beaten
3 Whole Eggs – Lightly Beaten
7 Tablespoons Corn Oil
½ Cup Sugar
2 Teaspoons Salt
4 ½ Cups Flour
1 Cup Raisins (Optional)
1 Egg Yolk – Beaten
Poppy Seeds (optional)

Preparation:
1. In cup or small bowl dissolve Yeast in the warm water with approx 1 tablespoon of sugar. After just a few minutes the yeast should begin to "bloom". It will become foamy and it will give off a sweet smell. If your yeast is not fresh this will not happen – do not go any further – start over with fresh yeast.
2. In a large bowl mix Egg Yolks, Eggs, Oil, remaining Sugar, Salt and Yeast mixture.
3. Add enough flour to form stiff but sticky dough (you can do this in a stand mixer – using the dough hook attachment).
4. Then turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic (adding more flour if needed) – about 6 minutes – work in raisins as kneading.
5. Form a ball and place in a greased bowl and turn dough so all sides are greased. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and place in warm area to double in bulk – about two hours.
6. Punch down and knead briefly.
7. Roll dough into a 24” long rope. Create a spiral round loaf. (Sometimes I divide the dough into three parts, then I make three smaller ropes and braid them – then I form a circle from with the braid).
8. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment.
9. Brush loaf with beaten egg yolk, sprinkle top with poppy seeds (if desired), and allow too rise until dough doubles in size – about 45 minutes.
10. Bake until golden brown in a pre-heated 375 degree oven – 35 to 40 minutes.
11. Allow to cool before slicing and enjoy!

Tuesday

yesterday I partook in all my regular Tuesday traditions: Regretting all those cheap tacos from Taco Tuesday; then undergoing a mixture of deep reflection, soreness and introspection after Trampoline Tuesday

i'm no Rick Astley




Twittergraphy

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/03/opinion/03schott.html?_r=1

The 140-character limit of Twitter posts was guided by the 160-character limit established by the developers of SMS. However, there is nothing new about new technology imposing restrictions on articulation. During the late 19th-century telegraphy boom, some carriers charged extra for words longer than 15 characters and for messages longer than 10 words. Thus, the cheapest telegram was often limited to 150 characters†.

Concerns for economy, as well as a desire for secrecy, fueled a boom in telegraphic code books that reduced both common and complex phrases into single words. Dozens of different codes were published; many catered to specific occupations and all promised efficiency.

The phrases below are from the third edition of “The Anglo-American Telegraphic Code,” published in 1891. It can only be hoped that, as Twitter advances, more people will begin Tweeting in code, thus:


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