mbietz June 25th, 2007
Grandma Mary had a very sudden massive cerebral hemorrhage yesterday morning. She never regained consciousness, and passed away this morning.
She was a great lady, and I’m going to miss her terribly.
I have to mention her sense of humor. Every time we talked on the phone, we had to share any dirty jokes we’d heard. One memory keeps sticking in my head: We were watching the news together at her house. It was during the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the newscaster had just finished giving all the sordid “blow-by-blow” details. She shook her head, turned to me, and said, “Bah. If you’re gonna sleep with the president, you should at least do it right and go all the way.”
A highlight of any visit to her house was a meal of her tomato soup (always served with corn bread, of course). It’s hearty farm food – not fancy, but boy did it put Campbell’s to shame! I’m sure that part of the reason it was so good (and mine never tastes quite the same) is because she made it with home-canned tomatoes. Here’s the recipe if you want to remember Grandma too.
Grandma Mary’s Tomato Soup
1 qt. tomatoes
1 qt. water
1/2 cup rice
1 onion
2 tbsp (about) cornstarch
1 cup whipping cream
salt and pepper
- Cook onion and rice in tomatoes and water until tender.
- Mix cornstarch with water, add to soup.
- Add cream and bring to a boil. Season to taste.
mbietz June 25th, 2007
I often find myself wondering about/pitying the poor English majors who find themselves paying the bills by writing descriptions for chain restaurant drink menus (or similar ad copy). Today’s example (from a tv ad for the ClearBlue Easy pregnancy test): “Without a doubt, it is the most sophisticated piece of technology you will ever pee on.”
mbietz June 7th, 2007
Article in the San Diego Union Tribune: “For the past 2½ years, Merrie Maino’s cat has been prowling her La Jolla neighborhood and bringing home just about anything he can get his mouth around…. When the San Diego County Fair begins its annual run tomorrow at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, that’s where some of Alvin’s stuff will be, in the collections exhibit, bearing this title: Look What the Cat Dragged Home.†Sounds like a great SI504 project.
mbietz June 7th, 2007
I just discovered the Cooking for Engineers blog. Recipes seem good – haven’t tried them out myself yet. But also includes recipe and cooking method testing (like different ways to cook bacon).
But one thing that sets this blog apart is the “Tabular Recipe Notation” technique for recipe visualization. This is the batter for a Pecan Coffee Cake:
When you’re in the kitchen, and have 3 different dishes going at once, it’s easy to forget where you are in a long text-heavy recipe. Cook’s Illustrated is one of the worst offenders. They insist on fitting what should be a 25 step recipe into 5 steps (maybe so they don’t seem too complicated). But as a result, it’s easy to get lost in the middle of the text. Their spinach lasagna recipe has only 3 steps, but step 3 (formatted as a single unbroken 256-word paragraph) includes blending the filling, preheating the oven, soaking and drying the noodles, a complex layering process, baking (bake with foil, remove foil, readjust oven racks, then broil), cooling, and serving. Every time I look away from the recipe, I lose my place in the paragraph and have to spend extra time and effort making sure I’m doing the right thing. And I must admit, I have gotten to the last layer of noodles and realized I’ve only added half the spinach.
I haven’t battle tested the tabular notation, but I think it could help with the “quick – what do I put in the pan next” problem.
P.S. I found out about CfE from a link in the comments on post about rendering bacon fat on the Simply Recipes blog. It’s another good one to check out!