Ex Webris Ignoramus2019-02-01T09:01:31Zhttp://exwebris.net/ignoramushttp://exwebris.net/favicon.icoBraised Swiss Chard with Baconhttp://exwebris.net/blog/2018/02/18/BraisedSwissChardWithBacon2018-02-18T00:00:00Z
<h1>Braised Swiss Chard with Bacon</h1>
<p>I adapted this recipe from <a href="https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/braised-swiss-chard-with-bacon-and-hot-sauce">Bon Appetit's Braised Swiss Chard with Bacon and Hot Sauce recipe</a> around Christmas-time and it came out amazing. I'm probably forgetting some steps, but this was basically it.</p>
<h2>Ingredients</h2>
<ul>
<li>2 large bunches rainbow/swiss chard (kale or collard green will probably also work)</li>
<li>2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar</li>
<li>1 tablespoon vegetable oil</li>
<li>4 slices of bacon, chopped into lardons</li>
<li>1 shallot, minced</li>
<li>4 garlic cloves, minced</li>
<li>salt and pepper</li>
</ul>
<h2>Directions</h2>
<ol>
<li>Separate the stems from the leaves. Tear the leaves and cut the stems into bite-sized pieces.</li>
<li>Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat.</li>
<li>Cook the bacon until brown and crisp (7-10 mins).</li>
<li>Add the shallot and cook until translucent/softened (3-5 mins).</li>
<li>Add the garlic and chard stems.</li>
<li>Cook until the chard stems are cooked (should be crispy, tender, and pretty tasty)</li>
<li>Add vinegar and scrape the bottom of the pan.</li>
<li>Add the leaves and handful at a time, letting them wilt before adding more.</li>
<li>Stir / toss to coat with the liquid mixture.</li>
<li>Season with salt and freshly cracked pepper.</li>
</ol>
This isn't a Story About Lovehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2018/02/07/ThisIsntAStoryAboutLove2018-02-07T00:00:00Z
<h1>This isn't a Story About Love</h1>
<p>People tend to do nice things for the people they care about. Sometimes it's little things. Sometimes it's bigger things. Maybe it's constant or maybe it comes in spurts, but, usually, nice things happen.</p>
<p>Before my wife and I started dating, she'd always had short, curly hair. I liked it, but I wondered about whether it'd look better long (and I've always liked the way longer hair looks). After we'd been dating awhile, I'd asked about whether she'd consider growing it out and she agreed. She's kept her curly hair long throughout the majority of our marriage -- though I think now it's because she prefers it long.</p>
<p>Around the time we got married, she was teaching at what amounted to a boarding school for troubled kids (basically, a rehab). Most of the kids there were recovering drug addicts or had serious behavioral problems. Most of the kids were there because they were court-ordered to participate in a program similar to one like this or to go to juvy/jail. This particular school had a pretty good turn-around/graduation rate -- decently above an abysmal nation-wide average. </p>
<p>Part of their success had to do with how hard they pushed the kids, academically and otherwise. Anyone who's spent any time in a small town knows that boredom begets drug users. A few of the teachers decided that they wanted to start a speech and debate team. A <em>travelling</em> speech and debate team. Only the best performing kids would be allowed to participate. Since I used to <em>do</em> speech and debate in high school, my wife, of course, enlisted me as a coach. And I did it for free, in part, because I cared about her and the things that she cared about as well -- those kids. </p>
<p>By and large, these kids were naturals. Looking back, it makes a certain kind of sense. Much of their adolescence had been spent acting, manipulating, and persuading people around whatever it was that landed them at this school in the first place. But, beyond that, I really enjoyed working with them. They wanted to participate, compete, and do well. </p>
<p>Their first tournament rolls around and I head to the public school hosting it. Brook tells me she's not sure if she can make it. The entire drive over, I'm running horror scenarios in my mind. This is probably the first time these kids have left their school in years. What if one of them runs? What if they all run in different directions? What if one of the kids I probably can't beat in a fight decides to try and knock me out to escape? What if they run into regular speech and debate kids and do the things that regular speech and debate kids do at tournaments? How do I manage these kids if they get out of line? What even <em>is</em> out of line -- they have strict rules?</p>
<p>I get to the school and head to the cafeteria where everyone will be set up. There's basically an adult per child. So far so good. We talk about the rules and how this priviledge can be lost for everyone forever if things don't go well. We sit and wait for the events to be posted and to start.</p>
<p>As we're waiting, I notice a person walking towards our table. As she approaches, one of the kids, the one I'm worried about not being able to take in a fight, starts to smile. "Oh shit," I think. "He recognizes this person! She's probably a dealer or an addict he used to know!" The other kids notice her coming as well and start to smile. At this point, I'm internally freaking out. Mentally, I've moved from reasonable scenarios to overly complicated heist-like scenarios from movies. "They've coordinated something!" The kids are starting to greet her.</p>
<p>She walks up to me and says, "You don't recognize me, do you?" It was my wife. She had straightened her hair.</p>
President Trump's Travel Banhttp://exwebris.net/blog/2017/01/31/PresidentTrumpsTravelBan2017-01-31T00:00:00Z
<h1>President Trump's Travel Ban</h1>
<p>A few friends of mine seem confused as to why there's backlash against the President for his "travel ban". I don't consider myself particularly liberal, but here's more or less my position, very loosely.</p>
<p>It starts with that I think it's bad policy. I don't merely mean "policy I don't like," but, "policy that will not accomplish what it claims to accomplish". I don't see anything about this order will make America or Americans safe.</p>
<ol>
<li>Refugees and immigrants are already well-vetted in the US in a post-9/11 world.</li>
<li>I'm not aware of any terrorist activity in the United States that has come from the regions the order bans, but I have from plenty of other regions that it does not (for instance, those responsible for the 9/11 attacks the order references).</li>
<li>It's counter-productive to national security interests to screw with the people that actually like us. This makes intelligence efforts more difficult. Additionally, it makes the President politically toxic to foriegn leaders.</li>
<li>We don't have a problem with terrorism from refugees or immigrants. The chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack caused by a refugee is 1 in 3.64 billion per year. The chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by an illegal immigrant is 1 in 10.9 billion per year. (<a href="https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/terrorism-immigration-risk-analysis">https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/terrorism-immigration-risk-analysis</a>)</li>
</ol>
<p>Additionally, it breaks existing immigration law for people who have legally immigrated (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965</a>). Even if it <em>is</em> within the President's power to break that law -- and that's certainly possible, I don't think the President <em>should</em> without providing good reason. And, to my knowledge, he doesn't.</p>
<p>Prior Presidents have done similar things for clearly outlined reasons. President Carter cancelled Iranian visas in 1980 as a mechanism to facilitate the release of American hostages. He did it while allowing exemptions "for compelling and proven humanitarian reasons or where the national interest of our own country requires." (<a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33233">http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33233</a>) President Obama paused approval of refugee applications for 6 months because "two Iraqis in Kentucky who in May 2011 were arrested and faced federal terrorism charges." (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/01/29/trumps-facile-claim-that-his-refugee-policy-is-similar-to-obama-in-2011/</a>) There was no travel ban on refugees, however, and there was no ban on green card holders. Refugees merely stayed in holding areas in the US for longer periods of time. I'm relatively okay with those things happening. There were clear reasons and people still got out of harms way.</p>
<p>Taken on its face, President Trumps order just doesn't make sense to me. That being said, I'm not sure I <em>can</em> take anything he says at face value. He lies regularly and openly (e.g. massive voter fraud, the size of his inaugural crowd, why he doesn't release his taxes, that the travel ban is working out nicely, etc.). He's repeated falsehoods about whether persecuted Christians from other countries could immigrate to the US. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-approves-extreme-vetting-of-refugees-promises-priority-for-christians/2017/01/27/007021a2-e4c7-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html">https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-approves-extreme-vetting-of-refugees-promises-priority-for-christians/2017/01/27/007021a2-e4c7-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html</a>)</p>
<p>If I <em>could</em> take what he says at face value, then I'd really have to consider that pre-President Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s/?_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s/?_r=0</a>). Doing that would put the order under a new light. President Trump's prioritization of religious minorities in an order directed at Muslim-majority nations could just be him couching religious prejudice in neutral-sounding terms.</p>
<p>So, I'm not just left wondering what things will be added to the vetting process that will make it more "extreme" and acceptable. I'm left wondering whether he's been lying this entire time about the problem itself. I'm left wondering what his motivation here actually is. I'm left wondering whether anyone actually knows. I generally think that what you do about the small things is what you'll do about the big things and that means he'll continually prove to be unfit for the office he presently holds.</p>
Site Structurehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/12/28/SiteStructure2015-12-28T00:00:00Z
<h1>Site Structure</h1>
<p>I'm in the midst of very slow changes to the site and the way I'm building it. <a href="http://exwebris.net/blog/2014/10/11/NewWebsite">I've hinted at the architecture of this site</a>, but I don't think I've explained it in any detail.</p>
<p>I started off with some content files written in <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Markdown</a> that were set up in a very hastily-organized structure. I made a simple <a href="https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/">Ruby</a> script to parse the markdown and create some HTML. In the HTML I generate, I include some javascript to make <a href="https://disqus.com/">Disqus</a> work. Then, I uploaded the static HTML to my web server, and, voila! Instant static blog.</p>
<p>Now, I'm restructuring a bit to give me more flexibility. I want to be able to add images. I want the structure to stop being annoyingly cumbersome -- there's no reason for me to break down posts into "YYYY/MM/DD/## - Title" type paths when I post so infrequently. I want to be able to add structure beyond blog posts (e.g. there's a cooking section brewing that will have more semi-static content). I want templating and efficiency in generating output (presently, I regenerate the whole blog each time -- which takes nothing because this is a small site).</p>
<p>There are a couple of really nice things about having a static blog. First, it's very easy on my little server. I'm buying cheap space and my poor little virtual machine can't take heavy loads. My initial attempt here involved some Node.js-based solution (don't get me started on how bad of an idea I think Node.js is) and it was awful. CPU utilization was high for a site that basically served almost no traffic. Second, there are fewer attack vectors. Amazingly, even my little site has some script-kiddie activity showing up in logs. Sure, I could block it -- and maybe one day I will, but, for now, there isn't a whole lot these folks are going to be able to do. While I'm sure a DDoS would work, it would basically go unnoticed until my host shut me down and shot me an email and I'd be shocked (and probably semi-honored) that anyone bothered.</p>
<p>Realistically, a blog doesn't need to by dynamic in any way <em>except</em> for the comments. It's really just done for convenience (or ease-of-programming) sake.</p>
<p>The downside is that, to update it, I either have to roll my own HTML or continue to work on a very light platform that does what I want. Good thing I like programming and little design problems. :) </p>
<p>That said, I <em>have</em> been focusing more on dumb activity than actual progress. Renaming all of the blog posts and making them produce the same output to overcome a minor annoyance isn't exactly moving things forward. I need to focus more on the additional sections I want to add.</p>
<p>Speaking of, I'm having a little trouble deciding what I want to do with <a href="http://exwebris.net/feed.xml">the RSS/Atom feed</a> for a cooking section. For blogging, feeds are obvious. New content goes into the feed. For static pages, should it just be new content? Should it be any update to the content? Should it be nothing and content in that section never makes it into the feed? Or should I have to blog about it for it to show up anywhere? I'm still puzzling that one out. And, given the amount of time I spend thinking about it on any given day, I have the feeling I'm unlikely to come to any real workable solution anytime soon.</p>
Best Damn Cookies Everhttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/12/01/BestDamnCookiesEver2015-12-01T00:00:00Z
<h1>Best Damn Cookies Ever</h1>
<p>This weekend I made the best damn chocolate chip cookies ever. These weren't just the best damn cookies I've ever made. They were the best I've ever <em>tasted</em>. They looked exactly like what a chocolate chip cookie should look like, and they came out crispy on the outside, but chewy in the middle. And I wish I could share <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ad-Hoc-Home-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579653774">Thomas Keller's recipe</a> here, but I can't get around that little nagging voice about copyright -- which seems a bit ridiculous because aren't recipes meant to be shared. Feels like the best I can do is continually recommend the book.</p>
<p>What I <em>can</em> say, though, is that there was a little technique outside of the explicit recipe that I did. Typically, when a recipe calls for, say, 2 cups of sifted flour, I measure out 2 cups of flour and sift them. As I started to do that, my brother remembered something from a "cooking" class he took in middle school and told me the recipe wanted me to measure sifted flour instead of sifting the measured flour. So, I sifted the flour into a measured pyrex container and used that. Did it help? I don't know, but, <em>BEST COOKIES EVER</em>!</p>
<p>I did alter the recipe slightly. Mr. Keller wants you to get different kinds of essentially dark chocolate and break them into pieces (sifting out the "dust"). I just bought two kinds of good-looking chips (Ghirardelli), one milk chocolate and one darker chocolate (~60-70% cacao). It scares me to think that the cookies could have been <em>better</em>. I might have to stop going to work just to sit at home, baking, waiting for my next fix. You might see me someday wandering the streets, disheveled, flour under my nose, begging to use an oven or to borrow some eggs.</p>
Engaging Peoplehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/11/14/EngagingPeople2015-11-14T00:00:00Z
<h1>Engaging People</h1>
<p>Yesterday, something awful happened in France. Bombs and gunfire ended the lives of over 100 French civilians and, seemingly, the few people who carried out the atrocity as well. These people have ties to a group that Wikipedia describes as "a Wahhabi/Salafi jihadist extremist militant group and self-proclaimed Islamic state and caliphate, which is led by and mainly composed of Sunni Arabs from Iraq and Syria" and that group took responsibility. I don't care to use the name.</p>
<p>I'm also not going to dwell on the particulars about what happened in France or how to deal with these kinds of issues. I have nothing to really offer. The issues are complicated and well outside of anything I know. My feeling is that anything that can be described as an "Islamaphobic backlash" is exactly what these types of groups want, that any military action short of deciding to become a modern Roman Empire isn't going to work, and that probably the best way forward is to figure out how to undo the diplomacy issues between us and the middle east.</p>
<p>What I want to talk about, instead, are some of the reactions I'm seeing on Facebook. A number of people are changing their profile pictures to have the French flag. Some have expressed that their thoughts or prayers are with the French. Someone on my feed calls President Obama a coward for not immediately declaring war and jumping to the aide of one of our oldest allies.</p>
<p>Another apparently wants to wage a war on all "prayer" and "religion", misquotes Richard Dawkins, and is upset at the ignorance of all religious people. Even though I'm not really a religious person anymore, this topic is pretty firmly in my wheelhouse. I could engage him. I might be able to persuade him. I could at least dispense with the bad arguments he's giving and give him some better ones.</p>
<p>Instead, I just unfollowed him. And, honestly, I've got mixed feelings about it.</p>
<p>This guy's pretty far off my social radar. We don't converse. We played soccer together for 2 years over 15 years ago during high school and don't keep up. I don't need to know or really care that much about what's going on in his life -- I <em>hope</em> he's doing well and everything's great, but I can't think of many people I don't wish that about.</p>
<p>Beyond that, a good amount of what he posts seems to me to be fairly rude, psuedo-intellectual tripe. Almost all of it carries an air of, "I'm so much smarter than everyone else," without delivering on the promise. So, I'm not really interested in reading much of what he has to say.</p>
<p>And then there's the no-win situation from engaging. There's not likely going to be an argument that will convince him that religion isn't the problem or that religious people, on the whole, aren't dumber than he is. I don't think that's something he's psychologically open to.</p>
<p>But, I feel like it's not just this guy and that silence (and silencing) are problematic. It's easy to agree with myself and to surround myself with people that agree with me. It's easy to ignore or dismiss arguments that fall outside of that bubble. Moreover, silence tends to be taken as tacit agreement. I seem just as happy to complain about the loud minority as I am to stay silent.</p>
<p>It's also easier to not engage. Beyond the laziness accomplished by not having to make a solid argument and digest real discourse, it's safer to not disrupt my social life with any fallout from it. I've had friends that literally could not have a conversation on a set of topics with the opposing viewpoint without getting angry. And I'm not perfect here either. I've misspoken. I've said dumb things I had to backtrack. And I've been wrong. Sometimes I do the social calculus and take a risk. Sometimes, I don't even bother trying to figure out whether I should bother.</p>
<p>These days, when I <em>do</em> talk about these kinds of things in person, I lean towards trying to present all of the sides of the argument. Maybe I'll try and talk about the history of an idea. Or ask non-leading questions I don't follow up on in a very un-Socratic way. On the internet, I'm a little more brazen and will peridiocally take a stab at something (and usually regret it later).</p>
<p>I dunno.</p>
Pardon My Dusthttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/10/26/PardonMyDust2015-10-26T00:00:00Z
<h1>Pardon My Dust</h1>
<p>If I wasn't so concerned about licensing, I'd find an under construction gif off some geocities page from the 90s.</p>
<p>I've decided it's time for a bit of a facelift and some restructuring. Beyond that I like the way this looks more, I plan on putting recipes I access frequently on here and making it tablet and mobile friendly. The thought is that it'd be nice to pull them up while I'm in the kitchen. I'm not sure how pragmatic that really is, but, um, it's prettier?</p>
<p>Whatever. Let's do this!</p>
Hacking at Windowshttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/10/22/HackingAtWindows2015-10-22T00:00:00Z
<h1>Hacking at Windows</h1>
<p>Windows has some nice features, but it really annoys the crap out of me when it comes to network folders. A little background. I have a small machine with a lot of disk space on it that I use to store all of my music, movies, photos, and other documents. Basically, it's a NAS. In general, it's great. My Roku talks to it just fine (via Plex), Windows doesn't have any problem accessing it, and it's regularly backed up offsite (via CrashPlan). So, what's the problem?</p>
<p>Windows gets persnickety with very specific things you want it to do. For instance, I have a "Wallpapers" folder on my little NAS. Windows has this feature that lets you cycle through wallpapers. But, it doesn't work on a network share (or a mapped drive) unless you're running Windows on the other side. There are a number of features that pointlessly have this sort of requirement.</p>
<p>Here's my solution (assuming you mapped your network drive to Z:):</p>
<ol>
<li>Create a folder somewhere (e.g. C:\TrickWindows\WallpaperRotation)</li>
<li>Set up the feature you want with the new empty folder.</li>
<li>Delete the folder.</li>
<li>Open up an administrative command window and make a directory link to your mapped drive. (e.g. mklink /D C:\TrickWindows\WallpaperRotation Z:\Images\Wallpapers)</li>
</ol>
<p>Tada! It works! Unlike Windows by default. The operating system that apparently has to be tricked into doing things it can already perfectly well do!</p>
Online Debatehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/10/09/OnlineDebate2015-10-09T00:00:00Z
<h1>Online Debate</h1>
<p>There's quite a bit stirring in my Facebook feed these days. I mean, I've always seen people debate online, but it seems the topics du jour include nearly any divisive topic you might imagine. Homosexual marriage vs. freedom of religion. Defunding Planned Parenthood and/or ending abortion vs. female reproductive rights. Gun control vs. second amendment rights vs. tyrannical governments. </p>
<p>I got my degree in Philosophy and I competed in debate in high school (and a little in college). These are all topics I've thought about and argued both sides of. And I used to really enjoy discourse about the topics. So, part of me wants to jump in. But, for the most part, I avoid it. And while online debates are worse than most face-to-face ones, even in person, I tend to avoid trying to give an argument and, if I get involved, will try to talk about various sides of the debate itself and which ones I think seem interesting. </p>
<p>But, actually engaging never seems worth it. Sometimes it just doesn't seem fair, like I could bully the other person into whatever I wanted just because they can't form a cogent argument. Sometimes it's a waste because people stay tied to what they believe over and above any individual argument -- usually because of some psychological reason. But, more often than not, no one's converging on any real kind of truth. </p>
<p>The most honest thing we could say might be that there are a lot of things we don't know. Some people have developed expert-level knowledge in particular areas and can speak intelligently and authoritatively on those subjects, but most of us haven't. We tend to be cognitive misers. Most of us regurgitate something we heard once that sounded good without really understanding how far others have progressed in that debate. </p>
<p>And, really, the same is true for me. I have ideas on topics I haven't heard others talking about, but, that probably just means I'm not talking about these things in the right circles. So, beyond adding something someone else has actually probably already considered and rejected (likely for good cause), my only real contribution to uninformed debate would be to give the counter-arguments I already know that the others don't seem to know about. But that doesn't make the counter-argument right and it doesn't move the debate. </p>
<p>So, instead of responding to a series of terrible arguments for and against abortion on Facebook this morning, I turned my phone off and wondered about whether there were a quick way to summarize and visualize discourse about a topic. Could you, at some point, present a topic, give arguments for a myriad number of sides, show where they lead, and fill in the details of the arguments for anyone interested in diving a little deeper? Instead of a 30-page comment trail for a Facebook post, could you just drop a link in as a response to the argument and walk away? And, could you give people who <em>do</em> know what they're talking about on a subject a platform to be able to fill in that debate a bit further? If so, what would that look like and would it accomplish much?</p>
<p>I think it'd be interesting if it can be done well. It's definitely something I want to think more about.</p>
Oven Roasted Chicken Thighshttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/07/26/OvenRoastedChickenThighs2015-07-26T00:00:00Z
<h1>Oven Roasted Chicken Thighs</h1>
<p>I haven't perfected this one yet, but it's basically stolen / adapted from <a href="http://www.today.com/food/bittmans-chicken-thighs-4-ways-1D80358896#.VQT2zYY8KrU">Mark Bittman's Roast Chicken Thighs, Four Ways</a>. The wife, on the other hand, <em>has</em> perfected it multiple times, but cannot remember what she did. When she got it right, I would have paid a good amount of money to eat them. So, I'm experimenting.</p>
<p>Here's how I did it and it came out pretty dang tasty (though not as glorious as the wife's):</p>
<ol>
<li>I like the organic, free-range, vegetarian chicken thighs, bone-in. They at least <em>seem</em> to taste better than their, I'm assuming, silicon counterparts.</li>
<li>Take the thighs out of the fridge. Pat them dry with paper towels. Salt them liberally on both sides. Add one twist of freshly cracked black pepper (or some other flavoring or even nothing) to just the skin. Let them sit there and come to room temperature -- somewhere between 30-60 mins for me.</li>
<li>While you're tempering, preheat an oven to 450 °F (you could do it beforehand, but my oven doesn't take an hour to hit temp).</li>
<li>Move the thighs to a oven-proof pan, skin-side up. Add olive oil to the skin and lightly massage it in. I added a little more salt at this point.</li>
<li>Pop them in the oven for 10 mins.</li>
<li>Pull them out, flip them over -- skin side down now, and throw them back in for another 10 mins.</li>
<li>Pull them out, flip them over again -- skin-side up now, and throw them back in the oven for another 5 mins. When I did this, the skin stuck to the pan a bit. It might be worth brushing a little oil on top of them before flipping them on the previous step.</li>
<li>Yank them out and let them rest. If you're worried about doneness, cut the thigh near the bone. If the juices run clear, it's done.</li>
</ol>
Braised Lemon Chickenhttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/05/02/BraisedLemonChicken2015-05-02T00:00:00Z
<h1>Braised Lemon Chicken</h1>
<p>Saturdays are great for more complicated recipes or experiments or just cooking in general. I've got more time and, if it doesn't work, it's not a big deal. Whataburger is still open. </p>
<p>So, I semi-made-up a recipe today and it was amazing -- even after somehow messing up the <a href="http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_mashed_potatoes">mashed potatoes</a> and over-cooking the broccolini and forgetting to make rolls altogether, so I'm writing it down. I say semi-made-up because I took bits and pieces from several recipes and combined them, like I do.</p>
<p>Ingredients:</p>
<ul>
<li>3 celery stalks (diced)</li>
<li>4 carrots (diced)</li>
<li>1/2 of a huge onion (diced)</li>
<li>5 or 6 cloves of garlic, minced</li>
<li>1 cup of Pinot Gris (because it was the white wine I had)</li>
<li>1 bay leaf</li>
<li>About 1 cup of chicken stock</li>
<li>Strips of lemon zest from a medium lemon (peeled with a potato peeler)</li>
<li>6-ish sprigs of Thyme</li>
<li>1-2 Tbsp Olive Oil</li>
<li>4 chicken thighs</li>
</ul>
<p>Basically, you want the same amount of diced onions, celery, and carrots and you want them to be the same size. This is apparently a mirepoix. I usually err on the side of more carrots because I like carrots. Also, I really wanted to put green olives and black pepper in this. But since Brook doesn't care that much for olives and still has some pregnancy-weirdness about pepper, I left them out. But, in hindsight, I think it may have been better without.</p>
<ol>
<li>Pull out the chicken thighs. Dry them off and season with salt. Let them come up to room temperature (about 30-60 mins). I prep everything else for the meal during this time (and went ahead and started blanching the broccolini -- I should've finished that before starting cooking anything else, but oh well).</li>
<li>Blot the chicken thighs again. Salt probably drew out some moisture.</li>
<li>Preheat an over to 375 °F</li>
<li>Heat some olive oil in a braising pan on medium-high.</li>
<li>When the oil gets hot, brown the chicken on the skin side (about 4-5 mins). Then brown the chicken on the other side (about 1-2 mins).</li>
<li>Lower the heat to medium-low and wait for your pan to get a bit cooler.</li>
<li>Add the onions and cook for about 1-2 mins. Stir frequently.</li>
<li>Add the garlic and cook until the onions get translucent (about 5 mins). Stir frequently.</li>
<li>Add the carrots and celery and cook until it smells really good and the carrots get a bit soft (about 10 mins). Stir semi-regularly.</li>
<li>Turn the heat up to medium. Let the pan heat up a bit. Stir more frequently.</li>
<li>Pour in the wine and simmer for about 2 minutes so that the alcohol burns off.</li>
<li>Add the bay leaf, lemon zest, thyme, and any other flavors you might want to add to this that are not salt. Salt comes soon enough.</li>
<li>Stir them in a bit.</li>
<li>Pour in the chicken stock. Bring back to a simmer and stir to combine the flavors. </li>
<li>Taste it. It probably needs salt (especially if you use low-sodium broth). Add some salt and anything else it might need to taste better. Taste and repeat until it's right.</li>
<li>Put the chicken back into the pan, skin side up. The liquid should go up the sides, but not cover the thighs. Add more stock or pour out some liquid if you need.</li>
<li>Throw that bad boy into the oven for 20 mins, uncovered. </li>
<li>Turn the broiler on and move it to the top rack for 1-2 more minutes to crisp-up the skin.</li>
<li>Remove the chicken from the pot and onto a plate to rest.</li>
<li>Sieve everything in the pan into a gravy boat. Pushing down on the solids with a ladle.</li>
<li>Take the remaining solids and throw them into a blender. Puree and resieve.</li>
</ol>
<p>Full disclosure: I threw everything into a blender at the end and then tried to sieve. Whoops. Still came out good.</p>
The Great Steak Hypothesishttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/25/TheGreatSteakHypothesis2015-04-25T00:00:00Z
<h1>The Great Steak Hypothesis</h1>
<p>Well. It's an <em>okay</em> hypothesis. Well not really a "hypothesis" in any scientific sense. Look. I just want to try something you pedant!</p>
<p>I've been reading and watching videos and having people show me the "right way" to cook a steak. My step-dad actually makes an amazing steak and I've been trying to repeat his technique for some time (mostly without the same amount of success because I do things differently than he does for various reasons). So, there are a list of things I do currently whenever I cook steak.</p>
<ul>
<li>I dry the steak with paper towels.</li>
<li>I leave the steak out on the counter-top for about an hour to bring it up to room temperature -- it should be an hour per inch of thickness. (This is apparently a process called "tempering".)</li>
<li>I season the steak for the time I left it out.</li>
<li>I use sea salt (coarse these days) or coarse kosher salt. I also use garlic powder and onion salt. I would probably use black pepper / lemon pepper and worchestershire, but that's a non-starter since the wife's pregnancy has left her incredibly sensitive to pepper and turned her tastebuds against worchestershire.</li>
<li>Because of the pregnancy, I cook the steak indoors rather than on the grill because I can control the temperature of the steak better (because I'm still a grill noob). Also, it's been "cold" (aka below 60 F) up until now (meanwhile my step-dad was grilling in -10 F in the snow in Maine).</li>
<li>I get the cast-iron pretty hot before putting the meat on it and I turn it a few times (mostly because I don't have a lot of temperature control on an electric range in a cast-iron pan). I should probably get it hotter than I have been.</li>
<li>When I'm nearly done cooking, I'll throw in butter slices and baste.</li>
<li>I let the steaks rest for awhile.</li>
</ul>
<p>Things were going well (for cooking well-done steaks, anyway). Then I watched / read <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1016334-cast-iron-steak">Julia Moskin's Cast-Iron Steak recipe in the New York Times</a>. She salts the pan, but not the meat. I watched <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_dDUw_QuDU">Omar Allibhoy make a Spanish paella</a>. He salts what looks to me like a cast-iron pan too. Google lead me to <a href="http://food-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/for-great-pan-fried-steak-salt-skillet-first-0155966/">a blog post by Karen Ahn</a> and, from there, I've got a new set of things I want to try.</p>
<p>Before cooking, I want to leave the process the same, except that I think I'll wipe off the seasoning with a paper towel and re-dry the steaks. Additionally, I'm want to salt the pan with coarse salt (kosher or sea). And maybe use an herbed-butter instead of just butter or let the steaks rest on some herb-bed.</p>
Minor Blanching Adjustmentshttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/25/MinorBlanchingAdjustments2015-04-25T00:00:00Z
<h1>Minor Blanching Adjustments</h1>
<p>So, I've come across two additional tricks for blanching.</p>
<ol>
<li>You can warm the veggies in a past post-blanche. You can probably even roast them for a little bit to add more flavor.</li>
<li>You can salt your ice bath. This can help keep the veggies from losing their saltiness and will make the ice bath colder. I didn't have a problem with this last time, but a friend suggested it and has noticed that happening with his stuff (and this fixed it).</li>
</ol>
Omar Allibhoy's Paellahttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/25/OmarAllibhoysPaella2015-04-25T00:00:00Z
<h1>Omar Allibhoy's Paella</h1>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/JamieOliver">Jamie Oliver's Food Tube</a>, I finally found a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_dDUw_QuDU">paella recipe by Omar Allibhoy</a> I want to try. </p>
Blanche DeVegetableshttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/17/BlancheDevegetables2015-04-17T00:00:00Z
<h1>Blanche DeVegetables</h1>
<p>I'm a bit sick today but decided I was going to be a regular Typhoid Mary and pull off dinner anyhow. Tonight: strip steaks, broccolini, roasted fingerling potatoes, and rolls.</p>
<p>Everything came out pretty good. It's hard for me to judge the quality of the steaks since I have to make them well done and can't use any pepper (because of the pregnant wife), but I think it came out about as good as I'm going to get. I used a grill pan with those for the first time and the duh moment of the evening was when I put a slab of butter between my two steaks...which immediately got stuck <em>between the two steaks</em> because of the raised parts of the grill pan. So, I had to lift the steaks to get butter under them.</p>
<p>The potatoes came out better than the last time and I think my initial intuitions about <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/roasted-fingerling-potatoes-with-fresh-herbs-and-garlic-recipe4.html">the recipe</a> were more or less on. I used a smaller pan, crushed the garlic, and let the herbs sit in the oil for a bit to give it a little more flavor. Next time, I'll probably go ahead and chop the herbs (or at least crush/bruise/tear them a bit). I'm also considering halving the potatoes (both lengthwise and in quanitity because "a whole bag" makes twice as many as we eat right now).</p>
<p>But, the big accomplishment was the slightly overcooked broccolini. All I did is blanche them correctly and they came out wonderful. Here's more or less what correctly seems to mean (minus the cooking time which I mildly missed):</p>
<ol>
<li>Get a good rolling boil in a lot of water in a large pot.</li>
<li>Salt the heck out of the water. Good old <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ad-Hoc-Home-Thomas-Keller/dp/1579653774">Thomas Keller</a> recommended about a cup of salt per gallon of water. I just eyeballed what I thought was appropriate.</li>
<li>Put the vegetables into the water a handful at a time. Ideally, you'd do small batches. I don't have time for that, so I just add them slowly. The idea is that you don't want to drop the temperature of the water too quickly.</li>
<li>After a few minutes of cooking, depending on the vegetable, pull one out and taste it. Start a litte before you think it'll be ready. When they're ready, kill the heat and put them into an ice bath.</li>
<li>Only leave them in the ice bath long enough to cool off. You're just trying to abruptly stop the cooking process. Transfer them to a drying rack with some paper towels underneath.</li>
</ol>
<p>The biggest thing I got right was the salt. It made an incredible difference in the flavor.</p>
I Don't Know How to Feel About Grilled Cheese with Mayonnaisehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/12/IDontKnowHowToFeelAboutGrilledCheeseWithMayonnaise2015-04-12T00:00:00Z
<h1>I Don't Know How to Feel About Grilled Cheese with Mayonnaise</h1>
<p>Today was a bit of a culinary experience for me. </p>
<p>The braised chicken with artichokes came out better than before, but I think I'll skip the artichokes next time I make it. (Really just because of the price of the artichoke compared to the flavor it adds.) I'm also pretty sure I could mix the two recipes in the book so that it's more of a one-pot meal and takes a little less time cooking.</p>
<p>Then I made a cake because the wife got some kind of <a href="http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/honeycomb-cake-pan/">honeycomb cake pan</a>. Conveniently, there was a cake recipe attached to the pan for a lemon cake with a honey-lemon glaze. I've never added sour cream to a cake batter before, but the batter turned out pretty good. The only problem was I only had 1 lemon and I think I needed a bit more zest than I put in. It's still a pretty tasty cake...somehow with sour cream in it.</p>
<p>And, today, the New York Times posted a recipe about making <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017326-grilled-cheese-sandwich">grilled cheese sandwiches with Mayonnaise</a>. So, after soccer, I made them. Well. I made some version of them. Basically, now that I'm actually reading the recipe, I made them wrong. Firstly, I didn't spread the butter. Instead, I just put a chunk of butter on a piece of bread. This made the middle of the sandwich a bit soggy, which was a bit problematic because I just bought some <a href="http://www.lecreuset.com/panini-set">enameled, cast-iron pans with some panini sandwich thing</a> that kindof goes with it. And I wanted to try it out. Well, not probably how it was intended to be used. </p>
<p>You're supposed to heat up the pan and heat up the panini press thing and then mash them together -- cooking on both ends. I figured, "just putting the thing on there will cause it to compact." And it did. And then I couldn't seem to get it back out of the pan for awhile to flip it and the middle of my bread kindof split open. Turns out, I just needed higher heat (and to not mess up the butter).</p>
<p>Long story short, I kindof followed a recipe while kindof using some equipment in a way one might imagine it could be used. And it came out alright. :)</p>
Because Why Not Braise Some Artichokes at Midnighthttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/04/12/BecauseWhyNotBraiseSomeArtichokesAtMidnight2015-04-12T00:00:00Z
<h1>Because Why Not Braise Some Artichokes at Midnight</h1>
<p>Alternate titles included (which may say something about this entry and any more I may make): "Cooking with Wine at Midnight Means Finishing the Bottle" and "'Cook With Wine You Drink' Means Drink the Wine You're Cooking With". Which, really, is probably also a family mantra about cooking with wine. Or drinking wine while waiting on someone who's cooking. Or just drinking wine. Mom's side of the family really likes wine. It's some kind of miracle we aren't all alcoholics.</p>
<p>I half-assed Tom Colicchio's "slow-braised chicken with artichokes" recipe a few weeks ago when my brother was in town. I half-assed it and it was amazing. In his book, it was the best thing I ever cooked. In mine, it's at least in my top 3. (Sidenote: I don't have plans for this to stay in my top 3. There's a "bacon" recipe in <a href="http://amzn.com/0307406954">"think like a chef"</a> that I'm convinced is going to blow it out of the water.)</p>
<p>So, tonight, I'm gonna braise some artichokes for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'm gonna braise some chicken thighs with some lessons learned.</p>
<p>I wasn't impressed by the slow-cooked chicken as much as I was impressed by how the carrots tasted. I plan on fixing the chicken bit (I let the liquid get too low in the last 3rd of the cooktime). I also plan to add more carrots because HOLY GOD that was good. And, hopefully, I plan on getting a little more ready before starting -- since I've got to reconstitute some chicken stock.</p>
<p>In any case, my knife skills are coming along. I noticed some pretty decent improvement recently and I've been able to pick up some speed. I had a little trouble getting thin slices of leek, but that was mostly from being still pretty unfamiliar with leeks and the outer-most layer slid every so often.</p>
Don't Sweat the (Bok Choy) Techniquehttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/03/16/DontSweatTheBokChoyTechnique2015-03-16T00:00:00Z
<h1>Don't Sweat the (Bok Choy) Technique</h1>
<p>This title brought to you by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y1Emb7Jyks">Erik B and Rakim</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Think-Like-Chef-Tom-Colicchio/dp/0307406954/ref=la_B001H6WE96_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426567908&sr=1-2">Tom Colicchio</a>.</p>
<p>Sweating something is a way of cooking it so that it gets hot (and releases a little liquid) but doesn't turn brown. So, you get a cooked vegetable without having it brown. At long last, <a href="http://exwebris.net/blog/2015/02/02/BokChoyTechnique">in spite of my earlier troubles</a>, I've achived this with fresh garlic at a high heat with bok choy.</p>
<p>The trick was <em>not</em> thicker garlic. I thought about it a bit and realized how dumb I was being. The problem was that I was burning the outside of the garlic, not that I was cooking the middle of it too quickly. So, I threw the minced garlic into the oiled pan, pulled the pan off the heat, tossed the garlic a bit and let them sweat and cool for a few seconds, set the pan down off the heat, threw in my bok choy stems, and returned the pan to the heat. Then I tossed the pan a bit more before I threw in the "chicken stock powder" (I used some indeterminate amount of <a href="http://www.betterthanbouillon.com/">Better Than Boullion</a> because I forgot and panicked at the last second) and the leaves. Returned it to the heat, tossed a bit more until it was cooked, and set it off the heat to season with soy and seseame oil. </p>
<p>Voila! Wonderful garlic flavor on my stir-fried bok choy!</p>
Baby Naminghttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/03/14/BabyNaming2015-03-14T00:00:00Z
<h1>Baby Naming</h1>
<p>As we now know that we're expecting a little girl, we're going through the arduous process of determine what her name should be. Why? Because we last the female names we had picked out when we went through this exercise on the first child and determined he was a boy. Oh. You meant, "why is it so difficult?"</p>
<p>Because I make it difficult, that's why. I have a mental list of rules I continuously add to and I feel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hslRydqAfo">a little bit like Liz Lemon about baby names</a>. Here are some of them:</p>
<ul>
<li>The name needs a certain rhythm and beauty that I like. It needs a certain <em>je ne sais quoi</em>. </li>
<li>It can't be the name of someone I'm emotionally close to that's still alive. </li>
<li>It can't be the name of someone I know and didn't like.</li>
<li>It can't be the name of a child of someone I know. (Coworkers have stolen names from me.)</li>
<li>The name can't be overly popular (in my generation or in the current generation).</li>
<li>The name shouldn't evoke a hippy, hipster, or abstract concepts. In short, it shouldn't be ridiculous.</li>
<li>It can't be the name of a dog or cat.</li>
<li>Generally speaking, location and object names are out.</li>
<li>It can't be the name of a character from a show I like.</li>
<li>It can't be the name of a famous person that I like.</li>
<li>It preferably has multiple forms. The legal name will be an acceptable formal version.</li>
</ul>
<p>When you factor in that this is for a girl, it gets more complicated:</p>
<ul>
<li>The name preferably isn't just about being pretty or faithful.</li>
<li>There can be no stripper / porn star connotation for the name. This includes nicknames, so, since my last name starts with a 'D', the first name cannot start with a 'D' so she can't be "double-Ds".</li>
<li>The name can't be a derivative of a male's name. As an example, "Daniel" => "Daniella" is out.</li>
<li>She may someday get married and may choose to change her last name. That's all well and good, but it adds some complexity. The name now needs to be versitile and can't create rhyming common scenarios.</li>
</ul>
<p>If I really like a name, I might make an exception to some of the rules. </p>
Is Chocolate Pudding Worth Ithttp://exwebris.net/blog/2015/03/10/IsChocolatePuddingWorthIt2015-03-10T00:00:00Z
<h1>Is Chocolate Pudding Worth It?</h1>
<p>It's been rainy and I got it in my head <a href="http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017198-dark-chocolate-pudding">that I wanted to make some chocolate pudding</a>. There were, of course, a few alterations. First, I used around 6 oz of 85% cocoa chocolate. Second, we served it with raspberries, whipped cream, and waffle crisps (which I didn't know where a thing but are perfect for pudding). And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I feel like it wasn't really worth it.</p>
<p>But, there was so much whisking involved that I could've cancelled a gym membership (and had bonus pudding). But maybe I was just paranoid and over-whisked. The other issue is that you get quite a bit of pudding. And, last, while the end product came out really tasty (and it was neat to actually make pudding), I can't say it was that much better than the dark chocolate pudding you can just up and buy. I mean, it's definitely cheaper to make -- especially if you've got to make a lot of it. And you know what's in it -- if that matters to you. But, at the end of the day, any pudding craving I might get could be pretty easily handled by a grocery store. And I feel like that's a little odd for something I made from scratch.</p>