Pear pies, Mike Nomad and the Internet

I fear superlatives. If I use a superlative, I usually use it with caution. Claiming something is the most, the least, the greatest is always asking to be corrected. Yet, I am going to crawl cautiously out on the superlative limb and say that the Internet is the most amazing development of my lifetime.

In just a few short decades the Internet has burrowed deeply into almost every aspect of our lives. I lost my job partially as a result of the Internet and I owe a great deal of my pleasure in retirement to the Internet.

And now, I owe the dessert which I enjoyed with my wife Sunday to the Internet, and that dessert is intertwined with memories of a dear friend with whom I once worked.

I have an occasional feature I call "Buzzword of the Day." It wasn't too long ago that I would have tossed "social networking" onto the buzzword heap.

I'm glad that I didn't get the chance to write that essay; I wouldn't be eating pears but crow tonight.

A friend left a me a package of halloumi cheese with instructions on serving this "national cheese of Cyprus." The halloumi was delicious and inspired me to search the Internet for information on other goat and sheep cheeses from the eastern Mediterranean. Soon I was deep into the virtual world. (Oh, another one of those words I've got to reclaim from the buzzword heap - virtual. This is getting downright embarrassing.)

I appreciated my friend introducing me to halloumi but now, thanks to the Internet, I was learning about saganaki, the famous, flaming Greek cheese that isn't actually Greek - at least not the flames. Soon, I was a member of a foodies group sharing recipes over the Internet. I was flooded with new food ideas being served up by my new virtual friends.

One that caught my eye, and palate, was a recipe for autumn pear pie. I mentioned this in a post and almost immediately heard from an old friend - he, too, was intrigued by the idea of a pear pie. He even had a backyard pear tree kindly offer fruit. He and his wife made the pie and liked it.

I was off to Thomas Bros. south of the city for some ripe but not soft pears. My wife and I made the pie together; it became a small, pleasurable event. Our home filled with the aroma of baking pears, cloves and cinnamon.

Our opinion: good. A nice break from the traditional apple. Personally, I would cut back on the cloves and this might mean cutting back on the cinnamon, too. Without all the cloves, the cinnamon could be too strong. I'd play with these ingredients.

The big change that I would make is in the presentation. When I make this again, I'm going to put a dollop of whipped cream in the centre of the slice and then place a small, pealed, very ripe pear half right on top of the whipped cream. White, whipped cream should ooze out all around the pear half. It should look spectacular and the fresh pear will enhance the pie's pear flavour which is muted by the cooking.

Oh, don't be overly generous with the squeeze of lemon. I was and my pie had undertones of citrus. This is fine with a Sauvignon Blanc but not so good with a pear pie.

Cheers,
Rockinon

p.s. Thanks Mike for the encouragement. We all knew you were at ease around motorcycles, Italian roadsters and tanks but who would have guessed that Mike Nomad had the guts to wear an apron? And say hi to Steve.

Keeping to a Food Budget

This past spring my wife and I suffered some unexpected expenses. Retired and living on a limited income, we cut our food spending to balance our books. My wife managed to spend just under $150 feeding the two of us for a month.

Now, we do have a pantry and whenever we see an incredible buy, we stock up. For instance, when Primo pasta went on sale at 99-cents for a 900 g package, I bought a dozen packages in a variety of shapes.

We're starting to hurt again and my wife is tightening the food budget screws. Last weekend I bought two packages of boneless, skinless chicken thighs at $2.94 a pound. It is important to watch the food flyers as these were on sale at another store at $4.99 a pound.

We also picked up two packages of boneless, sirloin pork chops at 99-cents a pound. Each package held three chops and my wife cut these in half. We will get 12 individual  meat servings for about 33-cents a serving.

I noticed a young couple debating whether or not to buy the chicken thighs. I encouraged them, promising them I would post my wife's recipe by Tuesday night. As promised, my wife's recipe ends this post.

Each piece of chicken cost about 53-cents and if you are a healthy, not heavy eater (there is no reason to eat anywhere near as much meat as we do) one and a half pieces make a serving. Compared to some of my wife's other suggestions, this seems expensive at 80-cents a serving.

But, you can stretch out the chicken by unrolling a couple, cutting them into strips, and quickly frying them in a hot skillet. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the strips to some cooked pasta, tossed with a basil pesto mix and a some walnut pieces toasted in a hot pan. Serve with tomato on the side and you have a main course that will have set you back  just more than a dollar. 

These boneless, skinless, chicken thighs are versatile.

Recipe - preheat oven to 375 degrees
1 cup bread crumbs
2 tsp parsley flakes
1/4 tsp Italian seasoning
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 large eggs
1 cup white flour
2 tbsp olive oil
12-15 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1. Mix bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, parsley flakes and Italian seasoning with your hands. Pour them into a pile on a sheet of waxed paper. Sprinkle with garlic powder (you can be generous), salt and black pepper.
2. Pour 1 cup of white flour onto the waxed paper, away from the bread crumbs.
3. In a small bowl whisk 2 large eggs.
4. Trim any excess fat from the chicken thighs. (You're looking for large full strips of fat. Some fat will add moisture during the cooking.)
5. Unroll one chicken thigh at a time and dust on both sides with flour. Dip it into the egg and drop the chicken onto the seasoned pile of bread crumbs. Coat both sides with bread crumb mix and roll the chicken back up and place on a plate. These should be rolled with the smooth side up. Coat each piece of chicken in this manner.
6. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan on top of the stove.
7. Place chicken in pan, smooth side up — this will seal the bottom seam — quickly brown, turning the pieces to brown all sides. As each piece is browned, place smooth side up in an oven proof dish or pan with a tight fitting lid.
8. Bake for 35 minutes. Remove from oven and serve. Leftovers can be frozen and microwaved for later use.
   

Brian Frank link: Cars in Communities

I enjoy the writing of London blogger Brian Frank. I don't always agree with him, uh, I don't always understand him. But I follow him on Twitter and when it sounds as if he has posted on something in which I have an interest, I hit him. (Figuratively, not literally. Although, there are bloggers with whom I would much prefer to do the reverse. POW!)

I don't agree completely with Frank. He wrote: " . . . listening to music is half the fun of driving (and driving is definitely un-fun without it)." I cringe. If you need a radio, you are not driving. My Morgan has never had a radio and never will. In 41 years of driving that car, I have never, not once, wished I had a radio. (A narrower, twistier road with smoother pavement, no traffic and no speed limits, now there are some Morgan driver wishes. Keep your radio. I don't even want an i-Pod.)

Still, Frank is onto something. And even if you don't agree with everything he says, I think you will agree, he has a nice way with words.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Is it art?

I knew we'd get to this one sooner or later. An essay on art. As a photographer I am always hearing the refrain, " . . . but it isn't art."

Well photography is art, and it's craft as well. But often, especially with point and shoot cameras, a great deal of the craft is handled by the camera and this fools people into thinking there is no art. Not only is there art, but it can be almost pure art, devoid of craft.

The problem starts with the word art itself. The word means too many things. This is common in English, making one word, one group of letters, do double or triple duty — maybe even more.

You can bring cows in from the field, or field a ball, or in a similar vein, you can field a question. When you were young, you might have liked to play the field. You get the picture, uh, idea.

I'll let y0u play with the word art. The less I say here the better. It minimizes arguments.

If you hire an artist to make you some wine goblets, and give no instructions, you might get some incredibly imaginative goblets, wonderful to look at but completely useless when it comes to holding wine.

Once, I actually saw this happen when a well respected artist created a raku-fired, wine goblet collection. They were beautiful, they even moved when one walked by. The artist thought this was a neat effect; they were like the melding of mobiles and stabiles. Well, it was neat until the footsteps of a passing woman caused one to topple and break. I think Alexander Calder would have said these goblets needed more stability and less mobility.

Also, the very creative raku finish contained poisonous substances that would leach into wine. Not good. The artist made goblets that were great to admire, especially if you laid them on their sides, but they were not good to drink from.

Think of these goblets as approaching pure art.

Now, go to a craftsperson to order some wine goblets. Immediately, you will be asked about the type of wine that these goblets will hold. Will it be red or will it be white? It does make a difference.

When you pick up your goblets, you will find that the mouth is not wider than the bowl. Each goblet will have a good stem, easily held, preventing the wine from being warmed by the hand. And the foot of each delicate goblet will be fashioned such that it allows one to place the wine down without concern for it falling over.

These goblets will not surprise you; they will be just as envisioned. Dull but functional. Think of these goblets as approaching pure craft.

Let's try another example. Ask an artist to make you a lawn chair and give them no restrictions and you might get something like these, but I doubt it — these are just so creative, they are unique. Made by the Dutch artist Lisette Spee and architect Tim van den Burg these chairs can be found in het Valkenbergpark in Breda, The Netherlands.

Art is the creative thought while craft is the quality, the skill, needed to realize the art — the creative vision. Simple, right?

Most of us want a measure of both in what we simply call art. We want it to be creative and we want it to be something more than we would expect of a three-year-old. Well, take the blinders off; sometimes, even three-year-olds are on to something.

Our daughter, Ashley, when she was but 18-months sat on the floor with a piece of paper and some fine-tipped markers; she poked the colourful markers through the paper. Then, she turned the paper over and had one of those "Eureka!" moments. She discovered the back of the smooth, white paper was textured with small ragged holes, each one revealing, and reveling in, a burst of colour. The toddler toddled off looking for mom in order to share her work of art.

Creative? Yes!

Would you have thought of it? I doubt it.
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To learn what craft, skill, was necessary to shoot the image of the toilette at sunset, please check out my other blog: Rockin' On: Photography.

Shout Out to Houghton Lake Michigan

To my visitor from Michigan, isn't Houghton Lake somewhere near what used to be called Mount Grampion? I skied there when I was a teen.

Cheers,
Rockinon

National Punctuation Day

I need help with my punctuation, and I know it. It is one reason that I miss having an editor. Well, today is National Punctuation Day in the States and the Huffington Post has an on-line punctuation test. Try the test; I did. I blew two.

After taking the test, check out the National Punctuation Day site.

There may be hope for me yet.

Cheers,
Rockinon

Global sequential hits. Odd. Disconcerting.

My computer sits in a corner the master bedroom. By 6 a.m. each morning I am often sitting at the keyboard tapping out my thoughts and hoping someone else will enjoy sharing them.

Lately, I have been getting over 155 hits a day on my various blogs. Very gratifying. Or is it?

What do the numbers really mean? For instance, I know that one IP address hit my site 77 times one day. 77 times! I traced the address back to a local company. I don't know why I was hit 77 times but I do know it wasn't because I was immensely popular. It was a one day event.

This morning I noticed that this picture, posted months ago, was hit four times overnight. What search criteria would one use to stumble upon it and why would three different sites in three wildly separated locations all stumble upon the same picture over the course of just a few hours?

Are these computers connected?

Why is this question important? First, the New York Times was hacked the other day and a virus attached to files on their site. They warned their readers and purged their file servers, but if it can happen to the NYT what about me? Could someone attach a virus to my blog?

And the next question is important to those planning on making money from their Internet hits; people like those who run newspapers. If their numbers are inflated, possible grossly inflated, then they do not have the number of Internet followers that they think they have.

If newspapers should decide to charge for their content based on calculations using their Internet hits, they could find themselves walking the plank into a sea of red ink.

When I worked at the local paper, we used to get a lot of hits out of Norwich, a little town some kilometres from London, Ontario. The folk in charge did not question those numbers, even when I raised questions. They liked to assume that for some unknown reason we were exceedingly popular in Norwich.

Well, my sites have attracted a lot of Norwich hits on certain days and I don't assume that I am exceedingly popular in Norwich.

I know of one company that bragged about its surprisingly large number of Twitter followers. When I checked their followers, I found fully 66% of the followers were meaningless - many were links to porn sites. (Since then I have learned that this is not uncommon. I have rejected at least 90% of the follower requests I have received.)

So, why was a picture of a Ford Focus reflecting a sunset in London, Ontario, of interest to surfers in Doha, Qatar, Istanbul, Turkey and Wilcox, Arizona? (I have blurred the IP addresses as I don't know the legalities of publishing them.)


If you work for a newspaper, you should check Newsosaur's take on inflated Internet numbers too often quoted by newspapers.