Recipe:

Flour – 2 cups
Butter – 4TBs (half a stick)
Sugar – 1 cup

Egg – 1
Salt – about 1tbsp
Powder (baking) – 1TB

Sour cream – 5/4cup.

(Above taken from cook’s illustrated. Below taken out of ether)

Vanilla – 1 cap full (the tiny little cap that comes on the extract bottle)
Nutella – 1/4 cup or so
Peach jam – 1/4 cup or so
Coarsely Crushed Walnuts – 1/2 cup
Zest of one tangerine

Topping:
Finely obliterated-with-a-wooden-stick walnuts – 1/8 cup
White sugar –  1TB
Cinnamon – 1TB

Preheat oven 350. Combine flour and softened butter. Add sugar and salt. Add egg, sour cream. Add baking powder. I only had 3/4 cup of sour cream leftover, so I just added milk after that. It doesn’t give as rich and creamy a muffin, but it works. I added milk until batter had consistency of thick pudding. Blend the vanilla in/zest in. Lightly mix in nutella/peach jam/coarse walnuts. Sprinkle on topping. Put in oven. Pour batter into muffin trays. Watch TV until mom shouts “DID YOU BURN THE MUFFINS YET?” Go “Oh CRAP!”

p.s. – try to view my site from your iphone/android or whatever. Cool, huh?

Avocado Fries

It really can’t get much simpler than this. Use this recipe for shrimp, cucumbers, zucchini, just about anything (I assume. I actually haven’t tried this with anything else). Spend maybe 5 or ten minutes, make a huge mess, and you’ve got yourself a nice, satisfying, not-as-healthy version of a healthy food!  Now the numbers (1c flour, 2 large eggs) etc don’t really matter as long as you get something on the avocados. I did originally sprinkle some pepper on them, but found that it doesn’t seem to complement the avocado’s unique buttery taste that well. Let me know if you have suggestions, cause I’m definitely making this again sometime!

Link here

The infection is caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. This disease is highly prevalent in rats, and therefore highly prevalent in cats as well. Scientists at Oxford University have found that although normal rats tend to avoid areas with cat scents, those infected by toxo actually are attracted to cat scents, making them the brave! The adventurous! The dead. This makes sense in evolution. By making infected rats more likely to be eaten by cats, Toxo makes itself more easily spread. (In humans, it can be spread through contact with cats or though eating infected raw meat).

Well cue this article by Slate. According to Slate, prevalence of Toxo infection strangely is able to predict winners of elimination matches. In fact, 15 out of the last 16 winners of the first knockout game over the last two world cups were from countries with higher infection rates of Toxo! The article tries to tie infection with behavior, stating that it is know that Toxo increases testosterone in male brains, making them more likely to engage in risky behavior. They have more “aggressive and less inhibited.”

(Image taken from the Slate.com article. Without permission. I hope this is OK)

A report released by Schizophrenia Bulletin, Effects of Toxoplasma on Human Behavior, by Jasroslav Flegr, does find differences in human behavior between those infected and those uninfected. Those infected were found to be more vigilent, likely to “disregard rules and [to be] more expedient, suspicious, jealous, and dogmatic.” They were more likely to have been in traffic accidents, with lower reaction times.

So could infection with parasites make a more ruthless, more fearless sports star? Well, has anyone seen Ron Artest?

The link leads to a video of a child with autism. People with mental disorders are frequently seen as just “beings to be dealt with.” Their unexplainable behavior is often dismissed as a malformation that could only be dealt with in the same manner that one accepts the death of a pet; just let it be. This video shows, however, something much deeper and disturbing, something fascinating, something that elevates out understanding of the mentally retarded into our world of torments, needs, and desires. Its definitely worth a watch.

My sources:

• Simply Recipes told me to cut a quarter inch off the head of each clove, peel off the outer skin and to leave the individual skins intact. It also instructs to put a couple TBs of olive oil on each head and roast in an over at 400 degrees for 30-35min.
• The Hungry Mouse gave me ways to use roasted garlic, including making roasted garlic compound butter and making garlic infused olive oil. I focused only on roasting garlic. It recommended 350 degrees at 30 to 45 min.
• Epicurious said 300 at 45 min to 1 hour. It also called for thyme and black peppercorns.
• My mom told me to go do my homework.

What I ended up doing:

• Cut 3 heads of garlic each at about a quarter inch from the top (of the bulb, not the stem)
• Cover each with 1-2TB of olive oil, let soak in. Pour a bit more olive oil on top.
• Put in baking pan and bake at 375F for an hour
• Watch Arrested Development

Didn’t turn out to be as caramel-colored as that of The Dogwood, but did turn out creamy and nutty. I say that letting it sit in the oven for another 15 min or until a little more brown would have made it better.

Just kidding I made blueberry muffins. I referenced a couple recipes for this. I took a recipe directly out The New Best Recipe, and added the suggesting of creating a blueberry jam from Cook’s Illustrated online. First, put oven at 350.

• Add 1 cup (plus or minus some random error) blueberries to a small sauce pan
• Add some sugar to that
• Cook on medium heat, mashing up the blueberries incredibly inefficiently with a wooden spatula because I don’t have a muller

Now for the batter:

• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I used bleached)
• 1 TB baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg (calls for large. I don’t know what I used. it worked)
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 TB unsalted butter
• 5/4 cup sour cream
• Vanilla (my addition)

One of the best secrets I have learned over time in baking is sour cream. The soft, rich texture of the cream adds a delicate moistness to any baked good, while the sharp tart flavor is diminished into a background complement. Adding more butter and oil, although makes the baked good soft, they can easily make it too oily and do not add the light springiness desired. I’ll consider testing creme fraiche in the future if I can get my hand on some though (less sour). This is no different for muffins. Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the wet ingredients together. Mix both together and get the batter. Oh and remember… you’re adding baking power. For anything involving baking powder,  you want to get that thing into the oven soon after it touches water. The redox reaction that creates the nice airy bubbles starts right away upon exposure to water.

Now mix in the blueberries. I found the blueberries to be hard to stir and to take up a lot of space in the batter. The recipe calls for 3/2 cups, but I probably used just a little over a half.

After placing the resulting mixture in a greased muffin pan, I then added a spoonful of jam onto the top of each muffin and swirled. I may have mixed a little too much just on top. (Follow what Cook’s Illustrated says and poke a deep crater into each muffin and only swirl a little bit if you want to get something better looking that what I had. ) Bake for 25 minutes or until testing with a toothpick indicates that it is done.

I’m used to eating muffins from Costco so the comparison isn’t exactly fair, but I felt the muffins were delicious. The vanilla and sour cream added just the right amount of flavor and richness to elevate this from just OK to something more. It had the consistency of a nice, moist cake, although the pockets of air weren’t as big as I expected them to be. Maybe this was because the baking powder is slightly older. Anyways, I highly recommend trying this or some variant of it. Its easy to make, and turned out to be a pretty well

Rate: 4.5/5

p.s. About my ratings. They’re probably all a little high just because when I fully expect anything I work on to come out tasting like crap, its a taste-elevating surprise to find out that it actually tastes like food. Another thing to know about me – there is almost nothing [edible] in the world that I don’t like to eat.

When any important decision or law is made or passed, it is always important to balance out the pros and the cons. Therefore, I believe that before one adamantly argues or takes action on his or her views, that person should take an effort to understand the issue itself and to accept the legitimate arguments of his or her opponents, no matter the confidence in one’s own views. Failure to do so may cause of promote unethical actions. For instance, one doctor was recently reported as hanging up a sign stating “If you voted for Obama, seek care elsewhere.” The refusal of patient care (or at least adding the danger of discriminatory care) based on political views it itself unethical. But back to the point – the doctor seemed uninformed and in at least one of his main arguments (having to do with nursing home payments), was completely wrong, and his inaccurate views were causing harm to his patients. This applies even more strongly to the government and the media. One-sided arguments that are false, exaggerated, and uninformed (“Obama death camps”) can easily propagate into a mob of biased, thoughtless opinions that in some cases may make a man act against his own health (Medicaid-receivers who protest against government interference of health care).

Now, given my previous statement, I can only state support or opposition to the reform in the context of what I know about the bill. So far, on principle (and the following will state one argument supporting), I acknowledge that there are many consequences of the bill, certain or predicted, that I have not fully taken into account because I don’t understand them completely. Nevertheless, here is an argument for the bill.

First of all, I want to confront the illegitimacy of opposing the bill based solely off of the title ascribed on to it by many, “socialist.” Because these arguments fundamentally argue against government involvement in the health care system, I will attempt to argue the necessity of government involvement by first creating a starting point for “socialist health care” as something that isn’t intrinsically right nor intrinsically wrong due solely to the negative connotation of the title.

Now, we long have accepted the role of the government in offering us many public services. We consider it justified for the government to tax us for services that we cannot obtain ourselves through the free market system. For instance, if France were to invade us (OK bad example), we as a country would be in danger, for we as individuals would have nothing but Kindles and iPads to protect ourselves. (We could hire private armies, but how well would that work?) We therefore justify paying taxes so that the government can allow us a protection of our lives (and liberty, and pursuit of happiness). Having private cops and firefighters would be so inefficient and impractical that we justify paying public funds for these to be “socialist” enterprises. Similar (maybe even same) arguments are provided by my friend Jae, but we diverge at this point. He argues as many have that  the government should not involve itself in doing anything but to protect life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. I argue that it is its responsibility to do so.

Take public school as an example. Certainly, without government involvement, we would be able to create great prestigious institutions in a market economy, advancing knowledge and the future of all who paid for school. How many people, however, would actually be able to afford a private school? An argument made by some states that as long as someone works hard, he or she will be able to succeed in life. If education wasn’t “socialist,” many parents wouldn’t even be able to afford to enroll their children in elementary school. Would these people dare to argue, then, that someone who wasn’t able to afford to learn to read, if he works really hard, is likely to succeed in life? We can’t even talk about the government’s role in protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit to happiness until people actually have access to such things. The child who could not attend school in the market economy for education would never have access to the pursuit of happiness. Therefore, the government’s role isn’t just to protect, but to remove barriers to access as well, and therefore can justify taxing to create public schools.

Medical care can be argued in a parallel manner. Under status quo before the reform, many did not have access to health care, and therefore did not have the possibility of improving their quality of life through seeing a doctor. Those who are poor and not able to be on Medicaid, and those with preexisting conditions, were unfairly burdened due to pure luck like the kids who would not be able to afford private schools. The government has the responsibility to not only protect these people from having others take their lives, but to lessen barriers to life-saving procedures as well. Therefore, I believe that it may be ethically justified to raise taxes for health care (note, this is already done through Medicaid and Medicare), and to impose a mandate with subsidies (preventing a death-spiral of rising insurance costs due to healthier people dropping out, leading back to the sick not being able to afford medical coverage).

Of course, there are frames that may argue overall decreased accessibility of care as well. My goal here is to merely provide an argument through a point of view for now.

Well if you got this far, thanks for reading! Comments are appreciated, and criticisms are appreciated even more.

http://www.joetsao.com

The irony – the guy says something to the extent of, “Never mind crab cakes! I wish I were having Jambalaya right now!”
Oh weather man, how I could fulfill your dreams.

Quite an experience at the supermarket. And by experience, I mean waiting in line at the speed of stagnant water acting as a fertile breeding ground for malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiae. Highlight of the supermaket experience – finding clam juice. What the heck is clam juice?

Juice from a clam.
Duh.

So after foolishly following directions telling me to food-process the vegetables, a process that processed the greens and reds and whites into anything but the finely chopped wonders I was promised, and uhh… a long series of steps involving chicken, sausage, shrimp, and clam juice… this what what the Jambalaya ended up looking like.

And this is what it looked like in a plate…

And this is what it looked like with Besho drinking a beer and pointing at it.

I say it was pretty successful. Although next time I’m tempted to dump a whole bottle of sriracha into it. Mmm… rooster sauce – the sugar and chili delight.

Lessons learned:
1. Needs more hot sauce
2.  Probably should’ve put Steffi’s turkey back in the fridge after she left for the entire weekend leaving it out to defrost.
mmm… Salmonella

OH WAIT I”M NOT DONE
It ummm snowed, so I dug myself onto the roof and took pictures. Heres one.

And heres a picture from the ski trip of Tom hugging a “warning you must be advanced to go down this halfpipe sign.”

mmmm halfpipe warning sign.

Done.