More Military

Yesterday, I tried to figure out all the US Army ranks.  I wrote them all down, which always helps to fix something in your memory, but I have to admit that if you ask me in a couple weeks if a Staff Sergeant outranks a Master Sergeant, I'm not sure I'll have better than a 50-50 chance of getting it right.

At any rate, today I'll take a quick visit through the other Armed Forces-- that's right, it's a SEQUEL!  To a blog post!  Aren't you excited?  For obvious reasons, the other branches of the US military are organized in a very similar fashion, so instead of just listing everything, I'm just going to note the differences, which should keep this post shorter*.  That should get you excited, if nothing else.

So, first up, the Marines.  The main differences in the Marine structure seem to be the addition of an extra rank for the enlisted men, called the Lance Corporal, in between the Private First Class and the Corporal.  The ranks of the Sergeants are also slightly different, with a Gunnery Sergeant replacing the Sergeant First Class, and a Master Gunnery Sergeant replacing the Command Sergeant Major only ranking below the Sergeant Major instead of above.  The warrant officers and officer ranks seem to be basically the same, although there is apparently no five-star rank for Marines, so no equivalent of the General of the Army.

Next, the Air Force.  The warrant officers and officers, again, are basically the same, although here there is a five-star General of the Air Force.  For the enlisted men, the main difference is that the ranks of Private are replaced with the equivalent ranks of Airmen.  Again, the Sergeant ranks are slightly shuffled and renamed, but fundamentally the same.

Finally, the Navy, which just has to be different.  For starters, there are no ranks in the US Navy-- they're called "rates" instead.  Second, instead of Privates they have Seamen.  NO JOKES PLEASE.  I'm sure they've heard them all before.  And no Sergeants!  Instead, the Navy has Petty Officers, in the same basic pattern (Chief, Master, etc.).  Warrant Officers, at least, are like all the other branches.  But again, the officers just have to be different.  There's a completely new rank (sorry, rate) of Ensign shoehorned in at the bottom, bumping all of the others up a grade, so that a Navy Lieutenant outranks an Army First Lieutenant (O-3 to O-2).  Instead of Colonels and Lt. Colonels, you have the Commander and Lt. Commander, and then the Captain (O-6 instead of the Army's O-3), and then various Admirals instead of Generals, from Rear up to Fleet (the Navy's 5-star officer).

M*A*S*H helped me remember the Army ranks-- maybe I can rely on Star Trek to help with the Navy?

Maybe?

*Well, it was worth a shot.

A Rank Amateur

I don't really know much about the military.  When it comes to the structure of the US Army, most of what I know comes from half-remembered episodes of M*A*S*H, which means that in my head, the order of prominence goes something like Private (no-name redshirts), Corporal (Klinger), Sergeant (?? There must have been some around, but I can't remember any), Captain (Hawkeye, BJ, Trapper John), Major (Burns, Winchester), Colonel (Potter, Blake), General (Guest Star).  Lieutenant goes in there somewhere, too, but I can never remember where.

Now, of course, I knew there were others.  "Lieutenant" can be combined with some other ranks, right?  And there's the Private First Class, unless that somehow still counts as a Private.  Anyway.  So, as usual, I look it up!

According to http://www.army.mil/symbols/armyranks.html, there are at this point in time at least 26 distinct ranks in the US Army depending on how you count (note-- the other branches have different structures, other nations have different structures, and in the past and probably in the future the US Army had and will have different structures, so if you're somehow reading this from 1883, the information is probably not reliable).

Starting from the bottom with the enlisted men, there are two grades of Private (PVT and PV2), Private First Class, Specialist (where privates go who are not command track), Corporal (where privates headed for NCO go), Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, Master Sergeant, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major, and Sergeant Major of the Army (only assigned to one person at a time, the highest you can get as a NCO).  I have to wonder if the large number of Sergeant gradations is in some way indicative of their importance in the Army.

Then there are the five grades of Warrant Officers, the Warrant Officer itself and then four different pay grades of Chief Warrant Officer.  These guys are technical experts in some sort of specialized field.  I'm still not sure how they fit into the structure-- technically they fit in between enlisted men and officers, so they probably take orders from officers, but I don't know if they're really allowed to boss sergeants around.

Anyway, finally there is the Officer class-- Second Lieutenant, First Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lt. Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major General (it is, it is a glorious thing to be a Major General), Lt. General, General, and the General of the Army (5-star General; no one currently has this title, but it's still part of the structure, as is the General of the Armies which has almost never been used and is also currently empty).  Then, of course, there's the Secretary of Defense and the Commander in Chief, but those aren't strictly speaking officer positions, although of course the positions might be filled by people who are also officers in other respects.

It's not easy, being Vegan

From an article about trying veganism on the Serious Eats blog, here are several foods that contain Surprise Animals.

1.  Beer and wine.  Some (not all) alcoholic beverages are clarified using gelatin, isinglass (fish bones), or milk protein.

2.  Dry roasted nuts.  A few manufacturers (Planters, for example) will coat the nuts with a very thin spray of gelatin in order to get the salt and seasonings to stick in an even layer.  Some sunflower seed packagers use this trick as well.

3.  Non-dairy creamer.  Yes, seriously, while calling it non-dairy appears to mean that it doesn't contain actual milk, it still can contain small amounts of milk solids for flavor.  Coffee-mate ingredients: "Water, corn syrup solids, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, and less than 2% of sodium caseinate (a milk derivative)**, dipotassium phosphate, mono- and diglycerides, sodium aluminosilicate, artificial flavor, carrageenan.  **Not a source of lactose."  So it's lactose free, but not actually vegan.

4.  Refined sugar.  In order to remove impurities, white sugar is processed with bone char. 

5.  WATER.  Again, bone char may have been used by your local water plant to filter your drinking water.  Oops.

I'm not saying that veganism is pointless, mind you.  But it's apparently much more difficult than I had thought to be rigorous about it.

The Good, the Bad, and the Nitrogen

As a professional science-y word type person (hey, I'm off the clock), I was somewhat familiar with the Haber-Bosch process.  But I knew nothing about Fritz Haber himself, until Radiolab did a segment about him.  And I have to say, I learned a lot-- rather more than I was expecting, in fact.

First some background.  Nitrogen is a really really useful thing.  It's one of the most important elements that compose complex organic structures, such as amino acids-- the things that make up DNA.  So when you dump materials rich in nitrogen onto plants, for example, they tend to grow really well.  In addition, atoms of nitrogen tend to bond very strongly to other atoms, holding on to a lot of energy in the process.  When you break those bonds, you get all of that energy at once.  Boom.  So there has historically been a lot of interest in finding a way to produce nitrogen in a form that can be manipulated.  

Those tight bonds kept it wrapped up, though, until in the very early part of the 20th Century Fritz Haber developed a process (mix this with that under these conditions in the presence of something else-- it's not really all that interesting in itself, so I'll skip the details) for producing reliable quantities of ammonia, which contains nitrogen and also can be much more easily combined with other things to make different products.  He sold the process, and together with Carl Bosch scaled it up to produce massive amounts of fertilizer for Germany.  Hooray!  Food for the Germans!  Spaetzle for everyone!

A good thing, right?  Nitrogen fertilizers have massively increased the amount of food that can be grown on a given plot of land.  Ok, so there are some environmental consequences that they didn't foresee, but I have to admit I still think that we're better off.  Massive starvation is bad, m'kay?  So he's a hero!  Nobel Prize for Haber!

And then came The Great War.  Suddenly, Germany had another use for the nitrogen-- weaponry.  Explosives.  So, ok, not the happiest thing in the world, but he was honored to serve his country, and that's the way it goes sometimes.  But he didn't stop there.  He had the brilliant idea of using the large quantities of ammonia to produce weaponized chlorine gas (despite its use being outlawed by treaty).  So, all right, maybe he's getting a little too intense, here.  But then he goes himself to the front lines, and personally supervises the release of large quantities of chlorine gas into British trenches.  Hooray!  Death to the enemies of Germany!  Horrible, wretched death!

So, he's still a hero, at least in the eyes of the German military.  But he's kind of starting to creep everybody else out.  In fact, his first wife ends up committing suicide, presumably (although never explicitly proven) as a response to his work.  His reaction?  He ships out that day to the Russian front to gas more enemy soldiers.

I don't know if this is a good guy or not.  Ultimately, his work has probably helped a lot more lives than it's harmed.  But it's hard to get a read on his intentions.  Did he want to be a hero?  Did he want to save the world?  Was he cold and unfeeling?  Bloodthirsty?  I just don't know.  All I can think is that maybe he should have spent just a little bit more time considering the consequences.

Why is the Eiffel tower in Tokyo, anyway?

As a result of watching too much old anime on Hulu, I started wondering just why there was a copy of the Eiffel tower sitting in the middle of Tokyo.  It seemed like an odd choice.  So-- to the Internet!  FOR JUSTICE SCIENCE FACTOIDS!

The Tokyo Tower was built in 1958, by an architect who really liked the Eiffel Tower.  Honestly, that's really most of the story.  Japan's public television network had been launched a couple of years earlier, and they decided that instead of building a whole bunch of smaller towers all over the place (which looked to be a likely outcome), they should just build one giant broadcast tower capable of covering the entire Kanto region (sort of the Tokyo Metropolitan Area).  The architect Tachu Naito was chosen, and he apparently decided to make a copy of the Eiffel Tower, only very slightly bigger (30 meters).  That extra height qualifies it as the world's "tallest self-supporting steel structure," for whatever that's worth.  It is the second tallest structure in Japan, as of this year, as the Tokyo Sky Tree approaches completion.  And according to the promotional materials at least, roughly one-third of it was built out of steel scavenged from US Army tanks damaged during the Korean conflict-- the primary source of quality steel at the time.

The aforementioned Tokyo Sky Tree, by the way, will take over most of the broadcasting responsibilities from the Tokyo Tower, leaving it to fulfill only the roles of Tourist Landmark and Giant Monster Target.

Mogen David 20/20

Mad Dog 20/20 is not actually Mad Dog!  Mad Dog is a common nickname for this particular brand of low cost fortified wine, but the actual name is MD 20/20, and the MD stands for Mogen David!  I... you... [incoherent sputtering]

That's just not right.

OTOH, this year's seder is gonna be a lot more fun.

Also, Mogen David doesn't have a website.  Really.  At all.  Come on, guys, welcome to the 58th century!

Progress in Perfecting Paella

I've been cooking paella sporadically for a few years now, based primarily on a recipe that my wife got from a Spanish lady she knew in grad school.  And many of them have been quite tasty.  But they've all had one specific problem, that I had been unable to address.

You see, "traditional" paella is made in a certain type of flat metal pan, and cooked, uncovered, over an open fire.  Cooking it this way helps drive out all of the excess water, and actually kind of fries the rice on the bottom of the pan, creating a crust called the socarrat.  This socarrat is the key aspect that our paellas had been missing.  The recipes we used called for baking in an oven, and the Calphalon oven "paella pan" never really worked well, producing tasty but soft rice.  Using the dutch oven was even worse-- the rice tended to turn mushy.

So last night we tried a new approach-- sauteing the ingredients in a large cast-iron skillet which was then put into the oven, lightly covered, while the ingredients finished cooking.  And it was a definite improvement.  The rice didn't quite form the proper socarrat on the bottom, although there were hints of it around the top edges.  And the rice was much less blown out and mushy.  I think that if we tried it again, using even less cover and a bit longer in the hot pan, we just might get there.  Someday, I might even try cooking it on the grill to get that extra smokiness.

On the other hand, some day I'd like to take that pan out of the oven without burning myself.  I was sure that the potholder was covering the entire handle that time (I was almost correct).

Oh, and for the record-- this time around, the paella was built with arborio rice, Spanish-style chorizo, onion, garlic, peas, shrimp (frozen), crab meat (canned), oysters (fresh but pre-shucked), clam juice, chicken stock, saffron, pimientos, and boneless skinless chicken thighs.  Oh, and a couple leftover anchovy fillets that I had been trying to figure out how to use up.

The Door County Fish Boil

If you happen to find yourself in Door County, Wisconsin (up the coast a ways from Sheboygan), you may hear people talking about something called a "fish boil."  I am here today to explain to you what this thing is, and to help you decide whether or not to participate.

Legend has it that over a hundred years ago, the settlers (largely Scandinavian lumberjacks and lake fishermen) needed a way to efficiently prepare a lot of food to feed a lot of hungry laborers, and the resulting technique has been passed down ever since as a local tradition, one that attracts locals and tourists alike.

It starts with a giant kettle of salted, boiling water, perched over a large outdoor firepit.  Participants gather around, drinking beers, chatting, possibly listening to the accordionist belt out some standards (and not-so standards, if you ask politely and/or tip well).  Into this enormous cauldron is lowered a proportionately enormous basket filled with chopped up lake whitefish and red potatoes.  They boil for a while, as the Master Boiler chats with the crowd, telling jokes and answering questions.  As the fish cooks, the oils in the fish that are not as pleasant tasting will leach out, floating to the surface of the water.  This is the sign for the big show-stopping moment.  The Master Boiler will ceremoniously throw a small bucketful of kerosene onto the fire, causing a brief explosion of flames and heat that makes the audience ooh and ahh (and surreptitiously check their eyebrows if they were sitting in the front), and, more importantly, causing the water to boil over the sides of the kettle briefly, taking all of the floating fish oils with it.  When the flames die down a minute later, the fish is removed from the cauldron, and everyone filters inside to their assigned tables to put down their coats and beers.

You don't stay there, though.  These affairs draw large crowds, so after figuring out where you're sitting, you promptly remove yourself to a cafeteria-style line, where you'll be issued a plate with a couple pieces of fish and some potatoes to take back to your seats.  At the table, a helpful waitperson will come by, bearing coleslaw and bread, and carefully explain that the fish, being smallish and having only been roughly bisected before cooking, will still have all of the bones in it.  He or she will then demonstrate (possibly more than once) how to take the bones out of the fish-- an operation that is somewhat fiddly, and frankly one that I didn't quite master.  You then, finally, eat the fish and the potatoes, hopefully saving some room at the end of the meal for some of the local cherry pie.

Personally, I found this to be an entertaining experience, but the fish frankly wasn't that appetizing.  It wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't seasoned with anything but the salt in the cooking water and as a result was kind of bland, and it was just too much work trying to get all the bones out of it.  I'd rather just have pie.

Hindenburg Fat

The winter of 1916-17 was pretty bad, if you were a German soldier.  Not only were you buried in a trench, fighting the British, but you didn't have much left to eat--the Allies had blockaded Germany pretty thoroughly, and supplies were running very short.  The average German troop at this point was getting a scant meat ration perhaps every other day (by 1918 it was down to a couple of times a week), and the winter hit pretty hard.  The standard fare of the day was a kind of "bread" made with turnip flour (ground dried turnip), stretched with sawdust.  To make it more palatable, they were given a spread to put on it, affectionately known as "Hindenburg fat."  What was it, you ask?  Why, mashed turnips, of course!  Not for nothing was this winter known as Turnip Winter.  Ultimately, something on the order of 750,000 German troops died, not from enemy gunfire, but from malnutrition.

The Second Defenestration of Prague

I've always liked the word "defenestration."  Well, not literally always-- when I was 9 months old, for example, I think my favorite word was "ub," and I probably hadn't encountered "defenestration" yet.  Although it's hard to be sure-- my parents are kind of odd.  Hi, dad!


At any rate, if you do a search through any serious database, most of the hits you will get will feature, in relatively close proximity, the name "Prague."  This is because, although to be sure people have been thrown from windows probably since there were windows, Prague was the setting for multiple incidents that cemented the term in the public awareness.


The first occurrence was in 1419, when a full set of town officials, engaged in anti-Hussite activities (they were throwing rocks at a Hussite priest and his congregation from the windows), were basically lynched by an angry mob.  Hurled from the window, their subsequent deaths were apocryphally the cause of King Wenceslas*'s death, and are commonly pointed to as the division between "unrest" and "outright bloody war," also known as the Hussite wars.


Not ones to leave a good idea alone, the good citizens staged The Second Defenestration of Prague in 1618, when Catholic-Protestant tensions were at a peak.  The Pope was ostensibly fairly laid-back about the many Protestants in the area, but King Ferdinand (also Catholic) took over Bohemia somewhat prematurely (his brother being the traditional "not quite dead"), and had been putting Catholics into positions of power at an alarming rate.


At a meeting to clarify the ownership of some land underneath some Protestant chapels, a few Catholic Lords admitted to writing a letter encouraging the (still not completely dead) King to rescind many of the rights enjoyed by the Protestant community.  They freely fessed up, presumably assuming that they'd be thrown into the typical sort of cushy nobleman's jail for a few years until their cronies could spring them.  Instead, they were thrown out of a third-story window.  Interestingly enough, they apparently survived-- either due to the agency of the angels (if you ask one side) or due to an unexpectedly soft landing in a convenient large pile of manure (if you ask the other).  King Ferdinand was deposed, but responded by outlawing Protestantism outright, ultimately sparking the Thirty Years War, "one of the most destructive conflicts in European history."


So remember-- throwing people out windows is a good way to start horrible European wars.


*not Good King Wenceslas; he lived about 500 years earlier, and was (if I've counted correctly) this King Wenceslas's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granduncle.  There were several Wenceslases over the years.

Fish Monday!

Yesterday's experiment was Linguine with Tuna Sauce with a side of Scalded Fingers (because I am a foolish, foolish blog creature).

It was, as far as I could tell, a fairly straightforward revision of the classic vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce) into a veal-less pasta dish.  It was interesting, especially for this cookbook, in that it used hardly any fresh ingredients.

The basic plan was as follows-- fry minced garlic in olive oil briefly (I burned it a bit, but it didn't end up mattering too much).  Add some chopped up anchovy fillets, and fry a bit longer.  Add a small can of premium tuna in oil.  Add pureed canned tomatoes.  Add a little cayenne or red pepper flakes.  Simmer.  Make a pot of linguine.  Reserve some of the pasta water when it's done (this is how I scalded myself a bit-- always wait until the pasta has stopped boiling before dipping out a cupful, kids!).  Add the pasta and a big whack of parsley to the sauce, and mix for a bit.  Add some pasta water if the sauce has reduced too much.  Serve.

The anchovies basically dissolve, and just add a salty, slightly fishy background.  The tuna breaks up, and becomes more of a condiment than an feature-- this is really a tuna-flavored pasta dish, not a tuna dish served over pasta.

It was pretty tasty, but it felt a little bit one-note.  Next time, I may try adding some basil or something with the parsley (the cookbook suggests some capers as a possible addition, but I dunno) to add another layer.

Classical Laughing Gas

I've only been familiar with the name Mason Williams from his award-winning guitar instrumental Classical Gas.  It's not all he should be known for, though.  He was actually also one of the head writers for the original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour TV show back in the last 60s, and as such, had a notable influence on comics of the generation (including such nobodies as Steve Martin).  He went on to write for Saturday Night Live in 1980, but let's not hold that against him.

He also claims to have had the original concept of the music video and DJ, although that's not quite as clear cut (he did play Classical Gas on TV in 1968 over a backdrop of art pieces, an event that is arguably the first broadcast music video).

Nature Gone Wild

Much has been made of the fertile wilderness that greeted European explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.  But 1491: New Revelations etc etc. in its closing chapters (I'm finally done!) points out the possibility that this was an indirect result of the explorer's arrival.  The spread of European germs in the New World is fairly well documented, and it is logical that the decimation of the various communities of Native Americans would lead to the flourishing of the species which they hunted-- thus, for example, the legendary herds of millions of bison may have been a temporary aberration rather than the status quo.

The book also points out that germs were not the only thing to spread through the New World like wildfire.  Kudzu is one of the classic modern examples, but the famous Kentucky bluegrass was a much earlier implant-- one that proved so successful that the first English settlers to reach Kentucky found it already there, waiting for them, having moved from the landing sites at great speed.  Other garden species also broke out, leading to the sentence that sparked this post-- "In the pampas of Argentina and Uruguay, the voyaging Charles Darwin discovered hundreds of square miles strangled by feral artichoke."  It's a delightful image, although "Strangled by feral artichoke" also strikes me as being the likely headline for Ursula Vernon's obituary.

Right, let's have a ding dong

Some belated Xmas info today (I'm a couple weeks behind with my Learning Pile).

Although Xmas hymns are extremely old, as you would expect, the tradition of the peppier popular Xmas carol is older than I had thought, and can be traced, somewhat unexpectedly, to a religious figure I recognize (no small feat, since I am not especially well versed in religious history).  But then, almost everyone has heard of St. Francis of Assisi.

That's right-- when he wasn't off doing his Dr. Doolittle shtick ("If I could preach to the animals..."), founding the Franciscan monastic order, or otherwise being moderately awesome, he was encouraging a shift from more formal Latin hymns to songs based on popular music in the native languages of the populace.  He didn't write any carols himself, as far as we know, although there is one apocryphal scrap of parchment attributed to him* with just the line "Ye Olde Bloo Christmass."

Apparently he also was responsible for arranging the very first manger scene in 1223.  Some busy guy, huh?

*Attributed to him by me, since I just made it up.

Histamines

I had been under the impression that histamines were produced by the body as a result of an allergic reaction-- hence, the use of antihistamines such as loratadine or diphenhydramine (the main ingredients of Claritin and Benadryl, respectively).

Turns out this is not, strictly speaking, the case. Histamines are produced as a result of an allergic reaction, but they can be produced by other causes as well. According to Stedman's Medical Dictionary, histamine is "A vasodepressor amine derived from histidine by histidine decarboxylase and present in ergot and in animal tissues. It is a powerful stimulant of gastric secretion, a constrictor of bronchial smooth muscle, and a vasodilator (capillaries and arterioles) that causes a fall in blood pressure. Histamine, or a substance indistinguishable in action from it, is liberated in the skin as a result of injury. When injected intradermally in high dilution, it causes the triple response."

Yeah, I didn't understand much of that either.

Wikipedia is a little clearer:  histamines are produced by the body as part of an immune response, which can be prompted by a variety of things, although allergens are the most common.  When absorbed by the four types of histamine receptors, the histamines produce inflammation, which (depending on the location and type of receptor) will in turn produce the itching, swelling, runny nose, bronchoconstriction (tight airways), etc. that we associate with allergic reactions.  They are also involved in other parts of the body in gastric acid and neurotransmitter production.

An interesting side note is that antihistamine drugs don't work by stopping the production of histamines, as a literal interpretation of the name might suggest.  Instead, they flood the receptors that would otherwise absorb the histamines, thus preventing the reaction from completing.  So instead of being anti- histamine production, they're anti- histamine reaction.

All Glory to the Hypnogoat

I was watching an episode of Dirty Jobs the other night, in which a goat was prominently featured.  Now, I don't have a lot of personal experience with goats, so the very first thought I had while watching was, "Holy crap those are weird eyes."  Mike Rowe even commented on it in the show, and the vet said something about the shape being an herbivore prey adaptation for better vision or something, but this was the vet that was performing goat acupuncture at the time, so I was a little dubious.

She was right, though.  Many of the ruminant mammals have "slit-form pupils," an adaptation that is believed to improve peripheral vision.  It is basically analogous to the more familiar vertical slit of a cat's eye (also seen in some foxes), although the different orientation probably translates to sensitivity to a different type of motion-- spotting possible predators instead of tracking small prey.

At any rate, the only reason it's more visible in goats as opposed to the other animals (sheep, zebras, horses, etc) is that goats tend to have pale irises, making their pupils more visible.  A cow's slit-form pupil, by contrast, is often lost in their soulful brown eyes.

And just for some extra bonus info, since we're discussing goats-- it is (according to the above episode of Dirty Jobs) illegal for anyone to perform acupuncture unless they are a licenced goat-cupuncturist or the legal owner of the goat in question.  This led to an amusing bit where Mike Rowe had to purchase the goat for 5 bucks for the duration of the shoot so he could participate as planned.  I don't know if this was a state statute or a federal one, but regardless-- no sticking needles into other people's goats!  It's not just a good idea, it's THE LAW.

Word for the Day

Today's word is "claire": a small enclosed pool for growing or observing the growth of oysters. "Bobby, go down to the claire and fetch us some Wellfleets for lunch!" "Yes, Maw."


These pools are not named after anyone in particular. The name instead comes from the French clair, meaning clear. Presumably, these were relatively clear ponds, full of salt water but not muck.

This way, Mr. Firstnighter.

First Night is a "traditional" New Year's Eve celebration that I had never heard of before I moved out to New England.

And for good reason!  This family friendly, artistically cultural event is younger than I am, having been started in 1976 in Boston, and only fairly recently has it spread outside of the New England area.

And... well, really, that's all I have to say about it, except that I'm still a little non-plussed that a city-run event selling "tickets" (buttons, really) out of an actual box office wouldn't take a credit card.  If you're going to charge 20 bucks a head, maybe you shouldn't encourage people in the middle of a crowded downtown to be carrying that much cash?  Maybe that's just me.  They said they'd take a check, but really-- not a lot of people our age or younger carry their checkbooks around on a regular basis and I think this has just officially turned into some sort of weird Kids These Days rant, so I'd probably better stop.

The Return of Fish Monday!

It's Fish Monday!  Ok, actually it's Tuesday, and actually I made the fish a few days ago, but it's the first day back from vacation and I wanted the excuse to re-start Fish Mondays, where I report on new recipes and/or techniques I've tried over the weekend (Sunday night is often fish, since I go shopping on Sundays and you shouldn't keep fresh fish around any longer than you have to).  Ahem.

This week's experiment was Butter-Basted Halibut with Red Pepper Coulis and Creamy Corn.  The creamy corn was basically just corn cooked in heavy cream with some salt and pepper-- very simple, very tasty, and very not good for you.  The red pepper coulis was a little more interesting-- chopped up red pepper, onion, white wine, and a few odds and ends, sauteed and then blended with oil to make an emulsified sauce.  Again, not especially difficult, and easily prepared ahead of time, but the first time I'd tried anything like that.  The two lessons I took away from it were 1), it is important to let it cool enough before blending.  Just in case.  And 2), even though the recipe said, "blend until completely smooth," there will basically always be flecks of pepper skin in the liquid, and don't worry about it.

The fish was the most interesting bit for me.  First, it was marinated in a cilantro oil--one bunch fresh cilantro leaves, blanched and drained and then blended with a neutral oil.  One hour later, the fish was BRIGHT green.  A little disconcerting.  Then, the butter basting, a new technique for me.  The idea here is basically to achieve some of the results of the somewhat old-fashioned butter poaching technique, without having to use a pound of butter to get enough to cover the fish.  It seemed to reach that goal, at least-- only a quarter pound of butter went into the pan.  The procedure was basically melt half a stick first, then add the fish to start browning a bit, and then add the rest of the butter.  Tilt the pan off the heat a bit so the melted butter collects at one end, and then slowly spoon the hot butter over the fish for 6 to 7 minutes.  The pan cooks the bottom half of the fish, and the butter cooks the top half.  You get a bit of browning, and a lot of cooked butter flavor.  And when you're done, a lot of the butter stays in the pan, although at this point it's also kind of bright green from washing over the marinade.

It was REALLY TASTY.  The recipe made too much coulis, so I've been eating red pepper sauce with steak and rice and some other things for a few days, but that's no hardship.  And I really want to make more of that corn next summer when it's fresh.  But the fish was the star, with a surprisingly subtle cilantro flavor and all the yumminess that cooked butter can give a dish.