A Limerick

The bustard's an exquisite fowl
With minimal reason to growl:
He escapes what would be
Illegitimacy
By the grace of a fortunate vowel.

--George Vaill

(I am forever forgetting the first adjective, mistaking a tense, and forgetting who wrote this, so here it is.)

Grilled Caprese Sandwich

Here’s the way I’m making these at the House of Chez Casa.

(If you don’t want garlic on the outside of your sandwich, and thus on your fingers, read the first note for an alternative.)

Blend together:

• ½ c. olive oil
• 4-5 cloves of garlic

Set aside. [1]

1. Choose some good, flavorful bread. [2] Use two slices per sandwich.
2. Cover each slice of bread with fresh basil leaves.
3. Thickly cut fresh tomato slices (~¼" thick). Blot dry and then salt the tomato. Place on half the bread slices.
4. Thickly cut bufala mozzarella slices. [3] Place on the other half of the bread slices.
5. Close the sandwich(es) up and brush both sides with the garlicked oil.
6. Toast, grill, or, as I do, press. [4] In a press, put the sandwich tomato side down.

When the cheese is starting to leak out of the sandwich, it’s done. In our press, the bread is also nicely toasted at this point.

Enjoy!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] This was tonight’s refinement; it is a keeper, and is the reason I’m posting the recipe now, even though a recipe isn’t really needed. In the past I’ve crushed garlic and brushed it onto the bread with the EVOO. The flavor of the garlic just didn’t come through. But doing it this way, blending the garlic into the oil and letting it sit? Now we can taste the garlic!

An alternative that has also been very good is to very thinly slice the garlic (like Paul Cicero / Paul Sorvino in Goodfellas) and layer it between the tomato and mozzarella.

[2] Our normal bread in this market is Heather’s 50% Whole Wheat Sourdough. We pick it up either at the Rosewood Market (deliveries T, Th, Sat) or at the local market on Saturday mornings. But if we lived in a different market, I swear I could live on LaMadeleine’s seven grain bread. It’s one of the things we miss about living in Dallas, and we brought a loaf home from our Atlanta Thanksgiving trip. I used the seven grain bread tonight. Yummers!

[3] You really, really, really want the sort of bufala mozzarella that comes packed in water. It gets marvelously stretchy and has a flavor that the hard blocks of mozzarella do not have. I slice it with a kitchen tool that looks very much like this one.

[4] I suppose some day I’d like a sandwich press / vegetable grill with plates that remove for easier cleaning, but this one does me fine for now. Without the press, I would grill this open face to start with and then close it up partway through, finishing with the tomato side down.

Ginger/Nut Sauce for Asparagus

I don’t know why I’m keeping the original recipe (below). I usually just edit and move on, but this time I feel compelled to retain the history. Perhaps I’ll discuss this with a therapist some day, but that would mean starting therapy, and heaven knows that’s a road with no end. So here’s the latest incarnation, which seems to be enough for ~10 servings or so.

Put into a blending cup:

• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp EVOO
• 1 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp soy sauce
• 3 large garlic cloves, chopped roughly
  
• ¼ tsp (heaping) red pepper flakes
• 1 medium bulb of ginger root (~1 ½" diameter, looks like 2 Tbsp or so), roughly chopped

Blend until completely smooth. Add:

• 1 Tbsp tahini
• 1 Tbsp chunky peanut butter
• 1 Tbsp (heaping) dry roasted peanuts

Blend until completely smooth again.

Toast 1 Tbsp sesame seeds (~3:40 did the trick for me) and put into the juice of ½ a lemon. Whisk into the mixture above.

Enjoy! (and consider adding more red pepper)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Some time back, when we were expecting a small crowd here at the House of Chez Casa, SWMBO opened a cookbook and found a sauce she wanted me to try for some asparagus. We didn’t have all the ingredients, and I was cooking about a dozen different things that day, so I adapted a bit for what we had around the old homestead. It was a hit, and now that I’ve been asked to replicate it for Thanksgiving, I figured I should try to remember what I did.

Toss all of these things together and puree them.

• ¼ c. tahini
• ¼ c. chunky peanut butter
  
• ¼ c. crushed peanuts
• ¼ c. olive oil
• ¼ c. rice vinegar
• ¼ c. water
• ¼ c. soy sauce
• ¼ c. sugar (I use the unbleached stuff; I might try honey next time)
• 2 Tbsp. chopped ginger root
• 1 ½ Tbsp. crushed garlic
• ¼ tsp.crushed red pepper flakes

Taste the stuff & adjust flavors and consistency by tossing in extra little bits of the ingredients.

Refrigerate.

Our friend BoomBoom Cannon keeps an old mustard bottle on hand for drizzling pretty lines of sauces like this over the food. I’m lowbrow enough to just ladle it on with a spoon.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Edit, post-Thanksgiving notes:

On amount:
We had five bundles of asparagus to steam, and had nearly half the sauce and a quarter of the asparagus left over. Make less sauce.

On flavor:
I should have at least doubled the red pepper (proportionally). Even Gary, who admits to being afraid of Thai-level spice, thought it could have done with more pepper.

Mark brought broccoli steamed & tossed with lemon (juice & zest) and garlic — just the way Vincent taught us. The very sharp garlic there blended with the ginger/peanut sauce in a great way. Think about adding more garlic and substituting lemon for some of the vinegar.

Before he stumbled onto the combination of sauces, Gary suggested boosting the sesame flavor with some toasted sesame oil. I had considered adding some sesame seeds to the finished product to some texture interest. Perhaps some toasted sesame seed added at the end would do the trick.

Caramelized Sweet Onion Chutney

Some weeks back, SWMBO complained noted that she had quite a bit of trouble making my onion chutney. I can’t imagine why! Just because I never turned the thing into a proper recipe and she had to open (and juggle) no less than three posts to figure out what to do, that’s no reason to go and get all admonitory. (The originals are here: post 1, with red onion confit; post B, the first caramelized chutney; post III, caramelizing in the crock pot)

Still, her point was well-taken, and so dorky boy will now try to rectify the situation.

As soon as you get home from work one evening, put

• 2 lbs. of sweet onions, thinly sliced, and
• ¼ lb. of butter, cut into pats
  

into a crock pot on low. Stir occasionally throughout the evening, but otherwise keep tightly covered. Before you go to bed, make very certain that the cover is completely in place (our old Rival with a glass lid will let steam escape if the lid is not precisely centered; the new Hamilton Beach is more forgiving).

When you get up the next morning (some eighteen hours after you started cooking the onions), give them a stir and add:

• ½ c. honey
• ½ c. tawny port
• ⅝ c. white balsamic vinegar
• 1 c. golden raisins, and
• 1 medium ginger root, grated (yes, this is new to the recipe, and optional; adding ginger to the blueberry chutney was a wonderful step and should be here as well).

Stir, recover tightly, and go back to work.

When you get home that evening (some twenty-four hours after you started), check for consistency. I find that I usually need to turn the temperature up to high and stir every now and again (while cooking dinner and annoying the cat with music turned up way too loudly) to let it simmer down and thicken up a bit. Seldom have I added salt & pepper at this point, although I’d be willing to bet that SWMBO would appreciate a bit of pepper. We’ll see next time.

Pesto

Pesto is easy enough to make. Grind up some basil, pine nuts, sharp grated cheese, garlic, and olive oil. Adjust proportions to taste. Keep it on hand for spreading on crackers, for putting on fish, for tossing onto a quick pasta, for... Well, let’s just say that we go through a lot of the stuff here at the House of Chez Casa. So I’ve been playing with the proportions quite a bit. Here’s what works for us at the moment.

Grind together:

• 1 loosely pressed qt. (1 tightly pressed pt.) basil, washed
• ½ lb. (8 oz.) Locatelli Romano, grated
• 1 ½ medium heads of garlic, crushed
• 4 oz. (~1 c.) walnut pieces, toasted (in our toaster oven, about 4 min. 20 sec. gets them really dark & nutty without being burnt)
  
• 4 oz. pignoli (~1 c. pine nuts), opened
  
• ~1 c. EVOO, drizzled into the food processor slowly
  

Yield: approximately 3 c. of pesto.

I prefer doing this in a food processor, but have had nearly as good a result using a regular old blender.

You can adjust the amount of nuts and oil to change the texture. This version comes out thick enough that it doesn’t fall off a spoon when it comes out of the fridge. Too much oil, and it will flow off whatever you put it on. Too much nut and it won’t be sticky enough to stay on your cracker.

Enjoy!

Roman Cheese

This is my version of a recipe for spiced cheese that goes back a couple of millenia. I used to buy a similar product from the Antiqua Culinaria Romana / Castra-Rota at our local market on Saturday mornings, but they stopped showing up (for reasons I haven’t heard). Anyway, I missed their cheese balls, went to the Latin sources, and tried my own adaptation. Here’s where we are now:

Put into a food processor

• 10.5 oz Ile de France spiced goat cheese buchette (plain will do, but it’s not quite as good)
  
• 6 large cloves garlic (~1/2 medium head), mashed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 stalk celery (with leaves if possible; thinly slice the celery before putting it into the processor to avoid having strings)

Process until smooth.

Add:

• ~2 Tbsp EVOO to texture & taste

It’s quite tasty.

Random notes on Christmas Music

A friend from high school posted a link to Shonen Knife's "It's a New Find" at nearly the same time that a niece posted a status saying "Tired of the same ole thing!!! Ready for a change!" This odd juxtaposition in the Facebook Continuum provoked me into replying to both status. (Yes, the Latin plural of the noun /status/ is, in fact, /status/. It's 4th declension. Deal with it.) And THAT lead to a conversation with another friend from high school (who is also sister of the first friend and wife of another friend -- that's the way it goes when you grow up in a small town, no matter how big that town subsequently becomes; friends are multi-connected in lots of vaguely incestuous ways).

Be all that as it may, the conversation produced some links I know I'm going to want to find again in a few months. So, I'm pasting is some stuff here so that I'll be able to find it later. It's useful, but not normally so at this time of year. And it mainly has to do with two of my favorite (but very different) Christmas songs.


~~~Enter ComBox~~~

**Comment 1, MMe: Space Christmas is one of my seasonal favorites. I've inflicted it on students nearly every year.


**Comment 2, Multi-Connected Friend: @ Michael -- Is Space Christmas on a particular album? I am guessing the band name is Shonen Knife...


** Comment 3, MMe:
Shonen Knife *is* the band:
They've been turning out songs for 30 years with a "Ramones do Japanese girl pop" sound.

“Space Christmas” is a song from their earlier days; it was a single, then got picked up on a mid-90s sampler (that I suspect you would like).

You can hear the song (with a vid of them doing some other song(s) live) on YouTube.


**Comment 4, MCF:
Thanks, Michael! I am looking for Christmas songs to make a compilation CD for a friend. The biggest chore will be to go through the CDs I already own, to see what I want to include. But I have my eyes open for other stuff, too. In fact, I noticed (on fb, sometime, somewhere) that you liked a song titled something like: "Won't be Home for Christmas This Year" or something like that. I've been meaning to look for that one, too.

Sigh. I may or may not get this done for my friend. I've been wanting to do it for a couple of years now.

By the way, do you have the Christmas album, "We Three Kings" by the Roches? Their version of the title song is really nice.


** Comment 5, MMe:
I have a collection that I call HHHMA: A Depressive's Christmas. I use it as an antidote to all the enforced cheerfulness. This is just long enough to fit on a CD (66 minutes, 19 songs). If you like, I can burn you a copy and send it your way.

My full Christmas mix is 16.4 hours and 293 songs long and includes a lot more chipper stuff (mariachi, polka, swing, folk, standards, jazz)....

But the song you are remembering is by Phil Madeira from his 3 Horseshoes album. It's official title is “Christmas This Year.”
If you have an e-dress that accepts large attachments, I can send you an iTunes readable AAC file.

If you do last.fm or pandora, you might also be able to listen there.

[Update, 25 Dec 2016: I miss the tin whistle, other instrumentation, and the studio recording of pub voices singing along, but a live solo version hit YouTube four years ago. So you can get a feeling for the song here. But you really want to buy 3 Horseshoes. It’s a great album.]

**Comment 6, MMe (again):
Oh, and I completely missed answering your question about the Roches. No, that is a collection I don't have.

I couldn't find lyrics to Madeira's song anywhere online, so I've just transcribed them. I keep wanting to quote them anyway, so this will make it easier.

“Christmas This Year”
by Phil Madeira

Every December like moths to a flame
we used to drive north every year just the same,
but we’re sick of the traffic so we’re staying right here,
and we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year.

Packages, sweaters, ski boots, and gloves --
packed to the gills ’til the car door won’t shut.
By the time we’ve gassed up we’ve got no yuletide cheer.
So we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year.

OK I admit it, it ain’t just the drive;
by the time we get back here we’re barely alive.
’Cause sometimes vacations can summon old tears,
and we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year.

Don’t worry, we’ll call ya, we’ll put the kids on;
whatever it takes to strengthen our bond.
And in that sweet moment we’ll wish we were there.
Still we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year.

Tell Santa to forward the gifts to our house.
And maybe once in a decade you ought to drive south.
Just give us some notice, God knows we’ll be here.
’Cause we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year.

Now don’t don’t be offended, and don’t be upset;
I never intended to make you regret
those wonderful moments so special and dear.
Still we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas,
Christmas this year.

No we ain’t comin’ home.
Yeah we ain’t comin’ home for Christmas this year
&c

Peanut Butter Bars

This one comes from a steak buffet place in Weston, WV via my step-mother. I adapted the proportions to fit a single 12 x 17 pan.

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together:

• 1/2 lb. of butter
• 2/3 of a 16 oz. jar of smooth peanut butter (~10-11 oz.)
  
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 & 1/2 c. brown sugar (approximately one 16 oz. bag)
  
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla

2. Slowly sift in 2 c. self-rising flour and continue creaming together.

3. Switch your stand mixer from regular beaters to small dough hooks and add 2 c. oatmeal (this will get very stiff, so I end up switching to a very stout wooden spoon).

4. Press the mixture into a buttered or non-stick 12 x 17 / 13 x 18 jelly roll pan.

5. Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes. The consistency will be like a chocolate chip cookie bar.

6. For the icing, mix until smooth & consistent:

• 1 & 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• the rest of the jar of peanut butter (~5-6 oz.)
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1/3 c. milk

5. Pour over the partially-cooled bars and spread evenly.

6. Cut into squares & enjoy!

Salmon with Citrus Glaze (Alton Brown)

I can’t take credit for this one. We saw it on one of Alton Brown’s shows, Good Eats. I used it last summer when the St. Tommy’s alumni crowd gathered in the mountains of north Georgia. I used it again last night when we had a small mob over to have our house blessed. I did it from memory, but then on a whim searched the interwebs and scared up a link for the top of this post. Both times I’ve made it, I was feeding about a dozen people, so my procedure is for two sides of salmon. The other major difference is that I use less salt that most people, Alton included.

1. Into a small food processor, put

• 2/3 c. dark brown sugar
• the zest from 5 lemons
• 2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper

2. Blend until smooth.

3. Cover a large jelly roll pan with foil (it needs to be a pan with a decent lip, not a flat cookie sheet; there will be a lot of liquid).

4. Put 2 whole sides of salmon onto the foil and spread the glaze over them.

5. Leave the salmon to marinate at room temperature for an hour or so. It will throw off quite a bit of liquid. Don’t sweat it (fortuitous pun not intended).

6. Position a rack in the oven so that the salmon will be about 3" from the flame / element and let the broiler preheat for a couple of minutes.

7. Broil the salmon for approximately 6 minutes.

8. Turn off the heat and let the salmon sit for another ~7 minutes.

Serve and eat now. I like to serve it on a bed of low-country grits (slow cooked in milk all day long).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Addendum:

Tonight (27 June 2011) I modified the glaze slightly. I added fresh, grated ginger to it. Yummers! The proportions were probably also much different. I glazed three salmon fillets and one portobello cap (for SWMBO). For this, I started with the zest of three lemons, approximately 1/3 c. of brown sugar, nearly a Tablespoon of black pepper, only a bit of salt, and a chunk of ginger about 3" x 1". It was very tasty.

Bloody Mary mix

A little while back, SWMBO discovered that she actually likes a well-made Bloody Mary. She discovered this over Sunday Brunch at one of the best eateries in town, Motor Supply Company Bistro. Motor Supply has great chefs who are members of the slow food movement, buy local ingredients, craft new menus every day, and make some of the tastiest fare you will ever want to spend time on your tongue. They also have some of the best wait staff around, including one server who knows SWMBO’s dietary restrictions and palate and has never made a bad recommendation. It was this server who ran down the list of ingredients (but not the proportions) in a Motor Supply Bloody Mary.

I chased those flavors around a few times and made a few changes of my own. For instance, the best Bloody Mary SWMBO has had at Motor Supply was made with a tamarind-infused vodka. Since we go through alcohol rather slowly here at the House of Chez Casa, I didn’t want to flavor a whole bottle that was likely to be asked to serve in a variety of drinks. So I added tamarind to the mix. Other changes I made just because the results were good.

UPDATE: I keep dinking with this recipe and most recently modified the proportions for the after-party for Augustine Broadbent’s baptism; I started with 2 64 oz. bottles of juice then and am cutting the recipe in half here. This incarnation now dated 28 January 2012.

UPDATE: The Dr.’s tastebuds keep changing. For instance, she has lost her beloved pimento cheese, and has been cutting lemon way, way down. So below is for the batch I made on 9 Feb ’13 (and the recipe’s still working for her as of 12 Nov. ’16).

So here it is, the current incarnation of my Bloody Mary mix:

1. Put into a blender:

• 1 Tbsp. Tobasco
• 1 tsp. bitters
• 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire
• 2 Tbsp. A1
• 1 tsp. pickle juice
• the juice from ¼ lemon
• the juice from ¼ lime
• 1½ oz. (¼ 6 oz. jar) Kalamata olives
• ½ tsp. celery seed
• ½ Tbsp. pepper
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 Tbsp. pure cane sugar
• ½ Tbsp. horseradish
• 1 3/4 oz. tamarind patty (I get this at an Indian grocery in 14 oz patties and used 1/8 patty. Watch for seeds; I chop the patty coarsely in order to find & remove the seeds before putting the tamarind into the blender.)

2. Open a 64 oz. bottle of tomato juice and pour enough into the blender to make it 2/3 - 3/4 full.

3. Run the blender until you have a smooth (if somewhat viscous) concoction.

4. Run the contents of the blender through a food mill into a large pitcher (to get any bits and bobs, especially from the tamarind patty), pour in the rest of the tomato juice, & mix well.

5. Pour 64 oz. of the mix back into the tomato juice bottle (this is why I buy a bottle rather than a can -- resealability).

6. Split the remaining 16 oz. or so between two rocks glasses.

7. Put the bottle of mix in the fridge and do something about those two rocks glasses.

Enjoy!

THE MMR/Autism article withdrawn from the Lancet

The announcement is terse:

Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children

Following the judgment of the UK General Medical Council's Fitness to Practise Panel on Jan 28, 2010, it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al[1] are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation.[2] In particular, the claims in the original paper that children were "consecutively referred" and that investigations were "approved" by the local ethics committee have been proven to be false. Therefore we fully retract this paper from the published record.

References

[1] Wakefield AJ, Murch SH, Anthony A, et al. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet 1998; 351: 637-641. [with live links]

[2] Hodgson H. A statement by The Royal Free and University College Medical School and The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust. Lancet 2004; 363: 824. [with live links]

What it means has been unpacked a bit by many news outlets. I’m archiving here those of the WSJ and the NYT.

First, the New York Times article (live links have been stripped; sign up for the NYT to follow their links).

February 3, 2010
Journal Retracts 1998 Paper Linking Autism to Vaccines
By GARDINER HARRIS

A prominent British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a 1998 research paper that set off a sharp decline in vaccinations in Britain after the paper’s lead author suggested that vaccines could cause autism.

The retraction by The Lancet is part of a reassessment that has lasted for years of the scientific methods and financial conflicts of Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who contended that his research showed that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may be unsafe.

But the retraction may do little to tarnish Dr. Wakefield’s reputation among parents’ groups in the United States. Despite a wealth of scientific studies that have failed to find any link between vaccines and autism, the parents fervently believe that their children’s mental problems resulted from vaccinations.

Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the retraction of Dr. Wakefield’s study “significant.”

“It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world’s leading scientists that concludes there is no link between M.M.R. vaccine and autism,” Mr. Skinner wrote in an e-mail message.

A British medical panel concluded last week that Dr. Wakefield had been dishonest, violated basic research ethics rules and showed a “callous disregard” for the suffering of children involved in his research. Dr. Richard Horton, editor in chief of The Lancet, said that until that decision, he had no proof that Dr. Wakefield’s 1998 paper was deceptive.

“That was a damning indictment of Andrew Wakefield and his research,” Dr. Horton said.

With that decision, Dr. Horton said he could retract the 1998 paper. Dr. Wakefield could not be reached for comment.

Jim Moody, a director of SafeMinds, a parents’ group that advances the notion the vaccines cause autism, said the retraction would strengthen Dr. Wakefield’s credibility with many parents.

“Attacking scientists and attacking doctors is dangerous,” he said. “This is about suppressing research, and it will fuel the controversy by bringing it all up again.”

Dr. Wakefield is part of a small but fervent group of doctors who discourage vaccinations because of a seeming link with autism.

Dr. Wakefield’s paper reported on his examinations of 12 children with chronic intestinal disorders who had a history of normal development followed by severe mental regressions. He speculated that the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine may have caused some sort of chronic intestinal measles infection that in turn damaged the children’s brains. He suggested that the combined vaccine should be split into three separate shots and given over a longer period of time.

But an investigation by a British journalist found financial and scientific conflicts that Dr. Wakefield did not reveal in his paper. For instance, part of the costs of Dr. Wakefield’s research were paid by lawyers for parents seeking to sue vaccine makers for damages. Dr. Wakefield was also found to have patented in 1997 a measles vaccine that would succeed if the combined vaccine were withdrawn or discredited.

After years of investigation, the General Medical Council in Britain concluded that Dr. Wakefield had subjected 11 children to invasive tests like lumbar punctures and colonoscopies that they did not need and for which he did not receive ethical approval.

After Dr. Wakefield’s study, vaccination rates plunged in Britain and the number of measles cases soared.

In the United States, anti-vaccine groups have advanced other theories since then to explain why they think vaccines cause autism. For years, they blamed thimerosal, a vaccine preservative containing mercury. Because of concerns over the preservative, vaccine makers in 2001 largely eliminated thimerosal from routinely administered childhood vaccines.

But this change has had no apparent impact on childhood autism rates. Anti-vaccine groups now suggest that a significant number of children have a cellular disorder whose effects are set off by vaccinations.

With each new theory, parents’ groups have called for research to explore possible links between vaccination and autism. Study after study has failed to show any link, and prominent scientific agencies have concluded that scarce research dollars should be spent investigating other possible causes of autism.

Now, the Wall Street Journal article (live links have been stripped; sign up for the WSJ to follow their links).

FEBRUARY 3, 2010
The Lancet's Vaccine Retraction
A medical journal's role in the autism scare.

The British medical journal The Lancet yesterday offered a mea culpa of sorts for its role in launching a global vaccine scare. Its regrets come about 12 years too late.

The journal finally issued a full retraction of a study it ran in 1998 linking measles-mumps-rubella vaccines to autism. The paper, with Dr. Andrew Wakefield as lead author, sent British parents fleeing from inoculations and fed U.S. alarm over preservatives in vaccines.

Even in 1998, overwhelming scientific evidence showed vaccines to be safe. Yet the press-savvy Dr. Wakefield had been getting headlines for his research, and the Lancet's publication fed the controversy by giving him an aura of respectability.

Evidence of vaccine safety continued to build, but the Lancet stuck to its story through 2004, when it was revealed that Dr. Wakefield had been paid to conduct his study on children who were clients of a lawyer ginning up a lawsuit. Even then the journal offered only a partial retraction, saying it had been correct to "raise new ideas."

Meanwhile, Britain's child vaccination rates had plummeted to below 70% in some areas, down from more than 90% in the mid-1990s. The country has since suffered waves of measles outbreaks. In 1998 England and Wales had 56 cases; by 2008 the number was 1,370. In 2006, the first British child died of measles in more than a decade.

The Lancet decision came after the General Medical Council—Britain's medical regulator—ruled last week that Dr. Wakefield had acted "dishonestly and irresponsibly." The panel confirmed years of allegations that he had been untruthful about his patients and funding and had shown a "callous disregard" for the children—subjecting them to invasive and unnecessary procedures. Only with the GMC now considering whether to strip Dr. Wakefield of his license has the Lancet finally said it "fully retract[s] this paper from the published record."

The Lancet episode shows how even reputable publications can become conduits for junk science when political causes run hot. Especially amid the scandal over politically motivated climate science, the public needs professional journals to be scrupulous about their standards and honest about the science.

Marinated Cheese

For years we’ve been after my first boss in SC (Jeffita) to share her recipe for a marinated cheese recipe. Tonight, as Christmas presents, she handed out copies to people as we left the departmental^[1] Christmas gathering. Along with a double-sided color copy of the original Southern Living recipe (linked to the title of this post, but with a 1990 date and a Recipe-Pak^TM number 5305B-11, Appetizers & Beverages 7) were her hand-written changes. I'm going to attempt to make a single recipe out of the original and her notes together.


Chill for slicing:

• 2 8 oz. pkgs. cheddar cheese (5.5 x 2 x 1")
• 2 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese (original recipe calls for 3, but I only ever use the two)

Combine in a jar, shake vigorously, and set aside:

• 1 c. olive oil
• 1 c. white wine vinegar
• ½ c. minced green onions or chives
• 6-8 cloves garlic
• ½ c. chopped fresh parsley
• ¼ c. minced fresh basil
• 8 oz. pimento from jar(s), drained
• 1 T. sugar
• 1 ½ t. salt
• 1 t. ground fresh pepper

When the cheese is well-chilled, cut the cheddar blocks in half lengthwise, then cut crosswise into 1/4" thick slices. Set aside. Slice the cream cheese similarly (& into similarly-sized pieces). Arrange the cheese in alternating slices of cheddar and cream cheese standing on edge in a shallow baking dish. Pour marinade over cheese slices, cover, and let stand in refrigerator for at least eight hours.

Transfer cheese slices to a serving platter in the same alternating fashion, reserving marinade. Spoon marinade over cheese slices. Garnish with fresh parsley sprigs. Serve with crackers.



^[1] I should mention that Jeffita is/was the head of my old department, the public school job I had when I first came to SC. They still ask me to join them for gatherings (surely a good sign, although I think they’re definitely disappointed when SWMBO can’t make it). How fortunate am I to have had two sets of co-workers whose company I enjoy and who aren’t completely put off by my anti-social tendencies?

Eco on the Loss of a Parent

“He thought he would become accustomed to [being orphaned], not yet understanding that it is useless to become accustomed to the loss of a father, for it will never happen a second time: might as well leave the wound open.”
--Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before, end of chapter 7

Best Confession ever!

I have mentioned this classic SF tale before, saying there:

One way to discover whether a person has understood what they’ve read is via a diagnostic question. I was delighted to discover that Walker Percy held this same view, and that he had a diagnostic question for the readers of Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Liebowitz, a book for which I, too, have a question. If you’ve read CfL, then perhaps you’ll recognize the value of these two questions.

Percy’s: Who or what is Rachel? (the second head on the woman at the end of the book)

Mine: Is this book fundamentally optimistic or fundamentally pessimistic?

Here, I just want to put down one of my favorite scenes. This is from the fifth chapter in the first section, Fiat Homo.

. . . on Palm Sunday, with only six days of starvation remaining until the end of Lent, Prior Cheroki heard from Francis (or from the shriveled and sun-scorched residuum of Francis, wherein the soul remained somehow encysted) a few brief croaks which constituted what was probably the most succinct confession that Francis ever made or Cheroki ever heard:

“Bless me, Father; I ate a lizard.”

Prior Cheroki, having for many years been confessor to fasting penitents, found that. . . he replied with perfect equanimity and not even a blink:

“Was it an abstinence day, and was it artificially prepared?”

6 oz Filet at the House of Chez Casa

We have not one, but two actual butcher shops in our new hood. This makes it a real shame that I can only eat red meat once or twice a week. But the good news there is that when the budget won’t be eaten up (har!) by quantity, you can go for quality. And in this neighborhood, quality comes cheap.

I am, even as I type, eating the most tender, juicy, melty, mouth watering 6 oz filet I have had anywhere in years. It’s even better than the filet I had some months back at Ruth’s Criss. And unlike the extremely good piece of cow flesh I had at Ruth’s, this one only cost me $6.

For the record, our two shops are:

1. Steak Mart (~4/10ths of a mile from home)
2. Ole Timey Meat Market (~6/10ths of a mile from home)

and tonight’s filet is from the second shop.

So that I don’t forget my cooking times in all the insanity of unpacking and trying to start living in the new house, I want to record here what I did.

I tend to do a combination of broiling and roasting, and my tool of choice is a Cuisinart convection toaster oven. Consumer Reports rated the temperature accuracy very high on this unit, so when our old one was ruined by a little bit of an overcooking incident (a-hem), this is the one we got to replace it. We use it a lot, especially at times when heating up the whole kitchen seems like a bad idea.

So anyway, here’s the procedure:

1. Go to the front yard and cut a little bit of rosemary, then strip the leaves.
2. Select a small baking dish (I use a ceramic tart pan; it’s just the righ size for a small filet).
3. Slice a few veggies, spritz with EVOO and coat with a dry rub. Put the veggies in the bottom of the small dish. (This is SO much better than using a broiler pan. The veggies soak up some of the tasty juices that would otherwise be lost. I had thought that I still had some baby carrots or string beans on hand, but alas! So tonight it was just some onion; not even any potato for absorbancy, and I realize now that what I really wanted tonight was some ’shrooms.)
   
4. Do a dry-rub spicing of the filet. I normally favor something Italian, but tonight went with salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary.
5. Put the filet on top of the veggies and broil for six minutes.
6. Flip the filet and broil for six more minutes.
7. Top with some blue cheese crumbles and convection bake at 350 for six more minutes.
8. Cut the heat and let stand for a couple of minutes.
9. Enjoy a perfectly medium filet.

I realize that with the cooking times, I run the risk of this being the cooking method of the antichrist, but I’m having a hard time bringing myself to care right now.

Heavens, this is good!

Sewanee Mountain by Drew Bunting

I went down Sewanee Mountain just before the dawn
There I met a Methodist, the name of Baptist John
Carving his last testament into the gates of stone
It said, “The Lord is my sniper, son. You leave me alone!”

I turned back to ask him if he knew what he had said
Hoping it was something from a book he’d never read
And as he turned to look at me and didn’t make a sound
The first of many drops of rain was falling to the ground

John
Wind comes high
And it comes low
John
Speak to me in stone

Then the sky grew darker, and the animals grew still
And this is what he told me as the rain fell down the hills
“You are in the Garden at the moment of the Fall
Don’t go climbing over just because you see the wall.”

And in the pouring rain I told him I was goin’ home
And he spat in my face and said that I would go alone
Then without another word he walked into the woods
And disappeared as lightning struck the place where he had stood

John
There in the rain
Finally I knew
John
You were falling, too

I went down Sewanee Mountain in the morning rain
And I don’t say I’m different; I don’t worship any change
John may be happy man when he is on his knees
And I have walked away from things that he will never see

John
John


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This odd little bit of apocalyptic acoustic folk was passed along to me in a mix CD by a friend who used to go to a summer camp where Drew was one of the counselors. So feel free to imagine this song being sung around a campfire.

There must be more of Drew’s music floating around in the wide world. Anyone know where to nab some other tracks?

Lentil Hummus, revised

So here’s the revised recipe (cf. comboxes to the original post for back story).

1. Bring:

• 1/2 lb. of lentils (~ 1 1/4 cups)
• 2 qts of water and
• 2 Tablespoons of kosher salt

to a boil.

2. Turn down heat and simmer about 15 minutes (until the lentils are al dente).

3. Drain & rinse the lentils in cold water. Drain them well and chill for 20 minutes. (I hang them in a sieve over a small saucepan in the fridge.)

4. Make a garlic paste by mincing & mashing 1/3 - 1/2 head of garlic with 1/4 tsp. kosher salt.

5. Put the garlic paste into a food processor.

6. Add

• 1/2 c. tahini,
• 1/2 c. fresh lemon juice (about 3 medium lemons’ worth)
• the cooked lentils
  

7. Purée until consistent.

8. If the mixture is too thick, add up to 1/2 c. olive oil.

9. Season with salt & pepper. Be free with the pepper.

10. Serve at room temperature.

---

Addendum:

We have taken a liking to making this recipe with other legumes as well. Our current stand-by is black bean hummus. For the same amount of other ingredients, I start with 1/2 lb. of black beans. Presoak the dried beans, rinse a couple of times, cook, rinse, drain, & carry on with the recipe.

The Quintessence of Gentlemanly Beverages. . .

My own guide to making mint juleps is Walker Percy’s 1975 essay on bourbon, with the addition of a more modern way of powdering the ice. The Better Half of the O’Cayce household has alerted me to another recipe / essay, this one up at the Kentucky Derby website (and linked to the title of this post). I’m going to copy it here as worthy of later reference, but I’m going to continue putting all my sugar in the bottom of my glasses. (I had briefly considered freezing sugar-infused pucks of ice for shaving, but abandoned the idea for two very good reasons. First, I don’t want to deal with cleaning up the sticky snow as it melts all over the kitchen counter. But second, and more importantly, I like pulling up grains of sugar in varying amounts as I sip my julep through a straw. Each sip has a slightly different flavor.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Quintessence of Gentlemanly Beverages. . .

-Lt. Gen. S.B. Buckner, Jr.

Major General Wm. D. Connor
West Point, N.Y.

My Dear General Connor:

Your letter requesting my formula for mixing mint juleps leaves me in the same position in which Capt. Barber found himself when asked how he was able to carve the image of an elephant from a block of wood. He replied that it was a simple process consisting merely of whittling off the part that didn't look like an elephant.

The preparation of the quintessence of gentlemanly beverages can only be described in like terms. A mint julep is not the product of a formula. It is a ceremony and must be performed by a gentleman possessing a true sense of the artistic, a deep reverence for the ingredients and a proper appreciation of the occasion. It is a rite that must not be entrusted to a novice, a statistician nor a Yankee. It is a heritage of the old South, an emblem of hospitality and a vehicle in which noble minds can travel together upon the flower-strewn paths of a happy and congenial thought.

So far as the mere mechanics of the operation are concerned, the procedure, stripped of its ceremonial embellishments, can be described as follows:

Go to a spring where cool, crystal-clear water bubbles from under a bank of dew-washed ferns. In a consecrated vessel, dip up a little water at the source. Follow the stream through its banks of green moss and wildflowers until it broadens and trickles through beds of a mint growing in aromatic profusion and waving softly in the summer breeze.

Gather the sweetest and tenderest shoots and gently carry them home.

Go to the sideboard and select a decanter of Kentucky Bourbon, distilled by a master hand, mellowed with age yet still vigorous and inspiring. An ancestral sugar bowl, a row of silver goblets, some spoons and some ice and you are ready to start. In a canvas bag, pound twice as much ice as you think you will need. Make it fine as snow, keep it dry and do not allow to degenerate into slush.

In each goblet, put a slightly heaping teaspoonful of granulated sugar, barely cover this with spring water and slightly bruise one mint leaf into this, leaving the spoon in the goblet. Then pour elixir from decanter until the goblets are about one-fourth full. Fill the goblets with snowy ice, sprinkling in a small amount of sugar as you fill. Wipe the outside of the goblets dry and embellish copiously with mint.

Then comes the important and delicate operation of frosting. By proper manipulation of the spoon, the ingredients are circulated and blended until Nature, wishing to take a further hand and add another of its beautiful phenomena, encrusts the whole in a glistening coat of white frost. Thus harmoniously blended by the deft touches of a skilled hand, you have a beverage eminently appropriate for honorable men and beautiful women.

When all is ready, assemble your guests on the porch or in the garden where the aroma of the juleps will rise Heavenward and make the birds sing. Propose a worthy toast, raise the goblet to your lips, bury your nose in the mint, inhale a deep breath of its fragrance and sip the nectar of the gods.

Being overcome by thirst, I can write no further.


Sincerely,
Lt. Gen. S.B. Buckner, Jr. *
V.M.I. Class of 1906


*Killed in Okinawa, 1945
Promoted Posthumously to full General, July 1954

Lentil Hummus oddity & free offer

Cf. the combox to this post.

Baba Ghanouj (or Baba Ghanoush -- either way, it’s Daddy Spoiled Rotten)

I, personally, dislike eggplant. I haven’t had it in any form that I could stand. This is a shame; I know lots of people who love the stuff, and it makes me feel like an avenue of licit pleasure is cut off to me. One of the people I know who really has a thing for eggplant is SWMBO. The most excited I saw her get about a meal while we were in Rome was when we walked past a pizza-by-the-slice place near the Trevi Fountain. They had pizza with incredibly thinly shaved eggplant on it. That's where we ate that night, and she was happy.

Liking eggplant as she does, SWMBO is naturally a big fan of Baba Ghanouj, a Mediterranean dish that is to roasted eggplant what hummus is to chick peas. The ingredients are simple enough: eggplant roasted until soft, tahini (sesame butter), olive oil, garlic, lemon, salt, and whatever other spices you want to add. Some people include parsley, too. The problem I have in making the stuff is that I can’t taste it to see if I have the proportions right. The times I have accidentally gotten some into my mouth, it has taken a couple of hours to get the flavor of the eggplant out.

So I cook and have SWMBO taste and tell me when I should add more of something. Last time, I apparently got the mix pretty close to perfect. So this time, I’m going to record the recipe so that I have a base line to work from. If you’re thinking of trying this, I should warn you that SWMBO likes it zingy -- lots of garlic & lots of lemon. She also likes an earthy, smoky taste, which I enhance by roasting the eggplant nearly to the point of burning and then adding some cumin at the end.

So here’s my procedure:

1. Roast one medium eggplant at 400° for about an hour. (During the winter, it’s best to thoroughly prick the skin of the eggplant before roasting; the skin is thicker in the winter, and I’ve had an eggplant explode on me when the steam couldn’t escape. It made quite a mess of the toaster oven.)
2. Let the eggplant stand until cool enough to handle; about two hours in the oven or one outside the oven. If you leave it in the oven, you’ll have time to take a nap, and how nifty is it to have a recipe that includes a nap?
3. Make a paste of seven cloves of garlic and 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt or kosher salt. Sometimes the food processor will leave some garlic chunks, so a little pre-mashing will get it mixed in better. Not that SWMBO minds the occasional chunk of garlic. Come to that, neither do I; I just don’t want to have to fish it out of eggplant.
4. Put the garlic paste you just made into a food processor along with:
• 1/3 cup of tahini,
• 1/3 cup olive oil,
  
• the juice from three lemons
  
5. Cut open the eggplant and scoop out the innards (they should come out very easily; sometimes you can just dump the innards out of the skin). Add those innards to the contents of the food processor.
6. Process until smooth.
7. Dust the top of the paste with cumin & process a bit more. Repeat. (That's right, two dustings.)
   
8. Transfer to a serving dish for a party or a storage container for the fridge so you can enjoy a bit at a time over the next several days.

So that’s it. If anything needs adjusting, I’m sure it will appear in the combox so I can adjust the recipe next time I make it.