Daniel Akst's article in The American, Science and the Chattering Classes, falls into that commonplace journalistic sin, handwringing over the stupidity of the masses without offering anything but a pablum response to a given problem.

The problem is scientific illiteracy. Akst writes, With its great stress on specialization, capitalism has eroded ( Read more... )

Last night, I got it into my head to go a little crazy with the#cooking. At first, I was just going to make ground buffalo sliders (basically, mini-hamburgers) with home-made biscuits, half of them cheddar & bacon, the other half with home-made tatziki sauce and cucumber topping. Tatziki sauce is that dill-and-yogurt sauce most people only ( Read more... )

"I brought this for dinner," said one of the guests to our bi-weekly Sunday D&D game. "This" turned out to be a 30oz salmon fillet that he had caught himself earlier that week ( Read more... )

Two weekends ago, on a lark and with a conveniently timed and remarkably tax-deductible purchase of an ice-cream maker, I made mint-chip ice cream. The ice cream was made by slow-cooking light cream with a ton of hand-picked mint leaves in it, adding sugar afterward, and then freezing the mess in the ice cream maker. As the liquid was added, I ( Read more... )

So, following the hot new trend of putting a pinch of salt into your coffee to cancel the bitter taste, I have to say that I'm disappointed with the experiment. Either I tasted no difference, or the salt was sufficient that it distracted from the coffee taste, and I was unhappy with it either way ( Read more... )

After making tacos, the girls ganged up on me and forced me to bake chocolate chip cookies.

The second batch is cooling right now. I'm betting on sheer yumminess.

Getting more vegetables into yourself while also cutting back on the food budget can be a challenge, so my challenge for the weekend was to make home-made pico de gallo ( Read more... )

Omaha bought a new bag of "steel-cut oatmeal," which is basically chopped groats. I've never had the stuff soften enough to be edible, so I decided to try it in a slow-cooker overnight. It's supposed to be even better for ya than the roller-flattened oats that most people are familiar with. (Actually, I suspect most folkes are familiar with the ( Read more... )

So, without having much around the house, I decided to make polenta casserole. This is basically three layers: one layer of polenta, about 3/4" deep, one layer of my home made meat sauce, and a thin crust of mozzarella and Parmesan. Bake for fifteen minutes, until the crust is melty and a little browned.

Well, I thought it was delicious. The ( Read more... )

A couple of days ago, NPR's All Things Considered discussed a French variant of Shepherd's Pie, Hachis Parmentier, and it sounded so delicious that I had to make it ( Read more... )