a dinner menu

• baked mushrooms stuffed with bacon and parsley
• roasted asparagus with saffron yogurt sauce
• fresh pasta with spinach and garlic chive pesto
• burnt piloncillo ice cream with brownie bits

yummy lunch

rice with egg and furikake Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

a bowl of rice and a raw egg and a sprinkling of furikake tarako (dried cod roe and seaweed). I am always sad to reach the bottom of the bowl. It is somewhat less attractive but more delicious once stirred.

spring csa week 9

• kale
• asparagus
• spinach
• mesclun
• scallions
• mint
• rhubarb

• kale-peanut-pineapple stew
• bulgur patties with mesclun salad
• more rhubarb margaritas
• garlic pepper beef with asparagus
• pad thai with tofu, garlic chives, and ground pork
• scallion pancakes
• polenta cake

sunday indian dinner party

• carrot roti
• porota 
• layered tandoori roti
• red kidney bean kashmiri rajma
• chana dal hummus
• toor dal dill green garlic dumplings (toor dal matzo balls!)
• aii's kohlrabi
• raw broccoli, one raw kohlrabi, with green garlic raita to dip in
• red cabbage sambar / some in empanadas! 
• rhubarb margaritas
• kheer /with vanilla
• whipped beet custardwhite chocolate and fresh ginger ice cream 
• pistachio meringues
• black bean brownies with five spice

green garlic is definitely the ingredient of the week. Before long, it will all start growing bulbs.

spring CSA week 8

• red fire lettuce
• more rhubarb
• a whole lot of tender delicious asparagus
• carrots
• 2 broccolis
• 3 kohlrabis
• green garlic (from Nichols)

supercool

42 Awesome Business Card Designs (With Links to 100s More)

old but good

I was talking to someone the other day and remembered the classic “mullets of moscow” from the NYT's thursday styles.

lesbionic grunt of accomplishment

We hung our new glassware cabinet. All that’s left is to move the real café table with the knockbox cutout up here. The Ikea LED sticks are worth every bit of $50 – they can be just one vibrant color or smoothly cycle through their rainbow that involves cyan and fuchsia.

Playing Dress-Up (Conferences)

Jeanna writes,

I will be in the Windy City this weekend… I also realize it’s IML weekend so I don't need to cut too much into your life :)

Nice of her to remind us. And it provides a perfect opportunity to comment upon the conferences of all kinds. First, last year International Mr. Leather was at the Palmer House Hilton, though this year it’s at the Hyatt. The Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting is typically at the Palmer House, so some parallels are bound to spring to mind.

First, for both political scientists and leatherpersons, conferences are an occasion to play dress-up. While at our professional gatherings, we note an unfortunate number of ill-fitting suits and an egregious amount of synthetic fabric, I give the edge here to political scientists. Also, we typically do not change clothes or otherwise disrobe between panels.

Both political scientists and leatherpersons attend organized panels where one or more papers are discussed and somehow clunky binders are involved. I do not know the details of these sessions, but like political scientists, leatherpersons seem to listen absently but feign attention while probably thinking about their own upcoming presentations.

However, one feature that our professional meeting does not share with that of the leatherpersons is the role of “pups” or people who pretend to be dogs. This commitment to subservience and occasional maltreatment may just be a stylized form of graduate training. However, it is not clear that pups aspire to be masters, nor how the tenure/promotion from assistant master to associate master might work.

Finally, we should all read and relish the speech/poem from 2005’s winner, with its insistent crescendo of clever rhyming couplets.

pymc: cool project, fun logo.

also noteworthy is their discussion of db integration.

two interesting network graphs

The us federal judiciary

Online debate about the eu constitution

rachel's™ yogurt

These yogurts were on sale at whole foods, so I got a couple. They are sweeter than I like (caveat: I really like moderately sour plain yogurt, with seven stars probably at the top of the list. shout out to traderspoint, even though it's too expensive.), but Scott was more critical: “it tastes like estrogen.”

I bet it would be great with some soy nuts.

spring csa week 7

It is already week 7 of the 8-week spring CSA. So, randomly, it is here that I start taking pictures of each box like I did last year.

• onions
• red cabbage
• lettuce
• kohlrabi greens/purple kale
• beets
• spinach
• asparagus
• rhubarb

• rhubarb chutney
• thomas keller’s beet ice cream
• african kale, peanut, and pineapple stew
• asparagus risotto with salad or heidi's green curry
• puneri dal, saag paneer or patal bhaji, scallion pancake, maybe garlic naan

a delightful appetizer

Green pea mousse with baguette
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

It is a good thing I like this green pea mousse so much because it made three ramekins full… baguette from bennison's. recipe from one of my favorite italian cookbooks, Italia in Cucina

minimalist braised short ribs with wine, coffee, chiles

minimalist braised short ribs with wine, coffee, chiles
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

this is the third time I've made this recipe from bittman's minimalist column but the first that got a picture. the sauce has a bit of chocolate and rosemary too.

fun

changes at home

reference

consolidated eu treaties with lisbon reform

pas encore une baguette

Why EU Rules Matter from Jon Worth

A dairy farmer summarizes all that is wrong with America

“Cheap food makes for expensive health care.” Harper’s, via Bitten.

dinner

Tortilla española, rosemary focaccia, salad
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

an amazing CSA dinner: things from Vicki: eggs, potatoes, onions, red and romaine lettuce, scallions, radishes, broccoli, rosemary in focaccia. Things from afar: valdeon and organic zamorano cheeses from spain, portuguese douro red wine, and olive oil.

flourless chocolate torte

flourless chocolate torte
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

So we have a whole bunch of rosemary from Vicki… Scott suggests, "how about something with chocolate and rosemary?" It was a marvelous suggestion. I infused the butter with a sprig of rosemary, melted chocolate into it, and then combined that with beaten egg yolks and finally folded in beaten whites. It baked for about an hour and is served with whipped cream, a sprig of mint, and a sprinkling of fleur de sel.

lots of useful data

report pdf
07 report of president

grilled eggplant and asparagus over polenta

DSC_0009
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

with goat cheese and 10yr balsamic, and flor de sal.

not irrelevant

when calculating marginal likelihoods: dealing with over- and underflow

corporate parents

a less than wonderful graphic, conveying little other than groupings, but probably stuff that a lot of people would be surprised by. i too occasionally forget whether, for example, cascadian is kellog or general mills…

fun!

thanks scott, a superfun type quiz! I got 32 on my first try…

washu, ever insecure about ratings of all kinds

I am amused by this email today,

Washington University is updating its Master Plan for Dining Services on the Danforth Campus, and we encourage all students to complete the brief survey that can be reached from the following link.

Student input is vital to our efforts to provide the best university dining service in the country. By completing the survey, you will be eligible to participate in a drawing for valuable prizes. Please take a few moments to share your thoughts with us on this important subject. Thank you.

No doubt a typical “oh shit! ratings!” response to last week’s nyt article.

retail troubles

I liked this nyt article on foundering lame-ass retailers. Among tidbits: lane bryant and fashion bug are owned by “Charming Shoppes” (the spelling signaling its complete lameness); bombay furniture going under, sharper image too.

Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse

• aloo gobi and mooli parathas.
• curry fried rice (nasi goreng) with pineapple, tofu, snap peas. And a barely-cooked egg or two on top.
• grilled eggplant, red pepper, asparagus, over polenta, and goat cheese (I had a picture of this from a few years ago, but I can’t seem to find it)
• chicken prik khing with green beans (hopefully with extra tamarind paste if I get some)
• tofu two ways: ma po, garlic chives
• and Sunday we are making the three-course bouillabaisse from the Dean and Deluca cookbook. N&S bought shrimp and mussels. I bought many pounds of other fishes, from both Bob’s Seafood and the chinese Seafood City on Olive. There will be pictures for sure. With salad. And burnt panela ice cream.

spring csa! or, "the Carrot"

Our spring CSA from Vicki started this week – we’ve been excited for months, of course. Many of the crops are things that either survived the winter or were stored. Beets and potatoes and onions; and a few greenhouse things: butter lettuce (wow.), gorgeous chard, and an interesting flat-leaf kale. And there were three carrots. Not regular carrots, mind you: the largest carrots I have ever seen. We won’t start having weekly veg photo shoots for a while, but I had to take this one with my phone, the largest carrot next to a bottle of wine. To make:

• caldo verde gallego
• quiche with sausage, onion, and chard
• roasted beets in butter lettuce salad with leftover tango sur steak; ginger-orange-miso dressing
• carrot birthday cake?

poland eu sustainable farm agriculture

long article in today's nyt.

applicant dinner party

We’re hosting the mdphd applicants and some current students for dinner Monday. Previously Scott has ordered good-but-not-great nearby Thai takeout; this time, I volunteered to cook for the lot of us. And check out South Loop Wine Cellar.

• Bittman braised short ribs (both beef and pork)
• Turnip purée
• Patatas en salsa verde
• Roasted brussels sprouts
• A lentil or split-pea soup? Maybe veg chili with lentils?
• Vanilla-chocolate bread

SAb

I tried last night to change the clock on our oven, failed at this simple task, but in the process discovered a hitherto unknown “feature” of the device. By pressing and holding the clock button one enters “sabbath mode” in which the oven aids your observance by refusing to work. A google search for an apparent error code quickly solved the problem. The clock is actually set by pressing clock once and then up/down. It gives no indication that it is in clock-set mode.

Cinnamon Snack Cake

No picture of this iteration. Next time… since this will definitely be made again.

• 1 c (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 c sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 or 3 eggs
• 1 c flour
• 1 c corn or potato starch
• 1 tsp + cinnamon
• ½ c milk
• topping: 2 T butter, ¼ c flour, ¼ c sugar, ½ t vanilla, ½ t cinnamon (cut together with pastry blender or rubbed between fingers to make fine crumbs.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 8×8in glass pan. In large bowl cream butter and sugar; beat in eggs one at a time and then vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients and add to wet things slowly, beating on low speed to combine. Add milk and blend until smooth. Pour or spoon into baking dish and sprinkle with topping. Bake 45–50 min until top springs back when lightly pressed or toothpick in center comes out clean.

Baked Mushrooms

Baked Mushrooms
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

Patatas en salsa verde

Patatas en salsa verde Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

This simple, beautiful dish surprised me. I thought it would be good, I didn't really expect great. I made it dinner, with stuffed baked mushrooms, but will absolutely serve it as a first course in the future. In exploring other variations online, I ran across a new favorite spanish food blog. Sauté an onion and some garlic in a whole bunch of olive oil. Then gently fry medium-thick potato slices for a few minutes. Add water (or stock, or many recipes say fish stock or fumet) and salt; simmer until soft; add peas and parsley and heat through.

UN Data

via /.

malaysian food

exciting blog, via a Times article on msg. I think my first time having malaysian food was this little lunch place in NY when I went with Scott in my first year of undergrad. It was like a $5 lunch prix fixe for chili-lemongrass consommé-like soup, and a small main dish.

Pollan

I think health should be a byproduct of eating well, for reasons that have nothing to do with health, such as cooking meals, eating together and eating real food. You’re going to be healthy, but that’s not the goal. The goal should just be eating well for pleasure, for community, and all the other reasons people eat.

small irony

When it comes to spreading [MRSA], it is not homosexuals we have to worry about….The medical researchers were not studying gays, they were studying the St. Louis Rams. That is correct: football players; in particular, linebackers.

from Salon via NYT.

Clever

A dashboard widget that plays pong against itself – and the score is the time!

If this comes to a gallery near me

I'm going to have to see it.

Kolbert review irrational behavioral economics

Directly relevant to a discussion Nick and I were having about constraints on choices.

faced with certain options, people will consistently make the wrong choice. Therefore, they argue, people should be offered options that work with, rather than against, their unreasoning tendencies.

foodlist

• smoked chicken salad, fresh mayonnaise
• chicken and shrimp red curry, sticky rice, cucumber salad
• quiche with bacon, spinach, mustard greens; salad
• ma po tofu, lili potato thing, brown jasmine rice
• kibbe & falafel, basbusa
• spinach risotto or spinach gnocchi
• meringues
• mini lemon-custard and blueberry tart

And of course for today… Bittman’s chile-coffee-wine braised short ribs (beef from K. Hinkebein).

foodlist

Mardi Gras this week (with several inches of snow on the ground, ha) means no Soulard market. Foodlist for a marketless week.

• Veg. Lasagna (Made in Dec, Frozen)
• Lentil soup, no-knead bread
• Black bean soup and cornbread
• Seared tuna with sweet potato
• Lentil dal, radish paratha

Reasons to be glad you are not my roommmate

In general, living with me is probably better than living with a lot of other people. I am myself clean, and keep common areas very clean. I come with lots and lots of cooking paraphernalia and would rather share it than watch someone use cheap tools or improvise with the wrong ones. But, I can be pretty demanding about things that some people think don‘t matter. At least I can laugh at myself?

(earlier in the week)
Please segregate forks correctly. Dinner forks in the front, salad/dessert forks in the back. The point of kitchen organization is never to have to dig or search for things; they should be at one's fingertips. (Related point: I don't mind the cutting boards' new home, but they can't be jammed in sideways because that makes them harder to get out. Vertical, they are accessible and I like that there's a few cm more space to the left of the sink.)

Subject: gentle reminder
Any meat garbage (trays, especially those strange pads that line them) doesn't go in the regular trash, unless it is full and you are also throwing it out. I have thrown out the foul-smelling kitchen trash.
And in order to retrain your subconscious reflexes, I have left fork- separating as an exercise :) What do you imagine *does* go in the front-left-top section of the silverware tray if not the second most frequently used item in the drawer, after their spoony neighbors?
-M

I thought we use to put them in the back shelf. That`s what I did so far, because the don`t entirely fit into the front shelf. Sorry again.
-K

[historical point: no, I have not changed the allocation in the top section of the drawer-organizer. dinner forks in the front, salad forks in the back. It's not random or my own reflexes, but because I've thought about usage patterns. contrast things like the hand graters and ice cream scoop: it doesn't really matter which segment they go in, as long as they're not in the same one as the most commonly used items, the silicone spatulas.]
my question remains: what would you have in the front? the small forks? Then you have to pull the drawer out more if all you want is a dinner fork. Do you use small forks more than big ones?
The problem of 'fit' doesn't prevent the drawer from closing, and doesn't cause them to spill into other compartments. It's simply a matter of their tines being elevated by leaning on the rear of the compartment.
Even so, why would you mix them?!!?! if you think that dinner forks ought to go in the back because they 'fit' better, move the salad forks and I probably would be less annoyed than now where I find them all jammed together in the back.
-M

um, yum

Vietnamese iron pot chicken

cool model for sometime in the distant future

Hidden Topic Markov Model

announcement
paper (pdf)
code

It differs notably from others in that, rather than treat each document as a single “bag of words,” it imposes a temporal Markov structure on the document. In this way, it is able to account for shifting topics within a document, and in so doing, provides a topic segmentation within the document, and also seems to effectively distinguish among multiple senses that the same word may have in different contexts within the same document.

stuff to make with what i have

• Polenta with goatsbeard blue cheese
• matzo ball soup (rosemary schmaltz)
• prik khing curry with chicken and green beans
• beet risotto, salad
• tacos: bacon-mushroom, spinach-zucchini
• rosemary ciabatta
• carrot roti, chicken vindaloo?
• seared tuna with grapefruit sauce, spinach

Lamb with jeweled rice

Lamb with jeweled rice
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

The basics of jeweled rice are here (I always include barberries / zereshk, and a tiny amount of rose water. And scott believes there is no such thing as too much cardamom). The stewed lamb is sort of a combination of this beef sukka recipe and this afghan lamb one. I included spinach, tomatoes, and coconut milk.

Meat in St. Louis

I was recently asked to enumerate the meat producers about which I frequently rave in the St Louis area, and where they can be found. In general the markets I go to are Soulard and Tower Grove, having met the couple of Tower Grove meat producers at the now-defunct Central West End greenmarket. Sadly, that market didn't seem to thrive the way Tower Grove did and I defected when they did. Finally, many of these meats may be available at a couple of small local grocers: Local Harvest (who also deliver) and the City Food co-op. Living Springs eggs and bacon are available at the Wine Merchant. I will eventually add a listing of my favorite vegetable producers (though immediate shout out to Kruse Gardens, invariably my first stop at Soulard Market).

But, you say, there is no Tower Grove market in the winter! For 2007–8 at least, there is a winter market inside a nearby church: St. Louis Community Farmers' Market will be hosting a Winter Market in the Parish Hall every SECOND Saturday in the St. John's Parish Hall continuing Saturday, January 12th, from 8:30 a.m. - 12 noon.

• Chicken: Harr Family Farm at Soulard Market. Special orders for such as pastured heirloom turkeys, geese, guinea fowl(!): 618 538 9295. He usually makes restaurant deliveries on Thursdays. Scott Harr raises a wide variety of poultry, as well as a variety of smokehouse treats (2/$15 smoked ducks made fantastic tacos. I'll bring to an event sometime.) He’s identifiable as the one with the live poultry at the market, in the northeast wing. Whole chickens between $4-5. He has eggs (good) $2, “organic” (gathered same-day, for which actually worth the premium) $3, and recently raised the price for arucanas (the green and blue ones) to $4. Also bacon, see below.
• Smoked Chicken: Siebert, at Soulard. Northwest wing. $6 each for “regular” or “spicy”. Ready to take off the bone and turn into amazing chicken salad, tamal filling, etc. Unbelievably easy and super delicious.
• Lamb: Prairie Grass Farm (Dave Hillebrand). Leg of grassfed lamb around $9/lb. Ground lamb about $5. His lamb-apple bratwurst is one of my favorite things ever. They are to be found at the tower grove market and (I think) Maplewood. They also have great eggs for $3.50/dz. His meats have been featured at Schlafly Bottleworks, and Prairie Grass hosts a once-a-year $50-75/plate farm dinner.
• Pork: (Non-bacon) Hinkebein Hills Farm. Tower Grove, also Maplewood. Karlios Hinkebein has been written up in Sauce for his sausages and hams. Needless to say, this is pork with flavor, not that dry, bland “other white meat.”
• Beef: Dan West of Living Springs has the best around. Hinkebein also, though he has more pork; might be cheaper. At Tower Grove, probably Maplewood. I eat less beef than most things, satisfying my steak cravings once every few months with a humongous Argentine steak at Tango Sur in Chicago.
• Bacon: There’s a lot of great bacon around St Louis. Because I go to different markets, I mix it up a lot and have found things I like about all of them. Most often, I buy Scott Harr's, which is $3.29/lb. It's nice and thick, medium-fatty, good clean nonspecific smoke flavor. This is what I grilled for the department picnic. Second would go to Hinkebein's pork butt bacon. It's a leaner cut, very meaty, more pork than smoke flavor. His regular (belly) bacon is great too. Norris Farm appeared irregularly at Tower Grove; their bacon is sliced thin and was very good. Finally, M&K meats (573 564 6117) has appeared irregularly in the winter at Soulard. They seem to make primarily canned meat products for camping purposes, but they deserve special mention for their pepper bacon. They have also been known to have lamb, goat, elk, and venison.
• Lard (fatback): There is no substitute for fresh lard especially in Mexican food. Unfortunately, fresh lard is very difficult to come by. In Chicago, I make a quick trip over to Pilsen for the fatty drippings from a pile of carnitas; in St Louis I have to render my own (chop fatback. 45 minutes in the oven. done.) and the only place I've reliably found hunks of pork fat is the “Olive Farmers Market”.

Sorrel and other ideas

• We have radishes (maybe just one) from a while ago.
• Might be yummy with more lamb, from the taylor street butcher
• It could become a chutney (2) or dal and we could use all these carrots in more roti

For the other stuff:

• Celery and water chestnuts with tofu in brown sauce
• broccoli and beef — Maybe an attempt at what I shall call heroin beef
• marsala braised carrots
• more turnip purée?
• beet risotto

greenhouse box!

Farmer Vicki has made our week: she emailed Sunday night to see if we wanted a random delivery of vegetables and eggs.

• bag o’ carrots
• lettuce
• rosemary
• mesclun
• sorrel
• broccoli
• turnips
• an enormous onion
• apples
• celery (either chinese or young and thin)

Skymall

It is difficult to find the one product that best exemplifies the inanity of Skymall. Wayne Curtis in NYT’s “Jet Lagged” blog has done the best to date:

Also, you will find the SKYMALL CATALOG, from which you may order a product called “Poop Freeze,” described as a spray refrigerant that “chills animal waste to -62°F, creating an outer ‘crust’ that enables you to quickly place in a bag and dispose.” Feel free to spend the remainder of the flight trying to process this information.

TOC 100best things to eat and drink

pdf / html / lastyear

ruminations on mcmc storage

DBI provides a connection manager that the thing looks up against when a db-specific call is made. Here is an example of closing the connection in rmysql:

s_object * 
RS_MySQL_closeConnection(Con_Handle *conHandle)
{
    S_EVALUATOR
  
    RS_DBI_connection *con;
    MYSQL *my_connection;
    s_object *status;
  
    con = RS_DBI_getConnection(conHandle);
.
.
.  
    my_connection = (MYSQL *) con->drvConnection;
    mysql_close(my_connection);

…

}

and the same thing from rsqlite:

SEXP
RS_SQLite_closeConnection(Con_Handle conHandle)
{
  RS_DBI_connection *con;
  sqlite3 *db_connection;
  SEXP status;
  int      rc;

  con = RS_DBI_getConnection(conHandle);
  db_connection = (sqlite3 *) con->drvConnection;

  rc = sqlite3_close(db_connection);  /* it also frees db_connection */

.
.
.

  return status;
}

and here's RS_MySQL_exec to run a generic query.

    /* Here is where we actually run the query */
    state = mysql_query(my_connection, dyn_statement);
    if(state) { 
        char errMsg[256];
        free(dyn_statement);
        (void) sprintf(errMsg, "could not run statement: %s",
                  mysql_error(my_connection));
        RS_DBI_errorMessage(errMsg, RS_DBI_ERROR);
    }

So it looks like: 1) new storage.h will need include configure options for whether to include rs-dbi.h, rs-mysql.h, and rs-sqlite.h, defaulting to all of the above. 2) MCMCstore will be templated for each storagetype. 3) the connection will be opened from R, when tables are created, then the connection id passed to the model-fitting c++ code. The model-fitting code will initialize an object of class MCMCstore. The MCMCstore class store() function will call appropriate db-specific code (sqlite_bind_double, whatever mysql bind syntax is, insert, exec, reset,… etc.).

fuck louis vuitton

Among the offerings, a handful dominate: Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot together account for 55 percent of Champagne sold in the United States. These two blockbuster brands, along with Krug, Ruinart and Mercier, are owned by the luxury giant LVMH. In fact, the top Champagne brands are almost all owned by conglomerates, which churn out millions of bottles annually while spending heavily to market an image of luxury.

things to make

• aloo gobi, garlic naan
• Bolognese
• jeweled rice, lamb (1,2)
• chicken marsala; risotto or polenta
• tiramisù
• lamb-apple brat
• chicken paprikás & spätzle
• green lentil soup
• potato-chorizo soup
• borszch, crusty bread
• falafel

potential newyears items

• falafel
• tiramisù
• pumpkin soup?
• cocktail-samosas
• some form of sweet potato
• stuffed eggs

Lili's favorite brand sauce bases

spicy king / superlucky

end of winter csa

The end of our Nov–Dec Vicki CSA is here, and we were able because of travel to get last week’s box and this week’s together. So we now have an abundance of root vegetables, four dozen eggs (er, well, after brunch… a little less than 3dz), and a lot of apples.

• lots of carrots
• red potatoes
• broccoli
• beets
• turnips
• onions
• sweet potatoes
• chard
• apples

Next on my list of things to code

Kinney, S. K. and D. B. Dunson (2007), “Fixed and random effects selection in linear and logistic models,” Biometrics (63), 690–698. (PDF; R code)

We also compute credible intervals for the random effects variances; whereas, there is no good approach for estimating uncertainty for PQL [penalized quasi-likelihood] variance estimates, or other frequentist variance estimates. In addition we are able to simultaneously compute marginal posterior inclusion probabilities for both the fixed effects and random effects and correctly locate the true model as the one with highest posterior probability.

black cake

I predict some of this in my future…

crazy american policy bundles

and crazy Ron Paul, from motherjones.

some LTH roundup from today

• new szechuan
• spoon thai and some other thai with erik m. we have to go to spoon instead of sticky rice next time.
• spring world discussion including the secret mushroom menu

Threadless is amazing

Just when I think I am satisfied with a nice collection of fun tshirts comes along something that I don't think I can live without.

Great Neighborhood Restaurants

gmap mashup from LTH; complete text list

apsa: check.

This is a confirmation email to let you know that your 2008 Annual Meeting paper proposal has been received by APSA.

PROPOSAL TITLE: Unmasking the ECJ: National Governemnts, Appointment, and Strategic Justices

PAPER ABSTRACT: Rulings of the European Court of Justice have profoundly affected member states, national governments, and European citizens. The court by some accounts has seized power and overstepped its bounds, or by others, duly done its delegated duty. Almost always “the Court” is treated as an agent of the member-state principals. I argue that member states view not the full Court, but their individual appointed justice, as their agent – despite the court's mask of formalism and the secrecy afforded by its en banc decisions. I show that governments use their power of appointment as a measure of control over the ECJ. I propose a dynamic measure of justices’ preferences that exploits the fact that while justice-votes are unobserved, the organization of the court into panels (subsets) systematically reveals information about individual voting behavior. I show that justices are re-appointed or replaced as functions of information available to the national governments who appoint them. Finally, I explore the role that member state “observations” (briefs submitted to the court) play in justices' decisionmaking, and in terms of what national governments learn from tendering observations and then seeing the court’s ruling.

Submitted to the following divisions:
Div 14 Div. 14 - Comparative Politics of Advanced Industrial Societies
Div 11 Div. 11 - Comparative Politics

things to make

• green curry with chicken and eggplants
• prik khing with chicken or beef and longbeans
• leang soup with bamboo shoot, mushroom
• salad of cilantro, mint, tomato, mung bean sprouts, dried shrimp
• cabbage sprouts and tofu with oyster sauce
• a vegetable lasagna for the freezer (spinach, mushrooms, ricotta)
• smoked chicken tamales
• pan fried tofu with marsala cream sauce; salad of romaine, pomegranate, satsuma

things to make this week

• Yeast-raised cornbread
• curried celery root soup
• umbrella-cookies
• quick-fried yu choy & bekana with “brown” sauce
• assorted sweet potato things: ancho-honey; mashed with parmigiano
• garlic naan
• radish parathas

• vanilla-chocolate bread
• pumpkin mousse
• pecan tarts
• butternut squash soup

gobbblllllle

gobbblllllle
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

When to refinance

via Mankiw

Principles of OS design

I can’t find a better excerpt than the one from /. :

Ubuntu goes out of its way to get out of your way, even if it doesn't succeed all the time. Vista goes out of its way to be Vista and enforce the Vista way. You must conform regardless of the implications.

I haven’t yet used Gutsy on a desktop (or upgraded from Feisty on my MythTV), but it sounds like enough of their/gnome developers have finally used OS X to appreciate the “get out of the way” principles that largely drive Apple human interface design. Nowhere of course is it better distilled and applied than in Quicksilver (“Act Without Doing”)

Economists Explain the World, again

More wacky instrumental variables: is leaded gas the next tv-and-autism?

Goat curry

I haven’t made it yet but I certainly plan to soon.

OMG so annoying I agree!

Could the entire subfield of American politics please stop talking about the 77th Congress or the 103rd Congress and start talking about the 1941-42 Congress and the 1993-94 Congress and so forth? This would just make everybody's life easier. —Gelman.

Chicken Paprikás

I have been asked for my tasty chicken paprikás recipe. It's so simple a dish I cannot claim ownership – the one I learned from my grandfather is not really any different from June Meyer's excellent version here. I usually serve it with simple dumplings:

• two flour
• two eggs
• some water (half a cup? more?)

Mix in a bowl with enough water to make a medium-sticky dough. Using a large pot of well salted boiling water, cut dumplings with a spoon directly from the bowl (it will come off easily in the water). I usually do this in two or three batches, skimming them out so they are varying levels of chewy.

Informational Cascades!

in nyt!

Gumbo

Gumbo
Originally uploaded by gay.goy.gourmet

the end of the jerk chicken, m&k andouille, tons of okra. Built on a roux of delicious bacon fat.

foodlist

• gumbo (chicken, andouille, okra)
• black beans and rice
• mushroom risotto
• polenta with goatsbeard blue cheese (!)

yum

Skirt Steak With Rainbow Peppers

snooping

The Compiler Detective - What Compiler and Options Were Used to Build This Application?

a delightful dilemma

• prik khing curry with chicken and long beans
• chicken and vegetables in peanut sauce
• quiche with bacon and mustard greens
• linguine alla carbonara
• roasted fennel and apple
• something with eggplant. probably thai red curry, but maybe something chinese.

And the dilemma I wish I had every day of the year: what to do with about 4 pounds of tomatoes, a meaty red heirloom variety, green zebras, and sungolds.

back in st louis foodlist

• shrimp tacos? or arroz/paella. or both.
• red curry with chicken, salad (cucumber, tomato, avocado, onion, fishsauce)
• stewed tuscan style lima beans and tomatoes, semolina bread
• cantaloupe basil sorbet
• tortilla española
• ma po tofu, jasmine rice
• corn, tomato, and goat cheese crêpes soufflées

vnc from mac to ubuntu of ssh

Combo of this on the server and this on the client