fungiculture

Spargelzeit (Asparagus season) with all its fanfare and focus is a distant memory by now but one up-side to the change of seasons and the cool and damp days ahead is the advent of Mushroom Time. Pfifferlinge, a savoury scalloped fungus found on tree trunks, is my favourite—celebrated with just as much intensity, and while any foraging for these gourmet delicacies, such work is best left to seasoned experts, many keeping the faithful locations of the appearance of this heritage fruiting a secret guarded as well as that for a prized vintner, since there are many more varieties that are deadly poisonous than edible. This time of year, many restaurants adjust their menus—Tageskarte, Speisekarte—to showcase this time-honoured mania.

vermicious knids or many mouths to feed

Although my Venus Flytrap seems to be thriving quite well—despite the dietary restrictions I’ve enforced and certainly don’t want it to suffer any malnourishment in the meantime, it is rather presenting me with a moral dilemma.
To begin with, I wonder what my ward might think of me being a vegetarian, not a carnivore—however passively, but a committed planter-eater, ravenous even. The opportunity to sacrifice an annoying indoor housefly, usually a persistent and irritating occurrence but presently the apartment is strangely silence, has not yet presented itself and I am not sure, unable to swap a pest but only shoo it away, if I could avail myself to the task. I admit that it’s probably a silly thing to rend my hands over, but I’m hoping that I might get away with a crime of omission, that the balcony might an adequate environment for insects in transit or find some unfortunate bug dead or dying of natural causes or not wholly splattered and disintegrated on the car’s grille. I don’t know if that would work. I bet the other, more sessile plants are getting a little jealous of this sort of doting and negative attention. What would you do?

5x5

posture pals: one sufferer’s quest to alleviate her own pain caused her to notice that many indigenous peoples never get back pain

heaps of abuse: the cyberbullying of a Sanrio character focuses on the psyche of tormentors

rotunda: Cupolone lamp shades feature local architectural attractions

fish-eye lens: Dutch company’s floating dome affords fish a view of the world above the surface

taste buds: cute illustrations of food super best friends, including Chicken and Waffle

five-by-five

ncc-1701: gaming magnate designs headquarters in the likeness of the USS Enterprise

staple good: creative tailoring with flour-sacks

scultpture trail: photo gallery of some of the best and worst public art installations

land of a thousand dances: the Peanut Duck novelty song from circa 1965

playing with your food: edible, functional LEGO bricks from gelatin

five-by-five

bellum omnium contra omnes: sobering graphic that charts percentages of US lives spent under war and peace

take-away: interesting look at the history of 出前一丁—the culture of Japanese food delivery

nocturne: darker sequel to E.T. that was never made

doctor zaias: simian newsletter back-issues

parallax view: China’s space aspirations to reach the far side of the moon

five-by-five

torsion: lovely mesmerizing animations from Big Blue Boo

menagerie: humourous dialectic creating a medieval bestiary

reaction faces: British Library exhibits Sino-Japanese war prints

neologism: a look at some of the unique vocabulary of Indian English

which anyone could whip up on a rainy day: nice remembrance of the biographical cookbook of Alice B. Toklas 

five-by-five

chizukigou: check out these lovely Japanese map legend symbols

système vidéo domestique: French artist repackages contemporary series and films in VHS wrapping

SMPTE bars: a look behind the scenes at the calibration tools of our seemingly seamless electronic world

maki-maki: sushi roll bath-towel concept

mirror, mirror: a look at Star Trek’s departures into an alternate reality

five-by-five

gallery sans grains: there’s an online museum of iconic artwork with gluten containing foodstuffs excised

lounge lizard: enjoy the space-age bachelor pad music of Juan Garcia Esquivel  the matter of

gallifrey: in the tradition of the Bayeux Tapestry, here is the continuum of the Time Lord, known as Doctor Who

merry pranksters: calendar reform was at the root of the tradition of hoaxes and pranks

poissons d’avril: a listing of the most epic stunts throughout the ages

print-lab

Reports are emerging that organic chemists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have collaborated with engineers to produce their discipline’s own version of the 3D printer, which can transcribe small molecules and building-blocks for study and discovery. An established line of known chemicals can of course be synthesised in laboratories but usually at a great cost and with limited access which makes experimentation and distributed research prohibitively expense.

Most of such facilities are under contract to the pharmaceutical industry and it’s much more profitable for a lab to try to tease out an extension on some proprietary drug, a patent-medicine, that to devote time and effort on, say, an exotic jungle plant’s interesting, intriguing but uncertain anti-microbial properties brought to them by some unknown and uncredentialed scientist. Perhaps now, instead of supplicating and then queueing up—or trying to gather more samples from the field—researchers could just isolate the target compound, its structure and composition, and submit a print request to have batch of the chemical custom-made, which could be dispatched to several test centres or research facilities at one time. Democratising the studies, the important concepts of peer-review and vetting could perhaps become to mean teamwork, discovering novel and safe treatments and other substances (better culinary preservatives, glues, inks, textiles, etc.) more efficiently.

table-manners or gravyboat, showboat

I too, like Nag-on-the-Lake, would have though this table-top photo studio, designed to capture one’s meal in the most flattering light and one’s dish’s best side, was a very real offer that the wait-staff of restaurants or the social-media sommeliers would be bring around, like the desert wagon.  I think that probably the Selfie-Sombrero probably escaped into our dimension, first as a lampoon—as a joke poking fun at people’s vanity but I suppose we can’t put that genie back in the bottle now.  And though this demonstration #DinnerCam is meant to advance a discussion about how the internet and constant, omnipresent access is changing public deportment, I’m a little afraid that such spots, blinds and backdrops might become a thing.

big fat surprise

A study, heavily laden with footnotes and cross-references, from the British Medical Journal suggests that all the lies the public have been fed regarding diet and nutrition over the last five decades or so was more or less experimental in nature—with the subject of study being more marketing, agricultural surplus and farming lobbies rather than health and well-being—and could neigh equate with mass-murder. This rather short analysis has been bantered about in the news for the past few days and subject to quite a bit of elaborate and imaginative conclusions, which was the stuff of the fringe-community previously, for going against the rubric of the Food Pyramid.

The article is not a summary dismantling of the pseudo-science, sponsored studies and poor sampling techniques that launched a thousand fad-diets and ensured that despite what appear to be good-faith remediation, we are as a whole, much unhealthier than ever before, but it does open the way for rigourous and humbling studies to follow. What do you think? Were we just naïve in believing that we not are surrounded by touts and hucksters—untouchable even in more wholesome rackets? Is this bit of righteous arson just clearing the stage for the next round of opportunists, as usually what’s quality isn’t worth the investment?

candida or grist for the mill

This is somewhat of a delicate subject, especially coming from those who are not exactly sympathetic to the matter, but I learned that the germ candida, a species of yeast, that’s responsible for infections in women also presents itself as diaper-rash in infants, thrush (a particularly nasty coated-tongue that young children get), acne in adolescents and most interestingly the dry patches of skin that usually attributed to psoriasis and dandruff (glands in the skin and hair folicals are designed to prevent these out-breaks but are often compromised by other factors). This yeast travels with us as part of our gut flora all our lives but is mostly kept in check by other beneficial bacteria that complement our digestive tracts that compete for space and nutrients, symbiotically breaking down those foodstuffs that we can’t handle whole ourselves. Though not the only cause of fungal infections, repairing too quickly to antibiotics or other such non-discriminatory treatments that, like a wrecking-ball, kill off those good germs that keeps us balanced.

orchard kebob

H got to take a cooking class one evening not too long ago and his team’s contribution to the meal was an exquisite mango and kidney bean variation on the classic Döner (shawarma) sandwich. He repeated the creation a few nights later and it was really easy to prepare and had a deliciously unique fusion of tastes. For four big sandwiches, one needs the following:

• One can of kidney beans (200 grams)
• One flat-bread—Döner or Gyro bread would be best but any similar loaf (like pita, tandoori) would do 
• A small onion, one or two cloves of garlic
• A large mango
• One large chunk of fresh mozzarella, 200 grams of soft ricotta cheese 
• Some rocket (Rucola) for garnish, about 100 grams

Pulse the kidney beans, garlic and onion together with a food-processor, season with a pinch of salt, pepper and chili power, and combine with ricotta to form a purple paste. Slice the bread and apply the spread liberally to both to the top and bottom of the bun. Chop up the mango and mozzarella and arrange it on the bread with some rocket and toast the sandwiches, either with a sandwich-press or alternatively in the oven, under the weight of a casserole dish, until the bread has browned and the two halves stick together. A tsatsiki or yogurt sauce would compliment these nicely.

cornucopia or avon calling

With the support of two major constituencies within the Duma and farming cooperatives, a politician in Russia is championing the near total ban of importation and production of genetically modified foodstuff. Perhaps there is more to the story than is revealed in the top-level motivations, but I do nonetheless wish that other governments had the backbone to question the pratises and sloppy assurances given by the biotech industry, who as the bill's author says, are conducting a grand experiment on humanity and none of us are certain about neither immediate safety nor the long-term consequences.
Already, there are examples of unnatural organisms escaping into the food chain, flashy, patented designations like Aqua-Bounty® —a breed of salmon that has the genes of a fast growing eel spliced into its DNA, or the pollen of GM crops that mixes and mingles in neighbouring fields or the persistent mystery concerning the honey bee population all over the world. Aside from these uncharted risks, there is moreover the manner in which the companies sow their seeds: farmers who subscribe are not just getting a plant without an historic context but are also committing to a licensing agreement, a franchise sort of deal (like DRM or software-bundling for corn or hosts that demand one signs away ones content) as the crops only thrive if one douses them with pesticides (made by the same companies) and farmers agree to grow the same crops year after year and cannot get out of the contract, leading to distress and hopelessness for small farming operations.

fish rissoles

Though we could have accomplished this delicious kitchen experiment without the aid of our new many-headed hydra of a food processor (ein Kuchenmaschine), I don't know that we would have attempted it otherwise—plus it was a good initial test workout for a lot of the machine's capabilities.

To make four good sized fish patties, one will need:

• 200 g of Salmon fillet (fresh or frozen)
• 200 g of Sea Bass (fresh or frozen)
• 4 – 6 small Spring Onions
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch, to taste, of Chili Powder
• 6 tablespoons of of fine breadcrumbs
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of black pepper
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of sour cream
• 1 bunch of fresh dill
• 2 tablespoons of margarine to fry the patties
• Some flour to coat the patties

In preparation, depending whether one uses fresh or frozen fish—as they tend to chop-up better in the food processor when slightly frosty, either freeze fresh fish for about an hour or allow frozen fish to thaw out for a couple hours. Dice the fish into smallish cubes, slice roughly the parsley and combine with the seasonings, breadcrumbs and the egg into the food processor and mix thoroughly. 

Get a frying pan ready with the margarine in the meantime and warm to medium heat. Form the mixture into four patties and roll in flour. Fry the patties in the pan for about two to three minutes on each side. The outside will be a little crisp and the patties will have the look and consistency of crab-cakes.

The sauce is optional but makes a good compliment. Immediately after the fish patties are finished, pour the cup of milk and cup of sour cream into the hot pan and add finely chopped dill. Stir with a spatula for about a minute and serve with the serve with the fish.

Enjoy with a side dish of potato dumplings or potato salad and a fine adult beverage.

speakeasy or mayor mac cheese

Via Slate Magazine, we find out that the kids' menu is not merely an extension of the atavism of adult palettes—to the same level of maturity for refinement, or an attempt to inculcate young and impressionable adherents but rather come from a strange mix in America of medicine, morality and marketing.

Prohibition really opened the doors to the younger crowd and created the concept of the family restaurant. Prior to America's ban on alcohol consumption, restaurants not embedded in a hotel generally did not serve children—a phrase from whence similar punchlines stem, because they tended to be in the way and interfered with the imbibing of adult-beverages, still today any restaurant's biggest profit-maker. In order to make up for lost revenues, restauranteurs looked to catering to family-units. Unaccustomed to making dining out an experience for the youngsters too, parents needed to be presented with a certain level of reassurance, a fare for children that seemed safe and balanced, given all sorts of fretful ideas swirling with nutritional and age-appropriate foods. Compared to the gourmet dishes adults were served, kids got basically bland and safe concoctions—nothing to inspire returning when they reached dining majority, the meals were dictated by the prevailing pedagogical thoughts of the times—nothing too challenging or threatening for immature tastes nor anything indulgent. I wonder how the consequent moon-shining affected the public psyche.  The industry trend has shifted these days to a denominator of guilty-pleasures, it seems.

fe-fi-furlough or a series of tubes

The last time the majority of federal workers in the US were made to take unpaid leave was back in late 1995 when a divided congress withheld funding for environmental, healthcare and social support programs and refused to raise the US government's statutory debt-ceiling, prompting a shutdown of non-essential services. Though the United States has come close to the same situation several times in between and there was never any true deal reached or pledge that rescued or at least deferred budget crises in between, there is certainly an inharmonious legacy to that and future jousting matches.
One tragic charter, article of association that while not enduring in itself, the Contract with America, did set a certain tone of uncompromising loyalty and culling, hollowing out independent institutions. One such bureau that was a casualty of the prevailing attitudes biases of the time was the congressional Office of Technology Assessment, created in 1976 as a non-partisan body to advise the legislature and the public on emergent issues and help politicians build adequate frameworks of regulation to keep apace with innovation and change, free from business lobbies and the jargon of rocket-surgeons.
It was a repository, much like the Library of Congress, to keep knowledge accessible and transparent, and read and research bills before passage—bridging technocracy and democracy. Such institutions and consumer advocacy, inspired by this office, still exist for the parliaments of Europe and other countries to try to gives politics the means to make informed decisions and there is growing reason, evidenced by some willful ignorance, omissions and support for bad science in specious programmes, with assurances from the sectors vying to secure government contracts, like fracking, infatuations with drones and broad surveillance, scuttling the space shuttle, ineffective porno-scanners, the digital rights management cabal, genetic manipulation, and the like, to reinstate an organisation that worked to make science accessible to the public, championed by private experts and some US politicians.

apfelsinn or yes, we have no bananas

Several weeks ago, the excellent retro-repository and all-around Wunderkammer, Collectors’ Weekly featured an engrossing article on the seemingly accidentally romancing of the mango, elevating the exotic fruit for the people of 1968 China to a cult-like reverence.

The craze, propelled wildly by troupes of true-believers, was borne of a simple gesture (re-gifting really) when the Chairman distributed a case of fruit among the Republic’s factors, a present from a visiting dignitary and displaced the traditional Chinese fruity symbol of the peach for wealthy and prosperity.
The rather bizarre adoration of a piece of fruit reminded me of the relation, sometimes contrived and sometimes meant in a derogatory way, of the banana and East Germany.
The symbolism is not parallel but the banana was likewise an ideological hot-potato, representing by turns the excess of the West, the closed markets of the East and the ungood of such aspirations and appetites.
I did not experience all the subtleties of the days of scarcity and plenty myself and don’t know what politics and shrewd trades were going on behind the scenes of real and stereotypical jonesing for not fresh-produce, but rather bananas in particular (going on for decades, untold, though starting around the same time, and not just a passing fad), creators black-markets, et also by party elite and an enduring symbol of divides still being bridged.

across the pond

While the media focus on European economic policies and tax accords from the perspective of the States seems more preoccupied with the potential spillage and knock-on effects of the proposed Tobin Tax, a levy on financial transactions and market trades, the burgeoning talk of a trans-Atlantic Free-Trade-Agreement, urged by both the US administration and European commission president seems an idea comfortably, tantalizingly far away.

Though it is probably true, for both optimists and pessimists, that reaching any kind of meaningful and functional compromise, aligning US and EU standards on safety, quality and transparency, can only be achieved in a receding distant future, displaced by politics and protectionism (by those current players who would be excluded, too), the notion and the will for such an arrangement is not a Fata Morgana that one can never meet. Naïvely, perhaps, but not without hope as there have been plenty of examples of Bridges to Nowhere over trade and tariffs, like the bickering over the aerospace giants or the fact that one cannot purchase a Silver Lady in the States but embassies of genetically modified organisms, untested drugs and wage inequity are equally unwelcomed, the mutual benefits have been articulated, of substantial increases for the gross domestic products of European nations through fewer administrative and process barriers and greater job security for American export industries.
Those sound positive on balance, but I fear that consumer protections will suffer through compromise. Instead of meeting half-way or adopting the more stringent standards of one partner, existing safeguards, like employment rights, food labeling requirements, safety standards and protection for the environment and livestock will be relaxed, diluted in order to meet industry imposed milestones. I hope that this is not the case, because risking health and security is no lubricant for trade, and to prevent these attitudes from prevailing, one cannot take the stance that procrastination and off-putting is acceptable, any more than in the here and now surrendering one’s sovereignty and self-determination to creditors is.

type o-negative or captain caveman

Quite a bit of fad diets and spindled advice come and go, and while the best home-spun recommendation usually run don’t skimp on food and know one’s constitution, some candidates, I think, remain enticing and sensible, and without disparaging the strength of motivation and paying attention to one’s body, one’s habits, earn more credit than is due. It’s no Jedi mind-trick to present any comer with an array of caveats where one is bound to find enthusiasm, either for or against. Validation and challenge to one’s palette or approach is equally fixing and offer the same such bait for consideration.
Seeking out a healthy mix of second-opinions can raise a lot of incompatible ideas and contradicting advice. Reinforcement with chiding is a situation that one is more accustomed to than even pure success of failure, regardless of the estimation. Some dispensaries are more effective than others, and if not loyalists, franchises like eating for one’s rH factor, like one’s great grandparents, or like a Neanderthal have garnered much interest, which is a quality as compelling as any visceral emotion—just so with homeopathy and training to become a confirmed optimist. To have a kernel of truth, a bit of solace is a hook, enough and enduring when there’s a bald hint of reaffirming rightness and knowing one’s misguidance was common enough to merit correction. Maybe the new packaging has more to do with processes than any inherent weakness, without condemning the bulk and body of the industry to willing prospecting, maybe the explosion of allergies and sensitivities is more attributable to lifestyle and shortcuts in production. It is immature cheese that has the highest lactose content, and maybe the vogue of intolerance is more because of how it’s cut, even in polite company, than any new epidemic or any revelatory remediation.