Archive for January, 2011

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Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

The NYT has a regular feature, “Recipe Redux”, where Times writers revisit a classic recipe from the pages of the NYT, and attempt to update it for contemporary tastes/styles/availability of ingredients.

This week’s recipe was for Chocolate-Rum Mousse; the original actually sounds pretty good, at least to my unsophisticated palate.

So how did the NYT‘s chefs (Alex Talbot and Aki Kamozawa, who run the Ideas In Food website) update this recipe?

Talbot and Kamozawa considered making a terrine lined with the chocolate mousse and layering it with popcorn and more mousse, so the popcorn would behave like the chocolate wafers in icebox cake, softening and melding with the mousse.

Should have gone with that idea; sounds good to me. But, no:

Talbot and Kamozawa substituted beets for chocolate in the original recipe

Beets? Beets?! Were these people not loved enough as children?

Okay, let’s be fair: how did it come out?

After blending it together, 1966-style, they had a mousse that they liked a lot but didn’t quite love.

So…

…they whipped out their handy ISI dispenser (handy for some; it’s that magical tool that drove the foam craze) and made the mousse into a cloud.

To the cloud! Sorry. Here’s what I think they’re referring to when they talk about an ISI dispenser.

I asked Talbot whether readers might be daunted by a recipe that calls for an ISI dispenser. “We’ve grown and matured,” Talbot said, “and realized any recipe you put out there, no one really follows it. All it is is a suggestion: you might want to do this.”

Yeah. The original recipe sounds simple, straightforward, and relatively easy to prepare with nothing more than a blender and a stove. The new one requires relatively specialized kitchen equipment and sounds like crap.

I have to ask: if you did a side-to-side, A-B comparison, would Mr. Latte approve?

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food | 3 Comments »

Monday, bloody Monday…

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

First Monday after the end of the NFL regular season, and the firings have begun.

Mangini out as head coach of the Browns.

More coverage from the Cleveland Pain Dealer.

Watch this space for updates. Thanks to Lawrence for the heads-up.

Edited to add: Looks like Kubiak is staying on as Texans head coach, but Frank Bush is out as defensive coordinator.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Firing watch.

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011

Little snark here, because I find this kind of sad and disturbing.

Mike Haywood is out as head football coach of the University of Pittsburgh, two and a half weeks after being hired, and before he even coached a game. I’m not sure if that’s a record, but if not, it comes pretty darn close.

Haywood’s firing stems, at least in part, from an arrest on felony domestic violence charges in Indiana. According to the Post-Gazette, Haywood became involved in a domestic dispute with a woman he has a child with; the charge was upgraded to a felony because the alleged domestic violence took place in front of the child.

The ESPN story linked above and, to some extent the Post-Gazette story, also seem to suggest that Haywood’s hiring was somewhat controversial; Haywood didn’t have an extensive record as a head coach before he was hired, while the Post-Gazette suggests the hiring process was rushed and driven entirely by athletic director Steve Pederson.

Mr. Haywood had announced that he was bringing two assistants from Miami — assistant head coach Bill Elias and offensive coordinator Morris Watts — with him but neither signed contracts and it has been made clear that anyone whose employment at Pitt was associated with Mr. Haywood will not be a part of the future.

That’s the thing about being a leader; what you do doesn’t just have an effect on you, but on the people around you as well. It disturbs me that the assistants are getting the shaft, and it bothers me a little that Haywood was let go that quickly (without the university waiting for the legal system to take its course). I’m a little hesitant to go along with some of the speculation that Haywood was an unpopular hire, and the university saw a chance to cut their losses and bring in someone else, because that makes me sound like I’m condoning thumping on one’s woman. (I don’t.) It does make me wonder.

(Hattip: FARK.)

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Leadership, Sports | Comments Closed

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