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greenstormFirst let's talk about the corned beef hash. You know, I really like good corned beef. There's a guy around here who makes it in his garage, and I need to hook up with him. I'm not talking about that kind of hash.
I'm talking about hash made from the stuff in the red and blue can, distilled essence of slash-and-burn Brazilian rainforest, the pink untextured stuff that's slightly less aesthetically appealing than decent-quality canned dog food. Ya with me so far? I love that stuff. There's no way I would ever in a million years buy it, nor would I accept any of it from someone who would replace the can by buying it at a store, or who would buy the can for me. Not gonna happen.
Well, a friend of mine was gifted the stuff by his father, had no idea what it was, ands then his father left for Florida never to gift it again. I'm in posession of the stuff. So I come home from class to make myself corned beef hash which, in a head-on collision of yuppie-foodie values, contains that corned beef and organic purple potatoes.
It's got me thinking, perhaps my next fall dish will be hash. I have a really solid collection of sausage from a source I trust, and also some beef and lamb. I'm getting a little tired of frying it with sauerkraut (at least until I can make some of my own sauerkraut, the storebought stuff is mild and expensive) but frying it with potatoes and maybe rutabaga and peppers seems ideal.
While I'm thinking seasonal, it would be so helpful if I could find a way to put up maybe a hundred liters of applesauce for the winter. Now, it ain't gonna happen, but if I had a good source for cheap apple seconds I could make inroads. Does applesauce freeze okay or would I need to can it?
Now school: tonight's class was so packed with information that it felt like a pickup truck loaded by Dr Seuss, a tower of knowledge teetering all over the place and poorly organized. That's fun.
Even more fun is that I GOT TO USE A STEREOSCOPE. Now, it's been pointed out to me that the viewmaster I had as a kid was a stereoscope. That's awesome. Even more awesome would be a kid's toy that let you put two pieces of paper under it and draw until you figured out how to make something pop into 3d.
Because, for those of you who don't know, a stereoscope is a tool made from two mirrors that takes two photographs of almost the same area and USES THE BRAIN'S INTERNAL EVOLVED BINOCULAR VISION RESOLUTION SOFTWARE TO MAKE THOSE TWO FLAT PICTURES INTO A THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE. And it works. And it's amazing-- it's an incredibly smart thing to do-- there's no software or math or data extrapolation needed aside from what your brain already does when processing an image from both eyes at once. It means that you use your brain's preexisting structures to make sense of a whole fuckload of data, as they were meant to be used-- the same information presented in any other way, say on a contour line drawing or something, is very difficult to get the hand of. This makes it intuitive, and allows the huge amount of info in a photograph to be even more easily absorbed. You can pick out clearcuts, types of trees, heights of buildings-- from a photograph. Amazing. It's right up there with the 5-cent can return as the smartest thing ever.
And further, from deep in the haze of second ovulation or whatever it is, people in my class are starting to look... interesting. Like the boy from South Africa who is pretty smart and his skin is a pretty colour who was my lab partner.
Life is pretty damn good. Now if only I had a little more time.. oh wait! I'll get a free Thursday evening once in awhile too. Ha!
I'm talking about hash made from the stuff in the red and blue can, distilled essence of slash-and-burn Brazilian rainforest, the pink untextured stuff that's slightly less aesthetically appealing than decent-quality canned dog food. Ya with me so far? I love that stuff. There's no way I would ever in a million years buy it, nor would I accept any of it from someone who would replace the can by buying it at a store, or who would buy the can for me. Not gonna happen.
Well, a friend of mine was gifted the stuff by his father, had no idea what it was, ands then his father left for Florida never to gift it again. I'm in posession of the stuff. So I come home from class to make myself corned beef hash which, in a head-on collision of yuppie-foodie values, contains that corned beef and organic purple potatoes.
It's got me thinking, perhaps my next fall dish will be hash. I have a really solid collection of sausage from a source I trust, and also some beef and lamb. I'm getting a little tired of frying it with sauerkraut (at least until I can make some of my own sauerkraut, the storebought stuff is mild and expensive) but frying it with potatoes and maybe rutabaga and peppers seems ideal.
While I'm thinking seasonal, it would be so helpful if I could find a way to put up maybe a hundred liters of applesauce for the winter. Now, it ain't gonna happen, but if I had a good source for cheap apple seconds I could make inroads. Does applesauce freeze okay or would I need to can it?
Now school: tonight's class was so packed with information that it felt like a pickup truck loaded by Dr Seuss, a tower of knowledge teetering all over the place and poorly organized. That's fun.
Even more fun is that I GOT TO USE A STEREOSCOPE. Now, it's been pointed out to me that the viewmaster I had as a kid was a stereoscope. That's awesome. Even more awesome would be a kid's toy that let you put two pieces of paper under it and draw until you figured out how to make something pop into 3d.
Because, for those of you who don't know, a stereoscope is a tool made from two mirrors that takes two photographs of almost the same area and USES THE BRAIN'S INTERNAL EVOLVED BINOCULAR VISION RESOLUTION SOFTWARE TO MAKE THOSE TWO FLAT PICTURES INTO A THREE-DIMENSIONAL IMAGE. And it works. And it's amazing-- it's an incredibly smart thing to do-- there's no software or math or data extrapolation needed aside from what your brain already does when processing an image from both eyes at once. It means that you use your brain's preexisting structures to make sense of a whole fuckload of data, as they were meant to be used-- the same information presented in any other way, say on a contour line drawing or something, is very difficult to get the hand of. This makes it intuitive, and allows the huge amount of info in a photograph to be even more easily absorbed. You can pick out clearcuts, types of trees, heights of buildings-- from a photograph. Amazing. It's right up there with the 5-cent can return as the smartest thing ever.
And further, from deep in the haze of second ovulation or whatever it is, people in my class are starting to look... interesting. Like the boy from South Africa who is pretty smart and his skin is a pretty colour who was my lab partner.
Life is pretty damn good. Now if only I had a little more time.. oh wait! I'll get a free Thursday evening once in awhile too. Ha!
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-15 05:19 am (UTC)There's a 'park' near Nanaimo Station with 3-4 abandoned apple trees in it.
Also, the roads near my houses have apple trees lining the streets.
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Date: 2010-09-16 06:15 am (UTC)