this is not a food blog

Though this is not a food blog, I do tend to spend a lot of time thinking about food and making food, so I might as well do a food entry. There have been two birthdays this month in my department at work, and so I set out to establish myself as the master baker, as if the pumpkin scones all autumn didn't prove that.

For the guitar-playing cashier, I made Dulcedo's Red Wine Cupcakes, because they sounded too delicious not to try. Indeed, they were, and beautiful besides - somewhere around I've got a photo that I'll add. I baked them in a rush one day after work because my family wanted a glass of wine, and I wanted them to be fresh (the recipe warns that they can go stale easily). Warm out of the oven, they were heavenly: biting into them gave a strong breath of merlot, and the caramel and chocolate drizzled over the top was melty and perfect. They were good when they cooled off too, but without the hit of tannins. The wine flavor was much more subtle, though the chocolate flavor was much stronger, as I actually had time to frost them when they wouldn't melt.

Bosslady wanted something chocolate too, so I went for the Starbucks Cinnamon Chocolate Bread, which has been a hit even though I burned it around the edges. It was rich and crumbly on this slushy day, and there's only the burned end left since the cashiers went to town on it. I added a little chili powder to the topping, because I like my dishes with a bite to them. If it hadn't been for a pregnant woman, I probably would have added some coffee, too. It's a little dryer than I expected, given the sheer volume of butter, but that's a poundcake characteristic, I suppose. Ought to have tea with it or something.

I'm thinking my next baking project will be less chocolately. For my birthday, I'm imagining Raspberry Eggplant's Mango Kulfi Cupcakes, though I'd probably modify the frosting, since I despise meringue (except for the crunchy fruity meringue macaroons I got in Lille). Good plan.

John Edwards, we hardly knew ye (except your family's history of working in mills)

Poor Giuliani. This morning's NYTimes Online had a big photo of him and McCain and a huge headline about how Giuliani was dropping out and endorsing McCain.

Then, of course, John Edwards' bowing out leaked, and suddenly the big photo was a large and flattering shot of Edwards looking patriotic and vivacious. After all, Giuliani is a has-been now and McCain is so old he's practically dead. Why not show Edwards? Hey, maybe someone will make him the VP candidate again? There's no denying he's great at shaking hands and kissing babies, and I imagine he's got a little less pride on that score than either Clinton or Obama would have if the other extended that sort of invitation.

Ah well. Got to love the American political system. Just think! Only a few days more until Super Tuesday, which will no doubt perpetuate a knockdown dragout fight until the end of August! Then another knockdown dragout fight until the beginning of November! Joy of joys.

I watched Walk Hard

I ended up going to the movies a lot more than usual while my other best friend was home. This isn't surprising; I really only go to the movies with people, and when most of my friends have moved away. I think that until I went to see August Rush in November, the last movie I had seen in the theatre was Ratatouille. Then in the space of a few weeks, I saw I Am Legend, Walk Hard, and Juno. At least I know where the new cinema is now.

Anyway. Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is not the kind of thing I would usually pick to go see. It's like a Will Ferrell movie, only without Will Ferrell (and while he's got some chops, I don't like his comedies much). The blatant innuendo in the title alone would be enough to turn me off the film. But I like John C. Reilly, I like it even better when he sings, and The Office (US) has awakened me to the charms of Jenna Fischer, so I said yes.

There were parts of the movie that amused me. Mostly the absolute hyperbole: the grown man masquerading as a fourteen-year-old, the woman playing his twelve-year-old girlfriend, the way that it all got worked into some expository dialogue. It was almost surreal, the way they discarded any pretense at realism. A song gets written on the spot, the musicians are so hip to the jive that they're able to play along, and within 35 minutes (thanks, DJ Exposition!), it's topping the charts! Amazing! I can get down (somewhat) with a movie that doesn't take itself seriously.

Despite Jenna Fischer's cleavage, the movie did drag on a bit. The whole-life approach meant a bunch of costume changes and a little bit of aging makeup, which was interesting, but I felt that the lessons could have been learned in much less time. Dewey Cox is no David Bowie, to go through a hundred phases and still be interesting. He wasn't that interesting in the first place. I liked the band members all right; they got short-shrifted in all kinds of ways.

The movie doesn't quite go far enough to be true parody, but I did enjoy the self-aware moments. And I'll admit it, I laughed at some of the cheaper gags, but more in "They did what?" shock and half-horror than in true entertainment. But then, I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to comedies.

Overall, I don't really regret seeing it, but I wouldn't see it again in the theatre. I might watch bits and pieces if it were on within earshot, but mostly for the novelty of seeing Jenna Fischer all dolled up. And maybe for the fake Beatles. That part was funny.

quizzical about quizzes

Clearly I am just as deep into it as most people but guys, really, the internet is ridiculous.

Not that this is news.

I was just playing Scrabulous on Facebook (might as well, before it ceases and desists), and I glanced over at the ad in the side panel. "ARE YOU FAT?" the ad screamed. "Take this quiz and find out!"

What kind of questions are on that quiz, I wonder? "Do you enjoy cramming junk food into your face?", like, or is it more along the lines of "What's your BMI?" Do I have a fat personality to go along with my hefty hips? Oh, if only I could think thin! Maybe the quiz will tell me how.

It used to be all "attend this event!" and "buy things from this website!" in that sidebar, along with "please be my roommate!" and "I lost my dog!" local ads, but now it seems to be quizzes. Quizzes, quizzes everlasting. It's like a British pub, only less classy. Really? A quiz will tell me if I'm a kissing master? A quiz doesn't even know what flavor of lipgloss I like. Unless touchscreen technology is a lot more advanced than I thought and also has been secretly installed on my laptop, I doubt a quiz is going to tell me anything.

Okay, I've taken my share of internet quizzes. But mostly only the ones that had cool badges to post afterwards. And it was more things that told me my Celtic astrology sign or what nonsensical object I was like or even what character from a book. None of this "are you fat" nonsense. The internet has descended from exalted academic resource (hah) to perversion to drivel. Alas for the days of yore (not really).

Ah well. Even if Facebook's sold out, I can still get an engineering degree in three weeks from home and enroll myself in identity theft protection. Now that's a better world.

Camping Out By Chick-Fil-A

Here's a funny thing: until this morning, there was a tent city in front of the new Chick-Fil-A that went up at the corner of the two main drags near my house. Well, fine, so it was more like a tent hamlet, but still, that's a curious thing to see in front of a restaurant. Especially a fast food restaurant. The only time I see a line like that at McDonald's or Taco Bell is on New Year's, when the wait at Taco Bell was about 20 minutes for the first one we tried, and they had run out of food, they claimed (we went to a second franchise and they served us, though they were out of beans). But tents! Never! It was like a really boring tailgate party! There were all sorts of grills and lawn chairs and what looked suspiciously like violations of open container laws, and then no game at the end. Those souls are braver than I am, that's for sure.

It was such a mystery. Why tents? Why Chick-Fil-A? Surely if they were hungry, they could have just gone to any of the assorted fast food restaurants nearby? The local high school has an open campus lunch, meaning the students can leave, so the place is fraught with sandwich shops and burger joints. Surely if they needed housing, they might have chosen to take a room in one of the cheapish hotels half a mile down the road? They all looked prosperous enough with their posh tents and their North Face fleeces, warming their hands around a barbeque.

Had I checked Wikipedia, earlier, I might have learned that there's a whole traveling group called "The Herd" who attend grand openings of as many Chick-Fil-As as possible. I might have learned about the First Hundred promotion whereby the dedicated first hundred people to enter the doors of a new Chick-Fil-A get a coupon for a free combo meal every week. Ah, if only I had done my (questionable) research, I would not have been so puzzled and amused.

Anyway, the grand opening was this morning, and there was some poor soul dressed as a cow in a nightgown dragging a billboard around through the morning frost. The tents had all vanished like John Edwards' hopes after New Hampshire. I'd imagine the camping out part was more a draw than the food - I don't know anyone whose passion for chicken sandwiches would normally convince them to wait around in thirty degree weather for hours and hours. Maybe I should have told Biceps about it, though. He appreciates a good piece of chicken, as I am reminded every afternoon when he starts to heat up his Tupperware of pasty chicken and smooshy peas. I really hope that the genuinely homeless people in the area found out about the promotion - they're a lot more in need of a chicken combo meal than the people I saw making merry in the early evening in the parking lot of the brand new Chick-Fil-A. Ah well.

I shouldn't mock. If they ever offered a nifty promotion for a vegetarian fast food chain (oh, I have high hopes), I'd probably be out there in my sleeping bag with my little camping lantern too.

tiny bubbles

On a lighter note, things I should not do at work: read about Trappist ales and extreme beers all morning. After all, even if there were cafés about where one could get a humble pint of Affligem or Chimay or Leffe (a favorite in the little white house in Cambrai, probably because it was cheap), it's not even noon. My American sensibilities don't approve of beer at breakfast hours. On the other hand, it's four in the afternoon in France, a perfect moment to sit down in a bar.

Really, the American attitude toward alcohol is regrettable. We have the all-or-nothing gumption that serves well when it comes to exploration and stealing other people's lands, and less well when it comes to binge-drinking. How scandalous to have drinks at lunch! How daring! How will one ever refrain from saying or doing regrettable things in the workplace? But one glass of wine or beer does not most people drunken make. Witness the bottles of wine in the teachers' lunchroom at my lycée. The French don't drink to get drunk, at least mostly not during the work day. It's just part of the daily life just as much as the long lunch is, though I can't deny both probably helped my colleagues deal with their unruly adolescent charges.

Anyway, the point is that I'm extremely suggestible, apparently, because now I'd love to dash to the liquor store on the main drag and pick up a can of Guinness with its rattly little ball, or maybe the double chocolate stout, since the big warehouse-style booze emporium that might have Trappist ales is a bit of a schlep. I'm going to spend my lunch hour wishing I had something fizzy and hoppy to be a counterpoint to my Thai leftovers. I think what I'm more longing for is the town square in Cambrai where we usually went for a beer, the sunshine and the tiny cars dashing over the cobblestones and the utterly stylish pedestrians and the inscrutable statues on the dome of the town hall. It's not so much the bite of the ale as the smooth patter of French all around me and the sense of ease and comraderie.

Unfortunately, I don't think my boss would be down with the idea of me keeping a six-pack in the office fridge, so that idea is dashed all to smithereens. I like my propriety anyway. It's constricting, but the support is like nothing else. I just ought not to read the Dining section of the NYTimes until it's properly time to eat things.

On the plus side, it does distract me from my desire to punch Bill Kristol in the face.

you go, girl.

This primaries thing just gets more and more interesting. Given my own leftist politics, I find the Democratic front-runners (meaning Clinton and Obama, natch - Edwards doesn't have the appeal or the dazzle to make it a real three-way race) fairly equally palatable and the Republicans equally eerie and over-zealous to get their grabby hands on my civil rights (though I might like John McCain, if he weren't so firmly for the war, or Giuliani, if he weren't a bit cracked). Today is the New Hampshire primary, and of course we've already got the early results in from Digg's Notch and Hart's Location. The frustrating thing about primaries (and the Republican caucus in Iowa) is that it takes so long to count the votes. Polls open at 8 and close whenever they do, and after that you still have to wait. At least caucus is instant gratification.

Obama's got the early lead, apparently: the media's portrait of Clinton as desperate and flagging is working, which I think is a pity. As Gloria Steinem points out in today's New York Times, Hillary gets a bad rap if she's stern (too cold! too reserved! possibly a robot!) and a worse one if she shows any emotion (isn't it just like a woman to be all emotional right now! women are too weak and ruled by their hormones! what if she cried in the White House?). There's absolutely no way she can win that war. Meanwhile, Obama goes on with his highly emotional pontification and appeals to our deeper sorrows. He's a good speaker and a moving one, but that kind of speech isn't available to Clinton.

Steinem has several other good points: why can Obama use his race in a way that Clinton can't use her gender? Why is he "allowed" to talk about civil rights struggles and Clinton has to shy away from sexism for fear of being accused of playing the gender card? She is a woman. That's an incontrovertible fact, despite snide comments. Why shouldn't she talk about being a woman? More than half the country's population is women; perhaps it's time for a candidate who truly understands women's issues. Clinton and Obama are equally progressive; Obama's voting record during his most of a term in the Senate has been almost identical to Clinton's. It's hard to say who's got more at stake in terms of a fight for their rights - both are wealthy, well-educated, and privileged.

Perhaps the problem is that Obama is viewed as a man of the people (aha) and Clinton is seen as someone who's more independently motivated, less receptive to the voices of her constituents. Clinton's aggressiveness and reserve would be praised if she were a man. Don't we want a President who will fight for their country? Admittedly, getting elected isn't the most poignant struggle in the world, but it is a challenge that requires dedication and passion. Each candidate has their own reasons for wanting the position, but I believe that the greater good of the nation is among Clinton's motives. So she wants another chance to effect change. Who can blame her for that? The First Lady is a nice title, but the position doesn't come with much authority, and it's clear she's always had ideas of her own about policy. The number one reason I heard for voting for Bush when I was calling voters in Iowa before the 2004 elections was that people wanted to give him another chance to fix his mistakes. The mistakes of the Clintons were much less heinous; a failed health care plan is hardly a quagmire of a war or a shambles of an education policy. So give Hillary a chance to restructure her own plans gone awry and I believe she'll fix Bush's errors as well. She'll surround herself with good people and she'll behave like a president ought to: strong, motivated, and broad-minded.

That doesn't even touch on the whole "Iron My Shirt" debacle. Can you imagine if some redneck idiot stood up and made a racist comment to Obama? Aside from Fox News commentators, of course. The uproar would be instantaneous and furious. Tell people about this and I guarantee that a good percentage of them will be hiding a smile or a titter. There's an idea that this is the kind of commentary Clinton should deserve or expect. Who's asking Obama or Edwards or the Republicans how much effort they put into caring for their children or doing the housekeeping? Most of them are rich enough to pay for housekeepers and nannies if they feel that they need them, but that wouldn't be seen as a cop-out for them; meanwhile, Clinton is expected to talk about her family life and her domestic abilities. Rather sickening.

Personally, I'd be happy with either of them as a candidate. Look at America, feeling good about itself when the two most viable candidates are a white woman and an African-American man. That's progress, at least.

Maybe people are just tired of political dynasties. Admittedly, Bill Clinton's fine legacy of policy making, peace-keeping, and governmental competence is overshadowed by the ridiculous impeachment and the way Bush spent the surplus into the ground, took us straight into a war, and underfunded things like No Child Left Behind, which might have worked. Maybe that's why Obama seems fresh and hip enough to appeal to young voters and charm the jaded middle-aged. It is impressive that he managed to draw out the overwhelmingly white population of Iowa on an icy January evening. But if you really want to overturn the status quo, why not vote for a woman? Women are still underpaid, still expected to hold down a job and raise a family, still at a political and a social disadvantage. Not to belittle the continuing influences of racism, but it must be remarked that Obama isn't quite the disadvantaged wunderkind, here to unite black and white, conservative and liberal (and how would he be doing if he didn't have a white mother from Kansas, I wonder?), man and woman. Sure, he listens to his wife, but you can't yet vote for Michelle Obama.

Hillary's always going to be a polarizing figure. She's always going to stir up resentment for one reason or another: she stood by Bill, she didn't stand by him enough, she's too New York, she's a carpetbagger trying to build on her husband's Southern charm, she plays the gender card, she's not womanly enough, she implies a return to the feel-good Clinton era, she has her own policies and agendas to implement. There's never not going to be people with strong opinions about her and I value that. At least she inspires. Nobody's ever going to have all good press or all agreement. That wouldn't be rough and tumble American politics, and frankly, I like it this way. All the drama! Less of the bloodshed! Nice work, America. It's time for the apathy to end.

If Obama is the nominee, I'll throw my support behind him. Anything to get Bush out of the White House and this country out of its slump, and besides that, I genuinely like him. I'm all for the politics of hope and actually looking forward to the State of the Union. But you know what? I'm not giving up hope for Hillary Clinton breaking that glass ceiling.

Caucus!

Like so many others, all I can talk about today is last night's Iowa caucus. Iowa! Iowa! You don't realize how much you miss it until it's all over tv; I swear I recognized 98% of the towns they were talking about on CNN. They all had exits off I-80, for one thing. I kind of wish I were still registered to vote in Iowa, though it would have meant an eight-hour drive to sleep on the floor of the gymnasium in a sleeping bag. Iowa is the first rock in the avalanche! It's the buzzer that starts the game for real! All that initial trash-talking was just prelude to the barrage of ads that will come after the first results are in and campaigns start re-tooling to please the people.

It's hard to explain the appeal of caucus to someone who has never caucused (for instance, a Canadian friend of mine who asked, "Can't I just do my voting from home?"). It's true it's a bit of a schlep through miserable dark January weather to spend a couple of hours in a school gymnasium with a bunch of other people in winter gear that becomes rapidly much too warm, but on the other hand, it's a lot more entertaining and engaging than a voting booth. The whole point of caucus is to argue and cajole! How great is that? It's a highly-compartmentalized microcosm of national-level politics. In rural Iowa, this means it's half your town cramming into someone's living room. You recognize the people in your ward, you are well aware of all the weaknesses (or enduring truths, if they agree with you) of their political positions, and you're prepared to take advantage of their candidate's obvious non-viability (or glory, if they agree with you) and shore up support for your future leader. It's national politics at its most local and charming.

I suppose caucus, like so many things about the US political system (electoral college, anyone?) just seems strange and rowdy from the outside. Not that it isn't a little strange and rowdy on the inside. But caucus is so much more interesting than a straight-up primary: there's a lot more dialogue, a lot more things to do while you're waiting around for results. Sure, Iowa is an incredibly white-bread, decisively moderate, mostly agricultural state that gets a disproportionate amount of attention and influence, but the 75% of the time that's not election year, they're a flyover state, so give them a little love.

The Democratic caucus was clearly more interesting than the Republican caucus, partly because of the quicker returns when you're counting delegates instead of votes (and seriously, Des Moines Republican caucus, when you pass the hat to pay for supplies right before you start voting, it sure starts to look like a poll tax), and because Mitt Romney never really had much of a chance in Iowa. Iowans pride themselves on stubbornness and good Christian values. It doesn't matter whether Huckabee is a bit of a slimy jerk (despite his fairly progressive stance on immigration): he's a solid Christian. That'll get him an edge any day over Mitt the Mormon, no matter how much money and charm Romney doles out or how organized his campaign is. You want to win in an agricultural state? Look grass-roots and down-home, which Huckabee does (admittedly, his charm is somewhat disarming). Poor Giuliani, with his citified ways, never had a chance; I would have gone to Florida too, where the weather at least doesn't resemble the ninth circle of hell. So there's the Republican nomination sewn up for Iowa, but what about Hillary and Obama? What about Edwards, with his dapper good looks?

Turns out the young people turned themselves out in spades, and they all went for Obama. He got the youth vote, he got the women. The Iowa women were a big force in this caucus, caught between Obama's enthusiasm and Hillary's stand-together attitude. But Hill, unfortunately, can't seem not to look establishment, while Obama's fresh and new. My personal view of Edwards' strong finish is that all the men were voting for him. Leery of Hillary's reputation as a strongarm and Obama's youthful appearance, who are the men of Iowa going to vote for but Edwards? He's young (but not too young!), sensitive (but not too sensitive!), not part of the Clinton legacy (too soon?), and won't he look fine someday in his presidential portrait? So the men flocked to Edwards, and some of their wives and girlfriends went with them. Fascinating. Sometimes the star power of Clinton and Obama doesn't work in their favor, and salt-of-the-earth Iowa proves it.

My only real worry, as we wait for New Hampshire, is that the media will turn Hillary into the next Dean, working themselves into a frenzy over her supposed has-been status until it becomes a reality. The front page of the New York Times has a photo of her looking angry. It's true that she wasn't expecting to finish third, but the margin between her and Edwards is so small that it's almost insignificant. She's not the "big loser" she was called repeatedly last night. Her speech may not have been as impassioned as Edwards' or indeed, Obama's (now there's a man who can orate), but Hillary's never been as outwardly passionate or emotive as the other two. A large part of her image is her self-control, which doesn't tend to endear her to the American voter needing to feel personally spoken to and cared for. She didn't talk about New Hampshire and Nevada and Carolina the way the others did, which could give the impression that she's giving up, but if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

Chris Beam, liveblogging for Slate.com, speculated that if Hillary had visited Grinnell - ah, the consequences of the question-planting incident - and managed to convince just thirty people to caucus for her, she could have pulled ahead of Edwards and all this kerfuffle would be dampened. A fellow Grinnellian points out that this is not inconceivable given the number of collegian caucusers supporting unviable candidates like Kucininch, Richardson, and Dodd (Biden was viable in Grinnell 1), who swung mostly to Obama. If Hillary had had just thirty more people, it wouldn't have mattered if all of the undecideds went to Obama: she would have been viable in Grinnell and picked up enough state-wide delegates to edge Edwards out. Coulda woulda shoulda, I suppose, but it's amazing the difference that one more Maid-Rite loose meat sandwich can make. Edit: Beam has retracted this based on fuzzy math (Hillary needed to pick up State Delegate Equivalents, not precinct delegates), but the point remains valid that a little more work might have secured her a significant enough of the delegates left milling about when their candidates weren't viable to nose ahead.

There's no doubt Hillary could have done more in Iowa to improve her profile, but her race isn't over yet. Not everyone is looking for a candidate to bring them personal reassurance; after W's misguided attempt to combine small-town-style just-folks concern with his macho persona, it'd be refreshing to have a president who doesn't seem to want to come to our house for a potluck and to maybe shoot some things. Hillary was always going to play better outside of the Midwest, where her reserve comes off cold. (Elizabeth faced the same problem in The Queen; maybe Hill should get Helen Mirren to give her speeches?) Wait until the coasts get hold of the vote (not that the East Coast and the Left Coast are, according to Huckabee, part of America).

The influence of the Iowa caucus is certain (unfortunate is a whole other question). Their anointed candidates don't always make it all the way, but Iowa's had a good record of choosing winners for the last few elections. Now that the South Carolina voters have seen Obama pull in a strong response in a state whose population is almost 95% white, it's almost certain that some of the black voters will swing from Hillary to Obama. Edwards' unexpectedly strong finish will probably pick up a few undecideds, or maybe some disgruntled Republicans. The game is afoot! Suddenly the idea of an African-American as a viable candidate seems like a real possibility, and not just a nice idea.

Iowa: for better or worse, they get to vote before you do.

Also, can we please not call Huckabee "Mike" for the next ten interminable months?

Pretentiousness with a twist

There are many ways in which I am rather pretentious. I use the word "rather" with a particular frequency, for instance. I'm not sure that attending a small elitist liberal arts college or spending the subsequent year in France, cradle of haughtiness, have helped this tendency of mine, but now that I'm back in the humble Upper South US, I can't just go on talking about obscure literary theorists and high-class cheeses. Most of the time, I try to keep my snobbery under wraps, in the name of politeness and being a real human being.

On the other hand, there is one place I glory in my preference for things high-end and obscure, and that's at the local yarn shop. Sure, I'm still something of a yarn novice. Sure, I started on Red Heart like every other chump. But now I'm aware there's a bigger, better world outside of Hobby Lobby eyelash yarn. Cashmerinos! Aran tweeds! Big fat fluffy wools! Bamboo yarn, even, gorgeous and slippery. Yes, it's a whole wide world of texture and color out there once you get past semi-self-striping acrylics.

Not only are there a lot of different fibers (alpaca, cotton, various wools, silks, and the unlikely but lovely bamboo, among others), but there are so many different weights of yarn. I've petted wools that will give you one stitch per inch on needles the side of magic markers, and laceweight wools that knit up airy as anything on even the smallest needles. Some yarns are plyed, others semi-felted to begin with. I've gone back occasionally to the lingering generic acrylics in my stash, but there's just so much less you can do with them. They don't felt. There's no interesting variation on the color. Lots of them don't even have dye lots, much less fascinating textures like my anonymous green stuff, twisted together from several different colors with some incredible slubs, or the small remainder of Mango Moon in my bag, made from recycled saris. It's kind of like drinking instant coffee for years and then one day walking into a Starbucks (or equivalent, more delicious independent coffeeshop). You never really want to go back. And each skein has a story that way. "Oh, I picked that up in a little place in the smallest town you ever saw." "This? It's from that amazing yarn superstore. And that one was a gift/inheritance/piece of booty."

I have to say, I'm glad to be a part of it. So go on, ask me about my yarn.