nook

August 31, 2010 in Uncategorized, books, review, tech by spinstah | 2 comments

When the debut of the Amazon Kindle started to revive the e-reader and e-book market, I started paying more attention to what was going on in that little world. Not with the intention of buying a reader anytime soon, but because I like gadgets, and I’m a librarian, and I had the thought of “someday, when the DRM is all sorted out, I’ll get one.”

Well, the DRM hasn’t been “all sorted out” (ha!) but someday came this spring, when the idea of buying a Kindle cheap on ebay was planted in my brain, and ferociously took root. Ultimately I didn’t get one, as none of the listings I saw were inexpensive enough. But, this happened in the spring, and my parents were looking for a gift worthy of a milestone birthday. So, I started to look into the possibilities. I had two requirements: I wanted something that could seamlessly download my subscriptions to The New Yorker and The New York Times, and I wanted something that could handle the standard epub format (which means it can be used with Overdrive, a system libraries use to lend out digital content like ebooks and audio books, and I can also purchase ebooks from a variety of sources). This immediately put the Kindle out of the running. My intent here is not to knock it, as I know several people who have one and love it. But it wasn’t going to work for me.

At that point I started to look at the nook and the Sony Reader line. There are several models of Sony Readers at this point, and they can all read the standard epub format. But only one can also seamlessly download subscriptions. The nook can do both of these things, and had the added bonus of being about half the price as that Sony Reader (at the time at least, the price on the nook has actually gone down*, and the Sony Readers may have as well). So, we had a decision. Read the rest of this entry »

Recent Recipes

August 28, 2010 in cooking, food, review by spinstah | No comments

Capsule reviews of a few yummy things I’ve made lately (and by “lately” I do mean that one of these goes back to May):

Spicy Zucchini Soup: This was quite yummy and very easy to make. I didn’t find it to be particularly spicy (not even a kick) so next time I’ll use the entire jalapeno. And I think I put in more cilantro than it calls for, but that’s never a bad thing. The consistency is a little on the thick side, due to the bread, but I liked it nonetheless. And it’s good hot, chilled, or somewhere in between. Also very yummy with a side of corn on the cob.

Ratatouille: As a I made this recipe from Epicurious, recommended by my friend Abby, it occurred to me that in my cookbooks I probably have at least one recipe for ratatouille. Anyway, this is pretty easy, just a lot of chopping, and you can adjust the quantities of vegetables to your taste. I enjoyed it but when I ate the leftovers I found myself picking around the eggplant cubes, as they were quite soggy. This is the kind of thing that I think benefits from the veggies being a little crisp, so next time I think I’ll skip the part where you cook the eggplant alone a little bit (unless there is some compelling reason not to, hive mind?).

Basil Puree: From a pizza recipe in one of my cookbooks, this is a very loose pesto made with only basil, olive oil and garlic (and a pinch of salt). Lovely bright flavor.

Roasted Garlic, Caramelized Leek and Bacon Pizza: Very subtle smoky flavors, which I punched up with the basil puree. And I have to say, you haven’t lived until you have smelled leeks cooking in bacon fat.

Speaking of roasted garlic, I’m not about to turn on my oven in the summer just for the sole purpose of roasting garlic. So instead I put my google-fu to work and came up with this: roasted garlic on the stovetop. Keeping the paper/skin on your cloves, break off however many you need and put them in a dry frying pan over low heat. Turn them occasionally, trying to get them browned on each side. When they’re squishy, they’re done. Worked like a charm.

Ham Salad: I can’t think that I ever had ham salad before I made this, but I’m sure I must have at some point. In any case I made this primarily becuase I had a ham steak from our coop this fall/winter that I had been keeping in mind as I was a little at a loss as to what to do with it. So, when I spotted this recipe on a food blog feed I figured I’d give it a try. Overall it was yummy, but I’m not sure how much I like ham salad, so I probably won’t make it again. That said, the dressing is delicious and I think would make a fantastic egg salad or potato salad.

BLT Salad with Bacon Vinaigrette: Why did it never occur to me to turn my favorite sandwich into a salad!? Delicious! As I recall, I did end up adding some additional vinegar to the dressing, as when I followed the instructions it didn’t come out very tangy.

Mexican Chopped Salad with Honey-Lime Dressing: I make a lot of taco salads in the summer, and I bookmarked this mainly for the dressing, which is quite yummy.

Carmelized Leek Risotto: This was yummy, very light delicate flavor.

Israeli Couscous with Asparagus, Peas and Sugar Snaps: Wonderful lemony flavor that I still think about. The sugar snaps I had when I made this weren’t particularly good, so if you can’t get good ones just omit them. Maybe throw on some shrimp or scallops if you want some protein.

Pizza! At long last!

August 2, 2010 in Uncategorized by spinstah | No comments

Over the winter, I got a pizza stone and tried making homemade pizza a couple of times. I always had some kind of problem — with the dough (usually not rising enough, or otherwise being too difficult to work with) or getting the pizza onto the stone, or winding up with something crispy on the bottom and not burned on the top. But at long last, I think I have found a dough recipe that works for me, as well as a neat new way of cooking it that is faster and easier than dealing with the oven (not to mention much cooler this time of year).

I got some fairytale eggplant with my CSA this week, and while I was looking in the index of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone I spotted a recipe for a pizza that called for eggplant. I decided that this time around, I’d at least be able to avoid the problems with the dough rising. The section on pizzas includes a great start with a dough recipe that I found came together very easily, and which I had no problems working with. Maybe it’s the practice I had with the bread I was making this winter, or maybe it was something to do with the directions. Whatever it was, I wound up with a lovely little ball of dough that rose beautifully (well, the summer and canning heat helped) and was very elastic and easy to work with.

Since I wasn’t about to turn the oven on, I decided to try out a technique I’d come across a while back — using a cast iron pan to cook the pizza on the stove top. My sense of this pan on my stove is that it heats slowly, so I cooked mine a little longer than the recipe called for, as I wanted to make sure that the dough was cooked all the way through. I think I did about two minutes on the first side, and maybe 4-5 on the second (basically, when I started to smell the delicious smell of burning bits of the bottom of a pizza crust). I cooked it covered for a couple of minutes (using a cookie sheet since I don’t have a lid large enough) but mostly cooked it uncovered, since the toppings were on the wet side and I didn’t want to wind up with a soggy pizza.

The pizza came out great – a little bit crispy, a little bit soft, and I was very happy with the toppings. Following a recipe in the above book, I broiled some rounds of my little eggplants, and they went on the pizza along with slices of some lovely summer tomatoes and a bit of whatever hard cheese it is that I’m currently using in place of Parmesan. The really great thing about this pizza, though, was the sauce — a very loose pesto, sans nuts. This was a breeze to put together with my stick blender and I think will be a new summer staple. Good thing I have four basil plants.

The Month in Books: July 2010

August 1, 2010 in books, review by spinstah | No comments

Here’s what I completed in July 2010. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

Nope, that’s not a typo, I read two books by Richard Russo last moth — one for each book club. I liked Empire Falls better.

Corn Salad

July 20, 2010 in cooking, food by spinstah | 1 comment

With the delicious arrival of Eastern Shore corn a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try out this Grilled Corn Salad recipe. Because I wanted it to serve as lunches for a week, I originally planned to serve it over rice, but in the end I was too tired and hot and never made the rice — which was just fine, because I’m not sure the rice really would have worked in the end.

Naturally, I did make some changes. To get four nice lunch entrees out of it, I took the kernels from five ears of corn, and added in a can of (drained, rinsed) black beans. I also diced a tomato and threw that in. It’s a delicious salad, but could have benefited from some additional, more bright or intense flavor. So, if you do like I do and don’t put in a lot of heat in the way of peppers (I used one small jalapeno, diced fine), it might be nice to add a coupe of dollops of salsa to each serving, or perhaps amp up the dressing a bit.

I did the stove top version and my corn really didn’t brown at all. What seemed to happen was that the outer layers of the kernels just bonded to the cast iron, creating this crust between the corn and the pan. As a result the squash really didn’t brown either, but to me it was still just fine — I would even venture to say that if you’re making this on the stove top, just brown the squash and don’t bother doing anything to the corn.

Really this is one of those recipes that you can doctor up any which way you like, and it’s very easy to control how much of it you make. I’m not convinced it’d be that good with frozen corn, so I think this is one that I’ll reserve for the summer, when I get get the main star of the show fresh at the farmer’s market.

Summer food is here!

July 11, 2010 in cooking, food by spinstah | No comments

Danielle, Paul and I once again signed up to split a half share from One Straw Farm’s CSA, and as last year we are picking it up on Saturdays at Waverly Market, a year-round farmer’s market. I had been intending to post about the different things I got each week, as I did last summer, but since it started a few weeks ago and I obviously haven’t mentioned it, I think I’ll abandon that plan and instead just try to get back in the habit of posting about any new recipes I try. Except that would require that I try new recipes, which I haven’t done much of lately. This spring was just so busy that I got into a bit of a cooking rut, and was falling back on old standbys. Not that this is a bad thing, but it doesn’t make for much of anything interesting to share.

Anyway, here’s a little report on what I’ve been eating from the market lately. The growing season has been better this year (except for the recent lack of rain, which was somewhat relieved yesterday), so we didn’t have as long a period of time when it was “greens greens greens” in the CSA offerings. Read the rest of this entry »

WiMax, Take Two

June 22, 2010 in internet, review by spinstah | No comments

Back in February of 2009, I attempted and failed to sign up for Xohm, Sprint’s WiMax service. My overall experience led me to believe that the service wasn’t quite ready to be launched — coverage in Baltimore wasn’t all that widespread, and the Mac support was entirely given over to their developer network, in a lame attempt to get other people to do the work they should have done before launching. I returned the modem I’d bought, griped about the experience online, and soon thereafter Xohm disappeared from view.

It turns out that a company called Clearwire had bought Xohm from Sprint, and they stopped taking new subscribers while they did things like expanding the network and making sure the software and hardware was compatible with the Mac OS. How sensible. They also eliminated the need to install any software on your computer in order to use the service (Xohm required some crazy widget/app thing, for no apparent reason). The pricing for the service, now called Clear, is still smack in my price range ($30 or $40) for basic home service. It’s a little more for a subscription that works with a USB modem that you can take with you anywhere, and you can also bundle voice with any of the plans. One especially nice touch is that you have a choice of a two-year contract and leasing the modem, or a month-to-month contract for which you buy the modem outright. I went with the latter, because if I’m going to wind up paying for the modem anyway, I might as well do it up front and not have to deal with a contract. Read the rest of this entry »

The Month in Books: April & May

June 4, 2010 in books, review by spinstah | No comments

So, apparently I don’t really blog anymore. Interesting.

Anyway, here’s what I read in April and May. Whole lotta not much. Links below take you to my reviews on Goodreads.com.

I also attempted to read Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon, but was foiled by Adobe Digital Editions. (Oh did I mention? I got a nook for my birthday. More on that once I manage to read something other than the NY Times or the New Yorker on it.)

Q1 in Books: January – March 2010

April 21, 2010 in books, review by spinstah | No comments

I knew it had been a while since I had updated with what I’ve read lately, but I had no idea I hadn’t at least done January. Whoops.

I also abandoned Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, and have spent most of April so far either not reading or catching up on a big stack of New Yorkers.

Capsule Reviews . . .

April 1, 2010 in cooking, food, review by spinstah | No comments

. . . of a few things (mostly soups) I’ve made recently. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time or inclination to blog more about these, and at this point some of them aren’t all that fresh in my mind. So, this is what you get!

Cabbage, Chickpea and Chorizo Soup was good, but would have been better without the cabbage — it didn’t seem to meld with the rest of the dish. Also, most of the broth was sucked up by the chickpeas. If you make this, chop the cabbage small. I did pieces about half the size of what the recipe called for, and they were still too big.

Rustic Cabbage Soup is for people who really like cabbage. Next time I think I’ll just make a bunch of coleslaw. It was OK but I don’t think I’ll make it again.

Sweet Potato, Sausage and Kale Soup was excellent!

Apple & Parsnip Soup was ok. The flavors didn’t seem to meld together very well. Maybe it’s better if you use granny smith apples, as called for, instead of whatever random apples you happen to have on hand?

Cream of Carrot with Ginger Soup was very yummy and easy.

Sweet Potato Soup with Miso and Ginger was good but would have been better with less ginger — it really overwhelemed the flavor. Also, I couldn’t find miso. I think I just left it out.

Chicken Fried Rice had a very light flavor. It needed a little oomph, I thought.

Spicy Parsnip Soup is so yummy, even when you make it with turnips instead.

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