This is What 61 Looks Like

It looks sweet!

Thanks to Sue, whose first cake broke in pieces.  Determined that I should have a beautiful birthday cake, she made another (pictured above).

 The first attempt.

After fudge and cake, I am ready for anything!

Bertha Frances (click for catalog record)

Rosemary gave me two cupcakes and an amazing clock that runs on water! A water clock

Finally We Get a Nice Day!

When It's Cold, I Cook.

Yesterday it hit the 60s, but today it's cold and rainy.  Let's heat up with some cooking.

One of my favorites is the Joy of Cooking's interpretation of Corn Bread Tamale Pie.  You can use protein crumbles for the hamburger, add beans, use salsa instead of chili pepper; it's a great base recipe to play with.

Happy Birthday, Presidents!

To honor our illustrious presidents, I got out my new Dutch oven (from Target) and made the Tuscan bean stew from the recipe Julie gave me, incorporating the changes she suggested in penciled notes.  It was good.

I also made another attempt at pizza.  I'm getting better at it.

Enjoy your special day, Messrs President!

Quiet Weekend

On Friday evening I joined Julie, Dave, and Sue for dinner at L'Impasto.   I had lasagne made with bechamal sauce.  It was awfully good and awfully rich.

On Saturday I watched Tabloid, which was much more interesting than I thought it would be.

Today there is a ribs festival on Cambridge St.  I took some snaps; but I ate no ribs.

Not a Kitchen Nightmare

The last time my neighbor and I did a Costco run, one of the samples tables was touting this fake ground beef:

It tasted good, and I wanted to reduce my red meat consumption as painlessly as possible, so I bought some.  Then I cooked an eggplant, put it in a pan with some of the fake beef and a jar of store-bought basil pasta sauce and simmered the whole mess for a spell.  Then I poured it over penne.  It was quite tasty.

This is significant because most of my spontaneous cooking experiments turn out OK at best and sometimes just plain bad.

A General Update

 Now that it is warm again, everything is blooming like crazy.  We've had such wild temperature swings: I hope these hopeful buds don't get zapped by another drop.

 JB brought in a bunch of treats, including gluten-free and gluten-rich muffins.  This is just what we need to get us over that Wednesday hump!

 A robin built a nest in the Pusey pit tree.  The best views are from Map Collection offices.  The mapsters will be making videos when the chicks hatch.

 JB also added to his rotted fruit sculpture, which he now claims is a totem pole.  Anthropologists of the future will be puzzled!

New Year's Eve Brunch

I went to Cafe Luna this morning with some of my buddies.

 Julie and Dave,

 Lynn and Sue,

 and my special friend Mr. Banana-split French Toast.

 Sue passed along another novelty candle: a teapot with a maple-leaf raised design.

It was proudly designed in San Diego, CA, USA; but made in China.

Weekend Gifts

Dave gave me a bottle of his home-brewed beer, which I must store in a dark place at 66-72 degrees for a least 10 days.  Sue gave me a candle that looks like a piece of cheese.

Romeo was fascinated by the flame.

Foreign Food

Some Japanese librarians were visiting our library.  To thank us for our hospitality, they left us a box of Japanese cookies.  I couldn't figure out what they were made of, because I can't read Japanese.  But they were pretty enough to photograph.

So Thankful When I Don't Have to Cook

My neighbor Rosemary and I went out for our Thanksgiving meal to a little French restaurant in Harvard Square called Sandrines.  We had the Prix Fixe, which was a good deal.  Our waiter had moved to from Paris to Arizona, where they opened a restaurant.  But after 9/11, there was such a bad feeling towards anything French that they moved east.

So Hooray east!  Rosemary had a nice cuppa wine (not pictured).

I had a sidecar (not pictured).

The turkey and fixins' were nicely presented.

And the lemon and pumpkin tarts were pretty enough to eat.

The good food reminded Rosemary that she must go back to Paris.
Sandrines is a bit too expensive for everyday eating out.

Non-Satanic Naming

Since product names came up in a recent blog post, I decided I would report on my correspondence with Bumble Bee Foods.  I was discussing Bumble Bee tuna with my office mates one day, when I wondered aloud why a seafood company named itself after an insect.  I searched their site without finding an answer, so I e-mailed them.  This was their answer:

Dear Colleen:

Thank you for taking the time to contact us about our Bumble Bee products.

The Bumble Bee name can be traced to the early days of the company. The company was originally the Columbia River Packers Association (CRPA) and produced canned salmon primarily from Astoria, OR. The company grew quickly with salmon being a staple food product in American households. The canners used separate and distinct labels for specific salmon species and runs, even for different markets and specific customers. The labels were often the names of different animals and plants like Bear and Cloverleaf. The “Bumble Bee” name eventually became the most popular of the CRPA brands.

In 1938 the packers introduced a new catch, Albacore tuna, which was found seasonally and in abundance off the Oregon coast. Soon, Albacore tuna surpassed salmon as the company’s primary product. Today, Bumble Bee has become one of the most respected premium labels for canned tuna and other seafood items in the United States, bringing more variety in the company’s offerings for shelf stable protein.

Thank you again for contacting us.

Thank you,
Bumble Bee Consumer Affairs


I had assumed that the bee's stripes had something to do with it, since the Bumble Bee spokesinsect wears a striped sailor shirt.

I had further supposed that the bee's  nectar-collecting had been seen as analogous to fishing. But no, they just slapped various animal and names on their products.  This story is as dissatifying as that of King Arthur flour, which was named after a popular musical.  And I had been wondering what King Arthur had to do with baking!

People Food

The 50th birthday of Charlie the Tuna got me thinking about the anthropomorphism of food in advertising.  This was particularly popular in the 50s and 60s...

...but it still goes on today.

So why do we like our food to look human?  Well, our food becomes a part of us, and therefore human.  Perhaps such anthropomorphism suggests that the food is already on the way to humanness, so will require less digestive work, or that it is suitable for humans--it is people food.
Eating anthropomorphic food is also a socially acceptable form of cannibalism, an ancient practice fallen out of favor in recent times.
My favorite explanation is that human-like food suggests that we will attain the qualities or states suggested by the food's form.  We shall become distinguished and gentlemanly like Mr. Peanut, as beautiful and sultry as Chiquita Banana, or as happily energetic as Kool-Aid Man. (How do they know it's male?)
I invite my readers to put forth their own theories.

The Ultimate Molasses Cookie Recipe

This is from the Sofra Bakery, and it's the best I've ever tasted:

3/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup sugar, plus additional sugar for cookies
1 large egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1. Combine all dry ingredients, except sugar.  Set aside.
2. Combine oil, molasses, sugar, and egg in bowl of a stand mixer.  Paddle on medium speed until smooth.  Be careful not to incorporate too much air.  Mix 15-20 seconds (or vigorously by hand).
3. Add dry ingredients and mix until well-combined, about 20 seconds.  Chill dough until it reaches room temperature, about 2 hours.  If preparing dough in advance, freeze so the oil doesn't separate.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Using a small scoop, place formed dough into a bowl of granulated sugar to coat.
5. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet 1/2 inch apart.  Bake 12-15 minutes.  Cookies will appear underdone.

[I like to use brown sugar instead, and I don't bother to roll the dough in sugar before baking.]