Randomness

[Alelou]

I add a pinch of sugar when I make spaghetti sauce from scratch (along with a bit of lemon juice) but yes, there's way too much in most commercial sauces. (Just as there's TONS too much salt in those.)

The amount you add to preserve crispiness/color is minimal -- it's also an old trick to do the same with things like pork chops to get them to brown in the pan nicely. You don't want them to actually taste sweet, though. Personally if I taste meat that is itself sweet I start wondering if it's gone bad.

But I love a little sweetness in a sauce or dressing -- teriyaki sauce, yakisoba sauce, pad Thai, oyster sauce, "special brown sauce" -- Asians aren't fat but they're not afraid of throwing a little sugar into a dish either. And when I make curried chicken salad I love to throw in chopped apples and golden raisins as well as peanuts. The contrast of sweet and spicy is just yummy.

[Alelou]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/10/opini ... ss&emc=rss

I know it's completely juvenile of me, but I just had to share the fact that this (alarming) op ed piece about white teenagers and cocaine was written by Charles M. Blow.

[Aquarius]

Well then can I have them? I'm all out.

Sorry, you'll have to fight ME for 'em!

I'm a confirmed dill pickle junky...

[Bether6074]

It's snowing...again! Oh well. That's life in the Northeast in January. Guess who gets to drive in to work at 3 AM? Think I'll be SUV-ing it tomorrow. Not to be redundant, but is it spring yet?

[Alelou]

Yikes! To Stephentown at 3am in the middle of this storm????

Good luck. Drive behind a plow!

[Elessar]

Yikes! To Stephentown at 3am in the middle of this storm????

Good luck. Drive behind a plow!

It snowed here too but we only got like half an inch.

[Alelou]

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't count.

I think we got seven or eight. Not so bad. Our first winter here our first storm was 19 inches ... I think this was in November ... and the snow blower wouldn't start. Then I think we got 22 inches on Christmas day. And so on and so on. It turned out to be the second snowiest winter here in recorded history. We were in shock.

I like a good steady snow cover. It's poor man's fertilizer.

[Buurman]

I'm sorry, but that just doesn't count.

I think we got seven or eight. Not so bad. Our first winter here our first storm was 19 inches ... I think this was in November ... and the snow blower wouldn't start. Then I think we got 22 inches on Christmas day. And so on and so on. It turned out to be the second snowiest winter here in recorded history. We were in shock.

I like a good steady snow cover. It's poor man's fertilizer.

I started to melt yesterday and now everything is gone. We had a very cold winter, not see in many years. The Elfstedentocht had a real chance of being ridden again, but then yesterday after about ten days of frost it heated up again :'(

[Alelou]

The Elfstedentocht had a real chance of being ridden again, but then yesterday after about ten days of frost it heated up again :'(

Huh?

[Buurman]

Sorry, should a told you some more. It's a 200km (almost) ice skating tour on natural ice, being ridden in the Netherlands (province of Friesland or Fryslân) in which the skaters make a tour around eleven city's starting and ending in Leeuwarden (Ljouwert).

The name, Elfstedentocht, literally means Eleven-city-tour and it's only been organised 15 times in the past century (5 times in the past 50 years) because the ice has to be at least 15 cms along the entire course. It's quite the event *if* it happens (last time was in 1997).

Anyways, every time we have something approximating frost us Dutchmen get all excited and hyper because there may be an Elfstedentocht But I guess it won't come this year as well

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht.

[JadziaKathryn]

^ Hey, anything that makes you anticipate cold is a good coping mechanism in my book!

On the new Trek movie: No "Crazy Sex Scene".

And, completely random as is befitting, my roommate for the semester likes Star Trek.

[Alelou]

From the New York Times -- as a tea drinker I find this a little depressing. I gave up coffee for health reasons, damn it.

Coffee Linked to Lower Dementia Risk
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: January 23, 2009

Drinking coffee may do more than just keep you awake. A new study suggests an intriguing potential link to mental health later in life, as well.

A team of Swedish and Danish researchers tracked coffee consumption in a group of 1,409 middle-age men and women for an average of 21 years. During that time, 61 participants developed dementia, 48 with Alzheimer’s disease.

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/healt ... ee.html?em

Seems to me this could still be a case of association masquerading as a causal effect -- maybe people who do more brain-exercising activity just tend to drink more coffee or something.

Anyway, it also reminded me of Volley's cute comic story at fanfic.net, about what happens when Enterprise accidentally gives away all its stores of coffee: Zanthian Zing

[Asso]

Don't mind, Alelou. You can't even imagine how much things can be said (and their contrary, too) about tea, and coffee,etc etc etc

[CX]

Everyone still alive? It says that big storm came through and killed 19 people so far.

[Alelou]

I bet plenty of folks are without power. The ice in some of the pictures I've seen is giving me flashbacks. Last night I saw a picture of a van in Wisconsin so covered with ice that it looked more like a giant ice cube.

Off topic -- Does anyone know what has become of Bookworm?