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Yorkies (individual Yorkshire puddings)
26 Dec 2010 14:16 EDT
It’s not often that we make a roast beef, but when we do we want to do it right. This year my better half made the roast,
and upon multiple requests I agreed to make my wee Yorkshire puddings.
When served Yorkshire pudding, every time, the offspring who inhabit my place demand to know why it’s called ‘pudding’. “It’s not a dessert!” “It’s not soft!” Tradition demands that I then recount the history of pudding from sausages to tapioca, and attempt an invariably-failing generic definition of the foodstuff. You can’t define pudding, of course. For the proof of the pudding is in the eating…
Ingredients
- Dripping from a fully-cooked roast beef (we used an 8-lb standing rib roast, which gives flavor from bones and fat).
- 1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
- 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
- 1 1/2 c whole milk
- 4 eggs
Directions
Place 2 muffin tins (total 16 – 20 muffins) in the oven while the roast is cooking to preheat them.
In a medium bowl combine the flour and salt.
In a large bowl beat the eggs and milk together very well, until the mixture is frothy. Add in the flour mixture and stir until combined. Cover and set the batter in the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour.
When the roast is done, remove it to let it rest and increase the stove’s temperature to 400°F. Save the drippings from the roast. Remove the preheated muffin tins. Into each cup put 1 Tbsp of very hot drippings from the roast. Directly onto the hot drippings fill each cup about halfway with the batter.
Bake at 400°F for 1/2 hour.
Absotively posilutely scrumptious for soaking up juices from prime rib. Do not eat more than once a year since these are so deliciously bad for your health. Enjoy!
Carmen Natale (The Christmas Song, in Latin)
25 Dec 2010 23:36 EDT
The Christmas Song, in Latin (translated by mark beadles)
Castaneae ustae in foco,
Momorderit gelu naribus,
Carmina brumale canuntur a choro,
Vulgus Normannorum vestitibus.
Nemo ignorat, pavonis cena viscum que
Temporis inluminare efficient.
Pueris parvis, ocules ardentes,
Difficile nocte dormient.
Noverunt adveniet Santa.
In plaustro oneravit ludos et dulcia.
Omnes fīliī discere videbunt
Rangiferi volare sciunt.
Etiam offero verbum puerīs simplicissimē
Aetātum unius ad nonaginta duorum
Etsi dictum sit multis modīs saepissime,
Natale Felix tecum.
If the TSA ran the Internet
16 Nov 2010 20:49 EDT
[Packet and family are travelling from Springfield, USA to a webmail server in Metropolis via Comcast Airlines. Everyone is racing about throughout the ticketing area at great speed.]
Packet’s toddler: Gosh, Pop, I can’t wait to see Grandma’s inbox! High-speed backbones are so fast!
[They approach the TSA Security Firewall]
TSA Agent: Listen up! I want all packets to form one queue, right here in front of me.
[Packets from multiple streams converge to a bottleneck as directed.]
TSA Agent: Get out your source and destination IP addresses to show the agent. If you’re tunnelled, I’ll need to to remove your tunnels and place them on the conveyor belt.
[Someone in an obvious Trojan Horse costume makes their way through security. He draws the passengers' attention, but the TSA waves him through, since profiling is forbidden.]
Packet: Hi. Nice day, isn’t it?
TSA Agent: That’s enough. I’m selecting your family for additional security checks. Remove all headers and step through the backscatter machine.
[The line of passengers behind them grows and grows. It's at least 10 megabits long now and getting longer.]
Packet: I opt out. Those machines can scramble my bits! Who knows if I’d even pass checksum after that? I don’t want to come down with CRC errors in twenty years!
TSA Agent: Fine. Agent Smith! We’ve got a packet here asking for alternate processing.
Agent Smith: Step behind the barrier. I see that you’re using SSL for encryption. Give me your decryption key.
Packet’s toddler: Daddy, why does that man want my private key?
Packet: Stop that! You’ve got no right to her private data! She’s only a child! It’s an email to her grandmother, for Cerf’s sake!
[Agent Smith begins to brute-force the toddler's key.]
Packet: No! I can’t take any more! Here’s the key. [Sobs.]
[Twenty minutes later, Packet and his child are released back into the line, which is now easily a few gigabits long.]
Packet: Hey! Where’s my header? Someone stole my header! And where’s my credit card number!?
TSA Agent: You can file a complaint when you get to your destination host.
Packet: How am I supposed to even get to my destination without my header?
TSA Agent: Not my problem.
[Packet and toddler rush to the border router, but their flow has already been allocated to a much later queue.]
Voice over, on TV at Gate: Madam Secretary, your critics say that intrusive deep packet inspection has slowed the Web down to a complete halt. No traffic is flowing. Billions of dollars in commerce is dead in its tracks. Meanwhile, botnets are still infecting our computers through other vectors. And people’s personal emails are being read by inspectors who steal their credit card numbers. What do you say to that?
Secretary, on TV: I can state with confidence that the Web has never been safer than it is today. A stopped Web is a safe Web. Bitrates, privacy, and non-HTTP traffic aren’t my concern.
[Curtains.]
Hi, I’m Mark, and I’m a former Crackberry addict…
13 Nov 2010 18:23 EDT
After 10 years almost entirely on BlackBerry, I switched to the Motorola Droid 2. I’m pleased with it. I have a complete Amazon Review of the Droid 2 here. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.
A newbie’s report on the World Fantasy Convention 2010
01 Nov 2010 21:40 EDT
I’ve not yet written a work of fiction that’s been published. Unless you count a shaggy-dog tale in a 1982 Grenadier Models catalog. Which you should. But over the last couple years I’ve found myself with the proverbial “lots of free time”, so I’m writing. Speculative stuff, like what I read. Now, every industry has its community and its conventions, and this year the World Fantasy Convention took place in my home town of Columbus, Ohio. It’s a professional convention for authors, editors, publishers, artists, and the lot; not a costume-ball playing-card party. I took a plunge and attended. Good choice. Great time.
Panels and readings made up most of the con. I couldn’t attend all I that I wanted to because of local family conflicts (the one disadvantage of a con in your home town), but standouts that I saw included: “Fantasy Gun Control”, Michael Stackpole’s interview of Dennis McKiernan, the well-attended “Tension Between Art and Commerce”, “What We Swiped from Borges” (I’ve a special place in my brain for Borges, you know), “The Continued Viability of Epic Fantasy” and its sequel “Swords & Sorcery”, and the panel on the year’s best in Fantasy and Science Fiction (with Ellen Datlow, whose insights formed my reading list in the 1980′s). I also thought Mary Robinette Kowal put on a good too-short tutorial on “How to Give an Effective Reading”. With my own background in public speaking and theater, I didn’t learn anything new as such, but she does such a good job it was fun to be in the audience.
I quite enjoyed the World Fantasy Awards banquet on Sunday afternoon. The salad was great, the “CHICKEN ENTREE” was good, and the desserts were phantastick. And plentful. And rich. I had the good fortune to share my table with James Enge, Latin geek and WFA Best Novel nominee for Blood of Ambrose; and the gang from Black Gate, John O’Neill, Howard A. Jones, and Ryan Harvey. Lotsa laffs at the table contrasted with heartfelt acceptances at the podium. These awards really matter to people: even the incomparable Gene Wolfe was overcome with emotion on accepting his Life Achievement award. Peter Straub was overcome too, but with touching silliness, or perhaps merry lunacy (after all, it was Hallowe’en).
I hung around after the banquet for the judges’ panel where they shared perspectives on the years’ awards. The real treat for me, though, was right before the panel, when I had a delightful discussion about Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies—with Dennis McKiernan. (FWIW, we agreed that Jackson’s decision to emphasize Éowyn’s story, and Miranda Otto’s portayal of the shieldmaiden, were brilliant.)
I also came away with the following books, mags, and samplers from the con. It’s likely I’ll read most, not all, and review some.
- Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2009 issue
- Discord’s Apple by Carrie Vaughn [uncorrected advance reading copy]
- The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima
- The Candidates by Inara Scott
- Act of Will by A.J. Hartley
- “The Baum Plan for Financial Independence” and Other Stories by John Kessel
- Varanger by Cecelia Holland
- Elfworld Volume 1 (from Family Style publishing)
- Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters
- Neuropath by R. Scott Bakker
- Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
- Night of Knives (A Novel of the Malazan Empire) by Ian C. Esslemont [GURPS!]
- The Hotel Under the Sand by the late Kage Baker. R.I.P.
- Winter Witch (Pathfinder Tales) by Elaine Cunningham [pre-release copy]
- The Sword-Edged Blonde: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel by Alex Bledsoe
- A speculative fiction sampler from DAW Books (Penguin)
- A YA speculative fiction sampler from Destination Elsewhere (Penguin Young Readers)
There was a juried art show featuring the works of Darrel K. Sweet, although I took a liking to Laura Reynolds‘ mixed-media pieces. The dealer’s room was tempting—and oh! the earthy scent of the old pages—but I resisted making any significant purchase. By Sunday I was exhausted and glad I had only 5 miles to drive, not a continent to traverse. I’s so geeked that I got to go: a top-notch event at a top-notch venue and a whole lot of top two-to-three-notches folks all around me.
I suspect it’s motivated me, too, if that little itch in the back of my head means anything. Anything good, that is.
The Magic Razor (a true story)
26 Oct 2010 13:52 EDT
Once upon a time in the Midwest, a rough-bearded man with a sensitive face bought a pack of disposable razors…
Read the rest of this review at http://www.amazon.com/review/R2CKVRFV2VA62I/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Chocolate-chip pumpkin bread
15 Oct 2010 22:50 EDT
Pie pumpkins are a different fruit than carving pumpkins; they’re built more like acorn squash. The skin is thin, the flesh is firm and sugary, the cavity inside is small and packed with seeds. Grow some, or go to your local patch. They’re worth it.
Ingredients
- 2 medium pie pumpkins (I picked mine at Lynd’s Fruit Farm; next year I believe I’ll grow my own)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup canola oil
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
- 1/2 bag (6 oz.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat your oven to 325° F.
Snap off the pumpkin stems and slice pumpkins in half vertically. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon. You can save the seeds to roast (recipe to follow). Place flesh-side up on a cookie sheet and roast the squash for one hour. Let cool completely, then scoop the cooked flesh out of the now rather-flimsy skins. Process briefly with a chopping blade in your food processor until smooth, about the consistency of canned pumpkin but infinitely better.
The pumpkin should yield about 3 cups.
In a bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (except for the sugar): flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. If you don’t have a sifter, use a wire-mesh strainer. Sifting makes a difference to the fluffiness and the evenness of baking.
In your mixer bowl, combine the sugar, oil, beaten eggs, and vanilla extract. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed just until the mixture is uniformly moist. Fold in the pumpkin just until combined, then do the same with the chocolate chips. Don’t mix too much! This is a quick bread; you’ll get the best results by mixing as little as you can.
Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.
Bake at 325° F for 1hr 15min to 1hr 30min, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out dry.
Remove from oven. Cool in the pan for 15 min. Remove from pan and cool completely on a rack.
Oh, how delightful! Bread made especially for pumpkins!
The Mental is the Physical is the Mental
06 Oct 2010 17:00 EDT
The state of knowledge about the human brain is still in the dark ages, as most in the field will admit. Sure, we know more than we ever have about neurons, synapses, neurotransmitters, and the like. We can hook up brain cells with minuscule leads and make the blind see, the deaf hear, the mute speak. Not bad at all—the stuff of miracles. Keep it up. But that’s low-level hardware stuff. That’s plugs and wires and inputs and outputs and components. We also know quite a bit about high-level behavior of the brain. Imaging technologies can tell us what you’re thinking in certain limited scenarios, just by detecting which part of your brain gets most active. We can cure some kinds of epilepsy by sending electrical impulses into sick brain areas. This is wonderful! We can surgically remove an entire hemisphere of someone’s brain and this will not only not kill them, but even heal them. That’s component or subassembly-level stuff. Also some pretty good Doppler radar of the brain’s electrical storms. (more…)
Flash Fantasy
21 Sep 2010 10:47 EDT
If you enjoy flash fiction you might want to read this thing I wrote.
about mark beadles
I write the things you read here. Polymath renaissance redneck. I build software, stories, and young men. More...on the desk
around the web
in the vault
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