Category: Food

Computers and Writing 2008: Krause’s Big Wrap-Up

First off, let me back-track a bit and fill in a few more details on what I’ve already mentioned about C&W and this trip:

  • The “very good session” I went to on Friday morning before Jay David Bolter’s talk featured Rik Hunter, Dan Anderson, and Alex Reid. Follow the links for more info on the presentations. Actually, in Rik’s and Dan’s case, you can literally see what they did: both of them had everything pre-recorded and just “delivered” it by cranking up the computer and pushing play. Alex did his the old fashioned way– just talking. All were very good, but it was kind of strange to see the presenter standing there while his movie plays his presentation.
  • Speaking of Alex Reid, congratulations on the John Lovas Memorial Academic Weblog Award for Digital Digs!
  • I wish Jay David Bolter’s talk was online someplace, and maybe it will be at some point– they videotaped it. I thought it would be a really interesting teaching tool because he made a bridge/connection between the hypertext experiments of the early 90’s (remember StorySpace?) with gaming experiments (newsgaming.com, for example), poetry that plays on your iPod or your cell phone when you are in certain points of the Atlanta subway, a podcast tour of a cemetery, etc. It reminds me that I need to work gaming back into English 516 the next time I teach it.

Now on to the “part 3” or concluding episode of Computers and Writing 2008 from my pov:

  • My session was at 10 AM on Saturday, and the “prime time” seemed to help us draw a pretty decent-sized crowd. Before me was Gian Pugnucci with a talk called “The WikiBib Project: Exploring the nature of Teaching Collaborative Scholarships in a Wiki.” Basically, he was talking about using a wiki as a means of facilitating collaboration on an annotated bibliography assignment in a graduate class. I’ve talked with Gian about this before and I think we’re going to try and work something out together on this for his and my grad courses next year.

    I was second, and I’ll pretty much let my presentation speak (or not) for itself:

    A slight tangent here: I actually managed to forget the do-hickey for hooking up my laptop, so I spent a few moments thinking I was screwed. But it turns out I was doubly covered. Since this was the computers and writing conference after all, someone in the audience (Carl Whithaus, actually) immediately volunteered his adapter. But besides that, the fine folks in Georgia were completely prepared for this, too. The guy doing tech support for UGa told me he had a whole bag full of the adapters I needed and was very confident that he could get the projector set-up to work. Quite a contrast to the way the projectors often work (or not) in Pray-Harrold.Anyway, I got some great feedback from folks on what to do with the whole “finished blogger” issue, and as we discussed during the session, my use of the word “failure” in my talk is probably not right. “Not finished,” “abandoned, or and as often as not, “ended at the appropriate time” are probably better terms. In any event, helpful ideas from attendees.

    The third presenter was Natalie Szymanski from Florida State with a talk titled “Wikis and Composition Pedagogy: Avoiding the Bandwagon.” Basically, she was suggesting that maybe we ought to slow down a bit on all of this stuff like wikis. While I didn’t agree with many of the things she had to say, I had to give her credit because it’s nice to see someone at this conference have the guts to point out that we’re in the “writing business” and not the “isn’t this software I just learned about cool business.”

  • And then it was time for golf. I was part of a foursome with Steve Benninghoff, Gian, and Nick Carbone out at the University of Georgia Golf Course. In hind-sight, I think we should have picked a more “accessible” course since Benninghoff and I could have used a bit of a “palate cleanser” after the challenges of that course in Kentucky, and Gian and Nick, neither of whom had swung a club in over a year, could have just used something easier. This was one bad-assed hard hard course, certainly in the top 2 or 3 in difficulty that I’ve played, and a course that made me wish for an easy one like Pierce Lake or Eagle Crest.

    But hey, it was a friendly game, and a good time was had by one and all even if the play wasn’t great. Actually, it got a lot more fun when we started the back nine and we played a cart versus cart scramble, but Nick had to leave a little early, so it just kind of degenerated into some sloppy play at the end of a long death march of a round.

  • Steve B. and Gian and I had some BBQ that I thought was pretty so-so, and then we went off to Kingpins Bowl and Brew for the ritual of the bowling night. I managed to catch up with a few folks who I didn’t get a chance to talk to much during the conference itself (including Courtney, who is doing great), had a few more Terapins, and even managed a little bowling (I scored 100– I had forgotten that real bowling isn’t as easy as Wii bowling).
  • And then Sunday was the long drive home. I managed to prod my more leisurely traveling companion onto the road by 6:30 and we were back in Ypsilanti in less than 12 hours, which, when I think about the expense and general pain in the butt of flying, makes me think that driving was a good idea, with or without the golf.

So an excellent conference/roadtrip. Well done, UGa, folks! Here are some pictures of the whole things– eventually, I’ll add some info about all these pictures.

Next year, C&W is going to be at UC-Davis and it is going to be toward the end of June. I don’t know if I’ll be going yet or not, to tell the truth. On the down-side, the CCCCs is in San Francisco this year, and I don’t think I can afford 2 trips to California just to conference. On the other hand, Annette and Will and I might want to make this part of a west coast “pilgrimage” back to Ashland. We shall see….

76% Organic

I was in the food (w)hole the other day and I was in the dairy section for some milk.  A particular vegan “cream cheese” food product caught my eye.  Not because it was unusual to see vegan versions of things like “milk” and “cheese” and “meat” in the store– nothing could be further from the case.  Rather, what I was confused by was the lid of this vegan cream cheese substitute proudly noted it was “76% organic.”

I might be missing something, but isn’t that kind of an “either/or” sort of deal?  Isn’t that sort of like labeling peanut M&Ms as  “50% good source of protein” or fish sticks as “40% healthy fish” or something?  And in a vegan cream cheese product, what is that other 24%, anyway?

Dude…

From boing-boing.net comes this post on craigslist, which I will reproduce in its entirety, about the pizza business in Ann Arbor:

To The Stoner Who Works At Cottage Inn Pizza
Date: 2007-09-18, 11:30AM EDT

You: the guy who answers the phone at cottage inn pizza
Me: Hungry and stoned out of my gourd

I called you from my cell phone but had completely forgot who I was calling by the time you answered the phone. Of course, you were also baked to bajeezus and forgot to tell me that I had called Cottage Inn.

When you answered and said, “Whatsup?” I thought about it, and after a 20 second pause I told you that was hungry. You suggested I try a pizza, and I agreed that it was probably a good idea.

Then I asked you if you sold pizza and you said that you could make me one. I said I wanted anchovies and something else on my pizza. You asked me what that something else was.

We spent five minutes listing toppings until we figured out that I was trying to remember how to say: “Sun dried Tomatoes.” When you said: “We’ll bake that right up for you,” we both started laughing uncontrollably.

It was the best pizza I ever had; I just wanted to thank you for helping me out.

Ah, those sophisticates in Ann Arbor…

Can I get a napkin, please?

Tip o’ the hat to my friend Chris for this, though I would have come across it sooner than later since I have an RSS Feed set up to the fantastic site Improv Everywhere. Here’s video (and a link) to their latest, Food Court Musical:

The entry on the blog about this is interesting because it talks about some of the unusual steps they had to take to make this stunt happen. Funny stuff; reminded me of everyone’s favorite Buffy episode….

Does Rachel Ray suck?

I’m watching the ET “True Hollywood Story” episode about Rachel Ray, a former (still kind of current?) Food TV cool person about whom I have extremely mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’ve never watched her daily talk show, I think her Food TV show is kind of annoying (turn the sound off, listen to your favorite tunes, and watch her cook with gestures– it’s a lot better that way) and I have much sympathy with the Rachel Ray Sux Community. On the other hand, she comes across in this story as (dare I say it?) kind of likable and scrappy and cheery and such, and I have one of her cookbooks and have used it successfully.

Oh, what to do, what to do?

I bet that’d be better with a butter sauce…

Via boing-boing, I came across Men’s Health rankings of “The 20 Worst Foods in America,” which I found pretty much lol funny, like foods served on The Simpsons (I am thinking in particular of Homer wrapping a bacon cheeseburger around a stick of butter). The absolute worst food on the list are these cheese fries from Outback Steakhouse:

Cheese fries

Note the sides of bacon and ranch dressing.

The other items on the list here are pretty predictable, with Chili’s winning a lot of the top 20 spots.

(Faux) Mardi Gras Party, 2008

Party Pictures We had our second annual Mardi Gras Party last night, and a good time was had, me thinks. Annette and I have done a fall party of Indian food for several years now, and we decided last year that February was a good time to have another party, especially since it is cold and dreary and kind of the low-point of the school year. So Mardi Gras it was then, and Mardi Gras it was this year.

Well, sort of. Purists will note that “Fat Tuesday” was last week, so technically, we should have had this party last weekend. But scheduling conflicts and all the rest postponed it. No one seemed to mind.

The pre-party planning/work started with a bit of a bang, and I mean that in a bad way. I slipped and fell about halfway down the basement stairs and I managed to land quite hard on my ass in the process. I don’t think I broke anything too significant, but I had the wind knocked out of me pretty good and I was kind of dazed for about the first hour or so of the festivities. This morning, I’m not so much hung over as I am sore. Sitting down is a delicate matter.

I uploaded a boatload of pictures to my flickr account here, or, if you’re a facebook kinda person, you can go see them over there, too. I didn’t actually take any of these pictures– Becky S. started playing with the camera, and, 70 some odd pictures later, I had a bunch to share. Note how many of these pictures Andre manages to get in. My favorite is this one where he must be going for the cover of Teen Beat.

Of course it was great to have so many good friends, work colleagues, neighbor-types, kids, etc. But what I like most about Mardi Gras is the food, and we had WAY WAY too much of it. Here’s what we had, along with my own biased reviews:

  • Muffuletta sandwiches. I vaguely followed this recipe on Food Network. They were pretty good, though I think they could have been a little juicier/oilier.
  • Vegetarian Red Beans and Rice. Mine was based on this one, without the meat of course. They disappeared, so I guess that’s a good sign, but personally, I kind of thought that they needed something… like sausage….
  • Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. With a kind of lame roux, lots of okra, etc., and based on a Weight Watchers recipe, so sort of healthy. I’m planning on it for dinner tonight.
  • Shrimp Jambalaya. Something of a disappointment because the rice never really cooked to my liking. I tried a recipe from a Cajun cookbook that said to cook it in the oven instead of on the stovetop, and I think that was where I went wrong. Some people liked the slightly crunchy rice though, and it did make for excellent left-overs for lunch today.
  • Annette’s Mom’s Famous Jalapeno poppers, which are halved jalapenos stuffed with breakfast sausage, cream cheese, and parmesan cheese, and then baked for about 20 minutes. Excellent as always, though we made way too many.
  • Shrimp cakes, which is a Emeril Lagasse recipe that features an amazing cream sauce. I thought these might have been a mistake when we were frantically getting stuff ready at the last minute because they are a little on the complicated side of things. But man, are they good.
  • King Cake, which is more of a sweet bread/coffee cake than it is a “cake” cake. There are a bunch of different recipes out there, but I followed this one and it turned out pretty darn good.
  • And assorted fruits, veggies, and fine cheeses, and some goodies just for the kids.

So by next year, maybe we’ll figure out how to streamline this a bit and how to gauge how much food we actually need. And now, I’m going to go wash some more dishes.

I don’t care how you say it, it’s still a jelly doughnut

It’s not just “super Tuesday,” you know; it’s also Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, etc., etc., and around here, that means it’s time for one of the few foods I think of as being at least kind of unique and/or a “specialty” of the greater Detroit area, the jelly doughnut confection known as the Paczki. (BTW, the other food I associate with metro Detroit is the coney island hot dog and the restaurants that serve them, the diners known as “Coney Islands.” With foods like these, it’s shocking that Detroit has long been considered one of the fattest cities in America, isn’t it?)

I read a nice entry on the local food blog Kitchen Chick, one that even includes audio for the proper pronunciation of the Polish word “Paczki.” Her first recommendation for the best in local/ Ypsi-Arbor Paczki was the restaurant Amadeus, but considering that this was a bit out of the way and it sounded like special ordering was involved, I took the next best option and went to the Copernicus European Deli in downtown Ann Arbor. They get their Paczki in from some bakery in Hamtramck, which is a town completely within the boundaries of Detroit and known for its Polish population.

I went on my Paczki run before going to the gym (no kidding). If nothing else, it was nice to visit the Copernicus Deli, which was connected to a bulk food place and a Brazilian food place on Main street in Ann Arbor, and it was clearly a very local and very Polish-immigrant-run business. At least I think they were speaking Polish. Nice little shops.

The flavors available were plum (aka prune), strawberry, raspberry, cream, and rose. I asked about the rose one first, and the woman explained to me it was a kind of jelly that had a sort of floral taste. So I ordered a couple plum/prune and a couple rose, and I ate one of each on my way to ride the stationary bike and lift weights. So I figure I didn’t gain any weight today, but I sure as heck didn’t lose any either.

The details here are all in the filling. The plum/prune one reminded me of these things my Grandma Krause made once in a while called Kolaches, which is another one of these East European pastries, so I guess that makes sense. The rose one was interesting, kind of like a strawberry or some other smooth and red berry jam with a flowery smell and aftertaste. And I mean that in a good way.

But I have to say, with apologies to Detroit-city purists/loyalists, you can call ’em what you want, but they are still jelly doughnuts, ones with really good filling, but jelly doughnuts nonetheless. They were sugary and doughy and heavy and– dare I say it?– nothing that special.

Don’t get me wrong– I’ll probably have one next year, and I may very well get mine from the Copernicus Deli again. But it’s not like I’m going to start a calendar count-down to next year’s Paczkis.

Oh PS: Will likes ’em too.