Behemoth

For us non-native speakers, it's an easy one to mangle. I've been amazed at people mangling "hummus", of all things - it seemed so easy, and why anyone would pronounce it "HYOOMus" or "HOOmus" was beyond me. Recently I realized that I've been mangling the initial H and final S sounds, so I probably don't sound much better. ← The most common mistake is that people try to pronounce the heavy H as "KH" whereas it comes from lower down in the throat. I wish people would just pronounce it as a regular western H sound -- since Arabic also has a separate KH sound things can get kind of confusing. The difference, for example, between "muhammar", and "mukhammar" would be pretty big for an observant muslim . (Sorry, that's the best I could come up with off the top of my head.)

Oof, do we really want to be pronouncing German like the Austrians? (I kid.) But this brings up a point. If I (an obvious yankee) went south and asked for some "grey-uhts" I would probably get my ass kicked. I think stressing the first syllable in Veltliner is consistent with high German and if that is what you speak, you are better off pronouncing it that way. I won't even get into the regular mangling of the Arabic language...

okay now you're just being a tease.

This is kind of funny, but every math department I know of has tea in the common room at 3pm. Right around 2:45 every office gets a little restless as they wait for the secretaries to pull the oreos out of the closet. Its a nice time to grab a snack and talk to your colleagues. Don't fight it I say, celebrate it instead! (Plus, you can't eat as much if you're busy talking.) As far as I know, this is really a math thing, few other departments I've seen seem to have it institutionalized this strongly. I tend to get a little tired if I am home alone around 3pm. I used to drink a cup of coffee, but now I find that a walk does a better job in waking me up. Unfortunately, I save my junk-eating for late-night work sessions...

What I thought was funny was that during the wine descriptions, the chefs mentioned Pinot Gris with ceviche, and Riesling with foie gras. Then they of course gave the highest marks to the person who had....pinot gris with ceviche and riesling with foie gras. So okay, it's good to reward students for listening, but it was sort of amusing for Ming to say something like "wow, the foie really works with the riesling" during tasting when he had pretty much suggested it in the first place. Or maybe the editing of the show makes it more obvious than it was in real life.

I keep rewinding Tivo to watch Todd English lick his dinner knife. Like watching an car crash, I tell ya.

You know Bill, I ordered the Babbo cookbook almost purely on the strength of your dinner photos. Right now I'm living off pasta, oatmeal and yogurt. 1) because I am solo and trying to eat down our pantry in preparation for traveling, 2) because it's one week until the farmer's market finally opens and I'm sick of supermarket produce and 3) because I am lazy. Tonight is bucatini with tomato butter sauce.

Oh well, I try only to buy them when I notice a newly arrived batch at the grocery -- who knows how long they sit around before they get on the shelf though. Did you know you are supposed to pick the bigger heads? Apparently smaller ones are a sign of age in a lot of supermarkets because the grocers will just peel off the rotting leaves so there is a strong chance the things have been sitting around for a month or so. Contrary to popular belief, this green does not have a long shelf life, even if it still looks good. Again I wonder, who in town is buying this stuff? Besides me a couple of times, I mean. I guess I will just stick with the mediocre endive and escarole until the farmer's market opens. (Thank God, next week -- I am so burnt out on supermarket produce!)

Looks great, Jeff! I grew up on and love bitter greens, but I have never been able to develop a taste for American radiccio. I love the treviso style, but I just don't understand what people are doing with the American stuff to make it palatable...grilling only seems to make it worse, braising in vinegar is about as close as I can get to making it edible -- but then it might as well be red cabbage. Maybe the kind my supermarket carries is just really bred for looks. I don't think I'm a supertaster or anything, I like other bitter greens and I love grapefruit. I should go back and read your veneto section, you were doing a lot of radiccio then, right? edited for typo.

Unless you are african, middle eastern, persian, afghani, indian...

That's what I do, too. If they keep standing there, just assure them again, "It's fine, thank you". If a sommelier or at least a wine guy is serving your wine, they will usually interpret the smell-but-no-taste as a sign that you know what you're doing. Don't change a thing. ← I am very glad to get an eG stamp of approval! Oh, another favorite, and I quote: "Are you still working on that?" Though in at least one case, I must admit it did sort of feel like work. Not so flattering for the chef though. The problem with clearing the plates early is that I am usually the slow eater at the table, so at the end I'm the only one with a plate in front of me, "still working on that." So then I either shovel food in my mouth or leave hungry, and why would I pay for that kind of experience? We don't go out that much around here, we save our cash for the one place that does it all right

That's why the changes need to come from the top down, from legislators. Still, this is a problem deeply ingrained in american culture. Small towns are themselves a product of old railway and highway subsidies. Not to mention gas subsidies, which bring yet another set of hidden human costs.

These things do happen. As when people in the US without much mathematical training began (in the 1980s) saying parameters "when they meant perimeters but were trying to be hip," as one professional writer complained publicly then; and despite continued advice from other literate writers, competent guidebooks, and everyone who knows what a parameter really is. Lately they've been doing it again, with "nonlinear." These things happen. ← You mean like when they say something is growing logarithmically when it's actually growing exponentially? Gotta love it. This is in English but...Treacle. The c is pronounced as a k, not as an s, right? German is very consistent in terms of pronounciation. If you learn the few rules you really can't go wrong. I've forgotten a lot of French though -- are there consistent rules about ie vs. ei, and the t and s at the end of the word? Or are they evil and confusing, like the british?

It might not be the customer. Usually if I just sniff the wine to see if its corked, then say, "thank you, it's fine" they will just stand there until I actually drink some. Or am I doing something wrong here? Nobody's mentioned the one where they take your dirty knife and stick it on the tablecloth when removing the first course. I want a new knife, dammit, is that so hard?

I make a large batch of pizza dough and freeze them in disks. The downside is that you need to know a day in advance that you want to have pizza, and move them to the fridge overnight to defrost. The next day I leave them on the counter for an hour while I am prepping toppings and heating up the stone, then it just takes about 5 minutes to shape and 8 or so to bake. It's not ready made, but the final step ends up taking about the same time as delivery.

You mean, um, spiritually dark, I hope?

Wow. I'm not sure what to even say to this. So if walmart customers were skinnier and they had better lighting, the business practices would be less of an issue? Sorry, I hate walmart too but...this isn't really helping the argument any.

For me one interesting thing about Wal-Mart and similar stores has less to do with food than with the other stuff they sell: Wal-Mart is apparently a very large player in the new Chinese economy. A very large number of their products are manufactured in China at artificially low cost. I'm not talking about what China pays its factory workers, or how much attention it pays to international environmental laws (though these things may be worth thinking about) but rather that China has taken steps to keep its currency artificially low relative to the dollar by subsidizing American debt. In other words, none of the cheap goods we are importing from them are priced at their true value. Back in my econ days, I would have thought a weak dollar and a trade deficit were mutually contradictory, but that's where we are right now. I'm not saying WalMart is the cause, but a symptom. We pay low prices for things that turn out to have high hidden costs. Someone upthread asked what to do. I certainly wouln't shut down places like Wal-mart -- but I do think we should try and see where we might be unwittingly subsidizing them and factor that cost in accordingly. Also, if they are busting unions and undercutting small businesses there are some serious legal issues that are not being addressed, but given the country's current climate there doesn't seem to be a lot of sympathy for such issues. Too bad. Now I need to stop wasting time and get back to my work. (Thankfully not econ, at least for a while!)

Me, I'd rather eat 1/3 the meal and finish off the bottle. Maybe it's just me, ut here's how I think one should market to women: "Do you have the ovaries to handle a full-bodied Barolo? Well, do ya, punk?"

Aw, look! John Whiting thinks he's people! Farid, I'm sure you know where I'm coming from, probably more than most. It's just a topic A and I find ourselves discussing a lot right now, for reasons obvious to anyone who's read a few of my recent posts. Speaking of the French system and its effect on kids' public behavior, Lebanese kids tend to be as boistrous as any, but will usually quiet down if you say the following magic words: "shh, don't you see people are staring at you?" Somehow I can't see that working on American kids. The whole culture of public shaming doesn't exist here. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing...

That's the one. I think I want to try the 100% whole grain one next, to compare. I really want to try sourdough. I very nearly ordered the starter from Jackal, but if we are moving our household in a few months, with me staying behind for about a year, I'm not sure it makes that much sense. I could hold off for 6 months, and order it to Germany, but then I need to know that the stuff could sit untouched in a jar for a few months and not suffer for it. Any thoughts?

Ha ha, I've decided to not let that bother me. I blithely serve whatever I feel like serving. As for the lasagna, keep in mind that the way it is usually prepared, it actually is an easy dish to make. Somehow people have this mistaken idea that a wad of no-boil noodles, jarred meat sauce and plastic cheese food from a baggie is something one is allowed, with a clear moral conscience, to inflict upon one's guests.

We must be running with a much more mainstream crowd these days. The cliche food of my old crowd was hummus, garden-burgers and vegan curry. Have you noticed that there are as many complaints on this thread of unreturned invites as there have been complaints about the quality of other people's food? We may have answered our own question here...

I somehow managed to survive the french system (in colonial form) but quite frankly it's not something I would ever choose to put my children though. I know everyone seems to be holding Europe up as the model here, but at the elite level, the US educational system is really very good. Our problem has more to do with the disparity between the top and the bottom.

Wait, don't you people share a border with Germany?