bookofjoe

Marilyn Monroe's recipe for stuffing

Featured in a November 10, 2010 New York Times Dining section front page story by Matt Lee and Ted Lee who wrote, "A new book... includes a recipe in Marilyn Monroe's handwriting [top] that suggests that she not only cooked, but cooked confidently and with flair."

More: "Scrawled on stationery with a letterhead from a title insurance company, the recipe describes in some detail how to prepare a stuffing for chicken or turkey. The formula is extensive in the number of ingredients (11, not including the 5 herbs and spices, or salt and pepper), and in their diversity (3 kinds of nuts and 3 animal proteins).... It also bears the unmistakable balance of fussiness and flexibility that is the hallmark of an experienced and confident cook."

And: "The most unnerving thing about the recipe is its laboriousness. More than two hours passed as we soaked and shredded sourdough (to be fair, soggy sourdough nearly shreds itself), peeled hard-boiled eggs, simmered livers in water, browned the beef, cracked pepper, chopped and measured. When the ingredients were finally laid out, they filled 15 ramekins and bowls."

Finally: "When we gingerly tossed everything together in our largest bowl (the recipe yielded more than 20 cups), we were amazed to discover one of the most handsome stuffings [below]

we’ve encountered. The odd elements, like the profusion of raisins and the chopped egg, suddenly made sense, becoming pleasant color contrasts. Moreover, the mixture was delicious, a nice balance of vegetables, meats and bold seasonings, just faintly, tonically sweet from the raisins. Even the texture was superior, a fluffy, damp blend that packed well into a chicken cavity and emerged loosely gelled. Subsequent tests employed slight tweaks but the original genius (and the heroic volume) of her recipe remained fundamentally the same."

Below,

her recipe.

Mobile Phone Tail

No, it's not what you think, no one's hacking into your phone's GPS.

From a website: "It can hold a mobile device horizontally or vertically, and can be used during the viewing of movies, internet lectures, or TV shows."

"Mobile tail can be easily attached and reattached to mobile devices in any position with its suction cup. The tail is made with flexible liquid silicone rubber — a non-reactive, high-purity material."

Available later this month for 8.5$ in Korea.

"Or contact us individually": Sangwoo Park on Twitter @pswmdesign; Jongwon Park on Twitter @cheezpark.

[via Richard Kashdan]

Holographic 3-D Video Capture with Kinect

As I post this video, which went up on YouTube earlier today, it has precisely 321 views.

Look for that number to have a few zeros added when it goes viral any second now.

Wrote okreylos, the video's creator, in his caption for the video, "By combining the color and the depth image captured by the Microsoft Kinect, one can project the color image back out into space and create a 'holographic' representation of the persons or objects that were captured."

"Based on the reverse engineering efforts of user marcan42."

[via Richard Kashdan, who seems to be hardwired into what's of interest on the bleeding edge]

.........................

Note added 10:58 p.m. November 15, 2010 (the day after this post appeared): Current view count is 409,264.

Color Blind Test T-Shirt

$20.20.

True.

10 centuries in 5 minutes: European history for the time-challenged

An animated look at a thousand years of European history through changes in the political map.

Wrote Jonathan Crowe in The Map Room, "Pity it's cropped and doesn't indicate the years."

[via dsjkvf and Heather Kinsinger]

Lucky Ruler

Since elevators and buildings commonly omit the 13th floor, it should be evident that sweating the smaller stuff in the same spirit would at least be consistent — even if illogical.

$10 CAD (Desk and Stationary page 5).

From Wikipedia: "Based on an internal review of records, Dilip Rangnekar of Otis Elevators estimates that 85% of the buildings with elevators did not have a floor named the 13th floor. Future building designers, fearing a fire on the 13th floor, or fearing tenants' superstitions about the rumor, decided to omit having a 13th floor listed on their elevator numbering. This practice became commonplace, and eventually found its way into mainstream culture and building design."

bookofjoe MoneyMaker©™®: Show me the movies

Now that I've got Apple TV with Netflix as lagniappe, that makes four sources for movies I can watch on my TV sans DVD:

1. Comcast On Demand

2. DirecTV Cinema

3. Apple TV

4. Netflix

 Comcast is pretty much unusable because of its horrible, soul-destroying interface.

DirecTV is marginally better but still requires tedious scrolling.

Apple TV and Netflix on Apple TV are much more eye-friendly, but searching for a title still is letter by letter with the remote, not at all what I'd expect in the age of Kinect.

So here's the MoneyMaker©™®: give me one website that shows the movies new on each of the above services each week.

How simple is that?

With advertising from both movie studios and carriers, the money will pour in faster than you can take it to the bank.

No charge or commission for making you rich: I'm offering this here to the great world only because I don't know how to do computer stuff more complex than downloading Apple software updates.

 

Fragment Light

Reclaimed wood,

repurposed to accomodate

up to a 25 watt bulb.

Designed by

Jonathan Anzalone and Joseph Ferriso,

principals of Anzfer Farms,

outside San Francisco.

Approximately 3"-5" x 5"-7".

$110.