bookofjoe

Peeled Peas — Appealing?

That question was the central focus of Rowley Leigh's "On Cookery" column in the July 1 Financial Times (FT).

Investigating, Leigh (above) learned that fine Lebanese restaurants peel their chickpeas (garbanzo beans to those in the U.S.) "before pounding them into an incredibly silky hummus."

Who knew?

Here's his piece.

The appeal of peeling

To peel or not to peel, that is the nagging question that troubles chefs and, just occasionally, the home cook. When it comes to the paring, shaping and peeling of vegetables there is always a bourn beyond which few will cross. I know many domestic cooks who will not peel a potato or, when forced to do so, set about the task with a knife and therefore throw half the potato - and most of its nutrients - away. Personally, I disapprove of any attempts to pass off unpeeled potatoes - with the honourable and laborious exception of scraping new potatoes - as any kind of workmanship. "Home fries" and the like are concepts dreamt up by accountants and lazy chefs rather than by a conscientious cook seeking to elicit extra flavour.

Carrots, likewise, come under the same categorical imperative, as do all roots and tubers. But it is with pulses that culinary certainties start to waver. By and large, broad beans, unless very young and small, need to be peeled because as the beans develop, the skins become increasingly tough and bitter. At home, guests are always surprised to see me peeling broad beans and think this extraordinarily painstaking and dedicated. A technique of nicking the blanched beans with the thumbnail and popping them out is soon acquired and once the habit is formed it would seem heretical not to peel the beans, the result being so much superior in tenderness and sweetness.

So far so very good. However, Chris Galvin and Andre Garrett, taking over the Windows restaurant in the Hilton in Park Lane, have raised the bar somewhat. Taking their cue from Pierre Gagnaire and Guy Savoy in Paris, they peel their peas. I thought the petits pois a la Francaise, despite the heretical inclusion of both bacon and carrots, that I was enjoying were exceptionally sweet but did not notice, until my dining companion pointed it out, that I was indeed eating peas that had been, each and every one, peeled. I was mortified by the prospect of a mountain of peas that would now have to be peeled as well as podded. The problem with being a purist is that you can never be purist enough: there is always a new generation of even greater purists just behind you.

Discussing this pea peeling issue with another chef, the delightful Jeremy Lee of The Blueprint Café, he told me that the finer Lebanese restaurants peeled their chickpeas before pounding them into an incredibly silky hummus. It seemed that there was no end of peeling to be done. Nightmares of peeling lentils and split peas, rice even, began to fill my thoughts. Luckily sanity was resumed with a quite exceptional dinner at The Castle Hotel in Taunton. I did not dare tell the brilliant and genial chef, Richard Guest, about my pea anxieties.

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Leigh is the chef at the highly-regarded Kensington Place restaurant in London, besides being an award-winning writer: he is the 2006 winner of the prestigious Glenfiddich Food & Drink Award for Cookery Writing for his work in FT weekend.

If you're curious as to whether he's now peeling his peas and/or chickpeas, his restaurant is at 201-205 Kensington Church Street, London W8 7LX; tel. 020 7727 3184.

Haute Heelz — Your feet don't have to hurt just because you're beautiful

We're all about balance here.

Yesterday we addressed front-of-the-foot issues and today we turn to the rear.

From the website:

Take The Stress Off Your Heels

These soft, soothing cushions help absorb shock to heels, legs and lower back.

Breathable material keeps feet cool and dry while helping to prevent cracked and callused heels.

Slim-fit, self-adhesive design is virtually invisible inside shoes.

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One pair, in Silver (above), Black or Buttercup is $7.

Best Billboard of the Year

It went up near the intersection of Clark and Addison in Chicago, Illinois last Friday, July 7.

Long story short: The billboard features a real working sundial whose gnomon is a 3-D sculpture of McDonald's arches. The billboard and gnomon were precisely aligned so that the shadow falls on a different menu item each hour from 6 a.m. until noon, when the vertical line (above) falls dead-center on what appears to me to be a Big Mac.

If you're in Chicago you might stop by and have an up-close look; if that's not a Big Mac do let me know and I'll correct my surmise.

Here's the full story as reported by Julie Jargon (great name, what?) in yesterday's ChicagoBusiness.com.

McD’s launches next strike in breakfast war – in Wrigleyville

Leo Burnett, engineer help build sundial campaign

McDonald’s Corp. is striking back in the ongoing fast food breakfast war with a new billboard in Wrigleyville.

Designed by ad agency Leo Burnett with the input of an engineer, the billboard features a real sundial whose shadow falls on a different breakfast item each hour until noon, when the shadow of the McDonald’s arches are dead center.

The billboard, which went up near the intersection of Clark and Addison on Friday, is the latest in a campaign aimed at urging Chicagoans to turn to McDonald’s for breakfast.

“McDonald’s invented breakfast in the quick service restaurant industry,” says Rob Jackson, McDonald’s regional marketing director for the greater Chicago region, which includes parts of Wisconsin and Indiana.

Oak Brook-based McDonald’s, which launched the Egg McMuffin in 1973, has been facing more competition lately in its hometown. In May, Starbucks began selling warm breakfast sandwiches in Chicago and Wendy’s, which is testing breakfast items in some markets, may eventually roll out breakfast nationwide.

“As competition heats up, we want to make sure we have the value, variety and convenience customers look for,” Mr. Jackson says. “Breakfast is a very critical part of our business, and our goal in Chicago is to demonstrate our variety at breakfast.”

To turn the sundial concept into reality, Leo Burnett hired Christian Huff, a Chicago-based electrical engineer and technical advisor to Studio One East, a Chicago graphic design business that does work for Leo Burnett.

Mr. Huff says he evaluated several available billboards before settling on the one west of Wrigley Field, where the sun hits at just the right angle to tell time between 6 a.m. and noon.

He then designed an aluminum set of McDonald’s arches measuring four feet by three-and-a-half feet to serve as the “dial” mounted above the billboard. “The underlying concept is simple, but the application is messy,” Mr. Huff says, explaining that he had to tweak the positioning of the arches so it would cast an undistorted shadow on the billboard at noon, when the arches fall on a sandwich, signaling lunchtime.

The billboard will remain in place until August, when the sun starts to wane, but Mr. Huff says he’s helping Leo Burnett evaluate other concepts.

Without providing specifics on what future breakfast billboards – or other breakfast promos — will feature, McDonald’s Mr. Jackson says, “You’ll continue to see those elements. We have a number of different tactics were employing.”

Locally, McDonald’s also has been trying to boost its breakfast business with billboards for its new premium coffee, and with price promotions, such as two biscuit sandwiches for $3. “We’re committed to our breakfast value program, and you’ll continue to see that for the balance of the year,” Mr. Jackson says.

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[via Jay Bo]

A.I. Light: It knows when to turn itself on — and even more important, when it's time to turn itself off

From the website:

Automatic Closet Light

Turns on when the closet or storage room door opens — no more fumbling for cords or switches.

Set timer to keep light on for as little as 30 seconds or up to 12 minutes.

Helpful in attics, basements, garages — any windowless areas.

Use halogen, incandescent or fluorescent bulb (100W max.).

Screws into a standard socket.

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No batteries — nice.

$14.98 (light bulb not included).

Plazes.com — 'Share your location, explore the world, locate friends'

What's this?

It went up in 2004 and is "still beta."

Long story short: You sign up (it's free), post your GPS address on Google maps (don't worry, you don't need a GPS device — they handle the technology), then find people all over the planet as well as in your neck of the woods by interests or location.

One more way to have "friends" without really having them.

But it's better than the abyss, in my opinion.

Let's say you're living in the middle of nowhere doing something close to nothing — plugging into a virtual network like this could be very life-enhancing.

Go Goth Or Go Barefoot

Wait a minute... that's not right.

It's not even black.

You want a black nose piece?

Turn on a black light.

Huh?

Where's this going, joe?

Never mind — let's move on.

I featured variations on this nasal jewelry theme in a BehindTheMedspeak post back on March 10 of last year but it occurred to me this morning, when I espied this flesh-colored iteration in a new catalog among the myriad that arrive in my snailmailbox daily (think the companies have twigged yet to the relationship between a spike in sales of an item that normally sells once a month and it having been posted here?), that it was worth a fresh look in a new photon stream.

What'd I have for breakfast this morning, anyway?

But I digress.

From the website:

Breathe EZ™

Breathe better for more peaceful sleep!

The gentle pressure of the Breathe EZ nasal dilator can help promote freer breathing by opening up nasal passages.

This drug-free device helps relieve snoring, sleep apnea and allergy problems.

It also helps reduce hard breathing during exercise.

Unlike anti-snore sprays, it works for as long as you are wearing it.

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Ought to be just the ticket to get you past the velvet rope and into Plumm.

$14.

ChillingEffects.org — Cease and Desist Clearinghouse

The Chilling Effects clearinghouse is:

1) A database of cease and desist notices (C&Ds) sent to Internet users

2) Legal interpretation of these notices

3) Frequently Asked Questions about parts of the law that affect online activity

4) Related news and resources

Says the website, "If you have received a cease and desist, we invite you to add it to our database.

Hey, I'd be delighted to contribute except no matter how hard I try, I still haven't been able to get one lousy C&D directed at bookofjoe.

Goodness knows I've tried, publishing verbatim — and almost daily —articles from every major American newpaper as well as pieces from The Economist, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Scientific American, and lots of other magazines.

Still, no dice.

See, the thing is that getting a C&D is a good — not bad — thing for a small-timer like me.

Because then you can put up the C&D in your blog along with a lot of "woe is me, they're picking on little old moi" stuff, and the kerfuffle hopefully gets picked by the MMS (they say mainstream media's acronym is now well-established but I'm not convinced) and you're launched.

Me, I'm like a North Korean multi-stage rocket or a bummer movie.

[via Ben Willmore and whereisben.com]

Drama Queen Boots

From the website:

Drama Queen Boots

The first act, striped wool; the second act, dark pumpkin leather.

Now memorize the lines and exit stage left.

Leather insole/sole.

Inside zip.

3" heel.

Italy.

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$468.