Nigella Sativa

For some reason, the Nigella Sativa, a plant that produces a small black spice seed, is almost entirely unknown in the United States. It is known by many names. Black Cumin, Black Fennel, Black Onion Seed, Roman Coriander, Black Carroway or Nutmeg Flower in English. All utterly inaccurate names. Kolanji in Hindi. Kezah in Hebrew. ḥabbatu l-barakah or "seed of blessing" in Arabic. It has a long history- King Tut was found with a bottle of the oil extracted from this seed. It is mentioned in the Bible (Isaiah) and in the Koran. In the latter case, Muhammad claims it cures everything but death. Claims of that nature are still quite common.

Whether it cures cancer or not, the seed is an amazing addition to a huge number of foods. Historically it is added to breads throughout the Middle East, sprinkled on Peshawari naan, added to curries and chutneys in India, added to cheeses in the Mediterranean, made into tea in Asia. I find it goes quite well in any number of dishes. Mixed with mashed sweet potato and served with thinly sliced seared salmon. Added to chicken sausage. Essential in pear chutney. Or even in something as simple as a 1-2-3 sugar cookie, which I made today- inspired by Ruhlman's brilliant new book 'Ratio'-about which I have much to say, but perhaps later.

Beer Discovers Fire

So last night I was at the Asgard watching the Sox beat the Rays, drinking beer.

Second inning, a nice 12oz Saison Royale from Harpoon's 100 barrel Leviathan series. 9%, Boston beer. White pepper and rosemary. Classic.

Fifth inning, I commit to a 22oz. bomber of Clipper City's 'Big Dipa', a serious double IPA. Monster hops, 10%, Baltimore. Like 'Loose Cannon's' big brother. A solid pairing with some charred steak tips.

Ninth inning, dessert. I share a bomber of Southern Tier's 'Creme Brulee' with the bartenders. This is an absoulutely incredible beer. Huge pure vanilla nose. Possibly more vanilla than vanilla. The promised burnt sugar and creaminess on the palatte. There isn't anything bad to say about this beer. It's so well constructed that it doesn't need to be a dessert beer. It isn't even particularly sweet. And it comes in at a manly 10% too. Find some and drink it now.

On using R with Labview

R is an open source statistics scripting and graphing tool I use quite a bit.

Labview is a very non-open source dataflow/visual programming language I use daily.

Thomas Baier and Erich Neuwirth wrote a Windows COM Server [R (D) Com] that exposes some R functionality. What little documentation there is is mainly focused on Excel/VB6- but there was a tantalizing note from someone named Paul Larsen very roughly describing how to use it with Labview. Last year sometime I had a few days free and puzzled it out and wrote some nice clear tools/examples. I think I wrote it in LV7.1 though it certainly works in newer versions (tested in LV8.6). Anyway, download here.

Examples include the basics like creating a chart or running a command with a text output-



All structured in a Labview-Logical manner, with functional sub-VIs:




Also included is some stuff for handling symbols (read: R variables) and some rudimentary and somewhat unsatisfactory ideas/examples of how to move your R dataframes around.

For those few of you who need to do this, I think you will find this very helpful.

Everyone else can take this of an example of the sort of thing I do all day.

The Absolute Anacoluthon

So I bought a camera.

But allow me to digress for a moment. Have you noticed yet that I like beginning sentences, paragraphs, and posts with 'And', 'So', 'But', 'Or', 'So' and the like.... conjunctions that witch by their nature should be conjuncting within the sentence, not outside it? I'm not doing it by accident, or ignorance, but rather by arrogance. I like the effect. Negating whole previous sentences. Amplifying previous sentences. Creating cross-linkage inside and outside writing objects of all sorts. It is sort of like .... overloading an operator when programming... taking something we know knows how to conjoin integers, like "+", and teaching it to add... music tracks together. [flute] + [drum]

To a grammar geek I believe it would be called an 'anapodoton', a subordinate clause without a main clause, a member of the class of sentences called 'anacoluthon' or 'without sequence'. As though by giving them a fancy descriptive name in Greek the process has been blessed and found virtuous- I shall quit the field, victorious.

Warehouse 13

This show really bothers me philosophically. It's the 'There are things man was not meant to know' thing writ large combined with an almost animist magic system. Yeah. Cargo cult stupidity with guns and badges running around modern day America. This is anti-science fiction.

The cast is likable, but I keep hoping they will develop a super-villain I could really identify with... maybe a former insider.... who rejects the whole premise and fights for transparency instead of secrecy, study over storage, inquiry over ignorance, science over magic.

And then maybe the main characters might start to sympathize with the villain, but realize they are in too deep... Oh hell, we'd need Joss Whedon to pull it off.

In Mortal Danger

So I made these really perfect brioche Monday/Tuesday. Brioche are a multi-day affair with all the risings and punching down and dough-slapping. I know, sounds like a family get-together.... OK, that's disturbing, moving on.... Started with the NYT Cookbook recipe for French brioche and a dim memory of making brioche for Brunch at the L'Auberge du Cochon Rouge in Ithaca maybe 17 years ago. Actually, when I started doing it we were buying these frozen brioche from France, proofing them and baking them off. They were pretty good honestly. But when I took it over I made my own from scratch a lot of the time. Money was tight and my time was cheap. Or maybe it was because it gave me an excuse not to be cleaning the line Saturday night. Anyway, the recipe starts out pretty good, 1 pkg. 105F water dissolved yeast, 1 tsp. sugar, 1 cup flour, wee bit scalded milk, make a ball and submerge in 105F water till it floats. Nice starter. Now 3 cups flour, salt, 3tb sugar, 1/2lb butter,2 eggs and the starter, combine, knead, make a ball...rise for an hour. All this works good. But then you're supposed to integrate another 2 eggs and 1/2lb of butter without adding more flour. I managed to integrate them, but there was no way the gloppy, sticky mess was ever forming a ball to be worked. Maybe I needed to be working cold.... the kitchen was 90F at this point. Anyway, broke down, added enough flour to pull it into a ball... about 1 cup. Then you work it, and incorperate another 2 eggs. I did one. and added more flour as needed. Worked it some more and let it rise overnight in the fridge. From there everything was back on track... well, no... the recipe says proof for an hour. That is utterly inadequate with dough coming out of the fridge even into hot humid air. It will take 2, or more if the environment is cool and dry. Bake 15 minutes @475. Oh, and the dough freezes well. Not that I have the discipine to not immediately cook off and eat all the brioche possible. I really need a camera.

This is in danger of becoming a food blog.

Ricotta Gnocchi (a.k.a. Gnudi)

Ran across this gem surfing food blogs- incredibly simple and tasty. Recipes vary, but the part that doesn't is 8oz. drained ricotta per egg. Add some amount of flour... I like less... under half a cup. Not more than 1.5 cups. Salt. sometimes shredded parm, or melted butter, or zest, or parsley or sage. Very wet dough, use a lot of bench flour to roll it out. Roll is the wrong verb, though.... you need a light hand. Helps if everything is cold. Use a marble if you have it. Extra dough seems to last a week.

I've made the ricotta gnocchi three times now, and prepared it 5 ways. More dough in the fridge for another try this weekend.

1. Ricotta gnocchi with beurre noisette and brown sugar
2. Pan fried gnudi with blueberries and sour cream
3. Ricotta gnocchi with watercress pesto
4. Gnudi with porcini in a red sauce
5. Ricotta gnocchi with bacon and maple syrup

All good, but the one with blueberries was awesome.

I've been using a spectacular whole milk ricotta from a local Vermont farm, but on the agenda is making my own from scratch- I made mozzarella from scratch many years ago, and this looks much easier. Also I'm going to try rice flour and potato flour for gluten-free variants.... not that I'm into that sort of thing, but it helps to have a few recipes in your pocket... and sometimes they turn out better. For example, 50% rice flour/50% all purpose/salt/cayenne makes vastly superior fried calamari.