That's Awesome!

02.21.2008

2008-02-22T15:57:00.001-08:00

02.19.2008

2008-02-19T15:55:00.002-08:00

You'll soon see EVERYBODY wearing silver ties. I'm a trend-setter. Trust!

02.16.2008

2008-02-19T15:55:00.001-08:00

Coming Soon!

02.15.2008

2008-02-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

02.14.2008 Happy Valentine's Day!

2008-02-14T10:47:00.001-08:00

In living color,
Cause I love her,
There is no other.

Word to your mother.

02.11.2008

2008-02-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

Thanks, Sky, for the new shirt! I love it!

Day Ten

2008-02-14T10:43:00.000-08:00

Don't worry! I'm still on track. I just decided I don't need to take a picture everyday... I'm wearing the same thing I wore last week. SO, if I don't post, it's just a repeat.

02.09.2008

2008-02-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

Birthday Party for me!

02.08.2008 DAY EIGHT

2008-02-08T11:01:00.000-08:00

I'm turning into an old man today. A sexy old man, but old nonetheless.

02.07.2008 DAY SEVEN

2008-02-07T13:13:00.001-08:00

In the warehouse at work.

02.06.2008 DAY SIX

2008-02-07T09:46:00.001-08:00

02.05.2008 DAY FIVE

2008-02-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

02.04.2008 DAY FOUR

2008-02-04T11:18:00.001-08:00

02.03.2008 DAY THREE

2008-02-03T14:40:00.001-08:00

02.02.2008 DAY TWO

2008-02-03T14:39:00.001-08:00

At home with Saffron.

02.01.2008 DAY ONE

2008-02-01T08:39:00.000-08:00

Taken in my cube at 8:30, from my phone.

Only Black, White, and That Which is in Between

2008-01-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

A change is coming... For the month of February I will not wear color. This is not an outright revolt of saturated hues. Rather, it is a challenge to live in a more restrained, trained fashion. Black, white, and gray. Only. Nothing else. This includes gym clothes and underwear. Starting 2.1.08 I plan on posting pictures (perhaps in black and white?) of my experience. I'm excited.

I even got a white belt.

Scott

Mad as all get-out!

2006-08-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Pluto's not a planet anymore?! What? How can they just decide this? And who are these people, anyway? This ruins EVERYTHING! What will "My Very Excellent Mother Just Serve Us Nine" of now? And what is this teaching today's children about inclusion? That we can reject someone just because they are a little different? Because their orbit's a little off? Or because he's puny and at the end of the line? What's next? Will we kick out Jupiter for being too fat? Poor Pluto... I kind of liked that fact that there was one little guy at the end who did his own thing. And we totally accepted him for it! For 76 wonderful years! Then we just tossed him aside. Pluto, I still love you.

I'd like to see a little more public outrage about this. I scoured the internet and found only one (1) little protest at a Harvard observatory. I liked their idea for a chant, though:

P-L-U!
P-L-A!
Pluto as a planet
Is here to stay!

Where have all the Pluto-lovers gone? Gone to graveyards, every one? Were there ever any in the first place?

I wish I could go to Boston and chant with them. If anyone reads this and wants to start a protest in the L.A. area, let me know. I'm totally down. I've always wanted to be part of a march, but one that REALLY mattered! I think this is IT!

This isn't about science, folks. It's about love.

I am Chinese food. I had no idea.

2005-11-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

I know this is bit silly, but a short and fun thing to do at the office...

You Are Chinese Food

Exotic yet ordinary.People think they've had enough of you, but they're back for more in an hour.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Pick it up, if you feel like it.

2005-11-01T12:09:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody!

I'm reading a killer book right now and feel compelled to drop an excerpt from it. I'm only halfway through, but it's one of the better books I have read in a while. It may not suit your interests, but I want to encourage you to pick it up, if you feel like it. It's called The Accidental Connoisseur—An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World, by writer extraordinaire Lawrence Osborne. This excerpt explores the relationship of taste and memory. Osborne writes about a wine critic, Gerald Asher, and a wine that has haunted him (in a good way!) for years:

At that time Asher was a young man visiting producers all over Europe for a London importer. He was on his way to Verona and had just drunk a flowery white Fendant, a local wine of the Swiss Valais. At the Simpleton Pass he had the kind of mystical experience available only on roads (Saul of Tarsus being the model). First of all, the experience was a place: snow, wildflowers, the road to Domodossola, a midday sun, the inn. There was lunch, veal scallops, buttered noodles, and then the wine, a "light red wine poured from a pitcher." He tried to finger the Alpine grape varietal—Bonarda? Ruche? Brachetto?

"The wine was sweetly exotic: lively on the tongue, perfectly balanced, and with a long, glossy finish. It was the sort of wine that Omar Khayyam might have had in mind for his desert tryst. The young woman who had poured it for me was amused when I asked what it was. She said it was vino rosso."

Asher says that he has searched for that wine for thirty years and never found anything remotely like it, before admitting that perhaps it was he who "created" it in the first place. "But the pleasure in any wine is subjective: we each bring something to what is there in the glass and interpret the result differently."

Asher seems to be suggesting that place itself is twofold: on the one hand, it is terroir; on the other, it is what is going on around you as you are drinking. The first is geological, the second psychological. And taste was presumably a high-wire act balancing itself precariously between the two.

I wanted to find the geological spirit of place. Accordingly, I decided to travel to the remote Central Valley estate of Chalone, perched in the mountains called the Pinnacles above the hamlet of Soledad. It was reputed to be a "special place." A place where place was alive and mysteriously well. Did its wine, I wondered to myself, match its location?

Bad Day? Need an Ego Boost?

2005-10-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

I have the perfect solution to dissolve bad days. When you're kicked to the curb and feeling down and out, I've got one thing for you to do. And it's SO simple...

Read the obits.

Yes, you read that correctly. Find a good obituary (which isn't hard because who writes bad things about dead people?), insert your name to replace the deceased, and finally change the past tenses to present. And there you go! So simple! A quick and easy non-prescription upper, powerful enough to brighten anyone's dull-gray life! Here's an example:

"Scott Van Atta is one of the funniest, most self-effacing, chutzpah-charged, and big-hearted human beings anyone could ever hope to encounter. To meet him is always an historical event, one you would remember for the rest of your life. Scott is essential. Scott is vital. He is a forceful and generous (and forcefully generous) presence. He is the magnetic core around which a lot of people swirl, and as such he is a facilitator of relationships and possibilities of all sorts. Many of us are connected, through him, to a community that he created, continues to create, and maintains; he makes life feel cozy, small, family-like, even for people who live 3,000 miles apart. With his energetic pragmatism, he commands the chaotic, nonsensical world to work better, and it does, or at least it seems to, when he's around."

Beautiful Disaster

2005-09-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me some pictures of Hurricane Katrina. It's amazing that something so disastrous and so destructive can be so eerily beautiful. It really stuck me with an overwhelming sense of awe. I guess it's just another little glimpse of the unimaginable power of God.

For some ideas on how to help with the effort, Event Planner Superstar and Fashion Maven Adrian Granzella has excellent tips just for you: http://alg-stirred.blogspot.com/2005/09/time-of-need.html

Very Engaging...

2005-08-10T11:15:00.000-07:00

Fantastic news, everyone! Kellie said "Yes" (after getting on my knees and practically begging). It was a really special night: great girl, great food, great wine, great jazz and a pretty sweet ring if I do say so myself. Am I allowed to say that? Hmm... I gotta check our wedding etiquette book. Yes, we already have one of those. Planning is already in full swing, but we promise to not go overboard or get too stressed (isn't that right, hun?). Well, here's a picture of us.

Oh! Check out the nice things Kristy said about us on her blog:
http://chefkristy.blogspot.com/2005/08/engaged.html
Thanks for your post!

War on Terroir

2005-07-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've been stealing a lot lately... I couldn't resist this one. This article comes from Steve at www.Vinography.com. Check out the site for wine reviews, wine news from around the world, and other goodies (yes, Kellie, I've decided to embrace the Oxford comma after much deliberation). The writers (Alder and Steve) seem to know a good deal about wine and its goings on.

Good Things From The Garden (The Terroir Blues)
Filed under: Ramblings and Rants @ www.vinography.com

CK Mondavi used to have a slogan: "Every year's a Vintage year in California!" Like most marketing slogans, it seemed to say quite a bit without really saying anything at all. The thought behind the slogan became the cornerstone of California's first real efforts to authenticate itself, as a producer of high-quality wine, in the minds of a mostly non-wine-drinking culture.
Although the great French wine regions could boast, for the most part without much argument, that they produced the world's greatest red and white table wines, they had to contend with inconsistent weather from one year to the next, which meant they produced their best wines only 2 or 3 years out of 10. Mindful of this, California producers began to trumpet, ever louder, their contention that the most important factor in the production of the best wine is the climate. And since California grapes get ripe virtually every year, that meant California had an advantage the French surely had to envy.

You see how this goes. Marketing is like Judo; it's about finding leverage, getting your foot in the door of the consumer's mind. After Prohibition, California's wine producers had such a big hill to climb, they needed all the help they could get, and this new approach seemed to create some traction.

There can, of course, be too much of a good thing, and for quite a long time after the famous tasting in Paris in 1976, in which a couple of Napa Valley wines fooled a group of French wine professionals, and gave California an almost undreamed-of sense of legitimacy in the world of wine, the mantra remained: It's the weather! But as time passed a word began echoing more and more emphatically in the California wine ether. The word was "Terroir," spoken in a very distinct accent.

Each of the French regions, despite the substantial differences from one to the next, shares considerable pride in the wines that come from its own little corner of the country, and points to its unique soils, and sites as the source of its vinous success. Of their distant, would-be counterparts in California the French vignerons were very often heard to say "their wines are pleasant enough, but you don't taste the terroir." Zut, alors...

So— what the heck is terroir, anyway? Ah, good question! In a nutshell, if such an accommodation is imaginable, it is the signature of a place, a "somewhereness" that informs anything that originates in that place. In the French wine tradition, almost nothing matters as much; a wine without terroir would be the equivalent of a man without a country. (Not, these days, a predicament that intrudes much on our thoughts, I'd guess) For some, too, terroir would seem to be the soul of a wine.

I'm reminded of one of the central themes in the book African Genesis, which I read when I was 20, or so, what the author, Robert Ardrey, called "the territorial imperative," by which, he suggested, both animals and humans operate. The territorial imperative says, in essence, that, by the nature of our relationship to it, one's territory is so closely connected to one's own self, that it's not just an "extension" of oneself, it is oneself, and any intrusion inside the boundaries of one's territory is the equivalent of an intrusion into one's body, and is nothing less than a matter of life and death. There is no separation between oneself and where one comes from. Terroir is who we are; it's not just an impassioned way of looking at things, it's survival gear, hard-wired in us.

Well, you see practically every winery in the state talking up their terroir these days, though, for the most part, their wines aren't really all that different than they were before the talk started; to some, terroir has become another tool to gain an edge in the market. Over the past couple of years I've spent a little (probably too much) time reading conversations on the internet about terroir, what's become known as the "terroir debate." I think the Tower of Babel couldn't have been any more confusing.

The issue that seems to galvanize the most consternation is whether the way a wine tastes can be attributed to the place where the grapes grow (the terroir), or whether it's determined by the machinations of the person responsible for guiding the process by which the grapes become the liquid that fills the bottle (the winemaking). There are plenty of conversants who argue for a combination of the two. Seems reasonable enough.

This conversation keeps flaring up, like some underground guano firestorm, as the question is raised, again and again, about whether the winemaking is being tailored just to please the critics, (and by extension, the market) and in being thus "sculpted," whether wine's more "natural" character (the terroir) is being compromised, or lost altogether. I've raised some of those questions myself, and have been surprised by the vehemence of some of the responses.

A couple of other things have struck me amid all this hue and cry:

How convinced people seem to be that the only approach to understanding these questions is analytical, linear, rational.
The absence of a different approach.

Since it seems to be a natural inclination of mine to come at things from a slightly different angle, I'd like to share some thoughts about all this stuff. (The rest of this is going to look a bit different, and that's really the point; no further adjustment of your screen will be necessary.)

There are things you can take apart, and in doing so you can learn how they work. The best of these you can also put back together and they'll still work. There are things you can take apart to learn how they work, and, once taken apart they can't be put back together. There are things you can take apart to learn how they work that will blow up in your face. There are things you can take apart only to discover that it's yourself that has been taken apart. There are things you may take apart hoping to find yourself. There are things you can't take apart. Terroir may just be one of those.

* * *

When I encounter something new, without my consciously thinking about it, my nervous system begins to scan its database for information that might enable me to adapt to this new situation appropriately. For example, if the something new is a person I haven't met before, I may notice, in listening to this person speak, that they sound like a doctor I used to see who was from Chicago. Or a banjo picker I knew from the Blue Ridge in southwestern Virginia. And those people sound the way they do because they adapted to their environments by learning to make their own speech sound like what they heard from the mouths of the people in their own little corner of the world. They carried that "somewhereness" in their bodies, so they could be known. When they left their own regions and went elsewhere, the "somewhereness" they encountered there was, of course, very different. And chances are the "somewhereness" they brought with them seemed downright odd to the locals. Can we apply this perspective to terroir? (The terroir wants to be known. There is survival value in the familiarity, in being known.) Is there some reason we cannot?

* * *

There are things we notice, and things we don't notice. We seem to notice what we need to notice (or think we need) and since we are self-described "creatures of habit," our patterns and modes of observation can be awfully difficult to alter. (Or even to notice.) I think noticing something like terroir can be a bit like playing "Where's Waldo?" It's not hiding. It wants to be known. Still, if you don't notice it, does it exist? If it doesn't notice us, do we exist?

* * *

Archaic Torso of Apollo
We cannot know his legendary head

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

is still suffused with brilliance from inside,

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

gleams in all its power. Otherwise

the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise the stone would seem defaced

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulder

sand would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

would not, from all the borders of itself

burst like a star: for here there is no place

that does not see you. You must change your life.

The poem draws and focuses our attention, (and, at the same time, notices our attention) in an increasingly intense manner, and then, quite abruptly, makes it plain that what we may have been thinking of as the object of our attention is, in fact, also a subject, one whose attention is, in fact, intensely focused on us. We are not alone, even inside our own skin. Even without eyes, here is a living presence whose gaze holds us in its sights.

* * *

Mythically, wine is charged (as are Art, Music, and Poetry—am I forgetting anything?) with keeping and transmitting sacred energy, and providing entree to the "Other" world. My intuition leads me to think of this "Other" world as the eternal one, the one before "The Fall," the one where we know, in each cell of our being, that we are all connected to each and every cell of each and every other being in the Universe, and that we are dependent on each other, for the survival of the whole.

* * *

I remember, as a child, not quite understanding how non-human creatures (the dog, the cat, the lion and the rhinoceros in the zoo) were different from human creatures, nor how, or even if, those differences might be reconciled or bridged. (When someone added plants to the list of non-human creatures that required this same sort of consideration, things started to get interesting. By the time I got to the point where I could add terroir to the list, I must have crossed some important threshold. Then again, they say Apollo is a god of, among other things, thresholds.) Yet sometimes it feels as though we've come no closer to an insight than a few cartoons I've seen in the New Yorker (the saber tooth tigers, hidden in the savanna, and discussing the possibility of eating the cave-dwellers gathering tubers in the distance, one of the beasts saying "I've heard they taste like chicken.").

* * *

We drink the wine; it's white wine, Vermentino from Corsica, grown in limestone, on vines that lean away from a sea wind, year after year, slow dancers in Eternity (though you might call it Paradise). It speaks in such a distinct accent. There's no mistaking it, I tell myself. Hugh Johnson was right. I knew what this wine would taste like before I even pulled the cork. At the next table, someone drinking the same wine says: "I'd rather have Chardonnay." The terroir wants to meet you. It takes two to Tango.

* * *

Electricity. (Dzzzt!!! We now return you to your regularly scheduled program...)

* * *

I believe the apprehension of terroir is something that begins in the nervous system, and to which one responds, first and foremost, in what might be accurately described as an instinctive way. In light of which the "nature vs. nurture" argument responsible for the kicking up of so much dust seems a little beside the point. The terroir, for better or worse, is in the grapes; the winemaking is the way we dance with the terroir, and it requires all our attention; indeed it requires devotion. Any other approach feels like a renunciation of one's own body by one's mind. Hmmm.... didn't we try that already?

"Who am I, California?

Son of the redwood coast, and the chaparral?

Is it just a name, California?

Will I be the son of no place at all?"

Very Exciting . . .

2005-07-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

[from MSN News]
Why Roberts looks likely to win:
Solid conservative vetting, slim paper trail, Mr. Establishment demeanor

WASHINGTON - Some say that President Bush’s nomination of appeal court judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court will trigger a brutal, blood-soaked confirmation battle that will tie up Washington for months.

Here’s why the odds are very much against that and here is why he is likely to be confirmed: Roberts is Mr. Establishment. When he was nominated for the appeals court for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003, he was praised by Walter Dellinger and Seth Waxman — two former solicitors general in the Clinton administration. And, Roberts is respected by the Washington legal establishment as one of the very best Supreme Court advocates of the present day.
I specifically asked Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. about John Roberts and Judge Michael McConnell last Wednesday.

Were they, in Lieberman’s view, mainstream conservatives who could be confirmed?
Here is what Lieberman said: “They’d be in the ballpark…. Obviously if they were nominated for the Supreme Court you’d go into their records in a lot more detail, but those are two good examples.”

No Janice Rogers Brown
Unlike recently confirmed appeal court judge Janice Rogers Brown, Roberts has not delivered provocative and incendiary speeches and articles.

His record as an appeal court judge is quite slim, since he has only served on the bench since June of 2003.

But even though Roberts has not much of a paper trail to attack, his vetting as conservative is clear and certified.

One does not become law clerk to Associate Justice William Rehnquist; special assistant to Ronald Reagan’s attorney general William French Smith; associate White House counsel to Reagan and a top practitioner in the solicitor general’s office under the first President Bush without being a solid conservative.

Plenty of veterans of the Reagan and first Bush administrations can vouch for him.
Yet he is not like Justice Antonin Scalia in temperament.

Scalia often browbeats and mocks lawyers who argue a case before the high court.

Courtroom demeanor
I have seen Judge Roberts only once in a courtroom and that was in April when, as part of a three-judge panel, he heard oral arguments in the case of Salim Hamdan, Osama bin Laden’s one-time driver now being held at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Roberts struck me as restrained, careful, and extremely alert. He rarely interrupted the lawyers’ arguments and when he asked questions they were brief.

If he is a man impressed with himself, it certainly does not show. Unlike Scalia he did not seem to enjoy hearing himself hold forth.

At the moment — unless there is some smoking gun hidden in his years of private law practice — the only avenue of attack for Democrats to block his confirmation would seem to be an attempt to get the memos he wrote while in the solicitor general’s office from 1989 to 1992.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee can argue that they need to know more about how Roberts thinks and therefore they must see those memos from the late 1980s.

The Bush administration will refuse to turn over the memos, saying the confidentiality of solicitor general’s office in preparing arguments must be held sacrosanct.

This is the very same issue Democrats used to justify their filibuster of Bush appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada in 2003.

Views of the advocacy groups The outside liberal advocacy groups were quick to issue statements expressing worry about Roberts: People for the American Way brought up the legal brief Roberts prepared while serving in the solicitor general's office arguing a case called Rust v. Sullivan.

The brief said that the president and other members of the Bush I administration “continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled” and that the Court’s ruling that a woman has a right to get an abortion has “no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution.”

There are some Republicans who’d be happy to fight out a battle on the Senate floor on that quote, but their defense of Roberts will be that he was simply representing his client, not voicing his own views.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights warned against accepting the appearance that Roberts presents.

The group conceded that Roberts “may not have been on the (Christian conservative) Rev. James Dobson’s short list of pre-approved nominees” and “at first blush, John Roberts may not appear to be an ultra right judicial activist.”

But in reality, the group said, he “may be a hard-nosed extremist with a soft conservative facade. In short, the president may have nominated a stealth candidate: a Justice Scalia or Thomas in O’Connor’s robes.”

And Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis set the nomination in the larger landscape: “The president made a choice that he knows will raise the ire of most Democrats, progressives, and moderates. He and the right-wing got exactly what they wanted: a right-wing judge and weeks of the American public and media focused on the nomination battle instead of a growing quagmire in Iraq, a Social Security debacle, and a Karl Rove scandal that had — until today — no end in sight.”

My judgment is that, in the end, Lieberman and other conservative and centrist Democrats will vote for Roberts and he’ll be on the high court come October.

BIO: Judge John G. Roberts Jr.

Currently: U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia

Born: Jan. 27, 1955

Education: Harvard University undergraduate degree, B.A., 1976; Harvard Law School, JD, 1979.

Career: Law clerk, Judge Henry J. Friendly, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, 1979-1980; law clerk, Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, 1980-81; special assistant to U.S. Attorney William French Smith, 1981; associate counsel to President Reagan, 1982-86; member of Hogan & Hartson's Appellate Practice Group, 1986-1989; principal deputy solicitor general, 1989-1993; head of Hogan & Hartson Appellate Practice Group, 1973-2004; U.S. Court of Appeals 2003-present

Noteworthy: Roberts had been in line to join the appeals court in 1992, but his nomination during the first Bush administration died in a Democratic-controlled Senate. He has generally avoided weighing in on disputed social issues. Abortion rights groups, however, have maintained that he tried during his days as a lawyer in the first Bush administration to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Source: MSNBC researc

Why is Cheddar Cheese Orange?

2005-05-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

[I stole this post from www.accidentalhedonist.com. Generally, stealing is bad -- but I found this little post enjoyable AND informative. Visit the original website for other great articles.]

Short answer? Cheddar Cheese is orange because they color it as such. But that's such a dull answer and still doesn't explain why they color Cheddar that color.

So here's the cool answer: Milk takes on different colors based off of diet of the animal. Thus, a diet of beta-carotine will result in orange-tinted milk and thus, orange tinted cheese. This is the fact you need to keep in mind for the following hypothesis: Cheese taste is also highly affected by the food an animal eats. If a cow eats a lot of onions, its milk will lead to oniony cheese.

So back in the day in England, Cheddar Cheese (that is to say, cheese from Cheddar, England) was found to be quite tasty indeed - better than most other English cheeses. As it was so popular, the folks in Cheddar could charge a wee bit more for there cheese than other folks.
Then some scalawag noted that there was an orange tint to the Cheddar cheese. Being a greedy little bastard, this scalawag added a tad bit of coloring to his own cheese, and started selling his cheese as Cheddar as well. People's tastes being what they are, they probably equated "more orange" as meaning "more Cheddar-like", and started paying more for the more orange cheeses.

Meanwhile, back in Cheddar, they couldn't understand why people went ga-ga over orange, as the color had absolutely nothing to do with the taste. The taste came from the fact that their cows ate different grasses and that the cheese were aged in different storage facilities than other cheese making areas of Britain.

That's why Cheddar Cheese is orange. Because we want it to be.

APPETIZER!

2005-04-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

For an appetizer that is AMAZING, easy and a sure-fire hit, you can NOT go wrong with Bleu Cheese and Grape Truffles. Oh-so-good! It’s a perfect flavor burst -- a really hip party in your mouth. I’ve adapted this recipe from Tyler Florence’s Real Kitchen. I substituted Cognac for Port (merely because it was more handy) and I changed the proportion of the cheeses! Try it. You’ll like it.

Bleu Cheese and Grape Truffles

(For 10-15 people)
6 oz softened bleu cheese
6 oz cream cheese
1 tbs cognac or port
1 cup very finely chopped pistachios (use a food processor)
1 bunch of green seedless grapes

Mix the two cheeses and the cognac in a mixing bowl until completely mixed. Mold the cheese around the grape so that it completely covers the skin (be careful to not use too much cheese; it can be overpowering). Then roll the cheese covered grapes in the finely chopped pistachios until the cheese is barely visible. Chill the grapes for about 45 minutes before serving. Then, your guests will love you.

On Happiness

2005-04-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

Now that I can officially be happy (I know when you think of work, you generally don't think of happiness, but I do right now), I'd like to share some thoughts from Ayn Rand.

"Happiness is the successful state of life, pain is an agent of death. Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievements of one's values. A morality that dares to tell you to find happiness in the renunciation of your happiness -- to value the failure of your values -- is an insolent negation of morality."

Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

Long Time No See

2005-04-18T12:31:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've been really terrible at keeping my blog up that last three months. But I didn't have much to say. In the next couple of weeks you can expect to see a little bit more activity here. I have a lot of special and exciting things planned for the future. Coming up soon will be a little tasty recipe for a GREAT appetizer I served last week: Bleu Cheese Truffles. Prepare your taste buds.

I'm back!
Scott

2004 Awards!

2005-01-26T01:00:00.000-08:00

Best Picture:
The Garden State (tied)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (tied)

Album of the Year:
The Garden State Soundtrack

Concert Tour of the Year:
Simon & Garfunkel's Reunion Tour

Most Beneficial Death of the Year:
Arafat

Best Website:
www.thepassionatecook.com

Actress of the Year:
Scarlett Johansson

Actor of the Year:
Who Cares

Best New TV show:
Jack and Bobby

Person of the Year:
Me (who did you think?)

Runner Up:
Kellie

Guilty Pleasure:
Smallville

Best Coffeehouse:
Peet's Coffee

Happy Belated 2005!

2005-01-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Family:

Consider this my belated Christmas/New Year’s letter.

Another year has come upon us and Time has swept another year away. Time is viscious monster, but it’s all we can truly rely on. It will never cease to push us onward, ready or not. It most definitely will not bend over backwards sending us to the happier, more carefree days gone by. So we can only hope to be pushed, rather shoved, somewhere nice and cozy.

Ummmm…. 2004 was alright, I suppose. I spent the first half of the year working in Malibu at a dead-end job with ruthless customers. At 5:00 on the dot I was fortunate enough to retreat to a lovely life in the hills of Calabasas, living with wonderfully decent folk (Tuck, Jake and Clay).

In July I found a job with the Hill Medical Corporation in Pasadena doing marketing. I had to move away from my roomies (and farther from Kellie), but moved into a fantastic apartment in Glendale. I was excited about my job and the duties therein, but ended up hating my job due to the Great Wretchedness that was my boss. I would explain how utterly evil she truly was, but it would literally be a waste of ink (or fontspace as the case may be). She was eventually fired, which renewed my faith in the world of business ethics and the human ideal. The down-side is that the whole department was “dissolved” two days later. The two days in between was bliss. So now I’m back on the job hunt. Yippy.

GOOD THINGS:
Kellie and I have been happily dating for over a year. She’s a brilliant light in my life and makes all the bad things go away (which is awesome). If you’ve never met her, she’s the most utterly optimistic person alive (which is weird and nice). We spent a lovely November weekend in the wine country to celebrate our one-year anniversary. I think it was my favorite weekend of the year. I also got Kellie to read the great and staggering Atlas Shrugged, so I think it might be serious.

Our Tuesday Night Dinner Club became quite the success this year, to my grateful surprise! For over a year now, Jeff, Kristy, Adrian and I have consistently been hosting palette-pleasing meals usually accompanied by Kellie, Matt and Matt. Tuesdays have become my favorite day of the week. Tuesday IS the new Saturday. Meals have ranged from a traditional Jewish Passover feast (Jeff) to Shabu Shabu (Kristy) to a Spanish Tapa Feast (Adrian). We even had a professional chef come in and make dinner for us and simultaneously give a cooking lesson. Check out her food blog at www.freshcatering.blogspot.com. She’s great!

Speaking of blogs, each member of my dinner club started their own. Kristy’s is www.chefkristy.blogspot.com. Adrian’s is www.alg-stirred.blogspot.com. Jeff’s is www.hammyblog.blogspot.com. Check them out. Add them to your favorites (mine too!)

So, I wish you all a year of wonder, hope and prosperity. Be well and treat your neighbor with kindness. Be generous with smiles.

Sincerely,
Scott Van Atta

Great Christmas!

2004-12-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

It has become tradition in my family to end Christmas day right with a cup of coffee and Mom's crème brulée. I think I started salivating in early November in anticipation of it. For those of you not fortunate enough to have tasted my mom's Christmas Brulée, consider yourselves deprived. How sad for you, because you have not truly lived. It is absolutely remarkable. I've had crème brulée all over Paris, twice in Italy, a couple times in Germany and a zillion times from Allegria in Malibu (theirs is actually pretty good). But NONE have even come close. It wasn't until I've had buckets of crème brulée, that I realized how good I had it. So, here's my mom's famous recipe. I hope it makes some of your future Christmases merry and bright!

CRÈME BRULÉE

1 pint heavy whipping cream
½ cup granulated sugar
4 egg yolks
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Sugar for the topping:
4 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 tsp. brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Heat cream over low heat until bubbles form around the edge of the pan. Beat the egg yolks and the sugar together until thick, about 3 minutes. Gradually beat in to the cream. Stir in vanilla and pour into six 6-ounce ramekins. Place ramekins in baking pan that has about ½ inch water in the bottom. Bake until set - approximately 45 minutes.

Remove ramekins from the water and refrigerate until completely chilled. Sprinkle each custard with 2 teaspoons of the sugar blend. Torch topping or place on top rack under the broiler and cook until topping is medium brown. Chill before serving.

Makes 6 servings

The House that Became a Home!

2004-12-16T14:35:00.000-08:00

If these gingerbread walls could talk, a story of mystery and intrique would befall our holiday ears. Within the sweet and spicy chambers of this little house that became a home is the story of five little children. After being abondoned by their mother, the Sugar Plum Fairy, the children were destined to fight the cruel world all on their own.

The youngest of the lot, Little Tom, depended on his brothers and sisters for help. You see, his mother couldn't stay away from the eggnog as he was developing within her, and he entered the world with only one candied eye, half a gumdrop button and smeared icing for a mouth. Because of his unintelligible speech patterns, Little Tom was forced to resort to sign language, which is very difficult for gingerbread men who have no fingers. But he made it work, for he had a bold spirit.

The oldest of the gingerkids were Cecilia and Cecil. They were identical twins with cherried cheeks and lush coats of powdered sugar to keep them warm. They kept the house together, in a metaphysical sense. The other children referred to them as The Providers, with great and quiet reverence. The Providers were in charge of collecting the garden gumdrops and hunting the cookied reindeers for supper.

One day, as The Providers were out in the Black Chocolate Forest, a terrible storm broke out. Steamed Milk poured from the sky and pellets of sugar hailed to the ground. Cecilia and Cecil began to scream. They ran and they ran as fast and far as their little cookie legs could take them. They could not find cover. Their screams subdued to moans. Soon, no sound could be heard from their little mouths for the hot milk broke and dissolved the bodies of the frail gingerkids. Their remains soaked into the ground leaving nothing but their confectionary features atop a soggy ruin.

The three surviving gingerkids did not know what to do with themselves. They depended on The Providers for food, warmth and affirmation. They decided to have a formal family meeting the next day to make plans for the future.

When dawn broke, Iggy and Squiggy, the two middle kids, were struck with horror as they saw that they were missing vital body parts. Each were missing one eye and small bites had been taken out of their shoulder areas. Iggy was missing the icing from his upper lip and could no longer speak, while Squiggy was missing one of her precious gum drop buttons. It was a stumper. Whodunit? Was it a mouse? Was it their evil mother, the Sugar Plum Fairy?

Little Tom was no where to be found. Iggy and Squiggy were very concerned for their poor defenseless brother. Full of fear and questions, neither said what they were both thinking: "Whatever it was that mutilated our little gingerbodies surely killed out little brother! Who would do such a thing?" They commenced investigation. Iggy and Squiggy were determined to find the culprit. They would search far and wide -- through the Black Chocolate Forest and over the Mountains of Meringue. And they vowed to avenge Little Tom.

They stepped out of their fantastic gingerbread cottage, when what to their wondering eyes did appear... Little Tom swinging from his swingset, happy as a lark. And look! He had a freshly iced mouth, two very cognisant eyes and a brand spankin' new gumdrop button...

Guess who's in charge now?

MY JOB:

2004-11-22T16:16:00.000-08:00

"I was at the gynecologist's office, feet in stirrups, when mid-exam she said: 'Something's not right. Your uterus is too big for someone who's never had a baby.' Instant panic turned to puzzlement. At various points in my life, I've been concerned about the size of my butt, my breasts, even my bank account, but I never gave any thought to the dimensions of my uterus. 'I'm pretty sure you have fibroids,' my doctor said."

2004-11-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Night Dinner Club! Maybe next tuesday, YOU'LL be invited.

COOKIES!

2004-11-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Diane, Wanda, Melissa... here are those cookies I promised. I told you they were on their way.

Der Erlkönig

2004-11-01T14:33:00.000-08:00

von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? -
Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlkönig mit Kron und Schweif? -
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. -

"Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit dir;
Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand."

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlkönig mir leise verspricht? -
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind. -

"Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein."

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? -
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. -

"Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.
"Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! -

Dem Vater grausets, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

[translation]

Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my lake, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

1782

Robin Hood is Evil

2004-10-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

Ragnar Danneskjold: "But I’ve chosen a special mission of my own. I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in."

Hank Rearden: "What man?"

Ragnar: "Robin Hood."

Ragnar: ". . . [Robin Hood] is not remembered as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became a symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, had demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters, by proclaiming his willingness to devote his life to his inferiors at the price of robbing his superiors. It is this foulest of creatures – the double-parasite who lives on the sores of the poor and the blood of the rich – whom men have come to regard as the moral idea." ". . . Do you wonder why the world is collapsing around us? That is what I am fighting, Mr. Rearden. Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive."

The Pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld
From Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Vegan Feast!

2004-10-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

OK . . . so it's a lifestyle choice. It's probably not yours, as only a small sector of society pays homage to the vegan lifestyle.

There are two strata of veganism: 1. those who live a full and complete vegan lifestyle using no animal products at all, i.e. in clothing, hair product, etc... you get the picture; 2. and those who, probably for ease of life, only avoid animal products in their food.

It may sound like an odd lifestyle choice, but it's not something we can judge, even though it's terrible and wrong . . . (I'm eating spicy Thai chicken as I write this and it's delicious!)

but try this sometime! they're really good.

FALAFELS
1 can of organic garbanzo beans
About a cup of whole wheat flour (natural and unbleached)
A bunch of Parsley
Carrots
Onion
Some green onion
Clove of garlic (I use Trader Joe's Crushed garlic (1 tsp))
Paprika
Turmeric
Salt
Black Pepper

Pop the ingrediants in a food processor (or chop really really well!) and then mix in the flour. Make small gobs of the mixture (about the size of a cookie) with a spoon.

Heat up some Peanut Oil and a smidge of Sesame Oil in a large skillet. Drop the gobs into the pan and flatten a bit with the spoon and fry them until they're a dark golden brown.

Enjoy them with cabbage and tzatziki sauce in a warm or toasted pita.

Faith in Knowledge

2004-10-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

Recently I was flipping channels and stopped briefly on the Bible Network or something of that regard. I think his toupee caught my attention at first, but then is jargon caught hold of me. Granted, he is a TV preacher, but what this man was saying is not a rare thing to hear in various churches and from various Christians. He was pressing for all of us to put all thought and doubt behind us and simply accept faith. He was telling us that we are just humans and there is no way we can comprehend God. So put all thought and doubt behind you and simply accept faith.

This comes in direct conflict with the idea that we are created in God’s image – that we are rational independent men who think and make decisions. We have the ability to comprehend complex thought (we created cell phones for crying out loud . . oh, and split the atom). We are given knowledge and have been given the capacity to process it – from God. Just because we may not yet know the nature of God does not mean the Holy Spirit will not guide us to or endow us with such knowledge (enough to make an informed decision).

We cannot so easily give up the search for Truth in our lives, recline into disengagement and say: "We are weak and feeble creatures unable to know of higher things. I will sit back and easily and readily accept what is already known." We cannot and must not stop searching for truth and knowledge in our lives. God calls us to have blind faith, not a faith with blinders. We are not animals. We are man.

Heidelberg, GERMANY

2004-10-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

Oh... What a wonderful city. A magical city. I miss it terribly. The song isn't entirely wrong when it says, "I lost my heart in Heidelberg," although literally... Man, I would give my left pinky toe to be sitting on the Hauptstrasse with nice cup of Kaffe with some Kuchen right now. Take a nice walk up Philosophenweg watch the Neckar flowing down below... BUT, for now this picture will have to sustain me while I'm hard at work making mammogram and Breast MRI ads... ugh.

TONIGHT!! AHHHH!! scary.

2004-10-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm going to Knott's Scary Farm. I haven't been there in years. I used to go years ago, you know, back when I was a kid. I'm a bit concerned about my level of enjoyment and the related fear factor. We will see... I've been psyching my self up about this. This is a very scary time of year. The ghouls, my new black hair, my boss Sandy... (placed in order of ferocity).

My next post will be soon. I was reading some Kierkegaard last night and it didn't sit well with me. As soon as I can, I will attempt to strain my brain into a nice little post for ya.

2004-10-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

"Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon." -- Dalai Lama

2004-10-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

"The subject of an art work expresses a view of man's existence, while the style expresses a view of consciousness." -- Ayn Rand

2004-10-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative." -- Oscar Wilde

This is a test.

2004-10-20T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm going to test my first posting in this bland and uncreative way. I'm at work, so I don't have time to be clever.