The word of the day is pace:

< classical Latin pāce, ablative of pāx peace (see peace n.), as used both in phrases with possessive pronoun, e.g. pāce tuā by your leave, and in phrases with genitive of the person whose leave or favour is sought. Compare earlier pace tanti viri adv., pace tanti viri dixerim phr.(Show Less)

 

  With due deference to (a named person or authority); despite.Used chiefly as a courteous or ironic apology for a difference of opinion about to be expressed.

"She recalled, for example, that the manuscript had opened with an extensive description of a flower, which, as she put it, was 'a little bit boring.'  She got Larsson to take that out...

However much the book was revised, it should have been revised more.  The opening may have been reworked, as Gedin says, but it still features an episode - somebody telling somebody else at length (twelve pages!) about a series of financial crimes peripheral to the main plot - that, by wide consensus, is staggeringly boring.  (And, pace Gedin, it is preceded by a substantial description of a flower.)"

 - Joan Acocella, "Man of Mystery: Why do people love Stieg Larsson's novels?", 10 January 2011 The New Yorker

The word of the day is intestate:

< Latin intestāt-us, < in- (in- prefix³) + testātus, past participle of testārī to bear witness, to make a will. Compare French intestat (13th cent. in Godefroy Compl.).

 Of a person: Not having made a will  (OED)

"When Swedes die intestate, everything is awarded to their kin -  a strange law in a country where unregistered unions are almost the rule.  In any case, Larsson's money has gone to the two surviving members of his immediate family, his father and his brother."

 - Joan Acocella, "Man of Mystery: Why do people love Stieg Larsson's novels?", 10 January 2011 The New Yorker

The molecule of the day is homoserine:

It is produced when cyanogen bromide is used to cleave a protein at a methionine, as shown here:

The word of the day is priapic:

< Priap- (in Priapus n.) + -ic suffix. Compare French priapique of or belonging to the god Priapus or his cult (1833), obscene (1846 or earlier). Compare earlier Priapean adj., Priapian adj. With use as noun compare post-classical Latin Priapea (of uncertain date; compare Priapean adj.), French †Priapiques (plural; 1703); compare -ic suffix 2.

 A. adj.

  Of, relating to, or resembling the god Priapus or his cult; phallic; sexual, lascivious.

 B. n. rare.

  In pl. Obscene verses addressed to or spoken by the god Priapus. Also in sing.(with the): lewd style or content in literature, film, etc.  (OED)

"Despite the fruit's priapic associations - the refrain from an old blues song contains the line 'Let me put my banana in your fruit basket' - the bananas we eat are sterile."

 - Mike Peed, "We Have No Bananas: Can scientists defeat a devastating blight?", 10 January 2011 The New Yorker

The molecule of the day is fluorescamine:

It reacts with primary amines to form highly fluorescent products (PubChem), as shown here (source)

and can therefore be used to detect peptides and proteins.

A two-fer on the decline effect today (or perhaps this is less decline effect than just the annals of irreproducible results): when studying a microdeletion in the 16p12.1 region of the human genome, researchers learned that the published human genome was incorrect.  That's got to be frustrating.

Excellent journal club presentation today by Marcus Seldin, a 2nd-year Physiology PhD student in the Wong lab.

He presented two papers: one from 2007 entitled "Continuous fat oxidation in acetyl-CoA carboxylase 2 knockout mice increases total energy expenditure, reduces fat mass, and improves insulin sensitivity", and one from 2010 entitled "Gene knockout of Acc2 has little effect on body weight, fat mass, or food intake".

As you can tell from the title, these two papers exemplify the so-called "decline effect".

So what happened?  A possible explanation is that the first "knockout" actually made a truncated protein that acted as a dominant negative, but one of the professors present preferred to take the Occam's Razor interpretation (probably because Dr. Wakil wouldn't lend him his mice).  It is tantalizing to imagine what Dr.s Cline and Shulman make of the whole thing.

I really admire PNAS for publishing that second paper: imagine how many sad graduate students would be laboring to attempt to repeat the first group's work (especially if they're stingy with sharing their mice) and then blaming themselves for not being able to reproduce it, all in parallel, were it not for this paper.  Thank you, PNAS, for recognizing that negative results are just as valid as positive results (so long as the experiment is well-designed, of course, but that goes for positive results just as much as negative ones), and an integral part of the scientific experience.

"Remember the story of the Three Princes of Serendip who went out looking for treasure? They didn't find what they were looking for, but they kept finding other things just as valuable."

 - G. Merck

A week ago I made Old-Fashioned Baked Custard, an "essential recipe" from How to Cook Everything.  (Being the same day that I made the Curried Tomato Soup with Hard-Boiled Eggs, and the same day that Morgan made scrambled eggs for breakfast, that made it a day where we went through more than a dozen eggs.  Good thing we're young.)

Old-Fashioned Baked Custard

2 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs plus 2 yolks
1/2 cup sugar

1.  Put the milk and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Cook until it just begins to steam.
2.  Beat the eggs and yolks with the sugar until pale yellow and fairly thick.  Heat the oven to 300F and put a kettle of water on to boil.
3.  Gradually add the milk to the egg mixture, stirring constantly.  Pour the mixture into an ovenproof dish.  Put the dish in a baking pan and pour hot water into the pan to within about 1 inch of the top of the dish.  Bake until the mixture is not quite set - it should wobble a little in the middle - about 45 minutes.  [It took longer than that.]  Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold, within a day.

Last Monday I made Chicken Jook with Lots of Vegetables from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook.  It was the first recipe from this book that was incredibly disappointing: "Boiled Water"-style disappointing.

I made it because Mark Bittman says that it "cooks perfectly in a slow cooker", so maybe that was the problem.  Or maybe the problem was the substitutions I made.  But there was an off-flavor somewhere in it that made it really difficult to eat.  I suspect the can of stir-fry vegetables.

Chicken Jook with Lots of Vegetables

3 tbsp vegetable oil
3 bone-in chicken thighs
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 tbsp minced ginger
1 fresh chile, minced (I used a quarter-teaspoon of crushed red pepper)
 1/2 cup chopped scallions [I used some leftover: maybe that was the problem: too old]
1 cup short-grain brown rice
2 cups cabbage sliced into very thin ribbons [I used some leftover Napa cabbage]
1 cup snow peas [I couldn't find any fresh or frozen, so I used frozen sugar snap peas]
1 cup bean sprouts [I couldn't find any of these, either, so I used a can of stir-fry vegetables, which included bean sprouts, baby corn, bamboo shoots, and red bell peppers: I suspect this was the culprit, because the off-flavor was not unlike cooked green peppers]
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil

Combine all ingredients plus 6 cups water in slow cooker.  Cook on low all day.


And for those of you who are curious, here's the infamous "Boiled Water" recipe, from How to Cook Everything.  He says it's an essential recipe; I say it's no better than it sounds (garlic-flavored water).

"Boiled Water"

 6 to 10 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 thick slices French or Italian bread
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan or pecorino Romano cheese
Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

1.  Combine 4 cups water with the garlic, bay leaf, and some salt and pepper in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, cover partially, and turn the heat to very low.  Let the liquid bubble gently for 15 minutes.
2.  Meanwhile, put the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  When hot, brown the slices of bread in the oil, turning once, for a total of about 5 minutes.
3.  Put the bread in bowls and top with the grated cheese.  Strain the soup into the bowls, garnish parsley, and serve.

I've been trying a few different cocoa recipes using our tin of cocoa powder instead of hot chocolate mixes.  It's nice because you can adjust the sweetening to taste.

Here are a couple of recipes I've made lately, adapted from The Joy of Cooking.  (Mark Bittman, unfortunately, does not include beverage recipes in his cookbooks.)

Hot Cocoa

1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp sugar
6 oz milk
1/4 tsp vanilla
cinnamon

Combine cocoa, sugar, and milk in a mug.  Microwave until desired temperature (the "beverage" button on mine works perfectly).  Stir to mix.  Stir in vanilla, and sprinkle with cinnamon.


Brazilian Chocolate

1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup milk
6 oz hot coffee
1/4 tsp vanilla
cinnamon

Combine cocoa, sugar, and milk in a mug.  Add hot coffee; stir until mixed.  (Microwave if insufficiently hot.)  Stir in vanilla, and sprinkle with cinnamon.

Wednesday night I made Beans 'n Greens Burritos, along with the recommended side of Pico de Gallo, from Mark Bittman's (The Minimalist RIP) The Food Matters Cookbook.

So because it is obviously not tomato season, and because we did have oranges, I decided to go the orange route with the pico de gallo (other options, according to Bittman, include tangerines, grapefruit, avocados, or grated raw butternut squash.  Really.  Or drained canned tomatoes, if you want to be boring.)

I'm unlikely to make the pico de gallo again, because (in a shock to no one) I don't really like raw garlic, and I really dislike raw onion.  (Also, chopping the oranges was really frustrating, so I'm definitely skipping any orange salads in the future.)  But other salsa options, like the Peach Salsa and Green Apple-Cucumber Salsa, don't require garlic, so I'd like to try those in the future.  (Besides, chopping peaches, apples, and cucumbers all sound preferable to chopping oranges.)

Contrariwise, the burritos were a hit.  Not too difficult, pretty healthy, and very tasty.  Morgan declared them to be an instant classic, to go into the repertoire along with Rachael Ray's You-Won't-Be-Single-For-Long vodka sauce and aglio e oglio.


Pico de Gallo

2 large ripe tomatoes, chopped [as I said above, other fruits are acceptable: I ended up using four oranges, not because they seemed like they produced the same amount as two chopped tomatoes, but because by that point I was not about to chop any more oranges]
1/2 large white or red onion or 2 medium scallions, chopped [I used a shallot, because that's what I had; plus, I didn't want too much raw onion flavor]
1 tsp minced garlic, or to taste
1 fresh hot chile, seeded and minced, or to taste [as I've said before, I have a strict no-chile policy (until I invest in some nitrile gloves for the kitchen), so I used ~1/4 tsp of crushed red pepper]
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro [I didn't have any, and both Morgan and I have that cilantro polymorphism, anyway]
2 tbsp lime juice [I squeezed two very sad and desiccated limes and produced maybe half a tablespoon of juice (maybe you're starting to get the idea why this recipe wasn't a hit): on the other hand, the oranges were very juicy]

1.  Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, taste, and adjust the seasoning.
2.  Let the mixture rest for 15 to 30 minutes if possible to allow the flavors to meld.


Beans 'n Greens Burritos

Tortillas [he says four but I made six: maybe he likes his burritos fuller than I do]
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp chili powder
1 bunch kale (about 1 lb), roughly chopped
2 cups cooked or canned black beans, drained (I used one can)
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco or feta cheese, optional [Morgan very bravely used some Salvadoran cheese we had picked up a very, very long time ago; I used sour cream]
Pico de gallo

1.  Heat the oven to 300F.  Stack the tortillas and roll them up in a sheet of foil.  Put them in the oven to warm while you cook the filling.  [I found that the bottom tortilla got very crisp, and considering how hot the filling is, I am not convinced this step is necessary and will probably skip it next time.]
2.  Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat.  When hot, add onion and garlic, and cook until soft and beginning to color.  Sprinkle with the chili powder.  Add the kale and cook until it cooks and releases its liquid (and turns bright green: very fast).  Stir in the black beans and mash them up a bit.
3.  To roll each burrito, lay a tortilla on a flat surface and scoop some filling on the third closest to you.  Scoop on the sour cream.  Fold the tortilla over from the bottom to cover the beans and greens, then fold in the two sides to fully enclose them; finish rolling and put the burrito seam side down on a plate.  Serve with pico de gallo on the side.

Last night I made Curried Tomato Soup with Hard-Boiled Eggs from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook.

Curried Tomato Soup with Hard-Boiled Eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper [the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon minced fresh hot chile, but I have had a strict no-chile policy ever since I got some juice under my fingernail a few years ago and was in agony for days later.  Perhaps I should just invest in some latex gloves.]
2 tablepoons curry powder [turns out I just had one left; I made up the rest with an ad hoc mixture of coriander, turmeric, cumin, and nutmeg]
1 tsp cumin
pinch of sugar
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 cups stock [I used chicken stock]
1 cup coconut milk [I used one can]
3 cups chopped tomatoes [I used one can of whole peeled tomatoes]
1 cauliflower, roughly chopped
4 hard-boiled eggs, roughly chopped
1/4 parsley, chopped [it called for cilantro, but parsley is what I had]

Put the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.  When hot, add onion, garlic, ginger, and pepper.  Cook until soft, 3 to 5 minutes.  Stir in the curry powder, cumin, and sugar.  Cook and stir another minute or two more.

Add the potatoes and carrots.  Cook for a minute or two, then add the stock, coconut milk, and tomatoes with their liquid.  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat so the mixture bubbles gently.  Cook until the potatoes and carrots are fairly soft, 15 and 20 minutes.

Add the cauliflower and adjust the heat so that the mixture bubbles gently.  Cook until all the vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes more.  Serve garnished with the hard-boiled eggs and parsley.


Hard-Boiled Eggs (from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)

Place eggs into a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid.  Cover with water.  Bring to a boil.  Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and allow eggs to sit in hot water  for nine minutes.  After nine minutes, remove eggs to a bowl of icewater.

The word of the day is remand:

< remand v.(Show Less)

†I. General uses:

1. An act of referring, sending, or bringing somebody or something back; a recall. Obs.  

II. Law: 

2. Recommittal of an accused person to custody; the state of being recommitted to custody; an instance of this. Often in on remand.  

3. A prisoner on remand.

"So why has the movie languished on remand, awaiting release since January, 2009, when it screened at Sundance?"

 - Anthony Lane, "Punch Lines: 'The Fighter' and 'I Love You Phillip Morris'", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

Still not quite sure what he means.  Is the image here that the film (as prisoner) was released for Sundance, but then was recommitted into custody?

The word of the day is elasticated:

< elastic adj. + -ate suffix³ + -ed suffix¹.(Show More)

Of cloth, etc.: woven or stitched with indiarubber thread and so made stretchable. Also fig., rendered flexible.  (OED)

"The moral of the film, however, is that you can't believe anything at all, not with Steven around.  Mendacity is his proper state.  Not content with a sheaf of dodgy credit cards, he pretends to be the chief financial officer of a major company, and thinks nothing of adopting the weighty tones of a judge, on the phone, to get himself bailed.  This brand of shape-shifting is as easy as pie for Carrey, and I like the idea of all that elasticated verve and boundless good will being turned to nefarious ends."

 - Anthony Lane, "Punch Lines: 'The Fighter' and 'I Love You Phillip Morris'", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

Still not entirely sure what he meant.  I think switching the noun and the adjective would make more sense,  "spirited elasticity", for example.  Unless he's using "verve" to meant talent, not enthusiasm, in which case I guess he means talent in being elasticated, but then I would probably go for something to the effect of "talent in elasticity".  Either way, I think the work it's doing in the sentence means it should be a noun, not an adjective.

The word of the day is cynosure:

< French cynosure (16th cent.), < Latin cynosūra, < Greek κυνόσουρα dog's tail, Ursa Minor.... 

1. The northern constellation Ursa Minor, which contains in its tail the Pole-star; also applied to the Pole-star itself.   

2. fig.

a. Something that serves for guidance or direction; a ‘guiding star’.   

b. Something that attracts attention by its brilliancy or beauty; a centre of attraction, interest, or admiration.

"As for Micky, he is the cynosure of his mother's eye.  'All we ever wanted for you was to be world champion,' she tells him."

 - Anthony Lane, "Punch Lines: 'The Fighter' and 'I Love You Phillip Morris'", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is dirigisme:

 

< French dirigisme, < diriger to direct.(Show More)

The policy of state direction and control in economic and social matters. (OED)

"China, Korea, and other rising economies are often reproached for using government money and influence to bolster home industries to the disadvantage of foreign competitors, a practice that is known as 'industrial policy,' and is frowned on by international trade law.  Such discriminatory policies are also referred to as dirigisme - a clue that the concept didn't originate in the Far East.  After the Second World War, the government of France's Fifth Republic created 'national champions' in strategic areas of the French economy, such as transportation, energy, and aerospace."

 - John Cassidy, "Enter the Dragon: Why 'state capitalism' is China's biggest knockoff", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is levy:

< French levée, < lever to raise, levy < Latin levāre to raise.(Show Less)

1. The action of levying:

2. The amount or number levied:

a. †A duty, impost, tax. Obs. In a trade or benefit society: A call or contribution of so much per head. (OED)

 

 "In 1721, the government of Robert Walpole placed a range of tariffs on all manufactured imports, erecting a protective wall around businesses that created the Industrial Revolution.  A century later, while the heirs of Adam Smith were expounding the theoretical virtues of free trade, Britain retained some of the highest import tariffs in the world: more than fifty percent on many manufactured goods.  Those levies stayed high until the eighteen-sixties, when the country's competitive advantage in textiles, steel, and other industries was firmly established."

 - John Cassidy, "Enter the Dragon: Why 'state capitalism' is China's biggest knockoff", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is démarche:

< French démarche (15–16th cent. in Hatzfeld & Darmesteter), vbl. n. < démarcher (12th cent.) to march, < dé- = Latin de- prefix 1c + marcher to march v.² In the 18th cent. nearly anglicized; now treated as a French loanword.

a. Walk, step; proceeding, manner of action.   

b. Esp. a diplomatic initiative, a political step or proceeding. (OED)

"With all the talk of how China could displace the U.S. as the leading financial superpower, it is easy to forget that economic disputes between Beijing and Western capitals are nothing new, and that in the past they sometimes went well beyond diplomatic démarches."

 - John Cassidy, "Enter the Dragon: Why 'state capitalism' is China's biggest knockoff", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is clarion:

< Old French claron, cleron, clairon; in medieval Latin clāriōn-em, clārōn-em, < clārus clear. Italian has in same sense clarino, chiarina: compare clarine n.... 

1. A shrill-sounding trumpet with a narrow tube, formerly much used as a signal in war. (Now chiefly poetical, or in historical narrative.)   

2. Heraldry. A bearing shaped somewhat like a clarion.  

3. poet. The sound of a trumpet; any similar rousing sound, as the crowing of a cock.   

4. A four-feet organ-stop of quality of tone similar to that of the clarion.  (OED)

"Boehner seemed an unlikely clarion for an anti-establishment revolt.  He had been in Congress since 1991, during the Bush-Quayle Administration - long enough to have twice climbed from the back bench to a leadership position.  He was a friend of Ted Kennedy's, and a champion of George W. Bush's expansive No Child Left Behind legislation.  After the economic collapse of 2008, he had reluctantly advocated for the Troubled Asset Relief Program ('a crap sandwich,' he called it), the Tea Partiers' litmus test of political villainy."

 - Peter J. Boyer, "House Rule: Will John Boehner control the Tea Party Congress?", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

Saturday I made Super-Simple Mixed Rice, a Zillion Ways, from The Food Matters Cookbook.  Definitely a keeper.

1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms [available in bulk at the cheese counter at Whole Foods]
hot water as needed
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup short-grain brown rice
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes (canned are fine; include their juices) [I used a can of diced tomatoes]
2 cups cooked or canned cannellini beans, drained [I used a can of small white beans]
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil, plus more for garnish
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, optional

Soak the porcini in hot water to cover.

Put the oil in a large pot over medium heat.  When it's hot, add the rice and cook, stirring, until it's shiny and a little translucent, about 1 minute.  Add the onion and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened. 

Add enough water to cover by about 1/2 inch.  Bring to a boil, then lower the heat so that it bubbles gently.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until the rice starts to become tender, about 10 minutes. 

Pour the mushrooms' soaking liquid (but not the sediment) into the rice.  Chop the mushrooms roughly.  Add the mushrooms and tomatoes to the rice.  Cook another 10 minutes, until the tomatoes break down.  Add more water if needed to keep the mixture soupy.

When the rice is tender but still al dente, add the beans.  Continue to cook until no longer soupy but not yet dry.  Stir in the basil and cheese if you're using it.  Serve garnished with basil.

Friday night, as per tradition, made bacon-wrapped water chestnuts.  Also made Sesame-Soy Five Minute Drizzle Sauce from How to Cook Everything.  In hindsight, a salty, oily dressing for bacon may not have been the best idea.  Next year, try something less oily and more syrupy (like Balsamic Syrup).


Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts

1 lb bacon, each slice cut or turn in half
1 can sliced water chestnuts
Toothpicks

Preheat oven to 400F.

Wrap each half-slice of bacon around a sliced water chestnut.  Secure in place with a toothpick.  Bake at 400F until done.


Sesame-Soy Five Minute Drizzle Sauce

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil [I used grapeseed oil]
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
2 tablespoons soy sauce

Put the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat.  When the oil is warm, add the ginger and sesame seeds and cook, stirring occasionally, a minute or two.

Stir in 2 tablespoons water and the soy sauce; maintain the heat so it bubbles gently for a minute or two.

Last night made Pasta with Tender Greens from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook.

8 oz pasta, preferable whole wheat (I used whole wheat linguine)
1.5 lbs tender greens, such as spinach, pea shoots, arugula, shredded napa cabbage, etc. (I used shredded napa cabbage)
1/4 cup olive oil, butter, or a combination of both (I used olive oil)
1 Tbsp minced garlic
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan (optional) (I used pre-grated Kraft sprinkle cheese)
Freshly ground black pepper

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it.  Add pasta; cook until tender but not mushy.  Add greens and cook until tender (this may take just ten seconds).  Reserve some of the pasta water and drain.  Toss the pasta and greens with the olive oil, then toss in the garlic, cheese, and plenty of black pepper, adding the reserved pasta water if necessary to keep it moist.

Very fast.  Pretty easy.  Appropriate vegetable:starch ratio.

But I thought the raw garlic was too harsh.  Also, I don't think I cooked the cabbage long enough.  The green parts turned bright green, which is when I drained it, but the yellow parts were still quite crunchy.  Probably should have added the yellow parts a few minutes before the green parts.

In conclusion: not a keeper.  If I were to try this recipe again, I would probably do it with a different mix of flavors: spinach instead of cabbage, and back off on the raw garlic.  Maybe toss the garlic in the boiling water to mellow it out.

Made pizza last night, following the instructions on the back of the Fleischmann's Pizza Crust Yeast package.  I was (mostly) in charge of the dough; Morgan topped it with jarred tomato sauce and grated cheese (mostly cheddar).  Also had microwaved frozen broccoli.

The word of the day is integument:

 Latin integument-um covering, integĕre to cover.(Show More)

  That with which anything is covered, enclosed, or clothed; a covering, investment, coating. 
a. In general sense.
b. spec. The natural covering or investment of the body, or of some part or organ, of an animal or plant; a skin, shell, husk, rind, etc. (OED)


"In the eighteen-hundreds, people called men's underwear 'nether integuments'."

 - Lauren Collins, Dept. of Foundations, "Skivvies 101", 13 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is ersatz:

German, = compensation, replacement.(Show More)

  A substitute or imitation (usually, an inferior article instead of the real thing). Also attrib. or adj., and fig. (OED)

"'Black Swan' turns Freud's uncanny into shtick; the sinister elements are overloaded and overdetermined.  After a while, you realize that the film is a case of ersatz formalism disguising chaos."

 - David Denby, "Fancy Footwork: 'Black Swan' and 'Love and Other Drugs'", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is cachet:

French; cacher to conceal: in 18th cent. treated as English.(Show More)

1. A seal. letter of cachet (French lettre de cachet): a letter under the private seal of the French king, containing an order, often of exile or imprisonment.

2. fig. Stamp, distinguishing mark, ‘sign manual’.

3. attrib. Done under letter of cachet; privy, secret.

4. A covering of paste, gelatine, or other digestible material, enclosing (nauseous) medicine; = capsule n. 5. 

Draft additions September 2006 

 Prestige, high status; the quality of being respected or admired.  (OED)

"'We used their brand as a signifier of luxury and they got free advertising and credibility every time we mentioned it,' he writes.  'We were trading cachet.'  (Actually, the book, not free of typos, says 'cache.')"

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is hermeneutics:

< hermeneutic adj.: see -ics at -ic suffix 2. Also in form hermeneutic. Compare Greek ἑρμηνευτική (sc. τέχνη), Latin hermēneutica, French l'herméneutique.... 

The art or science of interpretation, esp. of Scripture. Commonly distinguished from exegesis or practical exposition. (OED)

"Throughout 'Decoded,' Jay-Z offers readers a large dose of hermeneutics and a small dose of biography, in keeping with his deserved reputation for brilliance and chilliness."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is étude:

étude,  (French: “study”) in music, originally a study or technical exercise, later a complete and musically intelligible composition exploring a particular technical problem in an esthetically satisfying manner. (Encyclopedia Britannica)


"Early recordings of Jay-Z reveal a nimble but mild-mannered virtuoso, delivering rat-a-tat syllables (he liked to rap in double-time triplets, delivering six syllables per beat) that often amounted to études rather than songs."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is apocope:

< Greek ἀποκοπή a cutting off, < ἀποκόπτειν to cut off.(Show More)

 

The cutting off or omission of the last letter or syllable of a word. (OED)

"Bradley also celebrated some lesser-known hip-hop lyrics, including this dense, percussive couple by Pharaohe Monch, a cult favorite from Queens:

The last batter to hit, blast shattered your hip

Smash any splitter or fastball - that'll be it

Picking through this ticket, Bradley paused to appreciate Monch's use of apocopated rhyme, as when a one-syllable word is rhymed with the penultimate syllable of a multisyllabic word (last/blast/fastball)."

 - Kelefa Sanneh, "Word: Jay-Z's 'Decoded' and the language of hip-hop", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is foxed:

Of the leaves of books, also of timber; Discoloured by decay; stained with brownish-yellow spots. (OED)


"News of the world lay in the rain.
Maple leaves fell, pre-foxed,
as if stored for decades on library shelves."

 - William Logan, "Mysteries of the Armchair", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is abecedarian:

< medieval Latin abecedāri-us (see abecedary n.²) + -an suffix.(Show Less)

1. Of or pertaining to the alphabet; marked with the alphabet; arranged in alphabetical order, as abecedarian psalms, like the 119th. 

2. Occupied in learning the alphabet, or pertaining to one so occupied.  (OED)

"In 1693, the philosopher John Locke suggested that learning to read could be a more enjoyable experience if there were 'Dice and Play-things with the Letters on them, to teach Children the Alphabet by playing.'  The father of liberalism and blocks would have loved Dinosaur Hill, where abecedarian wooden blocks come in fifteen languages, including Hebrew, Korean, Arabic, Norwegian, Braille, and American Sign Language ($39-$43)."

 - Patricia Marx, "Toy Stories: Rating this year's playthings", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is burnish:

< Old French burniss- stem of burnir, variant of brunir; compare Provençal bornir; see burn v.²... 

  

1.

a. trans. To make (metal) shining by friction; to furbish; to polish (a surface) by rubbing with a hard and smooth tool. .

2.

  a. transf. To make bright and glossy; to overspread with lustre.

3. Of a stag: To rub the dead ‘velvet’ or skin from his horns  [compare French brunir in same sense] ; applied loosely to the annual renewal of the horns, perhaps by confusion with burnish v.² 

4. intr. To become bright or glossy; to shine, gleam. Also fig. (OED)

"Over the past month, I visited most of the toy stores around town and combed through dozens of catalogues and Web sites, encountering dolls that drink and wet (the Children's General Store, 168 East 91st Street; $50.75), pirate ships that can be put together with Velcro (fao.com; $29.99), Teddy bears dressed more stylishly than I am (Dinosaur Hill, 306 East 9th Street; $80-$200), cherrywood baby rattles so burnished they could be handles on a George Nakashima bureau (Dinosaur Hill; $20), and a boy who threw a half-hour-long tantrum in the Lego Store after his mother refused to buy him the Tantive IV Star Wars set (620 Fifth Avenue, at Rockefeller Center; $179).  'A hundred dollars is not a lot of money!' he wailed."

 - Patricia Marx, "Toy Stories: Rating this year's playthings", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

 The word of the day is catamount:

Shortened < catamountain n.,(Show Less) apparently of English formation: it does not appear that the Middle English ‘cat of the mountain’ was a translation from another language.

 

1. = catamountain n.; a pard or panther. Obs.  

 

2. A common name in U.S. of the puma or cougar ( Felis concolor), also called Panther, Painter, and Mountain (or American) Lion.  (OED)

"serving the larger brain the cows eat so we will eat we guarantee
digestion is the only work they do heads down tails up
for the maximum yield they won't have sex
they get some grain some salt they get their shots no catamounts
no wolves we fertilize the fields we put up bales of hay"

 - Ellen Bryant Voigt, "Cow", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is stanchion:

estanchon, estançon (modern French étançon), < estance prop < popular Latin *stantia: see stance n.²... 

An upright bar, stay, prop or support.  (OED)

"end of the day daylight subsiding into the trees lights coming on

in the milking barns as somewhere out in the yard some ants

are tucking in their aphids for the night behind

hydrangea leaves or in their stanchions underground

they have been bred for it the smaller brain"

 - Ellen Bryant Voigt, "Cow", 6 December 2010 The New Yorker

The word of the day is serif:

Typogr.  One of the fine cross-strokes at the top and bottom of a letter.  (OED)


Morgan was describing to me a logo that included the letter A, but it only had serifs pointing in one direction, so that one might interpret them to look like little feet.

Last night I made Spaghetti with Walnuts and Anchovies, because we seemed to have all the ingredients (except the parsley, of course, and the pecorino (but we did have parmesan), and I used angel hair instead of spaghetti).

It was very fast, but didn't taste like much.  Next time I'll add more garlic, maybe some crushed red pepper, or, better yet, just make Spaghetti Aglio e Olio.

The word of the day is anosmia:

modern Latin, < Greek ἀν priv. + ὀσμή smell.(Show More)

Pathol.

Loss of the sense of smell.  (OED)


[Some proteins, mutations in which are linked to a certain kind of disease,] are also expressed in the nose, and mutations in them can cause anosmia.

 - a seminar I went to

(I'm being deliberately vague here because the seminar was on unpublished work, and I would hate to be responsible for someone getting scooped on account of my blog.)

The word of the day is publican:

< Anglo-Norman pupplican, Anglo-Norman and Old French publican, Old French, Middle French publicain (French publicain) tax-gatherer (end of the 12th cent. in Old French) and its etymon classical Latin pūblicānus contractor for the collection of taxes and dues, tax-gatherer

 

1.a. Roman Hist. A person who farms the public taxes; a tax-gatherer, esp. any of those in Judaea and Galilee in the New Testament period, who were generally regarded as traitorous and impious on account of their service of Rome and their extortion.The word is freq. in biblical quotations or allusions, esp. with reference to the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:10–11).

α.

?c1200    Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 9295   Puplicaness comenn þær. Att himm to wurrþenn fullhtnedd.

c1230  (1200)    Ancrene Riwle (Corpus Cambr.) (1962) 168   Schrift ah to beon eadmod as þe puplicanes wes, nawt as þe phariseus wes.

c1384    Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 369(2)) (1850) Matt. v. 46   Ȝif ȝe louen hem that louen ȝou, what meed shul ȝee haue? whether and puplicans don nat this thing?

a1425    Wyclif Sel. Eng. Wks. (1869) I. 397   Whi etiþ your Maistir wiþ puplicans and sinful men?

a1450    York Plays 214   Of puplicans‥prince am I.

1548    N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Matt. in Paraphr. New Test. sig. Ciii,   Matthew whiche was other wyse also called Leui, beyng of a Puplican made an Apostle.

β.

1340    Ayenbite (1866) 175   Þe farizeus‥onworþede þane publycan [a1225 Vices & Virtues seculer] þet mildeliche byet his bryest ine þe temple.

c1390    Chaucer Parson's Tale 986   Swich was the confessioun of the Publican [v.rr. Puplican, puplicane, publycane] that wolde nat heuen vp hise eyen to heuene.

a1400    Clensyng Mannes Sowle in Eng. Misc. presented to Dr. Furnivall (1901) 270   The publican‥for mekenes and lownesse thought him self vnworthi to lifte vp his eien to heuen.

?a1475  (1396)    W. Hilton Scale of Perfection (Harl. 6579) i. xx. f. 13,   Þe pharisee‥com‥wiþ þe publican to þe temple for to preye.

a1513    J. Irland Meroure of Wyssdome (1926) I. 20   And of this is exempill of the Pharizean and the publican.

1548    N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Luke in Paraphr. New Test. iii. 12   Publicans, that is to saye, the customers and takers vp of tolles.

1581    J. Marbeck Bk. of Notes 882   The Harlots and Publicans repenting truly‥are more acceptable vnto God, then y^e proud workmongers, that trust in their owne righteousnesse.

1600    Shakespeare Merchant of Venice i. iii. 39   How like a fawning publican he lookes.

1630    H. Hawkins tr. St. Jerome Sel. Epist. 18   The Publican ryses from the custome-house, and followes our Sauiour.

1703    W. Burkitt Expos. Notes New Test. Matt. ix. 9   Matthew, a grinding Publican, is the Man.

1760    E. Burke Ess. Abridgm. Eng. Hist. 42   The provinces [of Rome] were over-run by publicans,‥confiscators, usurers, bankers.

1793    J. Alleine Admonition to Unconverted Sinners 177   Lord, I come to thee as the poor publican, and I pray his prayer.

1841    Dickens Barnaby Rudge xiii. 6   Believing‥that the publicans coupled with sinners in Holy Writ were veritable licensed victuallers.

1880    L. Wallace Ben Hur viii. i. 486   He brings twelve men with him, fishermen, tillers of the soil, one a publican, all of the humbler class.

1900    Biblical World 15 191   The farmer of taxes, who, like the publican in Roman times, has bought the taxes and tries to make as much as he can out of them.

2000    Amer. Jrnl. Archaeol. 104 301/1   The dedication of C. Popilius Primus to Nero‥was linked to the crisis between a certain Demetrius, whom she supposes was a publican.

 b. gen. Any collector of toll, tribute, customs, etc. Also fig. Now rare.

 

  2. A person regarded as a heathen; a person cut off from the Church, an excommunicated person. Also in extended use.With reference to Jesus's injunction to treat an excommunicated person as ‘a heathen and publican’ (Matthew 18:17).

a1400  (1303)    R. Mannyng Handlyng Synne (Harl.) 11649   A publycan ys, yn oure sawe, A synful man, oute of þe lawe.

c1480  (1400)    St. Matthew 12 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) I. 190   Quha in hopyne syne is tane, þe ewangell callis ‘publicane’.

a1651    D. Calderwood Hist. Kirk Scotl. (1843) II. 81   We, not one or two, but the whole church, must hold him as a publicane; that is, as one cutt off frome the bodie of Christ.

1685    W. Stanley Disc. Devot. Ch. Rome 47   One that comes by Simony into the Popedom, is by their own Canon Law‥to be looked on as a Magician, Heathen, Publican, and Arch-Heretick.

?1761    ‘B. Montfichet’ Life & Opinions B. Montfichet II. 57   If Doctor Rantum‥did not chuse to prove himself a proper christian, the quality of heathen or publican must of consequence fit full as easy upon him as that of a christian.

1890    Musical Times & Singing Class Circular 31 463/1   You must learn to swallow the master [sc. Wagner] whole or be a ‘heathen man or a publican’.

1958    Amer. Q. 10 457   When he came to‥inquire whether excommunicated persons were allowed to attend church services, he was told‥that they were because there are Biblical examples of the heathen and the publican being allowed to do so.

  3. A person who owns or manages a public house or tavern.  (OED)

"If Bloomfield and Friedman wanted to be taken seriously as businesspeople, the oyster bar had to be a hit. Its success is critical to establishing their credibility as big-time restaurateurs, rather than twice-lucky publicans."


 - Lauren Collins, "Burger Queen: April Bloomfield's gastropub revolution", The New Yorker, 22 November 2010

The word of the day is crudo:

"Crudo" actually doesn't appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, so I had to turn to NPR: "The dish consists of raw fish dressed with olive oil, sea salt, acidic juices such as lemon or lime and sometimes vinegar."

Sounds like ceviche to me (i.e., fish that has been cured with acid), but I guess that while ceviche is likely to have Latin American seasonings (chili, cilantro), crudo is more likely to have Italian seasonings (olive oil, basil).

"In the fall of 2008, Friedman and Bloomfield decided to add fish to the meat-and-veg rotation, opening an ambitious seafood restaurant called the John Dory... There were five types of crudo...  When a small space became available in the Ace Hotel, this spring, Bloomfield and Friedman decided to open an oyster bar there... Bloomfield could revive some of her crudo recipes."

 - Lauren Collins, "Burger Queen: April Bloomfield's gastropub revolution", The New Yorker, 22 November 2010

I've a nasty headache just about every day since Thursday.  Two days ago I noticed it set in immediately after I ate a Hershey's kiss (yes, we're still working through the bag of Halloween candy that everyone brought to lab because they didn't want their kids eating it), and yesterday, I noticed it set in right during seminar (immediately before which, I, of course, ate a chocolate-containing Pepperidge Farm cookie, out of principle.  Out of principle because the department briefly suspended cookies as a cost-saving measure earlier during the economic downturn, so now that they've been reinstated I need to show my appreciation).

Testing the hypothesis that chocolate may be setting off my headaches, I refrained from eating a cookie at journal club today, and I didn't get a headache, consistent with my hypothesis.  (Which of course reminds me of that xkcd cartoon.)  On the other hand, eating a stack of chocolate-containing Hanukkah cookies Monday night didn't make the headache I already had any worse.  Will perhaps try a controlled experiment, but it's tricky because I have only one head.

Other hypotheses include:

1.  Eye strain.  I haven't had a new glasses prescription for three years, and because the glasses I got 3+ years ago have disintegrated, I'm actually using my slightly different prescription from 2003.  Once again, I'm having trouble resolving slides from the back of the room (I normally like to sit up front, but while I was TAing I sat in the back row because I thought it best to save the front seats for actual students), and resolving the names of streets until I'm practically on top of them.  Furthermore, I discovered during the seminar yesterday that vision out of my left eye is much, much blurrier than vision out of my right eye, which assuredly isn't helping.

2.  Scalp strain.  I hear that many headaches are actually caused by scalp pain (as opposed to, say, brain pain).  I haven't had a haircut in about 18 months (my last one was right before Caroline's wedding, in order to look presentable), so the bun that I wad into my hair clip has been getting steadily larger and, therefore, heavier.  Perhaps the tug of the hair in my hair clip is causing headaches.  Letting my hair down after the headache starts isn't enough to cure the headache.  I will get a haircut...sometime when I get around to it.  (Trying to remember how I managed to get regular haircuts when I had short hair.  I guess I just did them when I visited Wisconsin.)

Monday night I made a variation on the stir-fried sweet potatoes that I've made a number of times since Mark Bittman wrote it up in The Minimalist in September (you must remember, Mark Bittman has high standards, so "a better-than-average little meal" for him is probably a much-better-than-average meal for me).

But I had the leftover sage that I had gotten from Whole Foods for the White Beans, Tuscan Style, so instead of grapeseed oil, garlic, and ginger (I usually leave the scallions out anyway, because I rarely have them on hand, and I'm not a huge fan), I melted two tablespoons of butter and then added the sage, and sauteed (fried?) until the sage leaves started to wilt, and then added the shredded sweet potatoes (six little ones plus one big one: I like enough for both supper and leftovers for lunch the next day) and proceeded as usual.

As it turns out, Mark Bittman had previously published a stir-fried sweet potatoes with brown butter and sage recipe, which I didn't follow (no garlic), but it was nice to get some validation on the flavor combinations.


Last night I got home late-ish (after rehearsal, I had to briefly return to lab to take something out of the autoclave (I suppose I could have left it overnight and saved myself fifteen minutes, but that seemed inconsiderate)), and it turned out there was a condo association meeting.  The power was going on and off (which did make for a harrowing experience crossing Conway on the way home: the streetlights were out), and as I was going upstairs to drop off my stuff before coming back down for the condo meeting, I thought about making a quick dinner of scrambled eggs and toast to take down with me, but then the power went out again and I was stoveless.  I thus went down to the meeting without any supper (Morgan was working on his candidacy talk for today, so we needed a representative), but after an hour and half, when he was done with his talk, Morgan came down and brought me a scrambled egg sandwich, on toast.  It was perfect.