Category: Miscellaneous

Eats A Pizza

  • June 5, 2020

Time for some more lockdown cooking! I’m guessing most of you tried the meat boats and loved them so now you can follow up with my new creation: The Golden Slice

Start with a pizza base. You can make it yourself or buy one, but make sure it’s not too big, not crispy and not too thick. I use small Boboli brand bases, about my handspan in diameter. Even that’s too big though, so I cut them in half!

Next cover it with a tiny amount of pizza sauce. You’ll want the blandest sauce you can find (no garlic or herbs!) and you want to put so little on that you can barely taste it in the finished product. In other words, just a misting of sauce: I probably put a bit too much on in the above photo.

Next lightly sprinkle it with cheese. I use a packaged ‘pizza blend’, but you can adapt to your taste. As with the sauce less is more: you’ll want to have maybe a 75% density, single layer of cheese.

The ‘magic ingredient’ is Canadian bacon! This is a rare type of ‘bacon’ that is (secretly) ham from Canada. It’s probably unique to where we live since we’re so close to Canada so if you can’t find it you can just use normal ham. Whatever you use, cut it into tiny bits.

The second ‘magic ingredient’ is crushed (not sliced) pineapple! Delicately arrange it on the cheese so it’s more or less uniform. Again less is more, but don’t worry too much about going overboard since fruit is good for you.

After the pineapple you put the Canadian bacon on, again trying for uniform coverage. There’s a lot of fine tuning in this last step: you want it to look as delicious as it will taste! The above shot is the finished product…

And here it is after 9 minutes at 450 F. Doesn’t it look fantastic?! Here’s a better shot with a food filter:

So original! So golden! So scrumptious! I think this may be my culinary masterpiece, even surpassing my spaghetti!

Why not try it yourself and let me know how it turns out 🙂

  • Posted in Miscellaneous
  • Robert

Turn Off The Dark?

  • June 3, 2020

I think there’s a good chance we won’t go to the cinema at all this year, and if so that will probably be the first time this has happened since before I can remember.

Due to coronavirus our cinemas are closed and won’t be opening any time soon. Even were they to open there’s no movies of note being released for a few more months. And now we’re hearing that America (and the world’s) largest chain is bleeding cash and says there’s significant doubt it can remain in business.

Could the age-old experience of ‘going to the movies’ be another of the countless victims of coronavirus?

I always loved going to the cinema. Every time was an event as a child, and once I started earning my own (paper run) money a good deal of it went into seeing movies. In high school a girl I knew worked at Tower Cinemas and gave me free tickets which meant that one year (1988?) I saw almost every movie released. And then when the cinema opened in Charlestown within walking distance of our house (with a massive arcade next door!) I went and saw everything they screened that I was remotely interested in. Good times; good memories.

Kristin and I have seen countless movies at cinemas over the years, but in the last 5-10 years our frequency had notably decreased as we discovered and grew to love the drive in. Now we only go to see big ‘event’ films at cinemas – which seem to be only Star Wars or Marvel films these days.

Many films I once would have gone and seen at the cinema without hesitation now wait until we can stream them or buy on DVD (yes I still buy DVDs). It’s often more comfortable watching at home anyway: we have a massive TV, comfy recliners, cats in our laps and we don’t have to worry about the now-too-common sight of someone using a cellphone during the film!

The romance and attraction of the cinema seems to be generational as well: my students rarely go and seem quite content to watch new releases online. If cinemas close forever, maybe they’ll be missed only as much as the average person misses CDs?

Of course there’s still the drive-in, which I consider quite different from going to the cinema. Ours is open right now, but it’s showing older films that are already available streaming and the list of rules and restrictions is daunting enough that we haven’t seriously considered going. But in the months ahead if studios release some of the event films we may see them at the drive-in, assuming it remains open.

Unlike other corona effects – the lack of travel in particular – a ‘gap year’ (or two…) away from cinemas doesn’t particularly bother me. And even though I don’t wan’t cinemas to close completely, I don’t think I’ll be too bothered if they do.

Pandemic

  • March 13, 2020

I climbed the hill, lay in the grass
A little dark-eyed girl drifted past
She said all the best is come, it could not last
And the worst, it has come true

That’s from one of my favorite Nick Cave songs. I’ve heard it countless times and often I think of what it would mean for the worst to have come true. Is that what we are facing now?

Back when I was in Japan I was reading about the novel Coronavirus as I sat in my Tokyo hotel room and texted Kristin that I thought it could “change the world”. I wasn’t being grim or fatalistic; it’s just that I had read about what was happening (before China officially admitted it) and had a feeling about the future. I returned to the USA and it was like it didn’t exist: no airport screening, virtually nothing in the media and almost no-one had heard of it.

Then China quarantined and it spread quickly. My idle comment had become portentous and I personally knew people that were affected in China. And still virtually nothing was said here in the US. When I signed and submitted my summer contract almost a month ago I asked what the backup plan was if coronavirus was keeping us all home. I was at least half serious, but there wasn’t any plan since most of the people in the office hadn’t even heard of it.

I wasn’t surprised by this. Even those of us who had been aware of the virus probably found it hard to believe it would shut down our ‘normal’ lives like it now has. Only three weeks ago a TA asked me if we’d have any classes after Spring Break (which starts next week) and I assured him yes since I couldn’t imagine the alternative.

Two days ago my school shifted all classes online for the remainder of the semester (2 months) and from now I’ll work from home. Yesterday KLS was sent home as well to work, and we’ve already bought her a desk for her computer since we have no idea how long this may last.

We’ve stocked up on supplies – our cupboards have never been this full – and personally witnessed the empty shelves in local shops. We’ve canceled appointments and are now prepared to stay here – in our house – until we need to go out and get more groceries every couple of weeks.

I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me shifting my course online (I have over 300 students who need to do the same) and there’s currently more questions than answers. Likewise for Kristin who must now adapt – with almost all her coworkers – to a distributed office communicating via the internet. We’re not just working from home; we’re learning (or rather devising) how to do our jobs in brand new ways from home.

And the virus only continues to spread as America and the world shuts down. Every day the news is grimmer and silver linings seem absent. The leadership in this country is a gaggle of incompetents who have made things worse and we can only hope they haven’t messed things up beyond the ability of the real adults (currently the state and local officials) to fix.

And yet I don’t think the worst has come true. The world has seen that China and Korea have waged bold and apparently successful fights against this, and I believe other countries will too. It will take sacrifice yes, but staying at home and skipping events and vacations is a small price for this victory. Like H1N1 in 2009 I believe the tide will turn with a treatment or vaccine, and right now everyone with the relevant expertise anywhere in the world is working on that (including at KLS’s company). It will take time, but someone will create it eventually.

Stay safe everyone. Stay home and limit your exposure in the interests of public health. Follow the advice of the experts and don’t be fooled (or scared) by misinformation.

This will be an uncertain and likely difficult period we are moving into, but there are sunny skies beyond. Look forward to them!