On Food and Cooking

I'm sitting in on the Harold McGee lecture series at the French Culinary Institute. Today included eggs 15 ways (including a fool-proof Hollandaise - hallelujah! ), a reluctant dondurma, and flattened champagne, but the bottom line was learning how to learn how to think about cooking in a new light. (It's hard to shake off preconceived notions - some of the biggest breakthroughs in cooking seem to have happened entirely by accident.) Tomorrow we get into technique - the why of how best to cook things - while Sunday will touch on new food technologies.

Update: things worth keeping:

• IEEE interview with Harold McGee

OBAMA

OBAMA, originally uploaded by karemizu.

Went to bed happy and woke up... yep, still happy, and with my hopes for the future considerably enlarged.

Frank Bruni on Election Year 2008

In today's Times, Frank Bruni, the paper's restaurant critic, weighs in on the 2008 election:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/weekinreview/02bruni.html

Actually, more than weighing in, he simply weighs.

I link to it here mostly because it's interesting to see Bruni apply his mellow evaluation to the presidential campaign rather than a restaurant, and because I enjoyed his final, qualified pronouncement:

"The 2008 presidential election stands out from so many before it, and will have repercussions for so many after it, because it’s a decision about who can guide us through the worst of times. We’re in trouble if we get it wrong. And maybe even if we get it right."