Posts from — March 2008

I know that the news has had many reports of flooding in Missouri and the rest of the Midwest. Just wanted to say that the city of St. Louis is fine; most of the really bad flooding is either on the edges of the metropolitan area or in outlying rural areas that are generally downstream of us. The rivers are up near us, but they’re well within the capacities of levees, floodwalls, and designated wetlands. (This isn’t 1993.)

It has been super-rainy here, though that’s a good thing for the dogwoods and daffodils after last summer’s (very) minor drought.

All the attention to the river does remind me of T. S. Eliot, though, and his discussion of the river as a strong brown god. It’s an apt analogy, if you ask me.

As discussed here previously, we’ve been attempting to reconfigure our favorite recipes in a meatless style. Last week we did further testing on veg adaptations of baked rigatoni with béchamel.

In this attempt, we removed the half-pound of prosciutto (as before) and replaced it with

• about a quarter pound of cremini mushroom caps, cleaned and thinly sliced
• a jar of roasted red bell peppers (about four medium peppers), drained and cut into thin strips
• a whole lot more salt and black pepper

Results were very promising. The roasted peppers shone through, accenting the flavor of the cheeses and adding a piquant note to the overall aroma. The mushrooms were quite a bit more subtle in their flavor and aroma, but they added quite a bit of depth to the sauce, and their texture was a welcome variation in the otherwise-consistent chewiness of the overall dish.

I would definitely do this combo again, though further refinement is necessary. I think I may add more mushrooms and use a somewhat saltier cheese (perhaps a nice Parmesan or Romano mixed into the sauce alongside the other cheese[s]). We could also try this with a different type of mushroom — maybe button, maybe morel, definitely shiitake.

More posts on this as the experiments continue.

(Also: heh, I got to use the word “piquant” in a food post.)

The LA Times’s article about the Wikimedia Foundation’s funding (read it quick before it goes to archive) has reanimated the undead prospect of advertising. It’s one of the oldest topics in Wikipedia circles, and it spawned one of the earliest project forks, and it still won’t die.

Proponents of ads-on-wiki argue that ad content won’t affect editorial decisions. As somebody who’s familiar with the way Wikipedia works, I see some merit in this point; my edits are never affected by the WMF’s revenue streams, and I probably won’t see the ads while I contribute anyway. However, this argument ignores a major counter-argument — the one thing that really irritates me about answering Wikipedia-related e-mail from the public —

Most non-Wikipedians still don’t get how Wikipedia works; they still think that its content is centrally controlled.

We try to let them know that we have neither editorial committee nor review board nor paid authors nor legions of paid staff fixing errors. We send ‘em off to the FAQs and tutorials and Help: pages and tell them “seriously, you can edit”. And yet our OTRS queues are always full of complaints, requests, demands, and generally-confused statements from people who cannot fathom the concept of decentralized content management. (If you need proof of this, I offer the thousands upon thousands of polite requests that we remove images of Mohammed; these correspondents meant well, but e-mailing the handful of active OTRS volunteers won’t change consensus on the English Wikipedia.)

If Wikipedia starts displaying ads next to content, then Wikipedians and geeks will know all about editorial independence. It’s these non-Wikipedians — the ones who don’t know how it all works — who will start seeing implied bias everywhere.

Over the weekend Fred and I finally celebrated our first wedding anniversary by going out for a nice dinner. We arrived at the restaurant and perused the drink menu, with my eye immediately landing on “Cucumber martini” with Hendrick’s listed as the first component. I am a gin boy, and I enjoy Hendrick’s, so I figured the other components would enhance the cucumbery goodness therein.

I should have read more. I got a martini glass full of cold neat Hendrick’s with a ribbon of cucumber in it.

Folks: If you don’t put anything else in it, then it isn’t a martini. It’s just gin. Don’t call it a martini if it isn’t a martini.

Last night was the first attempt to re-do some of our favorite recipes in a more vegetarian style. I think this’ll probably work best if you can see where we started — my adaptation of Giada de Laurentiis’s baked rigatoni with béchamel.

Baked Rigatoni with Béchamel, non-veg style

Béchamel — makes four cups
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 c all-purpose flour
• 1 quart whole milk
• 1 small onion, peeled, trimmed of ends, and halved
• 1 dried bay leaf
• Pinch nutmeg
• Pinch pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt

Before we begin: YOU CANNOT ALLOW THE MILK OR THE FINISHED SAUCE TO BOIL IN ANY PART OF THIS PROCESS. If you do, then the sauce will not work!

In a small saucepan over low heat, warm milk, onion, and bay leaf for 30 minutes or until rather warm (100 degrees F or so). Discard the onion and bay leaf and reserve the warm flavored milk.

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Once the butter is melted, add flour and whisk for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and pale blond. Slowly add the warmed milk and whisk continually for about ten minutes or until the sauce is thickened and velvety. Remove from heat and add nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

Everything else — serves six ordinary people or three people with my appetite
• 1 lb dried rigatoni
• 4 cups Béchamel sauce (as above)
• 1 cup shredded cheese that melts well — Asiago and Fontina work beautifully here, by themselves or together
• 1/2 lb prosciutto, sliced thin then cut into thin strips
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1 tsp olive oil
• Grated Parmesan or Romano for the top

Preheat oven to 425 F. Use the olive oil to grease the bottom and sides of a 13×9″ glass or ceramic baking dish.

Warm Béchamel if it is not already there. (Remember - don’t let it boil.) Add half the shredded cheese and all the prosciutto and whisk until the cheese is melted and the prosciutto is well-mixed.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Salt liberally and add rigatoni. Cook for a few minutes less than the package directions; we’ll finish cooking in the oven. (It should be chewy, but not al dente.) Drain.

Combine the partially-cooked pasta with the enhanced Béchamel and pour into greased baking dish. Top with the remaining shredded cheese, dust that with some grated Parmesan or Romano, and dot the whole thing with the softened butter. Bake for 25 minutes or until the sauce bubbles and the cheese on top turns golden brown. Let cool for five minutes, then serve either on its own or with a green salad.

It’s a little more labor-intensive than we normally do, but the effort is well worth it, especially on cold rainy/snowy/icy/blah nights like we had last night. You can also assemble everything, then cover it and stash it in the refrigerator for a few hours before uncovering and baking.

Since we’re doing without pork at home now, we substituted 1 red bell pepper (cored, seeded, and cut into very thin strips) for the prosciutto. It was pretty good, but kind of bland. I think I didn’t compensate enough for the prosciutto’s saltiness, which was just enough to make the other flavors stand out. Also, in retrospect, I could have sliced a couple rings from the pepper and put them on top of the dish for presentation’s sake. (Then again, it was a very tasty pepper on its own, and I probably would have eaten several rings before they made it onto the dish. As it was, I ate quite a few strips while the pasta was cooking.

I think the next time I may either add more salt; melt a saltier shredded cheese into the Béchamel; or try a different vegetable or combination of vegetables. (I don’t want to make this into “Lots of Vegetables with a Little Pasta and Cheese Bake”, though; the pasta and sauce are the stars here.) Mushrooms would be pretty good with this. A jar of roasted red peppers or quartered artichoke hearts may also do nicely, if they’re packed in brine. I wouldn’t do olives here, though.