Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, died this past weekend at the age of 95. I had written about him not to long ago, and now he’s gone, one of the greatest – and virtually unknown – benefactors of humanity.
My headline isn’t hyperbole, it’s fact. Borlaug is singlehandedly responsible for preventing mass famines in India and Pakistan in the late ’60s. Even now, every day, at least a third of the world’s population goes to sleep each night having eaten a meal that contains rice or wheat grown from one of his engineered strains.
And that word – engineered – is the important one. The dwarf what strains he developed in Mexico were the result of careful, painstaking work. He often spent days in the fields, cross-pollinating wheat plants by hand. I am certain that if modern genetic tools were available to him back then, Borlaug would have been using gene guns to accelerate the production of plants with the characteristics he sought, saving years in the process.
Because, no matter how many political conflicts he was drawn into, and no mater how fashionable or unpopular his opinions and methods might have been, at the end of the day he achieved what he set out to do: He eliminated hunger for much of the world.
That’s how I’ve spent the last three days, with the Beatles. (I didn’t Meet the Beatles, that was a Capitol records construct.) I mentioned back in July that I had pre-ordered The Beatles Rock Band; it finally arrived on Wednesday. Needless to say, I spent five hours playing through all of the songs in solo mode. Now that I’m done with the first run-through, here are some of my impressions:
Above all, the game takes great pains to present the Beatles as we remember them, so much so that some details are glossed over because they don’t fit the popular myth. (More on that later.) The character animations are lovingly rendered, capturing all of the quirks that once identified each member of the Fab Four: John’s spread-legged stance, Paul’s leaning into the microphone, George’s somewhat stiff posture, and Ringo’s head nodding off to the side.
The in-game story begins with the band playing in the Cavern club in Liverpool, their regular gig around the time of Please Please Me being released. They quickly move to the Ed Sullivan Show (in color! I saw that performance on the family black-and-white TV.), then the Shea Stadium concert, ending the live performance phase of their career at the Budokan in Japan. The visuals for these chapters are what you’d expect: screaming fans, the lads in natty matching suits, close-ups of each Beatle. As the songs for the New York performances load, we hear the original Ed Sullivan introductions.
It’s when the game moves to the Abbey Road studio years that things get interesting. The songs all begin the same way, with the band sitting in the studio.
Once a song begins, the visuals morph into a “dreamscape,” a music video that employs the iconography we’ve come to associate with the albums in question. We all know these uniforms:
Some songs are trippier than others, as would be expected for “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”:
If your Fab Four fanaticism doesn’t extend beyond owning the canonical 13-album catalog (the remasters were also released on Wednesday), the Abbey Road chapters provide some insight into the band’s working method in the studio. Each song is introduced with the studio chatter that preceded the take, and each ends with more chat. The closing credits, which run at least five minutes, are backed with the entire run-up to “I Am the Walrus,” a snapshot of alternating brilliance and banality.
The game’s fnal chapter returns to a single live performance, the legendary “Get Back” concert on the roof of the Apple Corps building. It’s windy up there (the wind noise was added at Yoko’s insistence), and you can also hear traffic noises. And it was while playing that chapter – which consisted of most the tracks from Let it Be that Phil Spector didn’t butcher – that I noticed some of the flaws in the presentation of the myth.
Where was Billy Preston? His piano solo anchors “Get Back,” yet he’s nowhere to be seen. Where’s Yoko? She was omnipresent, but has been deleted – some may find this a good thing. Eric Clapton is missing from “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” The presentation gets a bit disingenuous for the White Album sessions, which shows the band performing all of the songs as a quartet, which didn’t happen during those sessions. “Back in the USSR” correctly has John playing bass, but also has Ringo playing drums; Paul played drums on that track, which is why John switched off guitar.
But these are minor quibbles. It’s still a rush to play along with songs that are burned so deeply into my brain that I can play them back in my head at will. I played through the early live chapters with the guitar, and learned that the Beatles were masters of syncopation – the tunes are full of off-the-beat hooks that repeatedly tripped me up. Once in the studio I switched to bass, because the McCartney bass lines defined the instrument for years. (I ask you : Wouldn’t you rather play the bass for “Taxman” and “Paperback Writer”?) And there’s an unexpected surprise: The version of “Within You Without You” – George’s Indian-tinged contribution to Sgt. Pepper – is the mash-up with “Tomorrow Never Knows” from Love, the Cirque du Soleil soundtrack. The choice was one of necessity: until someone releases Raga Hero, tabla and tamboura will have to be replaced by drums and bass.
The song list hits many of the obvious favorites, but is slightly skewed to provide balance. Each Beatle is represented in each chapter but the final one, to which Ringo made no contribution. I hand’t expectd to perform “Boys” or “I Wanna Be Your Man,” but it was still fun.
One thing became clear before I was three songs into the game: unlike its predecessors, Beatles Rock Band almost demands to be played with a full group (you have the option of adding two more microphones to the mix so you can sing full three-part harmonies). Playing the game solo gives you an almost curatorial feel, as if you’re interacting with a Beatles museum exhibit.
I’m willing to forgive the distance. After all, they’re the goddamned Beatles.
I haven’t posted in a week, mostly due to my migrating to a new Mac (which decided to eliminate two years’ worth of my photos in a bold totalitarian move), but also due to the length of this project.
Now that the weather is getting cooler, my basement temperature has been dropping closer to 60° F, the ideal temperature for curing meats. In preparation for this fall’s sausage making projects, I thought I’d test out the environment by making some duck prosciutto, described by Michael Ruhlman in Charcuterie as “one of the easiest dry-cured items to prepare at home.”
I bought a whole Long Island duck breast and a magret (moulard duck breast) so I could make a comparison. The magret is the larger, thicker one.
After drying the breasts, I filled the bottom of a glass baking dish with a cup and a half of kosher salt, placed the breasts on top (skin side up), and covered the tops with more kosher salt. I covered the pan with plastic wrap and put in in the fridge, where it sat for 24 hours. I had a photo of this step, but Maximum Leader for Life Mac Pro decided it wasn’t in the interest of the state for me to have it.
I rinsed off the salt, patted the breasts dry, and rubbed in about a teaspoon each of pepper on each of the breasts, top and bottom. Ruhlman calls for white pepper, which I didn’t have so I ground up some four-peppercorn blend instead.
I wrapped each breast in a layer of cheesecloth and tied each off with some string.
The hard work done, I hung the breasts in the basement from a convenient storage bracket the previous owner had instaled.
After seven days, I unwrapped what was now prosciutto and had a look. The breast had firmed up significantly.
When sliced, it looked like prosciutto.
The thicker magret breast seemed a bit raw; it still had a reddish color, rather than the cured pink color I expected.
The prosciutto from the thinner breast had a lovely taste; the fat melted on the tongue, there was a hint of the salt cure, but the essential “duckiness” still came through. The magret, which I served to some guests because it was meatier, unfortunately wasn’t dried enough. It still had some give and a bit of the raw duck taste. I’ll re-hang it for a few days and hope that it dries to a better consistency. It just might be too thick to cure properly, we’ll see.
So, for not a lot of effort, I got some tasty home-cured meat and learned that my basement was a decent curing environment. In the Bacon-Wrapped Swordfish post, I engaged on some smart-assery:
“What about the guanciale?†I hear you asking. You bring me the hog jowls, and I’ll make us guanciale.
I found two hog jowls in the Belm Research Kitchen Deep Storage Facility. Guess what’s next?
I‘m not sure how I missed these ads that imagine what chef Gordon Ramsay was like as a boy. He certainly didn’t mention this behavior in his autobiography Roasting In Hell’s Kitchen.
Be sure to look at the other two ads: Canteen and Restaurant, which play off his campaign for healthier eating and Kitchen Nightmares, respectively.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this behavior would be the natural result of instilling in a child an appreciation of well-prepared meals cooked from quality ingredients. I do know for sure how I would prevent that kind of mouthing off from He Who Will Not Be Ignored, and it was certainly what kept the real little Gordon in check: a good old-fashioned ass-whippin’.
Who knew that the Johns Linnell and Flansburg – aka They Might Be Giants – were pro-science skeptics? I didn’t until I placed an order for their new CD/DVD Here Comes Science on Amazon, where I saw this video:
I was so impressed I transcribed the lyrics:
Science is real
From the Big Bang to DNA
Science is real
From evolution to the Milky Way
I like cool stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like good stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science
Science is real
Science is real
Science is real
Science is real
From anatomy to geology
Science is real
From astrophysics to biology
A scientific theory
Isn’t just a hunch or a guess
It’s more like a question
That’s been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges
It’s consistent with the facts
The proof is with science
The truth is with science
Science is real
Science is real
Science is real
Science is real
They covered all the bases in less than two minutes. How could they improve upon it? With anwsers like this, in the August 27, 2009 issue of Nature:
Your lyrics talk about evolution being real and how stories about angels and unicorns are just that, stories. Did you worry that this might alienate some listeners?
John Flansburgh took the bull by the horns by writing that song and addressing that situation, which is that religion cannot take the place of science. It’s not something you can tiptoe around. It’s important that everybody gets what the discussion is about. If we’re talking about the history of Earth, we can’t rely on religious tradition to tell us all the information. He says it in the song: as beautiful as the stories are, they don’t tell us everything we need to know. It’s an old complaint on the part of scientists, but it bears repeating.
They Might Be Giants in Nature! How cool is that? It’s something I never managed in my scientific career.
If you click on the “Share” link in the video, it takes you to the permalink page at Amazon, where a discussion has already turned into a flame war about how appropriate the record would be for children. Warning: This video is dangerous and subversive, leading to independent thought and questioning of authority!
The only thing that would make me happier about  the record is if I could get TMBG to write a song about vaccines and autism titled “Correlation is Not Causation.”
The whole roasted pig’s head was the correct choice to have made at the Whole Hog Dinner, but part of me has been wondering about the Guanciale-Wrapped Line-Caught Swordfish I passed up, especially after chef Tony Maws tweeted that it was so good it would make regular appearances on future menus. Improvising a similar dish would be the only way to satisfy my curiosity, and, not coincidentally, use up some ingredients in the fridge.
I started with the swordfish steaks I bought yesterday, marinating them in white wine, garlic, and chopped rosemary.
After an hour I wiped off the marinade and wrapped the steaks in the remaining dry-cured bacon I had bought for the coq au vin. (“What about the guanciale?” I hear you asking. You bring me the hog jowls, and I’ll make us guanciale. Until then, it’s plain ol’ bacon.)
I cooked the steaks on a very hot grill pan for three minutes per side.
I let the steaks rest for another three minutes before serving with lemony orzo (another refrigerator gift) and a simple salad of tomato and lemon cucumber finished with olive oil and sage-rosemary salt.
I was pleased with how this dish worked out. The swordfish was cooked to a perfect, moist medium, the bacon got crisp but not shatteringly so, and the acidity of the marinade cut through the richness of the fish and the fatty bacon. The garlic and rosemary were more of a background perfume than a distinct flavor; I’ll try increasing the amount in the marinade next time. The lemon in the orzo was a natural fit, and one of the reasons why I didn’t add lemon to the marinade. And you can never go wrong with fresh tomotoes and cucumbers.
I’ll be making the fish again, now I need to figure out some winter vegetable accompaniments.
The vegetables were picked yesterday and on the truck this morning. There’s no way we weren’t coming today.” I heard that from all of the farmer’s market vendors who are actual farmers instead of bakers or artisanal producers. How could I not buy today after they had slogged through hurricane rains?
My first purchases were from the Union Square market (above): onions, peaches, raspberries, cucumbers, red peppers, jalapeños, and tomatoes, including the massive orange pineapple variety.
Today was also a pickup day for our meat CSA, so I headed over to Cambridge to see what was in this month’s dividend:
For beef there were top round steaks, a chuck steak, and ground chuck. There were also pork cutlets and chicken leg quarters. I have to cook this stuff faster; I’m running out of freezer space.
I also bought a few more things not available in my neighborhood:
Brioche loaf, lemon curd cake, maple pecan and blueberry scones, broad beans, and lemon cucumbers. I saved a few of those for tonight’s salad, and have already converted the rest into pickles – slices this time.
I ended my shopping run with a visit to my butcher (Savenor’s) to inquire about the availability of ingredients I need for a secret project or two, and left with swordfish steaks for tonight’s diner. I might be dry by then.
After I described the Whole Hog Dinner to a curious He Who Must Not Be Ignored, he grew quite indignant: “You ate pig’s head and you didn’t save me any cheek? That’s my favorite part!”
Feeling guilty of parental malfeasance, I assured him that there would be more opportunities to sample pig’s head. Thanks to a recent tweet from St. John general manager Thomas Blythe, that opportunity may arrive sooner rather than later. Today’s “Word of Mouth” in the Guardian features an article with accompanying video of food writer Tim Hayward purchasing a pig’s head at Smithfield market and taking it to the St. John kitchen, where Fergus Henderson teaches him how to cook it.
I found the recipe, “Pot-Roast Half Pig’s Head,” in Beyond Nose to Tail, the second St. John cookbook (with the now-notorious in this household correction to the Eccles Cake recipe). The procedure is remarkably simple, using simple ingredients (of course), but it was Henderson’s introduction that seized my attention:
I say only half a head, as it is a perfect romantic supper for two. Imagine gazing into the eyes of your loved one over a golden pig’s cheek, ear and snout.
It’s as if he had been sitting next to us while we dined three days ago. He captured the mood perfectly.
But would the boy understand? Nope. He won’t be satisfied until he’s had his pig cheek. Time for a trip to Savenor’s for a special order. Stay tuned.
With meals at St. John and Au Pied de Cochon already under our belts, it was time for me and She Who Must Be Obeyed to focus on finding a similar dining experience here in the States. As luck would have it, our return from Montreal coincided with this email from the Craigie on Main restaurant in Cambridge:
Mark your calendar on August 25 when we invite pork lovers to wine, dine on swine, and rejoice at a six-course dinner celebrating all the porky pleasures. As we write, Chef Tony Maws – NOT resting on his slew of Best of Boston awards and mentions – has scouted the organic farms of Vermont for the perfect piglets. The “Whole Hog” menu combines his fanaticism for perfect organic quality with his “nose to tail” approach, and obsession with all things pork.
In short, the Whole Hog Dinner was on, and we were so there.
We had dined at Tony Maws’ previous location, the Craigie Street Bistrot – a tiny restaurant with a tinier kitchen in the basement of a brownstone just outside of Harvard Square. We were eager to taste what would come out of his new, larger, better-equipped kitchen on Main Street, especially after attending two previous Whole Hog Dinners.
We had learned from experience that each course would consist of two choices, both of which we would fight over, until I arrived at a solution: We would tell the server we wanted one of each for each course. When we were served, we’d try the plate and wine put in front of each of us, and then switch plates and glasses halfway through the course. We would both get to taste everything, and the server got to place his easiest order of the evening.
That was our plan for last night, and with the exception of an unexpected surprise – which will be reported in sequence – that’s what we did. So, in menu order, here’s what we ate. Low-light camera photos are courtesy of She Who Must Be Obeyed, who had a better shooting angle – less shadows – than I did. (Dishes are in bold, ingredients in regular, and wines in italic type.) I not qualified to comment on the wine except to say that each paring was perfectly matched with the food, and the dessert wines were superb.
Even with the pork filling, this was a very delicate dish. You could taste the essence of squash in the blossoms and the jus, with just a hint of mint/basin from the calaminthe.
I should get this out of the way now, it will make the rest of the dish descriptions easier: Tony Maws cooks the best vegetables I have ever eaten. Every bite of every plate demonstrates the respect he has for his ingredients. So if I gloss over the vegetables, take it as a given that they are perfect. The other featured ingredient, lomo, is thinly-sliced, dry-cured pork tenderloin that melts in the mouth. And the garnish? Crispy fried pig’s ear strips. I had to remind myself that they had to be shared. All of this was tied together by the earthy taste of the huitlacoche jus.
House-Made Boudin Noir- and Chorizo-Stuffed Grilled Local Squid
fresh white corn polenta, basil
2007 Gran Franco Torelli Dolcetto d’Asti
My horrible life continued with another helping of perfectly prepared boudin noir. This clever presentation treated the squid as the casing into which both sausages were stuffed. The richness of the stuffing was offset by the clean, crisp taste of the corn.
Third Course
Here’s where the unexpected surprise entered into the menu. Before I had a chance to tell our server “give us one of everything,” he told us there was a third course special special not on the menu. I was mentally working out which dish I would replace – the Pork Three Ways (Spice-Crusted Rib, Glazed and Grilled Belly, and Bacon-Wrapped Loin) or the Guanciale-Wrapped Line-Caught Swordfish – when he said “It’s a roasted pig’s head…” and paused to launch into his explanation.
“We’ll take it” I said, glancing at SWMBO, who nodded back.
“I can explain the preparation.”
“No need. You had us at ‘pig’s head’.”
So:
Roasted Half Pig’s Head
greens, pork jus
2006 Buondonno Chianti Classico
As soon as this lovely thing landed on the table, I cut out the cheek and the skin covering it and shared it. As you may recall from the Best Pig Ever, it’s the best part of the magical animal’s head.
What I loved about this dish was the variety of tastes and textures. There was white meat and dark meat, crispy skin and chewy skin, firm fat and loose fat, salty bits and meaty bits. We ate the whole thing, from nose to ear, dipping forkfuls in the jus. By the time I was done carving there was nothing left:
Our server walked by, looked at the remains, looked at me, and remarked “You sure know your way around a pig’s head.”
“I’m a biologist with years of dissection experience” I replied.
You’re looking at that picture, and you’re seeing an empty eye socket, and you’re thinking “Was there an eyeball? Did he eat it?” To which I can reply yes, and hell yes. It was chewier than I expected, but I had no problem eating it.
Once you’ve eaten a pig’s eyeball it’s time to slowly bring the dinner to a close. Before the dessert course we were offered this:
We were served two different tea-infused sour milk panna cottas: one was rooibis infused and garnished with candied grapefruit, the other was jasmine infused and garnished with rice syrup. Both were refreshing palate cleansers that cut through the remainder of the pork orgy in which we had just indulged.
Fourth Course
Late Summer Macerated Fruits
sweet white peach soda, yogurt sorbet
2003 Lemaire Fournier Vouvray Moelleux
The chef is just as respectful of fruit as he is of vegetables, Craigie on Main is one of the few restaurants where I don’t automatically consider a chocolate dessert of there’s a fruit option. This serving of perfect summer fruit was topped with what appeared to be a foam but turned out to be a carbonated white peach syrup.
On the right, a chunk of lightly sweet french toasted cornbread with the plum sauce, on the left, a scoop of anise-scented ice cream on a thinner slice of the bread. The restaurant is known for its herb-infused ice creams, this delicate concoction was the best flavor I’ve tasted.
We thought we were done with dessert, but we were proven wrong when another server arrived with “a gift from the chef”:
I thought we were being served another panna cotta by mistake, but was informed that this was a rhubarb hibiscus mousse with yogurt foam. And it was good, but the details escape me. By that point I had reached my limit.
Or so I thought, until the check was delivered along with a tray of mignardises: bite-sized mocha-filled hobnob cookies, blackberry jellies, and Earl Grey infused chocolate truffles.
As I rolled out of the restaurant I stopped for a look at the kitchen from which the evening’s feast had sprung:
Final Impressions
I have now experienced the finest level of cooking by three of the greatest practitioners of the porkly arts, and can honestly say that no one of them is better than the others – each has a unique strength. St. John will always astonish with its simplicity, Au Pied de Cochon will always overwhelm with its excess, but Craigie on Main will always surprise with its finesse.
And, unlike the other two, I can eat there on a whim.
I didn’t need to see the Google home page to remember that today is the 400th anniversary of Galileo constructing his first telescope. That date has been burned into my brain since the fifth grade, and, like many things remembered from grade school, there was a certain amount of suffering involved.
I was already a science geek kid by the time I wound up in Sister Beatrice’s classroom at Saint Catherine’s School, the grade school affiliated with my parish church. While I don’t doubt that some of the Franciscan nuns who taught there were true educators, Sister Beatrice represented the majority of the staff: strict disciplinarian caretakers who knew how to advance lesson plans provided by the State of New York Board of Education.
We were learning “science” by reading a combined textbook/workbook. At the end of every week’s lessons, there was a review test. We’d fill out the multiple choice, true/false, and fill-in-the-blank questions, tear out the page, and hand it in. The graded test would be returned the following Monday. Beatrice always returned my 100% correct tests with an air of suspicion: I was clearly bored out of my skull and paid no attention to her or the textbook, yet I knew all the answers.
One fateful Monday my test came back with a 95% grade. “You got one wrong, Mr. Shaw,” she smirked before walking away. By the time she returned to the front of the classroom I already had my hand up.
“What do you want?”
“Sister, there’s a mistake in the grading. You marked a correct answer as incorrect.”
“Which answer is that?”
“This one, about the inventor of the telescope. You marked my answer wrong.”
I was already a year into my astronomy phase. I dragged out my Gilbert 2.5″ reflector telescope every clear night and tried to identify as many celestial objects as the Pelham night sky would allow, marking off what I saw in my battered copy of The Stars by H.A. Rey (his wife, Margaret, wrote the Curious George stories). I knew a few things about telescopes, and one of the things I knew was that it had been invented by Hans Lippershey, a Dutch lens grinder.
“I marked your answer wrong because it is wrong.”
“Could you please tell me the correct answer?”
“Everyone knows Galileo invented the telescope.”
“I’m not sure that’s true.” Now I could hear the grumblings from my classmates. If I could prove that my answer was correct, then everyone else had the wrong answer. My seat was on the outside aisle near the windows, below which ran a long bookcase. I reached over and pulled out three volumes of the ancient Encyclopedia Brittanica: G (for Galileo), L (for Lippershey), and T (for telescope). Even though men had not walked on the moon in this encyclopedia, I was sure they had the telescope thing worked out.
“Mr. Shaw, what are you doing?” she asked as she walked to my desk, blackboard pointer (the most feared weapon in the classroom) in hand.
“I’m checking my work, the way you taught us” I replied. I turned to the Galileo entry, pointing to the line “In the spring of 1609 he heard that in the Netherlands an instrument had been invented that showed distant things as though they were nearby.” I turned to the Lippershey entry, pointing to the line “traditionally credited with inventing the telescope.” Finally I turned to the Telescope entry and pointed out “Galileo is credited with having developed telescopes for astronomical observation in 1609.”
“Young man, I don’t like your attitude. You can report to the principal’s office immediately.”
I told my story to the principal, she sent me back to Sister Beatrice, and my parents received a note requesting their attendance at a meeting on report card day. That didn’t go too well. My Dad was indignant that I was being punished for knowing the correct answer and backing up my position with facts. My Mom was convinced I was acting in defiance of the nuns. I managed to survive the remainder of the sixth grade without further incident, although I learned that “I don’t like your attitude” was actually code for “You just made me look stupid in front of the class.” I would hear that sentence often from then until my graduation day.
The story should have ended there with my defense of Lippershey and my own “eppur si muove” moment. But, six years later, my younger brother Chris took the same test in the same classroom with the same teacher with the same results: an incorrectly graded question about the inventor of the telescope. When he brought the error to her attention, she replied “Your brother tried that same nonsense with me six years ago.”
Chris, who had been subjected to endless comparisons to me – for better or worse – for six years by the increasingly arthritic, senescent teaching staff, finally snapped. “You’re right, my brother did try it,” he retorted, “and he had the right answer, just like I do.”
You can guess what happened next: visit to principal’s office, note to parents, parents meet with principal. Dad asked “Why are we doing this again? Has history changed in six years?” I can’t remember how that meeting ended, but I do remember going out of my way to make things right with Chris. After all, he had two more years of my legacy to contend with, and the nuns he had to face in seventh and eighth grades were mean.
I had been trying to reconcile inconsistencies between science and religion for a while, but that day with Sister Beatrice was the beginning of the end for me and the Catholic church. She inadvertently pushed me in the direction of reason, and I never looked back.
