* “laugh out loud even though I was in an empty room” – Just made that up. Think it’ll catch on?

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is an ethically and scientifically informed meditation on food, the modern food chain, and the ways in which the latter has distorted our relationship with the former. Pollan provides a fascinating overview of the highly dysfunctional system of agricultural subsidies that spur the overproduction of corn and a few other staples, and traces the effects of the corn glut through the rest of the food economy. He then explores alternatives to the modern agricultural system, beginning with mainstream organic farming, and moving on to much more radical departures from the mainstream. I thought that the passages on the killing and eating of animals were especially thoughtful.

E.R. Chamberlin. The Bad Popes

I’m not in a position to judge the reliability of the book, but I can say that it has a few entertaining moments, if Popes behaving badly is your thing. In style and tone, this book reminded me a bit, for better or worse, of John Julius Norwich‘s books.

Douglas A. Blackmon. Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

If the North won the American Civil War, the South surely won the reconstruction. In the years following the Civil War, African Americans did not find themselves suddenly free to enjoy the fruits of the victory over their slave holders. Rather, whites developed a system that permitted them to hold blacks down with the threat of terrible violence, and which allowed them to make use of their forced labour under conditions that were, very often, worse than those endured by many slaves under the old regime of slavery.

Here’s how the system worked, as explained in considerable detail by Douglas A. Blackmon in his Slavery By Another Name: blacks would be arrested on bogus or trumped up charges. These often included “vagrancy,” an all-purpose charge to which any unemployed black man (in an era of massive unemployment) was vulnerable. Sometimes the charge was even forgotten by the time the victim had been brought to court. It hardly mattered. A sheriff or local judge could always be found to find the victim guilty, regardless of the merits of the case — especially because he could expect to profit himself from the proceedings. The victim was then assessed a fine, along with fees associated with the costs of the proceedings. Unable to pay, the victim would be coerced into signing an agreement to work off the sum in the service of a white who would pay in his stead. Entirely deprived of rights, blacks could then be locked up, beaten, tortured, fed next to nothing, traded, sold, and worked under conditions that accounted for the extremely high mortality rates among prisoners.

Every aspect of this twisted system is sickening. Arrest rates rose and fell according to the labour required in an area. The constant threat of arrest served as a reliable way of keeping blacks who weren’t prisoners in line. Any African American not directly under the protection of a white was vulnerable to arrest on trumped up charges. This power also helped perpetuate the widespread rape of African American women by white men. This is the bleak picture of American American life in this period that emerges from Blackmon’s account. If there is one figure that captures all this in a book filled with anecdotes, figures and arguments, it is surely this: that between the years 1877 and 1966 in the state of Georgia, only one white man was found guilty of murdering a black man.

The system also helped wealthier whites to crush attempts to unionize their industries. It’s hardly surprising that these attempts failed when management could always resort of cut-rate prisoner labour in the face of a threat to strike.

Blackmon makes a very strong case that this era of American history is best described as the Era of Neoslavery. It wasn’t until the second World War had begun that the Federal Government moved to begin enforcing laws in the South that it had long chosen to ignore.

This is a superb book, as angry as it is methodical. It’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand U.S. history. But because Blackmon does such a good job reflecting on the consequences of that history, it’s also essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the present.

Susan Blackmore. Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction

The title says it all. It was indeed very short, and the length of the text made it impossible for the author to do anything more than introduce a few topics in the study of consciousness. But as introductions go, this one struck me as pretty good: clear, readable, and interesting. Lots of good stuff on everything from the latest in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and more.

There’s so much about our own eating habits that escapes us, particularly when it comes to the factors that influence the quantity of food we consume. Although many of us think that how full we are has a lot to do with when we stop eating a meal, it turns out that we’re influenced by considerably more than that feeling of fullness. We tend to eat more when our food is framed in certain ways, for example, in larger plates. We drink more from short, wide cups than tall, thin ones. We eat more in larger groups because of a tendency to continue eating (or at least pecking away) until everyone is finished. You can feed people with no short term memory a full dinner about 30 minutes after they’ve just finished eating, and most will eat the entire thing with no objection. They’re eating because the external cues suggest that it’s time to eat, and not because they’re hungry.

Brian Wansink’s Mindless Eating is an entire book about the influences that work on us, under our awareness, when we eat. Wansink studies these at Cornell, where he is a professor of Marketing and Nutritional Science. This book is a popular presentation of his more academic work, much of which takes place in his “lab,” which includes a mock restaurant where lucky test subjects eat under close scrutiny.

Before I started this book, I assumed that Wansink’s main recommendation would be to try to eat more mindfully. And it’s true that Wansink does suggest things that we ought to be aware of as we purchase, prepare, present, and consume our food. But Wansink is too impressed with the evident difficulty that most of us have in remaining sensitive to all the forces acting on our food choices to be content with simply recommending mindfulness. Rather, the same mindless eating patterns that cause us to overeat and to eat badly can be brought into the service of healthier diets. So: buy smaller plates, and you’ll eat less without noticing it. Drink from tall, thin glasses, and you’ll drink less without noticing it. And so on. These are just a few examples, of course. The book is full of them, and if you’re interested in this subject, it’s worth checking out.

In addition to being yummy, it’s easy to make.

First, Oi Kimchi (Kimchi made with cucumbers). It begins, naturally enough, with cucumbers.

And ends up looking like this:

There were lots of other side dishes. But the mandoo was the real hit of the meal. First, you mix ground pork with garlic, onions, scallions, tofu, and bean sprouts.

Then you get a bunch of mandoo wrappers and some egg solution.

You dab your finger in the egg solution, put a bit of filling in, and seal up the mandoo.

Sitting around the table and talking is a lot of the fun.

Now you’ve got yourself some pre-cooked mandoo.

Then you toss ‘em in boiling water for a bit. They’re yummy already!

Now they’re ready for frying.

And now for the Soon tobu gigae. This is a soup made from pork, onions, scallions, bean paste, hot pepper paste, hot pepper flakes, silken tofu, zucchini, and shittake mushrooms. Here are some of the ingredients:

Then add them to the pot like so:

Then enjoy!

American Thanksgiving this year was a joint production with some friends.

Here’s the turkey, sitting in the brine:

After an overnight bath in the brine, it was ready to get all buttered up:

A few hours later, it looked like this:

We made lots of side dishes. This,

after getting a little work over from the lovely head chef,

ended up looking like this:

Do I look too macho in this apron, I fretted?

A risk I cannot avoid.

Then there was the salad:

Our friend Jacob made three pies: apple, pumpkin and pecan. Here’s the apple pie:

Here’s the pumpkin:

And here the three of them are, lined up and ready to jump into our mouths!

Here’s Yoon, looking like the Church lady:

Jesse qua Pavarotti:

Here are the sage pop overs:

The spread:

Trippin’ on triptophan:

After a glass and a half of wine, I was blitzed:

Good conversation and fun:

My dessert plate, with all three pies:

Lest anyone think me a glutton, I would like to point out that when I went back for seconds, it was only for a sliver of the pecan pie. Moderation in all things, I always say.

Smoked salmon, originally uploaded by Chris and Yoon.

Yoon’s brother gave us a smoker a while ago and this evening we finally got around to trying it out. The salmon is wild caught Alaskan salmon.

We cooked it as long as the instructions said to, but it just didn’t seem done. We tend to be jumpy about undercooking, especially with fish. So we ended up cooking it for too long and it turned out a bit dry. But still delicious! It was a very simple meal: salmon, sauteed arugula, plum tomatoes. That’s it.

Throw carrots, celery, and onion into a food processor and get them all chopped up very finely.

Then saute the mix in at least a stick of butter and some olive oil.

Saute it for quite a while, but not long enough to burn it.

In the last three minutes of this, throw in some minced garlic.

Deglaze with some brandy.

Pour in lots of chicken stock.

Throw in spices. The most recent time I did this, I put in oregano (grown on my window sill), fresh thyme and rosemary, pepper, and (a bit redundantly) some dried herbes de provence.

Let it simmer for a good long time.

Turn off the stove and wait a few minutes.

Blend it all together with a hand blender.

Strain it through a mesh. Doesn’t need to be too fine.

Now, you can either chill it or serve it hot. It tastes delicious either way.

The first time I made the soup, I also added in a bunch of really hot peppers, along with some homemade buttermilk that I had left over from making homemade butter. Alif Sikkin was coming over for dinner, and I was a bit nervous that it would be too spicy, and Yoon found it very spicy too. It turns out that A.S. doesn’t mind spicy soup, but I didn’t know that at the time.

It seemed likely to me that I had ruined a soup it took me a long time to make. A lesser man, I think, might well have given up in despair. But taking heart from the thought that I will always be a greater man than any man who is a lesser man than I, and repeating analytic proofs in support of this claim to myself, I hit upon a solution: I served the soup alongside a bowl of chilled seedless watermelon cubes. Must unexpected and ingenious! The flavours worked surprisingly well together, and the alternation between spicy peppers and cooling watermelon was highly pleasing. It was, as I remarked at the time, one of the most exciting and inventive dishes to emerge from the kitchen of Chez Chris this season.

Update: Oh yeah, and thanks to Kegri for the tip.

(The title of the post is a Canadian in-joke.)

Big burger sandwich, originally uploaded by Chris and Yoon.

Lunch was yummy today.

First, prepare the rub: Lots of brown sugar, salt, pepper, onion powder, cayenne pepper, chilli powder, coriander, thyme, toasted cumin, ground mustard. Put it in a largish container with a lid.

Cut up the ribs into manageable pieces (one or two ribs per piece), throw them in a colander and rinse them carefully under running water. Pat dry.

Throw the ribs in the container and shaka, shaka, shaka until thoroughly coated. Then leave sitting in the fridge for a few hours.

Wait, wait, wait.

Now, 3 hours before the meal is to be served, spring into action again.

Get the braising liquid heated up and ready to go: In a pot of its own put beef broth, apple cider, just a wee bit of maple syrup, 2 sticks of butter, and worcestershire sauce. I also put in homemade ketchup (tastes nothing like store ketchup), which Yoon had made a while ago using the recipe from this excellent cookbook. If you don’t have any of this handy, you could wing it by throwing in other yummy spices that strike your fancy.

Get that braising liquid heated up.

While it’s heating, take a large pot with a lid. Coat bottom of pot with olive oil and heat for a while. Then throw in the ribs and brown for about 10 minutes on high heat. Throw in chopped garlic halfway through.

After 10 minutes, deglaze the pot with white wine. Then pour in the braising liquid. The ribs ought to be completely submerged in the braising liquid. (So when you’re preparing the braising liquid, you should anticipate that you’re going to need enough liquid to completely cover the ribs.)

Put the lid on and simmer at very low heat for about 2 hours. The meat should be just about falling off the bone when it’s done.

Remove the meat from the braising liquid. Let sit for 5 minutes on a cooking tray, and then put in a closed container so that it doesn’t dry out.

Now, turn the heat up on that braising liquid and boil the shit out of it until it gets reduced to a thick sauce. It should smell great at this point, since now it also contains essence o’ pork.

After the sauce has been reduced, turn the broiler in your oven on. Place the ribs on a cooking tray, liberally coat them with the sauce, and then stick them in the broiler. Please note that this is the point at which you’re most likely to fuck up the meal: They’ll burn to a crisp in the broiler if you’re not very careful. I only needed 3 minutes to finish mine, but you should just use your own eyes to judge things, checking very regularly.

Remove from broiler, add a bit more sauce, and serve!

Since the sauce is a bit sweet, I chose to serve the ribs with a salad lightly coated in a slightly sharp dressing, for contrast. It’s also nice to have some yummy bread that you can use to mop up all that sauce.

1. Ew!

2. Hey, I wonder if the lines will be shorter now!

3. Those may be mouse droppings, but I’ll bet they’re the tastiest mouse droppings in the whole city.

Why would you take the Q train all the way out to the Midwood section of Flatbush in order to wait an hour or two in a dingy, run-down pizza shop for an old Italian guy to feel inspired enough to start making your order? Because it is very probably the best pizza you’ve ever had in your life by a long shot. This pizza was $18, if you can believe it.

The store is always filled with people passing the time walking around saying things like, “First time here? Is this your first time here? I’ve been coming here 30 years! Now let me tell you what’s best.”

See also: Slice: Di Fara

Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn, originally uploaded by Chris and Yoon.

1. Rice. Put it in the rice cooker and forget about it.
2. Salmon fillet. Rinse under cold water, then coat liberally with salt and pepper. Heat up the frying pan with some oil (best is safflower oil, since it handles high heat very well) and slap on the fillet, scales down. Cover with a lid, and then cook for about 10 minutes on medium low heat. Check that it’s done by making a cut in the salmon so that you can see that it’s cooked all the way through. No need to flip it if you’ve got that lid on and you cook it long enough. Serve with a splash of lemon.
3. While the salmon is cooking, put some arugula in a salad bowl. If you’ve washed it, make sure that the argulua is dry. Add some olive oil, a splash of lemon, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and pepper.

Done! Takes 15 minutes if you’re moving sluggishly, not counting the rice cooking time. It also tastes good, and the pink/white/green arrangement on the plate is pleasing to the eye.

Just before they went into the water tonight. Not very elegant looking, but I got the job done.

Take one plate, one 50 cent strainer, and one glass measuring cup.

Put a few scoops of coffee in the measuring cup. I put in four scoops for a large mug. Note: Like the French press method, this does require a bit more in the way of coffee grounds than methods that use percolation. It’s best to use a coarse grind.

Boil some water and pour it in the measuring cup. Put the plate on top to keep it warm.

After a few minutes, pour the coffee/water mixture through the strainer straight into your coffee mug. And voila! You’ve made coffee – and you’ve stuck it to The Man! Also, I find this all easier to clean up than other methods, as well as cheaper. And since you’ve probably already got a measuring cup and a plate, it’s not sitting on your counter taking up space. All you need is the 50 cent strainer.

I suppose this all sounds very obvious, but for years it hadn’t occurred to me that I didn’t need to buy anything beyond the strainer and the coffee grounds to make coffee. I post this in the hopes that someone out there is as obtuse as my former self.

Enjoy!