Notes

Short content: a microblog of status updates or short notes

📖 Read pages 127-162 of Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

📖 Read pages 127-162, Part 3: Meat: Sausage, Mousseline, and Other Meat-Related Ratios, of Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman (Scribner, , ISBN: 978-1-4165-661-3)

I like the idea of considering the traditional American hamburger as a special kind of sausage. This general abstraction appeals to the mathematician in me. It also encourages one to be geared toward the closer end of 70/30 meat/fat ratio when making hamburgers! Too often I’ve had people’s homemade burgers made with 92/8 ratios and they’re just dreadful. However, he does stop short and doesn’t encourage one to use pork fat in their burgers…

Highlights, Quotes, & Marginalia

Part 3: Meat: Sausage, Mousseline, and Other Meat-Related Ratios

There is no such thing as a good, lean sausage.

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 132

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

The fat of choice is pork back fat, […] it’s better for you than the more saturated fat from beef or lamb.

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 133

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Indeed, the word sausage derives from the Latin for salt.

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 133

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Never use iodized salt, which adds an acrid chemical flavor to food. Use kosher or sea salt only.

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 133

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Morton’s kosher is the closest to an even volume-to-weight ratio (a cup of Morton’s weighs about 8 ounces).

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 133

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Pork sausages should be cooked to 150 deg F before being removed from the heat, and poultry-based sausages should be cooked to 160 deg F.

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 134

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

I make sausage in 5-pound batches, since that’s the maximum that will fit in the 5- or 6-quart mixing bowl standard for most standing mixers;

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 135

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

[When making] Fry a bit-sized portion of the sausage and taste…

Highlight (yellow) – The Noble Sausage > Page 136

Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

One secondary and salutary effect of a brine is that it can actually carry flavors into muscle, …

Highlight (yellow) – Brine > Page 154

For those watching closely, he’s made a pun on the word salutary whose Latin root is also the word for salt.
Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Sodium nitrite, often simply referred to as pink salt (it’s dyed pink), is a curing salt that’s inexpensive and available from www.butcher-packer.com, which sells pink salt under the name DQ Cure.

Highlight (yellow) – Brine > Page 158

Oddly this line is repeated twice in the footnotes on opposite pages, but provides a useful link for ordering supplies for making Canadian bacon and Corned Beef
Added on Saturday, February 3, 2018

Dear DoorDash, refunding only a fraction of the cost for an undelivered item is a brilliant way to discourage people from becoming repeat customers.

I had to dig through the app to find the way to register the issue and then got screwed on a refund that is really just a credit on my next order.

It should have been:

  • Easier to find the means to register the issue
  • Credited in full, including tax and a percentage of any tips, etc.
  • Credited back to me directly instead of a credit for next time, since there might not be a next time.

https://youtu.be/lWfaiTLPUKQ?t=49s

📖 Read pages 39-74 of Henry and Beezus by Beverly Cleary

📖 Read pages 39-74, Chapter 2: Henry Gets Rich, of Henry and Beezus by Beverly Cleary (William Morrow & Company, , ISBN: 978-0062652362)

Henry could have done far better here, but apparently his business acumen and concept of economics was just dreadful. Still in all, an entertaining chapter where everything that could go wrong in selling found bubblegum does. As always, Ramona steals the show for laughs with the gum in her hair.

📖 Read pages 1-38 of Henry and Beezus by Beverly Cleary

📖 Read pages 1-38, Chapter 1: Ribsy and the Roast, of Henry and Beezus by Beverly Cleary (William Morrow & Company, , ISBN: 978-0062652362)

The chapter title really gives it all away, so you see it all coming from a mile away, and yet somehow it’s still funny. I love how close the Grumbie’s last name is to the cognate word grumble.

Backing up Lanyrd

Since the old Lanyrd site was back up over the weekend, I went in and saved all of the old data I wanted from it before it decided to shut down again (there is no news on when this may happen). Sadly there is no direct export, but I was able to save pages individually and/or save them to the Internet Archive.

I also just noticed that notist seems to have a relatively nice import/export path which may also be available for some too. I love that their site says this:

One thing we very much believe in is that you should own your own data. As such, we didn’t want to just suck your data into Notist and leave it at that. Instead, we’ve built a tool that gives you access to the content as HTML and JSON, ready for you to take away today.

For all the bullet journal related blogs I’ve seen on WordPress, I’m surprised there isn’t a related plugin that allows one to turn their website into an actual digital  online Bullet Journal.
I hadn’t been paying attention and Lanyrd, yet another social site I used to use, has apparently gone under. Wish I’d had some notice to extract my data out of the service before it raged into the dying of the light.

I ought to start a “dead pool” for making odds on the next social media sites to disappear.

sub·men·tion (noun informal): 1. A post about someone or something on a personal website where one neglects (accidentally or on purpose) to either send a webmention and/or syndicate a copy out to an appropriate social silo. 2. Such a post which explicitly has the experimental microformat rel=”nomention” which prevents webmention code from triggering for the attached URL. 3. Any technologically evolved form of apophasis (Greek ἀπόφασις from ἀπόφημι apophemi, “to say no”) which sends no notifications using standard Internet or other digital protocols.

Origin
Early 21st century: a blend or portmanteau of subliminal and webmention.

Pronunciation
submention /ˈsʌbˈmɛn(t)ʃ(ə)n/

Related
subtweet

📖 Read pages 111-123 of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

📖 Read pages 111-123, Chapter 7: The Day Things Went Wrong, of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary (Scholastic Book Services, , ISBN: 0-590-04493-1)

Certainly not the most entertaining chapter of the book. Davy thinking that ‘Taterpillars could have started with a ‘t’ was entertaining as was the description that Ramona was sure her father was the tooth fairy and she wanted to catch him in the act. The rest was just a set up for the final chapter which actually played better not having read this one prior to it.

📖 Read pages 124-144 of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

📖 Read pages 124-144, Chapter 8: Kindergarten Dropout, of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary (Scholastic Book Services, , ISBN: 0-590-04493-1)

Probably should have read chapter 7 first (in my out of order chapter hopping) as it did have a few references back to Ramona’s horrible day. Ramona has a terrific tantrum and refuses to go back to school. There’s an interesting perspective on child psychology I’m seeing in this reading compared to when I read this when I was probably 9 or 10. Ramona finally understands what “dawnzer” means.

📖 Read pages 75-94 of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

📖 Read pages 75-94, Chapter 5: Ramona’s Engagement Ring, of Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary (Scholastic Book Services, , ISBN: 0-590-04493-1)

The idea of using a worm as an engagement ring is just truly fantastic!

Then something on the sidewalk caught Ramona’s eye. It was a pink worm that still had some wiggle left in it. She picked it up and wound it around her finger as she looked toward Henry. “I’m going to marry you, Henry Huggins!” she called out.

Highlight (yellow) – Chapter 5: Ramona’s Engagement Ring > Page 94
Here’s an excellent two part interview with my friend and brilliant actor Robert Catrini from London by reporter Thomas Anderson Fawkes in the Spotlight section of Film Curiosity.

Part One: It’s Never Too Late To Act With Robert Catrini
Part Two: It’s Never Too Late To Act With Robert Catrini