Empire’s 20th Anniversary/Birthday gallery has shots of stars recreating some of their most memorable roles.
For example:
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Photo: Sarah Dunn) from Empire Online
Posted in Celebrities | Tagged Celebrities |
Found at http://thechive.com/
who needs a Ninja Assasin when you have Lumberjack Commandos?
Finally, I got a chance to work on my NAS build, since I’ve been on vacation for all of last week. The goal I was shooting for was to build at least 4TB of RAID 5 storage, with at least a gigabit network connection. Since I already have a 2 TB IDE-based NAS built on a Poweredge 2400 platform, and since I have a bunch of PE 2400 sitting around, I decided to go ahead and build another NAS out of one of them.
The Poweredge 2400 has several nice features Read More »
Yikes. I really really seem to have an Ebay buying addiction. Sigh. I could try to rationalize it, but I’m sure there isn’t really a rational reason. I just like to find things and buy them. Oh well, moving on to the actual post…
So, I decide that I wanted some books for my birthday this year. I forget at this point what actually triggered it, though I do know I ended up with a set of Will and Ariel Durant’s “The Story of Civilization” and Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible. Very nice books, and quite glad to have them. The next purchase was a set of 64 books from Read More »
Posted in Books, Buying |
I was searching for something to write and decided the only thing of interest I really did tonight was try the Madras Lentils (lentils, red beans and spices in a creamy tomato sauce) I got at Costco last week. The box had 4 smaller boxes, which they called an entree size, and I think it ran about $7. So, I grabbed one out of the box since the wife decided she was skipping dinner, and I was hungry. I was surprised that it was fully ready to eat, though if I had read the box better, I’d have known that 
. It’s all natural, vegetarian, gluten free, contains no MSG or preservatives, and is kosher.
It came in a foil pouch, which of course means no microwaving in the pouch. It took about 2 minutes to fully heat it in a glass bowl slightly larger than the portion. It reminded me of a chili more than anything else. I can see this as a good vegetarian option for chili, with a few additional spices (and/or hot sauce), nacho topping or even hot dog topping!
I will have to try and reproduce this soon, because it would make a good alternative for my other Lentil Chili, with a few modifications.
I decided I would post this paper, from February 2007, since I can never seem to find it when I am looking for it. Of course, at the time I wrote it, I thought I was pretty clever. Now in re-reading parts of it, I realize I must have grown as a writer as I inwardly cringe. Still, the data is valid, and it does make an interesting read (at least in my opinion). Read More »
I’d never heard of Shopsin’s General Store before, nor had I heard of Kenny Shopsin, but someone, somewhere in cyberspace recommended “Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin” on last Tuesday (I know because that is the day I ordered it along with “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn, recommended by @EthanSuplee). I suspect it was someone on Twitter, but since I can’t find it(search sucks for posts older than a few hours), I don’t recall. So, if you recommended the book on Twitter, thanks.
I had lived in New York, though not Read More »
Posted in Books | Tagged Chefs |
Saw Star Trek tonight. I’m not disappointed because I made sure and kept my hopes low. It wasn’t a BAD movie. It wasn’t a great movie. It was more firmly in the good category, but certainly not quite reaching the status of good. Here’s my “review”. WARNING: SPOILERS.
- Ok, so what’s with Romulans being the enemy? Read More »
I’ve decided to build my new NAS on one of my PowerEdge 2400 boxes I have sitting here. I’ve got a Dual PIII 866 with 2Gb ram, GigE, and room for 6 hard drives in the cage, and up to 3 5 1/4 devices (I will leave the SCSI CD-Rom, and add at least 1 IDE DVD Burner). To this I will add at least 1 4 port SATA 300 RAID controller and 4 1.5TB Seagate drives. I plan on configuring the RAID to RAID 5. The debate now is FreeNAS vs. NASLite vs. OpenFiler. I’m currently leaning towards FreeNAS. What is your favorite?
I hadn’t intended to turn this into a food blog, but it appears I don’t have much to say during the week (probably because work and school occupy so much of my time). Since I really want to keep in the habit of posting articles, I’ve decided to try and fill the gaps with food posts, soon to have pictures!
Tonight’s dinner was Asparagus Carbonara, or as I believe it would be in Italian: Asparagi alla Carbonara. I’ve scribed the recipe the way I did it, which was to blanch the asparagus in the pasta water before I added the fettucine. This allows you to use less pots (always a winner!). I think I might have used too many eggs (so you might be able to cut back to 2).
Asparagi alla Carbonara
- serves 6 -
1 lb asparagus spears
1 lb fettucine
2 tbsp olive oil
4 oz bacon, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 eggs
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup pasta water
fresh ground pepper
container with ice water large enough to put the asparagus for a few seconds.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. I used this water to boil the asparagus before I added the fettucine.
- Wash and trim the asparagus spears. Blanch asparagus (3-4 minutes in boiling water then quickly dunk in ice water to stop the cooking, then remove asparagus from ice water).
- Add fettucine to boiling water and cook til al dente.
- While fettucine is cooking, saute bacon pieces until crisp.
- Cut asparagus spears on an angle into 1 inch pieces. Leave spear tips intact (last inch or so).
- Add cut asparagus and garlic to bacon pan (use bacon drippings as oil) and cook until soft, while fettucine finishes.
- Whisk together the eggs, cheese, and up to a 1/4 cup of water from your pasta pot while stirring constantly. This will temper the egg mixture (heat it up so that it’s closer to the temp of the noodles, helps to keep the eggs from making scrambled eggs! Very important if you want the dish to come out right).
- Drain the fettucine and quickly toss the bacon mixture (asparagus, bacon, garlic, bacon drippings) and fettucine together.
- Add egg mixture to hot fettucine, stirring quickly to coat all the fettucine and cook the egg mixture.
- The egg mixture will create a smooth sauce that coats the fettucine as it is mixed together.
- Add fresh ground black pepper to taste and serve.
Do not get bottled water
