For Esther:

The recipe is a blueprint but also a red herring, a way to do something and a false summing up of a living process that can be handed on only by experience, a knack posing as a knowledge. We say “What’s the recipe?” when we mean “How do you do it?” And though we want the answer to be “Like this!” the honest answer is “Be me!” “What’s the recipe?” you ask the weary pro chef, and he gives you a weary-pro-chef look, since the recipe is the totality of the activity, the real work. The recipe is to spend your life cooking.

Reading - Why we use cookbooks : The New Yorker.

Those eggs, you see, are the work of renowned New York chef Jody Williams. I ate them last Sunday with my friend Jimmy at her lovely little restaurant, Gottino, and they were so cloud-like and delicious I thought they might float right off the plate. But the best part was how they were made… …they were made with the steam wand of a cappuccino maker. (COLLECTIVE GASP)

via Steam-Scrambled%20Eggs.

Esther found this and I can attest to the deliciousness that ensues

Not long ago, at the kind of dinner party I rarely attend, I made the mis­take of admitting that I not only liked to sleep but liked to get at least eight hours a night whenever possible, and that nine would be better still. The reaction – a complex Pinot Noir of nervous laughter displaced by expres­sions of disbelief and condescension – suggested that my transgression had been, on some level, a political one. I was reminded of the time I’d confessed to Roger Angell that I did not much care for baseball.

My comment was immediately rebutted by testimonials to sleeplessness: two of the nine guests confessed to being insomniacs; a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters claimed indignantly that she couldn’t re­member when she had ever gotten eight hours of sleep; two other guests de­clared themselves grateful for five or six. It mattered little that I’d arranged my life differently, and accepted the sacrifices that arrangement entailed. Eight hours! There was something willful about it. Arrogant, even. Suitably chastened, I held my tongue, and escaped alone to tell Thee.

Reading: Quitting the Paint Factory by Mark Slouka « adamantine.

The panic junkie is the person who is addicted to Crisis and, in the absence of it, will manufacture drama in order to create additional Crisis. Their intent was originally good; they wanted to get stuff done quickly and discovered that the umbrella of a Crisis removed traditional organizational roadblocks. Problem is, they’ve becoming addicted to the power and momentum granted to them by driving the crisis. As soon as the current Crisis appears to have passed, they deflate, thinking, “Blah, back to the normal,” and immediately start looking for another Crisis. If they don’t find one, they create it.

I was one of these people and burned a lot of calories getting a lot done, but management by Crisis is a losing strategy. You become a corporate arsonist — burning through people and process in your apparent endless hurry, but you aren’t actually building anything.

via Rands In Repose: The Crisis and the Creative.

This ingenious recipe for overnight oatmeal makes cooking steel-cut oats a cinch.  The previous night you boil six cups of water, stir in the oatmeal, let boil for 1-minute, turn off the heat and cover.   The next morning, you turn the heat back on and let it boil for 10 minutes.  In our experience, it doesn’t even take that long: after 7 minutes the oatmeal is ready to eat.

via The Bitten Word: Overnight Oatmeal: Steel-Cut Oats in 10 Minutes.

In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all revolutions seem impossible.

—

Michael McFaul, National Security Council

via A design and usability blog: Signal vs. Noise (by 37signals).

Know how to drive. Know how to read a map. Know how to get around. Know how to change a tire, or whom to call if you can’t manage it, or how to get to a phone if you don’t have a cell phone. We will happily bail you out, until it becomes apparent that it’s what you always need. The possibility of a fingernail breaking or a hairstyle becoming compromised is not grounds for purposeful helplessness.

via 25 And Over « Tomato Nation.

Somers sat onstage next to Oprah, who defended her from attack. “Suzanne swears by bioidenticals and refuses to keep quiet. She’ll take on anyone, including any doctor who questions her.”

That would be a lot of doctors. Outside Oprah’s world, there isn’t a raging debate about replacing hormones. Somers “is simply repackaging the old, discredited idea that menopause is some kind of hormone-deficiency disease, and that restoring them will bring back youth,” says Dr. Nanette Santoro, director of reproductive endocrinology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and head of the Reproductive Medicine Clinic at Montefiore Medical Center.

via Live Your Best Life Ever! | Print Article | Newsweek.com.

All DOIMs (Department of Information Management) will block access to the following sites:

a YouTube, http://www.youtube.com b 1.FM, http://www.1.fm c Pandora, http://www.pandora.com d Photobucket, http://www.photobucket.com e MySpace, http://www.myspace.com f Live365, http://www.live365.com g hi5, http://www.hi5.com h Metacafe, http://www.metacafe.com i MTV, http://www.mtv.com j BlackPlanet, http://www.blackplanet.com k StupidVideos, http://www.stupidvideos.com l Filecabi,http://www. filecabi.net.

via Army Orders Bases: Stop Blocking Twitter, Facebook, Flickr | Danger Room | Wired.com.

In regards to Love is like pi…

Love is like Pie: round with a flaky crust, but delicious and tender inside