HERE

EABOD

the futurelab

H E R E

Last night for dinner...

...I cooked a striped bass. I pan-seared it in browned butter, and then I stuffed it with sausage and panko, placed it on a bed of lemons, wrapped it in foil, put it in the oven for twenty minutes @ 350. Really really good.
I also made kale salad, and I have the best recipe in the word and so I wanted to share it with you, my audience of zero.

I borrowed this, or I guess they say, I am reblogging this from my friends' webite, http://www.whatweate.com/

Raw Lacinato* Kale Salad
(adapted from The New York Times)

1 bunch lacinato kale
1/2 - 3/4 cup panko bread crumbs
1 small-to-medium sized clove of garlic
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 - 1/2 cup finely grated pecorino romano cheese
1-2 lemons
Extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper

A note on lacinato kale: It is also known as black, Tuscan, or dinosaur kale, and differs from regular kale in that it is narrower and has crenulated dark leaves. In the fall, you can find it at the farmer's market, but Whole Foods usually sells it year-round. (Note: Do not use another kind of kale for this recipe*-- only lacinato kale is tender enough to work in this recipe.)
Because of its texture, lacinato kale is tough to wash. The easiest method I've found is to chop the kale first per the recipe, then rinse in at least two changes of water in your salad spinner before drying.

1. Line up your kale leaves into a bundle (you may need to do this in two batches) and cut the whole package, including stems, into a not-quite-chiffonade (I like shreds about a half-inch wide or less) down to an inch or so from the base of the stems. Wash and dry as describe above.

2. Toast your panko with some olive oil in a pan until golden and crisp. Set aside.

3. Using a mortar and pestle, pound garlic, about 1/2 Tb. of kosher salt, and the red pepper flakes into a paste. Transfer this mixture to your salad serving bowl, and add the pecorino cheese, plenty of fresh ground pepper, and more salt if you like. Squeeze at least one lemon into the bowl and whisk to combine. [Note: I am a lemon fiend, so I usually use the juice of two lemons -- but you need at least enough lemon juice to smooth out the cheese and garlic paste into a loose, mayonnaisey consistency). Whisk in olive oil (at least 1/4 cup) to taste until emulsified.

4. Drop your kale shreds into the bowl and toss very thoroughly (the dressing will be thick). Let the salad sit for five minutes, then serve topped with plenty of panko, and more pepper.

Unlike most salads, this one doesn't wilt into an embarrassing green pile if you leave leftovers in the fridge overnight. But I doubt you will have leftovers. If making this recipe in advance, you can shred the kale and make the dressing a day ahead of time, and just store them separately (kale in a ziploc) in the fridge overnight.

The original Times recipe says this yields 2 to 4 servings, which may be right depending on how greedy you are. If you are serving this to polite guests in individual salad bowls, four servings seems perfectly reasonable. But Carl and I routinely polish off a single batch for dinner, and would probably growl and bare our teeth at anyone who tried to sneak some off our plates.

*I, James, have never found this kale anywhere, but it works with whatever you can find if you rub some salt on the kale to soften or tenderize it. I usually do this the same time I am dressing it and just use my hands to mix. I also concur that a lot lemon is key.

Artist in France, Buyer in New York

Matisse at the Hendershot Gallery

hector madera-gonzalez

here

The Modern Version of Our Childhood Game of Telephone

So I recently got back on Facebook after much deliberating. I am pretty sure I hate it more this time around...but that is another post. Anyway, I was looking at my friend's photo of this rockabilly girl pictured below. As you will see from the comments, no one is too sure who she is, but they are pretty sure she is a model for some alt clothing line. I thought something seemed weird...sort of...well you will see...



So I used Google Goggles and searched for the image. I found the image on this awesome site called http://vi.sualize.us/

which listed 273 iterations of since the orignal posting, which they said originated here:

http://buetkween.tumblr.com/ ...

...which is like other stuff. Its excessive in a way I wish I could do things. I never seem to be able to do this quite as well as someone who was born with an internet connection and a laptop in their crib. Anyway, there I found what the internet calls the original source, though the blogger herself was simply reblogging from somewhere. Being unable to find where things originate is what makes the internet so great. I would imagine the people on FB wanting to marry her would change their mind if they couldn't have the septum ring, neck tats, and the gauges.



Telephone! but better. I wonder how gradual the changes were. God, I love the internet, so weird and about all the wrong things. If you got sucked in by buetkween like me, I also found this on her site:

Insane Commentary

about this

Insanity

what a disaster.

William Carlos Williams

On Friday, I went to Cabinet Magazine in Brooklyn for their Poetry Lab on William Carlos Williams, one of my favorite poets. Not the most original choice for a favorite poet for a painter, I know. The event was strange, with wine and scalpels and hipsters, but still probably a better choice for a Friday night then a bar. Below is one of the poems we took a scalpel to:

Daisy
by William Carlos Williams

The dayseye hugging the earth
in August, ha! Spring is
gone down in purple,
weeds stand high in the corn,
the rainbeaten furrow
is clotted with sorrel
and crabgrass, the
branch is black under
the heavy mass of the leaves--
The sun is upon a
slender green stem
ribbed lengthwise.
He lies on his back--
it is a woman also--
he regards his former
majesty and
round the yellow center,
split and creviced and done into
minute flowerheads, he sends out
his twenty rays-- a little
and the wind is among them
to grow cool there!

One turns the thing over
in his hand and looks
at it from the rear: brownedged,
green and pointed scales
armor his yellow.

But turn and turn,
the crisp petals remain
brief, translucent, greenfastened,
barely touching at the edges:
blades of limpid seashell.

on finishing things...

I hate finishing tasks. There is so much fear for me involved in finishing. It is in finishing that you admit to everyone that you didn’t know everything from the start. It is in finishing that they can see your faults…unless you know that right way to finish. Which undoubtedly I do not.

Hello Again to my Audience of ZERo

So I just found my blog on google, while searching for something. I had forgotten all about it, but when I got here, I realized that I like what I have here. And since no one reads it, but anyone could, I thought, perhaps I will continue. So I am going to start with a little picture I took at the Museum of Natural History where I took my very talented and ambitious Pratt students on Friday. Now if you look closely you will probably still not notice that these are real taxidermied penguins and not a painting of them. The lighting in this museum is fantastic. It is certainly a better version of history as fantasy then "A Night in the Museum". Everything is so dream-like and inspiring if you can manage to ignore the throngs of screaming people. Remember the admission is only suggested. I paid a quarter. Don't feel guilty.