Pasta with Browned Butter and Myzithra Cheese

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 cup Mizithra cheese
pasta of choice

Directions:
There is a terrific dish served by The Old Spaghetti Factory chain,
called Spaghetti with Browned Butter,. It is served topped with shredded
Mizithra cheese (a Greek hard cheese). If mizithra is not available (I
am able to easily locate it St. Louis at cheese shops and some
supermarkets), a blend of ricotta salata and romano is suggested

Browned Butter Procedure: Cut 2 sticks of butter into 8 pieces and place
in a 2-quart sauce pan. Place the pan of butter on a burner on medium
heat. Bring butter to a slow boil (about 5 minutes).

Once the butter begins to boil, stir constantly to prevent residue from
sticking to the bottom of the pan. As the butter cooks, it will start to
foam and rise. Continue stirring, otherwise the butter foam could
overflow (about 5 minutes) and catch fire.

Once the butter stops foaming and rising, cook until amber in color
(about 1 to 2 minutes). It will have a pleasant caramel aroma.

Turn off the heat and remove pan from burner. Let the sediment settle to
the bottom of the pan for a few minutes.

Pour the brown butter through a strainer into a small bowl. Do not
disturb the residue at the bottom of the pan.

The brown butter can be stored in the refrigerator and reheated in a
microwave as needed.

Boil the pasta of choice until Al Dente. Drain pasta and divide into
four servings. Spread 1/4 cup of Mizithra over each pasta serving. Top
with 1/4 cup of hot brown butter.

Recipe Location:
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/23/Spaghetti_with_Burnt_Butter38272.shtml
Recipe ID: 28580

This recipe is from CDKitchen http://www.cdkitchen.com/
© 1995-2006 CDKitchen, Inc.

Pasta Salad

I felt like making a pasta salad this week. Originally, I more felt like Browned Butter and Myzithra Cheese Pasta, but this craving sort of mutated. Anyway:

-Rotini, chilled.
-Black Olives
-Mushrooms
-1/4 Round Onion
-2 Roma Tomatoes
-3 Strips crumbled bacon
-3 good slices of Myzithra Cheese, crumbled.

drizzle over pasta a dressing of Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar.
Chill for about an hour.

We Are Not Fish. I Am Sad.

Well, they turned on the big physics machine called the Large Hadron
Collider today. Some people thought there was a possibility of the
device doing something odd, most likely creating a black hole capable of
eating either France (if Hawking Radiation exists) or Earth (if not).
There was also an outside chance of something super-cool called a
"Critical Existence Failure" which basically means the Universe throws a
BSOD.

The problem comes from the fact that scientists often suck at PR. You
see, according to quantum theory, you can't actually rule out the above
possibilities. ANY GIVEN SECOND, there is a non-zero, but really, really
low chance that we all turn into fish, for instance. This is the
probability level of the LHC making a black hole that eats us all. It's
really, really low. I mean REALLY low, not win-the-lottery low, but
accidentally-walking-through-walls-instead-of-into-them low.

I can live with that.

Really, I could live with everyone dying from black hole annihilation
too. You see, according to most theory, there's actually time
compression as we collapse into the black hole, so while the folks on
Arcturus or what not can watch it happen in realtime and upload it to
the Universal Darwin Awards, from where we're standing, it feels like it
takes ten million years for the world to collapse in on itself. I
presume throughout that time, we'd just live our lives normally, but it
would really suck to get to that end point.

Low-Information Voters

One of the big criticisms about Barack Obama during the primaries was that he did not appeal to "low-information voters". That's a pretty weird term.

What is a "low-information" voter? Apparently, it's someone who believes Obama is secretly Muslim, or that Saddam had something to do with 9/11, or is otherwise misinformed about the candidate. So, basically, MORONS.

I can see that you can't get morons to vote for you if you actually call them morons (well, you can--look at Republican rhetoric since 2000). But really? IDIOTS ARE A FUCKING VOTING BLOC NOW!????!

Wherein I Bringeth The Rock

Couple cool downloads this week:

-Betray My Secrets:
This is the first album by the guy who did Shiva in Exile and the
awesome Spi-Ritual and features the same blend of death metal and world
music found in Spi-Ritual. I actually like this one better than
Spi-Ritual as it has less of the 'cookie monster' type vocals that
almost completely put me off of death metal. A particular standout is
'From the Goddess', which is a musical adaptation of a Wiccan prayer by
noted occult author Z. Budapest.

-Falconer "Among Beggars and Thieves"
Everything by Falconer sounds like heavy metal by elves. Swedish elves.
Seriously, it's a hybrid of power metal and a sort of medieval folkish
sort of composition and vocals which I really like. It's fantasy-themed,
which is more or less required for me to make metal -- American metal
tend to focus on pussy and partying, which makes it TEH SUCK compared to
awesomeness like Hammerfall or Rhapsody.

An American band that doesn't suck is ICED EARTH, which has recently
displaced Nightwish as my favorite band. They're basically a heavier
Iron Maiden, and actually do focus on fantastic themes, specifically
this multi-album concept wherein they basically rewrite The Omen to make
Damien (or rather, their stand-in Set Abominae) the hero of a race wiped
out by Humanity 10,000 years ago. Their three-song, thirty-minute long
epic about the Battle of Gettysburg is both awesome and would have
really helped me back in High School, being well-researched enough to
stand in for a lecture on the subject.

Triple Chocolate

OMFG, I just saw an ad for triple chocolate M&Ms. They're apparently going for some upscale thing, and they SOUND like M&Ms that contain Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, and White Chocolate all in the same candy.

I really hope it's not just a mixed bag of regular M&Ms, DC and WC M&M's. That would suck.
Cuz the other way sounds all kinds of awesome.

The Tiki Balloon

Here's a pic of the balloon Brenda got me.
There was a fundraiser last night at Life's a Beach, so after the game John H and Brett took me there to celebrate my birthday while helping out Tracy and her roller derby team. There was this whole 70's theme and I had way too many margaretas thanks to Brett.

There was a raffle and Brett won a Stella Blues gift card, which he gave me. Thanks Brett!

I think we're all gonna try to get out to HNL for Tracy's rollergirl tournament. They want to take the boat, but if I can fly in I'll more'n likely do that.

Fun fact: apparently Monster Brew sells a drink with 2.5 GRAMS of caffeine per can. It turned John Hughes giggly. I must try some.

Happy Birthday to Me

I'm a year closer to death! Hooray!
Posting the cute Tiki balloon Brenda got me later.

Chanan got me a nice Tiki bottle opener. It's of the god Ku, which makes it all the more better, although I totally realize I'm the only person at work who even knows who Ku is. (Except maybe Kris, who is a surprising repository of Hawaiiana now and then...)

I got myself a White Chocolate Haupia Cheesecake, which was every bit as fabulous as I remember. One of the passengers made me a little sad, though, when he expressed his dislike for Guinness. Oh well.

Getcher Free Obama Buttons!

Hey,
Want a free Obama button? MoveOn's giving them away totally free--no strings attached. I just got mine, and wanted to share the opportunity with you.
Click this link to get a free Obama button:
http://pol.moveon.org/obamabuttons/?id=-9998859-kRpMZ0x&rc=homepage
Thanks!

This story makes me sick.

Got off BoingBoing
DHS kills a dude.

One of the most disturbing things about post-9/11 America is this worship of authority. I've always had a problem with authority figures, which probably comes from being precocious and realizing my parents and teachers -- especially my teachers -- were wrong a LOT.

Not wrong in my opinion, but wrong as in factually, get-them-to-look-it-up-and-see-I'm-right WRONG. I've met adults who still can't concieve of authority figures ever being wrong, and they scare me. Most authority figures I'm aware of surprise me by getting out of bed and dressing themselves properly.

This sounds yummy (Part one of many)

Found on Jesuisilac's blog.

Spice cake with chocolate-lime icing
4 ounces of margarine, 4 ounces of sugar, 4 ounces of wholemeal self-raising flour, 2 eggs. A large spoonful of powdered ginger, another of cinnamon, and a teaspoon of powdered cardamon. And a pinch of salt. Beat the spices and the salt with the sugar and margarine after creaming. Whip two eggs and add to mix. Sift in the flour.
Make the icing by mixing 4 large spoonfuls of icing sugar and 2 of cocoa with enough fresh lime juice to meld the powder into a semi-solid. Use as a filling and a frosting.

Does this seem normal to you!?

Just woke from a Grant Morrison, Invisibles dream that was too cool for words.

I was a cool, modern version of my dark mage, and helping to Awaken this bisexual/lesbian chick whose girlfriend was being tortured by the Terran Reich -- steampunk fascists invading on interplanetary zeppelins -- who had implanted a minature black hole inside her mouth to rip her apart.

I had kept her stable with Reality Anchors but this girl was our only hope. She kept saying the Gauntlet was too high -- that's the bridge between reality, which is reinforced by the local normality, right? My reply:

"We are being invaded by body fascists from another planet.
DOES ANYTHING AROUND US SEEM NORMAL TO YOU!?"