Once in a lifetime job opportunity

 Posted by on 16 March 2010  Modern Life
Mar 162010
 

You know how sometimes you wish that you could get paid to do nothing?  Then you sigh and head into work, knowing that never in a million years would someone pay you to sit on your couch, eat Doritos and watch daytime TV. 

Guess what?  You’re wrong.

Proactol Ltd is advertising a position for a professional couch potato:

Proactol Ltd is currently looking to grow their established team by hiring a Product Testing Associate to trial their clinically tested natural fat binder in the real world.

Whether your day to day life consists of doing the school run’s, catching up on Facebook, visiting friends/family or just relaxing in front of the television; join the Proactol team and your life won’t have to change a single bit.

We are offering a competitive salary and benefits package for the right candidate to continue doing EXACTLY what they do every single day, and all we ask in return is that you eat 16% more calories a week – or approximately 400 more calories a day – whilst introducing the fat binder Proactol into your diet.

I can do that.  So can you.  But, like any other job advertisement, this position requires a certain skill set.

The ideal candidate should:

  • Not already be on a diet but eat a healthy balance of carbohydrates, fats and proteins
  • Be prepared to increase their existing calorie intake by 16% a week. This could be achieved by eating fatty foods such as Chinese takeaways, fish and chips, pizza or burgers.

So far, so good.  As far as I understand it, Proactol wants to pay me to eat a bunch of fatty foods, take their supplement and not do a whole lot else.  What do I get out of this other than potential weight gain and an increased risk of heart attack? 

Remuneration

  • Your basic salary will be £23,750 a year
  • 365 day holiday – other than the weekly catch-up’s, every day will be a holiday in this job as you will get paid to be you!

Let’s see…at this moment, that translates into $36,583.36 Canadian.  Not bad.

I wonder if they’ll consider people already employed.  I mean, eating more doesn’t seem to be a bad way to supplement an income….

Happy Pi Day — tasty, tasty π

 Posted by on 14 March 2010  Modern Life
Mar 142010
 

March 14 — or 3/14 in the notation — is Pi Day. It’s a day to celebrate the mathematical and geometric constant known as pi (or more properly π). And pi, of course, is 3.1415…. (it continues forever).

If you slept through high school geometry, π describes the relation between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. That is, if you have a wheel that’s got a diameter of, say a foot, each full rotation of that wheel will go about 3.14 feet.

Wikipedia has a fuller discussion, and graphics. And the, to really burn your brain, you can wiki-hop on over to their treatment of other irrational and transcendental numbers (π is both).

Some people suggest that you should mark March 14 as Pi Day by memorizing the digits of π — do it here, in a “fun” online game.

Others suggest that you should also mark Albert Einstein’s birthday.

Most popular, of course, is the phonetic celebration — celebrate π by eating pie.

That sounds right to me. Now, hmmm, what kind of pie? I suppose I will have to sample a few. Perhaps three and a bit?

Two good reasons to not eat Eggo waffles

 Posted by on 1 March 2010  Modern Life
Mar 012010
 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve eaten my share of Eggo waffles in the past — they’re easy, and when you pour syrup on them, they’re delicious. But it’s not the same as the home-made waffles of my childhood.

Despite that, if you had suggested to me half an hour ago that maybe I should pick up some Eggos for breakfast tomorrow, I probably would have thought, “Heck yes! Great idea!” and then we would have skipped off to the grocery store freezer department, singing “Leggo my Eggos” and giggling.

Not so much anymore. There are two good reasons to not buy Eggos these days, and you can find out more about both problems in this article.

1. There’s a shortage — so unless you really need an Eggo fix, you might be taking waffles away from someone who loves them more than you. From the article:

Kellogg Co. continues to have production issues at its largest waffle plant.

Contamination caused by September flooding at its smaller Atlanta plant has been resolved, Kellogg President and Chief Executive Officer David Mackay told analysts at the 2010 Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference Wednesday.

But unexpected problems from renovations to its Rossville, Tenn., plant, where half of all U.S. Eggos are made, will cause continued shortages of the popular waffle through early summer.

2. The workers who make Eggos were recently caught being gross. The FDA observed the practices while inspecting the plant after a listeria contamination. One employee, said an FDA letter, was seen “touching his nose” while working. Others splashed high pressure water over dirty machines while raw food sat exposed nearby.

Ugh, listeria. Anyone remember the Maple Leaf listeriosis hysteria?

Sigh, who would have thought that corporate, factory-produced cheap food might not be perfect.

‘A dozen assorted, please. Heavy on the cinnamon’

 Posted by on 26 February 2010  Modern Life
Feb 262010
 

Today is not National Doughnut Day (that’s in June). But it is a Friday, and according to the woman at the bakery I went to this morning, that is by far the busiest day for bringing sweet treats to the office.

Frankly, since I work weekends, Fridays are about the only time I can share sweet treats with my workmates (bakeries are often closed on Mondays).

So, when I was called out on assignment this morning — and the assignment was cancelled at the last second — I dropped by Kuipers in Brandon for a dozen of their finest teeth-rotters. Sugar, cinnamon and assorted fillings would help ease the February blahs, I figured. And I was right (at least until the sugar crash).

And, I’ll admit that I asked for a few extra of the cinnamon twists and cinnamon rolls, just because I was inspired by one hard-workin’, cinnamon-lovin’ Lewis Meme.

Now, let’s all take a moment to think about the bakery workers of the world. There isn’t a neuron in my body that’s ready to fire at 4 a.m., but these hard workers are already up and at’em, kneading bread. It’s too easy, these days, to walk into a big box store for all your needs, including a loaf of cheap bread. For an extra dollar — or less! — why not stop by a small nearby bakery, support a local business, and pick up a loaf of their finest.

No, it’s not survives-nuclear-holocaust Wonder Bread. But it will be wonderful.

And if you happen to pick up some cinnamon buns while you’re at it, share them with the office.

Adorable boy sees a lobster for the first time

 Posted by on 22 February 2010  Modern Life
Feb 222010
 

After laughing at Amy’s Tiger Woods post, I poked around a bit on the blog where it’s from (plenty of good stuff, go there!) But the one that caught my eye the most was this video, of a boy who is simultaneously entranced and frightened by the creepy-crawly lobsters that his dad has brought home for supper. So cute:

Full disclosure: Although my whole family loves lobsters, I kind of think they’re like eating gigantic bugs. And they’re extraordinarily messy. And I just don’t “get” them. They’re tasty enough, but not so delicious that they’re entirely worth the trouble, in my opinion.

A year of school lunches

 Posted by on 30 January 2010  Modern Life
Jan 302010
 

My mom made me lunches to take to school in a bag. At the time, I thought they were awful. I mean, she would put milk in a canteen for me, then use the same canteen on other days for soup. I neither wanted milk-flavoured soup, nor soup-flavoured milk.

But at least I never had to eat cafeteria food (ok, sometimes I would buy a pizza pop from the cafeteria, and sometimes I would just buy chips and Coke from the convenience store across the street). The famed “mystery meat” and “sloppy joes” of lore just weren’t part of my experience. Partly, I suppose that’s because I went to relatively small schools in relatively small districts, where kids were encouraged to go home for lunch.

At any rate, it’s a pretty common experience for kids to have to eat famously bad cafeteria lunches. Now, a schoolteacher has vowed to eat those same school cafeteria lunches every day in 2010.  It costs her $3 a day — but most of her students get it for free, or subsidized at 40 cents. Now, what could you cook for a few hundred people, with that kind of budget?

She calls the picture above “not a bad lunch.” I applaud her.

Check out her blog, called “Fed Up.“

Have a Dharma party for Lost Season Six!

 Posted by on 22 January 2010  Modern Life
Jan 222010
 

Amy and I are jazzed for the final season of Lost, which premieres on Tuesday, Feb. 2 (check local listings). And we’re probably going to either have or attend a party. And, of course, it’ll be a theme party.

A couple of seasons ago, for the finale, we downloaded print-your-own labels to make regular household goods into Dharma brand foodstuffs. It was a blast to cut them and tape them over the regular labels, and they were a hit at the party we took them to.

Now, with just 10 or so days left until the final season starts, I’ve dug out that old zip file, and I’m uploading it here for you:

Unfortunately, I don’t remember where I found that zip file way back then, although some of the files credit InsanelyGreatTees (which has since pulled the post). A quick search online shows me that my little zip file has been far outclassed, too, by the way.

I’ve already got more than enough for my needs, and I think the zip file I’ve uploaded will be more than enough for yours, but if you’re looking for Dharma labels that you could use for everything in the cupboard — from disinfectant spray to eyedrops to merlot — then check out the mega-post at Max Pictures’ Blather.

In the meantime, if you’re planning a Lost party, you could take it a couple of steps further, like one friend of mine is planning: everyone has to come dressed as a different Lost character.

Now, in the comments, please speculate as to the direction of the final season.

Cute little edible penguin hors d’oeuvres

 Posted by on 7 January 2010  Modern Life
Jan 072010
 

I’m trying to think of a frozen, slushy martini recipe that these olive penguins would go well with. They would also, I think, be a nice adornment to the right kind of salad, or you could just plop a whole group of them on a white plate as a fun appetizer.

Anyway, I think they’re pretty self-explanatory from the pictures above, which are from mattea.tanner’s Flickr stream, but if you want step-by-step instructions, try these ones.

Essentially, the carrot slice gets turned into the nose and feet, the two olives make the body and the head. The white stomach can be made from either cream cheese or mozzarella.

(via SeriousEats.com)

More bad news for vegetarians: Plants remember when you hurt them

 Posted by on 30 December 2009  Modern Life
Dec 302009
 

Plants are alive — and they want to stay that way — so it may not be any more ethical to eat them than it is to eat meat. At least, that’s what I’ve argued before.

But maybe my argument didn’t convince you. Maybe you thought to yourself, “Heck, plants are alive, sure, but they don’t really feel. They don’t really think. They aren’t conscious or anything!”

Well, you’re right — so far as I know, nothing like a triffid exists on Earth (and if it did, you’d be morally obligated to kill it and eat it, murdering plant that it is).

But an intriguing survey of the available science by Olivia Judson suggests that plants do have a potent form of memory:

Previously attacked plants respond to new leaf damage more quickly. And plants that have been attacked twice are faster to respond than plants that have only been damaged once. Somehow, they remember.

The physical basis of plant memory is still being figured out. (Needless to say, it isn’t conscious memory: the trees outside your window aren’t standing there reminiscing to themselves about the great caterpillar plague of 2009.) But by now it’s clear that wild tobacco is not the only plant with the capacity for memory, nor is caterpillar attack the only stress that produces such an effect. Drought, cold and altered salt levels in the soil all do so; likewise, exposure to hostile fungi or bacteria.

If plants remember — can they also forget?

As Judson points out, helping a plant “forget” a recent drought, or priming it to be prepared for an insect pest, could have huge implications in agriculture. She also implies a comparison to the “memory” that your immune system has for infections it has already fought off.

But the lessons here are clear. If you’re a vegetarian — and I support your choice, though I don’t choose it for myself — you should make sure that you finish your plate of vegetables. No one cuts a steak off a cow, then leaves it to heal before cutting off the next steak, so why should it be any different with a plant?

After all, plants remember. And if they remember, then the next time you go looking for your rutabaga or your celery — well, maybe it’ll be waiting for you …. ready for you … lurking in your garden ….

Sorry vegetarians, you’re all killers, too

 Posted by on 27 December 2009  Modern Life
Dec 272009
 

Remember that old saw about people being vegetarians not because they love animals — but because they hate vegetables?

Well, now that could actually be true.

I just read a really interesting article about plants, which goes into incredible detail about how they struggle for life just as vigorously as animals do, and how it might not be any more ethical to eat plants than it is to eat meat:

Plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot. This is not meant as a trite argument or a chuckled aside. Plants are lively and seek to keep it that way. The more that scientists learn about the complexity of plants — their keen sensitivity to the environment, the speed with which they react to changes in the environment, and the extraordinary number of tricks that plants will rally to fight off attackers and solicit help from afar — the more impressed researchers become, and the less easily we can dismiss plants as so much fiberfill backdrop, passive sunlight collectors on which deer, antelope and vegans can conveniently graze. It’s time for a green revolution, a reseeding of our stubborn animal minds.

…

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within.

There’s much more, and it really makes you think.

I remember reading, as a child, that scientists using ultrasonic microphones, could actually detect a very-high-pitched sound — like a scream — when you cut open an onion. That made a similar impression on me. Plants are living things, and we have to eat something to survive.

Mind you, I don’t have any issue with people who decide to be vegetarians, or even vegan. My mom, who was a Home Ec. teacher, exposed me to a very wide dietary variety growing up, and I’ll happily eat a meat-free diet for days on end. There are great environmental and health reasons to limit your meat intake anyway. But I like meat. And there are great health reasons to eat some animal products — especially fish and dairy.

Recipe: Grant’s Blue Cheese and Pear Tarts

 Posted by on 18 December 2009  Everything Else
Dec 182009
 

Every year at the place where I work, our department organizes a “Food Day” near Christmas. It’s basically a potluck. This is what I brought:

IMAGE_205

Grant’s Blue Cheese and Pear Tarts

(everything estimated because I kind of winged this one, and snacked extensively throughout)

Ingredients:

-    like, a pound of blue cheese
-    about a litre of canned pears (you could also chop up fresh pears, or use a tart fruit like Granny Smith apples, maybe)
-    table cream. A slosh or a slosh-and-a-half
-    chopped walnuts, if you want. Maybe a handful? If you have a big hand.
-    pepper, to taste
-    liquid honey (optional, but nice)
-    tart shells (phyllo dough tart shells would be best, but if you happen to be in Superstore at midnight the night before you need these things, and they don’t have any phyllo dough except in those big rolls that take five hours to defrost, and you totally don’t want to mess around with that nonsense, then go ahead and grab some regular tart shells. You’ll be fine, you big ninny.)

DIRECTIONS:

1.    Dump that blue cheese into a big bowl and crumble it up. You can buy pre-crumbled blue cheese, but it’s way more expensive than the regular stuff, so you shouldn’t. Don’t worry overmuch about the crumbling, because it’ll get easier when you add the cream, but get it nice and broken up to start with.

2.    Chop the pears into the blue cheese. Use more or less pear depending on how much you like the strong flavour of blue cheese. Actually, you could vary this recipe a lot, with a milder Gorgonzola, or some tart apples. Make the pear pieces kind of small, though. If you’re using canned pears, reserve the syrup; you can add it later to adjust the sweetness.

3.    Add maybe a half-cup of cream. Or a little more. Or a little less. Depending on how chunky/liquidy you want this. You really can’t go wrong, although you could add a little at a time so you can judge what it’s like. You could probably even skip this. Keep mixing everything up.

4.    Add some chopped walnuts. If you went overboard with the cream, a bunch of walnuts will help hold the mixture together.

5.    Grind some pepper into it, to taste. Believe it or not, pepper tastes really good in this. And, if you happen to be moving, and you’ve packed up the pepper in some box and can’t find it, but for some reason you can find that big thing of whole peppercorns that you bought to refill the pepper mill, you can crush peppercorns with the back of a spoon on a plate, by pressing down carefully with your thumb, and this feels really artisinal and Martha Stewart-y, and is extremely aromatic, but is also really freaking time-consuming, and you’ve got to be careful because those round little bastards will shoot everywhere.

6.    Spoon the mixture into the tart shells, then pop ’em in the oven for about 15 minutes at 350 F. Serve warm, with some liquid honey drizzled on top, and if you have any larger walnut pieces, that’d be some nice presentation, right there.

(Makes, uhhh, maybe 50? Depending on how generous you are with filling the tart shells, and how diligent a snacker you are during the process. You can also make the mixture up a few hours ahead of time, and even spoon it into the tart shells, if you keep it covered and refrigerated. I wouldn’t go crazy with leaving it there, though, because there is cream in it, but for a few hours, you’ll be fine.)

Enjoy!

Rules for eating meat

 Posted by on 15 December 2009  Modern Life
Dec 152009
 

A friend of mine posted one of his favourite West Wing quotes on Facebook earlier today:

Toby: I’ll have a New York Steak and a Ginger Ale
Waiter: How would you like –
Toby: Just cook it.

FWIW, I’ve never seen the West Wing, but everyone keeps telling me that I’d like it, so someday Amy and I will buy the DVDs and then we’ll watch it all, and we’ll finally catch up to the cultural zeitgeist, a few years late.

But it reminded me of this plaque, which Warren Ellis sells:

rulesformeat

Now, I like a good medium-rare, honestly, but my sister, she can’t stand any pink at all. Even if a hint of pink juice leaks out from her crispy black steak, it’s back to the barbecue. I think she would appreciate the sentiment behind this plaque (it’s also an apron, for sale at Cafepress) — if it said “woman” perhaps.

How to properly cook bacon — and how not to

 Posted by on 6 December 2009  Modern Life
Dec 062009
 

In case a bacon cinnamon roll isn’t, um, how you roll, I present the video below, which demonstrates just exactly how you should and shouldn’t cook your bacon:

I will admit, I’m an impatient bacon-cooker, but I’ve recently started to take more time with it, cooking it longer at a lower heat, and I think the results are worth it. I also like Amy’s suggestion that I pop completed bacon in the oven to crisp it up and keep it hot, so we can fry eggs in the leftover bacon grease.

(I was going to tag this post NSFW, but I don’t think we have any heart surgeons or rabbis in the audience.)

 Older Entries  Newer Entries