NY Times

I know this post is supposed to be used for information going on in the world but I found this recipe and couldn't resist. I love eating "pretty" food. The more colorful it is, the better and usually the healthier. Also, as a vegetarian, I am always looking for new things that are quick and easy to make. Here is a something I found today!



And here is the article/recipe
I made this on impulse when I found pea tendrils at the farmers’ market this week, but you don’t have to put aside the recipe until spring brings them to your markets — use baby spinach instead. The dish is inspired by a recipe for farro and black rice with pea tendrils from Suzanne Goin’s “Sunday Suppers at Lucques."

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Recipes for Health: Fried Red Thai Jasmine Rice With Shrimp (February 24, 2011)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 leeks, white and light green parts only, halved lengthwise, cleaned and sliced thin

Salt to taste

2 teaspoons thyme leaves

3 cups cooked Wehani rice or Bhutanese red rice

1 cup cooked black rice, either Japonica or Chinese black rice

1 6-ounce bunch pea tendrils, ends trimmed, washed and spun dry, or 1 6-ounce bag baby spinach

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet, and add the leek and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until the leeks soften, about three minutes. Stir in the pea tendrils or spinach. Cook, stirring, until they wilt, about three minutes for pea tendrils and one minute for baby spinach. Season to taste. Add the thyme, the remaining olive oil and rice, and stir until the mixture is combined. Season with freshly ground pepper, adjust salt and serve.

Yield: Serves four to six.

Advance preparation: The dish will keep for three to four days in the refrigerator and can be frozen.

Checking in!

Just a quick check in today. I have not done any work since Wednesday on either of my projects for casting but I am excited to start the process and see how my first 8 pieces turn out! Also, this is the week to really get started on the blood diamond project. Goals for the week: put together the rule book for the game so that we can order it, and carve a little wax figure to make a mold of in order to make 36 little plastic pieces for the game. We are doing a combination of bronze and plastic for the game board because there are so many pieces. If we really want to get ambitious we could also design the board in illustrator this week to have it ready to go for the laser printer!See how it goes!

Skeleton to Skin: Progress

Today I put together my eight pieces for the skeleton to skin project. One set of four is symmetrical, and the other is asymmetrical. At first I was very opposed to the idea of working with wax but I found that it was actually a tranquil experience. I really like my asymmetrical pieces. Hope you do to!

News of the week: a good use of technology

Technology is increasingly becoming a way of life for people all over the world. Although it is incredibly convenient and also a gift, often times the fact that we have become so incredibly dependent on technology scares me. However, this article gives me hope that although we are connected more than ever while being less connected than we ever have before, here is another good use of technology. Those capturing images and videos of things the rest of the world needs to see is always a good thing. So, this morning, I have a little more faith in cellphones. Here is the article:







Cellphones Become the World’s Eyes and Ears on Protests
By JENNIFER PRESTON and BRIAN STELTER
Published: February 18, 2011
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For some of the protesters facing Bahrain’s heavily armed security forces in and around Pearl Square in Manama, the most powerful weapon against shotguns and tear gas has been the tiny camera inside their cellphones.
Multimedia
GRAPHIC: Challenges Facing Countries Across North Africa and the Middle East
Related

Times Topic: Middle East Protests (2010-11)
By uploading images of this week’s violence in Manama, the capital, to Web sites like YouTube and yFrog, and then sharing them on Facebook and Twitter, the protesters upstaged government accounts and drew worldwide attention to their demands.

A novelty less than a decade ago, the cellphone camera has become a vital tool to document the government response to the unrest that has spread through the Middle East and North Africa.

Recognizing the power of such documentation, human rights groups have published guides and provided training on how to use cellphone cameras effectively.

“You finally have a video technology that can fit into the palm of one person’s hand, and what the person can capture can end up around the world,” said James E. Katz, director of the Rutgers Center for Mobile Communication Studies. “This is the dagger at the throat of the creaky old regimes that, through the manipulation of these old centralized technologies, have been able to smother the public’s voice.”

In Tunisia, cellphones were used to capture video images of the first protests in Sidi Bouzid in December, which helped spread unrest to other parts of the country. The uploaded images also prompted producers at Al Jazeera, the satellite television network, to begin focusing on the revolt, which toppled the Tunisian government in mid-January and set the stage for the demonstrations in Egypt.

While built-in cameras have been commercially available in cellphones since the late 1990s, it was not until the tsunami that struck southeast Asia on Dec. 26, 2004, and the London subway bombings the following July that news organizations began to take serious note of the outpouring of images and videos created and posted by nonprofessionals. Memorably, in June 2009, cellphone videos of the shooting death of a young woman in Tehran known as Nedawere uploaded on YouTube, galvanizing the Iranian opposition and rocketing around the world.

Now, news organizations regularly seek out, sift and publish such images. Authenticating them remains a challenge, since photos can be easily altered by computers and old videos can resurface again, purporting to be new. YouTube is using Storyful, a news aggregation site, to help manage the tens of thousands of videos that have been uploaded from the Middle East in recent weeks and to highlight notable ones on the CitizenTube channel.

But journalists are not the only conduits. Cellphone images are increasingly being shared between users on mobile networks and social networking sites, and they are being broadly consumed on Web sites that aggregate video and images.

The hosting Web sites have reported increases both in submissions from the Middle East and in visitors viewing the content.

Among the sites, Bambuser has stood out as a way to stream video. Mans Adler, the site’s co-founder, said it had 15,000 registered users in Egypt, most of whom signed up just before last November’s election. He said there were more than 10,000 videos on the site that were produced around the time of the election, focusing on activity at the polls, in what appeared to be an organized effort.

Afterward, the level of activity settled down to 800 to 2,000 videos a day, but then soared back to 10,000 a day again when the mass protests erupted in Egypt last month, he said.

In Bahrain, the government has blocked access to Bambuser.

At training sessions to help activists use their cameras, Bassem Samir, the executive director of the Egyptian Democratic Academy, said that improving the quality of the images and video was a high priority.

“Videos are stories,” said Mr. Samir. “What happened on the 25th and 28th of January, it’s a story. It’s like a story of people who were asking for freedom and democracy, and we had, like, five or three minutes to tell it.”

Robert Mackey contributed reporting.

Monopoly

For the blood diamonds project Kelsey and I are working together. Although some of the final details are not yet decided we are going to re create a monopoly game based on the trade and monopolization of diamonds taking place in Africa. It is going to be a lot of work, but we think it could be successful. There has been debate on whether we should try and create a totally new game ourselves but as of now, we want the familiarity that comes with the all american game of monopoly. We are excited to get started!

BLOOD DIAMONDS

When first given the assignment of creating a project based on my reaction to blood diamonds, I was terrified. It was not until after many talks with my roommate about the situation and a few spider charts that the real issue behind everything became clear to me. It is the monopolization of the diamond industry that causes all of the problems. They are the individuals putting such a high price on each diamond which is the basis for peoples need and greed for them. Because of the monopoly, it is an unavoidable never ending fight for each precious stone. How better to represent this than the game of monopoly?

A study of line

These are images I found that i believe represent line. I got a lot from the patterns on clothes. I accidentally uploaded a few more than once. Hope you like them!

Winter Warmth...in the way of food.

To be honest, I know I should really keep up to date on what is going on in the world around me. However, I usually get depressed, or bored, and something and end up closing out the article or giving up trying to catch up altogether. However, there is one section I always find interesting and usually leaves me feeling hungry. That is the dining and wine section of the NY times. When I saw this pop up I immediately did a run though in my head about what ingredients I had and what I would need to throw these together. So much for staying informed, at least I have a new recipe!


WHEN it comes to dessert, my husband is a man of simple tastes, perfectly content as long as chocolate features prominently, and preferably in the form of chewy, dark brownies.
Related Recipe

Olive Oil and Coconut Brownies (February 9, 2011)
This works out well for both of us since I’d rather make brownies than go to the trouble of baking a torte or frosting a cake. And brownies pack more flavor into a tiny square than most chocolate desserts do in their entirety, making them very gratifying to bake.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I’ve been tinkering with a new recipe. It’s not that there is anything wrong with my old, dependable recipe, but I do have a quibble with the texture. It is more velvety, but I prefer pudding-like, the way supermarket mixes come out. (That’s the only thing I like about them; I can’t stand the chemical aftertaste.)

Then, at a friend’s house, I tasted a homemade brownie with that perfect processed texture. It turns out she took her cue from those mixes, using vegetable oil instead of butter. A simple substitution, yet it never occurred to me.

After extracting the recipe from her, I ran home to bake it, with one significant change: Instead of vegetable oil, I used olive oil, giving the brownies a toehold on the savory side. I’d once tried an olive oil and chocolate bruschetta, and adored the rich layers of bitter, sweet and salty flavors that built on one another.

I baked a test batch, and they were as gooey as my friend’s, but with a subtle tangy flavor from the mild olive oil I chose, and a salty crunch from the sea salt I sprinkled on top.

They were nearly ready for their big unveiling, but there was one more tweak I wanted to try: adding shredded coconut for a little crunch. And indeed, my second batch had a lovely crisp top above the moist interior, but they were less savory than the plain olive oil ones. I briefly debated which to serve, then settled on the coconut version.

On Valentine’s Day, sweeter is just where you want to

Observing Texture

Over the last few days I have been looking around at the world around me and paying particular attention to the texture of different items. These are some of what I have seen. The image quality is not wonderful due to the fact that I have been taking quick snap shots from my phone but hopefully you find them interesting like I do.