A selection of science-related...tattoos.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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To try and shorten our right-hand column, here's a consolidation of all my reading links. The current year will always be available in the right-hand column, as well as on this list.

Best Fiction
Best Non-Fiction

1996: The Year in Books
The Missing Years: 1997 to 2000 (with some overlap on 1996 and 2001)
2001: The Year in Books
2002: The Year in Books
2003: The Year in Books
2004: The Year in Books
2005: The Year in Books
2006: The Year in Books
2007: The Year in Books
2008: The Year in Books

2004: The Year in Shorts
2005: The Year in Shorts
2006: The Year in Shorts
2007: The Year in Shorts
2008: The Year in Shorts

The Death of Captain Future and Other Stories (and Other Stories)

My World Turned Upside Down

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The second voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle started today in 1836.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 12:34 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Some interesting bits about the bone trade.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And the internet provides me with yet another site to spend endless "idle" hours searching...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:44 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Omnibus review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:24 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Destinies: Volume 1, Number 1 (November/December 197 , edited by James Baen (Ace Books, 1979 ISBN 0-441-14281-8, cover by Stephen Fabian).

The review can now be viewed here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:46 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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The Endless Frontier; edited by Jerry Pournelle (Ace Books, 1979, ISBN 0-441-20667-0, cover by Vincent di Fate).

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 03:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Planetes #01 (Tokyopop, 2003). Planetes #02 (Tokyopop, 2003). Planetes #03 (Tokyopop, 2004). Planetes #04a (Tokyopop, 2004). Planetes #04b (Tokyopop, 2004), Makoto Yukimura.

Combined review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Necromancer, Gordon R. Dickson (Ace Books).

Tactics of Mistake, Gordon R. Dickson (Ace Books).

(Both also found in an omnibus edition called Three to Dorsai, published by the SFBC.)

Combined review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The Rackman Chronicles; Dean Ing (Baen Books, 2004, ISBN 0-7434-7183-0, cover by Stephen Hickman).

The review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 09:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The omnibus review can now be found here.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 08:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And there you have it! We ended the meal with espresso and a variety of holiday cookies, plus nuts (peanuts, cashews and chestnuts). The beef was amazingly tender, the Puddings did not burst into flames. A success all around!

The only downside was a variety of illnesses that have been in the family. As a result, instead of the large number of guests we expected, we only had...one guest. So we made up plates and sent them back to various sick houses!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:32 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In doing this dish, I took several recipes and more or less combined them.

For the aging process, I used a recipe from Alton Brown's Good Eats for Dry-Aged Standing Rib Roast with Sage Jus. I took some cooking hints from the current edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook (a book we've used so much that the edition we got when we first got married literally fell apart). Most of the recipe, plus the recipe for Yorkshire Pudding (below) was sent by a friend from her copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (!). more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:20 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This is a dish that I've pretty much developed on my own. It's versatile. I've done it with chicken, I've done it with kielbasi, I done it with both chicken and kielbasi, I've done it with different vegetables.

In this case, I used parsnips, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions (pearl onions).

Peel and slice the parsnips and carrots. Peel and dice the two kinds of potatoes. In today's recipe, the dicing on the potatoes was larger than the parsnips and carrots. For those, I used my newly acquired "wavy knife", a chopper that puts a wave into the vegetable as it cuts it.

The pearl onions were dunked into boiling water for about a minute, then put under cold running water until the cooking process stopped. This causes the outer skin to wrinkle, so it is easily removed. Cut off any remaining root matter, but other wise leave whole.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. In a roasting pan, mix together the vegetables, olive oil and a variety of spices. I used salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme.

Place in oven for approximately an hour. The dish is done when you can easily thrust a fork through the larger pieces of vegetable.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This one my wife did. When I was growing up, I would eat almost anything except for sweet potatoes and turnips. Seeing that I would only turn away from those two, my parent's didn't really push me to eat them. I now have grown to appreciate both, but as I was busy with many other items, my wife prepared them.

Peel the turnip (we used a yellow turnip). Cube. Put in water and bring to a boil and cook until softened, about 20 minutes.

In the meantime, dice an onion and saute until soft and clear.

Mash the turnip. Mix in the onion along with a little butter. Serve.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:48 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Another easy to make item. Get fresh string beans. Pick out any that are blemished and discard. Cut off the ends and discard. Slice into several sections, or leave in one piece, your preference.

Steam for about ten minutes until cooked, but still crisp. Serve with butter, salt, pepper.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:43 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Since some of the folks that we expected today only ate chicken, I made some roasted chicken. Since the standing rib roast (mostly the roasting pan and rack!) took up so much room in the oven, I ended up cooking the chicken on the grill.

My basic recipe is quite simple: Wash and dry the chicken (in this case, I used a combination of thighs, legs and wings). Lightly coat in oil (I use olive oil). Sprinkle with salt and pepper and any other spices you care (I used crushed rosemary and sage).

Place on grill on low heat, turn every fifteen minutes or so. After about 45 minutes, check to see if done by cutting into thicker pieces. Meat should be white all the way through, the area around the bone should not be red, any juices should be clear.

Easy as cake. I don't know why some people consider chicken such a mystery.

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 06:35 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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...Yorkshire Pudding.

Well, the second test run worked. Six portions of pudding batter, divided into muffin tins, into the oven. I used lard this time, not butter. No smoke, no hissing, no spilled contents. Full baking time was reached and we have lovely looking puddings!

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 07:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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A variant upon a well-known poem. It is widely surmised that Sir Martin N. Rowan wrote this sometime during the Napoleonic Wars. more...

Posted by: Fred Kiesche at 10:55 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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