Should I use the clue by four?

In a conversation on the way things are pronounced someone argued that the terminal 'x' in french plurals is silent.

I, from my (at this point ancient) french made the observation:


> It isn't silent in French. It slightly clips the end, when it is the
> terminal word, and it elides into a 'z' sound when it abuts a vowel, a la
> "les bureaux acadamique" (which is probably crappy grammar, but shows the
> function).


Their reply was:

True enough, but on its own, it's silent:)

I am going to leave it lie there (though someone else did note that "silent e" (the genesis of the discussion) is, by my way of thinking, not really silent either.

Food Porn

Some weeks ago I was at a restaurant and ordered a tuna sandwich. Said sandwich was said to be made with a caper aioli.

It was very good.

So... I decided I had to attempt it.

While visiting akirlu and libertango I gave sardines a try (fish and I are acquainted, but most are not real friends. Salmon should be raw, mackeral is nice, tuna is good, whitefish are tasty; butterflied and broiled, dusted with parmesan and drizzled in butter, trout can be nice... that starts to run out the list. But I read of fish, turbot, Dover Sole in lemon butter, planked shad, and I drool. Frustrating). Sardines, it turns out, are a fish I don't mind. Even sort of like. With practice I might even make them a small staple.

So

Open two tins of tuna, and one of sardines. Drain the oil (never buy such fish in water)

Pulverise some white pepper into this macerate four cloves of garlic with enough capers to make the paste a sort of dirty grey.

One egg yolk.

Add olive oil to the drained oil, until one has half a cup total.

Some pinot grigio vinegar.

The trick to mayonnaise (and aioli is just a thin mayonnaise) is to get the egg and oil incorporated well before one adds the waters. So, beat the yolk into the macerated garlic stuff (this will take more work because the capers are pickled, and the vinegar is water) Traditionally this is all done in a big mortar, I use a bowl and a small swedish whisk.

Add some oil. Add some more. Do this until half the oil is in, and the texture is thickish. Like really heavy hollandaise.

Add some vinegar. Beat like blazes (this is where the work comes in... emulsifying the water and the oil). Add some more. Drizzle in some more oil. Switch from oil to vinegar until all is in.

In the mixer I tossed the sardines, and made them smooth. Add more capers, and the tuna. When all is an even texture, add the aioli.

Spread on bread, and put in a pan, a la grilled cheese.

TK

On people (a rant)

CalPolySLO is driving hell.

First there are the pedestrians: College campuses (this is not limited to Poly) seem to be small bubbles where simple physics (F=MA) are intellectually suspended and a legal state of absolute right of way translates to a careless disregard of the aforementioned law. One sees people stepping into the street (nowhere near a crosswalk, which are abundant) without so much as flicking their eyes up from the cell phone being dialed (I've yet to see a Poly student reading and walking, which folly I still occasionally engage in). Once traffic is stopped, the offending student is followed by 2-50 like-minded persons; after all the car has stopped, might as well take advantage of it. This will be repeated.

There are times, e.g ten minutes past the hour; when classes start/end, when the real rate of travel will not be more than 3 mph.

To this we add the roads. Poly was originally an agricultural school. Not content to have the roads laid out by cows, they elected to find, palsied, beasts from Maine, well aware of the idea that one, "c'aint get theyuh, from he'yeh." There is a stretch of the campus which is a maze of twisty passages, which becomes (with great repetition) a series of forced turns leading to the same intersection. The only way to go north is, in fact, to go long, head south and sneak up on it from behind. I found this out after the fourth version of, "Damn it! I've been here before" was played out, in the span of three minutes.

The other drivers are just grace notes. The guy who signals a left, Stops thirty feet behind the intersection (and long before he can see opposing traffic, so he can ease up to the stop sign and wait for someone to cross him (this took about thirty seconds) and then make the left. This pattern (of stopping short then creeping up to the limit line was repeated. The best was his decision to move up one car length at a time to one, in three steps. As though there had been other cars taking their turns).

Need to drop someone off at the side of the road? Don't worry about pulling to the sidewalk. No, it's far preferred to stop at a crosswalk (which isn't likely to be used) and then chat for a minute or so about the things you have to make sure the driver doesn't forget.

Right turns into empty parking lots require a dead stop, perhaps to make certain no one is lurking in a distant bush to ambush you while you lock the doors. It's nice, I suppose, that they had a signal on. I knew that sooner or later they'd move, and be out of my way.

If I didn't love Maia, I'd never drive her to school, much less arrange to pick her up.