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31 Mar 03:29

The best egg you've ever eaten

by Carolyn Phillips
This is simply the perfect egg.


First of all, the whites of the egg are deliciously flavored. A good dousing of Shaoxing rice wine lends a heady sherry and mushroom aroma to the eggs. This is tastefully and tastily countered with an infusion of dried salted plums, ginger, lemon peel, and whole peppercorns that turns this from a one-note wonder into a dish worthy of the most finicky eater. Rarely do egg whites taste of much of anything, but here they serve as the perfectly flavored foil for a yolk that is molten.


Yes, you read that right: the center here is soft and runs like liquid gold, but it's also cooked to just the absolute perfect degree so that while the yolk remains just this side of solid, you won't taste any rawness. Instead, the yolk serves as a delicate sauce for the white that cradles it.


Love
But this dish is not just about flavors and aromas -- it's primarily all about texture.


In most boiled egg recipes, the white is rendered into a relatively reasonable facsimile of a ping-pong ball. Those that aren't tend to look soggy and runny and anything but appetizing. However, the folks in Jiangsu’s capital of Nanjing have turned the practice of cooking an egg into the highest art, for the whites are cooked for a mere 30 seconds, made to sit in the hot water for another three minutes, and then quickly cooled down. What this does is to give the whites the texture of the tenderest custard, and the yolks are sent just barely over that fine line between raw and cooked.


I've experimented with a bunch of different versions, happy to indulge my passion, and after tossing in this and taking out that, this has come to be my favorite way to prepare eggs, period. It isn't too sweet, but also has enough pizazz from the rice wine and dried sour plums and all those seasonings to make me sit up and take notice. You too can play around with the flavorings to your heart's content; just be sure and not use anything with, say, chicken fat or sesame oil, as the eggs should come across as clean and greaseless.


Traditionally this dish is made with fresh duck eggs, but because they are relatively difficult to find in the States, I've substituted large hen eggs; feel free to use whatever type of eggs you like, but do know that you'll have to experiment a bit in order to get the texture the way you want it, since the size of the egg will greatly affect the cooking time. The only caveat I want to make is that the eggs should be organic and free range; the better quality egg you use, the better the result, since this is after all just about one ingredient.   


The eggs are best when they are about a week old in order to make them easier to peel. Bring them to room temperature before cooking in order to a) have the perfect cooking time and b) keep them from bursting. I like to prick the round ends of the eggs with a large tack, since there's a little air pocket in there, and if you give the air an escape route, the whites will be able to swell without breaking the shells.



Salted plums
The only unusual ingredients here are the dried salted plums, called huàméi 話梅. You can find these in just about any Chinese grocery store in the candy aisle. They are very tart and sweet and salty all at the same time, and usually used as a tea snack. 



Drunken eggs with molten centers 
Tángxīn huādiāo zuìdàn 溏心花雕醉蛋
Jiangsu

Makes 6 eggs


6 organic, free-range eggs about a week old and at room temperature
1 cup water
7 dried salted plums
1-inch piece of fresh ginger, smashed with the side of a cleaver
1 tablespoon sea salt
1 teaspoon whole white or black peppercorns
Zest from half a lemon
1 cup Shaoxing rice wine, plus more as needed

1. Use a sharp tack or pin to poke a hole in the round end of the egg; just barely break through the shell without puncturing the inside of the egg.



2. Place the eggs in a small saucepan and cover with cool tap water by about 1 inch. Place the pan uncovered on the stove and bring to a boil stirring the entire time to center the yolk. As soon as the water comes to a full boil, where big bubbles are bursting over the surface, start counting down 30 seconds. At the end of 30 seconds, remove the pan from the heat, cover, and wait exactly 3 minutes. Then, immediately drain the eggs and cover them with cool tap water. Change the water a few times until the water remains cool. Drain the eggs and lightly crack them all over with the back of a spoon, but don't remove the shell.


Ready to enjoy
3. Clean the saucepan and bring the filtered water, dried salted plums, ginger, salt, peppercorns, and lemon zest to a boil; lower the heat to a bare simmer and cook the marinade for around 5 minutes. Allow the marinade to cool to room temperature and add the rice wine.


4. Place the eggs in a tall, narrow container. (This allows the eggs to soak in as little marinade as possible.) Pour the marinade over the eggs, cover, and refrigerate the eggs for a few hours; add more rice wine if needed for the marinade to completely cover the eggs. When the eggs are cold, shell them and return the eggs to the marinade for 24 to 36 hours. If you are not eating them within 36 hours, remove the eggs from the marinade so that they don't get too salty.



5. Serve the eggs as a simple appetizer by slicing them in half and serving on any light and refreshing vegetable, like microgreens or radish shoots or finely shredded leeks. Or, serve them as a summer breakfast on hot toast, with noodles or Congee, or as a midnight snack. It's hard to go wrong with this, the perfect egg.



06 Jul 18:40

The Access to Clothing Crisis

by Malcolm Mercer

Access to Clothing[1] is a complex issue that seems almost impossible to effectively address. Some consider it one of our most pressing issues[2]. The well-off continue to be able to afford appropriate clothing for all occasions. The least fortunate amongst us are able to access free or subsidized clothing to be worn during the most important events in their lives. The middle class cannot afford to purchase clothing at all.

To the great discomfort of businesses, restaurants and hosts and hostesses everywhere, most members of the middle-class have given up wearing purchased clothes entirely. Many people now wear home-made clothing that is barely adequate[3] for most occasions. Public policy analysts refer to this group as the self-clothed. Many other people eschew clothing entirely. These are the unclothed.

The Tailor’s Guild is naturally very concerned, being good professionals, and also being faced with public criticism from the best-robed members of society. Tailors have encouraged their apprentices and journeymen to work in pro-bono clinics as duty-tailors. But there still remain far too many self-clothed and un-clothed.

Naturally, this problem has not gone unnoticed. There has been much discussion amongst the great and the good given the fundamental importance of clothing. One approach has been to focus on the modern trend for clothing that is unnecessarily expensive. There is much merit in this analysis as it is difficult to understand why tuxedos and ball gowns have come to be required in shopping malls and bowling alleys. We may have come to require fancier dress than is actually fit for purpose.

Many tailors do not accept that the self-clothed and un-clothed can be making reasonable choices. Clothing is fundamental. Tailors charge fair rates that reflect their training and expertise and which allow them a reasonable standard of living. To earn a living at the hourly rates that the self-clothed and un-clothed could afford to pay would mean working 60 hours a day. Even increasing leverage by hiring more apprentices and journeyman does not reduce the blended hourly rates sufficiently.

The Tailors’ Society is naturally concerned as well. Effective regulation in the public interest requires ensuring Access to Clothing. But it is also important that professionalism be maintained. The tailor-client relationship is highly important. It is well understood that one’s clothing is a fundamental aspect of one’s identity and that tailoring fit clothing requires the exercise of professional judgment taking into account the particular shape and character of the client.

In order to protect the public, it has been thought best to require that tailors own and control all tailor practices. Who but tailors could be trusted with knowledge of intimate client measurements and preferences? Tailors have, understandably, been prohibited from sharing any of their hourly rate revenue with anyone except other tailors. Perhaps for this reason, most tailors practice in sole practice or with several other tailors[4].

Some have suggested that modern production processes and technology could be used by tailors to produce cheaper “off-the-rack” clothing at a lower cost . While some of the large tailor firms have made progress using project-planning tools and by garment process outsourcing, the tailors serving individuals in sole practice and small firms do not have the experience, expertise or the capital to innovate outside of the hourly rate framework. And those in the business and technology world have little interest in tailoring. They cannot invest in tailoring practices and tailors cannot share fees with them.

But all is well. There is no perceived demand from tailors for new practice structures. The importance of clothing to self-identity makes it absurd to think that proper clothing could be designed and manufactured with the assistance of computers, production lines and the like. How could anyone be able to obtain clothing that sufficiently suited client size, shape, personality and intended social usage except from expert bespoke tailors[5] who spend the time needed to do the job.

Members of the Tailors’ Guild and the Tailors’ Society continue to work closely together to address the Access to Clothing issue. Despite new-fangled names like Target, Gap and Lululemon showing up in other countries, it is difficult to imagine how Access to Clothing could be addressed by such radical approaches.

While lawyers and bespoke tailors obviously have entirely different practices, tailors interested in this issue might consider a thoughtful analysis of the effect of regulation on innovation in legal practice by Ray Worthy Campbell entitled Rethinking Regulation And Innovation in The U.S. Legal Services Market as recently reviewed by Professor Laurel Terry in her blog post Creative Destruction and the Legal Services & Legal Education Markets.  Lawyers will be aware of the early innovators that presaged change in the legal services market such as Axiom Law, Contract Express, the Co-operative, CPA Global , Legal Zoom, Quality Solicitors, Riverview Law, Rocket Lawyer, Slater & Gordon, Winn Solicitors.

But, there is no reason to think that the market for clothing could or should change as the market for legal services has changed or that innovation is affected by current regulation of tailors.

We must continue to work together to address the Access to Clothing (A2C) crisis[6].


[1] Sometimes A2C for those in the know.

[2] Badum, Badum

[3] Ibid.

[4] Some tailors, who design and sew military, religious or other uniforms for corporate clients, establish larger firms of tailors which allows them to specialize. Some tailors spend their time designing and sewing complicated epaulettes. Others design and sew the elegant designs in beautiful cloth. There are relationship tailors and tailors who ensure that the work of the specialist tailors suits overall client requirements. It is a great challenge to plan and manage the work of so many skilled craftspeople.

[5] Similarly, the suggestion of expanded scope of practice for para-tailors to assist the self-clothed and unclothed is easily rejected. The essential issue is not really not Access to Clothing but rather Access to Proper Clothing. It is not reasonable to think that anything less than expert tailoring could be sufficient given the importance of clothing.

[6] The opinions expressed in this article are not the opinions of the Tailors’ Guild, the Tailors’ Society nor necessarily those of the author.

26 Jun 23:18

Mitty Planning

by Greg Ross

Harold came rushing out of the engine room with dishevelled hair and bulging eyes. We asked him what on earth was the matter. For an answer he pointed to a piece of rope that was caught in a part of the farthest end of a long beam, which extended far over the side of the Seairoplane. Then he said, ‘Unless that rope is gotten out of the curobater we will all be killed.’ These awful words astounded us and we all became frightened at once. Suddenly amid all of our lamentations a cry from Harold was heard and we all looked up. What was our surprise to see James Thurber walking out on the beam. He reached the end safely and then extricated the rope, but when he turned to come back his foot caught and he pitched head foremost towards the deck. His unusual length saved him for he landed safely on the Seairoplane. We were all very joyful that the terrible crisis had been safely passed and afterwards learned that James was a tightrope walker with Barnsells and Ringbaileys circus.

– From an eighth-grade “class prophecy” essay by 14-year-old James Thurber, 1909

26 Jun 00:02

Club Science

by Greg Ross

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Appleton.jpg

From Sir Edward Victor Appleton’s speech at the 1947 Nobel Banquet:

Ladies and gentlemen, you should not … overrate scientific methods, as you will learn from the story of a man who started an investigation to find out why people get drunk. I believe this tale might interest you here in Sweden. This man offered some of his friends one evening a drink consisting of a certain amount of whisky and a certain amount of soda water and in due course observed the results. The next evening he gave the same friends another drink, of brandy and soda water in the same proportion as the previous night. And so it went on for two more days, but with rum and soda water, and gin and soda water. The results were always the same.

He then applied scientific methods, used his sense of logic and drew the only possible conclusion — that the cause of the intoxication must have been the common substance: namely the soda water!

That’s from Ronald Clark, Sir Edward Appleton, 1971. Clark adds, “Appleton was pleased but a little surprised at the huge success of the story. Only later did he learn that the Crown Prince drank only soda water — ‘one of those unexpected bonuses which even the undeserving get from Providence from time to time,’ as he put it.”

18 Jun 15:24

Motorcyclist Yvonne Fontane Sings and Directs "Carmen"

by Opera Fresh
"An opera singer who has a passion for motorbikes and hiking will be taking on the title role and directing a new production of Bizet's Carmen at Winslow Hall Opera. Yvonne Fontane will take the lead for all six performances, alongside a cast which includes Italian tenor Gianluca Paganelli as Don José, South African baritone Njabulo Madlala (winner of the 2010 Kathleen Ferrier Competition) as Escamillo and Scottish-Polish soprano Natasha Day as Micaëla, conducted by the company’s Founder and Music Director Robert Secret. It will mark nine years since Fontane first took on the dual role of singer and director in Carmen at Stowe Opera - now known as Winslow Hall Opera....And in her spare time she loves tango dancing and riding motorbikes. She loves them so much she even toured on a motorbike in the UK. She also holds a diploma in Personal Training, Sports Massage, Nutrition and Lifestyle Management." [Source] Learn more about Ms. Fontane by clicking here. Check out a photo of the mezzo-soprano on her motorcycle after the jump.