Huitlachoche

There's something in my ear

Recall that in France, there’s a fungus called noble rot -  an ugly blight that concentrates the juices of the infected grapes and makes rare and valuable wine.

Just discovered that in Mexico, there’s a fungus called corn smut, known locally as huitlacoche (“weet-la-kosh” with a long o), which I believe translates literally to “raven poop”, and that’s what it looks like. And yes, infected corn is considered a delicacy.

The two fungi are not related (except on this blog, where false analogies and comparisons flourish).

Leave for using

The Party, in imitation of Mao’s cult of personality, decided it needed portraits of Pol Pot, and two of the prisoners happened to be painters. Thus they were offered the chance to paint for their lives. (On the list of those to die, next to the painter named Vann Nath, the camp leader Duch had scribbled the words: Leave for using.)

That’s how Vann Nath became one of the six people to survive incarceration at camp S-21, while all 15,000 others died. GQ has a lengthy and chilling writeup of Angkar, aka the reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, late 1970s.

Caution: Really really unsettling stuff. Evil in the truest and most complete sense.

Thought for the day

I tried to fail, but I did not succeed.

A horrifying admission

In my youth, I was a huge fan of the Bay City Rollers.

There, I said it.

I was reminded this morning when Mike FM gave “Saturday Night” a spin. In hindsight it appears that the BCR lads weren’t necessarily great musicians.

But man, could they spell.

A quote to squirrel away for later

The outgoing Alaska governor told the Anchorage Daily News she stepped down because ethics complaints against her and her squabble with lawmakers would have paralyzed the 18 months she had left in office.

“Especially when all these lawmakers are lining up for office,” she said. “Their desire would be to clobber the administration left and right so that they can position themselves for office. I’m not going to put Alaskans through that.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31775687/ns/politics-more_politics/

So, it is bad to clobber the administration so as to position one’s self for office. Okay. Let’s all remember that.

Happy 4th

For dinner:

1/3 lb ground sirloin, molded into a patty with moistened Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs. (By the time I thought of reconstituting the breadcrumbs with Sam Adams, it was too late.)

Grill roughly 6 mins per side.

Add sharp cheddar for the last 2 mins of grilling.

Serve on fresh bulkie roll with a very thin slice of yellow heirloom tomato, plus a homemade mojito.

Hope you are all enjoying your holiday weekend and looking forward to a great second half of 2009.

It’s so rainy I don’t even feel like shooting anybody

Overall number of Boston-area shootings down 60% in June.

Premiums

Coulda bought a Sunbeam grill for cheap, or a Char-Broil. Instead I splurged and bought a Vermont Castings. That was 5 years ago; so far it has required zero maintenance and zero replacement parts, other than a new AA battery in the ignition.

As the sayings go, “A cheap product is an expensive product”, and “You get what you pay for.”

Analogous stuff going on in the publishing world. There’s lots of debate about whether you can “charge for content” instead of giving it away.

The answer seems obvious to me. If you want to charge a premium, you have to make a premium product.

You can’t charge for any old information. You *can* charge for a service that isn’t duplicated elsewhere for free.

An interesting case in point, apparently, is Cook’s Illustrated. With a zillion recipe and cooking sites out there, how can Cook’s charge for memberships? The answer is that Cook’s invests tons of research (= money) into their information product. You can’t afford to re-create all their tests in your home kitchen. In essence, it’s a testing service.

Now lots of newspapers & magazines & websites are probably going to try charging for their content online. But that’s after spending the last several years stripping every possible expense out of their operations.

So the attempt to charge is going to fail. 

Not because you can’t charge, but because people won’t pay a premium price for low-end goods.

You can’t build crappy grills and then ask for Vermont Castings prices.