READIN

Sunday, February 18th, 2007

🦋 Tasty sauce

Sylvia and I were shopping yesterday and we thought dinner tonight would be pork chops with sautéed onions and mushrooms. When we were going downstairs to start making dinner (Sylvia learned how to clean and cut mushrooms, which she did very well), Ellen mentioned there was some applesauce in the fridge that would be good with the chops -- and I had an idea. The end result, an easy sauce that is very tasty with pork chops:

• 2 onions, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped roughly
• 1 lb. mushrooms, in bite-size chunks (roughly cut in quarters)
• 1 apple, chopped
• 2 tangerines

Cook the onions and garlic in about a Tbsp. oil over a low flame for about 20 min. Longer would probably work fine, too. Add the mushrooms and apple, stir, and squeeze in the tangerine juice. Stir, cover, and let steam for about 15 min., while the chops are cooking. Everything should be soft. Spoon over the chops with a little yogurt or sour cream.

posted evening of February 18th, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

🦋 Pasta and fish

Here is a really tasty dish that I cooked for dinner last night, that I don't really have a name for.

• 3/4 lb. codfish, cut into bite-size pieces
• Pasta -- I used farfalle but I think any noodle would do.
• 1 green bell pepper, cut into pieces
• Butter and flour for roux

Steam the codfish. This takes very little time, like 2 or 3 minutes once the water is boiling. While you are doing that you can saute the bell peppers and start the pasta boiling. Take the peppers out of the pan and make a roux. (Remember to season the roux! I forgot, and salted everything after it was cooked, which was a mistake.) Thin the roux with white wine and/or the codfish-flavored water from the steamer. When the pasta is ready, add the fish and peppers to the sauce and toss it all together; then put that on the noodles and serve.

posted evening of January 23rd, 2007: Respond
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Monday, January 15th, 2007

🦋 Fried Catfish Stew

Dinner tonight was popular with the family.

• 4 medium-size yellow onions, chopped
• A few carrots, chopped
• 6 smallish red potatoes, diced
• 2 heads of broccoli, cut into florets
• Canola oil
• Cheap white wine
• 3 filets of catfish
• Flour, salt, pepper

The stew

Fry the salted onions in a tablespoon of oil, in a stew pot. Add the carrots and potatoes. When everything is sizzling and wet, pour in some wine, lower the heat and cover. Cook over low heat about 20 or 30 minutes, stirring occasionally; toward the end when the potatoes are starting to soften up, add the broccoli. (I added it too soon and it got a little overcooked.)

The fish

While the stew is simmering, heat some oil in a skillet and mix flour with salt and pepper on a plate. Dredge the filets (you may want to cut them in half for easier handling). When the oil is hot, start frying the fish -- you will need to do it in shifts. Drain the cooked filets on a paper towel.

When everything is ready, cut up or tear up the fried fish and toss it in with the vegetables, and serve.

posted evening of January 15th, 2007: Respond

Friday, January 13th, 2006

🦋 Sum of 2 different squares, 3 different ways

Over at Unfogged, Frederick suggests that 325 is the smallest number which can be expressed as a sum of two perfect squares three different ways. I just wrote a program to check this which confirms Frederick's suspicion; here it is if you want to check my logic.

 #include 
 
 int perfect[] = {
     1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 
     11 * 11, 12 * 12, 13 * 13,
     14 * 14, 15 * 15, 16 * 16, 17 * 17, 
     18 * 18, 19 * 19, 20 * 20
     };
 
 bool IsSumOfSq(int s, int &a, int &b, int x1, int x2)
 {
     for (int i = a + 1; i < 20; ++i)
     {
         if (s < perfect[i])
             return false;
         int diff = s - perfect[i];
         for (int j = 0; j < 20; ++j)
             if (j == x1 || j == x2)
                 continue;
             else if (perfect[j] == diff)
             {
                 a = i;
                 b = j;
                 return true;
             }
     }
 }
 
 int main()
 {
     int i;
     for (i = 0; i < 400; ++i)
     {
         int a = -1, b;
         if (IsSumOfSq(i, a, b, -1, -1))
         {
             int c = a, d;
             if (IsSumOfSq(i, c, d, a, -1))
             {
                 int e = c, f;
                 if (IsSumOfSq(i, e, f, a, c))
                 {
                     printf("%d = %d^2 + %d^2\n"
                           "    = %d^2 + %d^2\n"
                           "    = %d^2 + %d^2", 
                         i, a + 1, b + 1, c + 1, 
                         d + 1, e + 1, f + 1);
                     break;
                 }
             }
         }
     }
     return 0;
 }
 

Output:

325 = 1^2 + 18^2
    = 6^2 + 17^2
    = 10^2 + 15^2

posted evening of January 13th, 2006: Respond
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Saturday, July 23rd, 2005

🦋 Idea for an opening

Walking down E. 3rd Street, Frank Valner was working on his forgetting exercises. The project he had been working on that day was the first thing to go, requiring practically no effort to banish from his mind; as his concentration deepened and his thoughts started to flow more smoothly, his palm lost the accustomed feeling of his mouse rubbing against it; his computer and then his desk melted into a sort of white noise. The sharp corners of his office were losing their definition, and his co-workers' faces becoming less distinct; when Meredith called to him from across the street and broke into his reverie.

Inspired by the last beginning in If on a winter's night a traveller, "What story down there awaits its end?"

Some more:

Frank looked up and waved, and waited on the stream of traffic to cross the street. Shaking hands he felt a drop of rain on his wrist -- "Looks like this nasty weather is going to break," he ventured.

Meredith asked whether he had eaten yet, and they started toward Avenue B, hoping to beat the storm.

Notes on setting -- Meredith has just finished gardening at the Brisas del Caribe community garden. I think she and Frank both live in an apartment building on that block. Frank had been walking east but is now doubling back. They are going to eat at Max's, on Ave. B across from Blackout Books.

Eyes wide, Frank was taking in the details of the scene -- Meredith's brown hair flecked with grey, a smudge of dirt on her temple; the rain water washing down the large front window layered itself over the partially forgotten bulletin board in the hall outside his office. While they waited for their order, Meredith was trying to engage him.

-- And Frank was trying too, to answer her -- just stop thinking so hard, he told himself, as he focused in on an interesting crack in the plaster behind Meredith's shoulder. Wrenching himself away he asked about how her garden plot was coming along.

"Really well thanks -- did you see just now, how big the cucumbers are getting?" She was really getting a kick out of growing her own vegetables -- had looked dreamily in at the community garden all last summer and been delighted when a space opened up.

A note on what I'm trying to get across, an example that just came up -- I am confronted at work right now by an insoluble bug, a crash that occurs under one specific set of circumstances on a particular machine, but does not occur (a) under seemingly quite similar circumstances on that machine or (b) under the same circumstances on a different machine. Sez I, "Sometimes the best way to solve a bug like this is to stop thinking about it for a while [and hope it goes away, sotto voce]." And start working on a known, soluble bug in an unrelated program.

Frank had noticed the cucumbers, lovely dark green bumpy things, and they talk about that for a bit -- Meredith is thinking the harvest will be soon and would love for Frank and a few others to come over to a home-grown dinner. Frank is nervous and sweating a bit -- well, put that down to the humidity, which the air-conditioning at Max's does little to mitigate -- and is happy to see the waitress approach with plates of noodles.

posted evening of July 23rd, 2005: Respond
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Monday, July 11th, 2005

🦋 Summer projects

A status update on my still-outstanding home improvement tasks for the summer.

Woodworking

• Ellen painted Sylvia's playhouse to match the garage which it is next to, and it looks very nice. It's gotten a good deal of use from Sylvia and various friends this summer, as I was hoping it would.
• The garbage-can enclosure is up. I finished installing it last weekend, and had the inspiration (born of laziness) to make a raised garden with the dirt I had excavated, instead of carting it away. I finished that this weekend, using some rocks from Eva's property (where we visited Saturday) to complete the retaining wall. Under the dirt where I excavated is an old slate patio in very bad condition; Ellen had the inspired idea to use the fragments of slate to create a walkway leading to the front garden.
• However, I still have to build the gates for the enclosure. Once I build and hang these, Ellen will be able to paint the structure.
• We cleaned up the garage and actually have a decent work area there now. Janis had given me some old trestles for a work table, which I nailed together with maple planks, and built a shelf above it.
• I have an idea that I may actually get to building the small tool shed sometime in August.

Patio

• The slate walkway along the driveway is level and drains well, which has made me realize that the driveway itself is not level, and drains poorly. Aargh...
• I ended up underlaying the garbage can enclosure with limestone instead of bluestone, because it was available in a more convenient shape. Damned expensive though!
• I'm planning to do the extension of the back patio next Friday, when i am taking the day off. If this goes according to plan, then I will start drawing up plans for the tool shed next weekend.

posted afternoon of July 11th, 2005: Respond
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Friday, June 10th, 2005

With regards to my most recent post -- The idea of writing poetry directed at a listener (who let's say for the sake of argument is me), asking him to consider a situation where he is talking to or watching somebody else and to try to imagine how he would react, or to suggest a possible reaction, seems pretty interesting to me, and like it might be a useful format to spend some time working on. Are there any good poets that use this format, that I could read up on?

posted afternoon of June 10th, 2005: Respond
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Wednesday, June 8th, 2005

🦋 Poetry blogging

Here is something I have never done: I am posting a poem which I wrote this afternoon.

Facets

So what about Jason,
Who throws up his hands in disgust
And cries, "I've been living a lie!"
As he flounces out of the room
To reclaim his truer self --
What are you his interlocutor
To make of this behavior?
Sit puzzled in his wake, pulling at your beard, mulling,
Muse: "Hmm, 'living a lie', I like the sound of that..."
Find a facet of your being in Bad Faith,
Some distorting mirror,
Imagine it cracked.

posted evening of June 8th, 2005: Respond

Tuesday, May 31st, 2005

🦋 Lotsa Pictures

A bunch of new images for the READIN Family Album:

• A moment from Sylvia's dance class
• From the Families with Children from China Chinese Culture Day in Jersey City:
  • Me and Sylvia walkin' down the line
  • Sylvia riding on the dragon boat and meeting the monkey king
  • Looking for Shanghai
  • Sylvia dancing in her seat and again.
• Sylvia is learning to ride a bike! Although in these two pictures she is just using it as a platform to model her new hat.
• The clubhouse I built for Sylvia:
  • The plan I worked from;
  • A long view;
  • She begins her ascent;
  • At the top of the ladder;
  • comfortably ensconced.

posted evening of May 31st, 2005: Respond
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Thursday, May 26th, 2005

🦋 Project pix

Got my scanner working!

• Here is a picture of Sylvia's newly-repainted room, with cabinets installed.
• A front view of the little walnut shelf I installed in our bathroom.
• A detail of the depression I carved into the top of the shelf.

posted morning of May 26th, 2005: Respond
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