Dirk Calloway: Julian Assange

Right?

The Buchstaben Museum

Nice. We really do have to make it to Berlin one of these days.

Deep Fried Turkey

For the third year in a row, we deep-fried a turkey for Thanksgiving. I know this method is getting more and more popular, and for good reason: the bird comes out of the oil juicy and thoroughly cooked every time.

I've been thinking about the process, though, and I'm not sure we can actually call the process "deep frying". After all, what happens with the bird is a lot different than what happens when you make french fries.

The surface area-to-volume-to-cooking time ratio is all messed up. Arguably, the skin is indeed deep fried, but what happens to the remainder of the bird is more akin to boiling or steaming.

I always bind up my bird with marine-grade stainless steel chain and shackles. Culinary chain. An effective, if to some rather off-putting method of securing the bird.

I don't have a proper "turkey fryer," but this 25 liter pot and paella burner work just fine. It takes a while to get the oil up to temperature. The end of the chain is secured in some sort of stick across the top of the pot.

The result. This year I tried something a little different. It was frightfully cold outside, and folks were getting antsy, so we put the bird in at 150 degrees celsius (300 F) rather than wait for it to reach 170. We then watched the temperature drop to about 110, and let the 5.6 kg bird sit in there for about 45 minutes. The lower temperature explains the coloring: maybe a little pale. The meat was great, though! And like I mentioned before, I'm not sure it's really deep frying. The oil never gets back to a temperature where it risks burning the skin. Really, the skin is shocked by the hot oil, and then the bird and the oil slowly approach equilibrium, closer to 100 degrees and well below frying temperature.

Falun velodrome visit

My bike club took a road trip up to Falun, in central Sweden to ride the new indoor velodrome built in a former factory space. As the volume of the space prevented construction of a proper 250m regulation 'drome, the group behind the project settled for a smaller 190m oval with relatively long straights and steeply banked (50 degrees) sharp corners. And by filling the space, (which was punctuated by columns) the site has no provision for any type of bleachers or public seating.

All these drawbacks made me somewhat skeptical of the project. But after participating in the weekend-long course, led by club member and local resident Alf, I have to say I am an enthusiastic supporter of the effort, and would love to see a similar development in Göteborg. Riding in ovals is far from boring when you have a fine indoor facility such as this, and it requires a good deal of concentration to avoid spills.

I did take a tumble, or rather ran over a fellow who took a tumble directly in front of me, so have experienced plywood-burns. The experience was nothing to get terribly worried about, and will absolutely not prevent future endeavors on the track.

The visit did cause me to evaluate the total costs associated with having an indoor velodrome, which can be broken down into three broad categories: 1) the space, 2) the velodrome itself and associated costs (showers, bicycle maintenance and storage), 3) maintenance of the facility.

Of course, in the long run, 3 is going to be the biggest cost. The energy required to heat this immense volume is frightening to think about. As for initial costs, 1 vastly outstrips 2, especially if one is considering a vast span (no columns to disrupt views) and seats for a public. There is great architectural potential in an arena project, but the velodrome would most likely have to double up as a handball or basketball court, or ice rink, comprimising the interests of cyclists.

By reusing an existing facility, as they have in Falun, costs for 1 have been eliminated, allowing the much easier financing of 2. As for 3, hopefully the development will be such a great success that those operating costs will be covered by the site itself in a couple years. Time will tell.

One could skip 3 by proposing an outdoor velodrome, or a velodrome in an unheated shed, or simply under a roof, but that may not be such a popular solution. And in our post-industrial society, we are not lacking in vast empty factory buildings...

I've Got a Good Feeling About This

You've probably seen this video clip by now. It's a fairly amazing feat, but as Chris Jones explains, the contestant's reasoning leads to a fairly certain answer. As an experiment, I explained the game and the situation with this puzzle in three separate classes I taught today, with between one and six students each. With a little prodding, (circling the _'__ and _) each group was able to solve the puzzle within a couple minutes. These are groups of non-native English speakers, and certainly not big English-language puzzle fans. All the groups looked at it as an impossible task, but realized it wasn't as difficult as it seemed at first. An interesting reflection on possibility and appearances.

Apple Pie in an Omelette Pan

I've long bemoaned the lack of availability of regular old pie pans here in Sweden. The ceramic one I had here originally broke, and its Pyrex replacement, muled to me by my father on one of his visits, has disappeared. What you normally find in kitchen shops here are sort of broad pans with fluted sides, what I'd call a tart pan. Flea markets, usually such a rich source of kitchen wonders, haven't proven any better.

Anyway, today I had an epiphany while grilling a sandwich in my skillet. Of course! A skillet is basically a pie pan with a handle on it. So I set about trying with an apple pie in my omelette pan.

Shoe-wax lipbalm

It's getting cold and the air is dry here in Sweden, and since we were at a pharmacy last weekend we decided to pick up a tube of a new lip balm. (why is it pictured upside-down on their website?) The cashier sold us on the lanolin content, and reading the Norwegian description I picked up on the beeswax content too. (Oddly, beeswax wasn't mentioned in the Swedish description.) I told the cashier that it sounded a lot like my shoe wax, and there was a good laugh all around.

After coming home, I decided to compare the labels more closely. Indeed, both my "universal lederbalsam" and Decubal Dry Spots Balm share almost their entire ingredients list:

Beeswax (cera alba), lanolin, paraffinum liquidum (petroleum jelly), petrolatum, and castor oil (ricinus communis oil) are the basic components in both the shoe wax, selling for €80 per liter (note the price tag on mine was in Swedish kronor, making it actually significantly cheaper than the suggested retail price), and the lip balm, which at 65 kr for 30ml makes it about €230 per liter. It's hard to say what the exact proportions of the two compounds are, but they have a similar texture and odor. I suppose the Decubal has more lanolin, which can't be cheap. (Unrelated: In Sweden there's a whole ad campaign based on the premise that "cheap" sounds like "sheep" in English. Ridiculous.)

Anyway, something to ponder.