July 2006
When produce goes bad
On my daily commute to work every afternoon, I travel through the brackish wetlands surrounding the bay. In front of one of Sun Microsystems's campuses is a marsh reclamation project stocked with native California plant-life. Over a period of months a strange plant caught my eye, as it looked like some kind of giant Thistle that I had never seen growing in the wild before.
Once it got fairly large, the leaf structure convinced me that it was most likely an Artichoke, definitely not a native plant. But there was something odd about it still, it was much more prickly looking than the Artichoke plants I'd seen before. Once it started blooming I was even more convinced it was related though, so I did some research and discovered that Artichokes can go feral.
If you've ever looked at an Artichoke it's easy to see it belongs to the thistle family. When they are left to self pollinate over a couple of generations, they revert back to their super prickly past. This example was particularly large and healthy, and although they are actually considered an invasive species and a pest, quite beautiful.
Of course I've always been a fan of thistles, in my hometown it was not unusual for Russian Thistles to grow on our farm. As a teenager I worked with my Uncle on a cattle ranch In the mountains. He would often tell me to keep my eye's out for the extremely rare Showy Thistle, and I have to admit the first time I saw one, I was convinced that it was all a big prank of his. It honestly didn't look real at all. I was sure that he had 'planted' some kind of artificial plant to trick me, the stems were an unnaturally stark whitish gray and the flowers were unbelievably red. It stuck out from it's surroundings in a very unnatural way, but on close examination it was a real plant. I hope I get to see one again someday.
In my research I came across another Thistle related fact that I found enlightening. The Japanese eat a root vegetable called Gobo, we call it Burdock. What I didn't know is that it is the root of a thistle plant. A rather plain and caustic one though, as the stems and leaves are full of chemicals that can cause skin irritation. The roots are quite tasty and full of fiber though, it's the kind of food that you just know is good for you.
Posted by Bakafish at 6:26 PM | Comments (1)
Ultimate Shochu
Shochu is a traditional Japanese liquor that is derived from fermented Rice, Sweet Potato, or grain which is then distilled. It is typically quite a bit stronger than Sake, which is (usually) filtered and not distilled. The flavor is heavily influenced by the ingredients, with the rice versions having a purer flavor. On my last trip to Japan I received a very high quality bottle of Shochu from my friend's family, which I chose to save for my birthday.
As is typical of Japanese merchandizing, the packaging was as exquisite and detailed as the product itself. The bottle was made from hand glazed stoneware with silk tassels and a pure cork stopper. This variety was rice based and charcoal filtered to give it an extremely mild and subtle flavor. I shared it with friends at my favorite local Sushi restaurant. When I go to Japan, I make a point of going to a large liquor store that specializes in Japanese alcohol called Shochu Authority. I usually get a kind of fairly cheap Shochu that is flavored with Shiso leaves that I'm unable to find in the US.
Recently my friend's company closed a restaurant that had a large inventory of Shochu and Sake that had been opened and was no longer salable. We happily collected about 30 different kinds and brought them home for further research!
Posted by Bakafish at 5:39 PM | Comments (1)
MT and SQLite
Several months ago I switched the back end database of my MT installation from a collection of Berkeley database files to a single SQLite repository. The impetus was that one of my symbiotes had been running their own separate installation of MT on my server despite the fact the MT is designed for multi-user support. We were also intent on integrating some of the other sites into the main system.
The SQLite database allowed me to take two separate installations of MT and trivially merge them into the main system. It also allowed Farlops to mangle all his page URI's into the format he had used with an older piece of Blogging software using standard SQL. So to sum up, SQLite good! It's fast becoming one of my favorite new tools.
Posted by Bakafish at 7:28 PM | Comments (2)
