bacon breakfast twisties

Ingredients:

  • 2 c. never bleached flour
  • 4 tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 7 Tbsp. unsalted butter
    • 2 Tbsp. of that butter should be melted
    • the rest should be cold
  • 1 scant cup milk
  • 3 Tbsp. brown or demerara sugar
  • ½ Tbsp. ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
  • 2-3 chopped jalapenos or pepperoncini
  • 8 slices bacon
  • 1 egg

Mix first three ingredients in large bowl. Cut in 5 Tbsp. of cold butter with fingers or pastry knife. Slowly mix milk until dough just forms a ball, no wetter. Roll out to a rectangular sheet about 1 cm thick, roughly 30cm x 40cm large. Brush with melted butter.

Cook bacon to desired consistency; if anything undercook slightly. Chewy is better than crispy for this recipe.

Back in the bowl, mix 2 Tbsp of the sugar, and all of the cinnamon, cayenne pepper and jalapenos. Spread over the dough sheet.

Lay strips of bacon on the dough sheet parallel with the short side, so that the short edge of the bacon is right at the edge of the long side of the dough sheet. Fold the sheet over the bacon, then cut through the fold, separating each bacon strip. Twist each bacon-dough strip 2 or 3 times, and place directly on baking sheet. Brush each twist with egg, then sprinkle remaining sugar over the tops.

Bake in a 450° oven for 12-15 minutes, until twists turn golden. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Serve with tea or coffee and fresh fruit.

bacon breakfast twisties

steampunk workspace

There’s been a lot of blog linkage recently to steampunk computing modifications – steampunk keyboard one-offs, commercial keyboard offerings, laptops, R2-D2s, etc. I love the aesthetic, but I don’t really have the time (or cash) to fully modify my computing setup. Instead, when it came time to soundproof my 2nd story home office, and I had to remount my Ergotron laptop/monitor/keyboard arms, I decided to add some “steampunk” appointments.

Behold the steampunk Ergotron pole mounts:

More pre-construction, fabrication and glamour shots are available. Details after the jump.
Continue reading

i has a singer

Craigslist, for free: “Singer. NO. 95K40 machine. Manufactured July 1949. For light and medium weight fabrics. Maximum stitch 7 to the inch. Drop feed. Knee lifter. Maximum 4,000 stitches per minute.”

95K40 - with its table

Close-up of the 95K40

argentina’s charms

I have recently returned from my second trip to Argentina for my current employer..

While the work is generally hard, and I don’t get a lot of time outside of the office, what little time I do have to enjoy Buenos Aires is spent eating.

Here is a perfect summary of that experience, amazing writing, the sort I wish I had time to craft myself: Argentina on Two Steaks a Day.

I disagree with some of the opinions expressed; for instance, dulce de leche is fantastic in alfajore cookies and spread on your Sunday morning biscuits.My experience with mate is that I don’t get jittery like I do on coffee, and I don’t get tachycardia unless I drink 15 or 20 gourd-fuls, but Iwillingly admit it’s full of caffeine. (I suspect I’m sensitive to one of the other thousands of alkaloids in coffee that’s not present in mate. Why the obsession with just the one alkaloid, anyway?)

A worthwhile read, which should make your salivary glands kick into action (except you vegetarians out there. And you should read this anyway, since the Argentine approach to animal rearing is vastly more humane and reasonable than the North American approach.)

help me find this dvd – found!

Can anyone out there help me identify a film? It:

  • exclusively has art on the dvd jacket
    • of fairly non-descript people
    • in pastels
    • more stick figure than real life
    • I believe they are looking depressed, or at least stunned/dazed
  • has a one-word title
  • It would have been on DVD by 2006
  • It was not made prior to 1995, and probably not before 2000
  • Tends to be available more in independent video stores than in your average Blockbuster
  • I believe it was animated, but it might just be the cover art confusing my memory
  • I believe MTV was involved in its promotion at one point

What I remember is given in reverse-order of me being sure about them.

edit: DVD identified as Happiness (1998). Thank you mengwong. I am reliably informed it is a “terrible but great” film, and that I will want to watch it precisely once.

political commentary of the week

warning: rated TV-MA for strong language and metaphor, and therefore probably not work safe.

I Got What America Needs Right Here

The Onion

I Got What America Needs Right Here

Sometimes I’m a little stupid, maybe, a little slow in the head, so I’m wondering if you can help me get something straight….