It's been a while for a food posting (OK, more than a while) but I've been busy. I've not started cooking again yet but that's coming up possibly on Wednesday when we cook Chicken Marsala, Rosemarry Roasted Potatoes and Baguette slices fried in Olive Oil then spread with Truffle infused Chevre. For now you'll just need to be OK with photos of meals others have prepared for us.

We recently went to Vancouver B.C. which has a more cosmopoliton feel than Seattle and hunted down a Persian restaurant that had Fesenjan - one of our all time favorite dishes. Fesenjan which I've talked about before is a decadant dish that not everyone likes of braised meat in a walnut and pomegranet sauce. It's a bit tart and sweet at the same time but definately unforgettable if you have it. The first time I had Korscht-e fesenjan I loved it but the problem is finding a decent rendition of it. In Seattle we only have a couple of Persian joints and neither make a truly great fesenjan. Darchin in downtown Vancouver doesn't do too bad a job. It's a bit tart and a little pasty so I think they needed to let the walnuts sweat a bit more but overall very nice.

For dessert I had a classic Persian dessert called Faloodeh which is a sorbet made with very fine vermicelli noodles frozen with corn starch, rose water, lime juice sometimes pistachios. I gave my mother a small taste and her face squinched up and she almost spit it out. I later asked her why and she couldn't say, she just didn't like the taste. Natalya really liked it and helped me finish it off.

To mee the flavor was mostly that of lime juice and rose water. The noodles are there for texture. I didn't think the flavor was overpowering but of course after the fesenjan anything seems mild.

It's been nearly 2 months since I've posted last! This is by far the longest and it's only out of a lack of time. I've been working 110 hrs a week and teaching two classes on top of that and in the middle of a recession no less.

After a lot of research I finally ordered the Canon S90 which I'll have in a few days. I have a Canon G7 with hack kit and wide angle lens which is currently broken. I liked the quality of the photos and the manual everything but my complaint with it were that it was heavy, bigger than necessary and the wide angle wasn't built in. The G11 would have solved the last item but not the first two. I pondered the Panasonic LX-3 for a really long time but not having any real zoom turned me off. The 24mm lens would have been nice but only if I had any zoom at all. The Panasonic LX-3 is a 24-60mm zoom and 50mm is life size so you can imagine that 60mm does nothing for you. It zooms out but not really in. I was really drawn to the LX-3 because of it's fast lens and low light performance however DPreview just did a full test on the S90 and it was actually better in low light than the LX-3 so I put the money on the table. DPreviews still didn't rate the camera super high but it takes great photos, is small, has a wide angle lens and manual mode so is about perfect for me. They complained about it being slippery and likening it to a bar of soap. They also complained about the settings wheel on the back being way to free wheeling. To solve the first part I also ordered Richard Franiecs add on grip for the S90. This is machined out of solid alluminum so it will give the S90 a bit more heft which won't hurt it and improve the feel of the camera 100%. It would be interesting to see how DPreview would have rated the S90 had it had a decent grip. I also ordered some LCD screen protectors and a couple of extra aftermarket batteries as well.

I'll report later about my feelings on the S90.

The annual PMA show just finished up so I'm here to give you my thoughts on the announcements. Canon released some new point and shoots none of which are really any different than what they've been shoveling out for the last few years. Video has gotten better on the SX series and the model numbers have grown on the SD series but overall not very exciting. The one theme that seemed to be consistant was manufacturors releasing water-proof cameras. There seems to be a trend that every manufacturor wants at least one waterproof point-and-shoot in their lineup. I bought my Sanyo E-1 for that purpose but have only taken it underwater once. The nice thing about waterproof cameras is you don't have to worry about rain, sand and dirt as they are sealed. This I've enjoyed.

I think the real surprises for the show were from Samsung and Ricoh, two manufacturors that hang out on the fringe. Recently there was a comment thread on one of the photo sites about Panasonics GH-1 micro-four/thirds camera and people got a bit testy about these new mirror-less large sensor cameras. It was interesting to see the DSLR crowd take the defensive position that the SLR folks took when things started going digital. The DSLR crowd said a mirrorless camera will never replace one with a mirror becauseand as such the micro four thirds cameras were nothing more than point and shoots. If engineers can get contrast detect focus as fast as DSLRs and they create an "optical" viewfinder with a really high-res screen and by "zooming" in on a small section of what the sensor sees to create penta-prism focusing functionality I don't think DSLRs have a prayer. The advantages of getting rid of the mirror is one less mechanical piece, the camera body can be flatter and the lenses can be smaller all around. In the future (and I predict) large sensor point and shoots will replace DSLRs. I give DSLRs 5 years.

In that vein the two cameras I'm going to talk about are the Ricoh GXR system and the Samsung TS500. Neither of these cameras compete with the micro four thirds (after that long introduction) but occupy the space of the Canon s90, G11 and Panasonic LX3 which all of you know I've been considering as my new point and shoot.

The Ricoh GXR system is a very interesting concept where the sensor and lens are one piece. That sort of makes sense because you'd be able to have a lens/sensor combo optimized for certain functions. Say a small cmos sensor and lens aimed at doing video or a large sensor and fast lens designed for action and or low light shots. This is exactly what the GXR is. There are two options at this point - a backlit cmos sensor with 28-300 mm zoom lens (model P10). The back illuminated sensor should help in low light situations as more light hits the sensor if it's reversed. The zoom isn't particularily fast but thats not really it's purpose. The other choice is a 28mm fixed lens with a APS-C (gag, cough) sensor (model A12). The APS-C size of sensor is what's used in most all DSLRs except for a couple of high end Canons which use the full frame sensor. The lens on the Ricoh is fairly fast so in combination with the sensor you should be able to take photos in the same level of light as any DSLR. It also does full speed HD video.   Both lens/sensors take photos in raw and have anti-vibration control. I'm sure that in time there will be a bunch of lens/sensor combos coming out.  In addition they have the S10 which has a small CCD sensor with a 28-75 zoom. I'm going to wage a guess that these cameras will be expensive and we're also back to "Now I have to buy my lenses from one company" which we see a lot in the SLR/DSLR realm. Interesting concept.

The other camera of interest is the Samsung TL-500 which you can think of as the result of  Panasonic and the Canon getting waisted and spending the night in the back seat of a 64 Chevy Impala. Look at the specs and you'll see what I'm talking about.

It looks as if Samsung just looked at the Canon and Panasonic cameras and did a mashup. Anyway I'm curious about the Samsung because it looks like an S90 (currently my favorite) with a slightly faster lens and an articulated screen. It's a smaller G11 is what it is. Since Samsung rarely tops the quality charts though I'll be waiting for reviews first before rushing to Amazon.

I've been on a bit of a chile kick lately. You can blame Mexico I think since it started the minute I got back. In the past few weeks I've stuffed Bells, make sweet pepper cream sauce, stuffed poblanos for Chiles en Nagoda and yesterday made Chile and tomato rice to stuff my chimichangas with. Today I continued that trend and made an Ancho (my favorite) and Anaheim marinade spiced with canela, cloves, Mexican oregano and garlic. Half was spread over the country style ribs and let marinade overnight. The second half was laced with mint honey and used to baste the ribs as they braized. I paired this up with bright orange mashed sweet potatoes. I laid the ribs on a bed of lettuce and served them. I personally felt the flavor was very very good and I'll be playing with this some more in the future. My kids however weren't that thrilled. I'm perplexed as to why and they couldn't tell me either. I'm sold on using rehydrated chiles blended with garlic and apple cider vinager as a marinade. I'm not sure why I didn't do this earlier.

I've been on a bit of a chile kick lately. You can blame Mexico I think since it started the minute I got back. In the past few weeks I've stuffed Bells, make sweet pepper cream sauce, stuffed poblanos for Chiles en Nagoda and yesterday made Chile and tomato rice to stuff my chimichangas with. Today I continued that trend and made an Ancho (my favorite) and Anaheim marinade spiced with canela, cloves, Mexican oregano and garlic. Half was spread over the country style ribs and let marinade overnight. The second half was laced with mint honey and used to baste the ribs as they braized. I paired this up with bright orange mashed sweet potatoes. I laid the ribs on a bed of lettuce and served them. I personally felt the flavor was very very good and I'll be playing with this some more in the future. My kids however weren't that thrilled. I'm perplexed as to why and they couldn't tell me either. I'm sold on using rehydrated chiles blended with garlic and apple cider vinager as a marinade. I'm not sure why I didn't do this earlier.

A friend gave me a bunch of cream which was starting to clump up so I decided to use it for something besides ice cream. Afterall you can only eat so much ice cream. My idea came from a couple of restaurants - one is a in Richland WA called La Isla Bonita that makes a seafood chimichanga with cream sauce poured over it that I've always loved. I just recently discovered a local Mexican joint near Edmonds Community College in Lynwood called Taquiera La Raza that also had a chimichanga with cream sauce and although it's not as wonderful as La Isla Bonita's it's very nice.

So here was my idea, make some burritos with tomato and chile rice, black beans and seared pork, then drop them in the fryer until golden brown and cover with a steaming heavy cream/mexican sour cream (Creme Fresca) mix topped with a sprinkling of sweet paprika, cumin and brown sugar. Here's the result. Natalya has never had something like this and she's my toughest critic so when she took a bite and nodded her head I knew that I'd done well. She's since gone back and cooked several more. I'm playing with chile and honey glazed pork spare ribs tonight and I think that may be a nicer meat to stuff the burritos with next time. Stay tuned, I'm sure there'll be an update.

Readwriteweb did an article on Facebook wanting to be your one login. Their point was that people use it for posting their photos, instant messaging, "email" and just about everything else. The problem was the article's title was Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login and of course Google indexes this with the words Facebook and Login together. Now when people type in "Facebook login" into Google they got the article referenced above instead of the Facebook login page. This would not be a problem for anyone with more than a half a working brain because they'd immediately notice that the Readwriteweb site looks nothing like Facebook and would then conclude that they were not in fact at the Facebook login page but a completely different page (hence the strange non-Facebook URL)! Unfortunately not everyone on Facebook has half a working brain (thanks Myspace for falling out of favor, now they invaded Facebook) so the comment thread that ensued was quite hilarious.

Here are a few comments to the article. Notice that these freaks of nature really think they've landed on the Facebook login page but can't figure out how to log in.

I did NOT hand pick these, I'm just going down the line one after the other!!!

• ok cool now can I get to facebook
• The new facebook sucks> NOW LET ME IN.
• when can we log in?
• I WANT THE OLD FAFEBOOK BACK THIS SHIT IS WACK!!!!!
• just want to get on facebook
• please give me back the old facebook login this is crazy.................
• I just want to sign in............
• I just want to log in to Facebook - what with the red color and all? LOLLLOLOL!!!!!111
• wtf is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz
• What is going on? You are totally confusing me. Knock-knock. Anybody there? Let me in. Katherine
• IAM NEW AT FACEBOOK NOW WITH CHANGES IAM LOSSSSSSSSST!
• All I want to do is log in, this sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
• This is such a mess I can't do a thing on my facebook .The changes you have made are ridiculous,I can't even login!!!!!I am very upset!!!

Keep in mind that these fine people are not on the FACEBOOK site at all but are on the Readwriteweb site reading an article about Facebook. There's more...

• Can we log into face book? This is crazy I want to get all my info off and be done with this. I recently moved from MN to SC Myrtle Beach and facebook was a great way to keep in touch with family and friends but this is getting to be to difficult.
• i need the old facebook this new one is very bad bbbbbbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!
• What have they done now. It's not simple enough for me to figure out.
• Seams like all of the comets i read agree with me you people messed up royal i was enjoying facebook now i am thinking of getting rid of it all

• Quit this crap and let me sign in!

• this sucksssss how do i get on my screen?
• Looking good
• bring me back old facebook
  this is sheet

It isn't until about the 80th post that a few people start realizing that this isn't Facebook. Here's the original URL if you want a laugh.

Facebook wants to be your one true login

A friend and I were googling my name to find the oldest reference still on the Internet. Things seem to disappear after a while and it appears that I've been erased before 1997 but the positive outcome from this exercise was to find a spoof of an old newsletter I contributed to. In that newsletter was a quasi-german warning message which I've remembered but missed. With a tear in my eye I share it with you now. If you speak German, pretend you don't or you may miss the message.

There's a new category at The Man, the Myth, the Legend and it's all about Green tech. When I started writing up this article I realized what better category on this site but a Green one since the entire website is shades of green anyway! It's under the Tech menu and is simply labeled Green. At this point there's a blog and a list of websites (one) that I think are nice. As a matter of fact the one site that I posted in the link section is the reason why I've gone through the trouble of making a Green category to start with - it's inhabitat.com and I just discovered it (like Colombus discovered America!) so now that I know it exists the rest of the world can start going there now.

There will eventually be a lot more content in this section as I get time and get more involved in it. For now enjoy self-powered street lights and wearable habitats!

We have the Amtrak Acela that's capable of 150 mph but it hasn't exactly caught the rail world on fire because the states it passes through limit it's speed to just above what a normal Amtrak train could do. In addition to that the Federal Railroad Administration dictated ridiculous changes to the design in order that it never be competitive to other forms of travel. It was a failure from the design stage on. Of course they'll say that doubling the weight of the train artificially makes it safer for the passengers but we know that doesn't make sense because the builders of it are the same companies (bombardier and Alstrom) that have been building the famous TGV trains for 30 years. If anyone knows about safety it's these guys.

In their defense the Amtrak team just bought what was basically a proven TGV design and had planned on running it on upgraded rails. The FRA changed all of that and made them modify the design in case it came in contact with a Freight train. I don't know about you but I don't think that adding weight to a passenger train traveling at 150 mph is going to make the situation that much better if it ends in a head-on collision with a freight train – I really don't. The best practice is to just give the passenger train right-of-way which never happened. In addition to that the extra weight has shortened predicted equipment times between failures from 400,000 miles to 20,000. The Acela can not succeed no matter how hard Amtrak tries.

With President Obama's 10.5 Billion dollar shot in the arm high speed rail looks more promising even if it will be state owned and local. It's not a perfect situation but at least we're taking one step forward. I was sure that California would be the first to have a high speed train but $2.5B just went to Florida which has already purchased the right-of-way from Orlando to Tampa. Eventually they want to have high speed rail from Pensacola to Miami and most other major cities down both coasts. Two and a half billion dollars doesn't build much but it will get them started.

Florida's first train will only do 120 mph but also will only cost $3.5B so they only need to raise 1 Billion dollars.The trip between Orlando and Tampa will take less than an hour which will make it faster than driving. See Florida's high speed rail site.

If you're curious about how the nearly bankrupt California is faring check out their High Speed Rail site. Their proposal is a lot more agressive and will cost a great deal more but with the amount of people living there will be in greater need.

Washington, the greenest state in the Union has Rapid transit as well in the form of buses that get to their destination in exactly the same amount of time as the old ones, are uncomfortable to ride on (irritating regenerative breaking), stop half as often, have very little room because of a horribly inefficient design where bikes are lined up not unlike a bike rack, the drivers are rude, the stations are extravagant when a platform and shelter would have sufficed, are NOT in the same places as normal bus stops making transfers difficult and it only cost us $34,000,000. We love you WA but why do you have to be so stupid?