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January 05 MHC Goes Molecular: Olive Oil Bonbons « My husband cooksOK, this I've got to try. I've been reading about minibar recently and I went looking for anybody who'd tried to figure out the olive oil bon-bons. Jackpot! Guess I'm off to the hardware store in the morning for a piece of PVC pipe... Foie Gras BruleeSo, the first item I'll talk about from the N Pointui, the definitive user interface for mobile devices.
January 02 New Year's Day Party 2008
Yum! All made very much from scratch (e.g., the beef stock for the onion soup started four days prior to the 1st). It was really great to build these things up at a leisurely pace. I did about 2/3 of them and my wife did her usual superb job on the others. I'll be posting over the next couple of weeks with recipes and more about many of these dishes, but for now I'll post some pictures from the prep and the party so you can get a sense of the event...
The Recipes and Prep Lists: These are the (shorthand) recipes and the prep work laid out in the kitchen on the morning of the first. Orange stuff is what's been done do far.
Hovering: This was the assembly station and people were pretty much collected around this area of the kitchen for the whole party.
Prawns with Garlic and Sage: This was good (but not as good as previous times -- the sage wasn't crispy enough this time).
Coffee Molecular Caviar - Trial Run: I've made a number of different kinds of caviar before using spherification, but coffee was new and the process is pretty sensitive to varying ph-levels -- so we decided to try the night before. It worked out nicely. Here's my lovely wife demo'ing some of the equipment.
Coffee Molecular Caviar - Closer Up: Here's a better picture of the caviar.
Orange-Cardamom Shakes: These are so refreshing it's not even funny. Like revenge, they're best served nice and cold. This is prep'ing the milk mixture with the toasted cardamom seeds, oranges, etc.
Blueberry-Cream Cheese Tarts: Making the tarts a couple of days in advance. They freeze really well.
Guinness Stout Ginger Cake: A few ingredients (including molasses in the measuring cup).
The Workhorse: My favorite piece of kitchen equipment. The orange dutch oven on the front is full on onions beginning the five-hour caramelization process to eventually go into the onion soup.
Beef Stock: Bubbling away for 6 hours a few days in advance.
My Son And Somebody's Shoes: Not his :-) When I get a bit more time, I'll start posts on each of the recipes. If you have a particular one you want to know about, let me know and I'll prioritize that one. February 24 Getting Things Done using Outlook 2007 - Part 3 - IMPLEMENTATION: How to configure all of this in Outlook 2007In the previous two posts, I described some basis of Outlook 2007 and using it for Getting Things Done as well as provided a walkthrough of how my configuration of Outlook feels once it's all set up. In this final post, I'll describe how to actually configure Outlook 2007 to get it set up this way. Configuration StepsHere are the steps to configuring Outlook:
CategoriesI set up my categories to include:
To do this, I go to Edit-->Categorize-->All Categories... and setup all the categories I need. In order to make the rest of my Outlook configuration work, I use special prefixes on the names of categories:
Here are some of my categories today as examples:
Creating the IN-Incoming search folderTo create the IN-Incoming search folder to show only unflagged mail, create a search folder using File-->New-->Search Folder.
Then pick Choose...
Pick Criteria... and go to the More Choices tab.
Select "Only items which" "have no flag" and hit OK.
Then pick Browse... uncheck your whole Outlook store, check your Inbox and be sure to uncheck Search Subfolders:
Click OK all the way out of the dialogs. Handling mailing lists: Tier2 rules and search foldersI use rules to keep most of my mailing list subscription mail out of my Inbox. To do this, I have a subfolder under my Inbox called Tier 2 and then under that I have multiple folders, one for each mailing list:
I create these folders manually. Then I setup rules using the rules wizard to send mail from my mailing list subscriptions to the appropriate folder when it arrives. I won't describe how to use the Rules Wizard here. Then I create a Search Folder that aggregates all of these Tier 2 folders AND all of my RSS feeds into one virtual folder that I can Group By folder and, voila!, I've got a quick an easy way to scan through all of my subscription mail quickly. To create the Tier 2 search folder, create a Search Folder as above but setup the folders to include Tier 2 and RSS Feeds with subfolders included:
Creating the Age fieldWhen I'm scanning a list of items in my Todo List, I often like to see how old they are quickly and easily. Having the date show for the item takes too much mental calculation, so I've added a custom calculated field that shows me something my brain can process at blink-speeds:
To create this Age field, switch to the To-Do List and bring up the Field Chooser by right clicking on the column headings (e.g., where it says "Received") and picking "Field Chooser."
The field chooser lets you drag fields out to the folder view, adding columns to the view but it also lets you create a custom calculated field. Do this by by clicking New...
This will give you a dialog that you can use to create the Age field:
For the Name, type "Age" and for the Type select "Formula." Then for the actual formula, paste this in (all as one line):
This will create a new Age field in the field chooser that you can now drag out to your Todo View (do this). Creating the Next Action fieldCreate a Next Action field that shows the Next Action to take on a message or a task. This is the subject of the item unless it's been flagged -- in which case it's whatever you set the "Flag To" to be. Using the field choosed, create another custom field just like in the last step. But this time, set the name to "Next Action" and the Type to "Formula" and use this formula:
Drag this field into your To-Do List view and remove the Task Subject column that's there by default. Shortcuts: configuring the navigation paneOK. Now we've got everything we need to build out the navigation pane:
First, select the dropdown at the bottom of the navigation area and pick "Navigation Pane Options."
Put a checkmark next to the Shortcuts item and move it to the top of the list using the Move Up button.
Then shrink the navigation pane down so it only shows the Shortcuts. This will give you quick and easy access to the shortcuts you need. Now use Add New Group and Add New Shortcut to add your groups and folders. I recommend the following groups (in this order):
You can see from the screen shot above what I put under each of these. Your choices will vary under File and Time. The GTD custom toolbarI like to have quick and easy access to the tools I use when handling all of my mail. For that I create a custom toolbar. To do that, right click on the toolbar, pick Customize, then New... and name your toolbar GTD. Once you have the new (empty) toolbar, you can drag things on to it from the other toolbars or from the Commands list in the Customize dialog.
My toolbar has:
"Waiting For" Rules95% of the things I find I'm "waiting for" are responses to mail messages I've sent where I'm asking for or expecting a response from one or more people. To make it easy to keep track of these, I simply cc myself on the message and then use a rule to flag all incoming messages from me that have me on the cc line. The messages get flagged for Followup and get assigned to the !Waiting For category:
Todo List ViewsAs mentioned, because you can't have search folders on the To-Do list, I use views on the To-Do list. Here are the views I setup:
[Action]This view is the one I use when I'm going to actually do some work. It shows all items with an @context, group by context.
[Agendas]This view is the one that shows topics I need to cover when I next see or talk with certain people. All items with an @@agenda category are shown, grouped by person.
[Process]This view shows me everything that I've moved out of IN-Incoming, but that is still missing either a context, a next action or both. When I do my daily processing, I use this view to make sure everything from this view has a context and a next action -- at which point there's nothing left in this view :-)
[Someday]This shows my items I'm going to get to Someday (Maybe!).
[Waiting For]This view shows everything I'm waiting for from somebody else.
There doesn't seem to be any way to control the order of these views in the list, or I'd put mine at the top. _________________________________________________________________________ Phew! That's a lot of Outlook hacking. That's how I've set up Outlook 2007 to work with the Getting Things Done method. It's working pretty well so far. Please let me know what you think abotu this post. If it needs to be clearer, if you think there are better ways, if I made mistakes, etc. please let me know by leaving a comment! February 09 Getting Things Done using Outlook 2007 - Part 2: WORKFLOW: The GTD basic workflow, my adaptation in OutlookIn my last post I gave an overview of the elements of Outlook that I leverage in my implementation of GTD. In this post I'll cover two things: the basic Getting Things Done workflow and how this shows up in Outlook as I've got it configured. The Getting Things Done WorkflowGTD suggests a five activity workflow:
For me, this translates into the following condensed "zones" in Outlook:
For the rest of this post, I'll show how these three "zones" feel in Outlook. In upcoming posts, I'll describe how the implementation works in Outlook. InMy "In" is split into two search folders: The first folder is called "Incoming" and it's a search folder that shows me all unflagged mail in my Inbox. I look at unflagged mail because once mail is flagged, I've decided that I need to take some action on it and I don't need to see it until later when I'm able to either do the next action or think through what the right next action will be. My other "In" folder (I call it Tier 2) is for all of the mail I get on mailing lists. Outlook rules move these all out of my Inbox so they don't clutter things up. Mail sits in my Incoming folder for typically no more than a day or two. Sometimes it's only there for a few minutes. When I'm looking at my Incoming (something I do very briefly 10-15 times per day), I can do one of four things with an item there: delete it, move it to a file folder, reply very quickly or mark it for later action. When marking it for action, I could just flag it ( Contexts in my implementation are done with Outlook categories. Here's a partial list of mine: My categories break down into three main groups:
Next actions are indicated differently for mail messages and tasks. For tasks, I just put the next action in the Subject of the task. For email, I use the Flag To field when flagging the message: So, to summarize: mail leaves the "In" zone in one of two ways. Either I just quickly flag it to indicate I need to take action but don't have time to think about it more now (I'll figure out action and context when I process next) or I set the context (using a category) and next action (using Flag To). Either way, it just disappears from the Incoming view. ProcessWhen I have a bit of time (on average once per day), I put my attention on the Process zone. This is where I have everything that I know needs some action but I haven't thought through the specific action and context. To get here, I go to the To-Do list and then bring up my [Process]. This view filters everything on my todo list down to those things that need action and/or context identified. Here's how my Process list looks right now: When it's time to process, I go through each one of these items and identify a Next Action and a Context (including Waiting For or Someday). Again, the Next Action is done by flagging using Flag To and setting Context is using a category. There are two fancy things to note about this view. The first is the Age column. I've setup a custom field that will show the Received date for the item in an easier to use format than just a full date/time. Just a bit easier on me when scanning. More importantly is the Next Action column. This column shows the next action that's been identified for the item in the list. If no action is defined, then the subject of the item is shown. While the actual logic to make this custom column work is somewhat complex, the basic rule to remember is that the Next Action for a task is its subject and the Next Action for a mail message is the Flag To. So a task, by definition, always has a next action. A mail message doesn't. When a mail message first shows up in the Process queue, the Next Actoin column will just show the subject of the message until you flag it for a specific next action -- at which point the column will, quite nicely, show you the next action to take. Of course, once an item has a context and a next action, it just disappears from the Process view -- ready for actually Doing (the Getting Things Done part of Getting Things Done :-)). DoPhew! That was a lot of work before actually doing any work... The good news is that once you've done the processing, when you finally get around to being ready to "do," you're hyper-prepared. When I find myself in the car ready to make some calls, I have my "@Calls" list already done. When I have a free half-hour at my computer, I consult my @Computer list and just start doing Next Actions. All of these items show up in context-based views of the To-Do list: We've already discussed the [Process] view. The [Someday] and [Waiting For] views are simple -- they just show the items that are categorized with !Someday and !Waiting For, respectively. The [Agendas] view shows a list of items that I need to talk to people about -- grouped by person for easy access: The [Action] view shows all of the core action contexts: @Computer, @Home, etc. And in all of these action views the most important thing is that the the Next Action shows up right there in front of you. (Yeah, I did blur them out because they're private). So, that's pretty much it. I check my Incoming fairly regularly but it's very fresh stuff and things don't stay for more than a day. Once or twice a day I 'process' and figure out next actions and contexts for everything I need to take action on. Then, when I find myself in those contexts -- I just do! In the next post I walk through how I make all of this work with Outlook. February 08 Getting Things Done using Outlook 2007 - Part 1: BASICS Navigation, Key New Outlook CapabilitiesI recently had the David Allen company come to Microsoft to present their two-day seminar on Getting Things Done: Managing Workflow, Projects, and Priorities. I spent some time a couple of years ago trying out this method based on the book and the Outlook add-on from Netcentrics. My implementation failed for a number of reasons. One of them, I think, was that the tools in Outlook (even with the pretty good add-in) just didn’t work well enough for me. Some of these limitations of Outlook have now been removed and the seminar was a catalyst for me to try a new implementation – this time using Outlook 2007’s new capabilities. From my perspective, the most important new capability in Outlook 2007 is the ability to have a blended treatment of tasks and mail – the two primary sources of action (for me, at least). And from this basic capability, I’ve built my implementation. A number of my colleagues at work (as well as the folks from David Allen) were interested in how I pulled off what I did in Outlook and so I figured I’d go ahead and bite the bullet and write it up. This blog entry is the first entry in a series in which I’ll describe how I’ve done this. The posts are as follows:
The BasicsBefore I move on to the next few posts describing how I have configured Outlook to match how I'm using GTD, let me describe just a couple of key Outlook capabilities that make this all possible:
Those are the building blocks. In the next post, I'll describe the basic workflow for Getting Things Done and how I experience Outlook when I use it for this workflow. In the posts after that, I'll describe how to configure all of this in Outlook. September 03 Crab Salad with Corn Sheet Sauce
Last weekend I was reading The Way We Eat in the Sunday New York Times magazine and found an article about Grant -- and also a molecular gastronomy recipe that's adapted by Grant for us poor home chefs. This weekend, I tried it out. Here's the recipe with my notes (in red). The verdict? Yummy and startling. Adapted from Alinea
8 ears yellow corn (or 7 cups frozen kernels) 1. Cut the corn kernels from the cobs. Set aside ¼ cup for the garnish. Over a bowl, scrape each cob with the back of a knife to release the juices. 2. Place the kernels and juice in a blender. Blend briefly on low to break up the corn, then on high for about 2 minutes to make a purée. If using frozen corn, add ¼ cup water to the blender. (If the corn will not blend, stop the machine and loosen the kernels with a spoon before trying again.) Strain the purée through a sieve placed over a saucepan and lined with 3 layers of fine cheesecloth. Press on the solids with a ladle to release the juices, then wring out the corn-filled cheesecloth to extract the remaining juices. You should have about 2 ½ cups corn juice. 3. Add the butter, 2 tablespoons sugar and ½ teaspoon salt to the saucepan and place over medium-low heat. Season with more sugar and salt to taste. Whisk continually until the butter melts, then stir until the sauce lightly coats the back of a wooden spoon, 12 to 16 minutes. Transfer to a heatproof container and cover with plastic wrap to cool. 4. Whisk the cooled sauce until smooth. Cover an 8 ½ -by-12-inch rimmed cookie sheet with wax paper. (Make sure the cookie sheet fits in the freezer and that its surface is perfectly flat.) Spray the wax paper with cooking oil, then pour the sauce over it in a thin sheet (about ·2-inch thick). Drain off the excess sauce and place the sheet in the freezer. Repeat with a second cookie sheet. 5. Combine the coconut milk, curry powder, 1 tablespoon sugar and 1 ½ teaspoons salt in a small saucepan. Simmer for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and chill. 6. Cut the avocado slices in half horizontally. Zest the lime, then peel and segment the lime and cut the segments in half horizontally. If using large basil leaves, tear them into small pieces. 7. Cut each of the frozen corn sheets into 4 3-by-8-inch rectangles, slicing through the wax paper. Return the cookie sheets to the freezer. 8. To serve, arrange a few pieces of crabmeat, avocado and red pepper flat in a 2-by-6-inch area on each of 8 plates. Do not pile the ingredients. Top each salad with a few corn kernels, a little lime zest and basil. Dab with a touch of coconut sauce. Remove a rectangle of corn sauce from the freezer. Peel the wax paper from it as you lay it directly over a salad. Work quickly — the sauce melts rapidly and will stick to the wax paper unless frozen solid. Do not worry about breaks in the sheet. As the sheet thaws, the sauce will envelope the ingredients below. Garnish with corn kernels, lime zest and basil. Repeat with the remaining 7 salads. Serves 8. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Invite as friend
ew Year's Day Feast is the Foie Gras Brulee. This is similar to a traditional creme brulee, but the custard is made with foie gras. The recipe is from one of my favorite cookbooks (
I'm trying out this new touch-based UI for my T-Mobile Wing. So far it's pretty nice, but it still need a little improvement. I would absolutely recommend trying it out. 
So I've been reading about Grant Atchez, chef at