Management Skills

I've identified a key management skill: Tactical Forgetting. There are some things a manager doesn't need to know, and if a team accidentally provides too much transparency, their manager can benefit from tactical forgetting.

Which leads me to a corollary observation: any sufficiently advanced management technique is indistinguishable from senility.

Wrens!

In honor of JustJoeP, some wildlife photography.

(1) Get tasty caterpillar for youngsters. (2) Test voltage.

Why yes, we DO want to eat that.

Observationally, Are We Getting Dumber?

http://xkcd.com/1252/

Two problems. XKCD perfectly describes one, which is that a relative risk increase is just about useless if you don't know the absolute risk. The other side of the problem: where do these risk values come from?

In 2001, Oxford Journals' International Journal of Epidemiology published "Epidemiology--is it time to call it a day?". Six years prior to that Science published "Epidemiology Faces Its Limits". So, 12-18 years later, have we gotten smarter about epidemiology?

Nope.

Maybe it's the amount of data or accessibility or ease of publishing or the disappearence of professional editing, but bad or trivial or meaningless stats and probabilities seem more common than ever. Our risk assessment skills seem just as bad as ever.

Two helpful guidelines for understanding any risk metric you see:

1. assume it's not from a controlled trial (in other words, assume it's low quality)
2. remember guidance from actual epidemiologists, from the 1995 article [emphasis mine, and keep in mind that, say, a "20% higher risk" is a relative risk of only 1.2]:

As a general rule of thumb," says Angell of the New England Journal, "we are looking for a relative risk of three or more [before accepting a paper for publication], particularly if it is biologically implausible or if it's a brand new finding." Robert Temple, director of drug evaluation at the Food and Drug Administration, puts it bluntly: "My basic rule is if the relative risk isn't at least three or four, forget it." But as John Bailar, an epidemiologist at McGill University and former statistical consultant for the NEJM, points out, there is no reliable way of identifying the dividing line. "If you see a 10-fold relative risk and it's replicated and it's a good study with biological backup, like we have with cigarettes and lung cancer, you can draw a strong inference," he says. "If it's a 1.5 relative risk, and it's only one study and even a very good one, you scratch your chin and say maybe.

Sous Vide Chili, Shortribs, and Chicken Breasts

Next post will not be about cooking, I promise.


Beef Short Ribs, Again
After the highly successful 72 hr, 55C shortrib trial, I decided to go for a more traditional braise texture. I smoked a slab of shortribs for a couple hours until they were near or at 50C, then cut them into individual ribs, bagged each, and put them into the water bath at 62C. I tried the first after 24 hours. It was tender and very good. The rest I left in for 48 hours. Even better! Very much a traditional braise texture -- flaking nicely, tender, moist -- quite different than the tender steak-like texture of the 55C version. They were not falling off the bone, but easy to eat without knife and fork. Rib meat should require a bit of pull to get off the bone anyway. To serve: coated with bbq sauce and popped under the broiler until browned and crispy.

Chili
While I had the aquarium going, I made a few bags of chili. Old-school Texas style chili: no onions, no tomatoes, no beans. Just brisket, beef fat, dried chilies, and salt. I picked up five bags of whole dried chili peppers from borough market and came up with a method for turning them into a chili paste:

1. stem, seed, and roughly chop the peppers
2. steep them in hot water from a kettle for 15 minutes or so, then drain
3. poach them in rendered beef fat over low heat for a while, then puree the whole thing

The result was very chili-y but pretty bitter. No worries.

For the meat I used a brisket flat, which went into the smoker for a couple hours, then I pulled it out and cubed it. Had to trim quite a bit but still ended up with plenty of beef. I coated the smoked, cubed beef with the chili paste and added salt, then divided between three bags. In they went -- 62C for 48 hours.

Result: really good! The bitterness went away, the chilies rounded out and mellowed out and blended beautifully with the beef. The beef got tender and the whole thing turned into a lovely, slightly fiery, smokey chili stew. Worth doing again. And I had extra chili paste I later used to make a more common pot of chili (with ground beef and tomatoes and onions).


Chicken Breasts
Well this was easy. I cut up a couple chickens, smoked the legs and wings, saved the carcasses for stock, and bagged the boneless breasts for a first sous vide chicken trial. (Incidentally, the smoked wings made fantastic buffalo wings later: crisped them in a smoking hot pan with butter, then coated and sauteed in a mix of equal parts butter and frank's hot sauce.) The chicken breasts went into the aquarium for 2 1/2 hours at 60C and turned out just about perfectly. One of them I just browned skin-side in a hot pan with butter. The other I didn't even bother, just cut it up for another dish. It's odd in that it goes against expectations. I normally do a perfectly good job of cooking chicken no matter what method I use, but here I still expected the thin end to be overdone. It wasn't of course. It was just as perfectly tender and done as the thickest part. Brilliant.

Cooking Broccoli: High Heat, No Water

with chicken and cheddar

I found this here: http://www.thewednesdaychef.com/the_wednesday_chef/2008/08/heston-blumenth.html
and it's my new favourite way to cook broccoli. Quick, easy, great results.

I use a cast iron frying pan. Basically:
v high heat, add some olive oil [smokin' hot]
broccoli in, lid on, don't touch it for 2 minutes
after two minutes: salt & pepper, some butter, shake it all about, lid back on, still high heat, don't touch it for 2 minutes
is it done? if not, leave it on another minute or two, otherwise it's ready to eat

Chocolate Ice Cream

Trying to get a suitably chocolatey ice cream is like doing titration quickly. You want to worry yourself that you've gone too far in order to hit the point that's just perfect. This is my modified version of "Ben's Chocolate" from the classic Ben & Jerry Ice Cream book from 1987 -- richer, less sugar, more choc (more egg, heavier cream, slightly different ratios, different instructions). I love it, but this will be too much for many people.

140g 90% dark chocolate [I use Lindt]
240g whole milk [I used a rich jersey & guernsey milk]
2 eggs + 1 add'l egg yolk
120g sugar
240g double cream
1t vanilla extract
pinch salt

method
chop chocolate and put in bowl
heat milk in microwave until almost boiling
pour hot milk over chocolate and let sit for a couple minutes
stir milk & chocolate together, should be smooth and melty now [if it is not smooth and melty, you should either panic or cry, or panic then cry, or threaten it with the microwave until it complies]

in separate bowl, which eggs&yolk
whisk in sugar
add dbl cream, vanilla, a hearty pinch of salt and whisk together to mix

mix chocolate into egg&cream mixture
chill before using
after chilling, whisk a bit before adding to ice cream maker