Cholesterol & Heart Disease: Real Info Disseminating

Another nice article on cholesterol and heart disease, from Dr. Mark Hyman: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/why-cholesterol-may-not-b_b_290687.html

None of this is new to readers of Dr. Davis's blog, but still good to see more coverage.

Step 1: goto destination. There is no Step 2.

I did actually lol at this. The official london transport journey planner has an advanced option that you can check if you want to cycle, instead of the usual bus/tube/rail/boat planner options. Although I use the tfl planner all the time, I had never used the cycling option before but thought I'd give it a shot since I want to get to tower hill by bike. Here's the result:
No, there are no maps, diagrams, detailed routes, or, well, anything. This is genius in its unhelpfulness. I love it.

yes, NFL season

I love this clip. Makes Steve Smith seem like the most awesome teammate ever. Of course, he's been known to occasionally punch out his own co-workers, but who amongst us hasn't?

Old Leftovers

I love confit. I'm going to write a book called The Confit Cure. I don't know what it cures, but it must be lots. I slow-cooked some duck legs last month, then shredded the meat. What I didn't eat right away I put in a small ceramic container, poured fat on the top, and put it in the fridge with the thought to eat it soon enough, but forgot about it. Finally ate it nearly four weeks later, and it was wonderful.

Bad Apple

Apple seems to have screwed up their wireless networking from laptops (especially on battery power) on recent software releases, starting with 10.5.8 but continuing with snow leopard. Frequent "no internet" faults. Really frustrating. Lots of complaints out there but no action. And I notice apple support page has the classic dumbass bad units problem:

**** £0.05p per minute when dialled from a landline within the UK. Call charges may vary when calling from a mobile phone.

(p = pence = 1/100th of 1 £)

mayonnaise trials

I've been making my own mayo lately. I was annoyed that even varieties advertising "olive oil" were still mostly soybean oil. Homemade is really excellent. I've found that a food processor works best. An actual blender can work, but often doesn't. I use really light olive oil for now, leaving the really good stuff because (a) it imparts and incredibly strong flavor to mayo and (2) if the emulsion doesn't hold it breaks my heart to have used stuff that costs me upwards of £13 or £14/litre. But now that I'm reliably turning out the goods I will start adding the quality olive oil back in.

At the moment, I prefer not using mustard. I like the lemon juice, though, and white wine vinegar. My basic may is 3 egg yolks, pinch of salt, about a tablespoon of vinegar, and juice of at least one lemon. Then the oil. I haven't yet experimented with putting everything at once. Supposedly if you don't pour the oil in a very light-handed stream, a singularity will form, imploding the earth into your kitchen and extinguishing all life on the planet. But I'm curious to test this now.

I recently made Fergus Henderson's Aioli recipe (which, he rightly points out, is not garlic mayo), and it nearly killed me. 2 egg yolks, 20 cloves of garlic, salt, vinegar, lemon, olive oil. Yes, twenty. I ended up with a ramekin full that was enough to serve approximately 50 garlic-loving guests. It was really good, but next time I think I will just try a more modest garlicking of my mayo.

In any case, I recommend giving it a go. It's tastier and healthier than the industrial seed oil versions on the shelves. And in the future, it will be illegal to eat raw eggs, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Apple Season

New season Bramleys are back at the market. I love fall.

Goodnight Moon

Snapped four shots of a lovely moon out the back window last night just for kicks, shutter at 1/125th, 1/250th, 1/500th, and 1/800th. Impressively clear for a London night. The moon is never not cool.

The Problem With House

House is a mystery show, Sherlock Holmes in a hospital with a bit of CSI thrown in. The problem is that I'm not a doctor, so I have to take their word for it on the medical mystery aspect. It always ends up feeling like the solution is a character whose first appearance is at the very end, dramatically stepping in from behind the curtains to take the blame. Aha! It was malignant fibromajestic transnecrotic spleenitis! Aha! The plumber did it! [There was a plumber in this story??] To make up for this, and to allow us to play along, they have to make just about everyone getting treated be liars, so we at least can try to figure out the lies, if not the medical condition.

The other problem with watching House is that now every time my foot itches I diagnose myself with liver failure.

Workout Differentiation

Finally getting some running fitness back, after peaking two years ago and having most of 2008 off. I'm just now getting to the point of differentiation in my workouts. At first, everything is slow and short. Then, as I get better, everything turns into a tempo workout. The trick is to be able to get enough speed that I can actually do a longer, slower workout. I've gotten a few intervals workouts in and that makes all the difference. Now I changeup between intervals, long & slow, and tempo runs, and I just barely have enough fitness and pace to make these meaningful. The problem on the long & slow days is not just turning it into a tempo run if I'm feeling good 15 minutes in.

Next goal: get back under my personal best for 10k by the end of the year.

Bottle Apostle

The new wine shop in the village opened a few weeks ago. Yes, I'm still sad that Frock's is gone, but the new business is really nice. Friendly and enthusiastic without being intimidating, welcoming of all levels of interest, from novice to experts, and with a really thoughtful and excellent inventory. And the automatic wine sampling machines are very cool. Good addition. It should do well.

Now Victoria Park really, really needs a fishmonger.

Shame About The Diesel, USA

Nice 4-dr you can cruise in at 130mph yet get over 40 mp[US]g? Excellent-looking new BMW. Better mileage stats than my Audi A2 (never available in the US), but goes 0-60 in 8s and tops out at 140mph.