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C is for Cinephilia Studies (plus some telephilia, too)

Diposting oleh good reading on Kamis, 28 Mei 2009

Still from Jean-Luc Godard's Moments Choisis des Histoire(s) du Cinéma, 2004

A veritable labour of love, today, from Film Studies For Free: a list of links to freely available online resources devoted to the study of cinephilia, telephilia and videophilia - the putatively excessive love for whatever is projected (or broadcast or played) on screens large and small. Truth be told: FSFF can't really see what's excessive about that... (Updated June 1, 2009)

To conclude, the normally parsimonious (Open Access championing) Film Studies For Free blog doesn't usually plug books that you have to pay for (even though its owner both writes and, of course, reads such papercentric objects) but it absolutely must flag up the fact that it is very much looking forward to Scott Balcerzak and Jason Sperb's forthcoming Cinephilia in the Age of Digital Reproduction: Film, Pleasure and Digital Culture, vol. 1, due to be published by Wallflower Press in June 2009.

This first volume in a twin-anthology project includes contributions by Robert Burgoyne, Zach Campbell, Tobey Crockett, Brian Darr, Kevin Fisher, Andy Horbal, Christian Keathley, Adrian Martin, Jenna Ng, Lisa Purse, Dan Sallitt and Girish Shambu, as well as by Sperb and Balcerzak.

As today's links list so amply testifies, so many of these authors have already tirelessly shared their work on this topic for free online. FSFF thinks this is very much a book worth having.

More about → C is for Cinephilia Studies (plus some telephilia, too)

Oven Roasted Chicken

Diposting oleh good reading on Rabu, 27 Mei 2009

Besides baking, I bought an oven 3 years ago with the intention to use it to for roasting. However, it took me much longer before I attempted to roast a whole chicken! I used to think that it must be a very mind boggling task to roast a chicken, mainly because I am not familiar with herbs and spices. I am glad that I have since uncovered my myth about roasting and even learned a thing or two about cooking with herbs. Ever since the first trial, this Roast Chicken with Lemon and Rosemary has became a regular dish on our dinning table.

I adapted several recipes, although I followed quite closely to Jamie Oliver's version, and came up with one that uses ingredients which I always have on hand or are readily available from the supermarket shelves. Even though I would prefer to use fresh rosemary, on several occasions I have replaced it with dried ones, it works just as fine.

I love any kind of potatoes. So, I will not miss the chance to roast some potatoes alongside the chicken. I have experimented with Russet potatoes as well as the usual yellow potatoes commonly available at the local wet markets. Both taste great to me, but if you like very fluffy potatoes, then go for Russets. The potatoes are first boiled with a whole lemon till they are tender. They are then tossed with some simple seasonings before layering them in a roasting pan. This layer of potatoes also serves as a 'rack' for the chicken. The hot lemon is stabbed several times before it goes inside the cavity of the chicken.

The roasting time can be pretty long, my oven usually takes at least 90 mins or longer before the chicken is done. I shouldn't be complaining as I pretty much enjoy the aroma created by a chicken roasting in the oven...which is infused with the fragrant lemon-pine flavour of the rosemary and a subtle presence of lemon. This roast chicken is full of flavours, deliciously tender and juicy, even the breast meat tastes good to me. The best part has to be the crackly crispy skin, which my elder one would always save for the last ;)

Lemon and Rosemary Roast Chicken

Ingredients:

1 medium-size chicken
2 teaspoons fine sea salt
2 teaspoons freshly grounded black pepper
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
2 teaspoons fresh, finely chopped rosemary (or use 1 teaspoon dried rosemary)
1/2 kg potatoes
1 lemon

Method:

Grate zest of the lemon in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, mixed herbs, rosemary and mix well. Set aside.

Wash, clean and pat the chicken dry (very dry) with paper towels all over, including the cavity. Rub the seasoning mixture over the chicken and inside the cavity. With fingertips, gently separate the skin from the meat of the chicken breast and push some seasoning mixture under the skin. Leave the chicken to marinate for at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.

Remove chicken from fridge and let it rest in room temperature for at least 30 mins so that it will cook evenly. Brush melted butter (or olive oil) all over the chicken.

Peel and cut the potatoes into halves or quarters. Put them into a pot of water with a pinch of salt together with the whole lemon. Bring to a boil and continue to cook for about 10 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute. Return the potatoes to the same pot. Toss the potatoes with some salt, freshly grounded black pepper and a little olive oil. Do this while the potatoes are still hot so their outsides get chuffed up and fluffy.

While the lemon is still hot, carefully pierce it with the tip of a sharp knife about 10 times. Stuff the lemon inside the cavity of the chicken.

Put the potatoes in a roasting pan. Tuck the wings underneath the chicken and place it breast side up, on the potatoes. Cook in preheated oven at 200 degC for around 40 - 45 minutes or until the skin is nicely browned. Turn the chicken over and roast for a further 30 minutes or until the skin is browned. Turn the chicken breast side up again and roast for another 10 - 15 mins until the chicken is done and the potatoes are nice and golden. To test whether the chicken is done, pierce the tip of a knife near the joint between the drumstick and the thigh. The juices should run clear (not pink), if it is still pink, cook the chicken a little longer. Carefully remove the lemon from the cavity. Let the chicken rest for 10 minutes before serving. This allows the juices to settle and the chicken will be much more succulent.

More about → Oven Roasted Chicken

COME HERE, MY LITTLE DUMPLING!

Diposting oleh good reading on Minggu, 24 Mei 2009

psst!

Hey you...Dumpling Lover...

I know you love all manner of dumplings! Gyoza, apple dumplings, potstickers, perogies, har gow...if it can be wrapped into a tasty mouthful-sized portion, you're into it, right?

You troll the Asian market freezer section marvelling at the myriad of fillings of bagged commercially made dumplings like those really tasty potstickers from Hon's. Which, by the way are right next to the bags of frozen tiny Man Tou (steamed white buns) so that for breakfast or snacks, you can whip out a few from the freezer to steam (in-only-3-minutes-on-high-heat-can-you-believe-it!) for the kids 'cause they so like to dip the little buns in condensed milk!

Unlike my maternal grandmother who deftly made her own doughs from scratch and jerry-rigged two ping-pong paddles with a hinge at the end to squish dough balls into perfect little circles of dumpling wrappers for her homemade dim sum, I tend to buy my wrappers at the local Asian market.

Sure, I've made wrappers from scratch. But I'm no dumpling martyr. The fun part is inventing the different fillings to be wrapped. You can be so creative with the dumpling innards!

Dumpling wrappers from scratch definitely are yummier and have a lovely chewy texture just like homemade noodles. However, I'm willing to compromise that because I don't have any time with my kids and my job to do the Martha thing and make the wrappers too.

So don't read on if you're looking for a wrapping recipe. This post is all about the joy of making dumplings. It's economical, it's yummy and it's healthy too! You can control what goes into the wrappers (think hidden veggies for the kiddies). Since my time is money around here (and my sanity too) I buy fresh dumpling wrappers when I decide to make dumplings. I know how to make wrappers from scratch but I'll leave that for the summertime when I'm on my holiday. Maybe.

Instant dumpling gratification is what I'm all about today. These are the closest thing to scratch and you won't believe how amazing they are compared to the commercially frozen ones.

When I make potstickers, I don't bother with making just one batch. I usually make it in bulk so that I can freeze the raw dumplings for future meals. Generally, a package of wrappers will make enough dumplings for a filling that consists of 1 lb of ground pork. So, if you want to make just a few I suppose you could just halve the recipe.

Chinese Potstickers, the Cakebrained Way

2 packages of commercially made frozen dumpling wrappers (gyoza or potsticker style, which are round and do not have egg as an ingredient) [mine were 300 gr packages; so 600 grams total of wrappers]

Filling:

2 lbs of ground pork
1 package of silken tofu (optional)
1 large bunch of chives (or any other veg like baby bok choy or napa cabbage etc.), finely chopped
4 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp Shao-Hsing wine or dry sherry
2 tsp sesame oil
2 T soy sauce
1 T oyster sauce
2 T cornstarch

Saute the chives, garlic and ginger in a pan until softened and aromatic. Allow to cool.
Combine the pork, silken tofu, the cooled sauted chives mixture and the rest of the filling ingredients. Mix well. You can even mix all of these ingredients in your stand mixer with the paddle attachment.
Have a sheet pan ready with a tea towel to cover the finished dumplings. Get a small bowl of water for sealing the dumpling skins and use a small spatula or spoon for scooping the filling into the formed skins.
Keep the dumpling wrappers covered with plastic wrap or a towel while you form and fill the wrappers. Follow the slide show tutorial for pleating techniques. If you don't want to bother with authenticity, then simply fold the dumpling in a half moon shape without pleating and be done with it. Who's going to sue you for that? Life's too short.
Wrapped dumplings should be frozen uncovered until solid, which will only take a few hours in the freezer. Then, remove from the sheet pan and store in ziploc freezer bags until needed.
To cook the dumplings, follow the tutorial in the slideshow. Use a nonstick pan with a lid and a little veg oil. After frying until golden brown, add 1/4 cup of water and cover until most of the liquid has evaporated. Uncover and serve with dipping sauce (or continue frying the other sides if, like me, you like all your sides to be crispy!)

Makes approximately 80 plump, overstuffed dumplings

Potsticker Dipping Sauce

1 T dark soy sauce
1 T soy sauce
2 T Chinese white rice vinegar
1 T Hot chili oil (optional)
1 T finely sliced scallion
1 T grated fresh ginger
1/4 cup chicken stock

Combine all ingredients and mix well. Serve with potstickers. Store remaining sauce covered in refrigerator

More about → COME HERE, MY LITTLE DUMPLING!

Wholemeal Banana Tart

Diposting oleh good reading on Sabtu, 23 Mei 2009

My elder son can swim far better than his brother, but when it comes to running, he is not better off than me. He went for his 'long-distance' run early this morning. It was part of his school's annual physical fitness test. Although it was only 1.6 km, to him, who has got a pair of elephant's legs, is almost equivalent to a mini-marathon ;)

In order to give him an extra boost of energy, I made something with banana for his breakfast today.

I have planned to make a banana tart using the same old Peach Tart recipe. However, when I was gathering the necessary ingredients, I realised that I have ran out of ground almond. I was not prepared to get out of the house to buy a pack of ground almond, and neither was I keen to bake a banana cake. So I looked around for a suitable substitute...and when I spotted the pack of wholemeal flour, I knew instantly that my problem was solved.

I was a little hesitant to use the wholemeal flour for the pastry base, my main concern was whether the pastry would be able to form a dough or hold it's shape. But I went ahead and gave it a go. Lady Luck was with me, the pastry dough was not very much different from the usual ones using ground almond. I was also surprised that even without the almond, the finished tart shell was emitting a nice buttery aroma when it was cooling on the rack.

This Wholemeal Banana Tart is not as pleasing to the eyes as compared to the lovely Peach Tart. The banana slices turned black upon baking, no amount of icing sugar could cover up the undesired appearance :'(

Nevertheless, it smells and tastes really really delicious. I love the nutty texture of wholemeal flour, although the filling was slightly sweet due to the generous amount of bananas I have added to the filling. My kids have no complaints though. The tart shell was crisp on the day it was baked, sadly, it softened when left over night, I wonder whether the mashed banana was the main culprit?

My boy clocked in 10min 4sec for his run which is 1.5mins faster than his usual timing. No, I won't attribute it to this tart, I think it was his determination and the set of goals that he had set that made him pushed himself to his limit. It is my wish to see him having the same zeal in everything he does.

Wholemeal Banana Tart

Ingredients:
(makes one 18cm tart)

pastry:
40g unsalted butter , soften at room temperature
30g caster sugar
1 tablespoon (15g) lightly beaten egg
20g wholemeal flour
80g plain flour

filling:
60g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
50g brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
80g wholemeal flour
10g flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large bananas, mashed

2 bananas, thinly sliced (optional)
icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Method:

Pastry base:

Lightly grease an 18cm tart pan, set aside. Sieve flour and set aside.

With a manual whisk, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

Add in the egg gradually, whisking the batter till well mixed each time the egg is added.

With a spatula, fold in the wholemeal flour.

Sieve over the flour in 2 to 3 additions into the batter. Fold the mixture gently with the spatula. Gather and form the pastry into a round ball.

Roll out the pastry in between 2 plastic sheets or baking paper to about 23cm in diameter.

Remove one side of the plastic sheet. Carefully turn/flip the pastry and place it over the prepared tart pan. Mould the pastry into the tart pan, smoothing the edges and the rim carefully. If the pastry is too soft to handle, chill it in the fridge for 10~15 mins before rolling.

Chill the pastry in the fridge for 20mins. (This is to prevent the pastry from shrinking upon baking.)

Use a fork to poke holes on the pastry. Brush the top of the rim with egg wash. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 10 ~12mins until the edges are slightly browned. Let cool completely.

filling:

With a whisk, cream butter and brown sugar till the mixture turns fluffy. Add in the egg gradually, mix well each time the egg is added.

Add in wholemeal flour and the plain flour. Fold with a spatula till well incorporated. Add in vanilla extract followed by the mashed banana, mix well.

Spread the filling onto the cooled pastry base. Ensure that the edges are filled up. Line with banana slices (optional). Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 deg C for 30 ~ 35 mins, until the edges and filling turn golden brown. Let cool, and dust with some icing sugar (optional).

Recipe Source: Delicious!! Baked Cakes, Ikuko Omori

More about → Wholemeal Banana Tart

'Final Girl' Studies

Diposting oleh good reading on Rabu, 20 Mei 2009

Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, the final girl of Halloween

Film Studies For Free loves plucky female film protagonists (and false protagonists, for that matter) still fighting on in there at "The End".

It also loves Carol J. Clover’s 1987 essay 'Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film,' (Representations [Number 20: Fall 1987, pp. 187-228] - later included by Clover in her hugely influential book Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,1992]), which was the first work to coin the resonant phrase 'Final Girl' to name climactic female survivors of slasher/horror/fantasy-sci-fi-horror films.

Clover's essay asked the following, rather fascinating, question: why, in these films which are supposedly principally aimed at male spectators, are the surviving heroes so often women characters?

It's a question that has been frequently addressed, since, in film, television, and now videogame studies, many of them freely available online. So here's Film Studies For Free's not-so-weak-and-feeble list of terribly-brave-and-resilient links to open-access "Final Girl" Studies, beginning with Clover's key essay, and then proceeding in an orderly alphabetical direction, by author surname:

FSFF also highly recommends that you visit Slayage: International Journal of Buffy Studies for lots of other relevant studies.

More about → 'Final Girl' Studies

Classic Latin American film studies in memory of Mario Benedetti

Diposting oleh good reading on Selasa, 19 Mei 2009

Sequence from El lado oscuro del corazón (The Dark Side of the Heart, Argentina, 1992, directed by Eliseo Subiela) featuring Mario Benedetti's poem 'No te salves'/'Don't Save Yourself' (recited by Oliverio/Dario Grandinetti to Ana/ Sandra Ballesteros) and starring Benedetti himself as 'El poeta alemán'/'the German Poet' reading his poem 'Coraz ón coraza'

Film Studies For Free was just going to post today on three classic Latin American film studies texts that are now fabulously available as free e-books from the wonderful people at University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions:

But then FSFF's author heard of the sad death at 88 of the great Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, who devoted his life to demonstrating, so beautifully, that 'the South also exists', in literature, politics, and the cinema.

As the BBC website reports: 'Born to Italian immigrants, Benedetti wrote more than 80 novels, poems, short stories and essays during a career spanning six decades. His 1960 novel [La tregua] The Truce was translated into 19 languages and made into a film', La tregua directed by Sergio Renán based on a script by Benedetti and Aída Bortnik (the film was also remade in 2003) .

While Renán's La tregua was probably the most important film based on Benedetti's writing (at least in terms of its political impact), he was, in FSFF's opinion, the most cinematic of South American poets, with over eighteen screenplays to his name. He had a particular association with the highly lyrical film work of Argentine writer-director Eliseo Subiela (an auteur on whose work FSFF's author has published), especially the films El lado oscuro del corazón (1992, sequence embedded above; also see here) and Despabílate amor (aka Wake Up Love, 1996).

Below, as is FSFF's wont, are links to some online and freely accessible studies of the 'Benedettian' films of Subiela, as well as of Uruguayan and Southern Cone cinema more generally.

Nunca te salvaste, Mario... Gracias.

More about → Classic Latin American film studies in memory of Mario Benedetti

When a fruit is not a fruit

Diposting oleh good reading on Minggu, 17 Mei 2009

Although both my boys do eat their greens and fruits, each of them has developed a special dislike for a particular type of vegetables or fruits. For example, my elder son loves bitter gourd, while his brother would not eat a tiny portion without screaming 'yucky!' all the way. On the other hand, the younger fellow enjoys the sensation of a juicy cherry tomato bursting in his mouth, the elder boy would always eat it with a huge frown spreading across his brow. Both hate celery and yet would fight for the last slice of Japanese cucumber on the plate.

A couple of months ago, during dinner, when my elder child realised that there were some cherry tomatoes scattered over the bowl of salad, as if to justify his dislike for this fruit, he said with a disgust in his voice, "Mah...mmmyyy, do you know that when we eat tomatoes, we are actually eating the ovaries of the plant?!" I was totally taken aback by that statement, and it really made me paused for a few seconds before I popped one of those juicy fruits inside my mouth ;) You see, it happened that on that day, he learned in class about the reproductive system of a flowering plant. During my time, this topic was only covered when I was in secondary school, but nowadays, the kids are taught way in advance! Indeed, fruits are actually the matured ovaries of plants. However, who will usually associate this 'biological fact' in our daily lives?!

Last week, as usual, at the eleventh hour before his Science exam the next day, I sat down with my boy to go through the subject. Having mastered the 'skills' of passing so many exams over the earlier part of my life, I advised him wisely that it would be important to know the similarities and differences between the functions of the ovary of a plant to that of the human body. Yes, they study the human reproductive system at Primary 5 (equivalent to a 5th grade)! We gained a common understanding that the ovary of a plant protects the ovules (further developed into seeds) as it develops into a fruit, whereas in a human body, the foetus is protected by the uterus. He then asked me, "So, what about strawberries?"

"Strawberries have got seeds on the outside of the fruit, and so, how does fertilisation take place?" he asked me, hoping to get an instant answer. "Oh yes, the strawberries are certainly not doing their jobs to protect the seeds!" I said. I told him, I don't have the answer, so it is best to find out. Thanks to the www, we cleared our doubts with just a few clicks.

It was really interesting to discover that strawberries are technically false fruits! The tiny 'specks' on the outer surface are actually matured ovaries or true fruits. Each single speck or "achene", as they are called, contains a seed that is enclosed and fused by the ovary wall, making it a fruit! The red, fleshy part is actually the enlarged receptacle or the end of the stem on which the flower is borne.

Can you imagine how many 'strawberry fruits' are there on this tart?!

As a bonus, we also learned that by definition, the individual grains of wheat and rice are also technically fruits! It has never been a surprise that I can always learn something new through my kids ;)

More about → When a fruit is not a fruit

The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic: Possible Culprits Part I

Diposting oleh good reading on Sabtu, 16 Mei 2009

In the last post, I reviewed two studies that suggested heart attacks were rare in the U.K. until the 1920s -1930s. In this post, I'll be discussing some of the diet and lifestyle factors that preceded and associated with the coronary heart disease epidemic in the U.K and U.S. I've cherry picked factors that I believe could have played a causal role. Many things changed during that time period, and I don't want to give the impression that I have "the answer". I'm simply presenting ideas for thought and discussion.

First on the list: sugar. Here's a graph of refined sugar consumption in the U.K. from 1815 to 1955, from the book The Saccharine Disease, by Dr. T. L. Cleave. Sugar consumption increased dramatically in the U.K. over this time period, reaching near-modern levels by the turn of the century, and continuing to increase after that except during the wars:

Here's a graph of total sweetener consumption in the U.S. from 1909 to 2005 (source: USDA food supply database). Between 1909 and 1922, sweetener consumption increased by 40%:

If we assume a 10 to 20 year lag period, sugar is well placed to play a role in the CHD epidemic. Sugar is easy to pick on. Diets high in refined sugar tend to promote obesity due to overeating. An excess causes a number of detrimental changes in animal models and human subjects that are partially dependent on the development of obesity, including fatty liver, the metabolic syndrome, and small, oxidized low-density lipoprotein particles (LDL). Small and oxidized LDL associate strongly with cardiovascular disease risk and may be involved in causing it. These effects seem to be partly attributable to the fructose portion of sugar, which is 50% of table sugar (sucrose), about 50% of most naturally sweet foods, and 55% of the most common form of high-fructose corn syrup. That explains why starches, which break down into glucose (another type of sugar), don't have the same negative effects as table sugar and HFCS.

Hydrogenated fat is the next suspect. I don't have any graphs to present, because no one has systematically tracked hydrogenated fat consumption in the U.S. or U.K. to my knowledge. However, it was first marketed in the U.S. by Procter & Gamble under the brand name Crisco in 1911. Crisco stands for "crystallized cottonseed oil", and involves taking an industrial waste oil (from cotton seeds) and chemically treating it using high temperature, a nickel catalyst and hydrogen gas (see this post for more information). Hydrogenated fats for human consumption hit markets in the U.K. around 1920. Here's what Dr. Robert Finlayson had to say about margarine in his paper "Ischaemic Heart Disease, Aortic Aneurysms, and Atherosclerosis in the City of London, 1868-1982":

...between 1909-13 and 1924-28, margarine consumption showed the highest percentage increase, whilst that of eggs only increased slightly and that of butter remained unchanged. Between 1928 and 1934, margarine consumption fell by one-third, while butter consumption increased by 57 percent: and increase that coincided with a fall of 48 percent in its price. Subsequently, margarine sales have burgeoned, and if one is correct in stating that the coronary heart disease epidemic started in the second decade of this century, then the concept of hydrogenated margarines as an important aetiological factor, so strongly advocated by Martin, may merit more consideration than hitherto.

Partially hydrogenated oils contain trans fat, which is truly new to the human diet, with the exception of small amounts found in ruminant fats including butter. But for the most part, natural trans fats are not the same as industrial trans fats, and in fact some of them, such as conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), may be beneficial. To my knowledge, no one has discovered health benefits of industrial trans fats. To the contrary, compared to butter, they shrink LDL size. They also inhibit enzymes that the body uses to make a diverse class of signaling compounds known as eicosanoids. Trans fat consumption associates very strongly with the risk of heart attack in observational studies. Which is ironic, because hydrogenated fats were originally marketed as a healthier alternative to animal fats. The Center for Science in the Public Interest shamed McDonald's into switching the beef tallow in their deep friers for hydrogenated vegetable fats in the 1990s. In 2009, even the staunchest opponents of animal fats have to admit that they're healthier than hydrogenated fat.
The rise of cigarettes was a major change that probably contributed massively to the CHD epidemic. They were introduced just after the turn of the century in the U.S. and U.K., and rapidly became fashionable (source):

If you look at the second to last graph from the previous post, you can see that there's a striking correspondence between cigarette consumption and CHD deaths in the U.K. In fact, if you moved the line representing cigarette consumption to the right by about 20 years, it would overlap almost perfectly with CHD deaths. The risk of heart attack is so strongly associated with smoking in observational studies that even I believe it probably represents a causal relationship. There's no doubt in my mind that smoking cigarettes contributes to the risk of heart attack and various other health problems.

Smoking is a powerful factor, but it doesn't explain everything. How is it that the Kitavans of Papua New Guinea, more than 3/4 of whom smoke cigarettes, have an undetectable incidence of heart attack and stroke? Why do the French and the Japanese, who smoke like chimneys (at least until recently), have the two lowest heart attack death rates of all the affluent nations? There's clearly another factor involved that trumps cigarette smoke.

More about → The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic: Possible Culprits Part I

THE ZEN OF CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MAKING

Diposting oleh good reading on Jumat, 15 Mei 2009

Dark and White Chocolate Chip Cookie Nirvana

Achieving a state of higher consciousness through a chocolate chip cookie?

Wouldn't it be grand indeed!

cross-section of a cookie: see the dark and white chocolate strata? pretty neat, eh?

Jacques Torres' Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, from his gorgeous book A Year in Chocolate: 80 recipes for Holidays and Special Occasions, is such a vehicle to deliver you to cookie nirvana.

You will be enlightened by the delicately crispy exterior that yields to a slightly chewy interior. Unrefrigerated dough baked straight from my mixer yielded a flatter, more uniform cookie. After refrigeration for a few hours, the cookies were more chunky-looking but just as tasty.

The chocolate chip cookies are meant to be gargantuan so as to achieve the proper texture. I made the 3 inch cookie ball doughs and was rewarded with baked cookies that were about 5 inches in diameter. The cookie below was from my first unrefrigerated batch, made straight from the mixer and the above cookies were made from 3-inch balls of refrigerated dough.

The first batch of unrefrigerated dough yielded a baked cookie exterior that was deceptively smooth. It didn't even look like it had much chocolate in it. However, when you break one open, you can see the chocolate strata therein. I used real chocolate bars and not chips (which I think is so important for this cookie): Lindt Dark 85%, and Callebaut white chocolate chunks. The chocolate bars were just broken along their molded lines and since they were kind of big chunks, I found it easier to sandwich them between the raw cookie dough. I didn't want to break up the chocolate too much. I was rewarded by the lovely layers created by this technique.

How could I improve on Mr. Chocolate's fantastic chocolate chip cookie recipe? Well, my adaptation of Torres' recipe was to add white chocolate chunks, which I believe only improved the original recipe. The white chocolate added an almost sweet-nutty, creamy-vanilla sort of flavour and texture that contrasted well with the bitterness of the dark chocolate strata.

I think I overdid it with the amount of chocolate overall (yikes, did I just say that?) because when I adapted the recipe by adding white chocolate, I didn't really decrease the original amount called for in the recipe. There was barely enough cookie dough holding the chocolate together!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Nirvana

makes 3 dozen ridiculously large cookies

adapted from Jacques Torres' A Year in Chocolate

4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour [I used organic, unbleached]

2 t salt

1 1/2 t baking powder

1 1/2 t baking soda

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar

1 1/4 cups plus 2 1/2 T granulated sugar [I used organic evaporated cane sugar]

3 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

2 t pure vanilla extract

1 2/3 pounds bittersweet chocolate, chopped into bite-sized pieces [I used Lindt Dark(85%) chocolate bars and broke along the lines]

1 cup white chocolate pieces [I used Callebaut]

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Have ready 2 nonstick cookie sheets, or line 2 regular cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. Set aside.
In a bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, beat the butter on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until very light and fluffy. Add the brown and granulated sugars and beat until well blended. Add the eggs and beat just until incorporated. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture a little at a time, beating after each addition until incorporated. When all of the flour mixture has been incorporated, remove the bowl from the mixer and, using a rubber spatula, fold in the chocolate.
To shape the cookies, using a tablespoon, scoop out a heaping spoonful of the dough and, using the palms of your hands, form it into a 3-inch ball. Place the balls on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 1 inch apart.
Bake for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned around the edges. Remove from the oven, transfer the cookies to wire racks, and let cool completely.
Store, in an airtight container, for up to 5 days.
[cakebrained note: I keep prepared dough in their 3-inch ball shapes, refrigerated in a ziploc bag for a few days and bake as I need them. I only ever bake 6 cookies on a sheet at one time. This way you have a constant supply of fresh cookies. They're so good hot from the oven! Alternately, you can freeze the cookie balls too and keep them longer, but you may have to add a few minutes to the baking time]

More about → THE ZEN OF CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MAKING

A Heart of Gold: Pakeezah and the Hindi Courtesan Film

Diposting oleh good reading

Click on the image of Meena Kumari, above, to link to the 'Chalte Chalte' sequence in Pakeezah (music by by Ghulam Mohammed, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Kamal Amrohi, Kaif Bhopali, sung by Lata Mangeshkar).

One of the favourite films of Film Studies For Free's author is Kamal Amrohi's Pakeezah/Pure Heart (1971), a magnificent Hindi melodrama and one of the most accomplished and beautiful films in the transnational 'courtesan with a heart of gold' film genre.

As one of FSFF's favourite scholarly film weblogs is Michael J. Anderson's Tativille, you can possibly imagine how delighted it was to find that the centrepiece feature of Indian Auteur's third issue is Anderson's remarkable essay on Pakeezah. (IndianAuteur is an excellent online journal edited by Nitesh Rohit, Supriya Suri and others).

What better way to celebrate the felicitous conjunction of all of these elements, then, or to encourage FSFF readers to explore them all, than a little list of Friday links to online and freely accessible studies touching on Pakeezah, Kamal Amrohi, Meena Kumari (pictured above) and the Hindi Courtesan Film.

More about → A Heart of Gold: Pakeezah and the Hindi Courtesan Film

The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic

Diposting oleh good reading on Selasa, 12 Mei 2009

Few people alive today are old enough to remember the beginning of the coronary heart disease (CHD) epidemic in the 1920s and 1930s, when physicians in the U.S. and U.K. began sounding alarm bells that an uncommon disease was rapidly becoming the leading cause of death. By the 1950s, their predictions had come true. A decade later, a new generation of physicians replaced their predecessors and began to doubt that heart attacks had ever been uncommon. Gradually, the idea that the disease was once uncommon faded from the public consciousness, and heart attacks were seen as an eternal plague of humankind, avoided only by dying of something else first.

According to U.S. National Vital Statistics records beginning in 1900, CHD was rarely given as the cause of death by physicians until after 1930. The following graph is from The Great Cholesterol Con, by Anthony Colpo.

The relevant line for CHD deaths begins in the lower left-hand part of the graph. Other types of heart disease, such as heart failure due to cardiomyopathy, were fairly common and well recognized at the time. These data are highly susceptible to bias because they depend on the physician's perception of the cause of death, and are not adjusted for the mean age of the population. In other words, if a diagnosis of CHD wasn't "popular" in 1920, its prevalence could have been underestimated. The invention of new technologies such as the electrocardiogram facilitated diagnosis. Changes in diagnostic criteria also affected the data; you can see them as discontinuities in 1948, 1968 and 1979. For these reasons, the trend above isn't a serious challenge to the idea that CHD has always been a common cause of death in humans who reach a certain age.

This idea was weakened in 1951 with the publication of a paper in the Lancet medical journal titled "Recent History of Coronary Disease", by Dr. Jerry N. Morris. Dr. Morris sifted through the autopsy records of London Hospital and recorded the frequency of coronary thrombosis (artery blockage in the heart) and myocardial infarction (MI; loss of oxygen to the heart muscle) over the period 1907-1949. MI is the technical term for a heart attack, and it can be caused by coronary thrombosis. Europe has a long history of autopsy study, and London Hospital had a long-standing policy of routine autopsies during which they kept detailed records of the state of the heart and coronary arteries. Here's what he found:

The dashed line is the relevant one. This is a massive increase in the prevalence of CHD death that cannot be explained by changes in average lifespan. Although the average lifespan increased considerably over that time period, most of the increase was due to reduced infant mortality. The graph only includes autopsies performed on people 35-70 years old. Life expectancy at age 35 changed by less than 10 years over the same time period. The other possible source of bias is in the diagnosis. Physicians may have been less likely to search for signs of MI when the diagnosis was not "popular". Morris addresses this in the paper:

The first possibility, of course, is that the increase is not real but merely reflects better post-mortem diagnosis. This is an unlikely explanation. There is abundant evidence throughout the forty years that the department was fully aware of the relation of infarction to thrombosis, of myocardial fibrosis to gradual occlusion, and of the topical pathology of ostial stenosis and infarction from embolism, as indeed were many pathologists last century... But what makes figures like these important is that, unlike other series of this kind, they are based on the routine examination at necropsy of the myocardium and of the coronary arteries over the whole period. Moreover Prof. H. M. Turnbull, director of the department, was making a special case of atheroma and arterial disease in general during 1907-1914 (Turnbull 1915). The possibility that cases were overlooked is therefore small, and the earlier material is as likely to be reliable as the later.

Dr. Morris's study was followed by another similar one published in 1985 in the journal Medical History, titled "Ischaemic Heart Disease, Aortic Aneurysms, and Atherosclerosis in the City of London, 1868-1982", conducted by Dr. Robert Finlayson. This study, in my opinion, is the coup de grace. Finlayson systematically scrutinized autopsy reports from St. Bartholemew's hospital, which had conducted routine and detailed cardiac autopsies since 1868, and applied modern diagnostic criteria to the records. He also compared the records from St. Bartholemew's to those from the city mortuary. Here's what he found:

The solid line is MI mortality. Striking, isn't it? The other lines are tobacco and cigarette consumption. These data are not age-adjusted, but if you look at the raw data tables provided in the paper, some of which are grouped by age, it's clear that average lifespan doesn't explain much of the change. Heart attacks are largely an occurrence of the last 80 years.

What caused the epidemic? Both Drs. Morris and Finlayson also collected data on the prevalence of atherosclerosis (plaques in the arteries) over the same time period. Dr. Morris concluded that the prevalence of severe atherosclerosis had decreased by about 50% (although mild atherosclerosis such as fatty streaks had increased), while Dr. Finlayson found that it had remained approximately the same:

He found the same trend in females. This casts doubt on the idea that coronary atherosclerosis is sufficient in and of itself to cause heart attacks, although modern studies have found a strong association between advanced atherosclerosis and the risk of heart attack on an individual level. Heart attacks are caused by several factors, one of which is atherosclerosis.

What changes in diet and lifestyle associated with the explosion of MI in the U.K. and U.S. after 1920? Dr. Finlayson has given us a hint in the graph above: cigarette consumption increased dramatically over the same time period, and closely paralleled MI mortality. Smoking cigarettes is very strongly associated with heart attacks in observational studies. Animal studies also support the theory. While I believe cigarettes are an important factor, I do not believe they are the only cause of the MI epidemic. Dr. Finlayson touched on a few other factors in the text of the paper, and of course I have my own two cents to add. I'll discuss that next time.

More about → The Coronary Heart Disease Epidemic