tonybreed: a blog

Monday, January 30, 2006

Stomach Flu

Technically, there is no such thing as the "stomach flu." The influenza virus just does not attack the stomach. This is little comfort when you are doubled over the commode. So whatever it was that felled Me and Eric last week, it wasn't a stomach flu. I'm not sure what it was, exactly, but I do know that seven people had it before us, in sequence, and it was therefore not food poisoning.

I admit I was kind of rooting for food poisoning when Eric got sick. That would mean that I might not necessarily get sick myself. Oh well.

We are better now. Almost tip top. So that's good. This will be a busy week.

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posted by Tony at 9:18 PM | 2 comments

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Tony and Eric ≠ Finn and Charlie

When I first posted my Hitched cartoons a year or so ago, I got a lot of comments like "I liked the cartoons about you and Eric," or "the one that was you and the one that was Eric," or "I'm learning about your relationship". So I had to explain, they are not us; they are fictional characters. Sure, they are based somewhat on my experiences of being in a relationship — but the circumstances are changed and personalities tweaked to make them funnier (read: more neurotic).

Well, I supposed everyone who writes fiction goes through this. One of my college roomates wrote a book in which the main character had paid his way though college at the University of Chicago via prostitution. So it could be worse.

Anyway, to dispel all notions that Tony and Eric are secretly Finn and Charlie, I present to you this drawing:
click to enlarge

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posted by Tony at 8:24 PM | 1 comments

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Don't Hiss at Mozart

People, please.

I went to the opera on Tuesday night to see die Zauberflaute with my friend Susan (Mila and Eric having both begged off). It was good but strange. The music was all enjoyable, though it lacks the sort of Carmen/Madama Butterfly/Nozze di Figaro aria that you find yourself humming for days afterwords. The production itself was a bizarre pastiche — the same bizarre pastiche they showed last time I saw this opera, just a few years ago. Why is the boat suspended in the air? Why is there a sea monster dancing with the woodland creatures? What the hell was up with the white sox pennants? And of course the story the opera tells is a bit mysterious... we think the Queen of the Night is good and Sarastro bad, then we find out the opposite is true, then Tamino goes on a heroic journey that takes place partly offstage, then we build up to a great battle that never happens because the Queen of the Night and her minions fall into a hole and are vanquished.

I know, we don't come to opera to worry about plot holes — we save that for movies like the Matrix — opera is about music. (And emotion. And fabulous wigs.)

Which anyway brings me to my point: the opera is sexist. It is. And more forthrightly so than most: characters say things like "your womanly emotion needs to be tempered by manly rationality". And then, at each of these lines, somewhere in the audience people are hissing at the stage. "Ssssssssssss!"

Why?

Are we voicing our disapproval of societal prejudices from over 200 years ago? Do we think the Lyric is giving a mouthpiece to these moldy views, thereby endorsing them?

I don't recall anyone hissing at Carmen or Madama Butterfly. Are these operas not also at least a little bit sexist?

Anyway, I could go on and on, but it would be boring. My point is: feel free to hiss at the conductor, the tenor, and the wigmaster, who may at least hear your criticism and respond; don't hiss at Mozart.

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posted by Tony at 9:10 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Pinecone

a pinecone: click to enlarge

I drew this pinecone at Eric's Mother's house. I felt like drawing something, and she had these pinecones on the kitchen table. I thought, a picture of a pinecone could be useful... you never know when you might need one. So anyway here it is for your viewing pleasure.

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posted by Tony at 9:46 PM | 0 comments

Monday, January 02, 2006

Refrigerator Pickles How-To

I've been looking through site traffic logs, and it seems that someone came to my site looking for information on refrigerator pickles... so in honor of this mystery person I'm going to post some information on how to make refrigerator pickles. Specifically, salt pickles; I couldn't tell you much about vinegar pickles, though I do like to eat them.

What are salt pickles? I'm glad you asked. Salt pickles are vegetables that have been preserved using salt, and are also flavored with other things like oils, vinegars, and sauces. Real preserved salt pickles last a long time, and are somewhat fermented, like kim chee and sauerkraut. A quick refrigerator pickle may not last as long but is still tasty — the salt changes the texure of the vegetable pretty quickly.

If you are on a low-salt diet, stay away. If you are not, you still might want to consider serving these with things that are not so salty, lest you get swollen ankles or eye bags or whatever is your body's particular way of telling you to lay off the salt.

Tony's Quickie Kim Chee
all measurements are totally imprecise
1/4 to 1/2 head of napa cabbage, to fill a large jar ~3/4 full
1/2 red onion
some carrots
garlic
rice wine vinegar or similar mild vinegar
roasted sesame oil
sriracha (a.k.a. red-rooster) hot sauce or whatever you fancy
soy sauce
any other tasty asian sauces you think might be good in this
scads of kosher salt

1. Grate the carrot, cut the onion in to fine strips, and chop or slice the garlic, and mix it all together. Take the feathery top part of the cabbage cut into shreds, and add that to the carrot-onion-garlic mixture. Season this with a little sesame oil, hot sauce, and whatever else strikes your fancy. (Sorghum vinegar, fish sauce, that sort of thing — but go sparingly; you don't want to overpower.) Sprinkle this with a pretty liberal dose of salt and set aside.
2. Take the rest of the cabbage and cut into large sections (that is, chunks made up of several leaves, maybe 1½"x1½"). The leaves from the bottom of the head of cabbage should still be held together by the core. Sprinkle the chunks with salt, and pack more salt in between the leaves — the idea is to have a little salt on the surface of every leaf.
3. Take a large jar that will seal securely — mine has a rubber gasket and a clamp to hold it shut, but an old mayonaise jar with a screw-top would probably do the job, too. Put a little of the cabbage-carrot-onion-garlic mixture into the bottom (approx. 1 tsp or so -- just enough to make the bottom pretty). Next, cram as many of the salted chunks in as will fit in on layer. Now, take more of the cabbage-carrot-onion-garlic mixture and pack it into any gaps (more than 1 tsp. this time). Continue alternating salted chunks with cabbage-carrot-onion-garlic mixture, keeping it all pretty tighly packed, till the jar is full. Make sure you end with cabbage-carrot-onion-garlic mixture on top.
4. Pour vinegar over the top till it comes maybe 1/3 to 2/5 of the way up the sides.
5. Seal the jar and stick it in the fridge.
6. The next day, turn the jar over and leave it upside-down for another day. Then turn it rightside-up again, and leave a little longer — a total of three days. Actually, it might be fine after 2 days. Go ahead and experiment. If it's not ready, you can always leave it a little longer.
7. Eat! If it's too salty, you can rinse some of it lightly — but remember that what you rinse off salt, you are also rinsing off vinegar, oil, and other flavors. The shredded parts will, in the end, be much saltier than the chunks.

Disclaimer: I am not Korean, and what I do know about Korean food could be fit in a small pamphlet no one would read. This is not real kim chee. This is my own self-invented approximation, for which I did some small amount of research. It is pretty tasty. If yours does not taste good, maybe you made it wrong. Try again. The secret of learning anything is to try again.

Other tasty salt pickle ideas
Take a vegetable and salt for 2 hours to one day. Rinse several times, dry, and then season. Serve alongside Japanese or Korean food. Try making several at once!

The salting time depends on the vegetable and the thickness of the slices. Thinly sliced cucumber takes about an hour (use a mandolin, a vegetable peeler, or a grater). Thicker slices might take a day. Greens take only a couple of hours. Onions would benefit from more time.

You can dry vegetables by squeezing them by the fistful, or by patting dry, depending on the type.

Things to try:
  • Radicchio, seasoned with sesame seeds and sesame oil.
  • Onion, seasoned with ginger juice, soy sauce, and a little sugar
  • Cucumber, seasoned with rice wine vinegar, powdered dashi (bonito broth), soy sauce, and a litte sugar.

Experiment and have fun! Think about balancing sweet, sour, salty, and bitter when you serve. Yum.



Yes, yes, I know this is supposed to be a sketch blog, but I just didn't have time to sketch cabbage. It took rather a while just to write this. I did, however, draw a nice picture of a pinecone while visiting Eric's family, and I will post that picture later this week.

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posted by Tony at 5:53 PM | 2 comments

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Rather than reading my blog, which is boring and never gets updated anymore, may I suggest you read my comic, which is at hitchedcomic.com

I am officially no longer a DJ at WLUW. Long story.

However, the Chicago Independent Radio Project will have a webcast soon, and I'll be a part of that. And we can still talk about music... leave me a comment if there's something on your mind.

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