Brooklyn Brainery

SASS Gets Sexy - February 7

jen — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:38:52 -0500

This month's meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Social Studies is full of new tricks, just in time for Valentine's Day.

Besides three fun lectures on the histories of underwear, marriage, and old-timey sex scandals, there'll be burlesque performances by Dottie Dynamo and a raffle for a $50 gift certificate from local lingerie shop Brooklyn Fox. Plus, sticking around until the end will get you a free 1/2 hour of Buffalo Trace. Romantic.

All the details:
Tuesday, February 7
Public Assembly, 70 North 6th Street, Brooklyn
Doors at 7pm
Free!

Rsvp on Facebook, or just show up.

Let's Make: Stained Glass Cake

jen — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:30:56 -0500

Last week, America's Test Kitchen published this handy timeline of popular cakes throughout American history. I immediately fell in love with the weirdest of the bunch--the stained glass cake--and googled up the recipe.

A product of the 1950's, the stained glass cake is a much more colorful variation on your plain old icebox cake, which would often be made with chocolate wafers layered with whipped cream. Ideally, the cake is refrigerated for a long time, and the whipped cream glues everything together so it can be sliced.

This cake takes the wafer cookies and replaces them with three colors of jello. Sounds better already, right?

Like lots of convenience foods from the 50's, it's intended to be made ahead and to be quick. It gets bonus points in my book because all the ingredients can be purchased at your corner bodega.

The general process is super simple:

*Make three kinds of jello in cake pans, then cut them up into cubes. I ended up butchering lots of my cubes because I'm lazy and let the jello set in mixing bowls. Learn from my mistake!

*Make some whipped cream, and add 3/4 cup of pineapple juice mixed with a packet of unflavored gelatin to the finished cream. This is the secret to the whole thing, since the additional gelatin is what gives the whipped cream enough structure to later be sliced up.

*Mix it all together! (below)

*Pour into your graham cracker crust (use a springform pan!) and let it set for a long time. You'll want to eat it immediately, but really, give it time.

I didn't give it time, and this is the wobbly mess you'll end up with. Surprisingly delicious! The full recipe's over here!

Death By Cuddles (feat. Malnutrition)

j soma — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:13:48 -0500

Well, not exactly cuddles (or cuddles at all), but eating rabbit can certainly be the death of you.

Rabbit starvation - or the more exotic name mal de caribou - shows up when you eat too much lean meat and are, you know, trapped in a desert or the tundra or a similarly punishing environment. Your kidneys can't handle the high amounts of protein without supplemental fat/carbohydrates and you'll soon be pushing up daisies. It works the same way for anything that's lean - caribou and other game meats are primary examples.

in 1881, Adolphus Greely went sailing around the Arctic at the request of the US government in an attempt to collect some meteorological data and readings on the magnetic poles. Turns out he wasn't very good at it, though, and him and his crew ended up stranded until rescued in 1884. Only 6 of the 25-man expedition survived. Lacking proper rations, I daresay a few of the dead found their bodies a bit snacked-upon, too.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, an Artic explorer with a super cool name, attributes some of their deaths to rabbit starvation as a result of eating too much lean human flesh. Sounds like a pretty good post-mortem revenge scheme on the corpse's part.

Added bonus: here's a really long list of euphemisms for death. Examining the radishes has potential, I think.

The Scoop on Chopsticks in Thai Food

j soma — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:20:59 -0500

If this post were a horror movie the title would be appropriately ominous. Since it's about food I guess the right word is "hint."

Chopsticks were invented about 4000 years ago in China, and spread to nearby Japan, Korea and Vietnam without too much trouble. I'd like to think it's thanks to 筷子 translating to "quick little bamboo fellows" but if you'd prefer to think it's thanks to utility that's fine as well.

While Chinese missionaries brought chopsticks to Thailand as well, it didn't have the lasting impact that it has had elsewhere. Even Yahoo answers can take this one: Thais don't generally use chopsticks, their main utensils are forks and spoons.

A certain king, whether it be Rama IV or Rama II or who-knows-who (the Internet is of conflicting opinions), invited the British consul over for dinner one evening. Impressed by the usage of the fork and spoon, he promptly made it the Right Way To Eat. No knives, either - they were considered possible weapons and banished from the table (Thai food is generally cut into small enough pieces to make them unneccessary, anyway).

But even though the utensils match, the method is a bit different than what we're used to. The fork is used to push food into the spoon, which is then eaten from. None of that poking around nonsense.

When it comes to noodle dishes, though, chopsticks do have their place (have you ever tried to eat noodles with a spoon?). This is probably also a reflection of the fact that noodles themselves came over from China.

So next time you're eating a green curry with a spoon and your compatriots chide you for your Westernly ways, counterattack! "I read this blog post that said it was fine," you'll say, and they'll nod reluctantly, ashamed in acceptance of their ignorance.

The next time you're out with those very same friends relishing a heaping plate of pad see ew, be wary of unfounded criticism of your chopsticks. "What about that blog post?" they'll condescend to you, shaking their spoons. You'll patiently explain the importation of noodles from China and once again your position as Flatware Sage will be demonstrated.

If someone brings up eating with your hands or sticky rice, though, just give up, because they know far more than the easy generalizations this blog post just taught you.