I realize the irony of this post immediately following one on fighting obesity.
One of the favorite run-in-the-background-while-you-work activities at Table XI seems to be listening to TED Talks. If you’re not familiar, TED is a well produced lecture series of really smart people giving short 20-minute talks on interesting subjects.
If you are a returning visitor to this site then you must have at least a smidgen of interest in food and cooking which means you’ll find this clip on Jamie Oliver’s efforts to fight obesity fascinating.
We are the first generation in modern history to have a shorter life expectancy than our parents. Jamie says that if he were holding the cure for AIDS or cancer, we’d be scrambling to get to him. But the greatest killers in the US are dietary related… and they are all preventable.
Of particuar relevance is his argument that companies should be providing healthy meal options to their employees. I swelled with TXI pride.
Take 20 minutes and watch this (or listen to it in the background)… especially if you have kids.
In 2005 Google released Analytics, a product to analyze website traffic. Like most every other product Google offers, it’s free, better than the competition and has become the de facto standard in its class.
Through Table XI, I have access to analytics reports for a number of web properties, several of which receive hundreds-of-thousands of visits per month. None of these however, have captured my attention as much as the 300 visits received by the wedding blog I launched three weeks ago. In these three weeks I have learned more about Google Analytics than ever before for the simple reason that traffic just means more when you can put a name on each of the visitors.
Let’s take a look:
It’s been snowing all day. By tomorrow we are expected to have fourteen inches of accumulation.
Southwest Airlines canceled all Midway flights for the next 24 hours. Over 500 flights have been cancelled at O’Hare. Public transportation is running up to half-an-hour late due to CTA cutbacks.
It’s a good day for some carbs. A good day for something warm and tasty that will just sit there in your belly and make you want to take a nap.
Something like… mushroom ravioli in a homemade plum tomato sauce perhaps?
I took a picture of today’s dish, but the quality of the picture was not befitting to the quality of the meal.
Instead, I give you this picture to demonstrate why homemade chicken noodle soup was the perfect meal for today. Besides, y’all already know what chicken noodle soup looks like.
Ellen started her chicken noodle soup last night by making stock from a whole chicken. People often use the terms stock and broth interchangeably. Both are effectively flavored water. Broth comes from simmering meat and veggies in water for hours and straining the result.
Stock is the same thing, but with bones as well. Bones release gelatin (think Jello). As water evaporates, gelatin thickens the stock. This is what gives chicken noodle soup its thick silky texture.
If it don’t got bones, it ain’t stock (and thus, “vegetable stock” is a misnomer).
I’ll let Alton Brown break it down for you:
For lunch today I had a short-rib burger at Blackbird, which if you haven’t had yet, you should. Though it’s right around the corner from our office and I’ve worked here for 2.5 years, this was the first time I’ve eaten there. Good stuff.
But, everyone back at the office had a warm orecchiette, radicchio, and mixed mushroom salad with dijon vinaigrette and white truffle oil accompanied by a roasted garlic and rosemary baguette.
I’m glad Ellen emails me these food descriptions because I wouldn’t be able to spell half of those words on my own.
I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan on eating the leftovers for dinner.
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