Why did Constantinople get the works?

An irritating fourth-place finish at trivia tonight. Irritating, because we were supposedly tied for first going into the final question, and we were told that only two teams got that question right, including the team that was tied with us. Turned out, someone claimed a score discrepancy, and was ahead of us all along. Not much to do about that, I guess.
There was a question about the original location of New Amsterdam. Thankfully, there were no questions about Chuck Norris, though there was a category that referred to him. Next week: Pirates vs. Ninjas trivia. Don't pinch yourself; you're not dreaming.

1. What "trophy" does the winner of the Colorado State - Wyoming football game receive? (as an example, the winner of the Stanford-Cal game receives The Axe.)
2. What Christmas present does Ralphie want in A Christmas Story?
3. What was the name of Pete's Dragon?
4. What nickname did Frank Sinatra and Whitey Ford share?
Final:
5. Each king in a standard deck of playing cards is based on an historical king. Who are the four kings? Extra credit for matching them with the suits, though this was, apparently, not required.

The answer to every question is "turkey"

Obviously, trivia is off this week. I considered coming up with theme questions (What bird did Ben Franklin originally propose as the national bird of the U.S.? What do you call three consecutive strikes in bowling?), but you'll get enough of that soon; one of the next two weeks will be Pirates vs. Ninjas trivia.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

You could even add cranberry sauce

I spent yesterday on the road, but today we get a very very special Thanksgiving Day ROTW. If you're coming here at 1:00 to get any recipes for today, you're in trouble, but what to do with all that leftover turkey? You could make soup. You could make sandwiches. Heck, you'll probably make soup and sandwiches, and still have leftovers. Here's another idea, which incorporates our second-favorite food here at the Preschool: risotto.
Thanksgiving Risotto

6 cups stock (turkey if you've got it, chicken if you don't)
2 T. butter or oil
1 medium onion, diced small
2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
salt and pepper
1/2 pound or more cooked turkey, shredded
1/2 cup leftover vegetables (corn is great, carrots and cauliflower is okay, green bean casserole is risky)
1 4-8 oz. package mushroooms, sliced

heat the stock and hold at a simmer.
melt the butter (or heat the oil) in a large, heavy bottomed pan over the same heat level you're using on the stock. Add the onion and cook until translucent. Add the rice and stir until every grain is coated with oil and is slightly toasted. Add the wine; stir until the liquid is absorbed, then add salt and pepper to taste.
Add the stock by ladlefuls (about 1/2 cup at a time) and stir the rice constantly, adding more liquid whenever the stock is absorbed (this process will take 20-30 minutes). After ten minutes, add the mushrooms and continue stirring. When the mixture becomes creamy and the rice grains are no longer crunchy, stir in the turkey and vegetables. Cook five more minutes to heat the turkey and vegetables. Serves a whole lot of people.

Do the Truffle Shuffle

We're continuing a very special Thanksgiving Week here at BOAD (I'm trying the acronym thing here, maybe it will catch on) with multiple days of recipes. Today we're dipping into our favorite genre: the cookie. This year, we've got a five-hour drive on Wednesday, which gets us to Dad's place too late to have a proper supper, but too early to go to bed on an empty stomach. The solution, clearly, is snacks; and, as long as you're going to snack, you might as well have cookies. Dark brown sugar and dark chocolate give this cookie a deep, complex flavor. I've tried several strategies (the shortening, chilling the dough, etc.) to get (1) the cookies to bake high and (2) the chunks to hold their shape. I've met with limited success. One important point is to keep the chunks fairly large. Small pieces of chocolate melt quickly and blend into the dough - not that that's a terrible thing. You could also add pecans or walnuts to this recipe.


Cranberry Chocolate Chunk Cookies

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)
1 cup dried cranberries
4 - 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate (60% - 70% cacao), broken into pieces


Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside.
Cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, water, and orange zest, and mix until fully combined. Slowly stir in the dry ingredients, then add the cranberries and chocolate chunks and stir until incorporated. chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 375°F. Form the dough into two-tablespoon balls, and arrange the cookies on a greased or lined baking sheet. Bake until cookies begin to brown at the edges, 12 to 14 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for two minutes, then move to racks and cool completely. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Be My Sweet Potato

The Recipe Of The Week fell by the wayside sometime over the summer, but with Thanksgiving looming, it's time to bring it back. This was inspired by a soup at a Southwestern restaurant in Winston-Salem.


Sweet Potato Soup

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small to medium onion, diced
1 small clove garlic, pureed (to do this, mince the garlic, sprinkle with a pinch of salt, then use the flat of a knife or back of a spoon to crush the minced garlic to a jelly-like consistency)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter or extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon (or less) brown sugar
salt and pepper
4 oz. mushrooms (any style you like; I use cremini), sliced or diced
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup whole milk or half & half (optional)

melt two tablespoons of butter in a large saucepan or stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the onion. When the onion becomes translucent but not browned yet (about 2 min), add the sweet potatoes, garlic, chili powder, and brown sugar. Cook, stirring, until the onion and potatoes are well-browned (10-15 minutes). In a second pan, sautee the mushrooms with the remaining tablespoon of butter and thyme over medium-low heat, until the mushrooms just begin to brown (8-10 min).
Transfer the onion-potato mixture to a blender or food processor and puree. Return the sweet potato puree to the saucepan and add the stock, milk and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the mushrooms, and cook until the soup is heated through. Serves 2-3.

Watch This Space

We missed a total of six questions at trivia this week. Unfortunately, the Triviatrix did not have a hard copy of the questions, and I didn't write down the misses (because I was expecting her to have a hard copy). So, I'm working from memory here.

1. True or false: there is no complete video of Super Bowl I.
2. How many U.S. Presidents are NOT buried in the United States? (Yes, this question is as dumb as you think it is.)
3. The island of Corsica is a territory of which European nation?
4. What was the first song known to have been sung in outer space (i.e., on a NASA mission)?
5. The yo-yo is based on an ancient weapon from what Pacific island nation?
Final:
6. Which of the three Apollo 11 Astronauts did NOT walk on the moon?

Oops!

I have managed to lose the last two sets of trivia questions between the time I left the restaurant and the time I got a free moment to blog. That's the reason for the lack of questions lately. They will return this week, along with another formerly regular feature.

Conan The Librarian would not be pleased

Won a tiebreaker to pull out second place at trivia night this week. I might have won, but for the first question coming out of halftime, which asked the first name of retired U.S. General Schwarzkopf. Norman, it turns out, is his middle name, which I probably should have remembered.

1. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, what book is most often stolen from libraries?
2. How many full-length Police Academy films have been made?
3. How many Astronauts have walked on the moon?
4. What Revolutionary War general was known as the "Swamp Fox?"
5. How many contestants begin each season of Survivor?
6. What category is classified by the numbers 900-999 in the Dewey Decimal System?

edited to add: Oh yeah, and:
7. What's Schwarzkopf's first name?

The DUE date vs. the DO date

Wednesday night was exam night for my precious snowflakes, and I should have been prepared for the horror. When three students asked me before the exam review, "Does the final replace our lowest exam grade?" (answer: Yes, just like the syllabus says, and like I have said in class after the first two exams ), and then another one asked the same question as soon as we began the review, and then another asked the same question at the end of the review, that should have been a red flag. But I still wasn't ready for the looks of sullen despair, the frequent heavy sighs, the people handing in the test and trudging out thirty minutes early with most of the answers still blank (an aside: leaving early without even attempting to answer all the questions astounds me, and not in a good way. If you are ever in a class I teach and pull this crap, pray that you are not on the borderline between two grades, because you WILL get the lower one). I also was not ready to have to wake a student from a mid-test nap, but that's another story.
After an hour of post-test grading, I couldn't take any more, and went home for a rest. That's when I made the mistake of checking my messages, two of which were from a student who was absolutely flabbergasted that there was an online homework assignment due that night, and was not at all in the mood to work on more material half an hour after the exam.
Now, I should mention that all the homework is online, there's instant feedback if you do something wrong, and if you do miss a question, you can try a "similar exercise" until you get it right. Basically, there's no excuse for getting a low homework score, which is fine by me, because I consider homework to be practice for the exam, and this particular setup is excellent practice. I don't happen to agree with our coursewide due dates, which delays the due dates for several sections until after the exam which includes that section (I think it defeats the purpose of using homework to prepare for the exam; see previous sentence), but it's not a battle I've felt like fighting. Besides, most students are doing the assignments as soon as we cover the material, and sometimes beforehand - the assignments have been available since the beginning of the term.
That's really the thing that wound me up about these messages. I didn't reply, of course - the student was obviously just venting some post-exam frustration - but when the assignment (with due date displayed) available the entire semester, and when we've covered this particular section a full week before the exam, how is one still surprised to find it's due that night?
The final sentence of the second message asked, "from now on, can we be assigned the homework problem sets on days that we don't take a test on?" After several days of mulling this over, I have decided that the student is right, the assignments shouldn't be due right after the exam. I will thus be going against the course policy (with the permission of the coordinator, of course) and changing the due dates for two of the sections.
To the day BEFORE the exam.

There must be a "One Light" pun to be made here

U2 has a concert starting in 17 minutes, and they must cross a darkened catwalk to reach the stage. All four men begin on the same side of the catwalk, and at most two can cross at a time. The band has only one torch (you know, a flashlight), and whoever is crossing the bridge must have the torch with them. Each band member walks at a different speed, and any pair crossing must walk together at the slower man's pace.
Bono takes 1 minute to cross the catwalk.
Edge takes 2 minutes to cross the catwalk.
Adam takes 5 minutes to cross.
Larry takes 10 minutes to cross.
For example: if Bono and Adam cross together, they will take five minutes to cross. If Bono comes back with the torch, he takes only one more minute.

Without throwing the torch or using Bono's superpowers (which, as we all know, include bioluminescence) or any other weird tricks, can all four band members get to the stage in time to start the show?

Some of us had track meets on Saturdays!

I feel trivia night has de-volved over the last year. I loved Saved By The Bell as much as anyone (anyone who didn't really like SBTB, that is), but enough already. Of course, as much as I complain, you would think that, knowing that three or four questions will be about 80s and early 90s cartoons and teen shows, I could brush up. You'd be right, of course, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to take time out of my other activities to study up on Beast Wars and Chuck Norris.
Actually, there was some decent trivia this week, particularly in the second half. The misses:

1. If you saw the short "Mathnet," what show were you watching?
2. What planet did the Thundercats settle on?
3. On Saved By The Bell, what was the name of the beach club where the gang worked?
4. In Beast Wars, what is the name of the Maximal ship?
5. How many men in the U.S. are diagnosed with breast cancer each year?
6. How many U.S. Presidents were born British subjects?
7. What artist's 1997 album was the top selling album of the 1990s?
8. What is the dot over a lowercase i called?

This post has no title - the Duke of Cornwall took it

Mother is in town this week, and with her help, we cruised through the first half of trivia. Unfortunately, the halftime question was "list the exact scores of Clemson's first three home football games." Now, I enjoy football, and I do like that I attend a school with a decent football team, but once the game ends, I couldn't care less what the actual score was. Apparently, I am alone in this, because a large number of teams had scores which would indicate they knew the scores of these games. We could have placed if we knew the answer to the final question, but we didn't.

We got #3 right, but I liked the question.

1) Louis Braille invented a system of writing for the blind. Was Louis Braille blind?
2) How many Noble Truths does Buddhism recognize?
3) What is the better-known title of the man who is also Duke of Cornwall?
Final:
4) In what year did Mississippi ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolishes slavery?

I told them to stop with the Chuck Norris questions, they didn't, I'm outta here.

If you were wondering where last week's trivia questions were, I chose to skip trivia night last week. I had already eaten, didn't feel like drinking, and while some people just drink water and eat the free rolls and don't spend a cent unless they win, I'm not one of them.
As it turns out, however, trivia night was cancelled anyway. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I didn't show up.
To tide you over until this week's installment, here are two bonus questions:

1) How many states border at least one of the Great Lakes?
2) How many Canadian provinces border at least one of the Great Lakes?

A Question of Adaptation

Charlie loves orchids. How can he plant ten orchids so that he has five straight rows of four orchids each?

I blame Eileen Brennan

This week was a little too easy, apparently. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy for me, but after I missed two questions in the first round, I was out of the running for first; the winning team missed a total of one point. A miss at halftime cost me any shot at a prize. Considering the halftime questions were about Halo 3, and I've never owned, played, or seen anyone play any of the Halo series, the fact that I got any of them right is a coup.

1. In what state does the movie Beetlejuice take place?
2. In quidditch, what is the ball used for scoring called?
3. What was Chuck Norris's given first name at birth?
4. What original Halo weapon makes a comeback in Halo 3?
5. How many books by L. Frank Baum comprise the "Wizard of Oz" series?
6. Who was the last act at the original Woodstock music festival?
7. Name the six suspects in the original Clue boardgame.

So, Where Was I?

Ah yes, engaged.

The girl: we met two years ago, sometime during graduate student orientation. I was walking downtown to go to the bank, and passed another group of students in my department. As we all exchanged pleasantries, she mentioned that she liked my Death Cab For Cutie t-shirt. I replied that I knew several members of the band, and friendship was born.

(A note: the f claims this conversation took place in a math department hallway. I'm sticking to my story; I believe she's thinking of the time I asked her why her shirt said "British Sea Power" if it had a picture of a deer on it.)

I found her attractive, but thought she was out of my league. Plus, she had a boyfriend, and I was busy working my less-than-considerable charms elsewhere. The point is, I really didn't think of her as anything other than a friend, even when she lived with me for the summer. In fact, particularly that summer, as a) I was seeing someone else b) her boyfriend was in the process of moving back to Clemson c) she was paying me rent.

The first "date:" Last November, Death Cab played at Clemson. As it happened, both of our relationships had suddenly ended a few weeks earlier. She wanted to go to the show, but the now-ex-boyfriend had her ticket, and she didn't want to deal with him to get it back. I managed to get an extra ticket, and took her with me. We now talk about this as our first date, but at the time, it was just two friends going to a show together; when my mother heard about my "plus one," I made sure to point out that we were not dating, nor did we have any plans to do so.

The first kiss: I don't know what changed in the next three months, although we did end up hanging out together a lot. One day, though, she came over for dinner, we were watching a movie (Top Secret!, a movie which I will probably never get to watch again, because she hated it), and we kissed. She said it was a mistake and she wasn't ready for this, and left my house crying. That's right, the first time I kissed her, she cried and ran away.

That weekend, we were at a party, and the same thing happened, with the same result. Mercifully, the next week was Spring Break.

The next weekend, there was another get-together, and I promised to make pancakes for the entire drunken crew the next morning. Only one person came for breakfast.

For some reason, we decided to keep the relationship a secret. That lasted less than a week.

The proposal: She knew I was going to propose at some point, but had no idea that it would be this particular weekend; in fact, she had taken me to a jewelry store the previous weekend, unaware that I had already bought a ring.
We made plans to have dinner with some friends on Saturday. I was planning to propose during dessert, but I didn't have much of a plan beyond that. We were the first to arrive, and while we were waiting for everyone else, she mentioned that, on Friday night, one of our friends had commented on the sort of man she "was marrying." The friend had just slipped; neither one of us had said anything. Still, we were worried that one of us would let the cat out of the bag before we were actually ready. She said, "I wish we could just tell them." Sensing an opportunity, I replied, "well, why don't we tell them when they get here?" Before I knew it, I was out of the chair and on one knee. Our friends walked in just as I was getting up, to the applause of the surrounding tables.

And now you're caught up.

Mourning Becomes Electric

It was a musical weekend. Friday was Karaoke Night at a local watering hole, which was uneventful except for the extremely disturbing experience of three ten-year-old girls singing "Fergalicious." But, you know, they're not promiscuous.
Sunday, the f and I attended a concert. First up was Amos Lee. I didn't know his music; the f assured me that I was a cultural illiterate. We missed about half of his performance, but enjoyed what we heard.
The second act was Elvis Costello, who strolled onto the stage in silver shoes, and played a 45-minute acoustic set with no accompaniment. There is no ambiguity about Costello's politics, at least as they relate to the current Administration; but while a lesser showman would have ended by rolling "Scarlet Tide" into "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" and ridden the antiwar applause right off the stage, Costello put this duo in the middle of his set, then spent an additional 20 minutes rocking. His aim was true.
After Costello came the headliner, Bob Freakin' Dylan. After an introduction which rivaled that of Sir Ulrich Von Lichtenstein, Dylan took the stage with His Band, which, judging by their recycled swing riffs, was Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. It's nice that they're still finding work. The ensemble proceeded to work through almost two hours of lounge-band covers of Dylan songs, whilst the Great Man himself played the keyboard and channeled Tom Waits. While the f was less than enthusiastic about wholesale changes to the songs, I view it as a matter of practicality. Dylan had trouble hitting the high notes in his own songs forty years ago; now, with his vocal range reduced to about ten notes, it's necessary to turn them into mainly instrumental events, with the lyrics more spoken than sung. I can't say that it didn't work; the songs were energetic, and the crowd was definitely into the music (maybe the Pixies should take note). Still, watching a blues-rock spectacle, with not one song accompanied by fewer than six instruments, was not what we had in mind when we bought tickets to a Bob Dylan show.
I should point out that, while it wasn't everything I thought it would be, I did enjoy the show. However, I was disappointed by the encore, which was "All Along The Watchtower," arguably the one Dylan song which should be a rock song. I fault the backup band for this, as they turned it into a formulaic reproduction of the Jimi Hendrix version of the song. The bottom line on this show: if you mark the day that Dylan "went electric" as the end of the counterculture movement, or if you're hoping to hear all the songs off those old albums you have, you should stay away. If you just want to say that you saw Bob Dylan live, or if you're an Elvis Costello fan, go ahead and get a ticket; it's good music.
I guess that's about it for the news this weekend. Oh, except for the whole getting engaged thing. More on that after school.

Dropping the g

The gf is now just the f. As in, someday she'll be the w.
More later. Or not. For now, I'm going to bed; it's been a big day.

Call me White Goodman

No place at trivia again, as we got the first difficult final question in weeks. I'm beginning to think the restaurant manager reads this blog, and put in an entire round of questions about Saturday morning cartoons just to wind me up. Seriously, I'm considering a different Thursday night activity at this point.

1. What is the life expectancy (in years) of an average human being?
2. Who was the last U.S. President who was left-handed?
3. How many muscles does it take to frown?
4. What school was home to the 2000 Heisman Trophy winner?
5. How many female Smurfs were there?
6. What action hero was bestowed the title of Honorary Marine, in March 2007?
7. What woman has the most appearances on the cover of Time magazine?
8. In the average human being, which lung can hold more air (left or right)?
Final:
9. What was the first state to abolish the death penalty?

When Garmin Fails

This week's puzzle:
Four truckers were hauling loads to four different California cities. Along the way, each trucker was delayed by an unforeseen event. Determine the name of each trucker, his cargo, his destination, and the event that caused his delay.
Some hints to help you out:

• The trucker headed for San Francisco was delayed by the car accident.
• Dave's destination was not Los Angeles.
• The town festival delayed the trucker hauling cashews.
• Ron did not go to San Francisco.
• Mr. Mason was not delayed by the rockslide.
• Mr. Reinhold was delayed by a flooded bridge.
• The trucker hauling paper was not headed for San Jose.
• Dave, whose last name was not Reinhold, was hauling sporting goods.
• Mike Anderson was not delayed by the car accident.
• Paul, whose last name was not Reinhold, was traveling to San Diego.
• Mr. Simpson was hauling oranges, but was not going to Los Angeles.