AIN SOKHNA: In the labyrinthine world of politics, ever more complicated by the global phenomenon of the “businessman-politician” it’s not always easy to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

Nothing is simpler than lumping the usual suspects together – politicians with powerful party affiliations, who double as businessmen, running huge conglomerates, and developing mega-projects that target the crème de la crème of society and, of course, making a sizable fortune in the process.

 

So when the chairman of a weighty establishment like Amer Group, National Democratic Party member and former MP Mansour Amer, organizes a field visit for the press to tour his project in Ain Sokhna, it’s difficult not to be suspicious of his “real” intentions.

 

After all, we are journalists and it’s our job to be suspicious of those with power and influence.

 

But first, a disclaimer: I don’t usually accept such invitations because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that most of these “site trips” are only after some good free publicity.

 

So why did I go? I was simply curious to meet the man whose new concept in Porto Marina in the North Coast was the talk of the town all summer. But if I thought there was nothing worth writing about, I said to myself, I won’t write a single word.

 

When we arrived at Porto Sokhna, we were greeted warmly by an extremely down-to-earth Amer, who ushered us into French café/patisserie Alain Le Notre, one of Amer Group’s restaurants which include other international chains like Chili’s and Johnny Carino’s.

 

I was surprised to find that even though the first phase of the project was not complete, a huge part of it was fully functional, with sizable luxury hotel rooms, restaurants and a marina boasting some very sleek yachts.

 

After getting the dime tour of the completed part of the facility, we were driven up a craggy mountain road about 190 meters above sea level, where a tent was pitched to house the press roundtable discussion.

 

There was nothing there but the tent and the power of Amer’s contagious imagination, which had us envision his plans for this rough plateau of seemingly impenetrable mountain overlooking the glorious Red Sea: A residential and vacation resort covering 2.5 million square meters of cliff face with the highest point measuring some 270 square meters above sea level.

 

This would be a good 20-or so minute drive uphill, except that when Amer is through with it, residents and vacationers won’t have to drive anywhere, all they’ll need to do is hop on to Egypt’s first and only cable car.

 

“And when you reach the highest peak, you’ll find yourself at a picturesque replica of an ancient Italian village packed with designer boutiques, restaurants and coffee shops,” he explained.

 

All I was thinking was why on earth would anybody come to Ain Sokhna to buy an Armani suit, or a pair of Christian Dior boots?

 

Only during the ensuing discussion did I comprehend the scale of Amer Group’s Porto Sokhna project, dubbed their most ambitious enterprise yet.

 

At a cost of LE 3 billion, Amer said, “we are creating a destination and changing the map of tourism in the area.”

 

The source of funding, he explained, was a combination of personal, pre-sale and bank loans, which will not exceed 10 percent of the total cost.

 

Banking on Ain Sokhna’s year-round warm climate, Amer sees no reason why this destination would not be as popular as the Swiss Alps and the Lebanese mountains.

 

And there’s no dearth of superlatives when it comes to listing the facilities on offer: a 2 million-square meter world class, 18-hole mountain golf course, a yacht marina, the largest spa compound in the region housing five spa resorts of various themes over a 5000-square meter area, three shopping malls with a total number of 260 shops, restaurants and cinemas, the largest swimming pool in the country at 30,000 square meters, and a 250-person capacity gymnasium.

 

With a luxurious hotel, hotel apartments, villas and ranches, Amer Groups hopes to promote the vacation home concept where the Group would lease the apartments year round on behalf of the owners in return for 30 percent of the rent value.

 

“By offering complete housekeeping facilities, the owners, who don’t spend more than one month of the year there, will get a return on their investment and we will be keeping the destination alive all year. With 400 hotel rooms and 1,690 vacation homes, we will target 2,686,400 tourist nights per year,” said Amer.

 

“We want to change the notion of Ain Sokhna as a weekend destination, and rebrand it as ‘Cairo’s Beach’.”

 

Powering this massive project, he said, is the strategic decision to allow charter flights to land at Cairo Airport, which means that vacationers are merely a couple of hours’ drive away from Ain Sokhna.

 

Marketing it mainly as a family destination, Amer reaffirms his commitment to the Group’s no-alcohol and none-smoking policy — none of his facilities sell alcohol or shisha, but guests and residents are free to bring their own drinks — and the resort’s focus on sports, where he hopes to attract teams from all over the world to hold their training camps.

 

Another interesting addition to the mix, though I’m not quite sure how it fits in, were plans to build a boarding school that offers world-class education and enjoys all the sports facilities available at the site.

 

Asked whether he’s targeting Egyptian or foreign buyers, Amer said that it made no difference. “The point is that now the owners will be the new stake-holders.”

 

“But will average Egyptians be able to afford any of this ‘elite’ living as you advertise it?” I asked Amer.

 

“I am not targeting the highest-end buyer,” he said. “Where else in the world would you be able to buy a luxury apartment overlooking a golf course for $50,000? As for the hotel rates, it’s a matter of supply and demand. The more rooms available, the lower the rates.”

 

Suites at the 650-room hotel at Porto Marina, however, cost anywhere between LE 4,000-7,500 per night, while a standard double room goes for LE 1,200-2,000 per night.

 

I wasn’t convinced.

 

And as we embarked on the bumpy ride down the hill and I was once more faced with the massive concrete construction site that lay beneath, just a couple of hundred meters from the marina, I suddenly wondered about the environmental impact of tampering with the Red Sea coast’s topography.

 

What about marine life? And will the new Koraymat highway be able to absorb all the truck traffic and improve road safety? How can Porto Sokhna market itself as a health tourism destination when merely 40 km away, there’s an industrial zone with cement factories? What about homogenization — Porto Marina, Porto Sokhna and perhaps the newest kid on the block Porto Golf — all replicas of each other? Is that a good thing?

 

Then I remembered that this project alone provides jobs for about 7,000 people — nearly 8 million paid working days until it is complete in November 2009.

 

Enough said. (FROM NET)

The Ipswich Project: bikes

 

This video was filmed from the south bank of the River Orwell, looking across to the skateboard park and Ipswich town centre beyond.

 

I'm intrigued by the way that the Bridge Street skateboard park is host to this extraordinary extemporised dance, taking place day after day, in a setting of urban decay and renewal. All around, other people go about their business, cars shuttle across Stoke Bridge, and the cranes are ceaselessly building the waterfront ever higher. But still the dance goes on.

 

The music, by Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, is meant to accentuate this sense of isolation and alienation. It is called The Burning Bush. Atzmon is a fierce critic of Israel, and of the American-led occupation of Iraq. It struck me that the skateboard park is a little like a small country surrounded by hostile neighbours, and there is a tension, a sense of unease, of an intensely introspective culture in contrast to the great project to complete the homogenization of England .

sierraclub.typepad.com/mrgreen/2009/02/advice-about-recre...

 

In drive-throughs or anyplace, idling is, to summon the old saying, the devil's workshop. Every hour you idle, you waste up to 0.7 gallons of gas (depending on your engine type) going nowhere. So it pays to turn your engine off if you're going to be still for more than 30 seconds. In a given year, U.S. cars burn some 1.4 billion gallons of fuel just idling. Not to mention idling trucks, which waste another 1.5 billion gallons. Collectively, we emit about 58 million tons of carbon dioxide while we're essentially doing nothing.

 

Taking the fast-food industry as an example, and taking into account that the average McDonald's drive-through wait is 159 seconds, we can calculate that the company's consumers burn some 7.25 million gallons of gas each year. The figure for the entire U.S. fast-food industry? Roughly 50 million gallons.

 

The spread of American idle may be an exciting prospect for companies seeking to expand this lazy food-getting method to the rest of the world--but it's a devastating one for the environment. Consider that McDonald's plans to open 25 drive-throughs in China, following KFC's lead. KFC installed its first drive-through there in 2002 and is working on 100 more. If China and India, which is also jumping aboard the drive-through bandwagon, get up to speed, they can idle away a truly staggering figure: 30 billion gallons of gas. Every year.

 

www.thesmartset.com/article/article09120901.aspx

 

In 2000, Wendy’s led the industry in terms of speediness, taking an average of only 150.3 second to serve customers at its drive-through window. By 2008, it had reduced its average serving time to 131 seconds. But that’s still 131 seconds during which drivers are idling noisily and wastefully. According to Sierra Club estimates, people waiting at fast food restaurants burn approximately 50 million gallons of gasoline a year. At the current rate of $2.58 per gallon, that’s $129 million.

 

. . . All across Canada and the U.S., there are efforts to ban drive-throughs, just as there have been for at least the two decades. For many, the drive-through — and especially the fast-food drive-through — is the most potent symbol of the unhealthy, car-centric culture that’s making us fat and unhealthy, poisoning the planet, and locking us into an alienating, stressed-out consumerist lifestyle that for all its abundance and variety, doesn’t deliver true satisfaction and is ultimately unsustainable.

 

drivethrulies.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/drive-through-sham...

  

McDonald's is the nation's largest purchaser of beef, pork and potatoes - and the second largest purchaser of chicken.

 

The McDonald's Corporation is the largest owner of retail property in the world. Indeed, the company earns the majority of its profits not from selling food but from collecting rent.

 

McDonald's spends more money on advertising and marketing than any other brand.

 

. . . The impact of McDonald's on the way we live today is hard to overstate. . . . In the early 1970s, the farm activist Jim Hightower warned of "the McDonaldization of America". He viewed the emerging fast food industry as a threat to independent businesses, as a step toward a food economy dominated by giant corporations, and as a homogenizing inluence on American life. . . . Much of what Hightower feared has come to pass. The centralized purchasing decisions of the large restaurant chains and their demand for standardized products have given a handful of corporations an unprecedented degree of power over the nation's food supply. Moreover, the tremendous success of the fast food industry has encouraged other industries to adopt similar business methods.

 

from Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

neolithic-like pottery

 

neolithic-like pottery

 

The prehistoric pottery in Romania fascinates by its diversity, quality and exquisite sense of beauty. A number of European Neolithic cultures are known all over the world for their extremely valuable pottery production. Each of these cultures can be distinguished according to their specific forms and decors. From the archaeological perspective, pottery is considered to be a “vectorial / leading fossil” helping to identify the human communities that occupied a certain area during a certain past period of time.

 

The project

The ongoing project entitled “Replica” intends to recreate, in an experimental manner, the clay “adventure” from its starting point as a geologic sediment to its final phase, when it becomes a finite art object. While achieving this complex process, we have minutely tried to rediscover and at the same time apply the prehistoric pottery and statue carving techniques.

 

The beginning

Basket working was considered to be the first handcrafted recipients. Later on these baskets were covered with clay. This is one of the hypotheses regarding the starting point of pottery making. It is believed that ceramic recipients appeared as a result of some chance basket burning. These recipients had a major peculiarity – water could be boiled into them. Gradually, people ceased using the wickerwork support and started using long clay bands to build the recipient. These bands went upwards, from the basis to the recipient aperture.

 

The clay

The first step taken in realising the recipient you are holding in this very moment was to discover a resource of high quality raw material. Thus, the clay we have used was found in the proximity of ancient pottery centres situated in the southern regions of Romania. It has been used for centuries in pottery production. The clay needs to be exposed to at least one winter frost in order to acquire the necessary plastic qualities; only afterwards water is added and it gets sufficiently well homogenized to obtain the consistency to mould the recipient.

 

The technique

The process we use to build the recipients tries to reproduce as close as possible the Neolithic one, called en colombin. The construction of such a recipient starts form the basis, superposing clay bands which are consequently homogenized, from both the interior and exterior, by means of a bone or wooden spatula. Building bigger dimension recipients raises some problems - in this case the technical procedure requires higher attention as well as a longer time for its construction. This technique resembles the one that swallows use to build their nests – while the basis of the recipient begins to dry, the upper part is maintained wet so that the building process could be continued. The recipients’ decoration with incisions or excisions is realised before they are completely dried. After the completion of these first stages, the recipients are stored in a shadowy place since a rapid dehydration could deform or even crack them.

 

The pigments

Before being burnt, the recipients are painted with mineral pigments, resistant to high temperatures of over 700° Celsius. The pigments’ extraction is realised in a quite resembling manner to the one practiced in prehistory. The red pigment is obtained from sediment containing a high concentration of iron oxide. The white is obtained from a special type of clay brought from an area rich in kaolin deposits, situated in the proximity of Medgidia town. The black colour is obtained by grinding the slag resulted from iron burning.

   

The kiln

The recipients are burnt in a kiln built after the Neolithic model – it is a bicameral clay kiln in which a high quality oxidising burning can be realised. The recipients are carefully placed into the kiln in a well established order so that the hot air can circulate, realising thus a complete burning. They are positioned in circles; the widest circle comes first. On the pile top, a lid of broken recipients is made.

 

The burning

At the beginning, the fire is made with soft wood such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood cut in small pieces – 30 cm at most. They have a lesser caloric power and are used for the gradual kiln heating. At this stage, the wood is set at the kiln aperture, as far as possible from the recipients because a high temperature without a preliminary gradual heating would crack them. This stage can last up to three hours. At this point, wood with a higher caloric power such as poplar, lime tree or willow wood is introduced. The best wood that can be used in pottery burning is the fir wood. The wood pieces should be 80 cm long and cut thinly. The burning can last up to twelve hours.

   

The culture of Cucuteni is known to have appeared around 5000 years ago in the eastern part of Romania, more precisely in the Central and Western parts of a region called Moldavia. It started its existence during the last phase of a Precucutenian culture and undertook some influences from Gumelnita and Petresti cultures. It belongs to the great painted ceramics complex known by the name of Ariuşd – Cucuteni – Tripolie. Further phases – A, A-B, B and C have been stratigraphically and typologically identified to have existed during its long-lasting life of more than 700 years (around 3500 BC – 2900 BC).

Working the land was considered to be the basic occupation of these communities, but they were animal breeders as well. They took great interest in breeding taurines. Haunting was of a secondary importance to them.

Among the countless and outstanding artistic manifestations belonging to the Neo- eneolithic epoch 5000 years ago, and which appeared in both Romania and the rest of Europe, Cucuteni culture stands as the symbol of one of the greatest achievements of the prehistoric man’s genius. As compared to the contemporary cultures, Cucuteni is undoubtly the most impressive of them. The artistic value of its painted pottery is genuine and surpasses the most exquisite manifestations belonging to most of the European cultures of that epoch.

 

wwwdumitruflorin.eu

 

Submitted: June 29, 2004

   

Any more description would be overkill.

   

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

The steam from my breakfast wafted up into my nostrils. 2 hotcakes, tasting more like stainless steal than batter… but that was alright, you could coat them with cheap lard and drown them with artificial maple flavour (with added caramel colour) and they would slide right down.

My pitiful pile of eggs cowered in the corner of my Styrofoam tray; their nutrients whipped away, leaving them flavourless, hidden underneath the dripping residue of whatever my preprocessed sausage patty and biscuit had been cooked in.

I bit into my hashbrown, carefully wrapped in a waxpaper sheath so I could not feel with my fingers the half-cup of oil I was ingesting.

I. I had been degraded to this. I, the strong savage adventurer of the great white north, I, who had survived for days on end what was mine to trap in the bush, I, who had lived with the scent of pines in my breath, who was raised by the Naskapi, who was strengthened by the rich meat of the caribou, Canadian goose and lake trout, I, I had been reduced to this. Scraping greasy mass produced filth off a non-biodegradable platter with a plastic spoon and shoveling it into my mouth. I had been degraded, AND by my own doing.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

I had given into the pressure of the giant yellow magnet (that IS what the M stands for, isn’t it?).

Lured off the road by cheap prices, and their shapely African-American ad model smiling widely and purring thickly “I’m Lovin’ it!”™; I had pulled my car into the lot, ordered my food, and sat down on the sticky red bench to ingest. It was my duty. Doing my part. My four dollars and seven cents was making some fat white man somewhere rich. My four dollars and seven cents (one dollar and thirteen cents of which had actually paid for the price of my food) was robbing some delicate mom & pop breakfast shop of the four dollars and seven cents I could have given them for a decent meal.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing who he was.

He hunched over a cheap plastic display case of cheap plastic sponsored children’s toys (not suitable for munchkins under 3) smiling. He smiled down at me, his wide hips emblazoned with the logo and tilted off to one side gauntly. Green signs displaying new salads (in a meager attempt fluttered over his shock of a red afro in the artificial breeze of the air conditioners. His shoes were the same, but now they had been spray painted bright red and garnished with bright yellow laces to match his striped socks. The shoes were no longer a coal-stained brown, no longer had holes big enough to drive a train through, but were still the same shoes. His nose had a spot of red on it, carefully placed to make it seem larger, wider, flatter. His eyes, (though tear stained; his mascara running down his face) sparkled. And his lips. His lips were huge. Shockingly red, they took up over half his face with a monstrous grin.

 

I stared at the man, suddenly, shockingly, realizing WHO HE WAS.

I got up.

Of course, now they had painted his face white, an ironic mockery making everything ok.

The elderly silvered man with the Windex spray bottle squirted my table as I headed toward the door, and he gave it a swipe with his disposable towel. I threw my tray in the trash, along with all the rest of the evidence of McHotcakes, McHashbrowns, McEggs, McSausage and the Homogenized, Ultra-Pasteurized, Vitamin A&D added McMilk.

And with it’s “Thank You” flap swinging mockingly, the trash can caused me to shiver with what it wore as a crown. The future was before my very eyes, sitting regally next to the mud-brown used trays. A single cup half-empty of watered down Coke. The African American ad woman stood plastered on the side with her African American daughter smiling. And around them, in every language and alphabet one could read the prophetic words: “I’m Lovin’ it!”.

www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html

 

By ETHAN WATTERS

AMERICANS, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad.

 

This unnerving possibility springs from recent research by a loose group of anthropologists and cross-cultural psychiatrists. Swimming against the biomedical currents of the time, they have argued that mental illnesses are not discrete entities like the polio virus with their own natural histories. These researchers have amassed an impressive body of evidence suggesting that mental illnesses have never been the same the world over (either in prevalence or in form) but are inevitably sparked and shaped by the ethos of particular times and places.

 

. . . In any given era, those who minister to the mentally ill — doctors or shamans or priests — inadvertently help to select which symptoms will be recognized as legitimate. Because the troubled mind has been influenced by healers of diverse religious and scientific persuasions, the forms of madness from one place and time often look remarkably different from the forms of madness in another.

 

That is until recently.

 

For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world. We have done this in the name of science, believing that our approaches reveal the biological basis of psychic suffering and dispel prescientific myths and harmful stigma. There is now good evidence to suggest that in the process of teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we’ve been exporting our Western “symptom repertoire” as well. That is, we’ve been changing not only the treatments but also the expression of mental illness in other cultures. Indeed, a handful of mental-health disorders — depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia among them — now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases. These symptom clusters are becoming the lingua franca of human suffering, replacing indigenous forms of mental illness.

 

motherjones.com/media/2010/01/ethan-watters-crazy-like-us

 

www.crazylikeus.com/

This is essentially a breakfast casserole (eggs, potato, some kind of breakfast meat (bacon today)) topped with some traditional pizza toppings (pepperoni, mozzarella, tomato sauce).

 

Step 1: Fry some bacon. Nice and crispy, but not burnt. Set it aside to dry off some. Drain off most of the grease because, while delicious, it's terrible for you.

 

Step 2: Add some vegetable oil to the pan and add a bunch of shredded potatoes. I use the "Simply Potatoes" store-bought kind because last time I shredded potatoes manually, I shredded my thumb pretty good. It hurt. You're essentially making hash browns at this stage, though you don't want two thick layers of "crispy," just one, and it ends up on the bottom. Use your lid so the whole of the potatoes cook, not just what's in the oil/on the bottom of the pan. Turn about halfway through where you would for regular hash browns and add some seasonings (salt, pepper, rosemary, oregano, parsley in my case today). Let this go with the lid on until the bottom starts to get nice and crispy and, well, "crust-like."

 

Step 3: Mix about 2:1 eggs to milk until it's all roughly homogenized. I used four eggs. Pour overtop the potatoes. Throw a little tomato sauce in overtop the eggs, then your toppings (today crumbled bacon, sliced pepperoni, and sliced mozzarella), and a little more sauce. Lid up and cook some more until the eggs have mostly coagulated.

 

Step 4: Throw in the oven under the broiler (on low) for a few minutes or until it looks all done and delicious.

 

Step 5: Let it sit for a couple minutes so everything can set up properly, slice and serve.

i'm sorry, but italian sausage doesn't taste nearly as good if it doesn't come from under a garish orange, red & black sign ... i'm sort of shocked that an arts festival dumbed down the local color.

The Palace of Versailles is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris, France.

 

The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, under the direction of the French Ministry of Culture, by the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. About 15,000,000 people visit the palace, park, or gardens of Versailles every year, making it one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

 

Louis XIII built a simple hunting lodge on the site of the Palace of Versailles in 1623. With his death came Louis XIV who expanded the château into the beginnings of a palace that went through several changes and phases from 1661 to 1715. It was a favorite residence for both kings, and in 1682, Louis XIV moved the seat of his court and government to Versailles, making the palace the de facto capital of France. This state of affairs was continued by Kings Louis XV and Louis XVI, who primarily made interior alterations to the palace, but in 1789 the royal family and capital of France returned to Paris. For the rest of the French Revolution, the Palace of Versailles was largely abandoned and emptied of its contents, and the population of the surrounding city plummeted.

 

Napoleon, following his coronation as Emperor, used Versailles as a summer residence from 1810 to 1814, but did not restore it. Following the Bourbon Restoration, when the king was returned to the throne, he resided in Paris and it was not until the 1830s that meaningful repairs were made to the palace. A museum of French history was installed within it, replacing the apartments of the southern wing.

 

The palace and park were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1979 for its importance as the center of power, art, and science in France during the 17th and 18th centuries. The French Ministry of Culture has placed the palace, its gardens, and some of its subsidiary structures on its list of culturally significant monuments.

 

History

Main article: History of the Palace of Versailles

An engraving of Louis XIII's château as it appeared in 1652

Versailles around 1652, engraving by Jacques Gomboust [fr]

In 1623, Louis XIII, King of France, built a hunting lodge on a hill in a favorite hunting ground, 19 kilometers (12 mi) west of Paris and 16 kilometers (10 mi) from his primary residence, the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye The site, near a village named Versailles, was a wooded wetland that Louis XIII's court scorned as being generally unworthy of a king; one of his courtiers, François de Bassompierre, wrote that the lodge "would not inspire vanity in even the simplest gentleman". From 1631 to 1634, architect Philibert Le Roy replaced the lodge with a château for Louis XIII, who forbade his queen, Anne of Austria, from staying there overnight, even when an outbreak of smallpox at Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1641 forced Louis XIII to relocate to Versailles with his three-year-old heir, the future Louis XIV.

 

When Louis XIII died in 1643, Anne became Louis XIV's regent, and Louis XIII's château was abandoned for the next decade. She moved the court back to Paris, where Anne and her chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, continued Louis XIII's unpopular monetary practices. This led to the Fronde, a series of revolts against royal authority from 1648 to 1653 that masked a struggle between Mazarin and the princes of the blood, Louis XIV's extended family, for influence over him. In the aftermath of the Fronde, Louis XIV became determined to rule alone. Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV reformed his government to exclude his mother and the princes of the blood, moved the court back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and ordered the expansion of his father's château at Versailles into a palace.

 

Louis XIV had hunted at Versailles in the 1650s, but did not take any special interest in Versailles until 1661. On 17 August 1661, Louis XIV was a guest at a sumptuous festival hosted by Nicolas Fouquet, the Superintendent of Finances, at his palatial residence, the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte. Louis XIV was impressed by the château and its gardens, which were the work of Louis Le Vau, the court architect since 1654, André Le Nôtre, the royal gardener since 1657, and Charles Le Brun, a painter in royal service since 1647. Vaux-le-Vicomte's scale and opulence inspired Louis XIV's aesthetic sense, but also led him to imprison Fouquet that September, as he had also built an island fortress and a private army. Louis XIV was also inspired by Vaux-le-Vicomte, and he recruited its authors for his own projects. Louis XIV replaced Fouquet with Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a protégé of Mazarin and enemy of Fouquet, and charged him with managing the corps of artisans in royal employment. Colbert acted as the intermediary between them and Louis XIV, who personally directed and inspected the planning and construction of Versailles.

 

Construction

Work at Versailles was at first concentrated on gardens, and through the 1660s, Le Vau only added two detached service wings and a forecourt to the château. But in 1668–69, as a response to the growth of the gardens, and victory over Spain in the War of Devolution, Louis XIV decided to turn Versailles into a full-scale royal residence. He vacillated between replacing or incorporating his father's château, but settled on the latter by the end of the decade, and from 1668 to 1671, Louis XIII's château was encased on three sides in a feature dubbed the enveloppe. This gave the château a new, Italianate façade overlooking the gardens, but preserved the courtyard façade, resulting in a mix of styles and materials that dismayed Louis XIV and that Colbert described as a "patchwork". Attempts to homogenize the two façades failed, and in 1670 Le Vau died, leaving the post of First Architect to the King vacant for the next seven years.

 

Le Vau was succeeded at Versailles by his assistant, architect François d'Orbay. Work at the palace during the 1670s focused on its interiors, as the palace was then nearing completion, though d'Orbay expanded Le Vau's service wings and connected them to the château, and built a pair of pavilions for government employees in the forecourt. In 1670, d'Orbay was tasked by Louis XIV with designing a city, also called Versailles, to house and service Louis XIV's growing government and court. The granting of land to courtiers for the construction of townhouses that resembled the palace began in 1671. The next year, the Franco-Dutch War began and funding for Versailles was cut until 1674, when Louis XIV had work begun on the Ambassadors' Staircase , a grand staircase for the reception of guests, and demolished the last of the village of Versailles.

 

Following the end of the Franco-Dutch War with French victory in 1678, Louis XIV appointed as First Architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart, an experienced architect in Louis XIV's confidence, who would benefit from a restored budget and large workforce of former soldiers. Mansart began his tenure with the addition from 1678 to 1681 of the Hall of Mirrors, a renovation of the courtyard façade of Louis XIII's château, and the expansion of d'Orbay's pavilions to create the Ministers' Wings in 1678–79. Adjacent to the palace, Mansart built a pair of stables called the Grande and Petite Écuries from 1679 to 1682 and the Grand Commun, which housed the palace's servants and general kitchens, from 1682 to 1684. Mansart also added two entirely new wings in Le Vau's Italianate style to house the court, first at the south end of the palace from 1679 to 1681 and then at its north end from 1685 to 1689.

 

War and the resulting diminished funding slowed construction at Versailles for the rest of the 17th century. The Nine Years' War, which began in 1688, stopped work altogether until 1698. Three years later, however, the even more expensive War of the Spanish Succession began and, combined with poor harvests in 1693–94 and 1709–10, plunged France into crisis. Louis XIV thus slashed funding and canceled some of the work Mansart had planned in the 1680s, such as the remodeling of the courtyard façade in the Italianate style. Louis XIV and Mansart focused on a permanent palace chapel, the construction of which lasted from 1699 to 1710.

 

Louis XIV's successors, Louis XV and Louis XVI, largely left Versailles as they inherited it and focused on the palace's interiors. Louis XV's modifications began in the 1730s, with the completion of the Salon d'Hercule, a ballroom in the north wing, and the expansion of the king's private apartment, which required the demolition of the Ambassadors' Staircase In 1748, Louis XV began construction of a palace theater, the Royal Opera of Versailles at the northernmost end of the palace, but completion was delayed until 1770; construction was interrupted in the 1740s by the War of the Austrian Succession and then again in 1756 with the start of the Seven Years' War. These wars emptied the royal treasury and thereafter construction was mostly funded by Madame du Barry, Louis XV's favorite mistress. In 1771, Louis XV had the northern Ministers' Wing rebuilt in Neoclassical style by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, his court architect, as it was in the process of falling down. That work was also stopped by financial constraints, and it remained incomplete when Louis XV died in 1774. In 1784, Louis XVI briefly moved the royal family to the Château de Saint-Cloud ahead of more renovations to the Palace of Versailles, but construction could not begin because of financial difficulty and political crisis. In 1789, the French Revolution swept the royal family and government out of Versailles forever.

 

Role in politics and culture

The Palace of Versailles was key to Louis XIV's politics, as an expression and concentration of French art and culture, and for the centralization of royal power. Louis XIV first used Versailles to promote himself with a series of nighttime festivals in its gardens in 1664, 1668, and 1674, the events of which were disseminated throughout Europe by print and engravings. As early as 1669, but especially from 1678, Louis XIV sought to make Versailles his seat of government, and he expanded the palace so as to fit the court within it. The moving of the court to Versailles did not come until 1682, however, and not officially, as opinion on Versailles was mixed among the nobility of France.

 

By 1687, however, it was evident to all that Versailles was the de facto capital of France, and Louis XIV succeeded in attracting the nobility to Versailles to pursue prestige and royal patronage within a strict court etiquette, thus eroding their traditional provincial power bases. It was at the Palace of Versailles that Louis XIV received the Doge of Genoa, Francesco Maria Imperiale Lercari in 1685, an embassy from the Ayutthaya Kingdom in 1686, and an embassy from Safavid Iran in 1715.[

 

Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV, then the duke of Anjou, who was moved to Vincennes and then to Paris by Louis XV's regent, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Versailles was neglected until 1722, when Philippe II removed the court to Versailles to escape the unpopularity of his regency, and when Louis XV began his majority. The 1722 move, however, broke the cultural power of Versailles, and during the reign of Louis XVI, courtiers spent their leisure in Paris, not Versailles.

 

During Christmas 1763, Mozart and his family visited Versailles and dined with the kings. The 7-year-old Mozart played several works during his stay and later dedicated his first two harpsichord sonatas, published in 1764 in Paris, to Madame Victoria, daughter of Louis XV.

 

In 1783, the palace was the site of the signing of the last two of the three treaties of the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War. On September 3, British and American delegates, led by Benjamin Franklin, signed the Treaty of Paris at the Hôtel d'York (now 56 Rue Jacob) in Paris, granting the United States independence. On September 4, Spain and France signed separate treaties with England at the Palace of Versailles, formally ending the war.

 

The King and Queen learned of the Storming of the Bastille in Paris on 14 July 1789, while they were at the palace, and remained isolated there as the Revolution in Paris spread. The growing anger in Paris led to the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789. A crowd of several thousand men and women, protesting the high price and scarcity of bread, marched from the markets of Paris to Versailles. They took weapons from the city armory, besieged the palace, and compelled the King and royal family and the members of the National Assembly to return with them to Paris the following day.

 

As soon as the royal family departed, the palace was closed. In 1792, the National Convention, the new revolutionary government, ordered the transfer of all the paintings and sculptures from the palace to the Louvre. In 1793, the Convention declared the abolition of the monarchy and ordered all of the royal property in the palace to be sold at auction. The auction took place between 25 August 1793 and 11 August 1794. The furnishings and art of the palace, including the furniture, mirrors, baths, and kitchen equipment, were sold in seventeen thousand lots. All fleurs-de-lys and royal emblems on the buildings were chambered or chiseled off. The empty buildings were turned into a storehouse for furnishings, art and libraries confiscated from the nobility. The empty grand apartments were opened for tours beginning in 1793, and a small museum of French paintings and art school was opened in some of the empty rooms.

 

By virtue of an order issued by the Versailles district directorate in August 1794, the Royal Gate was destroyed, the Cour Royale was cleared and the Cour de Marbre lost its precious floor.

 

19th century – history museum and government venue

When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he considered making Versailles his residence but abandoned the idea because of the cost of the renovation. Prior to his marriage with Marie-Louise in 1810, he had the Grand Trianon restored and refurnished as a springtime residence for himself and his family, in the style of furnishing that it is seen today.

 

In 1815, with the final downfall of Napoleon, Louis XVIII, the younger brother of Louis XVI, became King, and considered returning the royal residence to Versailles, where he had been born. He ordered the restoration of the royal apartments, but the task and cost was too great. Louis XVIII had the far end of the south wing of the Cour Royale demolished and rebuilt (1814–1824) to match the Gabriel wing of 1780 opposite, which gave greater uniformity of appearance to the front entrance. Neither he nor his successor Charles X lived at Versailles.

 

The French Revolution of 1830 brought a new monarch, Louis-Philippe to power, and a new ambition for Versailles. He did not reside at Versailles but began the creation of the Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France", which had been used to house some members of the royal family. The museum was begun in 1833 and inaugurated on 30 June 1837. Its most famous room is the Galerie des Batailles (Hall of Battles), which lies on most of the length of the second floor of the south wing. The museum project largely came to a halt when Louis Philippe was overthrown in 1848, though the paintings of French heroes and great battles still remain in the south wing.

 

Emperor Napoleon III used the palace on occasion as a stage for grand ceremonies. One of the most lavish was the banquet that he hosted for Queen Victoria in the Royal Opera of Versailles on 25 August 1855.

 

During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the palace was occupied by the general staff of the victorious German Army. Parts of the château, including the Gallery of Mirrors, were turned into a military hospital. The creation of the German Empire, combining Prussia and the surrounding German states under William I, was formally proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors on 18 January 1871. The Germans remained in the palace until the signing of the armistice in March 1871. In that month, the government of the new Third French Republic, which had departed Paris during the War for Tours and then Bordeaux, moved into the palace. The National Assembly held its meetings in the Opera House.

 

The uprising of the Paris Commune in March 1871, prevented the French government, under Adolphe Thiers, from returning immediately to Paris. The military operation which suppressed the Commune at the end of May was directed from Versailles, and the prisoners of the Commune were marched there and put on trial in military courts. In 1875 a second parliamentary body, the French Senate, was created and held its meetings for the election of a President of the Republic in a new hall created in 1876 in the south wing of the palace. The French Senate continues to meet in the palace on special occasions, such as the amendment of the French Constitution.

 

20th century

The end of the 19th and the early 20th century saw the beginning of restoration efforts at the palace, first led by Pierre de Nolhac, poet and scholar and the first conservator, who began his work in 1892. The conservation and restoration were interrupted by two world wars but have continued until the present day.

 

The palace returned to the world stage in June 1919, when, after six months of negotiations, the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the First World War, was signed in the Hall of Mirrors. Between 1925 and 1928, the American philanthropist and multi-millionaire John D. Rockefeller, Jr. gave $2,166,000, the equivalent of about thirty million dollars today, to restore and refurbish the palace.

 

More work took place after World War II, with the restoration of the Royal Opera of Versailles. The theater was reopened in 1957, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

 

In 1978, parts of the palace were heavily damaged in a bombing committed by Breton terrorists.

 

Starting in the 1950s, when the museum of Versailles was under the directorship of Gérald van der Kemp, the objective was to restore the palace to its state – or as close to it as possible – in 1789 when the royal family left the palace. Among the early projects was the repair of the roof over the Hall of Mirrors; the publicity campaign brought international attention to the plight of post-war Versailles and garnered much foreign money including a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

 

One of the more costly endeavors for the museum and France's Fifth Republic has been to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Consequently, because furniture with a royal provenance – and especially furniture that was made for Versailles – is a highly sought-after commodity on the international market, the museum has spent considerable funds on retrieving much of the palace's original furnishings.

 

21st century

In 2003, a new restoration initiative – the "Grand Versailles" project – was started, which began with the replanting of the gardens, which had lost over 10,000 trees during Cyclone Lothar on 26 December 1999. One part of the initiative, the restoration of the Hall of Mirrors, was completed in 2006. Another major project was the further restoration of the backstage areas of the Royal Opera of Versailles in 2007 to 2009.

 

The Palace of Versailles is currently owned by the French state. Its formal title is the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles. Since 1995, it has been run as a Public Establishment, with an independent administration and management supervised by the French Ministry of Culture.

 

The grounds of the palace will host the equestrian competition during the 2024 Summer Olympics.

 

Architecture and plan

The Palace of Versailles is a visual history of French architecture from the 1630s to the 1780s. Its earliest portion, the corps de logis, was built for Louis XIII in the style of his reign with brick, marble, and slate, which Le Vau surrounded in the 1660s with Enveloppe, an edifice that was inspired by Renaissance-era Italian villas. When Mansart made further expansions to the palace in the 1680s, he used the Enveloppe as the model for his work. Neoclassical additions were made to the palace with the remodeling of the Ministers' Wings in the 1770s, by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, and after the Bourbon Restoration.

 

The palace was largely completed by the death of Louis XIV in 1715. The eastern facing palace has a U-shaped layout, with the corps de logis and symmetrical advancing secondary wings terminating with the Dufour Pavilion on the south and the Gabriel Pavilion to the north, creating an expansive cour d'honneur known as the Royal Court (Cour Royale). Flanking the Royal Court are two enormous asymmetrical wings that result in a façade of 402 metres (1,319 ft) in length. Covered by around a million square feet (10 hectares) of roof, the palace has 2,143 windows, 1,252 chimneys, and 67 staircases.[

 

The palace and its grounds have had a great influence on architecture and horticulture from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th century. Examples of works influenced by Versailles include Christopher Wren's work at Hampton Court Palace, Berlin Palace, the Palace of La Granja, Stockholm Palace, Ludwigsburg Palace, Karlsruhe Palace, Rastatt Palace, Nymphenburg Palace, Schleissheim Palace, and Esterházy Palace.

 

Royal Apartments

The construction in 1668–1671 of Le Vau's enveloppe around the outside of Louis XIII's red brick and white stone château added state apartments for the king and the queen. The addition was known at the time as the château neuf (new château). The grands appartements (Grand Apartments, also referred to as the State Apartments[141][142]) include the grand appartement du roi and the grand appartement de la reine. They occupied the main or principal floor of the château neuf, with three rooms in each apartment facing the garden to the west and four facing the garden parterres to the north and south, respectively. The private apartments of the king (the appartement du roi and the petit appartement du roi) and those of the queen (the petit appartement de la reine) remained in the château vieux (old château). Le Vau's design for the state apartments closely followed Italian models of the day, including the placement of the apartments on the main floor (the piano nobile, the next floor up from the ground level), a convention the architect borrowed from Italian palace design.

 

The king's State Apartment consisted of an enfilade of seven rooms, each dedicated to one of the known planets and their associated titular Roman deity. The queen's apartment formed a parallel enfilade with that of the grand appartement du roi. After the addition of the Hall of Mirrors (1678–1684) the king's apartment was reduced to five rooms (until the reign of Louis XV, when two more rooms were added) and the queen's to four.

 

The queen's apartments served as the residence of three queens of France – Marie-Thérèse d'Autriche, wife of Louis XIV, Marie Leczinska, wife of Louis XV, and Marie-Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI. Additionally, Louis XIV's granddaughter-in-law, Princess Marie-Adélaïde of Savoy, duchesse de Bourgogne, wife of the Petit Dauphin, occupied these rooms from 1697 (the year of her marriage) to her death in 1712.

 

Ambassador's Staircase

The Ambassadors' Staircase (Escalier des Ambassadeurs) was an imperial staircase built from 1674 to 1680 by d'Orbay. Until Louis XV had it demolished in 1752 to create a courtyard for his private apartments, the staircase was the primary entrance into the Palace of Versailles and the royal apartments especially. It was entered from the courtyard via a vestibule that, cramped and dark, contrasted greatly with the tall, open space of the staircase – famously lit naturally with a skylight – so as to overawe visitors.

 

The staircase and walls of the room that contained it were clad in polychrome marble and gilded bronze, with decor in the Ionic order. Le Brun and painted the walls and ceiling of the room according to a festive theme to celebrate Louis XIV's victory in the Franco-Dutch War. On the wall immediately above the staircase were trompe-l'œil paintings of people from the Four Parts of the World looking into the staircase over a balustrade, a motif repeated on the ceiling fresco. There they were joined by allegorical figures for the twelve months of the year and various Classical Greek figures such as the Muses. A marble bust of Louis XIV, sculpted by Jean Warin in 1665–66, was placed in a niche above the first landing of the staircase.

 

The State Apartments of the King

The construction of the Hall of Mirrors between 1678 and 1686 coincided with a major alteration to the State Apartments. They were originally intended as his residence, but the King transformed them into galleries for his finest paintings, and venues for his many receptions for courtiers. During the season from All-Saints Day in November until Easter, these were usually held three times a week, from six to ten in the evening, with various entertainments.

 

The Salon of Hercules

This was originally a chapel. It was rebuilt beginning in 1712 under the supervision of the First Architect of the King, Robert de Cotte, to showcase two paintings by Paolo Veronese, Eleazar and Rebecca and Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee, which was a gift to Louis XIV from the Republic of Venice in 1664. The painting on the ceiling, The Apotheosis of Hercules, by François Lemoyne, was completed in 1736, and gave the room its name.

 

The Salon of Abundance

The Salon of Abundance was the antechamber to the Cabinet of Curios (now the Games Room), which displayed Louis XIV's collection of precious jewels and rare objects. Some of the objects in the collection are depicted in René-Antoine Houasse's painting Abundance and Liberality (1683), located on the ceiling over the door opposite the windows.

 

The Salon of Venus

This salon was used for serving light meals during evening receptions. The principal feature in this room is Jean Warin's life-size statue of Louis XIV in the costume of a Roman emperor. On the ceiling in a gilded oval frame is another painting by Houasse, Venus subjugating the Gods and Powers (1672–1681). Trompe-l'œil paintings and sculpture around the ceiling illustrate mythological themes.

 

The Salon of Mercury

The Salon of Mercury was the original State Bedchamber when Louis XIV officially moved the court and government to the palace in 1682. The bed is a replica of the original commissioned by King Louis-Philippe in the 19th century when he turned the palace into a museum. The ceiling paintings by the Flemish artist Jean Baptiste de Champaigne depict the god Mercury in his chariot, drawn by a rooster, and Alexander the Great and Ptolemy surrounded by scholars and philosophers. The Automaton Clock was made for the King by the royal clockmaker Antoine Morand in 1706. When it chimes the hour, figures of Louis XIV and Fame descend from a cloud.

 

The Salon of Mars

The Salon of Mars was used by the royal guards until 1782, and was decorated on a military theme with helmets and trophies. It was turned into a concert room between 1684 and 1750, with galleries for musicians on either side. Portraits of Louis XV and his Queen, Marie Leszczinska, by the Flemish artist Carle Van Loo decorate the room today.

 

The Salon of Apollo

The Salon of Apollo was the royal throne room under Louis XIV, and was the setting for formal audiences. The eight-foot-high silver throne was melted down in 1689 to help pay the costs of an expensive war, and was replaced by a more modest throne of gilded wood. The central painting on the ceiling, by Charles de la Fosse, depicts the Sun Chariot of Apollo, the King's favorite emblem, pulled by four horses and surrounded by the four seasons.

 

The Salon of Diana

The Salon of Diana was used by Louis XIV as a billiards room, and had galleries from which courtiers could watch him play. The decoration of the walls and ceiling depicts scenes from the life of the goddess Diana. The celebrated bust of Louis XIV by Bernini made during the famous sculptor's visit to France in 1665 is on display here.

 

Private apartments of the King and Queen

The apartments of the King were the heart of the château; they were in the same location as the rooms of Louis XIII, the creator of the château, on the first floor (second floor US style). They were set aside for the personal use of Louis XIV in 1683. He and his successors Louis XV and Louis XVI used these rooms for official functions, such as the ceremonial lever ("waking up") and the coucher ("going to bed") of the monarch, which was attended by a crowd of courtiers.

 

The King's apartment was accessed from the Hall of Mirrors from the Oeil de Boeuf antechamber or from the Guardroom and the Grand Couvert, the ceremonial room where Louis XIV often took his evening meals, seated alone at a table in front of the fireplace. His spoon, fork, and knife were brought to him in a golden box. The courtiers could watch as he dined.

 

The King's bedchamber had originally been a Drawing Room before Louis XIV transformed it into his own bedroom in 1701. He died there on 1 September 1715. Both Louis XV and Louis XVI continued to use the bedroom for their official awakening and going to bed. On 6 October 1789, from the balcony of this room Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, joined by the Marquis de Lafayette, looked down on the hostile crowd in the courtyard, shortly before the King was forced to return to Paris.

 

The bed of the King is placed beneath a carved relief by Nicolas Coustou entitled France watching over the sleeping King. The decoration includes several paintings set into the paneling, including a self-portrait of Antony van Dyck.

 

Private apartments of The Queen

The petit appartement de la reine is a suite of rooms that were reserved for the personal use of the queen. Originally arranged for the use of the Marie-Thérèse, consort of Louis XIV, the rooms were later modified for use by Marie Leszczyńska and finally for Marie-Antoinette. The Queen's apartments and the King's Apartments were laid out on the same design, each suite having seven rooms. Both suites had ceilings painted with scenes from mythology; the King's ceilings featured male figures, the Queen's featured females.

 

Hall of Mirrors

The Hall of Mirrors is a long gallery at the westernmost part of the palace that looks out onto the gardens. The hall was built from 1678 to 1681 on the site of a terrace Le Vau built between the king and queen's suites. The hall is clad in marble and decorated in a modified version of the Corinthian order, with 578 mirrors facing 17 windows and reflecting the light provided by them. The ceiling fresco, painted by Le Brun over the next four years, embellishes the first 18 years of Louis XIV's reign in 30 scenes, 17 of which are military victories over the Dutch. The fresco depicts Louis XIV himself alongside Classical figures in the scenes celebrating moments in his reign such as the beginning of personal rule in 1661, breaking from earlier frescoes at Versailles that used allegories derived from Classical and mythological scenes.

 

The Salon of War and the Salon of Peace bookend the Hall of Mirrors on its northern and southern ends respectively. The Salon of War, constructed and decorated from 1678 to 1686, celebrates French victories in the Franco-Dutch War with marble panels, gilded bronze trophies of arms, and a stucco bas-relief of Louis XIV on horsebask riding over his enemies. The Salon of Peace is decorated in the same fashion but according to its eponymous theme.

 

Royal Chapel

The Royal Chapel of Versailles is located at the southern end of the north wing. The building stands 40-meter (130 ft) high, and measures 42 meters (138 ft) long and 24 meters (79 ft) wide. The chapel is rectangular with a semicircular apse, combining traditional, Gothic royal French church architecture with the French Baroque style of Versailles. The ceiling of the chapel is constituted by an unbroken vault, divided into three frescos by Antoine Coypel, Charles de La Fosse, and Jean Jouvenet. The palette of motifs beneath the frescoes glorify the deeds of Louis IX, and include images of David, Constantine, Charlemagne, and Louis IX, fleur de lis, and Louis XIV's monogram. The organ of the chapel was built by Robert Clicquot and Julien Tribuot in 1709–1710.

 

Louis XIV commissioned the chapel, its sixth, from Mansart and Le Brun in 1683–84. It was the last building constructed at Versailles during Louis XIV's reign. Construction was delayed until 1699, however, and it was not completed until 1710. The only major modification to the chapel since its completion was the removal of a lantern from its roof in 1765. A full restoration of the chapel began in late 2017 and lasted into early 2021.

 

Royal Opera

The Royal Opera of Versailles was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1682 and was to be built at the end of the North Wing with a design by Mansart and Vigarani. However, due to the expense of the King's continental wars, the project was put aside. The idea was revived by Louis XV with a new design by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1748, but this was also temporarily put aside. The project was revived and rushed ahead for the planned celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette. For economy and speed, the new opera was built almost entirely of wood, which also gave it very high quality acoustics. The wood was painted to resemble marble, and the ceiling was decorated with a painting of the Apollo, the god of the arts, preparing crowns for illustrious artists, by Louis Jean-Jacques Durameau. The sculptor Augustin Pajou added statuary and reliefs to complete the decoration. The new Opera was inaugurated on 16 May 1770, as part of the celebration of the royal wedding.

 

In October 1789, early in the French Revolution, the last banquet for the royal guardsmen was hosted by the King in the opera, before he departed for Paris. Following the Franco-German War in 1871 and then the Paris Commune until 1875, the French National Assembly met in the opera, until the proclamation of the Third French Republic and the return of the government to Paris.

 

Museum of the History of France

Shortly after becoming King in 1830, Louis Philippe I decided to transform the palace into a museum devoted to "All the Glories of France," with paintings and sculpture depicting famous French victories and heroes. Most of the apartments of the palace were entirely demolished (in the main building, practically all of the apartments were annihilated, with only the apartments of the king and queen remaining almost intact), and turned into a series of several large rooms and galleries: the Coronation Room (whose original volume was left untouched by Louis-Philippe), which displays the celebrated painting of the coronation of Napoleon I by Jacques-Louis David; the Hall of Battles; commemorating French victories with large-scale paintings; and the 1830 room, which celebrated Louis-Philippe's own coming to power in the French Revolution of 1830. Some paintings were brought from the Louvre, including works depicting events in French history by Philippe de Champaigne, Pierre Mignard, Laurent de La Hyre, Charles Le Brun, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Nicolas de Largillière, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Jean-Antoine Houdon, Jean-Marc Nattier, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Hubert Robert, Thomas Lawrence, Jacques-Louis David, and Antoine-Jean Gros. Others were commissioned especially for the museum by prominent artists of the early 19th century, including Eugène Delacroix, who painted Saint Louis at the French victory over the British in the Battle of Taillebourg in 1242. Other painters featured include Horace Vernet and François Gérard. A monumental painting by Vernet features Louis Philippe himself, with his sons, posing in front of the gates of the palace.

 

The overthrow of Louis Philippe in 1848 put an end to his grand plans for the museum, but the Gallery of Battles is still as it was, and is passed through by many visitors to the royal apartments and grand salons. Another set of rooms on the first floor has been made into galleries on Louis XIV and his court, displaying furniture, paintings, and sculptures. In recent years, eleven rooms on the ground floor between the Chapel and the Opera have been turned into a history of the palace, with audiovisual displays and models.

 

Estate of Versailles

The estate of Versailles consists of the palace, the subsidiary buildings around it, and its park and gardens. As of June 2021, the estate altogether covers an area of 800 hectares (8.0 km2; 2,000 acres), with the park and gardens laid out to the south, west, and north of the palace. The palace is approached from the east by the Avenue de Paris, measuring 17 miles (27 km) from Paris to a gate between the Grande and Petite Écuries. Beyond these stables is the Place d'Armes, where the Avenue de Paris meets the Avenue de Sceaux and Avenue de Saint-Cloud (see map), the three roads that formed the main arteries of the city of Versailles. Exactly where the three roads meet is a gate leading into the cour d'honneur. hemmed in by the Ministers' Wings. Beyond is the Royal Gate and the main palace, which wraps around the Royal and finally Marble Courts

 

The estate was established by Louis XIII as a hunting retreat, with a park just to the west of his château. From 1661, Louis XIV expanded the estate until, at its greatest extent, the estate was made up by the Grand Parc , a hunting ground of 15,000 hectares (150 km2; 37,000 acres), and the gardens, called the Petit Parc, which covered 1,700 hectares (17 km2; 4,200 acres). A 25-mile (40 km) long, 10-foot (3.0 m) high wall with 24 gateways enclosed the estate.

 

The landscape of the estate had to be created from the bog that surrounded Louis XIII's château using landscape architecture usually employed in fortress building. The approach to the palace and the gardens were carefully laid out via the moving of earth and construction of terraces. The water from the marsh was marshalled into a series of lakes and ponds around Versailles, but these reservoirs were not sufficient for the palace, city, or gardens. Great lengths were taken to supply Versailles with water, such as the damming of the river Bièvre to create an inflow in the 1660s, the construction of an enormous pumping station at the river Seine near Marly-le-Roi in 1681, and an attempt to divert water from the river Eure with a canal in the later 1680s.

 

Gardens

The gardens of Versailles, as they have existed since the reign of Louis XIV, are the work of André Le Nôtre. Le Nôtre's gardens were preceded by a simple garden laid out in the 1630s by landscape architects Jacques Boyceau and Jacques de Nemours, which he rearranged along an east–west axis that, because of Louis XIV's land purchases and the clearing of woodland, were expanded literally as far as could be seen. The resulting gardens were a collaboration between Le Nôtre, Le Brun, Colbert, and Louis XIV, marked by rigid order, discipline, and open space, with axial paths, flowerbeds, hedges, and ponds and lakes as motifs. They became the epitome of the French formal garden style, and have been very influential and widely imitated or reproduced.

 

Subsidiary structures

The first of the subsidiary structures of the Palace of Versailles was the Versailles Menagerie [fr],[199][200] built by Le Vau between the years 1662 and 1664, at the southern end of the Grand Canal. The apartments, overlooking the pens, were renovated by Mansart from 1698 to 1700, but the Menagerie fell into disuse in 1712. After a long period of decay, it was demolished in 1801. The Versailles Orangery, just to the south of the palace, was first built by Le Vau in 1663, originally as part of the general moving of earth to create the Estate.[191] It was also modified by Mansart, who, from 1681 to 1685, totally rebuilt it and doubled its size.

 

In late 1679, Louis XIV commissioned Mansart to build the Château de Marly, a retreat at the edge of Versailles's estate, about 5 miles (8.0 km) from the palace. The château consisted of a primary residential building and twelve pavilions, in Palladian style placed in two rows on either side of the main building. Construction was completed in 1686, when Louis XIV spent his first night there. The château was nationalized and sold in 1799, and subsequently demolished and replaced with industrial buildings. These were themselves demolished in 1805, and then in 1811 the estate was purchased by Napoleon. On 1 June 2009, the grounds of the Château de Marly were ceded to the Public Establishment of the Palace, Museum and National Estate of Versailles.

 

La Lanterne, is a hunting lodge named after the lantern that topped the nearby Menagerie that was built in 1787 by Philippe Louis de Noailles, then the palace governor. It has since 1960 been a state residence.

 

Petit Trianon

The Petit Trianon, whose construction from 1762 to 1768 led to the advent of the names "Grand" and "Petit Trianon", was constructed for Louis XV and the Madame du Barry in the Neoclassical style by Gabriel. The building has a piano nobile, basement, and attic, with five windows on each floor. On becoming king, Louis XVI gave the Petit Trianon to Marie Antoinette, who remodeled it, relaid its gardens in the then-current English and Oriental styles, and formed her own court there.

 

In 1668, Louis XIV purchased and demolished the hamlet of Trianon, near the northern tip of the Grand Canal, and in its place, he commissioned Le Vau to construct a retreat from court, remembered as the Porcelain Trianon. Designed and built by Le Vau in 1670, it was the first example of Chinoiserie (faux Chinese) architecture in Europe, though it was largely designed in French style. The roof was clad not with porcelain but with delftware, and was thus prone to leaks, so in 1687 Louis XIV ordered it demolished. Nevertheless, the Porcelain Trianon was itself influential and copycats were built across Europe.

 

The Grand Trianon

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

The Grand Trianon with courtyard and gardens. The wing at left is a residence of the President of France.

 

To replace the Porcelain Trianon, Louis XIV tasked Mansart with the construction in 1687 of the Grand Trianon, built from marble in three months. The Grand Trianon has a single story, except for its attached service wing, which was modified by Mansart in 1705–06. The east façade has a courtyard while the west faces the gardens of the Grand Trianon, and between them a peristyle. The interiors are mostly original,[214] and housed Louis XIV, the Madame de Maintenon, Marie Leszczynska, and Napoleon, who ordered restorations to the building. Under de Gaulle, the north wing of the Grand Trianon became a residence of the President of France.

 

The Queen's hamlet and Theater

Near the Trianons are the French pavilion, built by Gabriel in 1750 between the two residences, and the Queen's Theater and Queen's Hamlet, built by architect Richard Mique in 1780 and from 1783 to 1785 respectively. These were both built at the behest of Marie Antoinette; the theater, hidden in the gardens, indulged her appreciation of opera and is absolutely original, and the hamlet to extend her gardens with rustic amenities. The building scheme of the Queen's Hamlet includes a farmhouse (the farm was to produce milk and eggs for the queen), a dairy, a dovecote, a boudoir, a barn that burned down during the French Revolution, a mill and a tower in the form of a lighthouse.

 

Modern political and ceremonial functions

The palace still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the bicameral French Parliament—consisting of the Senate (Sénat) and the National Assembly (Assemblée nationale)—meet in joint session (a congress of the French Parliament) in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. For example, the Parliament met in joint session at Versailles to pass constitutional amendments in June 1999 (for domestic applicability of International Criminal Court decisions and for gender equality in candidate lists), in January 2000 (ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam), and in March 2003 (specifying the "decentralized organization" of the French Republic).

 

In 2009, President Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the global financial crisis before a congress in Versailles, the first time that this had been done since 1848, when Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte gave an address before the French Second Republic. Following the November 2015 Paris attacks, President François Hollande gave a speech before a rare joint session of parliament at the Palace of Versailles. This was the third time since 1848 that a French president addressed a joint session of the French Parliament at Versailles. The president of the National Assembly has an official apartment at the Palace of Versailles. In 2023 a state visit by Charles III to France included a state banquet at the Palace.

I am looking for a recipe to prepare the tortilla for enchiladas, assuming I cannot find any ready-to-make crust. I would like to use basic ingredients only, e.g. flour, etc.

I wish it were as simple as giving you a recipe. The tortilla takes some serious work and time to manufacture. Maybe the least heart- breaking recommendation I can pass along is for you to hunt in your basic "ethnic food store" for a bag of processed corn meal by either of the labels "Masaharina"(TM) or "Maseca" (TM) (actually, if there is any sort of Mexican population where you live, you may not need to look beyond the Mexican foods section of your regular grocery store), then follow the instructions on the bag. However, I can almost guarantee that the first few times you go through the procedure your tortillas will be less than satisfactory. Mexican women who make their own tortillas (these days, this is mostly in rural areas) go through an apprenticeship that lasts for years, beginning as little girls, to learn how to make a truly fine tortilla. For what it's worth though, we've found that Maseca flour usually gives the best results in terms of consistence and flavor (products made with Masaharina tend to go stale and rancid sooner, indicating that the oil content of this flour must be higher than Maseca's).

  

What to do if you really want to make tortillas from scratch

If you were truly to begin from scratch, you'd get some white corn grain and set it to low boil in a covered pot with some slaked lime or wood ashes. You can get this in Mexican open-air markets by asking for "cal," or "tequisquite." Much of the language employed to talk about corn, tortillas, and the process of making tortillas, is based on the Aztec language, Nahuatl, and I'll mention these terms as we go along. The process described above will loosen the "skins" (pericarp) of the kernels, and you'd find most of these skins floating at the top of the steep liquor next morning. This alkaline solution has the side effect of making bound niacin in the corn endosperm soluble, and therefore available as a nutrient (this is important to folks who depend on corn as their staple source of nutrients; in Mexico annual per capita consumption of tortillas is about 410 lb., or as you can see, a little over 1 lb. per day, and in rural areas it is estimated that tortillas provide about 70% of the caloric intake). You would discard the supernate and the steep liquor itself (called "nejayote"), then wash the remaining "naked" kernels (consisting mostly of pure starch) and embryos ("germs," where most of the oil is concentrated). However, if you wanted to avoid this whole process and start from this point on, you could look for 'hominy' in your local grocery store, since this is precisely what hominy is.

 

Next, you'd get hold of a grinding stone utensil (known in Mexico as 'metate,') and you'd begin slaving over the corn grain with a pestle and a jug of water by your side. In the course of grinding the grain you're homogenizing and gelatinizing the starch, protein and germ, and also somewhat dehydrating it; however, you must add water continuously to make the resulting mixture pliable. When you are done, you'll have a dough that you will work into small balls from which you'll shape your tortillas. These spheres are known as "testales." This step takes between half an hour to an hour, depending on how many tortillas you are making. If you would want to dispense with this step, then use the Maseca flour mentioned above. This is essentially the dough in dehydrated state, ready for you to rehydrate and shape your tortillas.

 

Shaping and cooking the tortilla is a key step, and the one where the greatest skill is involved. What you are trying to do is create as thin and round a patty of the dough as possible. As you work it, you will be further dehydrating the mixture. The trick is to lose only so much water in this step and in the next, which involves baking both sides of the tortilla for 30 to 60 seconds on a hot griddle, so that the resulting product has a specific water content when done (about 40% moisture, which is crucial), making it soft and pliable. The tortilla should puff as you bake it, but if air bubbles form in the dough as it bakes, or if is too wet and pasty, or too dry and burns, or is toasted as it bakes, then the resulting tortilla is ruined. As you can imagine, Indian women who mass-produce tortillas three times a day don't stop to think about baking time or moisture content, they have simply developed the knack to know when the dough is ready and how much baking to allow. Also, it is no easy matter to form a round tortilla in the limited amount of time you have between grinding/kneading the dough, patting it out, and having to lay it on the griddle before it dries excessively. Experienced Indian women in Mexico are a wonder to watch as they do this using nothing but their hands (no flat surface) as they pat out perfect circles between their palms. If you wanted to avoid this step, then you'd go buy a "tortilla press," which is a couple of round metal or wooden sheets that you press by means of a lever. You place a doughball on one of the sheets, press, then cut off the dough extruded from the press, leaving a round sheet of dough inside the press; OR you could go buy 'industrial tortillas' in the frozen foods section of your grocery store.

 

There is no industrial tortilla that can compare with the freshly baked and ready-to-eat article, as you might expect. To facilitate the mechanization of the process, a number of compromises are made. Most industrial processes begin with a flower base such as Maseca, create large batches of the dough, pass it through rollers to create the flattened cake, then actually cut out a perfectly round tortilla, which is then paraded through several series of conveyor belts, passing through an oven, and then open ventilated space to allow for cooling and water loss, before packing in plastic bags which are then frozen and shipped. The weak link in the whole process is that tortillas don't last in storage and lose their flavor in a hurry when aged/frozen. The main reason is that their oil content leads to them becoming sour, and the freezing process used in the US leads to water condensation on the tortillas themselves, which always makes them pasty and mushy when you try to use them again at room temperature. A recent report in the Wall Street Journal (May 10, 1996) indicated that the world market for tortillas is worth about $5 billion U. S. According to this article, even though Mexicans consume about 10 times as many tortillas per capita as U. S. consumers, the Mexican tortilla market is still dominated by small "tortillerias." In Mexico, packaged tortillas account for only 5 percent of sales. However, large flour-producing industries, such as Maseca and Bimbo, are predicting that "the end of tortilla subsidies in Mexico will transform the Mexican market, giving an advantage to U.S.-style marketing of plastic-bagged tortillas in supermarkets."

 

Now then, let's say that you've either made or purchased your tortillas and are ready to make your enchiladas. This is a dish whose name means that you've "chilified" some tortillas. "Chili" is derived from the Aztec name for what you call a "chile pepper," the fruit of various species of plants of the genus Capsicum. Following is a recipe for enchiladas that I give with some hesitation. It was collected from rural Indian women near the vicinity of Puebla, Mexico, and the instructions are sparce and most useful for cooks of whom great familiarity with Mexican cooking can be assumed (Recetario de Maiz, Colegio de Postgraduados, CEICADAR, 1990. Translation and all errors of same are my fault!)

 

Kumbabhishegam or Consecration is a Hindu Temple ritual that is believed to homogenize,synergize and unite the mystic powers of the deityKumbha means the Head and denotes the crown of the temple,usually in the Gopuram or Tower ang abishgam is ritual bathin with holy waters

A mini container of ice cream gets homogenized.

 

I would do pint size containers bu they are too expensive. At about a buck twenty, these are more in my price range.

 

Cheers.

We are Vacancy.

 

© Arace Photographic

 

Exif data auto added by theGOOD Uploadr

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LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

 

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

When I was hiking the Appalachian Trail we used to make dandelion salads, saute morels, ramps and eat all other kind of wild greens. It's a amazing how homogenized our food supply is. One of the best things you can do for yourself and your community is support local farmers.

06.06.2015

"Industrialna monumentalność"

 

Kolejne ujęcie obiektów, nieco z większej odległości. Przy okazji fotografii prezentującej rejon pieców obrotowych warto przybliżyć nieco wymiary pieca obrotowego. Jednostki eksploatowane w Warcie II mają 5 m średnicy i 94 metry długości.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

I followed these instructions, for the most part. I used 90 skittles to 8 oz of vodka. After filtering, the grape looked exactly the same as the strawberry, so I added some blue food coloring to it. A few days after filtering, additional sugar settled to the bottom of the bottles. Initial shots were poured without disturbing this sediment, but I later discovered that shaking the bottles to re-homogenize the mixture produced much more palatable shots, with a less noticeable bite.

 

It was an interesting project, but a good IPA is still my drink of choice.

Detail: Center Diptych of the WEST WALL with bust, Self-Portrait As A Young Artist of STUDIO SECTION 2008-2009

Diptych: wood, gesso, acrylic, colored pencil, graphite

96" x 97"

 

Above: Monologue of the Artist, with Child and Hobby Horse drawings on bas relief

 

Below is a transcription of the words of the quadrant above:

 

Monologue of the Artist

 

Who I am signifies nothing. What I am signifies something. What I seek signifies everything. I know not who I am. I know

not what I am. I exist as a question that has no answer—as an answer that has no question—as the cleaving wedge between

absolutes—as the mortar that cements opposites—as the paradox that eludes reproach. I am feared, resented, titillating and tiresome. I am the gray space between black and white, untransversable and obliquitous...an unfathomable separation that spawns questions and inhibits answers...shades of gray in osmotic separation unto infinity. My very existence belies the

metaphors of dogma...this I know, but I do not know what it signifies, not for me, not for my work— and not for others. I

sense that I must redefine myself in terms of a new configuration. How I have been shaped must be reconfigured...undone

and reconfigured, for I was shaped to hate myself, to hate the very spine of my selfness. Through the deception of love and

duty, my selfness, the core of me, was crucified, without pain or permission—the agony postponed. My re-creation of selfness,

my pursuit of that which was stolen and perverted through love and through fear is one of profound joy. This I that I am I

have ripped from the womb of mediocrity and it will end because I will end, and I will end because it is over. Knowing that

there can be no judgement other than my own, I intend to live my life in neither intimidation nor subservience, pandering

neither to culture nor to history. Being hierarchies of winners and losers, they are simply that, playgrounds in a separate reality.

I am, was, and will always be a young artist; Death is my only concession to age and death is only an inconvenience that will

leave my work unfinished. My distance from the horizon has never wavered. I continue to exist on an unchanging arc of

possibility. I would speak now of my one exquisite experience with transparency, that once and only orgasm of exile which

rips one from the security and complacency of a past and future into the chaos of the eternal now. There is no return...the

experience is overwhelming, the orgasm, explosive and inexplicable. There are no words, only the knowing that one must

survive within a seismic shift of metaphor. I now exist on the other side of the mirror; the hierarchies of history and culture,

incoherent. I have embraced failure—reward, a distant memory. I speak now from inevitability. Time is of no consequence.

There is only now. I cannot project forward or back for they do not exist. What I was and what I will be is for the metaphors

of others. I speak from the now for that is my amness. There is no other. Another event that requires no sequel to reinforce

instruction occurred while viewing Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes: A pigeon alighted on Judith’s head and shat, thus

proclaiming Art’s nothingness. Art, history, and culture exist within human solipsism. Humankind and its realities are artifacts

and nothing is as it should or must be. Only the pigeon had the advantage to inform...Nature does not share our reality. The

entire human condition is an invention. I find great beauty and horror in this enlightenment. We are both free and enslaved

by choice. Religion, culture, Art, war, history—civilization, nothing, absolutely nothing, has to be the way it is. Humankind

is a gestalt of many metaphors jockeying for the alpha position of reality; that image which flatters the majority in the mirror

of possibility. The war for position is engaged ceaselessly on battlefields of live or die intensity bloody with error and

circumvention. It is a winner take all conflagration where losers are slaughtered like flies on tongues salivating acid...What we

accept is an accumulation of repeats. It is on the common battlefield of culture and art history that my conflict lies. It is their

aura of inevitability that galls. But they, too, are artifacts, artificial and self-proclaimed arbiters of a synthetic intellectual

systematization which imposes the smothering order of sameness protecting predictable repeat from the chaotic impulses of

response and epiphany. Nothing must be the way it is—especially the bland mediocrity of processed thought. How contained

and neatly packaged it is now where every programmed gesture becomes a new ism; how quickly dealt this one card deck,

the avant-garde, the expected and demanded Ace in the play of hierarchies and linearities. Commerce and culture have

homogenized into an inseparable putrescence fit only for blind consumption. Even irony—especially irony—has lost its edge.

Vulgarity has outdistanced its subtlety. Only the culture and history itself lend credence to irony’s persistence. Art history, still enthralled with its reflection of masculine metaphors, continues to perceive itself as creator and anointer of movements

and moments...this is irony of the highest order. Since 8/6/45 all metaphors of masculinity have been struggling to

remain indelible as they fade into the palimpsest of evolution. History, by virtue of its definition in the human lexicon,

is ironical in the extreme for it has failed to record its own demise. 8/6/45 was not a link like any other in a chain

of linear recordation. It was the definitive event marking the end of history and the laying down of fossils. Art history

has become the ultimate authority in the validation of artifacts and the culture dutifully collects these would be

fossils for the presumptive proof of time’s linear progression. This retention of evidence has assumed a bathos bordering

on pathology...But I am not a culture-maker, neither critic nor curator of artifacts or articles. I am an artist and must

seek—or invent—the truth...and that, too, is an artifact. I search, then, for that which I have invented, an abstraction

as ephemeral and duplicitous as I, myself, an invention layered invention upon invention, like fossils in sectioned

complexity. As I descend this purpled plane, this triangle wedged between Art and history, their opposing forces press

me smaller. Soon they will be rid of me, the who of me, leaving an ascending wedge of whatness to re-engage

separation. This hourglass is the who and what of me, my life, my truth, my isness, and homogenization of Failure

and Desire. I am in the time of strangers...Names no longer signify. Spaces have been emptied and refilled with

unlined faces. Dark hair turned white and dark again. Genders shifted, sexes changed. Whos have turned to whats

and back again. Dreams and memories have blurred boundaries of premonition. What is this schism of histories that

has left me on one side of the horizon and culture on the other? Personal memory is my truth and all else is hearsay.

Art demands this loyalty and I abide. This is not choice—it is abdication. If I subside, so be it. If I am lonely, so be it,

for I reside among strangers...But I am not lonely; my perceived loneliness, an exclusivity of purpose. I sense I am

wrestling with a chimera—a tactility of fabulous dimension, a reality more significant than my own life. I am dwarfed

by it, attaining stature only through engagement. My life ended with it’s first embrace—and only then did my life

begin. Now I know no other and am exalted in its suffocation. It is my isness and by it must I be measured. I expect

nothing more...I demand nothing less. My whoness wanders the vaults of what might have been. So many choices

and yet no choice at all. I have done what I am doing and rejoice in its possibility. Always there is failure, always

there is possibility. Only in death can success find purchase...And still I am torn by history, by remembrance, by the

idea of never being forgotten, to live on in my artifacts...And here lurks hope, that monstrous seducer, destroyer of

the now, hope, grasping, snatching purveyor of misery and perpetuator of culture, enemy of Art. Culture demands

allegiance and exacts punishment for non-compliance. Art is its enemy and is a threat to any culture that must, by

definition, be cumulative and hierarchical. Any defection or deviation is a depletion of authority, power, and control;

a direct and unadulterated response to Art is anarchy. Art’s endurance and survival is serendipitous. It relies neither

on cultural intimidation nor the recordation of history. It is free associating and catalytic affording any viewer, at any

time, at any place, with any artifact the possibility for response exclusive of the culture-maker’s obsession for

intimidation and indoctrination. My now is dominated by the parity of art and culture. They are become

synonymous.This presents for me two questions: What difference does it make? And: What are you bitching about?My answer to the first question is: Because I am an artist...and my answer to the second: Because I am an artist. I

revolt against enforced historicity—especially when there is no history to enforce; then it is tyranny, and then, as

always, is now. Consensus is neo this and neo that. The distance between isms has shrunk to preposterous dimension.

One can smell the fear and anticipation. History is being manufactured beyond draftsmanship and its frangibility is

percussive. Our culture-makers would have us believe that “contemporary art stresses the importance of multiple

coexisting interpretations and the role of the viewer’s perceptions in ‘completing’ the work.” This appears to be the

law of first pretensions: the denial of vacuity and the con of altruism. From where comes this preening self-serving

superiority to presume to know what art should be and the roles artist and viewer should play to “complete the

work” and to complete what work? Obviously, “the work” refers to that of the culture-maker since it is he who has

created the roles and set the rules for the continuing homogenization of art and culture. With his metaphors of

investment and entertainment, Art is being vitiated from the inside out. “Art for fun and profit” is not my metaphor.

It is this culture’s own. When culture-makers “discovered” the masses, art became just another stall in the marketplace.

Viewing the now with the monocularity of a young artist with a 77 year old male homosexual is justified by their

juxtaposition. The struggle for the furtherance of self has been similar and singular, a laminate of expansion and

contraction to avoid cracking and crumbling. The desire to annihilate and erase has been experienced from both gay

basher and critic. The intent of an insecure critic who commits an ignorant insecure hatchet attack review is no

different from the ignorant, insecure, and bigoted rants of the homophobe. The desire to inflict pain and fear is the

same. This is not a complaint—rather, perhaps, a clarification. A young artist, no less than a young person, is prepared

for such assault and I, for one, have never met an old artist—only, perhaps, dead ones. But death can come at any

age...even to critics and homophobes. The walking dead surround us. As I work this wall, my mind slips through the

narrow throat of this descension onto the plain of possibility. New work is scattered and obtuse. I wander this wall

as a familiar though it will not release me until failure is confirmed. What if there were nothing worth saving from

a culture such as this that depends so heavily on history to commend it for having taken up time and space? Primarily

this culture exists in magazines, photographs, reviews and bloated intellectualism...a belief system, really, that relies

on wealth and intimidation. Art=culture...Culture=art. A simple, elegant equation. Unfortunately, it is a lie. It

resembles Catholicism; all aspects are outsized, ritualized, and hierarchical...Whos beneath whats and small whats

beneath larger whats, huge imposing galleries with huge imposing artifacts with huge imposing prices by artists with

huge imposing names, all manufactured by huge imposing culture-movers with blind taste, all operating behind the

humble non-self-serving, cultural metaphor of “...stressing the importance of multiple co-existing interpretations

and the viewers perceptions in ‘completing’ the work.” This farce is so obviously naive—or devious—that it defies

credibility. Just as Catholicism has nothing to do with Jesus, this cultural metaphor has nothing to do with Art. It is all bullshit and pomegranates, having only to do with commerce and commodification. Desire is the essence of human isness. Everything that I have ever been or will ever be springs from this single source, and from here springs history, culture, and Art. And each spawns artifacts and ideas; metaphors vying for survival. The human condition’s struggle for survival has been magnificent and, in the face of what is to come, erased.

Stew Leonard's is like the "It's A Small World" ride with really good food. There are no boats, but the store is set up as one big long winding aisle with dancing, singing milk cartons and cows and bananas and such overhead.

 

(We stopped there on the way home from the Princeton-Yale game.)

New TV Hit 'Whirlybirds'

 

Taken from a trade magazine for California Grocers dated March 8, 1957.

JULY FOURTH BLUE RIBBON STAGE HIGHLIGHTS:

Blue Ribbon Winning Recipe Featured Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt. Lido Cantarutti, Blue Ribbon Stage Emcee and Master of Ceremonies, invited over 100 audience members to taste samples of Organic Valley's Grassmilk Yogurt that was used in the blue ribbon recipe entered in the Recetas Latinas Contest — Salsa, Enchiladas, Tamales and Desserts: www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/re...

 

Grassmilk milk comes from cows that are 100% grass-fed and are never fed grains or soybeans. It is produced in small batches to be of the highest artisanal quality. This milk is not bone white like other milk. It has a delicate yellow hue because of the carotene content in the grasses the cows eat. The flavor of Grassmilk is also different because of the cows’ all-grass diet, resulting in a light, herbal taste. Both color and flavor can vary from season to season depending on which grasses the cows are eating at that time of year. These color and flavor qualities are passed on to our Grassmilk Yogurt.

 

The delicate, “grassy” flavors in the milk are unique and vary with the season, which is why we see Grassmilk as another choice in a line of premium organic milks that all have the great taste and organic goodness our consumers expect.

 

Organic Valley's Grassmilk Yogurt is cream-on-top, non-homogenized, whole milk yogurt crafted from organic milk from Organic Valley's 100% grass-fed cows. is non-homogenized, also known as “cream-on-top.” When non-homogenized yogurt is left undisturbed, the cream rises to the top of the yogurt. The separation occurs naturally. The cream layer can be stirred back into the yogurt, if desired.

  

SOME OF THE REASONS WHY ORGANIC VALLEY'S GRASSMILK YOGURT IS A NUTRITIOUS ADDITION TO A HEALTHY DIET:

• A cow’s nutritional and energy needs greatly increase when she produces milk. Grassmilk cows are provided with the highest quality, fresh, organic pasture grasses and legumes (such as alfalfa and clover) in summer, dried grasses and legumes in the winter, and supplements in the form of minerals, vitamins, and molasses year-round.

• Grazing is a bedrock principle of organic farming practices. Milk produced from grazing cows contains increased levels of beneficial omega-3 and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) fatty acids. Nutrient-laden, organically-managed soils support diverse, lush forages. The nutrients in these forages translate to the cow’s milk in the form of naturally occurring, beneficial omega-3s and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). These higher nutrient levels are also preserved in the yogurt.

• Excellent source of calcium, a critically important nutrient for building and maintaining strong bones. The USDA estimates that about two-thirds of Americans have dietary calcium intakes that do not meet the recommended “Adequate Intakes.” Teenage girls and women, especially, fall short of their calcium needs (1,000 to 1,300 mg per day). By 2020, one in two Americans aged 50 years or older will be at risk for fractures from osteoporosis or low bone mass. (1, 2, 3)

• Excellent source of protein. The protein in Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt is a combination of whey and casein in the milk. Consuming enough protein satisfies your appetite more completely and provides the building blocks for muscle, bones, skin and blood. In general, it is recommended that 10 to 35 percent of your daily calories come from protein.

•Scientists agree that many health problems are the direct result of our modern diet, which includes too many omega-6 fatty acids and not enough omega-3 fatty acids. The ideal, healthful balance is a 2.3 to 1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3. Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt’s higher levels of omega-3 help bring our bodies closer to this ideal ratio. Better balance = better health.

• Live active cultures transform Organic Valley Grassmilk into delicious Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt and help promote a healthy community of “microflora” in our digestive systems. Some of these cultures also help to “pre-digest” lactose in milk, making it more digestible for lactose sensitive people.

• Yogurt produced from organic milk reduces exposure to synthetic chemicals and hormones.

• Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt contains a mix of health promoting bacteria from the live, active starter cultures used to transform organic milk to yogurt. The list of beneficial bacteria used to make Organic Valley Grassmilk Yogurt includes the following: L. acidophilus, bifidus and L. case.

 

For availability contact any of your local stores, enter your zip code in the Store Locater: www.organicvalley.coop/store-locator/

  

MORE NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION:

1. "What We Eat in America," USDA. www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12355000/pdf/0506/usu...

2. Bone Health and Osteoporosis: A Report of the Surgeon General. 2004. www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/reports/bonehealth/

3. Dietary Supplement Fact Sheet: Calcium. Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health. July, 2009. ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/calcium.asp#h5

4. Organic Milk Proves Higher in Healthy Fats; www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/12/organic-milk-pro...

  

FAIR STATISTICS:

- Total attendance this year was 118,020, up 4.7 percent - up 12.5 percent.

 

- About 28,000 people celebrated their Fourth of July at the fair

- More than 13,500 items were entered in the competitive exhibits program.

 

- 100,595 Facebook post engagements during the week...

 

- 904 people used the hashtag #marincountyfair on Instagram

 

- More than 500 views on the fair’s SnapChat Star Wars post

 

MARIN COUNTY GOVERNMENT FAIR STATISTICS:

www.marincounty.org/main/county-press-releases/press-rele...

  

JULY FOURTH BLUE RIBBON STAGE SCHEDULE:

(9:30 PM Exhibit Hall Closes. Fireworks begin.)

(7:30 PM Concert)

 

5:00 PM Recetas Latinas Contests — Salsa, Enchiladas, Tamales and Desserts:

www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/re...

 

4:00 PM Perfect Poultry Culinary Contest: This Little Piggy — Pork Cook-Off — Pork Appetizers, Entrées, Ribs, Pulled Pork, Carnitas, and Bacon. Sponsored by the California Pork Producers Association.

www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/th...

 

3:00 PM Globe Trotting International Desserts Contest — A much-loved recipe that celebrates your family or any cultural heritage.

www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/gl...

 

2:00 PM Green Chile Kitchen Culinary Demo: Restaurant in SF and Marin, had vendor tent at fair. Featured Frito Pies (Main ingredient is Frito-Lay chips and chili's)

 

1:00 PM Divine Dips' Culinary Contest — Any recipe for a hot or cold dip.=

www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/di...

 

12:00 PM Orchid Growing Demo

 

(11:00 AM Exhibit Hall and Fair Opens)

  

2017 COMPETITIVE EXHIBITS PROGRAM: CULINARY CONTESTS:

- Charlie Barboni: Director of Competitive Exhibits

 

- Special Culinary Contests held during the fair:

www.marinfair.org/2017/competitive-exhibits/enter-the-fai...

Contest Rules: www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/re...

 

www.marinfair.org/~/media/files/fair/2017/exhibit-pdfs/we...

  

2017 FAIR THEME:

Let the Funshine In celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love emphasizing Marin’s dedication to the things we value most in our community, Family, Art, Agriculture and the Environment.

 

Gabriella C. Calicchio

Director of Cultural Services

  

RAW HERO_IMG_0871

NGC 1535 (Cleopatra’s Eye) is one of the more stunning, I believe, Planetary Nebula in the night sky. Even in modest-sized telescopes this planetary provides details. But the details require spending time with the nebula at high power. The standard Oxygen III filter used for Planetary Nebulae did make it brighter but seemed to homogenize the nebula (a bad thing). Besides, Cleopatra’s Eye is concentrated and stands out in the eyepiece even without the use of the nebula filter. I would go further and claim that this is a good deep sky object for observing from the suburbs.

 

I would recommend using no filter and high magnification on this nebula. The central star can be seen with some effort, but at a lower magnification is appears blended with the inner-ring of the Planetary Nebula. If you cannot separate the inner-ring from the central star push up your magnification and if your sky is stable enough you should be successful. Visually observing a central star along with both an inner-ring and an outer-shell from the suburbs in a 6-inch telescope makes this Planetary Nebula a winner in my book.

 

To see the inner-ring and central star in my sketch you will likely have to enlarge the drawing. The overall color of NGC 1535 appeared to me as pale-bluish gray.

 

To see additional astronomy drawings visit: www.orrastrodrawing.com

 

Looking back on our Vietnam trip, if I had to do it all over I would leave out any of the bigger cities such as Hoi An, Hanoi, Saigon. The country and small villages is where the true character and spirit of the Vietnamese people resides. Big cities are pretty much all the same and tend to be homogenized with all the other big cities of the world.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Pentax P30T

 

Closed since 2009 (due to unsanitary conditions), the stories of the Clermont Hotel on Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue are the stuff of legend to the locals and those who have (and have never) stayed here. Both infamous and legendary are the terms used by most, depending on how you define it. Either way, it certainly has a colorful past and is considered a local landmark. The lounge / strip club located beneath the hotel continues to operate and has racked up more notoriety over the decades than the hotel itself. The property was purchased earlier this year, and will most likely fall victim to the typical urban commodification / homogenization upscale hipster-friendly gentrification project that will sap whatever degree of authenticity still exists within its walls. But they'll probably have to level it to get rid of the stench from the endless nights of unwashed masses that more than likely still roams the hallways.

  

clatl.com/atlanta/do-not-disturb-please/Content?oid=12366...

   

Portfolio || Flickr Archive || Instagram

 

This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC and BIF.

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

photo courtesy

 

tdh46.typepad.com/mondosapore/2008/03/alice-feirings.html

 

The Battle for Wine and Love: or How I Saved the World from Parkerization (Hardcover)

by Alice Feiring (Author)

 

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"I want my wines to tell a good story. I want them natural and most of all, like my dear friends, I want them to speak the truth even if we argue,” says Alice Feiring. Join her as she sets off on her one-woman crusade against the tyranny of homogenization, wine consultants, and, of course, the 100-point scoring system of a certain all-powerful wine writer. Traveling through the ancient vineyards of the Loire and Champagne, to Piedmont and Spain, she goes in search of authentic barolo, the last old-style rioja, and the tastiest new terroir-driven champagnes. She reveals just what goes into the average bottle—the reverse osmosis, the yeasts and enzymes, the sawdust and oak chips—and why she doesn’t find much to drink in California. And she introduces rebel winemakers who are embracing old-fashioned techniques and making wines with individuality and soul.

 

No matter what your palate, travel the wine world with Feiring and you’ll have to ask yourself: What do i really want in my glass?

  

About the Author

ALICE FEIRING is a James Beard Foundation Award–winning journalist whose blog, In Vino Veritas, was named one of the seven best by Food & Wine. Formerly the wine/travel columnist for Time, she writes for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, Condé Nast Traveler, and Gourmet, among many others. She lives in New York City.

 

www.amazon.com/Battle-Wine-Love-Saved-Parkerization/dp/01...

  

Alice Feiring is human , far too human , and I am happy that Dr Glenn Losack MD my American cousin introduced me to her on cyberspace...

 

Alice Feiring is a friend of a friend and a caring person.. whio is there when you need her most..

This is a toast to her new book and lots of success..I wish for her.

  

7 th May 2008

 

Food Blogger Takes on the Biggest Name in Wine: Robert Parker

 

By PETER HELLMAN

May 7, 2008

  

Charles French

 

In her new book, writer Alice Feiring takes on the biggest name in wine.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

  

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

   

In her quirky and endearing new memoir, "The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" (Harcourt, $23), wine writer Alice Feiring sharpens up the debate over the palate and power of Robert Parker, the world's reigning wine critic. Nobody has done more than Mr. Parker, through his writings and ratings, to raise American wine consciousness. But Ms. Feiring, who writes a Web log at alicefeiring.com, argues (as did the 2005 documentary "Mondovino") that Mr. Parker's impact on the core values of honest wine has been negative — catastrophically so. Happily, she keeps the diatribe light with her self-deprecating humor and a running commentary on her often-bumpy love life.

 

The nub of Ms. Feiring's case against Mr. Parker is that his highest scores, as posted in his influential journal, the Wine Advocate, go to unnaturally rich, alcoholic, and forceful wines. Her disdainful word for such wines is "spoofulated." These showy critters are a pole apart from traditional wines, which are made with as little manipulation or buffing up as possible. Typically leaner and lower in alcohol than their Parkerized counterparts, these "natural" wines, as they are often called, can get shoved into the shadows by the heavyweights in blind tastings — even though they may be better partners at the dinner table.

 

If Mr. Parker's taste in wine were simply his own, Ms. Feiring wouldn't be on the warpath. But so great is his power, she argues, that winemakers in droves are impelled to abandon traditional winemaking in favor of pumping up their product in order to win the favor of his palate. They know that a high score is sure to translate into higher prices for their wines. Those who resist winemaking by the numbers risk becoming wallflowers in the dance of commerce.

 

Mr. Parker isn't the only so-called Goliath that Ms. Feiring fearlessly takes on in her book. Visiting the Champagne region's holiest vineyard, Krug's Clos du Mesnil — the wines of which can cost thousands of dollars a bottle — Ms. Feiring cheekily asks the winemaker, "Do you have even one earthworm in that soil?" And of herself, she properly asks: "Oh, the quandary: When to speak up and when to hold my tongue?" Luckily for the reader, her tart tongue usually wins.

 

Ceaselessly traveling to wine regions in Europe, Ms. Feiring logs ample quality time with her favored breed of natural wines and their makers. There's a memorable portrait of Nicolas Joly, a leader of the holistic movement called biodynamics, whose body language operated "with a total integration of the vertical, horizontal, and sagittal planes" — descriptors which are a tip-off to the writer's training as a dance therapist.

 

Reading about nothing but wine can get to be a slog, even in the hands of a lively writer. As her title suggests, Ms. Feiring has wisely perked up her text by letting us in on her romances, both real and fantasized. In the Rhône Valley, she meets a handsome winemaker who resists her charms: "All right, I thought, Picasso was a jerk, too. I love Philip Roth, but evidently, he didn't do too well with women. I resigned myself. No magical experience here." There's a bittersweet portrait of "Owl Man" (so named because he'd hoot at owls in the night). Like the author herself, Owl Man "had the olfactory acuity of a bat." Ms. Feiring, who grew up in an observant Jewish home, credits her Yiddish-speaking grandfather, a home winemaker who made her smell everything edible or drinkable, as her sensory mentor.

 

At a NoHo coffee shop one morning last week, Ms. Feiring nibbled on a rugelach and explained that "The Battle for Wine and Love" almost didn't get written. Two years ago, she'd tried but failed to sell "a wine guide with a really boring title, like 'Honest Wine,'" she said. "My last agent said, 'This isn't the book you want to write.' My friends were telling me, 'Do a memoir.' But my life didn't seem that interesting." And so she merged wine guide with memoir. While writing it, she says, "I was extremely happy" — not a typical emotion for a writer at work. Ms. Feiring writes, "For years, my mother was embarrassed that I was a wine writer: 'This is what you do? This is what I sent you to Yeshiva for?'"

 

If this terrific book fails to win Mom over, the failing won't be her daughter's.

 

article courtesy

 

www2.nysun.com/article/76006

 

sent to me by dr glenn losack md,

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

 

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

i resorted these (after a thoroughly homogenizing fall) while my lovely wife was forcing me to watch "13 going on 30"

The Italian North End now faces the homogenizing influence of the financial district -- and the incomes of the people who work there -- head on. No more Central Artery to wall it off.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Portfolio || Flickr Archive || Instagram

 

This Case feature is extra special for me because he was one of the first writers I met in '95 when I didn't know anybody and we were still in high school. Case has been famous twice, both as a writer and as Video director when he won an Juno for a video with Arcade Fire.

 

1.) How long have you been actively writing for?

I started writing in '92. I slowed down in 2002 to a couple pieces a year, but I never stopped writing. So it's been 28 years.

 

2.) How has your work changed or evolved since you started, and what made it change?

My work has gotten better since I started... First couple years were pretty toy. But at my peak, my work was known worldwide, I got the chance to paint with Daim, Loomit, Seen, Duster, Tats Cru and many other international writers. Also in the big magazines like The Source, 12oz Prophet, etc. All these experiences improved my style and made me look at pushing graffiti further.

 

3.) Tell me about your approach to street art?

My approach comes from a freestyle frame of mind. I like to paint to the wall instead of to the sketch. I sketch to practice but when I paint I rarely use sketch's. I find them to constricting. I do all aspects from 2d to 3d to characters and backgrounds.

  

4.) Any other interests you have apart from painting/art?

Apart from art, Im interested in film making and have directed and animated many music videos for a variety of recording artist from 2001-2009

  

5.) How do you see the further evolution of your work? The city, and scene at large? Seems to have changed alot in the last decade.

My work has evolved onto canvases using Spray paint in a different way. Portraits, scenics and abstracts that adhere to the traditional rules of graffiti - no stencils, no brushes, just pure freehand spray painting. The scene really changed with the advent of the internet. Regional styles started disappearing and a more homogenized style replaced it. Street cred was easier to fake and the real street culture turned into legal walls and sponsored jams. Its great to see many writers from the pre-internet era coming back and still kings. Shout out to the graffiti grandpa's keeping it real and my crews Kwota, TDV, AFC and BIF.

 

You can see more of Case's art here: casemackeen.com

 

He also has a show coming up at Run Gallery in Toronto opening Dec 12, 2020.

 

This solid timber loft building at 1609 N. Wolcott puts up a fight against the wrecking ball. It's a victim of a developer with zero creativity, who intends to replace it with elephantine, lookalike McMansions even over the strident objections of the neighbors and neighborhood groups. Even more stupidly, the existing building could have very easily been converted to condos under the existing zoning, but wealth inequality in this country has gotten to such outlandish proportions that play-palaces for plutocrats pay far more than crash pads for the merely prosperous.

 

Okay, so the McMansions will be Modern and Minimal and worthy of spreads in Dwell; I don't freaking care. This guy ranks up there with all those nameless, crappy developers in the league of idiot architectural homogenizers who are profiting off our city's beauty by destroying it. Mies himself found his inspiration for "universal space" from admiring the wide-open factory floors of Chicago lofts, and this is how a so-called admirer repays the favor? Besides, this building went to three of the lot lines; surely something this bulky isn't profitable to scrape and replace with smaller buildings.

 

Incidentally, this building was the destination the first time I explicitly went to Bucktown/Wicker Park (and probably the first time I went to a gallery opening); the 13 Feb 1999 Critical Mass [Anti] Auto Show was held in a gallery on the second floor. I remember carefully plotting out the trip, being new to Critical Mass, to winter cycling, and to what was still somewhat of a fringe neighborhood. I still have the brilliant little postcard announcing the show hanging above my desk, and I still remember being awed by the clanging of my shoes on the wide metal staircase. I haven't even lived here ten years, and already my history is disappearing.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

We’ve been getting raw milk (also called Real Milk) from a local farm for a few years. Actually I should say that we’ve been getting raw milk from our cow for a few years. The sale of raw milk is illegal in Ohio, so we participate in what’s called a “Herd Share” program. We bought a cow and we pay the farmer’s to take care of it for us. It’s legal to drink raw milk if it comes from your own cow. This milk is as fresh as you can get, we pick it up the day after it’s milked, it’s unpasteurized and unhomogenized. Since it’s not homogenized the cream rises to the top, it’s also called cream line milk. We make butter every week from our raw milk. It's a fun process and it saves me lots of money. I get about a pound and a half of butter each week.

 

for directions and more info: chiotsrun.com/2010/01/06/make-your-own-butter/

Biennale di Venezia 2014 - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals.

Fundamentals consists of three interlocking exhibitions:

1.Absorbing Modernity 1914-2014 is an invitation to the national pavilions to show the process of the erasure of national characteristics.

2.Elements of Architecture, in the Central Pavilion, pays close attention to the fundamentals of our buildings used by any architect, anywhere, anytime.

3.Monditalia dedicates the Arsenale to a single theme – Italy – with exhibitions, events, and theatrical productions.

 

The 14th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas and organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, was open to the public from June 7 through November 23, 2014, in Venica Italy. 65 National Participations were exhibiting in the historic pavilions in the Giardini, in the Arsenale, and in the city of Venice. They examine key moments from a century of modernization. Together, the presentations start to reveal how diverse material cultures and political environments transformed a generic modernity into a specific one. Participating countries show, each in their own way, a radical splintering of modernity's in a century where the homogenizing process of globalization appeared to be the master narrative

 

Absorbing Modernity 1914–2014 has been proposed for the contribution of all the pavilions, and they too are involved in a substantial part of the overall research project, whose title is Fundamentals. The history of the past one hundred years prelude to the Elements of Architecture section hosted in the Central Pavilion, where the curator offers the contemporary world those elements that should represent the reference points for the discipline: for the architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society. Monditalia section in the Corderie with 41 research projects, reminds us of the complexity of this reality without complacency or prejudice, which is paradigmatic of what happens elsewhere in the world; complexities that must be deliberately experienced as sources of regeneration. Dance, Music, Theatre and Cinema with the programmes of the directors will participate in the life of the section, with debates and seminars along the six-month duration of the exhibition.

 

Elements of Architecture / Central Pavilions

This exhibition is the result of a two-year research studio with the Harvard Graduate School of Design and collaborations with a host of experts from industry and academia. Elements of Architecture looks under a microscope at the fundamentals of our buildings, used by any architect, anywhere, anytime: the floor, the wall, the ceiling, the roof, the door, the window, the façade, the balcony, the corridor, the fireplace, the toilet, the stair, the escalator, the elevator, the ramp. The exhibition is a selection of the most revealing, surprising, and unknown moments from a new book, Elements of Architecture, that reconstructs the global history of each element. It brings together ancient, past, current, and future versions of the elements in rooms that are each dedicated to a single element. To create diverse experiences, we have recreated a number of very different environments – archive, museum, factory, laboratory, mock-up, simulation.

 

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Quart-sized milk jugs at Goose Creek, a gas station and convenience store in Denton, Maryland.

 

Ben Schumin is a professional photographer who captures the intricacies of daily life. This image is all rights reserved. Contact me directly for licensing information.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019

Standing on 9th and Broadway in Mount Vernon, IL. This is a panorama made up of 3 nine stop HDR images created with Affinity Photo. These old parts of towns used to be (I imagine) bustling parts of the towns and cities around the country, but now they are usually home to less visited places and the real consumer traffic occurs on the outskirts of towns and cities where the interstates come through, and at strip malls and big box stores and homogenized shopping experiences. I started this project as a way to maybe preserve some of the old of our country, at least in my general area. Sadly, with Flickr's new 1000 photo limit, they will only be preserved here until I reach that limit again, as I have deleted a great deal of my feed. Week 44 of 52.

LA recette de

PAILLES AU FROMAGE

LES INGREDIENTS :

(désolé mais ma vieille tante Catherine ne cuisinait pas métrique)

2 tasses de farine

2 c. à thé de poudre à pâte

1 c. à thé de sel (je ne la met plus)

2 c. à table de beurre

2 c. à table de Crisco (Saindoux) (ne pas confondre avec l'huile de la même marque…)

1 tasse d'eau froide (on n'utilise pas toute cette quantité)

1 lb de fromage râpé (utiliser de préférence du fromage cheddar extra vieux, disponible dans certains commerces spécialisés.).

LES ÉTAPES

•Préchauffer le four à 350° F (mettre deux grilles, une au tiers inférieur et l'autre au tiers supérieur).

•Râper finement le fromage et l’étendre sur un papier ciré pour qu’il perde un peu de son humidité.

•Mélanger la farine, le sel et la poudre à pâte.

•Ajouter le Crisco et le beurre et couper avec deux couteaux.

(Les modernes pourront faire cette étape au mélangeur à pâtisserie et zut pour la poésie... mais il n'est pas nécessaire de trop homogénéiser à cette étape).

•Ajouter progressivement juste assez d'eau pour obtenir une pâte peu collante en pétrissant avec les mains

(on n'utilise donc pas toute l'eau).

•Incorporer progressivement le fromage râpé. Pétrir modérément à chaque ajout jusqu'à ce que le fromage soit incorporé complètement.

•Séparer la pâte en quatre boules égales.

•À l’aide d’un rouleau légèrement enfariné, étendre une boule de pâte en une couche d'environ 1/4"-1/8" d'épais.

•À l’aide d’une roulette dentelée, couper en bâtons (pailles) de 1/4" de large.

•Étendre les pailles sur une tôle protégée par un papier parchemin à cuisson. (Il est plus facile de couper et de mettre sur la tôle, les pailles une à une)

•Cuire 6 minutes sur la grille du haut, ensuite TOURNEZ la tôle ET mettre 6 minutes sur la grille du bas.

•Considérer la cuisson terminée lorsque les bouts des pailles brunissent. Les pailles devraient être légèrement jaunâtres.

(Selon toute vraisemblance, votre four se comporte légèrement différemment du mien. Surveillez votre première fournée et ajustez le temps de cuisson en conséquence).

•Laisser glisser les pailles hors du papier parchemin sur une grille à l'air libre pour les laisser refroidir.

•Entreposer les pailles dans une boîte métallique hermétique.

 

LES TRUCS:

Cette recette est plus facile à réussir avec du fromage extra vieux car il est plus sec et nettement plus « goûteux ».

 

Il est plus difficile de réussir cette recette l'été, car l'humidité ambiante tend à rend les pailles un peu molles. Mais cet inconvénient pour certains est apprécié par d'autres (les goûts et les couleurs...)

 

Pour éviter d'avoir des pailles trop humides, on peut étendre sur un papier ciré le fromage fraîchement râpé pour le laisser sécher quelque peu.

 

Pour incorporer le fromage, aplatir la pâte dans un bol. Ajouter une bonne couche de fromage. Plier la pâte en deux. Aplatir le tout avec votre poing. Rajouter du fromage. Répéter jusqu’à ce que tout le fromage ait été utilisé. Pétrir en utilisant vos pouces pour incorporer le fromage à la pâte.

 

Une des étapes les plus difficiles est d’étendre la pâte au rouleau. Pour éviter que la pâte ne se brise, rouler par petits coups de rouleau. Faites pivoter la pâte fréquemment. Vous pourrez ainsi aplatir la pâte progressivement tout en contrôlant sa cohésion. (La forte quantité de fromage rend celle-ci un peu friable).

 

Couper les pailles légèrement plus large qu'elles ne sont épaisses. Sinon, elles ont tendance à s'affaisser après avoir monté à la cuisson. Ces pailles sont relativement fragiles donc une longueur de huit pouces environ vous évitera bien des bris et ennuis.

 

Pour couper les pailles, on peut utiliser une roulette dentelée, pour l'esthétique...

Rédaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

Mes remerciements à Catherine Morrissette.

Texte modifié en décembre 2019

  

Ze Cheese Straws recipe

ZE INGREDIENTS :

(sorry but my old aunt Catherine didn’t cook metric)

2 cups flour

2 tea spoons baking soda

1 tea spoons salt (I don't add salt anymore)

2 table spoons butter

2 table spoons Crisco (Shortening)

1 cup cold water (we do NOT use all this quantity)

1 pound grated (shredded) cheese cheddar (preferably extra-old cheddar, available in specialized stores.).

Ze steps

•Preheat oven to 350° F (use two grills, one at the bottom third, the other one on the top third).

•Finely shred the cheese and spread it on wax paper so it can loose some humidity.

•Mix the flour, salt and baking soda.

•Add the Crisco and butter and cut with two knives.

(If you prefer a more modern approach, you could do this step with a pastry blender and forget being poetic... but it really isn’t necessary to homogenize too much at this moment).

•Progressively add just enough water to get a non sticky dough while kneading with your hands

(thus we do NOT use all the water).

•Progressively incorporate the grated cheddar. Moderately knead each time you add cheddar until all the cheese is incorporated.

•Separate the dough into four « equal » balls.

•Use a rolling pin (slightly coated with flour), to spread the dough down to approximatively 1/4"-1/8" thin.

•Use a pastry wheel crimper to cut the dough in straws (sticks) about ¼ inch wide.

•Deposit the straws one by one on a flat pastry baking tray protected by parchment paper.

•Bake 6 minutes on the upper grill, then TURN the tray AND bake 6 minutes on the bottom grill.

•When the tips of the straws turn brownish, baking is done. Straws should be slightly yellowish.

(In all likelyhood, your oven will will react slightly differently from mine. Consequently do keep an eye on your first batch and reajust cooking time accordingly).

•Slide straws from the parchment paper then place them on a grill to let them cool down.

•Keep the straws in an hermetic metal box

 

ZE TRICKS:

This recipe will be at its best with extra-old cheddar as it is dryer and more flavourful.

 

It is harder to make this recipe in summer as the ambiant humidity tends to make the straws somewhat less crunchy. But what is an inconvenience for some is appreciated by others (colors and taste…)

 

To avoid having humid straws, you can spread the grated cheese on a wax paper sheet and let it dry for some time prior to incorporating it to the dough.

 

To incorporate the chesse, flaten the dough in a bowl. Add a « good » layer of grated cheese. Fold the dough over in two. Again flaten the dough with your fist. Add some cheese. Repeat until all the cheese has been used. Knead using your thumbs to mix the cheese with the dough.

 

One of the most difficult step is to spread the dough with the rolling pin. To prevent the dough from « breaking » At the edges, roll with small moves. Rotate the dough frequently. You will thus be able to control the dough and avoid large cracks. (The large amount of cheddar makes the dough crumbly).

 

Cut the straws slightly larger than their thickness. Otherwise they will tend to collapse on the side while baking. The straws are fragile and you should cut them at a maximum length of 8 inches (before baking of course…).

 

Use a pastry wheel crimper is for aesthetics...

Redaction: Jean-Pierre Bonin.

My thanks to Catherine Morrissette.

Modified on December 20th 2019