EphemeraNow.com is a collection of expertly scanned advertising art from the middle of last century (that would be the 1950s era). There are a lot of car brochures and ads, Coca-Cola ads, and products and companies from everyday life. (via dollarshort.org)

From the “learn something new everyday” department, an entry in A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia gave me a clue to the derivation of the world “algorithm”, which I had never pondered over before. Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Bagdad, which was founded in the 800s for the study of Greek philosophy and science. Al-Khwarizmi lived from approximately 780-850. His work on algebra, Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala, gave us the world “algebra”, with “al-jabr” becoming “algebrae” in Latin. He also authored a
treatise on Hindu-Arabic numbers, which had a Latin translation titled “Algoritmi de numero Indorum” or “Al-Khwarizmi on the Hindu Art of Reckoning.” It is that Latin title which gave us the word “algorithm”. (Another spelling of his name is Al-Khowarizmi and there are slightly different spellings of the book titles as well.)

Sew it has come to this…
Bernina’s artista 200 is the first sewing machine powered with Microsoft® Windows®. Actually it’s Windows CE .NET, but that doesn’t make the wisecracks go away. This “sewing system” has a USB port, a CD-ROM drive, an optional modem that attaches via a PC-Card slot, and, of course, that intuitive Windows-based user interface. Seeing this machine makes me very glad that I rescued an old model Singer from the depths of a dumpster near Lake Tahoe.

And now for a snooty restaurant review…
For our first wedding anniversary on Monday we went to Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 with her philosophy of serving local, naturally grown food in season. You have her to thank for all the mesclun (that baby greens mix) that is everywhere you turn these days. I’d been to the upstairs Cafe a few years ago and what I remember from that lunch was the profoundly fresh taste of a green leaf of some sort. It was as if I had picked it from a plant outside the window and eaten it immediately. I felt that even if I grew my own vegetables I wouldn’t be able to recreate that vivid, clear flavor.

Our anniversary meal began with two small radishes presented on a dish. They looked exactly like the ones depicted by the art on Alice Waters’ bio page, and were cleanly spicy and crisp. The bread basket had a few slices of a tan sourdough and a two little twin loafs of a wonderfully crusty, narrow bread whose air pockets even seemed to carry flavor. The first course was a ratatouille tourte with frisée salad. The tourte was like a frittata, a fluffy egg mixture with various veggies, and it sat in a yummy sauce of unknown origins. The frisée, also known as curly endive, was dressed with the slightest of vinaigrettes and delectable cherry tomato halves, orange and red. There was a bowl of these tomatoes decorating the table by the door and I wanted to grab a handful when we left.

The main course was called “cassoulet d’ête” (summer cassoulet with shellfish sausage, house-cured halibut, and fresh shell beans). Cassoulet is very traditional French comfort food comprised of sausage, beans, and pieces of meat. Recipes vary, but it’s typical to use white beans, duck (with plenty of duck fat), and pork sausage. In this version, the beans were lima and cannellini (extremely fresh, of course). As I remarked to our waiter, I never dreamed I could enjoy eating beans this much. I’m not a fan of lima beans, but these had a subtle goodness instead of the overpowering flavor of usual lima beans, and no crumbly texture. The sausage was mostly lobster meat, extremely tender and sweet. The halibut was a little salty; I think I would’ve preferred a different preparation, but it was flaky and fresh tasting. There was also one lonely shrimp which I cut into tiny savory pieces to make it last. The entire dish was topped with crunchy bits of a crumbed bread, like panko (the Japanese breadcrumbs).

Dessert was Suncrest peach galette with mulberry ice cream. The galette had a crispy crust, but I almost wished I had been able to sample the peaches fresh as well. The ice cream was tart and a lovely shade of purpley red. We finished off with coffee served with cream and sugar (raw, of course). I actually enjoyed the coffee’s taste without sugar and cream, but habit prevailed and it was even yummier sweetened. Mondays at Chez Panisse are a little cheaper at $45 per person, with 3 courses instead of 4, but I didn’t mind the reduced menu in the least. I do wish I had nabbed a handful of those cherry tomatoes though.

Ever wonder what the Lost & Found department at New York’s Grand Central Terminal must be like? Satisfy your curiousity with the NY Times’ peek into life at what must be one of the country’s busiest Lost and Found offices. There are drug “mules” who come in seeking their lost contraband only to meet their fate with the police. There are “shoppers” who claim they have lost umbrellas (on rainy days), sunglasses (on sunny days) or coats (on cold winter days). Prosthetic legs and arms (more legs than arms) are turned in. As you may expect, there are boxes of cell phones, beepers, and children’s toys. It’s a little slice of life in a gathering of the mundane items of everyday existence.

At Los Angeles’ new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels the 6,019 pipes of the organ are being tested and adjusted by a team of “voicers” at a rate of about 61 pipes per day. Dobson Pipe Organ Builders won the organ project by creatively incorporating pipes from the original organ into the new design and meeting space restrictions. The L.A. Times article contains a clear introduction to the workings of a pipe organ if you need to acquaint yourself with this most immovable of musical instruments and also provides the derivation of the phrase “pulling out all the stops”. At 2:30 p.m. each day silence descends in the cathedral which is still under construction, and the voicers go to work, tweaking each individual pipe to perfection. They are also fighting the building’s acoustics which need to project human speakers clearly, while providing reverberation for the organ. Adjustments will continue as an acoustics team fine tunes the cathedral’s speaking and musical voices into peaceful coexistence.

Ricochet wireless Internet access is trying to be a phoenix rising out of the Denver area, home of new owner Aerie Networks. Service is also planned for San Diego in October. Aerie gave Denver’s government some free service and 1,000 modems to help get their support. This fits with their strategy of going after the municipal market, instead of original owner Metricom’s “mobile warrior” marketing. They are also better off launching in areas with less broadband coverage as a viable, though slower, alternative to DSL and cable. The wireless advantage is a big plus for paying $45 a month, comparable to other broadband services, when your only choice is dial-up.

A Review of a Review?
I got a big kick out of Caitlin Flanagan’s review of Christopher Byron’s book on Martha Stewart (Martha, Inc.). A few pages in, I said to my husband “this reviewer thinks the author is an idiot!”. A few minutes later I exclaimed “Oh my goodness, she actually did call him an idiot! She used the actual word ‘idiot’!” And a few pages later, “ohhhh, she called him a jerk too!” Mind you, Flanagan finds Stewart to be “the most unpleasant person on television”, so she’s not defending her love for the domestic businesswoman. But what Flanagan does understand, which Byron misses, is what makes the output of Stewart’s multimedia empire appealing. She boils it down to this: “women like pretty things.” (I’d like to think that many men do too, if they are the type to notice their surroundings.) Byron seems to think Stewart has successfully pulled the wool over her fan’s eyes. But Flanagan points out that the Stewart empire is built on the longing for a reconnection to the tasks of keeping a home in order, elegantly. It’s something of a guilty pleasure to crave domestic elegance as women busy with work and/or children may only find time for the minimum upkeep. We look at the Martha Stewart Living magazines and television shows and we either avoid them because we know she’s selling an unrealistic dream, or we keep going back to them because we want to hold on to a vision. Either reaction is fine, in my book.

Fruit crates used to have colorful labels pasted on them and these artistic prints are now collectibles. Paperstuff.com offers a variety of vintage fruit labels sorted into various categories (type of fruit being one, of course). The prices range from $1 up to $100 for a rare orchid design. Most are in a very affordable range with plenty under $10. Sizes depend on the crate configuration which seems to depend on the fruit type. Avocado labels are narrow, orange ones are 10″ x 11″, lemons 9″ x 12″, pears vary. Hmmm, it’s a chance to collect something affordable (for now) that doesn’t take up much space (yet). (via xBlog, Boing Boing, The Ends of the Earth)

The New Yorker’s food issue is out this week and they have complemented it online with relevant articles from their archives. Defrosted Dinners from 1945 discusses the novel concept of frozen dinners. Developed by William L. Maxton and used for airplane meals, these frozen prepared foods were first popular with the Navy. Maxton obtained permission to market them for civilians and the rest is TV dinner history (with some later innovation from Swanson). Interestingly, Maxton’s dinners were placed in “cardboard treated with a coating of phenolic resin plastic”, whereas Swanson’s dinners came in those once-familiar aluminum trays. We’ve circled back to cardboard now thanks to the microwave oven.