Monthly Archive for April, 2008

We all tell stories

WeTellStories is just fantastic, and warrants an entry here (as opposed to my tumblelog, where stray links usually end up). I’m now quoting liberally from a quote at BoinBoing, whence I got this link in the first place:

I’m the lead designer for We Tell Stories - it’s a website created for Penguin, in which six authors are telling six stories in ways that are completely original to the web.

Our first story, The 21 Steps (a homage to The 39 Steps) was told over Google Maps; another was written live and displayed in real-time, in five hour-long installments, by Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. This week’s was by Matt Mason (’The Pirate’s Dilemma’) and Nicholas Felton (’Felton Personal Annual Report’), and they created an infographic snapshot of teen life and the new media world.

I had a quick look at the first story, the one with the maps, and it looks like it’s jolly good fun to read. I will go back there when I have more time on my hands, and you should too.

This of course is only a blatant rip-off of the Messages from the Lost Continent, the story written in real-time on a weblog and then turned into a book, which, as diligent readers of this blog of course know, I co-wrote under the guidance of Horst, the speaking aardvark.

So if you wanna talk innovation, the Messages tell the story first.

Extra, extra, read all about it!

As of yesterday, I’m the new (and first) web2.0 columnist for Austrian (German-speaking) online weekly CHiLLi.cc. I’ll do my best to bring all the greatness of webbased service glory to the masses. The column is named “Web und Wir”, meaning not much else than “web and us”, with a misspelling thrown in for good measure and individuality.

Check out my first, therefore only text to date, here.

And visit next Tuesday, when I’ll be telling all about the wonderful world of online bookmarking.

What I eat

Two reasons to write the following posting. First one is to tell you of that little service that’s tied to Twitter, FoodFeed. It lets you send messages to Twitter, detailing what you’re having. The result then looks like this.
It’s fun while it lasts (which was about three days for me), and I guess when you’re really diligent, it’ll be sweet to see what you’ve had two years ago.

Reason number two is to show you that we are indeed ingesting things other than Martinis in copious amounts. So here, take pleasure in what we had the last days:

Dinner

This was dinner two days ago. Tasty home-made fries, red vegetables and a big, ole steak.

Breakfast

The next day saw a breakfast of rice pudding with roasted almonds and raspberries. Quite the treat.

And yesterday we indulged in something even more delicate. Pork slowly cooked in a rhubarb-honey paste, then roasted and served with noodles, fresh peppers, coriander, cress and scallions. It was fantastic:

Pork (among other things)

Well, hope that’s proof enough that I haven’t yet switched to hard alcohol as my main calorie-provider.

The Martini Chronicles Pt.5 - Venturing into the forbidden territory

Let’s start off with a quote, shall we?

“It has come to my attention that some people believe a martini can be made with vodka instead of gin. While it is true that you can follow the above recipe, substituting vodka for gin, and produce a liquid that some people will drink, believe me, it is not a martini, not no way, not no how. It is a concoction suitable only for those who have no soul and less guts.” #

Well, there’s a time to have a soul and guts and there’s a time to just have leave those behind. Especially when you’re bound to the rules of scientific experimentation and general awesomeness. So here’s the latest Martini:

The Martini Chronicles Pt.5

Yes, that is a Vodka bottle, and a cheap one too.

I prepared the Martini as I had done with the first one, but instead of Gin, I used 4 parts of Vodka. Instead of an olive, a lemon was cut up and a wedge put into the chilled glass before pouring.

The bitter flavour Gin adds to a Martini is of course not present in a Vodka Martini. Instead, it just tastes a lot like Alcohol with a tad of lemon.

Not my favourite Martini, but the girlfriend liked it. Reason enough to consider making it again, even though, by any standards, it’s not a real Martini.

The Martini Chronicles Pt.4

The Martini Chronicles Pt.4
I have to admit it, I am a man of extremes. While the last chronicle featured a very sweet Martini, this here chronicle will detail a rather dry affair.

The recipe used, as mentioned last time, I got from here. The thing that sets it apart from most other recipes, is its very scant use of Vermouth. Which is actually not exactly true. There is quite a bit of Vermouth used, only it’s not there to drink. You see, this recipe had me not mix the Vermouth with the Gin, but instead only coat the chilled glass by swirling the Vermouth in it. Surplus Vermouth I had to discard.

Being the clever fox I am, I already knew that my girlfriend wouldn’t want to be part of this very special experiment, so I shook the gin, poured it into my Vermouth-coated glass, then added an ample amount of sweet Vermouth to the remaining Gin in the shaker. This mixture was then poured into my girlfriend’s glass. She was content (well, almost; I still had to add a bit more water to the mix).

The actual Martini Dry I made for myself was, well, very dry. But the thing is, the drier your Martini, the smaller your sips are. So I started sipping gently, and suddenly the Gin’s flavour, coupled with the tiny amount of Vermouth, kicked in. It’s a delicate kind of Martini, and I recommend it to those not in a hurry.

This batch also saw the introduction of olive-impalement, as opposed to free floating ones:
Martini Cooking

Having learned in above recipe that ideally the olive(s) should be eaten before having your first sip, I had to discard the method of the free-floating olive, as it only facilitated the ingestion of the olive after downing the whole drink.

And as a special bonus, here’s what it looks like when you’re cooking with a Martini:

Martini Cooking




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