Sunday, October 21, 2007

Food Blog, 1.0.0.1

I decided to make the blog classier by giving it its own domain name. It can now be found at

http://www.redramekin.com

Friday, October 19, 2007

Food Blog

All future food postings will be available at our new food blog:

http://redramekin.blogspot.com/

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Baked Eggs

Inspired by my new favorite food blog, 101cookbooks.com, I decided to experiment with baked eggs this morning. We used oiled ramekins, lined them with bread (whole wheat pita for me, sourdough toast for Jonathan), piled in a few diced tomatoes and onions, seasoned with parsley, salt, and pepper, and then plopped an egg on top. We baked them at 425F for about 10 minutes, just until the yoke was set. They were fantastic. Similar in gooey deliciousness to poached eggs, but with all the flavors of a tasty omelette.


Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Pumpkin Biscotti

Soon, Mia and I will be posting to a food blog. Until then, however, I will post food-related things here. Tonight I, alone, and by myself, with no help whatsoever, made pumpkin biscotti, using a slightly modified recipe from Simply Recipes.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups of white whole wheat flour
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• Pinch of ginger
• Pinch of cloves
• Pinch of salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of pumpkin purée
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-some raisins, chocolate chips, and/or walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, and spices into a large bowl.

2. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, pumpkin purée, and vanilla extract. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Give it a rough stir to generally incorporate the ingredients, the dough will be crumbly.

3. Flour your hands and a clean kitchen surface and lightly knead the dough. Add the raisins, walnuts, and chips. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper. Form the dough into a large log, roughly about 15-20 inches by 6-7 inches. The loaves should be relatively flat, only about 1/2 inch high. Bake for 22-30 minutes at 350 F, until the center is firm to the touch.

4. Let biscotti cool for 15 minutes and then using a serrated knife cut into 1 inch wide pieces. Turn the oven to 300 F and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Cool completely.
Biscotti may be still a tad moist and chewy, so if you prefer it crisp let it sit uncovered overnight in a dry space. Serve and enjoy.
Makes approximately 15 cookies.


Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Harvard Prepares for Faust Coronation

Walking through the yard these days, one can't miss that they're preparing for a major ceremony of some kind. Turns out its the "installation" for our new president. What has struck me, and surely others, is the imagery that the decorators have gone with. The picture I took hardly captures it - the yard is hung in hundreds of blood-red banners. Many of these banners have simple, imposing designs which I have never seen. I'll charitably liken it to the coronation ceremony in Ian McKellan's Richard III (instead of directly comparing it to Nazi rallies).

Monday, October 8, 2007

Edgeworth's Test of Interpersonally Dependent Demand

It turns out that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, economists were very much concerned with whether or not their models should incorporate the ways in which one agent's consumption can affect another's utility. In creating a literature review for Hongyi's and my work on conspicuous consumption, I stumbled across one of the earliest empirical tests of this idea, conducted by Edgeworth himself:
The conception may be illustrated by the common supposition that at social gatherings which are cheered by alcoholic beverages the consumption of liquor per head is likely to be greater the more numerous the company. An opportunity of testing this belief is afforded by the varying size of the dinners at a certain Oxford college, whose members are thought to be susceptible to the influences of good fellowship.
Finding that the dinner's population had no effect on wine drunk per person, Edgeworth concluded that indirect, interpersonal demand effects had no merit, and he never revisited the concept.

Monday, October 1, 2007

Tradesports' Take on The Most Electable Candidate

Tradesports gives us two different odds - the odds of any given candidate winning her primary, and the odds of any given candidate winning the presidency. I believe that (correct me if I'm wrong), we can apply the definition of conditional probability to calculate the probability of any candidate's winning conditional on winning the primary to see who is the most "electable." Here are the results:

for the Suckpublicans:

Giuliani: 41.2%
Thompson: 37.5
Romney: 34.6
McCain: 50 (!)

and for the Suckicrats:

Clinton: 70%
Obama: 48.5
Edwards: 43.1
Gore: 70.4 (!)

I leave analysis of these numbers to my far-too-long-blog-starved readers.