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Showing posts from June, 2012

Buffalo's sandwich in the Champlain Valley?

Recently tried the Vermont version of the "beef on weck" sandwich. I had been seeing it on restaurant menus around the area, and I had always been curious about the Buffalo, New York, creation. A few days ago, I could resist no more and placed my order for "beef on weck," drawing curious looks from my companions. The sandwich was good, but I suspect the original western New York version is substantially more flavorful and more... well... damp.  There was little in the way of salt/caraway seed crusting on the alleged-kummelweck roll (caraway is the "kummel" portion of the German kummelweck roll recipe). The mound of roast beef was more medium than the traditional rare. That was actually a relief, as there was no cow blood spurting from my meal, but it was not entirely authentic. Rather than dunk the top of  the roll in beef juices, as apparently called for in the original Buffalo version, the Vermont sandwich was served with au jus on the side.  A pi

Resolving the Celsius-Fahrenheit Thing

Got a solution to the Celsius-Fahrenheit thing. You're probably aware that the war over conflicting temperature scales has been raging for the past 270 years or so. Well, I'm putting a stop to it here and now. Celsius forces gradually have taken over much of the world (most of the conquest was achieved while they called themselves Centigraders, but we knew what they really were). The United States and fellow former British colonies the Cayman Islands and Belize are the remaining bastions of Fahrenheitism. The solution to the dispute is fairly simple. I'll walk you through it: Now, let's first agree that it would be stupid to drop °F for °C, because °F is a far more precise measurement. There are almost two Fahrenheit degrees for every Celsius degree. It frankly makes no sense to move from our slender, exact Fahrenheit degrees to fat, clumsy Celsius degrees. All those countries that have already done so are simply dumb. (Sorry. I know the truth hurts sometimes