what about the plastic animals?

Random Sellin

I'm still burnt out from our campus open house on Saturday.  So, here's a few pictures from Ostseebad Sellin that I like but that didn't fit into any other post.

Esopus Spitzenburg

Terhune Orchards has been selling Esopus Spitzenburg apples on Saturdays at the Union Square greenmarket last few weeks.  The apples are claimed to be one of Thomas Jefferson's favorites.  They were discovered in the Hudson Valley near Esopus.  Esopus Spitzenburgs were highly regarded in the 19th century.  I don't know why they fell out of favor as they are delicious.  They are very crisp, tangy, and full of flavor.  I've been eating quite a few lately.  They would also make an excellent applesauce.

Frozen Yogurt

Four dollars goes a lot further in Norwood, New Jersey than in Manhattan.  Last week on Gothamist, Youngna had a Camera in the Kitchen story about the opening of Pinkberry, a Los Angeles-based frozen yogurt chain, on 32nd Street.  While desperately looking for paper envelopes for CDs, I stopped in a new (okay, they opened eight months ago, but I hadn't been that far down Livingston Ave in a while) frozen yogurt store called Yogomango. 

Like Pinkberry, the yogurt was icy and tart.  The yogurt felt much colder than soft-serve ice cream.  How cold was it?  It was so cold the mango pieces were frozen by the time I got to them.  This was a small, which is much larger than the Pinkberry small, for the same price.  There were several fruits (mango, raspberry, banana) as well as syrups, green tea powder and ginseng for toppings.  You can get a toasted croissant with frozen yogurt.  I don't know why.  A frozen yogurt pizza, a smushed brownie topped with frozen yogurt, topped with fruit slices, is available for fifteen dollars.  More importantly, bingsoo, which is shaved ice, frozen yogurt and either red bean or fresh fruit can be had for $6. 

There is also a colorful array of spoons to choose from.  I selected royal blue because I was on official Columbia University business. 

At the same store where I finally found cd envelopes I also picked up a movie for a dollar. 

"Duel of the Tough", a 1982 Hong Kong martial arts movie starring Jackie Chow.  It was hard to tell if the low-budget movie was a sincere martial arts film or a brilliant parody.  The plot synopsis on the DVD case is a detailed synopsis of the first fifteen minutes of the movie rather than of the entire movie.  Plus it was wrong!  The scene where "Huang is taught the deadly technique called, Magic Kicks!" isn't in the movie.

The Ghostly Mr. Met

Mr. Met is pleased with the play of his beloved Mets so far this post-season.  He's obviously worried about the pitching situation with Pedro and El Duque out.  With any luck the team will only have to play one game in Los Angeles.

So what's so ghostly about Mr. Met?  Check here for his apparition.

When "Auto Smart Fix" is a Misnomer

The goat trail in Morningside Park.  I've never seen a goat there.  I almost never use the "Auto Smart Fix" button in Photoshop Elements as it rarely improves a photo, or fixes my photographic errors, better than what I can do manually.  It is especially bad at night, when there is very little color and light in the photo.  Interesting effect, but not a fix.

New Parking Lot

A new parking lot was opened on campus earlier this week.  I'll get to why at a later date.  Lights still need to be installed and trees need to be planted, but we can now park there. 

The parking lot was designed to reduce runoff.  The asphalt is porous, so rainwater seeps through.  Beneath the asphalt lies a couple of feet of crushed rock which holds the rainwater and allows it to percolate into the soil below.  Because water seeps through the asphalt the lot should be ice free during the winter.  This is the first parking lot of its kind in the New York metropolitan area.

Heidelberg Castle Wine Casks

It's about time I got back to the Germany photos.  Unlike the pitiful New York "Octoberfest" street fair I wrote about yesterday, I'm guessing a party at the Heidelberg Castle during its day would have been very fun. 

Our cousin Jürg took my sister and I to Heidelberg one afternoon.  We walked around town and toured the castle.  In the castle we kept seeing signs for the giant wine barrel, the Heidelberg Tun.  We turned a corner and saw the barrel in the top photo. 

"That's a big barrel of wine" we said. 

Then we saw the big barrel.  The Heidelberg Tun is two stories high, holds 220,017 liters (58,124 gallons) of wine, and was constructed in 1751.  it is the largest wine barrel in Germany, though it is rarely used to hold wine.

Mark Twain memorably wrote about Heidelberg, the Heidelberg Castle, and the Tun within, in A Tramp Abroad (scroll down to Appendix B.  Heidelberg Castle).

"Octoberfest"

This pathetic street fair was billed as Octoberfest.  I knew it wouldn't have anything to do with Octoberfest, but, glutton for punishment that I am, I walked the length of it anyway.  Not a single Octoberfest, or even German, item the entire length. 

The city's street fairs are known to be terrible, but this is one of the worst I've seen.  As I understand it the fairs are a fund-raising tool for neighborhood charities and non-profits.  This one ran from 57th to 42nd on Lexington, which is almost entirely commercial.  It was not clear what neighborhood group was going to benefit as there was no group present at the fair.  I saw Jackie Mason but no community group.

The city will have about 376 street fairs this year, which will generate about 1.5 million dollars, or about $4000 per fair (info from Center for an Urban Future, "Rethinking New York's Street Fairs" (pdf document).  Dividing by number of blocks that works out to raising about $267 per block.  Wouldn't it be easier to ask every business along the fair route to pony up ten or twenty dollars?  I'm sure the Waldorf-Astoria and Citigroup, among other companies along the fair, could afford it.

After the fair, I headed east on 42nd Street to 1st Ave and then south to 14th Street.  That stretch along 1st Ave is not the most interesting part of town...

Bagel Practice

Can you match the bagels before and after boiling and baking? 

This was a partially successful experiment.  Visually, I obviously need practice forming the bagels.  Bagel #1 looks more like a chicken leg!  Not seen but more important, the gluten level wasn't high enough, which resulted in less than chewy bagels.  I also substituted buckwheat honey for barley malt syrup because I couldn't find the latter yesterday.  The flavor wasn't affected much, but the interiors of the bagels were a bit dark.

Quiz answers after the jump...