Althouse: At the Peony Café...

May 18, 2009

At the Peony Café...

... you can be big and showy.

29 comments:

Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Has anybody tried this yet?

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

If you put in a date and the word weather it will tell you what the weather was that day.; 5/18/09, 10:00 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Define showy; 5/18/09, 10:09 PM
Anonymous said...: Tried it, and it was thin on information.

But it looks very promising.

And what does everyone think of MoDo's little missing credit? That's pretty big for someone of her stature, isn't it?; 5/18/09, 10:10 PM
KCFleming said...: First!; 5/18/09, 10:12 PM
Ron said...: Fifth!

If they have an academic "Dancing with the Stars", I want Althouse on it...maybe with Sullivan!; 5/18/09, 10:31 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Big and showy, but not able to fully support itself.; 5/18/09, 10:42 PM
JAL said...: In Ohio? Already?

Here in 6b ours are just thinking of opening. Unless they're in the broad valley with hot sun at the Biltmore Estate....

Nice.; 5/18/09, 10:51 PM
Anonymous said...: the best peonies garden ever is in Brown County, Indiana.

Here is a painting from the historic garden master himself.

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/124046/1/Still-Life-With-Peonies.jpg; 5/18/09, 11:01 PM
Jen said...: It's nice to contemplate something beautiful.; 5/18/09, 11:17 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: commenter : the best peonies garden ever is in Brown County, Indiana.

Is it just the herbaceous kind? It can't be the best if it doesn't have all the Chinese ones with the crazy names.; 5/18/09, 11:21 PM
Anonymous said...: well, go there and find out for yourself.; 5/18/09, 11:26 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: Lem : If you put in a date and the word weather it will tell you what the weather was that day.

If you ask it how old Abraham Lincoln is it will tell you when he died. It's supposed to be a Google killer though.

I bet they are going to claim it became self-aware in a few days and the whole thing becomes viral marketing for the new Terminator movie.; 5/18/09, 11:27 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: commenter : well, go there and find out for yourself.

Oh, it's weird talking to you because of your name. Whatever happens don't marry the commenter named Jason because then he'd become Jason commenter or you'd become commenter Jason and it would get very confusing.; 5/18/09, 11:36 PM
Anonymous said...: everyone knows me as nancy; 5/18/09, 11:43 PM
Anonymous said...: it appears you are way too young for me in your photo. i don't think you have to worry about marriage.

and i have worried about marriage way too much.; 5/18/09, 11:48 PM
Jason (the commenter) said...: commenter : it appears you are way too young for me in your photo.

No, there is ANOTHER commenter named Jason. See, it's already confusing!; 5/19/09, 12:06 AM
Chip Ahoy said...: Peony. Ha ha ha. That's a funny word.

Here's a big and showy late-night snack. Experimental rice rolls that are not quite makisushi, assembled in an attempt to discover uses bonito flakes in another way besides katsuobushi dashi, which in combination with kombu dashi is an essential base for miso soup. Kombu is a brittle dried kelp.

Kombu is weird stuff. You must first wipe off the salt and minerals that collect on the surface, then soak if hot water as you slowly bring it to a light simmer. This should take twenty minutes. Usually the kombu is discarded after soaking. At that point it has expanded and released its flavor into the water, but I like to roll it then by using careful and even chiffonade cuts, create kombu noodles. These dark green narrow strips are very interesting. They remain firm and perfectly toothsome, a little bit rubbery, and it's healthy too. I do not understand why it's not more popular.

Have you noticed my online inflection changing? I've been switching between Mac and PC laptops.; 5/19/09, 12:22 AM
XWL said...: Wolfram Alpha is interesting conceptually. It reminds me a bit too much of the I-Ching calculator from Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, though.

(I'm waiting for an answer to be, "A suffusion of yellow")

If you type in a first name into Wolfram Alpha, it gives you some interesting charts, here's Ann, and here's Lem (sorry Lem, you aren't so much a person as you are an municipal airport).

Also, if you want to hear Leo Laporte interview the genius behind Stephen Wolram, fast forward to the last half hour of This Week in Tech, Ep 195.

Wolram explains some of what Alpha is, and what it's not, it is NOT a search engine like Google, instead it's a computational engine using the symbolic language he developed for Mathematica, and it will 'evolve' as it gets asked more questions. Still trying to figure out how to ask the right question so that it will spit out sure fire picks on the ponies.; 5/19/09, 12:31 AM
blake said...: Can we be small and discrete?; 5/19/09, 12:40 AM
blake said...: Crap, although being discrete is vital for the individual, I of course meant discreet.; 5/19/09, 12:40 AM
XWL said...: Blake, you can blame all this math talk on spelling it "discrete".

Either that, or you are excited about the upcoming National Spelling Bee.

(and how is it that our National Spelling Bee has all sorts of Canadians, as well as entrants from China, Jamaica, and New Zealand?); 5/19/09, 12:56 AM
Revenant said...: So that's what a peony is? Very attractive.; 5/19/09, 1:18 AM
blake said...: (and how is it that our National Spelling Bee has all sorts of Canadians, as well as entrants from China, Jamaica, and New Zealand?) A paucity of local contestants combined with a dearth of foreign competitions?; 5/19/09, 1:20 AM
KCFleming said...: First again!; 5/19/09, 7:13 AM
rhhardin said...: End of rainbow discovered in Ohio.

Digging commences shortly.; 5/19/09, 7:53 AM
Bissage said...: Take your cut peonies and dunk them upside down in a bucket of soapy water before you bring them inside. That will remove the crawling ants and excess pollen.

I really don’t know if that works because I never tried it.

But I got that advice from an old Italian guy and that’s not the sort of thing an old Italian guy gets wrong.; 5/19/09, 9:20 AM
dbp said...: I just give each bloom a little shake while holding it up-side down and this seems to get all the ants to fall off.

I'm sure the soapy water works too, but sounds tedious.; 5/19/09, 11:13 AM
Anonymous said...: jason,

when i was 16 or 17 I babysat for a slew of jasons. It was a popular name for little kids.

as for your commenter with parenthesis. It reminds me of unwarranted hugs which freak me out and sometimes even piss me off.; 5/19/09, 2:57 PM
Anonymous said...: being involved with anyone named jason would again put me on the perv list.

if you are near 50, athletic but not fanatically so, and able to have a five o'clock shadow just after noon, email me.; 5/19/09, 2:59 PM