Best of 2006
Runner up: Gelatin
How do you get normally liquid things, especially food, to stand up under their own weight? A puzzle, and most of the solutions are so unsatisfying. You can freeze them, if you're making ice cream or popsicles. But those things are cold. Have you ever noticed that no food is served below 32 degrees *unless* it would melt otherwise? Freezing cold food is unpleasant, and people only like ice cream for the cream. You can add stabilizers like pectin or agar-agar. Maybe it's just me, but both of those have horrible textures, like eating silicone.
Only gelatin can convert liquids to solids without any other undesirable effects. Add gelatin to your hot liquid food, cool it to room temperature, and your food is as stable as the Colossus of Rhodes. If you use too much gelatin, of course, your meal will taste a little like hooves, but that's your fault. I don't know any recipe, or conceivable recipe, where you would need that much gelatin. Gelatin, you are very versatile, but this is no time to rest on your laurels. For 2007, how about Jell-o shooters with fine liquors, gelatin as a structual element in buildings, or gelatin balls for children to play with.
Winner: Linen
I think linen is probably the most useful fabric. You can make smoother, tidier garments out of linen than you possibly could with cotton or wool. Silk is smoother and softer still, of course, but also much more fragile. You can't really iron or wash silk effectively, and water stains it. Linen, on the other hand, is extremely easy to iron. It's delightful and magical how pressing a wet, hot object to a linen sheet makes all the wrinkles vanish, all while smelling deliciously like warm plants.
Moreover, linen has a more interesting origin than most fabrics. Any idiot could look at a sheep or a cotton boll or even a woven cocoon and say, "I bet you could make clothes out of that." Who knew you could weave shirts from the inside of a little grassy flower? At first glance, you might as well try gluing together strands of hay. As if that weren't odd enough, flax has other wonderful properties. You can put flaxseeds in your eyes to flush the dust out of them. And flax has some of the only true blue flowers in the world. Here at Apk01004.blogspot.com, we appreciate unexpected plants, and that's why linen is my pick for Best of 2006.
How do you get normally liquid things, especially food, to stand up under their own weight? A puzzle, and most of the solutions are so unsatisfying. You can freeze them, if you're making ice cream or popsicles. But those things are cold. Have you ever noticed that no food is served below 32 degrees *unless* it would melt otherwise? Freezing cold food is unpleasant, and people only like ice cream for the cream. You can add stabilizers like pectin or agar-agar. Maybe it's just me, but both of those have horrible textures, like eating silicone.
Only gelatin can convert liquids to solids without any other undesirable effects. Add gelatin to your hot liquid food, cool it to room temperature, and your food is as stable as the Colossus of Rhodes. If you use too much gelatin, of course, your meal will taste a little like hooves, but that's your fault. I don't know any recipe, or conceivable recipe, where you would need that much gelatin. Gelatin, you are very versatile, but this is no time to rest on your laurels. For 2007, how about Jell-o shooters with fine liquors, gelatin as a structual element in buildings, or gelatin balls for children to play with.
Winner: Linen
I think linen is probably the most useful fabric. You can make smoother, tidier garments out of linen than you possibly could with cotton or wool. Silk is smoother and softer still, of course, but also much more fragile. You can't really iron or wash silk effectively, and water stains it. Linen, on the other hand, is extremely easy to iron. It's delightful and magical how pressing a wet, hot object to a linen sheet makes all the wrinkles vanish, all while smelling deliciously like warm plants.
Moreover, linen has a more interesting origin than most fabrics. Any idiot could look at a sheep or a cotton boll or even a woven cocoon and say, "I bet you could make clothes out of that." Who knew you could weave shirts from the inside of a little grassy flower? At first glance, you might as well try gluing together strands of hay. As if that weren't odd enough, flax has other wonderful properties. You can put flaxseeds in your eyes to flush the dust out of them. And flax has some of the only true blue flowers in the world. Here at Apk01004.blogspot.com, we appreciate unexpected plants, and that's why linen is my pick for Best of 2006.
posted by apk01004 at 4:51 PM
1 Comments:
jeez! between you and kaylen.....I am not putting flax seeds in my eyeballs! It sounds like a bad idea. Like when my cousins told me tree sap was good for your hair. No no no no no. Just no.
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