Normal America Is Not a Small Town of White People →
Jed Kolko writing for FiveThirtyEight:
We all, of course, have our own notions of what real America looks like. Those notions might be based on our own nostalgia or our hopes for the future. If your image of the real America is a small town, you might be thinking of an America that no longer exists.
He’s only comparing age, education and race/ethnicity so we could quibble with his findings, but it’s still pretty interesting and it’s not like any other combination of variables would be less arbitrary for something like this.
Of the metro areas with at least 500,000 people, Kolko calculates the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI metro area as having the sixth most similar demographics to the United States overall (behind New Haven, CT, Tampa, FL, Hartford, CT, Oklahoma City, OK, and Springfield, MA).
Springfield. Springfield, Massachusetts? Nice work, Simpsons.
Just When I Thought I Was Out… They Pull Me Back In, (Campaign Email Edition)
You buy one lousy pair of pint glasses (as a gift!) and all of a sudden you’re flooded with email after email. What is it with Hillary Clinton and email? And rimshot!
But seriously. Hill, it’s only April. Chill.
UNSUBSCRIBE
We couldn’t possibly still be reading because we are looking for that “unsubscribe from everything” link because receive less email isn’t receive no email. It’s times like these I really appreciate Mail Kimp, uh, chimp, Mail Chimp.
Actually, the best part of the receive less email flow is that Hillary for America has the chutzpah to take this opportunity to try for your cell phone number so they can send you text messages.
I mean most people trying to opt out of some (and probably wanting to opt out of all) campaign emails, what they would prefer is a stream of text messages. That’s the ticket.
And then. And then. And then when you click through that, they ask for money.
Saturday Night Live could not craft a better parody.
Android Faces Monopoly Claims as Its Users Tackle an Abundance of Choices →
Farhad Manjoo writing for The New York Times:
Consider, for instance, the market for messaging apps. Google runs a messaging service called Hangouts that comes bundled with many Android phones. If you scoured the globe I’m sure you’d find people who regularly use and love Hangouts, just like you could find people who regularly listen to Nickelback.
Ecosystems are hard to understand.
Matzah Ball Soup
Featuring rampy matzah balls, of course.
Rampy Matzah Brei
Rampfest 2016 does not stop for unleavened bread.
Whole Hog Breakdown
It might not be the most traditional way to celebrate Passover, but Underground Meats’ whole hog breakdown class, which April gave me for my birthday, was really fun. Currently, cooking up the pork chops they sent us home with.
Highly recommended.
The Real Deal →
Paul Westerberg remembers Prince to Rolling Stone:
My first recollection of seeing him was a dress rehearsal for one of his early tours. I was next to another musician, a couple other guys that were up-and-comers and that thought they were hot shit, and we were watching Prince. The guy turned to me and said, “I’m fucking embarrassed to be alive.” And that’s how I felt. He was so good. It was like, “What are we doing? This guy is, like, on a different planet than we are.” It was showmanship, it was rock & roll, it was fun, it was great. I think it helped everyone around. It made us all think that Minneapolis wasn’t the dour town that we tried to pretend it was. He was like a ray of light in a very cautious place. He was a star. He made no bones about it. He was glitz to a place that wasn’t used to it. I remember a little scuffle broke out in front of the stage one night and Prince said, “Stop fighting, you’ll mess up your clothes.”
Experimental Neotraditionalists to the End →
In 2014, Richard Gehr ranked 333 for Spin:
By nearly any criteria except, perhaps, record sales and radio play, Phish is the Grand Canyon of American bands—so big and bold and forever that we risk taking it for granted. Likewise, anyone who considers Phish merely a delivery system for endless jams is missing the forest for the trees
Enjoyable annotations throughout, but somehow, in what can only be described as abandoning the fiduciary duties of journalism, “You Enjoy Myself” was not ranked #1.
Ramp Congee
I’m more of an Instagram cooker than a food blogger, but Kevin asked for a recipe. Annnnnd of course there really wasn’t a recipe. Nor do I have any special claim to great congee, but it is Rampfest so here goes.
- Start with about a 1:6 ratio of rice to stock.
I used about a fat cup of rice. So the rest of the “measurements” reflect that. We didn’t have enough brown rice on-hand (which I typically prefer) so I supplemented with some arborio. But we did have a fresh batch of shrimp stock which worked out great for congee.
- A few dashes of soy sauce and a lot of salt.
My eating companion is a salt fiend. I literally have never been accused of over-salting her food. YMMV, but go easy at the beginning since you’ll be reducing all that stock way down.
- Boil away. Okay simmer. For about an hour. Or longer if you have the time. Stir often.
You’ll want to cook it until the rice is way over saturated and the whole thing is stewy. Add water and thin out, if it starts to get too dry. It’s not risotto, but it will stick and burn if you let it.
- Stir in 3-4 ramps thinly sliced.
- A slug of rice wine vinegar.
Add these towards the end. Like 5 min before serving. The vinegar will really brighten things up. Real congee is pretty bland, but this is ramp congee, we don’t have time for bland.
- Go crazy with condiments.
We used diced jalapeño, carrots, and daikon, more sliced ramps, and sausage. Endless combinations. Whatever you have in your pantry. Tofu? Sure. Sriracha wouldn’t hurt anyone. A sprinkle of of sesame oil maybe. The more the merrier, I say.
The standout was the sausage – which was from the amazing Underground Butcher. I tried to buy two smoked Hungarians, but ended up with one and an andouille. Damn hippies. Anyways, this combo worked fine. I broke up the sausage and sautéed them a bit before spiking them with some rice wine vinegar and (gasp) powdered ginger.
I scooped the meat out and used the rendered fat to sauté some baby bok choy because vegetables!
It was a delicious meal. You should make some non-canonical congee. But more importantly, celebrate Rampfest 2016. It will be over before you know it.
Mr. Robot, Season 1 ★★★★★