Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes With Roast Garlic and Goat Cheese

I was listening to The Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio, and Stuart McLean and company were in PEI.  One thing PEI is known for in Canada is Potatoes, so another PEI son Chef Michael Smith, was a guest and made the Official Vinyl Cafe dish, Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes.   Yummy, but I decided to kick them up a notch.

• 2 lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes
• 1 Stick Butter
• 5 Cloves Roasted Garlic 
• 4 Oz Goat's Milk Cheese
• Salt & Pepper To Taste
• Splash of Cream
• Couple of Green Onions Minced for garnish.

I prefer the butteriness of Yukon Gold Potatoes, but you can use any good waxy potato.  While the Potatoes are boiling, you can brown the butter and roast the garlic.  Mix everything together and mash, adjust the salt and pepper to your preference. If things are a little thick or no smooth enough (your preference) add a splash of cream.  I add the whites of the green onions into the potatoes and top with the greens as a garnish.  The Michael Smith Recipe has a splash of nutmeg as well, but I wasn't feeling that so I didn't add it (this time). 

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Hello America

Back in fourteen ninety two
Columbus sailed with his Spanish crew
He was never sure where he was at
his friends told him the earth was flat.
But Columbus thought it must be round
that is why America he found.
They sailed until they reached a shore
Where they had never been before
The natives there were brown and red
"This must be India" Christopher said.
They watched the natives all a-gog
When Smoke poured from their mouths like fog
Some were eating corn and spuds
they were not wearing any duds.
When Chris and crew returned to Spain
they vowed they would go back again.
When they told of great land beyond the seas
folks though they must be out of their trees.
Then some told Chris he should retire
when he smoked they though he was on fire.
Just when his pipe was glowing red
they poured cold water on his head.
They said when the smelled the nicotine
it must be hell where Chris has been.
Not everyone great history makes
Christopher Columbus had what it takes.

Tom Hoy

Lethbridge

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G

Eating Internationally -- Staying home

Last evening my friend and I had a wonderful light meal after having shopped a couple of my favourite stores here in Edmonton

• Paddy's International Cheese Market
• Italian Centre Shop

so we made ourselves a nice cheese and terrine (aka pate) plate.

• Wild Boar and Apricot Terrine (Paddy's -- Alberta + BC)
• Duck and Orange Terrine ( Paddy's -- Alberta + unknown)
• Oka Cheese  (Paddy's --Quebec)
• Morbier Cheese (Paddy's -- France)
• Gruyere Cheese (Paddy's -- Switzerland)
• Manchego Cheese (Paddy's -- Spain)
• Mango & Papaya Cheese (Paddy's -- unknown)
• Bocconcini Cheese with Olive oil and balsamic vinegar ( Italian Centre -- Canada + Italy)
• California Stuffed Olives  (Italian Centre -- California)
• Sour Dough Bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar ( Italian Centre -- Canada + Italy)
• Polish Garlic Dill Pickles (Italian Centre -- Poland)
• Green Figs (Italian Centre -- California)
• French Grainy Mustard (Italian Centre -- France) 

In  Paddy's, I thought the papaya mango cheese was going to be a bit too sweet, but it really went nicely with the terrines. 

I chose the Polish Garlic Dills, when I couldn't find any "good" French Cornichons, everyone only had sweet cornichons, so I picked something with a tarter flavour.  The California Stuffed Olives, are marinated almond stuff olives, great texture and flavour, which brought some bitterness to the plate.

We sliced things up into managable sizes, drizzled the olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the bocconcini, and bread.  Poured ourselves a nice glass of Spanish red wine had a very yummy and satisfying meal. 

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G

Patriot Memory - Convoy XL

I've recently picked up a Patriot Memory Convoy XL for my own personal use; partly to for myself and partly to test for use in the company I work for.  For a slight premium, we can fit 2 2.5" drives with hardware raid, in the same form factor as a 3.5" drive with a SATA connection.  Secondly it can be used via USB.

I personally have been using at via USB for a number of weeks and love it.  Having slightly higher redundancy on a USB working drive brings a sense of comfort to me.  I like it enough that I haven't been using my firewire drives, I can accept the performance hit of the USB vs firewire.

At the office we are contemplating replacing the single hard drive in a couple of critical work stations with a RAID solution. There are always a handful of workstations that downtime is only nominally acceptable; data loss due to hardware failure is marginally tolerated, and regardless lectures about best practices, and storing stuff on the network file servers... well we know the storey.  This doesn't prevent file deletion, but keeps the machine hobbling through a single drive failure.

I haven't ran the disks in degraded mode yet but I will and provided an addenda to this note.

Patriot also has a model that puts 4 2.5" drives in the for factor of a 5.25" drive (about the size of a cdrom drive), that looks interesting, but currently I don't have a pressing need for such an animal.  I could foresee using it in some small form factor applications though.


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G

Springtime and Showers

If springtime showers make you blue
I have only sympathy for you.
It proves that you don't understand
That nature's way is really grand.

Don't let the showers make you gloom,
It is rain that makes the flowers bloom.
Just smell that perfume in the breeze,
The scent from buds of blooming trees.

When wind blows with a mighty gust,
A shower helps to lay the dust.
I know some folks are hard to please,
They can't see the forest for the trees.

There is nothing that makes me sleep so sound
As when raindrops on the rooftop pound.
No lullaby so sweet as rain
Playing music on the window pane.

I seem to hear the raindrops say,
"You will not have to work today!"
Fore when the sky is over cast,
There is nothing to be done so fast.

Tom Hoy

Lethbridge

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