Mixed bag

Ricardo sent these two shots. Not sure if the cat photo has been doctored... hope it is legit but nothing surprises me these days.

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Geography 101: Hertz employee won't rent a car to a Puerto Rican customer without a passport. Threatens to call Border Patrol. Cops equally ignorant.

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In the "We are Americans and so we are dumb and easily manipulated department" I bring you "What's in a name?" As in Dutton. The last name of a family on the Yellowstone television show is now the fastest rising baby name in America. While I admit that it is at least semi refreshing to have a kid called something besides Liam and Olivia the whole thing is mind boggling to me. Dutton? That's how we pick our baby names?

New data from the Social Security Administration shows that “Dutton,” the last name of the fictional family of ranchers featured on “Yellowstone,” is the fastest-growing baby name in the U.S. Between 2021 and 2022, the name Dutton jumped up 986 spots on the list of popular names for baby boys, from No. 1,821 to No. 835. It’s the first time the name has ever appeared in the U.S. Top 1,000, as 291 newborn boys (plus 16 girls) were named Dutton last year. It’s also the biggest increase for any single name on the boys’ or girls’ lists.

According to experts, “Yellowstone” is assuredly behind the name’s rise. The Paramount Network show is one of the most-watched series on television and has spawned talk of a growing list of spinoffs.

“Most parents absolutely discovered Dutton on ‘Yellowstone,’” Abby Sandel, creator of the baby name blog Appellation Mountain, told HuffPost. “Dutton doesn’t appear in the U.S. Social Security Administration data at all before the series’ 2018 premiere.”

Oy. 

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That was then, this is now.

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Gnarly Nunchucks.

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Sonoran desert toad can alter your mind.

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Japanese team has new idea for how life began.

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Red mirepoix

Mirepoix is a french word for the mixture of diced vegetables and fat that starts off so much of their cooking and is cooked very slowly.

It is also sometimes referred to as the trinity, specifically onion, carrots and celery. 

In Italian cooking it is known as a sofrito or battuto. In Germany, suppengrün.

French chefs call these vegetable blends aromatics. 

If the dish was minced instead of diced it would be called a matignon. I used a rough dice.

I added salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, oregano, fennel, herbs de provence and a bayleaf.

This is last night's mirepoix for my short rib dish. 

I used red potatoes, red carrots and tomatoes along with my celery and garlic, no onion as my wife has once again thrown it away. 

No matter.

I think I like the yellow potatoes better but this was nice chromatically. It was also very sweet, the carrots were exceptionally sweet.

I then braised the beef after adding bone broth and wine. Three hour cook in the oven at 325 °.

Chef Jean Pierre reminds us to always add the garlic last so that it does not burn. Onion always goes first, if your wife or husband hasn't chucked it.

Actually, since I have added tomatoes to this, the proper french term is actually pinçage.

From Wiki:

Though the cooking technique is probably older, the word mirepoix dates from the 18th century and derives, as do many other appellations in French cuisine,^[2] from the aristocratic employer of the cook credited with establishing and stabilizing it: in this case,^[3] Charles-Pierre-Gaston François de Lévis, duc de Lévis-Mirepoix (1699–1757), French field marshal and ambassador and a member of the noble family of Lévis, lords of Mirepoix in Languedoc (nowadays in the department of Ariège) since the 11th century.^[4] According to Pierre Larousse (quoted in The Oxford Companion to Food), the unfortunate Duke of Mirepoix was "an incompetent and mediocre individual ... who owed his vast fortune to the affection Louis XV felt toward his wife and who had but one claim to fame: he gave his name to a sauce made of all kinds of meat and a variety of seasonings".^[5]

The term is not encountered regularly in French culinary texts until the 19th century, so it is difficult to know what a dish à la mirepoix was like in 18th-century France. Antoine Beauvilliers,^[6] for instance, in 1814, gives a short recipe for a Sauce à la Mirepoix which is a buttery, wine-laced stock garnished with an aromatic mixture of carrots, onions, and a bouquet garni. Marie-Antoine Carême, in 1816, gives a similar recipe, calling it simply "Mire-poix".^[7] By the mid-19th century, Jules Gouffé refers to mirepoix as "a term in use for such a long time that I do not hesitate to use it here".^[8] His mirepoix is listed among essences and, indeed, is a meaty concoction (laced with two bottles of Madeira), which, like all other essences, was used to enrich many a classic sauce. By the end of the 19th century, the mirepoix had taken on its modern meaning. Joseph Favre, in his Dictionnaire universel de cuisine (c. 1895, reprinted 1978), uses the term to describe a mixture of ham, carrots, onions, and herbs used as an aromatic condiment when making sauces or braising meat.^[9] The matignon is very similar to the mirepoix, except that the matignon is designed to be brought to the table and eaten with the dish or alone as a side dish.^[9]

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My next dish will be a pork, fennel, lemon ragu with pappardelle. This is made with a traditional sofrito. Looks so delicious.

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