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34 is undergoing another server hiccup as a result of my ongoing apartment move. I'm putting back up some old content on another server in the meantime. Your patience is marvellous.

The Times goes all out by providing not one but two pieces of almost-useful advice in their Dining In section (not to be confused with my coincidentally named Dining In section) today. Their article on chef's knives hits the mark by pointing out that yes, chef's knives exist, and they even deigned to include a photograph of my particular favourite chef's knife, the Wüsthof Classic six-incher. The article does polite society a disservice by stopping short of pointing out that you cannot, under any circumstances, cook without a decent chef's knife. So please don't do it. Attempting to do so is what gives people the impression that cooking is difficult. The other article of note concerns frying . It rightly points out that frying is no big deal provided that you have the proper pan (go with a solid 12" non-stick deep pan, which has plenty of uses other than frying). Curiously, it neglects to mention frying tip #34 . Water splattering into hot oil should be yo...

As mentioned previously , I bribed my roommate into cleaning the bathroom recently by cooking some steak. Here's the recipe: soy sauce minced garlic (not from a jar, idiot) minced ginger (not dried powdered ginger, idiot) fresh ground black pepper (buying pre-ground pepper not being as bad, but why would you want to?) London broil endive Marinate the London broil in the soy, garlic, ginger and pepper mixture for a couple of hours. Put it in the oven. Cook it at 375° for a while, maybe 25 minutes, depending on your conception of time. Finish it off with 3 or 4 minutes on each side in your broiler (which you have, even if you think you don't, under the regular oven-y part of your oven). Slice it up and serve it on top of endive leaves, which will make it look nice and distract people from the fact that they are eating something fundamentally Not Healthy. I served it with homemade french fries as well, but there's no reason to go to all that trouble unless your bathroom is rea...

I read the Times , and the Times reads me (or my readable proxy).

Who else saw my nerd-phone featured prominently in last night's episode of Arrested Development ? It was used to photograph David Cross's testicles, which were then mistaken for a detailed map of Iraq. Which is something I've never tried before.

Hmmm, I didn't know that Frank Black broke up the Pixes via fax . Go figure. I've got a ticket to tomorrow's show thanks to my Swiss connections.

Ya'll should read Krugman's column on Social Security from yesterday's paper if you've not yet.