Cooking With Richard

My not-so-new but favourite blog is Cooking Issues, which is the French Culinary Institute’s tech blog.

Some interesting articles to start with:

• pressure cooking
• liquid nitrogen (looks like I won’t be using this then)
• rotovap
• and finally .. drinking shots
  

Wikipedia: Treadmill desk

Monty Don’s guide to making soap …

1. Soap is simpler to make than you might have thought. You’ll need olive oil, organic palm or coconut oil, and beeswax pellets.
2. Heat the ingredients together on the stove to about 54 degrees centigrade stirring regularly.
3. Now for the tricky bit. Soap is produced when the oils which are acidic are mixed with lye.
4. Lye is sodium hydroxide or caustic soda, a powerful alkali. When powdered lye is added to water it heats up, add the hot lye water to the melted oils, taking great care to avoid splashes as these will burn, and stir until the mixture thickens.

5. After this is done, you can add any colourings, fragrance and softening oils – for example, honey and sweet almond oil.
6. Pour the raw soap into a mould for setting and curing which is a maturing process needed before the soap is ready and safe to use.
7. Finally turn the soap out of the mould and cut to the desired shape.

Image from NASA’s Terra satellite, huge version here.

At the Dacorum Machinery and Steam Preservation Group fair in Potten End:

BMW Isetta “bubble car”:

(Photo by Nicu)

Yesterday I visited Beaufort Court a.k.a. the Kings Langley wind turbine, which is sited on the old Ovaltine chicken farm …

Solar powered train:

Chotto-chicken:

I went to Bletchley Park today (Wikipedia page), home of the code-breaking efforts during World War II.

On my own!

They are starting to preserve the original nissen huts and later brick buildings like this one …

The rebuilt Colossus, arguably the first digital computer:

Captured Japanese codebooks:

They have their own Harrier:

and at the end of the day there was a fly-past by a WWII Hurricane:

I’ll have to take N-sama next time!

Today to the Mosquito Aircraft Museum / De Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre in Hertfordshire.

Chipmunk, similar to the ones I used to fly in AEF:

Comet 4 interior:

De Havilland Gyron engine:

Vampire trainer jet (one of two at the museum which are both very well preserved):

Mosquito, built and used during World War II:

Top gun … is it Tom Cruise?

Interesting BBC news article about more evil invaders from the continent and beyond. Including our least favorite, the Harlequin ladybird, and a new one: a beetle that eats rosemary and lavender plants.

My brain is dribbling out of my nose watching The Core (2003). Best (worst) quote: “That’s all Science is, best guess.”

How To Make A Burning Laser Flashlight

VideoJug is quite a fun website actually. One day I’ll have to make these fish fingers:

How To Make Homemade Fish Fingers

Previously: Uncanny valley of the dolls …

I bought a Crookes radiometer from these people yesterday. Today the sun came out for just a few minutes and it actually works. I was fascinated by these things at school, but I’m also disappointed to find out that they don’t work because of “light pressure”, which is what my physics teacher told me.