I was reading about Polenta in Marcella Hazan’s book, “Essentials of Italian Cooking” (available at the Deli) because I’ve always enjoyed grits, and polenta is like yellow grits. She has an extensive write-up on Polenta and admonishes that the best way to cook it is by stirring in an open pot for 45 minutes. I was aghast. I’d never spent that long on polenta or grits and they tasted fine! Besides my limp geek wrists would give out long before the end. Then I saw that she had a cheater recipe that called for stirring for a minute every ten minutes of cooking - that I could do! So this morning I put 3 1/8 Cups of water, 3/4 Cups coarse italian polenta, and 1/2 Tablespoon salt in a pot and brought it to a boil. Her ratio for polenta to water is 1 x 4.2 which I honored and it worked great. I set the heat and my timer and walked away. First ten revealed soupy lava. Ouch, it’s amazing how hot polenta is when it splashes on you! Second ten pretty much what I’m used to seeing. Third ten same thing. Then something happened between 30 and 40 minutes - the polenta went from grainy to creamy and soft. I did another 10 minutes with an open pot stirring every few minutes and it thickened up a bit more. Though it did NOT pull away cleanly (!) from the sides of the pot, as she writes, it seemed ready to my hungry self. I added some butter, grated Parm, and half a tin of warmed Ortiz spanish tuna. Wow. Unlike any polenta I have ever made - there is something definitely magic that happens around 45 minutes in to the cooking and it is so much better I don’t think I can ever go back. The yield was a bit greater than 2 Cups which is perfect for me.

Until recently I would end up in travel situations, that were otherwise going along swimmingly, sitting in frustration in a hotel room, or a friend’s guest room, trying to figure out where to plug in my various electronic gear to charge. Then I spotted one of these mini power strips from Monster called Outlets To Go. The first one I ran across had four outlets but they make them in 3 and 6 outlets as well. My favorite is the 3 - it is the smallest and lightest and I rarely have more than three items to plug in. I was so happy with it that I bought one for both Jillian and for my Mom. They run around $12 at Amazon. I think we may carry a few in the IT “store” with our USB flash drives and extra power supplies that staff can pick up from us.Oh, and I’m not sure whether to share this last part or leave it as a surprise, but the connector that goes into the wall has a soft blue nightlight built-in.

We had a plumber come in and replace a piece of the sewer pipe running through the payroll office today. Surprisingly there was no sewer smell - just the overpowering smell of the PVC cement. Wow. It was so bad we moved the payroll folks out of their office and into IT, forwarding their phone line and giving them seats at the bench. Looked up the health effects of PVC cement: INHALATION: Will cause irritation of mucous membranes, nose, eyes & throat, coughing, difficulty of breathing. Exposure to high vapor concentration may cause headache, dizziness, nausea, narcosis. I’m not going to look up “narcosis.”

Ran across this on Cool Tools yesterday - a free, downloadable PDF Physics manual written with skill and humor. And at 1500 pages, thorough.

How do objects and images move? How can animals move? What is motion?

How does a rainbow form? Is levitation possible? Do time machines exist? What does ‘quantum’ mean? What is the maximum force value found in nature? Is ‘empty space’ really empty? Is the universe a set? Which problems in physics are still unsolved?

Download at http://www.motionmountain.net/text.html

The world of IT is different when it comes to giving great service. And not just because IT appears to be a strange cult of mumbo jumbo from the outside. Though the Zingerman’s way of service is world renowned and very, very useful, it does not exactly translate. And this is fine - that’s part of the challenge of great systems is applying them.

When we receive a cry for help from one of our customers (the staff of Zingerman’s) should we take that as an opportunity to provide great customer service or as an opportunity to handle a customer complaint? Should we acknowledge their complaint, apologize, make it right, thank them for letting us know of the problem, and then document the complaint? Or should we figure out what the customer wants, get it for them (accurately, politely, and enthusiastically), and then go the extra mile?

(more…)

I’ve been enjoying practicing Inbox Zero as described by Merlin Mann at 43Folders. For the last couple of weeks I have kept my inbox close to or at zero and WOW, it’s an amazing feeling.

Merlin’s got quite a rant going on the subject which is well worth reading.

Get yourself over to www.inboxzero.com and then let us know in the comments what you think about it.

I was having a conversation with some partners yesterday about how, as an organization, we don’t have well developed skills in delegation - that it often becomes ‘dumping’. I then ran across a pretty good list of responsibilities for both parties in a project delegation scenario. From MIT’s department of IS&T…

When you take on a ‘project’…

• clarify with the sponsor (or delegator) the scope and expectations for its completion.
• Determine where the importance of this task fits in the “big picture.”
• Make sure the criteria for success have been spelled out in sufficient detail.
• Agree on the differing roles and responsibilities of each person involved.
• Get the authority to obtain the necessary resources.
• Settle on a date for an early progress review.

Whenever delegating a ‘project’…

explain the scope of the task as well as:
• expectations
• importance
• criteria for success
• roles
• responsibilities
• resources
• review process

Good article about tea in today’s NY Times:

Flying to a remote corner of India and braving the long drive into the Himalayas may seem like an awful lot of effort for a good cup of tea, but Darjeeling tea isn’t simply good. It’s about the best in the world…

Link: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/travel/14Tea.html
PDF: nytimes_high_tea_indian_style_14oct07.pdf

As some of you know I have been in search of the perfect syncing tool for a while now. I’ve tried many and none are perfect. In fact, many of them screw up my data in creative ways. Plaxo may be not be an exception, it’s too early to tell, but it’s worth noting here because of a couple of properties. One it is a nicely designed web app. Two it integrates very nicely with iCal.app and Addressbook.app on my Mac. Though I have been too afraid to touch the iCal sync yet. Third, and the most interesting, it does a bit of social networking moves like LinkedIn and Jaiku.

What am I looking for? I would like to keep my Entourage and Mac apps in sync. That’s done nicely through Sync Services which Entourage integrates with. But, I also want to post my calendar to Google’s Calendar for others that use that system. That’s where it get’s wonky.

More on Plaxo later. Check the comments.

We have a lovely new first flush darjeeling on the shelves from Rohini Estates and I’ve been drinking it for about a week now. I’ve been brewing it in a 16 oz pot with about two level teaspoons of tea with water at about 185 F for 5 minutes on the first steep and 4 minutes on the second steep.

The tea leaves are in pieces about the length of a staple and vary widely in color from whitish green to black and are lightly twisted.

Rohini is at an elevation of between 2500 and 5000 feet and is a relatively newly restored plantation with most of the plantings done since 1996.

The tew brews up a light golden brown color with a lightly fruity/floral aroma and a light clean taste with very low tannins and a nice lingering soft flavor.