Political Science - Fall 2011 Cycle

[explodingstressball]

One of the things that attracted me to Austin is that they seem to be pretty good in terms of restaurants.

I have family who moved to Austin a year ago. They report that the food is VERY college-student-pub-grub heavy, but that there's not much beyond that. This could be a really good thing, depending.

[explodingstressball]

Last year I went through Akria Kurosawa classics, then some Ingmar Bergman over the summer, and I'm just now getting time to pick it back up.

Have you considered an Almodovar binge session as well? I love his last six movies dearly.

And Columbia will be getting back to people at the end of the week at the very earliest.

[explodingstressball]

I recently bought the Noma cookbook, which is mind boggling.

I got the chance to eat at Noma last year ... pretty mind boggling! It was a great experience.

I've been slowly teaching myself how to make desserts. Whenever I cook, I tend to experiment by throwing things together and waiting to see what happens. It's been a real change having to measure out ingredients precisely and master technique. I've now become a fairly accomplished pie baker, though.

[yinumzhou`]

Is Wisconsin over ? I am not in the US now and have not had any emails, nor the change in application status.

I applied UW Madison too. The status is always "pending."

[yinumzhou`]

I took the "carpet bombing approach" and applied to 13 programs: UCLA, UCSD, Michigan, NYU, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Penn State, Rochester, Chicago, and University of Washington.

I've heard back from Stanford, Michigan, and Penn State and am still waiting on the others. Anyone know if there are schools that don't notify first by email? I am in London for the year so it can take FOREVER for mail to get here from the states.

I just want to get put out of my misery and know already!

To my knowledge, Harvard and Yale only notify applicants by mail. And I think I saw somewhere that they send out offers and rejs in March.

[GopherGrad]

Of course, it's not like I'll have the money to be eating out very often, so it's probably better for me to end up in a location which demands that I make most of my own food.

I suppose that depends upon priorities, but I'm all about balance that way. You can buy half a cow for what it costs for dinner at Alinea, but what better way to reward yourself for butchering your beef needs for the next year than with dinner at Alinea?

If you have a house that can fit a couple chest freezers, you can get to the point where you're making maybe a trip a month to the grocery store in the summer. That savings can propel some good restaurant eats.

I got the chance to eat at Noma last year ... pretty mind boggling! It was a great experience.

I'm thinking about bringing my GF for her birthday. There are a couple joints in Helsinki (of all places) I'd like to hit, so maybe we'd do a week-long Nordic eating tour.

I ate at El Bulli a few years back, actually the same year Redzepi spent there. As much as his cuisine poses as a reaction to the molecular gastronomy Ferran Adria pioneered, there's a lot of deconstruction going on in Noma's book that might cause a more cynical soul to ask if it represents the locavore trend coming full circle.

Edited February 9, 2011 by GopherGrad

[explodingstressball]

there's a lot of deconstruction going on in Noma's book that might cause a more cynical soul to ask if it represents the locavore trend coming full circle.

That's a really interesting and unique thought, I'm going to have to ponder that for a while. In essence, I think you may be right, although I can't really flesh out my thoughts right now. I think I care WAY too much about food.

Helsinki, eh? I would never have thought of that as being a place to go to eat!

[Tufnel]

I think Austin has a few great music festivals, but how many bands have come from Austin? I can't think of any at all. Compare that to say, Brooklyn or Chicago, and I'm always surprised people rank Austin so highly.

Well, to be fair, there are a few. Some I like...

- Stevie Ray Vaughan - seriously, SERIOUSLY, changed my musical direction in life. How I wish he were alive...

- Janis Joplin

- 13th Floor Elevators

- Spoon

- Explosions in the Sky

- White Denim

- Okkervil River

A few of those are really old. And some might be wrong.

It would be 10x easier to list bands from Brooklyn and even easier to list artists from places that birthed a movement (the number of important bands from Haight-Ashbury alone rivals most decent cities). NY, Chicago, LA... All undoubtedly produced more bands. But they are all difference cities with cool musical characters. No best. I get pissed when music becomes a pissing contest.

I'm psyched that we have an eclectic bunch of music-playing, bread-baking, food-appreciating academics-to-be. I'm not sure if you're my people but you're more interesting than I anticipated.

Anyone have huge coffee addiction problems? I can't cook a thing but I can brew some mean coffee. I roast my own beans and all that jazz. I bet someone here is a barista and shares my need for counseling.

Edited February 9, 2011 by Tufnel

[explodingstressball]

- Okkervil River

True. Totally forgot about them. I agree, I don't think there's a "best." I don't much like contemporary country music, but Nashville is the center of that genre's recording industry.

And I've been meaning to teach myself how to roast coffee beans.

[adaptations]

Anyone have huge coffee addiction problems? I can't cook a thing but I can brew some mean coffee. I roast my own beans and all that jazz. I bet someone here is a barista and shares my need for counseling.

Yes - I love it! I did convince myself to drink lots of decaf, as I enjoy having coffee throughout the day, but have no need for that much caffeine.

[firefly28]

I suppose that depends upon priorities, but I'm all about balance that way. You can buy half a cow for what it costs for dinner at Alinea, but what better way to reward yourself for butchering your beef needs for the next year than with dinner at Alinea?

If you have a house that can fit a couple chest freezers, you can get to the point where you're making maybe a trip a month to the grocery store in the summer. That savings can propel some good restaurant eats.

Oh, I'll still be sure to visit the best restaurants around wherever I go--just fairly infrequently. I'm currently figuring out how to structure my diet to maximize health, minimize cost, and achieve the highest level of enjoyment (the all-important z variable).

I'm figuring on eating various incarnations of wheat for breakfast--healthy, and a lot can be done to make it enjoyable. Eg boil it and throw in some blackberries or blueberries for a nice, fiber-filled breakfast.

For lunch, I'm contemplating fruit smoothies. It'd be healthy and fairly cheap--hopefully not more than $2 per meal. Salads would be another option, or an occasional omelet.

Then for supper, baked or grilled chicken or fish most of the time (I hope to create a few reductions and store them in the fridge). Probably sometimes with a fairly healthy side--sweet potatoes, lentils, etc. Not that I won't occasionally indulge--I have some good recipes for Thai curries, Indian dishes, etc.

Basically, it's an adjusted Nash diet. The goal is to eat for an average of under $10 a day. Doing that would likely allow me enough money to eat out at a decent restaurant at least once a month.

[balderdash]

Have you considered an Almodovar binge session as well? I love his last six movies dearly.

Yeah, love Almodovar. I'm also a huge fan of Inarritu (can't be bothered to insert the accents), so I'm hoping to catch his new film, Biutiful. Also, just for fun, Guy Ritchie's Snatch/Lock Stock/RocknRolla stuff.

- Spoon

F'sho.

Edited February 9, 2011 by balderdash

[explodingstressball]

I'm hoping to catch his new film, Biutiful.

I was pretty amused by this review of Biutiful on Slate.

I'm also addicted to documentaries. Watched "Pie In The Sky" last night, about Brigid Berlin. It was really good.

[Gradhorn]

Well, to be fair, there are a few. Some I like...

- Stevie Ray Vaughan - seriously, SERIOUSLY, changed my musical direction in life. How I wish he were alive...

- Janis Joplin

- 13th Floor Elevators

- Spoon

- Explosions in the Sky

- White Denim

- Okkervil River

A few of those are really old. And some might be wrong.

Junior Brown didn't grow up in Austin, but his career took off after playing at the Continental Club in Austin regularly.

Edited February 9, 2011 by cowslinger

[Purled]

I'm more of a diverse foods person than a live music person--I'd rather sit down and eat lamb shwarma or a good pho alone or with a date than see a live music act (in spite of the fact that I've played guitar for 10 years). One of the things that attracted me to Austin is that they seem to be pretty good in terms of restaurants. Of course, it's not like I'll have the money to be eating out very often, so it's probably better for me to end up in a location which demands that I make most of my own food (as I'd sooner fast than go to a fast food restaurant).

Did you happen to apply to any Bay Area schools (i.e. Berkeley)? Unbeatable w/r/t food.

[yinumzhou`]

Did you happen to apply to any Bay Area schools (i.e. Berkeley)? Unbeatable w/r/t food.

I forget to count food when choosing schools.

[explodingstressball]

I forget to count food when choosing schools.

I only applied to places that I thought had a good food culture. Not sure I could live for five/six years with bad produce.

[GopherGrad]

That's a really interesting and unique thought, I'm going to have to ponder that for a while. In essence, I think you may be right, although I can't really flesh out my thoughts right now. I think I care WAY too much about food.

Helsinki, eh? I would never have thought of that as being a place to go to eat!

Neither was Copenhagen.

Finnish cuisine, having declined far further than Danish, arguably started experiencing Redzepi's revival before Noma. In the 80s, they tried to "modernize" Finnish cooking by making reindeer cassoulet and gastrique from lingonberries. Despite some exciting elemental discoveries, this movement failed to produce good food. People started to think the Finns couldn't cook, but some Finnish chefs began to wonder if foreign treatment of local ingredients was really the problem.

It was, and Finnish cuisine started to experience a revival. The ancient Finnish need to preserve meats, for example, helped drive a global revival in on-site charcuterie.

Redzepi took everything a dozen steps further, first by making his sourcing almost as artistic as his plating (the Noma cookbook includes a diary of a meat sourcing trip he took through Greenland, the Faroe and Iceland).

More importantly, his dishes tend to represent ecosystems: Milkskin and Field Greens presents a microgreen arrangement harvested from the same pasture where the cow that made the milk grazed. In the same way as your Danish forbears, you have eat a meal that doesn't leave the farm (although unlike your Danish forbears, it tastes amazing).

So in this way, Noma's popularity arises because it positions itself at the nexus of several major food trends: sustainable agriculture, humane meats, superior organic taste and nutrition, localism, historical eating, accessible recipes and a rejection of molecular gastronomy in favor of whole, recognizable ingredients.

Before I go any further, I should say that I think Redzepi is an artist of the highest order; a food visionary whose theory of eating towers over most others in a similar fashion as (if the reviews are any indication) the taste of his food. But what about this uber-locavore producing a cookbook for global consumption?

For starters, the recipes are not approachable. They require ingredients not available outside the Nordic region and equipment absent from all but the best kitchens. The instructions presume massive knowledge of food (one favorite: -Make a duck Veloute, add mirepoix). A gremolata of wild cherries? Do I have a freeze drier and some xantham gum kicking around?

Most of the critics agree that the book is meant to be inspirational, so it doesn't matter if the ingredients are unavailable (nor, apparently, if the gaze toward the history of local food is more of a wink). But inspiring to what? Most people would have to train for years to understand what they can forage for locally (if they even live somewhere they can forage) and can never hope to emulate Redzepi's technique. It calls into question the reasoning using Noma as a call to arms for back to basics, locavore movements.

It calls into question Noma's fidelity to some of the other feel-good trends it aggregates. Does the food really taste better because the chefs picked the bullrushes from the park preserve that morning? What if the field greens came from a different pasture than the cow? Putting aside the question of whether a seven course lunch is "sustainable" even if it uses wild puffin, what does the implicit rejection of GMO foods really have to do with an agricultural revolution that needs to service the masses in the developing world?

Redzepi's vision brilliantly combines a lot of the things foodies care about today into an attractive and no doubt delicious package, but his brilliance (as is so often the case) begins to erode at the philosophy of the underpinning movements' collectively. Noma's approach actually establishes that you can't do Danish farm food and get a Michelin star; Danish farm food was probably terrible by comparison. He kitchen relies on modern gadgets and exotic ingredients, it's just that he's managed to painstakingly find ways to make close exotic ingredients work. What every local food scene really needs, it seems, is a Rene Redzepi, but there are sadly too few to go around.

So what parts of his approach are cultural or marketing chicanery, and which are really great food? Perversely, that's part of the reason I'm cooking what I can from the book.

[yinumzhou`]

I only applied to places that I thought had a good food culture. Not sure I could live for five/six years with bad produce.

So you have applied Bay Area schools? I've never been there and have no idea what the food's like there.

[GopherGrad]

Speaking of caring too much about food, how about wasting all those pixels on a grad school site writing about obscure Danish nosh?

ETA:

yin, the bay area has amazing food, from the fancy-pants French Laundry right on down to the fishmongers at the wharf. A foodie could hardly be happier.

Edited February 9, 2011 by GopherGrad

[explodingstressball]

Speaking of caring too much about food, how about wasting all those pixels on a grad school site writing about obscure Danish nosh?

Not a waste at all, my friend.

[explodingstressball]

Noma's approach actually establishes that you can't do Danish farm food and get a Michelin star; Danish farm food was probably terrible by comparison.

Having spent a lot of time in Denmark, I can fairly confidently say that in general, Danish food is pretty standard Eurogermanicpeasant faire. Lots of heavy Rye breads, cheeses, butter, beer, and pork/beef with fish as well. It is quite hearty, and not unpleasant, but I will say that in general, there is a reason that Scandinavian food in general hasn't been a big hit in the US.

However, when you take the concept of some of the ingredients (fresh fish, heartiness, a fairly simple presentation) and a number of delicious berries, you do have the base ingredients for an interesting food experiments. That's what Aquavit in New York has done at least, and what I think Noma has done as well.

My family is well acquainted with the chef of a common Top Chef judge and the executive chef at a famous molecular gastronomy restaurant on the Lower East Side. I have yet to really enjoy molecular gastronomy — for me, it too often looks to far away from what I would consider to be "food."

[explodingstressball]

Fishmongers at the wharf. A foodie could hardly be happier.

You will rarely catch a San Franciscan dead at the wharf. They are as rare as the elusive blue lobster.

[firefly28]

Did you happen to apply to any Bay Area schools (i.e. Berkeley)? Unbeatable w/r/t food.

Unfortunately not--food as the salient variable would lead to Bay Area schools, NYU, University of Toronto, and maybe Chicago. Well, and National University of Singapore.

[morningglory]

so as we're all playing the waiting game...if some schools aren't sending out notifications (good or bad) until mid-march, when are their accepted students' weekends? do they push all the way up until the weekend before april 15? is it possible that some schools won't have visitations at all?

it seems as if a lot of places are already starting to monopolize weekends in march/april and schools notifying late will be in direct competition with others (even of the same caliber) that have notified earlier and already made travel arrangements for prospective students. (one program requested that i finalize plane reservations today, for example, which seems absurdly early!)

anyone have an idea?