Daniel Krieger for The New York Times Eric Ripert, the executive chef of Le Bernardin. More Photos » ERIC RIPERT has been the executive chef of Le Bernardin for 18 years, and people sometimes ask him if he gets tired of cooking fish. Clearly these people have never eaten at Le Bernardin. No other restaurant in the city makes the simple cooking of fish (and the fish at Le Bernardin is cooked simply, when it is cooked at all) seem so ripe with opportunities for excitement. Some of the thrills are the hushed kind, like the way black garlic, pomegranate and lime support the crisp skin and white flesh of sautéed black bass. Others are scene-stealers, as when a white slab of steamed halibut is ... Continue reading →
Expenditures by super PACs were expected to hit the $100 million mark today, further proof that outside spending will far outstrip anything seen in previous election cycles. Here's one way to look at how much more is being spent in the 2012 cycle: A single super PAC, the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future, has already spent more -- $44.5 million -- than all outside groups combined had spent by this point in 2008. That 2008 number, about $30.9 million, is roughly one-quarter of this cycle's overall outside spending total of $122.7 million.And the $100 million spent just by super PACs this cycle is already $30 million more than the entire sum of all outside spending in the 2004 election, the year that the Swift Boat ... Continue reading →
Lettuce: Red Sails and Sweet Repeat May 20, 2012 // The lettuce crop is in. With a vengeance. We are blessed with such bounty that we are giving big bags of lettuce to friends, to colleagues, to our garden neighbors. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) has a noble history, dating back to the ancient Greeks and Persians. Egyptians are credited with morphing a weed into a delicate edible vegetable. The Egyptian god Min with lettuce plants The lettuce we grow is nothing like the awful iceberg lettuce of my youth. These lettuces are so richly colored that you can practically see the iron and potassium they harbor. Sweet Repeat gives us tasty green loose leaf. The heirloom Salad Bowl has curly burgundy and green leaves. For variety, ... Continue reading →
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke with USA TODAY earlier this week about her time at the State Department as she nears the end of her self-imposed four years there. She highlighted her travels, including her recent trip around the world with stops in China, Bangladesh and India. The China stop involved delicate, behind-the-scenes diplomacy over the case of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng. Here are excerpts from the interview:Q: I don't know how you do it.A. Well, you know, I'm really lucky, thankfully — knock on wood. I've got good stamina and recuperative powers. Also, I love what I'm doing, and it's so endlessly challenging and interesting — every day something new, no two days are the same.Q: But how do you find the ... Continue reading →
No. 3 Ithaca, N..Y. Overall Unemployment: 5.9% (March 2012, BLS) Continue reading →
Pew Internet & American Life Project Facebook: A Profile of its 'Friends' By Sara Kehaulani Goo May 16, 2012 For years, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been polling people who use social media, asking how they use it and what they get out of it. The results paint an interesting picture of what kind of people use sites such as Facebook, who they are connected to and how they manage their privacy. As Facebook prepares for its IPO, we've curated a picture of Facebook ‘friends,' with some data points, charts and salient facts. Our surveys have found these behaviors among Facebook users: • On average, users make 7 new Facebook friends per month; they initiate 3 requests and accept 4.• Women average ... Continue reading →
