Site FeedPalimpsest has moved. Please visit our blog in its new location for the most recent posts from Scriptorium.
Palimpsest
Death to Recipes!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 — posted by Sarah O'Keefe
I love food. I enjoy cooking and I especially enjoy eating. One of my favorite web sites is epicurious.com, and the kitchen shelf devoted to cookbooks sags alarmingly. Many Saturday mornings, you will find me here.But I am not happy about how recipes have insinuated themselves into my work life. For some reason, the recipe is the default example of structured content. Look at what happens when you search Google for xml recipe example. Recipes are everywhere, not unlike high fructose corn syrup. Unfortunately, I am not immune to the XML recipe infiltration myself.
I understand the appeal. Recipes are:
- highly structured content
- well understood
I'm considering using a glossary as an example. After all, it's a highly structure piece of content whose organization is well understood. Maybe I'll use food items as my glossary entries. Baby steps...
PS It's totally unrelated, but this article about two chefs eating their way through Durham ("nine restaurants in one night, at least five hours of eating and drinking") is quite fun.
11:17 AM Permalink | |
DITAlini and Chickpeas
Friday, January 09, 2009 — posted by Simon Bate
There are times when my silly brain notices something and it just won't let go. A few weeks ago I was leafing through a "foodie" magazine and I saw a reference to a pasta known as ditalini ("little thimbles"). Because I've spent the past year working with and teaching about DITA (the Darwin Information Typing Architecture), the letters "dita" in "ditalini" caught my eye. "Hmmm," I thought, "Company potluck coming up in a couple of months...I can't pass this one up."
I was prepared for a major search to find a box, so I was quite surprised when I found a box of ditalini on the shelves of my regular grocery store. Once I had found it, the next question was: what to do with it? Perhaps a simple pasta and beans recipe. When cooked, each piece of ditalini is about the size of a chickpea (garbonzo, ceci), so that's a natural pairing. I found a recipe and modified it a bit to my liking.
2 Tbsp olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
2 15 oz. cans chickpeas (NOT drained)
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
1/2 tsp each thyme, rosemary, oregano, basil, marjoram
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 cup ditalini (uncooked)
Heat the oil in a 3-4 quart saucepan. Add the garlic and allow to brown slightly.
Add the peas and their liquid, the tomatoes, pasta, salt and pepper, and ditalini. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste and serve.
Grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano over each serving.
I showed the box when I unveiled my dish at the potluck. It received all the appropriate groans.
Now I have to figure out what to do next year. Has anyone else found some foodstuff with a similar relationship to our profession or industry?
Now I have to figure out what to do next year. Has anyone else found some foodstuff with a similar relationship to our profession or industry?
Labels: dita, ditalini, potluck, recipes
1:31 PM Permalink | |