Julia Child's famous magnum opus, MTAOFC ("Mastering the Art of French Cooking") is reknowned for reducing many complex recipes to practice. Her (or should I say "their") recipe for fish soup is worth knowing.
At first glance, the recipe appears daunting. But it's not, you just need to proceed step by step. And remarkably, measurements are not very important. Let me restate the recipe as I see it.
First shopping: You need a leek or two (because it tastes better) and three different fish. I buy a half pound of each variety. I like to buy Tilapia because (a) it's cheap and (b) it's very firm. Then I'll buy scallops (bay are cheaper of course but I'll buy sea scallops and cut them into thin rounds). Finally, I choose a fish that is firm: Cod will do. Flounder? Absolutely not. And you'll need a red potato, a red pepper, some very small pasta (orzo is nice) and a baguette.
Next, the broth: Cut the leeks lengthwise in quarters (removing the green parts of course) and then cut into small quarter rounds. The onion should be diced. Start by slowly sauteing onions and leeks in olive oil (the recipe calls for 1/2 cup). You want them transparent but not brown. Next, add two cloves of garlic (smashed and then sliced). Then spices: I use thyme (fresh basil if you have it), maybe a few pistils of saffron, 2 bay leaves, and then two cups of diced tomatoes. If you have it, you can add an orange peel. If you don't, don't worry! Add 10 cups of water (yes, 10 cups!). Bring to a very soft boil. Now peel and cut the potato into large pieces, say, 8 and put into the stock. Finally, add a few sprigs of parsley.
Onward. Cut the baguette into thin (1/4 inch?) slices and put on a sheet pan. Put them in a 400 degree F oven for maybe 20 minutes. You want them dry but not really toasted --- just don't burn them. n.b. You can do this in advance.
Meanwhile, you can put a quarter to a half of the red pepper in boiling water. Also add two dried red peppers (if you like your rouille spicy, I do). I remove the stem end and de-seed them before adding to the water. Cook for a few minutes until soft. Drain and put into a blender jar. Add 2-4 cloves of garlic to the blender jar. Have fresh basil? Add some too. Also add a few sprigs of parsley.
Is the potato done? A knife should pierce it easily. If so, then fish out all the pieces and put into the blender jar. Next, add "sufficient" olive oil (the recipe calls for 4-6 tablespoons). I don't measure, but I try to make sure it'll grind. If it doesn't, I add more. The last step is to finish with stock (just a few tablespoons says the recipe), it should really make the rouille pourable but not too liquidy. Transfer the rouille to a serving bowl.
Almost done! The fish should be cut up into small portions, maybe 3/8 inch? Add about 1/2 cup of the pasta to the broth and then you add the Tilapia and scallops. Cod is last. Cook until the fish and pasta are done, about 10 minutes.
Now you're ready to serve. The "toasties" are ready to be placed in the bowl. Slather them with rouille. And then spoon the soup from the pot into the bowl. Serve with a crisp white, I happen to have fond memories of Picpoul de Pinet, but a California Sauvignon Blanc is just fine.
Sunday, 25 November 2018
Saturday, 24 November 2018
Norm Hardy
Norm Hardy died at the end of October at the age of 85. He was a very important mentor to me at a very unstable time of my life. I'd like put him in perspective as well as remember his achievements.
For me, high school was a horror. I wasn't exceptionally good and wasn't exceptionally bad and so no one took notice. It was excruciatingly boring and I was just marking time. I had no idea what I was going to do in the future except "go to college". What saved me was Tymshare.
The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) created an experimental program called the "Research Observers Program". This was a great idea: The school district would find a student a "research" slot in a company. My choice was Hewlett-Packard. I was placed in the Microwave Lab because an engineer there thought it was important to mentor students and because I was intrigued by a particular microwave instrument in the catalog. But I was way over my head. But a curious event changed my direction: It was suggested that I learn how to program computers. HP had a small room (more like a closet) with three teletypes. The accounts and passwords were written above the teletypes. And you could connect (via an acoustic modem) to two timesharing services: GE and Tymshare. GE offered Dartmouth BASIC and that's what I started to learn. I quickly figured it out. What next? Somehow I knew that the machine had an "assembly language" that was closer to the machine. That's what I wanted to learn.
My nerd buddies Hal Sampson and Bill Parrish were a year ahead of me. We used to go up to the Stanford AI Lab on Friday nights and explore the system (and play Spacewar). Bill informed me that Tymshare had a machine room only a half a mile from my house. Furthermore, there were teletypes in the room next door. This was the best: I could ride my bicycle to the teletype room and work on my assembly language code to explore the system calls. I used HP's accounts to do all this work. Now I have no doubt that I was burning up HP's money at a fast rate. I was frequently spending my weekends working on my program and that's how I met Norm.
Norm was a distinctive character: he was tall and lanky with a distinctive craggy voice. He came in on the weekends (driving his white "bathtub" model 356 Porsche) to debug his changes to the operating system. He was always friendly and offered me advice when I asked. My mother, meanwhile, wanted me to be employed over the summer. So she pestered me to ask Norm for a job. Being rather shy, I was extremely reluctant ... But when I did ask Norm, he said he'd look around.
What Norm found was the same job that other high school students were doing: writing regression tests for Tymshare's top selling product "Super-BASIC". I handed in my badge to HP and joined in the effort for $1.50 an hour (no benefits). When the summer was over, I was rehired at $2.10 an hour. At this point, I was reading the kernel code and becoming part of the Tymshare crew. I spent all my spare time thinking about code. Whenever I had a question, I would head for Norm and he would explain why the code was the way it was. My favorite example is this one: When a page is created for the first time, the memory should be zeroed. So, a loop cleared the memory. But the page clearing routine wasn't as short and simple as expected, so I asked Norm about it. He laughed and asked me about the branch instruction. Such a insightful question: just one instruction gives the whole answer.
Through the good auspices of Norm's wife, Ann (who was the main kernel programmer), I was able to be rehired constantly (mainly to work on the system call manual, which entailed reading the kernel code and writing the text to explain the calls). I should note that I was reading assembler code constantly and doing the minimal school work to get by. I did my homework during the lunch hour (with Arnold Wong) and went to Tymshare immediately after school. I arrived late for dinner because I was having a most excellent time and I could avoid the chaos of the family dinner. Evenings were spent finishing homework and reading more code.
Norm always functioned as a kind of factotum for me. One year, when I came back from college, Norm presented me with a paper about an operating system design. This design evolved over many years to become an elegant and secure operating system and that's where Norm's passion really belonged. Norm never really published in the technical literature but he was widely respected as a creator of a novel state-of-the-art operating system. His blog (Cap Lore) is filled with stories and observations about computing.
But later I found out he had another passion: music. I once visited him at his house in Portola Valley. He had installed an enormous pipe organ! Like Knuth, Norm liked his Bach both loud and very real. And I had no idea.
At a critical time in my life, Norm appeared and showed me that one could be passionate about computers and make a life out of it (or from it in my case). At a time when I wasn't sure "how to be", Norm was an exemplar of extreme competence in math and computers. And he also exhibited a joy and delight in explaining concepts.
My other recollection is that Norm had a huge collection of stories about various computers. His first job was at Lawrence Livermore and he had extensive experience with many very fast and very expensive machines. And he loved to tell tales about them. And I liked to listen and learn.
For me, high school was a horror. I wasn't exceptionally good and wasn't exceptionally bad and so no one took notice. It was excruciatingly boring and I was just marking time. I had no idea what I was going to do in the future except "go to college". What saved me was Tymshare.
The Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) created an experimental program called the "Research Observers Program". This was a great idea: The school district would find a student a "research" slot in a company. My choice was Hewlett-Packard. I was placed in the Microwave Lab because an engineer there thought it was important to mentor students and because I was intrigued by a particular microwave instrument in the catalog. But I was way over my head. But a curious event changed my direction: It was suggested that I learn how to program computers. HP had a small room (more like a closet) with three teletypes. The accounts and passwords were written above the teletypes. And you could connect (via an acoustic modem) to two timesharing services: GE and Tymshare. GE offered Dartmouth BASIC and that's what I started to learn. I quickly figured it out. What next? Somehow I knew that the machine had an "assembly language" that was closer to the machine. That's what I wanted to learn.
My nerd buddies Hal Sampson and Bill Parrish were a year ahead of me. We used to go up to the Stanford AI Lab on Friday nights and explore the system (and play Spacewar). Bill informed me that Tymshare had a machine room only a half a mile from my house. Furthermore, there were teletypes in the room next door. This was the best: I could ride my bicycle to the teletype room and work on my assembly language code to explore the system calls. I used HP's accounts to do all this work. Now I have no doubt that I was burning up HP's money at a fast rate. I was frequently spending my weekends working on my program and that's how I met Norm.
Norm was a distinctive character: he was tall and lanky with a distinctive craggy voice. He came in on the weekends (driving his white "bathtub" model 356 Porsche) to debug his changes to the operating system. He was always friendly and offered me advice when I asked. My mother, meanwhile, wanted me to be employed over the summer. So she pestered me to ask Norm for a job. Being rather shy, I was extremely reluctant ... But when I did ask Norm, he said he'd look around.
What Norm found was the same job that other high school students were doing: writing regression tests for Tymshare's top selling product "Super-BASIC". I handed in my badge to HP and joined in the effort for $1.50 an hour (no benefits). When the summer was over, I was rehired at $2.10 an hour. At this point, I was reading the kernel code and becoming part of the Tymshare crew. I spent all my spare time thinking about code. Whenever I had a question, I would head for Norm and he would explain why the code was the way it was. My favorite example is this one: When a page is created for the first time, the memory should be zeroed. So, a loop cleared the memory. But the page clearing routine wasn't as short and simple as expected, so I asked Norm about it. He laughed and asked me about the branch instruction. Such a insightful question: just one instruction gives the whole answer.
Through the good auspices of Norm's wife, Ann (who was the main kernel programmer), I was able to be rehired constantly (mainly to work on the system call manual, which entailed reading the kernel code and writing the text to explain the calls). I should note that I was reading assembler code constantly and doing the minimal school work to get by. I did my homework during the lunch hour (with Arnold Wong) and went to Tymshare immediately after school. I arrived late for dinner because I was having a most excellent time and I could avoid the chaos of the family dinner. Evenings were spent finishing homework and reading more code.
Norm always functioned as a kind of factotum for me. One year, when I came back from college, Norm presented me with a paper about an operating system design. This design evolved over many years to become an elegant and secure operating system and that's where Norm's passion really belonged. Norm never really published in the technical literature but he was widely respected as a creator of a novel state-of-the-art operating system. His blog (Cap Lore) is filled with stories and observations about computing.
But later I found out he had another passion: music. I once visited him at his house in Portola Valley. He had installed an enormous pipe organ! Like Knuth, Norm liked his Bach both loud and very real. And I had no idea.
At a critical time in my life, Norm appeared and showed me that one could be passionate about computers and make a life out of it (or from it in my case). At a time when I wasn't sure "how to be", Norm was an exemplar of extreme competence in math and computers. And he also exhibited a joy and delight in explaining concepts.
My other recollection is that Norm had a huge collection of stories about various computers. His first job was at Lawrence Livermore and he had extensive experience with many very fast and very expensive machines. And he loved to tell tales about them. And I liked to listen and learn.
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