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Southern Nardinia (formerly the British Isles):

Commander Julien wasn’t happy. He stomped around the room changing the scenes on the monitor wall seemingly at random, throwing switches and jabbing buttons like he was mad at them. Only it wasn’t the buttons he was mad at. And at nearly 2 meters tall, he was not an elf you wanted mad at you. Trust me, I’d been here before.

“Are you completely insane? This room monitors every square kilometer of Nardinia and there is nothing on the long range sensors to even remotely indicating that that the humans are mobilizing after 30 years, and I trust these systems far, far more that I trust you or your brother.”

“Sir, I realize that what Nash is saying sounds outrageous, but I’ve known him all his life and I’ve found him to be right time and time again.”

“Regardless Tamarind -”

“Tanaka sir” I muttered meekly.

“Tanaka. Regardless Tanaka, it will take much more than the ‘feelings’ of your nephew-”

“Brother.”

“- brother. Please don’t interrupt me again. I need actual evidence if I am to go to the council and suggest we evacuate based on the ‘feelings’ of your brother.”

Suddenly a scream came from the corner of the room. I glanced over at Nash, my baby brother, just as his eyes rolled up into his head as he collapsed.

“No! Must leave now! Must leave now! All Die! ALL DIE!” screamed Nash as he began writhing in what looked like pain, “MUST LEAVE! ALL DIE!”

“Get him out of here! Now!” the Commander shouted, turning his face turned an interested shade of purple

“Yes sir. Sorry sir. He just gets like that sometimes.”

How embarrassing.

“You might want to consider having him committed. Also consider what might happen if either of you go spreading these rumors around. Last thing we need is to have everyone panicing over the ravings of -”

“Yes sir, I understand. Thank you for seeing us Commander. Come on Nash!”

I heaved him off the floor and walked out of the room, carrying him as best I could.

“We tried Nash. That’s the best we could have hoped for.”

“Tanaka? It is Tanaka right?”

There was a rather large elf standing before us. It didn’t bode well after the events in the Commanders office.

“Yes, ” I replied, “and you’re Vegas if I remember correctly. You’re part of the FSDF.”

“Yeah, Special Ops,” replied Vegas somewhat absently, “Listen, did he really mean what he said about the humans destroying everything?”

“You really shouldn’t get involved sir. It will just cause you trouble.”

“Yes, I can imagine that it would. Truth be told however I think I actually believe him.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Here was a high ranking officer in the Security Defense Force telling me he believed my brother’s ramblings. I’ll admit, I was more than a little skeptical. I figured he was trying to get us to say something that could be considered treasonous so he could arrest us. Needless to say what came out of his mouth was something I was not ready for.

” To tell you the truth, I’m not the only one. See some of us on the Long Range Patrols have been seeing evidence that the humans are trying to retake Nardinia. We report it and it gets buried so no one else hears of it. ”

I simply stared.

“Wha… what kind of evidence?”

“Small stuff, like things disappearing, noises and sightings.”

“You’ve seen humans in Nardinia!”

“Not humans but… things. Things that weren’t there that day or the night before. Look, I can get you in to see the council and give you some evidence of human trespassing for you to use, but you have to keep my name out of it.”

“No problem there,” i managed to mutter.

“And if you decide to leave, I can just about promise I can get 10 – 15 others to join us.”

Us? Did he really just say us?

“Others?” I asked, totally confused now.

“Others in Ops that are disgruntled. Elves that have been given the rough and dangerous jobs and positions constantly over time and passed over for promotions. These are all good elves, they just don’t like to play the political game other do and as a result aren’t considered for decent positions.”

I had no idea what to say.

“Thanks for the help. I will try not to let you down.”

****

The council members sit high above the chambers floor. Each has their own seat on a tower that is probably 50 feet tall. I guess it gives them a feeling of superiority. There are supposed to be 4 council members, each an elected representative of each district, however the representative of my home district of Carta died a couple weeks ago and they haven’t filled the position yet. Figures.

The inquiry, as they called it, had been going on for 2 days. We had said everything we knew twice and even brought some of the evidence Vegas had collected over the past few months. Of course his name was never mentioned.

“Tanaka. Step forward.”

I did, staring up at the current Council President, convinced that he was going to simply exile Nash and myself from Nardinia. A prospect Nash relished, and one I didn’t.

“This is a very serious situation before us. You and your brother are claiming that the humans are coming back to Nardinia after being forced out by us over 30 years ago. After reviewing the supposed evidence and listening to the testimony of you and your brother we have decided not to pursue the matter any further. And further more, you and your brother are never to speak of it. You will have noticed that there is no one in the Council Room, no witnesses and no spectators. No one who can substantiate what occured here. No one who will be whispering in the streets and refreshment houses about the ‘Human Invasion’. When we leave this room, this matter will disappear. Any further discussion or rumor be grounds for immediate trial.”

He banged the gavel, then they all got up and left.

Silence.

I should point out he actually used air quotes around human invasion.

****

I walked out of the Council chambers with my eyes glazed over. Stunned was the only word for it. Not only were they going to ignore everything we has said but they were going to pretend it never happened and we were to never mention anything that had happened.

I glanced over to Vegas, waited for him to see me and held his gaze.

“Gather your people, ” i said quietly when I walked up to him, “We leave tonight.”

The Anderson/Woburn Commuter Rail station just after a cleansing rain.

I was making sauce last week for my Eggs Benny and as I was plating it hit me; what if I stripped it down to the basics and tweaked the core ingredients a bit rather than try to add something to it.  As I was looking over the list of things that go in Hollandaise the one thing i noticed that could be tweaked the easiest was the butter.  It could clarify it, flavor it (garlic, horseradish, etc) or I could even brown it.  Brown butter in my Hollandaise actually sounded good and I could barely wait until today to try it!

Let me tell you, it was so worth it!  I will never, ever again make hollandaise without brown butter!  Just that simple change made all the difference.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about was that I got a copy of Jamie Olivers Food Revolution cook book (seriously, why do they change the names of books when they are brought to the US?)  and I plan to cook my way through it and will post the results here.  So expect some more good stuff soon.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about chili night last week, let me to bring you up to speed.  It stunk.  It was good to eat, just taste bland.  Allow me to explain how bland it was, even BeckBeck herself said it was very bland.  If you know her at all you’ll realize how bland that would make this dish.  Cereal has occasionally been to spicy for her (Hi hon! :)   At least it was edible (and no, the flavor didn’t get better the next day).

Ingredients

2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons cold water
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 stick unsalted butter

Directions

In a small pan melt the butter.  Once melted begin stirring constantly until the butter begins to turn a a light tan color. Remove the pan from the heat.  The butter will continue to cook and darken resulting in a nut-brown color with a toasty aroma.

In a stainless steel bowl set over a pot of simmering water, being careful not to let the bowl actually touch the water, whisk the egg yolks with the lemon juice, and water, until they start to thicken and double in size.  Remove the bowl from the pot and whisking vigorously and season with salt and pepper, slowly add the butter, 1 teaspoon at a time, whisking constantly until all is incorporated.

I.  Love.  Mushrooms. Every type of mushroom, be it chanterelles, shiitake, black trumpet, portabella, porcini or oyster.  I’m okay with button or cremini mushrooms, but only as a very, very last resort. They always taste bland and leave me feeling like I forgot something.

I also love Jamie Oliver which is where the inspiration for this recipe came from. I love the fact he has his own garden and even raises his own chickens.  Something I’ve been doing the last year or two.  Well, not the chickens.

I needed to make this because a.) the mushrooms I got at Whole Foods last week are starting to dry out and 2.) I needed lunch for today.  It’s tweaked a good bit, some things are taken out (I don’t have any more wine to cook with.  In fact I never buy wine because I can’t stand to drink it.  I just use what people give as gifts :) and some things are added in like bleu cheese.  I realize it might seem odd to have a little bleu chees in a risotto dish like this, but to me the slight tang offsets the meaty texture of the mushrooms nicely.

I’m actually quite proud of this because Beckers actually like it!  My Becky tasted and LIKE mushrooms!  If nothing else I call that an accomplishment!

UPDATE: This this is just as good reheated in the microwave.  I had it with a little spinach salad with bleu cheese and a simple balsamic vinaigrette.  Oh, and I (on a whim) poured some of the dressing over the risotto… sweet banana that was good!  I can’t wait to get home and eat it again!  But I can’t.  Tonight is chili night :)

Ingredients:

4  cups chicken/vegetable/mushroom stock

2 Tbsp Canola oil

1/2 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 stick celery, trimmed and finely chopped

8 ounces Arborio rice

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 large handfuls wild mushrooms (no button/crimini mushrooms!), cleaned and sliced

1 Tbsp fresh Thyme leaves

1 Tbsp good Bleu Cheese

1 Tbsp butter

Freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving

Extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Heat the stock in a saucepan and keep it on a low simmer.

In a large pan, heat canola oil and add the onion and celery. Soften the veggies and then turn the heat up and add slightly brown them.  While the celery and onions are browning, heat a separate pan and lightly toast the Arborio Rice.  Yes, I said toast them.  It won’t change the taste but it will help open up the rice kernel and help it absorb the liquid.  At least I think it does. When the veggies are slightly brown add the rice  and give it a stir. Now add your first ladle of hot stock. Turn the heat down to a simmer and keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring and massaging the starch out of the rice, allowing each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. Carry on adding stock until the rice is soft but with a slight bite.

Take the risotto off the heat, add the lemon juice and thyme and check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, get a dry griddle pan hot and grill the wild mushrooms until soft. You can also lightly saute them if you don’t have a grill pan.  Just don’t brown them.

Take the risotto off the heat and check the seasoning. Stir in the butter, bleu cheese and the Parmesan. Add a little drizzle of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil as well as the mushrooms and give it a good mix.

Taste your risotto and add a little more seasoning or Parmesan if you like.

It’s called a ‘Scavenger’ soup because it’s made from whatever I could scrounge from the pantry and fridge that worked well with lentils and bacon.

I started with the idea that I wanted to make a lentil/split pea soup but didn’t have a ham hock laying around (who does).  I did however have bacon. I figured it was pork (same as a ham hock) but had a little more salt so I’d cut back on that.  Then it was a scavenger hunt to find other things to go in.

It turned out really good!  Good enough that I am constantly sneaking a forkful from the fridge!  And yes I said forkful, it’s that thick.  In fact, I’ve thought about adding a little more liquid, maybe even some cream, and making it into a dip.  Sadly the Patriots are out of the playoffs so it will have to be a movie styled dip :)

Anyway, on with the show!

Ingredients:

2 carrots peeled and small diced

1/2 small yellow onion, small diced

1/2 – 1lb bacon or your choice, diced .  (I used about 3/4lb  regular flavored bacon)

1lb green lentils.

2 bay leaves

Salt and Pepper to taste.

2 tablespoons Canola Oil

2-4 cups stock (chicken, veg, whatever you prefer)

0-2 cups water (Basically, you need 4 cups of liquid, whatever ratio you want of water to stock, I only had 2 cups of stock available)

Directions:

In a medium stock pot heat the oil and lightly saute the carrots and onions.  You just want to soften them a bit, just enough to release their flavor and aroma, since they are going to get cooked further later on.

Once the carrots and onions are ready, toss in the lentils and saute them for about 2 minutes, then add the stock and/or water and toss in the bacon, bay leaves and a pinch of salt.

Bring it to a boil. Cover, reduce the temp to a simmer for about an hour or until the lentils start to break down into a porridge like consistency.  Not all of them will break down and it will give you a nice smooth soup.

As I said, it’s thick.  If you want to make it souper just add more stock or water.  Also, if you just use stock you’ll get more flavor. As well as flavored bacon (applewood, hickory, etc…) will give you a different flavor.

I know what your thinking, “We already know about / use Facebook.  How is this different?”  Remember last time when I mentioned that there are *3* viewing modes to the litl webbook; Card, Laptop mode and Easel mode? Well the Facebook Status channel  is the perfect showcase channel for what can be done on the litl, 3 completely different way to display and play with the same data and show it in interesting and unique ways.

Most facebook apps just show you text and an icon.  We took that idea, put it in a blender, mixed in some good old fashion vaudeville fun, added a dash of  city life and pour in a tablespoon of WTF. The result is the sidewalk!  Using the sidewalk you can view your friends status updates in a completely new and fun way, a way that hasn’t been done before.

It’s also a great example of how a developer can authenticate with external websites and quickly absorb XML or JSON data.

I will admit, I’m biased about this channel, that’s because I’m the one who built it. No matter how impossible you might think this is, it’s all coded in AS2 running under Flash Lite.  Yes, it is.  Is to!  Seriously, there is no chicanery here.  No secretly packaged or hidden AS3 SWF buried somewhere doing all the work behind the scenes, it really is AS2.

It’s not using any third party code other than XML2Object. Even the authentication code is written from scratch, it had to be since Facebook officially dumped AS2, and the other libraries out there would have need extensive modification to work.  In other words, it’s all home grown and to a large extent very modular.

There is so much you can do with just this one application.  It really does show to difference in thinking that has gone into building the litl webbook.

How cool would it be to watch your Facebook feed on the television, possibly as a backdrop to a party!  Or better yet, have the feed showing via a projector at a conference and displaying peoples facebook comments about the event!  Way cool!

So by now I hope your asking yourself ‘how do I get this awesome channel!’.  For that you need a litl webbook.  If you already have one your in for pleasant surprise: it’s free!  Just go to the card catalog and download.  That’s it. Well, and make sure you have a facebook account.  Once you log in your goo to go!

Last week parts of that NDA got lifted and now that the litl has started shipping I can finally talk about some of the stuff I’ve been working on.

I won’t go into details about the hardware or software, you can read about those in posts from lucas and scott).

I want to talk about ‘channels’ a litl bit (see what I did there :), from a different perspective than my co-worker kathryn did.

Channels are a completely new way to see the web and in some cases interact with special sites and applications (weather.com for example). The most unique thing about them is how they look to the general user. There are essentially 3 states for each channel: card view, laptop mode and easel mode. Laptop mode is self-explanatory, so I won’t bother. Card view is what you see when you are in what amounts to the litl ‘homepage’ or desktop. A bunch of little index like cards laid out in a grid.

Easel mode is (in my mind) the coup-de-grace. It is a mostly passive way of viewing… well, everything. It’s *mostly* passive because there is a wheel and button that lets you interact with the device as well as a remote that provides the same functionality (albeit from a distance :).  Want to read an RSS feed automatically? No worries. What about watch videos or view pictures? Again, no problem. Easel mode allows for this. In fact it’s *designed* for it. So the channels are built in such a way that they can be used in a completely passive manner. All WITHOUT you having to do anything but press a button and flick a scroll wheel.

So to sum up a little, each channel has three different, and in some cases distinct, was to display or represent data.

The channels are powered by Flash Lite, which means AS2.  Yes AS2 is a nightmare especially if you’ve spent the last 2 years working in AS3, however our player has been sent out to the Pimp-My-Player studios over at calsoft and came back with things like Bitmap Caching and hardware-accelerated H.264 support.  And in order to do that pimpage, we needed to use Flash Lite, hence AS2.  It’s a whole circular wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey thing.  The channels are capable of  consuming any type or data and format RSS, XML, JSON… anything that AS2 and Flash Lite can handle.   I will say, considering the limitations, we have managed to do some truly amazing things.

With that said, it has been fun (and frustrating) to build some of the things that will be coming out over the next few weeks (and no I won’t mention any names, but stay tuned…). There is a lot more coming, things like a channel SDK which will be opened up to any and all third party developers to name one, but we are waiting for a few things to fall into place (such as the open screen project and the next gen of the Flash Mobile platform.).  So if you like Flash and love a challenge, then keep your eyes and ears peeled.  Good things, they are a comin!

Boston, meet litl.

Come say hi to litl. This Wednesday, 10:30am-12pm at Starbucks (755 Boylston St. Boston).

The litl webbook gets you online and more. It’s an internet computer that works great with your favorite websites. But the litl also flips over to create a new view of the web. Our intuitive interface and no-maintenance approach make it simple and carefree.