Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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Amateur v. Professional

I’m clear on the “unpaid and doing it for the love of it” vs. “it’s my job; it’s what I do” difference between amateur and professional, but I’m bringing something out of comments to the front page to expand on just one other difference between amateurs and professionals, particularly the old saw that,

“Amateurs practice until they get it right; professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.”

I like to cook. At times, I love to cook. Over the years, my role in our family has evolved to the point where I am the primary cook for the family. And I’m pretty good, according to family reports and hits on my dishes at potlucks. 😉

But I am not a professional chef. Oh, I have “perfected” a few habits. My grip on a chef’s knife, chopping an onion (“tear free” and fast), certain recipes, etc.: all perfection or nearly so.

But apart from those, I am still an amateur cook by the criterion that says “professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.” Breakfast this a.m. is an example. Pan-poached eggs are a dish that I have down to near perfection. It’s an easy-peasy dish that also makes for easy-peasy cleanup. Still, one (at least this one :-)) can cock it up when caffeine-deprived, early in the a.m. And I nearly did.

First: 4 rashers of bacon, then 3 eggs (my Wonder Woman only wanted one egg). I pulled the wrong sized pan off the rack, an 8-inch skillet instead of the better-sized (for the bacon) 10-inch. Second mistake? I set the heat too high under the pan. Too high for the bacon, which would have been much too high for the eggs. I caught that, but not before I’d coated the pan with a nice payer of “non stick” cooked on bacon grease. *sigh* Meant more difficult cleanup down the road and more cooling off before I could cook the eggs.

OK, bacon on warm in the toaster oven. Eggs in the pan. Water. Lid. Everything from there on out was perfect. By the time the toast was done, so were the eggs, medium like we like them. Eggs on toast, bacon side, rescued breakfast, just harder than necessary cleanup of the “wrong” pan and a couple of crispier-than-preferred spots on the bacon.

Oh, well. I’m not a professional chef.

But you get the idea: “professionals” practice until they cannot get it wrong. I just need more practice.

(Of course, practice doesn’t make perfect, despite the old proverb. No, Practice simply makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. That’s why, once they’ve got it right, pros practice doing it right until doing it wrong is, well, not impossible but still very unlikely.)

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Just for Fun

For years (several decades at least) I’ve made ad hoc double reed “musical instruments” from soda straws.Sometimes I simply pinch one end and then “lip” in a simple tune (or, with particularly unhandy straws, simple one or two notes *heh*), while at other times, I’ll take a pocket knife out and cut a better “reed” to make “better” *heh* music. Here’s a guy who’s taken a similar idea and gone a bit further with it, taking an insulin syringe and engineering a reed for it, etc. Interesting.

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Speaking of Music…

Here’s an example of classical (small “c”) genre (not Classical Period) music that I looked up after again hearing a portion of Al Hirt’s (not bad, just not as good as this) interpretation while looking for something worth watching on TV Tuesday night. I didn’t find anything worth my time on TV, but I did stop on the Syfy (stupid name) channel briefly, just long enough to listen to Hirt play the theme for the old Green Hornet TV show. This, as I said, is better. Under 2 minutes. Have a listen.

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Easy-Peasy One-Pan Supper

I like (some) quiche, but I do NOT like a process that uses more cooking utensils than necessary, so I don’t sauté onion in one pan and then bake the quiche in a baking dish, oh no! Not me!

So, tonight…

1/2 pound “hot” pork sausage, crumbled and fried
2 small yellow scourge onions, chopped and fried up with the sausage
About one-two medium potatoes’ worth of shredded potatoes for hash browns (I used some reconstituted from dried)–for the crust
About a cup of frozen green peas
2 cups of shredded cheese–I used the jack/cheddar mix I had on hand
8 eggs, whisked together with about 1/4 cup of half n half

After browning the sausage and sautéing the onions together, they were removed to a bowl. The shredded potatoes were pressed into the sides of the 10″ skillet the sausage/onion mix had cooked in, sausage and onion, peas and then cheese added in that order. Pour in egg mixture egg mixture.

Oven at 350F for about 45-50 minutes. Let it cool a tad, cut and eat. Yum.

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Classicism Redux

A post by Layla spurred a recollection of something I wrote (for the nth time *heh*) back in 2006:

One of the primary reasons I am a fan of Classical (and even much classical *heh*) music is not just because the music is complex, beautiful and compelling but because it is the expression of a particular ethos which our society sorely lacks.

Aside from technical matters of form, the Principles of Classicism as found in Classical Music were

  • balance
  • clarity
  • accessibility
  • expressiveness
  • edification

Although two of these principles are still found in abundance in contemporary music (though not in contemporary “serious” or “academic” music, IMO) it is the lack of the others, especially the last, that has seriously harmful effects upon our society.

Keep in mind that the Principles of Classicism can be found in Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” as easily as in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It’s not the genre but the genuine artistry and teleos that makes the difference.

When the only principles of an “artist’s” presentation (I won’t call the presentation Layla displayed music or even the “artist” an artist, without the denigrating quotation marks) are expressiveness and accessibility and the presentation itself lacks any real art, all it usually has going for it is just groping for the groin. It’s not even as useful as fecal matter, as fecal matter can at least be useful in compost.

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Oh, Well…

Just read a novella by a “popcorn fiction” author I enjoy, and it was good (well, good enough to entertain while I sat in front of the TV with my Wonder Woman *heh*) but…

*sigh*

One thing bugged the heck out of me. Just one. Now, this author is more literate and a much better writer overall than some doof like Dan Brown and rarely makes a mistake like the one that gave me groans. Referring to a character blowing a shofar, the author wrote,

“Damn good thing she had a great embrasure… “

Oh, no. Did not write that!

em·bra·sure

noun

  1. an opening (for a door, window, etc.), esp. one with the sides slanted so that it is wider on the inside than on the outside
  2. an opening (in a wall or parapet) with the sides slanting outward to increase the angle of fire of a gun1

What the author intended to write, I’m sure, was embouchure.

em·bou·chure noun… the position and use of the lips, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument2

The really sad thing is that no one at the publisher caught it.

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Freudian Lingerie?

From Language Log:

Rep. Steve King:

“As I deliberate and I listen to the gentleman from Tennessee, I have to make the point that when you challenge the mendacity of the leader or another member, there is an opportunity to rise to a point of order, there is an opportunity to make a motion to take the gentleman’s words down, however many of the members are off on other endeavors and I would make the point that- that the leader and the speaker have established their integrity and their mendacity for years in this Congress and I don’t believe it can be effectively challenged and those who do so actually cast aspersions on themselves for making wild accu- accusations.” [emphasis added]

And if you doubt that the “maroon” quoted above actually asserted–vigorously asserted, I say!–that his colleagues lack integrity, then listen as he speaks:

[audio:What-a-maroon.mp3]

Of course, this is simply a case of a puffed up politician using words he thinks sound high-falutin’… that he knows not the meaning of.

Common synonyms of “mendacity”: fabrication, falsehood, lie, untruth, whopper.*

But one hears (and sees in print) this sort of thing all the time: people who really are NOT literate–or at least not as literate as they think or want others to think them–speaking “above their own heads” as it were in an attempt to puff up the seeming importance of their utterances.

Just another politician *gag-spit* Nothing new. Move along, now.