Lindsaycdavison

If you hate the chemicals in standard laundry products, but are put off by the price of natural ones, try making your own! Just like homemade household cleaners, DIY laundry solutions work well and cost much less per use than their in-store counterparts.

READ MORE »

I’ve always been someone who would rather spend money on experiences than things and a recent two-week vacation in Peru made me realize just how important experiences - especially travel – are to me. I’m not alone in my conclusion that investing in experiences over things can make you happier. Both The New York Times and Forbes Magazine published studies that prove happiness comes much more frequently from a real-life experience than from purchasing more “things.” But it’s easier to say that you’re going to stop buying things (and invest in experiences instead) than it is to do it.

As much as I love travel, I work online all day and there’s endless temptation to click “buy” at the drop of a hat. But if my vacation taught me anything, it’s that I want to keep that carefree vacation spirit with me in my day-to-day life at home, too. So I decided to put myself on a spending detox diet. I would not buy a single unnecessary “thing” for two weeks. And if it went well, I’d keep going for the rest of the month. The goal was to train myself to recognize which purchases were impulses and which ones were about investing in moments and experiences that would lead to greater happiness: time with loved ones, saving up for another trip or learning a new skill (like Spanish!). At the end of two weeks I learned to see the long-term reward behind changing my buying behavior and ways to avoid temptation and keep my eyes on the prize. -Amy

Click through for the full post after the jump!

(more…)

Sean and I are getting ready to head out for our first non-working, out-of-the-country trip since our honeymoon, but I had to share Melissa and Jason’s wedding before we leave! We ring in 10 years as wedding photographers this Spring, and I’m happy to say that we still really love this job. Couples like Melissa and Jason and the amazing vendors we got to work with for their wedding make our career truly spectacular. Thank you all so much! And Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. McCourty! :)

And now for the big list of talented vendor superstars:

Venue: The Parthenon

Planning/Design/Florals: Elliott Events

Catering: Chef’s Market

Cake: Crumb de la Crumb

Draping/Furniture/Chandelier: Visual Elements/

Linens/Chargers: BBJ Linens

Other Rentals: Classic Party Rentals

Lighting: Bright Event Production

Paper Goods: Designs in Paper

Tux Rentals: Street Tuxedo

Music: DJ Chozen

Videography: Focal Point Cinematic

Video Booth – Slo Motion Video

Car Service: Matchless Transportation

 

   

Related Stories

• Patrick and Somer’s Rosemary Beach Wedding
• Maia and Brian’s Beautiful Nashville Wedding
• Sarah and Eric’s Wynwood Wedding – Miami

MIT Media Lab researcher Dhairya Dand has invented a smart insole called SuperShoes. Currently in prototype, the silicone insert uses a microcontroller, Bluetooth module, and "vibrotactile ticklers" to connect to your phone and use your GPS to give you directions. Dand says they can learn your habits over time, and suggest routes it thinks you'll enjoy.

READ MORE »

From Sweets

[Photographs: Courtesy Entenmann's]

I love doughnuts of every kind. I wish I could say I was more discerning, that I was an expert on the best doughnuts in the U.S. or even in NYC, but truth be told, you stick any sort of sugar-coated, fried ring of dough in front of me and I am going to eat it and ask for more. I've also made known my love for a similar but different sweet treat—the snack cake. Where do these two worlds combine? Sweet, sweet Entenmann's doughnut, baby.

As I've mentioned countless times on Serious Eats, mine was not a childhood filled with treats. And yet there were those items that slipped through the cracks, that were so tempting and tasty that even my mom—she of the unsalted almonds—could not deny them. Entenmann's doughnuts fit the bill. We most often got the variety pack, with chocolate, powdered, plain and the coveted crumb doughnut. We would cut them into tiny quarters, savoring bites of each flavor. Well, savoring might be stretching it —that box didn't last a day.

Recently, while waxing poetic on snack cakes, a couple of commenters brought up the big E, and suddenly, my love of these doughnuts was revived. Upon bringing them into SEHQ, I quickly discovered there are those of us who understand the exquisite perfection of an Entenmann's doughnut—and those who think it's just grocery aisle junk food, a pale imitation of the "real thing." I'm here to declare my public and fervent love for Entenmann's doughnuts.

As I commenced with my doughnut research, I learned there are many, many varieties at Entenmann's doughnuts, some I am not even familiar with. Below are some highlights.

The Basics

Rich Frosted

My first, my last, my everything. Oh, ahem, I mean this is definitely my favorite of the bunch. Rich, impossibly smooth chocolate coating (technically frosting but that somehow doesn't feel like the right term) breaks to reveal a soft, yellow interior with that signature Entenmann's flavor. Can I describe that flavor? No, I cannot. You just know or you don't!

Crumb

This is your basic glazed cake doughnut, with a generous coating of "crumbs" on top. Each crumb upon this doughnut is basically it's own tiny glazed doughnut. As a child I used to pick all of the crumbs off and eat them when the rest of the family wasn't looking. Well, when the box of doughnuts arrived at SEHQ...I ate all the crumbs off when no one was looking.

Softee™ - Plain

Often ignored in my youth, I now realize this is an exquisite specimen best dunked in coffee. It has none of the unpleasant, greasy French fry flavor some other plain doughnuts do, and it's not overwhelmingly sweet.

Softee™ - Powdered

I have so much love for these doughnuts. I used to love the feeling of sticking my tongue on a powdered doughnut and then feeling that odd cold sensation as the powder melted on my tongue into a sweet, sweet paste. Reading back on that, it sounds repulsive. But tastes delicious. Give that little trick a try.

Softee™ - Cinnamon

As Teresa is to Barbie, so the cinnamon doughnut is to the powdered doughnut. It never quite gets the glory of the powdered, but is actually so much better.

Rare species

Devil's Food Crumb (The Holy Grail)

I've only had these once, but it was a time I will never forget. Two exquisite doughnuts combined into one moist, dense, chocolate-y, sugary, glazed ring of glory. If you can find these in the wild, buy them!

Lemon Crumb

This interesting variety adds a candy-lemon flavor to the classic crumb. Surprisingly, this doughnut shows restraint, stopping just short of overly sweet, and is nice if you're looking for something different.

Rich Frosted Raspberry

Enhanced with a thin layer of raspberry jelly right underneath the chocolate skin, these doughnuts were fondly compared to old-school jelly ring candies, often found in a grandmother's candy bowl. Personally, I was just happy to find another spin on my beloved chocolate doughnut.

Party Doughnuts

These are straight-up dangerous. These "fun size" doughnuts combine one of my favorite things in the world— Entenmann's chocolate doughnuts—with one of my other favorite things in the world, colored sprinkles. The perfect execution of a party expressed in food form.

And More...

I know there are more of us out there! Entenmann fans, lemme hear ya!

We all have good ideas. The hard part is making them happen.

HR departments love handing out worksheets on how to plan your time. Management gurus have written hundreds of pages of advice on how to better manage your week, your day, and your hour.

But what happens when you try and apply that advice to your team or organization? How do you deliver complex, multi-level, multi-year programs of work across teams and business units that may be, quite honestly, in chaos?

I sat down with three senior executives leading major projects at complex, fast-moving organizations  and asked them what they do to be effective. They had all worked across multiple industries in their careers, run successful projects (and also some that had failed), and extracted lessons that made sense at every organizational level.

Here are the three tips they said had the biggest impact:

Be strategic, not tactical. The biggest mistake most managers make is that they spend their days and nights focusing on tactics when they really need to think about strategy. Tactics are important. They relate to the details, the fine-grain specifics to execute against a tight deadline. But strategy asks whether the milestones being created are the right ones. In the case of one media business, teams were overweight with technical project managers and lacked strategic thinkers who could prioritise what mattered. The results were hundreds of milestones that related to product launches without an overall picture of which products were the most important to customers. Strategy is all about making trade-offs. In a world where you can’t do everything, what are the one or two things you really need to focus on?

Talk about the red. In most organizations, managers spent their time sitting in steering committees hearing about how great things are going. That’s a waste of time. Talking about “red” is nearly always a more useful conversation than talking about “green”. In one government department I talked with, senior executives realized this meant changing the culture around failure. People were so afraid about losing their job that they weren’t able to do their job properly. When senior leadership started normalizing failure, employees felt more comfortable flagging when things were going off track –and working out how to fix them. Let’s be clear: it can be pretty demoralizing talking about failure all the time. Senior leaders need to know how to thank people who use their time well, and focus on the things that matter –especially the bad news.

Have leading, not lagging, indicators. Red is good. But amber is much better. Many managers aren’t able to tell their bosses if a project is off target, over budget, or past schedule until it has actually happened. Far more useful is to have lead indicators. These are triggers built into project plans so that managers have foresight into what’s going wrong as it’s happening. The key thing here is to focus on goals that really matter. If budget savings are what you care about, create lead indicators that phase in incremental savings. If being on schedule is the highest priority, create lead indicators that focus on completion to deadlines. In a cost-savings program in a major mining company, one manager built an intricate plan that culminated in big-buck savings in the final milestone. That’s no good. Much better is to break this final milestone into mini steps. Building good lead indicators means thinking about what really matters and giving that issue sufficient visibility.

We all want to be effective in our organizations. But ask yourself: are your current tools working? Following these three principles is a good step towards turning good ideas to great execution.

Understanding cultural differences isn’t easy, even when you’ve lived in many different countries (disclosure: I’m a Brit, grew up in Southeast Asia, lived and worked in Switzerland and the US, and now live and work in France). Just when you think you’ve got a culture nailed, something happens that your mental model hasn’t predicted.

Americans, world-famous for candor and directness, struggle when it comes to giving tough feedback, even when it’s needed. The French, on the other hand, who are famous for their insistence on good manners (just feel the vibe when you forget to say bonjour to your boulanger), revel in their harsh critiques. Paradoxes like this crop up all the time, and obviously they’re a good source of anecdotes. But in a business world that increasingly relies on culturally mixed workforces and teams, they’re also recipes for failure.

Erin Meyer, an American (from Minnesota) in Paris who coaches executives in managing cross-cultural career moves and teaches at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, has a theory about these malentendus. The problem, she argues, is that most people tend to emphasize just one or two, at most three, dimensions of cultural difference when it comes to parsing and predicting foreigners’ behavior.

But cultures differ along many more than three dimensions, so the more dimensions you consider, the less likely you are to trip up on a cultural paradox — you’ll be able to tell that incoming French manager to tone down critiques of his American subordinates before he upsets them.

The trouble, of course, is that it’s cognitively difficult for us to keep more than three dimensions of comparison in our head at once. What’s more, we tend to lose sight of the fact that relative, not absolute differences, are what matters. Most cultures would find the Brazilians to be very relaxed about punctuality, for instance, but Brazilians themselves tend to struggle to adapt to Indians’ even more casual notions of time.

So Meyer developed a tool to help us navigate the cultural minefield more systematically. She identified eight dimensions that, in her experience and from research, seem to capture most of the likely differences between cultures, and she rated a large sample of countries on these dimensions. You can see below how certain country pairs differ along these eight dimensions — and where the problems with each pair are most likely to occur and what you might do to mitigate them.

View a larger version of the interactive here. 

It’s stranger than you think.

i.imgur.com

Alberto E. Rodriquez / Getty Images

---

View Entire List ›

More American military troops and assets could soon be placed in the Philippines, in a new deal that is expected to be formalized Monday, as President Obama arrives in Manila on his Asian trip.

» E-Mail This

Minneapolis designates the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day, after the city council heard concerns that hailing Columbus as the discoverer of America is inaccurate.

» E-Mail This

The strongest employment growth after the recession has been in low-wage work, at places like strip malls and fast-food restaurants, according to a new report.

Starting April 28th, Netflix will be accessible via TiVo DVRs on some cable providers.

While Comcast is busy deflecting accusations from Netflix that a Time Warner Cable merger would mean higher fees for customers, the streaming video service just made some surprising headway in fertile new territory: cable television.

Read Full Story

It should have been the pride of Paris; a stunning suspension bridge leaping clear across the Seine. It should have been one of the crown jewels of both Paris and the career of Claude Navier, one of 19th-century France’s most brilliant mathematicians and engineers. But things don’t always work out as they should.

This sketch by Navier shows what he planned for his 560-foot (155-metre) span across the Seine, at the site now occupied by the Pont Alexandre III. Suspension bridges were the latest thing, and Navier was the best French bridge analyst of the day. Construction started in 1824 and seemed to proceed well. In 1826 the bridge was not finished, but chain cables had joined the two shores and a roadway was suspended from the cable chains. Then the unthinkable occurred in July 1826: a crack appeared in the cable anchorages.

The anchorages were crucial to the safety and permanence of the bridge. In suspension bridges, the cables from which the roadway is suspended must carry all the weight of the bridge and traffic. At each end of the bridge, the cables pass over the bridge towers and then down into the ground where they are anchored with stone, concrete, and the earth above the abutments.

The first crack could be explained away by normal settling. What happened next could not be explained away so easily.

>more

As sea levels rise, huge storm surges could happen as often as every three years. A project that's under consideration is the Big U, a 10-mile loop of parks and community spaces that can protect Manhattan. Big U is one of ten finalists in the Rebuild by Design competition launched by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last year.

READ MORE »

Today through Sunday, you can enjoy a free cat'achino and pet some felines at Purina One's pop-up Cat Café. Sixteen furry friends from the North Shore Animal League will be roaming the premises looking for ear scratches and belly rubs. Not in New York? The pop-up will be livestreamed.

READ MORE »

Read the recipe »

[Photographs: Shao Z.]

From crispy pan-fried noodles to a bowl of wonton noodle soup, fresh Chinese egg noodles are one of the most common noodles you'll find at Chinese restaurants. Just like Italian pasta or ramen, when cooked properly, they should have a firm bite and springy texture, and the wide variation in thickness and springiness makes Chinese egg noodles some of the most versatile to cook with. All week we'll be talking about the various types of noodles you might find at a good Chinese market and how to cook them. Check out the whole series here.

For me, a dim sum brunch isn't complete without a plate of Supreme Soy Sauce Chow Mein. A simple dish of stir-fried thin noodles cooked with bean sprouts and scallions, it's dry-fried, which means that it's cooked mostly in oil, with just a thin coating of a soy-based sauce added to it at the end and cooked until it coats the noodles in a concentrated layer of flavor,

Just like the other dim sum classic of crispy pan fried noodles in sauce, this dish is made with thin egg noodles, which are very similar in shape and texture to wonton noodles. Also labeled Hong Kong-Style noodles, they usually come par-boiled, carefully drained, and ready to stir-fry. (You could make this dish with wonton noodles, if you were willing to par-cook and very carefully dry them beforehand).

My version of the dim sum classic uses the same noodles, bean sprouts, and scallions, but I also add finely julienned carrots, Chinese chives, and sliced five-spice tofu.

Preparing the vegetables is the most time-consuming part of the dish, but the even cooking and gorgeous presentation in the end are worth it. I even like to pick the ends off the bean sprouts, though you can leave them on if you'd like.

As with all stir-fries, it's important to get your oil very hot and to cook your ingredients in the right order and in batches so that your wok has time to reheat between ingredients. (Read up more about stir-frying basics here.) In this case, that means starting with the tofu and frying it until lightly browned, then adding a splash of soy sauce (which gets absorbed quickly), then the chives, cooked just until barely wilted. The vegetables come out and get set aside.

Next, more oil gets heated, then the noodles are added. Because Hong Kong noodles are already par-cooked and dry, they cook very rapidly and stay loose and separated. When stir-frying noodles, set aside the spatula and stick with tongs or chopstick to help you maneuver the noodles without crushing or breaking them.

I like to let them get a little bit crispy before adding a sauce made with soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, sugar, and white pepper. The sauce is cooked down until it coats the noodles completely, with no liquid left in the bottom of the wok. Make sure to keep the noodles moving constantly once you add the sauce. You don't want them to clump!

We're almost done now. Next, the bean sprouts go in and cook until barely tender...

...followed by the carrots and the scallions...

...and finally the tofu and chives.

Serve it all straight away so the vegetables are still bright and crunchy and the noodles are still firm. I like to serve it with chili oil and hot sauce on the side.

Get the Recipe!

In his first race since 2012, Michael Phelps posted the fastest time in the preliminary heats of the 100-meter butterfly.

The attention of investors seems to be less on the solid financial results and more on a series of bold bets to reshape the company, including the acquisition of Nokia.

Swedish commercial-vehicle maker Volvo raised its outlook for the North American market and swung to a first-quarter profit.

Alibaba and its bankers are discussing adding new shares to the company's IPO, a move that would allow the e-commerce giant to raise funds for itself and could push the size of the deal to a record.

[Photograph: Donna Currie]

When a company is named Monkey Business, you've got to figure that their products will be at least a little bit whimsical. Their Egg Shapers ($14.99 for the face; $10.25 for the sun and cloud) are strictly for fun.

Egg Shapers are silicone molds designed for cooking eggs, with appropriately-placed round holes to corral the yolks. They're easy to use: just crack the eggs into the mold and cook the eggs as you'd usually cook your sunny-side or basted eggs.

I tried these with large, extra-large, and jumbo eggs, and found that the best results came from using extra-large eggs, particularly for the face—the whites have a lot of territory to cover. To get the most attractive face, I found that separating yolks from white first, then pouring the whites into the mold followed by the two yolks for eyes worked best.

The instructions suggested oiling or buttering the insides of the molds for easier egg-release, but I didn't bother with that, and they came out just fine. It helps if you use a large spatula to move the face—it's pretty big—or you can carefully slide it onto a plate.

After that, it's up to your creative self to decorate the eggs—or not. I went minimalist with some ground pepper for hair and a bit of roasted red pepper for a mouth. But you could certainly go wild if you wanted to. Or let the kids run amok with vegetables, cheese, and other additions to make breakfast a little more interesting.

And then send a breakfast sausage missile into the sun and blow it up. Or poke someone in the eye. It's all in good fun.

The egg shapers are dishwasher safe.

Disclaimer: Testing samples were provided to Serious Eats.

I love the refreshing smack of a good green papaya salad. Sour, sweet, crisp, spicy and a little savory, it’s a world of flavor in packed, shredded piles. But let’s face it: green papayas are never in season in my part of the world. So what, then? Line up outside of Pok Pok, or some other Southeast Asian restaurant; hunt through the bins at Asian markets for the perfectly underripe papaya? Sure, you could do that. But you can also make a pretty darn tasty salad using something found very commonly, and wasted very commonly, in my exact part of the world (my kitchen): broccoli stems.

I can’t find evidence for this, but something tells me that green papaya salad — which is native to Cambodia and found commonly throughout neighboring Southeast Asian cuisines like Thailand’s — was invented from scraps to begin with. That it must have been made with green, underripe, too firm and less sweet papayas for some reason of thrift or need, such as the fruit falling from the tree before it could ripen, or not having the time to allow it to ripen before needing something to eat. Because an underripe, crunchy papaya is not optimal. At least, it wasn’t before this delicious salad was invented.

It’s kind of like underripe green tomatoes, too sour and firm for conventional tomato uses but awesome when battered and fried. In other words, it was a bad thing gone right. So let’s do right by broccoli stems, too.

Perhaps many of you have eaten broccoli stems prepared on their own before, in a slaw, perhaps (I like quick-pickling them, too). I really feel that broccoli stems share a similar taste and texture to kohlrabi, a fellow brassica. There’s just less meat in the thinner broccoli stalks than bulbous heads of kohlrabi, and you’ll need to strip the tough outer skin to get to it. You’ll also want to remove any tough areas towards the base of the stem. My mom always did this to broccoli stems whenever she was cooking broccoli for a stir-fry. She would slice the peeled stems into slabs and toss them into the pan along with the pieces of florets. Yes, it’s a waste not, want not type of move, but broccoli stems are actually delicious cooked this way. They absorb the sauce, don’t get too soft, and are pleasantly mild. These were actually my favorite parts of the vegetable when I was a kid.

Raw and thinly sliced broccoli stem is just as ready to soak up flavors as big slabs in a stir-fry, however. While you can use a mandolin to create uniform shreds, I was afraid that the pieces I was working with were so skinny that I would cut my fingers before making a decent amount of slivers per piece. So I just sliced them as finely as I could, then stacked up the slices to cut again into matchstick-sized slivers.

In true Southeast Asian fashion, the dressing would be made from pounding dried shrimp, garlic and fresh chilies in a mortar and pestle. This marries the flavors and creates a sort of paste, to add to the lime juice with sugar and a bit of fish sauce. Omitting a couple of these ingredients (dried shrimp and fresh chilies), I made a simplified dressing using fresh lime juice, sugar, garlic, chili flakes, and a touch of fish sauce. After soaking in the dressing for a couple hours, chilled, the broccoli stems were incredibly crunchy still, and tangy as can be. Add some roasted peanuts, sliced cucumber, or grape tomato halves to your salad for classic garnish. As for mine, I just sprinkled in some slivered green beans, since that was how I last saw green papaya salad served in a Southeast Asian restaurant.

Green Papaya-Style Broccoli Stem Salad
(makes 2-3 small servings)

2 cups packed broccoli stems, thick skins peeled and shredded as finely as you can (remove tougher base of the stalk first)
1 cup green beans, sliced to roughly 1-inch pieces on a bias
1/2 cup packed, shredded carrots and/or cucumber (optional)
handful of roasted peanuts or fresh cilantro sprigs for garnish (optional)

for the dressing:
1 small clove garlic, grated
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon fish sauce (found in Asian groceries)
1/2 teaspoon crushed red chili flakes
salt to taste

Combine the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. Whisk thoroughly to dissolve the sugar in the liquids. Taste and add salt if desired. Toss the shredded vegetables with the dressing and stir to coat thoroughly. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour, or preferably 2. Serve with optional peanuts and/or cilantro for garnish.

Cost Calculator
(for 2-3 servings)

2 cups shredded broccoli stem (from a large bunch of broccoli): $1.00
1 cup chopped green beans: $0.50
4 limes: $2.00
1 clove garlic: $0.05
1 teaspoon fish sauce: $0.05
1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon chili flakes, salt: $0.10

Total: $3.70

Health Factor

Three brownie points: There’s a great misconception about broccoli stems or stalks — that they’re nutritionally devoid, while the deep green florets hold all the vitamins. Wrong. They might not have as much beta-carotene or any Vitamin K, but they’re chock full of Vitamin C and still have plenty of value nutritionally. This salad is so refreshing because it has no oils whatsoever. The shredded stems stay crisp and juicy without wilting one bit, so it’s great for making ahead.

Green Factor

Seven maple leaves: This dish is simplified Southeast Asian — not authentic, or else I would have been pounding dried baby shrimp or hunting down green papayas in Asian produce shops. But taking the philosophy of the salad and translating it with broccoli stems, much more locally available, it becomes an easy-to-access exotic dish. Also, it saves the broccoli stems from possibly going to the landfill.

Can a company built on the ideas of scale and network effects unbundle its offering into multiple brands and still thrive? Facebook is about to find out.

Unbundling has a compelling strategic and competitive rationale for Facebook. It has implications that extend far beyond the company’s stated goal to design single-purpose apps that fit mobile usage and the bottleneck of screen mobile device real estate. “Facebook is not one thing,” Mark Zuckerberg said in his recent interview in the New York Times. And clearly, the more meaningful things Facebook becomes to its customers, the less chance it has of being felled by a single savvy competitor or by the obsolescence of a single monolithic social network. But what will unbundling do to its sources of competitive advantage?

Observers have quickly labeled the strategy outlined by Zuckerberg, “The Great Unbundling.”  And that captures part of the strategy: standalone, dedicated single-purpose apps will populate Facebook’s stable. They may or may not carry the Facebook brand. But unbundling is only part of the story. More interesting is what the strategy says about Facebook’s understanding of its future competitive advantage.

Today Facebook enjoys three advantages over rivals: technological capabilities, economies of scale in its infrastructure, and most importantly, network effects. Network effects favor Facebook because for those who want to socially network, it makes sense to congregate on Facebook where everybody else is hanging out. There is only one square in the global village, and it is run by Facebook. Being on a different square from everyone else doesn’t get you anywhere — you just miss the party. This makes Facebook’s competitive lead, with over a billion users, a self-reinforcing advantage: the more people that are on Facebook, the less reason newcomers have to not be on Facebook. So what effect does unbundling have on Facebook’s competitive advantage?

Zuckerberg appears to recognize that the Facebook brand as a single monolithic entry point cannot be everything social to all people. Users have different needs, and those needs will be served with separately branded products to deliver different experiences and attract and retain varied customer segments. Each brand, whether it is Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, or Instagram marks distinct territory in the social space. The strategic bet here is that a single customer interface is not necessary to maintain or even strengthen Facebook’s technological lead and infrastructure scale. You can have several customer brands and interfaces and still enjoy these back-end advantages. But what of network effects?

Could unbundling dismantle the network effects at the heart of Facebook? Not necessarily. First, brands that Facebook currently operates, Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, have hundreds of millions of users, and each of them enjoys greater network effects than all but the largest potential rivals. Secondly, Facebook may believe it is worth sacrificing some network effects in order to build distinct brands and pre-emptively occupy social space. For example, more cohesive groups may have stronger inter-relationships, and so members may be less likely to leave to try other social networks. Finally, Facebook’s strategy suggests that it is well on its way to becoming a conglomerate that is in the business of managing businesses that have network effects at their core. Lessons learned from one network effects business translate to other network effects businesses — a benefit few of its rivals possess.

Above all, the new direction is a smart, competitive strategy even if it has been seen more as product and brand strategy. By having multiple brands in the marketplace, by preemptively building or acquiring new types of social space, by serving and defining multiple segments or “use cases,” and by experimenting with products and features such as Paper and Graph Search, the company both hedges competitive risk and stays ahead of customer needs. Get ready for the many faces of Facebook.

Ingredients:
2 cups small dice ham*
1 small onion, small dice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 egg, beaten**
3/4 cup bread crumbs or matzo meal

Directions:

Melt butter in a pan, add oil and heat through. Add the ham, onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is soft and translucent, about 5-8 minutes. Sprinkle with flour and spices and cook 1-2 minutes. Add the milk and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens. Place in a covered container and refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to 8 or until firm.

Heat 1/2 inch canola oil in a large skillet. Place the egg and breadcrumbs/matzo meal in separate shallow bowls. Form the dough into 2 inch by 1/2 inch logs. Dip in egg then dredge in crumbs. Fry, turning once, until golden, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towel lined plates. Serve immediately.

*I diced leftover sliced ham so my "cubes" were on the flatter side. Whole or sliced (not deli) ham would work.
**I actually used some egg yolk leftover from making macarons but either would work.

My thoughts:

Why don't we eat more croquettes in this country? When we were in Belgium, I ate a ton of croquettes aux crevettes (shrimp croquettes) and in planning our upcoming trip to Portugal, it looks like Lisbon is lousy with beef croquettes (croquetes). Occasionally we might make a fish cake but they aren't as fun as the little log-shaped croquettes that are so abundant elsewhere. I'd like to change that. I made these using leftover spiral-sliced ham and just onion and garlic but they were super flavorful and surprisingly easy. When we went to a cooking class in Brugge, the chef showed us how to make croquettes aux crevettes but he had a big pan of flour and milk paste ready to go so all you needed to do was scoop some out and mix in the shrimp. That really isn't practical for the home cook so I came up with this recipe which makes the "paste" on the stove trapping the ham inside. The croquette is a delight; crisp on the outside, melty and warm on the inside.

What makes for great outdoor flatware? Above all else, it should be inexpensive and easy to clean (keep grandmother's intricate silver inside). Bonus points for any set with natural or nautical details that make make a casual backyard barbecue feel like dining in a posh yacht, glam campground or lavish maharajah tent.

READ MORE »

[Photographs: Shao Z.]

From crispy pan-fried noodles to a bowl of wonton noodle soup, fresh Chinese egg noodles are a staple of Chinese restaurants. Just like Italian pasta or ramen, when cooked properly, they should have a firm bite and springy texture, and the wide variation in thickness and springiness makes Chinese egg noodles some of the most versatile to cook with. All week, we'll be talking about the various types of noodles you might find at a good Chinese market and how best to cook them. Check out the whole series here.

Beef and broccoli might only be a classic combination in the American Chinese repertoire, but that doesn't make it any less delicious. In most restaurants, you'll find it served with rice, but I like to stir-fry it with hearty lo mein noodles.

The thickest variety of egg noodle, lo mein is great for stir-fried dishes with with hearty flavors and rich sauces. Because the noodles are thick and dense, they're never as springy or bouncy as thinner noodles, which can be a good thing if you plan on making this dish ahead: lo mein's biggest advantage is that it holds up well to time, making it the perfect option for a buffet, a potluck, or when traveling.

The recipe starts with marinating beef in my basic meat marinade, which includes soy sauce, corn starch, Shaoxing wine, sugar, salt, and sesame oil. It's designed to help improve browning and bring out the meaty flavors of the beef.

While the beef marinates in the fridge, I par-cook my noodles. All egg noodles should be par-boiled in water before stir-frying (though be careful, some brands sell their noodles pre-boiled and ready-to-fry). Lo mein noodles take about 3 minutes. After they're cooked, I briefly run them under cold water to chill them rapidly.

When they're ready to cook, I start with the beef, stir-frying it in a couple tablespoons of smoking hot vegetable oil just until it's browned all over and mostly cooked. Then I remove it to a separate bowl to let my wok re-heat for the broccoli.

You can stir-fry the broccoli in just oil, but I like to add a little bit of water so that the broccoli steams and turns bright green. A couple minutes and it can join the beef in the bowl.

Finally, I stir-fry the noodles, making sure to get the wok hot again. You can use a spatula to stir-fry, but chopsticks will work better, allowing you to separate any clumps of noodles that stick together without breaking them. Once the noodles are hot, I add a simple sauce made of sesame oil, soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, sugar, and wine, before tossing all the ingredients back in together.

Give it a few more tosses, and it's ready to serve. Chewy, al dente noodles in a rich sweet-and-savory sauce, along with tender marinated slices of beef and bright green broccoli florets. So much better than take out!

About the Author: Shao Z. was born in Guangzhou, the birthplace of dim sum, and raised in the Chinatown neighborhood of Philadelphia. As a sibling-less child, cooking was a way to cure after school snack attacks and a way to keep herself entertained. That's how her love for food and cooking started, and it continues to grow. She blog at friedwontons4u.com and is on Twitter at @friedwontons4u.

Get the Recipe!

Recipe from Bon Appétit