ON MAY 13th the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will unveil fresh plans to deal with large flows of migrants from the developing world. The proposals will target smugglers, formalise search and rescue operations and, controversially, suggest quotas to share the burden of refugees. The refugee crisis has intensified in the last few years. Civil wars in the Middle East and oppression in Africa have contributed to a surge in the number of asylum applications to Europe, from 336,000 in 2012 to over 600,000 last year. Applications from Syria and Eritrea have increased fivefold.
The Eurovision Song Contest is often referred to as "Gay Christmas" and Vienna is getting ready to host the finals in two weeks. Via Reuters:
Gay-themed traffic lights are getting Vienna into the mood for the annual Eurovision Song Contest, one of the world's most popular kitsch cultural events which this year is being hosted by the Austrian capital. Dozens of traffic lights in central Vienna have been programmed to show male or female gay couples with hearts -- in red for stop and green for go -- replacing the usual single, gender-neutral figure. The campaign is intended to present Vienna as an open-minded city and also to improve traffic safety as the unusual symbols attract the attention of drivers and pedestrians, a spokeswoman for Vienna's city lighting department said. The city of Vienna will then collate data to see whether the campaign has indeed helped traffic safety, she added. The Eurovision Song Contest, now in its 60th year, has long been a fixture on the international gay calendar.
Last year's winner, Austrian pop star Conchita Wurst, will host the green room portion of the contest. Bookmakers are pegging Sweden's Måns Zelmerlöw as this year's favorite.
The Zoetrope, a device which many believe dates back to 100 BC is what could be considered the very start of movie production. The “modern-day” zoetrope, which was developed in 1833 by a man...
"LES FEMMES D'ALGER [Women of Algiers] (Version 'O')", dating from 1955, the finest Picasso left in private hands, sold for £115.2m ($179.4m) at Christie's in New York on May 11th. The seller was said to be a Saudi Arabian collector, who had hung it in his London townhouse ever since he bought it in 1997 for £20.5m. Less than 30 minutes later, Alberto Giacometti's "L'homme au doigt" sold for £90.8m, including commission and taxes, an auction record for any sculpture.
The Picasso was the most expensive painting ever to be sold at auction (the third Picasso to have held that record in as many decades). It cost over a quarter more than Francis Bacon's “Three Studies of Lucian Freud”, which was bought by Elaine Wynn, co-founder of the Wynn casino empire, for £89.4m in November 2013. Fine-art prices are extraordinarily high relative to those a few decades or centuries ago, though after adjusting for inflation the increase looks less dramatic. But inflation cannot explain the dramatic rise in prices at the top of the market that has occurred in the last decade or so—or indeed in the last 18...Continue reading
'Hair is the most transparent of racial signifiers, Comprés told me, more revelatory than a family tree. “The Spanish colonizers got way too mixed up,” she said. “But hair doesn’t lie. We all have a bit of black behind the ears. So you can never be too racist. In Santo Domingo, we are all racists. The black man—el prieto—wants nothing to do with another black man.” She placed her tawny left forearm next to mine, pale as ashes. “Look at your skin!” she said. “You’re truly white. I’m high yellow. Actually, no, I have no color.” '
At the end of the workday on a brisk March afternoon, as the miasma of hairspray billowed under fluorescent lamps, Jardin Beauty Salon began to fill with women in smart slacks. Freya Fernández, a thirty-three-year-old administrative assistant, had traveled to the Washington Heights salon from Pelham Bay, like she does every two weeks, to have her hair fixed. After a wash and a deep conditioning, a stylist started to set Fernández’s locks. Some of her natural hair dangled under the rollers. The ringlets, still wet, resembled stretched-out coils, a cascade of thin filaments. Josefina González, a jaunty Dominican hairdresser working on another customer, couldn’t help but call out, “Y ese pajoncito? Eso e’ malo! Eso e’ kinky!” (“What’s with that frizzy mess? That is bad! That is kinky.”)
The salon rattled with cackles. “Don’t you worry, she’ll come out of here with straight hair!“ Eunice Mata, another stylist, said. “After a proper blowout, all hair is good hair.”
Mata, who is from Moca, a small city in northern Dominican Republic known more for its coffee harvests than its beauticians, was juggling two customers. She cradled the hair dryer between her neck and shoulder so she could bundle her client’s hair into thick sheaves. “Dominicans imbue hair with pizzazz,” Mata told me as she pulled on the raven curls of a college student. “We know how to deal with all kinds of hair. We’re complete hairdressers. We cut, we dry, we color, we straighten, we lengthen. No one else can do what we do.”
Jardin (“garden” in Spanish), sits in the beating heart of the Dominican diaspora, on the corner of 173rd Street and a stretch of St. Nicholas Avenue known as Juan Pablo Duarte Boulevard, named in honor of the Dominican Republic’s founding father. The salon offers only a few telltale cues that it is a Dominican beauty shop: broken Spanglish, the rhythm and cadence of gossip, telenovelas on the flatscreen, bachata on the radio, women peddling contraband Victoria’s Secret bras, and a girl wearing a tubi, her hair wrapped around her head and secured with bobby pins.
Customers show up to unwind, sip coffee among compatriots, tell Juana how Beatriz lied on her census form, and eventually procure a Dominican-style blowout, once heralded by Fashionista as “one of NYC’s best-kept beauty secrets.” The process, which costs about twenty-five dollars, is intense but straightforward: A stylist sets the client’s damp hair with rollers, then blasts it under a hood dryer for upwards of thirty minutes. Next, the rollers are removed, and the hair is tenaciously smoothed out with a round brush, hand dryer, and a nimble wrist. The result is hair that looks tamed, yet alive with luster.
Though popular, the blowout is not foolproof: Straightening, whether it involves relaxers, blowouts or hot combs, requires a willingness to endure discomfort and accept the risk of painful mishaps, even under the most professional conditions. Overexposure to high heat can burn hair and cripple its strands. Fernández fell victim to scorched ends at a Dominican salon in the Bronx and had to chop off the damaged hair. But if everything goes as planned, a Dominican blowout will yield a straight and winsome hairstyle. Muertecito, Mata dubs it. Pelo lacio, lank as lank can be.
One of Mata’s clients came to Jardin with her children, who were fidgeting on a couch munching Doritos. I felt for the kid slurping from his juice box trying to make the wait less tedious; not long ago, I found myself killing time in the beauty shops of Santo Domingo. After school, my mother, occasionally with one of my two older sisters, used to drag me to her weekly sessions, where I saw how their hair, despite being naturally straight, got tossed and turned like keratin salad until it looked bouncy, ready-made for a photo shoot. At the time, the commandments of hair care struck me as draconian, an odd choreography involving hair yanking and deafening howls of hot air. But for the women in my life, a visit to the hair salon was a cardinal necessity, an inviolable ritual, which usually meant achieving, or retaining, some semblance of sleek, smooth, straight hair.
Pelo bueno, good hair, is straight hair. Bad hair, or pelo malo, is natural textured hair, the scourge with which you’re born. Proponents of the so-called natural hair movement, in turn, seek to dismantle this distinction by redefining entrenched beauty archetypes, encouraging women to work with what they have, and not with what they wish they had. Their dictums of self-care can sound like foghorns in the Aqua Net mist, but they tend to fall on deaf ears. In the Dominican Republic, where the mixed-race demographic constitutes almost three-quarters of the population, droves of salon clients opt for the Europeanized look—the straight look—like a collective reflex. Dominican expatriates cross the Atlantic with these values in tow, to open up shop in Washington Heights, in the Bronx, in Connecticut. With every blowout, the gospel of pelo bueno turns into something tangible.
During the late nineteen-nineties and early aughts in the Dominican Republic, the commercial for a new brand of hair relaxer, Katiuska, became a local pop-culture sensation. The ad borrowed its catchy riff from Wilfrido Vargas’s popular eighties merengue song, “El Africano” (“The African”), which opens with, “Mami, el negro está rabioso”(“Mommy, the black man is rabid” or “acting furiously.”) The Katiuska jingle replaced “negro”:
Mami, mi pelo está rabioso Mommy, my hair is acting furiously
Quiere pelear conmigo It wants to fight me
Ve comprame Katiuska Go buy me some Katiuska
This adversarial tone, depicting a woman in constant quarrel with her uncouth tresses, has since mellowed out in favor of a more pragmatic approach to taming one’s hair. Dominican salon customers, when prompted, often employ the simple answer, that sporting straight hair is a matter of convenience—that when it comes to hair styling, a woman should adhere to a sort of casual realpolitik. And as seasoned practitioners of their craft, Dominican hairdressers perpetuate this standard of beauty by catering to what their audience wants. Culture dictates the guidelines, and it’s more sensible—and financially savvier—to follow them. “It’s not just us,” González told me. “Everyone wants it straight.” She smirked at me. “If you pay me, I’ll wet my hair so I can show you what’s really bad.”
I can spot the Dominican beauty salon nearest to where I live thanks to the tricolor flag hanging in its front window, even if it weren’t named Dominican Beauty Salon. A modest shop nestled between a Burger King and a tattoo parlor in downtown New Haven, Connecticut, with the exception of a single poster, its walls are primarily lined with stock images of white women flaunting coiffed hairdos. I got to know Damaris Comprés, one of four hairdressers on staff. A spitfire from Santo Domingo with a cheekiness only a veteran could get away with, Comprés has lived in the United States for a third of her life: six years in the Bronx sharpening her skills and ten in New Haven, where “there’s less work and more pay,” she says.
Comprés walked me through the intricacies of hair parlance, a vernacular that can be as insidious and generalized as it is imaginative. There’s the usual baseline—the binary of bueno and malo. More specific types of hair lie in between either end of this spectrum. There’s “medium” hair, which can be wavy but not unmanageable; macho, “like the Mexicans,” jet-black hair that’s both straight and dense; and pimiento, or peppercorn, hair that’s tightly curled up into little pellets, which Comprés leaned in and tried to clarify in an emphatic whisper: “kinky hair!”
Hair is the most transparent of racial signifiers, Comprés told me, more revelatory than a family tree. “The Spanish colonizers got way too mixed up,” she said. “But hair doesn’t lie. We all have a bit of black behind the ears. So you can never be too racist. In Santo Domingo, we are all racists. The black man—elprieto—wants nothing to do with another black man.” She placed her tawny left forearm next to mine, pale as ashes. “Look at your skin!” she said. “You’re truly white. I’m high yellow. Actually, no, I have no color.”
That idiom, “we all have a bit of black behind the ears,” carries baggage. In a book that takes its title from this saying, sociologist Ginetta E.B. Candelario writes, “for much of Dominican history, the national body has been defined as not-black, even as black ancestry has been grudgingly acknowledged.” Instead, she says, Dominicans have perceived themselves as “racially Indian and culturally Hispanic,” the descendants of indigenous people.
Hair, in all its malleable glory, helps Dominicans pick a spot on the color wheel, from canela, cinnamon-brown skin, to trigueña, light like wheat. It’s no different than the way any other human beings have harnessed hair throughout civilization—as expression, as ornament, as proof of membership. This is why salons exist: women tender their money, time and self-image, like votive offerings, to a cultural ideal. “It is not a ridiculous investment,” Candelario told me. “It is actually a very rational thing to do, because the expectation comes from outside.”
If Melphine Evans, a black British Petroleum executive, had flattened her braids by getting a fabulous Dominican blowout, would she have avoided termination, as she alleges, for wearing her natural hair? Would my sister’s evolving career as a lawyer in Santo Domingo suffer if she had pelo malo, and not pelo bueno? Straightening your hair is an act of survival as much as it is a gesture of identity, equal parts censuring and affirming.
In December, Miss Rizos (Miss Curls), a salon in the colonial quarters of Santo Domingo, opened its doors to an intrigued public. They provide services for customers who wish to style and maintain their natural hair without resorting to straightening. It started as a lifestyle blog in 2011 when its founder, Carolina Contreras, who was born in the Dominican Republic, visited her native country after an eighteen-year absence. She grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts, but has lived in Santo Domingo for the past four years. “I wanted to give some love to my poor hair, which had been violated so many times by the burning and tugging from all the straightening, blowouts, dryers, hot combs, tongs and irons,” Caroline writes, in Spanish, on her website. “I began to wonder, why was my hair deemed ‘bad,’ ‘hard to manage,’ and why did stylists have to kill my curls? What did my hair do to deserve its ‘bad’ reputation?” The project hints at the potential for a natural hair movement in the motherland. Perhaps one day, its teachings and hair care treatments will migrate to Dominican hubs abroad, through the minds and hands of hairdressers looking for a new life at places like Jardin, or Grace’s Beauty Salon just a few blocks south.
Late one evening last month, I entered Grace’s, where I received the kind of once-over reserved for health inspectors and traveling salesmen. Mary Díaz, a retiree from Santo Domingo, sat on the styling chair closest to the door. She had a satisfied look on her face, finally able to savor a full Dominican-style blowout after surviving breast cancer. Her feet were bare; her shoes lay strewn on the floor among the hair clippings. Her hair appeared thick and plentiful, straightened and silky. She complimented my hair, lifeless, thinning, and flicked at my gossamer bangs.
“Look at you,” she said, without a trace of irony. “Dios te lo bendiga.” God bless your hair. Straightness is still a gift.
Traffic grinds to a halt in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Tuesday after another earthquake rocked the country.
Bikram Rai/AP
A magnitude-7.3 earthquake struck Nepal on Tuesday, just over two weeks after a massive magnitude-7.8 quake killed more than 8,000 people.
The United States Geological Survey puts today's quake as close to the capital, Kathmandu, as the one two weeks ago.
"We're obviously hearing of buildings destroyed, buildings collapsed, buildings falling, we're hearing about casualties, but the numbers are not known yet," Jamie McGoldrick, Nepal resident coordinator for the United Nations Development Program, told The New York Times.
The epicenter of the quake was near the Chinese border, about 50 miles from Kathmandu.
The Associated Press and Reuters report that government officials say at least 19 people were killed and 981 were injured in the quake. News footage showed crowds of residents standing in the middle of the streets in Kathmandu after evacuating.
The Nepali Timesposted pictures of buildings and homes that had collapsed.
This is a breaking news story. We'll update this post as we get more.
Update at 7:46 a.m. ET. Parliament Runs:
Parliament was in session the moment the earthquake struck on Tuesday. It means that cameras were rolling and they captured the MPs leaving the building as the ground begins to shake:
Update at 7:06 a.m. ET. 19 Reportedly Dead:
At least 19 people were killed in Nepal and 981 were injured, home ministry official Laxmi Prasad Dhakal told Reuters.
**Chasing bears through the woods drunk with a dull hatchet is strongly not advised**
The North Adams Police Department is urging everyone to NOT chase bears through the woods with a dull hatchet, drunk. Yes that really did happen tonight. We understand there are bears in the area. If you see a bear, LEAVE IT ALONE and call us. We certainly don’t need anyone going all Davy Crockett chasing it through the woods drunk with a dull hatchet. It is just a bad idea and not going to end well. It will however, certainly end you up in jail…which it did. The hatchet man was taken into protective custody due to his incapacitation from the consumption of alcoholic beverage. We are still trying to figure out what his end game was. Any thoughts on what he was going to do if he did locate it? We would certainly like to hear because we have no idea.
Christine Fernsebner Eslao
“There is always an extra twist of weirdness at the end of the Florida story,” Mr. Hiaasen said. “Weird stories happen everywhere, but they usually come to a logical conclusion. There is always one more shoe that drops in Florida.”
And there is so much more of it in Florida, he added. “It’s not just shooting fish in a barrel,” Mr. Hiaasen said, “but shooting mutated, deranged, slow-moving fish.”
A Bolt bus became engulfed in flames on a Massachusetts highway on Monday.
The Boston-bound bus caught fire Tuesday evening on the shoulder of the Massachusetts turnpike. According to Bolt Bus, all 47 passengers were able to evaccuate before the explosion, and none were harmed.
The bus may have been experiencing mechanical failure, but details are still unclear. According to local outlet NECN, the bus driver reportedly stopped in Connecticut due to a mechanical issue, but the bus continued on to Boston shortly afterward.
The explosion eventually shut down several lanes, but traffic appears to have continued to move past the bus as it burned. According to local outlet NECN, once the fire was reported, firefighters quickly arrived and extinguished the fire.
Bolt Bus told Business Insider it's looking into the explosion.
"We are fully cooperating with local authorities and the local fire department on the investigation and conducting an investigation of our own," spokeswoman Lanesha Gipson said.
via firehose ("free keytar bear") via matthew connor
The Globe reports the operators of the one-time "festival" marketplace plan to start charging the street performers who provide much of the festival feeling a fee to entertain shoppers.
When Marilyn Mosby announced charges against six officers in the death of Freddie Gray, one of the most harrowing elements was her narrative of his ride to the Western District Police Station. Five times, Gray asked for medical help. First, when he was arrested, he complained he couldn’t breathe and asked for an inhaler. At the third of four stops, he indicated at least twice that he needed medical help, Mosby, the city prosecutor, said. He was given none, and by the time he arrived at the police station—unable to breathe and in cardiac arrest—it was too late. He was taken to a hospital, slipped into a coma, and died a week later.
That’s the term police use when they think a prisoner is faking an illness or injury to avoid going to jail. In an investigation published over the weekend, The Baltimore Sun reports that officers in Charm City either disregard or don’t notice serious injuries or ailments among people they have arrested with surprising frequency.
According to state statistics, officers at the city detention center have refused to book almost 2,600 prisoners over the last three years—a significant number, though still only about 2 percent of total bookings. The medical conditions include broken bones, drug overdoses, need for dialysis, and even a human bite. Of the total, 123 had head injuries. (The Sun produced an excellent interactive graphic where you can explore the cases.)
Why would central booking turn the suspects away? Booking takes four to five hours in normal circumstances, so corrections officers want to make sure people are up to the ordeal, a spokesman told the Sun. It’s also a matter of cost: Once a prisoner is taken in, the detention center is responsible for providing medical care to them and shouldering the cost, since prisoners are constitutionally entitled to health care.
No one seems to doubt that prisoners do sometimes fake injuries; it’s conventional wisdom among police going back to before Gray’s death, as the ready slang term “jailitis” demonstrates. The question is how frequently it really happens, and how effectively police are able to tell the difference. In Baltimore, the answer appears to be that they’re especially bad at it.
One problem is that while police are trained first responders, they are not medical personnel, and they are ill-prepared to treat suspects. But the adversarial relationship of mutual distrust between police and suspects has to play a role in explaining the problem, too. When officers make arrests, they assume the detainees have committed crimes, and are likely to suspect that pleas for medical attention are mostly lodged to avoid jail.
Police work today is ever more sophisticated. It’s not just walking the beat and having good intuition.
In Baltimore, where there is serious and longstanding tension between the black community and the police department, there appears to be an elevated risk of improper arrests—for example, Mosby said Gray committed no crime, and she has charged officers with false imprisonment for arresting him. And in Baltimore there is also a long and ignominious history of police brutality. Those currents meet in the case of refusing medical attention to detainees:
The Sun's examination of more than 100 lawsuits against officers— in which the city paid more than $6 million in court judgments and settlements—found that dozens of residents accused police of inflicting severe injuries during questionable arrests and disregarding appeals for medical attention.
The newspaper also found that in other localities—including New York and Cleveland, both of which have also seen accusations of excessive use of force and other civil-rights abuses by police—there’s no comparable problem, and police are faster to seek medical care.
The swift and aggressive decision to charge the officers in the Gray case may make police faster to seek medical attention for detainees. Mosby charged officers with crimes including second-degree depraved heart murder, manslaughter, and assault, as well as misconduct and false imprisonment. While experts think Mosby may have overcharged the suspects, the possibility of quick prosecution will likely make officers err on the side of caution in the future. (Also over the weekend, attorneys for the charged officers called for Mosby to leave the case, citing what they called conflicts of interest.)
Police work today is ever more sophisticated. It’s not just walking the beat and having good intuition. Enforcement areas are pinpointed with mathematical precision, officers are redeployed and rearranged by algorithms, and arrest numbers are crunched and analyzed to reveal elaborate trends. The story of Freddie Gray’s death is proving a clear demonstration of the limitations of CompStat policing. Even as law enforcement adopts more elaborate methods of patrolling, the most fateful decisions are the ones officers make in the heat of the moment, without the benefit of data: Does that guy look like he’s doing something illegal? Is this woman lying when she says she doesn’t feel well? That means police have to be both well-trained to spot medical emergencies and worthy of public trust that they’ll make responsible decisions. In Baltimore, too many officers appear to be failing both tests.
It was August 2010. Dave Arnold, a friend and former colleague, was very excited to show me a culinary technique he’d been working on. At the time, I was iSi’s culinary director and had been encouraging Dave to play around with the whippers to see if he could come up with some new applications beyond creams and foams. It was through his experimentation that Dave, a master tinkerer, cocktail savant and culinary innovator, came to discover the exciting potential of rapid infusion – extracting the flavor of a solid into a liquid or infusing a solid with the flavor of a liquid, or both – using an affordable, handheld device.
The discovery of this application opened the doors for flavor in ways that was not possible before for those without access to expensive vacuum machines and the know-how to properly execute the technique. In subsequent years, Dave has demonstrated how to use iSi Gourmet Whip Plus for rapid infusion to some of the most respected chefs and mixologists in the industry and in front of packed houses at various high-profile events and conferences around the world. But with the launch of his new book, Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, the technique is now accessible for everyone.
In the book, Dave breaks down just about every element of the cocktail and how to improve on taste, texture, appearance, etc. – from traditional drinks to adaptations using modern techniques. He devotes an entire chapter to “Rapid Infusion, Shifting Pressure” where he explains the basic process of rapid nitrous infusion and the potential benefits of using a whipper and nitrous oxide (N2O) – a water/ethanol/fat-soluble, colorless, slightly sweet-tasting gas – versus more traditional long-term infusion methods.
Rapid infusions made using an iSi whipper with N2O tend to extract less bitter, spicy, and tannic notes as compared to traditional extraction methods that rely on heat, time, or a combination of both. For cocktails, rapid infusion allows for more of the pleasant notes to shine. Imagine a jalapeno infused vodka with all the bright flavor and aroma of fresh jalapenos with less spiciness or an aromatic coffee liquor made from coffee beans with less bitterness and less tannic notes than one that steeped over an extended period of time.
In addition to being an entertaining and educational read, the book contains several recipes for infusions, bitters, tinctures, and finished cocktails using these rapidly-infused ingredients.
While the approach may seem thoroughly modern, the end goal for using the technique is simply to make a better tasting, better looking cocktail. By reading through Dave’s recipe for turmeric infused gin you’ll get a sense of the basic method. He explains why turmeric is a good choice because “it’s porous, aromatic, colorful, and flavorful, the four characteristics you should look for in your solid infusion ingredient.” Gin provides a clear base that will complement the flavor and absorb the color and flavor of the brightly hued turmeric well.
TURMERIC INFUSED GIN
Ingredients:
500 milliliters Plymouth gin, room temperature
100 grams fresh turmeric thinly sliced into disks, room temperature (Tip: To avoid staining, wear rubber gloves when handling and cover surfaces) Equipment:
.5 liter iSi Gourmet Whip Plus
2 iSi Cream (N2O) Chargers Procedure:
Add prepared turmeric to the whipper, then gin. Screw the head onto the whipper and charge using one cream charger. Swirl the whipper for a few seconds to agitate and then charge again using the second cream charger. Swirl the whipper again. As you swirl, the gas will dissolve into the liquid, and the pressure inside the whipper will drop forcing the gin and nitrous oxide solution into the turmeric. After 2 ½ minutes, hold a container over the nozzle and place the whipper over a bowl to catch any escaping liquid. Point the nozzle straight up and vent the gas quickly by fully depressing the lever. As you vent, the nitrous expands and bubbles out of the solution, forcing turmeric-flavored gin out of the turmeric and back into the rest of the gin, completing the infusion. Once all the gas has released, unscrew the whipper and allow bubbling action to subside before straining. Allow infusion to rest for about 10 minutes before using for maximum flavor. Store chilled for up to one week.
GLO-SOUR COCKTAIL
A variation on a lime sour using the brightly hued turmeric infusion.
Makes one 5 1/3 ounce drink Ingredients:
2 ounces (60 ml) Rapid Infused Turmeric Gin
¾ ounces (22.5 ml) freshly strained lime juice
Flat ¾ ounces (20 ml) simple syrup
3 drops saline solution or a generous pinch of salt
1-2 dashes Rapid Infused Orange Bitters, or commercial variety Orange Bitter Procedure:
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Add ice, shake, and strain into a chilled coupe glass.
More Rapid Infusion Tips from Dave:
Solids for rapid infusion must be porous. Most plant products meet this criterion. Flavorful options include fresh herbs, citrus zest, ginger, lemongrass, peppers/chilies, cocoa nibs, coffee beans, etc.
With the exception of fresh herbs which can bruise easily, finely cut up or grate solids to maximize surface area and expose pores to the liquid.
Pay attention to the solid-to-liquid ratio and infusion times. Rapid infusions typically take more solids than traditional infusion methods and happen so fast that even 15 seconds can make a difference in flavor.
Unless you’re making a bitter where bitterness is a desired, use room temperature liquids and solids. Infusions using cold ingredients produce less vibrant results.
Consistency is key. Always measure out your ingredients, set a timer, use the right sized whipper, and the right number of chargers for the recipe for consistent results.
The process of venting is what generates flavor-extracting bubbles. The faster you vent the gas, the stronger the bubbling action. The more bubbling action, the more active your extraction.
Unless the recipe instructs you to do so, don’t strain the mixture right away after venting. Allow bubbles to subside. Remember, active bubbles mean that flavor extraction is still happening.
On occasion, small particles from the solid may clog the value system and the whipper may stop venting properly. To avoid this, let solids settle to the bottom of the whipper a bit before venting and always point the nozzle straight up. If you do get a clog, try pumping the handle to dislodge the clog. This Fall, iSi North America will launch a newly engineered Rapid Infusion Tool that safeguards against clogging and allows for a more streamlined venting process. This attachment will be sold separately as an accessory and should only be used with the iSi Gourmet Whip Plus.
iSi Rapid Infusion Best Practices
The iSi Gourmet Whip Plus is designed and crafted to the highest standard with rigorous quality control for a lifetime of reliability. All stainless steel construction won’t taint flavors, react with foods, is NSF-certified, dishwasher safe, and HACCP compliant. For this reason, iSi only endorses the use of the rapid infusion technique with an iSi Gourmet Whip Plus.
Strong flavors take less time to infuse but delicate flavors may take longer (up to 20-30 minutes). Test for best results.
Always use iSi cream chargers with iSi equipment.iSi cream chargers are made of high-quality, recyclable steel and contain 8 grams of pure food-safe N2O. They are individually weighed electronically and have a fill warranty for consistent results.
To learn more about the iSi System and other innovative techniques using iSi tools, stay connected on Facebook,Twitter, or by signing up for their newsletter at isinorthamerica@isi.com.
Read more about Dave Arnold and the rapid infusion techniques here.
Judiaann Woo is the former VP of Culinary Development for iSi North America. During her time, with the company, she whipped, aerated, foamed and carbonated everything under the sun and had a whole lot of fun doing it. Today, she lives in Portland, Oregon and continues to share her passion for food with others willing to travel for the next great meal. See what she’s been eating recently @judiaann.
Obviously, you should never trust anyone, because the vast alien conspiracy that has brought down men and governments alike is always watching, and it’s impossible to say who has been bought. America was taken over by aliens long ago, as anyone who reads Iran’s English-language news service already knows. So be suspicious about the following, because it might be exactly what they want you to think: Deadline reports that Fox will premiere The X-Files event series right after the NFC Championship game on Sunday, January 24, 2016. It will then move into its regular time slot the following night, Mondays at 8 P.M.—on the same network that originally brought you the David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson-starring show. Coincidence? We think not. Especially not when you realize that it’s temporarily taking over Gotham’s slot, a show that has a character named Penguin. Penguins live in ...
After the New York Times “Unvarnished” series made an entire city of women rightfully ashamed about all the times they’ve ever gotten their nails done, Governor Andrew Cuomo has come in big with an order for emergency measures to regulate and improve the appalling working conditions that have become standard for many of the majority-female, majority-immigrant workers who staff New York’s nail salons—of which there are nearly 2,000 in New York City alone.
From my past few previous posts, you've probably noticed that I have a thing for the Shakespeare play, A MidSummer Nights Dream. It's pure magic! I watched it for the first time this past summer and became completely enchanted by the story. Although, I mostly fell in love with the whimsical and gorgeous costumes and set design. I went on a Midsummer Night's kick and watched every movie variation that I could find. I saw the 1935s film which is by far one of my favorite versions. I've included a few screen shots below that are just too beautiful not to share.
That film was the inspiration for this photo shoot. This entire shoot was about recreating a bit of the magic that I felt while watching this movie. I made everything that I'm wearing. The beaded blouse is made from an old beaded skirt that I bought at Goodwill on 50% off day. I cut a wrap design from it then hand sewed the pieces together and finished off the edges by hand sewing silk bias tape.
The headband is also made from the same Goodwill skirt that was used to make the bodice. I cut around the floral beaded design and then ironed on a heavy interfacing to make it stable and stiff. I later glued the pieces together to a piece of ribbon. In an upcoming post I'll be sharing a tutorial showing how to make the headband that I wore in this shoot. This one is pretty over the top, but I'll show a more wearable variation.
Making this skirt was a lot of fun! I made it over the summer as a fun side project that I could pick up and hand sew whenever I had down time from working. Each petal was hand cut to the shape of a flower petal. Once shaped, I took a lighter around the edges to melt the sides so that it wouldn't fray. This was before I found out about laser cutting (which I talked about in my previous post). Then, one by one, I hand stitched each petal to the skirt making a petal gradient.
It's currently the last week of finals, and I'm very excited to share what I'm making! The final is one look that includes a jacket, trousers, and a knit top. Below is a preview photo of my jacket that I posted on instagram.
I also still have a lot of projects from the summer to share with you (I have over 64 GB worth of unedited photos from the summer still - Oops.) I'm hoping to catch up and share more of the summer projects over spring break next week.
Soviet Army soldiers sit on the ruins of the Reich Chancellery and look through boxes of German medals that would never be awarded following the Battle of Berlin and the of defeat of the Third Reich. Many Allied soldiers kept these numerous medals as souvenirs. Berlin, Germany. May 1945.
Read our graphical backgrounder on the Mediterranean's boat refugees...
The Eurovision Song Contest is often referred to as "Gay Christmas" and Vienna is getting ready to host the finals in two weeks. Via Reuters:
Super Opinionated.
Bikram Rai/AP
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The discovery of this application opened the doors for flavor in ways that was not possible before for those without access to expensive vacuum machines and the know-how to properly execute the technique. In subsequent years, Dave has demonstrated how to use iSi Gourmet Whip Plus for rapid infusion to some of the most respected chefs and mixologists in the industry and in front of packed houses at various high-profile events and conferences around the world. But with the launch of his new book, Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, the technique is now accessible for everyone.
Judiaann Woo is the former VP of Culinary Development for iSi North America. During her time, with the company, she whipped, aerated, foamed and carbonated everything under the sun and had a whole lot of fun doing it. Today, she lives in Portland, Oregon and continues to share her passion for food with others willing to travel for the next great meal. See what she’s been eating recently @judiaann.
