Category: San Luis Obispo

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Building a Cookbook Library

Building any library is fun... it reflect who you are
As any cook will tell you, having a library of cookbooks makes fun reading!

One of the first cookbooks to buy — after you break out of the basic — is “Larousse Gastronomique”… the classic text of French Cuisine (cuisine means ‘kitchen’). Most people know ‘Larousse’ only for the cookbook, but the truth is that they prepare books on a variety of subjects, including an illustrated medical book.

The first American edition of “Larousse Gastronomique” appeared in 1962 and instantly became an American favorite… however, the first French edition was in 1938 which is also a fun read. The fact that it is in color adds to the charm and it’s over 1000 pages long!
So, where do you start your child? Personally, I have always presented the ‘Better Homes and Garden Cookbook’ as the first cookbook for a young person’s collection. It’s simple ( it actually tells a novice how to boil an egg!) and offers a few variations that are likely to be impressive to others… which is key.

Next, I encourage a young cook to add books of personal interest: books on cookies, candies, crab cakes, cheese, bread and more exotic and fun items like ‘Paella’. After all, the library should be built around what you like — and those around you — might enjoy!

other fun books include:

Great American Cookbook ( an easy cookbook utilizing manufacturer’s packaged products)

The Silver Spoon ( a great Italian Cookbook now printed in America)

New York Times cookbook

and any PTA cookbook can be fun and easy. (I even own one from Jo’berg , South Africa!… a favorite!)
Here’s a great listing of some of the great cookbooks! (The listing is far from complete. No mention of the St Francis Cookbook, Luchow’s, or any of Helen Corbitt’s… but still a great list!)

Remember, excellent cooking is to be shared and enjoyed with others… prepare something for someone you love!

Roger Freberg

Someday, buy the Epicurean by Charles Ranhofer … so many wonderful ideas! Careful! Many of the recipes are designed for groups of 20! But then… the eclairs are marvelous!

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Cal Poly selling OUR soul to Saudi Arabia

Pres. Warren Baker, Provost William Durgin, Senate Chair Bruno Giberti and their bud
You gotta know there must be big money behind this! I hope it’s not just for a few pieces of silver.
Today, Warren Baker and his buds blocked a full discussion by the academic senate at Cal Poly on the issue of Cal Poly and Saudi Arabia’s joint educational venture. Let’s not gloss over the fact that this issue ignores a bunch of stuff… no women need apply for starters. If this was apartheid South Africa, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

What are they afraid of?

Talk about a PR nightmare!
In my last post, I had predicted this would happen! Fortunately, you can always depend on Cal Poly administrators to behave badly.

Cal Poly is so used to being a law unto themselves that they really don’t know how their inappropriate actions look to others. The Provost “Bill” Durgan appears to have spent a disproportionate amount of time on yours truly. I heard a lot about what he said… including this excerpt from a private email:

“The Provost also gave a fiery speech addressed to the all the critics of the Saudi proposal, including uncalled for attacks on a faculty spouse (without mentioning Roger by name) who is printing material on the web and said this is not how folks with Ph.D.s should be behaving. It shows a complete lack of respect for academic freedom, etc, etc………”

It is amusing to see Cal Poly’s administration quoting ‘academic freedom’ and ‘free speech’… when they have acted like the ‘bad guys’ in the Nation’s eyes! It doesn’t work the way they think it does.

So, what was the resolution? What is Cal Poly’s Administration so afraid of?

Check this out!

The only other interesting statement came from the Academic Senate Chair Bruno Giberti who referred to the resolution by many many former Faculty Academic Senate Chairs by dissing:

“I am not impressed with them! (5 former Faculty Senate Chairs).”

Spoken like a true company man. By the way, I know you are all sooo interested in who the academic senate is…. here’s a fun link!

Stay Tuned, This issue has traction!
Roger Freberg

UPDATE: It appears — according to some attending the meeting — that the Provost was complaining that some Cal Poly Faculty were not using their official Cal Poly email and that this was a BAD thing! I know that the ’employer’ has the right to read employees emails… but Bill wouldn’t do THAT??!!!  Nah!

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Faculty Questioning Cal Poly’s Saudi Connection

Cal Poly's Warren Baker & his Saudi Connection
It is rumored… and don’t we all love rumors… that Cal Poly’s Saudi Connection is being questioned by virtually all of the past chairs of the Faculty Academic Senate of Cal Poly. It seems like they want to formally show their disapproval. Obviously, the administration is desperately trying to invoke various parliamentary procedures and sycophants to try to silence the measure.

Time will tell if the controversial Dean of Engineering Mohammad Noori or President Warren Baker are successful in silencing their critics.

In the meantime, steve.chawkins@latimes.com of the Los Angeles Times has blown the ‘regional cover’ off the story with an article in today’s paper! An important part of the article was in it’s final summary statement:

“Look at South Africa,” he said. “The University of California divested from South Africa, along with the rest of the world, and apartheid came to an end.”

Cal Poly says that ‘we’re’ (those who think discrimination is not nice) trying to embarrass the Cal Poly administration… we’ll — my advice to Warren Baker — is to stop doing stupid and embarrassing things.

My other Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia Blogs:

Cal Poly & Saudi Arabia Part Deux

Cal Poly… training tomorrow’s terrorists?

Roger Freberg

we all have the power to stand up to wrong and it starts with one person willing to break from the pack

UPDATE! : OoOops.. it’s hitting the fan! Civilrights.org

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Our 5 Cooks Marinara Sauce!

Made from our family to yours!
Have you ever gone somewhere where they SAID had good “Italian food”… and was disappointed?

Unfortunately, cooking with budgetary or time constraints has an effect on the final product. Quality ingredients and adequate preparation always produce a product you will be proud of… besides, making a wonderful Marinara Sauce is so easy… and yes… so American!

Got some time and want to try something fun!

Here’s our recipe!

Roger Freberg

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Developing the Best Recipes!

I learned a lot about cooking from the women in my life…. my mother and especially from my grandmother. “Mimi” loved to cook and in her professional life ran a test kitchen for one of the biggies. Her best advice: “the problem with most recipes is that they have been limited by reducing the time required to make them with unfortunate shortcuts or reducing the quality and variety of ingredients.”

So, if you want to make something memorable for a special occasion and you are ready to throw yourself into making the best… here’s a few ideas on how to approach upgrading your recipes:

Let’s look at a completely Italian-American Invention… “Marinara Sauce”:

Survey the Ingredients lists from various recipes:

All Marinara Recipes look the same or do they?
We should also look at ‘Spaghetti Sauce’ recipes… so I added a few additional items that occur in some of these sauces at the bottom of the list.

As you can see, there are a lot of similarities… but the differences are significant and reflect issues of ‘cost’ and ‘steps.’

Developing the proportions and the steps are next….

Roger Freberg