Author: mccormicky

Happy Pesach!

Well this is it. My bf said that he and I would cook Passover dinner for about 40 people so I guess we kind of have to make good on that promise today. I procrastinated as long as I could but yesterday I had to finally go to the supermarket and buy all the stuff for this dinner.You’re not supposed to use leavened anything in anything, either. For real religious people you’re not even supposed to have it in the kitchen!

Leaven [LEHV-uhn]
n.

1. An agent, such as yeast, that causes batter or dough to rise, especially by fermentation.
2. An element, influence, or agent that works subtly to lighten, enliven, or modify a whole.

tr.v., -ened, -en·ing, -ens.

1. To add a rising agent to.
2. To cause to rise, especially by fermentation.
3. To pervade with a lightening, enlivening, or modifying influence.

[Middle English, from Old French levain, from Vulgar Latin *levāmen, from Latin levāre, to raise.]
Leavener [LEHV-uhn-er]
Agents that are used to lighten the texture and increase the volume of baked goods such as breads, cakes and cookies. Baking powder, baking soda and yeast are the most common leaveners used today. When mixed with a liquid they form carbon dioxide gas bubbles, which cause a batter or dough to rise during (and sometimes before) the baking process.

Geez.
A.’s Ma is in town from Israel and thankfully she and her best friend are also cooking up a storm so A. and I don’t have to cook that much. Just 2 roast ducks,16 pounds of grilled chicken breast,10 pounds of mashed potatoes,5 pounds of rice and a cartload of green beans,which I am going to try to liven up with red and green peppers and toasted pecans. Mom and her friend B. will be providing a leg of lamb and a brisket and 2 pots of soup:vegetarian and chicken, both with matzoh balls.
A. was going to make bourekis and I was going to bake 3 pies but Mom vetoed them for the sake of tradition (leavened flour in the pastry).

It’s 9am now, our kitchen is going to be a madhouse in about 45 minutes when A. get’s in there. I know he is going to use every single pot and pan, along with every single bowl and dish… So I’m enjoying this peace and quiet for as long as it lasts, writing this post and listening to the birds chirp on this cool and cloudy Sunday morning.

Pass the Test, Get the Job

It’s a good idea to know how tables work even if you never use them in a practical sense.
My tables resource is 456Bereastreet.
I never use them…Ok I did a few times last year but not for a layout or anything.

I was called into a recruiter’s office to test for a job that I totally could have done but was not given because I failed the HTML 4.0 test. That and perhaps also because after the interview I saw I was wearing my top backward. Which is supposed to be good luck. So it was probably because of the lousy 48% I got on the test. The test asked me loads of questions about tables and frames and I got all the frame questions wrong and only half of the tables questions right, making me look rather like a bag of hot air. In the questions and answers part of the interview I’d been asked about my web design experience and they seemed impressed that I’d built single handedly over 14 websites in the past 2 years. But in the end it came down to the test and my score–the only real evidence they had to go on (in their minds) that I was at all capable of doing the job.

Which is why I have tried to refresh my tables-making know-how.Though my heart is not in it and I may never have to use it on the job I don’t want to look so foolish again,the next time.if there ever is a next time.

After you build it do you bother checking it?

It may seem like all I do is sit around and bitch about how bad a lot of other websites are but if they weren’t so badly set up and maintained I wouldn’t be bitching. Just now I followed a link from within LeNell’s newsletter (a Wine and Spirit Boutique in Redhook Brooklyn) to Artisanal Cheeses (No Doctype) to Picholine. I wasn’t surfing for the purposes of finding flaws, I was just a regular site visitor for once in my life, looking to find something interesting on subjects I find interesting:cheese and booze.I had no problem with either site’s design.I found both to be engaging and attractive. But I sure do hate it when I click on what is obviously supposed to be a link but doesn’t work. Like Picholine’s restaurant menu. It was Flash but the links to parts of the menu didn’t work in Firefox –which amazes me–even if it isn’t as used as Internet Explorer it is used by almost half of your site visitors–and if you checked traffic stats you’d see this is true. Too big a number not to care if visitors using that browser can use your website!

So I switched to IE7 and clicked the link which again did nothing but opening the page in another window led me to a blank.pdf file. Why a pdf and why blank? And why not warn someone that it is a link to a pdf,first?
The short answer is laziness. It’s easier for some designers to load a .pdf than to make another page. It’s easier to design a .pdf than to design menu in a web page–a challenging task…
But what else is a restaurant web site supposed to show site visitors? This is something I see a lot: a designer choosing flash over substance and ending up delivering nothing. The site may as well have been a parked domain notice for all it’s prettiness.

When I see a site that doesn’t work it makes me think the site owners are careless and lazy. And I don’t want to eat food cooked by careless and lazy people.

Doh!

If you switch your WordPress theme don’t forget to add your Google Analytics tracking code. I changed my theme 7 days ago and just now checked to make sure I was receiving data.Sure enough all reports stopped the day I switched the theme, earning me a big