Mirepoix, a simple thing to improve cooking

For commodorified's Cooking for people who don't blog carnival[1]:

The default mirepoix is 50% onion, 25% carrots, and 25% celery. They're chopped up and cooked at a moderate heat in a pan with some oil or butter. That's it. The result is astonishingly savory, and it can be used to flavor a soup or as part of a non-classic stir fry.

Wikipedia has it that the proportions are by weight, not volume, but I say that mirepoix is pretty forgiving about such things.

And it's pronounced meer pwah. I'd only heard the word, and I never would have guessed there was an x in it.

More about mirepoix-- my next mirepoix may well include mushrooms.

I thank dcseain for introducing me to mirepoix.

[1] The carnival is based on the premise that a lot of people are spending more than they need to on prepared food because they don't know how to get started on cooking, and in many cases don't have the money or other resources to have slack for much in the way of failed experiments.

memetic prophylactic recommended

Because you can't find the pure quill unless you go outside sf. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Slight spoiler: Guvf vf na rzoneenffzrag gb Wrjf, Puevfgvnaf, naq Wrjf sbe Wrfhf. Nyfb gur uhzna enpr. Vg'f jvyqyl bssrafvir, ohg abg guerngravat. Jryy, bayl guerngravat orpnhfr gur oynpx ubyr sebz gur pragre bs gur tnynkl vf tbvat gb fubj hc nf n zrepl xvyyvat. Gurer vf ab ulcreobyr juvpu pbhyq qb vg whfgvpr.

The pleasure of irrational ranting

Razib sez:

I suppose you could say that I’m your typical individual with a scientific & operationally materialistic worldview. I’m also mildly right-of-center, and tend to have as many issues with Post Modern “progressives” thought as I do with Religious Right reactionaries. Like the Religious Right I do believe there are truths in this world which are sacred and worth fighting for, that not every human interaction need be broken down into “power relations,” or scaffolded by an armada of faux jargon. Unlike the Religious Right I tend to reject the supernaturalist view of the world which is the human consensus, and, I am generally a dissenter from “conventional” traditional mores and preferences. I have my own peculiar values which are at sharp variance with most of humanity. Nevertheless, sometimes I play the boob, and pretend as if I am a Post Modernist victimologist (to use John McWhorter’s terminology), or a religious traditionalist or an ethnic activist, and it feels very good. In As Good as it Gets Jack Nicholson said “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability” when he writes about women. When I play “the game” I simply remove all reason and accountability, and I start doing verbal “mash ups” without any coherency, and I feel like a kid in a candy store!