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jaunthieMy apologies for my recent silence; I've been completely buried at work. But today's the deadline, and I made it. And there was great rejoicing. :-)
So to celebrate, I'm going to jot down a few thoughts and invite comment. The first subject is cornbread. A co-worker down the hall has been experimenting with cornbread and bringing the results in for taste-testing. His effort today involved red, blue, and yellow cornmeal, among other things, and it was quite tasty overall. However...
Now I'll be the first to admit that my personal standards for what is and isn't cornbread are not exactly gourmet. I grew up calling the yellow stuff that you make from the Jiffy box mix cornbread. I like Jiffy cornbread. I also like the Red Mill cornbread mix, and I've liked the cornbread recipes I've tried from scratch. That being said, I admit I don't expect my cornbread to have, y'know, actual kernels of corn in it. Cornmeal, yes. Whole kernels of frozen or canned corn that have been added to the mix at some point in the make/bake cycle - no. And I find I don't much care for it; too soggy, and really unappealing when the cornbread is cold. Nor do I care for finding jalepeno peppers in my cornbread, or cheese, or bits of onion, or whatever. Apparently my personal concept of cornbread dictates that cornbread should be bread, not a cornmeal-based casserole. (Which isn't to say that a cornmeal-based casserole might not be good; it just doesn't meet my personal definition of cornbread.) I'm curious, though: how many of you grew up with bits of veggies/herbs/spices in your cornbread? What's your personal definition of yummy cornbread?
The second subject is bubbles. You read about the housing bubble, the tech bubble, and so on. I just recently attended a talk where someone defined a financial bubble as "something people once said was a new paradigm, a new way of doing things", and claimed that every burst bubble had that in common (remember the dot-com boom/bust!). This person then went on to talk about a new, never-before-seen trend, and how so-and-so the mid-level executive was taking advantage of that trend. I thought about this, and in the Q and A asked the gentleman if this new trend was not, in fact, a potential bubble, and was he concerned? The gentleman replied that no, he wasn't concerned, because you weren't reading about this trend in the papers - essentially saying that it can't be a bubble if no one knows about it. (Never mind the fact that he'd just told us that a lot of so-and-so midlevel executives are doing exactly this thing, so obviously some number of someones know about it.) So I believe this gentleman was wrong, and there is a potential bubble - but moreover, I believe there can very well be a market-type bubble even if no one sees it specifically. For those of you who are fiscally or socioeconomically inclined, what do you think? Can there be a bubble even if no one sees it, and no one understands what happened when it pops?
So to celebrate, I'm going to jot down a few thoughts and invite comment. The first subject is cornbread. A co-worker down the hall has been experimenting with cornbread and bringing the results in for taste-testing. His effort today involved red, blue, and yellow cornmeal, among other things, and it was quite tasty overall. However...
Now I'll be the first to admit that my personal standards for what is and isn't cornbread are not exactly gourmet. I grew up calling the yellow stuff that you make from the Jiffy box mix cornbread. I like Jiffy cornbread. I also like the Red Mill cornbread mix, and I've liked the cornbread recipes I've tried from scratch. That being said, I admit I don't expect my cornbread to have, y'know, actual kernels of corn in it. Cornmeal, yes. Whole kernels of frozen or canned corn that have been added to the mix at some point in the make/bake cycle - no. And I find I don't much care for it; too soggy, and really unappealing when the cornbread is cold. Nor do I care for finding jalepeno peppers in my cornbread, or cheese, or bits of onion, or whatever. Apparently my personal concept of cornbread dictates that cornbread should be bread, not a cornmeal-based casserole. (Which isn't to say that a cornmeal-based casserole might not be good; it just doesn't meet my personal definition of cornbread.) I'm curious, though: how many of you grew up with bits of veggies/herbs/spices in your cornbread? What's your personal definition of yummy cornbread?
The second subject is bubbles. You read about the housing bubble, the tech bubble, and so on. I just recently attended a talk where someone defined a financial bubble as "something people once said was a new paradigm, a new way of doing things", and claimed that every burst bubble had that in common (remember the dot-com boom/bust!). This person then went on to talk about a new, never-before-seen trend, and how so-and-so the mid-level executive was taking advantage of that trend. I thought about this, and in the Q and A asked the gentleman if this new trend was not, in fact, a potential bubble, and was he concerned? The gentleman replied that no, he wasn't concerned, because you weren't reading about this trend in the papers - essentially saying that it can't be a bubble if no one knows about it. (Never mind the fact that he'd just told us that a lot of so-and-so midlevel executives are doing exactly this thing, so obviously some number of someones know about it.) So I believe this gentleman was wrong, and there is a potential bubble - but moreover, I believe there can very well be a market-type bubble even if no one sees it specifically. For those of you who are fiscally or socioeconomically inclined, what do you think? Can there be a bubble even if no one sees it, and no one understands what happened when it pops?
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Date: 2007-04-28 02:07 am (UTC)I grew up with cornbread coming in two varieties, one was much like the Jiffy mix type, only my mom made hers from scratch usually. Mom never put whole kernals in hers she did however add a wee bit o' sugar to make it a little sweeter. YUM! The other was fried. Yes I said fried. My paternal grandmother would fry it much like you fry the little potato pancake things (I forget their name, don't tell my evil twinny). Quite tasty. I miss it sometimes.
As for that financial bubble thing...HUH?! ;)
Glad you made the deadline, now take some more time off! ;)
Miss ya!
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Date: 2007-04-28 03:34 am (UTC)