Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

What I heard about Iraq

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What a brilliant collection of quotes:

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get ‘bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. I heard him say: ‘The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’

In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein ‘has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.’

That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.’

In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: ‘We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.’

On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to ‘hit’ Iraq. I heard that he said: ‘Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.’

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: ‘How do you capitalise on these opportunities?’

…

I heard Tony Blair say: ‘Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.’

I heard General Myers say: ‘Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.’

I heard the president say: ‘Prisoners are being taken, and intelligence is being gathered. Our decisive actions will continue until these enemies of democracy are dealt with.’

I heard a soldier describe what they called ‘bitch in a box’: ‘That was the normal procedure for them when they wanted to soften up a prisoner: stuff them in the trunk for a while and drive them around. The hoods I can understand, and to have them cuffed with the plastic things – that I could see. But the trunk episode – I thought it was kind of unusual. It was like a sweatbox, let’s face it. In Iraq, in August, it’s hitting 120 degrees, and you can imagine what it was like in the trunk of a black Mercedes.’

…

I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’

I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’

I heard the president say: ‘For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace.’

I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child.

I heard that Saddam Hussein, in solitary confinement, was spending his time writing poetry, reading the Koran, eating cookies and muffins, and taking care of some bushes and shrubs. I heard that he had placed a circle of white stones around a small plum tree.

Read the whole thing.

Best-Ever Brownies

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When I was young I didn’t know you could make cakes and brownies and other baked goods from scratch. You wanted something like that, you did what everyone does: you go to the market and buy a Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker mix (I think it was Duncan Hines for the brownies, Betty for the cakes) and a can of frosting and you made it at home.

Of course, now I know better. I’m not going to knock mixes, because they are still faster than from-scratch and you never know when you might need to throw something together, but at the moment I’m all about the from-scratch. And recently I discovered the most amazing thing.

I’ve been reading Baking By Julia recently and I kept alighting upon the “Best-Ever Brownies” page. I mean, there’s just something so attractive about a recipe that starts,

Those who are passionate about brownies argue in defense of their favorite type, cakey or fudgey. If you’re a cakey fan, go on to another recipe.

I’m talking Yeah, baby.

Since I was home all day with the kids yesterday, I decided this was the moment. I pulled the Kitchen Aid out of the closet (ugh—I gotta find a new place for that puppy), I lined up my blocks of Scharffen Berger Dark and Scharffen Berger Unsweetened, and I got to work.

Sophia’s contribution was to stir the egg mixture into the hot chocolate mixture (a very important part, because if you don’t stir fast enough, you get chocolate-flavored scrambled eggs) and to request that I chop off a piece or two of the gigantic block of chocolate for her own personal tasting. I gave her the shards of what remained from chopping up the chocolate. “This is baking chocolate, sweetie, not eating chocolate.” She gave me this look as if to say, Like there’s a difference.

I cooked them for longer than the recipe suggests, because they were just so gooey the first two times I took them out. They were still pretty gooey though, even after cooling. Gooey, fudgey, and, oh yes, really good.

brownies.jpg

No joke: Best Ever Brownies

1 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 oz.) unsalted butter
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups sugar, divided (divided isn’t in the original recipe, but just divide, okay?)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350F.

Sift the flour and salt together and set aside.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently and keeping a watchful eye on the pot to make certain the chocolate doesn’t scorch. (Alternatively, you can melt the ingredients in the top of a double boiler over, not touching, simmering water.) Add 1 cup of the sugar to the mixture and stir for half a minute, then remove the pan from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour the mixture into a large bowl.

Put the remaining 1 cup sugar and the eggs into the bowl of a mixer (or a mixing bowl if you’re using a hand-held mixer) and whisk by hand just to combine. Little by little, pour half of the sugar and eggs into the chocolate mixture, stirring gently but constantly with a rubber spatula so that the eggs don’t set from the heat. Fit the whisk attachment to the mixer and whip the remaining sugar and eggs until they are thick, pale, and doubled in volume, about 3 minutes. Using the rubber spatula, delicately fold the whipped eggs into the chocolate mixture. When the eggs are almost completely incorporated, gently fold in the dry ingredients.

Baking the Brownies

Pour and scrap the batter into an unbuttered 9-inch square pan—a heavy ceramic or glass pan is ideal. Bake the brownies for 25 to 28 minutes, during which time they will rise a little and the top will turn dark and dry. Cut into the center at about the 23-minute mark to see how the brownies are progressing: They’ll be perfect if they’re just barely set, and still pretty gooey. They’re still awfully good on the other side of set, so don’t worry if you miss the moment on your first try. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack. Cut into 1 1/2-by-3 inch bars to serve.

Storing

The brownies will keep, covered, for 2 to 3 days at room temperature and can be frozen for up to a month. Thaw, still wrapped, at room temperature. These never freeze solid, so you might want to think about using them as a mix-in for ice cream

Contributing Baker Rick Katz

It’s funny what I realized as I typed this recipe in. I did two things “wrong”: I used 4 oz of bittersweet and 2 oz of unsweetened instead of the other way around, and one of the first things I said to Darin as we tested the creation last night was, “Does this taste a tad too sweet to you?” (He disagreed, saying they were perfect as is. For whatever that’s worth, if you’re keeping score of Darin’s and my takes on things.) And I greased the glass dish instead of not greasing it, which might have affected the cooking some (though I don’t understand how).

Anyhow. If you need brownies, go for it. Really good. And even better the next day, I think. I doubt they’ll be around for much of Day 3, which is a Saturday and all 4 of us will be here.

Deconstructing Vanity Fair

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Now, I’m not actually saying I agree with this analysis (although, in the immortal words of Atrios, “you link it, you own it”), but I found Tanya Gold’s analysis of the latest Vanity Fair Hollywood spread interesting:

When Marilyn Monroe lay dying in Hollywood, I doubt she guessed her poisonous legacy. Marilyn lived in the era of wriggle, casting couch and actress-as-available-flesh, and she embodied it. No one seemed to care whether JFK’s “lollipop” could act; they just wanted the glistening pout. The planet may have changed since 1962 but Tinsel Town hasn’t. The proof will be staring out of the shelves in WH Smith on Friday when the March “Hollywood” edition of Vanity Fair – the glossy with a frontal lobe – will be ready for its close-up.

The cover shot, which was taken by Annie Leibovitz, has already been splashed across the planet, to much production of saliva, jealousy and despair. It features 10 successful and nearly successful actresses in an almost Last Supper-like tableau (except the apostles are thinner, prettier and less obsessed with Jesus Christ).

Like the William Thackeray novel it is named after, this Vanity Fair is a loveless world. It has imposed a brutal hierarchy on its exquisite models, who flew into Culver City, California in December for the shoot, that is enough to make a minger smile. Don’t be fooled by the puff that this edition of the magazine has 10 cover girls: the photograph has been divided into three smaller tableaux and folded over twice. Only Uma Thurman, Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet pout out from the cover proper; they won the Celebrity Death Match and are in poll position. Claire Danes, Scarlett Johansson, Rosario Dawson and Ziyi Zhang are folded over behind it in a first runners-up cover. Meanwhile Kerry Washington, Kate Bosworth and Sienna Miller are stuck in the second runners’ up section of the triptych, a vacuous, lipglossed no man’s land buried between the handbag and perfume adverts.

Her descriptions of what the actresses on the cover are doing or look like are pretty funny. I will have to recheck this story when I receive my Vanity Fair. Yes, I still get it. Yes, most of it nonsense, but the glitzy stuff sells essays by the likes of James Wolcott or investigative reporting by Eric Schlosser. Also: glitzy stuff. It’s one-stop shopping!