Jerry Stratton's Blog, page 7

Refrigerator Revolution Revisited: 1942 Cold Cooking

Iceless refrigeration had come a long way in the fourteen years since Frigidaire Recipes. And so had gelatin!

The left’s hatred of business is a lie

The left doesn’t hate business. They hate you and me.

“He Was the Chef”: Remembering Eddie Doucette, Jr.

Eddie Doucette grew up in New England. He learned his trade in his mother’s diner, in the summer schools of New England, and in better and better restaurants throughout Vermont and Massachusetts. Then he moved to Chicago to pioneer television cooking, which is how I discovered him.

Dueling aid for Flashing Blades

Dueling is one of the many fun aspects of the Flashing Blades RPG. This dueling aid will help players choose their opponent, their two actions, and their parrying guess.

A Gaming Man’s Cookery

A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book is filled with great recipes for game night. So is this post.

Rumford Recipes Sliding Cookbooks

One of the most interesting experiments in early twentieth century promotional baking pamphlets is this pair of sliding recipe cards from Rumford.

State Fair of Texas creates safe space for murder

The State Fair of Texas is a very good example of the kind of venue that should not allow only criminals to carry firearms.

Batteries and Energy Storage linked on Mimsy Were the Technocrats

“Maybe batteries aren't the best way to store energy.”

Francis Turner has a slightly different take than I did on What will a useful electric car look like?. But he starts from a very similar observation, that most writers on battery-operated vehicles “are missing the point. We don’t want batteries, we want efficient energy storage.” And there is a mountainous difference between the energy storage needs of portable electronic devices and transportation devices, i.e., cars.

He also goes into something I only mentioned tangentially, which is that energy storage for evening out intermittent power sources such as wind and solar is so many orders of magnitude different than portable electronic devices that it’s crazy we’re even considering using the same storage technology to handle it. The money we’re spending on trying to shoehorn traditional batteries into storing grid-level power would be far more effective using other energy storage techniques—and unlike the energy storage needed for battery-powered vehicles, we already know what grid-level storage techniques can look like!

He also comes to the conclusion that, because gasoline is so comparatively useful at energy storage, the best “battery” for electric vehicles will be “synthetic hydrocarbons”, that is, man-made gasoline created from the energy generated by intermittent sources. I suspect that this overlooks how incredibly poorly-matched modern wind and solar technologies are to mass energy generation (in his defense he’s explicit about not discussing this), but when we do find a good means of generating mass intermittent power synthetic gasoline probably will be the best way to store it. As I wrote in a footnote to my post, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the eventual winning ‘battery’ technology ends up looking a lot like a synthetic gasoline.”

<em>Jalapeño</em> Potato Chip Cookies

Potato chip cookies are amazing—crunchy and flavorful—and they’re even better made with kettle-style jalapeño chips! Potato chip cookies are a great way to celebrate National Potato Day.

A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book

A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book is a collection of recipes that I enjoy making while traveling, and in other people’s kitchens.