preparing polenta is a ritual; eating it like receiving a sacrament. -Marcella Hazan

Although most Americans associate pasta with Italy, the primary staple of the Veneto, Friuli, and Lombardy is polenta. Traditionally, polenta is prepared in an unlined copper pot called a pailo, which hangs from a hook over the middle of the fireplace. Fortunately, preparing polenta today is not nearly such a pain in the ass.

In our family, we often serve polenta as the main course, but it is also a fine accompaniment to many dishes. It’s grilling season now, so think cooled, sliced, brushed with olive oil, and grilled to go with whatever else is on the grill.

Polenta can be served with a pat of butter and grated Parmesan cheese. Or, topped with crumbled Gorgonzola cheese. When I was a cook at Zuni, we served it with a spoonful of Mascarpone cheese.

You can also serve it with a couple of spoonfuls of meat or tomato sauce. Polenta goes with nearly any meat dish, particularly braised beef dishes.

Preparing Polenta

Polenta can be either white or yellow, fine or course. Everyone I know prefers the course yellow meal. Seek it out.

Polenta is prepared using approximately a four to one ratio of water to polenta.

• 4 1/4 cups water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (optional - well, not really)
• 1 cup course grained yellow polenta

Bring the water, salt, and butter to a boil in a heavy bottomed pot. The traditional polenta pot is an unlined copper pot, but a thick steel pot is perfectly acceptable.

Add the polenta to the pot in a slow stream so that you can see each grain of polenta landing in the pot, stirring with a whisk until all the polenta has been added.

Turn the heat down to a low simmer and continue to stir with a whisk. After ten minutes, exchange the whisk for a wooden spoon. Continue to stir for 40 minutes, adding a small amount of water if necessary.

The polenta can be served when done, or placed in an oiled bowl or container to cool. Cooked, cooled polenta will keep for several days and may be sliced, brushed with olive oil and grilled or broiled. Thin slices of polenta can also be used as a replacement for pasta in lasagna like dishes.

Kenneth - Colorado Springs, Summer 2006

I added Influence: Science and Practice to my Amazon wishlist.

Amazon suggests:

An email from a friend with the subject “bad code sample” shows up in my inbox. The smelly code attached is Java code, and the body of the message is empty. Gmail displays the following VB centric advertising:

This rule is so simple, I’m amazed how often so many people get it wrong. Out before in.

Getting on a bus? Let the people out before you get in. Getting on an elevator? Same. Heading into a Starbucks? Let the nice lady with her embarrassingly complicated coffee-like drink out before you barge in.

Do you hear me? Out before in.

Javascript is pretty casual about strings and numbers. Because javascript is an untyped language, it’s easy to get used doing things like:

var aString = "kb" + 63; // results in string "kb63"

Instead of choking, javascript will treat the number 63 as a string and concatenate them together for you.

Sometimes, you really need a string or a number. For example, you might have a database key that you want to use as an array index:

var dbKey = 546735289; // some surrogate key out of the database.
var dbObject = {
   name: "Kenneth",
   age: "old",
   likes: "beer"
};
var theArray = new Array();
theArray[dbKey] = dbObject;

But now, theArray.length is 546735290 - one more than the index. Javascript arrays are sparse, so this might not cause any memory problems since memory should only be allocated for the single array element at 546735289. However, if you loop through the array using a for loop theArray.length times, performing some expensive operation inside the loop - such as a complex DOM manipulation - you might get into trouble.

In this case, you’d be better off using a named property instead of a numeric array index. To convert a number to a string:

    // use the toString method
    dbKey.toString

    // use the String() constructor
    String(dbKey)

    // concatenate a number with empty string. Crude and ugly
    dbKey + ""

What if you want to go the other way, from a string to a number? The cheap and easy way is to do some math on the string:

    var myString = "1000";
    var myNumber = myString * 1

Don’t try and use the + operator:

    // won't work. javascript thinks concatenate
    var myString = "1000";
    var myNumber = myString + 0; // results in the string 10000

When I upgraded my Linux boxes to Firefox 1.0 (I’m now at 1.5), I finally made the jump to using the GTK 2.0 libraries. The only drag is that the default key bindings are more Windoze like. Ctrl-a selects all, rather than moving to the beginning of the line, and other annoyances to the enlightened.

To fix this, create a ~/.gtkrc-2.0. Add the line:

gtk-key-theme-name = "Emacs"

Restart any applications using GTK. You do not have to restart X.

The GTK Tutorial has lots of info on all the sundry rc files.