I need a gear system recommendation!

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Nov 30, 2007 in Technology | 12 comments

So here’s the situation. I carry a lot of gear with me on a regular basis, and the current system of various bags and backpacks is both a pain and not efficient. Here’s what I carry with me daily:

• MacBook Pro
• MiniDV cam
• MPEG4 cam
• DSLR
• 2 iPods – classic and touch
• Nokia N91
• External 750 GB HD
• Condenser mic
• M-Audio Microtrack recorder
• Flashlight
• Undisclosed ninja stuff that’s small, light, and sharp

Without lugging around a suitcase or having a PA, what systems have you seen that would make carting this pile of kit around more easy? I need your recommendations!

How bad is the housing bubble burst? THIS bad.

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Nov 30, 2007 in Rant, Real Estate | 12 comments

Just when you thought the real estate market couldn’t get any more desperate:

I don’t know who to feel more sorry for – the person posting the ad or the sucker who buys a house in metro Phoenix, Arizona, where prices are falling on average about 30%. I guess it depends on whether you think US citizenship is worth $595K.

Bertucci's Pasta Sauce: A Culinary Mystery Solved

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Nov 25, 2007 in Blogging, Foodblogging | 30 comments

I’ve had a puzzle for a little while. Actually, more than a little while, about 3 years. The puzzle is simple but not easy: I love the taste of Bertucci’s tomato sauce on their pasta but have never been able to figure out what makes it work. Try as I might about once a week, I’ve never broken the code.

For those of you who may not know, Bertucci’s is an italian-style restaurant chain of mostly pizza and pasta here in the US. Their hallmarks have traditionally been brick-oven roasted everything, but one of their lesser acknowledged trademarks is a delicious pasta sauce that goes well on just about any plain carbohydrate.

I’ve been trying to replicate its characteristics, which are:

• Sweet without being sugary
• Savory without being hearty (hearty = beef stew, french onion soup, etc.)
• Tangy without being acidic
• Bright, vivid red

Over the past three years, I’ve asked personal chefs and experts, as well as my overlord, Google, and no one’s had a satisfactory answer. I’ve tried to achieve sweet, but that leads to sugary more often than not. Tangy meant everything from vinegars to citrus juices, and it always came out like acid. Savory usually ended up with lots of carmelized vegetables in it – tasty, but not the goal.

Well, tonight was the accidental breakthrough. Here’s what seems to be the closest thing to a clone recipe.

1. Start with a large can of crushed tomatoes. Buy good quality, and buy canned, as canned tomatoes are actually fresher than anything you’re going to get at the store during the off-season. Obviously, if you have access to perfectly ripe tomatoes that are locally grown, go for it, but there’s no such creature in Boston in late November that’s natural. Open the can and toss in 2 teaspoons of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Stir, then let it sit for as long as you can. Ideally, if you can prep the can in the morning for that evening’s dinner, awesome. Even just 5 minutes is better than nothing, though.

2. In a non-stick saucepan (the non-stick is important!) add four tablespoons of the tomatoes (try to make it mostly chunks) plus a quarter teaspoon of garlic, and a teaspoon of olive oil. Start over 33% heat (on my stove, there are numbers 1 – 6, and I did this at 2, 6 being hottest) and cook until the water is driven off from the tomatoes. Stir a lot.

3. When the water is gone and the tomatoes are pasty, turn up the heat until the garlic mixed with the tomatoes changes color and darkens a little. It’s more than okay at this point if the fringes of tomato residue on the sides of the pan get toasty. Stir a lot, scraping the sides of the saucepan to get any toasty residue back towards the bottom.

4. When the garlic changes color to a darker shade OR the tomatoes are appreciably darker – whichever comes first, throw the rest of the can in. Stir like crazy. Add a quarter teaspoon cracked black pepper and a quarter teaspoon of sweet basil, dried.

5. Crank up the heat to 100% until the stirred pasta sauce boils, then turn it down to 50%; most of the water in the can will surface to the top. Cook with the lid mostly on (letting vapor escape) for 15 minutes.

At the end of the process, you’ll have a tomato sauce that tastes remarkably like Bertucci’s, close enough ideally to dissuade you from dropping $15$20 for a meal that costs a lot less to prepare at home.

One last secret of Bertucci’s is that the pasta is cooked al dente, or somewhat chewy. Whatever the directions are on the box of pasta, chop about a minute off the cooking time and you’ll have roughly al dente pasta. Al dente is important for two reasons: first, the pasta is a different texture, not mushy, and second, there’s still a fair amount of water in the pasta sauce. Cooking it al dente will let the pasta absorb a good portion of that water when it’s mixed together.

What I do typically is take the pasta as it reaches al dente, drain it, toss it in a large bowl, throw all the sauce on top of it, and stir for 5 minutes with a big spoon. This lets the pasta absorb excess water from the sauce and ensures that it’s evenly coated.

Give this a try and let me know how it works for you!

Also see this blog post about 5 easy ways to win at pasta for more pasta tips.

Enjoyed it? Please share it!

Get this and other great articles from the source at www.ChristopherSPenn.com

For every shadow there must be light

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Nov 23, 2007 in Ninjutsu, On ko chi shin | 8 comments

For every shadow there must be light

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff coined the slogan “For every light that shines, a shadow falls” as part of his audio drama, Shadow Falls. The reverse is true and worth thinking about. For every shadow, there must be light, else it’d be pure darkness.

This past year was a tumultuous year. Next year promises even more change, some chaos, and economic harbingers that are less than comforting. That said, the coming year can also be the very best year you’ve ever had. We’ve talked about it recently on an episode of Marketing Over Coffee, and I’ve talked about other advance preparations on the Financial Aid Podcast.

Ultimately, when times are bad, when things get ugly, you have three basic choices:

1. Do nothing and hope that the river of life doesn’t send you over a waterfall.

2. Deny that anything’s wrong in the hope that your delusions will become truth.

3. Take positive action to prepare others and yourself for trouble and find ways to leverage the troubling times.

I’m shooting for camp 3. I’ve outlined the dangers ahead – with $3 trillion – $5 trillion possibly at severe risk (bear in mind we are an economy of roughly $14 trillion), you have to prepare for rough times. Cash is king, debt is your enemy, liquidity is an advantage, tied-up assets are not. Mobility is important, as is network reach. Always have a backup plan.

You can also be a source of inspiration and power in your community, whether offline or online.

Now is the time to step up your community involvement if possible. Get out there, be visible, be involved. Have involvement with as many people as possible – as Mitch Joel says, DO talk to strangers, because the ninja method advocates having as many people in your network as possible so you can get different perspectives, have your ear to the ground, and see things coming from very far away.

Be on top of changes – know what’s changing, know who brings the harbingers of change. Subscribe to lots of blogs and read the best quality ones voraciously, because when winds shift, you want to be in front of the change, catching the wind and sailing past danger.

Grow and develop your sphere of personal power. In your community of friends, do you know what their superpowers are? How can they complement you, and more importantly, how can you complement them?

The ninja of old were renowned for their seemingly supernatural powers, chief among them the ability to foretell the future. Most of that wasn’t supernatural – it was having a strong network. You have access to a network that the ninja grandmasters of old would have traded their right arms for – a global, decentralized, instant information network. What does it tell you – and if it isn’t telling you what you need to know to avoid danger and embrace prosperity, how can you change your network to fulfill that function?

For every shadow there must be light.

Are you ready to shine?

Side bar: The Chinese word for crisis, weiji, does not mean “danger and opportunity”. Kennedy screwed that one up, that cliche about the word for crisis meaning danger and opportunity. Weiji means danger and a crucial point. It’s more like the point at which you’re in a barrel approaching the waterfall’s edge. You’re just about to go over. You don’t think about trying to go fishing for opportunity – your goal is not to die.

Marketing Over Coffee Serving Again

Posted by Christopher S Penn on Nov 21, 2007 in Podcasting | 0 comments

The WordPress install for Marketing Over Coffee went bye-bye for a little while tonight, but fear not – the best marketing podcast has its web site back and a new episode for your listening pleasure, featuring my dauntless co-host, John Wall.