Hans Bethe has died

This is a rather unhappy day for me, but I will tell of my encounter with the physicist Hans Bethe:

As a grad student I had the great good luck to be Hans Bethe's lackey for a month. He was the nicest, easiest man for whom I have ever worked.
I was studying for my qualifiers and sat in his outer office at his beck and call. One day I was working on a particularly hard mechanics problem and was oblivious to the world. All of the sudden there was a cup of coffee at my elbow. I turned to watch Dr. Bethe walk back into his office with his coffee in hand.

He was preparing for a conference in Santa Fe on high energy physics. When the conference came I went to the sessions that interested me and saw little of Dr. Bethe. On the last day of the conference he insisted that I join him. He was to attend a meeting for invited physicists and I was to go in case I was needed to run an "errand". So here I was at a modern day Savoy Conference with the leading lights of the field. I sat in a chair away from the table listening like a fly on the wall. No errands were run. When the meeting was done I walked out of the room and my boss wanted to know what had happened. I confessed that I didn't understand a word of it. As he walked by Hans Bethe said with a twinkle in his eye, "That's alright, neither did I". That was the last I saw him that summer.

Sauce for a thick Pizza

When I was a grad student I lived in the only house in Urbana that was on California Street near the university(house is no longer there). 10 of us lived in the house and we called it Hotel California. What was so ironic is that you could not have found a group of straighter grad students if you tried. None of us did drugs and only 2 or 3 had tried marijuana at sometime in their life. Almost all of us enjoyed cooking (that and Sci-Fi were our common interests). When we left Hotel California we made a cookbook, here is a sauce from that book.


Pizza Sauce for thick pizza:

The nice thing about this sauce is that you can double, triple, etc. and store it in the freezer for later use (a lot later).

1 6oz can of tomato paste (try Italian for extra flavor)
16 oz of in season local tomatoes (or a 16 oz can out of season)
2 tsp of olive oil
1 clove garlic minced or to taste
salt to taste
black pepper to taste
red pepper (optional, I don’t use this) to taste

Thyme
Oregano

Chop up the tomatoes, mix with the tomato paste and place in covered pot on low heat. About ½ hour in the process add the garlic, salt, black pepper, and red pepper to taste. Once that is done start adding thyme and oregano (in a three parts oregano to one part thyme) until it just barely becomes too bitter to taste. Don’t worry, when you put it on the pizza the flavor will be diluted. Then let it heat for another couple of hours, stir occasionally (at least 2 hours). You may need to add water, but keep the sauce somewhat thick. Pack in two cup portions for freezing (2 cups/pizza).

Hint on thick pizzas: The art in fixing a good thick pizza is the order of ingredients. On the dough put ½” of cheese (yes, cheese first). Then add your veggies (sauté mushrooms) and your pepperoni. Then you lay down the sauce in thick cross-strips. Cover about ½ the pizza with the strips (baking will spread the sauce out).

Put the rest of your meats on top. You may want to fry your meats beforehand and add to the pizza for the last 10 minutes of baking. Letting your meats cook with the pizza may dry them out if the crust is particularly thick (like mine). Don’t go wild with you toppings, it eventually becomes to hard to bake, I usually have no more than 4 different toppings on any part of the pizza.

Finally you need to brush olive oil on all the exposed dough or it will burn. You might want to guess what the exposed dough will be and do this first, I usually get a weird mess when I do this last.

Rain Forest Experiment

While I was at the University of Illinois some of my friends lived in a house on Iowa St. We called the house Starbase Iowa, ok so we were geeks. One night one of the guys in the house decided to make some killer chili in a crock pot. After he finished cooking it he basically took the crock pot to bed with him and ate out of the pot. When he got sleepy he just slipped the pot under the bed. He forgot about it for a couple weeks (months?). When he finally found the crock pot the lid was steamy and glued to the pot. He decided that he didn't want to deal with it and put it back under the bed.

We called it the rain forest experiment. Hours were spent wondering what was brewing in the crock pot. Since it was an isolated system we conjectured that something Darwinian was happening inside. When he finally moved he cleaned up the crock pot while the rest of us kept our distance (measured in miles).

Chili Verde

Carnival of the recipes (http://rocketjones.mu.nu/archives/069986.html) is a weekly post with lots of recipies. This week they have alot of chili sauce based recipies. Sure you can buy green chili sauce, but here is a recipe to make green chili sauce.

Roasting green chilies (works for all types of hot green peppers including Jalapenos): Rinse and dry the chilies. Make a small cut (or fork) to prevent popping. Place in broiler 4-6 inches (10-15 cm) from the broiler elements. Roast the chilies turning them frequently until they are completely blistered. They may blacken in the process, this is okay. Remove from oven and place on a plate under a damp cloth for 15 minutes. Roasted chilies can be frozen with the skins on for future use.

Peeling the chilies: With the pairing knife (I have used a scaling knife successfully) peel the skin starting at the stem and pulling down. You can do this with your fingers but I find the knife is easier. Cut the chili open, remove the seeds and the stem.

Green Chili (Chili Verde):

2 T Oil or lard (lard is “authentic” but I use olive oil for taste)
2 Cloves Garlic crushed or minced(or more or less to taste)
½ Cup minced Onion
1 skinned, seeded and minced Jalapeno (or none for a milder sauce, more if you are from NM or nuts)
1 T plus a pinch (if you add Jalapeno) Flour
1 Cup Water
1 Cup diced Chilies

In a heavy suace pan saute the garlic, onion, and jalapeno. When the onion is clear blend in the flour. Add the water and chilies. Bring to a boil and simmer. Stir frenquently. For a hearty sauce about 5 minutes will do, mild sauces simmer longer.

This sauce can be refrigerated for up to a week. It can also be frozen but I think something is lost when it is.