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Topics - Glaurung

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76
Food Discussion - The Jolly Boar Kitchen / Mushroom soup recipe
« on: December 09, 2014, 10:03:13 PM »
Every year, the Cambridge Tolkien Society has a pre-Christmas meal, which we usually cook ourselves. For many years, this mushroom soup recipe has been used, often with me doing the cooking. It's pretty reliable, and seems to be successful, judging by the numbers coming back for seconds. It's vegetarian, but not vegan, and unsuitable for anyone allergic to or intolerant of milk, gluten or (obviously!) mushrooms.

Ingredients
To feed 16

- mushrooms: 2 lb / 900g
- butter: 12 oz / 350g
- plain flour: 6 oz / 170g (the original recipe has 6 handfuls!)
- garlic: 2 medium cloves (or more to taste)
- water: 6 pints / 3.4 litres
- milk: 2 pints / 1.14 litres (whole milk probably works best, but semi-skimmed is OK too)
- onion: 2 large (maybe 1lb / 450g in total)
- vegetarian stock cube: 6
- lemon juice: 2 teaspoonfuls
- salt and pepper: to taste

Equipment
For the quantities above, a large preserving pan / jam kettle, with a volume well over a gallon / 4.5 litres.

Instructions
Chop the onions and mushrooms separately.
Melt the butter in the pan.
Add the onions to the butter, and crush in the garlic. Cook over a low heat until the onions are soft.
Add the mushrooms to the onions, and cook for about 5 minutes.
Mix in the flour, and about half a pint (280ml) of water.
Cook for 15 minutes, adding more water if necessary (the consistency should be slurry, not stodge, so that it doesn't stick and burn).
Add the rest of the water, crush in the stock cubes, and bring to the boil (this takes a long time!).
Lower to medium heat, and cook for about 10 minutes, stirring often.
Add the milk and turn to a low heat (do NOT boil after adding the milk).
Add salt, pepper and lemon juice, and let cook for a few minutes.

With the quantities given, the total cooking time is about 2 hours; there's enough for 2 ladlefuls (9 fl oz / 250ml) per person, and some seconds.

77
General Chatter - The Boozer / Thanksgiving
« on: November 27, 2014, 12:44:18 PM »
A happy Thanksgiving to all those who are celebrating it today. I hope you all have a great day.

78
General Chatter - The Boozer / "Test message" e-mail
« on: November 14, 2014, 11:48:49 PM »
I've four similar but rather strange e-mails today: from random senders, with titles containing the word Test and an 8-character code, and contents consisting of a few unrelated sentences. It looks to me like a spammer testing a database of addresses to see whether they bounce. Has anyone else had any of these?

79
Another random thing I found and thought might be interesting: a map of endonyms, i.e. place names in the local language of that place. This is one is a map of country names in the local languages and scripts.

80
A slightly old BBC news article. An island was shown on maps of the Pacific for at least ten years; then some scientists went there and found it was open ocean!

81
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones / Existing ASoIaF threads
« on: September 24, 2014, 09:43:48 PM »
I've found the following threads that might migrate here, if some friendly admin had the time and inclination...

They're all in The Storyteller's Hall:

The "Hodor" thread in the Spamfest board might be regarded as relevant, but I don't think it counts as discussion :P

82
The volcanic eruption in Iceland seems to have fallen off the news in the last week or so, probably because there doesn't seem to be any immediate threat of ash clouds disrupting air traffic. Nevertheless, there is (so I discovered) a substantial eruption in progress, with lava fountains up to 100m high along a fissure 1.5km long. It's spewing sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere, a cloud of which drifted across Ireland on Friday evening. 10% of Icelandic territory (admittedly some of the least populated) has been evacuated because of the danger of floods from melting glaciers. And there's a distinct possibility of a major eruption with world-wide consequences for climate.

Where did I find out about this? An Icelandic blogger writing on Daily Kos, under the name Rei. The posting history might be the easiest way to get into the story: there's a post on the subject roughly daily from 17 August onwards. The introductory post, Just to Let You All Know, explains some of the possibilities, and why we should be concerned. Each of the daily posts includes a summary of the latest science results and other news, with some thoughts on what might come next. There's also a good selection of images and videos to illustrate what's happening. I intend to keep reading!

EDIT (2014-09-10 08:00):
I thought I would add here the links I've already included in other posts, just for convenience:

EDIT (2014-09-27 12:42):
I finally got organised to find a link for official UK air quality data. This provides current readings, and graphs for the last week, for an extensive network of sites. Unfortunately most of them don't measure SO2 - the focus seems to be on nitrogen oxides.

83
This one is probably of most interest to Othko; Pentagathus need read no further.

I ran into the Tau Manifesto today. It's an extended argument for the proposal that we should use a 'circle constant' of τ (tau) = circumference/radius, rather than the familiar π. τ = 2π, of course. I think it's quite well thought-out, though I suspect I won't switch simply because I'm too used to π-based formulae now.

84
I don't know if this is exactly on-topic here, but it appealed to me. Since 1913, work has been under way on compiling a dictionary of medieval Latin from British sources. The current team believe they have now reached the end - an entry for 'zythum', a type of beer. There are more details in this BBC News article. Now I'm just waiting for them to start on an OED-style Supplement for things that have been missed earlier.

85
Pentagathus suggested I start a new thread for this (instead of cluttering up Going to be Away?), so here it is. I will re-post here my last post there, so that people can pick up the thread of the discussion.

86
As you might have heard, the Rosetta space probe arrived at its target (comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko) today, after a ten-year journey to get it into the right orbit - see this BBC news article. I'm looking forward to the science reports, and also to finding out what the surface of a comet actually looks like.

87
The Welcome Hall - Start Here! / Greetings, Exilioi!
« on: August 03, 2014, 10:12:39 AM »
Hi there.

I understand new members are encouraged to introduce themselves here. I went to Exilicon and met some of you; you seem like interesting people, so I thought I'd join.

Jubal will know me immediately from my user name; Comrade_General survived the mental and physical tests of a tour of Cambridge with me; four more of you were kind enough to repay me for your drinks. I'm waiting to see what response I get from Pentagathus...

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