I said sure — the site seems more flashy than useful, but at least legitimate. I was impressed that they quoted back my Creative Commons license (free for non-commercial use, with attribution) and indicated that while their site was free, it was ad-driven. Unless you’re Google, to me that means “doomed,” but best of luck on your business plan.

Anyway, it’s up on their site, along with about 10 other photos from the same location: the Pitt Rivers Museum.

If you click through the photo it goes to my Flickr page for it. Not bad.

When I make dinner for Dan’s birthday, it’s ma po tofu, adapted from Land of Plenty by Fuschia Dunlop.

My birthday was more recently. Dan made pastitsio, from Cook’s Illustrated Best 30 Minute Recipe.

Recipes follow:

Ma po tofu

Ingredients

1. 1 lb tofu
2. 4 baby leeks or 2 leeks or 1 leek plus 1 bunch scallions
3. 1/2 cup peanut oil
4. 6 oz ground beef or ground pork or 6-8 shiitake mushrooms + 2 sliced garlic cloves
5. 2 1/2 tbs chile bean paste (toban djan)
6. 1 tbs fermented black beans
7. 1 cup chicken stock, or vegetable stock, or water
8. 1 tsp white sugar
9. 2 tsp light soy sauce
10. 2-3 tbs arrowroot or 4-6 tbs cornstarch
11. 1/2 tsp ground roasted Sichuan peppercorns

Directions

1. Cut tofu into 1-inch cubes and steep in salted hot water.
2. Cut leeks into long “horse ear” slices (or roughly chop scallions)
3. Add peanut oil to wok over high heat and stir-fry meat or mushrooms, adding garlic at the end
4. Turn the heat down to medium and add the chile bean paste, stir-frying for 30 seconds, then add fermented black beans and stir-fry for another 30 seconds.
5. Pour in stock and add tofu. Mix it gently to avoid breaking the tofu. Season with sugar, soy sauce and a little salt. Simmer for 5 minutes or more.
6. Add leeks or scallions and stir in until just cooked. Turn heat to low and add arrowroot until sauce has thickened. Serve with scattered peppercorns at the table, over rice.

Skillet pastitsio

Ingredients

1. 1 lb ground lamb
2. 1 onion, minced
3. .25 tsp groun cinammon
4. 2 tbs tomato paste
5. 6 garlic cloves, minced
6. 2 tsp minced fresh oregano
7. 3 cups chicken broth
8. 1 cup heavy cream
9. 8 ounces elbow macaroni
10. .5 tsp arrowroot or 1 tsp cornstarch
11. 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat to 475 degrees
2. Cook lamb in 12-inch skillet over medium heat, 3 – 5 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 tbs of fat
3. Add tbs of fat to skillet and add onion, cinnamon and .25 tsp salt once hot. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in tomato paste, garlic, oregano and cook 30 seconds
4. Stir in broth, .5 cup of cream, macaroni and lamb. Increase heat to high and cook until pasta is tender, 8-10 minutes
5. Whisk remaining .5 cup of cream and arrowroot/cornstarch, then stir into skillet. Simmer 1 minute until thickened
6. Off heat stir in .5 cup Parmesan and salt & pepper to taste. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Bake until lightly browned, 5 minutes.

On the subway platform, heading home, a drunk man approached me and mumbled a long stream of Spanish. I shrugged and said in English, “I don’t understand.”

He mumbled more Spanish. I put up my hands, as if to say, “Hey, what can you do, I’m American, I only speak American.”

He gestured forcifully at the train tunnel and then said, as if suddenly realizing, “No sabes.”

Automatically I agreed, “No sé.”

Then I thought, shit, now he’s going to talk to me. But he only nodded, and started walking away down the platform muttering, “No sabes, no sabes.”

I tried using Clive to locate potential sites, guided by the dearth of streets and historical road names. “Old Mill Road” was a dead end and sounded promising, but the mill, if it ever existed, was now a rifle range. “Caution Live Ammo” was all I needed to see to turn around.

Eventually I found my open space.

And just off Route 2 I found some cows.

On my way home I spotted a large adult deer grazing just off the road. I hung a U-turn and pulled to the side. It took a few minutes of scrambling to screw on the zoom, and obsessively I spent precious minutes locating the lens hood because I was worried about glare from the low afternoon sun. I ran across the street and hopped over a fence, conscious that everyone driving by could see me. I found a small rise that was clear of brush, lifted the camera to my eye and watched the deer step delicately into the woods, vanishing.

It was not a nice place to be a teenager.

I have earned about $200 in sales from istockphoto, and the vast majority has been from a single photo of coffee beans I shot against some cardstock in my bathroom. Here it is:

It’s not even a good photo, but it’s been paid for 332 times — earning about a fourth of the cost of the lens that took the picture. Recently it occurred to me that my contract with istockphoto is non-exclusive, so if people want to insert my coffee bean photo into their PowerPoint presentations I should allow them to purchase it from a variety of vendors.

I signed up to be a photographer on Shutterstock and submitted the required 10 photographs, including the wildly popular coffee bean photo. Shutterstock indicated that they would review my initial set and get back to me in 2 to 7 days.

Four hours later, all ten photographs were rejected.

So if you are looking for a high-quality stock photography site, may I suggest http://www.shutterstock.com?

Honest Bob and the Factory-to-Dealer Incentives, May 10, 2007:

Minty mojito:

This is galangal. I got it at Whole Foods, the first time I have seen it outside of an Asian grocery store. I bought it largely to take this picture.

That is all.