Technically Crunchy

Surreal Broken Bottles & Records

At some point whilst penning that last point our heads disappeared up our own fundaments in search of the truth to this sorry tale. And good readers of Technically Crunchy, it is indeed a very sorry tale and not a cute mouse’s tail, no, a proper tale, like the ones the Brothers Grimm penned to trick kids into stuff.

Mic Wright, erstwhile uber tweeter has fallen victim to a cruel fake Mic Wright. To clarify that’s Mic Wright famous for his soft skin and wit and not because he was in Steps or Hollyoaks.

Having ourselves dabbled in posing as real people, we know only too well how funny such accounts can be.

But not when they are created to settle a score - that’s just bullying, pure and simple and frankly it gives reputable tech troubadours like us a bad name, hiding as we do behind a platted ginger beard.

But and it’s a big shortly to be banned by my ISP provider Butt, Mic you need to simply ignore your crudely drawn baiter. Using your powers of written persuasion will only fuel their fire. Trust us, we only get excited when people talk about us (feel free to) and you’ve just given the twonk a platform.

If you know who it is, don’t call them out for a fight and please god not on Primrose Hill. At least try Burgess Park late one Friday night as there is every chance your nemesis will be killed proper like on his or her way to the punch up.

You know who it is, so just get them framed for grand larceny or some such and the use their own weapon of choice against them.

Hell blame them for the Facebook IPO.

TechShitty Commits Trademark Violation

So our much vaunted tech quango has published a lame ass magazine featuring Elizabeth Varley on a rope, a dude in a raincoat and an accompanying website that commits too many sins to mention.

Words fail us, or did, until this next sentence.

If you watch Doctor Who you may recall the running theme in a previous series in which a fissure opened in the space time continuum into which anything that fell was wiped from time.

This feels a little bit like that.

Our undercover honeytraps within TechShitty HQ tell us the bottomless stares of technocrats follow their every sashay to the fax machine are getting more frequent.

Not a retro hipster fax machine, a real live, facsimile creator!

Also note that if you wish to be hypnotised by BMW’s, Kensington and a blonde lady with a broken wrist go to their website, where you will observe in your browser tab that TechCity thinks it’s Twitter, appropriating their trademarked icon for their own purposes.

To what end, who the fuck cares?

Erin Bury’s Dream Lasagne

Part time blog illusionist Erin thinks lasagne is junkfood, which it is if you throw it in the bin and then retrieve it to eat later, which let’s face it, we’ve all done.

Best thing: when you dream about eating junk food but didn’t actually eat it. That was the best dream lasagna I’ve ever had!

— Erin Bury (@erinbury) May 17, 2012

So without extra cheese, here’s her dream lasagne recipe.

1. First make the ragu or meat sauce. Heat the oil in a frying pan, then cook the beef in two batches for about 10 mins until browned all over. Finely chop 4 slices of prosciutto, then stir through the meat mixture. Don’t be tempted to junk it, it’s not a chicken wing in a bucket or a meat pattie, it’s Italian and the only junk they do are junk bonds.
2. Pour over the tomato sauce and stock, add the nutmeg, then season. Bring up to the boil, then simmer for 30 mins until the ragu looks rich and is well coated in sauce. Can be left for 3 days in the fridge or frozen for 3 months (although not if the tomato sauce has previously been frozen).
3. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. To assemble lasagne, lightly oil an ovenproof serving dish (30 x 20cm). Spoon over a third of the ragu sauce, then cover with lasagne sheets. Drizzle over about one quarter of the white sauce. Repeat until you have 3 layers of pasta. Cover with the remaining half quantity of white sauce, making sure you can’t see any pasta poking through.
4. Tear the mozzarella into thin strips, then scatter over the top. Arrange the rest of the prosciutto on top. Bake for 45 mins until the top is bubbling and lightly browned. (The uncooked lasagne can be frozen. If baking from frozen, add another 45 mins to the cooking time).

Rory Cellan-Jones Bubble & Squeak

Right now’s Twitter inspired recipe comes from BBC Tech flabbergast and unsubstantiated statement foghorn Rory ‘put-the-kettle-on’ Jones.

So Pinterest is now valued at $1.5bn - more evidence of a tech bubble? pinterest.com/pin/1940066964…

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) May 17, 2012

Yes folks it’s Rory’s Piss Easy Bubble & Squeak.

Ingredients:

• 4 tbsp butter
• ½ cup onion, finely chopped
• Spurious comment about Pinterest’s valuation and a tech bubble
• Leftover mashed potato
• Any leftover vegetables, cabbage, swede, carrots, peas, Brussels Sprouts, finely chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Fried bacon pieces (optional)

Preparation:

Arianna Huffington’s Squirrel Cacciatore

Poor Arianna, briefing against her AOL overlords whilst they recuperate in hospital, hiring and firing and sleeping with NBC’s (No Bloody Covers), what is a girl to do?

New media reporter alert. MT @Pfro: MEDIA RUMOR: HUFFPO AND AOL - OVER? Arianna and Tim aren’t getting along well. tmblr.co/Z-eFbwLareb-

— Jeff Bercovici (@jeffbercovici) May 16, 2012

Simple, dust off Grandma Huffington’s recipe for squirrel cacciatore.

Here’s what you’ll need:

~ 2 - 3 squirrels cut up in pieces
~ 1/4 cup flour
~ garlic salt
~ black pepper
~ 2 tbsp oil
~ 1/2 tsp oregano
~ 1/4 tsp ground cloves
~ 1 4oz can sliced mushrooms, drained
~ 1 medium green pepper, chopped
~ 2 onions, sliced
~ 1 rib of celery, chopped
~ 1 15oz can tomato sauce
~ 1/2 cup dry white wine
~ 1 small can(2oz) ripe sliced olives

Shake the squirrel pieces in a bag with flour, garlic salt and pepper. At this stage you could add some hairspray, Republicanism and some kitten heels.

In a Dutch oven saute the pieces in the oil until golden brown. 

Add the remaining ingredients, except for the olives. Cover and simmer over low heat about 1 hour, or squirrel is tender.

Stir in black olives and simmer 10 minutes more.

Serve with rice or noodles if desired.

Make sure not to use roadkill or squirrels killed with breaking news and mediocre telecoms providers this is not sanitary.

Enjoy!

Jack Dorsey’s Hemingway Daiquiri

In our series started yesterday that isn’t a series, but is rapidly turning into just that, we now present another Twitter inspired celeb recipe.

This time it’s Twitter metaphysicist Jack ‘Up’ Dorsey with his Hemingway Daiquiri.

INTERVIEWER: How do you name your characters?HEMINGWAY: The best I can. theparisreview.org/interviews/482…

— Jack Dorsey (@jack) May 16, 2012

The original daiquiri was a mixture of rum, lime, and sugar, served over ice. Yet another product of late-nineteenthth-century imperialism, the Daiquiri was first recorded in a Cuban mining town of the same name. Although the locals had probably been knocking back rum and lime for years.

In 1886 an American engineer, James Cox, and a Cuban engineer named Pagliuchi refined the rum and lime drink by adding cane sugar. When Admiral Lucius Johnson introduced the recipe to the Army Navy Club in D.C., in 1909, the Daiquiri was becoming one of the world’s most popular drinks.

Mind The Verge

So by its own declaration The Verge has the exclusive on ugly puffer fish site Bitly morphing into a viral search engine (yawn!). He doesn’t mean a search engine for looking up how bad that jock rot is going to get, or what peeing blood means, nope.

It’s for looking for trending pizzas, because the world needs another site, app, schizzle like that!

The are touting this as an exclusive, but note a couple of things:

1. “Bit.ly … is raising around $20 million in a new round of funding, we have learned from multiple sources. That’s twice the amount the company raised in its last round, and shows a mature startup closing in on a working business model.”

So by that law of total horse shit, you have to raise $30 million before you ‘close in’ on a business model. Don’t worry world, that makes total sense, but only if you’re Greek.

2. “It will likely be something close to what Matt Lemay, Bitly’s platform manager, showed off at the New York Tech Meetup last year: a viral search engine that lets users see what’s trending.”

So it’s not an exclusive at all Vergers, it’s old news, really old news and nobody much gave a damn then either.

Pander-Too-Rarely

Paul ‘chuffing’ Carr and Milo ‘yankee doodle’ Yiannopoulos gathered in the early hours to talk the Twilight franchise, liking The Butcher of Old Street but hating his employer and hyphens, for 35 fricking minutes.

Skype arms were encircled in a mutual back pat, but in amongst all this slapping and bon homie was a very serious message.

Yes folks, we’re breaking this and it’s not a taboo. 

Milo appears to have been sent to civil war torn Syria or maybe Somalia, where he’s been captured by terror bent pirates thinking he’s a Kernel, deprived of sleep and locked in a box, possibly made of balsa wood.

Thankfully he’ still got that tweed jacket that has now auto woven itself into his DNA.

We expect a ransom demand imminently and a swift rebuttal from his former Kernel colleagues who realise that fireside chats with Elton John’s husband won’t pay the bills.

Jimmy Wales Chicken Kiev

In a series that won’t be ongoing, we take inspiration from tweets to conjure culinary delights named after internet celebs.

First up is Encyclopedia Britannica killer, Jimmy Wales.

@jimmy_wales amazing presentation in Kiev today! I hope you enjoyed your stay. “Han shot first” ;)

— Alex Maxwell Summers (@alexsummers) May 15, 2012

Jimmy’s dish is called Jimmy Wales Chicken Kiev, here’s what you’ll need:

2. To make the filling, mix the softened butter with the garlic, tarragon, parsley and seasoning. Chill in the fridge until ready to use.