8 Ways to Sunday

Time for a little cleanup at 8 Ways to Sunday.

The Over-Long History of How Things Got Messy

Over the last year and a half that I’ve been blogging, a whole mess of categories has accumulated. I’d been careful about my selection of new categories and I don’t feel like I have any that are unnecessary, but the list in the sidebar was getting too long for visitors to easily navigate. When I upgraded to Movable Type 3.0, I changed my site’s URL scheme to something more “future-proof” by basing it on entry dates instead of categories. I handled the possibility of broken links from other sites with URL rewriting via .htaccess.

When I moved to WordPress I gained the ability to use sub-categories, but I didn’t go for it at first. I was concerned about breaking links to category archives, which would still be affected no matter how future-proof the permanent entries had become. I was too lazy to add even more cruft to my .htaccess file, already over 230 lines long.

What’s Changed

Well, I’ve finally grown sick of maintaining a long .htaccess file and of the slight (but noticeable) delay that redirection causes in page loading. I’ve notified all the people who sent me trackbacks before the URL scheme change that the posts they linked to have new locations. Now I’m free! Free to change categories with impunity! Woo hoo! [*ahem*]

Here’s what’s changed:

• The Graphic Design, Web Design, Writing, and Photography categories are now collected under the Arty Stuff meta-category.
• Blogging, Books, Movies, and Music are collected under Media.
• Oddities, Question of the Day, and What’s New have been re-shuffled under Miscellanea.
• Software and Technology & the Law are now filed under Science & Technology.

There now. Doesn’t that make more sense? One of the nice things about WordPress is that when you click on a major category, all the entries from its subcategories also appear in that category archive. This is much more intuitive than some other blogging systems that force you to put an entry under both its parent and sub-categories.

That’s enough anal-retentive housecleaning for one day. I’m off to play Halo 2.

Last week I found myself in possession of 1¼ lb. of catfish, bored with the two ways I knew how to cook it, and with a limited set of ingredients to work with. I sat down with my trusty copy of Copernic Agent and searched for recipes containing the ingredients I had on hand, and improvised something that was a rough combination of these two Meals.com offerings.

It came out much better than I’d expected, so Friday night I gave it another spin and perfected it. If you have a taste for spicy food, perhaps you’ll find this to your liking.

Ingredients

• 1 to 1¼ lb. catfish fillets, washed and patted dry
• 2 tsp. prepared spicy brown mustard
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
• ½ tsp. ground black pepper
• ½ tsp. McCormick Peppercorn Medley (This was supposed to be white pepper, but I didn’t have any. Peppercorn Medley is a roughly equal mixture of black, white, green, and pink peppercorns with coriander and allspice.)
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. onion powder
• ¼ tsp. garlic powder
• 2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 2-3 tbsp. butter or substitute (I used Smart Balance)

Directions

In a shallow dish, mix the seasonings with the olive oil into a grainy, gooey paste. Be sure to get it mixed up thoroughly; it should have a fairly uniform red-orange color when you’re done. Roll the fillets in the mixture, getting them well coated with spices. Now melt some butter in a skillet and fry the fish four to five minutes on each side, or until if flakes easily with a fork. Serves 2-3 people.

I use 90,000 unit cayenne pepper in this recipe, a habit I got from my mother. You can’t get this strength of pepper at a regular grocery store, at least not where I live. I get mine at Whole Foods in Wichita, about 50 miles from here. I’m not sure how this recipe will come off with the weak-ass milder pepper most people use, but as prepared with my ingredients it provides just the right mixture of mouth-scorching heat and piquant spice with rich, buttery undertones. Very yummy indeed.

This is my first original recipe. If you try it out, be sure and let me know what you think in the comments!