I'm a fan of the genre of the case comment, if for no other reasons than variety and the fact that reviewing another work forces the author to say something they've never said before, at least a bit. So I'm pleased to see that the Harvard Law Review has out an entire issue of faculty-authored case comments-- in this case on opinions issued by Richard Posner on the Seventh Circuit. Given that I taught myself a great deal of contracts and torts out of what opinions I could find of Judges Posner and Easterbrook, I also agree with Dean Kagan that Posner's judicial writings are comparatively understudied.

The Lonely Planet guides to Mexico cautions tourists thinking of going to Teotihuacan that the Spring equinox can be a particularly crowded day, and that they may want to see it another time. Since we figured that people-watching was a benefit, not a cost, of travelling in Mexico, we decided to intentionally wade into the hurly-burly. Of course, little did we know that "particularly crowded" was translated from the Mexican for "so packed with people that government troops are called out for riot control and the bus is forced to stop on the highway a mile or so outside of Teotihucan and make you walk the rest of the way through the frenzied crowds".

Nonetheless, we poked around and saw a lot of interesting stuff. Apparently traditional-Aztec-dancing is a weekend pursuit that is culturally equivalent to Civil War reenactment, and troupes of dancers were all over the place (as well as some folks who joined in impromptu). And an awful lot of impressive construction given the lack of, e.g., the wheel. But most importantly, we climbed the Piramde del Sol (whose smaller cousin the Pyramid of the Moon, was closed for the day). Two pictures of it are below.

Standing in Line:

Another look:

None of my pictures from the top are particularly impressive.

I don't like to eat more than 5 or 6 ounces of meat at a time, so when I prepared my pork chop on sunday, I shaved a few ounces off and sent them to the freezer. The opportunity to use those remnants came last night, when I escaped from work early.

Obviously, the options with about an ounce of center cut pork chop and a few shavings from around the bone are fairly minimal, but I made like our ancestors and extended my meagre store with bread crumbs into a few parmesan-pork meatballs. Well, it ought to have been bread crumbs. But I didn't have any bread, so I used some leftover "texarcana" pita chips from lunch. They worked perfectly well, and they added a surprising quick to the dish. In any case, don't let anyone tell you that you need a food processor to prepare meat for hamburger, steak tartare, or a meatball. A sharp knife does the job almost as well, and I appreciate the extra texture one gets from not pureeing the poor meat.

Having said all that, I've been in the mood for cauliflower recently, but note that there are relatively few ways to eat the thing. I like it roasted, but roasting inevitably leadens it. A traditional gratin is too heavy for the early spring, I think. So what I did instead was slice the cauliflower, lay out the pieces flat in a pan bubbling with a little olive oil, and let them fry until the vegetable was golden brown on one side. A quick flip followed by red chili flakes and parmesan, both while the cauliflower was in the pan and later on the plate, was all I needed to finish the dish. The picture came out poorly, I admit (white on white is never that photogenic), but dinner was fantastic. A little glass of white wine finished things off perfectly.