Bernays Sauce: More Bad News for Newspapers?

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

More Bad News for Newspapers?

As the former proprietor of a political news aggregator site and avid browser of aggregator sites like Huffington Post, I can attest to their popularity. Unfortunately, this trend in the next generation of news consumers may be another nail in the coffin of newspapers.

Excerpt:

The bad news comes from a new study for the Newspaper Association of America by Northwestern University’s Media Management Center. It found that teens, who were raised on free internet content, can’t imagine a situation in which they’d have to pay for their news.

Even loyalty to a brand won’t sway this generation. Today’s teens value a news site’s usability and depth of content more than the brand name associated with it. What they want is convenience and compactness, thus the allure of aggregators.

Your comments welcome.

The Best Béarnaise Sauce

Courtesy: John Short at EventPros, Inc.

Ingredients:
1 lb 4 oz butter 1/8 tsp peppercorns, crushed 1/8 tsp salt 3 Tbsp tarragon vinegar 2 Tbsp cold water 6 egg yolks 1 Tbsp fresh tarragon cayenne pepperlemon juice
Instructions:
Clarify the butter. Keep it warm but not hot.
Combine the peppercorns, salt, and vinegar in a saucepan. Reduce until dry.
Remove from the heat and add the cold water. Transfer the diluted reduction to a stainless steel bowl.
Add the egg yolks and beat well.
Hold the bowl over a hot-water bath and beat the yolks until they are thickened and creamy. Do not overcook them or they will curdle.
Remove the bowl from the heat. Using a ladle, slowly and gradually beat in the warm, clarified butter, adding it drop by drop at first. If it becomes too thick to beat before all the butter is added, beat in a little of the tarragon vinegar.
When all the butter has been added, beat in lemon juice to taste and adjust the seasonings with salt and cayenne. If necessary, thin the sauce with a few drops of warm water.
Variations:
For Hollandaise Sauce delete tarragon and tarragon vinegar - replace each with lemon juice
For Mousseline Sauce fold 1 cup whipped cream into basic Hollandaise Sauce
Other variations: Substitute each for tarragon/tarragon vinegar – Paloise Sauce (fresh mint); Maltaise Sauce (orange juice with orange zest); Mikado Sauce (tangerine juice with tangerine zest); Choron Sauce (1/2 cup diced Roma Tomatoes).
Be creative!