Mar 22
Menu of the senses
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: , . | icon4 03 22nd, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Last week, I was delighted to be invited by one of my clients to a dinner at Kock & vin (in Swedish). The name is a word play on “Coq au vin”, which would be typical for the humor around here. This was just three days after they were awarded the best wine restaurant in Sweden, and two days after they got their first start in Guide Michelin. Certainly a good week for them, and an excellent dinner for us. Inspired by Mårtens never ending stream of great dinners (in Swedish).

This was the menu I had, somewhat adapted from the regular menu due to me not eating meat or bird:

Deep fried oyster from Grebbestad, seared scallop, smoked egg with chlorophyll of spinach and parsley

2005 Sancerre Jean-Max Roger. Loire, France.

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Baked back of ling with horseraddish cream and cabbage with powder of rosted Arabica

2006 Couvent de Jacobin Blanc Louse Jadot. Bourgogne, France.

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Lukewarm langoustine with pure of white beans and soy beans

2005 Chenin Blanc. Bellingham, South Africa.

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Caviar of lumpsucker marinated with fennel grated pumpkin seeds and sour cream

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Pam fried hake with a sauce of brown butter and soya, poached egg yolk, cauliflower couscous and lemon marinated raw shrimps

2003 Les Traverse Paul Jabolet. France.

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Sorbet of seabuckthorn with presses carrots

2005 Pacherenc du Vic Bilh. Ch. dÁydie, France.

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Ice cream of coconut milk with passionfruit jam covered with warm manjari chocolate foam

2003 Casteñao Dulce. Yecia, Spain.

In every detail a great dinner, one of the very best I’ve had. Strongly recommended if you happen to pass by Göteborg.

Mar 18
REST inevitably complex?
icon1 Niklas | icon2 Tags: , , . | icon4 03 18th, 2008| icon3No Comments »

Turned out I had to cancel my trip to QCon London due to a customer engagement. Too bad as the conference seems to have been as good as the previous QCons. Oh well, there will probably be more. For my colleges at the conference, their most discussed topic seems to have been the REST track, something that makes me very happy.

My colleague Johan blogged on the inevitable increase in complexity in technologies as they become established. While I agree that REST will likely also see this type of development, I have some hopes for it not being as bad as for the WS-* cycle. For one, I don’t see the curve that Johan shows as having a constant amplitude but rather having an asymptotic curve.

For example, I think WS-* got some things right where CORBA went wrong (text based protocol, (mis)use an established protocol). This type of curve will never actually reach the golden middle way, but at least we’re getting closer. Will we be hyping some new technology-de-jour beyond REST? Sure.

Also, some (like me) would claim that REST builds on a stronger foundation then CORBA and WS-* do, and therefore will have an easier time growing to fulfill a greater set of requirements. In addition, REST did not come out the enterprisey dungeons of IBM and friends but rather from a pragmatic community and one quite wise man. Hopefully, this community can continue to foster REST and limit the inevitable complexity. For example, I don’t see REST repeating mistakes as worship transport independence (while only embracing HTTP anyways), XML level encryption or distributed transactions.