Recipe: Glazed Arctic Char with and Meyer Lemon Couscous Broth
by Fazia Rizvi
21 January 2008, 7:55 PM

Today I tried Bobby Flay's Arctic Char with Tangerine-Habanero Glaze and Meyer Lemon Couscous Broth.

This one turned out fabulous! The fish was very tender, moist and flavorful. Amazingly, this all came together in just 30 minutes.

Things I did differently:
I made the glaze a few days ahead of time, and substituted mango nectar for the tangerine juice (since I didn't have any tangerine juice) and several dashes of cayenne pepper for the habanero. That saved me a lot of time. I also left the skin on while cooking, and removed it only before plating, following Bobby Flay's instructions in the episode, rather than this recipe.

Problems:
The arctic char we bought looked a bit ravaged by the attempt to de-pin bone it. I also didn't have a oven-safe non-stick skillet, so I was using a tri-ply with just the olive oil. The fish ended up sticking to the pan a bit, so my crust didn't come out as nice. I think I also was a bit generous with the lemony broth on the cous-cous, so it was a bit too tangy. I'll ease up on that next time.

By the way, for the folks who like something non-alcoholic to go with meals, I'd recommend mango juice to go with this. It was fabulous with the dish.

It All Comes Down to Motivations
by Fazia Rizvi
21 January 2008, 5:29 PM

I found out about this one via Kelly Martin on the LinuxChix Live news aggregator:

Most Diversity Training Ineffective, Study Finds:

Most diversity training efforts at American companies are ineffective and even counterproductive in increasing the number of women and minorities in managerial positions, according to an analysis that turns decades of conventional wisdom, government policy and court rulings on their head.

A comprehensive review of 31 years of data from 830 mid-size to large U.S. workplaces found that the kind of diversity training exercises offered at most firms were followed by a 7.5 percent drop in the number of women in management. The number of black, female managers fell by 10 percent, and the number of black men in top positions fell by 12 percent. Similar effects were seen for Latinos and Asians.

The analysis did not find that all diversity training is useless. Rather, it showed that mandatory programs -- often undertaken mainly with an eye to avoiding liability in discrimination lawsuits -- were the problem. When diversity training is voluntary and undertaken to advance a company's business goals, it was associated with increased diversity in management.

This makes sense. If the motivation behind offering "diversity training" is simply to avoid getting sued, rather than to embrace diversity and make it work for the business, then the end result will reflect that attitude.