I'm working on a paper about geographical indications, and the history of the struggle between the United States and Europe on protecting local products such as Roquefort, Champagne, etc. Here's an exchange between Jon Dudas, an official in the Commerce Department, and representative Bob Goodlatte of Virgina:

MR. DUDAS: And Roquefort cheese has been registered and protected in the United States since 1953. Registered and certainly could have been protected under a common law before that. And you point out, parmesan cheese is generic in the United States, but parmegiana reggiana is a protected geographical indication.

REP. GOODLATTE: Is that a brand of parmesan cheese?

MR. DUDAS: It's a type of parmesan cheese that comes from a region in Italy.

And Goodlatte is the guy in charge of Congress's negotiations on this issue? Flurgggh!

Following the advice of several Crescat Sententia readers, my second effort at cashew-crusted tilapia (the first effort is described here) involved more serious efforts to get the crust to stick to the fish. I went for the classic coat with seasoned flour, coat with egg, and coat with nuts approach, and then fried the fish in plenty of butter and olive oil. This time, the cashew crust pretty much stayed on, but it was also very greasy. I think the solution might be a quick fry at a higher temperature to brown the crust, and then finishing off the cooking process in the oven.

The current recipe:

Cashew-crusted Tilapia with Rum-Butter Sauce:

For the fish:
2 tilapia filets, about 8 oz. each.
3 tbsp. flour
1/4-1/2 tsp. cayenne, to taste
1/2 tsp. salt
1 egg, well beaten
4 oz. cashew crumbs (a food processor works well here, but the can also be crushed by hand)
copious quantities of oil (peanut oil is ideal, olive oil works as well)

For the sauce:
1 tbsp. butter
1/4 cup dark rum (brandy can be substituted, but the flavor won't be as rich)
1/2 tsp. orange zest

Mix together the flour, salt, and cayenne on a plate. Pour the well-beaten egg onto a second plate, and the cashew crumbs onto a third.

Rinse the tilapia briefly and pat dry, then dredge the fish in the seasoned flour, shaking off all of the excess. Next, coat the fish with egg, then coat it in cashew crumbs, pressing to make them adhere. Let the fish sit, while a quarter inch of oil heats in a saute pan over medium-low heat. When the oil is fragrant but not smoking, add the tilapia. It's important not to crowd the pan, so you may want to fry the filets one at a time. Let the fish cook for about four minutes a side, turning the heat down if the crust is browning too quickly. When you take the fish off the heat, it should be just barely opaque all the way through. It's better to err on the side of slightly underdone, as the fish will finish cooking off the heat, than to overcook the fish and have it fall apart. Let tilapia rest for several minutes on paper towels. If you are cooking the tilapia in two batches, you may need to change the oil in between, depending upon how much of the nut crust has fallen off.

While the tilapia is resting, heat the rum and orange zest over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring a bit to break up any clumps of zest. When the rum has just started to boil, take it off the heat and give it a vigorous swirl. This should induce a few seconds of violent boil, as the liquid comes into contact with the hot sides of the pan. (For this sauce, you don't really want to cook off all of the alcohol, or the result will be too one-dimensionally sweet and dessert-like.) When the rum has settled down, add the butter and stir until it has melted. Pour over the fish, and serve immediately.

I am pleased to see, via the New York Times and Family Scholars Blog that civil-union legislation may pass in Connecticut. I agree with Ms. Marquardt and the Times (now) that gay-rights advocates should welcome this move, even if they would prefer to push it farther.

Like Amanda, I think that if civil unions become an accepted social fact, it will not be hard for them to appropriate the name of marriage too.

Matthew Yglesias rightly points out that much "complexity" experienced by the average person who does his or her taxes comes not from rising marginal tax rates but in the difficulty of figuring out what counts as income (and therefore what counts as a deduction). But as I am sitting in Federal Income Tax, learning about the massive tax shelter that was Estate of Franklin, I offer a couple of minor points in favor of a flat tax. I don't mean these to be dispositive at all, but the argument in favor of a flat tax is more sophisticated than the Laffer-esque case that Yglesias makes.

1: Equality. If you have rising marginal tax rates, deductions and income-exclusions are worth more to the rich than they are to the poor. This may not bother you, but it leads to perverse effects if you want to work social policy through the tax system, which many do.

2: Shelters. A consequence of the same problem (deductions are worth more to the rich than to the poor) is that there is much money to be made by finding creative ways of shifting the deductions and shifting income-- this includes everything from fake sale lease-backs a la Franklin to parents shifting some of their own income to their underage children. Of course one can attack these things one at a time, and some have tried, but a flat tax avoids this problem by cutting off the potential gains at the knees.

I'm sure somebody who has taken more than a month of Tax knows about other complexities introduced into tax law by rising marginal tax rates.