Wild Horses

The cover of the Stones song on Prairie Home Companion this week was particularly inspired. Also the jokes in Guy Noir and the Lives of the Cowboys were in awesomely poor taste.

Sometimes a Great Notion

I've been a little slow with keeping up with season 4 of BSG, just netflixing the 4.0 dvds right now. I see that the first episode of 4.5 is called 'Sometimes a Great Notion.' 

That's only one of the best books ever written. Ken Kesey. About logging in the coast range of Oregon. And rain. And dealing with the long grey winter in Oregon. And stubbornness. And family. The narrative structure of the book makes it very difficult to read, often 3 characters are speaking in the first person on the same page. But it's well worth the trouble. 

My parents' place is about 20 miles south of where they filmed the Paul Newman adaptation of 'Sometimes...' Man, I still can't believe he's gone.

Free (bin) love

The free bin in IV is often a source of interesting items. Ryan loves my continuing efforts to expand his baseball cap collection, for instance. Been finding kids books for sweet Lou lately. Cool t-shirts are the main prize, though, and this absinthe one takes the proverbial cake. 

A less popular item was this lovely ladies rain bonnet.  Eliza, Kate, Gwen, and Sara all passed on it, even though it was a rainy day. What gives? -- it's obviously awesome. Keely passed, too, but only because she already had one! Classic.

The tin the bonnet is sitting in was a recent find, a rather pedestrian find one might say, 'cept it will allow me to make this. And you thought my foodie credentials were in danger of being revoked due to posts like this....

Uncle Seth on kid duty

So me and Eliza are babysitting sweet Lou right now while Ryan and Sharon are at the Neville Brothers show at Campbell Hall. The evening started off well as Sharon made gumbo, proper roux, the holy trinity, sausage and seafood, on rice, nice. Ice cream was consumed. Books were read. Vocabulary was improved (Louis' and mine). Pillows were jumped upon.

I might have made a mistake by sharing my brownie and ice cream with him just now, cause he's majorly hopped up, sugar-high style. Oooops. But it's waaaaaaaaaay better than the first time I babysat.... Ryan and Sharon just got home, kinda early, the Neville's are too old to rock 'n roll all night I guess.

My brother in Baja

My brother emailed me today from Guerrero Negro, which is half way down Baja. He has been hanging out with these guys. I'm jealous. 

You can BUY houses?

I pass this everyday on the way to the bathroom. Kills me every time.

Popcorn in cast iron

I think I have popcorn wired now. The problem was that the residual oil is ugly and hard (and annoying) to clean, especially if it's a pot you like. So went with a cast iron dutch oven that is solely used for popcorn. Cast iron loves to have more and more oil 'baked' in to it. 

Popcorn:

Heat a cast iron pan dry, med-high heat, till it begins to lightly smoke

Add 2-4 T coconut or peanut oil

Add 1/3 to 1/2 c popcorn, shake to cover the kernels with oil

Cover with a glass/pyrex lid

Pop, about 3-5 min, watch through the lid, listen for a longer gap between pops

When the pan is cool, wipe out the detritus, don't ever wash it with soap.

serves 1-2

Brotherhood of the Wolf

A french kung fu, wolf/monster movie, set in 18th century France with ornate chateaux and costumes and stuff. How's that for a set up? It also features a mystical Iroquois sidekick, and Monica Bellucci. But the special effects aren't very special, the CGI is terrible and the editing was at times tight and mostly too loose. Still, worth a rental. 

Pine... the interweb... 1995

The terms vi, pico, pine were floating about the VIPER lab yesterday. Keely, who is roughly 17, had never heard of pine before, but neither had Eliza, which was surprising, cause she is closer to me in age. So, some history for the youngins.

I first experienced the interweb in 1995. For those of us at universities, the internet was primarily unix based, email was solely unix based, and the email program that was used, using the pico text editer, was pine. I used it till 2003 or so, and only stopped cause it stopped being supported. I loved pine. 

The internet has had a huge effect on the world obviously, and has evolved tremedously, but the fundamental principles have stayed the same. Back then I used it for email, commerce (BikePro.com), pop-culture news (rec.music.phish), and checking the tides, buoys, and swell models. My usage is still pretty much the same.

The surf report aspect has probably had the biggest effect on my life. There have been wave measuring buoys off of the Oregon and Cali coast for awhile, at least since the late 80s. Those in the know had weather band radios to check the buoys. Also, I lived in the dorms my whole undergraduate career at UCSB '92-'96 (Santa Cruz dorm, 2300s wing) as I could check the surf FROM MY BED. It was epic. So I had buoy data, and visual confirmation working for me. I surfed alot. Now a days (insert grumpy old man tone), we have Wetsand predicting every swell a week in advance, and people giving surf reports from the beach on their cellphones. It's a lot harder to sneak in an uncrowded surf. But surf forecasting is highly nonlinear, so magic still happens.   

Happy 40th Anniversary....

....to the oil spill in the channel in 1969. Photo is from the Daily Nexus.

Ira Glass interview in the Onion AV club

It's a little dry, but still quite readable. The comments section is pretty funny. Apparently there isn't that much audience crossover between the AV club and NPR...

Blazers

There are some sweet highlights in this game.

Jungle Curry

Jungle curry is a thai curry that isn't coconut milk based as it is from northern Thailand. The general jist is to populate the pot by browsing your garden/market for whatever greens look good. I used a lot of arugula, some lettuce/beet greens/parsley, and a bunch of thai basil from Indo-China. Used ground buffalo for the protein, I think sliced meat would have been better, but I like buffalo, and ground is the only easy way to get it. This was really really tasty.

Jungle Curry recipe:

loosely from 'True Thai' by Victor Sodsook

Coconut 'oil' (it's solid at room temperature)

Canola oil

~2T Red curry paste

20 oz. ground buffalo

5 Kaffir lime leaves

Greens, ~2 bunches

Thai basil, 1 bunch

Bamboo shoots

2T coconut palm sugar

7T thai fish sauce

1 c chicken stock

Saute the curry paste in oil for a few minutes.

Add buffalo. 

Add sliced lime leaves, chopped basil stems.

Cook that for 5 min. or so.

Add chopped greens, bamboo, sugar, stock, cook for 5 min. or so.

Fish sauce and basil at the end.

Serve on brown + white rice.

Serves 4

The men in the grey suits

The Shark Research Committee collects accounts of shark sightings all along the west coast. Check out the 1 January 2009 Salmon Creek Beach story.  

The Breakfast of Champions / Peruvian Rice

Nope, not about the late, great Kurt Vonnegut. Red quinoa and brown rice. This is Amy's recipe. I added raisins to cut the slightly bitter quinoa taste.

Quinoa and rice:

1/2 c organic red quinoa

1 c organic brown rice

3 c water

salt

butter

raisins

Rinse quinoa well

Bring to boil, simmer covered about an hour. The usual.

The Farmer's Wife

I'm wading through a dvd box of early, public domain Hitchcock films, currently watching 'The Farmer's Wife.' It's a silent movie, with placards of dialogue every once in a while. 

There's a funny scene with an excessively dour laborer hanging out with the kitchen ladies, and they won't give him an ale, only tea. He's very sad about this, and quips, "Beer drinking don't do 'alf the 'arm of lovemaking" & "Holy Matrimony be a propper steam roller for flattening the hope out of a man and the joy out of a woman." Lovely.

A little later, the widowed farmer/English landowner drops this nugget, "there's a female or two be floating around my mind like the smell of a Sunday dinner." 

So then he sits down with the housekeeper and they discuss the merits of his potential conquests, him: "you know her back view's not a day over thirty!" her: "but, you have to live with her front view." And a little later, "I don't mind they pillowy women...so long as they be pillowy in the right places." 

In the pub: "Us be drawing turnips a'ready. Proper masterpieces - so round and white as a woman's bosom!"

And last, but not least, "I've found one for 'ee....worth her corn at a feast or a funeral." 

This thing is quotable like Lebowski.

From the vault II

I'm kinda doing a data dump on the blog here at the beginning, but whatever. The recipes have all been requested before, now they are in one place and easy to find. 

This is the 2nd grad student Thanksgiving I was a part of. This one was at Kirk's Castillo house. He brined the bird, and I roasted it. A really fun day/night. Clare and her fleur de leis napkins made an impression.

Fresh Pasta

Fresh pasta is epic (notice the joy on Keely's face). Jamie Oliver encouraged me to give it a rip, and I haven't looked back. The classic italian lasagne with fresh pasta/bechamel/red sauce is unbelievable, and so much better than the standard american dry pasta/ricotta/red sauce one. Just a super simple fresh noodles + garlic-y olive oil + parmesan + crushed red pepper is amazing, too.  Ravioli make for good dinner party food. I'm not going to go in to detail, go buy Naked Chef or Jamie's Kitchen, his pics and instructions are great. 

That said, pasta dough is basically 5 eggs + 3 c flour. That's it. Kneed it like bread dough. Roll it to 9 for ravioli and lasagne, 8 for noodles. For ravioli, lay down some filling, paint the dough with a little water, fold over the top half, press out the air, cut, and cook for 2 minutes. Easy. And good.

Limoncello

The picture is (L-R) lemon zest + vodka that I started on 7 Dec, the limoncello that I'm drinking right now, and valencia orange zest + vodka that I started on 12 January (hence the less developed colour). 

I learned about limoncello in the SB Independent, seemed like something right up my alley as using the microplane to zest citrus is about as good as it gets. Though hard alcohol is a little scary...

Anyway. You zest, soak it in vodka for a month or so, strain through a coffee filter, mix with an equal part of simple syrup (2:1 water:sugar), let that sit for a month or so, throw it in the freezer, and consume.

Thus far I've done limoncello, blood orange cello, raw peach pit cello, toasted peach pit cello, orange cello, and limoncello made with apricot syrup. The only failure has been grapefruit cello.

Tarts

My natural inclination is towards being a hermit. The first dinner party I went to in SB was Sarah Battersby's 'What would Julia do?' party on Julia Child's birthday. You had to bring something from one of her cookbooks. I brought a pear frangipane tart. It's the classic french tart. Though I cheated on the crust, I used Jamie Oliver's recipe. Actually I cheated on the filling, too, it was my recipe. But it was basically a french tart. And the good reception meant that since then I've been slightly less of a hermit.

Tarts are wonderful, they look elegant, but are easy if you know how. Lots of fillings are possible. Amy thinks they are the best thing I make. The best part is they can easily be made gluten free (GF); Clare politely suffered through the early GF experiments, but has since reaped the rewards. 

Wheat tart dough recipe (makes 2 11" tart shells):

Virtually verbatim from Jamie's Kitchen by Jamie Oliver

2 sticks butter
6.3 oz powdered sugar
Salt
4 egg yolks
15 oz flour (2/3 wheat, 1/3 rice is good)
Vanilla
Zest
2-4 T cold milk or water

Cream butter and powdered sugar, add salt and yolks. 

Add flour, mix to coarse breadcrumb state. 

You can add vanilla or an appropriate zest if you want. 

Add a little liquid to make it a dough.

Shape it into a log on plastic wrap, wrap it up, fridge it for a couple of hours.

It will solidify so that you can cut 1/8" slices easy, put in to a false bottomed tart pan, jigsaw style, and press it in to seal all the edges. 

Do the bottom first, then the sides.
I usually make the sides thicker than the bottom. maybe 1/4" thick.
Put it in the freezer for at least an hour.

350 oven. 

Preheat a cookie sheet in the oven, this serves to counteract the fact that the tart/tart pan are frozen. 

Put tart on cookie sheet, 12 min for a tart you will be adding a raw filling to, 15 min for a cooked one. 

{the freezing is so the sides don't collapse when you bake it empty, you can also use pie weights + tin foil, but that is annoying}

GF tart dough recipe (makes 2 11" tart shells):
Basically the same, except use 2 eggs instead of 4 yolks. Egg whites help to bind the dough. More flour may be needed -- seems like GF flours behave differently from wheat, or maybe it's the eggs vs. yolks difference. I use a combo of sweet glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour, corn starch, montina. 

Frangipane:

This method of doing it is original

~1 c almond butter
~1 c honey
3 eggs
Salt
Vanilla
Beat everything together, pour into 12 min crust. 350 ~1 hour. The classic french presentation is to lay pears on top before it goes in the oven.

Chocolate:

This is straight out of The Naked Chef by Jamie Oliver

1c + 6 T cream
1/2 c butter
1lb bittersweet chocolate
2 T sugar

Salt
~ 1/2 c liquid (milk + kahlua or triple sec)
Vanilla

Heat cream/sugar/salt, put chocolate/butter in it, stir to melt chocolate.

Stir in cold liquid and vanilla, make it smooth. Cool some more.
Pour in to a 15 min crust, cool for a couple of hours.

Panaderias en Baja California

One of the best parts of a baja trip is when you stock up on breakfast treats at the panaderias. I'm partial to gingerbread pigs, anything with creme anglaise, and, well, just about everything else.

Red Sauce

Not to be narcisisstic, but my red sauce is pretty good. My dad was the cook growing up. He is a pretty good cook, I vividly remember homemade pizza, german pancakes, quesadillas, homemade NY-style pretzels. But I hated his spaghetti sauce. The solids would sit on top of the noodles, and a puddle of red liquid would seep out onto the plate. So when I started cooking my main goal was to make good, thick red sauce. Secret ingredients change, but the fundamental technique is pretty sound.

First off, you need a s^&%load of tomatoes. Good organic tomatoes. Heirlooms and/or Romas. Strike up a relationship with your farmer at the farmer's market. Overripe/ugly/blemished tomatoes are what you want; they will be free or at least cheaper, which is key, cause we're talking reducing 40 lbs of tomatoes to 4 quarts of sauce. Seriously. Quantities are purposefully vague, adjust to taste, y'know.

Red Sauce:
40 lbs of tomatoes
7 onions
10 cloves garlic
Salt/pepper
Fennel seeds
Thyme (fresh)
Oregano (dry)
Basil (fresh)
Thai fish sauce
Dried porcinis

Cut tomatoes in half, squeeze seeds and juice into a short wide pot, put meaty halves in a big pot, cook with lid on, to steam skins loose, ~30min. If you put big thyme branches in the bottom of the pot, the tomatoes won't stick under high heat.

Let that sit a little bit, a lot of juice will accumulate.
Ladle the tomato juice out of the tomato pot and into the seed pot, reduce it to a syrup, this takes forever, but is important.
Ladle the tomatoes into a foodmill in batches to make tomato puree (get an old french foodmill off of ebay, a big one).

Cook the puree till when you stir it, the shapes hold, and minimal liquid accumulates in the valleys.

Meanwhile, grind fennel and pepper, put in a wide pan, high heat (I use 2 pans, it's alot of onions).

When the spices start smoking put in extra virgin olive oil, garlic.
Put in onions, oregano, salt, porcinis, saute a long time -- let it stick a little on the bottom, deglaze with tomato juice or wine or balsamic vinegar or OJ, let stick, deglaze, repeat for ~1 hour. This technique is from Paul Prudhomme and is why my food tastes the way it does.
Add the puree and tomato syrup to the brown onions.
Add fish sauce, it's made from anchovies, it's epic.
Add basil.

notes: if the tomatoes are only ok (or canned), add pomegranate molasses and/or OJ and/or maple syrup to sweeten things up. if the tomatoes are too sweet (i.e. in late august), add red wine vinegar.

I freeze about 30 quarts every year, and it lasts all winter. When you defrost it, 'wake it up' by warming it in a little garlic/fennel/olive oil. Use it straight for pizza. Dilute with wine or cream for pasta, if it is too thick.

Updates:
processing tomatoes 2009
red sauce 2010
pics 2011

Ricotta

I've been making alot of ricotta lately cause the co-op has had alot of 1/2 price milk. It's even easier than yogurt. For the first few days I tend to eat it fresh, after that I fry it.

Ricotta 'recipe':

Organic milk. has to be whole milk. yield & flavor of cheese goes way down as you use lower fat milk.

About 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice per 1/2 gallon of milk.

Salt

Fresh zest (lemon, orange, blood orange) (use a microplane)

Put milk in a stainless steel pot with salt and zest.

High heat, to 190, stir alot.

Add lemon juice. It will coagulate almost immediately. Add a little more if the whey isn't clear.

Let it sit in the pot for a couple of hours.

Lift out with a slotted spoon, put in a collander over a bowl. You don't need cheesecloth.

Drain for at least 12 hours in the fridge.

Drink the whey.

notes: you can add heavy whipping cream to the milk for more love. You can also use red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar, same ratio as lemon juice . You can even use yogurt, 1 cup yogurt for 1/2 gallon of milk. Or, 1t citric acid dissolved in a little water per 1/2 gallon; though i'm not entirely sold on the citric acid, but it is handy to have around.

Fresh it's good with a little olive oil poured over it, salt/pepper, nice with a good tomato. Or fry it in a little olive oil in a non-stick skillet, med-low heat, about 10 min, flip it, about 5 min more, salt/pepper, nice with some good red sauce.

update: tried to make it with defrosted frozen fresh lemon juice. it doesn't work. a shame.

a few making of pics

Can they be that petty and mean?

Turns out political humor is not dead now that Bushie is gone, you just have to work a little harder. Check out the Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! for 24 January 2009.

Surfer, Dude

Sure it's a crappy movie, but it actually does a pretty good job showing what it means to be a surfer. The DVD has a bunch of extras that are pretty interesting. And it has goats, lots of goats. 

Buckets of Rain

It's raining, and I'm collecting rainwater. Here are some pics of the container garden. Potatoes, beets, flat leaf parsley, poblano chiles, lettuce, mustard, arugula, peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, apple mint, a variegated mint. And my IV beater bike.

End-of-the-week yogurt

I make yogurt once a week, at least a gallon at a time. In drinking the whey that accumulates, the yogurt becomes thicker and thicker during the week. At this point the yogurt is thick enough to not only form a cliff, but also an overhang. Sweet. That's homemade apricot preserves on top -- the trees in IV had alot of fruit this past summer.

I use a le Creuset silicone whisk so the enamel doesn't get scratched. This is an old 70s era Descoware pot (from Belgium) you can get them on ebay, they are cheaper than le Crueset.

Milk heating with a candy thermometer.

Yogurt 'recipe':

more or less from the Book of Yogurt by Sonia Uvezian

Milk. Organic. whole is best, but even nonfat works for yogurt.

Nonfat, noninstant organic dry milk, about 1/2 cup (use more if using anything other than whole milk)

Whisk the 2 together in a nice, thick pot (think le creuset or descoware)

Heat to 190, on med-high heat, whisk/stir often

Cool to 121

Stir in about 1/2 cup of yogurt from the last batch (my current culture is about 3 years old)

Put in oven with pilot light for 6-8 hours

Put in fridge for at least 12 hours before you start to eat it

Enjoy

Apricot Preserves 'recipe':

more or less from La Bonne Cuisine by Madame E. Saint-Ange

2 lbs apricots

1 lb (2 cups) organic sugar

Juice from 1 lemon

Combine in a stainless steel pot, making layers of fruit and sugar

Let it macerate for 24 hours at room temperature, stirring occasionally, covered

Cook for about 20 minutes, high heat

Put in jars while hot (make sure the jars are hot, too)

Boil canning lids, and put them on the hot filled jars, screw down the bands tightly

Cool, the lids will "pop," then store in a cool, dark place

notes: I put the fruit in jars, and poured the extra syrup into bottles

The basic recipe works for other fruit, too, for instance strawberries, peaches

update:
alternate pics

The last Bon Iver post for a little while....

....this is supposed to be a foodie blog, afterall.

Your Love. download it.

From the vault: Bon Iver

Bon Iver had a pretty good 2008, zero to hero and all that. I noticed the review of the first record in the Onion AV club cause the photography on the album cover is cool, the review was positive, and, quite frankly, because of the word 'Wisconsin.' it's weird how randomly we find new things. Listening to their show from DC kinda cemented the attraction.

They played SB in March. Eliza randomly checked out his myspace the day of the show or we would have missed it. Alas, they were a tad under the influence, though Creature Fear/Team at the end was epic. It was a fun night involving beards, my brother, Eliza, Amy, Roscoe, and lots of people in tight pants crammed into a tiny coffee shop. Also, Phosphorescent were simply awesome live. 

The Bon Iver creation myth is repeated in every interview he has done, but it's still interesting. 

Some more audio and video.

The new EP is good, especially the last song 'Woods,' which sounds alot like 'Hide and Seek' by Imogen Heap.

Yo-Yo Ma on the Inauguration

this NPR story is epic

DVDs i've been enjoying

Fire up your Netflix:

Burn After Reading

the Science of Sleep

Paris, Je T'aime

Serenity

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

For Your Consideration

Slap Shot + the Long, Hot Summer + the Young Philadelphians

Roman Holiday + Charade + Wait Until Dark

Shut Up and Sing

Sleeping Dogs Lie

Dorothy Parker and the Viscious Circle

Wristcutters: a Love Story

George Washington

Brick

The Apartment

Paper Moon

Stardust

Into the Wild

Interview

the Long Goodbye + McCabe and Mrs. Miller + California Split

Ghost Dog + Night on Earth

Best of the Johnny Cash Show + the Johnny Cash Christman Specials

Neko Case Live from Austin

Sigur Ros Heima

El Mariachi

the Great Smokey Roadblock

Grizzly Man

I'm Not There

Jarhead

the Last Picture Show

Used Cars

Wedding Crashers

Le Magnifique

Tempest

King Corn

My Own Private Idaho

Southland Tales

Talk to Her

CDs i've been enjoying

in no particular order:

Neil Young -- Sugar Mountain + Live at Massey Hall

Bon Iver -- For Emma, Forever Ago + Blood Bank

Phosphorescent -- Pride + Aw Come Awry + the Weight of Flight

the Rolling Stones -- Hot Rocks

Patty Griffin -- Silver Bell

the Reverend James Cleveland -- the Lord is my Light

Neko Case -- Blacklisted + the Tigers have Spoken

Kings of Convenience -- Riot on an Empty Street

Jenny Lewis -- Acid Tongue

Conor Oberst -- Conor Oberst

the Pine Hill Haints -- Ghost Dance + Those Who Wander

Cat Power -- Moon Pix + the Covers Record + You are Free + Jukebox

Uncle Tupelo -- 'March 16-20, 1992'

Matisyahu -- Youth

Samamidon -- But this Chicken Proved Falsehearted

Rilo Kiley -- Takeoffs and Landings

Bright Eyes -- Digital Ash in a Digital Urn

I'm Not There -- Soundtrack

Ladysmith Black Mombazo -- the Star and the Wiseman

Portishead -- Third

Sigur Ros -- Takk + Agaetis Byrjun

Ramblin' Jack Elliot -- I Stand Alone

Nellie McKay -- Obligatory Villagers

James Taylor -- Sweet Baby James

Blitzen Trapper -- Furr

Camera Obscura -- Underachievers Please Try Harder

The Hired Hand

An interesting early 70s revisionist western. The cinematography and editing (lots of images on top of images) are great. The trailer focuses on the plot, so you won't see much evidence of the imagery until you netflix it. Warren Oates was a might fine actor. Peter Fonda starred and directed, Vilmos Zsigmond was the cinematographer. 

Bon iFeist

A Justin Vernon, of Bon Iver, interview with some radio jokers in Oz, including a cover of 'the Park' by Feist. Alas, his voice sounds a little overworked, but there is some sweet witty banter.