Hobbits In Rivendell

More PBS, Less Rachel Ray

June 7, 2007

9:51 pm

I don’t know if anybody out there had noticed, but we tend to like to cook around here. We like to make things, to see how things are made, to understand the why behind things like the growth of yeast, the respiration of yeast, the reproduction of yeast. Because of this, I release this plea into the universe: More PBS Chefs, please!

To the rest of the world, who may not have been subjected to the likes of The Food Network, I give you Maureen Johnson’s post entitled Now We’re Cooking. Read it (or down a ways in it, where she starts off “Now let’s talk about Food Network” if you’re not interested in the fact that she’s written a book which has just come out, and that’s what allows her to provide you with this rant). Understand that the person she’s talking about there is about the worst that the Food Network has to offer, but also that she’s not so far off when it comes to the rest of the “chefs” there, either. True, there’s at least one (Alton Brown) who actually still continues to provide something meaningful in the way of television (when he can be bothered to produce a new episode, at least). The rest of them?

You know, everybody’s got channels on their televisions which don’t get watched, ever? I’m sure you know the one – the Military Channel, that weird channel that’s always got Kirk Cameron on it, or the one which always has somebody shark fishing or something? I’m not talking about the one that you occasionally watch merely for the sheer spectacle (e.g. Rural Farm Development channel), but those which you constantly wonder why you haven’t removed from the lineup, which you skip over until the next time you get to reprogramming your channel lineup (i.e. never)?

Food TV has just entered that list of channels – the first list, that is. I believe that I’ve watched every single episode of Good Eats there is, and they’ve stopped playing the real Iron Chef (not that damned knock-off with Bobby Flake). So, I skip the channel. And I skip the channel. And it truly irritates me, in a way that the Military Channel never did. Because it once had potential, but has now been subsumed by the “Reality” TV craze.

Jacques Pepin, Ming Tsai, Tommy Tang (‘though he should let his guests talk & should stop with the innuendo), and all the rest of the PBS Chefs: keep it up. You’re all that’s teaching anybody how to cook!

What does "race" mean?

by David T. Macknet

June 6, 2007

4:53 am

8 Comments on What does "race" mean?

Miscellany

I was reading an article in the Mythopoeic Society‘s journal, Mythlore, concerning the concept of “Northernness,” as found in the Chronicles of Narnia. In this article (Narnia and the North: The Symbolism of Northernness in the Fantasies of C.S. Lewis, by Nancy-Lou Patterson), the author states that “[w]e must remind ourselves that the British use the word ‘race’ to mean something like what North Americans mean by ‘nationality’ rather than in a strict genetic sense, and with the further suggestion of language as a determining factor.”

Not to become academic here whatsoever, but merely because it’s an … odd convergence in my life to have been reading this article & to happen upon this thought, while at the same time having had to provide my “race” to a web-site in the U.K. I found it highly amusing to go through the selections, and returned to the site today in order to collect the choices from the “Ethnic Origin” drop-down box:

WHITE – BRITISH
WHITE – IRISH
WHITE – SCOTTISH
IRISH TRAVELLER
OTHER WHITE BACKGROUND
BLACK-CARIBBEAN
BLACK-AFRICAN
OTHER BLACK BACKGROUND
INDIAN
PAKISTANI

BANGLADESHI
CHINESE
OTHER ASIAN
WHITE & BLACK CARRIBEAN
WHITE & BLACK AFRICAN
WHITE & ASIAN
OTHER MIXED BACKGROUND
OTHER
INFORMATION REFUSED

Now, I chose one, but … the U.K. is certainly a different world. It’s all clean, sterile, and scientific, here in the U.S., and it’s closer to the vision held by the Nazis than the vision held by the boys in Kilts. Funny, that’s all, that I’d never really considered that there might be a different way of looking at it. It is rather an arbitrary thing, I suppose, when it comes down to it. I’d just never considered it, that’s all, or at least not in this way. Odd.

And what’s an “Irish Traveller,” by the by? Is that a jab at the gypsies? Or are we talking about people who’re descended from Irish who relocated to the U.S. or something, and are now considering moving back to the homeland?

Three Steps to Vegetable Art

by David T. Macknet

June 5, 2007

10:02 pm

3 Comments on Three Steps to Vegetable Art

Artsy Things

‘Tis the season to think of summer camp, badly painted mugs, macaroni projects, string art and powdered tempura paint! Of course, as the wind fairly blusters, it may not seem like June, but it is, and it’s the time of year when back-porch crafts get started, since usually the only knitting and baking that can be done is that which requires the least warm discomfort.

But since it’s still windy – here’s one for the knitting gang. The über cool Loom Knitter’s Circle Magazine is up with their second edition, and I really do want that beaded bag! How people think of designs for loom knits is beyond me, but make sure and check out the loop stitch at the bottom of Keeping You In Stitches. Impressive!

My new project is actually kind of an old one. Last summer we planted Chinese birdhouse gourds. I would offer this as a great project for anyone with acreage to spare and isn’t troubled by a conquest-minded plant with stinking sap running rampant throughout all available space. We planted these lovely gourds and then regretted them almost daily once they fruited. We had to hack at them with machetes practically, and they ate the cucumbers. By the time the stalks dried and they were ready for harvest, the gardening season was long over. We left them in disgust on the ground through frosts and rain and finally pulled them up early this year… and left them in a pile, planning on burning them or something, since they were now coated in black mold.

Fortunately, when we got a look at the gourds before we turned over the garden, we realized they had… cured. Without any work on our part, they were dried and seasoned and ready to be sanded and painted. Granted, that was a big job, requiring face masks, eye protection and sandpaper, but we’re fairly pleased with what we ended up with – sturdy, clean, lightweight wooden vessels.

So far, this is what we’ve come up with. Here’s hoping some birds actually… use them?

Pumpernickel 1.0

by David T. Macknet

June 4, 2007

9:14 pm

8 Comments on Pumpernickel 1.0

Baking

Last night’s experiment was in Pumpernickel Bread. If I’d read the Wikipedia article beforehand, I might have gone out and bought some rye flour and spent another day at it. As it was, though, I believe that, for a first experiment, I’ve ended up with a nice, American-style Rye.


After final knead	Divided

I basically started with my regular sourdough starter, fed it & let it run wild all day on the counter, removed out the piece which goes back in the fridge, and started adding crazy things to it. The crazy things were: lots of molasses, cocoa powder, fennel seeds, caraway seeds, and dill seeds. From there, it was a matter of working in more whole wheat flour, a fair amount of oat bran (2 cups, as opposed to my usual 4 cups of fiber), and some white flour, just for good measure. Oh – and some olive oil, because one of the consistent features of all of the recipes I examined on the web was that they included fat of some kind, be it shortening (!), butter, oil, or olive oil.


15 Minutes into the rise	1 Hour into the rise

After an exceedingly long rise (about 1:20), I felt that they’d finally achieved the amount of rise needed to go into the oven. I don’t know what’s up with that long rise time, but I suspect it’s because of the oil, molasses, and chocolate all acting as inhibitors to my yeast’s growth. In any event, in they went, to come out when they were almost 190 degrees F (probe thermometer). I pulled them early, because I figured they’d carry over, and I wanted a more tender bread.

All Done!

I’m told that it’s a milder flavor than other Pumpernickel, which may or may not be a good thing. I think that, next time, I’m going to go for the sourdough Rye thing, and the long bake time which is characteristic of German Pumpernickel. Just, you know, to see what that’s all about. And also because I found it truly difficult to part with all of that cocoa powder. Really really difficult.

Leftovers Become Gelato

by David T. Macknet

June 1, 2007

9:08 pm

5 Comments on Leftovers Become Gelato

Food, Recipe

So last weekend we had some friends over, and we ended up with some leftovers. Now, I’m not talking about the little bits of prepared food which would soon be eaten (and were), but about leftover, perishable, raw ingredients such as a half-gallon of whole milk, and a couple of avocados. So, what to do? Gelato!

There really wasn’t much of a recipe, but … well, I’m going to try to document it, as it’s marvelously green, tasty, and a good use of ingredients. So here goes:

1/2 Gallon Whole Milk

16 oz Large (bubble-tea size) Tapioca pearls

2 Vanilla Bean Pods

2 Avocados, just ripe

Zest and Juice of 10 “key” limes

Assorted sweeteners (xylitol, honey, sugar, maple syrup) to taste

3 Tbsp Ginger powder

1 Cup Candied Ginger, chopped

4 Tbsp Soy Protein Powder

Soak tapioca pearls in the milk overnight.
Add Vanilla Bean Pod guts, sweeteners, and soy protein powder, then bring to a rolling simmer (doesn’t make sense unless you’ve done tapioca – in which case, it makes sense) in a pan which looks too large for the purpose (you’ll need the room, for the rolling simmer).
Simmer, stirring constantly, until you get sick to death of standing there or until the tapioca doesn’t taste raw any longer.
Remove from heat, strain out the bubble tea bits and … dispose of as you see fit, as they’re no longer needed.
When liquid has cooled to a reasonable temperature, apply your stick blender to it & incorporate the rest of the ingredients except for the Lime Zest and Candied Ginger.
Fold in Lime Zest.
Cool overnight.
Fold in Candied Ginger.
Pour mixture into your (running) ice cream machine and let it run until the dasher sticks.
Remove mixture to a suitable vessel & thence into the freezer for at least four hours.

Yes, there are some ambiguities in there. And, yes, we probably could have achieved the same thing by using the tapioca flour sitting in the pantry, rather than using the bubble-tea tapioca pearls … but we didn’t know that when we started. You see, the decision to strain out the tapioca was made after we’d been all the way through the cooking process, at which point we determined that they were … well, just too strange to want to have frozen. So, we pulled them out. It works.

The one difference in the above recipe from what we did is that I incorporated the avocado earlier in the process … and I wouldn’t recommend it, as it makes it really difficult to taste for sweetness & flavor, as hot avocado really is an acquired taste. As it was, we played it safe by holding off on adding more sweetener & more lime until we had a chance to taste it chilled, and we’re glad that we did. Hot avocado throws everything off, so I recommend adding it when your mixture has cooled somewhat. Or not, you know, ’cause it’s your freezer that’ll be full of gnarly green goo, not mine.

Strange Days in the South-land

by David T. Macknet

May 31, 2007

4:51 am

2 Comments on Strange Days in the South-land

Food, Recipe

My friend Susan mentioned her love just the other day for all foods Southern, and the addition of the phrase ‘pimento cheese’ brought my childhood back to mind.

My Mom raised us as vegans a lot of the time… then there were those days when she did not. Born just outside of New Orleans, Mom wasn’t even raised vegetarian herself, so it was a hard transition for her when she moved to San Francisco in the sixties and got into what everyone else was doing – sprouting wheatgrass and whatever other kinds of grass they could get their hands on. Growing up, we had basically schizophrenic dietary habits that veered from full-on vegan to lacto-ovo vegetarianism. I can’t say that I ever suffered from this – I managed to be a tubby little thing regardless – but it did mean that we sampled hundreds of the most …unique recipes imaginable. Sometimes they were awesome. Other times… well, we love ya, Mom, but just about every kid goes through the lamentable phase of straight up tossing their school lunch into the trash… Me, on the argument that not even kids in Africa didn’t wanted soggy mashed tofu on sprouted wheat bread. (That was one of her misses. To her credit, she only made it without lettuce once or twice. The bread holds up a lot better if there’s lettuce protecting it.)

Just finishing a novel set in 1940’s Alabama-Iowa-Georgia and then a present-day cross-country trip to the South, I’ve been steeped in the particular food things that go along with the South… Grits. Black-eyed peas. Pimento Cheese. Susan got me thinking — about what pimento cheese actually IS, to those people who didn’t grow up at my house. I looked up pimento cheese, and understand now what the real stuff is: cheese. And cream cheese. And mustard. And hot sauce and pimentos and roasted pimentos and some people put in nuts. Mom’s pimento cheese was really, really, really good, but it didn’t contain any cheese at all. Mom’s recipe went something like this:

2 C. raw cashews

3-4 T. brewer’s yeast

1 C. water

1 C. oil

1/2 t. salt

1/4 C. lemon juice

2 t. onion and garlic powder

1/2 c. pimentos

2 T. soy “milk” powder (optional)

Basically, all that’s left to do is blend everything up, adding the oil last, and make a kind of cashew mayonnaise. Sometimes Mom added about 5 tbsp. of agar flakes to her pimento cheese. Agar gels, so it created the illusion of a more ‘solid’ spread.

When she used agar, Mom stirred it into boiling water, simmered it for five minutes, stirring frequently, and then when it was cooked, she added it to the other ingredients in the food processor. All ingredients were then blended for about three minutes, then poured it into whatever mold and put it in the fridge overnight.

There are a lot of variations one can do with pimento cheese, too – adding chopped green olives, or toasted sesame seeds or caraway or dill… the list goes on. Sun-dried tomatoes and basil is quite good, or you could add onion flakes…

On the face of things, Mom’s recipe seems pretty good, but since I never do know when to leave well-enough alone, I have a few thoughts I’d like to try. For one thing, doesn’t this sound like something that would taste great with the addition of Vegemite? Why use a powdered yeast when you can use the brown glop in the yellow can? And it seems to me that silken tofu should somehow play into this. ‘Cause doesn’t tofu go with everything?

If nothing else, I’ve enjoyed plumbing the depths of my back-brain, and remembering one of Mom’s more random recipes that worked. If only I could figure out a way to make cashews less than 157 calories an ounce, I’d eat this every week…

Strange Birds

by David T. Macknet

May 31, 2007

12:02 am

Finch World

by David T. Macknet

May 30, 2007

11:27 pm

2 Comments on Finch World

Critters

In the interest of getting these guys out here for everybody who’s interested, and because we’ve had to spend so much time with them over the past few days, I thought I’d throw out a few pictures of Finch World. Shown here, with his black-and-white self, is Flitter; to his side is Pippi. They’re probably contemplating some evil, because that’s about all Pippi seems interested in.

We can be fairly certain that their evil doesn’t involve Twitter, as he’s pretty well staying out of all of the chaos. Yes, Pip will pick on him, too, but only if Miniver has managed to elude her. Or if Pip has met with the spray bottle in conjunction with Min, and, thus, thinks that she should take it out on somebody else.

Miniver, here, is simply glad to eat. And eat and eat. We think that she’s trying to get as large as Pip, but we’re afraid that it’s a futile kind of thing. Min is a Spice Finch, you see, whereas Pip is a Zebra. Zebras are much larger than Spice Finches, and a bit larger than Society Finches, too. Thus, Min is doomed to eat and eat and never get particularly larger.

We think that Flit and Min are going to hook up, because they hang out quite a bit, and they’ve been doing the mutual grooming thing. There hasn’t been any of the shuffle / fluff / dance / squawk behavior from Flit, though, so it could be that things have just been too chaotic. Perhaps it takes a bit longer for such things. Or perhaps Pip is really just a juvenile, despite her largeness.

Min, on the other hand, is having none of it. She’s pretty solitary most of the time, bouncing from one side of the cage to the other, flinging herself about. Or she’s at the food dish. I did see her this morning having a bath with Twitter, but … well, we just can’t tell yet. If it does end up happening, they’re the best hope for further reproduction, as Spice Finches and Society Finches can breed, as can Zebras and Societies. However, there are some which are infertile coming out of these crosses, so while they may end up with children, they may not end up with grandchildren. C’est la vie.

In a rare showing of … society, Min gets between Flit and Pip. Not to worry – Min really won’t stay long, and is probably just rubbing it in that Pip is the one who gets the spray bottle. You see, Pip just can’t stand it when Min gets the top perch, or the food dish, or a bath. So, she edges up and pecks. Min takes off, and ends up stirring up everybody, and it’s all-out chaos.

You see, Pip gets the water, but Min instigates. So, taking advantage of her small size and her experience in dashing about, Min antagonizes Pip, Pip responds with bites, and then Pip gets the spray. Unfortunately, Pip takes it farther than she needs to and doesn’t know when to quit, so Min can end up going without food for quite some time, as Min chases her about, and keeps her away from the food. Oh, the psychoses of two females trying to get the attention of a couple of old bachelors.

Garden Update

by David T. Macknet

May 30, 2007

10:31 pm

2 Comments on Garden Update

Gardening

There’ve been a few changes in the garden’s overall plan, as we’ve discovered seed packets that we didn’t know we had (Kale and Delicata Squash), and as we’ve realized that some of the spaces we’d allocated really could be filled with other things (three whole beds of sweet potatoes?). But, aside from a bit of reshuffling, we’re nearly there with laying out everything and getting it planted.

Highlighted in yellow are the beds remaining to be planted. There’s still one undecided bed, but I’m sure it’ll get decided soon enough. Also, not shown are the random Basil seeds which one of us has been sowing throughout the beds of the Long Beans. I won’t say which one of us this has been, but it was not me this time. So there.

For pictures of what’s there, check out the Gardening Set on Flickr.

Drama in Finch-Land

by David T. Macknet

May 28, 2007

12:28 am

6 Comments on Drama in Finch-Land

Critters

No pictures as of yet, but Friday we got a new finch. It’s that the other two (Flitter and Twitter – or Flit and Twit) had been acting … well, lonely, I suppose. We believe that they’re both male, as they trade off doing the strange little mating hop/dance that society finches do. Now, we’re OK with that, and they’d seemed to be OK with that, too, but they’d begun to really pluck themselves bald … so, we figured we needed to change something up in Finch-land.

First change was to get rid of their nest and to switch it for the lovely gourd shown to the left. It’s one we grew last year, but which broke off, so it’s suitable only for a small nesting box like this. That was quite a significant change for Flit and Twit, and they regarded it as EVIL for quite some time, and still haven’t climbed into it. Based upon that worrisome behavior, we figured we’d get them a companion, since the nest wasn’t the problem … or something. We’ve since heard tell, from the Finster Log, that finches may ignore a nest box for over a year. But, we hadn’t found that particular link yet.

So, the decision to get a new finch, perhaps of the female variety. Send one of us to the pet store … and arrive home with a female finch, certainly. A female Zebra finch, that is, because … well, because I didn’t believe that zebras could be fawn-colored and drab.

We’re waiting for the chaos to settle down. Twit has gone all still and strange, hiding in a corner. This is definitely not usual, as he’s usually the dominant one, and is quite fearless. Flit, now, has been doing the hopping dance. Considering that he was the one plucking out all of his feathers, I’m guessing that he doesn’t particularly mind that the female is of a different species, so long as the plumbing works. We’ll probably end up with some strange little half-zebra hybrids in a few months. I’m hoping that Twit will get interested as well, because Twit is the all-white one, and I believe that would be a nice cross. According to what I’ve found, the chics are likely to be sterile, but that’s not a drawback, in this case.

Glasgow:
NY:
Grinnell:
Roswell:
Berkeley: