Starry Wisdom

I posted about athletic socks earlier this year. Now, it’s time for a companion boring post, this time about sneakers.

Throughout my life I’ve been a serial monogamist with sneaker brands. From kangaroos as a young kid, on to Nike in high school, then to Adidas in college (with a short foray into Converse, more on this later), and then to Asics around the turn of the millennium. I can’t prove it, but I think I might be on to a new brand – at least for day to day wear, I’ll probably continue to buy Asics for exercise use.

For a few months I’ve been pondering getting a pair of ‘casual sneakers’ – shoes that are clearly not meant for working out, but are comfortable. I poked around on Zappos a few months ago but nothing really stuck out, and since the brace that I’m still wearing (see the sock post) is likely to deform any shoe I buy, I was hesitant to get something new. But with surgery a scant month out and my current Asics in a sad state, it was really time to buy something new.

I’d seen a few references to Converse Jack Purcells on line. They looked fairly similar to the All-Stars I abandoned after one pari in the 1990s, classic and simple, but perhaps a bit more ‘fancy’. Maybe the fanciness is in my head since they are not the same shoe, which has some associations in my head. Anyway, I bought a pair of black ones and I’m really liking them.

The bonus is that the canvas seems to be more resistant to stretching due to the brace than leather on my other other gym shoes. The question is, however, how long can I keep the rubber toe caps looking presentable?

Even though I enjoy cooking, one thing I don’t really like is grocery shopping – at least in a planned sort of way. I am very ad hoc when I go grocery shopping, I rarely make a list, and if I do it’s just the 2 or 3 items I need to make some particular recipe. Now that I have room in my pantry, and a desire to cook MORE food at home, I have to change these ways. To this end, I need to assemble a must have list of shelf stable items. But how?

I bought America’s Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2010 earlier this year, and I’ve been very pleased by the book. One of the nice features, besides recipes scaled down from the normal 4-6 servings you find, is that it has a section in the front for recipes that use left over portions of items (mostly canned goods) use din other recipes. I figure I’ll start by getting the items covered in that section, but then, what to get?

Do you fill your pantry with dependable foods that you use often? If so, what are your top few pantry items that you always have on hand?

I recently went to Oahu with Mackenzie. This was my first time on that particular island, save for some layovers at HNL while spending time on Maui and Kauai in the past. We were there for six nights.

This is just some highlights of the trip – I genuinely intend to post one or more detailed entries with pictures, but for right now, here are brief high points:

• KCC Farmers Market – Saturday morning 7:30-11AM (yes it’s early, but it’s HOT later in the day…) Lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and also a LOT of prepared food (and coffee) for breakfast.
• The Bus – From the NW side of waikiki (near Hilton Hawaiian Village) it’s a 25 minute ride to KCC, and about 45 minutes to Hanauma Bay. Having a car for part of your trip is a good idea, but you really don’t need it the whole time, and not driving to these places is a *good* idea!.
• Kailua – 12 miles away from popping Waikiki is sleepy Kailua, home of a wonderful sandy beach, and some good, cheap food. Highly recommend a visit.
• Pearl Harbor Historic Sites – Fantastic.
• Sunset Drinks at Sarento’s Top the I – awesome view of the sunset from the edge of Waikiki. Note that in the summer, the sun sets after happy hour, but it’s worth it for the view.
• Alan Wong’s Restaurant – situated on the third floor of an office building, with a view of a street, this was nonetheless the best dinner we had in Hawaii. It was surprisingly NOT the most expensive dinner (that honor went to the sunset cruise we took the first night), but it WAS the dinner with the most celebrity sitings we had (Masi Oka)

This weekend my CSA, Eatwell Farm, had a tomato sauce party. They invited members over to the farm (in Dixon, CA) to make and can tomato sauce from tomatoes that were too ripe to send down the road to SF, and to camp out. Mackenzie and I had been to the farm in May for Strawberry picking, but we had never spent the night before (this was the second campout of the year, the first, a garlic party, was on her birthday weekend), so we didn’t know exactly what to expect. Still, it seemed like fun, so I signed us up for it.

Armed with pots, pans, knives, and a borrowed propane stove, we drove out to the farm, arriving fashionably late. Some people, who got there when the event began at 11am, were nearly finished for the day by the time we showed up at 2PM! No matter, it was a race and not a sprint for us, as we were spending the night. We cooked up an initial sauce, which ended up only filling one of my jars, but when that couldn’t fill up all of the canning jars I brought, we used the leftover to create the starting point of a second sauce. We ended up having to make a third, smaller batch, to eat with dinner that night. It was certainly a learning experience as I only ever made sauce from fresh tomatoes once before, when I roasted the heck out of some romas and then ground them in a Moulinex (note to self, bring that next time!).

After we finished up the sauce and got in line for canning (they had several pressure canners set up, but as some people made entire flats of mason jars of sauce, there was quite a wait to actually get on the stove, we ate some pasta and sauce for dinner. Bread would have been nice, as you use the same ingredients to make buschetta as tomato sauce, and there was bountiful garlic, tomatoes and basil. And after dinner we were given a tour of their amazing earthen roofed farmhouse, which is under construction. We even got to climb to the top of the roof!

After the tour, when we were packing the cooking utensils back in the car, a woman came up to us and asked if we lived on Lily St, which happens to be the street I live on. I said I did, and looked at her quizzically, and she told us that she too lives on Lily. She had noticed us packing the car this morning (and I guess I sort of noticed them too, but didn’t make a big memory of it) and Mackenzie’s neon sneakers keyed her in to the fact that we were the same people. So strangely, I drove 100 miles and managed to meet some neighbors! And even crazier, my jars and theirs were combined into one batch for the pressure canner through somewhat random chance!

After a remarkably good nights sleep for lying on the ground, we were treated to a breakfast of the best flour tortillas I’ve ever eaten, and the farm’s delicious, FRESH, eggs from their pastured chickens. These eggs are super delicious, and I highly recommend them (they have them at Rainbow sometimes, for the SF locals). When breakfast was over we went on a farm tour, and were given free reign to pick strawberries, eggplants and zucchini blossom from some over abundant (or soon to be shredded for chicken feed) fields. We snagged some strawberries and eggplants, and head out to Davis to see Mackenzie’s Sister and her family for lunch.

All in all it was a pretty great adventure, and I didn’t even mention the kitchen cart trial that was the reason that we showed up late until the end.

While in the process of moving, and while I had no reliable internet at home, I used my shell at dreamhost, which you know, I pay for, to use IRC. Evidently they are of the belief that only hackers use IRC, so they disabled my web sites thinking they were hacked, and because I had old installs of wordpress around (not active, not reachable via web…).

Anyway, I tarred up the old stuff to make it even less intrusive, updated my gallery to the current version (which really was a ‘problem’ on my end, I guess), and set it back up. So welcome back to me!

A fruit tart has 4 basic parts:

1) Crust
2) Custard
3) Fruit
4) Glaze

My girlfriend Mackenzie recently made a fantastic, no, *#$%ing awesome fruit tart, using a mixture of various recipes for 3 of the 4 parts above. The fruit, of course, was baked by nature.

The impetus for this was a birthday dinner for a friend of ours, and Mackenzie volunteered to bring a dessert. The original plan was a chocolate based dessert on a graham cracker crust that she had made previously, but research showed that our friend preferred fruit based desserts. This, coupled with a fantastic recipe for a coconut pudding that we found to use up the rest of a can of coconut milk that we used in a curry recipe, lead to the recipe transcribed below.

For the Crust:

From Giada De Laurentis

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springform or tart pan
3. Place the graham crackers and coconut in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the mixture forms fine crumbs, 15 to 20 seconds. Add the butter and pulse until incorporated. Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan.
4. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool to room temperature, about 20 minutes

For the Custard:

From America’s Test Kitchen Cooking for Two 2010

Note – this can refrigerated in an air tight container for up to 2 days.

1. Whisk the sugar, cornstarch and salt together in a small saucepan. Slowly whisk in the coconut milk and then the egg.
2. Bring the mixture to a simmer over medium-high heat, whisking gently but constantly and scraping the bottom and sides of the pan. Reduce the heat to medium and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the pudding is thick and coats the back of a spoon – 1 or 2 minutes longer.
3. Strain the pudding through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl, scraping the inside of the strainer with a rubber spatula to pass the pudding through. Serve warm or cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap onto the surface of the pudding, and refrigerate until cool, about 3 hours. Stir genly before serving.

For the Fruit:

The fruit is kiwi, raspberries, peaches, strawberries and blueberries. You’re going to have to estimate this yourself, there are no exact measurements. This image will serve as a template, however:

For the Glaze:

The glaze is a tricky bit. I will detail here the glaze that Mackenzie actually used, but I will also provide a recipe for one that we feel might be more appropriate as it would have a thinner consistency and be easier to apply.

The glaze used, from cooks.com:

1. In a heavy saucepan, boil down the syrup until thick. Let cool for 5 mins so it is warm, but not hot to the touch.

Alternate recipe from joyofbaking.com:

1. Heat the apricot jam or preserves and water (if using) in a small saucepan over medium heat until liquid (melted).
2. Remove from heat and strain the jam through a fine strainer to remove any fruit lumps. (If using, add the liqueur at this point.)
3. Let cool until it is only slightly warm.

To assemble the tart:

1. Prepare the crust and custard detailed above. Wash and slice the fruit as appropriate. Make the glaze as detailed above.
2. Spread the custard on the crust in an even layer.
3. Lay out the fruit as desired on top of the custard.
4. If using the first glaze recipe: spoon over tart, being careful not to create deep wells of glaze. Do not try to brush or spread as it will be quite sticky and will disrupt the fruit. The glaze can also be used to glue some fruit pieces (such as the peaches) down.
5. If using the alternate glaze recipe: gently brush the glaze onto the fruit with a pastry brush.
6. Refrigerate until well chilled

I’ve been meaning to post for a couple of weeks about strawberries. Really, I have. But I’ve been too busy (more on that in a later date), and also, I had to go on my first work trip in over 7 years this past weekend, on something like 7 hours notice.

The nice part about the trip was that it was to Chicago, so I was able to see some family and friends. This, of course, included my nephew Milo, who is super great, and I can’t wait to see again next month for his first birthday!

And, even though I had to extend my stay by an extra night, I was able to accomplish what we needed to accomplish on the customer visit.

I hope to have the time to post something more interesting (well, at least less useless, but probably also less cute) soon, as I have a couple of things backlogged.

Yesterday I went on a picnic excursion to the Marin Headlands (which is just north of the Golden Gate Bridge) with Mackenzie. We ate on Rodeo beach, which was a nice little beach, and afterwards while using the facilities, I read about the coastal defense batteries in the area, and saw that there were a couple you could drive to nearby, so we went that way.

I had known something about the Golden Gate coastal defense batteries from various sources, and I had seen some of the remnants on the San Francisco side which I guess are part of Fort Winfield Scott – which is the famous Fort Point from Vertigo, but I didn’t really know much about what was in place on the other side of the Golden Gate.

It turns out that there are too main forts, Fort Cronkhite, which is hard to spell, and Fort Barry. Fort Cronkhite is behind Rodeo Beach and required a bit of a hike, which we weren’t in a mood for, to visit it’s main battery. Fort Barry, on the other hand, is easy to do some park and walk site-seeing, and has some really cool things. One of which is a Nike launch site SF-88L, which is restored as a ‘museum’ but was not open (and evidently barely is). I should have probably had us pull over and taken some picture, but alas.

The two man things we looked at were Battery Mendell, which is a pre World War I battery which housed disappearing guns. Evidently this was awesome for defense against ships, but pretty weak against air power. You can scramble all over the gun emplacements, which is pretty neat.

Here is the whole thing, which I shot from Battery Wallace, on another ridge:

Battery Wallace seems to have originally been a similar sort of battery to Mendell, but was casemated to protect against air attack in 1942:

You can see the gist of what this in this photo shot from Battery Mendell:

And here you can see it up close (probably too upclose):

I only had my point and shoot with me, as I wasn’t expecting to be doing much site seeing of note, but here is a link to the related flickr gallery.

Fava beans are pretty silly. Did you know that?

To prepare them, first you get the pale green beans out of the big fuzzy pods – you get relatively few from a big bunch of pods:

So you look at that and think “well, maybe that’s not so bad. But it turns out that those pale green beans are really tasty bright green beans in a pretty much inedible pale shell. And to get them out you need to boil the beans for about 5 minutes, then cool them in cold water, and then peal them. And next you get an even smaller amount of food:

Well, now you can start making your recipe. Here is one I like a lot:

Fava Bean Spread
(From Vegetables Everyday by Jack Bishop)

• 1 lb of fava beans, unshelled
• 1 small spring onion, minced
• 1/8 cup olive oil
• 1/8 cup water

1) Prepare the beans as secribed above
2) Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add the oil and saute the onion until browned, about 5 minutes
3) Add the beans and salt to taste. Toss the beans to coat with oil. Add water, and simmer uncovered for 3-5 minutes until the beans are tender.
4) Add the cooked mixture to a food processor and pulse until it forms a coarse paste, adding additional olive oil as needed

Spread over bread or crostini.

Friday night I had originally planned to go to a happy hour, but the general crappy weather made me decide to stay in. I tried my hand at making salted caramels, but I screwed it up, and they never set properly. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t get the sugar syrup hot enough without burning it using my crappy pan. I need a new sauce pan! I ended up with a decent tasting, very thick, caramel sauce, that would have been good on ice cream, but instead most of it went in the trash. I shall try again.

Saturday I spent the morning doing my Spanish homework at one of my favorite cafes, and I got home just in time to see the new Doctor Who. Yes, I know it’s not BBC America for another two weeks, but trust me, I watched, it and it was good.

Steven Moffat was always my favorite writer of the resurrected series, and this episode was as good as one could hope for. Of course it remains to be seen how the rest of the season pans out, particularly the episodes that he didn’t write, but I feel like the show is in good hands. And to quote my friend Steve – “Who would have thought 10 years ago that the Coupling guy would become god’s gift to doctor who after taking over from the Queer as Folk dude?” Indeed, indeed.

Sunday’s awesomeness started out with Brunch at Home, which features a ‘create your own Bloody Mary” bar. Good stuff. And from there it continued to me watching the 10th Annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel event, which conveniently took place about a block from my apartment. It was raining quite viscously, so I have to commend the crazies who risked life and limb going down the tight curves down steep Vermont St. Click though the image below for my entire gallery.