Internal conversation:
“So…chicken livers sautéed with garlic & sage, some potatoes dauphinois, and lemon-dill carrots tonight?”
“Yup…still have a glass of white wine to deglaze and make the sauce.”
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I believe this is the deepest snow I’ve seen since the Northeast US Blizzard of 1978, and thoroughly deserving of some tightly-focused verbal energy from Malcolm Tucker, I think.
By 7:30 this morning, the total seemed quite sufficient, thank you very much:
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But, I’m right in the middle of the worst band of the – cue trumpets – Blizzard of 2015, so at 2:30 in the afternoon, still the snow comes down at a good clip. That big lump is my car, which is normally not much taller than the shovel.
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There may be yet another several inches of snow in store.
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It’s possible the sky is broken.
I think the time has arrived for some urgent unsolicited advice to Indonesian authorities. This is not just supremely ridiculous, it’s embarrassing and maddening. Future editions of dictionaries might do well to reference this in their definitions of farcical.
A fresh attempt to lift the sunken fuselage of the doomed AirAsia plane from the Java Sea today failed when a wire rope snapped after the wreckage reached the surface of the water, Indonesian officials said.
Efforts to lift the fuselage or the main section of the Airbus A320-200, expected to contain remaining bodies of victims of the December 28 crash that killed all 162 people on board, have failed so far.
“The fuselage appeared at the surface, but the rope broke and it fell down again,” said Supriyadi, director of operations and training for Indonesia’s search and rescue agency.
Earlier, rescuers tried to lift the section with balloons, a procedure they also used to hoist the tail of the ill-fated AirAsia Flight QZ8501, en route from Indonesia’s Surabaya city to Singapore.
Yesterday, efforts failed again when sharp parts of the debris sliced through a strap connecting the fuselage to a giant balloon and the wreckage sank to the seabed once again.
Several bodies fell from the fuselage when the piece of wreckage sank yesterday.
It’s not even the entire fuselage, but a 43-foot section. The phrase ‘reckless and bumbling incompetence’ keeps coming to mind.
Internal conversation:
“So…chicken livers sautéed with garlic & sage, some potatoes dauphinoise, and lemon-dill carrots tonight?”
“Nah, too lazy. Egg salad.”
The eggs were laid just yesterday, so they were tough to peel, but add a little homemade mayonnaise, some salt and pepper, a squidge of spicy brown mustard, and some ground celery seed and the effort’s worthwhile.
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I just found out that there are a lot of people who believe sourdough is yeast-free, and plenty of organisations and companies that encourage that belief by people who for whatever reason want to follow a yeast-free diet.
True sourdough bread does not contain yeast and instead utilizes a lactobacilli based starter culture.[1] True sourdough bread is also baked at a lower temperature[2] for a longer period of time which protects the integrity of the cereal grains[3] and preserves the nutritional value[4].
[1] No. It’s lactobacilli and a variety of yeasts living in symbiosis, where the bacteria consume sugars in the flour the yeast cannot and the yeast consumes the fermentation byproducts of the bacteria. Lactic acid produced by the bacteria lends the sour flavour; the yeast produces the carbon dioxide that leavens the bread.
[2] Generally speaking, it’s baked at the same or just slightly lower temperature than other breads but indeed for a longer time because the crust browns more slowly.
[3] Integrity of the grains? Come now, they’ve been powdered.
[4] For any reason other than it sounds appealing?
Yesterday, I found that a local bakery that produces a decent sourdough – I’m partial to their sourdough rye – also fails to understand some basics:
The natural yeast itself also has important health benefits for your digestive tract (the good bacteria[1] survive in the center of the loaves where the internal temperature does not get hot[2]).
[1] Yeast is good, but it’s not a bacteria; it’s a fungus.
[2] The good bacteria do not survive. Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis is killed after just a few minutes at 140°F/60°C, and the centre of a sourdough loaf – most breads, for that matter – should reach around 200°F/95°C for a few minutes before it’s taken out of the oven. Take it out before that and the middle of the loaf will remain unset and gummy. Their loaves are not unset and gummy in the middle.
Current temperature 140.1F
Edited to correct first link.
The publisher of the York [PA] Daily Record is a fussbudget and a control freak, but the delightful comments are the reason I’m linking this. You’ll need to disable Adblock to see them if you have the Social Blocking List installed because Romenesko’s comments are Dingleface-based.
Earlier:
I’m confident that I’d be drummed out of the Indonesian military in a New York minute, because in both of these cases, I would probably be the lowly corporal shouting from the back of the press room, “Hey, chuckleheads! Yes, you! Stop taking the goddamned recorder out of the goddamned water! Jiminy Cricket on a velocipede!”
When a DFDR or CVR is immersed in water after an accident, it must be kept stored in water after recovery, and not pulled out and posed with every time a photographer is in the vicinity. Why? Because once immersed in water – especially salt water – the internal components are highly susceptible to corrosion, which begins the instant the recorder is taken out of the water. That’s why the NTSB’s FDR and CVR recorder recovery manuals both state:
4.5. If the CVR is recovered in water, it shall immediately be packed in water (fresh, if possible) and not be allowed to dry out.
This is not the first time I’ve seen this sort of grandstanding. It’s good that they finally found the two recorders in about a hundred feet of water, but novice air crash investigators need to stop boasting and playing about like this. This is real life, not some Dingleface update upstaging your friends’ dull lives. Treat it as such. If you don’t know the rules, find out about them. Hey, look, someone’s linked them for you a graf or two upstream.
Numbnuts.
I don’t care what Gawker says. As you can see, each song has its own colour. That’s different, right?
I feel a distinct need for cerebral detox after that.
Note: The sound is awash in static from the 19 minute mark through 21, but it does go away after that.
My massage therapist mentioned a couple weeks ago that she had a craving for those light-as-a-feather round crumbly cookies made with tiny bits of walnuts and dusted with sugar. She asked if I knew where she could buy some, but I’ve not seen them in the few decent bakeries around here – or anywhere else, for that matter. In fact, the only time I’ve seen them is at holiday gatherings, where they’re often right next to the pizzelle cookies. Neither she nor I knew their name, so I googled ‘Italian walnut cookies’ tonight and found all the other variants.
They are variously called…deep breath…Mexican wedding cookies, Mexican teacakes, Mexican wedding cakes, just plain wedding cookies, kourabiedes, Russian teacakes, kiflik, Armenian sugar cookies, Easter cookies, butterballs, bullets, mantecosos, pecan butterballs, nutballs, cocoons, vanillekipferl, mouldy mice, pecan dainties, bizcochitos, snowballs, pecan snowballs, vanilla snowballs, walnut snowballs, and snowdrops. In other words, most cultures have a version of this cookie. However, the one thing I didn’t find was an Italian name for them.
It is perhaps obvious to you that when a friend asks me about a hard-to-find baked product, the eventual outcome is foregone and inevitable, but I wouldn’t accuse mates of taking advantage of that fact. They can’t help it just as I can’t.
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I can report that my mouldy mice are of a much lighter texture and more delicious than any I’ve ever had at a Christmas party. “Not too shabby” said I on tasting the first one. No, wait…”Holy crap!” was actually my first utterance, followed immediately by my shabbiness estimate. They melt in the mouth and are great with coffee. I’m sure she’ll be delighted with the box I’m bringing over tomorrow.
My version is an adaptation of King Arthur Flour’s recipe. I replaced their almond extract and almond flour with a scant half-teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg and a cup of toasted pecans, cooled completely then chopped very finely in my mini food processor. I also bumped the vanilla extract up to two teaspoons. I inadvertently over-processed the pecans just a tiny bit, so they ended up slightly wet – but well short of pecan butter – and, as I suspected, baking therefore took about four minutes more than the maximum they state.
Distilled, the warm smell of pecans, nutmeg, and vanilla in my house right now would make a fine cologne, I think.
Catching up with some recent dishes I’ve made, from last night’s pea soup back to Thanksgiving dinner. Click any picture to view these in a gallery.
I note that the Guardian has started the new year off properly by summarily abandoning its recently instituted practice of shifting images on the home page leftward by a few pixels and dimming them when you hovered over them, then shifting back and brightening when you moved away. I believe it was still doing that yesterday. Now they just use the dimming and brightening.
Good. Did they really think that the image equivalent of drunken swaying would entice more clicks? (“Look, I’m moving! Ooo, isn’t that interesting? Hic.“) All it did for me was to make me dislike their web design team and the people who approved their idiocy with the fire of at least…oh, I don’t know, a campfire or so.
After Christmas Eve dinner of cider-baked ham, breakfast Christmas morning was a shared four-egg ham and cheddar omelette with Americanos and the always delightful cinnamon crumb coffeecake from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, recipe below.
Makes two 8-inch rounds, one 13 x 9-inch pan, or one 9- or 10-inch tube pan.
CRUMB:
2 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) sugar (caster sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Scant 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
CAKE:
8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 ounces) butter, at room temperature
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar (caster sugar)
2 large eggs (2 oz. each with shells)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
Confectioners’ sugar (icing sugar), for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/175C. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans, a 9 x 13-inch pan, or a 9- or 10-inch tube pan.
TO MAKE THE CRUMB: In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon. Melt the butter in the microwave or small saucepan and add the vanilla extract and almond extract to it. Pour the butter into the flour mixture and mix until all the butter is absorbed and you have a uniformly moistened crumb mixture. Set aside while you make the cake batter.
TO MAKE THE BATTER: In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, and beat between additions. Scrape down the mixing bowl, then beat in the vanilla and sour cream.
In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and baking powder together. Add to the butter/sour cream mixture, mixing until evenly combined. Pour the batter into the greased baking pan(s). Crumble the crumb mixture over the top, until the batter is completely covered.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes for 8-inch rounds, 30 to 35 minutes for a 9 x 13-inch pan, or 35 to 40 minutes for a 9- or 10-inch tube pan. Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool on a rack; dust the top with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.
By which I mean I have a great new way to thinly slice garlic for soups, sauces, and such. One of the Christmas gifts I received was this nifty Italian truffle shaver – essentially a miniature mandoline – and I used it for the first time just now as I ring in the new year making split pea soup with leftover Christmas ham. I tested three different thicknesses here:
I doubt I’ll ever have a truffle in my kitchen, but now see-through, melt-away garlic slices by the dozen are just seconds away. No more scenes like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yztx8qfoNu0
This advert comes up with disturbing regularity on my Kindle. Do copywriters feel the need of an immediate shower when this sort of idea pops into their heads and they then choose to write it down and plan a series of meetings for its refinement? I know I would.
“Mommy, did you thoroughly rinse the awful poisons off this spatula after you washed it last time or am I going to die now?”
Oh, yes, you will click this to see a larger version. You can’t not click it.
This year’s cider-baked ham turned out even better than last year’s, from eye appeal to moistness right through to flavour. That’s steam at the upper left immediately after its final glazing in the oven with highly-reduced cider, dark brown sugar, and freshly ground pepper. We tented this loosely and rested it for fifteen minutes before tucking in.
The big Christmas meal – traditionally on Christmas Eve in my house – was the ham, twice-baked potatoes with sour cream and Parmigiano-Reggiano, roasted corn, and cornmeal biscuits:
The twice-baked potatoes come under the fancy-sounding guise of Potatoes Suzette, even though the Kennedy White House recipe, served as part of a lunch with the Canadian Prime Minister, has only a few points in common with the original pommes de terre Suzette. The Americanised version is a sort of mish-mash of Suzette and Roxelane potatoes. My version includes more egg yolks, sour cream, and grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. The roasted corn was from Trader Joe’s freezer case and was better than I expected – their corn is nicely sweet and roasted well. The biscuit recipe comes from Cook’s Illustrated.
The ham itself, recipe also from Cook’s Illustrated, is made with nearly a gallon of cider (fresh, not fermented) with eight cups used with cinnamon and cloves for a several-hour brine, another cup inside the oven bag the ham is heated in, and four cups reduced for over an hour to a sticky, caramelly 1/3 cup. That 1/3 cup is used to paint the ham not just for more apple flavour but so the dark brown sugar-pepper mixture will stick properly to the ham during the final glazing at 400F/200C.
I’m happy to report that I got the smoked ham from the same place I got one last year, Blood Farm, which suffered a devastating fire in the middle of the night of 29/30 December 2013. The four-alarm blaze destroyed the building that housed the smokehouse, meat processing room, offices, and retail store, and the Blood family was initially unsure whether they would even attempt to recover. Hundreds of producers and customers and even people from the state of Massachusetts agricultural bureau convinced them to rebuild. An independent fund was set up to support idled employees in the intervening months. They finished the new building in September and the smokehouse restarted operations shortly after that. I also bought some of their fairly spectacular bacon when I picked up the ham last week.
Dessert has been delayed to today and will be Blueberry Grunt, a real favourite around here.