AUGUST 2013
Wednesday 2013.8.28
Biking
I learned an important lesson about retirement: Leisure and laziness are easily confused with each other.
When I had a job, I bicycled to work everyday. It was six miles round trip and almost as flat as a pool table—the few slopes in the road barely qualified as gradients. I enjoyed the morning bike ride. I had a fresh mind from a night's sleep and I could plan my day while riding. The ride home was not a favorite; the wind was usually against me.
All that changed, of course, when I retired more than two years ago. I still use my bike, and fairly often, but mostly I ride to the grocery store, which is a little short of 1½ miles per round trip. The ride to the warehouse store is a little longer, and if I ride my bike to the restaurant where I often have lunch with friends, I might ride two miles total.
Last week I decided to increase my bike riding. I've never been a distance person. In college I signed up for weight training courses, and I was in good enough shape to attract the girls' attention (the rest was then easy). The trainer wanted us to do one lap around the track after class, to burn off any…stuff, maybe lactate?…built up in the muscles. I did it, but that lap, which was only a quarter mile, nearly killed me every time. I never got used to it.
This past week I tried biking seven miles. I have one of those digital speedometer/odometer thingies on my bike. It's cool. And so I headed out in a safe direction (where there are fewer cars). I did well, until I encountered two hills—not big hills, but hills nonetheless. Going down was easy. Getting back up, when I reversed my course, was awful. I made it to the top of the larger hill, nearly dead, and stopped to catch my breath. After about five minutes I tackled the smaller hill. No go. Near the top I pulled over and stopped. I rested a few minutes and then walked the remainder of the grade.
Then I leaned my bike against the guard rail and sat on a concrete wall. I couldn't stand. After a few minutes, nausea and dizziness set it. I fought it, but twice I needed to lean over the wall and allow my body to try to vomit. There was nothing in my stomach; so it was nonproductive. Still, it made me feel a little better. Then I relieved myself by means of a "natural break," hoping that might help me feel better. Finally, after about 20 minutes I felt well enough to get back onto my bike and limp home.
Most of the remainder of the ride was a very gentle slope downward. I needed to peddle only about half the distance if I was careful. I got home, went to bed, and slept for about an hour. For the remainder of the day I felt awful. I didn't eat anything until dinner time. Total mileage for the trip was less than five miles.
Okay. So I'm a wimp. I'm 62 years old. I know there are people older than I am who run marathons. Those young guys in the Tour de France bike more than a hundred miles each day, and they can maintain a speed of 30 mph (48 kph) most of the time. I barely maintain 10 mph when I go to the store. I'm not an athlete. I'm a cook, computer enthusiast, and maybe a few other things.
I know I'll never recover what little stamina I once had. However, more importantly, I hope I can permanently remember my age and what I am capable, and not capable, of doing.
Sunday 2013.8.25
Salami Pie
I almost hate to mention it. It is the one food for which I am most known among my friends. If one dish can make you a star, I am truly celestial, at least among those who know me.
Hollywood has its walk of fame where star-shaped plaques are embedded in the sidewalks to honor movie stars. Where is the hub of USA cuisine? Chicago? Boston? New York? If I had to pick a city, I'd choose New York. I think New York City should establish its own walk of fame, but not for movies stars—cooking stars. Julia Child, of course, should get the first star.
Getting back to salami pie, it is the one recipe I keep secret (and, of course, it is the recipe my friends ask for most). There are currently around 160 recipes in the Recipe Archive, all of them written by me. Some are original, some are modifications of other published recipes. I rarely leave a recipe unchanged. We all have our food preferences. I know what I like and dislike; so I adjust accordingly. I expect others to do the same.
My grandmother, on my mother's side, was from Naples, Italy. She wasn't a great cook because she cut too many corners. Having lived through the Great Depression in the USA, she saved wherever possible. I've seen her boil a cubed potato in water, add a little salt, and call it soup. She did, however, have some recipes she brought from the old country. Salami pie was one of them. Italian Christmas Cookies was another, which I fixed. It is in the Archive.
I have looked, but I never found a published recipe for salami pie. Most of them are just salami pizzas. There is one, Torta Rustica, that comes close. After my grandmother died, I decided to figure out a recipe for salami pie. Thankfully, it didn't take long. The filling, after all, is almost self-evident—salami. There are, of course, other ingredients. The crust was the challenge, but I came up with a pastry that is actually better than hers was, mostly because I use real butter. No cutting corners. She and my mother would only buy margarine because it was cheaper, and if water would suffice they'd substitute.
The subject of salami pie comes up because we planned another gathering among friends, both here in the trailer park and friends in the community. I volunteered to make salami pie. The food situation is weird. The original plan was that someone would run the barbecue grill, cooking chicken, hamburgers, etc. Others would bring fruit, a salad, soda, brownies, and the usual tableware—plates, cups, plastic utensils, and napkins. You know how these things are organized. However, the grill person decided he didn't want to risk the liability, should something go wrong. As I said, weird.
All kinds of jokes in bad taste came to mind. "I was lucky to get the salami. A few hours later the store pulled it from the shelves because of an E. coli outbreak."
Ultimately, we might be told to bring our own raw foods and barbecue them for our own personal and exclusive consumption, at our own risk, thus protecting everyone else from potential liability. Whatever. My stomach has been growling all day with the thought of hotdogs. I love hotdogs, but I only allow myself to eat them once a year. I might just go to the store and buy some Hebrew Nationals and keep them on ice in a chest in the car, just in case. I can always fry them at home.
As for the salmi pie, I can hardly wait to eat it. I made it yesterday morning. It is currently in the refrigerator, chilling, because I like it best cold. It has probably been several years since I tasted salami pie.
Will I ever publish the recipe? Probably not, although if this web site is still active as I approach the final days of my life I might make an arrangement with someone to maintain the site and add my salami pie recipe to it. That day, I hope, is a long way away.
Wednesday 2013.8.21
Fall is Calling
I am amazed at how the cooling weather affects my cooking. I am a creature of habits, some learned long ago. I was born, bred, and raised in New England. I loved summers and dreaded autumns. Fall meant going back to school and the coming of another harsh and cold winter. Snow is fun when you have a sled. When you need to drive a car through it, snow can be a real pain. That is one reason I chose to live in Southern California.
I like to say we have only two seasons here—summer and sort of summer. Nonetheless, possibly from my childhood in New England, when the mornings get nippy with chill, I start thinking of fall cooking.
The days here are still warm and comfortable. I've enjoyed a summer of leaving all the windows wide open and letting the fragrance of fresh air, and sometimes a neighbor's barbecue, waft through my home. The mornings, however, are getting chilly. I feel the need to wear slippers to keep my feet warm. Later in the day I'll walk around barefoot.
And so I've already begun cooking for fall and winter. Other than doing new recipes, I haven't baked bread for several months. Last week I pulled out my bread pans and made two loaves of whole wheat bread. On Monday I dug my chicken trim out of the bottom of the freezer and made chicken stock, 19 cups in all. They are now frozen, popped out of their plastic containers, and stored in ziplock bags in my freezer. I'll make more later.
Homemade chicken stock, besides being rather easy to make, is one basic ingredient that you can make economically (you use the parts of the chicken you would discard). I use a lot of stock in cooking, especially in soups. Having it frozen in one-cup portions makes it easy to use in a recipe. I even cheat with it. I never have beef stock, but I can dissolve a little beef boullion in chicken stock and the flavor works well in many dishes, such as Texas chili.
I have also been eyeing the cubed stew beef in the store. In the fall I like to make a big pot of Texas Chili and freeze it in portions. Nothing warms and satisfies like a bowl of hot chili. And speaking of which, in a Texas cookbook I found a recipe for Frito Pie—Fritos brand corn chips on a large plate, covered with Texas chili, and garnished with chopped onions and shredded cheddar cheese. I think I can do better than that. Caramelize the onions. Add the cheese and place under the broiler until it bubbles and barely starts to brown. Then garnish with plenty of sour cream. Talk about trailer park food! Yum.
Of course, what would winter be without Pasta Fagioli? I've had a love of this Italian soup since I ate it with my grandfather when I was a small child. He died when I was six years old. There isn't much I still remember about him, but I remember his pasta fagioli. I came up with my own healthier recipe and now I make it every winter. Like chili, it freezes well, so I make a large pot.
One of these days, maybe, I'll learn canning. I wonder how pasta fagioli would taste if it were properly canned and then eaten several months later. Or Texas chili. Perhaps I'll never know—home canning seems like a daunting and risky endeavor. I know if it is done correctly it keeps whole families alive and well fed all winter. It's something to think about.
Sunday 2013.8.18
Third Anniversary
The middle of this month marks the third anniversary of my web site. As has become the custom, I observe the milestone this week with another biscotti recipe. Although this biscotti is delicious, and it will be especially enjoyed by those who love chocolate, my Almond Biscotti recipe continues to be my favorite.
Each anniversary I usually reflect on the accomplishments of this web site (just as I reflect on my personal life each New Year's holiday). I have nearly 160 recipes in the archive now. All of them are my own. Although I am open to contributed recipes, most contributions use a jar of this, a can of that, and a bottle of other stuff. I like recipes that are made from scratch using fresh ingredients.
And speaking of fresh ingredients, I made whole wheat bread this week. I didn't check the flour. Whole wheat flour has a higher fat content because it contains the bran and germ from the wheat kernel (or wheat berry). Therefore, it can go rancid. The bread was not dangerous to eat, but it tasted awful. I threw it and all the remainder of my whole wheat flour into the trash, and then I went to the store to buy fresh flour. The second batch of bread tasted a lot better.
Rancidity results as fats decompose. Cheese is made by breaking down the fat molecules using enzymes, and mold in the case of blue cheese. So not all rancidity is a bad. From what I understand, it's not the result of bad bacteria, such as when milk goes sour; so it won't make you sick.
I should have stuck my nose in the flour jar to smell it. I blame summer. All the windows are wide open. A gentle breeze wafts through my kitchen, which is especially welcome when the oven it at 375°F (191°C). I never detected the rancidity of the flour. Later, after I tasted the bread, I smelled the flour jar. It had the odor of a dark, dank cellar or basement. I grew up in New England. We had basements. I know that smell. I also have a good nose, although it isn't as good as it was 40 years ago.
The first thing I did when I bought the new flour was smell it. It had almost no odor at all. What little fragrance I could detect smelled slightly sweet and clean. After scouring the jar well and drying it thoroughly, I filled it with fresh flour. I even replaced the rubber gasket. It's one of those glass French canning jars with the wire latch on the lid. I've had them for decades. Then I cut the "Best if used by" date from the bag and taped it to the side of the jar.
I'm not sure when the whole wheat bread recipe will make it onto this web site. As it is, I have a dozen recipes written and videoed for future publication, enough to cover my uploads through the end of October. Three of those recipes are for bread.
As we near fall I start getting that yearning to do fall/winter cooking. That's why I baked bread. This coming week I plan to make more chicken stock, preparing for winter soups. Soon I'll buy cut up stew beef to make Texas Chili.
And an old friend of mine will be visiting from Portland, Oregon in October. I think she'll be difficult. The last time I spoke with her she said she is now vegetarian. Oh gawd! I'm not sure what she'll be in October. She tends to go through fads like I go through milk. Maybe she'll be between whims by then and that will make her impressionable. I can't complain. I used to be boxarian. Everything I ate came from a cardboard box—Kraft Mac & Cheese, Rice-a-Roni, Pasta Roni (any variety), cookies, crackers, etc. Meanwhile, I'm looking through my vegan cookbooks, just in case…
Finally, I changed the name of the web site on the home page to The Mobile Home Gourmet to match the TV show (which I will probably continue for another season). I registered the URL, mobilehomegourmet.com, as well. I'm thinking this might allow me to create a separate web site for my show, should it ever turn into something. Meanwhile, the new URL automatically forwards to the old one.
Wednesday 2013.8.14
Oh the Vagaries of Backups!
In my past few blog entries I mentioned that I uploaded some videos to Curious.com, a fairly new company that puts educational videos on the Internet. They prefer them in a theme; so I uploaded five seafood videos and then followed those with five about baking bread. I didn't shoot ten videos in five days. I pulled "from the vault."
Four of the videos were easy because they currently reside on my computer, not yet uploaded to YouTube—two spicy shrimp recipes and two for baking sweet bread. The others had to be pulled from the archives.
I archive my videos using WinRAR, which allows me to build archive files that are each just large enough to fit on a DVD blank. A video might take as few as one or two disks. Some consume more. I keep a second backup on external hard disks. And I catalog them all in a database to make them easy to find when I need them.
De-archiving is simple. Copy the archives back onto the computer and then extract them. I should end up with the original pristine files. However, two of the six archives reported data errors. My computer could not read them. Ergo: The value of having a second backup on an external hard disk. Those files are not archived. They are copies of the originals. So nothing was lost.
Two out of six. That's 33%-ish, and worrisome. Could one third of all my archives be corrupt? Can I trust my archives? They're important. They're backups. You have a spare tire in your car for a reason, and you want it to be 100% usable when you need it.
WinRAR fortunately has a test utility. I decided to test my archive DVDs—all 600 of them (so far). I've produced more than 160 cooking videos, plus 45 TV shows. Video files are huge, especially because I video in 1080p HD widescreen. A typical backup could be 15 to 20 gigs of data files. So testing is going to take a while.
So far I tested slightly more than 100. Only two failed. If they test without errors, each disk is marked with "Tested OK" so that I know I can trust those discs in the future. And just to make certain, I also tested the earlier faulty discs (they were still in the recycling bin) and, sure enough, the testing utility said the data was corrupt. So the tests work.
If any are bad—like the two so far—I simply copy from the other backups on external hard disks and encode a new archive. And test it. I will continue testing unil all 600+ of my archive discs are certified for data integrity. And all future archives will also be tested before I store them. I never know when I might need them again, such as for another Internet company like Curious.com.
This week, by the way, is the third anniversary of my web site. As is the custom, I'll be observing it with another biscotti recipe on Sunday. Look for it.
Sunday 2013.8.11
It's Been Quiet in the Mobile Home Kitchen
I said I would take a break away from my kitchen, and so I have—sort of. I do enjoy having my home back to normal for a while. No tripods. No cameras. No blackout drapes. No wires. No show counter (the surface I assembled to do recipes in front of the camera). Everything is temporarily stored away. With my home looking so neat and clean, I am comfortable leaving all my curtains wide open. All my windows are open as well. Fresh air wafting through my home all day long. It feels good.
I did spend a couple days upgrading the studio lighting in my kitchen, replacing the incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs that are brighter with a whiter light. For diffusers, I formerly used cut up shower curtains as "silks." The problem with the nylon shower curtains was that they are not as translucent as I would like. A lot of light was lost. I replaced them with some expensive drafting vellum I've had since my college days. A pad of 50 sheets back then cost nearly $30. That was back in the 1980s. It costs more than double that now. LEDs, unlike incandescents, are cool to the touch. I can use paper diffusers with LEDs without fear of fire. And the paper can be closer to the bulbs, which eliminates having to use large pieces of shower curtain fabric. The new lighting setup is smaller, neater, and easier to keep outside the sight lines of the camera.
The light is really bright. I need to stop down the iris on my camera quite a bit more. I like the color too. Everything looks cleaner.
Naturally, I had to experiment with the new lighting. I made two different kinds of bread—Hawaiian Sweet Bread and Portuguese Sweet Bread. Those are now encoded and stored "in the vault" for future upload to this web site and to YouTube. I have a dozen projects saved, enough to cover all my uploads through the end of October.
As for the uploads to Curious.com that I mentioned on Wednesday, I uploaded five seafood videos. I agreed to also provide some bread videos. I finished those uploads Friday evening. That gives them ten videos; I'm done for a while. Wait and see. If the company does well and eventually shows a profit, maybe I'll make a little money for my work. As I said in Wednesday's blog, I'm not planning how to invest it. Not yet.
Finally, there is fall to think about. Once again, I sat at my desk with my large envelope of potential cooking projects, and chose the next 15 projects I'll work on. Which reminds me… Someone asked me if I video my first attempt at a recipe. Yes, sometimes. Sometimes I rehearse. Sometimes I need to do the video again because the original recipe was wrong. Sometimes I simply screw up. A few disasters come to mind—Genovese Savory Pastries, Chocolate Mascarpone Pie, Gâteau Paris-Brest. Most recently the dough for the Portuguese Sweet Bread went into the trash. It was like pasta dough—dry, stiff, and dense. It would have made bricks. I adjusted the recipe and started again. The second attempt was successful.
I love it when a recipe works the first time in front of the camera. That happens often, but not always. I think the best recipes are those I find in restaurant trade journals. They are written by chefs who created the dishes for their own restaurant. They work, every time.
Wednesday 2013.8.7
New Enterprise
I received an invitation last week to join the "teacher" team at a web site called Curious.com. It's a startup company, only a few months old. They are gathering content. We spoke over the phone yesterday and the idea intrigues me.
The concept is interesting enough, but I don't know how lucrative it might be. They put teaching videos on the Internet. People can join and buy "coins" they can use to view videos. New members, at least for now, are started off with some free coins. The cost to view each video might be set at 1, 3, or 5 coins.
Teachers get a percentage of the revenue—currently 70% for teachers and 30% going to Curious. As mentioned above, it's a startup company in its infancy. They are building content right now and giving away free coins; so no one is earning any revenue yet.
I am sending them a few of my cooking videos to get started. The best time to join a company is in the early stages. The pay isn't good at that point, but joining early makes it easier to gain ranking more quickly.
One concern is exclusivity. Why would someone pay to see my videos on Curious when they can watch them for free on YouTube? One answer is that Curious works to make the videos more interactive, with little quizzes, opportunities to ask questions, etc.
An idea came to mind, which might help Curious a little bit. There is typically a lag time between my finishing a video and uploading it to this web site and to YouTube. My latest video won't be available until the end of October. I could upload early to Curious, giving them several weeks of exclusivity before the video becomes free on YouTube.
Where will it all lead? Probably nowhere. Our economy is improving, albeit slowly, and therefore people might be willing to spend a little—even a dollar—to watch me cook something. Most cooking shows on TV are more entertainment than education. I don't know if I like that. What can I learn by watching Guy Fieri taste food in a restaurant? I'd much rather watch Giada De Laurentiis. She's prettier.
Most new companies fail after a few years. There are a lot of ideas out there, but success depends on having an idea that people are going to want. Developing a kosher pork sausage might be a good idea, but how much money would it put in the bank? That guy who is putting shoes on children in third world countries is doing very well. Everyone needs shoes.
And so, I am sending Curious some videos. But I'm not planning how I might invest my profits.
Sunday 2013.8.4
2014?
Now that I have all the TV shows complete and sumbitted, I don't even want to think about next year because then I'll start cooking again. I'm taking some time off. When there are obligations to fulfill I want to get them done—the sooner, the better. Making the videos is a lot of work. Maybe you'll permit me, once again, to bore you with all the details. Some of you have written to ask how to make cooking videos. Here is how I do it:
A day in advance I type and print my ingredients cue card that I set on the tripod of my video camera. That lists all the ingredients in US and metric measurements in large print so that I can read them easily from in front of the camera—thus a cue card. I also type up my step-by-step instructions that guide me through every stage of the recipe preparation and also tells me when to take photographs. In moviemaking they use a storeyboard. That is taped to the wall where the camera can't see it.
Setup takes two to three hours. All the windows are covered with blackout fabric. All the studio lights hidden around my kitchen are plugged in and adjusted. My cameras (video and photograph) and formatted. The ingredients are inventoried and measured into little glass bowls. I might make a quick run to the store to get anything that might be missing. Shower and shave. Gel my hair and put a little makeup on my face. Then it's showtime.
It can take up to six hours to shoot a video. Frame and focus each shot. Then step around to the front of the camera and start the camera with a remote control. If I don't like the clip—maybe I make a mistake—I shoot it again, and again, if necessary. Then I move on to the next shot. Between clips I take photographs with my Nikon DSLR. Later, if necessary, I'll shoot pick-ups to fix mistakes and/or cutaways for smoother transitions between clips.
The finished plate of food goes on the table and I pull down the blackout curtain covering the nearest window. I photograph the dish using natural lighting, as that looks best. Those photographs—I shoot a dozen or more of them—I call the royals. Those are, hopefully, the beautiful shots of the food on a plate. The feature photo you see on the home page is the best royal. Then I cover the window again and take the plate to the kitchen where I video my final clip—the tasting. The shooting is done. I take down all my setup, returning my home back to normal, and wash any dishes, pots, and pans that still need washing. The kitchen is cleaned and then I move to the office.
The files from both cameras are off-loaded to my computer. I use photo editing software to do the post processing work on the photographs and then I write up the recipe and include all the photographs in the step-by-step portion. Save and close. I'll proofread it another day.
I use video editing software to review and edit all the video clips, assembling them into the sequence that will be the final video. That gets encoded for YouTube, which can take up to three hours, for pre-DVD files, which takes about an hour and 40 minutes, and for the TV station, which takes another hour and 40 minutes. Finally, the YouTube video is converted to AVI (XviD) for posting later on the newsgroups.
All the video files are backed up to an external hard disk and later the files will be archived and burned onto blank DVDs. That gives me two backups of everything. The task is done. It takes two to three days to complete a project—concept to computer to content.
And that's what goes into what you see here and on YouTube. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun too. Next year? I'll think about that later.
Meanwhile, I am experimenting with a Hawaiian Sweet Bread recipe. I changed all the studio lighting in my kitchen, switching bright white LED lamps for the soft white bulbs I had been using, and exchanging vellum for the silks I had used. I saw a cooking video and I loved the lighting. It was crisp and white. If the bread video looks good, you'll see a different look to my future videos.