FEBRUARY 2014

Wednesday 2014.2.26

Stormy Weather

The last time I wrote about Stormy Weather was in my October, 2010 blog. Since then, the drought has been getting worse. Finally, a little rain is coming. Late tonight/early tomorrow morning the first of two storms will move through Southern California. The first storm will wet things, but it isn't expected to drop much rain. The second storm, however, is expected to be a doozie—NOAA predicts it will be the strongest storm in three years. There will be significant rainfall. It won't solve our drought crisis, but there is always the hope that this might be an indication of a turning point in the pattern.

With only about a month or two remaining in the rainy season, we'd need a lot of storms to make up for lost time. As of today we have received about 15% of our average rain for the season. The reservoir is less than 40% capacity. The smaller reservoir upstream, which spills into our reservoir when it is full, is at less than 1% capacity—it's nearly empty.

Our water situation is not dire yet. We have ground water supplies that can be tapped if needed. During times of plenty they actually pump water down into the aquifers for storing. And there is desalination equipment in moth balls that could be called into use in an emergency.

As for me, I'm preparing, food-wise. I like soup in winter. When it is rainy and blustery outdoors, I like being warm and dry in the house, all the curtains wide open so that I can watch it rain, and enjoying a bowl of hot soup for lunch. However, I needed to prepare.

This week I am making chicken stock. I used the last of my stock in a recipe for lentil and sausage soup; so I'm fresh out. It was delicious soup. The recipe and video will be on this web site and on YouTube in coming weeks. Meanwhile, I've had a lot of frozen chicken trim in the freezer.

I'm a big fan of homemade stock, for two reasons: 1. It tastes a lot better than the broth available in the store. It also has a better texture because it contains the gelatin that the store-bought broth lacks. And 2. It's economical. You make it from the chicken trim and scraps that you would normally throw in the trash.

I buy whole chickens, because they are the most economical, and then filet or section them for the pieces I want. The bones, skin, etc. go back into the plastic bag and then into the freezer. When I need stock, I only need to buy carrots, celery, and onions (if I don't already have them). Homemade stock is almost free, and it makes me marvel that anything so rich and delicious could cost so little.

On this web site there is a procedure for making Chicken Stock. It's in the Recipe Archive under Basics. It's a lot of work, but I do it very seldom because I make up a lot, like 20 cups at a time. The finished stock is portioned into one-cup plastic containers, frozen, and then removed from the containers and stored in ziplock bags in the freezer. Having the stock in one-cup portions makes it easy to remove what I need for a recipe. I use the stock mostly for soups.

This time around, because we had so little winter weather, I had let the chicken trim really build up in the freezer. On Monday I made a pot of stock. Yesterday I skimmed off the fat and put 20 cups of stock in the freezer while a second pot of stock was coming to a boil on the stove. This morning I skimmed and put another 22 cups in the freezer after I transferred yesterday's frozen stock to ziplock bags. And a third pot of stock is coming to the boil as I write this. Pardon the pun, but I'll be well stocked with stock by the time I'm done.

And one final note. Today the contractor will pour the concrete slab for the new shed. It will cure for several days under plastic to protect it from the weather. Next week construction of the shed can begin, if the weather cooperates.

Sunday 2014.2.23

More of This and That

I continue to slow down in the cooking for this web site. There were times when I had ten or more projects "in the vault" for future publication. Presently I have only two, enough to cover my uploads through March 9th. I haven't totally lost interest in cooking; I've simply become distracted by other things.

Most of my time recently has been occupied with issues involving the new shed. After demolishing the old one and clearing the land, I marked out with stakes and string the area the new shed would occupy, if built according to original plans. It won't fit. The maximum size is 120 square feet, 10 feet by 12 feet, with a 12-foot height. However, there needs to be minimum clearances between the shed and other structures.

Although my mobile home is short by comparison to others in the park, giving me a nice back yard, it isn't short enough. Thankfully it's a double-wide. What it lacks in length it more than makes up for in width. The new shed might just fit if not for two problems: The shed will have eaves; so the footprint isn't all that matters. My home has aluminum awnings, which take up space that could otherwise be clearance.

Another issue is that I want the shed to look like it belongs in the space. A huge shed would look like a spare house—a tiny one, but still a house. If too large it would look like it didn't belong as a storage shed. So the size is being reconsidered.

I was thinking 7 by 10 or 7 by 9 feet. The contractor will visit (eventually—I try to be patient) to examine the space and change the plans to accommodate the new size. The cost shouldn't change much.

Another issue has been clutter. It drives me crazy. I bought large and small plastic bins, into which I've been sorting items that will eventually be stored in the shed. However, there isn't room to store all the bins pleasantly inside my home. It's simple physics. Seldom used items in drawers and cupboards were transferred to bins. However, the drawers and cupboards do not occupy less space. They're the same size, if a little more roomy inside, and so the bins now occupy new space that was once living space, which means I now have less of it.

For you inventors out there: There's a fortune to be made. Think how much space could be used efficiently in a refrigerator if the milk carton became more slender as the milk was used or if the egg carton shrunk as the eggs were removed. Start inventing.

Some bins are tucked away, but many are stacked in space blocking access to drawers or as obstacles to walk around on the way from one room to another. To make matters worse, the old shed wasn't empty. Some of the items—those that might be easy to steal—are now inside my home, taking up even more floor space. It's a nightmare—literally—because I've dreamed about it in my sleep.

I'm an organized person and I don't like clutter. Everything has a place. Often, when clearing up clutter, I pick up each item and say, "This has a place and it's place is here," as I put it away. Now, with so much clutter annoying me, I've been lax about putting things away. The clutter multiplies and I've been devoting time to keeping it to a minimum for the sake of my sanity.

Eventually it will all sift down into a peaceful existence again. Until then, I'm trying to maintain a sense of order amid the mayhem.

One final note: On Friday evening I visited a friend and his girlfriend for a dinner of roast stuffed Cornish game hens. He did most of the cooking (I washed pots and pans and bowls). The hens were quite good. In coming weeks I'll replicate his efforts into a recipe and video for this web site.

Wednesday 2014.2.19

Mystic, Connecticut

A recent email made me think of the little New England town in which I once lived—Mystic, Connecticut.

It seems odd, that name—Mystic. There was nothing mystical about the place. I remember seeing something somewhere that said the name used to be spelled Mystick. It conjures up images in the mind of some explorer paddling up the river/cove that goes through the area, getting out of his boat, pounding a stick into the ground, and declaring, "This is my stick and I claim this land for myself." Maybe he forgot to pack a flag.

I grew up there. It wasn't a propitious beginning, but it wasn't filled with hardships either. We were a normal and average middle-class family living in a middle-class neighborhood with lots of kids around for playing baseball, football, dodge ball, whatever. The land had once been a farm, part of the Joseph Stanton Williams Farms. Our home had been built on land that was once the "Elm Tree Farm."

A velvet mill was built in the late 19th century, which helped pollute the Mystic River, actually a salt water tidal cove. Early residents remembered the days when the dye vats were drained, which poured through underground pipes into the river. They marveled at the various colors as they streamed into the water. All the homes along the shores also drained their sewer lines into the river as well, which was another reason it was polluted. It was all cleaned up eventually and the shellfish are probably safe to eat now.

The farm land was subdivided and sold for tenements and houses for the factory workers. The mill eventually closed, but many of the buildings are now designated as historical landmarks. We owned one of those houses. It was suitable, if a little humble, situated on the industrial side of the river, an area once bustling with textile mills and shipyards. Built on the other side of the river were the stately homes that made for a beautiful view when seen from our side.

Across the avenue was the Mystic Seaport, now a major tourist attraction. When I was a child in Mystic, admission was free. You could walk in anywhere. The last of the wooden hulled whaling ships, the Charles W. Morgan, is docked there, along with several other old wooden sailing ships. The Seaport is a maritime museum. Even after they started charging admission we used to walk in for free, knowing where there was no security. The Seaport was one of our playgrounds.

There is another reason this subject comes to mind. Back then, 50, 60 years ago, we looked out for one another. If someone's child got pink eye, there was a lady on the street who could cook up a remedy. Poison ivy welts? Mix tannic acid powder with rubbing alcohol and paint it on. It works. The chemist at the pharmacy had to go down into the cellar to find the tannic acid powder, but he had it.

Now it's the 21st century. A neighbor has been sharing food. Thoughtful. Nice. But there are problems. Most of the jars and bottles have been opened and part of the contents used. The expiration dates—"Best if used by"—go back to 2005. Many of them say "Refrigerate after opening," but they weren't cold when given to me. Someone is cleaning out their cupboards and giving all their old stuff away. Because I cook and share food with my neighbors, I'm the first person that comes to mind. I've been emptying bottles and jars into the trash or down the drain and then washing the containers before putting them into the recycling bin.

There is always a silver lining: I've been accepting them, of course, because I come from an era in which we looked out for one another. I'm protecting my other neighbors from potential illness by properly disposing of these containers of potential botulism.

Sunday 2014.2.16

Demolition Days

The journey to a new storage shed continues to make progress. To help speed it along a little, I chose to demolish my old shed myself. In my mind, I'm still 22 years old. My body, however, needs to remind me, often, that it is 62 years old. The problem with wisdom is that you learn your lessons—"I'll never do that again!"—and then you're too old to do it the right way. Oh if only I'd had the wisdom of age in my youth!

Be that as it may, I didn't push my body too hard. On Wednesday afternoon, after enjoying a Chinese buffet lunch with a friend and former work associate, I started tearing down the shed. Besides speeding up the job a little, I also wanted to recover and recycle the aluminum. It's worth money. There are several metals recycling companies down in the city that pay money for recycled metals.

I knew the roof had to be removed first and that it would be the most difficult. Get out the folding ladder, claw hammer and mallet. There were several stubborn nails that needed to be pulled. Shifting the ladder around, climbing up and down the ladder again and again, and yanking nails (the mallet was used to bash the hammer's claw under the head of the stubborn nails), was exhausing. I also used the mallet to flatten all the shaped pieces of aluminum before putting them in the back of my SUV. The roof was enough for one day.

On Thursday morning I started on the walls. Almost easy. The walls were held in place with hex-head screws—no nails. I fitted my battery-powered drill (the one I occasionally use as an electric mixer in my cooking videos) with a socket stem and hex socket and then leisurely removed the screws, bottom to top, of each panel. The problem was that many of the screws were so rusted, the socket couldn't grip them. I used vice-grip pliers. After flattening the corners, the aluminum sheets folded nicely to fit easily in my truck.

As the walls came off, the shed became laughable. Whereas the wood framing is supposed to hold up the shed, the aluminum sheets were holding up the framing, which had been ruined by termites. With the aluminum sheeting removed, the frame nearly collapsed under its own weight. To bring it down, I grasped one board and pulled. It creaked to the ground effortlessly. Dissassembly was a simple matter of pulling the boards apart and then cutting them into small pieces to fit in the garbage bin.

By 3:00 Thursday afternoon there was nothing left but the base deck. I can only guess what I'll find underneath it—probably a den of opossums.

Friday morning I finished sawing up the framing lumber. It all fit in the trash bin, with hardly any room to spare. During the afternoon the trash pickup truck arrived. I was afraid the bin would be too heavy. The mechanical arm lifted it up and emptied it like it was filled with feathers. Then I drove the aluminum to a recycler in the city. It was worth only about $20USD, but it felt good to be be "green" and see it recycled rather than fill the local landfill.

Saturday morning I started demolishing the deck. Finally, the last of the lumber was removed, sawed into smaller pieces, and placed in the trash bin. Again, it all fit, but it filled the bin. Surprisingly, there were no critters living underneath (except a few lizards and lots of spiders).

The last step was to dig out the old concrete blocks that were used to support the shed. (The new shed will be built on a concrete slab.) A final cleaning with a rake and the job was done.

Now I await construction of the new shed. Meanwhile, my home is a hopeless clutter of boxes and bins, ready to go on shelves in the shed. If anyone saw this place they'd think I was a hoarder. When the construction begins I'll order the chromed wire shelves I want. I have one; I need one or two more. Then, finally, I can move stuff into the new shed.

What am I storing? Some of it is props—plates, bakeware, cookware, etc.—I use in my vidoes and photography. I build my own computers; so I have a bin of computer parts and cables. There are two small bins of kitchen utensils that are useful occasionally, but I don't use them on a daily or weekly basis. My metric tools and large hand tools are in one bin and my electric power tools (guys like tools) fill another.

I've lived in my home 20 years and each new project usually requres a new tool. You can accumulate a lot of stuff during that time. I am simplifying, but there are some items that were expensive, even if they are used only once or twice a year, that are difficult to throw away or recycle. For example, how could I have demolished the old shed without my electric drill or my circular saw?

Meanwhile, I am tired and my muscles ache. I haven't worked this hard in years. And I didn't suffer a single injury—not even a cut finger.

Wednesday 2014.2.12

Organized, Revisited, Again

I received an encouraging email from someone last week. She was impressed with the cleanliness and organization of my kitchen, as seen in my videos.

Cleanliness, yes. I do try to keep my kitchen clean. I don't mop my kitchen floor; I get down on my hands and knees with Windex and paper towels to clean up close so that I don't miss anything. Organized, however, is another story.

Mobile homes are notorious for making the most of the available living space, leaving little room for storage. And thus I've been writing lately about the construction of a storage shed where, finally, I hope to store and organize all the stuff I need to keep but I don't use on a daily basis.

My cupboards are like little cities. The rule goes: When there isn't much land on which to build, build upward into the sky. That's where skyscrapers come from. Height makes up for the lack of ground space. I stack items in my cupboards. Many jars and bottles are stacked two high, some three high. I have two plastic bins in which I store my spice jars, one bin stacked on the other and the smaller spice jars stacked two high. I save the plastic domes from cake boxes of DVD and CD blanks because I can stack things vertically inside them.

To get to the glass mixing bowls I use in my videos, I first need to remove the oval sauté pan that is stacked on top. I have four Dutch ovens—two ovals and two rounds. The smaller ones are stored inside the larger ones. Three colanders are stacked in the same space, with a bundt pan on top. The same is true for my pots and pans, although all my skillets hang from a bar of hooks over the kitchen sink. It really is ridiculous.

However, I know where everything is. Organization doesn't necessarily mean everything is neat and orderly. Being organized is having the ability to get to anything quickly without needing to search for it. Although it verges on obsessive-compulsive disorder, my spice jars are arranged mostly in alphabetical order. The allspice is on the left side of the bin; the white pepper is at the other end.

I explained to the woman who emailed me why I look so organized in my videos. I get organized in advance. It takes me about three hours of setup to prepare for a video. Besides covering the windows with blackout fabric to control interior lighting and setting up my video and audio equipment, I assemble all my ingredients and measure most of them into little glass bowls. I write and print my cue card for the ingredients, which goes on my tripod just below the camera lens. Taped to the wall inside my kitchen, out of view of the camera, is my step-by-step plan for shooting the video and taking photographs as I prepare the dish.

The finished video might be only 30 minutes. But total shooting time could be three, four, maybe five hours. I position my camera to frame and focus one shot, shoot the clip, stop, and then position the camera for the next shot. A video might be made up of 30 or more clips. All of that takes time. I might also shoot a clip several times before I'm happy with it.

The magic takes place in the editing. I compile all those video clips down into one smooth show, editing out any errors. If necessary, I'll go back and shoot extra audio or video pick-ups to cover mistakes in the video. I might have said "one quarter cup" when I meant "one half cup." I'll record that little bit again and edit it smoothly into the video so that no one even notices I made a mistake. A quick shot of me—a "cutaway"—often covers an error.

And that is one reason why the clock on the kitchen wall seems to go crazy, the time jumping all over the place. One minute it's 11:30 and 45 seconds later it's 2:10, then back to 9:55 a moment later. The pick-ups and cutaways were shot at different times, sometimes on different days. Other than the telltale clock, no one usually notices. I make it look smooth and organized, but sometimes things get hectic and messy.

I am an organized person, yes, but don't be fooled. I'm not a model of organization. I'm as human as everyone else.

And one final note on the shed: I signed the contract for construction on Monday. I'm one step closer.

Sunday 2014.2.9

Bad Food

I was a little sickly for several days last week. I think it was the meat.

A mild case of food poisoning isn't the end of the world. It's inconvenient, but not intolerable. I was working on a recipe, which I will not name here, lest I discourage you from trying it when it is finally published in the Recipe Archive. I wasn't sure about the meat. Although it didn't smell bad, it might have been a little "off."

I have a good nose. Now that I am more than 39 year old (way more!), my sense of smell isn't as good as it was when I was young. In my college chemistry class the professor would sometimes use me to detect the subtle differences between scents. For example, one day we were studying distillation in the lab and we distilled jugs of wine down to pure ethyl alcohol. He decided to test whether filtering the alcohol thorough granulated carbon would improve the odor and flavor. It did, slightly. I was the sniffer.

It's easy to tell when chicken goes bad. Fresh chicken has almost no scent and the little fragrance it does have smells right. The same is true of fish. When either of those two meats goes bad, the odor is obvious. Toss it in the trash and put the garbage outside.

For some meats, the turning point isn't as obvious. Lamb, for example, is a little gamey anyway. Although pork isn't gamey, pigs aren't the best smelling animals in the world. Even the freshest pork might smell a little off. Beef is relatively easy, though not as easy as chicken. Again, there is subtlety at the turning point. Is the meat okay? Bad? Sometimes it simply isn't worth it to take a chance. Toss it out and then drive to the store.

Last week I was working on a recipe for a video; so I wasn't cooking for dinner guests. If the meat was a little suspect, that would be okay. Throwing the food into the garbage afterward wasn't a sacrilege. At the end of each video I always do a tasting clip. The food tasted good, but there were many other ingredients that could mask any off-flavor in the meat. I ate some. And I was sick the following day—not in-bed-all-day sick, but sick enough to stay in the house all day.

To make matters a little worse, I screwed up the ending of the video. I finished the dish and plated it all wrong. So I needed to make everything again for a better ending to the video. I had plenty of the suspect meat still in the freezer. And thus I made the dish again. And again I ate a little more. And I was sick again the next day.

Needless to say, everything—the leftovers from the first preparation, the latest preparation of the food, and the remaining meat in the freezer—went straight into the trash. I'm feeling fine now.

This brings up one final point: I don't give as much food to my neighbors as I used to. Partly it is because they never reciprocate, but also it is because I can't be 100% certain I am giving them safe food. I practice good food safety in my kitchen. For example, my refrigerator and freezer both have thermometers in them and I check the temperature occasionally. I just looked: My refrigerator is at 36°F (2°C) and my freezer is 0°F (-18°C). However, I can't guarantee that the food that comes home with me from the store is safe. I don't want to give my neighbors potentially bad food. So, "if in doubt, throw it out."

Wednesday 2014.2.5

More Organized

It's amazing what an effect the prospects of a new storage shed can have on a person.

Back in December I blogged about my plans for a new storage shed outside my mobile home. The old one, simply placed directly on the ground, fed a large colony of termites before they decided the structure was becoming too weak to support their city. They moved on.

The progress on the new shed has been slow. The first general contractor I spoke with never gave me an estimate. That was nearly two months ago. Meanwhile, I contacted a second contractor who, although he is busy (always a good sign), has been working closely with me to come up with a design and price. So far we're at $7,800. True, I could go over to Home Depot and buy a shed for less than one quarter of that price, but—to be honest—they're junk. The construction is as cheap as possible to get the price down to compete with other local stores. A neighbor bought one of those fancy-looking vinyl sheds sold at the warehouse stores for less than $1,000. It looked great when it was new, but a year later the walls were buckling and the roof was sagging. They're also too small.

My new shed will be 120 square feet (11.15 square meters), more than double the size of my old shed. It will be constructed on a concrete slab (good-bye termites) and the exterior walls will be faced with fire-resistant material—something called fiber cement siding. Construction will hopefully begin sometime within the next two weeks and, even more hopefully, be finished before the end of February. I'm still waiting to approve the final design and give him the go-ahead to begin construction. Why does everything take so long?

Meanwhile, I've been getting more organized, even for items that won't go into the shed. For example, for years my little spice jars have been arranged in an old cardboard box. I bought some new small plastic storage bins and transferred them. Seldom-used kitchen utensils—now filling my kitchen drawers—will be stored in plastic bins in the shed, as will small appliances (the never-used accessories for my immersion blender).

Once again I want to stress that I won't be filling all the newly-recovered empty space with all new stuff. I've learned over the years. When I am walking through a warehouse store like Costco, I might see something and think, "Oh, yes, I could use that." While that might be true, do I really need it? I put the item back on the shelf and walk away. There is almost always time to wait*. A few weeks ago I saw the small plastic storage bins, but I waited. I always wait now. I'll look at them again a few more times and unless I see a genuine need for them, I don't buy them. I ended up buying those storage bins.

Finally, back on January 26th I blogged about a new habit of keeping my clothes laundered—by washing each day's clothing by hand. So far it's working. As I write this, the only clothes not laundered are the clothes I'm wearing right now. You wouldn't expect me to blog in the all-together, would you?!?

*There is one exception to the "wait" rule at Costco: If there is an asterisk (*) on the shelf card the item is either a one-time purchase or it will not be re-stocked after it sells out. This is often true of seasonal items. If there are many on the shelf, I can usually wait a few days. Sometimes, however, the stock is nearly depleted, in which case I think carefully before passing on the purchase.

Sunday 2014.2.2

Too Much

When is too much of a good thing too much? When cooking.

I've been working on a video for Pork Ragù with Rigatoni. The original recipe comes from my most challenging cookbook, Southern Italian Cooking by Jo Bettoja. The recipes are not difficult. The challenge is trying to make them work correctly.

Bettoja went around to the stately homes and mansions of Italy, persuading many of the household cooks to share their favorite family recipes with her. Some wouldn't. Others agreed, but only if the book would not be published in Italy. Those who agreed evidently recited from memory their formula and method of preparation as Bettoja wrote everything down. Then the recipes were assembled into a cookbook and published, without testing anything.

The formula in some recipes is so far off (the wet-to-dry ratio) that it is impossible to make the dish successfully without a lot of reverse engineering to solve problems. My recipe for Genovese Savory Pastries succeeded only after I corrected the formula. But that is one reason why I like the book. The challenge is to solve the problems before I start cooking, even before I start measuring ingredients, which makes me a better cook. Another reason to like the book is that the food is delicious, when it comes out right.

And thus I set about to make the Pork Ragù with Rigatoni. First of all, the formula for this recipe was correct. I didn't need to adjust the volumes or ratios, much. She called for a tablespoon of fennel seeds, ground in a spice mill. That seemed like a lot. I try to avoid any one herb or spice overpowering all the other flavors in the dish. I went with a teaspoon, and then I only used about half the ground fennel seeds. All of them—the one teaspoon—wouldn't have made much difference, but I still think a tablespoon would have been too much.

Another change I made was to add some chopped prosciutto. The recipe called for chopped pancetta, which is an Italian bacon that lacks the hickory smoke flavor that is common in most American bacon. Whenever I see pancetta I also think prosciutto. It is an Italian cured pork ham that also lacks smoke flavor. I can't explain why, but the aroma at times reminds me of roses. Being such a fragrant ingredient, it adds a delicate and delicious flavor to many foods. See my recipe for Clam Chowder.

The recipe also called for 1 pound (454g) of ricotta cheese. I love ricotta. I bought a two-pound container and, what the heck, I used it all. No. That was where too much of a good thing became too much. Although the flavor was delicious, partly because I like the flavor of ricotta, the cheese was the predominant flavor. The other flavors receded into the background. That goes against my beliefs when cooking. The pork ragù is the highlight and it should be the prevelent flavor. The rigatoni, on the other hand, is only the vehicle that delivers the delicious sauce to the mouth.

I will need to make the recipe a second time, using only the recommended amount of ricotta, and I will probably write the recipe to say it is optional. The flavor of the sauce is so delicious, it really doesn't need anything else. The recipe and video will be published here and on YouTube in coming weeks.

At times you can add too much a good thing to a recipe and ruin it. I've done it. However, for a dish to be truly successful, I want the flavors to be properly balanced.

Home | Recipe Archive | My Blog | Minute Meals | About My Recipes | About the Cook