food

food / music / Re-Listening / tabs / Tuesday / video — Comments Off on Seriously, I want this bread, very much
7
Feb 23

Seriously, I want this bread, very much

I walked into the studio this evening for the news recordings and watched two young women deliver the news. A young man did a weather forecast, which he we wrote and produced over in the atmospheric sciences. Another person delivered a tightly written around-the-world segment. They have two co-directors of news, and they each pitched to pre-recorded packages to stories they’ve recently produced. It’s all quite impressive.

The impressive part, to me, though, was one of the young women sitting at the news desk. One has been there a few times and she does a nice job with it. The other, this was her first time anchoring. After, I told her, a not insubstantial part of what we do at the desk is about delivering with confidence and poise, control and power. Her face fell a little bit right then. But, I said, a very interesting thing happened as you went through that show just now, your poise and confidence grew with each story you read through.

She was pleased. Everyone was.

Please enjoy the weekly effort at reducing the number of files I have open in my browser. It seemed a good week to have a theme, so let’s have a theme! The theme is food. Bookmark these links for yourself, but, whatever you don’t, don’t just leave these open in your browser.

This one is a recent discovery. Please don’t share this one with anyone I know, lest they make it and I have to eat it and learn it is, in fact, amazing.

Chocolate peanut butter skillet brownie.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips, plus more for topping
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
vanilla ice cream, for serving

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat a 10 to 11-inch oven-safe deep saute pan/skillet over medium heat. Add the butter. Once melted, turn off the heat and whisk in the sugars until dissolved. Whisk in the eggs, making sure to quickly combine them so they don’t cook. Whisk in the vanilla extract.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, espresso powder and salt. Add it to the skillet and stir until combined and on lumps remain. Stir in the chocolate chips. Dollop the peanut butter all over the batter then swirl it in with a knife.

Bake the brownie skillet for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is just barely set. You don’t want to overcook it! When it comes out of the oven, you can sprinkle with chocolate chips if you wish.
Let cool slightly then serve topped with vanilla ice cream.

Feel free to copy it from here, saving yourself the postmodern angst of having to scroll through 500 words and a ton of photos to get to the good stuff. Ironic, I know, and you’re welcome.

If you want something more healthy, 10 fruits you should eat every week, according to a dietitian:

Did you know research published in 2018 in the American Society for Microbiology’s journal mSystems shows that eating up to 30 different kinds of plants in a week can positively benefit your gut microbiome? Having a healthy gut can improve heart health, boost immunity and even benefit mental health. Eating more fruit is an easy way to increase the number of plants you’re eating in a week to keep your gut bacteria happy—and these 10 fruits pack in a plethora of health benefits with every bite.

From increasing your fiber count to boosting your body with crucial vitamins and antioxidants, here are the fruits recommended to consume every week, backed by experts and research.

Now if I can get two or three more refrigerators I can keep all of these fruits close at hand.

When we went to Washington in June of 2021 — our first non-family anything since Covid began — we discovered the Cottage Bakery in Long Beach. At that time I wrote:

I discovered the joy of a locally made bread I’ll never be able to try again, one so full of flavor and appeal that I described it as a sommelier does a wine (with a lot of complimentary adjectives). They describe it as “A multigrain bread we developed for that special beach flavor! Sweetened with honey and molasses and full of whole grain taste.”

They’re underselling the bread.

It is called Willapa harvest bread. Sadly, they don’t ship across the country. But this bread, y’all. So I started looking for the recipe. A recipe. Any recipe. I think this might be close to what I’m after. Now I just need to try it. Honey molasses whole-wheat bread:

Tested size: 12 servings; makes one 9-inch loaf

INGREDIENTS
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup bread flour (may substitute all-purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup molasses
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (regular or low-fat)
DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Use cooking oil spray to grease the inside of a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, then line the bottom with parchment paper.

Combine the whole-wheat and bread flours, the baking powder, baking soda, salt, oil, honey, molasses and buttermilk in mixing bowl. Stir for 75 strokes, so all the dry ingredients are moistened, then pour into your loaf pan, spreading the batter evenly.

Bake (middle rack) for 40 to 50 minutes, or until the top is evenly browned and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with a moist crumb or two.

Remove from the pan and place on a wire rack to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.

If you want to sweet talk the nice people at the Cottage Bakery in Washington state and see if they’ll share a few tips with someone a.) not in the bakery business and b.) well removed from their customer base …

Closing those three, I now have 40 tabs open on my phone browser. I seem to be stuck on that number.

It is time for another visit to the Re-Listening project. This is a stroll down memory lane, all of my CDs, in order, in the car. Today we’re somewhere in early 1997. Live’s fourth album came out that February. I liked the third one, everyone did, so I got the fourth one. The first single came out in January and it was immediately a big draw for an early 20-something.

The memory I have with that song is an open road and an odometer needle that points just a hair over toward the right. I don’t know if I’ve ever noticed the string section at the end. It stuck out to me on this listen. It’s a dissonance that doesn’t really work, at least from here.

But back then, that song went to 35 on the US Radio Songs chart, topped the Alternative Airplay chart and made it to number two on the Mainstream Rock chart. This was the most successful single on the record, and that makes sense. When you listen to the whole thing, by the time you get to the 10th track, or May, when this was released, you couldn’t be faulted for thinking this entire record was produced on a dare.

Try as I might, and this is of course a silly thing, I can’t think of a memory of listening in this in the daytime. I did used to make most of my long trips in the darkness, but that’s a weird lack of recollection on my part.

Of the whole record, this is the second, and other, lasting song on the album that captures my attention. It’s a stripped down and live performance of Live, from November, 1997. Or maybe it was April. Some international dating conventions are tricky.

“Secret Samadhi” topped the weekly charts, and the album finished at 42 on the year-end chart. It was certified double platinum in Australia, Canada and the US, but the misses outweigh the hits for me.

These days, after allllll of their internal drama, Live, with nine records in the catalog, is still touring, though the only original member is lead singer Ed Kowalczyk. When is an old band a new band? How long can a band swap out players and use the same name? This is, admittedly, a lame Theseus’ paradox, but it is hard to imagine Live without Kowalczyk.

In our next visit to the Re-Listening project we’ll check out a breakthrough smash from a little band from Gainesville, Florida.

But, for now, I have to go rock out iron a dress shirt for tomorrow.

cycling / food / links / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on No, they’re not fussy chickens
24
Jan 23

No, they’re not fussy chickens

I saw some birds Monday evening. They are spending some time in Dunn’s Woods, on the IU campus. Once private property, this is the southwestern part of campus. Today, this is where the 20-acre Old Crescent, is. The woods are right next to my building. The property was sold to the university by Moses Fell Dunn in 1883. This is the heart of the campus, and it’s a lovely green space. Quiet, peaceful, a lovely stroll. When all of that bird noise isn’t happening, that is.

There’s an apocryphal story about the Dunn sale. The story goes that if a tree is cut down, another must be planted in its place. It’s a great story, and would be some lovely 19th century conservationism. It’s not real. But the campus architects actually put in more trees than they take away. It’s a lovely bit of 21st century conservationism.

And the birds need them. So do the rabbits and squirrels and the rest of the critters that are in those woods, but, today, we’re thinking about birds.

It has been a long time since I’ve seen a huge flock of birds. I mean a real, stop-you-in-your-tracks, worthy of awe, collection of birds. It could be because I don’t live on one of the primary flyways. Then again, I never did.

But don’t you remember, as a kid, being mesmerized? The flowing, pulsing order of birds. The chaos and structure of so many living creatures moving independently, and unison. The slow crawl, birds moving across one section of the horizon to another. I could be outside playing and play would stop, because look at all of those birds. And when you learn and really think about migration, the miles they put in, the time it takes, those little tiny wings and great big dreams. It’s a staggering prospect.

Ahh, but who knows how accurate those flyway maps are. Maybe I was closer to one of the aviary superhighways than I thought. Or maybe the birds got lost. Who knows how far off that very generic map birds would wander? They’re just birds and there aren’t signs. Biologists and ornithologists could speak on this at great length and, I imagine, could get it down to terrain and tree cover and things to eat.

Or, as a colleague, a real outdoorsy sort, pointed out: when was the last time you took a long car trip and your car was covered with bugs? Good point, I said, but I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been too busy wondering about the birds.

Maybe the insects went somewhere else, too. When I hear the birds today, I always look up. Now I wonder how they’re eating.

This is the section where I’m sharing things that, judged too good to close, have been sitting in open tabs for far too long. There are a lot of tabs open in my browser(s). Rather than lose them altogether, I am bookmarking some and closing them. (Novel!) And others should be shared, and then closed. So here we are, and here are today’s stars.

This is from August 2021. I’m guessing I’ve had this open for a good long while, since. Star Pitmaster Moe Cason Shares How To Make Impeccable Barbecue Brisket:

“I remember seeing all these different trailers, pits, and cookers,” Cason says. “I was just like, ‘Man, it’s just really cool! This is where I need to be.'”

After showing his skills in some 20 cook-offs that first year, the would-be chef was hooked and began branching out further to Texas, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Tennessee. In the years since, Cason has competed in hundreds of barbecue contests in various countries. He’s also been a contestant, judge, and star on Destination America’s BBQ Pitmasters and BBQ Pit Wars — solidifying his reputation as one of the best in the game.

After meeting “Big Moe” at Austin’s Treaty Oak Distilling last month, I was amazed by his immense barbecue knowledge and his incredible heart. During our conversation, I asked him about his intro to ‘cue and managed to snag a seven-step guide to barbecuing his specialty, brisket.

I can’t taste it through the browser, but those photos look great.

Speaking of photos … there’s a nice design, and some warmly charming photographs, in this April 2021 New York Times piece. Have I had this opened as a tab on my phone that whole time? I can’t say for sure, but it probably wouldn’t be the riskiest bet of the day. A Cyclist on the English Landscape:

A year ago, as a travel photographer grounded by the pandemic, I started bringing a camera and tripod with me on my morning bicycle rides, shooting them as though they were magazine assignments.

It started out as just something to do — a challenge to try to see the familiar through fresh eyes. Soon it blossomed into a celebration of traveling at home.

I live in a faded seaside town called St. Leonards-on-Sea, in Sussex, on the south coast of England. If you’ve not heard of it, you’re in good company. It’s not on anybody’s list of celebrated English beauty spots. Indeed, most of my riding is across flat coastal marsh or down-at-the-heel seafront promenades.

There’s history here, of course. This is England after all. The lonely marshes I pedal across most days are where William the Conqueror landed his men in 1066. Otherwise, except for being a haunt for smugglers, this stretch of coast dozed away the centuries until the Victorians brought the railways down from London.

Again, gorgeous photos. And, at the bottom, there are links to other interesting things. So that means … more tabs.

(I now have 39 tabs open on my phone browser.)

On my bike last night, I pedaled through Central Park. There’s nothing like New York in the fall.

As I have said before, some of the Zwift routes are realistic. Others are more fantastical. There are flying cabs in New York, for instance. And also these bridges. These bridges, which you can see through, somewhat. They look like ice. There’s a nice skyline back there, but who can look at that when you’re busy looking down.

The way the trainer works, your back wheel is connected to a drum system. It is meant to go along with the terrain, climbs are hard, downhills are easier and faster, and so on. Your front wheel is propped up, so you can’t ride off somewhere. Good thing, too. The front of my bike points at a wall and a window; it’d be a short trip! And, yet, when I see these bridges in the New York routes, and my avatar makes a turn on them, I tense up, just a bit. How am I going to hold up on this ice?

Which is silly. The ice, the real stuff, will be here tomorrow. My avatar has nothing to fear, these bridges don’t exist. Floating cabs? Maybe.

Anyway, after last night’s ride, I made another spreadsheet to chart a different sort of progress. (This makes three cycling spreadsheets. If you think this is excessive, you are correct! But I also say, N+1.) This one will compare my highest volume months. This month is ninth, all time, going back to 2010. It is the second highest January, and my second-highest month this decade. It will be in my overall top 5 when I can get back on the bike on Friday.

I wonder how many birds I’ll see between now and then.

And, yes, there are birds in Zwift. A giant pelican flew by me the other night.

adventures / food / photo / Thursday — Comments Off on On our first full day in Pennsylvania we went to … Delaware
22
Dec 22

On our first full day in Pennsylvania we went to … Delaware

Delaware is a fine state, and it’s just across the border. Indeed, the last time I was in this part of Pennsylvania we jogged across the state line. That was just to be able to say I’d done it. (One of several state lines I’ve ran or rode a bike across.) But today, we did it for a more sensible reason: to save on sales tax.

So, yes, a few more Christmas presents, then. And then some stocking stuffers. Someone who occasionally reads this site was on today’s list, so I’ll say no more.

Also … if you’re the sort who can’t wait to spell out on social media the Christmas presents you got for anyone older than 10, don’t do that.

With that done, we sought out lunch. We settled on the same place we had dinner last night. California Tortilla, a fast casual Mexican-adjacent style restaurant. (We ordered different things today, of course.) Have you been to a Moe’s or a Qdoba or Chipotle? You’ve had a lesser, but similar version of this place. On a wall where you order there’s an enlarged photo advertising their catering. (They do weddings!) The photo has a bride holding the familiar overstuffed burrito. She’s about to bite into the center of it. Her adoring new husband looks on and we’re left to wonder if she really bit it, right there, in her dress, or that was just a careful pose.

If you eat a burrito like an ear of corn salsa is going everywhere.

On the opposite wall is this sign.

And below it … this seems unsanitary, somehow.

How many of those bottles, do you suppose, should be refrigerated? To say nothing of the many hands making germy work.

We were discussing the ranking of these sorts of restaurants, and I only share this in case you are confronted with unknown opportunities, and to point out that The Yankee is mistaken. The official order of this genre goes like this.

5. Moe’s
4. Qdoba
3. Chipotle
2. Cal Tort
1. Willy’s

She thinks California Tortilla is in the top spot, but she was hungry when she said that, so it could be a blood sugar thing.

The Yankee’s god-sister and god-husband-in-law took us to White Dog Cafe — five locations in the greater Philadelphia area — for dinner. I had the farmer’s pie.

It’s a shepherd’s pie, but with better mashed potatoes, proper zesty mushrooms and some serious carrots. I’d get that again. Later, more cards with the kids. Because, sure, I can get beaten up around a kitchen table two nights in a row.

Tomorrow, more Christmas, but somewhere else!

books / food / music / photo / Re-Listening / Wednesday — Comments Off on A mishmash, a hodgepodge, poorly covered
2
Nov 22

A mishmash, a hodgepodge, poorly covered

OK, one more Catober bonus. Phoebe and Poseidon thank you for your attention. Now they want some more pets. And, also, some snacks, if you have any.

If you somehow didn’t come to this page every day in October, then you might have missed out on some kitty cuteness. Fear not! This link has the complete Catober collection.

I have no content filler for November. I should really work on that.

Visited the grocery store last night, for the third time in as many days. I had to pick up a few birthday cards. If you stand there, muttering, long enough, you can find a card that isn’t outrageously priced. That’s what I learned last night. Took some time to learn that lesson.

Also strolled by the produce section, and thought I’d pick up a few different varieties. An economist inspired me.

So, for today’s lunch, I present you with the Autumn Glory.

I can tell you this about my first Autumn Glory. It was surprisingly juicy. It holds a mild, even sweetness. The label at the store, and what I’ve found online, said I’d find hints of cinnamon and caramel. But my palette might not be sophisticated enough — or perhaps my peanut butter sandwich overwhelmed it — and no cinnamon or caramel notes were detected.

It had an odd skin texture, almost rubbery. But the apple was surprisingly consistent all the way down to the core.

I suspect I will eat an autumn glory apple again, if for no other reason than I purchased two of them.

I’m finally making real progress in Andrew Ritchie’s biography of Major Taylor. This is when the champion cyclist was traveling and racing around the world — an exhausting proposition at the beginning of the 20th century, I’m sure.

I worked my way through his peak racing years, his retirement, return and final retirement. This is where biographies get tough, particularly in Taylor’s case. He fell into obscurity and some sort of financial difficulty. There’s two decades to work through. Two decades after you’ve been either the toast, or target of racist hatred, depending on where he was. What happens in those years?

I guess we’ll find out in the next few nights. There’s another book to get to, after all. There’s always another book.

We can quickly work the two most recent CDs from the Re-Listening Project. One is hardly obscure … Stone Temple Pilots “Purple,” was their second record. Scott Weiland had quickly hit his stride and was stepping away from the grunge prototype. Seattle was still in there, but this was STP as they should be. “Purple” debuted at number one, was six-times platinum in the United States, three-times platinum in Canada, two-times in Australia and also in New Zealand. It was, in fact, one of the best selling albums of the 1990s.

This record is also one of the ways I know I had too much free time in my freshman year of college. We realized that each of the evenly-numbered tracks were huge, or going to be. (The odd number songs are all pedestrian, at best.) Indeed, we were right. I have a recollection of exactly where I was standing in our place when this epiphany set in.

Track 2 was “Vasoline,” track 4 was “Interstate Love Song” track 6 and track 8 were “Pretty Penny” and “Big Empty,” respectively. The first two topped the Mainstream Rock chart and hit number two on the Alternative Airplay chart. “Pretty Penny” somehow stalled out at number 12, “Big Empty” got to the third spot. Track 10 was never released as a single, but it has its moments.

The best song on the record, then as now, is the hidden track … and it’s number 12. And this, weirdly, isn’t even performed by a member of the band, but by a Seattle musician named Richard Peterson.

Somehow, learning it isn’t one of the STP guys changes my impression of the whole thing. (So … thanks … world wide web …) But it also deepens the hilarity. (So thanks, world wide web!)

From magazine interviews:

Scott: “The guy is a kind of autistic savant who has this bizarre obsession with Johnny Mathis. He follows him around on tour when he’s in the north west, and he collects money on the street to fund his own recordings. We kept playing this song on tour before we went out, and it seemed fitting to put it on the end of the album.” (Melody Maker – 6/4/94)

Scott: “No one would be able to write a song like that for us. We had it played before our live shows.” (Sub-Line Magazine Germany – 8/1/94)

That song wasn’t on the Japanese edition of the disc, and they lost out. (They had, for whatever reason, a David Bowie cover.)

The fun of the Re-Listening Project to me, aside from the occasional flash of some place or time or activity associated with a song, is the mystery of what’s going to play next. I am putting these in my disc changer in order, but I don’t read the disc first. So that beat between one and the next is kind of fun. Do I remember what’s next? Am I going to like the first track? How much of this am I going to skip over? What poorly constructed paragraphs am I going to write about this? Does this hold up? Do I still like it? Did I ever like it?

The answers, this time, were “Not this time. Nope. A lot of it. Not much. Not at all. In no way. And, finally, not really, no.

There was just something weird going on in 1995 that let 311 rise to major airplay. I bought this — or picked it up in a giveaway stack, I don’t recall — on the strength of the single and have pretty much regretted it ever since. The record hit number 12 on the Billboard 200, and topped the Heatseekers Albums
chart and “Down” found it’s way atop Modern Rock Tracks, and the blue album sold three million copies, so I’m not kicking anybody here. And, the band is still doing it. They’ve released 13 studio records over the years, so good for them. But, man, this whole record is one riff, off-key harmonies and somehow a bunch of white dudes from Omaha put a little ska and reggae together with two chords and decided to rap and … we … accepted that?

This was not quite two years before Dre unleashed Eminem, so that explains a lot, or so I have convinced myself.

This is the only song that sounds different than the rest of the record, and they could only keep that uniqueness for 52 seconds.

OK, this one is a little different from the rest, too. But you can’t hear it without thinking, “Guys from Omaha. Yep.” And you can get that sentence out exactly twice before that same lick comes back.

It’s the whole album, and it never gets played, and this is why. Though they are still touring, music venues, Hard Rock hotels, festivals, cruises, so this works for some people. But it’s never worked for me.

Tomorrow: No music, more apples, and a bike ride!

food / IU / photo / television / Thursday / video — Comments Off on How’d you sleep?
27
Jan 22

How’d you sleep?

We purchased a new mattress, and it arrived yesterday. My lovely bride got the thing upstairs without me. She took the old mattress off the box spring, put the new one on last night. A mattress, you would think, is one of those things you want to go down to the showroom. Kick the tires, lay on it for 36 seconds, and all of that. Well, where has that ever gotten you? A mattress that works for a few years before you buy a foam topper, which works for a few years. Eventually your sleep patterns leave impressions in all of that, so the foam topper comes off, and the now old mattress isn’t much better. And how many times have you done all of that?

So she found an online service. Good reviews. Excellent return policy, and time will tell about their guarantee language — and whether the company has any longevity under this business model. She did this unilaterally, because the old one has been bothering her the most, she’s a bit more particular, and that’s how it works. Whatever makes you, quite literally, more comfortable, dear.

The new mattress, I learned last night, is a little taller. You need a running start. And as we discussed this afternoon, the biggest and most immediately noticeable thing is that you can just, sorta, roll over. Not every muscle group needs to be activated to make a common turn from back to side.

If the new mattress does that alone it’d be a win for internet merchants everywhere.

As for the first night’s sleep part, it seemed unremarkable. Pretty much the ideal, right?

All that sunshine from the last few days has regressed to the mean. And that’s just … mean.

The day, being a Thursday, slowed down a bit compared to the earlier part of the week, and I managed to put in just eight hours, so it the net perception was: null. Many people worked from home because of close contacts to Covid-positive people, and I have to figure out how to do that, without invoking karmic problems.

I spent part of the morning working on a podcast. Today we enjoyed our usual once-a-week Chick-fil-A takeout lunch. The afternoon’s highlight was probably cleaning up some Google Docs and preparing for a Friday morning meeting.

After a few days of doing everything rapidly it is nice to luxuriate in spending too much time on one thing at a time, is the point.

The television folks have uploaded two of their most recent sports shows for you. Here are all the latest highlights on all the coolest sports around here.

And here’s another sports show, featuring different perspectives and probably more fun than you should have outdoors in Indiana in January.

There will be another studio talk show online tomorrow. And another simulcast TV-radio project after that. There are also all of the online chats they do. The sports media students simply don’t stop anymore. It’s impressive when you consider the rest of the demands on their time.

The daily duds: This feature is going away because I realized that the goal was pointless. I was trying to document looks so I wouldn’t reproduce them too quickly, but that’s impossible without a proper indexing system. So today I’m just showing off this lovely pocket square my in-laws got me for Christmas.

Also, that’s one of my favorite sports coats. It has character and comfort, which is to say that, once you get past the print, it’s super soft.

And tonight’s dinner, because it looks healthy enough to brag about.

That’s three nights in a row of healthy things. We’ll have to blow this up tomorrow.

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