Plaidophile

I just realized I neglected to post this here: lately I've been experimenting with homemade soda. I had a few really bad results the last time I tried this (a year ago) but I decided to try Alton Brown's ginger ale out. After I assembled it all, I felt like experimenting with my own base as well. I'd been thinking of making root beer, but then had a flash of inspiration and decided to make chocolate mocha soda.

1. Should chili have beans?
2. How strongly do you feel about this?

So, lately I've been using my soda siphon again, especially at parties. A soda siphon is a little pressure vessel that takes a liter or so of water and a small CO₂ cartridge, and combines them to make fresh seltzer at home. They are best known as a classic prop comedy device. They are also much more convenient than bottled seltzer since you can keep about a hundred liters' worth of CO₂ cartridges in the space of about one 1-liter bottle, and they're also much more environmentally-friendly because you're just using municipal water, and the shipping of the cartridges takes very little fuel (I'd estimate at about a 300:1 ratio compared to the premade equivalent), and the discarded cartridges are 100% recyclable aluminum (unlike plastic drink bottles which degrade very quickly in the recycling process). Also, if you can get a good deal on cartridges, it ends up cheaper (or at least no more expensive) than the bottled stuff. The main downside is that the resulting seltzer isn't as bubbly as commercially-prrepared seltzer, but it still has most of the mouthfeel (especially when it's fresh and made with ice-cold water in an ice-cold siphon).

Since people have been interested in getting their own, there's not a whole lot you need. There are several soda siphons available (I have the iSi Soda Siphon Brushed Aluminum 2248), and then as far as cartridges go, you can often find them at restaurant suppliers or wholesalers (e.g. Cash and Carry). My most recent shipment came from Creamright, which specializes in these things (they also have N₂O cartridges for making whipped cream and/or getting high); I just use their generic CO₂ cartridges. They also have slightly better deals on siphons, too.

Anyway, the other part of the equation is that after you have a source of seltzer (and this works with bottled seltzer too), you can make your own soda with Torani syrup, which comes in a bunch of flavors, and is sweetened with sugar instead of HFCS (and they also have diet versions). I just buy that stuff at BevMo.

If you want soda that's brewed in a more traditional way, there are plenty of recipes out there for home-brewed ginger ale and root beer using a fermentation process, or you can cheat and get (or make) an appropriate syrup and mix it with seltzer (typically by making simple syrup and combining it with a flavor extract). That does generate a slightly different flavor, though, and a fermentation approach also produces a bit of alcohol (not enough to get drunk, but enough to cause problems if you have an alcohol-sensitive medical condition).

So, I finally got myself one of the portable hand-crank burr grinders. It does in fact make a much nicer grind than the mill grinder, although there's still enough powder that there's a bit of sludge at the bottom of the cup (when using my current filter setup). It's not nearly as bad as it was with the mill grinder though.

I do still want a better filter than the Finum Teeli filter I've been using. The mesh holes are fine for tea but they're a little too big for coffee. Still, it makes an excellent brew. Maybe I'll try bringing my French press in.

We did start getting pre-ground coffee at work, but I'm still using my burr grinder and beans from home, because the pre-ground coffee is terrible (not to mention WAY too finely-ground for anything other than paper filters).

Martinis: It was fun to make these for people, having practiced quite a lot lately. Not only did we finish off my bottle of Tanqueray, but we put a decent dent into the 1750mL bottle of Sapphire. Highly recommended. A+

Lately I've been drinking coffee a lot more, and experimenting with different brewing techniques. The ones I like the best are a French press, and (my current at-work favorite) a Teeli brew basket, as they do a much better job of extraction than paper filters (not to mention are easier to deal with and a bit more environmentally-friendly). The problem, of course, is that with a mill grinder, either my grind is too coarse (and so it doesn't extract properly), or there's enough powder that I end up with a thick layer of sludge at the bottom, and so drinking my cup of coffee becomes like a game of chicken.

Supposedly a burr grinder eliminates this problem because it crushes the beans down to an exact size (in a manner not dissimilar from rock-crushing equipment) rather than pulverizing it randomly, but burr grinders start at $80 for extremely basic (and not very trustworthy) models.

There are apparently some hand-cranked burr grinders out there, and I wouldn't be opposed to trying one of those, but finding specific ones seems to be a bit of a challenge. The two I found on Amazon seem decent but they come from third-party merchants and so I'd like to be sure I'm getting something worth the inevitable hassle. REI sells one of them that's intended to be portable (always a plus) and supposedly pretty good, so I could probably just swing by REI on my way home someday. Has anyone used that one?

I just went to Yo's Sushi Club for dinner, because I felt like treating myself. It is quite excellent.

I had the voodoo salmon nigiri, Yo's Special maki (the most amazingly elaborate maki I've ever seen), and an umeshiso maki (umeshi + shiso leaves). Also a large Sapporo. I am amazingly stuffed and satisfied and the total bill was only $32 (after tip). Obviously not something I'm going to do every night or anything, but as an occasional treat, I highly recommend it.

Most nights it's very crowded, but tonight I was the only one there. So, I guess Thursday night is a good time to go, if that's your sort of thing.

Tonight was of course פֶּסַח and so I went over to Berkeley for my cousin's סֵדֶר, which is a large enough affair that he does it as a pot luck. Since I didn't have any ideas for what to bring, he assigned me to do the חֲרֽוֹסֶת, which is one of the vital staple symbolic foods (it represents the mortar the slaves used to assemble the pyramids, never mind that the pyramids probably didn't use mortar).

Growing up, eating חֲרֽוֹסֶת always seemed like something of a chore, so I decided to kick it up a bit and make it something people would actually want to eat. Since I didn't know how many people were coming to dinner I made a whole bunch (which turned out to be about twice as much as needed). On the plus side, it was the hit of the dinner and people were commenting about it non-stop.

I ended up leaving all the leftovers with my cousin, since I don't have any מַצָּה‎ to put it on and no inclination to eat it on its own.

So, since I take BART home every day now, I end up walking past quite a few Mexican grocers, who all have a bunch of fine, low-cost produce bins on the sidewalk. I never really paid them any mind because the Mexican grocer across the street from me (Azteca produce) is generally pretty crap, but lately I've been looking at them rather a lot and noticing how good most of their produce looks, and of course the prices are pretty phenomenal.

For the past few days I've just been picking up a few items at different ones on the way home, and it's actually really good stuff, and incredibly cheap compared to what I'm used to. Today I got a whole bunch of onions and jalapeños and dried black beans for $2.50, and yesterday at a different stand I got some very nice tomatoes and tomatillos and corn and a big bag of garlic bulbs and a jar of capers and a few other things for about $6. And it's good quality stuff!

So because of the whole mouse thing I decided to try out other local grocery stores. The top contender was Precita Food Mart which is actually slightly closer to my home than Safeway. So today I went there, and found out that Yelp has a very strange idea of what a grocery store is. This was more of a convenience store, with just two lonely aisles of overpriced canned food, beer, and wine. There was also a freezer case with some old ice cream and a basket of overripe bananas. (As it turns out, there are two Yelp listings for it for some reason; the other one, which I wouldn't have found with my search for "groceries," is much more accurate.)

The other local contender is 26th and Guerrero Market, which is a little bit of a schlep, but the reviews are much more promising, although they still say it's not suitable for "major grocery shopping." So, it's still not a Safeway replacement.

I don't know what's the worse possibility:

1. That my kitchen has mice
2. That the Safeway has mice running around in the bread department, and I've eaten 4 out of 6 bagels without realizing that the bottom-most one had been chewed on

Considering I see no other evidence of mice in my home, I'm pretty sure it's the second one. Euughghghh.

Why did it take me so long to try them out? They are a lot like Ballard Market back in Seattle!

I'll still go to Safeway for a lot of things though. Rainbow's flour selection was surprisingly lacking (they carry King Arthur, but they didn't seem to have their bread flour, and the bread flour they did have was extraordinarily expensive), and their chocolate selection was abysmal. (Not that Safeway's any better in that regard.) But for bulk foods (dried beans and fruit, olive oil, and so on) Rainbow seriously kicks ass.

The taqueria a few doors down: ¡mucho excellente!

I think I am quite literally addicted to caffeine. I often go through phases of trying to not have any caffeine at all, and when I've been off caffeine for a while I get progressively more and more depressed. Last week I felt like I'd hit rock bottom. And then we got the new espresso machine at work and now life is good again. I think I may have a problem.

On the plus side, caffeine is fairly innocuous as far as highly-addictive substances go, and now that there's this espresso machine I always have ready access to a source of non-caloric caffeine (before this it was either terrible coffee or HFCS-laden soda) so I don't have to feel guilty and/or fat about drinking so much now.

(Of course I do need to find the right balance for intake vs. suicidal thoughts, since right now I have one hell of a buzzy headache.)

So I'd been doing pretty good about not having a lot of caffeine lately. Then they went and got an espresso machine at work.

I improvised this dish for Passover dinner tonight, and it came out very well. Which is good, because I'd never made anything with green beans before so I was basically flying blind.

• Two pounds of green beans, trimmed
• 2-3 tbsp Olive oil
• 1-2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• Sun-dried tomatoes, julienned
• One lemon
• Almond slivers, toasted

Preheat oven to 425°F. Place the green beans in a large roasting pan. Drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add sun-dried tomatoes, and the zest of the lemon. Bake for 10 minutes.

Add the juice of the lemon and the garlic. Toss to mix, and bake for another 5 minutes or until beans are nearly tender but still a bit crisp. Top with almond slivers.

Not a traditional recipe by any means, and I've probably posted something like this before, but here we go:

1. In a saucepan, combine a quart of chicken stock and a handful or two of dried shiitake mushrooms [or, better yet, fresh shiitake, or dried mushrooms which have at least been soaking in hot water for a while]
2. Bring it to a gentle boil, stirring slowly until the mushrooms soften
3. Add one minced shallot, the juice of one lime, a tablespoon of sriracha or other chili paste (adjusting for taste), and a dash or two of white wine vinegar
4. Add soy sauce to season to taste
5. Reduce to a gentle simmer. Scramble one egg in a bowl, and drizzle a thin ribbon of egg into the soup
6. Finely chop a green onion on the bias and add to the soup
7. Serve and enjoy

So, I went and bought a French press for coffee. The smallest reasonably-priced one I could find was a 3-cup model, which I figured was overkill for me most of the time but, hey, I guess when I have people over I can make multiple cups, right?

Well, I got it today, and it's a pretty wee thing. On the directions it refers to "each 4-ounce cup." I know that for hot drinks, "cup" usually means "cup full" and not "English cup" but, wow, 4 ounces? So I guess this is the perfect size for me after all!

Except I just made coffee in it and even though I filled it up all the way, the resulting "pot" didn't even fill up one 8-ounce coffee cup halfway. What the hell. Now I'm feeling cheated.

I have a weird metabolism when it comes to alcohol. When I drink it, it takes a while to affect me, but once a little bit starts to affect me, ALL of what I've had affects me, and works its way through my system very quickly, like it's building momentum or something. Usually this isn't a problem since usually I'll have a beer or some wine and maybe a mixed drink. But last night at a party, I had something like 6 or 8 shots' worth of liquor, and suddenly I was all "ooh which way is up?" and then shortly after that "ugh I gotta go outside and get some fresh air." It's the most drunk I've ever been.

Thankfully I didn't have to puke (though I felt very close at times) and I was among friends who made sure I was okay, and as usual I sobered up really quickly, although I ended up missing both the last Caltrain so I stayed the night at a friend's place in Fremont and took BART home in the morning.

Of course right now I have an open bottle of a very nice Sousão in the fridge which is probably going to go bad since I can't apparently stomach even a small glass of wine right now.

So, the bike I bought a month ago? I finally had a chance to ride it a decent amount, to go to Pat's place. It handles quite nicely. Fortunately the roads are completely flat between SoMa and the Mission, but the gearing seems to have a very nice range and hills shouldn't be a problem (at least when my lungs are in better shape due to not being, you know, still sick). It was only a mile and a half each way, and a very easy ride. Fortunately the streets are fairly well-lit here, though, since my headlight is basically just good for letting other people see me (it doesn't light up the ground worth crap).

I also definitely appreciate the bike lanes around here. It'd be nice if the one on Harrison went all the way to my apartment though. (Fortunately, the one on Folsom goes all the way home, so the return trip was actually somewhat safer.)

Also: Last Supper Club is awesome. A little spendy but very top-notch. Apparently it's even better if you have a working sense of smell! I had the ricotta-stuffed cannelloni for dinner, and a Torta di Capri with vanilla gelato for dessert.