Dec 13

Measure for Measurement

Julian was making a recipe tonight and started on a rant: “What do they mean by a clove of garlic? These cloves are of wildly differing sizes. And how much chorizo (Spanish sausage) is one chorizo? You can buy chorizos of different sizes. You should write a blog post about this.” Okay, dear, here it is.

A little extra time spent measuring ingredients properly can produce a better final result. This is especially true in baking, where proportions are more exacting. Cooking is a bit more forgiving; however, some errors can render a dish inedible. Julian tells the story of the time one of his housemates made Welsh rarebit and thought the recipe called for 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper per single serving rather than per recipe. The final dish was way too spicy for anyone to eat.

Recipes published in cookbooks or online can be extremely vague on amounts. Julian went off on garlic and chorizo tonight. My issue of late is vegetable sizes. For example, what is a medium onion? Most sources don’t specify. Given the super-sizing of produce these days, what may have been a medium onion to my grandmother would be a small one today. Fruit size is even more problematic, and this can have adverse impacts on people with diabetes who have to watch their carbohydrate intake closely. It’s hard to find an apple in a grocery store that fits the definition of one carb exchange (15 grams). Here are our suggestions to promote clarity in measurements:

Weight is best. Many baking cookbooks will use weights of flour alongside volume measurements. This is because there can be a high variability in flour measurements, based on how you fill the measuring cup. If you sift or spoon flour into the cup, you’ll have less by weight than if you drag the cup through the container of flour. Unfortunately, most people don’t have scales and may not understand the importance of taring. (What’s taring, you ask?  You weigh the measuring cup first, and then zero the scale before adding the ingredient.)

Volume is a distant second best. (See the previous paragraph.) Use a proper set of measuring cups and spoons, preferably metal, for solid ingredients. Use a clear glass or plastic measuring cup for liquids. Cups of solid ingredients should always be leveled off with a straight edge, but many people don’t bother with that. Brown sugar and shortening should be packed into the measuring cups and then leveled off. Set the liquid measuring cup on a surface and read the volume at eye level, not from above. If you come across an old recipe that called for a tea cup of milk, don’t substitute a coffee mug full of milk.

If the proportions look wrong on paper (or on the screen), they probably are wrong. Recipes are written by fallible human beings, and are often subjected to little or no editing by equally fallible individuals. In this case, trust your instinct.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/12/13/measure-for-measurement/

Dec 06

A Few Words on Firearms

I grew up in rural upstate New York. I have family and friends who hunt. They’re proud of their hard-won skills to bag a deer with shotgun, rifle, muzzle-loader, or bow and arrow. (My brother-in-law does the latter two. He actually got a deer during bow season a few years ago.) Sometimes hunting is a form of food security, as a freezer full of venison can get a family through lean times. When I lived in Ithaca during grad school, I’d get periodic gifts of venison from the year’s catch. These were always put to good use in my little kitchen.

As I said, hunting for one’s dinner takes skill. No one in my family uses a semi-automatic rifle or handgun with a high-capacity magazine clip to get their quota of one or two deer a year. These weapons don’t take any particular skill once one learns to handle the recoil from shooting. They are made for one purpose only: Maximum murder with minimum effort. For this reason, I do not believe these need to be readily available for purchase. If they are available, there needs to be background checks on the purchasers.

I recognize that this is not a popular position to take in some neighborhoods, including in my family. The Founders may have written the Second Amendment into the Constitution, but they did not anticipate the advent of semi- or fully-automatic weaponry. My conservative friends point out that freedom isn’t free. I agree; however, with freedom comes responsibility to assure the safety of the community against people who’d do ill. This is where background checks come into play. Gun owners also have the responsibility to secure their weapons and ammunition away from children. Far too many children are killed or grievously wounded by playing with loaded guns left in drawers.

Lest you think that these are the rantings of someone in one of America’s most liberal regions, the Seattle area has had at least four mass shootings in the thirteen years I’ve lived here. The first was a man who shot up an all-night party on Capitol Hill. The second was the Jewish Federation shooting, in which a friend was seriously wounded. The third was at the Café Racer, a coffee shop northwest of the University of Washington. The most recent one was last year at Marysville-Pilchuck High School.

Gun ownership is analogous to having a drivers’ license. While it is a right, it is coupled with the responsibility of owners and the government to respect and protect the rights of others.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/12/06/a-few-words-on-firearms/

Dec 04

The comments form should be working again

If not, send us an email.

“It was a glitch. It was a… a technical malfunction! Why in hell won’t anyone believe me?”

– Gus Grissom, in “The Right Stuff”

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/12/04/the-comments-form-should-be-working-again/

Dec 02

Foraging for Feed

On Monday the temperature in Vancouver didn’t get much above freezing. A warm front came in overnight, and the Great White North turned into the Great Wet North on Tuesday. The rain held off until just before we returned to the hotel from Granville Island. Julian took a nap while I worked on the previous post. Once he regained consciousness, it was time to deliberate on dinner.

Granted, the fate of the free world does not depend on where we eat when we’re on the road; however, a bad meal can result in two grumpy humans in one hotel room. Never a good thing. So we look for guidance. First Julian looked at yelp, and was bamboozled by inclusion of a food truck and Tim Horton’s.  He realized that he was looking at the US version of yelp. Once he switched to the Canadian version of yelp, we had better options. We settled on a Canadian locavore restaurant called Forage, about five blocks from the hotel.

The ambiance of Forage can best be described as tragically hip. The lighting was as dark as shown in the photos below. Instead of the hockey game, the TV’s above the bar were showing the dreaded fireplace video. The music playing was club, not Christmas carols. We were seated in an alcove that had wall covering reminiscent of the Hudson Bay Company blanket, except without red stripes. The decorations consisted of small juniper plants weighted down by a single red sphere decoration à la “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

The alcove in Forage.

The alcove in Forage.

"It just needs a little love, Charlie Brown."

“It just needs a little love, Charlie Brown.”

Our meal was excellent. We started with two salads, beet-heirloom tomato and kale-caramelized apple. We moved on to roast duck with duck liver-stuffed profiteroles (mini cream puffs) and pasta roulades filled with shredded duck. We opted for desserts instead of a second entrée. Julian had a cheese-filled puff with lemon verbena sauce and gin-soaked blueberries, while I went for chocolate. We asked our server about the similarities between Forage and the now-defunct Rain City Grill, which also served a locavore menu. According to him, Rain City only closed a few months ago and many of the refugees from that restaurant wound up at Forage.

Another tragically hip feature of Forage is the “Meat Raffle”. Patrons put their names on business cards for a drawing of a small piece of meat with a recipe from the chef to cook it. Nobody asked us to fill out cards; just as well, since the Customs agents enjoy getting raw meat that can’t be taken over the border. Speaking of which, Wednesday is travel home day. With luck, we’ll miss the traffic jams at the Boeing shift change in Everett and the ever-popular I-405 crawl.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/12/02/foraging-for-feed/

Dec 01

Vancouver Days – and Nights

Although we have a kitchen in our hotel suite, we don’t cook when we’re in Vancouver. Sometimes we’ll have bagels in the room for breakfast, but we normally head around the corner to De Dutch. Its specialty is Dutch pannekoeken (pancakes), which are thin, dinner-plate sized, and topped with assorted things. It also serves omelets, French toast, and other breakfast/lunch items. We generally have a late breakfast courtesy of Julian’s lack of biological clock.

Today’s foray was a walk to Granville Island. It’s a public market similar to Pike Place in Seattle, but the vendors at Granville seem to be more permanent. Pike Place has day stalls on a first-come-first-serve basis for crafts and other vendors. Often these folks disappear when cruise ship season is over. Granville Island was nowhere near as busy today as it is in the summer, but there was still plenty of action.

Granville Island from the Granville Bridge. The body of water is False Creek. The Burrard Street Bridge is in the background.

Granville Island from the Granville Bridge. The body of water is False Creek. The Burrard Street Bridge is in the background.

After lunch and a dessert (caramel apple focaccia–mmmmm), we debated how to get back to the hotel. Rather than walking all the way or taking a bus, we hopped an Aquabus across False Creek. These are little pontoon boats that zip between Granville and the north side of False Creek, where downtown is. A five-minute ride saved us an hour of walking or waiting for a bus. Given that Julian is of a tender age, he got 50% off his fare. Bottom line: We made the trip for less than bus fare for the two of us.

False Creek. You can see an Aquabus in the lower right of the photo.

False Creek, with downtown Vancouver in the background. You can see two Aquabuses in the photo. One looks like a little tugboat, and the one with the green awning is similar to the one we took.

Last night we had dinner with my postdoc cronies at a Japanese restaurant called Kingyo. It specializes in izakaya, which roughly translates as bar food. We went to another izakaya restaurant several years ago that had lots of grilled meats on skewers. Kingyo does more tempura, sushi, and fried stuff. We were there for nearly three hours, eating, drinking (a little–you need something to cut through the fried food), and catching up on our lives since Dallas. Props to the restaurant staff for not kicking us out. With luck, it won’t be 21 years before we meet up again.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/12/01/vancouver-days-and-nights/

Nov 30

Lizard on a Stick!

Friends, I can’t make this stuff up. On our trips to Vancouver’s Chinatown, we’ve noticed an offering that we’ve never seen in any other Chinatown south of the border: Lizard on a Stick. Nobody can explain what it’s used for, either in herbal medicine or cuisine. They resemble fans, and come two on a stick (such a deal!). Any ideas as to their use?

Julian checking out the lizard on a stick.

Julian checking out the lizard on a stick.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/11/30/lizard-on-a-stick/

Nov 30

No Comments, Alas

It has come to my attention that folks who want to leave comments about some of my posts haven’t been able to do so. My site administrator (Julian) is aware of this and will attempt to fix the issue once he can get a human being on the WordPress help line.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/11/30/no-comments-alas/

Nov 30

North of the Border

We’re spending a few days in Vancouver. The main reason is to catch up with a couple I knew during my postdoc days in Dallas. They live in Nova Scotia and don’t get west of Ontario very often. However, we don’t  need much of an excuse to visit Vancouver. It’s less than three hours away (Customs permitting), and is the most beautiful city on the West Coast–after Seattle. As a bonus, these days the US dollar has a very favorable exchange rate versus the Canadian currency. (The Seattle Times touted this fact in a travel article yesterday.)

Seattle and Vancouver share many characteristics. Both are surrounded by water, and have bustling ports. Water is a key constituent of their climates, in the form of rain. Both cities have large Asian populations, and a diverse dining scene. Seafood is featured prominently on many restaurant menus. Vancouver has Seattle beaten by the sheer number of high-rise apartments in the center city. Seattle is heading in that direction, thanks to the Amazon headquarters downtown and ugly traffic. And both cities, alas, are heading toward non-affordability. [Coincidentally, Paul Krugman wrote about this dilemma in today’s New York Times. As gentrification proceeds, people of more modest circumstances who are least able to afford long commutes are being pushed to the periphery of metropolitan areas.]

Vancouver's present, Seattle's future?

Vancouver’s present, Seattle’s future?

 

We are staying at our usual hotel, the Robson Suites. This used to be a condominium before it converted into an extended-stay/boutique hotel. The rates are very reasonable, especially with the aforementioned exchange rate. Each unit comes with a real kitchen that’s well-stocked with dishes, pans, and utensils. The units vary in size from a studio to a reasonably large one-bedroom, which is what we have on this stay. The building is located between the Robson and Georgia shopping strips, two blocks from the Denman Street restaurant strip, and three blocks from Stanley Park. There is no onsite restaurant, unless you count the McDonald’s that’s open 24 hours (and I don’t). There’s a Safeway across the street to stock the kitchen as needed.

We arrived here just in time to watch the end of the Grey Cup, Canada’s equivalent of the Super Bowl. The Edmonton Eskimos came from behind to beat the Ottawa Red Blacks, 24-18. I believe the CFL could teach the NFL a few things to move games forward a bit faster. After the game, we wandered Denman Street in search of dinner. Two of our favorite spots are no more, the Rain City Grill and Maria’s Taverna. Other places, such as De Dutch and the Ukrainian restaurant near the corner of Denman and Robson, are still going strong. We settled on dinner at the bar of a Spanish restaurant, España. We had tapas of salad and white anchovy toasts, followed by a paella. The salad was good. I had one bite of the anchovy toast and gave the rest to Julian. The sight of 6-8 anchovy fillets mounded on a hunk of bread was a big turnoff. (Anchovies work best for me in small, covert doses, as in Julian’s puttanesca sauce and in Vietnamese fish sauce.) The paella came with a side of aioli, aka mayonnaise. Neither of us paid much attention to it. The paella was quite good, heavy on the smoked paprika. After a quick stop at Safeway, we went back to the hotel and watched the end of the New England-Denver game.

More adventures from Vancouver to come–once Julian gets moving.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/11/30/north-of-the-border/

Nov 28

The Montlake Mess, Apple Cup Edition

I went into the office yesterday, since I don’t do Black Fridays if I can help it. While I was being a busy worker bee, the annual Apple Cup was being played at Husky Stadium. This is the game between the University of Washington (UW) and Washington State University (WSU). I thought the game started at 1:30 and I could get through the Montlake Mess relatively quickly. Wrong on both counts. The game started at 12:30, it was a blowout (UW 45, WSU 10), and it took me two hours to get home. Die(sel) Frau spewed plenty of nitrogen oxides into the Seattle air last night.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/11/28/the-montlake-mess-apple-cup-edition/

Nov 26

Thanksgiving Rituals

After many years at this, we’ve got this Thanksgiving thing figured out. Since we usually go to friends’ houses for the holiday, we don’t need to worry about the turkey. Julian makes the key lime pie in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning. When I get up, I make the cranberry relish(es) and any other contribution. This keeps us out of each other’s way. By the time Julian gets out of bed, the kitchen is more or less cleaned up after my escapades and he can practice quality control.

This year I made the tried and true raw cranberry relish, and an experimental cooked one. The raw one is from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks American, and consists of just cranberries, oranges, and sugar. This year I used maple syrup and sugar in smaller quantities than usual. The maple flavor got lost in the cranberries, but no matter. The cooked one is from the October-November issue of Fine Cooking magazine. This one combines cranberries, sugar, mint, bourbon, and a little water. You cook it until the cranberries all pop and the mixture thickens. After it cools, you add chopped toasted nuts. The original recipe called for hazelnuts, but I substituted pecans to continue with the southern vibe.

Cooked cranberry-mint relish with pecans.

Cooked cranberry-mint relish with pecans.

Then I made applesauce. I managed to find some Rome Beauty apples at, of all places, Uwajimaya. There’s a reason they’re called Rome Beauty–look at them! The red pigment is in the pulp as well as the peel.

How do I like them apples? In sauce!

How do I like them apples? In sauce!

This is what I wound up with after they were cooked and I put them through the food mill. If you want to know how I did this, check out my earlier post, “Oh, Applesauce!” No red dye #2 here.

No red dye #2 here.

Now this is applesauce worth making for Thanksgiving.

Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2015/11/26/thanksgiving-rituals/

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