FirstStep

I almost never post during the day. I almost never post merely for the purpose of linking to another site. But for Dr. Horrible I’ll make an exception.

ZOMGWTFLOLBBQ, fabulous with a side of awesome sauce!

OK, let’s back up for a moment and explain the cause of all the commotion…

Imagine if you will the boredom which must have been inflicted on some poor souls during the writer’s strike earlier this year. I don’t mean the schmucks who willfully subjected themselves to countless hours of reality TV because “there’s nothing else on.” Heaven forfend they might tear themselves from the TV to oh, say, read a book or something like that. No, I mean the poor writers, suddenly and temporarily relieved of their livelihoods, sitting around at home twiddling their thumbs, sighing wistfully and recalling better days. One of those sighers was Joss Whedon, the brilliant mind whence sprang Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the superb Firefly.

I guess Joss doesn’t like to be bored so he called up a few friends. “Hey, wanna put together a web movie with me? It’s about an evil scientist, his nemesis and the woman they both want. Oh and did I mention it’s a musical?” Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day said yes and the world cheered.

There are three acts to this wonderful piece of work. Acts I and II are already available with Act III coming online tomorrow. As of Sunday all three will be taken off the web (later available for purchase on DVD, a purchase I will be making).

So what are you waiting for? Stop reading this, run to Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and watch as many acts as are available. Your boss won’t mind…

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People tell me I’m pretty bright. Evenings like this really make me wonder why they say that…

It turns out that there are two plum trees in my backyard. While out there reading this evening I kept hearing, “Plop!” The plums were ripe and were plummeting all over my otherwise tidy yard. They were red. They were squishy. They were going to attract flies and bees and raccoons and that just wasn’t going to work for me. I retrieved a bowl and started collecting all the plopped plums and dumping them into the green bin. On my fourth bowl full I finally realized that even if I did pick them all up my victory would be pyrrhic as the trees were loaded with more ammunition. Also, it seemed like a huge waste to be composting all of this fruit.

Twenty minutes later the trees were mostly bare and I’d filled two baskets and a large stainless steel bowl with freshly-picked plums, each about the diameter of a quarter. Remember that size. It becomes important…

OK, it’s now 7pm and I have twenty-three pounds of fruit sitting on my kitchen counter. “Uh, OK genius, what’re you gonna do now?” Think. Ponder. Skim some cookbooks… “A ha! I’m going to make plum wine!”

The recipe which follows is from an out of print book titled Homemade Country Wines, Beer, Mead and Metheglin (ISBN 0-600-34424-X):

• 4 lbs plums
• 1/4 oz root ginger
• 4 cloves
• 1 lemon, sliced
• 1 gallon water
• 3 lbs sugar
• yeast (the author used Pommard yeast and it produced a delicious pale-pink medium sweet wine and states that Burgundy yeast is also suitable)

Cut up the plums and remove the stones. Bruise the ginger and add to the plums with the cloves and sliced lemon. Pour over the water, boiling, and stir. Cover and leave for 3-4 days, stirring twice daily with a wooden spoon. Strain through 2 layers of butter muslin on to the sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar and when the liquid is lukewarm add the previously-activated yeast. Pour into the fermentation jar and insert an airlock. Leave to ferment to a finish in a warm place. Syphon off into a storage jar and cork.

Four pounds of fruit? That won’t even put a dent in what I’ve collected. Plus all of my brewing gear is sized for five gallons. That would take…um…let’s try sixteen pounds of fruit. Maybe twenty. Yeah, why not?

OK, here’s why not: sixteen pounds of quarter-diameter plums? That’s a &%$@$^ lot of plums. Each one sliced in half and the pit dug out with a paring knife. It took 2.5 hours of standing to get through even that many and doing a full 20 lbs was out of the question. By the end of the first hour I’d started considering the possibility that perhaps I’d erred. By the end of the second hour I was positive I’d erred and was calling myself a series of colorful new names.

All the plums finally prepped I then had to boil four gallons of water. Ever do this? Yeah, well, it ain’t a quick process, even with both an electric and a stovetop kettle each running at full bore.

The end result of this evening’s toil is five gallons of steeping fruit, a very sore, tired and hubris-whipped person and a head full of doubt that this is going to work. If it doesn’t, well, live and learn. If it does then my culinary ego will probably take over for a while and I’ll be insufferable. You’re forewarned.

In the meantime, I still have seven more pounds of plums sitting untouched in the kitchen. Oy. I’m a moron.

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I had a trying day at the office today. No details forthcoming, just believe me that it wasn’t the easiest day on record.

However I didn’t realize that before I arrived home. I knew I felt a bit off but I didn’t grok the depth of that offness. Once I arrived at home I bounced around frenetically trying (and failing) to find what I didn’t recognize at that moment I was seeking: distraction from life. After bouncing around the apartment for a while I thought to try calling MEF.

“What you up to tonight?”
“Comic shop then killing time until guy’s night later. Wassup?”
“I’m gonna meet you at the comic shop and hang out for a while. Is that cool?”
“Totally. See you there.”

We shopped (I even bought something) then went down the street for a pint and a bite.

We didn’t even talk about my day very much but by the time we parted I felt so much better. Just having someone there with whom I could unwind and be myself was more than enough relief from the day’s events.

This is yet another reason why moving back to the East Bay was a very good thing indeed. When I was up north and had a long day I’d have to rely on there being someone at the other end of a phone line. Here? I can see people in person and it makes a world of difference.

MEF? You rock. Thanks for being there.
Everyone else? Thanks for reading my self-indulgent little post.

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“Congratulations, you’ve cut yourself on a chef knife while doing your dishes! What are you going to do next?”
“I’m going to make preserved lemons!”

Yeah, maybe not the best idea I’ve ever had…

Like many in California, the Albertellis have prolific lemon trees. This means that as a good friend I will liberate them of some of their lemony burden. It’s my duty. The most recent unburdening was over four pounds of freshly picked citrus. Lovely, but, um, excessive. What’s a single gal gonna do with so many lemons? I don’t like sweet drinks very much so lemonade is out. I don’t much appreciate desserts so no sorbet. Marmalade? No, too much effort for my current schedule and besides I’m still working through the last jar of lemon marmalade that I made. Many other options off the table I hit the [cook]books and decided upon making preserved lemons.

I’ve made these before but the recipe then was different. It required a lot of salting and draining and olive oil. Yes, it was tasty but it wasn’t very practical tonight. The 1991 version of The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking had just want the doctor ordered. Ingredients? Salt (coarse). Lemons. Brilliant.

The entire lot is prepared according to the recipe (no, I’m not posting it here; I don’t feel like getting a C&D for copyright infringement today). This requires a clean jar, a lot of salt and a lot of lemons (which generate a lot of lemon juice). Do you remember that cut finger? Yeah, well, it doesn’t like salt and lemon juice. Go fig. That’s what I get for being a big doofus.

The entire lot gets composed then gets to sit for at least a month. It doesn’t matter much where it sits. Sunny, shady, whatever. With the acid and salt levels in this thing it’s highly unlikely you’re going to be inviting bacteria to the party whatever the temperature. At the end of the month you just treat them like pickles (which is what they are). Eat ‘em straight (not my first choice); add them to salads, marinades, etc.; use them as a condiment for any ol’ thing.

The picture above is the final result of tonight’s effort. There’s a high level of potential deliciousness sitting in that jar there and the entire process took me no more than twenty minutes. Brilliant!. Alas, it only used up eight lemons all total. I have, um…ten or more left. Le sigh. Back to the drawing board.

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I admit to being a bean snob. I usually eschew “supermarket” varieties in favor of something heirloom or just about anything from Rancho Gordo. But yesterday the people at the Kaiser Permanente booth at the Alameda County Fair gave me a bag containing veggie seeds, a (really really tasty) fresh peach, a sweet potato and a 1 lb. bag of El Mexicano Pinto Beans. “Pintos? How pedestrian… Well, a free bean is a free bean I guess. I just hope they’re fresh.”

Today, the day I spend prepping for the week to come, I decided to cook the pintos. A ham hock (cracked by the fine butcher), a chopped onion, 6 cloves of garlic, a beer, some fresh thyme and espazote, dried bay, a couple whole dried cayennes, water to cover by a bit, blah blah blah. Clay olla, stove top to boil, oven at 350, yadda yadda. 3.5 hrs later both the monthly house cleaning and the beans were done.

OMG, these pintos are fantastic. They hold their shape beautifully. The pot liquor (well-fortified with seasonings) was a meal in itself (which is good since I added too much liquid). The bean texture was creamy, bordering on decadent. The total yield was ten servings. If I were the sort who didn’t mind eating the same thing for every meal for a week (read: if I were a man) then I’d be completely set and wouldn’t have to cook until next weekend. As-is I’ll end up putting a lot of this beanie goodness into the freezer for future enjoyment.

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I won’t ruin the movie for others by saying anything specific about it. I’ll just say that I very much enjoyed it and am pleased to be able to recommend it to others. This movie is suitable for all ages, even those who are sensitive to high levels of noise or action. In my party we had four 30-somethings and we enjoyed ourselves to varying degrees.

See WALL-E. It’s worth the $10.

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Things got a bit harried around here in April. Stuff. Things. Issues, perceived and real. They all added up so to gain a little coping time I started skipping the gym. Not a lot, just once a week or so. But that once turned into twice which turned into “OMG I just want to go home and curl up on the couch with the cat and a glass of rum and a brain-candy DVD in the player.”

I’ve been spending a fair chunk of every week working out for years and years but in April I stopped gyming altogether. All physical activity ceased as I curled up into a little pod and hid for a while. Now I have a new problem: I want to start again but I’ve gotten used to being lazy.

Doh! Suddenly what used to be a necessity now feels like an imposition. “What, you mean I have to leave the house AND change into different clothes? Why on earth would I want to do something like that?”

Much mental effort has been expended lately explaining to myself exactly why on earth I want to do something like that. I almost have myself convinced (I think) so hopefully next week I can hop back on the wagon and start working out again. Publicly announcing it here makes it more likely to happen.

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As I type this I’m sitting in a cafe, drinking a decaf americano and attempting to pound out some projects for work. From the fact that I’m posting on my blog you can figure out for yourself how effective this is right now.

While pondering how to phrase something in the doc I’m writing I looked up from the screen and stared into space for a moment. When my eyes finally focused on my surroundings I noticed that, with the exception of the barrista (who’s knitting when not pulling shots) every single person within my view has a laptop in front of them. There are three Macbooks, two Dells, a Toshiba (me), one subcompact (cute little thing) and a convertible tablet with a swiveling screen.

We are all here in this public space and none of us are interacting in any way with the humans directly around us. Most of us have reduced our chances of doing so by increasing our public solitude using headphones. It’s a curious little slice of society, the mid-day cafe crowd. We come for the coffee and stay for the free wireless.

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