drink umbrella

time machine go boom

2009-05-04T03:25:06Z

I recently set up our desktop to use time machine. first few backups worked fine. a few days ago, it started a backup, and never finished.

I tried stopping and restarting the backup, but to no avail -- this backup either hangs, or oh-so-helpfully reports "failed!" with no actually helpful diagnostics.

Is there any way to tell what's making it fail?

Automatic backup software really shouldn't a) hang and b) not tell you what happened and c) have a way to work around problems and back up the stuff that doesn't have problems.

The config setting says "back up every hour" and a successful backup hasn't happened in over a week, and it hasn't figured out there's a problem worth telling me about?

kindle commentary

2009-04-23T03:40:34Z

I just finished reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan on K's Amazon Kindle. First book I've read using the device.

Rather than bore you with Michael Pollan fandom (ok, I thought this was weak compared to many of his earlier works that included more personal narrative), here's some blathering about the Kindle experience.

The index for In Defense of Food was reproduced in its entirety -- almost. Unlike the paper edition, the index included no page numbers. And the index entries were not linked to the page-equivalent positions in the book. So about one quarter of the length of the book was an index that doesn't index anything. This is the stupidest index I've ever seen.

I apparently have a habit of flipping through a paper-based book to see how far it is until the next chapter break, when I'm up late and getting tired. There's no easy way to do this on a Kindle. I was somewhat suprised to see the actual content end at not quite two-thirds of the way through the progress bar doodlyhoo. (The remaining length was sources/index.)

I will typically skim a book at least once to get an overview (how long is the index, where does the content really stop, that sort of thing), and, again, no way to skim quickly.

I wish the screensize were larger, so I could get, oh, roughly the same amount of text as a trade paperback on the screen at one time, without making the font the most microscopic. I settled on the 2nd smallest font, though would rather have one size bigger, but page flips were just too frequent at the larger size.

fast bikes

2009-04-06T18:50:18Z

Freeman and I went down to watch the Santa Cruz Classic Criterium bike race yesterday. Saw the starts/ends up at the finish line, and pretty much everything else from the bottom of the hill where Front Street comes down from the top. He wanted to see the bikes going as fast as they could, and that was the spot.

The final men's race (pro and category 1/2 riders) had 105 riders in it. When that many bikes go by in a hurry, you can feel the wind as they pass by.

A woman rider from an earlier race happened by when the field was blasting past, and said to her friend "holy shit!" You wouldn't want to be in the way if anyone crashed down this stretch. (No crashes this year! Sometimes you get some blowouts on the hairpin turn right before the hill.)

makin' bacon: the longer story

2009-04-06T00:02:09Z

Here's the longer bacon making story...

A couple years ago, I got Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman. All about cured meats, sausagemaking and whatnot. I had been intimidated by some of the recipes, because they use either ingredients or equipment I didn't have, had never used, and all that.

The problem with bacon:
- where to get pork belly
- how to smoke the bacon

I finally went on a mission to find pork belly. All the butchers in town are great, and all seemed interested in helping. But nobody wanted to make an order and sell me less than their minimum order, which seemed to be around 60lbs (a "case", whatever exactly that is). I now vaguely recall Shopper's Corner saying they could do a minimum of 20lbs, which was still four times as much as I was originally aiming for. And then I saw a blog post somewhere about how they got their pork belly at 99 Ranch Market, a chinese grocery store chain, inconveniently located outside of Santa Cruz. Through some sort of bewildering reverse psychology, my friend Amy convinced Ann-Marie to pick some up. And I wound up with 10lbs of pork belly. Awesome!

Then I found out that bobeson had a smoker that I could borrow. All the pieces were finally coming together.

The actual bacon-making process is pretty easy: cure pork belly for one week, wash off cure, hot smoke to 150 degrees, remove skin.

The cure was only four ingredients: salt, brown sugar, maple syrup and "pink salt" (aka sodium nitrate, for protection against botulism and other nasties -- trivia: all the "nitrite-free" bacon will have something like "celery extract" as an ingredient, which is a natural source of nitrate, which is converted to nitrites by bacteria. McGee wrote more about this.).

The curing pork belly needed to get turned every day, but that was about it. Making smoke was no trouble. I took Bob's advice, went down to the bait shop in the harbor to find more smoker chips. Smoker worked great. Except that it was actually not very hot. 3 hours of smoking left the meat at about 90 degrees, not the desired 150. Transferred it all to a 200 degree oven for a couple hours, and then done.

Slicing the skin off was the most challenging part -- the skin curled at the edges of all the pieces, and, surprise!, became somewhat leathery. Trimming off the edges before slicing off the skin took care of that. If you look closely at the pictures of the chunks o' meat with the skin off, you could probably tell which were the first ones and last ones by how smooth the cuts were.

This morning, had bacon with breakfast. Yummy!

I'm glad I went with the hickory for smoking, and not applewood, since it was certainly sweet enough. I was surprised that, when frying the bacon, the edges that had been cured/smoked went crispy faster. I think that was the sugars from the cure making themselves known. The sweet didn't hit strong -- still more savory than sweet -- but with a slightly sweet aftertaste. All in all, quite a nice complement to the beignets.

Oh, and halfway through the the curing process, I got a call back from Patrick at the new Whole Foods store in Santa Cruz. Apparently he'd had enough interest that he'd made a pork belly order, which should be in soon, if I still want any. Anyway, I'm surprised that 4 or 5 people had talked to him about pork belly. The store had only been open for 5 days when I asked. All the other butchers I talked to seemed like they though they'd never be able to unload any extra. Maybe there's an underestimated demand for pork belly? When the Whole Foods order is in, I'm thinking maybe pancetta?

bacon, ready to eat, yum yum

2009-04-05T18:13:02Z

bacon, ready to eat, yum yum
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

I made some bacon. One week to cure, one day to smoke, minutes to eat.

Good thing there's 8 pounds more!

1926 Beach Boardwalk Pass

2009-01-26T05:07:40Z

1926 Beach Boardwalk Pass
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

From my grandfather's files: a Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk pass, along with the newspaper snippet below.

It doesn't come out well in the picture, but it's pretty clear the original pass had the name aggressively rubbed out, and "Theron Fox and lady" retyped, using a different typewriter than the rest of the text. Apparently good enough for 1926. He never mentioned that part when retelling the story, though.

San Jose Mercury News, March 11, 1987
Leigh Weimers

UPS AND DOWNS -- The historical site designation of the roller coaster and carrousel at Santa Cruz reminds historian Theron Fox of the day in 1926 when he made a bit of history himself -- 20 consecutive rides on the Giant Dipper, each time with a different woman. Fox, then an official with the Amateur Athletic Union, was in Santa Cruz for a women's swimming meet and had a pass for the roller coaster that was good for himself "and lady". "I took advantage of my pass and took all 20 girls on a ride," he says, "one at a time"

Space Shuttle Birthday Cake

2008-11-24T21:04:07Z

Space Shuttle Birthday Cake
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

I think I'll keep my day job, and not run away to be a cake decorator quite yet.

Chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream

2008-11-24T21:02:19Z

Chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

As tasty as it was good looking. My first attempt at vanilla buttercream frosting, after deschampsia convinced me it wasn't very hard.

Meme: No on 8

2008-10-31T17:03:33Z

Copy this sentence into your livejournal if you're in a heterosexual marriage, and you don't want it "protected" by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.

geek-out confessional

2008-09-23T05:48:37Z

Well, if you'd ever told me that I'd one day find myself procrastinating away my evening by playing fake guitar while rocking out to Ozzy Ozbourne, I'd have thought you were crazy.

But, here I am. Playing "Guitar Hero On Tour" for the Nintendo DS. Rocking out with Ozzy. And enjoying it!

I am sure there is a way to make this sound even geekier, but I'm not sure what it is.

this can't be right

2008-08-26T22:40:59Z

me, scoring weirder than thomasroche? the test must be broken.

So, drinkumbrella, your LiveJournal reveals...

You are... 15% unique (blame, for example, your interest in productivity hacks) and 5% herdlike (partly because you, like everyone else, enjoy ice cream). When it comes to friends you are normal. In terms of the way you relate to people, you are keen to please. Your writing style (based on a recent public entry) is conventional.

Your overall weirdness is: 42

(The average level of weirdness is: 28.
You are weirder than 83% of other LJers.)

Find out what your weirdness level is!

fruit ice

2008-07-11T22:36:31Z

Once upon a time, Harold McGee wrote a book called "The Curious Cook", regretfully out of print. In it, he's got a great chapter on fruit ices, for making granitas or sorbets or whatever. There are a handful of incredibly useful charts that you can use to make pretty much anything into a nice frozen dessert.

I've finally transcribed these charts at http://www.re.org/eric/fruitices/ for your freezing pleasure.

The basic recipe is easy: fruit juice + sugar + lemon juice + water. The chart tells you how much of each. Medium-sweet water ices are usually best for sorbet. Mix ingredients until sugar is dissolved, then freeze in your ice cream freezer.

Easy and delicious!

fireworks

2008-07-07T17:58:39Z

When I was wee, the 4th of July was packed with "safe and sane" fireworks. Everybody had them. They were fun! Fountains, flowers, sparklers, snakes, whistling things, the usual stuff. I don't remember anything that flew or went boom.

Now, 4th of July sounds like a war zone. Since the "safe and sane" are illegal too, everyone who has fireworks seems to get things that fly and go boom, or just go big-badda-boom.

Is this really better than those old "safe and sane" fireworks?

my first patent!

2008-06-17T22:15:29Z

A few years ago, I added this feature to Altera's SOPC Builder product, back in 2005 or thereabouts. I remember filling out info for the patent discovery process, but thought it died there. Today, I got email saying the patent has been issued.

Check it out: US Patent 7331022

Woohoo!

(Of course, the feature doesn't exist anymore... now nobody can use it!)

shuffle music

2008-06-13T18:00:57Z

I've been listening to my ipod on shuffle a lot recently, and have learned some valuable lessons:

I have some music that I really like in album-context, but I tend to skip if I hear one at a time.
Adding a big collection of concert albums for one band skews the whole random-play experience. (Didn't I just hear that song? Actually, yes. One at location X, and another at location Y.)
I really need to remove the Information Society track "300 BPS 8,N,1 (Terminal mode or ASCII download)" from my ipod. It's probably more enjoyable if you're a modem. Definitely not for the party mix.

what kind of beetle is this?

2008-04-11T05:04:13Z

what kind of beetle is this?
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

Freeman and I were in the yard today, and found this beetle. It was maybe 2cm long. Red hard shell with a big black spot towards the back. Based on one acrobatic click/jump, I'm guessing it's some sort of click beetle.

Do you know what it is? Freeman would love to find out more. (For that matter, if you've got a good bugs-for-kids resource, I'd love to find out!)

knife sharpening

2008-03-31T17:44:30Z

Sometime recently, a whetsone appeared in our kitchen. It looked lonely, so I spent some quality time with it and our various kitchen knives yesterday.

I'm sure my technique can be improved, but the results are encouraging. Our 8 inch chef's knife is the knife that sees the most use in our kitchen. I think it went from "I'd be pretty happy to find a knife this sharp at my [friend/family]'s house" before to "oh, that's right, you cut by gently guiding the knife in the direction you want to cut" afterwards. So at least part of the sharpening did the right thing.

Chopping apples later, though, it felt like the direct-chop action was not quite as good as it had been. So I suspect my mid-knife sharpness got tweaked during the process.

So now I need to try it again. More practice and all that. The process seems less indimidating, having done it once.

(And no, I didn't start with the chefs knife. I couldn't cook if I screwed that one up! Before I got my confidence up to do that, I did the paring boning knife and 6" utility knives. I don't remember the last time the paring knife was this sharp.)

fitdeck

2008-02-20T05:27:08Z

For far too long now, I've been a total couch potato. I know I need to get in better shape. Both strength-wise and cardio-wise. But I hate the gym. I had a membership at Toadal Fitness for years, and had basically stopped going sometime between when Freeman and Verity were born. Hard to get in the habit. Even though 24 Hour Fitness is one block away, I haven't ever been able to convince myself to work out there. Swim very occasionally, but never work out.

The last time I spent quality time in the gym, I did the Outside Magazine Shape Of Your Life workout. At least the strength training part. I think I learned a lot about my relationship with the gym during that. I had been migrating since then away from any weight machines, favoring free weights and instability exercises (the exercise ball was incorporated into pretty much everything). When I had finished about 4 of the 5 months of the workout, I was probably in the best shape I've ever been in. The author of the Shape Of Your Life workout put out a book called Outside Fitness, but the workout in that was just too complicated. It had a lot of good things going for it, but I just couldn't get going with it.

That was a while ago. My only ongoing workout recently has been kid-wrangling. Which is better than nothing, but still not much.

So I've been looking for a new workout. Preferably one that was gym-free, easy to do, didn't require buying loads of equipment. A couple weeks ago, I found out about FitDeck. It's a deck of cards. Each card has a bodyweight-based exercise on it. To use, shuffle the cards, and deal out N cards for an N-minute workout, or so the theory goes. Each card has a target set of reps, for beginner/intermediate/expert. The whole thing is so simple, and the lack of necessary equipment is really attractive.

Yesterday I did my first workout. Only 15 cards. Mostly targeting the beginner level. It was spread out over a few hours, due to important things like F needing me to bowl on the Wii with him or something. I think doing them consecutively will be a pretty aerobic workout. No major aches for the rest of the day. Today, though, I can feel it. A good post-workout ache. Nothing too bad.

What I can tell is that, if I keep at it, this workout will kick my ass. In a good way.

So I guess I'm giving it a go. Wish me luck to keep motivated.

vanilla ice cream taste off, round 2

2008-02-11T19:02:33Z

I got this a while ago from Patricia Rain, who runs vanilla.com. I gave her some of the leftovers from our vanilla ice cream tasting last fall.

A VERY VANILLA ICE CREAM TASTING

Local customer, Eric Lechner included us in an intriguing ice cream tasting. He made five batches of ice cream, each flavored with vanilla. Using Rain's Choice extracts (from our Queen's Sampler), he made Tahitian, Mexican and Madagascar. He then used two vanilla extracts from other companies. He put a small scoop of each of the five ice creams into small cups that were labeled with identifying stickers and he had a decoder card that identified the vanillas used. The tasting was part of a party. After the party, he brought us four sets of each ice cream in the little cups and told us not to open the decoder envelope until after the tasting. As a result, it was a blind tasting for us.

It was really fun; after all, what's not to like about tasting homemade vanilla ice creams? Differentiating the various flavors wasn't nearly as easy as it might seem, however, and it was difficult to identify subtle differences. After a lot of laughing and discussion, we turned in our scores and Gina rated the responses in a points system. Here are the results:

The ice cream made with our Mexican vanilla placed first, followed by the one made with our Tahitian vanilla. Curiously, two of us chose Tahitian as our favorite and two chose Mexican, so it was a close call. Hawaiian Vanilla Company's Bourbon vanilla placed third, followed by our Madagascar vanilla. Nielsen Massey's Mexican vanilla placed last. I have to say that all five of these extracts are very high quality and the differences between them were subtle.

Tastings such as these are also subjective. I once did a blind tasting using imitation and pure vanillas in custard and chose a selection of people at random (i.e. the UPS driver who came by that day). What I found was that people who were accustomed to imitation vanilla growing up, were likely to choose it as their favorite whereas those accustomed to a premium vanilla chose that. Some people don't like Tahitian vanilla as the flavor is significantly different from Madagascar and Mexican, whereas some people, like me, love it in cream desserts and shellfish. Food tastings are always good fun and encourage conversation. You might consider doing a vanilla and/or chocolate tasting especially around a holiday.

--

So there you have it! I hope to encourage more people to do parties with tastings as I think it's great fun. We really had fund doing this and thank you again for making it possible for us to enjoy your ice cream.

Have a beautiful holiday season and a new year filled with abundance, prosperity and a large measure each of fun and love!

The VQ

Patricia Rain, Vanilla Queen
--
rain@vanilla.com
Visit the Vanilla.Company at http://www.vanilla.com

request for portlanders: eat at voodoo doughnuts for me

2008-01-29T18:23:41Z

I just watched the "Pacific NW" episode of Anthony Bourdain's series "No Reservations". And now I need a first-hand report about whether the Voodoo Doughnuts maple-and-bacon-bar is as good as it looks.

Because it looks really darned good.

Also, Apizza Scholls, if you have the time.

thanks!

:)

interpreting recipes

2008-01-17T05:41:14Z

One of the biggest challenges about cooking stuff you've never cooked before is figuring out the intent of the recipe -- how to translate some random words into what you see, hear, smell and feel.

For the pots de creme, it's a pretty basic recipe. The one I used had half and half, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla. It's a simple custard. Whisk together the eggs and sugar, heat the milk, mix the heated milk into the egg/sugar mixture, add the vanilla. Fill the dessert cups, put in a water bath, bake.

Here's where you learn the true value of your recipe writer, though. I had done everything to this point following the recipe from The Professional Pastry Chef. It says to cook until the custard is set. Ok, great. I've never made these before. What does "set" look like? How do you know?

When cooking a quiche (another custard), if you shake it and you see ripples, not done. If the whole custard seems to shake together, it's done. Knowing what this looks like is something that's hard to convey without seeing it. But for a pot de creme? Who knows what "set" looks like!

So I consulted another nearby reference, the Bouchon cookbook (from Thomas Keller, of French Laundry fame). In that recipe for pots de creme, it explained that when set, it will still jiggle slightly like gelatin. Now this, I can visualize.

And now I know what it looks like, so next time I'll know.

pot de crème

2008-01-16T17:54:59Z

pot de crème
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

My first attempt at pot de creme. K had a couple and proclaimed success. What I saw looked like it was slightly overcooked... Now they've had some time to get cold in the fridge. I'll try one at lunch.

baklava fresh out of the oven

2008-01-14T06:55:17Z

baklava fresh out of the oven
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

Over the holidays, we met some friends of my in-laws, originally from Bulgaria. Boris and Irina, I think. Irina said that she normally made baklava for the holidays, but didn't have the time this year.

And I got a bee in my bonnet about baklava. It's been several weeks, and that bee was still buzzing.

So, here it is. My first attempt at baklava. I used the recipe from Bo Friberg's The Professional Pastry Chef. I made the filling with pistachios and almonds.

I'm curious how it tastes, but the next step is to let it cool down, and it's bedtime and they're still hot. Maybe for breakfast.

cheesecake with sour cream topping

2008-01-14T06:50:41Z

cheesecake with sour cream topping
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

Certainly the easiest way to deal with a craving is to satisfy it. I'd been craving cheesecake for at least a week.

Made on friday, only two slices left for monday. (I didn't eat them all. Honest.)

fresh loaf of brioche

2008-01-10T04:53:35Z

fresh loaf of brioche
Originally uploaded by drinkumbrella

The downside of brioche: it takes a lot of time -- the dough gets to rise three times.

The upside: fresh baked bread in the morning makes the house smell great, warms up the kitchen, and, well, brioche has one heck of a lot of butter in it.

Yum!