Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Gay in Middle School?
Just read this fascinating piece in the NYT about kids coming out of the closet in middle school. Thinking about my own middle schools years in rural Wisconsin it seems all but unimaginable that there could have been anyone "out" in those days. Of course almost all of the friends I had thought might be gay later came out in college- but middle school, no way.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
New Project
For anyone who has enjoyed my food based musings I am working on a new blog with my old friend Amiee, find it at jewishfood.wordpress.com
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
An App for that?
Random thought, for all of the frequent readers of Salon and other on-line publications. There should be an app that blocks Netflix pop-ups (which occur even while running the latest version of Firefox). I don't want to deny Netflix their paid for advertisements, but I already have an account with them.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Deep dish pizza while camping
As someone who has taken the single pot method of cooking to some extremes in the past I felt that this camping trip should live up to the tradition. That said, I wanted to try something new and had the idea to try making a Chicago style deep dish pizza in my dutch oven over a camp stove. A quick Google of the idea yielded almost no guidance. So I offer my experience here for the edification of the next person to give it a try.
Dough:
I made and froze a half pound dough before I left, along with about a cup of marinara sauce. My dough is a simple 1lb flour, 1 tb salt, 1 tb brown sugar, 2 tsp yeast and 1+ cup of water. This was half that.
At the campsite I oiled my dutch oven, stretched the dough and placed it inside the oven working it up the sides. The trick I discovered here is that the dough wants to fall back into the center so you need to have all the fillings close by and ready. I placed a layer of large cheese slices in first, followed by my other fillings, then sauce and then a final layer of cheese.
I baked it on my lowest setting for about an hour. Upon removal I discovered that yes, the crust had baked but that part of the bottom was burned. All of the fillings were hot, the cheese was molten and the side crust was great.
When I attempt this again I will try to spread the heat a bit, perhaps with a heat tamer between the stove and the oven. Or, I could do it in the coals of the fire.
Dough:
I made and froze a half pound dough before I left, along with about a cup of marinara sauce. My dough is a simple 1lb flour, 1 tb salt, 1 tb brown sugar, 2 tsp yeast and 1+ cup of water. This was half that.
At the campsite I oiled my dutch oven, stretched the dough and placed it inside the oven working it up the sides. The trick I discovered here is that the dough wants to fall back into the center so you need to have all the fillings close by and ready. I placed a layer of large cheese slices in first, followed by my other fillings, then sauce and then a final layer of cheese.
I baked it on my lowest setting for about an hour. Upon removal I discovered that yes, the crust had baked but that part of the bottom was burned. All of the fillings were hot, the cheese was molten and the side crust was great.
When I attempt this again I will try to spread the heat a bit, perhaps with a heat tamer between the stove and the oven. Or, I could do it in the coals of the fire.
Back from camping
Went camping with the family for the last few days. It was oddly refreshing to have some intense heat (as I write this the sun is finally breaking through the Bay Area fog at 11 am) and to be off the grid for a few days. We camped at Del Valle, a reservoir and park managed by the East Bay Regional Parks district outside of Livermore CA.
I took my bike (actually I had four hung on the back of the car) and took the opportunity to ride in a new area since this is further south than I can roam normally. I rode up Mines Rd, which much to my surprise ran a good 20+ miles uphill from the 700 ft at the park entrance up to 2600 ft just south of the Santa Clara county line.
It was some really good riding though, a weekday morning and the number of cars and bikes encountered did not exceed my total number of fingers and toes over the course of nearly four hours of riding out and back. The road was quiet, the landscape charming and I even spotted a few jack rabbits and wild turkeys trying to decide if I was intent on chasing them. I did have a passing thought about the chance of a mountain lion being in the area, but decided with the large number of deer they would be well fed without me in their diet.
I took my bike (actually I had four hung on the back of the car) and took the opportunity to ride in a new area since this is further south than I can roam normally. I rode up Mines Rd, which much to my surprise ran a good 20+ miles uphill from the 700 ft at the park entrance up to 2600 ft just south of the Santa Clara county line.
It was some really good riding though, a weekday morning and the number of cars and bikes encountered did not exceed my total number of fingers and toes over the course of nearly four hours of riding out and back. The road was quiet, the landscape charming and I even spotted a few jack rabbits and wild turkeys trying to decide if I was intent on chasing them. I did have a passing thought about the chance of a mountain lion being in the area, but decided with the large number of deer they would be well fed without me in their diet.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Convergence
Convergence of my two favorite subjects: food and bicycles -
Five-Star Tour Cuisine for Guys Who Eat and Ride
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Some additional Tour chatter
So amongst the usual tour chatter with coverage from the NYT, lots of video coverage (see below) there are some nice background stories that emerge during the tour that otherwise would not get written in other seasons. So if you ever wondered why Lance Armstrong rides for Astana (sponsored by the glorious nation of Kazakhstan- insert Borat joke here) this little snippet from the New Republic might help fill in the gaps. It all comes down to who you work with (in this case Bruyneel) rather than who you work for.
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