The Things I Didn't Know About St. Patrick's Day

So I went to a really lovely St. Patrick's Day party yesterday hosted by my friend from Dublin. It was a fantastic way to blow off steam and take a break from studying for finals. While at the party, I realized that, despite being part Irish, I had a lot of misconceptions. Here are but a few of them:

1. Irish (the language) can in fact function, despite lacking both a participle and an infinitive. They basically have really crazy syntax with what is essentially a gerund. Super cool.
2. Black and Tans are not only not an Irish tradition, but they are actually offensive. I don't know whether the drink or the paramilitary group came first, but apparently a paramilitary group sent to put down the Irish Independence movement was named the Black and Tans for their khaki uniforms. I just assumed because Deco mentions drinking black and tans in The Commitments that they were an Irish drink, but he was supposed to be a generally offensive character. Nike made a similar mistake when they released a St. Patrick's day shoe called the Black and Tan. Oops.
3. Spotted Dog is not Irish. In fact, it is much sweeter than traditional Irish soda bread, although it is made in a similar manner.
4. One I already knew, but though I would add anyway is that the Irish don't drink Irish Car Bombs, a drink made with whiskey, Guinness, and Irish Cream. For obvious reasons, the name is offensive. So Cerinthus renamed it a Warp Spasm, which is a famous translation of an Old Irish word for battle frenzy (I think).

Anyway, I have to get back to work, but I thought I would share some of this. Have a lovely Sunday, everyone!

The Bread Lesson Part II, A Review

Photocredit: Catullus II

I did a bread lesson for a bunch of people. It turned in to a 14 hour bread party complete with fresh sourdough pizza with the Durum flour I got from Cerinthus' parents. It was absolutely fantastic.

Over the course of the day, we made 11 loaves and 8 pizzas: 2 whole wheat Tartine loaves (replacing 100g of all-purpose flour with 100g durum), 4 mini Pain à l'Ancienne ciabatta loaves, 3 Norwich More-Sourdough loaves (with 50g added wheat germ), and 2 loaves of Tartine country bread (with 100g durum wheat).

The loaves tasted amazing, and some of them looked fantastic. I taught my friends to mix, knead, shape, score, and bake loaves.

The first two loaves were not as aesthetic as I was hoping, but they tasted fantastic.

Photocredit: Catullus II

A friend of mine bought some wonderful cheese which we had with the whole wheat loaves.

Photocredit: Catullus II

The next set of loaves were the Pain à L'Ancienne ciabatta. These loves went over like gang-busters. One of my friends is planning on making his own at home. I hope it works. The loaves were super bubbly and I taught one of my friends to gently shape the loaves.

Photocredit: Catullus II

Photocredit: Catullus II

The loaves were really beautiful when they came out of the oven, but I had to make mini loaves so that they would fit in the oven.

Photocredit: Catullus II

Photocredit: Catullus II

Next, I taught my friends to shape dough with the easy-to-shape fairly dry Norwich More-Sourdough. They did an amazing job.

Photocredit: Catullus II

Photocredit: Catullus II

Other friends scored the loaves and they came out pretty well for everyone's first times.

Photocredit: Catullus II

Next, we had some pizza.

Photocredit: Catullus II

The next morning, the last loaves that the eight of us made came out of the oven. These were just phenomenal. Sadly, only Catullus II, my parents, and I were still around to see them.

Photocredit: Catullus II

Photocredit: Catullus II

Photocredit: Catullus II

This last set of loaves may have been some of the best bread I have ever tasted. Yum!

Holiday Cheer

It's really beginning to feel like the holidays. We're sending a bunch of stuff off to the post office today so that our relatives get their gifts on time. It's been a couple of days that I might describe with one of Sallust's favorite words...asperae dies...but things are looking up.

• We now have a live Christmas tree (and yes, I mean live, as in still-living. We plant them in our yard, although this one is small enough that we can probably re-pot it and prune it for next year before it retires to the yard).
• Cerinthus is coming tonight
• There is some lovely sourdough in the refrigerator so that I can bake it right before Cerinthus gets in and the house will smell like fresh bread
• My room is (almost) clean
• We've brought some decorations up from the garage.

Happy holidays, everyone.

Macro Quantem Phenomena

Cerinthus is preparing topics for his thesis. One of the things that he is considering working on is a strange set of experiments with silicone droplets that show certain properties of quantum mechanics on a macro level. Although, I have to admit, I was skeptical at first, it's pretty cool.

Bread for Cerinthus

Debris

I realized recently that although I love to bake bread, I am more of a bread-for-eating person than a cookistry/baker artist. I like the warmth, friendliness, and flavor of the bread and I am only going to make it if it sounds like something that I would enjoy eating. So as much as I tried to keep myself from making Tartine Bread in order to explore other options, I keep coming back to it. When Cerinthus was here, I made us a loaf of the Country Bread for a picnic lunch. It was lovely.

Crackly, wonderfully caramelized crust.

More importantly, I may take a hiatus from bread baking in general. I love it and it's fabulous, but it's incredibly hot here and the oven makes it stifling. Furthermore, most of my favorite bread recipes take a lot of time and I am taking two classes at the local big university, preparing graduate school applications, and studying for my fall exams, so I have more than enough on my plate. I will definitely miss my bread, though, and I think it will make a major comeback this winter.

Moist, soft, flavorful crumb.

In the meantime, I will do some other cooking blogging as well as other random thoughts that come to mind.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

I haven't posted a lot recently because things were quite busy when Cerinthus came to visit and unfortunately I caught some kind of horrible cold. On the other hand, my spider bite is healing rather nicely.

 

I am going to spend this weekend doing translation and studying for my German quiz. I am finding German easier after 7 weeks of class than I did at the beginning, but it is still a little troublesome. The problem that I have with German is that it seems to be in the no-man's land between an inflected language (a language with endings or inflections that indicate the part of speech) and a word-order language (where word order and prepositions determine the part of speech). In my experience of German, articles and adjectives have inflection, but nouns hardly change at all. Furthermore, word order is totally bizarre. Groups of words are often stuck together in chunks (e.g. a subject or object and a genitive phrase indicating possession) but these chunks can appear almost anywhere in the sentence. Perhaps it is just that my book focuses on reading instead of composition, but it baffles me how anyone actually speaks this language because the rules seem to be mystical rather than concrete. Maybe I'll get the hang of it at some point, but I don't think I'll ever be able to understand where German places its commas.

Ouch, It Bit Me!

So Cerinthus and I were walking along on our postprandial stroll the other night when I stepped on a small pile of leaves and something bit me! I was not sure at the time whether it was a bit or a sting but it really hurt all the way home. By the time I got home whatever it was seemed to have dislodged itself, but I put some "afterbite" on it and hoped it would be okay.

As the next day progressed, it swelled red and got itchier and itchier. The verdict from Servia and Cerinthus was that it had been a really nasty mosquito bite. I am not generally prone to mosquito bites, so I realized that my supposition that it was something significantly worse was unfounded. I took some antihistamine and put a band-aid over it.

When I took the band-aid off this morning, I was rather shocked. The bite is now bright purple and about the size of my pocket-watch's face. Other than it being (mostly) round instead of contorted in shape, it looks a lot like the brown-recluse bite I received a few years ago. Here's to hoping it isn't too poisonous!

More Information: We called a poison hotline and we think it's was a jumping spider. Nothing to do but wait and see.

Cerinthus is Here

Cerinthus is here. He came in yesterday-- the same day that I finished my second major German translation project. Things are going well-- although I still have a lot of work to do. I just calculated that I have to review 2-3 chapters a week of both Hansen and Quinn and Moreland and Fleischer in order to study for my exams this fall. I'm hoping to have Cerinthus quiz me on verb forms.

Also as Cerinthus is here, I am baking some more bread and pizza since Cerinthus is here. I will probably post some pictures.

The Return

I have returned from my Alma Mater (a few days ago). I now have a math test I need to crash study for. I will be on hiatus until Friday night. In the meantime, there is a great "In Our Time" piece on Unicorns that I listened to while I was visiting Cerinthus. I highly recommend it and will discuss in in greater detail when I get back.

Wine Snob: My First Chianti

Another one in my series of "firsts" of various types of wines (see my review of my first Zinfandel). I am trying to expand my palate so that I have a better understanding of wine. Cerinthus and I had our three year anniversary recently so when I went up to see him we had a series of anniversary dinners. One of the nights, Ponticus picked out an Italian Chianti for me. It wa  "Il Tarocco" 2008, a chianti classico from a vineyard a little ways south of Florence in "Greve in Chianti". It was made from 90% Sangiovese grapes and 10% Canaiolo Nero grapes. Ponticus told me that real Italian Chiantis (I am not entirely sure how these differ from "fakes") have a seal around the top that says "Chianti Classico" and a picture of a rooster. I decided to trust his judgment and I was not disappointed. The wine, a fairly cheap vintage, was a dark red with a slight purple tinge and ruby accents in the light. It was just shy of a medium body and filled one's mouth with a pleasing warmth. The warmth was accented with a hint of cloves and nutmeg and had a peppery finish with a slight tannic undertone. The flavor came out more strongly as the wine breathed and seemed to solidify it's flavor after about an hour (I think). Cerinthus remarked that this was a wine he could actually drink rather than just sipping along with food. I also quite enjoyed the wine and would recommend it alongside light Italian food such as a chicken picatta. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the wine.

My First From-Scratch Pie Crust

My Apple Pie!

Last night, after making a meal for Cerinthus that unfortunately looked a lot better than it tasted, I decided to comfort myself by making an apple pie-- completely from scratch. A few nights ago we went to the nearest local/organic food store--  a little establishment famed for it's over 700 spices-- and bought some apples and a little bit of salt (Cerinthus had the rest of the ingredients).

I wanted to make an all-butter recipe for pie crust because I do not like the idea of lard and I hear that crisco has very little flavor. Although crisco makes the crust very flaky, it also makes it bland. I took this recipe from All Recipes, doubled it, and added a tablespoon of vodka in instead of some of the water. It made approximately three full pie crusts, so I made a pie and an apple crisp. According to Cerinthus' mother, substituting vodka for about half of the allows for increases flakiness of the dough because the vodka evaporates faster than the water and allows the crust to dry and flake more effectively. I also read somewhere that not entirely combining the butter, but allowing patches of butter allows it to liquidate and expand and creates flakiness. I guess I will find out.

As I mentioned in my "Simple Family Recipe for Apple Pie," I do not actually like pie. I will have to wait for Cerinthus to try some at lunch to find out.

The Apple Crisp

Update 03/15/11: The pie crust was a success! It was lovely, flavorful, and flaky. However, it needed more salt. When I arrived, Cerinthus did not have any salt (can you believe that?) and he did not want to buy a gigantic container he would rarely use, so I bought a little $0.75 baggy of Sel Gris (gray sea salt) at the local organic food mart (that has a rack of 700 spices you can purchase by weight instead of in jars). The Sel Gris is a courser grain, and I did not compensate for this by increasing the volume of the salt in the crust. Oh well. Anyway, Cerinthus claims the pie is a 9 out of 10, so I am pretty happy.

Update 03/18/11: The pie (crust et al) got rave reviews from other quarters. Ponticus even said didn't need more salt. Anyway, I am very glad it was such a success but have no idea how I can replicate it.

Chinese Food for Cerinthus

I am visiting Cerinthus back up at my Alma Mater. I made Three Teacup Chicken for him tonight. I was nervous, but he really liked it!

Pizza Goup and Frankenpatta (Today's Baking Log)

I have the updates from yesterday's baking log: not promising, but not without hope either.

Ciabatta: The ciabatta has tripled in size. I am not kidding. I unfortunately don't have a picture of the original for comparison (clearly I don't have real foodblogging chops) but I have the doubled and the tripled photos:

Doubled in size.

and compare...

Tripled in size.

Now under normal circumstances this would be a cause for celebration. Bread rose, right? It must be good. There are two reasons why I am hesitant. First, this is a baker's yeast recipe. Obvious things with baker's yeast should rise, but over-proofed goods with baker's yeast taste terrible. I obviously can't tell if it is overproofed, but I know that our refrigerator temperature might not be quite as cold or might fluctuate (the refrigerator is a good work-horse, but very old), which may mean that the yeast was not slowed down as much as necessary for Reinhart's cold fermentation process requires. Second, I made one of Reinhart's breads from his book Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor [1] and it had the same Frankenstein properties, and turned out over-proofed, yeasty, and with dense crumb despite it's original swelling. On the other hand, I did not know nearly as much about bread as I do now, so maybe I will get lucky and this bread will turn out fine.

I just split the dough and turned it into two ciabatta rolls. It's possible that I over-degassed the dough because I had to maneuver the dough a lot and I had to cut it with a knife which was more difficult than I anticipated (I really need a pastry scraper). I'm hoping they turn out ok. Wish me luck!

Ciabatta rolls.

No Knead Pizza Dough: So this is probably a dough I should have given up on a long time ago. I guess I just have too much baker's optimism because so many of my slightly-botched creations turned out beautifully at my Alma Mater [2]. On the other hand, although the dough had not changed in size, it was bubbly on the top and a little on the sides (a sign of fairly healthy sourdough starter). So, I followed Rayner's instructions and took a cast-iron skillet (one that has been in the family for at least 3 generations!) coated it with olive oil and semolina flour and poured in the bubbly, goupy mass. Letting it rise for another two hours and them I'm going to bake it. We shall see!

Pizza Goup: Phase 2.

One of the things that is really helpful about Wild Bread is that it delves more deeply than my other bread books into the biology of yeast rather than the organic chemistry of bread which is the primary focus of most books [3]. Rayner says that "you must get to know the individual characteristics of your culture" (Rayner 33) which is why she leaves out instructions on proofing time other than the amount that the dough should have risen. I have never been a particularly good biologist or naturalist (I'm much more of a theory than a practice person). Servia and I are trying determine the activation time of our culture by noticing how long it takes between a feeding and the culture becoming a spongy mass with a layer of bubbles on top (peak of yeast leavening activity) and from there try to follow Rayner's instructions [4]. Maybe then we will have more luck with our pizza dough.

Endnotes

1. If you like cooking science, Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor is a fabulous book. I learned all that I know about wheats, starches, crusts, and enzymes from this book and I highly recommend it as, at the very least, good reading to make yourself more knowledgeable.
2. I recently found out that the city of my Alma Mater is one of the best places for sourdough. It may have been the weather and the "yeasty beasties" (as Cerinthus calls them) in the region that helped more than my own personal luck or skill.
3. Obviously an understanding of the chemistry of bread is essential and as I mentioned before, Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads: New Techniques, Extraordinary Flavor is fabulous in this regard. Understanding Baking is another wonderful text that even has a chart telling you the possible problems to diagnose your problematic loaves. Wild Bread has a similar appendix, but it is only focuses on sourdoughs (Rayner 152-155).
4. For the biology of sourdough and how to take care of it, see "Caring for a Sourdough Starter" (Rayner 32-40).

Valentines Day Cookies

Before Cerinthus, Valentine's Day was, for me, a chocoholic holiday. Although I am no longer a real chocoholic (see my blogpost on the subject) I do occasionally indulge myself. Today I decided to make some chocolate shortbread to celebrate the holiday, since Cerinthus is not around. A recipe came up on my iGoogle and I decided to modify it and try it. If you love chocolate, these are the cookies for you. They are rich and delicious-- but not too sweet-- and can be made into hearts for a special occasion.

Chocolate Shortbread

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa (the recipe suggested Hershey's Special Dark because it makes the cookies black and they look really cool).
• 1 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2.5 tsp vanilla

Directions

• Preheat oven to 325F and take out two non-stick baking sheets or line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl. (Do not skip this step as cocoa powder has a tendency to clump. You want the dry ingredients sifted to ensure a tender cookie.) Set aside.
• Cream the butter and sugar by hand. Then add the vanilla and mix in. If you do not want to cream by hand, follow the instructions in the original recipe.
• To make hearts, I placed the dough on wax paper rolled the dough into a log with about a 2 inch diameter. Then I left it in the refrigerator (wrapped in the wax paper) for about an hour. After the hour, I took it out and pressed two of the sides into the counter, making the log a triangle with one rounded side. Then make a small indentation int he rounded side, running the length of the log. Cut the log into 1/4 inch thick cookies and tweak the shape to make them hearts. Alternatively, roll to about 1/4 inch thick and cut into desired shapes and place on the baking sheets about 1-inch apart

A finished cookie, one cut from the log, and the log.

• Bake the cookies for 15min 30sec (or that's what I did) or until they are sightly hard around the edges and smell like fresh-baked cookies.
• When they cool slightly, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Enjoy! These cookies are VERY RICH. Be warned.

Cerinthus Returns

After a semester in Florence, Christmas in Spain, and a Mediterranean cruise, Cerinthus returns to the US. I will not get to see him until Monday, sadly, but he is home!

Also, I am beginning my review of Gregory Vlastos' Socratic Studies on Platonic Psychology.

Season 1 Review: Downton Abbey

A few days ago my family finished watching Downton Abbey, a series for which I provided a short midpoint-review. The series focuses on the servants at a manor, Downton Abbey, and the "upstairs family." The family consists of Lord Grantham, a man trying to keep the peace and arrange the future of his rather dramatic house, his three daughters, and his unconventional American wife, Cora. His estate is entailed to the next male in the line, which happens to be a distant cousin-- a middle class lawyer named Matthew Crawly-- who Lord Gratham must train to be the next heir as his mother and Cora band together to try to fight the entail.

The story is slow, but charming, and provides wonderfully three-dimensional characters as well as unexpected twists and turns. The serving staff provides a wonderful foil and contrast to the family above and the moments of interaction between the two groups shows the class divisions and tensions in pre-World War I England.

The series was charming, especially from the third episode on. The one disappointment was that they left the story extremely open ended. However, it appears they are preparing for a second season. I highly recommend the series and hope that the sequel is equally engaging.

Update 02/02/11: I re-watched the series with Cerinthus while I was at my Alma Mater, and he really enjoyed it as well.