Bread Time. This is How You Do It.

I made a bunch of bread for the family Thanksgiving feast. Sweet potato, cheddar/mustard, mushroom, beer, carrot, and Irish soda. Nine loaves of six different kinds - doubled up on sweet potato, beer, and Irish soda breads.

Overall they turned out quite well. I put extra cheese in the cheddar bread, which ended up overpowering the subtle flavors normally given by the whole grain mustard and the cayenne pepper. So that was a mistake, though not the worst possible. I will now tell you how to make the Irish soda bread. It caught my eye because, one - it's leavened by baking soda, so there was no double or triple two-hour rising, and two - you put raisins in it... after soaking them in Jameson whiskey.

So here's how you make Irish soda bread.
Step one: Jameson

Step two: Jameson.

Step 3: make the bread.

Step 4: what step four? (that is to say: Jameson)

This bread is really halfway between a bread and a scone, mostly having less sugar and butter than a scone. I was happy with how it turned out. Soaking the raisins in Jameson not only gives them a fuller flavor, but also re-hydrates them to a degree and keeps the surface raisins from burning in the oven.

Here's the pile-o'-bread, courtesy of The Bread Bible, a fantastic recipe book that makes me much better at baking bread than I in fact am.

(beer bread and soda bread wrapped in polystyrene, other breads in tin foil)

Note on Step 3: one possible improvement is to get someone to do it for you.

SOOUUUUUP!!!!

Share tonight's soup experience? Why of course.

It was inspired by sukiyaki and shabu shabu style foods I ate in Busan a few weeks back - not in the presentation mode so much as general thought - cook up a broth for a while, then add some nice fresh ingredients just a few minutes before eating. Actually cooking it on the table seemed a little overkill. Apart from a vegetable stock I spent an arduous half a day making once, this is certainly the tastiest soup base I've ever done - great basic flavor from the mushroom/onion saute, but a lot of depth is added by the deglazing mixture. But really I haven't made many soups, so there wasn't much competition.

This should make 3-4 modest servings.

the base
Saute half a chopped onion in a little olive oil (1 or 2 T is plenty). Get it well on its way to being caramelized. In fact, if you're not as hungry as I was, go ahead and caramelize it. A little before the onion's done, add a handful or two of thickly sliced mushrooms (any kind but white mushrooms), and throw in a couple teaspoons of salt for good measure.

the rest
Let it continue cooking. Stir frequently but not continuously, and when it's ready (you'll really smell the mushrooms nicely), deglaze with a couple liberal tablespoons of some vinegar. I used garlic-flavored wine vinegar. Balsamic and other wine vinegars - including rice - would work, too. Throw in a couple teaspoons soy sauce and a couple t. fish sauce if you're up to it. Let this simmer for a few more minutes over medium heat, then turn the heat up to high and add 2-ish quarts of water and a bay leaf. I also added a splash of a mushroom broth base gel concentrate thing I found at some grocery store and a few ounces of leftover ground beef (already cooked. with taco seasoning...).

Bring the water to a light boil and throw in a package of uncooked lo mein noodles. When it starts boiling again turn the heat back to medium/medium-high. After the noodles have cooked, throw in some sliced veggies'n'stuff. I put in bok choy, green onions, and fresh cilantro. Let it simmer on medium heat for a couple minutes and you're good to go.

the verdict
lo mein noodles are much easier to eat with chopsticks than udon noodles. also, remember to take the bay leaf out before you spoon yourself a bowl.

The Great Blizzard of 2011

Now won't that be an awkward title if a bigger one hits yet this year? I'll take the chance... really living on the edge, you could say.

It's a pretty cool thing when it snows enough to practically shut down a city. Not everything is closed, obviously, but a lot is. I like to pretend that everything except snow removal has shut down: 2.9 million people, 10 million if you count the greater metropolitan area, united by 24 hours of pounding snow, thundering winds, and thundering, well, thunder.  It would be a good day to have cross-country skis. And to know how to cross-country ski.

People are out in the street digging their cars out of drifts that cover their hood, and in some cases everything else. The lucky ones have shovels. Cameron will be using a bucket to dig his car out if he's going to get to work tomorrow. A "bail out" of a different sort, perhaps.

So for today everything has slowed to a walking pace, almost literally. The major streets are more or less drivable, but side streets - plowed or not - are dominated by pedestrians on their way to and from the lake shore. Anyhow, I joined their ranks, camera in hand, and came back with over a hundred pictures (well, 101). These are just a few of them.

A New Year. So many one's!!!1!11!!

1.11.11. Good grief just wait until November! Why not make a new post? It's 2011, Chicago has been home for just over a year, got a few more miles on the bike, watched some more Netflix, done a little more ceramics, and of course the laundry is in terrible need of being done.

And that sums up the past six months. Hm. That was supposed to be a joke, but thinking about it, it's pretty true. Yeah, I jumped out of a plane in September, traveled to Syracuse back in October, shot a couple more deer in Indiana in November, and went to Madison for Christmas. But overall not a whole lot has changed. Thinking about it, I guess I might say that change isn't as natural when you have a routine that lasts for more than two or three months - you really have to be proactive about introducing anything new in your life. It's kinda fun.

Bedtime. Peace.

Settled in?

It is July. July 21st, to be specific. One year ago this past Sunday was Nate's and my last day cycling in California. That was a weird thing to realize (and yes, I only know the actual date because of the journal I wrote in last summer). One year ago today, Nate got on his plane and flew back east. One year ago tomorrow, I got on the morning train from San Diego to LA, and then got on the train in LA for the 35 hr trek to San Antonio. I found out on that stretch that a couple pounds of grapes and a big bag of chips really is not sufficient food for that long of a trip. When they're the only thing you're eating, chips and grapes both get old. Fast.

And now here I am - past the six month mark at my job in Chicago working with monkeys and all that. This is the longest I've worked full time in one stretch. So far my only days off have been a few three day weekends that, apart from the holiday weekends, involved working four 10-hour days to make up for the missed day (can't complain about the flexibility to do that, though, can I?). And I'm really not getting tired of it. Occasionally I'll get struck by bouts of wanderlust, not helped by reading my friend Neil Friesen's blog, in which he details the six month, 10,000 mile bike tour he is in the midst of to raise awareness for MDS (the Mennonite Disaster Service, though if you're reading this you probably already knew that). His plan is to touch all of the lower 48 during this stretch following working several years as a resident director at Hesston College in Kansas.

Overall, though I certainly plan to complete further such adventures, I'm content to be in Chicago for a while now. I'm not sure what that contentedness means, but I'm not complaining. Maybe it's just the satisfaction of earning money and being in a state of independent financial stability.

There's not a whole lot new going on. My cousin/roommate Cameron (and, by consequence, me as well) just adopted an adult cat last weekend. Her (new) name is Bella, and she seems to be adjusting to her new home pretty well. We both would've preferred a dog, but the apartment doesn't allow it. The apartment was a good choice, though occasionally things fall apart and we have to go through a bit of a song-and-dance routine to get maintenance to not just come in and say, "oh, it looks fine," but actually fix it. But overall it was a good move.

Here are a couple pictures. Make your eyes useful and appreciate this stuff.

First calzone attempt (last night). Tasty as hell.

Kitty! She's still shy.

First attempt at tofu (stir-fry w/leeks, garlic, spices, and a little chicken). Basically, yeah, I rock.

Sunset from the windows by the elevator bank on our floor after a storm passed through.

The first big storm that came through after we moved in (looking SSE toward more Southside Chicago/some of the lake).

And the winner is...

Isn't it funny how time flies? It seems like just a couple hours ago I was leaving work, and already it's after 11pm! I suppose I have accomplished a fair amount in that time - biked from work home, bought groceries, ate some oreos from said groceries, cooked supper, ate less than I would've if I hadn't eaten said oreos, and discussed both hokey psychosomatic theories (applied kinesiology) and sociological theories that have been heavily applied to Judeo-Christian theology (thank you René Girard) with my cousin-roommate. Wow! What a night! And now I sit here at our kitchen table looking down at the cars cruising Lakeshore Drive. There are still quite a few out there, thought not as many as during rush hour, when I get to bike faster than they drive. There's a certain (rather smug) satisfaction in passing vehicles -on bicycle- that cost more than I'll probably spend on my next three cars combined.

Well, it's been over three weeks since Cameron and I moved into our new apartment; we finally got internet in here over the weekend after six (yes, count them: SIX) AT&T technicians came out to do varying levels of not-really-being-able-to-help and too much time on hold on the AT&T help line. But we have it now. And furniture. And a TV to watch movies on (haven't hooked up to an antenna yet). And a bathtub that drains. And most of our pots-n-pans off the counters. And, AND (this is a good one), and someone finally moved in to sublet my old apartment until my lease is up in September. On Sunday I gave him my key and he gave me a check for the rest of May. It feels good to have that out of the way.

But anyways, it's time for bed. My contacts are dry and my eyes are sleepy and, thanks to two 25 mile rides over the weekend, I'm already getting the cyclist's tan-lines (socks and gloves included). Yeah, nothing really interesting to add to this one. Except maybe that 'Where the Wild Things Are' is an awesome movie.

Tan lines? Yes, please.

And here we are, two months later. Spring has been eager to get a few words in now that winter seems to have run its course. The past week has mostly been absolutely beautiful. Beautiful enough that I have once again mounted that trusty steel steed, urged my buttocks not to clench too hard at the memory of those long days last summer, and pedaled my way to and from work several times, and sometimes simply for fun. Today was the longest by far in one go, probably doing better than 25 miles along the lakefront.

As I type this, my legs are reminding me that while the memory of the seat is all too fresh in that asinine physical memory, the details are a bit more fuzzy when it comes to extended bouts of pedaling. This of course is in conjunction with the occasional protests from my fingers and forearms, proclaiming that they, too, have been abused beyond their function. "Why?" they ask, "What would drive you to knowingly support your entire body weight by grasping small protrusions on a rather abrasive wall? We thought you'd come to your senses when you stopped that foolishness nearly a year ago!" Alas, the lure of climbing was too strong. Alas, I pay.

In other news, I just spend Friday and Saturday in Madison, WI staying with Andrea and Brandon and seeing Mitch, Amber, AND Nate! Thus the climbing. It's been very nice having Goshen friends around here in Chicago to hang out with, but it was still great to hang out with them again. I'm afraid there are no pictures of the weekend, but it mostly would've involved sitting on couches (apart from when they toured the vet school while I stretched out on the bathroom floor occasionally sitting up to regurgitate whatever my stomach could find in itself along with a few swear words; but then I took a nap and got all better before they came back). It was also nice to get out of the city for the first time since I came here three whole months ago. City life isn't bad - I'm not suffocating or anything, but it was a good change of scenery.

Work continues to get more and more interesting as I delve further into the world of being a lab rat. Sometimes it consists of staring at a computer program until it finally gives up and shares its secrets with me, but sometimes it just means giving the monkey some peanuts. And maybe craisins, too.