Recirculating Cheese

Sometimes you're a role model; sometimes you're an object lesson. The mandolin is a sharp instrument.

I've been feeling super-broke for a while (credit card debt far exceeds cash in the bank, and continues to grow at an alarming rate). So I decided to make xmas presents where possible - coffee and nuts for everyone. Of course, the downside to the money-vs-effort tradeoff is that I have to put in the effort.

The nuts (roasted, then glazed and spiced) are bit pricy for the raw ingredients, but are relatively quick and easy to make.

The coffee is stock that I already had (from a big order last summer), but somewhat time-consuming to make. My roaster is optimized for 1/3 pound batches (I tried roasting a 1/2 pound to save time, but it didn't circulate well, so the beans near the heat burned, and the beans further away were under-roasted). Furthermore, each batch loses about 1 oz of water weight in the process, so I end up with 4.3 oz. I want to give everyone a pound+ of roasted coffee, so that's 4 batches per person.

The roaster creates too much smoke to use indoors, so I'm sitting in the unheated garage, with the door open. It's a hot-air roaster, and the cold source air slows things down considerably, so it's taking about 20 minutes per batch, to set up and roast. I did 8 batches last Monday, for 2 mailed presents. I'm doing 12 batches tonight, for the family I'm visiting tomorrow. Plus we need some for our own consumption. I'm currently on #9.

At least it's not too cold, and I have a bottle of Trois Pistoles. And every time I go up to the kitchen, I'm greeted with the smell of duck stock simmering.

Dad had an uneventful night (my brother the ER nurse says we don't say "quiet" night, because that's a jinx), and they dialed back some of the meds a little bit. But he's extremely sensitive to the vasopressor levels, and they can't move very fast on them. Only two units of blood today (at least, while I was there), vs four yesterday. Dr says baby steps, and we're SO not out of the woods yet.

Left the hospital around noon to try to beat rush hour traffic, but of course we needed to get lunch. A small silver lining: Local has seriously good burgers. OTOH, the fried pickles were way too salty, and far too many of them. OTOOH, the hand-cut fries rocked, but we should have gotten a small order for the table instead of a large.

This (leaving early, not burgers) meant we missed the arrival of #3 son from Wisconsin. He's an analytical chemist with the state Dept of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs (ie. a cheese tester for the Dept of Cheese), so not going to add any medical clues to the stack. But Mom is glad to have him there.

Picked up the dog, took about a 3 mile walk in the woods with her and Kylie, to clear the head or something.

Dinner of grilled bangus, which seems to be the Filipino national fish. I got this frozen "institutional" package from HMart, and defrosted the whole thing, not realising it was 3 trout-size fish stacked together, rather than one big fish. Can't re-freeze, but fortunately they all fit on the grill (just barely). Survey says "yum"; I haven't had a bad recipe yet from that site.

Back to reality, nurse brother reports that today's lab tests show elevated liver levels, which could be a side effect of everything else that's going, or could indicate they're starting to shut down. We don't know. There's just so much we don't know, and so many ways this could go wrong.

Tonight I went to an aikido class at our spinoff dojo, led by Robert Choy, head instructor of the San Francisco dojo.

It wasn't a regular class night for them, so the class consisted of 4 black belts (Dave, Jay, and myself, from MIT; plus Heather, the head instructor of Kokikai Boston), and 4 orange belts (6th/5th kyu - just up from white belt). Incidentally, 3 of the 4 orange belts were a family - father, daughter, and nephew. Unfortunately, MIT Club Sports Council seems to be composed purely to thwart such family/community involvement. This is one reason Kokikai Boston exists, because its founders couldn't deal with the MIT shit anymore.

Okay, unexpected rant aside, it was a good class, and I'm sorry lyonesse missed it.

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In other news, our 13 year old loves eggplant - at least this preparation.

From Sundays at the Moosewood Restaurant (which, ironically, is the only non-pure vegetarian Moosewood cookbook - they include fish recipes). Also, the recipe title is Eggplant "Coucharas" - the quotes are part of the name, implying that it's a veggie version of a traditional meat dish, but Teh Google is failing me. Whatever, it's good.

Eggplant Coucharas

2 medium eggplants with smooth skins
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 eggs, beaten
2½ cups grated cheddar cheese
½ cup grated romano cheese
¼ cup matzo meal or bread crumbs
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
freshly grated nutmeg (optional)

Stem the eggplants, and cut in half lengthwise. Cut each half crosswise into four pieces. Simmer eggplant chunks in water to cover for 15 minutes, or until pulp is tender. Drain and set aside to cool enough to handle. Use a spoon to separate pulp from skins, taking care not to tear the skins.

In a bowl, mash the eggplant pulp with garlic, and mix in remaining ingredients, except for ½ cup of the cheddar cheese and the nutmeg, and combine thoroughly. Add more matzo meal if the mixture seems too thin.

Place a skin, shiny side down, in the palm of your hand. Mound it with the eggplant mixture, and place on a well-oiled baking sheet. Continue until all the mixture is used (may not use all the skins). Sprinkle with reserved cheese and optional nutmeg. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Today I rode Stjarni, aka Golden Lord Fuzzy, aka Ponykins. lyonesse ran away to join see the circus, and my horse just had his teeth floated, like this morning, so she suggested I ride him. Pushed me on him, really.

He shed approximately enough to knit both of the new barn kittens (who haven't arrived yet). And it's not even shedding season yet. Shylo (may he rest in peace) used to be a champion shedder, but Golden Lord Fuzzy looks to be a contender.

We spent a while walking around the ring, breaking the ice. It was abundantly clear that no one had been riding in the previous 48 hours (since the snow began).

I don't get the trot/tolt thing. I asked for each one exactly as Lyo instructed, and he moved, but I'm still not sure a) if I got the right gait, and b) how to tell the difference. But we had fun playing in the snow.

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Yesterday morning, while we were shoveling the driveway (by hand, because the snowblower clogs up instantly with that heavy wet crap), Kylie took it upon herself to make muffins. We came in to find her portioning the batter into the muffin tin, and trying to figure out the oven controls. And this is a recipe that involves creaming the butter and sugar together, then alternately mixing in the dry and wet ingredients, in about six separate additions. I can't tell you how proud I am of her.

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Friday I received my hakama in the mail. Now I have to figure out exactly how to put it on, move in it without tripping, and fold it in the approved kokikai way. Woot!

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Thursday I took Kylie and her friend Izzy climbing at the rock gym, and signed K up for Youth Clinic, starting next week. Then took the kids home, fed them quickly, and rushed them back to school for Bring A Parent To School Night. Really, that's what it's called. It's a chance to see what the kids are working on, how it gets logged, get a chance to talk to the teachers, etc. A chance conversation with a teacher about some nautical maps led to my saying that the only US map we have at home is a water resource regions map, with no roads and very few cities; now they want to borrow it for an upcoming unit on rivers and oceans.

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Wednesday lyonesse and wereterrier went Beach Riding. I had work that I couldn't really put off, and I've been once already this season (December maybe). But glad they got to go.

I went to aikido, and received my black belt. Now I can unequivocally say that I have a Black Belt in Aikido, because now I have this belt, and it's black...

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Tuesday, I don't remember, stuff happened.

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Monday, I'm the world's newest black belt, and I don't even have the belt or the hakama, and I'm asked to lead class, because our regular Monday instructor has family obligations of some sort. So there are 5 "students" there, 3 of whom rank me - our 4th dan senior instructor, a 2nd dan, and someone who got 1st dan two years ago. I taught a number of techniques we practiced at camp, or techniques I'd used in testing at camp. The one time I invited commentary from our senior instructor, he showed how Sensei was doing it these days, and all I could think of to say was "Well, now we have a number of options; please practice in pairs."

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Sunday afternoon, iabervon and I tested for black belt at aikido Winter Camp. All brown and black belt testing is done at camp, under the personal supervision of Shuji Maruyama Sensei, but history has shown that he likes to do most of the black belt testing on Sunday. There was some shodan testing on Saturday, but it was some of the most uniformly flaccid testing I've seen in a while; I mean, not one of the six in that group was equal to the brown belt tests that preceded them.

iabervon posted extensively about testing here. For me, it's not exactly that it was a big blur - I was very focused at the moment, but all the mental rehearsal, all the techniques I'd planned to do but hadn't practiced endlessly, went out the window. The technique part of testing is attack after attack, and you're expected to do a different technique for each attack, cleanly and calmly. I did a lot of sankyo and kotegaeshi, which is funny because I remember my last two tests being mostly about the ikkyo.

I didn't do many unusual or flashy techniques, but the one that came off cleanly was the ushiro katatori (shoulder grab from behind) that we call the "airplane technique" - lead forward in a large circle, duck back with your head and arm between your uke's arms, take the slack out, and throw him sayo-undo. Okay, that didn't make any sense, but it's fun to do.

The other one that didn't come off so well was intended to be a tsuki leg-lift. Having run up to uke on other people's tests, I can say that uke will generally follow whatever technique you're doing without undue resistance, but you have to be clear in your technique - you have to put them where you want them to be. And I was over-excited and under-precise. My bad, that one didn't work, no time to think about it, move on to the next one.

For knife techniques, the only notable thing I did was for ushiro kubishime (choke from behind, this time with the knife at your throat). The usual technique for this would give the attacker too much opportunity to slit your throat, so I opted for the sankyo variation, which in this case involves driving the knife right back into the attacker's stomach.

Freestyle against 5 attackers went about as well as could be expected, considering that we never practice this in the dojo. It's all about throwing, avoiding, lining up the attackers, and doing this one peculiar big throw when you get 3 or more hanging onto you. It's not very Jackie Chan at all. Sensei says it tests your heart.

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Usually we go to camp in a group, at least 3 of lyonesse, iabervon, loravarnion, and me. This time it was just the two of us (and we probably wouldn't have gone either if we weren't testing). We took my car, which meant I did all the driving (about 300 miles each way, plus to-ing and fro-ing down there), because iabervon doesn't drive stick.

Neither of us are big talkers, so most of the trip was filled with radio or mp3. The whole NYC metro area, about two hours from about Newark to New Haven, was taken up with a single Indian rag - something I might find insanely monotonous under other circumstances (say during the drive down, when we hit the same area during Friday rush hour), but which I found meditative and soothing at 9pm on a Sunday.

We had our big celebratory sushi dinner (followed by homemade ice cream next door) the night before testing. The celebratory meal after testing was at the Montvale rest stop on the Garden State Parkway - mmm, Burger King.

After enlightenment, the laundry. Two gi are all that will fit in my washer, so I picked the least smelly one for teaching class the next day.

That's not much of a wrap-up, but it's late.

We stopped at an orchard on the way back from the poultry swap. I had to get a bag of plums, and then I had to figure out what to do with them.

Plum and Apple Jam
(somewhat paraphrased from the original recipe, from Art of Preserving by Jan Berry & Rodney Weidland)

• 2 pounds firm plums
  
• 1 pound firm cooking apples, peeled and chopped
  
• 6 cups (3 pounds) sugar

Cut the plums in half, and remove the pits if possible, or leave them in and remove them later. Add about ¼ cup water to prevent scorching, and simmer until the plums are soft, about 10 minutes. (Now you can remove the pits, if you left them in before.) Add the apples, and simmer for another 15 minutes, or until everything has broken down into a thick fruit glop. Stir in the sugar, and boil until the setting point is reached, about 30 minutes. Ladle into sterilized jars and seal.

My notes:

• Get the small, tart kind of plums, not the big, juicy, sweet kind.
  
  
• I couldn't be troubled to peel the apples. Both the plums and the apple skins contain pectin, and the jam ended up rather thick. This could have been managed with closer attention to the boil, but as it was I had some caramelization and a lot of scorching during that phase.
  
  
• The recipe doesn't say to strain the jam, so I guess the plum skins are intended to remain. I like a smoother jam (except when I'm making marmalade), so I ran it through a food mill.
  
  
• In the introductory chapter, they say "It is important to heat the sugar before adding it to the hot fruit and liquid. This is to avoid lowering the temperature already reached. Warm the sugar in a baking dish, about 1 inch (3 cm) deep, in a cool oven at 250°F (120°C) for 10 minutes." Honestly, I think they're on crack.
  
  
• When it says boil, it means "boil like a son of a bitch". This is what activates the pectin. This is also what bubbles and spatters all over the stove, counter, floor, and your tender skin. Definitely cover the pot, and remove it from the burner to stir it.
  
  
• If you've never done this before, you test it by spooning a small amount of jam candidate onto a cold plate. If it looks somewhat the consistency of jam (versus, say, a fruit sauce), it's done. Start testing early, because this batch set faster than I was expecting.
  
  
• This came out amazingly sweet. Or maybe it's not so amazing, given that it's 50% sugar by weight. I mean, yeah, it's jam, but it should taste like fruit too. We'll see what it's like at room temperature.
  

The wife has been researching drinks for...literary purposes. She found someithing called a Stolen Kiss, which is basically a martini (gin martini, you fool), with absinthe instead of vermouth. Gin plus absinthe (plus sugar syrup and egg white, but that's mostly for effect). The first one went perfectly by dead reckoning - so much of this, so much of that. The second one, well, it needed a bit more gin, then it needed a bit more gin... Now, it still needs a bit more gin, but I've already had to pour it off into a bigger glass, so it's going to stay...unbalanced.