Blog Archives
Choose Your Own Adventure – My Gateway Drug
I just read an article on Slate about the beloved Choose Your Own Adventure series of books, and it made me think about those days of school book fairs and curling up in my room with the latest one, Forbidden Castle or Deadwood City. I was probably 8 when I got my first one, and it was like the first hit of heroin for me. I suddenly had the power to choose where a narrative went – my decisions suddenly mattered. What was going to happen to me? It was intoxicating. Read the rest of this entry
Tracing My Bongo Burgers: A Day on the Farm, Part 6
This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry finishes up the visit.
With our cheese in its molds, it was time to turn our minds to lunch. We were having pizza, cooked in Bobolink’s brick-oven (which you can monitor the temperature of and watch a webcam of from their website – which is pretty cool, and reminds me of a friend that used to have one installed in his Coke machine). In the episode of No Reservations that visited the farm, Jonathan and Nina made an amazing-looking pizza with veal and other toppings. He tells that ever since, people have come in asking for pizza. They don’t make them to sell; the cost would have to be too high, he tells us. The only way to get one is to bring a camera crew, he jokes – but luckily for us, if you take the cheese-making class, you get one as well. Read the rest of this entry
Tracing My Bongo Burgers: A Day on the Farm, Part 5
This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry finishes up the cheese-making process.
As the milk starts curdling, Jonathan draws on his engineering background and draws the exponential growth rate over time on a makeshift graph, illustrating the point of the curve that we are going to add our final ingredient, which will stop the milk from turning into yogurt and instead make it draw together to form cheese. It’s a special enzyme, we learn, one that comes from the stomachs of calves (and all mammals): rennet. This enzyme will cause the proteins to coagulate and separate into curds and whey.
It’s all well and good to draw graphs and whatnot, but there is no way to know exactly when the right time to add the rennet really is, according to a clock. Instead, we have to once again rely on our senses. We smell the milk, looking for sour notes, and taste it, looking for the same thing. After twenty or so minutes, we can all smell it, and the flavor is different, acidic, and we’re ready. In goes the rennet. Read the rest of this entry
Tracing My Bongo Burgers: A Day on the Farm, Part 4
This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry chronicles the finer points of milk and cheese.
While Lady Aravan is gleefully milking cows and scratching cow heads and hearing stories, I begin my education in cheesecrafting. I have my little cheesemaking hat on (see yesterday’s picture) and don an apron. There’s all kinds of stuff all over this little room, but the important things are a table in the center, and a rack next to it. On the rack are several round smaller cheese wheels, a handful of cheese pyramids, and a larger wheel. Later on we’ll learn the names (the small wheels are Amram, the pyramids are something I can’t remember, and the larger wheel is Baudolino), but for now we learn that those cheeses were made two days ago, and they are headed to The Cave. Lulu takes them away while Jonathan promises we’ll see them later. Read the rest of this entry
Tracing My Bongo Burgers: A Day on the Farm, Part 3
This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry chronicles the early part of the day.
This is the part where I go backwards a little bit before going forward, because I like to ramble, and because there was some stuff I forgot to say. First, I want to answer the question: Why Bobolink?
When Lady Aravan and I were on our journey to better health, we by chance started watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. It’s not a cooking show, but it is a show about food and travel, and we liked Tony’s acerbic sense of humor and presentation. One show he did was set in New Jersey, and in that show he traveled to a small cheese-and-bread-making farm called Bobolink. There he met a raw-milk enthusiast, baked bread, and had what sounded like the world’s best pizza. Read the rest of this entry
Tracing My Bongo Burgers: A Day on the Farm Part 1
This series of posts describes my recent trip to Bobolink Dairy Farm. I decided to break it into chunks because I apparently have a lot to say about it. Today’s entry is sort of an introduction and background.
For Valentine’s Day this year, Lady Aravan got me the coolest present ever: a trip to a farm to take a cheesemaking class.
Now, to a lot of people, that might sound like hell on earth, or at least dull and pointless. I mean, Wal-Mart has all the cheese you’ll ever need, right? Perfectly yellow, helpfully shrink-wrapped, every single one of each variety tasting exactly the same as all the others. Such perfect uniformity is yummy! Read the rest of this entry
Xmas
After hearing multiple admonishments to help “put Christ back into Christmas”, I’ve decided that I would do my part. From now on, I will be referring to the holiday that I celebrate every December as Xmas. It has nothing to do with mangers or nativities or loose women claiming they got knocked up even though they were virgins, I swear, Joseph, really. It has to do with the pure essence of the season, the thing that puts a warm glow in the heart and the bright glimmer of joy in the eye.
I am, of course, talking about toys.
OK, So I Enjoyed That Game A Little Bit
After posting my Vick thoughts, spurred by the clamoring calls for Vick to be awarded the MVP trophy after 2 weeks of decent football amid a wash of adoring talk about how he’s overcome adversity – adversity caused by his enjoyment of torturing and killing dogs, but mostly just for betting on them – I really wanted the Redskins to beat the Eagles. I mean, I hungered for it, craved it, but it took some time for me to believe they could do it. Read the rest of this entry
Why Am I Doing This to Myself?
I think most people ask themselves that while they are exercising at some point. For me, it’s usually when it’s 4:30 am and I am tying my shoes, getting ready to do an hour or so of cardio before work, or when I realize that I need to do 53 consecutive pushups to finish my pushup workout. Those moments are the hardest, when it is so easy to just walk away, or lie back down, and say: Tomorrow. I can do it tomorrow. Read the rest of this entry
Where I’ve Been
Like Jim Anchower, it’s been a while since I rapped at ya. There are various reasons for this, not least being the attempt to pull off a NaNoWriMo in July. Several friends joined me, which was cool, although attrition is beginning to take its toll. I’m working on the sequel to The Curse of Troius right now, and I’m over 23k words into it. I’m having fun and liking it, and 50k written (or more) in July will go a long way towards getting me to finish. It’s tentatively entitled The Siege of Anticus, although I’ve been toying with Northreach Besieged lately. We’ll see. I hate trying to make titles for things.
Winter in Derenemyn 