Doom Doom Doom

Tsunami Doom.


We'll be fine. Japan and Hawaii on the other hand...

Update: looks like my friends in Hawaii and Japan are just fine.

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Taiko Drumming

I was watching my sake fermenting happily away and I got to thinking about the odori, or "dancing ferment" of the yeast. That made me think about Taiko drumming, so I brought some up on youtube and it brightened up my morning. So I present one of Seattle's Taiko groups playing a couple years back at the Seafair's Bon Odori Festival at the Seattle Buddhist Temple.



The Sakura Festival is coming up in April, looking forward to making it out for some live Taiko. And my sake should be done by then!

Here's another one from that festival a couple years back.

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Thoughts on the Upcoming WA Bar Exam

The first day of the Winter Washington State Bar Exam began today, and my best wishes go out to the poor dumb bastards everyone taking it, especially a friend of mine from UM. Good luck! You'll do fine.

I thought I should come up with some encouragement, so I present this:

The Story of Wajahat Ali, a terrified young attorney who saved his very first clients from foreclosure at the hands of Wells Fargo. His writing captures exactly what it's like to be a new attorney.

My favorite part:

Despite being equipped with some—some—knowledge, I shared the quintessential trait of all young attorneys: unrelenting, paralyzing fear. It overwhelms everything we do and contaminates the first two to three years of our law jobs. The thought process goes something like this: "I know nothing. How the hell did I get this degree? How the hell did I pass the bar? Law school didn't teach me anything. Do my employers know I'm incompetent? How long can I fake this before they figure it out? Are my peers like this? How come everyone else knows what they're doing? What if I never learn? What happens if I get fired or fail? Will I get disbarred? I bet I'll get disbarred! Damn, I'm getting disbarred! Please, God, don't let me get disbarred."

I had all these thoughts as the Lipkin family sat on my friend's office couch and told me that they were about to lose their home. These people trusted me more than I trusted myself. God help us both.

It's a great read, and also a timely view into the current state of the legal job market and the workings of the housing crisis.

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Nettle, Goat Cheese, and Wild Mushroom Ravioli

Here's the first thing I've done with nettles this year. They have a taste and texture that can be similar to spinach, so this seemed a natural choice.

Made up a batch of pasta dough. There's a bunch of recipes on the 'net, but pasta is basically just water, flour and eggs.

Still managed to screwed it up, of course. Not enough liquid. It was like kneading a brick. Also, thanks to a bike accident some years back I'm now partly bionic. It hasn't really hampered me but and kneading is about the only thing my shattered wrist really, really doesn't like to do. Well, that and pushups. But my wrist and I are in agreement on that one. So I tend not do much baking or anything that requires lots of kneading. But between the limit of my kneading abilities, my stand mixer, and my wife's capable hands we managed salvage some decent semolina pasta dough out of it. Stuck the ball of dough in the fridge to rest and worked on the filling.

The Filling

Into a Cuisinart went:

• A cup of Ricotta from Seabreeze Farm
• Two marinated crotins of my homemade Mushroom Marinated Goat Cheese (about 5 oz.)
• A couple tablespoons of the marinated wild mushrooms from the jar
• A cup of nettles, blanched first to remove sting, shocked and drained
  
• Salt and Pepper
• A dash of balsalmic

Blitzed to a nice texture, tasted and adjusted seasonings until it seemed ok.

Right. So I have to admit that I hate making raviolis and every time I do it I tell myself that I won't ever do it again. But eventually I fall off the wagon and find myself making another round of oddly shaped, floppy, leaky, and generally messy ravioli. This time would be different! But unlike all the other times, this one actually was.

This was due to three major differences. First, semolina flour in the dough made it a bit more stretchy and forgiving. Second, I managed to somehow inherit a ravioli crimper from my mother. Third, I used a pastry bag to fill the raviolis.

So I divided up the dough into four balls and got to rolling.

For the first set I had a brilliant idea. I would press parsley leaves into the dough before the last run through the pasta maker, creating a decorative leaf pattern in my pasta.

It looked great. I was excited.


Back to the drawing board. Total failure. The #6 setting just shredded the leaves up, though it did press them into the dough. So it wasn't a total loss.

Thus only 1/4 of the ravioli's had the Mark of the Beast on them, the rest were just normal pasta dough.



Once the pasta had been rolled out onto a floured work surface, I folded the long sheets of pasta over on themselves lengthwise, then trimmed off the ends to square things up.

Then it was just a matter of piping a tablespoon or so of filling in two rows down half the sheet of pasta.




Using a brush I put a little water around all the edges and between the fillings, then carefully laid the other half of the sheet over the top.

The next step is fairly important. You gently press down around the raviolis and try to press out as mush air from the pockets as possible, or it may expand and pop the ravioli during cooking.

Then run the ravioli crimper around and cut out the individual raviolis. There you go, 1/4 done! Transfer them to a floured cookie sheet in one layer and either freeze them or get ready to cook them. I froze about half and cooked half.

The Sauce

I had some wild mushrooms around, Hedgehogs and Black Trumpets, and they needed to be used ASAP. So I made a Brown Butter sauce similar to this one.

Sweated a large chopped shallot for a couple minutes, added the mushrooms until they started to give off liquid, then deglazed with 1/2 cup of white wine. Once the wine was cooked down I added a stick of butter and cooked till it browned. Finished with a bit too much lemon juice. Still good though.

To cook the ravioli, bring a gallon or more of salted water to boiling, then back just off the boil. Add the raviolis and cook until they float, about 1-2 minutes.


All in all I was pretty happy with this. Wish I had some better photos, the lighting in my kitchen is really quite terrible. I think if I had anything to change I might add a dash or two of red pepper flakes into the filling. Otherwise, it made enough ravioli for probably 8 servings and I've got some in the freezer for later. Pretty good use for an obnoxious weed!

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Kvass

So I was shopping for ingredients for the Soup Dumplings in my local Pan-Asian/Mexican/Russian market and I came across something that seriously tempted me. A week or two later I was back looking for sake koji and finally gave in.

Kvass. Russian Kvass. For like a $1.50 a liter. Look! It's got a fat and happy little monk. And yet it's only 73 calories a serving.

Kvass is a malt beverage, like Malta, for example. It's basically a form of un-or-lightly fermented beer. To be clear, I hate Malta, and similar brands like Vitamalz. Seriously, sorry, it's terrible. Just too darn sweet for my tastes. But Kvass... I couldn't resist a try. And it was only a $1!

How was it? Like Lemon Iced Tea and Tootsie Rolls. Actually, reasonably good. The sweetness was cut with a tart lemon thing that is lacking in other malt beverages. Not too shabby, but I'm not sure I want gallons of it.

Check out the wiki, Kvass has a weird and interesting anti-cola war going on in the former Eastern Bloc right now.

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Brewday: 'Oz Is Not A Proper Irishman' Irish Red

The lovely weather continues and as they say, "Make beer while the sun shines!"

St. Patrick's Day is a month away and while I have a good half-keg left of the Buckwheat Honey Stout I felt that I needed to get something else ready for the other tap. Why not an Irish Red?

The second most popular traditional Irish beer, Reds are an exercise in balance. Not too strong, not too malty, not too hoppy, fruity but not too fruity, toasty but not too toasty. A nice red session beer. And they are easy. Here's my take on it, based on the one from Brewing Classic Styles.

Irish Red

5.5 Gallons, All Grain, 90 min boil.
Est OG: 1.054
Act OG: 1.056
Est FG: 1.014
Act FG: 1.012-14
Est ABV: 5.25%
Act ABV: 5.5%-5.75%
SRM: 17
IBU: 22

• 10 lbs 2-Row Pale
• 6 oz. Crystal 40
• 6 oz. Crystal 120
• 6 oz. Roasted Barley

Mash in at 153. Water treatment for 3.5 gallons mash liquor: 7 gm chalk, 2 gm gypsum, 2 gm Calcium Carbonate, 1 gm Epsom Salts, 1 gm Baking Soda, 1 gm salt.

• 1.5 oz. leaf domestic Hallertau @ 4.7% AA @ 80 minutes.
• whirlfloc tab at 15 minutes.

Yeast was Wyeast Irish Ale yeast in a 1L starter. Will ferment at house temp, 65 degrees.

Brewday was largely uneventful. Had my first boilover in a long, long time. Less computer, more attention! Minor mess. Gravity was a bit high, I think I may have boiled a bit too much. Oh well. Used Hallertau because I had some around for my upcoming Pilsner. Had planned on Nugget, could use EKGs. Doesn't really matter, just use 22 IBUs of a clean bittering hop. Decided to name it after an episode of Oz and James Drink To Britain, where James May refuses to believe Oz is part Irish. It was either that paraphrasing, or "You're about as Irish as my arse, and that came from Seattle". Guess this makes it the second beer I've named after James May. That's not creepy or anything.

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Nettles

It’s been an unusual Winter here in Seattle. In fact, it’s turned out to be the nicest Winter I can remember. El Niño has kept temperatures high, and lessened the otherwise constant rain. In fact, this last January was the warmest ever recorded in Seattle. As I sit here it is sunny and 60 degrees out. In February! Outrageous!

Also: "More please!"

Spring is here.

As a result, things are coming up early. A walk around the neighborhood shows bulbs sprouting in every yard. The Cherry trees are blooming all around. Mushrooms are beginning to pop up too. Last weekend I spotted some Fairy Rings, as well as other assorted small brown mushrooms. There was even on large white one growing down the road. Not sure what it was, it looked like a Field or Horse mushroom, an Agaricus of some kind, but it had a viscid top. Beats me. Yesterday I spotted some small Oyster mushrooms in a lady's yard, and told her about them, but she just complained about having to weed again. Some people.

With the warm weather another perennial pain in the ass is also sprouting: Stinging Nettles (Urtica dioica). But this year I resolved to put the hurt on them for a change. I am going to eat them.

For all their stinging obnoxiousness, nettles are actually one of the most nutritious plants you can eat. Loaded with iron, vitamins, and other medicinal goodies they’ve been recognized as a folk cure for ages. You can make tea, beer, pasta, soup, pretty much anything with them. So I packed some scissors, a glove, and a plastic bag and set out to a local park to see if they were sprouting yet.

They were.

The trick is to pick them when they are no more than 8” or so tall. At that stage, you can go ahead and eat the whole thing. Later on in the season, the stalks get woody and unpleasant, forcing you to either harvest just the tips, or pick just the leaves.

There is a way to pick them using just your fingers and a quick, firm grasp. No thank you. I opted for scissors and a yard glove. In no time I'd picked a grocery bag full and set off home.

From this point you you have to remove the sting, caused by tiny silica needles that inject you with a cocktail of itchy, obnoxious chemicals. You can either lay them out on a rack to dry for several days, which will remove the sting and which I might try later this week. Or you can blanch them for 20-30 seconds in boiling water, then plunge them into some icewater to shock them and set the vibrant green color. Which is what I did with this batch.

As the season unfolds I'll post a couple things that I'm going to try with them. It is so nice I out right now I'm thinking I may go pick some more this afternoon, soon as this brewday is finished.

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