ferment change

Ever wanted to know more about urban agriculture?

Do you like fermented food and drink?

Wanna help out the most amazing non-profit ever?

Well, tie it all together and race on down to the Humanist Hall this Friday the 3rd for an experience that will leave your mind full, your taste buds delighted, and your contact list swollen with folks who practice urban agriculture, advocate for food justice, and work with putting backyard gardens into homes in West Oakland. Or hey, if just wanna talk to someone who practices the ancient craft of fermentation, come on down. Oh, and if you bring a fermented food to share, you could win a prize. Last year's event was a hit, and this year's promises to be even bigger, with satellite events throughout April (Check for updates at the blog).


See you there!

(Talk to me at the event, tell me what the hell is going on in the photo above and receive a bread related prize!)

sourdough blonde

(Note: Since we are in the month of Fermentuary, I thought I would keep blabbing on about some fermented drink experiments I've been up to. Now, you may be thinking: what about the bread? Well, read on.)

If I could write the sound of the most diabolical laugh you can imagine, it would go right here: ______

Then I would tell you that I made a beer with my sourdough starter. Yup, beer. Sourdough beer. Mind you, it doesn't taste sour, and there was no flour involved, but the yeast came from the starter. Sourdough can do anything.

A few months back I brewed a 1 and 1/2 gallon batch of beer and put about 1/3 of it into a sterilized glass milk bottle. (The rest of the beer went into the fruity dregs of the wild mead and became something else entirely, but I'll get there another day.) I added a few tablespoons of the clear hooch from the top of my starter. I'd read there should be plenty of yeast in this. I went for the clearest stuff, hoping to minimize adding any flour component and making it too cloudy. I shook everything rather crazily for a few minutes to aerate it, then put an airlock on the bottle and kept it in a warmish place. It bubbled gently for near a month or so, and when I finally saw no more activity, I bottled it, adding a pinch of sugar for carbonation. It was only 4 - 12 ounce bottles when all was done, of a beer that must be somewhere around 5% alcohol. It looked real promising and smelled even better.

The other day, I cracked one open. (Again, please, insert diabolical laugh here.) Oh my lord, this came from sourdough? It made me wonder. Why does this remind me of Anchor Steam? I took another sip. Not nearly as hoppy. In fact, definitely a different kind of hop. But still. I had used a pilsner base malt, in extract form, with no caramelized grains to give it that malty backbone. Basically, my recipe should not give me anything like Anchor. But still.

A few more sips later, it hit me. It was the yeast. In beer, yeast is king. Use a bad one, and it will taste like crap. (Okay, so this is a hugely subjective statement, but you get my drift.) Yeast imparts enormous flavor to a beer, and this one tastes a lot like a Cal Common should. Huh. Then I wondered. Is there a yeasty lineage between bay area sourdough and this local brewing yeast? Well, my beer tells me so. I know, not a huge stretch of the imagination there if you have ever heard about the relationship between breweries and bakeries that have existed for umpteen thousand years. But still. Could Anchor have a unique taste just like bay area sourdoughs do, and for the same reason?

Would you ever have guessed that you could brew a beer with the yeast from a sourdough starter? How about that it might actually taste good? Well, then help me out here. Got any friends with the means to start looking at individual strains of yeast? Let's talk.

Well, after I finish my beer.

wild winter mead

I have a love/hate relationship with persimmons. You see, I want to love them, but they are so easy to hate. They are a fruit that I have purchased maybe twice in my life, but somehow I end up with a box or two of them every year. Not wanting to see them wasted, I've tried some different means of preparation these past couple of years. I started with a korma. Satisfying yes. Duplicated, no. Then came the sorbet. Tasty indeed, but once again, have I made it another time? No. Let's see, how about that winter soup? Nope. Okay, maybe I'll make the souffle again, but I'm not guaranteeing anything. Anyway, my point is, I've tried and tried to use persimmons in new and fun ways, but ultimately have only succeeded in getting them off the counter. I ate them, but haven't really looked forward to doing it again. This winter, that changed.

I'm not going to go into too much detail here, because like all ferments, it involves a bit of hocus pocus, and sometimes a little witchcraft, and describing it in words won't suffice. Lets say, it starts right here though, with gooey, slimey, do I have to really touch that? textured fruit. Notice the whitish stuff on the skin. That's yeast right there. Smelling and possibly tasting each piece of fruit you are using, goop up about eight of these bad boys and stir it into about half a gallon of honey. Add about one gallon of tap water, mix well and cover with cheesecloth. Don't cook anything. Well, maybe the water, but thats it. Stir somewhat frequently (whenever you remember, which for me was about every hour of so) until the cauldron you have it in begins to froth.

In this case, by day three we were rocking. I liked the idea of this being a winter fruit mead, so expanded on the theme and added the juice of a few tangerines and the arils of a few pomegranates, along with some more water into a three gallon carboy. To this I added the stockpot's contents of bubbling brew and put on an airlock valve. A few weeks of magic later, the arils were looking all bleached out, the fruit pulp was nice and separated into distinct horizons on the top and bottom and the liquid looked fairly clear. I siphoned this off into another carboy and put the airlock back on.

After another month more of spontaneous alcohol formation, it was ready to bottle. Clear, big on the fruit, yet nearly totally dry, with a slight tinge of pinky orange and well over 10 percent alcohol, this is some potent stuff, though I'm surprised how smooth it is already. It never fermented at anywhere over 70 degrees during the course of magic involved and this likely helped. Well that, and apparently, persimmons have good yeast on them. Now, finally, I have something to do with these freaky fruit that I'll look forward to duplicating next year.

Really, like, I can't wait! Because the story goes deeper, and involves two beers now, both fermented with the wild yeast that started it all. But, unfortunately, I'll have to get to blabbing about that one later. I've got some wild winter mead to sample.

for the love of purple

My first purple cauliflower!

I was giving the plants a look see to determine my next course of action against recent, rampant aphid infestation. Apparently, during the previous week while all was sunny and warm the aphid wranglers (ants) were busily placing their minions all over the tenderest parts of just about anything I've planted. Despite the odds, staring up at me was this beauty. It seemed to pop up overnight.

Before any of the two legged garden pests could run off with my produce, I hacked it off with thoughts of my own dinner, but was beat to the table by a creature with far less neurons. I suppose we all gotta eat, and if I have tempting items in my front yard, critters are bound to notice. A plan was hatched. With the help of the eldest monkey, we placed it in a jar with some treats it apparently enjoys, and brought it inside in order to "protect it from predators daddy."

I checked my recent sauerkraut experiment, and admiring it's deep purple hue, decided that a purple beer would really "tie it all together." I mean, hey, it is sf beer week and all, so somehow cracking a blueberry hefeweizen seemed just the right thing. Maybe you had to be there. Or rather, here.


So, I sipped one ferment, tamped down the contents of another and contemplated our captives. That's right, two. Because little eagle eyes spotted another and made sure it made it into the jar too. Now, we feed our captives more brassica, protect them from predators, and hopefully watch 'em go through their own ferment of a sort and become something totally different.

the tao of food (part 2)

Let your workings remain a mystery.
Just show people the results.





I'm not known for brevity, but that's it.

Really.

Really, really.

(Okay, if you want more, go check part 1)

Inaugbeeration

Well, as the picture shows, things are aligned for history...........

Dear Mr. President,

Back in October, with hopes of your election victory in sight, I brewed a beer to enjoy on Inauguration Day. So, first off, thank you for giving me reason to brew. About a week after victory, I bottled it up. About turkey day I got into one, and like wow, it was good. I gave a few away, drank a few more, and now, mere minutes away from the big event, I find I only have a few left. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, congratulations Barack Obama! Welcome to the first day of the 2nd hardest job on earth.

Big hugs,
Monkey Wrangler

man stuff

Winter is a time for man stuff.

Like eating animals.

Using power tools in the garden.

Accidently melting shit. Stuff like that.


Sometimes a post just has to document it straight up........



Eating animals is time for man food: Meat and potatoes!

So I was at the Jack London market last Sunday and met Norman from Mountain Ranch. His second week at the market, he offers organic meats. Nice to talk to, I asked a few questions. He's been on the same land for 42 years and counting. Beef and chicken were to be had, at nice prices for such thoughtfully tended beasts. Seeing the tape on his glasses made me think about how truthfully he was speaking of his animal husbandry methods. I got me some of the ground beef. Upon getting home my love suggested meatloaf and this meal came together. Onion, egg, corn meal, garlic and cilantro in the loaf. Bacon grease fried brussel sprouts. Nummy roasted taters, onions and squash. The loaf was damn beefy. But like, YEEEEAAAAOOWWW!!! tasty! Norman, I'll be back.

Tough gardening conditions? Be a man and use power tools! Drill holes and plug them with dowel spawn!

Years back (like pre kids at least) I went to a fungus fair and learned about inoculating wood with dowels that have been impregnated with mushroom mycelium. I've thought about it every year since and this past year when the fair came around I went and purchased some dowel spawn. With fruit wood on hand from the in laws, I drilled a test hole and pounded one in. I only have 24 more to go, but according to the directions I should soak the wood first. I've been watering some logs for a few days now.

Ever suffer from "man eyes?" Go ahead and carelessly melt something!

I had opened up the oven door, glanced inside a bit, saw nothing and turned on the oven to preheat it. Sixteen minutes later, with hardly a noticeable smell I open the oven intending to insert some apple tarts and found this. If only I had looked thoroughly, inside the whole oven, thus, not just using my "man eyes" (as some ladies in my maternal family would say) I just might still have an intact top for my food processor. It looked really cool all melted though. It was filled with tiny bubbles still trapped within the smooth surfaces now draped over the rods on the oven rack.

Yeah, man stuff. Tomorrow, I'll be drilling holes and plugging the rest of this pile. Then, afterward when I'm hungry, I'm gonna go eat some meat. And maybe later, if I'm real lucky and the kids aren't looking and it doesn't involve any noxious fumes, I just might melt something. I might be a stay at home parent, but I'm still a man.

biscotti making

Every x-mas, I make biscotti. Like, for at least the past ten years. It is a holiday ritual involving a good two days of labor, but one that yields the most satisfying of results. Biscotti, anise cookies, the ultimate cookie, call them what you will, they are my favorite cookie. Maybe you have not had the cookie I'm thinking about. Or you think you have, but are really imagining one of those rock hard biscotti-shaped things that ruin folks experience of the real deal. These, are the real deal, and if you have the hand and forearm strength to give them a try, I implore you to do so. You will be most pleased.

Unless you have access to a professional kitchen with an industrial mixer, you'll be making these completely by hand. In order for the dough to be the right consistency it must be extremely tough to mix. Try it in a Kitchen Aid or similar home kitchen model and by the time you have all the ingredients together, the motor will come to an abrupt stop. Really. (I strongly advise against even trying it, so please trust me here.) Using a wooden spoon yields similar results and chances are you'll break it if you insist on using it. This recipe is so old school that you don't even need a bowl to mix it all in. Think: pasta making where you add the eggs to a well in the flour already on the bread board. When all is thoroughly mixed, toss it in the fridge. Then, ideally, forget about it for anywhere between two and five days.

When you remember, (or have achieved aged dough perfection, however you choose to view it) remove it from the ice box and split it into thirds. If it is your first time attempting these, shape only one piece into a loaf for the first baking so you can see how the dough behaves, looking for how much rising and spreading the loaf will do and keeping it from browning too much. After the first baking, make sure to cool it until room temp on a rack. Now cut it at a slight angle with a thickness ranging from between 21/64ths to 29/64ths of an inch. Don't worry too much about precision here, after a few sheets of varying thicknesses you'll figure out the fine balance between enough strength and too thick. Place these pieces side down on the sheet, filling it most of the way. Now here comes the art of this cookie: bake them about 6-7 minutes per side, flipping them each time and rotating cookies and multiple sheets if needed to compensate for inconsistencies in your oven. Compensate for inconsistencies in your brain too I suppose. (If you've ever baked cookies in a late 1920's Wedgewood, or tried baking while using my brain, you know what I'm talking about.) Anyway, pay close attention, because burning cookies that are baked twice is easily 200% easier to do.

Oh, and back to that hand and forearm thing. If you've never made these, one batch is tough. If you end up liking the recipe and think about making even more, doubling it is nearly out of the question unless you have the enormous hands of an NBA center to achieve mixing the resulting, huge-tastic doughball. I recommend making one batch a day for successive days. (I do anywhere from two to four of these each year.) Making two batches in one day can be done if needed, but will result in certain hand fatigue, noticed primarily the following day when you reach for a doorknob or squeeze something in your fist. Or reach for your 8th cookie of the morning. Because, like the picture shows, there are always a broken few that need immediate gastric recycling.

So make sure you are nice and fortified before you attempt making these biscotti. Maybe do some carbo loading the day before. Come to think of it, this year I ate several of these sandwiches the couple days before embarking on my workout plan. I guess after years of making the cookies, I just do this naturally. I'm pretty sure the deep dish pizza I made was full of carbs. Overall though, it was a nice balanced snack with the cream cheese and salmon placed in the middle, panini style. Ahhhh, the things you have to do to achieve hand and forearm fitness.......

ANISE BISCOTTI

measure and set aside:
2T anise seeds
1 & 1/3c chopped walnuts

4 large eggs (let come to room temperature)

sift together 3 times:
5c all-purpose flour
1 & 2/3c granulated sugar
2t baking powder
1/2t salt

in a measuring cup combine together:
2/3c melted butter
1/3c salad oil (like safflower, canola, etc.)
2t anise extract
2t vanilla extract

make a well in the dry ingredients and add the (slightly beaten) eggs. mix with your hands until the egg is well incorporated then add the measuring cup of the remaining wet ingredients and mix until you need to rest. now make it even more difficult and painful, by adding the anise seeds and walnuts and mixing until they are nicely distributed. put into a large bowl and cover, then place in the fridge, at the very least overnight. from one to five days later, remove from the fridge and cut into thirds. shape one portion into a log. mash down with your hands into a low profile loaf, about 2 1/2 inches wide and nearly and inch tall. this will likely stretch most of the way across your cookie sheet (unless you are using a larger pan like a standard 1/2 sheet.) bake this loaf at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes until it has risen some and turned a light golden color. remove from the oven and cool on a cookie sheet until it has reached room temperature. slice on a diagonal about 3/8ths inch thick and lay on their sides back on the cookie sheet. bake at 350 again, about 6-7 minutes per side, flipping each time. by the second flip (nearing 15 minutes) they should be about done. cool on a rack and then start eating. dip in coffee, dip in wine, ice cream, chocolate, chili, whatever pleases you. and make sure to admire those strong hands and popeye-like forearms you just worked on and think: "I don't need no stinkin' mixer!"

fist of the buddha

Ever cook with a citron? We'd had one on the counter for the past week and I've been having so much fun looking at it, I went out and got another. The next day I turned over the first and saw mold. Damn! I hacked it off and pondered what to do next. Well, I thought to myself, lemon is good to stuff into chicken, so citron ought to be nice. I had my first happy hen from Ted, and a more or less intact palm along with another few knuckles and a finger. The chicken has a big hole, something is going in it, the post writes itself.......

I smashed two garlic cloves and gave it a rub down, then put the chicky on a few spears of carrot to keep it off the pan a bit. I tossed some beet hunks in and splashed olive oil all over. Listening to and rubbing a dub, the beets gave the bird a rosie tint. Mouth was beginning to water. Shake a salt and pepper, 425 degree oven and we're rockin'. With an hour to go, we needed more roots, and veggies. The carrots are especially fabulous right about now, so I chucked 'em in with the usual 'taters, onions and mushrooms.

This bird had a nice crisp on the outside, and boy howdy was it tender. Ted wasn't kidding when he said it would be a real good bird. Like, damn, that is some good bird there, man. Roasting the veggies in the drippings is key to sublime tender hunks, and this time it was particularly true. Everything was infused with bird. Especially yummy bird. Oh yeah, and fist. Tasty buddha fist. Come on, you know you want to say it with me, nice and loud now: "Mmmmm, "fisted chicken," just like grandma used to make!"

Yep, just like that. Because, you know what? It's the holidays, the economy sucks, and hell, sometimes you just gotta be rude, crude and socially unattractive. Besides, I just wanted to say fisted chicken.

leftover week

Did you know that you don't need the tryptophan-laden bird in order to get a serious case of food coma on Turkey day? I didn't, but now do.

This year we honored the beast and had some faux-chicken sausages with some of the usual side dishes: mashed potatoes, candied yams, stuffing, and brussel sprouts. Even without loading the plate up a second time, the food coma set in and we nearly didn't get to dessert. Somehow, we managed. Then, despite no carcass, as usual, we had tons of leftovers. I say we should officially call the week after Thanksgiving leftover week, since chances have it, that's mostly what you'll be eating. So here goes: a look into this year's leftovers.

I started feeding the monkeys leftovers as soon as possible. The little dude is moving into hyperdrive with the utensil usage and gave cheesecake and brussel sprouts a go at the same time. He ate most of the sprouts, but every last speck of his cheesecake. Without any mess. Wasting none happens when you really, really like something, so I'll take that as a compliment and testament to his wanting more cheesecake in the future.

Yeah, speaking of cheesecake. I'm a fiend for them in case you don't know. But more specifically, the sweet potato kind. The addiction started a while back, before the blog. Then two years ago I made an orange colored one while recounting the original. Then last year, I found the right variety and we had a purple one. This year's had garnet yams again, as the purple variety of sweet potatoes were nowhere near the vibrancy of last years after cooking them. Oh well, just coat them in butter and brown sugar and eat them anyway.....aren't candied yams one of your favorites anyway?

But what I really loved the most from this year's leftover fest is that homemade stuffing, heated up and served with a gooey-yolked fried egg atop it, is damn close to heaven in a bowl. Especially if it's made with bread made the day before and toasted the morning of. Luckily we had a disproportionate amount of stuffing leftover this year, and eggs o' plenty. So, not only have I had this four mornings in a row, but unless someone comes and swipes the rest outta my fridge, I'll have my last hella delicious bowl of it tomorrow. There are still some candied yams (gone tonight I'm sure), some brussel sprouts (ditto), and mashed taters (uh, scratch that as writing this piece took too long). The last piece of cheesecake (it was a frickin' huge one) just might hang in there until tomorrow though.

Ahhhhh, the leftovers nearly done with and we're on to the next portion of the holiday season. Some folks mark it with counting down the days until x-mas, so to honor the tradition, we went and bought a couple of "advil calendars" this morning. You might know them by their better known name: advent calendars. I guess the bigger of our little heathens knows more about advil than she does about the advent, and being as though it has been a whole year since the daily chocolate dispensation occurred, it only seems normal she'd go with the more familiar sounding name. Considering we just survived really only the beginning of the holidays, maybe an advil calendar isn't such a bad idea.

Anyway, stay warm, enjoy the festivities, and may a homebrew be coming your way soon..........Happy December!

free teapot

This is definitely not a post about prop 8. Nor is it a post about how sad I am that prejudice is nearly law. This is not a post about the difficulties explaining to my daughter why suddenly some of the women she knows so well, who even helped guide her into this world, could now be criminals. Nope, this post is not about how ashamed you should be for voting for attempting to make your own bedroom policies the only ones allowed and same-sex marriage illegal. This is a post about my teapot.

What? I've never told you the story about my teapot? Oh, my, we need to remedy this immediately.

Here we have a photo of one of my favorite places. Death Valley. (I just had to show one of my favorite wildlife photos from there: the rare, north american gravel monkey seen in it's winter plumage.) Now, about 20 miles or so to the North is a high desert valley that contains one of life's enduring unwitnessed phenomena. The sliding stones of racetrack playa. It's way out there, like 30+ miles along a rutted gravel road that has the distinction of eating tires and undercarriages. It turns out that getting there you pass a place called teakettle junction. An intersection with the habit of having many teapots hanging from the sign erected there.

But remember, this is not a post about me crying, thinking about how if my partner and I would be criminals for having the family we do if we simply had the same genitalia. And it's most certainly not a post about how passing prop 8 would be taking a step backward in society. Let me be clear, this is a post about where to find a free source of teapots.

I'd read somewhere that the national park service has to remove the teapots periodically because they pile up so quickly. It's really an unlikely place for a trash-heap, being so far out and all, but folks just can't help themselves and like the romantic idea of their teapot rusting away out there. Well, according to the nps, littering is what its called when you leave stuff behind out in the wilderness. So a few years ago, I found myself there with the need of a new teapot and I saw a real beauty. No embossed message in memoriam of anyone, no conspicuous reason for having left it behind. I figured, hey, why not help out the rangers with a little clean up and take one home to, er.....uh, dispose of. Yeah, dispose of, like on my stove!

So please don't think this is a post about how narrow minded I think you are being if you voted for prop 8. And don't think I'm saying that maybe not today, but in the near future, we will look back at this and see how pathetic our society was being. And whatever you do, please don't think that I'm angry about this whole thing. Because I'm not. I'm fucking pissed. So focus, and read this post for what it is: a hint on where to get another teapot, should you need one.

Nice one, huh? Two years later and working good. So, since this wasn't a post about prop 8 at all, let me not say how heartbroken I am as a parent, failing to come up with a good answer for my kid's inquisitive mind. Nope, it wasn't a post about how while trying to explain that some people don't want families to be anything but a mommy and a daddy, I couldn't adequately answer her simple question:

"Why don't they like families?"

Really, it is that simple. Go ahead and hate your own family if you have to. But don't pass any legislation to make intolerance mandatory. And remember, as a desert hermit once said "everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even if it is wrong......."

cheater

Yes, it is true. Sometimes, I use the dried stuff. There she is, my starter all hungry and cold, needing attention and a bite to eat. My familiar hand reaches past for the small balls in the jar on the next shelf up. Cold I tell you. I can't help but feel as though I am cheating.

Fidelity toward the sourdough aside, sometimes I want to taste a flour without even a hint of sour. Sure, you can do quick, warm fermentations and other things to lessen the development of the tang. This was not enough. I wanted fluffy, unhealthy tasting sandwich bread. We've had some nice flour coming our way in our grain CSA and it was time to play with some barley flour. I got to thinking along the lines of a barley wonderbread loaf. Turns out buttermilk barley bread satisfies the craving. It was so good, we did a repeat of this bread the following week, noshed through another and managed to stash a loaf in the freezer.

We have grains to go though, with part of the focus being learning new things about more stuff. (Nice technical ring to that one.) Along came kamut. Do you know it? Have you met? Well, if not, let me tell you it is deliciously nutty. I'd made a few Kamut baguettes the week before and they turned out nice and crunchy. I contemplated doing more. I thought maybe having a guest help me out would be nice, but then remembered how a few years ago the last guest swiped the bread and took His sweet time to leave me with a pathetic note to explain. Screw the guest thing. I figured if I pair kamut with cornmeal it would be all the more sweet and earthy. This screamed pizza dough. Or maybe, the monkeys were rowdy, I screamed and made pizza dough. Once again, I cheated and used the dried stuff.

It was time to work on the toppings and caramelizing onions are a great place to start. Being the Fall, and apple pears are on the counter next to the onions.....no really, I did do this on purpose. Not to say it didn't help that the size and shape was correct. I've had pizza with pear on it before and just figured that caramelizing it before tossing it on the pie would be nice. Being an apple pear, not all squishy, I hoped it would hold up. These doing a slow, simmery, release the juices thingy, I went and pulled out more ingredients.

Next it was pesto time. Tonight, I could give a rat's ass about how local it was. Dammit I was having pine nuts and parmesan. Okay, so it's not entirely true as the basil, lemon and oil are from the market, but whatever. The pine nuts came from either Korea, Russia or Vietnam and the cheese was from, uh, let's see here.......Parma! Not even close to close on those last two but sometimes you just have to say f*%$ it.

Ahhhh, all the ingredients assembled. My favorite time in the pizza making process. I can pretend I didn't just spend three hours prepping everything while tending to the monkeys. I close my eyes and imagine I just came in and feel like making some pizza. Hey, sheeit look, fixings for a pizza pie! Crank on that oven and make sure to get the pizza tile nice and hot.....wait, what was that, you did already? Sheesh, how thoughtful! Well, since you have everything else taken care of, maybe I'll go pour us some beer.

Version 1.0 had a pesto foundation, caramelized onion/pear and fresh mozzarella, with sweet Italian sausage on half and sliced black olives on the other. Both monkeys were digging this one. Sweet, with meat. Go figure. There were no leftovers of this version. Luckily we prepped version 2.0 while this was in the oven or we probably would have just made the same thing. Next time.



Nope. Turns out our creativity was compromised by the last ingredients and we managed to make the same pizza, only with a tomato sauce as the base. Even with this simple difference, the taste was hugely different. I'd have to say I prefer the pesto combo considering the sweet onions and sausage involved. Maybe it was the nutty crust, but the flavors just seemed to work better together.

So, yes, loyal readers. It is sad but true, sometimes I cheat and use the dried stuff to lift my loaf. Please don't hate me.

local apple cider

Yapple-dy dapple-dy it's that time of year again! Time to get out the juicer or cider press and get mashin'. Time to preserve some apples. You can sauce them, bake them, boil them and such, but why? Juice them, add some yeast and let it do most of the work. In about two months time you will be drinking one of the most satisfying refreshments to ever touch your lips, because whether your friends drink it or not, you made it. And should it suck, chances have it that some time "cellaring" might take care of the offensive character. I've heard some take a year or more. Well, call it beginners luck but my experiments last year, overall, tasted good right away and only got better. Wish I'd made more.........

Step one: Find a source of apples that need picking. Get a ladder. Or better yet find a friend with a ladder and an apple tree. Bring boxes, bags and buckets. Start picking. I recommend starting with at least a target size of between a three and five gallon batch. Use the rough guestimate of 5lbs of apples equals 1 quart of juice and pick an appropriate amount. (Thanks Paul!) Stop picking when either you have enough or realize that no one has gotten hurt. Remember to put the ladder away and promise to give your friend some cider when the time comes.

Step two: Load all the apples into the ride home. Looking at this now, I think I could have gotten it home on my bike, but I didn't know how many pounds I would pick (about 60 it turns out) so I brought the car. Please make sure to keep all apples securely fastened while driving home for in the case of an accident, well over two hundred fist sized pieces will be flying about the inside of your vehicle. I don't speak from experience, but I do have an active imagination and a deep appreciation for simple physics.

Step three: Juice the apples to a pulp. Or rather, separate the pulp from the juice. Grind them, mash them, spin them amongst countless blades, whatever method you use make sure to extract as much juice as you can. In this case, I filled a container with everything that came out of the juicer and let bouyancy and time do the work. It is amazing what just sitting around can accomplish. Choose the yeast you need that will get the job done.

Step four: Siphon the juice into a large, sterilized glass vessel and pitch your yeast. Affix a one way valve to the top to allow exhaust only. Place a more or less sterile liquid like whiskey into the air lock (and yourself should you care) and then give the contents a mix. Make sure to keep the experiment near 70 degrees until you see some vigorous bubbling and sure signs of fermentation. Make sure to not let monkeys pull the valve off of the container. Should this happen, immediately clean the valve and perhaps monkey and place (valve not monkey) onto the carboy again. Put in a higher location.

Step five: Keep the foamy goodness from coming out the air-lock. Or be prepared to keep cleaning up a sticky mess. Maintain the carboy at nice ambient home temps of around 65. Watch and wonder. Well, especially wonder since this is a lager yeast and I've yet to hear of someone trying such. Last year I used English ale yeast, this year I'm giving a California Common yeast a try. So far, so good, but we'll have to wait about a month before we do some bottling and have a better idea.

Give me a shout if any of this interests you and you have the time!

BOTTLING UPDATE (11/27/08): So, on Turkey day we tasted some from a bit that I stashed in a bottle right before fermentation shut down completely, with the hopes of some completely natural carbonation. The suspense was high as I cracked the seal, but a fine foamy effervescence was what greeted us. Nice crisp apple, but supremely dry. It was a fitting libation to start the thanksgiving feast, a common homemade cider, that was truly from this years local harvest. Thanks once again Paul. We will share one soon.....

And for the few homebrewers who might be wondering:

Does a California common yeast work well for making apple cider? Answer: yes. Very well in fact. Makes for a nice dry product, much like using a dry english ale yeast like Danstar's Windsor or Nottingham. A starting gravity of 1.058 took a month (like the other yeasts) and finished at 0.998, packing an alcohol content of near 8%! Now that, is a merry x-mas.......

gringo verde

This is my first year growing tomatillos. Being a relative of the tomato, they share many of the same attributes, but in what seems like a wilder form. I forget exactly how many we planted this year, but I think it was only four or so in the "box." Growing three to four feet tall, with an understory of lemon cucumbers, it became the green hedge we have out front. In July, they were a riot of blooms and paper bells, foretelling of a green salsa in my future.

I've been feeling a bit neglectful of my garden lately, and noticing tomatillos beginning to fall of the plants all on their own (I mean, it was mid-September by now) meant time for action. I brought the monkeys out front and we conducted a fruit raid.

Easily filling a gallon sized bowl, we brought the loot back in and took the skins off. I've learned that my elder monkey has a propensity for the tedium, and will gladly work on this task as I tend to the "lil' bruther." After a quick rinse to remove the remaining bits and pieces, and maybe, just maybe a bit of whatever the sticky, strange, not quite entirely oily feeling stuff on them is off, we tossed them in a roasting pan (whew, talk about a run-on!)

I haven't had much luck with growing peppers here in oaktown. I've tried, boy I have, sporadically, for like five years or so. I'm no Chilebrown. (Let me tell you, he's got such a peppery green thumb, that after the simple act of shaking hands with him, you better wash up before touching any sensitive membranes around your eyeballs.) Anyway, this year, once again I gave it a go. I forget which varieties they were, something compact, but mild for sure. Because of all this, I made sure to include the seeds in the salsa to extract any bit of heat they had.

I had a few onions from earlier in the year out in the back shed and I was hoping to use them. I had envisioned an all from the monkey ranch salsa. But no. They had started to rot on the inside after sprouting a bit. Damn. I used a big white onion on the counter and went from there. All mixed up and ready for roasting I had a laugh. I always enjoy the look of all the little green balls in a pan. It reminds me of those ball pits they have at amusement parks where you can "swim." Okay, maybe that comes from having a beer with this one, but, what the hell.

I gave the roasted mess a blend and then went and picked some cilantro to finish it off. After mincing and mixing in we chowed down on some chips. It was super tangy and puckery. Given that it was at least 3/4 tomatillos I wasn't too surprised. I made a mental note about growing these husky tomato relatives here: flavor is good despite small size of fruit. Combine this with the ease of growing them and we have a winner in my book.

I have a feeling, that after seeds get into the soil this year I'll be harvesting volunteers next year. Well, and the next, and so on and so forth. With any luck, all the way into the sweet with heat, chile verde sunset years of life.