Silver Case

√   Hummingbirds weave their hanging next in the bougainvilla bushes planted int the fences of neighboring houses.   Asked Luke what the nests were today.  His answer?  “Bird Hives”

√   Luke was hanging out in the attic with me this afternoon. He went back downstairs to fetch something.  I heard THUMP of him slipping on the stairs.

Then  I heard THUMP THUMP

Then a krunk

THUNK THUNK BUNK

It was a long time

Then THUNKABUMP

Then I’m thinking, “Wow!”

I looked down the steps and the little man is face down, head first, splayed superman-style down the stairs!  I picked him up and he was suitably scared and alarmed.  Fifteen minutes of goo-gooin and he was good.  I think he sprained his wrist or hand a bit, so he was delighted to have his hand wrapped in a “splint” made of some old t-shirt material in my cabinet.

He’s fine now though.  Even dragged all the visitors (Mama Kang, Aunty Nini, Ee, Ah-Ma) all to the stairs where he tried to reenact his heroic fall. He sat on the steps and then would lean face forward down.  Little drama king….

A whole bunch of us have April birthdays.  Today we celebrated at my house.  Food was good, and more importantly, from a planning aspect, it worked really well.

Mom sent me an 18″ paella pan. So last night I made a fish paella to see how it worked. Answer was it worked really well.  Five of us devoured a whole dish of it.  Additionally I prepared a dry rub for ten racks of baby back ribs.  I used twenty smoked chillies I bought last summer in USA.  We readied the mise en place for baked beans and I vinegared the potatoes for potato salad.

So this morning I woke up at 7am.  I tossed together two pounds of Great Northern Beans into a dutch oven with stocks, spices, and some really smoky anchos.  Those baked at 250F for five hours.  I wrapped up the ribs in indivdual aluminum foil boats with lots of nice braising sauce and crammed all ten in my big oven.  They braised for 2:45 at 250F.

When the guests arrived between 12:15 and 1pm everythign simultanesouly finished, the beans, a fresh paella, the potato salad, and the meat.   I wasn’t even sweating.  Then I was totally done with the kitchen, and just enjoyed the rest of the afternoon.  I think we’re only left with a rack of ribs, a pile of potato salad, and of course, a tons of beans.

By-the-way, the paella was nice.  It seems like a really easy way to make a nice vegetarian garbage plate.  It helps that I have a very wide element on my stove, so it gets even heating.

I exiled my old Intel box to the attic.  I renovated it last year, but largely put it aside once I brought Apple into the house.

Tonight I came up to the attic to putter around. One of my chores was to connect the Intel to the home network so that I could move all the Alton Brown episodes I have onto my main filesystem.

Turn on the PC and a massive pop and stink throws.  5a fuse burn out in the cord.  Apparently the power supply has a short in it; it stinks.

I’m thinking the only “renovation” this bastard is receiving is for me to tear out the hard drives, suck them off with a HD enclosure, and toss the thing in the trash. I don’t want clutter, especially clutter that’s an implicit insult.

I have a fancy oven, but I don’t know how to bake. Or moreover, I don’t understand baking science at all.  So last night I sat down with Alton Brown’s book on baking to get up to speed.  Very well written.  I at least have a grasp of how all the parts work now. (For instance:  what’s baking powder?  cream of tartar (acid) + baking soda (base) = gas = leavening. Double-acting just means two round of gas production, from two different acids that react at different heat levels). So I worked on two recipes today. One, a recipe for wheat-thin style crackers.  The other for regular bread.  The bread dough is still rising. (It called for using a starter, which I didn’t have, so I maybe don’t have as much water as I should in the dough)   The wheat thins are cooked and largely eaten.  I used high gluten bread flour and a helping of buckwheat flour. They have a hearty taste.  The recipe includes 50g of sugar, which makes the crackers taste nicer, however, I really wish I had included some salt directly into the dough.  Salt doesn’t stick on the cracker well by itself.  The only leavening was from water in the dough steaming.  Hard things?  getting it rolled 1/16″ thick.  I tried using the pasta machine, but it could not get a grip on the butter-slippery dough.  I was stuck with using a roller pin.  I found it easier to roll directly onto some aluminum foil.   Think next time I’ll add salt to the recipe as well as some herbs de provence, and maybe a bit less sugar.  

Have hardly had time for much beside work lately.  Don’t have time for many hobbies.