Onomatopoeia

'zupdate

Q1 2008 has happened incredibly quickly.  One keeps pendulumming back and forth across a state of balance (seemingly: balance is described more by it's absence than its presence).  Biz is going better and could get quite exciting.  Grabbed some vacation in Feb which was really worthwhile ("Mom, our house is 'tupid!  I wanna go back to Mexitoe!").  Doing much cooking but absolutely zero painting.  Nursing a minor additicion for Bejeweled - hey, I can quit ANYTIME I want.

Rock and Roll Creation, Spinal Tap

Pie Are Round

For Christmas, Kate R gave me a copy of Bubby's Homemade Pies by Ron Silver and Jan Bervin - thank you very much, Kate!  To be honest, when I opened the package, I thought "Pies?"  Kitchen-wise I never really have thought of myself as a baker or pastry guy.  I've heard of Bubby's in New York, and have even had their fried chicken, which is Fan-Frikkin-Tastic even when it has been out of the oven for an hour and transported several blocks (that's New York for ya!).  Mark, Jon, and Mary have had their pie and extolled it's virtues as well.

So when I received this great gift from a wonderful and insightful friend, I thought "Hey-hey My-my, Mark is gonna make some pie" (apologies to Neil Young).  And so I have.

A couple of words on the book itself.  Very very good indeed. There is a profound love of piedom herein, and it is lovingly expressed.  That is balanced with no nonsense instruction: baking is chemical engineering and the margins for error are slimmer than in some other culinary arenas.  They give you plenty of technical background and back-up.  The scope of the book is quite broad all things considered, and includes savory pies as well as ice creams and all sorts of trimmings.  Repeat: VVGI.

My key concern regarding pie is getting the crust right.  The first pie I tackled was their Mile-High Apple Pie, using their All Butter Pastry Pie Dough recipe, which is a classic cold-fat recipe wherein you keep lumps of the fat suspended in flour with juuuuuust enough water to hold it together.  I used Granny Smith's.  It turned out quite nice and I was pleased that the crust maintained a nice flakiness.  Excellent with a Borough Market Cheddar.  Sorry, no pictures of that one.  We ate it at Montara over New Year's celebrations, and Kate got the first slice, as is only right.

Pie the second was in honor of KKatie before her return to school.  Her favorite is peach, so that's what we did.  Another first here: I used a whole vanilla bean!  Another successful All Butter crust for the Vanilla Peach Pie. Wholesomely awesome and awesomely wholesome.  I managed to snap a photo before the last of it disappeared...

Then today happened - a day we had not planned.  KKatie and I got up at 4:00 am to get her to her plane, and as it turned out, her flight was canceled.  So I went to pick her up at the airport at 7:30 am after an hour and a half text messages and phone conversations. With the up-and-down and weird scheduling, today has not felt at all like a normal day, especially since we have to get up tomorrow at 4:00 am to do it all over again.  Mary and I decided this was to be a true vacation day.

So, I made Pie.  Actually, Pies.  Actually, two Pecan Pies.

How did this happen, you ask?  Quite simple, really.  We had a large unopened package of pecans from Costco, and we love Pecan Pie.  And I had The Book, after all.  And it looked like rain...

But why two?   Why, to try new crusts, of course!  These called for either their Sour Cream Pastry Pie Dough or a Nut Pastry Pie Dough, as well as the regular cold fat pastry pie doughs. Both those named above seemed much easier to assemble than the All Butter.  Can't decide: make both and take one to work!  The recipe also called for par-baking the crusts, which I've never done, and that added to the fun.

The crusts were easy to make - I had an easier time than with the All Butter dough.  My challenges there are (1) getting the water right, and (2) my lack of established rolling skills.  The Sour Cream dough recipe cautioned that it was much more delicate than the All Butter, but I found it pliable and really easy to work with.  For the first time I'd rolled out a kinda rough circle!  The Nut dough gets pressed into the pie pan - yet another first for yours truly.  I took the opportunity to get some dedicated par-baking beans, so we are now loaded for bear!  Bear pie, that is.

We will sample one of them tonight and I will take the other to work.  I'll let you know how they turn out!

Love Is The Drug, Roxy Music.

May 17, 2007 (Continued)

So me and my trusty companion-in crime hop in the car and toodle (make that zoom) on down to Moffett.  It takes us a while to find where we should go - like many military installations, it it labeled for pros, not civvies like us - but before long we are at the airfield. In fact, we are on the tarmac.

The Collins Foundation had brought in three old WWII bombers.  This one is the B-25 Mitchell.

The B-25 is the type of plane Jimmy Doolittle used to bomb Tokyo in 1942, launching them off aircraft carriers - a feat for which the  Mitchell was NOT designed.  The movie reference for that mission is Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and it is quite a story.  Not far away was the B-24 Liberator.  There were more Liberators than any other large bomber used in the war (I believe - not bothering to check facts here so let me know if I am wrong). There is no mistaking this airplane for anything other than a bomber.  I chose to snap this, which has the names of all those who served and/or worked on the aircraft over it's lifetime.  Look - the names continue over the bomb-bay doors...

We were able to get inside these aircraft and look around. There is not a lot of room inside these and Spartan is certainly no exaggeration in describing the accommodation. These were built as tools to do a job.  There were a number of educated folks around to answer question, as well as veterans.  This gentleman serves as a ball-turret gunner on a Liberator. They gave that job to small guys because you had to curl up in a fetal position in the belly turret - the only one on the underside of the bomber.  Popular angle for attacks from enemy fighters, and very exposed to Flack shrapnel.  I once heard the average life expectancy of a ball-turret gunner in combat was 30 seconds.

Then there's the B-17.  You  know, the kind of bomber Memphis Belle was: the Flying Fortress.

This is one of my favorite aircraft.  It was originally designed in the early 1930's, and of course underwent a number of additions, modifications, and adaptations through it's service. One of it's outstanding visual characteristics is it's very large rudder and large wing area relative to other proportions when compared to other aircraft.  Crew of 10 young men.

Next post: the flight.

Lonesome Town, Pulp Fiction Soundtrack (sorry, don't know artist..)

May 17, 2007

About May 15 or so I am sitting in my backyard, sipping an ATB, musing about work.  I hear an airplane engine.  No, wait.  That's a multi-engined aircraft.  Not unusual given that we are right across the freeway from Palo Alto Municipal Airport, and have small planes going over all the time.

But this is clearly not a small plane.  That's more than two engines. I go into Where-Is-It mode, loping around the backyard, trying to decipher the direction of the sound to somewhere more specific than "up".  Then I see it: a B-24 Liberator.

Ten minutes later a B-17 flies overhead.

BANG - on the Internet I go and soon I see that The Collings Foundation has a Wings of Freedom Tour at Moffet Field.  A B-25 and the aforementioned beauties are there for you to see in all their glory.  You can walk right up to them and touch them.  You can go inside them.

You can even get a ride on them.

More to follow...

Summertime, Billy Stewart

In Case You Missed It...

Actually, the above is how a competitor bannered an ad inaccurately stating we were in big trouble.  That's another story.  This post ids to make sure you have seen a couple of YouTube items.

First, the now famous Thriller video. Here is an article from SFGate.com describing what you are seeing...

Secondly, this frankly brilliant routine from OK Go.

Enjoy

Thriller, Michael Jackson

Untitled

No, this is not a post about how I have not been posting.  It is merely a post.  I am composing a series in my mind. 

Wells Fargo Wagon, from The Music Man

Music Music Mood Mood

Only in this day and age (so far) can you realize how much music is mood-a-delic in your own sphere.

I started up Das Boox.  Loaded iTunes.  Me default is shuffle total library.  Started with classical piano etude (Chopin).  Not quite doing it so hit FF.  Track from My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. Normally a right-on but this was slightly off-mood so... FF: Got some Jason Miraz or something else that reflects skill and some degree of (as far as I suspect industrially distilled) artistry and expression.  But once I realized what I was listening to -> FF.

And got Iggy Pop. So I had to post.

See what a good soundtrack does?  Keep music playing always.

Starry Night, Iggy Pop

Whew!

Haven't been this busy in a long time!  It's good for me, but it really does feel these days like there are NOT enough hours in the dang day.  (Gol durned ques-a diller).  It's all good, and sincere apologies to my legions of adoring fans for not posting more - picture me on stage with a gooey gown and sparkling tiara. opening my arms from corpse-crossed (sorry, don't know how else to phrase it) to appealing-for-supplication as the really heart-rending music swells...

Tomorrow is my only brother's birthday - 44th - and so I will take him to a traditional SF eatery since he has moved offices into The City and ply him with simple direct comestibles and maybe even a bit of the Sauvignon Blancety-Blanc.

Put up some more kraut the other day so at least that's still on line.  Looked at the garage the other day and thought OK, gotta just whip that bitch into shape so I can get painting.  Easy to blame one's creative inertia on the environment.

Speaking of which, I have heard-but-not-researched that Global Warming (capitalized ala A. A. Milne) is actually being caused by increased solar radiation.  I DID hear that we are entering a period of heightened sunspot activity to the point that they are considering re-routing airline routes across the poles to travel further south; seems sunspots fuck with the avionics in a right fine and impressive way.  See, greenhouse gasses don't cause warming of the planet, but visa-versa.  Evidence is the melting of Martian icecaps and increases in ambient temperatures on Jupiter et al. The most (verbally) referenced source for this seems to be the BBC (*yeah,      yeah, yeah*).  I don't know whether to Hope this is true or not.

Godalmighty I really have to learn how to type.  I just looked at the above and it contains several Martian words.  I have smell-checked it so ewe won't be able to spot the miss steaks.

Idiot Wind, Bob Dylan

OK, Maybe Not so Turkey-ish

Near the end of November I posted about Stairway to Heaven, amusing myself by saying what an overrated song it is. Then I heard a version (I don't like the term "cover") by Rodrigo y Gabriela.  These guys are fucking amazing guitarists.  They used to be members of a thrasher band and have gone acoustic.  The album is not just awesome, it is awe-inspiring.

In any case, their version of Stairway really portrays a delicate and jazzy version, I think perhaps true to the original intent.  It made me reconsider my earlier smart-guy posturing and rant-o-matic post.  Even music that does not grab you is still music.

Angel, Sarah McLachlan

Who Are These People?

Best name I have eve seen on an email relegated (quire rightly) to my junk email folder is...

...Metropolis H. Itchiness.

Seriously, it is worth getting a goldfish or at least a guppy so you can name it that and introduce as such to your friends.

Southern Man, Neil Young