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Great Cook Books from the Library

Yum, Yum, Yum!

Eric had posted a while back about how using the library is green and it reminded me to renew my library card. I love my Forest Park Library. It’s rather small, especially against our neighbor’s Oak Park Library which is just beautiful. I can order books or DVDs online and they are delivered to the library. It close, convenient, and makes a nice dog walk route.

One of the main reasons I use the library is cook books. There are only so many celebrity cook books that I want on my bookshelf. The New Arrivals shelf is loaded with some great ones. I picked up David Chang’s Momofuku and Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Talk about two beautiful books. The Photography from both books inspire me to take more pictures. They provided me with some great ideas and recipes, even may try ghetto “sous vide”, slow cooking in a pouch in water.

I would recommend either book. Jamie Oliver’s book is more practical. Really great recipes that are written clearly. I really like that some of the individual steps are laid out in photos. Where are David Chang book was more food fantasy for me. I love fancy food. Homey food redone with delicious flavors and colors.

March 1, 2010
Your dishwasher and indoor pollution

Seventh Generation, the company that makes all sorts of eco-smart and recycled products for your home, asked me if I’d like a box of their products to check out.

We already use Seventh Generation products, so why not say yes to some free stuff?

Charlie likes to eat paper towels and tissues.

Seventh Generation is rolling out new natural disinfecting wipes, and as part of their goal to get the word out about these wipes, they sent some to me.

It had not occurred to me to think about what might be in regular disinfecting wipes. I still don’t know exactly. But knowing this company, their wipes don’t have mystery chemicals in them.

Seventh Generation's new disinfecting wipes

What I like about Seventh Generation is that their products work and make sense. I think I first bought a roll of their paper towels, and what got me to buy them was some of the info on the wrapper, such as:

The natural color of these paper towels comes from the mix of colors in cardboard, office waste, and other paper materials recycled into this product. These materials often end up in landfills because there is insufficient demand for them. By reusing them in our products, we put them to work, not in the ground, and we help ‘close the loop’ to encourage more recycling less waste….

I wouldn’t use these, or write about Seventh Generation here, if I didn’t like their stuff.

The company also sent me a copy of Naturally Clean, The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy Non-Toxic Cleaning. The book is chock full of footnoted information. I learned some things I was not aware of about my dishwasher:

…Researchers at the EPA and the University of Texas recently documented the dishwasher’s role as a leading cause of indoor air pollution. Pollutants released by dishwashers, include chorline .. chloroform.. radon .. and other volatile contaminants… When these materials are exposed to the piping hot water that circulates through your dishwasher as it cleans, they are easily ‘stripped out’ and evaporated into the air.

OK. Did not know or think about all that last time I turned on my dishwasher.

This book is full of info like this. Its almost too much. The modern home has lots of stuff in it that is not great for us to breathe or absorb. Makes me want to go live in a yurt. But the book does give you pause about the sorts of materials we have in our home, and what they might be doing to us.

What I like about the book are all the footnotes, most ‘green living’ books don’t cite sources.

One of our Real World Green shows talks about recycled toilet paper, and it features me juggling toilet paper. Check out the video and tell us what you think below.

February 28, 2010
“Well You Should Be Watching the GardenFork Podcast”

yes, you should. Some kind words from Life Adorned a yarn – crafter who watches GardenFork, AND also spins her own yarn, makes yarn based things, and sells them on Etsy. In other words, someone who would of course watch GardenFork.

my 2 favorite things about this podcast:

(1) eric is a trial-and-error kind of guy. many of the episodes start out with “i’ve never done this before, so let’s give it a try and see how it goes.” and, he’s not afraid to admit to imperfection. he includes all of his mistakes so that we can learn from them too.

(2) the gardenfork labradors! these cute, friendly, playful pups are featured here and there throughout the videos, and are a viewer favorite. look, they’ve got their own book!

Life Adorned hand crafted knit hat

Check out her fun blog of the craft items she makes , her flickr page, and her etsy page. Its great to see people making and doing things.

February 24, 2010
Re Queening both our hives this spring

After reading a glowing article in Bee Culture about Jennifer Berry and her excellent queen rearing program, we have decided to replace the queens in both our hives with queens from Jennifer Berry.

Why requeen? What is most important to me is the bees display what is called hygenic behavior. This means they keep the hive clean, and because of this hygenic behavior, the varroa mite population is lower.

Many beekeepers requeen every year or every two years. Queens don’t last much longer on their own. The BeeAnonymous blog lists a few reasons:

* Older queens are more prone to swarming
* Replacing a failing queen
* Better stock traits like pest and disease resistances
* And in my case, improving bad attitudes

Our hive at the Maple Knoll Farm did amazing for its first year, giving us a few frames of honey to harvest. We opted to leave the majority of the honey in the hive, and also fed both our hives a lot of sugar syrup to get them through the hard winter we have up here in NW CT. Our bees are not aggressive, but we do want a to improve the stock of our bees, as we don’t want to have to use miticides to combat the varroa mite and tracheal mites.

Feeding bees sugar syrup in the fall to prepare them for winter

The hive that is in our yard, which is in a shed to protect it from bears, did not do nearly as well last year as our hive at Maple Knoll Farm. I checked on them last month and I think I heard them in the hive. This hive will benefit from a new queen.

The hive in our shed, wrapped with a insulating blanket and a polystyrene outer cover

Our hive at Maple Knoll may not need a new queen. The hive was great last year, and we saw them doing cleansing flights in 38 F degree weather. And whenever we went to check on them, the hive was alive with energy, tons of bees coming and going.

So I am thinking that we may split this hive. A split is where you take some of the bees from a healthy hive, some frames of brood, eggs, and pollen, and place them in a new hive with a new queen. A split allows you to populate a new hive without buying a package of bees, and it allows you to choose where your queen comes from. I’ve been reading up on how to divide or split a hive and I think we can do it.

Maple Knoll bees on cleansing flights

I do believe the queen in the Maple Knoll hive has been replaced by the bees. This may be a natural thing, or it may have been due to us being clumsy when working the hive. We weren’t always good at pulling out the first frame, making room to pull the other frames up and out. We may have killed the queen, as we did find what we think were opened queen cells on a few frames in the middle of the summer. Finding this queen will be a challenge, since she was not raised by humans, she is not marked on her body for easy identification.

Finding the queen in thousands of bees can be hard

To requeen a hive:

• Find and remove the existing queen.

• Wait a day if you can.

• Put in the new queen ( in her queen cage) in the hive between 2 frames, make sure the sugar plug is pointing up so no dead attendants can plug up her exit, poke a small hole in the sugar plug to get the bees to eat through it.

• Leave the hive alone for a week.

Our new queens arrive in May, we’ll make a GardenFork Show when we do the re-queening. Jennifer Berry’s Queens are only available through Brushy Mountain Bee Farm.

Beekeepers: what can you add to this post? Please comment below.

February 23, 2010
Kinda Carbonara with what’s in the fridge

Tonite we drove to NYC for work tomorrow. Most nights like this, I go buy a burrito from the local tacqueria. The burritos are great, and healthy, as I opt for yogurt in place of sour cream in my black bean burrito.

But tonight, after getting a parking spot, I thought, why not see what I have in the fridge and cook something quick?

The basic ingredients on a Sunday night

A quick scan yields frozen peas, eggs, some Pecorino Romano cheese, and pasta. There was some yogurt too, but not much else in the fridge. So I think this is kinda Carbonara.

scramble the egg add the cheese

I cooked the penne pasta, mixed the egg with the grated cheese, drained the cooked pasta, saved some of the cooking water, put the pasta back in the pot, added the cheese-egg mixture, stirred it, added a bit of the pasta water, and some salt. I warmed up the frozen peas in the microwave and dropped them into the mix.

Add the egg-cheese to the warm pasta

Not bad. I added too much of the pasta water, and it could have used more cheese, but not bad for a Sunday night.

The finished dish, the peas added.

Charlie Pup and Henry were very interested in what i was eating. It was good.

What have you put together lately?

February 22, 2010
Beans and Toast Recipe : GardenFork.TV

I had Beans on Toast for the first time last month, at Fort Defiance in Red Hook, Brooklyn. After the first bite I knew I had to make the Beans on Toast recipe for GardenFork.TV .

Super simple, yet tastes great and is healthy as well. Lots of protein here, and it tastes even better with toasted multigrain bread. The recipe is below

Eric’s Beans On Toast Recipe

1 can of UK Heinz Vegetarian Beans

or

1 can of American Baked Beans

or

a pot of freshly cooked red kidney beans – i cook them with sauteed onions and cumin

Bread for toasting – multigrain is best i think

Eggs

Grated Cheddar cheese, or the cheese of your choice.

Toast your bread, and warm up the beans.

Fry the eggs, how many depends on how many people you are feeding. Sunnyside up or just slightly cooked over easy are best, as the yolks run over the beans that way.

Place the 2 pieces of toast on a plate, cover with 1 cup of beans, top with the fried eggs, top off with some grated cheese. The heat of the egg should melt the cheese a bit.

Then eat. and tell us here how it is. ©2010 Eric Rochow all rights reserved

February 21, 2010
February is a time for Planning

A time to look over what you have done. What has succeed and what has failed. And that other thing that failed. If you make a light weight cold frame, be prepared to search for it when it blows away. April showers bring May flowers and Mayflowers bring Pilgrims.

Looking back, I started researching planting by moon phase last year on Gardenfork discussion forums. I’ve hashed some thing out and have found that it’s common sense. In the Chicago Land Area, Mother’s Day is the start of the gardening season. About five weeks before Mother’s day is the full moon. The full moon causes a gravitation pull that may be beneficial to root vegetables. Either way, it’s five weeks before the latest frost and when you can-weather providing-start root vegetables, like beets, carrots, radishes.

The new moon is good for lettuces, greens, broccoli, cauliflower, and grains. This is about four weeks before the latest frost. The increased moon light helps to bring leafy vegetables up and out. I’m going to start my amaranth and quinoa, and most of my flowers about April 17th, outside from seed, weather providing.

The second quarter, a week after the new moon, is good for tomatoes, peppers, squashes, beans, and other plants that grow with seeds inside. This makes senses when looking at the traditional calendar since these are warm weather plants.

The third quarter is a time of pruning or resting. I don’t think many of us take the time to enjoy what we have done. The best time I had in my garden last year was watching a pair of yellow finches go after one of my sunflowers. They were funny little birds, with the female “yapping” at the male.

By my plan. I will start, from seed outside as soon as April 3rd with the root vegetables, then wait a week, plant the greens and flowers, and finally the peppers and tomatoes. If everything freezes and fails, then I have enough seeds and sense just to try the next month.

Ps. There are exceptions. Broad Fava Beans like to be sowed super early. I’m thinking about March 27th for those.

February 19, 2010
My V-Day Gift: Ad Hoc At Home by Thomas Keller

I don’t own a lot of cookbooks. I don’t think a lot of them have a voice. This one does.

ad hoc at home

I only know a bit about Thomas Keller. He is the owner of Per Se in NYC ( never been there, would like to someday ) and The French Laundry in Yountville, CA. He is a very good chef.

But often very good chefs don’t publish very good cookbooks. Thomas Keller does.

Part giant food picture book, Part you-can-cook-this, All comfort food is how I would describe it in one sentence. What I like here is the dishes Mr. Keller cooks here are super approachable.

Even I can cook some of them. I will do the short ribs recipe this weekend.

I think I heard a story Mr Keller on NPR about how he reconnected with his father after after years of not much contact, and that the elder Mr Keller moved to Yountville and in his last years he became a fixture at the restaurant. The younger Mr Keller cooked him his last meal, and ate it with him.

Can’t ask more than that from life.

February 17, 2010
I like the smell of compost.

Nature Mill Composter

There. I said it. I enjoy it. There’s compost buried in the veg garden. Compost in the rotating container. Compost “aging” over the winter in planter boxes. There’s a lot of compost. I like the musty, sour, earth smell of it.

Eric had mentioned on a GardenFork Radio Show how I use the Lasagna method of composting. My method is based on Patricia Lanza Method, Lasagna Gardening. Five years ago, I started with a clay based lot, and have transformed it into dark, rich, worm filled soil, layer by layer.

In the fall, I empty my compost bins into the gardens. I’m not big on chopping down stuff so it’s not uncommon to find an avocado skin, or citrus peel. I’ve kneeled in one rotten potato and that is a stinky mess. A good poking stick will help break down your compost while in the bin with out a lot of turning or lifting. I’ll cover that with some leaf mulch and let winter do it’s work. Come Spring, I have Black Gold! One beautiful dry spring day, I’ll hit the gardens with a hoe and stir everything up. Inspect areas that didn’t break down and pick out any nasty bits to recompost. Make it all pretty and ready for planting.

Last year I got the Nature Mill Composter. It has an arm that spins and is heated. Well, here’s the thing. It’s marketed as an indoor, fairly odor less machine and we have not found that to be true. One of the good reasons for that is, I throw just about everything in the composter with out chopping it up. I also toss in paper towels. It’s my lazy way of balancing the dry with the wet compost ingredients. This year we have it on the back porch. While it does get below freezing, the porch provides some protection from the wind.

I’m happy to say, it’s working pretty well. When it does get clogged up, I’ll dig it out and toss it in the other compost bin. There are days where it smells pretty strongly, but it’s not bothering us. It will sure help with the amount of compostable materials Jim and I produce in the winter, but it’s not our main composter.

All the stems, roots, leaves, plants, crazy tomato plants that developed legs and walked across the yard, makes up most of our compostable stuff. It’s also caused me to spread tomato seeds through out my yard. At least we don’t have to plant tomatoes. Yard waste pretty much ends up in a pile in a corner of the yard, until the compost bin is emptied in the fall. I fill it with all the yard waste for winter. The freezing and thawing seems to help break stuff down quickly.

Composting is pretty easy. Just like anything worth doing, it just has it’s disgusting bits too.

February 16, 2010
Eric’s Garden Seed Choices for spring

I over-ordered. Do you?

I got my seed orders this week, and I now know I probably over-ordered. Kinda like going into Costco or BJs and buying the whole case of mayonaise.

I buy seeds from Fedco and Johnny’s . The bulk of my seeds come from Fedco, and then from Johnny’s I get some special stuff, like pelleted carrot seed.

What is pelleted seed? Its is seeds that have been coated with clay, or something like clay, to make the seed larger and easier to handle. You can buy pelleted seeds that use organic or non-organic seed coatings.

Why pelleted carrot seed? Its a lot easier to plant. I’m not getting nearly as many carrot seeds, but the seeds I’m getting will more likely sprout, I think. It also means less thinning, as its a lot easier to see the seed, so I can space it better. I’m thinking about covering my carrot seed with plain sand this year.

Early Nelson carrot seed, pelleted from Johnny's Seeds

Jean Ann Van Krevelen, who appeared on GardenFork Radio, described Fedco Seeds, and the people who work there ( it’s a coop ) as having Seed Integrity . That’s a real good way to describe them.

But that is not to diminish Johnny’s Selected Seeds, which is also independently owned and they also have Seed Integrity, just in a different way.

I’ve decided to focus on growing winter squash this year. I will grow it here in CT, and on the roof of our apartment in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn roof will be a low-tech simple green roof experiment, with vegetables as the plant material.

PMR seeds from Johnny's

Why winter squash? It stores easily, and it stores for a long time. And I love the idea of cooking stuff from my own yard in the middle of winter. Plus squash is super healthy for you.

Here are some highlights:

Carnival Acorn Squash Fedco

Uncle David’s Dakota Squash Fedco

Eastern Rise Winter Squash Fedco

Metro PMR Butternut Squash ( from Johnny’s )

the PMR squash means it is Powdery Mildew Resistant. My yard is a fishbowl surrounded by woods, so we get a lot of Powdery Mildew, and I’d like to see how this squash does. Last year we lost our pumpkin crop because it was so wet all summer.

I’m also growing some PMR pumpkins from Johnny’s as we just like to have pumpkins in the yard. I like it because we let the pumpkin vines crawl thru the yard, so that means less lawn to mow.

When it comes to lettuce and mesclun, I don’t select specific seeds, I go with Fedco’s Lettuce Mixes. They blend one for each of the seasons and that works well for me. For the summer blend they pick lettuces that don’t bolt easily, for the winter mix, its cold hardy ones. You get the picture.

And since Fedco is in Maine, these seed mixes do just as well, if not better in here NW CT.

We like to eat fresh and pickle cucumbers, and I had a good crop of Super Zagross Middle East Cuke from Fedco, so I ordered them once again. I’m betting they will be even better this season if we have a drier summer.

What are your seed favorites? Tell us below:

February 16, 2010
VendrTV is one year old today

About a year ago, this guy calls me and asks if he can meet me to talk about producing a video show for the web. We met, and he talked about this show he wanted to do about street food, and how he would grow it on the web.

OK, I said, Good Luck.

Well one year later Daniel Delaney and VendrTV have a larger audience than Gardenfork.tv .

So now I’m the one asking Daniel the questions.

We’ve talked about VendrTV here before, but go check out his show here

Below are a few photos of the party I took. The club we were in was packed with street food foodies and Daniel’s friends. People from other countries flew in to be there.

February 15, 2010
The Biscuit Cutter: Twist the Cutter or Just Press Down?

While making biscuits for the Biscuits and Gravy Recipe Show, we were using a short glass to cut the biscuits.

Cut the cold butter into quarters lengthwise

The biscuits came out OK, but I was underwhelmed by the rise. Watch the video here to see the epiphany of using freshly made baking powder.

cube the butter

My food processor is not great at cutting butter into flour

But I was also thinking about the glass we used to cut out the biscuits. I was wondering if the glass, which is fairly thick, was actually kinda pinching the biscuit dough as it pressed down and twisted the glass.

On the Gardenfork.tv website, I read some comments that a thick glass does indeed pinch the biscuit and that you should not twist the cutter either, as that also binds the edges of the unbaked biscuit dough.

I thought I should go buy a stainless steel biscuit cutter, but I’m in the woods here ( in more ways than one ), and not into filling my kitchen with more stuff.

I looked around the kitchen for what was round and similar to a biscuit cutter. Online someone suggested a tuna fish can, but still it seemed the lip on the tuna can might hinder rise.

I then saw one of my salt shakers, and had the eureka moment.

Salt shaker as biscuit cutter

Here I'm just pressing down and not twisting

I pressed out my biscuit dough, and cut the biscuits with and without twisting. Its much easier the get the biscuits to cut with the twist.

I put them on parchment, marked the biscuits sans twist, and baked them

Not a terrific rise with any of the biscuits

None of the biscuits in this batch of dough were amazing, but they were not bad. But my very unscientific test ( we’re not America’s Test Kitchen here ) shows that twisting the cutter has no difference on the rise of the biscuit. A number of the biscuits that were twisted were taller than the non-twist biscuits.

Not a significant difference between twisting and not twisting

Biscuit on left is no twist, on right is cutter with twist

I still need to work on cutting the flour and butter together. Maybe I can find a food processor at a garage sale. The bowl of mine seems too big for the blades. Not sure why, might have to embark on more America’s Test Kitchen style adventures. Where’s my apron….

Added:

Pat, who commented below, makes a good point. You can just use a pastry blender to cut together the flour and butter. But you’ve got to have a good pastry blender, like the one Pat has linked to.

February 14, 2010
How to make Biscuits and Gravy, the Eric Recipe

I love biscuits and gravy, and this recipe is super simple. First you make biscuits with this recipe, then you make the gravy with some of the leftover fat from cooking the sausages. Then you eat.

Biscuits and Gravy Recipe:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 stick of *cold* butter – 4 tablespoons

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk, or put 1 tablespoon white vinegar into 3/4 cup milk and let sit for 5 minutes for a quickie buttermilk substitute. you can also use yogurt, but you may need to add a bit of water when mixing the dough in the processor.

* to make your own baking powder, combine Cream of Tartar to Baking Soda in a 2:1 ratio. mix well and only mix what you’ll use in a few weeks.

Preheat oven to 450

Add all the dry ingredients to the food processor, pulse to mix.

Cut the cold butter into small pieces and drop in.

Pulse food processor until the flour looks grainy like cornmeal. do not over-pulse this mixture.

Slowly pour the buttermilk into the food processor while the unit is turned on.

Mix until the dough balls up.

Turn dough out onto a floured board, and press out to 1/2″ thickness

Use a muffin cutter to cut out round biscuits, and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake about 11 minutes, until the biscuits rise and brown a bit. Cool on a wire rack.

Gravy Recipe

After cooking the sausage, leave about 2 teaspoon of the fat in the pan. Dust in the 1/2 the flour, and mix it around until the flour starts to brown. Slowly add 1 cup of the milk. The gravy should thicken nicely slowly stir in the remaining 1 cup of milk and stir to thicken.

To plate the biscuits and gravy recipe:

split open 2 biscuits and place the sausage gravy over them. Season with plenty of pepper and enjoy.

©2010 Eric Rochow

February 9, 2010
No Cable Tv

I love tv and hate commercials. Two years ago we got Apple Tv so I could connect to Boxee and watch Internet Tv. Jim and I brought home our first tv and canceled Comcast(1) Cable. For about six months, we were able to watch almost all programs, online with limited or no commercials. All we had to do was down load Boxee and install it in the Apple Tv and have the patience to watch our program after they aired. It was good, but Apple didn’t like it, and configured software download thingy to block Boxee.

photo by Alvimann

However, with an HD antenna and Apple Tv, Jim and I didn’t miss cable. Most of the programs we watched were on network tv and now there are more network channels to watch. In Chicago we have WCIU. They show all the old Twilight Zone episodes and the like. Plus Kora and Max did a commercial for WCIU. (as much as I hate commercials) We were never at a loss for programing.

Our No Cable lasted about a year. We have At&t cable since it’s packaged with our internet and phone deals. I’m still not happy with it, but that could also be because I’m not thrilled with television. This is where I get into the whole how much I hate commercials. Why are we paying for cable tv and watching commercials? The commercials are so close together and so frequent that I can not “get into” the program that I’m watching. I’ll get up during the commercials and go do something else. Which, you know, isn’t always bad. There are just times when I want to relax and be entertained by tv.

When Jim and I got our kitchen done, we designed a space for a second tv. This tv is also my computer monitor. I got a Mini Mac and wireless keyboard and mouse, plugged everything in, and I can watch GardenForkTV and cook. Follow recipes online and watch some of my programs. Networks pull their programs off of sites like Hulu.com and Slashcontrol.com all the time. I rather not “steal” programing.

Eric mentioned on Gardenfork Radio going cableless. I totally support this since I am not happy with the service from either of the two cable providers. Boxee is coming out with it’s own “box” that hooks up to the internet. So do some of the video game machines. We’re living in an interesting time when it comes to how we watch tv.

All information for how to go cableless I found on sites like lifehacker.com and tuaw.com

(1) I don’t like either available cable company and hate having to pick the lesser of two evils.

February 6, 2010
Food Dehydrator Plans, a Solar Dehydrator from Encyclopedic Cookbook

The original book is from the late 40s

I’ve been talking about this book Tony loaned me, The Encyclopedic Cookbook, a lot lately. We even filled up most of a GardenFork Radio show about it. Link Here.

This book is truly encyclopedic and while we may snicker at a lot of the recipes, like Stuffed Crown of Frankfurters ( this is a Must Make on GardenFork ) the book does have some really interesting stuff in it.

I stumbled across a few pages of food dehydration techniques that I had not seen before, and I thought a few were pretty smart in their efficient use of heat and simple design.

A Solar Dehydrator, simple to build

The chapter is titled Drying Foods; today we would title it Food Dehydration.

Here are plans for an outdoor solar dehydrator, they call it a Sun Dryer, and its brilliantly simple, I like the simple tilt mechanism. Just use wing nut to tilt the solar food drier toward the sun.

The Range Top Food Drier

On the next page was something I had never seen before, and I know my wife would not let me build in the kitchen: A Range Top Dryer . The text was a little vague on this one, but it did say ” Strong flavored foods should not be cooked while food is being dried since odors may be absorbed” OK.

I’m guessing you have the burners on to dry out your food? Or does the heat from the pilot lights give off enough heat to be an effective food deyhrator? Not sure. Anyone know? A quick web search turned up nothing. Still, its quite fascinating to me.

A laundry stove food drier

This design uses heat from the Laundry Stove. I’ve never heard of a laundry stove before, but it looks like you would use it to dry clothes.

This chapter in the book list all the usual vegetables and fruits one can dry, but it also lists some I never considered.

Spinach:

“Steam 3 minutes, Remove excess moisture. Arrange in a thin layer. Start drying at 120F increase gradually to 140F. Stir the spinach carefully from time to time so that it will dry quickly thoughout. … Greens are likely to be of inferior quality if not carefully dried and stored. They dereriorate after long storage.”

January 23, 2010
From DIY Pizza Oven to DIY Near Space Camera

OK. This is one of those wow things. I was doing more research today on how to make a portable wood fired brick oven for pizzas and bread for an upcoming Gardenfork.tv show.

Via the Make Blog, I learned about PizzaHacker, who has an interesting Weber Grill cum Pizza Oven, and Machine Project, who made this temporary pizza oven – which looks pretty permanent to me. ( PizzaHacker on Twitter here )

Thru the Make Zine post I click on a link to pizza fanatic Mike Sense, who hosts two DIY tv shows, Science channel’s Punkin’ Chunkin’ and Catch It Keep It. (Mike on Twitter here.)

Photo from space.1337arts.com

I start reading thru Mike’s blog, and he has posted about these two MIT students who built a near space camera rig out of a styrofoam cooler.

wow.

I keep saying I was born a few decades too early. In college we did not have GPS cell phones and cheap digital cameras. Now they do, so you can build your own near space camera.

So you can make your own rig that will go up 17.5 miles into space, take great pictures, and then find the thing when it lands ( with a GPS cell phone ).

Preparing the balloon – photo from space.1337arts.com

Oliver Yeh , Justin Lee, Eric Newton did just that. Their website has great pictures and a PDF of how they did it.

Here is a complete how-to PDF on how they did it. And here is the home page of their space photography site for more info and consider donating a few bucks to further their projects.

Doug Clarkin built a space camera based on their PDF and here are some photos of his launch. I really like that Doug did this with his 6 yr old son.

Just super cool, i think. I doubt I’ll ever build a near space camera cooler, but its great to know you can for $150. I will build a pizza – bread oven. Thanks to Mike for the pizza info and the post about this.

Here is a video they made:

1337arts Icarus Project TimeLapse Video (Max Altitude: 93,000 ft) from Justin Lee on Vimeo.

January 17, 2010
The Art of Eating In, a new book by Cathy Erway

I’ve met Cathy Erway a few times, the first was at Emily Farris’ Casserole Crazy competition ( we made a GF show about it here ) She’s well known in the Brooklyn Food world, and I really like her blog about cooking in. Its not fancy food, its home food, but thought of in a few new ways.

Like right now Cathy ( according to her blog posts ) is really into using apple cider as a braising liquid. Something I would not have thought of – but then I don’t get many original ideas in the kitchen.

Now Cathy has published a book, The Art of Eating In:

Rediscover the joy of home cooking through the eyes of one Brooklynite who swore off restaurants for two years. The story behind the scenes of Not Eating Out in New York, The Art of Eating In chronicles Cathy Erway’s journey through the underground of NYC eating, and her favorite recipes along the way. Two years, three apartments, countless food events and some strange restaurant-free “dates” later, she was able to turn eating in into something of an art, rather than mere survival.

You can learn more about Cathy’s book here, and read her blog, Not Eating Out in NY here.

January 17, 2010
Good Indian Food in Kensington Brooklyn

I was painting an apartment in the Kensington area of Brooklyn. Kensington borders several different ethnic neighborhoods, one of them being an area of people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.

I walked out of the building and toward MacDonald Ave, and saw an awning that said “Basmati” . Some of the east asian – indian food places in NYC can be pretty bland buffet food, but this was different, the food looked fresh and the counterperson was real helpful.

I had the special, with fresh baked nan bread. I love lentils and these lentils were still whole, and had a bit of crunch to them. I want to experiment to figure out how to make them. Many people say their lentils come out gritty. not sure why.

I’m not a big fan of cauliflower, but the curried cauliflower was good, it was not cooked to mush, nice texture was still there.

For a simple lunch, this indian food is perfect.

Basmati is at 221 Church Ave near MacDonald.

January 12, 2010