done

Now I remember why I don't do this more often.

the feeling is mutual

The chocolate hates me.

The tempering went fairly well, though I won't really know until I unmold the chocolates. The ganaches, however, are being very difficult, clumping in spots, and not piping very smoothly. I'm really sick of this. Fortunately almost all the piping is done. All that remains is to cover the bottoms of the truffles with more tempered chocolate, and then to unmold.

heating and cooling

While the ganaches cool, I've tempered chocolate and coated my molds with the melted chocolate. In the process I've covered most kitchen surfaces in chocolate, and left chocolate smudges throughout the house (and on my keyboard). Once the molds cool, I'll pipe the ganache into the molds, let that settle, temper more chocolate, and cover the bottoms. Then, perhaps, sleep.

ganache

The four ganaches for the truffles are done. While they cool, I'm going to temper some milk chocolate and pour it into the truffle molds. I'll fill the molds with the ganaches and then conclude cooking for the night. Only a couple hours left.

before chocolate...dinner

Before making chocolate, I'm making dinner for my hostesses. I've filled thier apartment with smoke, but I think the linguini carbonara will be worth it.

preparing for the coming chocolate storm

All other prep work done, I now turn my attention to the chocolate making. I'm planning to turn out between 150 and 200 100 truffles. Hopefully the six pounds of chocolate I brought to Minnesota will stretch that far.

Before I can start making the chocolate, we need to clean the kitchen. Brynn looking on and offering whines of encouragement, Laura and I put away everything that doesn't need to be out. In a few hours, chocolate will cover everything in the kitchen, so minimizing the damage now is important.

where's the beef? Rainbow.

While Lunds lacked sufficent beef supplies, Rainbow did not. Five pounds of beef in hand, along with ingredients to make my hostesses dinner tonight and a few other ingredients and I'm back at Laura's. When I arrive, I find Laura has returned home, her niece Brynn in tow.

Brynn didn't seem very impressed with the beef, but I think it looks pretty good. I assemble a quick marinate and throw the bags of marinating meat into the refrigerator overnight.

something fishy's going on

I bought four pounds of salmon from Coastal Seafoods. The fish looks terrific, and smells great too. I'm salt curing it, making gravlax, to which I'll add some cheese and some chives for extra niceness.

First, I needed to trim the fat and what was left of its fins.

Then I applied the cure, salt, pepper, lemon and lime zest, and dill to the fleshy side of the fish. Rubbing it in to the meat, the fish is tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated under weight. Tomorrow afternoon we'll clean it off and see how it tastes.

Now I've got to go back out to the grocery in search of beef. Lots of beef.

the day of cooking

Arriving safely in Minneapolis on Wednesday, and having spent Thursday looking at houses, I am now spending my Friday cooking at Laura and Kate's. I'm making food for the open house following Kassie's wedding. I'll be updating all day with photos of the progress.

question of the day

Why do flights purchased at priceline.com always require my early awakening?

mid-week bullet points

A few mid-week bullets:

• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is very good. The dialog is as crisp as in the first few seasons of the West Wing.
  
• Since I'm mentioning the current television season, I'm obligated to discuss The Wire. The fourth season reinforces its position as the Best Thing Ever on TV. Ever.
  
• As the baseball season winds down, I'm watching the Twins closely to see if they can make the playoffs despite the loss of Francisco Liriano. Bat-Girl is a great Twins blog.
  
• I received seven pieces of mail from the unemployment office today. One letter claims I earned $0 last year, and therefore am not eligible for benefits. Another concurs with this determination. A third letter disagrees, though it dramatically understates my earnings. Mind you, I brought my W2s from last year, as well as several pay stubs to the office on Monday. They were copied. Presumably to be immediately thrown in the trash. I'll be visiting the unemployment office again tomorrow.
  
• Tonight I'm going to see Tokyo Police Club at the Warehouse Next Door. A review is likely forthcoming.

playing out the string

Notebook in hand, I went to RFK Stadium last night to watch the Washington Nationals host the Atlanta Braves.

7:02 p.m. - There couldn't be more than 1,000 people in the upper level, and probably aren't 10,000 people in the stadium for the first pitch.
7:05 p.m. - My claps for a first-pitch strike from Russ Ortiz echo hollowly against the stadium roof.
7:08 p.m. - A two-out double past first baseman Nick Johnson and Russ Ortiz's no-hitter ends.
7:10 p.m. - An Andruw Jones singly later, the shutout ends as well. Braves lead 1-0.
7:15 p.m. - RFK is as quiet as I've ever heard it when Alfonso Soriano leads off the bottom of the first with a single.
7:20 p.m. - Ryan Zimmerman launches a line-drive over the left field wall to tie the game. The lower deck bursts to life, and the crowd is still buzzing as Nick Johnson steps to the plate.
7:35 p.m. - The Red Hot & Blue pulled pork sandwich is tasty, but difficult to eat in a stadium seat, and isn't really enough food for $10.
7:38 p.m. - A three-run home run by Braves catcher Brian McCann spoils my upgraded seat in the lower deck. Braves lead 4-1.
7:55 p.m. - Even at $6.50 a bottle, something about a baseball game makes the first sip of beer even better.
8:06 p.m. - Thomas Jefferson wins the Presidents race after Washington squanders a big lead to mess with Teddy Roosevelt. Lincoln was a non-factor.
8:16 p.m. - Perhaps inspired by Jefferson, Bernie Casto hustles down the line to beat out an infield hit and the Nats close the gap, now trailing 4-2 after four innings.
8:25 p.m. - Andruw Jones hits a home run to put the Nats down three again. Doesn't look good for the home team.
8:49 p.m. - Jeff Francoeur homers in the top of the sixth, and I'm cold. Down 6-2, with no offense brewing and the temperature around 60, I head for the exit.
9:44 p.m. - I arrive home just in time to watch Soriano strike out on three pitches to end the game. Final score: Braves 7, Nationals 2.

shearwater and magnolia electric co.

Tonight I caught Shearwater and Magnolia Electric Co. at the Black Cat. Shearwater, an Okkervile River side project opened.

While a band with a banjo rather than a guitar (as well as an upright bass) is a novelty, Shearwater's first few songs with lead singer Jonathan Meiburg on banjo were uninspiring, they couldn't fill the 1/3 full black cat with sound. Only when he traded the banjo for keyboards, and the keyboardist grabbed up a guitar did the show pick up. A solid set, though nothing too exciting. Better, however, than...

Magnolia Electric Co., who took the stage next. Their guitarist looks like Robert Fitzgerald used to look. Unfortunately, that was the only notable thing about their performance.

standing in the unemployment line

Yesterday I went to the DC unemployment office to file my claim for benefits until the next disaster.

Arriving at 10:10 for my 10:15 "appointment," I checked in at the desk and joined 11 others sitting in a room with seats for 30.

Around 10:30 someone came in and called four or five away, leaving the rest of us to wait our turn. One woman tapped away on her Blackberry while another scrutinized the unemployment brochure.

The unemployed are clad in everything from business attire to ghetto garb, one woman dressed in a business suit, with another more suited for a night on the town than a job interview. At one point a man wearing a torn t-shirt and sweatpants joined us.

After about an hour, two women began discussing the inefficiencies of the office. "This is stupid," one said, getting up to register her complaint with the desk. Moments later she returned muttering "ridiculous" to herself. As she threw herself into a chair in the back of the room, the beads in her braids rattled as she continued shaking her head and muttering.

Eventually, at about 11:45, I was called into the office to finish my paperwork. Ten minutes later I was out the door.

If everything is filed correctly, in a couple weeks I'll start getting unemployment. Hopefully.

released

It's my last night in Harrisburg before returning home, with a trip to Minneapolis to celebrate the nuptials of Kassie and CJ. While I would have preferred to work another week here, they are downsizing (the technical term is "rightsizing") the staff here, and so home I return.

My financial desires notwithstanding, it's just as well that I leave this deployment. I've been here for seven weeks, and particularly the last few have been pretty slow. Couple boredom at work with a lack of social activities outside of work (exacerbated by my hotel's proximity to nothing but the highway), and you get a bored, lonely Simon.

The vacuousness of television and the internet can only go so far to alleviate these symptoms. Though I will mention that Keith Olbermann on Countdown (with Keith Olbermann) does fill the 8-9 p.m. time slot of my life quite well. Great political commentary with just enough humor to make the state of affairs bearable, at least for a little while.

mid-week bullet points

Part of my continuing effort to generate more content more frequently here at chabel.net, I'm going to try a mid-week bullet point post. It's easier than a real post, and 18% less boring.

• For some reason, watching Bill Clinton vote yesterday was pleasing to me.
  
• I think The Thermals new record, The Body, The Blood, The Machine is good stuff. I think they've been classified as punk, though I think they're not quite loud enough and their lyrics are coherent. I'm also listening to Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos quite a bit. Much lighter, they'd probably be classified as alt-country or folk. I think they sound a bit like Wilco, but newer.
  
• I'm finished in Harrisburg at week's end. I'll spend a week to ten days in DC, and then off to Minneapolis for Kassie's wedding and Episode III of Homebuying with Simon.

I took this on the way to work. I'd always wondered where students went. Now I know.

snow patrol...late

Twice delayed, Snow Patrol finally appeared at the 9:30 club. Because they had been postponed when the singer lost his voice, they appeared as a late show, with doors opening at 10, and Snow Patrol finally taking the stage around midnight.

It was a good show, lots of energy from the lead singer. Live, they sounded a lot like their album, which is both good and bad. Playing all but two songs off their two most recent albums, the crowd was into it, though not annoyingly so. And at 1:30, the crowd spilled out of the 9:30 club, and I started a two hour drive to back Harrisburg.

All told, a worthwhile trip, though I am not going to enjoy work very much today.

to my point

While packing, I have the football game on in the background. The announcers are now discussing whether they can use instant replay to determine whether one team's coach threw the flag for an instant replay in time. And then my head exploded again.

I hate football

The American professional football season begins today. I hate the NFL, both the institution and the sport it pushes. My distaste for the NFL is best expressed in bullet points:

• To start, the word football utterly fails to describe the sport being played. Even recognizing the increased role the foot played in early football, this is a stupid name. And of course, the rest of the world uses football to describe the most popular sport in the world. The Aussies recognize this, and their version of football (played with a lot more foot) is universally known as Australian Rules Football. Americans insist on confusing the world resulting in awkwardly constructed sentences like 'American football, as opposed to football, or soccer as it is known in the U.S.'



• It takes attention away from baseball, at the very moment the baseball season gains intrigue. A ravenous baseball fan, I have ignored the dull roar of pretend football games and "news," but sports coverage is now saturated with football coverage. Without any data (games), the coverage is the worst kind of sports journalism: speculative. This relates to a point below, but the excess of pre-game, post-game and mid-week analysis seems unique to football. The constant droning of catch phrases from semi-intelligent "analysts" may be the lowest form of television. I am constantly amazed at the sports television industry's ability to find people who perpetually speak as though the current topic is the most exciting and important thing in the history of the universe. Speaking of which:
  


• Chris Berman
  


• The culture promoted by the NFL is corrosive to a healthy society's values system. Violence is at the core of the game, brutality is rewarded. More than in any other major sport, the goal is not simply to defeat your opponent, but to dominate them. Behavior toward this end is glorified, and emulated endlessly by fans of all ages. Surrounding the games themselves is a dazzling panoply of images promoting women as sex objects, lite beer as life-improver, and fanaticism as reasonable behavior.
  
  My objections extend beyond typical braying about the coarsening of our culture. For the next five months sports coverage, and a fair bit of news coverage will be dominated by a sport that offers visceral thrill on par with the Christians and the lions at the coliseum, and little else. That this sport plays such a central role in our national experience and is so embraced by so many demonstrates our savagery as a country.
  


• My moralistic objections aside, sport itself makes no sense. The objectives are varied and convoluted. In basketball, you score by putting the ball through the hoop. In baseball, you score a run every time a player touches home plate. While there are many ways to achieve these objectives, there is only one objective. Let's review the ways to score in football:
  
  • "Extra Point" - Kick the ball (held stationary by a teammate, rather than dropkicking) through uprights on the play immediately following a touchdown: 1 point
    
  • "Safety" - Force an opposing player to the ground in their end zone while they are in possession of the ball: 2 points
    
  • "Two point conversion" - Carry the ball into the end zone on the play immediately following a touchdown: 2 points
    
  • "Field goal" - Kick the ball through the uprights in any situation other than immediately following a touchdown (see below): 3 points
    
  • "Touchdown" - Carry the ball into the end zone in any situation other than immediately following a touchdown: 6 points
  
  
  Some might call this nuance. I call it moronic. What basis is there for assigning the different point values to each act? A "safety" is far more difficult to achieve (or is occurs less often) than a touchdown. Why is it only worth 1/3 the points? Why is kicking, a very different skill (evidenced by the physiques of kickers compared to other football players), even an element of the game? After 300 pound men spend an hour pushing each other around in brutal and disgusting ways, the victor is determined by whether a 150 pound guy can kick a ball straight and far? Seriously?
  
• Ignoring the quality of the officiating, sometimes a very difficult thing to do, the enforcement of the rulebook completely disrupts the rhythm of a game. Is there any other sport where there are unplanned breaks in the action of ten minutes? A play happens. There is or isn't a penalty called. Officials huddle. A coach throws a diaper on the field and the officials spend the next five minutes watching television. A conclusion is reached. It is announced. The ball is placed on the field and the teams are encouraged to line up and resume play.
  
  Then the officials realize the ball may not have been placed precisely enough. More television watching ensued. I've begun searching my room for things with which to stab myself in the scrotum. Eventually I just pass out/have an aneurism. When play resumes, the end result is nothing happened. Time is put back on the clock. The ball has not moved. How football players navigate such a universe without existential crises astounds me.
  


• Too often arbitrary events determine the outcome. The placement of the ball on the field can have dramatic ramifications on the outcome. One inch in either direction may determine the victor. But the idea that an official can accurately place a ball currently resting under 1,500 pounds of flesh is laughable. Even instant replay does little to resolve this problem, creating myriad problems of its own.
  
  It is cliché that a holding penalty could be called on every play. But cliché for its truth. There are dozens of situations in a game where a penalty called or not called impact the outcome. While I believe referees to be impartial, their judgment too much determines victory.

I keep harping on the way in which the victor is determined in football. Why? Because that's the point of sport. If the outcome is largely arbitrary and we just want something violent then aren't we're better off watching Bumfights and admitting to our barbarousness?

reflections on Easton, PA

Easton, PA is a mid-sized city on the eastern edge of the state. Like many Pennsylvania towns, Easton has a little history, some nice architecture, and a classic main street with small boutiques and reasonably nice people. I stopped in Easton for lunch on my way from Bangor, PA to Morrisville, PA a bit more than two weeks ago.

Little did I know that Easton is home to two locations of cultural import:

The Crayola Factory, a factory/museum, provides opportunities for youth info-tainment with a little consumerism thrown in. Tempted to check it out, my enthusiasm to learn how crayons are made was tempered by the $9.50 admission fee. Some things are meant to remain a mystery.

The Easton Museum of Pez Dispensers (differentiated from all other Museums of Pez Dispensers) sits across the street from the Crayola Museum. Less a museum, the EMPD is more a room where someone keeps a lot of Pez dispensers. Next to this room is another room, where someone sells lots of Pez-related "souvenirs." The excessive entry fee of $2.50 dissuaded me from literally going behind the curtain (separating the 'museum' from the 'gift shop').

on Labor Day

I only realized it was Labor Day when, on my way to work, I thought, ‘where’s all the traffic? Oh yeah, not working.’

Moments later I realized I could have slept an extra ten minutes. So not only did I work on Labor Day, but got to work ten minutes early.

SOLIDARITY FOREVER!

department of excessive packaging

This weekend I went home to relax and take care of a few things. Greeting me was a pile of mail, mostly bills and offers for low-interest loans. Amidst the letters was an unsolicited package. Always a good thing, I jumped right in. What could be contained inside the pristine white box? Surely something of unparalleled value.
After a couple of minutes of wrangling with the wrapping, I found my prize:

W the Card. For my frequent patronage, I'm now some kind of SuperVIP at W Hotels. Apparently VIPs don't get letters, just packages.

If I'm a SuperVIP now, someone needs to let the garbage man know, because he'll be getting a lot more trash like this: