Bottle Drying Rack

Homebrewers are all familiar with the accumulation of beer bottles on the kitchen counters. The bottles can't be thoroughly cleaned in a dishwater due to the beer sediment, and therefore they pile up until they reach critical mass (i.e. someone gets fed up and starts complaining).

Our excuse for letting the bottles pile up is that we didn't have a good place to dry them. I hate counter clutter and we have limited counter space, so anything that needs to be hand washed is dried and put away immediately - we don't have a countertop drainboard. It's hard to dry a bottle immediately unless you want to shove a small rag into it or use a hair dryer.

The boy wanted to weld a bottle rack, but again, it would pig up some room on the counter and it would drain on the counter. We compromised on a simpler solution: a drain board that straddles the sink and holds the bottles upside down. He found some wood scrap, drilled some holes, and problem solved!

(Actually, the problem is almost solved. Someone still needs to clean the bottles out with a bottle brush.)

The rack works well for wine bottles, too. We save those as well because we have a friend who grows grapes and makes way more wine than he can possibly drink, an excellent quality in a friend.

Spicy Knitted Carboy Sweater

Hopefully, this is the last carboy sweater I knit for a long, long time. The summer of 2013 is forever going to be remembered as the time I knit 4 consecutive carboy sweaters. It's a rather pathetic label for a time that should be remembered as, say, the time I conquered stand up paddle boarding (I have a long way to go) or time I took a fab vacation to Italy. Still, it will have to do. As my friend said after she gushed about unwrapping a new kitchen sponge, sometimes being an adult sucks.

Numerous people have told me that I should make these and sell them because I could make so much money. These people think I'm a little lazy for not spending my time cranking these out. Then, I ask them how much they would pay for this sweater made of mostly acrylic. The answer? $20, max. I tell them that it took me probably 6 hours or so to knit this, and they now look at me like I'm a little crazy. One person had a novel solution: I should have a sweatshop in China where people knit these carboy sweaters. That's every young girl's dream, isn't it? To lord over a sweatshop in China! Ugh, no thanks.

This is why I sell patterns, but not handcrafted goods. Although desktop publishing makes me feel all stabby, the stabby feeling fades after a brisk walk with the dog, and I can resume wearing my rose-colored glasses. That stabby feeling would last 6 hours multiplied by the number of commissioned sweaters I made if I were to knit for hire. No thanks.

Who I'll knit for and what I'll knit is always evolving. Babies? Sure! I do love giving babies a hand knit sweater. Adults? It depends. I will happily teach adults to knit, but the thought of knitting something for someone who just wants to throw money at me never seems worth it. I'd be interested to hear other crafter's thoughts about this, and how you handle people asking you to make them things.

How to Get Rid of a Yellow Jacket Nest

Two Thursdays ago, I was roasting coffee in the backyard. My coffee roasting routine consists of putting the beans onto the rotisserie, and then tidying up all the chaos in the backyard until the beans are done. Experience has taught me that if I return inside the house while the beans are roasting, something will go wrong like the rotisserie will stall leaving me with burned beans on the bottom and green beans on the top. While abating the chaos, I angered some yellow jackets who nested near the rock wall. Then, a series of unfortunate events occurred: angry wasps flew into my hair and got stuck on my scalp due to my ponytail; I tried to run from them, but since they were all stuck in my hair this was futile and resulted in riling up the wasps even more; and then I got stung at least twice. I had to channel some inner zen to undo my ponytail to release the wasps and stop the stinging. Yeah, that wasn't my best moment.

My poor dogs were in the backyard with me, and all my waving around made them think we were playing a game of chase, so they were running around with me, and unfortunately were also attacked by the ruthless yellow jackets.

This. Was. War.

When I told the boy about my nasty encounter, he was ready to fight. However, he also was determined to do it himself because I made the mistake of telling him that a friend called an exterminator and it costs her around $100 and only took 10 minutes. In my mind, I was thinking, $100, what a bargain! In his mind, he was thinking, $100 for 10 minutes, what a rip-off! 

Eradicate the Yellow Jackets 1.0 consisted of a trip to the hardware store to acquire the cheapest wasp trap, a $7 fake flower that attaches to the top of a 2-liter soda bottle. The wasps walk in, attracted to the soda, and they never walk out. After setting the trap at dusk, we waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, we went to sleep, thinking that we'd wake up to find half the nest drowned in the Mexican Sangria soda. Apparently, yellow jackets hate sangria soda, although they were definitely interested because they buzzed around the bottle during the day, terrifying our already-stung dogs who refused to go into the backyard to do their business due to the evil wasps.

Again, I wanted to call up an exterminator. Again, the boy thought he could fix the problem himself, so Eradicate the Yellow Jackets 2.0 started and he set about making a homemade anti-wasp suit out of a mosquito net, a mechanics jumpsuit, and 2 rubber bands. Although I warned him that I wouldn't let him back into the house if he had a hoard of angry wasps at his back (I had just listened to Sigourney Weaver talking about her character Ellen Ripley), he was still irritated that I left him outside until he was wasp free. Or maybe he was irritated that I took a video of him as he was making an adjustment to the wasp trap?

2 days pass, and still no wasps are in the stupid trap. Not only that, but the amount of wasps going in and out of their nests is increasing. Our whole backyard was abuzz! So, again, I wanted to call an exterminator. Again, the boy thought he could fix the problem himself.

You may recall from previous posts that he has been actively brewing beer since January. Our living room, in fact, is full of beer brewing equipment like this giant 11-gallon pot with a ball valve at the end. The boy's next idea was to wait until the wasps were sleeping, set this pot full of boiling water onto a step stool, aim the valve at the wasp nest entrance, open the valve, and then run like hell back into the house.  So, at midnight on a Saturday, Eradicate the Yellow Jackets 3.0 commenced. I went to bed in protest because I thought it was an elaborate way for the boy to get burned and stung.

No more wasp nest!

But you know what? Eradicate the Yellow Jackets 3.0, a.k.a. Yellow Jacket Sting, was a success! Apparently, it took 2 pots of boiling water, a shovel to mix the hot mud into the nest, and a strong stomach to look at the squirming wasp larvae.  The dogs can now safely do their business in the backyard in peace.

The boy was most proud that this was a chemical free way to take care of the wasps, although I'm not sure I'd recommend this solution to anyone else.

The next day, we took a field trip to the Petaluma Seed Bank (purple fava beans and German radishes!), Hallie's Diner (poached eggs had a hard boiled yolk, but the cornmeal pancakes were the best I've had), and the Lagunitas Brewing Company (meh). We also stopped at a hardware store to look at compost bins, but since they were over $100.... Well, you know where this is going.

The compost bin on the left is made from old IKEA patio furniture, and the compost bin on the right is from the boy's stick collection and some wire.

We have to add some netting to the twiggy compost bin because the leaves won't stay put. Also, rodents like the kitchen scraps, and the last thing I want to do is have a rodent nest in my compost bin. I already filled the IKEA compost bin with some leaves from our backyard layered with the gross compost soup I had brewing for over a year in a garbage can. We called that can's contents poop soup since I did a poor job managing that bin. Now, however, it just smells like dirt. I'll let it sit for a year to do its thing.

Is there a moral to these stories? If there is, it would have to incorporate persistence and, ahem, being cheap. 

A Potato Pancake As Big As Your Plate?

Yes, potato pancakes the size of your dinner plate do exist in the magical Czech Republic! If you can stomach the secondhand smoke, something living in no-smoking-indoors-and-near-doorways California did not prepare me for, the pub food in Prague is what all other pub food should be based upon: it's hearty, tasty, goes well with beer, and cheap! Adorning that giant potato pancake are two types of sweet and sour cabbage, and many slices of roast pork.

Although Pilsner Urquell is the dominant brand of beer there, not much of it passed my lips. Us travelers called it "pissy Urquell." Thankfully, there's a strong (and growing!) microbrew movement there, as evidenced by this technicolor beer sampler from the famous Pivovarsky Dum.

The green beer at 3 o'clock is stinging nettle beer. There's also a sour cherry, a banana, and a coffee beer here.

I also sampled many variations of svikova, larded beef with a sour cream sauce that is traditionally served with the densest potato dumplings I have ever had. Every restaurant seemed to outdo itself in the "who can make the densest potato dumpling?" category, but I am not a fan. I was served them a lot in Germany, and I also pushed them aside there. Oh, what I wouldn't have given for a serving of brown rice to sop up all that gravy instead of those blasted dumplings (again, exposing my CA roots).

Showing off my Flaming June in Cesky Krumlov

Chandelier made from human bones at the Sedlec Ossuary

Besides eating, we rafted, walked a ton, visited a creepy ossuary in Kunta Hora, got lost, got found, rode bikes and almost died in Ghent, and made a beer pilgrimage to Belgium. We ended our trip with a (unintended, due to the holiday) 8-mile hike to the Trappist Westvleteren Brewery. Yes, the theme was beer (for him) and food (for me). 

Hiking through the hop fields

I can see the appeal of traveling the world - discovering at least 20 new things each day is addicting, and it makes it very hard to slip back into everyday life. Traveling for an hour and having the language switch from French, to Flemish (basically, Dutch), to Czech was unbalanced, but exciting in an odd way. Too bad I kept on trying to speak Spanish to everyone. Apparently my brain categorizes all foreign language into my Spanish speaking compartment. But, I am happy to be home because of my cats, my dogs, and my washer and dryer.

Happenings

The boy has upgraded his beer operation to 5-gallon batches, which as far as I can tell, means that he washes bottles for hours on brew days. However, now his dream of drinking his own beer at home is a reality. The homebrews' alcohol content have been roughly 3%, so I've been referring to the beers as "Utah friendly." 

Mingus, however, is not impressed with the DIY beer. Beer has nothing to do with dogs getting walks or dogs getting food, so he just hides behind our curtain until we pay attention to him.

In a moment of insanity, I decided to walk Mingus to my bank. The walk inflated his ego since two strangers approached him and went nuts petting him. Now, whenever we pass someone we don't know, Mingus assumes that the person wants to give him pets and he veers towards them, something I am not encouraging because not everyone is ok with a wolf-like dog getting into his or her personal space.

I've been experimenting with paella-ish dishes that have less rice than a traditional paella. This particular batch had 2 cups of baby lima beans, 1 head of cauliflower, and 1 bunch of kale. I only added 1/2 cup of raw rice to the dish and only 2 chorizo sausages. It turned out just as delicious as a rice dependent paella, and it didn't make me want to take a nap after dinner. The key to getting all the rice to cook is putting a lid on it for the first 20 minutes.

Fifty-Fifty is still lapping up the sun spots around the house.

And Vespa, ever vigilant, keeps her eyes on Fifty.

Some things will never change.

Tangerine Dreams and Red Roses

Flaming June is off the needles and on me! Already, I know that I am going to wear this over, and over, and over again. The only problem is that it's so distinctive that people are going to notice when I wear the same cardigan 5 days in a row. Maybe I should knit another one in black and green?

Excruciating details can be found on my Ravelry project page. This fingering weight sweater, as well as a 700+ page library book (Inheritance by Christopher Paolini), was keeping me in my own little world.

The boy's beer hobby has been upsized from 1-gallon batches to 5-gallon batches. Before he could take up space in the house for a 5-gallon set up, he had to prove that this wasn't just a passing whim. I should know better than to challenge him, because since January, he's made 14 1-gallon batches of beer. My waistline can only take 1 beer every other day, so this has been a challenge! Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, the time it takes to brew 5 gallons is not significantly more time than it takes to brew 1 gallon. Besides the dog-sized pot, we didn't need to buy anything more thanks to his brother who used to brew beer back in the day. Score! I sent out some feelers and got connected with some chicken wranglers, so I won't have to feed our bloated compost bin and red wrigglers any more spent grain (and hopefully I'll get some eggs in the process).

Orange and red have been my theme colors for the past few months. More proof is this little ditty I knit up for a friend's baby.  I've also been making red and gold beet salads, and eating blood oranges with tangerines. Next, I'll be making superhero capes for the cats.

Beersplosion

As I was rushing out the door on a Friday evening, I noticed a stream of brown fluid in my office. The stream went from under my desk to the futon, roughly 10 feet. My first reaction was panic: which animal do I have to take to emergency vet? As I started mopping it up, it didn't seem like vomit or pee (oh, the joys of having pets!), and it didn't smell bad. In fact, it smelled kind of good.

I followed the stream to its source: one ceramic beer bottle, neatly split into two pieces. Our secondary containment system was a little lacking, but it did capture some of the beer-to-be. Now, beer bottle bombs has a spot on my phobia list.

The boy made two more gallons of beer last night, bringing our total to 7 gallons, or 70 bottles. Well, 70 minus 1 bottles (of beer on the wall/floor). He's mastered the "making two beers at once" skill, and all I have to do is hold the strainer and funnel as he pours the beer into the gallon carboys. There is also little to no discernible swearing going on while the beer making process is afoot.

As I write this, I'm smugly sipping on a bottle of a coffee and coconut stout. Yes, smugly! I roasted the green coffee beans, and the boy threw it into the boil. +10 DIY points for us. However, don't worry, I won't be so smug tonight when I'm wide awake at 2 AM thanks to the coffee in this stout.

Food Happenings

There is a meat mobile hanging over our sink now! After posting about my homemade pancetta, my aunt told me that she remembers Grandma hanging slabs of Chinese bacon (lop yuk) above the kitchen sink. I had never heard of Chinese bacon, although in retrospect I must have eaten it since it is a popular ingredient in joong. My aunt has been experimenting with different recipes, and she was kind enough to send me the recipe she used for her latest batch of bacon. Now, we have our very own pork belly meat mobile hanging above our kitchen sink. Unlike the pancetta, no curing salts is used. Instead, the marinade is salt, brown sugar, Chinese whiskey, dark soy sauce, and light soy sauce. Once the meat is dry, I'll store it in the refrigerator. The soy sauce makes this bacon black, which is a little unsettling.

For Chinese New Year, I had some friends over and we all assembled joong and potstickers. What is joong? It's a mixture of sweet rice, mung beans, ginkgo nuts, Chinese bacon, Chinese sausage, salted egg yolks (which I am totally making next), and more all wrapped up in bamboo leaves and boiled for hours. While getting ready for the folding fest, the boy researched how to fold the joong since he's usually better at that stuff than I am (the photo above is his work). Our first folding attempt just looked wrong to me because it was a rectangular packet. When I did my own research afterwards, the reason it looked "wrong" was because each region has its own way of folding joong. My family folds joong into the pyramid shape, shown above. 

To eat joong, you unwrap the bamboo leaves and dig in. Our second batch of joong we filled with untraditional fillings, like sweet brown rice and black rice. It wasn't as sticky as when you make it with white rice, but it still held its shape well when unwrapped.

We've also been making more beer and more beer muffins. In the carboys, we have a chestnut brown ale and coffee and coconut stout. Our fake Guinness turned out good, despite forgetting to add barley in the mash. The boy is using an old milk crate as a brewing stand, and it is a really good idea! I hardily have to do anything now. We have two gallon carboys going at the same time now - the second carboy is simply a gallon jug that came with apple juice. The boy brews 2 batches at a time now. I thought it would be great challenge to limit our beer consumption to what we brew. The boy thought that was a horrible idea.

The spent grain and applesauce muffins are still a treat. The boy made the last batch, and they turned out much better than mine since he actually put all the sugar into the batter. I always insist on cutting the sugar by half, but that does make the muffins less moist.

The boy also made a batch of carrot pickles. When he asked me how I made the last batch of Mexican carrot pickles, I couldn't remember, but fortunately I posted my recipe on my blog. I'd forget most of the stuff I do if I didn't record it somewhere!

This is not quite a food topic, but it is made of edible ingredients: the oil cleansing method. It sounds absolutely crazy, but I've been washing my face with a combination of castor, olive, and avocado oils. Other blogs have much to say on this subject, and I can tell you that after using this cleansing method for a week, my face feels great! I was braced for breakouts and oily skin, but I actually had to use less castor oil and add more avocado and olive oil because the first few days my face was too dry. Also, this is the best makeup remover I've used, and all this for a mere fraction of the price of the fancy face products I used to buy.

There are so many recipes out there for DIY natural body care products. I'd love to hear of recipes that you've used with success!

No More Plastic Bags

Blue Avocado Produce Bag

Looking for a stocking stuffer for just about anyone? Reusable produce bags to the rescue! It always bothered me that trips to the produce stands always meant getting a plastic bag here and there. Sure, I have numerous grocery bags that I use to tote everything home, and things like clementines and onions can be bought sans bag, but what about the bulk arugula (for this fantastic green smoothie) or the Brussels sprouts?

Although I did a fair job bringing old plastic bags with me to the store to reuse and some bags got second life as a vessel for dog poop, my pile of spent plastic bags kept growing. Since this has been a change I've been meaning to make for some time, I finally stopped making excuses and bought a set of 8 reusable produce bags. Although I wanted to buy cotton bags, I thought it may be annoying for the cashiers to have to open up and peer into each and every bag, so I ended up with sheer nylon bags. True, they are another form of plastic, but hopefully I can keep using these for a long time.

TazzyTotes bag

My main concern about the reusable bags was weight. Would using them make me pay more for produce? To figure this out, I weighted my bags. The large TazzyTotes are 3/8 oz, the Blue Avocado are 5/8 oz, and plastic bags from Monterey Market are 1/4 oz. So, yes, they do weigh a little more. The Blue Avocado bags come in a set of 2, and the bag not pictured has a pouch sewn into it for easy storage - that bag is obviously way heavier than the others. My strategy is to put things that you buy per item, like mangoes and avocados, into the Blue Avocado bags and the other things into the TazzyTotes. I plan on buying another set of TazzyTotes (3 large bags and 1 small bag sells for $6.99) so I don't run out of bags. The Blue Avocado bags were $8.99 at Star Market.

If you buy a lot of bulk items, the TazzyTotes come with a plastic tab and a dry erase pen you can use to write down the bin numbers. Pretty neat! If I knew how to sew, or if the boy had more time to do my bidding, I'd make a set. But, I've been saying I'll make some for over a year, so clearly that was not going to happen anytime soon. I'd rather be knitting or crocheting! If you know of any reusable produce bags made in the Bay Area or even the USA, let me know! Both of the bags I talked about were manufactured in China, and I would have loved to buy locally.

Notice anything odd about the lemongrass? The ends are all torn up. After trying to catch the bugs doing it, I gave up and chalked it up to bad karma. However, a few nights ago, the boy said, "Mingus really loves that lemongrass!" and my head snapped up. "What did you say?" I asked. "Mingus really loves that lemongrass! He takes a nip at it almost every time we walk by that pot." Mystery solved. Mingus was the bug I couldn't catch in the act. What a weird dog. And what a weird boy for thinking it is fine for a dog to eat my lemongrass.

At least Mingus isn't eating my garlic shoots. These garlic shoots have the promise of being Korean extra spicy garlic that is perfect for kimchi. Ugh, this also reminds me that the seed potatoes I bought at the same time are still sitting on my counter. I don't know where I have space to plant them!

And another odd thing is this mask. Why are there feathers in its mouth? The boy swears that the cat toy just landed there during an especially vigorous round of "catch the fake bird" with Greaseball. I don't believe him, but in the meantime, we both think it's a dandy place to rest the cat toy when it's not in use.

Last weekend was beer bottling day. I watched my friend and the boy rack seven bottles of beer. It's an interesting process, although the boy is still complaining that it's a lot of work for just 7 large bottles of beer. He's already talking about his next 5-gallon batch, which would require two new stockpots and a whole lot of space that we just don't have. I think the 1-gallon batch is perfect, especially at this stage where he's learning the rhythm, but I think the compromise is that we'll borrow equipment from friends who have long ago abandoned beer making yet still have all the equipment in their basements if he really wants to make a huge batch. I may even help this time. I hesitated to help during this first round because he's a little anxious in the kitchen, and sometimes that anxiety manifests into petty arguments about the who left a dirty pair of socks under the coffee table that the dogs later ripped up and other stupid things. However, if he's working with a friend in the kitchen, he plays all nicey-nice. (Yup, I've learned a few tricks to keep the peace after 15 years of togetherness.) In two weeks, we should have glorious chestnut brown ale!

Hope in a Jug

Nestled next to our external hard drive on the old, stainless steel laboratory table is the boy's first attempt at beer. A couple of friends joined him on Sunday afternoon to tend grains on the stove. In a month, we should have a lovely chestnut brown ale from an all-grain brewing kit we got from Brooklyn Brew Shop!

I have 2 baking pans full of spent grains drying in the oven, and those grains will be incorporated into breads, muffins, and perhaps some dog treats.  We only brewed a gallon of beer. If we had the spent grains from 5 gallons' worth of beer, we'd have to make friends with chicken ranchers and start another compost bin! Any spent grain recipes you can throw my way will be greatly appreciated.