Stewing

IRON CHEF: Apologies. It strikes me this has turned into a food and crafts blog the last month plus. It's not that we don't do science and stuff, it just that it has been less photogenic, I guess. 

Also, as much as I'd love to post a number of the things CJ writes for his history or psychology class, I'm guessing I'm not supposed to do that publicly due to concerns about plagarism. So, while this is about one of his classes, it's about (surprise!) food! 

Last night was his last Japanese class for the quarter, and students were asked to bring food for a potluck. We surmised that to mean Japanese food. CJ mulled his options and decided to make a soup, since he's an experienced soup maker.  

I'll have him tell you a little bit about it ...

For my last Japanese class at South Seattle College this quarter, I made a stew for a potluck being held in the class. In particular, I chose to make a "sumo stew," or Chankonabe. Sumo stews are named as such because real-world sumo wrestlers often consume them on the regular, as part of a weight-gain diet.

To make the sumo stew, I got a variety of ingredients from a local Asian grocery store. There were some ingredients that we already had, such as leftover Thanksgiving turkey and bone broth, that were both used in the stew. Ingredients such as shiitake mushrooms, carrots, daikon, a leek, soy sauce, and mirin were all used to add flavor to the stew. In most sumo stew, fish is also used. However, because I don't want to eat fish, it was omitted from the stew.

And that's all he had to say about that. 

In reading a whole bunch of articles about this soup/stew, it's clear the broth is supposed to be the star. It is supposed to have umami, of course, and be multi-dimensional, for lack of a better term. We started with turkey bone broth (thanks, Thanksgiving). To that, I suggested CJ add the stems from his shiitake mushrooms (to be added much later), and let the stems steep in the broth. He let that go for a couple of hours.

 To that, he added a bonito (fish) soup base, as well as some carrots, daikon and leeks he sliced up.

That went another couple of hours, and toward the end some white miso was stirred in, plus he added a *bunch* of cooked turkey, more carrots and daikon, and the shiitakes. He also boiled udon noodles and kept them separate, to add to the Instant Pot once he got to his classroom. Garnishes he took included raw sliced daikon, chrysanthemum greens, and enoki mushrooms. 

In the end, it made a beautiful bowl.

CJ's Japanese professor was impressed (per Christian, who helped carry it all in and out). She said that the stew could be sold in any restaurant in Japan. So that was gratifying!  

CJ said she also told the class about the history and importance of sumo stew. One interesting fact is that you don't want to put any four-legged animal in the broth - that's considered bad luck (sumos should be up on two feet, not down on all fours).

I was really glad CJ took a huge pot of soup (and bowls, and spoons and napkins), because as it turns out, he was the only student who brought something to the potluck. :0 The only other food was brought in by the professor. Wow.

FRUITY FUN: While at Uwajimaya (a Japanese grocery store) yesterday, we couldn't help but notice a sign in the produce section touting pink-on-the-inside apples. 

We bought a couple and the kids each had one for breakfast this morning. 

They were really and truly pink!

The kids report they taste somewhat like a Granny Smith.

As an educational note, once upon a time, Washington state exported lots of apples to Japan. However, nowadays, Northwest growers haven’t exported to Japan since the 2000-01 season. This is  largely due to that country’s high (17 percent) tariff and high export costs. Earlier this year, there was talk of a resurgence in Washington apple exports, but the inroads are slow so far.

According to a press release from Washington Senator Maria Cantwell's office, Stemilt Growers has shipped 86,000, 40 pound-boxes of apples to Japan in the last three years, and they were planning to ship 15,000 to 20,000 earlier this year. These exports ended a 16-year lull in U.S. apples to Japan.  It is noted that Stemilt was shipping the apples at a loss, in hopes of generating interest for Washington state apples in Japan. 

CUT IT OUT: Annabelle's Cricut machine has been working over time. Yesterday afternoon she made these festive place cards for a party her grandparents are having later this month. 

This morning she made me a new decal for my pressure cooker. Naturally, it's Freddie and Bowie, "Under Pressure."

And she also designed and cut out a ton of vinyl stickers to transform a boring one white mixer into an R2-D2-themed beauty.

Here's the before. ...

 And a work-in-progress shot.

And here's a side shot of the finished product!

 I love it!

Thanksgiving Scenes

TURKEY REPORT: We hope everyone in the U.S. had a pleasant Thanksgiving break. Ours wasn't the greatest, unfortunately.  CJ and Annabelle were both pretty sick with a nasty cold. It made us change our plans and stay home on Thursday (and for most of the weekend, for that matter).

However, that didn't stop us from sending our gelatinous blob (see previous post) out into the world. We delivered it to Kennedy, who took it to a family gathering up north. I asked him to send photos, and that he did. Below, he readies to plop it onto a plate.

 And there it was in all of is unmolded 'glory.'

 A top shot. Yes, those *are* hard boiled egg whites. 

Ken was kind enough to even send some short videos to us. Let's just say the mold was met with shock and awe and revulsion. They laughed so hard they cried. And choked. #MissionAccomplished.

We also sent along a much more benign little mold - a can of pineapple rings encased in green gelatin.

Compared to the other monstrosity, it was actually kind of pretty.

On Saturday, we had a couple of friends over for a Friendsgiving. (Poor coughing CJ was confined to his room for the 'party'.)  

We didn't make another big blob, but we did decide to do another pineapple 'treat.' I love the look on Annabelle's face as she's trying to coax it out of the can.

 Easy does it ... 

 And, voila! Look at those glistening gelatinous gems! So festive! ;)

Speaking of festive, I went ahead with a Star Wars-inspired table setting, because nothing says Thanksgiving like Star Wars (ha ha).

Our friends were bringing a smoked turkey and pastrami, so we cooked up a bunch of side dishes. They included butternut squash souffle, wild rice and shiitake mushroom stuffing, deconstructed green bean salad, mashed potatoes and gravy (of course) and rustic rosemary scones.

For dessert, it was harvest ale cupcakes, German chocolate cheesecake and some gingerbread people. 

Annabelle and I had fun decorating those. There was the requisite Seahawks football player, plus a girl in a poodle skirt. One of the cookies had a bunged up leg, so Annabelle cut it off and made the cookie look like it was part eaten. Very cute. 

 I wasn't sure what to do, but within a couple of minutes, I found myself making a Freddie Mercury. And then another Freddie. And another, and another. ... 

 After five Freddies, I ran out of cookies. I could have gone on and on!

(The Freddies were a hit with the Official International Queen Fan Club, by the way. I posted the photo there and it had over four hundred likes in a few hours.)

Food wasn't the only thing we did over the weekend. The weather was pretty decent, so I encouraged everyone to get outside and get some fresh air for a bit.

I also encouraged them to gather up dead stuff from the driveway strip.

The photo below made me chuckle. The way they're standing, the kids kind of look like those goats you can rent to help clean up your property. :)

I'm impressed that we're in December, and there are still a few blossoms in the yard, including this bright yellow beauty.

Making It

TEST KITCHEN: "Don't bring anything to Thanksgiving dinner," they said. 

Well, you know me. I'm not arriving empty-handed. Plus, you know the saying ... there's always room for Jell-o.

Annabelle and I decided to have a little fun in the kitchen trying to construct a multi-layered, retro (and horrific, might I add) Jell-o mold. Consider it a gag gift. Literally, in this case.

The first layer, alone, was enough to make us shudder. Those are egg whites, in case you're wondering.

And then came olives, carrots, and Spam. Lots and lots of Spam. Fancy Spam!

The process took hours, because you can only do one strata at a time. You put a thin layer of gelatin in, let it set, put stuff atop it and repeat. I honestly lost count of the number of layers we made. It was over a time span of about eight hours.

Did I mention the mold made us shudder? 

Did it work? We won't know until the unveiling, er, unmolding, tomorrow. Stay tuned. ... 

Oh, and while we were at it, we made a bonus item. We didn't want the cranberry log to be lonely on the Thanksgiving table, so we tried making it a friend. Hopefully, if the recipe is right, we'll have a 'lovely' gellied pineapple log to go with it!

We made a bit of a mess in the process. 

Will it work? We'll find out tomorrow.

I told Annabelle the thing I found most disturbing about the gelatinous pineapple in a can was that in the comments on the recipe I found, people were raving about how wonderful it is. Shudder.

PRETTIER: Fortunately, not everything we made in the last 24 hours is horrifying. 

We're getting a jump on holiday gifts, and whipped out a custom t-shirt this morning. There's a fashion trend right now that features four names on a shirt. I think the first time I ever saw it, it was "John & Paul & Ringo & George." (The Beatles, obviously).

CJ has a shirt like that that features the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' names (Leo & Don & Raph & Mikey).

We decided we wanted to make a Queen-themed shirt. We found a font that matched the typeset usually used on such shirts (Arial Nova in bold, if you're wondering) and Annabelle formatted it to the size it would fit on the shirt.

We'd chosen a bright red shirt and gold rainbow foil iron on.  Annabelle used her Cricut machine to make the magic happen.

Then, it was a matter of finding the proper placement on the shirt.

And then, we ironed it on. That's always a nerve-wracking process. Fortunately, it went just fine.

We hope the shirt's a hit with gift recipient!

It's Element-ary

      Image courtesy of Keith Enevoldsen /ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
PERIODICALLY: We at MPA haven't spent enough time with the periodic table of elements, so whenever I see an interesting graphic featuring it, I try to pay attention. One that caught my eye this morning was a table that illustrates how we interact with each element. 

It was created by Boeing software engineer Keith Enevoldsen. He has kindly made it available online to view or download it for free.

The table is color-coded to show the chemical groupings. Small symbols pack in additional information: solid/liquid/gas, color of element, common in the human body, common in the earth's crust, magnetic metals, noble metals, radioactive, and rare or never found in nature. 

There's also a companion graphic that is done in words.

I printed out both today. Hopefully we'll all spend plenty of time gazing at them. 

          Image courtesy of Keith Enevoldsen /ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ENGINEERING: We're on the email list for Seattle's future National Hockey League team, and today's update included an interesting 60-second video about how the "new" arena is being constructed. It's really a massive remodel of old Key Arena (built back in the early 1960s, for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

The video is mostly about engineering - how to make the structure seismically safe, and how the roof is held up with a 'kickstand' of sorts.
You can check it out here: https://www.nhl.com/news/digging-deep/c-311773120?tid=304993632

FLY BY: It's been way too long since we watch an International Space Station fly over, so we righted that wrong this evening. About the only good thing about it getting dark at 4:30 p.m. is that you have more opportunities to see the ISS overhead.

Any time you want to know who's on board and what they're doing, you can visit NASA's ISS website. 

Here are the astronauts on board right now.

As an experiment, I whipped my phone out and tried to take a couple of photos of the fly over. I was surprised that it actually worked, to some degree. I'll have to try a video next time. 

The Extra Mile

KITCHEN ADVENTURE: Last week was a busy week. A REALLY busy week. I had decided that Sunday I was going to do next-to-nothing.

That next-to-nothing included making pasta from scratch for the first time. :)

I have been talking about making pasta for years. Specifically, ravioli. But it has been all talk until today. Not sure why I was so hesitant to actually do it. It turns out it's really quite simple to make.

We followed a well-reviewed recipe, "Homemade Four Cheese Ravioli," very closely since it was our first foray. Like most any pasta recipe you'll find, it involved making a well (kind of volcano shaped)  on the countertop.

Then, you pour in your liquid (eggs, oil, a little water).

 You work the flour into the liquid a little at a time.

 Pretty soon you have a dough that you need to knead.

 Once that's done, the dough ball goes into the fridge to rest for a bit.

While the dough is resting, you're working. It's time to make the filling.

Also, in our case, it was time to make some sauce. The recipe called for a jar of marinara sauce. That struck me as so odd. Why would you make homemade pasta and then put store-bought marinara on it? Weird.

It's especially weird since marinara sauce is so easy and cheap to make. I chose to go with "Super Simple Marinara Sauce Recipe from Cookie + Kate. I followed it pretty closely, but added some red wine, of course. It made our house smell so wonderful, and it was delicious!

Before too long, it was time to get our rested dough ball rolled out on the countertop.

 We dolloped the filling onto the dough.

 And then we cut out our raviolis.

 After pressing the perimeter seams together, it was into the boiling water for them. The recipe said they were done when they rose to the top of the pot. That took about four minutes.

We fished them out and put them onto a greased cookie sheet and then into the oven for about five minutes.

Then, it was time to dish them up and enjoy.

Now that I'm an expert (ha ha) there are definitely things I would do differently next time.

For starters, the pasta was way too tough, IMHO. The recipe called for kneading the dough for 8-10 minutes. That was clearly way too long. Interestingly enough, Annabelle and I watched a random making-pasta video on YouTube before starting, and the dude in it kneaded for just 4-5 minutes.

Also, I'd roll the dough out a *lot* thinner. The recipe we used called for it as thick as a nickel. I think a dime would have been better.

All that said, I'm super happy we finally attempted making pasta, and am looking forward to making better pasta in the future.

ROCKIN' SPOKANE STYLE: Sunday morning we were up super early. I had to take CJ and Christian to the airport. Their destination was Spokane, and a rock show. They *had* to go there because CJ really wanted to see a metal band that is (allegedly) on their farewell tour. No idea why they decided to play Spokane instead of Seattle, but it was what it was. 

I'll have CJ tell you more about their experience. ...

Since their formation in 1981, thrash metal legends Slayer have inspired metal bands all over the world, continuing to release new music up to 2015's Repentless LP. Last year, Slayer announced that they were embarking on a farewell tour, bringing various other metal bands as openers. For the first time in their careers, Slayer got to headline arenas (as opposed to headlining clubs, or opening for more popular bands like Slipknot at arenas).

"The Final Campaign," the final leg of Slayer's farewell tour, featured three supporting bands: Philip H. Anselmo & the Illegals (AKA former Pantera vocalist Phil Anselmo's Pantera cover band), Ministry, and Primus.

Philip H. Anselmo & the Illegals were the first act to perform. Their set was near-exclusively composed of Pantera covers, unsurprising considering Phil Anselmo's best-known work. However, the concert made it clear (at least to those who didn't know yet, I certainly did) that Phil Anselmo's voice and stage presence are both long past their prime. He was often woefully off-pitch, and struggled to keep up with the tempo of the other musicians - even during the slower songs. While Phil Anselmo's set wasn't horrible, it certainly wasn't good.

At this point, I tried to sneak down to the floor, largely to get to the mosh pit. Even though I tried to get past distracted guards dealing with large crowds of people, I got caught, and was told that I would get kicked out if I tried to sneak in again.
Ministry's set was mostly good, and they had a sense of energy and interest in the show. I'm not familiar with Ministry's discography, so I can't really comment on whether or not they lived up to their Glory Days™.

Primus, the penultimate act of the night, was... an experience, to put it lightly. I'm not a very big fan of Primus' studio work, so I already didn't have a good feeling going in. Primus extensively utilized the video screen behind them during their set, playing clips of videos that (supposedly) went along with the songs. The nadir of Primus' set (and likely the entire concert) was when Les Claypool, a fifty-six-year-old man, described himself as "a throbbing penis." I am not making that up.

At 9 P.M., metal legends Slayer finally began their set. Their opener was the title track from Repentless, their latest album. Slayer's set covered their storied career, all the way from their 1983 debut Show No Mercy, up to the present. Those familiar with Slayer know that their songwriting is consistent, if not mildly formulaic. Even songs that I didn't know as well were great to rock out to. Throughout their entire set, Slayer maintained a great sense of energy - an impressive feat, considering that at least one member is nearing 60. Slayer did not perform an encore, but considering the quality of their performance that night, I don't think one was necessary.

So there you have it.

Despite CJ not wanting to be in a seat, it looks like they had really good seats. Per their website, the arena seats 11,661 in this set up.