Vacation Ideas for 2009

If I continue to be employed this year, 2009 seems to be an opportune time to take advantage of some price arbitrage for vacation purposes. (Ok, so it's not really "arbitrage" since I'm not making riskless profit with no cash outlay.)

Iceland is the most obvious option, being that it was so prominently in the news. Meng recently came from New Zealand and said that currency rates there were also quite favorable.

Let's take a look at some potential destinations and their currency related discounts versus the dollar:

• Iceland: 1.7X, 41% discount (trending unfavorably)
  
• New Zealand: 1.55X, 35% discount (trending favorably)
  
• South Korea: 1.49X, 32.8% discount (trending favorably)
• Australia: 1.41X, 29% discount (trending favorably)
• Sweeden: 1.35X, 26% discount (trending favorably)
• South Africa: 1.32X, 24% discount (trending flat)

Pan Fried Gnocchi

Bought some fresh gnocchi from the farmer's market last saturday. I've been eating it in thirds. Last night I just boiled it, tossing it in butter and garlic afterwards.

Tonight, I tried letting it pan fry in that butter and garlic until brown on both sides. It was quite tasty.

Pickled Long Beans

We found long beans at the farmers' market yesterday, so I bought some with the intent to pickle them. I called my mom and got her recipe, which she estimated for the 2 quart container that I was using as follows:

• 4 tbs salt
• Small amount of sugar (I used 1/2 tbs)
• 1 quart water
• Hot pepper, preferably fresh (I used what the Whole Foods' checkout guy thought were Serrano's. The item was unlabeled in the produce aisle)
• Szechuan peppercorns (mine are really old, so I used what probably looks like an excessive amount)
• Enough vodka to fill the gap after long beans are added
  

My mom warned me that the first batch was not likely to be that good, since it'll take time for the sourness to develop. (The sugar is mostly there to speed fermentation, supposedly.) This batch should be "ready" in 2-3 days, at which point I should taste for saltiness. (The amount of salt should be enough that it's adequately salty in 2-3 days, but also not too salty after that same amount of time.)

It could take 2-3 batches before the correct sourness develops. Additional vodka, water, garlic, and peppers can be added as the liquid is depleted over time. The container should hopefully have a 1-way valve property of letting air escape while prevent air from entering. Chinese pickle jars have a "moat" of water around circumference of the opening that one puts an overturned bowl into, which creates a 1-way air seal. I used a glass Bodum jar I saw in BBB that has an angled silicone seal that may have a similar property. If it doesn't, I may experience a lid rocket.

More to come in a few days...

Spicy Chicken Sous Vide

I made some Szechuan dry fried beef for Rourke and Jen on Saturday, but it turned out that I made it way too spicy. We kind of stared at it all night, occasionally daring to take a piece and then being punished for it.

Pondering what to do with it, I made a chicken thigh sous vide, with a marinade/sauce of just the leftover beef, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, and sugar. Sous vide is really quite miraculous; 1 hour at 165-170, and it's like the chicken has been marinated and poached. (It's the first time I made use of the Ziploc vacuum sealer for this purpose. It worked quite well, no issues with have to squeeze air out of the bag after submerging it. The bag just sunk.)

I took the meat out, seared it, mixed the marinade with some corn starch, and then poured it back into the pan.

Heathen that I am, I have no rice in the house, so I ate it over egg noodles. It was pretty spicy, but quite edible and tasty. I love sous vide, it's so foolproof (well, with an alarmed thermometer in the water). Dunk it, and walk away. I got one heli flight in while waiting.

The Best Wedding Cake Ever

I've had to pass the crown of Best Wedding Cake Ever to Dave and Cynthia.

2 different layers: one layer of chocolate cake with a coffee liqueur creme for a tiramisu-like experience, one layer of the BEST CARROT CAKE EVER with bits of pear, spices, and some kind of liqueur that I couldn't recognize but amplified the whole taste. And, of course, no fondant. Another amazing thing about this cake is that it was somehow rich, but not heavy. I easily went back for seconds (and would've gone for more, but the carrot layer was smaller and they ran out). Those, who know me, know that I generally hate cake.

One commonality between this cake and Rourke and Jen's cake(the previous title holder) is that there will be no future cakes from the same source. Yes, sad news for all of those with future wedding cake needs.

Funny how the best cakes ever will never return; their secrets, forever lost.

Olive Bread

Starting with this Country Style French Bread recipe, I'm going to add olives and maybe some other spices, and modify it to have a bit more whole wheat (using white wheat flour):

For the Sponge Starter:

• 1 cup cool-lukewarm water, preferably spring water (90 to 100°F)
• 1/2 teaspoon active dry or instant yeast
• 162 grams unbleached bread flour
  
• 35 grams white or traditional whole wheat flour

For the Dough (modified):

• All of the sponge starter (above)
• 1 cup lukewarm water, preferably spring water (100 to 115°F)
• 3/4 teaspoon active dry or 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 200 grams unbleached bread flour
• 250 grams white whole wheat flour
• 20 grams vital wheat gluten
  
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 50 grams unbleached bread flour for variations in consistency
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon milk powder
  

I seem to have misplaced my camera... where oh where is it...

Full of Woe

For Christmas, Rourke got me a subscription to The Economist, and I've been loving it. What really amuses me is the writing style, a kind of mix of journalism and editorial with a sharp bite to it.

Take, for example, this short piece titled "Full of woe" about how Britain ranked low on a survey of children's well-being among wealthy nations:

SEX, booze and horrid friends: those three evils dragged Britain's youngsters to the bottom of a “child well-being” index published this week by UNICEF. The UN agency ranked 21 rich countries on everything from babies' birth-weight to how often children chat to their parents. The Netherlands came top, followed by those infernal Scandinavians, who always seem to do well in such contests, and a raft of Catholics. Britain brought up the rear, standing shoulder to shoulder with America.

Just 43% of British children were willing to describe their peers as “kind and helpful”—the lowest of any country (the nicest kids are in Switzerland, where 81% agreed with this). It gets worse: despite finding their peers so vile, British teens were all too willing to jump into bed with them. By the age of 15, 38% had had sex—the highest of the sample. This may be because they were also much the drunkest, and the third-biggest cannabis smokers (just behind the cheery Swiss).

Such colorful presentation of relatively dry statistics makes the large quantity of data-driven articles almost qualify as entertainment.

Speed White Batter Bread

Dave asked in a comment how long the bread took from start to finish. I was actually pretty prompt with the postings, having posted the recipe and the plan a little prior to starting work, and posting the conclusion right afterwards. I'd say probably a total of 3 hours. I did, however, run out and go catalogue some stuff at Winebank during the first rising, so that lengthened the time more than necessary.

After eating a dinner of ramen, dried fruit, and corn nuts in the office and coming home late, I decided to see how fast I could bake a loaf of bread. Plus, I wanted to try putting in the correct amount of olive oil and increasing the vital wheat gluten by 5 grams.

The result? I cut out the two risings and poured the batter directly into the mini loaf pan. I let it rise until it formed a dome over the top of the pan while heating up the oven. Total time, about one hour and 45 minutes. About 45 minutes of rising and 30 minutes of baking. There was also some IM distraction, so with maximum efficiency, I think it could be done in 90 minutes total and only 15 minutes of actual work.

The bread was okay (definitely less oily) but the texture was noticeably less fine. There were large variations in the size of the air bubbles with some really big ones and some smaller ones, compared to the previous attempt which had uniformly fine texture. What the texture really reminded me of mass-produced store-bought pre-sliced bread. I think less oil and more gluten are definitely winners. Single-rising produces an okay loaf, but not nearly has "homemade" feeling as a double rise.

White Batter Bread Results

Came out surprisingly good given that I made an error and put in 2 tablespoons of olive oil instead of 2 teaspoons.

I was afraid alternatively that I'd used too much vital wheat gluten (too chewy) or would make the loaf too dense as per some of the complaints about the recipe in the forum. Fortunately, it came out really light and not too tough. I could actually use a little more gluten, maybe 5 more grams.

This mini-loaf is worthy of taking to Rourke & Jen's tonight.

White Batter Bread

Recipe reduced to mini-loaf size:

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup and 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 teaspoons white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 130 grams sifted all-purpose flour
• 10 g vital wheat gluten
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix together shortening, sugar, salt, yeast, vital wheat gluten, 30 grams flour. Add warm water and beat by hand about 300 strokes, or 3 minutes, with an electric mixer. Add remaining flour (100 grams), scraping bowl often, and mix all together until smooth.
2. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise until doubled in volume.
3. Stir dough down gently, and spoon into a lightly greased 9x5 inch loaf pan (the batter should be sticky). Pat down with floured hands to help shape. Cover again, and let rise for about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5. Bake for about 45 minutes. Place on a cooling rack.

I modified the recipe to use 2 teaspoons of olive oil rather than 2 teaspoons of shortening (which i don't have). Also added in the wheat gluten.

Forum postings indicate that the loaf ends up pretty dense, so I'm hoping I can lighten it up. Another possibility is adding in some powdered milk to soften the though if it seems tough.