Coffee in the round-about manner.

My wife and I went into Town to the large local pizzaria-and-bar, and sat with Dad and Holly and friends, to play trivia. It's fun, not least of all because our table pretty much always wins. It seems that our family and friends are frickin' huge repository of knowledge of questionable use. The restaurant is always full on Trivia Night, so there are a couple of dozen tables in play. I want to say that I think that I contributed one or two answers to our table's win, but I may have also negatively influenced some answers, too. 

Toward the end, Holly waved from the other end of the table and said that she and Dad had a package for me. The package was one sent to me care of Phlegmmy, who had transferred it to Dad and Holly, who held it for me to come by and pick up. 

Next day, I went to their house, and opened a box with three packages of coffee from The Roasterie, sent to me by ZerCool. I immediately ground some Kona, and Dad and I consumed a pot of it while discussing his new (to him) coach gun and his new (to him) S&W M27-2 (P.&R., natch).  

Now friends, I don't know what YOU did with your Wednesday, but an afternoon drinking fresh coffee, eating ripe peaches off the tree and talking guns with JPG happened to be exactly what this man needed. You are welcome to be a little jealous. 

That bag of Kona went fast, but I found that the Kansas City Dark Blend, ground fine, makes an excellent light espresso, and that the "40 Sardines" blend makes another good cuppa. 

I think that ZerCool sent that CARE package about 6 weeks ago, but it was timely-- I was out of coffee again. 

Thank you, brother. There is nothing more pleasurable than finding an unexpected gift in the post. 

Something to take the ear worm off.

Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, Stuart Duncan play bluegrass. The quartet, plus singer Aoife O'Donovan, are extraordinary. I bought the album after watching this.

Meyer and Ma are unquestionably the best in the world at cello and bass, respectively, and like to branch out from their classical stuff on projects like this.

Thile plays the mandolin like a rock star. Literally. And he sings with O'Donovan in the classically bluegrass song "Here And Heaven" (which starts here), which is full of bright notes that are moving.

Lost in it all is Duncan, who switches effortlessly between banjo and fiddle.

I may have linked to it before. I don't care.

What a pleasure it was

What a pleasure it was to have my dad ride along with me last night.

What a nice day it was to do some fire training on roof ventilation. I never realized before how dangerous that stuff could be, even in training.

Showing some 3/4 CDX plywood decking who's boss with a fire axe can get out some great pent-up aggression. *

Getting home to a nice bowl of my wife's beef stroganoff after dropping off yet another person at the jail who insisted that they would have [my] job is good for a bit of schadenfreude, especially when you know what that person is having for breakfast.

________________________________
*NOTE: More fireman talk in comments.

Blogorado II

Dad and I rolled up on Thursday evening, and joined the Farm Fam for a very pleasant round table discussion. I was suffering heavily from sleep deprivation and a bad (BAD) bout of hay fever, and fell asleep on the couch during discussions; I'm afraid I didn't contribute much.

Friday evening, however, the Roundtable Discussions On The Lawn were epic. Get a group of story-tellers together, lubricate with easy-drinking, hard-kicking Nerd Beer, and stand back!

Old NFO would have a great tale for us, and Ambulance Driver would try to top it. And Peter would give his take on a topic. The Atomic Nerds would speak up. LawDog and Phlegmmy and Gay Cynic and AE Pilot would all throw out great accounts, and all the while Oleg Volk was circling, circling, his lens lingering on one person and then another. FarmDad always had a good one to toss in, in that easy-going way that may be country, but sure ain't slow-witted.

Later came Sal and TD and the lovely Vine, and new friend Joe, all of whom fit in splendidly to the Round Table chats. We tended to group around the beer, and the discussions would sometimes form into breakout groups, with members moving easily back and forth as it pleased them, eating good food, drinking good drink, and enjoying each others' company. I know-- we all showed up to talk about guns and shoot them, and such. And we did. We shot at targets near and far, and sometimes even shot far targets with guns associated with nearer targets.

Here's JPG, for example, popping 3 gallon water jugs at ranges of 100 to 175 yards, with a 4" Colt Trooper:

(Click to embiggen. Target is the white dot at the left of the screen.)

And I rambled about some miles open country, plinking with Joe and Ambulance Driver, with the sun setting behind the only promontory for dozens of miles:
(Click to embiggen this picture, which by the way I took with my frickin' camera phone.)


We set up targets of opportunity:


And we shot at a half-sized silhouette steel target that Old NFO turned into an Easter-egg hunt, out against a rolling hillside with scattered brush.

But it was the exchange that I enjoyed the most. This is why our breakfasts always convened at 8:00AM and didn't break up until 11:00AM, and why the evening chats always went into the wee hours of the morning.

What a pleasant group of people to exchange ideas with. We missed some of you who didn't come, and invoked your names fondly and often.

I cannot express enough my appreciation for the generosity of time and resources that the Farm Family presented all of us.

Oh. Yeah.

It's that time. Time for a refill, in a big way.

As you can see, my little 18 oz. bottle of garlic chili sauce that we popped open last week is about done with. Fortunately, my wife made a recent trip to the Asian Market again.

The goodness, it burns.

Things that I'm loving right now.

Z Packs.
Flonase.
Steroid shots in the butt.
Dense cardboard boxes found at my front door, with my name and "ORM-D" plastered on the outside of them.
Marked-down whole bean "Fair Trade" Brazillian coffee, still vacu-sealed, that we got at the thrift store for $2/lb, which we're going back for, because the rabble won't buy it without a recognizable brand label onit.
Hamilton Beach digital slow-cookers (Blows the old Rival Crock Pot right out of the water.)
Pork roast with fresh herbs, fresh out of the HB slow-cooker.
New mattress.
Excited little girls on the eve of their 7th birthday.
Cool spring dew on the lawn while I'm covering my tomatoes for the night.
The strong feeling of a framing hammer driving long ring shank nails into 2X6's as I quickly assemble garden frames without a wasted stroke. (Surprised me.)
Fresh chocolate cake.
A call from a co-worker who genuinely wants my input, and who doesn't get mad when my answer isn't the one he was hoping to get.
Home made strawberry icing.
Powerful LED flashlights.
Washing machines (clothes or dish) that actually work right.
A coffee machine at the PD again.
The prospect of another package arriving at my door soon, to provide me with octuple the memory currently on my desktop machine.

More proof that money doesn't buy happiness...

...it just buys the THINGS that make us happy.

About a week ago, I remarked to my wife that our second-hand, 11 year-old mattress was just about worn out. I had been waking up with some knots in my back, and was noting that I had to climb up out of the trough in my side of the bed, and up from the rather low bed edge (20" off the floor, by my tape.).

We started talking about how to finance a bed. Local place had a deal for no interest, no payments for a year, or even two years, if you spent enough. We began talking about it, in a leisurely fashion. Beds cost several hundred dollars, and in my house, such purchases are not made without due consideration.

Then, this Saturday, my wife said, "Uh, honey...? Come look at this." My wife, a week before, had bought a Texas Lottery scratch-off, on a lark. We both consider lottery tickets and scratch-off tickets to be a voluntary tax for people who are bad at math, but we also both agree with Robert A. Heinlein when he said, "Of course the game is rigged. But don't let that stop you. If you don't bet, you can't win." Last year I think I bought a single lotto ticket, and my wife estimates that she bought $16 worth. I believe her; I've NEVER seen any evidence of her purchasing them. No crumpled up tickets or scratched cards in the trash or in her purse, or in her car. I've seen her once or maybe twice buy one with a soft drink at a convenience store, to swap turns scraping off the silver coatings from the hidden numbers. Purely for occasional entertainment, and nothing else.

Well, this ticket had a set up where "three of a kind for each hand wins." There were four hands of 5 playing cards, and each hand had a dollar amount next to it. My bride presented me with a card with 3 of a kind in all four hands, and the combined amount was... $2000!!!

I said, "Bull! We're mis-reading this." I read the fine print, front and back.

Then I questioned the card's authenticity.

Finally, we saddled up and bought us a Sealy AirSpring pillowtop mattress with box springs, delivered, with old-bed haul-away. It arrived Sunday afternoon. We sprung for the non-crinkly, breathy kind of dust mite cover, and a memory foam pillow for me.

My wife collected the very real check for Two Thousand Dollars & 00/100's from the local Texas Lottery Commission place today, and declined to have her picture taken by an annoyed clerk, who told her, "If privacy is a concern for you, then next time buy your ticket in another town." Yeah. Will do, chief.

It's our first-ever brand-new bed.

After my second sleep on this bed, I can categorically report that this is the best purchase that we've ever made for us as a couple. And the leftover cash paid for the last of our superwasher.

The lesson here? Well, I don't know if there is one, other than that a new bed brings good sleep, and good sleep makes Matt a happy man.

The joys of savoring.

As I sit here, I'm having trouble typing without rubbing my palms together [which position was generally frowned upon in my sophomore typing class (where I met my still close personal friend Bill The Almost Accountant.)].

See, I have a thick slice of ham on my large cast iron skillet, and I can hear it sizzling and and smell it. Said slice was carved off of the Giant Ham Of Doom. The GHoD was given to me for Christmas, and has lived in the bottom of the refrigerator. Originally, we planned to cook it and use the ham bone for our New Year's Day black eyed peas, but we just didn't get it in the oven early enough. See, it takes eight hours to cook a 24 lb ham. I have no idea what this bad boy cost, but one would start by pricing a large porcine animal.

The meat's incredible.

Almost ready.

I'm as excited as this girl.

Eerie, ain't it?

- - - -

Of course, one needs a fine beverage to wash down this (succulent, juicy, tender) dish with. No, not a beer. A: too early in the day, and B: They frown upon me showing up for work (as I am scheduled to do in a couple of hours) reeking of IPA.

No, it's Coffee Time.

And I'm not just throwing down a cuppa cheap mud.

I am drinking the Real Thing.

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a certain... uh... relationship with coffee. My own beloved mother commented on this blog that I had an unhealthy obsession with it. "Coffee" is probably the most-used post tag on this blog. Yet until this week, I had been appreciating something less than what this brew could fully be. I was as a car afficianado appreciating the superb renditions of Hondas out there (quality cars to be sure, but there is a point beyond which they cannot exceed), or a shotist waxing poetic about the wonders of his Uberti clone. I was ignorant of what lay beyond.

Oh, I had heard of greater lands. Friends and bloggers whispered in my ear of coffee presses and fresh-roasting. But I had an $11 handy grinder, and I bought good Starbucks beans, and why should I listen to them?

[Fie on't? Oh fie, fie 'tis an unweeded Garden...]

To think of the portion of my life that I have wasted, with my parched lips unannointed by this nectar that I have decocted in my own kitchen.

Why is this method not more popular? Answer: It takes time, and attention.

Last year, I upgraded to a quality burr grinder.

This Christmas, I received from Holly and Dad a chambord French press coffee maker. I uncharacteristically read the instructions, and found that, although it takes significantly more effort to make a pot of coffee, the results are spectacular.

Then, on New Years Eve, Mom-- the same lady who accused me of having an unhealthy obsession with the Dark Brew Of Happiness-- gave me a Fresh Roast Plus 8 Coffee Bean Roaster. Put a couple of scoops of green Colombian Valencia beans into it, dial it up for 6 minutes, and let it turn those bad beans brown.

While it's roasting, double-filter a couple of pints of tap water and get that to boiling.

Grind the roasted beans in the burr grinder on Coarse setting.

Pour the whole batch into the chambord.

When the water's boiling or just below, pour it over the coffee in the French press.

Stir with a plastic spoon.

Cover and let sit for four minutes.

Slowly press the straining plate down to the bottom of the coffee pot.

Turn the strainer to the front of the spout, and pour a cup.

I haven't managed to go from cold green bean to cuppa coffee in less than 20 minutes, but I'm trying.

One of the most amazing things about this method is that the last cup is better than the first. Also, it's far, far, far, far, farfarfarfarfarfar more caffiene-rich than regular drip or espresso.

Dammit. I am so frickin' ruined. I feel like the main character in a certain fictional movie discussed over breakfast in Reservoir Dogs; nothing will ever feel as good again.

It's like my first cup of coffee.

Deep night maunderings.

It's cold and dry and getting colder. Not a breath of wind, and the sky is not just devoid of clouds-- it appears devoid of even air. The full moon illuminates the landscape, but the air refracts so little that the stars appear in strong relief against the black sky behind them.

The porch lights of the houses out on the prairie seem each to be more significant, and promise that humanity and warmth are inside there. You can see the discrete points from a long way off, tonight.

Parked in the dark, by the road, with my lights out, I've watched cats and a ringtail from the creek scurry cross the silvered blacktop, just by light of the moon. I could easily patrol all night with my lights off, so well do my eyes gather the moon and starlight.

It's now Christmas eve.

I love it when it's like this.

I hope y'all find what you're looking for, this Christmas. And if you don't, I hope that you'll find hope and courage in the symbolic reset of the coming new year.

For the first time in my life, I don't think I want anything this Christmas. I'm married to the woman I love. I have two girls that I would love even if they weren't beautiful and smart and funny and cooler than I ever was. I have a family I love and get to see, and I have a snug place to hang my hat and lay my head. I have a job that pays the bills and feels rewarding.

I have dreams. I have aspirations. Hell, I even have gripes and find shortcomings. And of course I have yearnings for specific items.

But I think that, if I stop and think about it, I'm pretty happy. That doesn't mean inert and idle. But it means that I'm ahead of where I've been at many, many points in my life. You ever met a person who didn't know how to take a compliment? Tell them that they look nice in an outfit or with their hair just so, and they'll argue with you. I think that I, and a lot of other folk, lose track of how to see when they're happy, and accept that we are.

What's in your pint glass tonight, Matt?

It's been so long since you asked!

Well, it's Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner. I bought some last night in honor of finishing my finals.

Friends, this is a big beer. But big in a GOOD way. You know about, by now, how Tams and I are hopheads. Hops, the traditional bittering agent and aromatic agent in beers, is most pronounced in India Pale Ales, which feature long boils with hops in the pot, as well as "dry-hopping," wherein hops are just stuffed by the handful into the barrel that the beer is stored in. IPAs also traditionally have a lot of alcohol in each glass. This is because alcohol and alpha acids (the chemicals that make hops bitter) are preservatives, which helped British Beers get safely around the cape to the SubContinent during imperial times.

A little while after this, an American guy named August Busch was visiting Czechoslovakia, and discovered this little village in the Pilsen region, where in a little town named Budweis, they were brewing light, pale beers using a bottom-fermenting yeast at lower temperatures, in a technique called lagering. They also filtered the beer through its own sparged grains, resulting in a very bright, clear beer. This was a sensation, and Augie Bush knew a winner when he saw one. He rushed home and began marketing his Budweiser as fast as he could. In a style unfortunately associated with American enginuity, he took a style that the Czechs had perfected over more than a half millenium, and in two years had boiled it down to a brew that he could mass-produce, mass-market, and sell with minimum flavor to the world. (If he were a modern car-maker, he would have come back from Germany, and mass-marketed a new Chevrolet called the Porsh, based on a Chevette with a new trim package, priced to sell.)

Of course, Bush's version of the pilsener beer, while popular, was lighter than the Czech style, and that trend continued in the U.S., through Prohibition, when the Volstead Act allowed brewers to use unmalted grains to make beers under 0.5% alcohol. When Prohibition was lifted, Bud stuck with the rice that it had taken to using, and the American pallete was ruined for real beer, ever since.

But some remember that a Pilsener (or pilsner) style is strong on hops, mostly clear, pale, and strong on hops. It should have a very strong nose as well as bittering.

Samuel Adams has a bunch of seasonal beers, and some beer snobs have taken to eschewing this mini brewery. I will not. This Boston company brought our national beer tasting palette a long way. This winter, they released their Hallertau Imperial Pilsner, with the subtitle: "An Intense Hop Experience."

It's a lot of hoppiness, and they're not ashamed of it. Remember: hops can provide bitterness and aroma. In this beer, founder Koch put in Hallertau Mittelfrueh Noble Bavarian hops. I'm guessing that those high-dollar green flowers are what jacked the price up so much-- a 4 -pack cost me $10 US, which is roughly a buck less than what you'll pay for a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA 4-pack. The awesome thing about this kind of beer is that flavor is everything-- one will last you the evening. (You get a "fair-thee-well" that seemingly lasts for days.)

The flavor is big. Although this is first, middle, and last a hoppy beer, they raised the malt to compensate, so the flavor is more balanced. Those Noble hops are incredible. Nowhere nearly as harsh as the American Cascade hops, they bitter without being rough to the mouth.

The beer has some chill hazing, and you would not want to read a newspaper through it.

Fine. Drink it and read like normal.

Well hell, if LawDog's gonna post...

...acoustic guitar videos, then I guess that I'll link to one of my long-time favorites: Leo Kotke's kick-ass classic: "Vaseline Machine Gun."

That ol' boy sure can run a 12-string. (I heard him play it live a couple of years ago, and frankly, he's better now than he was back then in the '70s.)

Brings tears to my eyes

Above you see the product of generosity. I had mentioned to Dad that we, my wife and I (our kids are too young to appreciate the good things in life, yet), were almost out of Sirachi sauce. Rooster Sauce. Pepper Paste. Thai/Vietnamese/Cambodian hot pepper paste. It goes by a lot of names, none of them are spoken by Martha Stewart, and its relatively easy availability on the U.S. market is almost certainly directly attributable to the unfortunate troubles on the Indochine Peninsula about 4 decades ago.

All praise the pepper sauce.

The pepper sauce is good.

It hurts. So good.

My wife and I, you see, are Pepper Heads.

Oh, we don't go to silly festivals. We don't go to silly boutique shops that pride themselves on the Scoville Heat Units that they can pack in each bottle.

We go to the source. We hit the Asian markets, HARD.

Sometimes we'll drop by the Metropolis Central Market, and pick up a few ounces of truly HOT cayenne that is nothing like what we find around here, and maybe a half-pound of habenero-stuffed olives (LawDog refused to eat even one, the sissy). (They're. So. Good! F.I.O.: Food-Induced-Orgasm)

But usually, it's the Asian markets that bring forth the good stuff.

A little while ago, my bride realized that we were about to run out of "Rooster Paste." This stuff is the coarsely-ground remains of red peppers in a pint plastic jar with a big mouth. I went to buy some more, and found none. I went to three different stores and returned home empty-handed. And I was sad.

I mentioned this to my Dad, who is something of an aficionado of the Pepper himself. He dropped by a local dealer that had the goods, and arrived at my house with the cute little 8-ounce jar that you see to the left. Something to see us through. Low on ammo? Call Dad. Stuck in a snow-filled ditch? Call Dad. Out of pepper paste? Call Dad.

At the same time, my bride arrived home with a pint of the good stuff, so we held off opening Dad's little CARE package.

But that pound of protection soon wore off. As you can see in the top photo, we were about to have to crack into the little jar.

Today, however, my wife ventured into a new Asian market, and brought home this marvelous, wondrous, terrific, beautiful, terrible red jar of sunshine:
To convey the scale on this bad boy, I put next to it the little jar, and the KelTec P3AT that I had on at the moment that I found the beautiful Jar Of Happy Tearful Goodness. For those of y'all that don't know, the P3AT is a small .380 acp pocket pistol.

But still.

Oh, Mama.

My mouf 'ill be wa'hm 'til Summah time.

(Well. Springtime, anyway.)
Yum.

__
And for all you prospective photographers: a lifetime of riflery is responsible for that second, near-perfect photo taken under ambient light at night, with an old point-and-shoot digicam with a tiny objective lens without using the flash. Steady, sight picture, squeeeeeeeeeeeze the trigger/shutter release.

Good times

Cuppa Kona, my best friend, a damned nice coffee shop manned by a sweet couple, and a chat with the local arson investigator-cum-knife-maker.

I've had more enjoyable afternoons, I suppose... but I can't remember when, lately. I'm just that easily bought.

So fine....

42 degrees this morning with a light wind from the north, and dry sapphire skies with just the occasional cloud catching the rays of the rising sun this morning to fluoresce almost exactly like gold pyrite flecks in a large piece of lapis lazuli.

The coffee came out perfect this morning (scientific method or not, the quality varies from pot to pot, dammit.), and I fried up slices of my leftover cornbread alongside some farm-fresh eggs brought from my in-laws' chickens in my giant iron skillet. Butter the fried corn bread and drizzle some blackstrap molasses over it on a plate with a couple of fried eggs next to it, with a tall glass of cold milk, and you are guaren-damned-teed to make your 5 year-old and 9 year-old girls scowl at their breakfasts and proclaim "I don't want that!"

Philistines. They have no. Idea. How good....

So after I threatened them with bodily injury, they each took bites of the corn bread and of the whites of the eggs (they also don't appreciate the glory that is cornbread sopped in egg yolk. Where did I fail them, so? How do I right this wrong? ), and downed their milks. So, you know-- it'd be a sin to waste their breakfasts....

Dropped them off at school with their full-sized pumpkins. Yes, my girls' schools actually recognize Halloween. They ain't skeered. As I pulled out from my elder daughter's school, someone actually stopped to let me into traffic.

I sipped my coffee laced with a half teaspoon of molasses as I idled on home, and thought: "I made it through. This is what I wait all year for."

Damn, but I love October in North Texas. This is the antithesis of May.