Just before the end of last year I sent a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) to The Friends of Carl to get a sample of Carl Griffith’s 1847 Oregon Trail Sourdough Starter.
About a week ago I finally got around to reviving it and working up enough quantity of active starter to start a batch of bread. Finally yesterday morning I got started at about 9:30am. Now if you’re in a rush to make bread, sourdough is probably not the right leavening to use. After everything was put together and dough was kneaded, the first rise until doubled took 4 hours. The dough was then punched down, divided into equal pieces, put into loaf pans and second rise for an additional 2 hours. Into a 350F oven and 50 minutes later, two lovely, brown loafs of bread.
Recipe and baking comments are on my Cooking Blog.
Since I had to sit around here for 7 hours yesterday, I spent time on the blog. I’ve already mentioned the “100 Things” listing, but I spent time just doing tweaking of the blog, most of which will never be noticed.
At least one thing will be noticed… I’ve added a plugin that creates ‘Monster avatars’ depending on a commenters email address. That means that each person who comments will have distinct monster and that monster will continue to be yours as long as you use the same address. Cute, huh… 
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Sitting around this morning, waiting for my sourdough bread to rise — more about that later — I started reworking my “100 things” list. Moved it into my WordPress weblog structure, prettied it up a bit, made some corrections and changes (it’s been a couple of years since I first put it together). I’m actually a bit surprised that I didn’t need to change more that I did. Permanent link add in the “About Me” section on the sidebar and a link here.
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Flavor Fundamentals. Two of the the three hours were classroom lecture. The instructor had been an instructor at Western Culinary Institute for 15 years before joining Oregon Culinary Institute soon after they started this past April.
The instuctor/chef knew his stuff and filled the two hour lecture with almost too much to absorb. Copious notes were taken, in case my brain overflowed.. 
The final hour was spent in one of their huge kitchen labs, tasting soups. The chef’s assistant had prepared two simple soups, a tomato and a mixed squash, without *any* salt or extra flavorings. Both soups were set up in small bowls for tasting, starting with no salt and then increasing amounts until oversalted in the chef’s opinion. It was amazing to me to see what folks considered properly salted. We even had one young lady who thought the oversalted bowl was the best. For me, it was the realization that even a bit of salt can do wonders for the soups. The difference between no salt and just a touch was amazing.
The assistant had also set out 20-25 bowls of various flavorings. Everything from basil and cilantro, to lemon and lime wedges, to chipotle paste, to bacon and andouille sausage pieces and just about everything in between that you could think of adding to a soup. We ladled up bowls of either soup from the big stock pots and had a ball flavoring and tasting.
The class ended in front of one of the big gas stoves, while the chef/instructor roasted and ground spices for a curry mixture and then final questions. Way too much information for just a short time and really too many questions, but the chef told us to go home and experiment and I think I will.
And we learned that the schools has a public restaurant open. The website only mentions the lunch sitting, but the assistant told us they now have a single afternoon sitting starting at 2pm. A four-course prix fixe menu for $9/person. An equivalent meal at one of Portland’s fancier restaurants would cost more than $30/person. The Winter Lunch Menu (pdf file) looks delicious.
Was the class worth the $45? Most certainly. Now I can hardly wait for March to roll around. Three saturdays in a row and all heavily kitchen focused. Maybe I’ll dig through their class listings again and see what sounds interesting for February… 
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Winding down from a very busy night at the restaurant.
Winter time is usually slow and this past Monday through Thursday held no suprises. We never managed to even break $1000 in sales for any of those 4 days. This evening we posted an $1800 day, of which $1000 was earned between 5:30pm and 7:30pm. A very hectic, nonstop two hours. Then to top it off, the local highschool basketball team had a home game that finished at about 9:30pm and a second rush hit us just as we were trying to close. The last food went throught the pass-thru at a bit past 10pm and we usually close at 10:30pm. Not tonight. Sigh….
I’ve been feeling sorry for myself again over the past couple of weeks, but I’m determined to shake it and I’ve been digging through my knitting books trying to something to spark my imagination.
And.. My first culinary class tomorrow and I need to be in Portland early, so off to bath and bed.
Oh.. I’ve added a plugin to the blog that adds a graphic list of all available smilies in the comment page. Just click on the smilie and it’ll be added to your comment. Cool, huh?.. 
Popularity: 21% [?]
Major software upgrade. If you have *any* problems, let me know. Email link on sidebar.
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It’s been more than a week since I last posted and to be truthful, there’s not much to post about now. Knitting has come to a complete standstill. I’m absolutely bored with the scarves, I *really* want to get the feather and fan shawl started again, but tinking back multiple decreases (both SSK and Ktog) in very dark yarn with less than optimum eyesight has become a very frustrating experience and I need *something* to catch my imagination.
We’re still short handed at the restaurant and I’m working crazy hours and still not getting fulltime. The first pass at next weeks schedule had me work 6 of 7 days. I could use the hours (the schedule would have put me over 40 hours for the first time since I started), but I’ve gotten used to regular days off and I had something scheduled. It ended up getting worked out, but that’s the way things are right now.
Weather has been kind of hard too. Too much snow and too low of temperatures has meant more than a week of very slippery drives home in the late evenings, though things have moderated over the past couple of days and finally *most* of the ice has disappeared.
My first culinary class is next saturday and I’m really looking forward to it. If I was 30 years younger and a few dollars richer, I’d probably be seriously looking at a career change. As it stands, I’m going to take the classes with only the expectation of helping me be a better cook and let the chips fall where they may. As much as I’d like to believe that age discrimination is a thing of the past, my personal experience is that it’s very much alive, just disguised in layers of obfustication. My skills and work ethics are appreciated in my current job and though the pay is kind of low, I think I’ll just stick with what I’ve got for now.
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what you look like from space?
I’ve been playing around on TerraServer USA, using the latitude and longitude I got from my GPS unit.
These photos were taken by a USGS satellite in June 2002. Right of center is a light green square. That is a large clear cut across the road from us. The top of the square nearly matches the top of our property line with the road twisting between the clear cut and us.
And now a bit closer. House, shop, garage and outbuildings. Three vehicles parked in front of the garage. Pathways visible from driveway to greenhouse and lower barn. Couple more farm trucks and trailers easily seen along the bottom of the photo. Can’t read license plates, but then this isn’t one of the *good* satellites.
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Decided this morning that I needed to get off the fence and sign up for some classes at the Oregon Culinary Institute.
There were four classes that were within my budget and on dates that match my days off. One of them had already closed while was I was procrastinating. I signed up for the waiting list on that one and signed up for the other three classes. In about 45 minutes I received a phone call from a young man at OCI telling me that he’d noticed I was on the waiting list for the Flavor Fundamentals class and if I was interested, he was adding one spot for the class. I thank him and immediately got back online and signed up for the single opening. Now that’s service…
So.. My class list for the next couple months is as follows:
1/27/07 – Flavor Fundamentals
3/03/07 – Knife Skills
3/10/07 – Kitchen Fundamentals
3/17/07 – Pastry Fundamentals
If I come away from these classes feeling confident about both the curriculum and my progress, I plan on taking continuing classes throughout the spring and summer.
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A young lady with much insight, who writes about the web, blogging and WordPress in particular has put up her list of Things She Wants Gone From the Web in 2007.
While you might not agree about with everything on her list, if *most* were gone by the end of 2007 the web would be a much nicer place. *I’d* love to see everything on her list gone, but then I’m just a crotchety old fart…. 
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Stepped outside to grab some firewood and was greeted by blue sky, bright sunshine and a snow covered world. Took a few shots trying to capture the beauty. None really did that, but this one is pretty nice.
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