No Time

No photos, no posts.  Might be like that for a bit.

Taiwan, Random Photos 2

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  Spent mine at Cathy's parents', feasting on things like turkey, prime rib, Korean potato noodles, and kimchi.  Yes, I know, very traditional Thanksgiving Day cuisine.  Anyway, some more Taiwan photos:

Shrine at Longshan Temple in Taipei. We arrived during a time of regular worship, as a large congregation of people were chanting when we were first there (I tried my best to stay out of the way). Fun facts:  The temple was originally built in the 18th century and I also read it has been damaged/destroyed/rebuilt several times since.

Mom and Cathy strolling down a street in Maokong.  We went to Maokong for the tea since it used to be a very large tea growing area in Taipei. It was a rainy day, but it still made for some wonderfully unique views, pleasant tea drinking ambiance, and reduced crowds.

Wires in Maokong.  Eric and I were walking along when he noticed and pointed out this interesting perspective.  We actually rode a gondola to get to Maokong, which similarly elevated you high above the forested valley and (slowly) plunged you into the fog for nearly four miles.

Best part of Maokong: Big Teapot Restaurant. Mom ordered some sort of "tea meal tour," where every dish incorporated tea leaves. For example, the mushroom/chicken soup simmering on the left had tea bags in it, the shrimp in the middle was sauteed and accompanied with pan fried tea leaves, and the fried rice in my bowl was made with some finely crushed tea leaves. It was a delicious meal, and it didn't hurt that we were also treated to a nice view of the area directly next to us:

The restaurant view from my seat.

Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park. Historically, the area had many productive gold mines and briefly served as a POW camp by occupying Japanese. Some really interesting history and great scenery here.  We also visited nearby Jiufen, which had a fun street market - Mom ate a snail, I drank (and bought) some millet wine, Eric bought some traditional Chinese garb, random stuff like that.

Hot spring in Beitou Dire Valley. Some of the natural pools here apparently approached a near-boiling 90 degrees Celsius (so you weren't exactly allowed to jump in).  Instead, Eric and I checked out a nearby outdoor bath that had several pools fed by a hot spring. Still, one pool was so hot that we were only able to tolerate it for under a minute before having to jump out.

Just a sampling of all thing things we did.  Good times!

Taiwan, Random Photos 1

Cathy and I went to Taiwan earlier this month for a bit of a family vacation. We met up with my mom and Eric shortly after flying in and after that, we spent time here and there with lots of different family, including my grandma, cousins (Tim and Jeff, plus their significant others), uncles, and aunts.  Great times were had.

I served as the documentary photographer.  I used a 40mm equivalent prime lens for 95% of the shots, which I feel is a good street photography length (Panasonic Lumix 20mm f1.7 on an E-P2). Using a single focal length can be limiting but, on the flip side, I was thinking about composition more than usual.  Anyway,  along with Cathy's photos, we ended up with an album of well over 300 photos. Here are a random few:

Shilin Night Market, widely considered the largest night market in Taipei.  Although packed with people, the crowd flowed well and it was surprisingly easy to get around.  All sorts of stuff is hawked here but the main attraction for us was the food, which included tropical fruit, dumplings, pork buns, chou doufu, grass jelly, green onion flatbread, and much more.

These guys are making the green onion flatbread. The baking method was involved slapping dough on the inside walls of a tandoor oven, aka, a barrel of fire. I thought this was mostly an Indian and Middle Eastern technique, but maybe not. Tasty either way.

A view from Yangmingshan National Park.  Apparently, there are some wonderful vistas and geologic features here, but after getting about a couple hundred meters up it was pure fog.  No big deal, since I like the outdoors in all its forms, but it's a shame I wasn't able to get a good look at the lay of the land.

After wandering around a bit, Uncle TaiTai took us to a great restaurant on the Yangmingshan mountainside.  I think the establishment's name translates to Yangming Spring Green Kitchen.  We sat on tatami mats, sipped tea, and enjoyed a beautifully plated and delicious multi-course vegetarian meal.

Another from the restaurant.  The dishes were elegant and employed a host of techniques, but generally consisted of simple ingredients.  And while I'm an unashamed omnivore with decidedly carnivorous tendencies, the vegetarian aspect of the meal did not detract from my enjoyment at all.

A tranquil walk.

There were a number of peaceful feral dogs on the top of Yangmingshan.  We also met a man there who regularly brings snacks up to the dogs, and he said that this dog had been abandoned long ago despite having a collar.  There was also a pack of what looked like a grab bag of Labrador mixes, adults and puppies.  They seemed to be doing alright.  Still, some of them reminded me bit of Quentin, so I was a bit saddened.

More to come.

Chocolatier Cathy

The other week Cathy made some chocolates by hand.  I think they came out great:

They were filled with various ganaches: dark chocolate chili pepper, white chocolate Macadamia nut, milk chocolate pomegranate, chocolate caramel, and straight dark chocolate.  I'm not a chocolate person, but the chili pepper one was really tasty.  Color me impressed.

Coffee Stout, Hoppy Brown

Despite being pretty busy these days, I've been able to get some brewing in:

First, I brewed a somewhat hoppy American brown ale.  It was originally planned as a very light brown ale, but while at the store I ended up getting double the hops (whole leaf Amarillo) and "roastier" malts than planned.  Not too sure what's going to happen there.

Second, I just bottled a coffee stout. As an experiment, I made 1/4 of the batch with about twice the amount of coffee I thought would be appropriate. I did a taste test at bottling and, yeah, it tasted inappropriate. But I think the coffee might mellow out a bit after some conditioning and refrigeration.

So two more fun brews in the pipeline. Looking forward to them.

Coffee

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Orb weaver, Eric's rock garden.

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2007.09.05.  Cathy, Maui.

Autumn Season, Summer Beer

Autumn might've just begun but my summer ales are just now coming around. So far I've sampled the standard saison and saison-rye I brewed.

Standard saison is okay. I think it tastes to style but it has a really weak aroma, making it bland. Saison-rye seems better. It has a slight banana aroma, is drier, and has a distinct spice taste (from the rye?). It is a bit on the strong side though. Both should get better over time. In any event, I think a solid first effort all around, with plenty of room for improvement in both.

Besides that, my dark saison is ready for bottling and I'm putting together a coffee stout recipe that I have high hopes for.

Gravity.

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Arcadia Ales Sky High Rye, Dad

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Ambient Light

Labor Day

Hope everyone had a good Labor Day. I had a nice time with the folks back in MI. The weekend just seemed to fly by for me so I was bummed I had to drive back today. Although one positive is that Q's back!

EEEEE-OOO-EEEEE

That's exactly how a cicada sounds.

Standard Dog-Day Cicada. I was inside when I heard this one "singing" and holy shit it was loud. Found it right outside a window that I had been sitting next to. EEEEE-OO-EEE

'Tis the Saison

I decided to put on my brewing hat after seeing a couple rainy days coming up during some free time I had.  I couldn't just brew anything though, since relatively high temperatures and my lack of a fermentation chamber meant I needed to use a warm-temperature tolerant yeast.  For me, this means saisons.  Saisons are a Belgian-French ale that are typically dry and lightly hopped, with notes of fruit and spice (either from some spice itself or just the yeast/grain).

I did some experiential "research" around town, came up with some recipes, and got my brew on.  I made two batches using similar base malts and hops (whole leaf this time), and identical yeast strains.  I decided against using any herbs or spices.  However, I supplemented one with a bit of wheat and the other with a hefty portion of rye.  Looking forward to tasting the results.

First runnings from the saison-rye mash.  That there brown stuff is gonna be beer.

North Manitou Island

Did a little backpacking last week with Nick on North Manitou Island.  The island, and its aptly named brother, South Manitou Island, are located in the northeastern end of Lake Michigan.  I've been to both islands several times, with South Manitou being one of the first places I ever backpacked.

The islands are technically a part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, which seems to be better known for its mainland attractions.  I prefer the islands.  Anyway, access to North Manitou is via ferry, and once on the island, you're generally free to roam and camp as you please.  Some photos:

A smaller dune area on the southwest side. North Manitou Island is relatively small for a backpacking destination, but does offer about 30 miles of trail hiking and 20 miles of shoreline hiking. We generally stayed close to the lake on this trip and explored the vast majority of the island's perimeter.

Crescent Dock ruins on an overcast morning.  North Manitou Island was settled to an extent over a hundred some years ago, with evidence of such scattered throughout the area. Besides various dock remnants, there are abandoned houses, orchards, a random barn, and even a cemetery.

A surprisingly well-preserved crawfish exoskeleton. The remains of a molt? Or maybe not. Either way, it was the honorary third member of our group at the second campsite.

Northeast side sunrise. I was up and about for a bit that morning due to a nearby crow that sounded like it was cawing directly into my ear.  Took this photo after shooing the thing away.

Keeping an eye on the angry looking clouds. We were a bit concerned, considering we left our rain gear at home, but thankfully all we got was a little drizzle and a lot of wind.

On a foredune near the Old Stormer Dock ruins on the southeast side.  Despite the earlier threatening weather, it cleared up nicely by the end of the day, allowing for some solid beach time.

North Manitou Island + backpacking = good times.

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Shi   ng Receiving

Tour de Fat

Last week I rode to New Belgium Brewing's bicycle-centric Tour de Fat while it was in Chicago.

Parked my bike in the "parking lot."


Drank a bunch of beer.


Mingled.


Drank a bunch of water.


Played some silly games.


Silly, I tell you.


And here's a guy with a top hat and a picture of a woman holding an omafiet as she ascends to the heavens.

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Night Ride, Avondale

Green Onion Flatbread

Cathy purchased some tasty edibles from a WI farmers' market over the weekend, including some green onions I used to make green onion flatbread - a basic but classic Chinese dish. It's straightforward to make, requiring little more than flour, water, and a bit of patience. I say patience because properly made flatbread requires maybe an hour's worth of sitting around to allow the dough to rest (twice). But it's totally worth it.

Goes great with a mixture of minced garlic/soy sauce/rice vinegar/sesame oil.

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Cathy

4th

Had a nice July 4th weekend, hope you did too. Our time was evenly split between partying at Nick's and relaxing at the parents. As always, good times were had all around.

These days I'm a little bummed I haven't done any real hiking trips this season, but hopefully that will be remedied soon. At the least, I'm planning on getting out to good ol' North Manitou Island for a long weekend in August. It's a tiny little place, maybe 20-25 square miles, but it has incredibly good bang for the buck and offers some classic Michigan hiking. Actually, South Manitou is where I took my first serious backpacking trip at the tender age of 14 and annual summer trips followed for years. I haven't been there in quite some time so I'm pumped to go back. Anyway, enough pontification - I'm going outside to play.

LOUD NOISES.

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Wrigleyville Trishaw

96 Hours

Good couple of days...included grilled strip steaks, 25 mile bike rides, Green Music Fest, beers, broiled wild sockeye salmon, running with dogs, reclaiming stock from previously roasted chickens, some BBQ, and learning that I can attach my mason jars to my blender (mind = blown).

HOMES sweet HOMES in front of the Velvet Hour.

Snack Attack

We're dog sitting Snack for Sarah while my parents are dog sitting for us. A curious arrangement but it all works out. Snack is a good dog, although she's nervous as a cat and seems to have a sort of crazed look in her eyes most of the time. A basic portrait illustrates this:

The ears say "pet me" but the eyes say "I will cut you."

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Uptown

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Anthers

Brewing Done

My brewing season has come to a close. This past week I bottled my last two batches that were on deck, a mild and an American pale ale. I thought about it the other day, and I still consider myself a relatively crappy homebrewer. Still, let me briefly share a thing or two about what makes beer: grain, hops, and yeast.

Grain is the foundation of beer. It gives beer body and flavor; it makes it a food. It dictates whether a beer is nutty, roasty, smoky, chocolatey, bready, biscuity, or none of the above. It "dresses" beer as well, determining whether it appears pale mellow gold or an achromatic black.

Hops. Yes, it adds bitterness, but it also adds flavors/aromas that we might describe as earthy, floral, piney, spicy, or even citrusy. They are to brewing what salt is to cooking. While nothing short of necessary, "appropriate" usage varies wildly. Hops are happy to pilot the plane in an Imperial IPA or just sit coach in a dry stout.

Yeast is the wizard behind the curtain: seemingly magical, but alive and mortal. Like the rest of us, it sleeps, eats, shits, and dies. Grains and hops are what beer is made of, but it is the yeast that actually makes the beer. Really, brewers don't do much more than farm yeast and then pick up what is left behind.

It's true. I mean, when I think about it, I mostly just move liquids around and then eventually drink said liquids. And I'm completely fine with that.

Drinking: Belgian wibier, Brown ale, ESB, and whatever scraps are left
Bottle Conditioning: Mild, American pale ale
Fermenting: Nothing
Planning: Nothing...maybe a saison. Maybe.

Memorial Day

Like last year and the year before that, we went up to Nickbot's for Memorial Day.  This time, there was uncooperative weather, Nick's shitty ankle, and unfortunately Brent couldn't make it up (huge bummer).  But nevertheless and needless to say, great times were still had.  While enjoying the natural beauty of Michigan, we drank copious amounts of homebrew, microbrew, and macrobrew, failed horribly in sneaking up on the wives via canoe, discovered the humor of worn out ankles, and I witnessed Cathy shoot a rifle and handgun for the first time in her life.  Great success.  For whatever reason, I didn't take many photos this year but I did memorialize this:

"It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters."

Birds, Brews, and Shrooms

As always, visiting my parents was a good time. Notable events? I witnessed two juvenile Mourning Doves fledge. Split a six pack of homebrew with my dad. And was shown an interesting little thing in the yard:

Morel? Maybe, but I'm not touching it. I mean, I'm an adventurous and fungi, morel less, but the thought of just picking/eating this kinda scares the shiitake out of me. I just don't know how to accurately identify these things, and there's really not mushroom for error. Hey-oohhh.