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

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

'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.

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.

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.

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.

Spent Grain Dog Treats

One more use for a brew's spent grain: dog treats.  The ones I make are actually fit for human consumption, but I wouldn't consider them much of a treat for humans.  An example of the difference between being edible and eatable, I suppose.  The dogs love them though.

Left a bunch with the parents when we dropped the dogs off this past weekend.

Cake Pops

Another one of Cathy's captivatingly cute confectionery creations:

Photographically featured fancy foodstuff feat.

ALLITERATION IS BOSS.

(Adjective) Chicken Tenders

So far a batch of barley malt has helped me make beer, bread, and chicken tenders teeming with adjectives:

Spicy Baked Parmesan Spent Grain Breaded Chicken Tender

Victuals

Yesterday was Cathy's birthday, and as usual, we splurged on a nice dinner - this time at a place called L2O, which I guess is relatively famous around here. As expected, everything was excellent, although I always feel out of my element at fine dining establishments. I'm much more at home walking into a pub, grabbing a strong ale, and ordering food off a laminated menu. But whatever, it was all very delicious and fun, and of course, I couldn't resist taking photos of the food to memorialize the occasion. Here are a couple of the courses:


We elected to do a tasting menu which had about 10 courses, with the first big one being this: oscietra caviar, kindai toro, shiso salt. Plated to look like a fish comet.


King prawn, coconut, green tomato, uni, jicama slaw, jalapeño emulsion and some other tasty crap I don't remember.


Maine lobster, foie gras, black trumpet marmalade, some micro-chives, and a sauce I'd be willing to pound a pint of. I'm a bit conflicted about foie gras. I find it delicious but the process behind it is...troubling. Because of that, I never actually order it but I'll eat it up if it's set before me.


Lime-cucumber sorbet. It wasn't really part of the menu so I think it was generally intended to be a palate cleanser. Good stuff either way.

Yommy.

Loaf

After brewing, I mainly end up with two things: about five gallons of what eventually becomes beer and about ten pounds of spent grain - the leftovers of the brewing process. I know what to do with the beer, but the grain is a bit trickier to deal with since I don't like just throwing it away.


Spent grain. It's used quite a bit for composting, livestock feed, and as a mushroom growing medium (seriously, commercial mushroom farms love this stuff). Now composting and fungiculture are great things, but they aren't practical solutions for me. And my dogs are the closest thing I have to livestock, but the prospect of feeding them 10 pounds of grain sounds...messy. Thankfully, spent grain also makes a great kitchen ingredient. I use it all the time.


Bread I baked with spent grain (pale malt and caramel malt). It's pretty basic, but it goes great with a bit of butter or cheese or cured meat or a pint of pale ale.

Drinking: IPA, wheat, brown ale, robust porter
Bottling conditioning: American pale ale
Fermenting: Special bitter
Planning: Maybe a brown ale

TV...Dessert?

1. Cathy makes cupcakes
2. Cathy fashions them to look like a TV dinner
3. Albert laughs like a little school boy


Devil's food cupcakes disguised as chicken drumsticks, peas and carrots, mashed potatoes, and dessert. I think the side dishes look dead on.

Naga Jolokia

Nick and Emily visited last weekend for New Year's and needless to say, it was a blastasaurus. While it mostly involved consuming more bourbon and food than necessary, at one point we found ourselves at the local brew and garden store and were gifted some freshly picked "ghost chili" peppers, aka Naga Jolokia. These things are insane. You may or may not have heard of them, but up until just a couple weeks ago, the ghost chili was recognized as the hottest chili pepper in the world (its throne was relinquished to some sort of hybrid of itself).


A large specimen. I had another one about the size of a raspberry which I experimented with. I chewed on a slice from the middle of it, roughly the size/thickness of a penny, and in about 30 seconds my mouth went from: tastes good > tingly > numb > hot > magma > gone.


I decided to make a batch of chili with the rest of the one I cut into. A ghost chili chili? The tiny pepper was thrown into a gallon or so of stuff, but it still gave the batch a kick. A kind of a pleasant and smooth kick, whatever that means. Anyway, good winter food.

Cookie Exchange

Cathy hosted a cookie exchange the other night which I heard went swimmingly. I don't personally know exactly how it went since I was busy "studying" at the local brewery, but when I got back home I found dozens upon dozens of homemade snacky cakes.

Roughly 4-6 dozen each of 21 varieties. Going from from top-left to right: a white chocolate Oreo truffle and a milk chocolate Oreo truffle, monster cookies, double chocolate cookies, triple chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies, red velvet cake balls, chocolate cake balls, lemon cake balls, gooey butter cookies, mint chocolate chip cookies, toffee chocolate cookies, cherry thumbprints, peanut butter blossoms, mint brownies, pretzel Rolos, peanut butter mint cookie bars, peanut butter brownies, chocolate hazelnut crinkles, almond spritzer cookies, and almond biscotti. Missing from the photo are the chocolate sugar cookies, apparently all eaten/taken.

Soup

Low temps = more time inside = I make soup. Here's a basic one:


Potato + Leek


= Soup

I don't know. It's a slow month.

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It's between the pumpkin shed and whiskey hut