rhinoblues

Books I've Read in 2010 - a rhino walks

2010-09-08T05:00:31Z

In 2009, I finally completed my 52 book challenge. Not only that, I read twice as many books as in 2008. For 2010, at the moment at least, I don't have a specific goal. I will continue to keep track of my books read as I finish them.

Total pages read: 16,332
Shortest book: 117 pages
Longest book: 630 pages
Fiction: 27
Non-fiction: 24
Cookbook: 7

Last book read:
58. Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery. Actually her first book, but released in English after the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this is the story of Pierre Arthens, the greatest food critic in the world, on his death bed searching for a long forgotten taste. 160 pages. (Finished 7 Sep 10).

Full list below the cut:

Past Lists:
2009 List
2008 List
2007 List
]]> Books I've Read in 2010:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: a memoir by Haruki Murakami. Murakami reflects on the lessons learned while running and while writing. How both activities have taught him things about himself, the art of running, and the art of writing. 192 pages. (Finished 3 Jan 10).
The Half-Life by Jonathan Raymond. The story of two men in the 1820's and two girls in the 1980's. How they became friends and how their two stories intersect. 350 pages. (Finished 5 Jan 10).
The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon. An amateur cook (and Episcopal Priest) writes a mediation on the simple spirituality of cooking. 273 pages. (Finished 13 Jan 10).
Cooking from the Coast to the Cascades by the Junior League of Eugene. A cookbook featuring recipes inspired by life in Western Oregon. 224 pages. (Finished 15 Jan 10).
Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession by Julie Powell. The story of her apprenticeship to become a butcher, and the marital problems that inspired her apprenticeship. 288 pages. (Finished 19 Jan 10).
Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman. A collection of essays about pop culture and society. 256 pages. (Finished 25 Jan 10).
The Book of Whole Meals: A Seasonal Guide to Assembling Balanced Vegetarian Breakfasts, Lunches, and Dinners by Annemarie Colbin. This was a find at Bart's Books in Ojai, a locally famous outdoor bookstore. Vegetarian recipes with a whole grain focus and a slight Asian influence. 240 pages. (Finished 31 Jan 10).
The Power of Place: How Our Surroundings Shape Our Thoughts, Emotions, and Actions by Winifred Gallagher. The title pretty much sums it up. A really interesting look at how our surroundings affect us, in surprising ways. 256 pages. (Finished 2 Feb 10).
Winemaking: Recipes, Equipment, and Techniques For Making Wine at Home by Stanley F. Anderson & Dorothy Anderson. A book about making wine at home. 304 pages. (Finished 2 Feb 10).
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez. The story of the kidnapping of 10 prominent Colombian journalists in the lead up to the surrender of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. 291 pages. (Finished 15 Feb 10).
Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice by Alissa Hamilton. A look at the Florida Orange Juice industry, the standardization of orange juice, and what you are really buying at the store. 288 pages. (Finished 18 Feb 10).
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter. A child of hippies moves into a run down section of Oakland and builds a farm on the vacant lot next to her (and her boyfriend's) apartment. 288 pages. (Finished 23 Feb 10).
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz. A book about the benefits and the art of fermenting foods, with plenty of recipes. 200 pages. (Finished 25 Feb 10).
Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead by Sara Miles. A book with a radical call to be like Jesus. The book my community (and church) is reading for lent as we give up God for lent. 208 pages. (Finished 25 Feb 10).
Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods by Gary Paul Nabhan. A journey of eating and rediscovering native foods within 250 miles of his desert home in near Tucson, AZ for a year. 330 pages. (Finished 4 Mar 10).
The Southern Italian Table: Authentic Tastes From Traditional Kitchens by Arthur Schwartz. My third KCRW cookbook club selection. 256 pages. (Finished 6 Mar 10).
How (Not) To Speak of God by Peter Rollins. A theological look at post modern Christianity and why a conflicting ideas may not be a bad thing. 144 pages. (Finished 9 Mar 10).
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles. The story of a life long atheist finding faith in communion and then finding the "church" in a food pantry she started. 304 pages. (Finished 13 Mar 10).
Free For All: Fixing School Food in America by Janet Poppendieck. Recommended by my sister (who's about to complete a Master's in Nutrition Education), this is an academic look at the school food system in the United States. It was kind of depressing. 380 pages. (Finished 24 Mar 10).
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. A super intelligent 12 yr old girl from a wealthy family and a super intelligent concierge (who has been hiding her intelligence from the world since childhood) from a poor background find their lives changed with the arrival of a retired Japanese man to their apartment building in Paris. Oh fiction, how I've missed you. This was a wonderful way to come back. 325 pages. (Finished 1 Apr 10).
Summertime by J.M. Coetzee. An interesting novel where the author is himself the main character, through the eyes of a biographer interviewing 5 people who knew the author in his thirties, when he was finding himself as a writer. 256 pages. (Finished 6 Apr 10).
Gristle: from Factory Farms to Food Safety (Thinking Twice About the Meat We Eat) edited by Moby and Miyun Park. A collection of essays about the true costs of eating meat. At times a little preachy...and not a lot of new information from what I've already read. But its a quick read and loaded with info for someone who hasn't read a bunch about the subject yet. 160 pages. (Finished 7 Apr 10).
Strong Waters: A Simple Guide to Making Beer, Wine, Cider and Other Spirited Beverages at Home by Scott Mansfield. A basic guide to making some of the lesser known alcoholic beverages made in the past. 272 pages. (Finished 10 Apr 10).
The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove by Cathy Erway. A 20-something living in Brooklyn, New York decides to stop eating out while living in New York. For 2 years she eats, cooks, and blogs about the experience. This book came from that experience (and includes some recipes). 336 pages. (Finished 13 Apr 10).
Beer School: Bottling Success at the Brooklyn Brewery by Steve Hindy & Tom Potter. The co-founders tell the story of the ups and downs of founding The Brooklyn Brewery. 304 pages. (Finished 20 Apr 10).
Beer: Tap into the Art and Science of Brewing (3rd Edition) by Charles Bamforth. I've got the 2nd Edition of this book and picked up the 3rd Edition from the library to see what had changed. 272 pages. (Finished 26 Apr 10).
The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (3rd Edition) by Charlie Papazian. I had an older edition of this when I was first starting homebrewing. It is a great reference book, and I finally replaced my long lost copy of it. 432 pages. (Finished 29 Apr 10).
Food Rules: An Eater's Manual by Michael Pollen. A short set of guidelines for making choices about the food we eat. My fourth KCRW cookbook selection. 140 pages. (Finished 30 Apr 10).
Point Omega by Don DeLillo. A short novella about a secret war advisor and a young filmmaker in the desert of Southern California. 117 pages. (Finished 1 May 10).
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman. A book with a provocative title, is a reimagining of the life of Jesus. It imagines twin brothers "Jesus" and "Christ" with two very different personalities and roles in the story of Christianity's key figure. Part of Canongate's The Myths Series. 192 pages. (Finished 10 May 10).
The Homebrewer's Companion by Charlie Papazian. Basically a reference manual for more advanced homebrewing techniques. A companion piece to The Complete Joy of Homebrewing. I'd been meaning to add this to my homebrewing library for a long time. 464 pages. (Finished 12 May 10).
The Changeling by Kenzaburō Ōe. When his best friend (and wife's brother) commits suicide, Kogito must look back on his life and friendship to learn how each of them got to the place they are. 468 pages. (Finished 21 May 10).
A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong. Introducing Canongate's The Myths Series, Karen Armstrong provides a short overview of myths throughout human history and the roles they have played in society. 176 pages. (Finished 25 May 10).
The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus by Margaret Atwood. From the perspective of Penelope and her 12 maids (that were hung after Odysseus' return), we are told the part of the story not included in Homer's Odyssey. Part of The Myths Series. 192 pages. (Finished 28 May 10).
Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson. The story of Atlas and Heracles, told in the first person. Both from the time the events were happening, and looking back on them from modern time. Part of The Myths Series. 192 pages. (Finished 1 Jun 10).
Dream Angus: The Celtic God of Dreams by Alexander McCall Smith. Modern stories intermixed with re-tellings of ancient tales of Angus, a Celtic God of Eros and Dreams. Part of The Myths Series. 196 pages. (Finished 3 Jun 10).
Jesus Boy by Preston L. Allen. A young boy blessed by God and one of the Faithful, finds out his childhood love is pregnant and ends up falling in love with the widow of both his families and churches benefactor. And that is just the beginning of the tangled webs. 364 pages. (Finished 5 Jun 10).
The Ask by Sam Lipsyte. A middle aged washed up artist gets fired from his job as a fundraiser at a 3rd tier university. When suddenly an old classmate returns to the picture and gets him his job back...if he'll do something for him. 304 pages. (Finished 11 Jun 10).
The Helmet of Horror: The Myth of Theseus and the Minotaur by Victor Pelevin. An imaginative retelling of the myth as a chat in an internet-like chat room. Part of The Myths Series. 288 pages. (Finished 15 Jun 10).
Lion's Honey: The Myth of Samson by David Grossman. Part of The Myths Series. My least favorite of the myth novellas so far. Read more like an explication of the story from a modern perspective than a contemporary retelling of the story. 176 pages. (Finished 17 Jun 10).
Girl meets boy: The Myth of Iphis by Ali Smith. Part of The Myths Series. A retelling of the myth of Iphis and Ianthe set in modern Scotland. 224 pages. (Finished 22 Jun 10).
Brewing Up A Business: adventures in entrepreneurship by Sam Calagione. A nice overview of the lessons learned in the first 10 years of Dogfish Head. 272 pages. (Finished 2 Jul 10).
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. Just before her ninth birthday, Rose discovers she can taste the feelings of the people that make the food she eats. 293 pages. (Finished 5 Jul 10).
Binu and The Great Wall: The Myth of Meng by Su Tong. Part of The Myths Series. The story of a woman's devotion to her husband and how her tears brought down part of the Great Wall. 300 pages. (Finished 8 Jul 10).
Tell All by Chuck Palahnuik. The story of an aging actress, her handler, and a suiter who's attempting to kill the actress in order to publish a book about her. I thought this book was almost unreadable. I'm ready for Chuck to take some time on a book instead of popping out a book a year. 179 pages. (Finished 14 Jul 10).
The Banquet Bug by Geling Yan. A poor unemployed factory worker figures out how easy it is to pose as a journalist at lavish corporate/government sponsored banquets. 288 pages. (Finished 17 Jul 10).
Sausage: Recipies for Making and Cooking with Homemade Sausage by Victoria Wise. A new KCRW cookbook club book. Recipies for homemade sausage and dishes to go with them. 176 pages. (Finished 17 Jul 10).
Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life by Brendan Brazier. A little heavy handed and questionable leaps of knowledge turned my off pretty quickly. 309 pages. (Finished 21 Jul 10).
Where the Three Roads Meet: The Myth of Oedipus by Sally Vickers. Part of The Myths Series. The story of Oedipus as told to a dying Sigmund Freud. 224 pages. (Finished 27 Jul 10).
The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern. An awkward teenage boy discovers a frozen man in his parents basement, who turns out to be a rabbi frozen in the 19th Century. When a storm knocks out power and un-freezes the rabbi, his life will never be the same. 368 pages. (Finished 3 Aug 10).
Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis. The kids of Less Than Zero have gotten older (25 years after the events of their youth). They're still fucked up. A quick look into the lives of the seedy side of LA (with money). 192 pages. (Finished 5 Aug 10).
The Fire Gospel: The Myth of Prometheus by Michel Faber. Part of The Myths Series. A linguist discovers hidden scrolls when a bomb blows up outside of a museum in Iraq. It turns out to be a "Fifth" gospel, from a contemporary of Jesus. Some folks aren't too happy about the message. 184 pages. (Finished 7 Aug 10).
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I jump on the bandwagon of the official airplane reading book of the summer. The movie version had some significant differences than the book, but still did a good job in presenting the story. 590 pages. (Finished 13 Aug 10).
The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas. A Ph.D. student finds a rare, cursed book by an obscure 19th-Century author. In it contains a recipe to journey into consciousness. 399 pages. (Finished 18 Aug 10).
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal by Joel Salatin. Joel Salatin of Polyface farms (made famous in The Omnivore's Dilemma and Food, Inc), talks about the challenges facing small farmers and the local food market. 352 pages. (Finished 25 Aug 10).
From A to X: A Story in Letters by John Berger. A series of letters written by a woman to her love, a man imprisoned for being an insurgent. 224 pages. (Finished 28 Aug 10).
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. Book 2 of the Millennium series. I'm also now caught up with the movies. 630 pages. (Finished 5 Sep 10).
Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery. Actually her first book, but released in English after the success of The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this is the story of Pierre Arthens, the greatest food critic in the world, on his death bed searching for a long forgotten taste. 160 pages. (Finished 7 Sep 10).

Some Changes... - a rhino walks

2010-09-01T14:01:41Z

The hard part (at least for me) about breaking up is losing the friendship. If even just temporarily. Setting arbitrary dates of when you can touch base again and see where we are in life. But the thing is, you won't be in the same place. I suppose that's a good thing in some ways, as there's a reason things had to change. But there is still a feeling of deep loss. Like the act of actively not talking to someone will just make that the new status quo. At the end of the arbitrary time, there just won't anything left but awkwardness and bittersweet memories.

Obviously this morning was seeped in melancholy for me, and listening to the John Prine version of the below song probably didn't help. But it sums up a little of what I'm feeling this morning.

Multigrain Extraordinaire - a rhino walks

2010-08-28T17:29:53Z

Wow, this post is long delayed. I baked this bread months ago...but such is things when life gets in the way. I do luckily have a few more pictures of baking this bread to help spur my memory though.

I started out with a overnight soak of some oats, polenta, & wheat bran. The next day I mixed in the flour and let it rise.

This made a single loaf, and it crested nicely about the lip of the pan. I topped it with flax seed to add yet a little more extra goodness to the multiple grains. (My first batch of strawberry freezer jam is setting in the background!)

Just out of the oven.

This made great sandwich bread. (I was also told it was good as toast, but I didn't have any myself.) It was gone before I knew it. I would like to make this again soon as I get back into the baking habit.

New York is Killing Me (ft. Mos Def) - a rhino walks

2010-08-12T16:36:38Z

Finally picked up this full album...had an download of this track earlier. A mix of spoken word and jazzy trip-hop from an old master.

I have days that I could replace New York with Los Angeles. Thankfully today is not one of those days.

Pizza Napoletana - a rhino walks

2010-06-09T04:00:00Z

We like to make homemade pizzas fairly often, so this formula came at a good time. This dough is meant to be slowly fermented, from the ice cold water used in the mixing, to the at least overnight fermentation in the refrigerator. Unfortunately my hand tossing skills are not up to par yet, so i ended up with the squarish pizza you see above.

On pizza day, you remove the dough from the refrigerator a couple hours before you will bake the pizza. When I got ready to attempt to hand toss the dough, I had a nice round piece of dough. I need a lot of practice to get the hand tossing technique down though. I get the dough too thin in the center and it tears. In the end...the square pizza at the beginning of this post.

I will have more opportunity to practice however, as I've got two more balls of dough in the freezer to use later.

Pane Siciliano - a rhino walks

2010-06-09T03:43:42Z

As you can see, this was a uniquely shaped bread. It also took 3 days to make. Day 1 was for the biga (pre-ferment). On day 2, the rest of the ingredients were mixed and the loaves were shaped. To shape the loaves, I divided the risen dough into 3 similarly sized pieces and shaped them as I would a baguette. Then I curled them in on opposite sides of the loaf to make the S-shape of the loaves. A spray of water and sprinkling of black sesame seeds on top, and the loaves were placed in the refrigerator to retard overnight.

Day 3 was finally baking day and it was worth it. This bread was amazing. A nice nutty flavor from the long ferments. I definitely look forward to making this again.

Pugliese - a rhino walks

2010-06-08T12:21:44Z

I had to search around to find the durum flour for my attempt at Pugliese. The usual suspects had semolina flour but I needed the finer grind of the durum. I finally picked some up at Surfas in Culver City.

The formula called for a mix of durum and bread flour, however I used mostly durum and saved the bread flour to add while kneading. My loaves ended up flattening on the edges when I put them in the oven. The bread had a great flavor to it, especially the crust.

Potato Rosemary Bread - a rhino walks

2010-06-07T19:03:38Z

For this bread, we get a new ingredient to play with. Potatoes! I cooked up a batch of Yukon Gold potatoes (From Zuckerman Farms @ the Hollywood Farmers Market) to make the mashed potatoes for this loaf.

My round loaves didn't turn out to be as thick in the center as I would have liked, but it tasted good. I spread some fresh avocado on some toasted slices for lunch one day and it was heavenly.

Portuguese Sweet Bread - a rhino walks

2010-06-05T17:56:19Z

Peter Reinhart describes this bread as the east coast version of the popular Hawaiian style bread on the west coast. They are both sweet breads for sure, but I think this formula at least has a little more fruit forward flavor (the citrus extracts really stay present in the baked loaf). While this loaf uses a sponge, it does not need an overnight rest like many of the other breads I've made. The sponge has a relatively large amount of yeast for the size of the sponge.

After the sponge is nice and bubbly, it was time to mix the rest of the dough. First step was to mix up some of the liquid ingredients. Eggs, some vanilla, orange, & lemon extract.

To this mixture I added the sponge and the remaining flour and mixed until the ingredients formed a course ball.

Because this bread has a high fat content, it takes a little more time to knead than one of the more lean breads (like French Baguettes). I think I kneaded this for almost 15 minutes. Then it was time to let it rise.

While the formula suggested baking these in round pie pans, I decided i wanted these as sandwich loaves. They took quite awhile to proof, and even then they were a little smaller than I would have liked. The nice deep caramel color of the tops of the loaves were due to an egg wash applied just before baking. Another popular loaf among my co-workers. I've already got requests for another batch.

A Rogue Wedding in Disneyland - a rhino walks

2010-06-02T03:51:25Z

A couple years ago, I signed up at the Universal Life Church Monastery, and became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. I did this in order to perform the wedding of one of my best friends. A few months ago, one of my former co-workers at Symantec, messaged me to see if I could still do weddings. He and his long time partner were finally going to get married, and they wanted to get married at one of their favorite places to go...Disneyland.

The problem with getting married at Disneyland is that its not allowed. Sure you can get married at one of the hotels...starting at $10,000 for the official Disneyland wedding experience. Even then, you can't get married inside the park at that rate.

So my friend asked if I'd be willing to perform a "rogue" wedding inside the park. It would be just the two of them, a witness and myself. I was more than glad to help out, so it was just a matter of my friend figuring out the date.

The date was finally set for May 5th and I took the afternoon off from work. Because of a last minute change of schedule, Alicia wasn't able to come with to be the witness, so my friend Noelle stood in. We got to the park around 3pm and headed in to find a good location to perform the ceremony. But first we had to stop and get some Mickey ear's to complete the dress code. We ended up finding a nice quiet spot next to the Thunder Mountain Ride (which was closed for maintenance), on a wooden bridge overlooking a pond (with turtles sunning on the shore). The ceremony was fairly quick, just the vows (read off of the Bride's iPhone), and the exchange of rings. A few people caught on and cheered when it was over (and the possible staff member that walked by ignored it).

After the ceremony, we got some celebratory lemonade (enhanced with some adult water) to toast the happy couple, and then explored the park until closing.

After the parks closed, we returned to their hotel to sign the papers (and make it official), and then had dinner at the mexican restaurant at Downtown Disney to celebrate both the wedding and have Cinco de Mayo margharitas!

Pain de Campagne - a rhino walks

2010-05-09T21:37:43Z

I didn't get too awful creative with shaping my Pain de Campagne loaf. A simple round with some cuts in the top to try and make some peaks. They didn't end up coming out as pretty as the ones in the BBA. This bread is very similar to your standard french baguette, however its got a small percentage of whole wheat flour added to it.

I'm not quite sure it baked long enough, as it ended up a little denser than I expected. However by the time I sliced it open the next morning, it was still plenty tasty.

Pain à l'Ancíenne - a rhino walks

2010-04-20T04:37:55Z

This is the style of bread I think of most often when I think about a good artisan bread in America. Pain à l'Ancíenne is a simple rustic dough that in this case benefits from a long slow fermentation. The dough is a wet dough (more like ciabatta than a traditional french baguette). It ferments at refrigerator temperature for anywhere from 12 - 18 hours preferably. It is best as a 2 day project, though I ended up making mine in one day, mixing the dough before work (at 4:30am) and doing the typical second day tasks after work (at 5:00pm). This was also to be the first hearth style bread I'd make since installing the unglazed quarry tiles in my oven. My plan was to use 2/3rds of the dough to make baguettes and the other 1/3 to make pizza dough.

I was pretty please with how the baguettes came out. The one on the right in the picture below ended up a little darker, probably because it was baked by itself. These were small baguettes, ranging from 6 - 8ish inches. One became my lunch the next day...another breakfast the day after. This dough also made a nice pizza dough. I split the remaining dough into two portions and attempted to hand toss them into pizzas. I've still got some work to do on getting that technique down. I did manage to shape one into approximately a 12" round, however it was a little thin in the middle (and probably a little over topped with ingredients). The second portion I just couldn't get to work and reluctantly through it out. I was just getting too tired to try and save it (plus with a 550 degree oven going for the past few hours, it was pretty hot in the kitchen. The dough made a great pizza dough and the quarry tiles worked better than the pizza stone since I didn't have to try and aim it correctly on the round pizza stone.

Casatiello - a rhino walks

2010-04-10T05:05:12Z

Casatiello is a Brioche inspired bread. The brioche-like dough is flavored with a cured meat (in this case Soppresetta) and a soft meltable cheese (Provolone with a bit of mozzarella). Definitely a meal in a slice.

A very rich bread (with a bunch of butter mixed in the dough), there was no real danger of finishing off both loaves the same day. This bread could have been shaped in a variety of ways, from roll size (in brioche tins or small lunch bags), to single round, or what I ended up doing...a regular bread pan.

Marbled Rye - a rhino walks

2010-04-03T14:30:19Z

I've been making pastrami sandwiches for a lunch lately, so I was pretty excited to make some rye bread to complement them. Plus there was the added fun of a marbled bread!

The tricky thing with a marbled loaf is you need to have both doughs having similar fermentation time. For this reason having everything mise en place is especially important for this loaf. Each of the doughs, are essentially identical, except the darker one has an added coloring agent. I used unsweetened chocolate dissolved in water as my coloring agent.

After proofing, the loaves get an egg wash right before baking to give the nice crust you see below.

The bread tasted great, it made for a really nice Pastrami sandwich the next day. I also brought it into work and shared with the folks at work. They liked it so much that one of my co-workers offered to pay me to make her some more.

Lavash Crackers - a rhino walks

2010-04-02T15:28:44Z

Lavash crackers are the Armenian version of flatbreads that are common among many different cuisines throughout the world (naan, pita, tortillas, etc.). In fact, this dough has much in common with naan and pita. Like those two breads, it is traditionally baked in a Tandoor oven. Thankfully, these can still be made in a conventional oven quite well.

To bake these, I rolled out the dough as thin as possible and then placed it on parchment on a sheet pan. I used a pizza cutter to pre-cut half of the dough into triangles, leaving the other half to break apart as they would. I flavored the crackers with black sesame seeds, Hungarian paprika, kosher salt, and caraway seeds. (I may have overdone the paprika section though.)