Out with the Old In with the New

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Old Dog
Calm

New Dog
Boisterous (puppy in a young adult body)

Old Christmas Tree Tradition

 As the years have progressed, our love for hunting and gathering the Yearly Yule Gymnosperm were waning as can be seen from the photo above.

 The Stump Tradition was started in 1998 and lasted till 2014, only 2004 was missing when we traveled to Italy and the UK right after Christmas and decided not to put up a tree that year. Sixteen stumps in the collection, they have been willed to the heirs of The M Estate and are expected to be lovingly cherished in situ or placed in a museum.

New Christmas Tree Tradition
2 pre-lit pencil trees. This year placed in the corners of the living room. Quick, easy, use one, use both, easily transportable in their own case, leaves no needles behind, provides many options.

All photos taken with new camera.

2015 Books

This year's book list. The (r) denotes a repeat read. *s = Good, DNF = Bad.

1. Ian Flemming's Commandos, Nicolas Rankin; DNF
2. Slow Train to Switzerland, Diccon Bewes; *****; Christmas gift from the Eldest, a very good read. An Young Woman's account of Thomas Cook's first Conducted Tour of Switzerland. The author retraces her trip as closley as possible. Trains and Travel in Switzerland, how could it be bad. Gave me ideas for more places to visit in Switzerland.
3. How We Got to Now, Steven Johnson
4. Murder on the 31st Floor, Per Wahloo; ***; Very good character development. Inspector Jensen is a piece of work. Written in the 1960s and set in an unappealing future.
5. The Water Room, Christopher Fowler; A Bryant and May of the The Peculiar Crimes Unit detective story. All the characters are interesting as are the crimes they are assigned to inspect. Can become a bit far-fetched.
6. The Steel Spring, Per Wahloo; Another about Inspector Jensen book, even more unappealing future.
7. The Blood of an Englishman, M.C. Beaton here.
8. Bryant and May Off the Rails, Christopher Fowler
9. Bryant and May and the Memory of Blood,  Christopher Fowler
10. The Marseilles Caper, Peter Mayle; Sam Levitt is back.  To which I reply, "Don't do it again"
11. Retribution, Val McDermid; Seventh with Tony Hill and Carol Jordan.
12. The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien, Georges Simenon
13. The Yellow Dog,  Georges Simenon
14. Travels with my Aunt, Graham Greene (r) Read on a riverboat on the Amazon.
15. Night at the Crossroads,  Georges Simenon
16. Monsieur Pamplemousse, Michael Bond (r); Series list here.
17. A Crime in Holland,  Georges Simenon
18. The Grand Banks Cafe, Georges Simenon; I enjoyed all of the Maigret  books by Simenon so far. Hope more are on the way. The Maigret TV Series from the 1990s was very good and starred Michael Gambon.
19.  Monsieur Pamplemousse and the Tangled Web, Michael Bond; Published in 2015, not among his best, but he is getting up there.
20. Among the Islands, Tim Flannery; Author is a zoologist and did expeditions in the South Pacific, a bit interesting. Worth reading once.
21. Death in the Sahara, Michael Asher; A Survey expedition to determine feasibility of building a railway to Timbuktu. Treachery, ambushes, cannibalism, battles, was an interesting read. Did not make me want to go to the Sahara.
22. River of Doubt, Candice Millar ****; Teddy Roosevelt's trip down an uncharted Amazon river tributary. Very interesting. Wished I would have known about it before our trip down the Amazon River.
23. Beyond Cape Horn, Charles Neider; Details of his third trip to Antarctica, Was just OK;  Obituary
24. Standing in Another Man's Grave, Ian Rankin
25. Down the Garden Path, Beverley Nicholes *****; First read this in the 1980s, lent the book to a co-worker and never got it back. Makes you want to go out and plant stuff.
26. No Man's Nightingale, Ruth Rendel; Wexford's last case, I never got that involved, but this was the first I read of his series.
27. The Way to Dusty Death, Alistair MacLean; Thriller taking place on the F1 racing circuit. Stayed up late a few nights getting to the end.
28. The Dying Hours, Mark Billingham; Something strange about those suicides. Once Detective, now back in Uniform, Thom Thorne finds these suicides suspicious. Number 11 in the series, number 1 for me, it was cheap and sounded interesting; It was.
29. Three Graves Full, Jaime Mason; A crazy good read. Stayed up past my bedtime to see how it ended. Strangely reminded me of "Restraint of Beasts", Magnus Mills.
30. Uncle Tungstun, Oliver Sacks, His childhood memoir. Not done yet, but very interesting so far. He grew up in London during the Blitz.

And now for something completely different

Smokey Manhattan

• 1 part Noilly Prat Rouge (red vermouth)
• 1 part Laphroaig (the smokey comes from this) I stock the Laphroaig 10 Year Old.
• several drops of Bitters, I used Fee Bros Molasses.

Some recipes used non-smokey whiskey and added a drop or 2 of liquid smoke, Yuck! 

Saw the recipe somewhere, don't remember where, I dropped the ratio of vermouth to Whisky(Scottish spelling) to 1:1.

I joined the 'Friend of Laphroaig' club and was given a lifetime lease on a numbered plot of their land (one square foot!). Haven't yet attended any of the events they have had in the area, but it may come in handy if we ever visit the distillery on Skye.

Unseasonably Warm Christmas Bacon Beer

This weekend was unseasonable warm. We took a bike ride this AM on the bike path from the Ball fields at Alaska Place, along Richmond Avenue, through the William T. Davis Wildlife Refuse to Signs Road. The NYC Bike Map does not include these new Bike Paths.

Also smoked some bacon which I had started last weekend.
Made 2 different kinds as usual.

Savory Bacon
2 lbs pork belly
1/4 cup dry cure (salt, sugar, pink salt) from Charcuterie by Ruhlman & Polcyn, 1 part Pink Salt, 4 parts sugar(I use turbinado), 8 parts kosher salt
3 Bay leaves
4 Sage leaves
 5 sprigs thyme
5 garlic cloves, smashed, not peeled
2 Tbs cracked peppercorns
1 Tbs coriander seed 
The pork Belly was already trimmed and ready to go. Just rubbed in the ingredients and stuffed it in a ziploc bag.
It came out a bit salty, I may have used more than 1/4 cup dry cure.

Sweet Bacon
5 lbs. Pork Belly
1/2 cup dry cure
1 cup brown sugar
maple sugar and some maple syrup
6 Tbs Smoked Jack Daniels

The bacon cured in the fridge for a week, I then dried them off and let them sit in the fridge for 6 hours before smoking.
Smoked the bacon for 2.5 hours at around 220F, the temperature did rise after the soaked cherry wood chips dried out. I sprayed the wood chips from time to time to keep them damp and smoking.

Beers in the Fridge:
Holiday Beer labels

 Anchor Brewery, like their stuff, the Christmas label is different every year as is the Ale's receipe. Here is a link to all 41 Christmas Labels.

 Samuel Smith's Christmas labels are different every year too, though I think their ale remains the same. I may have one or 2 more, I had started pasting them into my Moleskine weekly planners.

 Long Trail's Harvest, seasonal Brown Ale with maple syrup added. It was OK, don't need to get it again, plenty of other beers to try.

Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving.
9 people
14+ lbs turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans with preserved lemon, candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes.
Didn't run out of anything, but didn't have a lot of turkey left over. I might have carved the turkey too thick?

 Inspector General spent the day upstairs

 Served cider and Beaujolais, had this with leftovers the next day.

Eggs on stuffing. Not a new culinary hit. Wasn't bad, just didn't have any toast.

Bringing in the Sheaves

Beautiful Fall morning, did the first round of leave raking. Back, front and side; expect more leaves to fall so didn't do an exemplary job.

 Used my Worx vac/shredder to perform some magic. The leaf pile was condensed and filled the vacuum bag 6 times, one bag I put into the yard compost pile the other five are in the brown leaf bag.

Also raked on the other side of my garage which is our property for just about 2 feet.

Current Blooms:
 Pinched off the faded blooms from the potted mums we bought, we may get another round of blooms if we don't get a hard frost.

 Heaths and Heather

 A rogue Coral Bell

The garlic has sprouted, the chard leaves are at 4 - 6 inches, I'll wait some more to pick them and the latest spinach crop is just sprouting too.

Beers in the Fridge:
 Continuing with the Stouts. The Anchor Brewing Flying Cloud stout was very complex and had 3 distinct tastes at the first, the middle and the finish. Chocolate, coffee, molasses, 7.4 % ABV. The Double Chocolate Stout is reminiscence of Guinness in cans but with chocolate nose and flavors, not too sweet and at 5.2 % ABV is easy to drink. The can has the widget inside so you get an entertaining pour and a creamy head.

The Fall of Summer

Current Blooms:
I just missed getting a photo of a fall bloom from a primula (Primula x pubescens R. Lupp), was too lazy to go in and get the camera.
Was concerned that all my Cyclamen had died, but just yesterday I saw a few starting to send out their leaves. Hoo-ray!
We have mums blooming, but we purchased them already in bud and they are just out for the Fall then will be composted.
Planted garlic last weekend across the back of the garden boxes, 95 cloves this year. Also have spinach growing in the garden and Swiss chard in the 55 gallon drum planter. Not many spinach sprouted and lived so I may have to sow more.
Started reading Down the Garden Path by Beverly Nichols so I should be getting all kinds of ideas for the garden from his book.

Beers in the Fridge:
Bought these 2 Oktoberfest beers at the end of September. I like the Hofbrau better, not sure if it is because we drank at the Hofbrauhaus when we were in Munich. The Eldest is currently in Munich for the weekend. Very Jealous even though she says it is cold there. She visited the oldest continuously operating brewery (since 1040), Weihenstephaner now under Bavarian State Control. It's added to my list of Munich sights to see.

Now that it is cooler I will be picking up some stouts which fall into the Ales category of beer. The other category is Lager and the type of yeast used helps make the determination.
This is the first one of the season, brewed by Wells in England at 5% ABV, could not find bitterness units IBU. It is fairly sweet, but not too much so. Not too heavy, it's nice. Chef thought so too.

I also picked up a Samuel Smith Imperial Stout which is 7% ABV and 35 IBU and plan to get Young's Double Chocolate Stout also made by Wells.
My review of Sammy's Imperial Stout here.

Estate Maintenance:
Repaired the freezer in section B5 of the basement, it was just a bad evaporator fan.
Windows were cleaned on the ground floor. Maggie (the dawg) watched as I did the bay windows of the kitchen nook.

Maypo Failure

Last Sunday we went to brunch at Smoke, a Jazz club at 105th and Broadway. We saw Annette St. John and her trio and had a great brunch.The piano player taught lessons at the same music school our youngest attended for awhile and our friend knows him well.

Last Monday I made some Irish oatmeal. Sometimes I toast the oats first, sometimes I just skip that step and go straight to the boil. Was thinking about Maypo for some reason and thought why not add Royal Crown Maple Finished whisky midway during the boil to add flavor. I mentioned the whiskey here. It does smell very much like Maypo.  Well that did not work out. When the oatmeal was done it didn't really have much of a maple taste. Despite being cooked for awhile, it may not have lost all of its alcohol.

Beers in the Fridge:
 Bought Genesee Cream Ale for some reason, nostalgia? It was not bad at all, was cheap and at 5.2% ABV and 12 IBUs it is easy to drink. I read one review of the beer giving the can an A-plus and the beer a B-minus. I don't much care about the packaging unless it is an overly busy design or the beer had a punny sounding name. I only read the reviews after buying it. It was a impulse buy. Brewed in Rochester, NY. There is a brewery tour, but probably not of the main brewery. See Genesee Brew House

 The Saranac Summer Pils is very good. I like a lot of their beers. I was looking for something to prolong the summer which has now unofficially ended. 5.2% ABV and 28 IBUs. Saranac has a brewery tour in Utica, NY.

 Harpoon is another brewery from which I have had many a nice beer. This one, a Rye IPA is a bit strong for me. I was thinking it would be like drinking a piece of rye bread. Nope I was wrong. It reminded me of Sixpoint Ale's Resin, but is only 6.9%ABV and 70 IBUs compared to Resin's 9.1%ABV and 103 IBUs.

 Harpoon has tours of their Boston Brewery. See FAQs

Bear Mountain 2015

Last weekend I volunteered with the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference NYNJTC , I took a class on Building Stone Crib Walls (Trail U 1005). It was tough work.

The class and work project took place behind the The Bear Mountain Inn, shown above. Rooms go for 216USD per night (AAA/AARP rate)

A closeup of some Bear Mt. Inn stonework.

This was the view from the work project location. It was a beautiful weekend and there were lots of families out enjoying the great weather. This photo was early Saturday morning before the hordes descended. Even with lots of people in the park, it didn't seem over crowded.

This is some of the work done by the experienced volunteers. The Bear Mountain Trails Project will demonstrate all the different kinds of stonework one may come across on trails such as steps, stepping stones across small streams or marshy areas, retaining walls, waterbars, etc..

Another view of their work, a retaining wall.

This is some of the section of wall I was given to build, I didn't get very far. We were given instructions, some handouts detailing terms and proper technique and a lot of hands on training. It was a 2 day commitment and way too much thinking for me to do on my day off. Not to mention that rocks are heavy. I was so tired at the end of each day, I was sorry I had given Gina (the chauffeur, you met her here) the weekend off.

Current Blooms:
These are from the Rain Chain Garden.

Then and Now Photos of the Heathers, planted in 2013.

The Bayberry(right rear above) has died and been replaced with a Red Twig Dogwood. The Erica x watsonii "Truro" (center in below photo with mauve flowers) has exceeded expectations, but the rest of the plants are just fine. So far early spring pruning has worked out well. There is a purple Echinacea to the left that has done so well I may move it and back-fill it with another dwarf heather.

Beers in the Fridge:

Sixpoint Brewery's Resin is a very hoppy and very strong can of Imperial IPA at 9.0 % ABV and 103 IBU (bitterness scale). Not my cup of tea.

Meanwhile the Woodchuck cider is not a beer, but it is very good, sweet yes, but not bad when your in the mood for it. Very subtle raspberry flavor.