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.