Basement Hell, continued

We learned yesterday that parts of the "wet basement floor" weren't wet from water, but chemical. It took three of us three hours to scrub the 85 degree basement on our hands and knees last night. Bucket of clean water, empty bucket for dirty and a sponge (pluse chemical gloves, of course). As soon as we applied water to the "wet" spots, you could immediately see the soapy bubbles which we painstakingly tried to remove.

Luckily, there are no fumes in this process. It's just incredibly hot down there due to the heat being cranked to dry things out. (Note: the heat from the basement coming through the vent in our living room blew the circuit on our TV console twice -- we had to close the vent to prevent this from happening).

After the 3 hour wash session, places that were wet are now dry... only to show us the spots we missed and will have to do again tonight. Luckily, there aren't that many places to redo. No wonder people do this outside. Or on smooth surfaces. Pock-mocked basement floors with no drainage are a huge pain.

Plus, we realized we totally missed a spot -- meaning complete re-etching in a 3x4 foot area. For better or worse, it's in a high traffic area so I want to make sure its done right so the paint doesn't peel in a few years. I don't want to have to go through this again.

Under the Gun

We're in the process of renovating our basement. The current project is refinishing the concrete floor. It's been stripped (thanks to Andrew and Ken) and was etched on Monday night. We expected it to dry in a day. No luck. We turned off the heat to lessen acid fumes from entering the rest of the house. We also removed the basement windows and installed window fans to increase cross ventilation.

But Tuesday morning, the floor was still wet
Tuesday evening: wet

We went to our local big box and hardware stores looking for fans. A bust due to it being winter and all. Sigh.

Wednesday morning: wet

So we went to gmail and facebook to ask friends if they had any to spare. Success. Several replies and we ended up borrowing Dave's 24,000 btu kerosene heater. Dave says it can heat his house to 85 degrees in 30 minutes. Perfect. Ken picked it up at 5:30. It was on by 6:30.

When Ken went to bed at 11 and turned it off (I was in bed at 9 and no help), the floor was still wet.

Thursday morning: wet. The basement was 55 degrees with 80% relative humidity (usually our basement is 65 degrees with 65% relative humidity -- excellent for sausage making -- and also the reason I have a thermometer and hygrometer down there).

On my way in to work, I realize that the moisture has nowhere to go. It's been raining outside for days. The heat's off. The only thing that's gone are the fumes. I realize our best bet is to reinstall the windows and turn on the heat to push the moist air from the basement through the rest of the house (and warm it up in the process). I email Ken to tell him my idea.

He does one better. Ken went to Dave's and borrowed his dehumidifier as well. So we can close the windows, turn on the BTU heater, turn on the house heater (to circulate the air) and have the dehumidifier on. A great plan.

Ken was feeling achy today and is working from home. It is an especially perfect day to do it because he can have the heater on while he works upstairs. He said within 30 minutes, our basement was 85 degrees with 80% humidity. A balmy rainforest. However, it's now down to 73% humidity (still 85 degrees).

I'm hoping the humidity continues to drop. We're way behind on being able to prime for painting. Did I mention we're refinancing our house and the appraiser comes next Thursday? Here's the schedule from whenever the floor dries:

Day 1: Apply primer
Day 2: Apply epoxy paint, coat #1
Day 3: Apply epoxy paint, coat #2
Day 4: Paint needs 72 hours to dry before bringing furniture back in. This would be 24 hrs
Day 5: Drying 48 h
Day 6: Drying 72 hours. Can move furniture back in at the end of the day today.

So if we apply primer today (no chance), that means furniture/appliances can come back in next wednesday. Appraiser comes 10 am Thursday morning.

Do you think he/she will mind seeing a dining room stuffed floor to ceiling with boxes? Or that we have a washer, dryer and refrigerator in our backyard?

Sigh.*


* Note: I'm still happy we're doing this project, I'm just a bit overwhelmed. Our house is a cold, dark, queasy place for me right now. I'm ready for spring -- in every sense of the word. Kind of mindblowing that in 10 days, everything will be different.... the basement will be finished and I'll be in my second trimester (theoretically much less queasiness). We'll also have heat and more space to move around (due to furniture/appliances being back in their normal spots). I'm hopeful. Also queasy, tired, hungry, frustrated, etc.

_________________
UPDATE: Just as I was about to post this, I got a call from Ken. He said the places where the floor is wet, it isn't wet from water. It's leftover chemical. He was on his hands and knees with a sponge and two buckets of water -- lo and behold, it dried almost immediately. So, it looks like we have some grunt work for tonight, but at least it will dry quickly. He also said there's one spot that wasn't etched, so we'll have to redo one section. Boo.

Etching Complete

The basement project continues. Last night we cleaned and etched the floor. Ken, Andrew and I wore acid-resistant hazmat suits, goggles, vapor respirators and acid gloves. We took turns applying the phosphoric acid-based product, waiting 10-20 min, scrubbing vigorously and the laborious process of mopping it up. We started around 6:30 and finished at 11:15. This would be a very easy process outside, but inside, it sucks.

We were exhausted afterwards and each went directly to our comfort foods as we propped our feet up from the couch. Ken went for the ice cream with nestle quik powder on top (his favorite), I went for a bowl of clementines and Andrew cracked open the baby loaf of cheddar cheese. We ate in silence and exhaustion, then went to bed.

Our house is very cold right now. The basement windows are open to vent the fumes. We also turned off our heat -- since the furnace is located in the basement -- and pumping the fumes through the house (or igniting them) is stupid. It's 44 degrees outside. I'd say our house is somewhere between 50-55. Needless to say, it was hard to wake up this morning. I bribed myself with a belgian waffle and sausage when I got to work, which did the trick. It was delicious.

Tonight, we're applying the primer (provided the etched floors are dry -- I have a good feeling they will be). This should be a pretty simple night. Quick vacuum. Cut in around the corners and roll the rest. One coat.

I can't wait for the basement to be finished and our house go back to normal.

Endless possibilities

I saw these online today and they're just too awesome. Make your own lottery tickets. They made them as valentines, but I can see lots of other options for them. Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake for Teens

Last night was the teen cooking class, chocolate cake edition. It went really well... much better than last week's class which was a disaster.* This week, I had lots of stations laid out (dry, wet, fat, acid, loading and icing). Each teen drew a number from a hat to see which step they were in charge of... (they will fight over the best jobs if there isn't some order). They were excited about drawing numbers and being in charge of a station. Then they all got to help each other complete the cake. It was great to see them working together and hearing them talk about why we're keeping the dry ingredients separate from the wet ones.

The cupcakes came out of the oven with 10 minutes to spare. Plenty of time for icing and eating. There were a few grumbles about "I don't like cream cheese icing!" in the beginning but, wouldn't you know, every kid (but one) put icing on their cupcakes and ended up saying they preferred it that way.

Modesty aside, these cupcakes were amazing. I got the recipe from the Best American Classics cookbook. I found the recipe for the cream cheese frosting on the internet. Both were winners, especially together. And the kids loved them -- which you could tell by the batter and icing covering their faces. And the ooohs and aaahs as they bit into them.

Here are the recipes in case you'd like to give them a whirl. This has replaced my previous favorite chocolate cake recipe:



*Last week was spaghetti carbonara. I wanted them to have an alternative to spaghetti with tomato sauce, so I showed them this egg-based sauce where the heat of the cooked noodles cooks the raw egg into a creamy sauce. It would have been fine except it took 50 minutes for the water to boil. A big problem for the 50 minute class. Especially when there weren't enough steps in the recipe for 9 kids to divvy up and not be bored. Utter chaos. That said, they loved it when they ate it. And 2 out of the 9 made it at home for their families this past week! So I guess, despite the boredom, the class turned out better than I thought although I learned the important lesson of always have something for the kids to do. Boredom is trouble.

Weekend Plans

Are few and far between. I had a cold last week and have been pretty exhausted. Ken had the same cold a few days ago. Andrew has it now. We're all pretty tired and looking forward to some R&R.

The things I would like to finish this weekend are:

Frame out the basement soffits. Most of them are finished. We rerouted our gas line last weekend to get everything to fit. Now it's just a matter of framing in the last bit (near the fridge), adding the drywall and start the mudding.

Finish the 3rd coat of drywall on the main area. I did all the taping and first two coats of mud this week. Only the final coat is left, so I've been saving that for a time when I have enough energy to power through it.

Prime the ceiling. Once the 3rd coat is finished and sanded, it's priming time. Can do this in steps.


Later this week and to come:


Paint the ceiling. I've been waiting to do this for months. I have only primed the ceiling because I wanted a perfectly even coat when the paint came along. Once this step is finished, I will do a small happy dance because....

Install the flooring. For longer than I've wanted to paint the ceiling, I've wanted to have some sort of floor in the basement. Originally, I was thinking of doing an acid etch. Then a stain. Then a paint. But now, we're leaning towards installing a wood laminate floor down there. I was hoping for something like that but I thought Ken was against it. He was hoping for it but thought I was against it. Communication is a good thing. We'll be looking into products this weeekend.

Install the baseboards. Oh sweetness, the project is coming together. Once the flooring is in, I can install the baseboard to clean up the look of things. Then, it's time to...

Move the office down to the basement. Putting all the furniture back and having an office for all of our paperwork would be divine. I can hardly wait.

Install the moldings. This isn't a necessary step per se, but I think it will really enhance the look of things down there. This can come later. As can...

Install a 2nd bathroom. But, like I said, that's down the road.

Experimenting on Kids: Science Demo Recap

The science demo went great. I was constantly packed. At least 2 deep, if not more with parents and spectators. Much better than any scientific poster I ever gave.

The premise was simple: catch the ruler. Kids brought their friends over to see it. I loved the "you GOTTA try this!". I think the stickers helped too. I can't confirm, but I'm sure some kids asked others where they got them.

I built up the demo by telling the kids they couldn't do anything before the ruler moved. Then, they had to see it move, process it in their brains, have their brains tell their muscles to move AND catch the ruler. After that build up, some kids looked very nervous. I asked how long they thought it would take them to catch it. Some said "a few seconds". To be fair, the kids ranged in age from 4-12.

I brought two rulers so kids could go head-to-head (and I could speed things up). They loved competing against each other. They'd do it once and then immediately asked to do it again. I told them they were good scientists by wanting to repeat their experiment. (They really liked hearing that). It helped a lot that they'd just done science fair projects and were familiar with experiments.

Most kids tried it 4-5 times. Afterwards, I'd have them read off the distances to me so I could enter them in the calculator so we could find the average. Some were very excited that we were doing averages and explained what they were to me. Others had no idea (but they were 4-5). After we entered the numbers, I asked each student how many times they repeated their experiment. That's when they got stiff and very serious. You could see them counting the number of trials. "I did it four times!" I was proud, kids seeing the importance of repeating experiments and taking averages (more than just one data point) sunk in more than I expected. It turns out that although the brain part was interesting to them, what they REALLY loved was doing the experiment...

• some wanted record the data (even more than participating)
  
• some wanted to see if they could be faster if they used their left hand
• some wanted to see if they were faster than their sibling/parent
• some loved repeating the numbers back to me to figure out the averages
• some loved counting the number of trials
  
• some were just really, really competitive. "Did I win?!"

I gave out a bunch of stickers, a few winning ribbons and left exhausted. Stopped by the grocery store to pick up some items, ate brussel sprouts for dinner, baked off some bread I needed to take to work today and then I crashed.

This morning, I hung the giant data sheets in my office. They're awesome and I love looking at them. In case you're curious, here are the numbers:

Number of students who did the experiment: 47
Total number of trials: 225
Average number of trials: 4.8
Average distance it took for students to catch the ruler: 11.5 inches
Equivalent time it took their nerves to respond: 0.25 seconds. (They don't understand 1/4th of a second, so I told them they were so fast that they could catch 4 rulers in one second. They liked that and would turn to their parents: "I can catch 4 rulers in 1 second!")

Here are all the data for your amusement:

First Class Recap

In short, it went well. I have 6 kids in my class, one was absent last night due to the flu. The class is offered to kids ages 12-18. I have 6 kids under the age of 13.
I forgot how much they talk.

About everything.

And all the time.

We'll be mixing flour and water together when one gets my undivided attention to tell me "My mom makes brownies with spinach". Um, ok. I can't remember all of the quotes, but they were hilarious. I repeated as many to Ken as I could remember when I got home.

Some of my favorite moments of the night:

• "My mom makes brownies with spinach"
• "I don't like yeast; they smell like corn"
• "I don't like corn, only baby corn"
• "Me too!"
• "Look!" ( I look over to see one of them holding a bloody stump of a tooth.)
• "I don't like star fruit"
• "Cooking is in my blood"
• "I thought it was because of color but it was the mineral content"
• "I don't like heat"
• "She's afraid of the oven"
• "Can I take all the dough home so I can show it to my grandpa?"
• "I dropped mine on the floor"
• "Onions are gross"
• "I want to make cake"
• "and then...." (options endless)
  

The pretzels turned out great. They LOVED topping them with various things (I had salt, parmesan cheese and cinnamon sugar). I think they dumped cinnamon sugar on practically every pretzel. Each kid got to eat pretzels at the end of class as well as take theirs home. Even moms got to have a pretzel when they came to pick up their kids. Note: bribing moms with food is as effective as bribing kids with food. Plus, it was fun to meet the moms.

Next week, we make calzones. Requested pizza toppings: pineapple and pepperoni.

Science of Cooking -- Class for Teens

A friend of mine asked me to teach a class for teens at the local community center where she works. I happily obliged -- besides the fact that she's a great girl, volunteering at her place is how I found my current job.

The class I'm teaching will be 8 weeks long for an hour each week. I got to pick the topic, so my class focuses on the science of cooking, something that I love dearly and know very well. I decided to add the science part in because it's easy to tell kids to "add this" or "stir that", but if they don't know why they're doing it, then what's the point. Plus, if it gets them even a little bit more interested in science (or cooking), then it's a huge win.

The first class in the 8 week series starts tomorrow. Here's the syllabus:



Tomorrow's class is about pretzels. Why pretzels? Because they're easy to make, very hands-on (the students will actually get to feel the gluten forming in their hands as they mix and knead the dough) and they're really, really good coming hot from the oven. It's a great first lesson.

I've figured how many batches of dough I need to make so I can swap dough out as needed. (3 total, in case you're curious). The class is only an hour -- way too short to make pretzels from start to finish (due to rising time). Luckily, I've watched enough cooking shows to know that I can swap out my bowls of dough. i.e. We'll make the dough in class so they can feel what it's like. Dough needs to rise. Swap bowls with a dough that has already rose. They'll get to punch down the dough and roll out their pretzels. Then swap again since the pretzels need a little more time for their final rise. They'll get to boil and season the pretzels before we bake them. Then, we'll still have time to eat them at the end. A lot for an hour, but I did a dry run and had time to spare, so I'm hoping it will all fit.

Rather than just talking, I'm also going to try to have hand-outs for each class. For example, here's tomorrow's pretzel class hand-out. You'll see the recipe on the left, which I've broken down into colored steps (middle column). In the right column is the why behind what we're doing.



So wish me luck on Wednesday night and hope for no whammies. It will be my first multi-day class that I've solo taught.

Soap works

My soap turned out!

I read that it has to sit for a couple of weeks after making it since the lye can still be caustic. I was giving some to a friend but wanted to test it first, since nothing says "happy thanksgiving" quite like a chemical burn. So after drywalling Thursday morning, I went to take a shower with my soap. I grabbed a bottle of vinegar on my way (to neutralize the lye in case I started burning). Ken was very confused as I took the bottle of vinegar to the shower with me. We were telling the story to some friends later who advised Ken to never ask about weird girl behavior. Suffice it to say, I never needed the vinegar and my soap turned out great. Who knew you could feel so clean after bathing in bacon fat?!

Soap and Lye

I have been saving leftover fat for almost a year now. I have two containers in the freezer -- one filled with bacon grease that I use for cooking and another filled with "other fats" that aren't very tasty. My goal? To make soap.

To make soap you need three things: fat, water and lye. You combine them and stir over heat for about an hour before pouring the thickened "pudding" into wax paper-lined trays. Recipes for it are all over the internet. Lye is the hardest of the materials to find. It used to be very easy to find -- it was used as a drain cleaner and found at any hardware store. It could be added directly to your soap before companies started adding lots of metals to their cleaners, making them unusable for soap production. Then lye was found to be a major component in the production of methamphetamine, which made finding it a lot harder due to state regulations. It's no longer in the hardware stores in Oregon. Now it is also being used in the production of biodiesel, so the price is a lot higher than it used to be a few years ago. I found mine online and bought 9 lbs (the smallest increment I could find) for $22. A friend is taking some too. The most amazing part is the store is closed on the weekend, but the owner allowed me to pick it up from his house on the Saturday. Pretty nice of him.

Anyway, I cleaned all my fat on Friday night (which may explain why we only had 6 trick or treaters). I weighed it and put it in the fridge. 3 lbs of random fat, including bacon grease, chicken fat skimmed from stock, even the leftover bacon fat that I used to infuse some bourbon with this summer (you add bacon grease directly to the bourbon, let it cool on the counter then throw it in the freezer to solidify and pull off the fat). I threw that leftover fat into my soap collecting container too.

On Saturday, I heated two containers to 100 degrees F. One of fat. One of lye. When they were about a degree apart, I added the lye to the fat and stirred for an hour over a double boiler. You could see everything thickening up.

My molds were simple metal pans lined in wax paper. I poured my pure lard soup in one of the containers. In the other, I mixed some wheat germ as an exfoliant, then poured that batch into another mold. I covered both with plastic wrap and insulated them with a towel before cutting into bars the next morning. They were still somewhat warm. I now have about 15 bars of soap total. The lard one is a pure white, just like the picture (which isn't of my soap, although it looks identical). Not bad for free, leftover, icky fat.

I'm going to let the bars cure for a few weeks before testing them out, but they look good so far. Plus, they were the easiest pots to clean since they were already filled with soap. You could see the bubbles when you added the water to clean them. I love self-cleaning projects.

So, save your fat for me. Or borrow some lye. Making soap is way too easy to not do again.

Dream realized, almost

One of my dreams in moving to Portland was the idea that I would be able to make beer out of the hops I grew myself. It takes hops 3 years to produce cones. I planted four varieties and 2 of the plants produced cones this year - Willamette and Cascade. I made my first beer from them last weekend -- a hoppy amber, if I got it right. Brian, I was channeling your lessons and guidance. So a dream of mine is coming true. The almost part comes in because it's only in its first stage right now. Moving it to the secondary fermenter tomorrow. But the yeast were going like mad and are still going steadily. Fingers crossed for no contamination and a tasty beer.

Drywall Madness

I have been drywalling for weeks. Doing a corner of the basement at a time. A little bit each day. I'm working on my canning area now, but I figured I'd post some before and after photos of what I've accomplished so far.

I divided the photos into three sections. They're posted in the order that I finished each area. In order, I have finished:

Gear Room
Craft Area
Washer and Dryer

Gear Room
Sadly, there are no before pictures of this room because I was too embarrassed to take them. Suffice it to say, this room had a hole in the wall that went outside. No more. Everything is sealed up and insulated. Plus, since this room is too small to be a bedroom and too large to be a closet, we made it our "gear room". Perfect use for us since we have plenty of stuff to fill it. I installed pegboard on two of the walls so we can change things around easily as we change our gear.

After: Gear room shelves. Each bin has a dedicated use: fishing, football, baseball/softball, training gear, etc. Coolers and water jugs also fit on here. Sleeping bags hang to the left of these shelves.


After: Gear room wall with backpacks. On the right are our shelves & hanging sleeping bags. On the left are our skis/snowboard, poles and rackets of various uses.


After: Gear room wall with skis. Snowshoes hang below. Our headlamps are in the wall basket for easy access. Ken's Hood to Coast medal is on the wall.





Craft Area

Once I figured things out, I moved to my craft area. This purple was burning my retinas. And this picture was taken after thejoint compound was added. I can only tell you the horrendousness of the space. On a sidenote, in this section of the ceiling was where we found the porn and empty whiskey bottle when we moved in. This is the before picture, looking at it from the stairs (gear room entrance is on the right):


After: It still needs to be organized, but you get the idea. I like the chocolate brown color. Very fun. Bonus that the gallon of paint only cost $1.


Before, looking at it from the workshop


After




Washer and Dryer
I plowed through this area this weekend when Ken was gone. It took me a good week to finish it. Well worth the time. Although I am quite sore. There was a lot of ceiling involved.

Before: Washer and dryer area as you came down the basement stairs


After: The mustard brown is so fun. It's cheery but not too bright when you're in the space. I wanted to paint our foyer this color, but Ken pleaded with me to keep it, so I painted the area down here instead. I would do laundry in this area. The before was way too dismal for me.


Before: sink next to the washer and drier. We tore it apart when we found a leak.


After: leak is fixed and wall is patched.


Before: Laundry area from the workshop. Note the lack of drywall under the window. When you folded your clothes, you had to make sure it didn't touch the insulation. Ugh.


After: Washer and drier area, same view looking from workshop



Hooray! Drywall is fun. And so rewarding.

Hood to Coast 2008

Ken's team finished the sub-200 mile relay race in 30 hours, 56 minutes and 39 seconds. They had a great time. There are 12 people on a team and they break into two groups/vans. Van 1 runs while Van 2 rests and vice versa. They started at 8:55 on Friday morning and arrived in Seaside, Oregon at 6:30ish on Saturday evening.

All of the runners play dodgeball with us, so they were the Dodgeball Run Kids (or DRUNKS for short). All of the photos are here, but here are a few to get you started.

Ken's van before the race on top of Mt Hood:


Here's Ken leaving the Timberline start on Friday morning:


Ken flying down Mt Hood at a 6:37 pace. Apparently he checked an incoming text message as he was running.


While one van runs, the other sleeps. Imagine this times thousands, scattered along the Oregon woods and roads.


Here is the finish line in Seaside. Kinley got to run around the beach and play fetch in the ocean while we were waiting for the runners to arrive.


And here is the team leaving with their medals of completion. It was a long day. Everyone should be very proud of themselves.



I watched Ken's transition under Portland's Hawthorne bridge on Friday night before driving to the coast with Kinley. We rented a house on the beach and a few of us went down early to go crabbing on Saturday morning. We woke up before 5 AM and hit the road. We rented a boat, traps and got bait (fish carcasses and chicken -- crabs looovvvee chicken) and were on the bay near Rockaway Beach shortly after 6 AM (high tide that day).

There were six of us and our first pull brought up at least 30 crabs, about 6 inches deep in the trap. Most were females or too small to keep. At the end of our 3 hours, we caught 7 Dungeness crabs. The boat outfitters cleaned and cooked the crabs for us on the spot. We ate for brunch and drank a beer by the fire while we dried our stinking wet clothes.



On our way back, we decided to do a shellfish tour. We went hunting for mussels and clams but there was a red tide advisory so we decided to not eat any mussels. And our clam hunt was a muddy bust.

Overall, we had a great time. Crabbing was great* and the trip was terrific. We got back around 4 pm. Ken watched a movie and I drywalled the basement some more since it was raining.


* I have washed my shoes out twice by hand and they've gone through the washing machine twice. Nasty crab water and clammy mud is a difficult smell to remove.

Mud Pies

It has been raining here. My garden loves it but I am loving it more because I have a great excuse to not scrape the paint outside and refinish the basement instead.

I love drywalling. LOVE it. Seeing something go from ugly to finished is amazing. I'm working on the corner where my craft stuff is. I figure if I do a little bit of the basement at a time, it will be finished in no time. Here's my schedule this week:

Sunday afternoon: Taped the joints and put the first coat of mud on. I even cut a piece of drywall to fit and reinforced some loose areas with drywall screws before I started the mud. Very exciting. It took around 3 hours. Drink of choice while I worked: root beer

Monday after work: Applied the 2nd coat of mud in about an hour. Used the remaining mud in my pan to cover some screw holes elsewhere in the basement. I also taped another seam since I had a bunch of mud leftover. (I don't like to put used mud back into the bucket -- hard/dry chunks can ruin a nice 3rd coat finish.) I also tried a new trick that my friend Beti taught me -- instead of sanding, use a damp sponge to smooth the mud as it dries. So I sponged the mud after I finished. That took about 40 minutes and was much easier than sanding. Drink of choice while I worked: sake

Tuesday after work: Applied the 3rd and final coat of mud. The wet sponge trick really made a difference. I sponged again after the 3rd coat. Everything took about 90 minutes. It looks beautiful and ready for primer. I'll give it a quick sand in areas that need it, but the wet sponge trick made a huge difference in the amount of time it takes (and thus improves my morale 10-fold). Drink of choice while I worked: Old Fashioned with homemade bitters

Wednesday morning before work: wow, I really love drywall because before I came to work this morning, I was patching some missed areas and smoothing things out. It will be ready to prime when I get home. Drink of choice while I worked: nothing.

Wednesday after work: I plan to take a picture of the progress and then paint the first coat of primer. I can hardly wait. Drink of choice while I work: TBD

I found this picture of the area I'm finishing from before we moved into the house. Everything purple is unfinished, painted drywall. I'm excited for that purple to go. You can also *kind of* see into the gear room.

Camping Food: Lessons Learned

We've done quite a bit of car camping lately, usually with large groups of 15-30 people. Ken organizes the trip logistics (activities and campsite) and I tend to be in charge of organizing the food. Divide and conquer.

Making burgers and brats for a large crew is easy but gets old quickly. So I've been thinking of new meals for camping that can be made with at least a few of the following characteristics (in no particular order):

1. easy to make
2. parts of the dish can be made ahead of time
3. ingredients easy to transport
4. entertaining to me
5. tasty
6. easy to clean

Some dishes that I've done in the past that are great for a group are:

Thai curry (veggie and/or meat) over rice - A few cans of coconut milk, a premade curry paste and then the veggies/meat that you want to add. The hardest part is the rice, which is why I'll use instant rice if I'm worrying about it or want to relax. I imagine this could be expanded to indian food, like a simmer sauce, but I haven't tried that yet.

Shrimp and grits - Shrimp and bacon are packed frozen. Veggies and grits are easily stored without refrigeration. Cook the grits over a low heat while you're making your shrimp gravy... Saute bacon until crisp, remove and crumble. Saute onions, bell peppers and garlic in the grease until soft. Add your flour to make a roux. Season the peeled shrimp with salt and cayenne and add to the mix. Adjust seasonings of shrimp gravy and grits to taste. Yum.

Low Country Boil - Another south carolina dish that is awesome for feeding a large group while camping. Plus it's easy to prepare and super social to eat. To make for 20 people, I use 2 sacks of little red potatoes, 7 sweet onions, 8 lbs sausage, 20 ears of corn, 8 lbs frozen shrimp. Shrimp and sausage are frozen. Everything else can be kept at room temperature. I make the dipping sauces ahead of time: cocktail sauce, tartar sauce and a honey mustard. Everyone helps chop and those who don't like cooking (or if you run out of jobs) can decorate the sauce containers. I cook it in a turkey fryer pot and dump it out onto newspaper. Simple cleanup.

Omelettes in a bag - an old boy scout trick. Perfect for a breakfast on the last day and great for using up leftovers. A sharpie allows each to mark their own bag. Dump in eggs and desired ingredients. Cook in simmering water until cooked through. (Note: I'm starting to steer away from this though since eating food cooked in heated up plastic probably isn't good for the body)

Reubens - This is a decadent treat. Pastrami can be pricey, but if you can find a great deal on it, these are so fun to make. Rye bread, thousand island dressing and sauerkraut can be pre-purchased and kept at room temperature. Pastrami and cheese need refrigeration, but they don't take much room. Easy to bang out a bunch of them on a griddle. I find that slicing them in half and serving halves is easier. People can come back for more and they're hotter/less soggy than if you gave each person a full one.

Burritos - Nothing fancy but they sure are delicious after a long day and everyone can choose their own toppings, so everyone is happy. Perfect for the lone vegetarian in a sea of meat-eaters. I used 3 lbs of ground beef for 20, which I froze ahead of time. Season it in camp. Toppings include: iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, avocados (decadent), salsa, sour cream (critical) and as a great touch of sweetness, some chopped nectarines. The latter may sound crazy, but it brought out a flavor that was unexpected and exciting. I brought the nectarines to make a fruit salsa, but I left all of the other salsa making ingredients at home. Other note: I also had taco-sized flour and corn tortillas, but everyone preferred the burritos because you don't have to get up as much and it's less messy. Good to know. I'm skipping the taco sized tortillas next time.

Things I recently tried that were a huge hit:

Arepas - Venezuelan english muffins, if you will. They're cornmeal that's similar to the masa of tamales. It is cooked on a griddle on both sides until it sounds hollow, then it's split and filled with deliciousness like shredded chicken, cheese and avocado. Served hot off the griddle -- people add their own fillings, so it's similar to burritos in a sense. The Arepa dough is made from equal parts of P.A.N. precooked cornmeal (at latino stores, not the same as masa harina) and warm water. The cornmeal was kept at room temperature and I made the chicken & caramelized onion filling ahead of time. The only thing I had to do after setting up camp was warm up the fillings and make/cook the arepas. I will cook them on a griddle next time instead of a small pan. People loved them and were staking them out.

Monte Cristo Sandwiches - Perfect for breakfasts and a nice change from sausage and scrambled eggs. You'll need bread, some ham, cheese (I used provolone) and a few eggs. Make your ham & cheese sandwiches and then dip them in an egg mixture (a few eggs mixed with a touch of milk or water and some salt/cinnamon). Cook them in a pan like you would french toast. I cut and served halves for the same reason as the reubens above. I also learned that a little bit of jam on the bread before closing up the sandwiches brings out a great sweetness -- think cranberry sauce on a turkey sandwich. People ate them with their hands and then came back for seconds. Not messy and easy to prepare.

Mussels or Clams - I've done mussels for a large group before. Sara brought littleneck clams this weekend. Both were cooked in a pan a little bit of butter and beer (or wine if you have it). It is amazing. Didn't serve either with bread, but I bet it would be delicious. Folks go nuts for these. Perfect for a first night of camping. Especially if you have a fast river/ocean/dumpster to throw the leftover shells.

Irish Cream - I know this isn't exactly food, but I always bring milk and sugar for my morning coffee. A friend brought a bottle of baileys this weekend. Needless to say, a little irish cream in your camp coffee is totally luxurious and covers a multitude of bad camp coffee issues... overbrewing/too hot/lots of grounds in your cup, etc. I don't do this at home, but it's a great change when camping.

New ideas for camping food (but I haven't tried them yet so take them with a grain of salt):

Korean BBQ - This past weekend, I was all set do do a Korean BBQ with chicken for the group (marinate it in gallon bags and put it in the freezer a couple of days before you leave -- the frozen chicken serves as ice packs until it thaws and then marinates some more). However, they had fire restrictions so I decided to cancel the BBQ since I didn't want to do it over a small propane camp grill (too messy). I have 10 lbs of chicken waiting in my freezer right now, but I digress. Even though it's essentially the same as normal BBQ chicken, I thought it would be a nice change to adjust the seasonings.

Indian Food - sooo many options. A spinach/paneer dish over rice? A tandoori chicken? A korma? I think there are a lot of options that I haven't even begun to explore yet. Plus, if you can do some of these indian dishes in a crockpot, you can do them in camp. Plus, it's outside the normal realm of typical camp cooking and can be spicy, both things people tend to like while sitting in camp chairs.

Grilled Pizza - I think this could be a great campfire dish, but I would need to test it out before recommending it. Expanded metal grates could work well for this -- or cast iron griddles. I see them sitting over hot coals. I hear that pizza dough needs only a few minutes on each side before it's topped with cheese and some easy toppings. If you keep the toppings pre-cooked and simple, this could be a winner.

Chicken and Dumplings - could be a nice alternative to chili on a chilly, fall evening.

I'm sure there are more things, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to post your favorites. I'm always looking for something new and fun.

Grandma Julie was in town

I meant to post this about a week ago, but since this is the perfect prelude to my next post, I'll post it now.

Julie was in town the last week of July. She was visiting Robin who just moved to Portland. Julie's doing well. Still silly and up for anything. We went to lunch on Saturday and then I took them to a badmitton tournament at a friend's house. Here are Robin, Julie and I at my friend's house.



The next day, I convinced them that I'd make them dinner if they'd help me make 8 lbs of sausage for a rafting trip. They agreed. We made a smoked andouille and a smoked polish kielbasa, just over four pounds of each. Here we are stuffing it into links.






If you want to Julie's narration of the process, here's a video she took of it. Classic Julie.

You can do this: Make Mozzarella

When I hit the brick wall the other day, I was on my way to a cheese class to learn how to make mozzarella. I made my first batch on Sunday when we got back from camping. It took about 45 minutes, including the time to heat the milk. It was easy and delicious. Here's how it's done. Note: I used pictures from the web for illustration purposes, I didn't take them.

What you need:

Gallon of whole milk (grocery store is fine, skim also works but you get a lower yield)

Pot to hold the milk

Citric acid (in bulk spice aisle of grocery store; juice of 3-4 lemons also works)

Rennet (sold as tablets in pudding/baking aisle of grocery store)

Slotted spoon or sieve

Thermometer

Heat

Instructions:

1. Heat gallon of whole milk over medium heat.

2. Disslove 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid in a 1/4 cup cold water. Add to milk when temperature hits around 55.

3. Dissolve a half tablet of rennet in a 1/4 cup cold water. When milk hits 90 degrees, add rennet to milk and briefly/slowly stir to combine.

4. Allow to sit until the curds separate from the whey (~5-10 minutes...they whey looks like yellowy water.....If it's not working after a decent amount of time, you can add a little bit more lemon juice or rennet.




5. Use a slotted spoon or sieve to strain out curds. Put the curds in a microwave safe bowl. Here's a picture of what the cheese curds look like at this point.




6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.

7. Nuke for one minute and then strain whey out. Poke with a wooden spoon to get more whey out. They say to work the cheese your hands, but it gets hot! So I just kept kneading for about 30 seconds with a wooden spoon. Here's a picture as the curds are coming together:




8. Repeat step 6 two more times. The goal is two-fold: first, to remove the whey and second, to get the cheese curds to about 135, which is perfect for stretching. After the third time, the texture will visibly change. Here's a pretty picture of what the stretching looks like:




9. Using your hands, shape the cheese into a ball.



10. Eat. It's best warm or on the first day but it lasts up to a week. Mine lasted less than a day (due to hungry Roko's, not spoilage). We made pizza with it, ate it straight and I took the last bits of it for lunch the next day. Delicious.

For more detailed instructions, check out these photo instructions on making mozzarella.