Remodeling 2016 – Before

This it the first of several posts I meant to make months ago. We had been procrastinating doing some remodeling for several years and started to plan for it in earnest about a year ago. The pictures below are from May 2 and show a part of our house we called the Annex. It comes […]

Inadvertent lower-fat lemon curd tarts

To use up the leftover antique puff pastry, I decided to make little tarts with sous vide lemon curd. There are lots of sous vide lemon curd recipes out there but I based mine this one, using a ziploc bag instead of a mason jar as the cooking vessel. That way I could just cut a […]

Modernist pork tenderloin Wellington for Xmas dinner

For Christmas dinner, I decided to do a modernist pork tenderloin Wellington. Two things make it “modernist” Meat glue to form the tenderloin into the desired shape Sous vide precook so the pork won’t be too rare inside the pastry We bought a 1.5 lb pork tenderloin. Like all tenderloins, this comes in an inconvenient shape for […]

Happy Hollidays

Love this tweet from Jon Eisen! Merry Christmas to all, and may you keep all your New Year’s resolutions. Happy Hollidays pic.twitter.com/dz13KRGQFV — Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) December 25, 2015

Procrastinators Thanksgiving Dinner part 3

I never got around to making the final post of this set. So, here, before doing a Xmas dinner post, is the last part of my procrastinator’s Thanksgiving. Pie is done. Dressing is done. Cranberry relish is done. Spatchcock cooking time estimates are much faster than traditional, so I was able to take a bit […]

Procrastinators Thanksgiving Dinner part 2

Fortunately, we’re an evening dinner family, not an afternoon Thanksgiving family. Apple Pie As I start this post, I’ve been working on an apple pie. I’ve been using the Kenji easy pie crust recipe. Although experts seem to agree that Granny Smiths are not the best for pie, that’s what I use. Someday we may […]

Procrastinator’s Thanksgiving Dinner part 1

Decided very late to do a semi-traditional Thanksgiving dinner, i.e. Turkey and sides instead of Spaghetti Carbonara. Starting to plan and shop on a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving is not ideal, but what the heck (I bought some pancetta just in case). We’ve been meaning to try the spatchcock (butterflied) method. Kenji at Serious Eats […]

My one thought on the Hugo Awards

There’s been a bunch of news about turmoil among SciFi authors and fans the past couple of years. See: Wired Reason NPR (not very well reported, IMO) Sad Puppy Sarah Hoyt’s reaction to what happened I like SciFi but don’t read enough to have an opinion about the relative merits of the nominees proposed by […]