Well that was fun...

Yesterday took some time off to visit the State Fair once with Miss D while they were in town. The big reason for going was to see Shae Laurel on the advice of a friend... lots of fiddles and some bluegrassy/Irish crossover repetoire.

The show was fun - it's a family band, four kids and their parents. The overall feel was "family fun" with some nicely mischievous antics tossed back and forth. The music itself had a Disney/HSM feel to it overall - high energy, upbeat, fun, nice vocal harmonies, though without much subtlety or emotional depth. Which frankly, is exactly what was promised and perfect for the venue. I imagine an evening concert hall performance might be a little more varied on that count. The big draw though is without doubt their stage presence. They're quite simply just fun:


That's Boil them Cabbage Down done on the neighbor's fiddle. Neat kids.

... and hearing Rocky Top again, all this way from Knoxville was a nice treat. :)

Perspective.

The Good Lord can afford to judge us based on our intentions.

I believe in fact to the extent we will face what we might recognize as a Divine Judgment, our heart will weigh heavier on that scale than our accomplishments, for good or ill. Some people by circumstance or ability can do only so much good or so much evil... others are placed by birth or the vagaries of life in a place where the slightest caprice can wreck havoc.

And so yes.. intentions matter. Heart matters. The turn of the soul matters.


Here in the mortal realm though, we do not have that luxury.

Well-intentioned idealism has killed tens of millions, trying to build an earthly Utopia.
Closer to home, well intentioned idealism has encouraged the dissolution of families, enervated the work ethic and self-respect of countless souls, and fostered the growth of culturally isolated underclasses... and that's just on one side of the aisle.

The road to hell truly has been laid each step of the way with the best of intentions.

In this realm, one must look at results, no matter how well intentioned the heart. And even then, frequently the choice is between grades and levels of undesirable results. Such is life in this realm.

What a treasure though. For all the pain and troubles, it still remains the most fascinating, delightful game in town.

So.. off to earn my bread.

I hate myself and I want to die

Just saw the trailer for the "Avatar" movie coming out. "Oh goody," says I .... "it's Dances with Wolves done with aliens*."

Look, I understand the romance of the tribal life much as anyone... it's human. But you know what would be awesome? Hearing just occasionally in our collective stories "you know... it's not been a perfect road - but what with effectively ending famine, countless epidemic diseases, widespread banditry and murder, and basically giving most everyone in our society the opportunity to have a nice quiet mostly unmolested life, insulated from most of the cares and tragedies common to living in the wild .... we haven't done too bad. This life is pretty sweet. I wonder what we can do now?"

Or we could as a society just keep doing this...


Bad human! Bad, bad Western Civ Evil-Oppressor Man! No cookie!










* And hey, I liked that movie back when I had my little-girl crush on John Dunbar and all. But

Illustrating the Young Lady's Primer

The interesting thing about living in the future is that if you get to a science fiction novel late enough, some of the high-tech starts to look everyday. Such is the the focus of Neal Stephenson's 1995 work "The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer"*

Oh sure, there's lots of nanotech this and clave that. But after seeing the tech news this morning (via Marko), I took to thinking about the book itself on the way in to work this morning. Being mostly in web media, I couldn't help but think "self..... we could do that now."

"So we start with e-paper and a processor base in the spine and covers... a tricky hardware problem, but one we should be able to manage in another few years - figuring out the power and heat dissipation would be the hard part. But looking at the skinny netbooks today, the leap to embedding the hardware in old-fashioned looking book covers can't be far."

The software interface - heck, take any of the various computer RPG engines out there, run an extra "Beatrix Potter" graphic filter over the display (Maya has been able to do something like that for at least half a decade, so that's doable).... and hooked up via net to get content updates like an MMORPG.

Hunh.... enough work, and something like the Primer could be on the shelves by Christmas next. (Hopefully minus the screwdriver scene, jeepers...)

Maybe after the next big projects are down, I'll take a look at coding up something along those lines. An interactive Beatrix Potter-ish book just sounds all kinds of fun. :)







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* Miss D credits this book with kick-starting the steampunk thing. Sounds plausible...I know I won't be excited about buying a gadget cellphone until I can get the thing put into a nice Edwardian looking pocketwatch shell. I'm thinking with an Art Nouveau ladybug theme or suchlike. :)

Haggis in a Can

I fear I may have raised some false hopes here. "Haggis in a Can" is not some fancy local dish - rather, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Haggis. Purchased in a can.

Fair warning - when you first pop the top off you're greeted with a sight that looks distressingly like another item made by slurrying downmarket meat products together with vegetable filler and stuffing it into a can. Woof.

Once it's stirred up and sitting nice and hot next to the taters and yaller turnips though - nummy!

Yup... some diaspora leave in their wake thousands of years of religious tradition... others awesome rhythmic and choral music. Us? My strain left the world with plaid golf pants, tuning bagpipes (yowwwwwl.....), and a nostalgic attachment to a dish the result of trying to turn a bunch of waste meat and the last winter turnips in the cellar into something more or less edible.

Well, that and going all shooty-stabby when the lords of the land look to be getting too big for their britches. :)

One more note on the homemade cheese..

Today was "food prep for all next week" day - roast beef is stewing overnight with veggies, the taters and turnips are boiled and mashed for the haggis-in-a-can night, carrots and celery for salads are sliced up and in water so as not to spoil.....and I gave stovetop cheese one more go.

This time I added about a tablespoon of salt and some fresh dill (well, fresh as grocery store dill gets anyhow. I soooo miss my California herb garden from once upon a time.)

Just like last time, prepped in two batches of one saucepan each - then added together again at the end. It came out fairly good after pressing, but I need to experiment a bit and see if I can get it more creamy.


Mykl - I don't think it will work with powdered milk, since the fat's not in its original form anymore. Worth trying once to see though I guess.





Directions as per last week. If I can do this, anybody can.
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Ingredients:
1. Whole Milk.
2. Apple Cider Vinegar.
3. There is no 3.


Instructions:
0. Prep any extras :)


1. Heat milk until it just begins to boil. For best results, stir enough to keep a skin from forming on the bottom of the pan or the top of the milk. If you're not getting cheese, this is almost certainly where you're going wrong. Make sure the milk comes all the way to a boil. As you might guess, I was too busy to take a picture at this point. But if you've made cocoa, you can boil milk.

2. When the milk just starts to bubble up, take it off the heat and stir in the vinegar a little splash at a time. All the fat will start to clump out of the milk - eventually you'll be left with curds and a thin watery substance.
3. drain off the water.

4. Lay a thin cloth in a bowl. Pour the wet mess of curds into the fabric lined bowl, and pull it out.
This is also a good time to add extras.

5. Squeeze the fabric to drain out more water (at this point I ran it under the sink first so I could hold onto it - otherwise it was too hot). Compress the "softball" of cheese in the fabric as much as you can, and then press it under something heavy. I used pots on top of my cutting board. I also move it to the fridge at this time, though I don't think you need to.

6. Wait. Won't be too long.


7. Noms.
(And don't think about the fact every bite's abouthalf a glass worth of whole milk. :) )

Stovetop Cheesemaking

So I tried the clabbarding thing again tonight - I picked up a gallon of whole milk* and some apple cider vinegar on the way home to experiment and see what it was like in more controlled conditions than "let's see if we can find a way not to toss out the spoiled milk."

This is the result - about three quarters of a gallon of milk** and I'd guess a quarter cup or less of vinegar nets you a chunk of cheese a little smaller than a flattened softball. The drainoff liquid tastes of vinegar of course.. it's sort of a watery buttermilk in taste. It's not worth keeping I don't think, but worth a taste to see.



You know, back when I was in Idaho looking at homesteading, I swore I'd get myself a cheese press... never was one for home brewing, but cheese I thought I could do. I might have to actually try that sometime afterall. Wonder if I can get one of those really cute dairymaid outfits? :)











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* Going by the writing online, leaner milk produces the same fat cheese - just less of it. So might as well buy whole.

** Boiling the first batch, I decided to save some out for mochas. That whole milk froth was just too nummy looking..

Crossroads of the North

Another of the neat things about Alaska is the people you meet here. I'm sure down in politician country they must more than ever now think we're all inbred hicks* - but the truth is, I've met a wider variety of folk up here in Alaska than most anywhere else I've lived. And that without even making it to the villages or Russian Orthodox communities yet!

Today though, I was walking through the woods when I met a gentleman riding his bike along - turns out he's from Micronesia. The conversation ranged all over.. bears were scary but sharks sounded routine. The different languages of the Pacific islands, bad memories of the Japanese occupation, the wonderful sounding food and fish, the home life... it just sounded fascinating!

More endearing to hear though was the sheer humanity of his experience - wanting to go out and see the wide world before settling down somewhere with a nice lass and raising babies. And this here... this spot of ground I've come to call home is the great wide strange and foreign world. The Embi effect in full force.

It's a strange place.... but it's sure fascinating.













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* I'm Southern by birth and heritage. I'm used to being considered an inbred hick. :)

I am never throwing milk out again....

So yesterday I discovered I'd gotten lax enough about eating through my groceries that I let a whole half gallon of milk sour. Naturally, the Scots part of my blood said "This Shall Not Do... that milk cost money."

I vaguely remembered reading the paneer of saag paneer I loved so much in the Indian restaurants was made from soured milk, so a few minutes of webcrawling, some squirts from the lemon juice bottle, and a little standing over the stove got me this....


Gosh, that was ridiculously quick and easy. I think I'm getting some spinach tonight. Yummers.