Which Scotch is Best? A Macallan Taste Test

Last week at Fincon, I spent some time becoming acquainted with Shannyn Allan, who writes about finance and fashion at Frugal Beautiful. Though we’ve known each other for three years, we’d never spent time getting to know each other until this conference.

Shannyn says that she can be an enigma to some men. She’s a self-confessed nerd. “Plus, most men don’t know what to think of a woman who orders a ten-year-old Scotch.”

If that’s the case, most men are dumb.

On the final night of the conference, a group of us (a horde of us, really) sat around the hotel lobby, chatting and drinking drinks. The subject of whisky came up again. Since I was sitting with Shannyn and Jim Wang (among whose many blogs is Scotch Addict), I decided to have a little fun.

I found Sylvana, the woman who’d been our waitress all week. “Sylvana,” I said, “I want a couple of glasses of your very best Scotch.”

She went behind the bar and looked at the shelf. “We have a Macallan 18,” she said.

“That’ll be just fine,” I said. I’d never tried the Macallan 18 before, but I suspected it would be good. And it was. I took a glass to Shannyn and I kept one for myself. Once Jim discovered what we were drinking, he ordered one too. We sipped the Scotch and marveled at its smooth and silky nature.

“That’s good,” Shannyn said. Jim and I nodded in agreement.

When we’d finished our drinks, I went back to Sylvana. “It’s my last order of the week,” I said, “and I’d like another glass of the Macallan.” She gave me a sly smile. Then, presumably because I’d tipped well for the last five nights, she gave me a whopper of a pour. The three of us gratefully shared the drink.

Fast-forward to last Tuesday. I was driving home from errands when Shannyn sent me a text. “Is the 15-year Macallan as good as the 18-year Macallan?” she asked. Her timing was impeccable. I was just passing the last liquor store before home. I pulled in to the parking lot.

“Don’t buy anything,” I replied. “I’ll do a little test.”

And so I bought a bottle of the 15-year Macallan and a bottle of the 18-year Macallan. Then, for good measure, I bought a bottle of the 12-year Macallan to add to the mix.

Note: Under no circumstances was this a frugal thing to do, I’m well aware. But I’m a whisky drinker. I knew that these bottles would fit nicely with my existing library of Scotches.

Then I drove home and made a little video:

As you can see, I had a lot of fun with this project. (And as you can also see, I forgot to edit the title card at the end of the clip. Haha.) It’s been pleasing to find that the folks who watch this find it as amusing as I do.

This is the second video I’ve posted this week. (It’s actually the third if you count the video of our recent motorcycle trip.) There’ll be more.

Kim and I are embarking on a fun, open-ended project in 2015 that will be very video intensive. As part of that, we’ll be filming interviews with dozens of people.

But while I feel I’m an acceptable amateur photographer, I know next to nothing about videography. I’ve solicited advice from some of my colleagues (David Hobby, Wes Wages, etc.), and their recommendations will help me track down the lighting and sound gear I need. Having good gear is great, of course, but what I need to do most right now is get practice using the gear.

To that end, I’ll be creating lots of short one-off videos. Many of them will be about silly things — like drinking Scotch. I won’t publish all of them here, but I do hope to share the best ones.

Next up? This afternoon, Kim and I are headed to Oregon’s wine country to do a bit of tasting. Who knows? Maybe I’ll put together a short clip about that…

Scrawny to Brawny: Eating a Big-Ass Breakfast

In early November, I joined an online fitness forum. Scrawny to Brawny is a year-long program designed to provide structure, feedback, and support while helping participants build lean muscle mass and strength. To start, though, we simply “bulk up”.

Every two weeks, those of us doing Scrawny to Brawny (S2B) are assigned a new “habit”. We do this habit every day for fourteen days. The S2B website asks us to report on our compliance (as well as compliance with workouts and other assignments). After two weeks, we’re expected to continue with each new habit, although we no longer report on it. Instead, focus shifts to a new habit.

Our first habit was to drink three “super shakes” per day. (Each super shake is composed of a bit of milk, a bit of ice, a bit of fruit, a bit of vegetable, and a scoop of protein powder.) Our second habit was to practice good posture and to perform a series of daily stretches. Our third habit — the one we’re practicing right now — is to eat a “muscle breakfast”. While the first two habits were tough, I eventually made them part of my daily routine (and continue to practice them, which is the point). This third habit, though, is killing me.

You see, I’m not a big breakfast guy. I like traditional breakfast foods, such as pancakes and bacon, but on a typical day I don’t eat breakfast until three or four hours after I get out of bed. Even then, it’s usually just a piece of toast (with almond butter) or something similarly simple. When I started the super shake habit, that became my breakfast. I especially dislike eating before my daily workout.

Now, however, the muscle breakfast has reared its ugly head. Every day, we’re supposed to eat:

4 whole eggs
about 200 grams of lean meat (ground beef, sliced ham or turkey etc.)
½ cup of oats (dry measure)
2 tablespoons of nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew, pecan etc.)
2 servings of fresh veggies
1 medium piece of fruit, or 1 cup berries
2 tablespoons of a “topper” (sundried tomatoes, pesto, hummus, tomato sauce, spice & herbs, etc.)
1 glass of  water

Ho. Ly. Cats.

This habit is hard for me. That’s a huge amount of food, especially for breakfast. It’s tough to wolf it down when I have no appetite. Some days, I have to set aside half of my meal to eat the next day. (Plus, don’t forget, I’m also drinking about 1000 calories worth of super shakes each day, plus eating lunch and dinner!)

At this very moment, I’m staring at a plate filled with 3-1/2 eggs and one chicken sausage. I’ve eaten the other stuff on the list (except the fruit), but there’s no way I’m going to get the rest of this plate down anytime soon. I get nauseated just thinking about taking another bite.

So why keep at it?

This whole Scrawny to Brawny thing is a fun experiment for me. My body is built for long, slow distances. It likes to run and to bike. Its ideal form of exercise is hiking. I can go for hours on end while trekking at high altitude with a pack on my back. I’ve seen other, fitter fellows knocked on their butts by that kind of activity, but my body likes it. It’s what evolution (or god, if you prefer) has designed me to do.

My body is less good at lifting heavy weights. Yet I enjoy this sort of training too. I thought it would be fun to spend a year building muscle in order to see what I’m capable of achieving. Plus, this has provided motivation to get back in shape. (I’d begun the slide into flabbiness.)

As part of the S2B program, we’re required to take monthly photographs of our progress. After only a few weeks, there’s not a lot of visual difference between now and the time I started — except for my back. Most of my exercise the past month has been focused on building back and core strength so that I can move on to more common lifts with good form. I was skeptical that anything had actually changed until I saw this:

The photo on the left is from 11 November 2014. The one on the right is from 14 December.

That’s not a huge change, obviously, but it’s enough. I can see the difference, and I can feel it. So can Kim. Whatever I’m doing seems to be working.

Last weekend, I talked with Cody, my Crossfit trainer (and friend). I told him how tough this was for me mentally. He knows. Most of my life, I’ve been fat. I have a huge mental barrier to being fat again. To willingly pack on the pounds by stuffing my face every day goes against every fiber of my being.

“Trust the process,” Cody told me. “You’re going to gain weight, and some of it’s going to go to your belly. You’ll shed those excess pounds later. You’re bulking now, and you’ll shred in the summer.”

And so, I’m going to trust the process. But it’s not easy!

The Flavor Bible: A Cookbook Without Recipes

A couple of months ago, I reconnected with Ken, one of my college roommates. Turns out that 25 years after rooming together, he and I gain live in the same building.

Over dinner at Relish Gastropub — one of my favorite new restaurants in Portland — Ken and I reconnected. We talked about life and love. We talked about money. We talked about food. In the decades since I knew him, Ken has become a professional chef. In fact, he teaches restaurant management at one of the culinary schools here in town.

At one point, the conversation turned to books. “I used to have thousands of books,” I told Ken. “I still have too many. But moving into my new place has forced me to do yet another book purge. If Kim moves in with me, I may have to get rid of even more.”

“Yeah,” Ken said. “I love books too. Especially cookbooks. I have a cookbook problem.” We laughed at the notion he was addicted to cookbooks.

“You know,” I said, “I’ve been doing more cooking now that I have a decent kitchen. I like cooking, but I haven’t done much of it since Kris and I split up. Do you have any cookbook recommendations?”

Ken thought for a moment. “Actually, my favorite cookbook — the one I use all the time — isn’t really a cookbook. It’s called The Flavor Bible, and all it does is list hundreds of different flavor combinations that work well together. I use it as a source of inspiration. Like, if I have beets in the fridge that I need to use, I can look in The Flavor Bible to see that good flavor combinations are beets and butter, or beets and blue cheese, or beets and dijon mustard. It even lists complex flavor combinations such as beets and vinegar and hazelnuts and Gorgonzola.”

“Huh,” I said. “Sounds like my kind of book.”

The Flavor Bible

The next day, I borrowed a copy from the library. I liked it. Not only does The Flavor Bible list matching flavor combinations, it also tells you which flavor combinations to avoid (don’t mix basil and tarragon, for instance). It offers tips and ideas from great chefs around the United States. Some of the tips are short and sweet, like this one from Emily Luchetti of San Francisco’s Farallon:

Blueberries and lemon go really well together. Blueberries are a thick fruit with a lot of pectin in them, and intensely flavored. You need som lemon to cut through that.

In the blueberry section, there are quotes from other chefs that suggest using cinnamon or maple in combination with blueberries.

Other tips are longer. For example, The Flavor Bible includes a sidebar in which Gina DePalma of New York’s Babbo describes how to build a cheese plate. As a guy who likes his cheeses (and likes to build cheese plates), these 250 words are gold.

Though The Flavor Bible doesn’t contain any actual recipes, it does list hundreds of dishes from restaurants around the country, such as:

Alaskan king salmon with sugar snap peas
Cornish game hens with pomegranate sauce and toasted almonds
Leek and asparagus pasta with lemon, parmesan, and poached egg
Seaweed and jicama salad with ginger dressing
Roasted beet salad with shaved fennel and chèvre

The names and descriptions of these dishes are often enough for inspiration. (Plus, you can sometimes google to find a recipe.)

Sometimes a chef will describe a dish in detail (though not with an actual recipe). I’m eager to try Gabriel Kreuther‘s watermelon salad, which includes a tomato confit and a layer of browned pistachios with salt and pepper. Sounds delicious.

Since I bought this cookbook a month ago, I’ve used it several times each week. Like my friend Ken, I grab The Flavor Bible whenever I have spare food in the fridge that I need to know how to use. Sometimes I use it to figure out how to add another dimension to something I’m making.

Here’s an example. For the next three weeks, Kim and I are doing a plant-based “cleanse” together (with a small portion of lean protein in the evening). As Kim (and Kris) will tell you, I’m not so good when it comes to eating plants. I need help getting creative with them. That’s where The Flavor Bible comes in.

Yesterday I used it for something as simple as a fruit smoothie. I’d already added banana, coconut milk, berries, and vanilla protein powder. “What can I do to punch this up?” I wondered. “Maybe cinnamon?” I pulled down The Flavor Bible. Sure enough, bananas and vanilla combine well with cinnamon, and berries are on okay flavor match. I added a bit of cinnamon to the smoothie and it helped.

The 39 Best Flavor Combinations

The Flavor Bible contains nearly 400 pages of flavor affinities, which it ranks on four levels based on how many chefs recommend the combination. Of these thousands of permutations, I scoured the book to find only 39 that received the highest number of endorsements. These are the “Holy Grail” flavor pairings that the most experts agree upon. Here they are:

Angelica and rhubarb
Apple and cinnamon
Basil and garlic
Basil and tomatoes
Beans and savory
Beans (flageolet) and lamb
Chard and garlic
Cheese (manchego) and quince paste
Cherries and kirsch
Chile peppers and Thai cuisine
Chocolate and coffee
White chocolate and raspberries
Crab and avocado
Jicama and chile peppers
Jicama and lime
Lamb and garlic
Lamb and rosemary
Mint and lamb
Oregano and tomatoes
Pork and black pepper
Quince and apples
Quince and pears
Raspberries and white chocolate
Rhubarb and strawberries
Rosemary and garlic
Rosemary and lamb
Saffron and rice
Saffron and risotto
Savory and beans
Shrimp and garlic
Spinach and butter (especially unsalted butter)
Strawberries and cream
Strawberries and rhubarb
Strawberries and sugar
Strawberries and balsamic vinegar (especially aged balsamic vinegar
Tomatoes and basil
Turmeric and curry powder
Vanilla and (ice) cream
Fennel seeds and sausages (especially Italian sausages)

I find it interesting that a handful of flavor combinations appear in the listing for both ingredients (strawberries are recommended with rhubarb and rhubarb is recommended with strawberries), but most of the pairings are only uni-directional. Not sure what that means.

The Bottom Line

If I have one complaint about The Flavor Bible it’s that the highly-recommended flavor matches tend toward the conventional. I wonder if they’re recommended not so much because they’re great combinations but because they’re well known.

Still, I have to agree with Ken. The Flavor Bible is a great book, and I can see keeping it in my kitchen long after other cookbooks have been donated to Goodwill. I look forward to many years of exploring its suggestions. I’ll start tonight. Kim and I are going to try some jicama with chile peppers and lime!

The authors of The Flavor Bible also wrote a book called What to Drink with What You Eat, which apparently follows the same format. Guess what I’m going to borrow from the library when I run my errands today…

Some Quick Links About Health and Fitness

Lately, I’ve been collecting links faster than I can share them. This is a quick post about some of the fitness stuff I’ve found.

The Seven-Minute Workout

For instance, at the New York Times wellness blog, Gretchen Reynolds shared what she calls “the scientific seven-minute workout“. This series of twelve body-weight exercises — taken from a scientific article — can be done almost anywhere (all you need are a wall and a chair). Here’s the graphic from the NYT article:

The key is to do these at high intensity (an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10) and to not rest between exercise. In other words, it should be seven minutes of suffering.

In essence, that’s the same philosophy behind Crossfit. You do a bunch of work, and you do it fast. This set of exercises is nice, though, because it covers a wide range of muscle groups without any special equipment.

One web developer created a web-based seven-minute workout timer that tells you which exercise you’re on, counts down the time, and then gives you ten seconds to move to the next one. Pretty slick.

Scrawny to Brawny

Elsewhere, Tim Ferriss shared a story about how to lose 20-30 pounds in five days — and then gain it back. It’s not really useful to anyone outside competitive fighters, I think, but it’s still interesting.

I can’t believe I’m going to admit this publicly, but the Tim Ferriss article led me to a blog called Scrawny to Brawny, which is about building muscle. I subscribed. You know what? It’s actually a damn fine blog filled with practical advice on more than just weightlifting.

For instance, I love this piece on becoming the most interesting man in the world. The author writes that interesting men (and by extension, interesting women) become interesting by doing lots of stuff. And that alters how they talk about life.

The author illustrates his argument with this clip from the film Good Will Hunting:

His point? To become interesting, you need to stop talking and start doing. He writes: “Things like love, fear, sadness, joy, struggle, triumph and loss all have to be tasted and fully experienced to be understood.” By doing more, you’ll shift your frame of reference and expand your vocabulary.

Human experience exists on a continuum. The degree to which you’ve experienced something will determine your frame of reference when you’re using that word.

The Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

Finally, Kris pointed me to a blog post about the tragedy of the healthy eater. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but it makes a great point.

Healthy eating used to be simple. Now, though, everyone has an opinion about what is and is not healthy. There internet allows fad diets to spread like wildfire. Last week, dairy was evil! This week everyone is gluten intolerant! Next week, vegetables will be the cause of all evil!

I’m exaggerating, of course, but there’s a grain of truth there. When it comes to health, people are after magic bullets — just as with money. But there aren’t any magic bullets. Except for those rare few who truly have a problem with gluten, I’ve never seen anyone markedly improve their health by removing whole grains from their diet. And paleo? Don’t get me started. There are stacks of scientific studies that demonstrate a plant-based diet is correlated with health and long life; the paleo stuff is mostly fabricated out of fantasy.

My own solution is to pay attention to the research, and to know my own body. Yes, I mostly eat paleo (despite the fact I think the arguments for it are silly), but I’m very aware that if I ate more fruits and veggies, I’d be doing myself a favor.

The Blue Zones: How to Live a Long and Healthy Life

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of extending human life. As a boy, my favorite characters in the Bible were those like Methuselah who lived for hundreds of years. (Noah, of ark fame, was reportedly 600 when he built his boat, and he lived for another 350 years after the flood!)

I’m also drawn to science-fiction novels that feature longevity as a subplot. For instance, in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (which I mentioned a few days ago in another context), medical advances allow people to live for more than two hundred years. (For a decade, I’ve had an idea for a short story called “Herb Nelson’s Long Life”, which would be about a man who has been alive for centuries.)

Naturally, I’m not just interested in fictional accounts of longevity. I’m interested in the science behind it too. Recently, I found time to read The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner, a book that examines the lifestyles of five of the longest-lived populations on the planet. What attributes do these folks have in common?

The Blue Zones

I first read Buettner’s work in the pages of National Geographic. In November 2005, the magazine printed his article, “The Secrets to a Long Life“, which offers a taste of what’s contained in The Blue Zones. In the article, Buettner profiles populations in Sardinia, Italy; Okinawa, Japan; and Loma Linda, California. These are communities where people live long and stay happy.

Expanding his work to book length, he added two additional locations: the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica and the Greek island of Ikaria.

In each of these five locations, people have long and healthy lives. They reach the age of 100 at rates significantly higher than average.

In The Blue Zones, Buettner shares stories from each of these locations, sharing how specific people have lived and thrived for ten decades. As he interviews people in each location, he tries to find common threads. What is that makes the people in Sardinia live so long? In Ikaria? Then, at the end of the book, Buettner draws from these five populations as a whole. What attributes do they share?

Long and Healthy Lives

After looking at these groups individually, Buettner makes nine broad generalizations about factors that seem to be related to longevity and well-being. Note, though, that correlations does not imply causality. These qualities are present in the communities he’s studied, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually the secrets to long life. (Though, of course, I’d like to think they are.)

Here are the recommendations from The Blue Zones:

Be active. Those who live a long time are generally active people. They walk. They raise gardens. They have fun. If you struggle with this, Buettner suggests finding ways to force yourself to be active. He also recommends doing yoga twice a week.

Cut calories. Many Eastern cultures have a practice in which they eat until they’re “80% full”. Buettner recommends cutting portion sizes through common tricks like using smaller serving dishes, making snacks a hassle, preparing smaller portions, eating more slowly, and eating early.

Eat a plant-based diet. Eat two servings of vegetables with every meal. Limit meat intake. Avoid processed foods. Make fruits and vegetables the highlight of your diet. Stock up on nuts, and eat them every day.

Drink red wine — in moderation. Sip it with your dinner, or institute a daily “happy hour” where you socialize with friends.

Have a purpose. Take time to see the Big Picture. Craft a mission statement, and then find a partner to hold you accountable to it. Learn something new. Buettner points out that learning a musical instrument or studying a new language are two great ways to keep your brain sharp.

Downshift. Reduce the stress in your life. Cut out the electronic noise. Arrive early to appointments. Meditate.

Participate in a spiritual community. Buettner stresses the importance of spiritual communities, and encourages readers to open their minds, discard prejudices, and just go to a church service.

Make family a priority. Live closer to your family. Own a smaller home, where people are forced to interact more. Establish rituals. Create a family shrine.

Find the right tribe. Be likeable. Surround yourself with people who share your values. Identify your inner circle, the people you trust and support. Try to spend 30 minutes each day with these folks.

Here’s a Venn diagram (from Wikipedia) that summarizes Buettner’s findings from the three original Blue Zones. (I’d love to see a similar diagram that takes into account all five regions.)

Common attributes among Blue Zones

More than anything, Buettner writes, “Purpose and love are essential ingredients in all Blue Zone recipes for longevity.”

Conclusion

There’s no way a simple blog post can do justice to Buettner’s book. The Blue Zones is fascinating, at least for those of us interested in longevity. If you want more info, buy the book (or borrow it from the library, like I did). You can also visit the Blue Zones website, where you’ll find:

Plant-centric recipes
Checklists to push you toward some of the Blue Zones guidelines
The Blue Zones Challenge for kids
A life-span calculator (my life expectancy is 86.2 years)
A happiness test (I scored an A-)

I’ll close this summary with a key piece of advice from The Blue Zones. “This information will do you no good,” Buettner writes, “unless you put it into practice.”

Paris 2013: In the Land of Wine and Cheese

Greetings from Paris! For almost a week, Kim and I have been exploring the city from an apartment near the Sentier metro stop. Every day, we walk down Rue Montorgueil, a bustling pedestrian thoroughfare filled with produce stands and fish shops and boulangeries. With all the people packed into cafés, it feels very much like Rue Cler (where Kris and I stayed in 2010), but with more average Parisians. And at night, if we mistakenly take the next street over, we can see sex shops and streetwalkers. Quite the contrast!

We’re actually very pleased with our apartment. It’s small but functional, and the location is perfect.

Kimberly, preparing to climb 667 steps to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower

When I was here three years ago, we spent a lot of time exploring the famous landmarks of Paris: the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and so on. Kim and I have done some of that. We actually climbed the Eiffel Tower, for instance (something I didn’t do last time), and we made a quick tour of the Louvre (with an epic journey to locate the Dutch masters). But mostly we’ve done a lot of walking — and we’ve eaten a lot of wine and cheese.

Note: Kim had shoulder surgery three weeks before we left for this trip, which is a mixed blessing. We wouldn’t have been able to take so much time together to explore Paris and — eventually — London and Oslo if she weren’t required to take eight weeks off work. But the sore and healing shoulder is also a liability. It limits the things we can do. And on our way back from climbing the Eiffel Tower, she stumbled at the top of the stairs from the subway. She managed to not land on her shoulder, but she was still sore for days after.

Taking in the art at the Louvre

On most of my past trips, I’ve had a fairly clear agenda: I’ve known where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see. But when Nick and I traveled to Turkey last September, I had a hell of a lot of fun by not planning things. We sketched in where and when we wanted to be, but for the most part we just made things up as we went along. Because Kim and I both like to “go with the flow”, we decided to do the same sort of thing on this trip (with the notable exception of Norway, which is very planned).

Browsing the streets of Paris

As a result, we’ve spent our days in Paris just wandering the streets. When we find something that looks interesting, we stop to take a look. Some days we set out with a destination in mind, but we don’t always reach it. Yesterday, for instance, I wanted to visit the Orangerie (a museum of impressionist art) and the Arc de Triomphe. We didn’t do either. We stopped outside Notre Dame to sit in the sun, and then wandered again into the Latin Quarter where we fumbled our way through the alleys of shops and cafés. We stopped for crepes. We looked in shop windows. We bought a painting.

A small boy makes a donation to a Dixieland band playing in the Latin Quarter

Eventually we crossed the Seine to Champs-Élysées. We stopped on a side street for a glass of wine, and I was startled to realize that we’d managed to find the exact same restaurant where Kris and I had a miserable meal of lousy steaks three years ago. (The wine that Kim and I had this time wasn’t much better.)

A common sight on this trip: Me with my camera

In the evening, we celebrated my birthday with a delicious meal at Le Patio Provençal, a restaurant recommended to me by Nomadic Matt.

We had a great day today, too. We booked a wine and cheese tasting at O Chateau. As we’ve done so many times since arriving here last Thursday, we consumed a ton of wine and cheese.

Our hostess, Charlotte, served us five wines and five cheeses. The pairings were fantastic, especially the last two. For the record, we got to try:

A champagne (brut chardonnay) with brie.
A saumur (chenin blanc) with Sainte Maure de Touraine.
A brouilly/beaujolais (gamay) with Tome d’Auvergne.
A haut médoc/bourdeaux (cab/merlot blend) with Comté.
A monbazillac (semillon/sauv blanc) with Roquefort.

You’ll notice that I’ve listed the wines a couple of different ways. That’s because French wine is classified different than American wine. In the U.S., our wines are sold by grape varietal. We buy a cabernet sauvignon or a merlot or a chardonnay, for instance. That’s not how the French buy wines. They buy based on region: Bordeaux or Champagne or Beaujolais. (Actually, they buy by subregion or terroir.) The French feel that the place the grapes are grown has as much impact on the quality of the wine as the grapes themselves.

Anyhow, we had a lot of wine and cheese for lunch today.

Our cheeses today at O Chateau

Actually, I’m beginning to believe that Parisians are fueled by just three “nutrients”: wine, cheese, and bread. For the past week, that’s what I have been fueled by.

The day we arrived, we picked up some bread and goat cheese to eat for our breakfasts. A couple of times, we’ve eaten at Au Rocher de Cancale, where I’ve had wine and cheese. I’ve had wine and cheese for nearly every meal, as a matter of fact. You might think that after a week, the wine would be catching up with me, but it’s not the case. The cheese, on the other hand, is causing problems.

Thankfully, we’ll soon be moving on to lands where cheese is less plentiful. On Thursday morning, we’ll take a train across the English Channel, rent a car in London, and then gradually make our way north to Edinburgh. Maybe we’ll see Stonehenge or stop in Bath or catch a soccer match in Liverpool. We’re not sure. And you know what? We don’t care. We’re having a lot of fun just making things up as we go along.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for dinner. I think maybe I’ll have some wine and cheese…

Coffee Addict

Though I’ve long denied it, those who know me well tell me I’m a picky eater. It used to drive Kris crazy. When I started dating Kim, I told her I’d eat almost anything. It didn’t take her long to see that what I meant was I’d eat almost anything other than beer, coffee, mushrooms, and cruciferous vegetables.

Over the past year, I’ve made a conscious effort to face some of my food fears, and to overcome them. For instance, last May I started drinking beer, and now I actually enjoy it. (Beer is food, right?) I’ve also discovered the joys of kale and brussels sprouts. But perhaps my favorite new find is coffee. I started drinking coffee in August — tentatively at first — and am now a coffee addict.

I think the key to my conversion was starting with the good stuff. I was buying a bag of Stumptown Coffee for my brother’s birthday, and the barista offered me a free cup. I declined at first, but he was insistent. “Do you like tea?” he asked. I do. “Then try this coffee,” he said, serving me a cup brewed from Ethiopian beans. I was surprised to find I actually enjoyed it. Over the next few weeks, I tasted Kim’s coffee whenever she had it. Gradually my coffee aversion faded. In fact, I came to crave the stuff.

Now quality coffee is one of my favorite parts of the day. Every morning, I roll out of bed and go to the kitchen, where I pour about two ounces of grounds into my Chemex beaker. I boil a kettle of water, which I then pour over the grounds to produce several cups of awesomeness.

The trouble, of course, is that quality coffee is expensive. Some of it is crazy expensive. Stumptown has some great roasts that cost $30 per pound. Yikes. The local organic grocery has some good blends, but they still costs about a buck an ounce. That works out to roughly $2 per day to feed our coffee habit.

Note: Because I like to try new coffee, I just signed up for the subscription coffee service from BrewPony, which promises to supply quality Portland coffee on a monthly basis. Sounds like fun to me!

Kim is frugal by nature, and she hates how much we spend on coffee. But she also hates the cheap stuff. It’s a dilemma. But she’s come up with a way to tackle the problem: She wants to buy green coffee beans and roast them herself. There’s a place near my condo that offers classes in coffee roasting, and I think we’re going to take one. Who knows? Maybe in a few months, we’ll be enjoying great coffee that we’ve roasted ourselves — and saving money in the process.

To be honest, all I care about is that the caffeine continues to flow.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need another cup of joe…

Postscript: The next food fear I’ll face? Mushrooms. I hate mushrooms. Kim loves them. To give her a treat (and to give myself the best possible introduction to these vile fungi), we’ll soon have dinner at The Joel Palmer House, a local restaurant that specializes in mushrooms.

A Culinary Tour of Lima, Peru

I love food. This is no secret to those who know me. (I’ve struggled with my weight all of my life.) Fortunately, I’ve found a sort of fitness equilibrium, because since arriving in Peru a month ago, I’ve been eating like a king.

I knew Peruvian food was good before I started this trip, so I had some warning. (One of Portland’s best restaurants is Andina, where I’ve dined many times.) But I wasn’t prepared for the constant quality at every meal.

Un alfajor (with ice cream) at Las Brujas de Cachiche

During the first three weeks of my trip, while I was trekking, I managed to eat several fantastic meals in Cusco and Ollantaytambo. I discovered ají de gallina (a sort of Peruvian curry), chicha morada (a sweet soft drink made from purple corn), cuy (roasted guinea pig), chicharrón (fried pork), and oh-so-many delicious soups. (Peruvians, at least those in the Andes, seem to love their soups.)

My wife joined me in Lima a few days ago, and since then we’ve been enjoying the Culinary Peru excursion from Gap Adventures. To start, our host Andrés took us to the Surquillo market, which is something like a supermarket except that it’s filled with individual vendors who mostly sell fresh meat and produce. For instance, here’s a stall with strawberries (for a dollar a kilo!), bananas, lúcuma, apples, avocados, passionfruit, and more.

Fresh fruit at the Surquillo market: strawberries and more exotic fare

We bought a bunch of fruit to eat that afternoon. In fact, we bought too much fruit. Two days later, we’re still munching on it. (Not that I’m complaining — I’ve become addicted to maracuyá, the passionfruit.) Yesterday for breakfast, we ate the chirimoya, a fruit unlike any I’ve ever encountered. (Andrés described its taste as “like eating cotton candy from the mouth of god”.)

Chirimoya: “Like eating cotton candy from the mouth of god…”

After shopping at the market, we headed to Kennedy Park. At El Parquetito, one of the chefs gave us a lesson in how to prepare ceviche, that Latin American answer to sushi. Some fresh fish, a little lime juice, ample salt, ají pepper, and strong red onions combine to produce a delicious dish, one I enjoyed by ordering the first beer in my life. (Not kidding. I’ve never ordered a beer before this.)

The ceviche we helped to make

That beer was just the start of our drinking. Next, Andrés took us to downtown Lima, where we visited two of the bars that claim to have invented the pisco sour, which has become the emblematic cocktail of the country. Pisco is a colorless grape brandy common in the Andes; a pisco sour mixes pisco, lime juice, egg whites, sugar, and bitters. Over the next couple of hours, we drank three pisco sours.

Our tour guide, Andrés, with our second round of pisco sours

At our last stop in Pueblo Libre, we decided to take the edge off the alcohol by grabbing snacks at one of Andrés’ favorite bars, Antigua Taberna Queirolo. The jamón sandwiches and papas rellenas (stuffed potatoes) helped, but what I really enjoyed were the picarones I bought in the nearby plaza. Picarones are like donuts, but they’re made from a pumpkin and sweet potato batter, and they’re drizzled in sugar cane and fig syrup.

Picarones made fresh at a plaza in Pueblo Libre

Yesterday, our culinary tour of Lima took us to Las Tejas, where one of the chefs gave us a personalized demo of cooking lomo saltado, a sort of Peruvian stir-fried steak and potatoes dish. (Lima has a strong Chinese influence, which can certainly be felt in its cuisine.)

Making lomo saltado at Las Tejas

Lomo saltado was fun to make, but it was even more fun to eat.

Lomo saltado, the finished product

After lunch, we stopped next door at Senora Buendia for some actual tejas. A teja is a Peruvian “sweetie” (as Andrés called them) made of a sugar shell filled with dulce de leche and fruits or nuts. They’re small, cheap, and delicious.

Note: Though Peruvians eat plenty of Snickers and Sublimes (a local candy bar), traditional treats like tejas can be had if you know where to look. Andrés also took us to a local bodega (the ubiquitous corner store, very much like a U.S. minimart) and asked for un beso de moza (literally: “a kiss from a young girl”), which was a chocolate-covered marshmallow.

Our official culinary tour ended here, but my unofficial exploration of the country’s food will continue for the next ten days. (And for the rest of my life, I imagine.)

Last night, for instance, we walked from Miraflores to the heart of the Barranco neighborhood to find Sóngoro Cosongo, which Andrés had recommended for anticuchos (beef-heart kebobs) and picarones. Today, we’ll stop by Punto Azul, which he suggested for ceviche and seafood. And I still haven’t tried chifas, which is supposed to be a delicious Peruvian twist to Chinese food.

And, best of all, after nearly a month in the country, I’m finally ready to relax and try street food. I heard enough horror stories about food poisoning that I was reluctant to dabble in more informal delicacies at the start of the trip. I didn’t want to ruin my treks by having to be confined to bed — or the toilet tent. Now, though, I’m willing to take more risks. That means plenty of snacks from street vendors.

With nearly ten million inhabitants, Lima is a big place. And Peru is bigger still. There’s no way that a quick 48-hour tour can fully cover the rich culinary tradition to be found here. And though I’ve eaten broadly over the past month, there’s no way that five weeks is enough time to sample the complete range of the cuisine either.

That’s okay. I’ve enjoyed the food I’ve tried. And besides, this gives me an excuse to come back for more, right?

Note: My favorite Peruvian food by far? The humble maracuyá. The passionfruit.

Best Clam Chowder Ever (Updated Edition)

Winter — ’tis the season to make clam chowder. I continue to hone my clam chowder recipe, which I originally shared almost five years ago. This chowder originated as a recipe shared in Bon Appétit magazine, but I’ve adapted it enough that I feel content calling it my own.

I’ve probably made this chowder 25 times now — I make it five or six times a year. Each time I make it, it’s a little different. I learn things as I go. My latest version of the recipe is narrative.

J.D.’s Clam Chowder

Read this entire recipe before starting. Prepare all ingredients in advance. This recipe can be time-consuming (it takes 60-90 minutes from start to finish), and until you know where your slack periods are, it’s best to have everything ready to go instead of having to scramble in a panic because you suddenly need your onions.

Open two 51-ounce cans of clams. Reserve the juice into a large pot. Add 5# russet potatoes (do not use Yukon gold — they’re too mealy). Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook until potatoes are just tender (al dente). They will soften more in later steps. Draw off about two cups of liquid from the potato mixture for later use.

Mince a bulb of garlic (a bulb, not a clove). Rub the inside of your largest pot with garlic. Set garlic aside. Chop two yellow onions. Chop a bunch of celery, including leaves (but not including bases, of course).

Over medium heat, melt half a stick of butter in your largest pot (which has been rubbed with garlic). Add 1# bacon, chopped. I prefer thick bacon for this chowder. Pepper bacon is good. (I sometimes use bacon ends from a local butcher — they’re big and meaty.) Brown the bacon. When the bottom of the pot becomes gummy and sticky, brown for another minute or two. Add celery, onions, garlic, and one bay leaf. The vegetables will remove the gummy stickiness. Cook for several minutes, until vegetables soften.

Reduce heat to low. Stir in 1/2 cup flour. Once everything is good and gummy, gradually add the previously reserved potato liquid, whisking occasionally. This will create a thick, gummy gravy-like mass. It will thin as you add more liquid. By adding the liquid slowly, you’re able to keep more of the thickness. (You may also increase the thickness by using more flour. But this chowder isn’t meant to be a thick chowder.)

Stir in clams. Stir in one tablespoon hot pepper sauce, such as Tapatío or Tabasco. (I prefer the former.) Stir in one tablespoon hickory smoke salt. Add potato mixture and stir. Add one quart half-and-half. Add copious fresh ground black pepper to taste. Simmer five minutes, stirring frequently. This allows the flavors to blend.

This chowder is good immediately, but it’s even better after a couple days in the fridge. It keeps for up to a week. This recipe will probably make about 16-20 servings.

Do not skimp on the hot pepper sauce. This is a crucial ingredient. I’m not joking. I also think the hickory smoke salt is important. I use Spice Islands brand. (It may be possible to substitute liquid smoke, but I haven’t tried that yet.) This chowder is even better with fresh clams, but I haven’t perfected ratios and quantities when doing it this way.

Jenn recently made this chowder using fish stock in place of some of the clam juice, and not using any smoke seasoning. It was good, and less salty than my version (which I confess is pretty salty). Her version actually had an unexpected sweetness to it that surprised me. It wasn’t bad, but I plan to stick with clam juice in the future.

This recipe makes a ginormous batch of the stuff. That’s the way we like it. It’s enough to feed a dinner party, with lots left over. When I make this, there’s always tons left over so that Kris and I can eat on it for a week. Which we do.

In the Garden, and Trouble at Gino’s

We’re home!

I’ll probably have more to write about our trip in the future, but at the moment it’s all so overwhelming. There’s so much to tell — where do I begin?

Kris caught a cold in New York, and so has spent the last several days under the weather. I, on the other hand, am full of energy and ideas. After visiting so many beautiful places on our trip, I decided it was a shame that we don’t make Rosings Park everthing it could be.

For example, we visited Jane Austen’s house at Chawton, just south of London. While the house itself was rather unremarkable, I loved the yard. (Or “garden”, as the British call it.) It reminded me that outside spaces can, with creativity, be turned into “rooms” of sorts.

“I want to do that with our yard,” I told Kris.

“Fine,” she said. “As long as the house is still screened from the road.”

I rose early on Saturday, and one of the first things I did was begin ripping out the undergrowth and dead wood from the shrubbery in front of the house. It had occurred to me that there was enough space in this spot to create a sort of quiet reading place. It’s near the road, true, but it’s shielded enough by holly and laurel to be relatively private. (And our road has light traffic, anyhow.)

At first I had planned to rip out the huge laurel near the house, but after spending an hour inside the grove (as I’ve come to call it), it was clear that the laurel was actually responsible for both screening the house from the road and providing a good deal of shade. Besides, after clearing away all the other crap inside the grove, there’s a large open space perfect for my intentions.

So now I’ve cleared an open area in the shrubbery in front of the house. The next step is to determine exactly what to do with it. Do I lay down some gravel? Some paving stones? Leave the hard ground as it is? Do I build a bench? Buy some outdoor furniture from Craigslist? Do I need to plant another bush or hedge to screen the grove from the road?

It also occurred to me that it’s ridiculous that I haven’t finished my horseshoe pits. I started that project nearly eighteen months ago, did about two-thirds of the work required, and then stopped. The area had become overgrown with blackberries, cherries, and locusts. So, I took the time on Saturday to pull these invasive plants up by the roots. There’s still a lot of work left to finish the job, but at least the area’s presentable now.

On top of these two projects, there are two similar jobs I want to do. Underneath our redwood tree is a perfect space for a bench to overlook the side yard. Right now, though, the space is filled with three years of branches from trees and shrubs. We need to rent a chipper and clear this space. Finally, behind the smoking porch is another section of overgrown shrubbery, beneath which could be another nice sitting area. The trick here is that the compost pile is just outside the space, and will have to be moved (where?) in order for it to be usable.

So, I’ve been busy working outside. The camellias need pruning, as do several other hedges. The lawn needs to be mowed. (In August? Unheard of!) Often I view this sort of work as a burden, but now, because I have a goal, it’s fun. This is what I want to be doing. I’m even working on these projects at the expense of my web sites.

Paul and Amy Jo have moved into the neighborhood. They’ve purchased a house about a mile down the road, and are in the process of gutting it. They dropped by our place last night to pick up some stuff (Rosings Park is acting as one staging ground for them), and we convinced them to help make pickles and then to go for dinner at Gino’s.

Gino’s is our current favorite restaurant. It’s not cheap, but it’s not expensive either. The food is excellent, and generally the service is as well. Last night, though, was a different story. For whatever reason, the place was slammed at 7:30, despite the fact it was a Monday night. The restaurant was understaffed (and some of the staff that was there was new). This made for a very frustrating dining experience.

We arrived at 7:30. We were seated at 7:54. It took forever for anyone to take our drink order, let alone the order for our meal. We received our appetizers at 8:32. We didn’t receive our meal until 9:09, more than ninety minutes after we had arrived. As I say: a very frustrating experience.

This has not, however, soured us on the place. The food was excellent, as usual, and there was no question that the restaurant was far, far busier than anyone had expected. If we hadn’t been so damn hungry, the wait might not have even been an issue.