Where’s Wilkinson Sword?
They said I can't have anything sharp, but just look at this! Bwah-ha-ha!!
The “Everything” Sampler Pack from West Coast Shaving
When I started wet shaving in 2008, I ordered a small sampler pack of five kinds of blades from West Coast Shaving, and when they ran out, ordered 100 of the Derby “Extra” blades. It took over two years, but I finally used them all up. I was very satisfied with the Derbys, but was craving a little adventure (I want to be more like the Old Spice guy), so I ordered the “Everything” pack with 15 kinds of blades (but no Wilkinson Sword?!). By the end of 2010, I’ll know if the Derbys have met their match.
Drinking Our Way Across Pennsylvania
Nothing breaks up a long car trip like good food and drink, so we were looking forward to trying some new places on a trip to Erie over the Fourth of July weekend. The detours added at least three hours to the travel time, but made the trip seem shorter and certainly far less grueling.
I was not familiar with places outside the southeastern corner of the Keystone State, so for guidance we turned to Lew Bryson's dead-tree compendium “Pennsylvania Breweries,” an iPhone app called Find Craft Beer and, of course, beermapping.com.
The first stop was Selin’s Grove Brewing which had the most imaginative and best-executed menu of any place on the trip, including many vegetarian options. Their beer was good, too. We sat outside in perfect weather. A delightful experience, and only a mere three hours from home!
Next was Blue Canoe Brewery in Titusville. Blue Canoe occupies the building formerly occupied by Four Sons, which we had visited in years past; not much has changed. More good food and beer and even live music.
Considering its size, Erie itself disappointing, almost devoid of craft beer, at least according to our references. We had lunch at Matthews Trattoria & Martini Lounge. Fine food, but macros only. From there, we walked a few blocks to the only brewpub, The Brewerie at Union Station, which, in the middle of Friday afternoon was basically empty. Andy’s Pub had an acre of pool tables, but only two beers on tap: Bud Lite or Miller Lite. Fortunately, their bottle list included some winners even though they were out of many of them.
On the way home we stopped for lunch at Otto’s Pub & Brewery in State College. They had the best beer of any place and fine food as well.
Overall, we liked Selin’s Grove best followed closely by Otto’s.
Gig: Art All Night-Trenton
This Saturday, I am very excited to be playing a part in “Art All Night-Trenton,” an arts extravaganza that includes visual arts, demonstrations (glass-blowing, graffiti demo, iron pour and more), and music. Last year, 650 artists participated and 8,000 people attended. The festival begins at 3:00 PM Saturday, June 19 and runs straight through the night until Sunday at 3:00 PM.
There are two stages, one indoor and one outdoor, with bands changing every hour. Check out this lineup. I am playing with the Rhythm Kings, a classic-swing/Dixieland jazz band from 7:00 to 8:00 on the indoor stage. Location is the former Roebling Wire Works building (675 South Clinton Avenue) in the Chambersburg section of Trenton. Linky for full info. Free!
Brewing with Glacier Hops
So what did we do with all those hops? Well, in the spirit of Sly Fox’s Hop Project, we decided to brew a single-hop pale ale. We picked a simple pale ale recipe (“Gone Fishin’” from The Complete Joy of Home Brewing by Charlie Papazian). I was advised that fresh hops are equivalent to pellets, so we measured out the same amount by weight.
To get maximum hop extraction, we tried something called the Texas Two-Step, which splits the boil into two stages. Previously, we boiled 2.5 gallons of water and added all the ingredients to that, then added 2.5 gallons to the fermentation bucket. The Two-Step has you split your ingredients and add half to each 2.5-gallon boil. Even with that, the beer tasted weak and watery at first. Disappointing. Now that the beer has been in bottles for a few weeks it tastes much better, but it still has virtually no hop flavor. Either our hops are “weak,” or we didn’t use enough of them, or both, probably.
For our next batch (a Hoegaarden clone), we will be using pellet hops and adding some of our Glacier hops for aroma. Hoping this batch will be much better.
First Hop Harvest
[Thanks to the economy, I had to lay off the entire editorial staff of mere cat, interns and all, hence the long gap in posting. Although I have a backlog of blog drafts that I hope to turn into actual posts, it’s just me doing everything from now on, so I think posting will continue to be light.
A few drafts were devoted to hops. Here’s the first. It should have been posted in October. Confound those insolent, indolent interns.]
Anne picking the driest Glacier hops off the bines in the first picking session in early October.
Besides our regular crop of tomatoes (a record 350-odd this year), we (meaning my wife) usually grow other random crops in a corner of our little quarter-acre lot. Some brewing experiments led us to try growing our own hops.
We picked up five hop rhizomes from Keystone Homebrew in early 2008. None did well the first year, but this year our Glacier plant really took off, covering an entire wall. We started harvesting the hops while they were still on the bine, picking the driest ones at first. As novice hop growers, it was difficult to determine when to harvest them. We may have harvested them a little late, but most still seemed green and moist and only just beginning to dry out. We air-dried them briefly and bagged them for the freezer. Below is a picture of about half our harvest. Hops weigh almost nothing, but I think we came close to a pound.
Mirror Neurons, or Why I Can’t Dance
The other day I was watching a TED Talk by neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran describing the function of “mirror neurons” in the human brain. These neurons are like the motor neurons (which fire when you move), but mirror neurons fire when you merely watch someone else moving. Amazing; that’s empathy at the physiological level. As Ramachandran said, “They must be involved in things like imitation and emulation, because to imitate a complex act requires my brain to adopt the other person’s point of view.”
Fine, but I don’t think I was born with any mirror neurons. Let me illustrate.
Over the last week, I’ve been trying desperately to imitate a “complex act,” viz., a video of the great drummer Peter Erskine playing brushes. He explains every stroke and sweep, all the while moving in slow motion, and I still had a remarkably difficult time imitating it. The experience reminded me of my ballroom dancing days where learning each step was a painful process that took months. I can’t believe it’s this hard for everyone. I should distinguish between the first stage of learning a movement and the subsequent practicing of it until it becomes “natural” (or in the case of my dancing, merely less grotesque). I expect practicing to take lots of time; my frustration is only with the first stage.
Admittedly, Ramachandran doesn’t say that mirror neurons make imitation easy, just possible, so maybe my expectations are just too high. On the other hand, I can imitate things by ear pretty easily, so I imagine others can pick up things by eye just as easily. What I do seem to have, at least, is the perseverance to keep trying until I get it. I guess we are each blessed with an unevenly distributed set of gifts—weakness in one area is compensated by strength in another.
Talk Like a Real Pirate
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I guess it’s fun to talk like an 18th century pirate, but I thought wouldn’t it be even more fun to talk like a real pirate? But how do they talk?
Well, according to this NPR story (reported by Chana Joffe-Walt), today’s Somali pirates are quite businesslike and professional. “They’re not making threats or anything. They’re very polite in their whole demeanor,” said Per Gullestrup, one of the victims. Arrr, that doesn’t sound like much fun, does it, me matey?
Jenkintown’s Jazz and BrewFest This Sunday
The tenth annual Jenkintown Jazz and BrewFest is this Sunday, September 13 (I will be one of the orange-shirted volunteers). I have been coming to the Fest even before I moved to Jenkintown and always had a great time. It’s so much more than a beer festival with lots of great food and world-class jazz (alto saxophonist Richie Cole and singer Denise King this year). Plus this year there’s a new special tasting event before the regular BrewFest: “Breakfast and Brew,” hosted by award-winning author Lew Bryson. Info and tickets here.
World’s Longest Lobster Roll
I don’t know what possessed me to drive all the way to Maine just to witness the creation of the World’s Longest Lobster Roll. Sure, I love lobster rolls, but I prefer rolls you can pick up and eat (unlike the giants from Red’s Eats, Pearl Oyster Bar, or Mary’s Fish Camp, for example). In the end, I decided it was worth making an exception to be in on this history-making event. Besides, it was great fun.
When we arrived at the site on Commercial Street in front of Portland Lobster Company around 11:00, a long string of tables was already set up on the sidewalk. We paid our $20, which entitled us to a certificate of participation, a T-shirt, and, of course, a piece of the Longest Lobster Roll. All we had to do now was stand around in the beautiful sunshine and wait. And take lots of pictures!
The giant bun showed up near 11:30, but the truck didn’t stop and continued down Commercial Street toward the ferry terminal. By the way, this video includes a description of how Amato’s Bakery made the roll with an oven they mounted on wheels.
The bun was unloaded from the truck and brought back to the assembly area by a large group of volunteer bun bearers that included members of the Maine Roller Derby team.
The sixty-foot tray was conveyed gently...
...and set down on the tables.
Margaret Salt McLellan, Linda Bean’s executive chef, got to work slitting the roll.
Then a team of volunteers laid down a bed of Miracle Whip. (Kraft was a generous sponsor of this charitable event.)
The next step was stuffing the roll with about 48 pounds of lobster meat donated by Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Lobster Roll.
Almost finished.
Done! Sixty-one feet, nine and a half inches.
The last step was cutting that roll into almost 200 pieces.
Show us the money. The event helped the West End Neighborhood Association provide swimming lessons for needy children.
Here’s our portion, complete with chips and lemonade. The meat was superb, very fresh with a hint of the flavor of the sea and absolutely no filler. It’s a shame they couldn’t grill the roll, but that would be completely impractical. Honestly, the Miracle Whip didn’t bother me.
It’s a shame I didn’t get decent pictures of the awesome people who made this all happen, including Linda Bean, the mayor of Portland, and people from the West End Neighborhood Association. It’s also a shame that this would be our only trip to Maine this year, but we had a wonderful time during our one-day stay.
I never thought I would see a lobster roll bigger than Red’s, but this one definitely was. I wonder if Rockland, home of the Maine Lobster Festival, is going to let Portland steal the lobster limelight? The emphasis at the Rockland festival is on whole lobster, not lobster rolls, but the Festival would be a perfect setting to mount a challenge to the record.
National Train Day
I don’t know much about the history or genesis of National Train Day (I think this year is the first one), but I do know that May 10th was selected as the date, because it is the anniversary of the driving of the “Golden Spike” in 1869 at Promontory Summit, Utah, which completed America’s first transcontinental railroad. I’ll be heading down to 30th Street Station to partake in the celebration (and probably slip into Bridgewater’s Pub for a pint at some point).
Speaking of trains, mere SEPTA has been a huge success—I think upwards of six people have used it. :-) I wasn’t able to add all the features I had planned for National Train Day, but did make some incremental improvements. The most visible change is that it now shows the train number and endpoints for each train. I also reworked the connection algorithm, which has two benefits. Gone are the spurious connections that showed up in certain situations, and it now shows how to make a connection between stations on the same line that are skipped by express trains.
