Crowberry tales lives on in new blog.

For those of you who enjoyed Crowberry Tales and then Sceil Lus Na Feannig, our intrepid adventurers Jen and Bob now bring us The Daily Compost.

Cycling in HI

Q: can you log hilly miles and still avoid the highways in Hawaii?

A: sure!

I don't ride much anymore since I've moved to Hawaii as various ocean activities and hiking in the mountains have taken much of my outdoor recreational time. But when the cycling itch needs scratching I always have missed long climbs and little trafic. I've tried a few rides out of town. Good stuff, but mostly rolling terrain (with great views of the ocean) mixed in with some very bussy roads that make me head back to the ocean or the mountains where I can listen to my self think.

Strangely, hiking has shown me that there are some steep and quiet roads around that could turn into an interesting ride if linked together. Recently I experimented a bit. Some of roads are dead ends and a bit of back tracking was needed to get to the next valley, but I did ended up with a 40 mile ride that was just amazing. Great views. Great climbs. Gorgeous houses. Awesome high speed cornering. And once in a while The Bus coming at me in the opposite direction taking a wide corner in a very narrow road. Loved it.

Russian Night, or Who knew caraway had such a noble purpose?

We recently got together with some friends for "Russian night."

What you see here in the photo is caraway-infused vodka (served in actual Russian glasses one of our friends had picked up on her travels).

Really, it was better than straight vodka ought to be. You drink it chilled, and the smell and taste is amazing. It isn't until after you swallow that you realize you are drinking undiluted vodka.

The menu...
H'ors d'ouevre
Smoked salmon (Alaskan, but we figured since you can see Russia from Alaska, that was close enough)
Chopped egg paté (Iaichnyi Pashtet)
Russian potato salad (a la Mendoza)
Beverage: Caraway-infused (tminnaia) vodka

First course
Borscht
Beverage: Old Rasputin stout beer

Main course
Chicken Satsivi (Tsyplionok Satsivi)
Hungarian wine (it's as close to Russian as we could get here)

Dessert
Blini, with various toppings including honey and preserves
Tea

I had actually tried to Google for info on Russian cuisine, but I didn't love the resources I was finding. So to the trusty library went I, and I found The Art of Russian Cuisine, by Anne Volokh with Mavis Manus. (I also found another book, Joyce Toomre's adaptation and translation of the Russian cookbook A Gift to Young Housewives, by Elena Molokhovets, who was sort of the 19th-century Russian Escoffier. Amazing, but not useful for our purposes.)

B and I made the egg paté, the chicken Satsivi, and the caraway-infused vodka. I would definitely make any of these again. The egg paté turned out to basically be a pretty typical egg salad, chopped really finely, with an emphasis on dill. I did follow the recipe explicitly in the arrangement: a mound of egg in the center with slices of cucumber, oil-cured olives, and sprigs of parsley alternating around the mound. The chicken Satsivi was awesome -- both texture and flavor. The Satsivi sauce is, as the Volokh book describes it, "a cold walnut sauce whose exquisite bouquet enhances poultry, fish, or vegetables." We settled on it partly just because it is recommended to serve it room temperature -- an ideal quality if you are carrying it to someone else's home for dinner.

Tminnaia Vodka (Caraway Seed Vodka), from The Art 0f Russian Cuisine

2 tablespoons caraway seeds
1 quart vodka

Mix the caraway seeds and vodka, seal, and leave for one week or more at room temperature. Strain through several layers of cheesecloth [we used a coffee filter], reseal, and refrigerate before serving.

Everyone's contributions were delish and we had a great time. I'm only sorry I ended up being too tired to stay and have a postprandial glass of tminnaia vodka!

As always with this kind of themed meal, I ended up learning heaps about a culture and cuisine I previously had known very little about.

And let's hear it for libraries!
(See, the internet is simply no substitute for books.)

From There to Kaneohe

Some time ago, we watched a real classic: From Here to Eternity (1953). This is just one of those movies that you just have to see, right? It's on those list of best movies, has big stars, won lots of Oscars, etc. While we'd seen stills of the iconic rolling-around-in-the-surf scene, neither of us had ever seen the actual movie. But the movie's local-ness intrigued us and it finally drifted to the top of the queue.

And all those lists and awards seem to have it right. It's quite a film. All those doomed romances, the troubled souls, individuals caught in events larger than them, joined with great cinematography and scenery -- hard to go wrong. Not to mention all the fabulously attractive actors -- Lancaster, Kerr, Clift, Reed.

For us, much of the enjoyment of it came from the setting. We loved that it was set and much of it filmed in Hawaii. It was fun to see Honolulu depicted with the Asian-Polynesian kitsch of it all right alongside the inescapable seediness. Watching the movie, we realized we only vaguely knew where these bases are, and afterwards, we promptly got out the map. (Okay, so if Karen Holmes and Sgt Warden are going to Kaneohe to meet, how far out of their way are they really going...?)

I'm intrigued by what I read about the original novel by James Jones (although some of what has recently been discussed is about what got cut from Jones's original manuscript). It's on the Modern Library's list of 100 best novels and was the winner of the National Book Award in 1952.
Have any of you read it?

....since 2006.

I was thinking it's due time to switch out our photo and "....since 2006" statement, and it just occurred to me tonight that I wish I'd been collecting these all along.

Ah well. No time like the present to start, I suppose. So I'll start archiving them from here on out, starting with the one I've just replaced.


Giving bad directions since 2006.

Good Night, and Good Luck: Good movie.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box.
- Edward R. Murrow, on television, in his 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA)



Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), about broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow and the CBS news room, and their decision to take sides about Senator Joseph McCarthy's tactics, is a mighty good movie.

Of course this is a simplified view of Murrow, a small part of his career, and the role he and his news team played in the reaction against McCarthy. All movies about historical events or figures, because of the constraints of effective storytelling and of cinema, are simplified. But taking it just as a movie, I had no complaints.

You see that? Yup, I said "no complaints."

The performances were great, I loved the black and white, and I was completely into the story and characters. And using existing footage of McCarthy to play himself was brilliant -- to have an actor play him, no matter how faithfully, would never have created the same visceral response in viewers who recognize or remember the actual footage.

Whether this movie is a realistic representation of events is not my topic here. Good Night, and Good Luck is a great story, well packaged. Additionally, any movie that might inspire people to look more closely at history, and as a result critically consider the present and future, more than deserves it's space on the shelf.

A better muffin paper

Again, I find myself posting about food because I had a conversation with one person (in this case, my mom) about something and figured hey, if I'm taking pictures and writing something up, might as well post it here.

I've had a total breakthrough with muffins. Well, I'm sure others have figured this out before me, but it was a breakthrough for me. I've never liked using muffin papers -- they aren't attractive and they rip off a layer of the muffin when you peel it off. And even if you grease your tin instead of using papers, you can get some attrition there too. Besides, again, the too-smooth look of the muffins from the tin isn't that aesthetically pleasing to me. You know, it's like the bread that is baked in a loaf pan, versus bread that is baked free form. The loaf has that loaf-pan look and the crust that was inside the pan is never as good as the crust on the top.

So this morning I decided to make muffins. We had many bananas all ready to go, so I made these. Quite a good recipe, if you like banana stuff (sorry Mom). Anyway, I decided to try using just plain parchment paper as muffin cups. (I had no store-bought papers, but I'd also been meaning to try it.)

I figured out how big I needed them to be to line a cup (about 4 inches square) and cut out 12. Of course they paper squares aren't that willing to get into the cups, so to fille them, I had to sort of form them to cup shape, hold it with one hand, and drop a little batter in (enough to hold it down, I added the rest after I'd gotten all the papers anchored). After a couple of them, I pretty much had the hang of it.

The results were fabulous. They were interesting looking -- so much better than those crinkly muffin cups -- and looked great all nestled together in their papers. But unwrapping them was the real surprise. Not only did they not stick at all (not a single crumb lost!), but because there is space between the batter and the side of the pan, the entire muffin comes out browned. You get this interestingly shaped, perfectly textured little muffin nugget.

It is hard not to get some batter on the papers, but I think a careful cook could do better than I did. And I might do better next time. I was happy to discover, however, that if you wanted to serve these in the papers but make it look less like a five-year-old filled the muffin cups, those little crunchies come off the paper really easily. It's takes some of the pressure off to know that you can tidy them up somewhat without much effort.

I will never go back to the store-bought muffin straightjackets. Sure, this is a little more trouble than muffin papers, sure, but payoff in the appearance and the overall quality of the muffin were totally worth it.


The muffin, unwrapped.


Paper from the side.