Wife received "Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine" by Joseph E. Dabney which I immediately absconded with.
What a wonderful book. So many memories brought back.
Nearly every time I think my memories of the South of my youth are nothing more than rose tinted nonsense I meet some old timer. They remind me that my memories are true. Just that the white trash appear to have taken over for now.
Anyhow, I made the sweet potato biscuits (pg. 122) for my wife and daughter. Needless to say they were a hit. Just lovely.
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Showing posts with label Simple Pleasures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simple Pleasures. Show all posts
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thoughts on stones
I've been working stones off and on for a while now. Trying this and that.
A few months ago I tried a Crystalite plated flexible lap in 400 grit and then later I picked up a 600 and 1800 grit Crystalite resin flexible laps. The 400 grit lap is astoundingly aggressive while the others are slow they aren't mind numbingly so. The 400 grit lap also improved the final shine significantly with the loose grit I had been using as did the 600 and 1800 laps.
I'm not sure why this wasn't clear to me before but loose grit, even if coarser, is very non-aggressive. I'd say it is better for polishing but very coarse grit could put scratches in the material.
These laps seem to not be very popular compared to the diamond resin wheels. I will probably replace the 600 and 1800 laps with wheels when they wear out as they seem to have a much shorter lifespan than the plated lap.
Also I've given in and bought a 80 grit diamond wheel. The 100 grit carbide wheel was driving me nuts. First it was slow enough that my mind would eventually wander off and I made stupid mistakes. Second, as it wears down and gets smaller it gets even slower. When it started to take near 2 hours to rough out agates I had enough. Well, let me tell you, that 80 grit wheel is no joke. I roughed out an agate the other day in about 25 minutes. It blasts though quartz. I'm well pleased. A good and bad thing is that it gouges (as coarser diamond grits do). This is good because those gouges tell me exactly where to apply the 220 wheel. The bad thing is I need to leave more work for the 220 wheel because not only does it gouge it also chips, so I can't get too close to the finished size on that wheel.
I had been of the opinion that I'd stick with the 220 grit wheel in carbide as I use it for a pretty short step. But two things have changed my mind 1) I have to leave more work for this wheel and carbide is slow. and 2) I really like having the gouges to show me where I need to work. The carbide wheels leave no scratches and if I've done my job well, I'll not see many facets when I move onto the 400 grit lap. Well, it isn't entirely true that the carbide wheels leave no scratches. They leave scratches that you won't see until the 600, or more often, 1800 grit step.
I don't enjoy repeating steps that I thought done.
Also re-remembered tonight that agates really like a round with tripoli after the 1800 grit diamond. Maybe put a pic up if I'm not too lazy tomorrow.
=====================
Alright this is much later than "tomorrow" but I like this stone a bit more than the one I had in mind.
Wish I put a few more lamps in place. There is some very nice depth to that stone. Filled with black and white shapes swimming around and mixing with a semitransparent coffee colored chalcedony.
I like how my hand as well as the camera shows up in the stone's gloss. As well as the ridges of the paper towel light filters on my photo box.
Really should have gotten more light on it.
=\
A few months ago I tried a Crystalite plated flexible lap in 400 grit and then later I picked up a 600 and 1800 grit Crystalite resin flexible laps. The 400 grit lap is astoundingly aggressive while the others are slow they aren't mind numbingly so. The 400 grit lap also improved the final shine significantly with the loose grit I had been using as did the 600 and 1800 laps.
I'm not sure why this wasn't clear to me before but loose grit, even if coarser, is very non-aggressive. I'd say it is better for polishing but very coarse grit could put scratches in the material.
These laps seem to not be very popular compared to the diamond resin wheels. I will probably replace the 600 and 1800 laps with wheels when they wear out as they seem to have a much shorter lifespan than the plated lap.
Also I've given in and bought a 80 grit diamond wheel. The 100 grit carbide wheel was driving me nuts. First it was slow enough that my mind would eventually wander off and I made stupid mistakes. Second, as it wears down and gets smaller it gets even slower. When it started to take near 2 hours to rough out agates I had enough. Well, let me tell you, that 80 grit wheel is no joke. I roughed out an agate the other day in about 25 minutes. It blasts though quartz. I'm well pleased. A good and bad thing is that it gouges (as coarser diamond grits do). This is good because those gouges tell me exactly where to apply the 220 wheel. The bad thing is I need to leave more work for the 220 wheel because not only does it gouge it also chips, so I can't get too close to the finished size on that wheel.
I had been of the opinion that I'd stick with the 220 grit wheel in carbide as I use it for a pretty short step. But two things have changed my mind 1) I have to leave more work for this wheel and carbide is slow. and 2) I really like having the gouges to show me where I need to work. The carbide wheels leave no scratches and if I've done my job well, I'll not see many facets when I move onto the 400 grit lap. Well, it isn't entirely true that the carbide wheels leave no scratches. They leave scratches that you won't see until the 600, or more often, 1800 grit step.
I don't enjoy repeating steps that I thought done.
Also re-remembered tonight that agates really like a round with tripoli after the 1800 grit diamond. Maybe put a pic up if I'm not too lazy tomorrow.
=====================
Alright this is much later than "tomorrow" but I like this stone a bit more than the one I had in mind.
Wish I put a few more lamps in place. There is some very nice depth to that stone. Filled with black and white shapes swimming around and mixing with a semitransparent coffee colored chalcedony.
I like how my hand as well as the camera shows up in the stone's gloss. As well as the ridges of the paper towel light filters on my photo box.
Really should have gotten more light on it.
=\
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Playing with milk
I've been making my own yogurt for a while now. I follow this recipe and use Stonyfield Farm's yogurt for starter (it makes for a slightly sweet and very creamy yogurt). I then mix in whatever berries are in season along with a bit of the jam my wife makes. That and an egg makes for a very nice breakfast.
I've also made this Vietnamese yogurt following the method outlined in the link above and again with Stonyfield Farm's yogurt for starter.Very nice but too many calories for someone on a diet.
I tried my hand at making mozzarella using this recipe. It ended up effectively being ricotta. I had thought that the failure came from the recipe. In that the prof is big into self sufficiency and has his own dairy animals and has learned exactly how acidic his buttermilk will make his curds. I then found this which more importantly brought me to this. What she is describing is what happened to me. So I took her advice and reconstituted a gallon of non-fat dried milk and replaced a pint of it with light cream. I then followed her mozzarella recipe this evening with the addition of the prof's brine bath. It behaved as described and it smelled like cheese when it was warm. I'll be trying some tomorrow afternoon.
----
I've tried the cheese and I'm pleased. It tastes like string cheese but not as dry and rubbery. The outside is very salty from the brine. I expect that to be absorbed into the cheese in the next couple days. I'm a little worried it will be a bit too salty but it's too early to tell. I soaked it about 18 hours so I'll soak it less if it is too salty.
After I made it I learned about lipase and how it will make it taste more like Italian cheese. Might play with that next.
Update: A few days later and the salt had absorbed into the cheese. Not at all salty. It does melt when used in cooking but not completely when added at the end. I think this was due to me not working the cheese until all the whey was out of it. I was concerned that it would become too rubbery (too much like string cheese) if worked too much. I suspect it would've melt if added to the dish earlier.
End result: More flavorful than string cheese but it didn't melt as easily. I'm not sure if working it more would kill the flavor.
I've also made this Vietnamese yogurt following the method outlined in the link above and again with Stonyfield Farm's yogurt for starter.Very nice but too many calories for someone on a diet.
I tried my hand at making mozzarella using this recipe. It ended up effectively being ricotta. I had thought that the failure came from the recipe. In that the prof is big into self sufficiency and has his own dairy animals and has learned exactly how acidic his buttermilk will make his curds. I then found this which more importantly brought me to this. What she is describing is what happened to me. So I took her advice and reconstituted a gallon of non-fat dried milk and replaced a pint of it with light cream. I then followed her mozzarella recipe this evening with the addition of the prof's brine bath. It behaved as described and it smelled like cheese when it was warm. I'll be trying some tomorrow afternoon.
----
I've tried the cheese and I'm pleased. It tastes like string cheese but not as dry and rubbery. The outside is very salty from the brine. I expect that to be absorbed into the cheese in the next couple days. I'm a little worried it will be a bit too salty but it's too early to tell. I soaked it about 18 hours so I'll soak it less if it is too salty.
After I made it I learned about lipase and how it will make it taste more like Italian cheese. Might play with that next.
Update: A few days later and the salt had absorbed into the cheese. Not at all salty. It does melt when used in cooking but not completely when added at the end. I think this was due to me not working the cheese until all the whey was out of it. I was concerned that it would become too rubbery (too much like string cheese) if worked too much. I suspect it would've melt if added to the dish earlier.
End result: More flavorful than string cheese but it didn't melt as easily. I'm not sure if working it more would kill the flavor.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
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