52 replies to this topic

[TheGreenOne]

Moth Butterfly on concrete the fucking ground.

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[jaded prol]

It's a butterfly, not a moth. Nice image though.

[TheGreenOne]

Fixed.

[Kirk]

is that really concrete?

[TheGreenOne]

A restaurant in an alley.

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[Bognoz]

Definitely not concrete.

It's striated not pebbled.

[Bognoz]

I lick the nipple

at the end of alley.

[TheGreenOne]

Fixed.

[TheGreenOne]

An office building.

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[Bognoz]

The Hollywood Squares™ set

was repurposed as an office building?

[TheGreenOne]

Kegs

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[Bognoz]

Paulaner?

DAB?

In kegs?

 

Those dead soldiers gave their lives

a long way from their mothers' breasts.

[artemis]

Good. No reason Germans should drink all the good beer.

My brother-in-law just returned from somewhere.

I guess you heard?, he said.

I heard something about Austria and motorcycles, I said.

Yeah, well, Germany mostly, he said.

Southern Germany, then. A lot of good beer there, I said.

Seemed mostly ordinary, not dark, he said.

You have to know what you're looking for, I said. People drink lightish beer everywhere.

So, you what, rented a motorcycle for this expedition?, I said.

Yeah, a Harley, he said.

WTF? Why would you go to Germany and not ride a BMW?, I said (implying, having no desire to offend, that they are faster, smoother, better than a piece of shit Harley in every way).

Yeah, well those were flying by us all day. Two and three side by side in the same lane. Are they allowed to do that?, he pondered.

[artemis]

The butterfly looked liked it was on a muscle seen through a microscope to me.  Kind of nasty really.  The thought of it being concrete was soothing but dubious.

The building, I don't like.  It looks like it should be on Okinawa, about to be destroyed by a hurricane.

The cafe puts me in mind of Ted's coming out, behind the cathedral in NOLA, but only because it's in an alley.

The kegs remind that life has often been worth living.

A good set of photos, all considered.

[TheGreenOne]

 A brewer's castle.

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[jaded prol]

Where?

[TheGreenOne]

I think that one stays inside my head most of the time.

[TheGreenOne]

Four flavors of Icee Delight

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[louchefabrik]

 It was a few months ago, but still worth sharing.

 

Edited by louchefabrik, 16 September 2018 - 09:12 AM.

[TheGreenOne]

Xit. Didn't know you were still alive.

[artemis]

I saw this on the kitchen counter.

 

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And it was good to see.  Eight days from start to finish (sourdough culture).  I'm learning.  There's more to bread than meets the eye.  Much science behind something that people have done for thousands of years, without knowing the whys and what fors - it's every bit like brewing beer.  Tastes as good as it looks, too.

 

Too bad my rennet has failed - no more cream cheese until I get a more stable product.

 

With a slab of this, and creole cream cheese, and some of the figs I preserved in July, it's all homemade (pisses me off when restaurants say that shit - in whose home was it made?).  And good for body and soul.

[TheGreenOne]

XIt, that looks really good. Probably tastes even better with the cheese and preserves.

[jaded prol]

Looks good indeed. My fig preserves are coming along too.

[TheGreenOne]

Thank you!

[artemis]

It was very good, and successful for my first try at a real sourdough culture. I turned the last of it into croutons a couple of days ago. The thing about these artisan breads is, at least the ones I've made so far, is the crust is too damned tough. It's like armadillo hide. Even a really good bread knife makes me queasy when cutting it, lest the blade slip and take off a finger. You almost need a chainsaw ...

[Kirk]

It's hard for me to get excited about a bread unless I fear it might cut my lips off

[artemis]

Indeed, although I always make this shape (a boule, the Frogs would say), because it's baked inside a cast iron kettle which is circular, this is the first time I've scored the top before baking (you need a straight razor or the equivalent - something thin and sharp enough to cut with almost no force applied) and the result surprised me a little - the resultant blooming of the top crust made the boules into caltrops - those flakes and peaks you see could cut a lip, no kidding. I agree there's nothing inviting about boring bread. Somehow a slice of white "bread" is just right with a pile of pulled pork and a shot of vinegar, but with little else.

[Kirk]

I wait for the first good tomato and then buy a loaf of white bread for a tomato sammich.

[artemis]

A very thin slice of onion can be nice with that. Unfortunately, bugs and rodents ate all my tomatoes this year. They beat me to every one before fully ripe. Hummingbird Moth caterpillars (big nasty green bastards) defoliated my habanero bush as well, but it's coming back strong with fresh new leaves, so I'm almost sorry I killed them. When I was a boy and often alone at home and hungry, what we always had was white bread, and sometimes nothing else. I would search the cabinet for things to put on the bread. Deviled ham (the one with the red devils on the white wrapper) is good with peanut butter. I kid you not. Try it. Good salty/sweet balance. And there was a type of BBQ sauce, unique to this area (can't find it anymore). It had chunks of onion and garlic and stuff in it and was not red in color. Very nice on a slice of white bread. So, I stand corrected. White bread is good. I just read that yeast isn't even used for inflating the dough in commercial white bread - they whip air into it with machines.

[TheGreenOne]

My grandfather once took a slice of white bread, rolled it up into a ball, muttered something about raw dough and threw it away. I don't eat it to this day.

[artemis]

I've done that too, but ate it anyway. You can put that ball on a fish hook and catch a fish, too. I don't buy it but I'd be lying if I said I will never eat it. There was a place near Paducah when I lived up there, in an old gas station, that smoked pigs for pulled pork. That's all they sold. They had no published hours, other than an opening time. If you got there after all the pig they had prepared for that day had been sold, it would be locked up, no explanation and no apology. A pile of pig on butcher paper, with exactly one thing to accompany it - a slice of white bread. Any other bread would have been pretentious.

[jaded prol]

Mmmm, Barbecue.

 

I used doughballs for fishing bait years ago.

[Absinthe_1900]

Since I was a kid, I can only eat white commercial bread if it's toasted.

 

Everyone said I was a strange kid.

[TheGreenOne]

Was?

[artemis]

Bebête contemplating the bats.

 

 

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[TheGreenOne]

A seafoam green coffee cup.

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[Bognoz]

I bet Bebête is waiting

for the low flying bat with one wing

by the light switch to turn

into a grounded mouse.

[Bognoz]

Sea foam green is good butt betterer

when set off by repurposed old door.

[Kirk]

Even better when lit by a tea bro

[artemis]

My daughter does the Halloween stuff. She has some floating tea light candles, but I will have to have her take a photo - her cell phone takes better photos than my ancient digital camera that was top of the line when I bought it.

 

I like the cup. Nice dregs in there, too.

 

Nothing gets a cat all trembly like a flying mouse. One night in our 100-year old house in Illinois, my wife was sleeping under our customary blanket of cats when they all turned into bouncy tiggers, going straight up into the air and coming down, like on a trampoline. She turned on the light and saw a bat fledermausing around the room - the cats had been playing SAM missile to the bat's invading their airspace.

[artemis]

Speaking of dregs, I have been seeing this daily for some time.   Espresso machines cost a lot of money, even the cheap ones.  I'm no expert, but it seems pressure is the key, and for good pressure you need a good pump.  I know a little about pumps - for the price I paid for one to power a Rotovap, I should have been able to drive it for a nice coffee somewhere.  Anyway, this thing puts out some pressure and makes the best coffee I've ever had at home (except for my mom's cafe au lait, but I don't know how much of that is nostalgia).  It foams just like in the picture, at least it does with the pods I use.  My daughter got it for nothing, but they sell for $80 or less, certainly a bargain since you can spend a thousand easily on an espresso machine.  It uses Nespresso type pods, but it sells for well less than those machines as well.  I recommend it.

 

[Kirk]

I saw a dead mouse in front of a bee hive today, stung to death while trying to find winter quarters

[artemis]

I need some bees at my place in Arkansas. A mouse set itself up in there last winter and filled a drawer with acorns, stuffing it stole out of a chair, knitting needles, colored ink markers, and about twelve other different things - anything colorful or shiny. That mouse had to work hard to round up all that stuff ...

[Kirk]

sounds like a pack rat

[Bognoz]

Knot a mouse.

Mebbe a magpie.

[artemis]

No, a rodent.

I only got a glimpse of him as he fled.

He had gnawed his way in through the wall. I blocked the hole with a piece of cedar backed up by a twenty-pound rock, and saw no trace of him after that.

I had a list of the things he had stolen; it made a nice poem all by itself.

 

Splendid Things:

Chinese brocade. A sword with a decorated scabbard. The grain of the wood in a Buddhist statue. Long flowering branches of beautifully colored wisteria entwined about a pine tree.

Sei Shonagon, the Pillow Book - some things she had seen on todays a thousand years ago.

[artemis]

Anyway, the only magpies I've seen in the U.S. were in the high plains - Idaho. None in the South for sure. I do have Phoebes - they build mud nests under the eaves every year. But they don't steal. They devastate flying bugs, though.

[Bognoz]

Magpies Über Alles,

particularly rodents.

[artemis]

U.S. magpies are spectacular birds.

 

[Hans Conried]

Anyway, the only magpies I've seen in the U.S. were in the high plains - Idaho.

 

 

I was just west of Boise a week or so ago and did a walk around the Deer Flat Wildlife Refuge. Saw some there, prior to that I'd only seen them in the UK. My first visit to Idaho, I was expecting Ohio and got Wyoming.

[Kirk]

Holy moley, it's Hans

[Absinthe_1900]

U.S. magpies are spectacular birds.

 

 

 

Yes they are.

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[jaded prol]

He lives!

 

Hans, that is.

 

Idaho is pretty wild west.