A baking and gardening journal. Mostly.
By Iron Chef Leftovers
This is the kind of reaction that Mrs. Iron Chef would have in this situation. I never understood why people get upset when their food comes from a whole animal. Does not realizing what you are eating had a head and tail and used to be moving make it better?
Anyway, from Pearls Before Swine, August 18.
by A.J. Coltrane
Where do NFL teams target when they throw the ball?
and
What’s remarkable is just how short the average pass attempt travels in the air — only 31 percent travel more than 10 yards . (More on that in the link.) It’s an ESPN/ Grantland/ The Triangle/ Kirk Goldsberry piece. There’s lots more detail (and neat graphics) in the article.
Here’s a link to Kirk Goldsberry’s archive page. He does a lot of similar stuff that involves the NBA, NFL, and specific player tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses. For example, here’s a piece focusing on what was going right and wrong for LeBron James during last year’s Finals. “There Is No Red Zone – The NFL’s Scoring Myth” looks at expected points based on down and field position and asks why announcers talk about “The Red Zone” like it’s something significant.
It’s stats! It’s cool graphics! Win + win!
by A.J. Coltrane
Previous post here.
The tomatillos got pruned earlier in the week. Yesterday the tomatoes and cucumbers received the same treatment. I also trained the cucumber vines towards the “front” — the whole box has been leaning “back”:
The lemon cucumbers are nearly done:
By Iron Chef Leftovers
One of the best things about joining the NW Peaks Mountain Beer club with a friend (in this case Annie S.), is that you don’t need to decide which of the 2 beers that NW Peaks is producing that month you are going to take home, you just take both. The added benefit is that when they are 2 similar beers, you get to try them side by side. Back in March, they did “adjunct beers”. I know the term, thanks to Budweiser, has a bad connotation, but the reality is that any beer brewed with more than just grain, water, yeast and hops contains adjuncts and many of them are delicious. This project gave us the Granite Oat Ale (reviewed here) and the Esmeralda Ale.
From the NW Peaks website:
The name. The mountain. Esmeralda is located in the Teanaway River drainage just S of Ingalls peak and SW of Mt Stuart – one of our favorite areas. It’s on the other side of the Teanaway River from its beastly neighbors and is a much easier approach/climb than that of it’s neighbors. The “class 2″ trek to the summit offers some great views of the massive Mt Stuart and the Stuart range and is part of a great loop for a day hike.
The story of two experiences. Because of its popularity from past renditions, we bring Esmeralda Ale back for another late winter mountainBeer. Of course it is always fun (or not) to remember the comedy of errors that was our first batch brewed on our current system (Esmeralda Ale), while now we have everything dialed in.
The Beer. Esmeralda is one of our ‘adjunct’ beers for March. The adjuncts in Esmeralda are corn and molasses that create a unique character. The corn provides a nice sweetness and smoothness and complements the molasses notes. Esmeralda was fermented with an English ale yeast adding a smooth fruity flavor on top. With very little few hop notes, the slight grain sweetness and dark sugar properties are uniquely featured.
Malts: ESB, munich, corn, special B, biscuit, carafa 2. Hops: Apollo and Goldings. Fermented with British Ale yeast. OG/TG 1.058/1.016 ~5.5% ABV
The beer pours amber/orange with a fizzy white head. Strong notes of molasses, corn and malt are on the nose, giving this beer an almost syrup like character. The initial taste is slightly sweet with hints of molasses yielding quickly to strong notes of corn before transitioning into a malty finish that lingers and has notes of caramel interspersed. Nicely balanced, flavorful and different; probably not a beer that everyone will enjoy, but it should appeal to a larger audience because of a distinct lack of hop character. This beer is very different from just about anything that is on the market from any other brewery in the Northwest, so I would highly recommend trying this one if it every makes another appearance.
NW Peaks Esmeralda Ale gathers up a crew and skips in with 3 yellow brick roads out of 5.
By Iron Chef Leftovers
A few months ago, I managed to review the 3 fruit porters from Populuxe and just realized that I never actually posted the review for the base Brown Porter. In an attempt to correct that, here is that review.
The beer pours almost jet black in color. Notes of chocolate, coffee and roasted malt appear on the nose in such a way that it almost reminds me of a cappuccino. The initial sip yields some surprising yeast character before moving to the heavier flavors – notes of chocolate and lightly roasted malt dominate before yielding their position to a slightly sweet, long and pleasant coffee finish that is not terribly overpowering or bitter. As the beer warms, a light of hop character becomes noticeable – slightly floral and slightly bitter but well-balanced in the beer.
The Populuxe Brown Porter is not currently available on tap at the brewery, but it will hopefully be back soon as the season turns from summer to fall.
The Populuxe Brown Porter carries your bags in spectacularly with 4 bellhops out of 5.
by A.J. Coltrane
Previous post here.
I decided that the tomatillos were due for a pruning on Tuesday. There were a lot of yellow leaves in the understory, and a lot of unripe fruit was just dropping off of the yellow vines. I figured pruning off everything that looked sick would leave more sun for the healthy plants, including the tomatoes in the adjacent box. Anything that was yellow was targeted. So I pruned and pulled and pruned and pruned and was left with one healthy plant, and one stump. The weaker of the two plants had basically completely crapped out, but I didn’t realize it until I physically stuck my head into the plants and started cutting.
I also pruned out all of the little runners and new blooms. I don’t think that there’s time for anything totally new to make it all the way to fruition. It really cleaned up the mess, and both the remaining tomatillo and the tomatoes should benefit.
On the bright side, I found another five pounds of tomatillos that had been hiding within the vines.
I had no idea that many tomatillos were in there. It was “Here’s one. And here’s one. Here’s another…”
In retrospect though, it makes sense. The two plants were purchased at basically the same size, but the surviving plant started growing way faster, and the weaker plant started growing, then needed more support because it wouldn’t stand up under it’s own weight. The imbalance was compounded by the fact that the stronger plant was in position to get much more sun, since the weaker one was sandwiched between the strong one, the lemon cucumbers, and the tomatoes.
One winter project is going to be figuring out a layout for next year that maximizes sunlight for everything involved. Live and learn.
—–
Late edit: Today takes it to 112 pounds of stuff for the year!
By Blaidd Drwg
“How about global therm0nuclear war?”
No, well how about this?
Let’s say the season ended on September 3rd and we were going to vote on the Cy Young Award. Here are the AL WAR leaders according to Baseball-reference. Com:
|
1. |
Sale (CHW) |
6.2 |
|
2. |
Scherzer (DET) |
6.0 |
|
3. |
Iwakuma (SEA) |
5.5 |
|
4. |
Hernandez (SEA) |
5.2 |
|
5. |
Sanchez (DET) |
5.0 |
|
6. |
Darvish (TEX) |
5.0 |
|
7. |
Quintana (CHW) |
4.1 |
|
8. |
Kuroda (NYY) |
4.0 |
|
9. |
Holland (TEX) |
3.9 |
|
10. |
Buchholz (BOS) |
3.9 |
Let’s assume that is all of the contenders for the award. It is a pretty big spread between 6.2 WAR and 3.9 WAR, so let’s eliminate anyone with a WAR below 5.0. That leaves us with this:
|
1. |
Sale (CHW) |
6.2 |
|
2. |
Scherzer (DET) |
6.0 |
|
3. |
Iwakuma (SEA) |
5.5 |
|
4. |
Hernandez (SEA) |
5.2 |
|
5. |
Sanchez (DET) |
5.0 |
|
6. |
Darvish (TEX) |
5.0 |
While Iwakuma’s total numbers are good, he really has been pretty pedestrian since about mid-June, so let’s take him off the list. Besides, Felix is really the guy you would rather have on the mound for the Mariners anyway. I am going to eliminate Sanchez for a similar reason – he isn’t the best pitcher on his team. That leaves us with Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez and Yu Darvish.
Here is how they stack up:
| W-L | ERA | SO | WHIP | ERA+ | |
| Chris Sale | 10-12 | 2.97 | 199 | 1.055 | 144 |
| Max Scherzer | 19-2 | 2.88 | 209 | 0.940 | 146 |
| Felix Hernandez | 12-9 | 3.01 | 200 | 1.132 | 122 |
| Yu Darvish | 12-6 | 2.73 | 236 | 1.025 | 151 |
While Felix is having a good season, he hasn’t been dominating, so he probably finishes #3 or #4 in the voting with Chris Sale occupying the other spot. Sale has been outstanding, but voters will be turned off by his 10-12 record. That leaves it as a battle between Scherzer and Darvish. Both pitch for teams that are heading to the playoffs. Scherzer has benefited from outstanding run support, but he has also been pretty dominating in his own right – his WHIP leads the AL (Darvish is 3rd), he is giving up just under 6.3 hits per 9 innings (Darvish leads the AL with 6.1 per 9), he has a 4.5 to 1 strikeout to walk ration (good for 5th in the AL, Darvish is 8th at 3.9) and has the highest WPA of any starting pitcher in the AL. With how close the stats are between Darvish and Scherzer, it is going to come down to wins for the voters and that 19-2 record looks awfully nice, so Scherzer would win the award.
Given that, I have no idea what Jim Leyland is complaining about.
Maybe a nice game of chess is in order.
by A.J. Coltrane
The tomatillos have been cranking out fruit. Four and a half pounds of the stuff were dominating the kitchen counters. It was time to make a salsa. It was time for a Rick Bayless recipe.
In short- it’s roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, and garlic, blended with water and cilantro. Minced white onion and salt are added at the end.
There were enough tomatillos for 9 batches of the Bayless recipe. (At 8 ounces of tomatillos, a Jalapeno, and two cloves of garlic per recipe batch.) To keep it manageable it got broiled it in 3 x 24 ounce groups:
I just noticed — everything got scaled properly except the garlic. Each of those batches should have six cloves of garlic, not two. Oh well.
Removed to bowl to cool:
Then the blending. Then the onion and salt. If I had it to do over again I would have used less than the recommended amount of water and added it later if I felt the salsa was too thick. As it was, I felt like the salsa was a vaguely loose.
Overall though, it went over well. This is the new go-to green salsa recipe.
by A.J. Coltrane
The tomatillos have been cranking out fruit. Four and a half pounds of the stuff were dominating the kitchen counters. It was time to make a salsa. It was time for a Rick Bayless recipe.
In short- it’s roasted tomatillos, jalapeno, and garlic, blended with water and cilantro. Minced white onion and salt are added at the end.
There were enough tomatillos for 9 batches of the Bayless recipe. (At 8 ounces of tomatillos, a Jalapeno, and two cloves of garlic per recipe batch.) To keep it manageable it got broiled it in 3 x 24 ounce groups:
I just noticed — everything got scaled properly except the garlic. Each of those batches should have six cloves of garlic, not two. Oh well.
Removed to bowl to cool:
Then the blending. Then the onion and salt. If I had it to do over again I would have used less than the recommended amount of water and added it later if I felt the salsa was too thick. As it was, I felt like the salsa was a vaguely loose.
Overall though, it went over well. This is the new go-to green salsa recipe.
By Blaidd Drwg
For clinching their first .500 record since George Bush (the first one, not the second one) was still President and some guy named Bonds was roaming the outfield at Three Rivers Stadium, on astroturf.
FlatbreadGarden 