Chartcuterie 101, Dried Pork Loin, Part 2

OK, we are now two weeks downstream from rubbing our pork loin pieces with Tenderquick and putting it in bags to cure in the fridge.

Today the meat comes out of the fridge. It has become quite firm in the curing bags.

We are now going to remove it from the plastic bags and rinse it off with cold water. After rinsing it well, we are going to pat it dry with paper towels.

We have mixed up a spice mixture. The basic recipe for the spice mixture is 3 tbs sugar, 2 tbs coarse black pepper, 1 tbs ground coriander, 2 tsp garlic granules, 1 tsp mace, 1 tsp allspice and 1 tsp ground juniper berries. (This is a slightly altered version of Sweet Coppa Mixture from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn). I made a triple batch. I used my coffee grinder to grind the coriander and juniper berries.

Rub the spice mixture well all over the meat. It is a good idea to wear latex gloves while handling the meat - you really don't want the bacteria on your hands getting on the meat!

Now the meat needs to be tied up and hung to dry. I use a wood cabinet, originally intended for dehydrating foods, over a laundry sink with a dishpan full of salt water in it. The dishpan of salt water is to provide humidity. Where you live and what your natural conditions are will dictate what you do. The ideal temperature and humidity for drying meat is about 60 degrees F. and 60 - 70% humidity. The back part of my daylight basement is about 60 degrees F year round, but the humidity is too low - normally around 35%. My friend Marc Grove is able to hang meats in his garage in Apalachicola , FL, and have a suitable temperature and humidity without any special controls. A humidity of around 50% seems to be OK, and when it is up around 70%, it seems to promote mold growth, so I would not worry if the humidity were on the low end.

Here is my cheap thermohygrometer, I got it at the hardware store for about $20. I really don't know how accurate it is, but it gives some kind of idea!

We will leave the meat to dry for about 3 weeks. I will know when it is ready more by how it feels to the touch than anything else. You won't go wrong drying it for three weeks though. We will check it periodically for mold. White mold is fine but black or green mold is bad. If you get any black or green mold growing on your meat while it is drying, rub it with vinegar, pat it dry and put some more spice mixture on - and try to lower the humidity!

Stay tuned, in about three weeks, we will take the meat from the drying cabinet, slice it paper thin and vacuum pack it to enjoy - never fear, it will be consumed long before it might spoil!

Home Improvement

I'm picturing what it's like every time you renovate. There's a big hole in the wall and two paramedics. ~ Jill Taylor, Home Improvement.

Only the deal is, it is me telling Patty, you know what it is like every time I renovate, there is a big hole in the wall and we have to call a professional. But that doesn't get me off. She says, "You are man. All men can do these things." Forty-one years married, and she still says stuff like that. The sad fact is, nobody struggles with this stuff like I do. This is a vignette of A Day in the Life.

This last weekend was Memorial Day, a three day weekend, so Friday afternoon we went up to our vacation house in Birch Bay, which is where we plan to retire in about four years. She is on a tear to improve a few things before then. Our project for the weekend was to upgrade the bathroom a bit, getting rid of some water-logged Pergo flooring and jettisoning the cheap Target vanity for a nice new pedestal sink. That of course required removing the toilet, vanity and pulling up the old flooring.

I got that sucker demolished before 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning. When Patty got up, she cut the new vinyl. She has put down a couple of vinyl floors in this bathroom over the 20 years we have owned the Birch Bay house, so it should be no big deal, right? Well, the particular vinyl flooring she picked out was about as stiff as your average plastic tablecloth. But she got it cut out. When we laid it down, it was painfully obvious, more obvious than it had every been with thicker vinyl flooring, that the floor was not, you know, actually flat. But we pressed ahead, spread the adhesive, and laid the flooring. That is when we read the direction to "roll with a 100 pound roller." Huh? Never had to do that before...but now we know why, this new vinyl has more ripples than Waldon Pond.

That is the state we left it in for the adhesive to dry while we went out on our CD25 Cruiser Daydream for a quick overnighter. Our friends Russ and Toni, who have not been on vacation in the San Juans for the last couple of weeks on their CD25 Traveler, were headed for Chuckanut Bay near Bellingham, and we planned to meet them there. David buzzed up on his CD25 Anna Leigh from Guemes Island. Sundowners in the cockpit of course. Russ and Toni were down to nothing but tuna fish after two weeks of not being on vacation, so we stood the group to a grilled flatiron steak that had been marinating for two days, Rice-a-Roni (you know, the San Francisco treat), and a tomato, basil and goat cheese salad. A couple of bottles of pretty good wine appeared as well. The next morning, cappuccinos all around from the Mukka Express, a nice breakfast of pancakes, eggs and fried Spam (which I am told actually stands for "Some Parts Are Meat"), and we were all on our way. Our way, unfortunately, was back to Birch Bay where the big Home Improvement Project awaited.

Hey, those ripples in the vinyl don't look so bad, and the really big bubbles are kind of around the edges where they are hard to see. Let's get the toilet back in! Nobody struggles with this stuff like I do. I didn't really remember that you are supposed to put the wax ring on the horn of the crapper and not on the flange on the floor, so naturally I smushed the wax ring beyond recognition when I came nowhere close trying to put the horn precisely down on the wax ring. But the big problem was those stupid little studs that you put in the flange. I put some wax down to hold them in place, and tried to carefully put the nut on the stud, holding the stud with water pump pliers. No matter what I did, the stud turned and pulled up out of the slot. One hundred fifty years of flush toilets, and this is the best system we have for holding the crapper to the floor? No good advice or foolproof hints on Google. Well, since I had to go back for another wax ring (or two, just in case), I thought I would ask the experts at Home Depot.

Got my two wax rings and found the expert, who confirmed that the world would be grateful to the person who came up with a better system for holding the crapper to the floor. He did have the foolproof hint though, and HERE IT IS. Will Google search find this invaluable hint about how to install a crapper? I don't know. After you put the stupid little studs that don't stay put in the slot, you need to put a stainless washer and nut on them and tighten it up before you drop the crapper over them. That holds the stupid little studs firmly in place. Now, none of the wax ring kits include this washer and nut, and none of the hits on Google suggest this technique. But it is the foolproof way to keep those stupid little studs in the slots from moving around or pulling up when you drop the crapper over them and put the washers and cap nuts on that hold the crapper down. And a damn fine job it did! The crapper is for the first time in years securely attached to the floor - I think since the last time I did this, it had only been held to the floor by a sticky old wax ring and body weight. There was a last leak between the tank and bowl, got that staunched - I hope - by tightening the plastic screws and wing nuts that hold the two pieces together. Total time to reinstall the crapper, including aborted attempt, trip to Bellingham, getting it installed and fixing the leak - about three hours. This should be a ten minute job, I know. Like I say, nobody struggles with this stuff like I do. We are not quite done yet though - there is still the pedestal sink to install.

The pedestal sink is designed with the assumption that the hot and cold water supply and drain will be on the wall behind the sink. Only at Birch Bay, the original sink was a corner sink. The cold water supply was on one wall, and the hot water supply and drain were on the other wall. When I put the cheap little vanity in, I brought the water supply up through the floor and abandoned the pipes in the wall. The drain pipe is at a right angle to the pedestal sink. This arrangement is completely wrong for the pedestal sink, if you can picture it.

Another trip to Bellingham, where I got some really clever little flexible drain pieces. You bend one this way, the other one that way, attach the right extension, and somehow you have a drain pipe from the P trap making a right angle turn to the drain in the wall. OK, almost home free! Now I just have to lag bolt the sink to the wall! Patty marks the center of the two holes in the sink on the wall, and I drill the recommended pilot holes.

Only problem was, the lag bolts supplied were too long to fit up inside the little indentations in the bottom of the sink to go through the holes in the back, let alone get a wrench of any kind in to turn them. Scratched head over this one, then decided the only answer was - duh - shorter lag bolts. Fortunately the building center in Blaine was open, and we got shorter lag bolts. It was then actually fairly easy to bolt the sink to the wall using a box end wrench. I got the water supply and then the drain pipe connected - almost done! Patty then installed the drain pop-up dealie - and prompty stripped the socket for the bolt that holds the vertical rod in place to activate the drain pop-up. Well, we can fix that with electrical tape! I will really fix this some other time. Time to test 'er out!

Alas, where this story ends is that the sink drain was leaking somewhere high up inside the pedestal...it was too late and I was too bummed to take the sucker off the wall and start over. That will have to wait for another trip to Birch Bay.

I was going to call this "The Home Improvement Project from Hell," but that would have been an exaggeration. After all, we never had to call the paramedics...

On Computers

To err is human. To really screw things up requires a computer. ~ Little sign above my computer in the den.

I confess, I am a complete, total, computer junkie. Always have been, always will be. This is just a rant on computers since 1982, when I bought my first computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III.

I confess to being a programmer wanna-be too. When I got the TRS-80 I bought all the books on BASIC programming that I could. I grabbed BASIC program listings wherever I could find them and typed them in, saved them to the tape cassette drive, and was utterly entranced when they ran, and performed some useful or entertaining task. I learned the ins and outs of BASIC programming this way.

A year or so later I got my first PC clone with a floppy drive. A succession of more powerful computers, bigger hard drives, and faster modems followed. One day a client who was a Microsoft programmer (back when Microsoft was small) gave me a copy of QuickBASIC, a BASIC compiler, and I was off to the races!. I could write real programs that ran from DOS like commercial programs!

A bit after that, I stumbled on to a book by Jeff Duntemann called Complete Turbo Pascal. I read it in a single sitting. After flailing around with free form of BASIC, I was totally taken by the logic and structure of Pascal. Later I found Bob Ainsbury's Technojock's Turbo Toolkit, and I was in heaven. I wrote a couple of shareware programs with Turbo Pascal 4 and TTT and joined the Association of Shareware Professionals. I wrote a couple of small utility programs and most of a word processor that I never published. The main thing was I truly enjoyed the process of creating programs, the mental challenge.

I never got into C. I am pretty sure I remember reading some of Warren Keufel's articles in Doctor Dobbs Journal, although of course I never understood any of it.

For me, the zenith of PC computing was running Desqview over DOS with the QEMM memory manager. I ran a dial-up BBS called Pascal Alley for quite a few years, while programming in Turbo Pascal in another window. My word processor was XYWrite III, spreadsheet was Quattro Pro, and most of my other programs were shareware programs.

Windows ruined everything for me. Why do I say this? Well, besides the fact that it is an OS that never really quite worked, and still doesn't, the ascendency of Windows spelled the end of the tidy little personal computer that I once understood. DOS was orderly and comprensible.

DOS programs did not get "installed" or have to be "uninstalled." You simply copied them to your hard drive and they ran. Settings for programs were in human readable text files called ini files. Environment and startup commands were in autoexec.bat and hardware drivers were in config.sys. Programs came with usable user manuals. I was a happy camper. I wanted a more powerful computer, a faster modem, a slicker new program maybe, but I sure did not want to throw away everything - nothing was broken that needed to fixed.

Windows introduced a level of complexity that just took the "P" out of PC" for me. I subscribed to PC Magazine for many years. I still have stacks of back issues in the basement that I need to throw out. The first dark clouds on horizon were when PC Mag started shilling Windows 3.1. There would be a feature article after feature article on Windows 3.1, screenshots, praise for this wonderful new way of computing - and perhaps a sidebar on Desqview, which, you know, actually worked, but was sort of brushed aside. Never mind what a slug Windows 3.1 was! Never mind the frequent crashes and lockups! While PC Mag reviews dismissed out of hand many fine programs for the smallest bug, they somehow were able to overlook all of the shortcomings of Windows. Windows 3.1 was the hottest thing, the future of computing. Just a few problems, like it kept freezing and crashing for just about everyone.

Well, Windows 95 was going to fix all those annoying crashes and freezes. Of course it didn't fix anything. And with Windows 95, we got the annoying "registry," that mysterious non-human readable file to hold system and program settings. So it is now harder to check and change these settings, and woe unto you if you mess them up! You now you need a registry checker / cleaner program as well. Well, just wait for Windows 98! And Windows 98 Second Edition was actually pretty good, if you were able to handle all the device driver issues. Now, let's see, am I supposed to plug this USB device in and then insert the disk, or am I supposed to install the software and then plug in the device? Woe on you if you did it in the wrong order! How do I undo what I just messed up?

OK, never mind, Windows XP will handle all those gnarly device driver issues automatically! And XP seemed pretty cool at first. Then you notice that your computer starts taking longer and longer to boot, longer and longer to load programs, to the point where the computer hardly runs after a year, and a fresh install is the only answer. Never mind, Vista is out! Oops, my old computer is not powerful enough to run Vista, and it breaks my favorite programs.

The real problem though is the vulnerability of all versions of Windows to exploits. And it is of course your fault, dear Windows user, if your computer gets infected! You are not practicing "responsible computing" if you don't buy and keep your anti-virus, anti-trojan, anti-spyware program suites up to date, if you don't automatically install the Microsoft security patch du jour! Windows it seems is just brimming with code that allows the buffer overflow exploits tormenting users these days.

Are you going to bet on Windows 7 to fix all this? Truly, the Emperor has no clothes! I truly cannot understand how so many folks can be content with this mess! A funny side note. I love the new little netbook computers. Seems like Microsoft is planning on replacing the XP Home OS that comes on many netbooks with a stripped down Windows 7, betting that folks will pay the bucks to get the "full functionality" of Windows 7. Newsflash! People do not buy netbooks to have a tiny little computer with a 7" screen so they can buy an expensive OS! They buy netbooks to have a cheap little computer! The $299 price is the draw. Do yourself a favor when you get your netbook, the best OS for a cheap computer is a free OS! It is called Ubuntu Linux!

Windows also spelled the end of the usable user manual. The Windows "Help" files are not usually very helpful. Thick, expensive third party books, and I have bought a ton of them, sometime are useful but as often as not just regurgitate what is in the non-Help system. If it weren't for Google coming along, most of the time, my Windows computers would have been broken due to something stupid I did that I could not find how to recover from in the non-Help system.

So I put up with Windows right through the end of 2006. I don't really know why, but I got a bug up my behind between Christmas and New Year and went out and bought three Macbooks - one for Austin, one for Lydia and one for myself. There is no turning back! Now our desktop is an iMac with the big screen. No long waits to boot, no degraded performance, no anti-virus, no anti-spyware. It is slogan - but it is true. It just works. There is just a ton of open source free software for the Mac too. What I save by using NeoOffice, a free open source office suite, instead of Microsoft Office, more than covers the price difference in buying a Mac in the first place.

Which brings me to the so-called Apple "premium." Microsoft can't stand those clever "I'm a Mac. I'm a PC" spots - which make us Mac types smile, because the point of each one is always oh so true. So Microsoft has this campaign attacking the Apple "premium." Why, they ask, would you pay more for an Apple branded machine, when you can get a PC that is feature for feature equal for hundreds less? Aha! They cannot talk about the OS, only the hardware! I did not originate this thought, but in truth, there is not an Apple "premium" - there is a Windows "discount"! Yes, you can get a great piece of hardware for a lot less, but then you have to use Windows!

Now our home is almost a Windows free zone. I have several vintage PCs - I bought them all before I closed my law office, which is now five years ago, so that tells you something about how long I keep computers going. What to do with these guys? They are dual-boot machines with Ubuntu Linux and whatever version of Windows they came with, mostly Windows XP Home. I would completely get rid of Windows but there are two little Windows programs that we like well enough to keep the Windows on them. Ubuntu Linux is a completely viable free alternative to Windows. Ubuntu Linux is a topic all unto itself, which we may save for another day!

My Best Friend in the World

The only way to have a friend is to be one ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Early in our first year in the Peace Corps in Fatsa, Turkey, one evening a man from Ordu, a town a little farther east on the Black Sea, knocked on our door. He introduced himself as Can Gűrel, the owner of a tutoring business. He apologized profusely for intruding, but he hoped we wouldn't mind. He was trying to teach himself English, and was hoping we could read some sentences from his text book, English 900, into his tape recorder so he could hear how the words were supposed to sound. We were very happy to read those sentences. That was the start of our great friendship. (Note: the "C" in Turkish is pronounced like "J" in English, so Can's name is pronounced just like "John.")

Can soon invited us to his home in Ordu, where we met his wife, Nurcan, and one year old daughter Diler. We toured Ordu, had dinner, and talked and laughed a lot. With our Turkish and Can's English, we communicated just fine, even if sometimes we both had to resort to our Turkish-English pocket dictionaries. Patty and I socialized with Can and Nurcan a lot while we were in Fatsa, and the four of us became good friends. After we moved to Konya for our second year, we continued our friendship through regularly exchanging letters. Can became a Peace Corps Turkish language instructor for the group that followed ours. That group was the last group that went to Turkey, and only stayed less than a year.

When we returned from the Peace Corps, we landed jobs teaching English as a Second Language in Camden, New Jersey. That very first year we were back, John, Nurcan and Diler visited us in New Jersey. We did all the sights, and had a wonderful time, although somebody had told Nurcan that the two "must see" American cities were Pittsburgh and Baltimore! We chose to tour Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and I think Nurcan was quite put out. We did point out Baltimore as we drove by though!

Can was a very ambitious man, always seeking to learn more and better himself. Again he asked a favor that we were glad to help fulfill. He had been accepted to the MBA program at the University of Michigan, and needed a US sponsor for his visa. My parents met the qualifications and were glad to sponsor him. Can got his degree, bought a car, loaded it with US goods, and had it shipped back to Turkey.

Can became a very successful businessman in Istanbul. He was the founder of Akad, a company that imported medical instruments from Germany and distributed them in Turkey. Can and Nurcan had a house in Istanbul and a summer home on the Marmara Sea.

All throughout the years we kept in touch with letters. News of the kids, careers, family pictures. Can came to visit us in Fall City in 1991. He was alone on a business trip, and he said he could not come to the US without seeing us. Austin was five months old.

In 1993, Can and Diler visited us in our home in Fall City. Diler was now 25, and accompanying Can on another business trip. They were also going to California to see Disneyland. Can said "Please come with us!" I said that I couldn't just drop everything and take off from my job. He said "Please, how many chances do we have to spend time together?" I said he was absolutely right. I told my partners I would be gone for a few days. We bought airline tickets for LA and left on an impulse to spend time with our friends from Turkey.

We had a fabulous time! We had dinner on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. Can's travel agent in Turkey had booked him into a fleabag hotel in Hollywood - Can walked in, took one look around, and said "We have to find some place else!" Who knew Hollywood was a ghetto?!!? We found a nice hotel somewhere else! Then down to Orange County for a day at Disneyland and Universal Studios. Then we said our goodbyes, and went our separate ways - Can back to Turkey, and us to Fall City.

About a month later, I was in the file room in my law office in Issaquah. The fax machine started receiving a fax, and I smiled when I saw the Akad company letterhead start to emerge from the machine. When it was done, I was still smiling, thinking about what Can might have to say after our great trip to California together.

Instead, the letter said, "We regret to have to tell you, your good friend Can Gűrel has had a heart attack and died." Diler later wrote us a letter with more detail. Can was in Ankara to give a speech, did not feel well, sat down, and then simply fell over dead. He was 55. Diler was devastated. She wrote, "He was my father, my best friend, my everything."

Diler took over as the CEO of Akad. Our son Barrett visited Diler in Istanbul when he and his girlfriend (now wife) Laurie took an extended trip through the Middle East and Eastern Europe in 2003. We have written several letters, but we have really lost touch with Diler. One day we hope to go back to Turkey, and we will look her up for sure.

I choke up every time I tell this story. My eyes are welling up with tears right now as I type. I look back and thank the heavens that I took that last trip to California with Can. I can't imagine how I would have felt if I had decided not to go and then learned of his death. Can was truly my best friend in the world.

The Turkish Lesson

Gavur (Turkish) ~ non-believer, non-Muslim

Patty and I were Peace Corps volunteers in Turkey from September 1968 to May 1970. We were English teachers in the Turkish schools. The first year we were in a rural village called Fatsa on the Black Sea. The second year we were in Konya, a major City in central Turkey. Turkey is unique in the Islamic world. It is a shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East. Turkey has a secular government founded on the principles of democracy, equality and separation of government and religion. The founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had an astoundingly clear vision in the 1920s and 1930s of what was needed to bring Turkey into the 20th Century.

First, the government had to be free of the shackles of Islam:

"We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and our legal institutions from the bonds which, even though they are incompatible with the needs of our century, still hold a tight grip on us." —Mustafa Kemal

"The religion of Islam will be elevated if it will cease to be a political instrument, as had been the case in the past." —Mustafa Kemal

Then the state had to thoroughly repudiate the Islamic law against education or equal rights for women:

The social change can come by (1) educating capable mothers who are knowledgeable about life; (2) giving freedom to women; (3) a man can change his morals, thoughts, and feelings by leading a common life with a woman; as there is an inborn tendency towards the attraction of mutual affection."— Mustafa Kemal

"To the women: Win for us the battle of education and you will do yet more for your country than we have been able to do. It is to you that I appeal. To the men: If henceforward the women do not share in the social life of the nation, we shall never attain to our full development. We shall remain irremediably backward, incapable of treating on equal terms with the civilizations of the West." —Mustafa Kemal

The Turkish state had to be democratic:

"Republic means the democratic administration of the state. We founded the Republic, reaching its tenth year. It should enforce all the requirements of democracy as the time comes." —Mustafa Kemal

Mustafa Kemal was clear that this had to be accomplished by the complete independence of Turkey:

"...by complete independence, we mean of course complete economic, financial, juridical, military, cultural independence and freedom in all matters. Being deprived of independence in any of these is equivalent to the nation and country being deprived of all its independence." —Mustafa Kemal

Now, I dwell so long on Turkey because it is absolutely unique in the region. No other country in the Middle East is as committed to secularism, equality, education and democracy as Turkey is. But the people of Turkey are also Muslims. And we were gavurs.

Here is the thing: even in modern, secular, democratic Turkey, "gavur" does NOT simply mean "non-believer, non-Muslim." It is not nearly so neutral or descriptive. Even to our educated, polite Turkish friends, "gavur" is derisive, pejorative, and actually means "infidel dog." Now, there is a huge difference between having people view you as merely a "non-believer," sort of the way followers of different religions view each other in the West, and having them view you as an "infidel dog." You can perhaps tolerate non-believers. Infidel dogs on the other hand are are beneath contempt. The Turks did not particularly want us infidel dogs in Turkey as Peace Corps English teachers. A fair number thought we must be spies. The US has or has had a large military presence in Turkey, and this really rubs even ordinary Turks the wrong way. We remember one big banner sign we saw in Konya shortly before we left in 1970: "Americans Get Out of The Turkey." The banner writer should have studied harder in English class, but the sentiment was not lost on us. We heard more than once "We like you as people but we don't like you as Americans." Patty has said she wished she were quick enough on her feet to reply "We like you as Turks but we don't like you as people."

Now, let's look at Iraq - not whether it was right or wrong to invade, but in the context of the Iraqis as Muslims, and the invading Americans as gavurs - foreign infidel dogs. Unlike Turkey, Iraq is a country a with a history that is not secular, where equality of women is a laughable idea, where sheiks, kings, ayatollahs, and mullahs (and one pretty repressive dictator, but that is just a second in the continuum of time) are all they have known and "democracy" is just a foreign word. The foreign infidel dogs on Iraqi soil are not just Peace Corps English teachers either - they are invading soldiers with planes, tanks and guns. Iraq has been invaded by foreign infidel dogs, and that is a plain fact known to every Iraqi. And years later, the gavurs are still there. Any Iraqi would tell you that Iraq is now occupied by foreign infidel dogs. This is an intolerable state of affairs to Muslims.

The Bush people tragically miscalculated, they could not understand how the US troops would necessarily be viewed in Iraq as gavurs, foreign infidel dogs, and not liberators or saviors of the people of an Islamic state.

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions about Obama's strategy in Afghanistan. It is a different place, different motives. Bin Laden. al-Qaida. 9/11. The Taliban. But if the President does not realize that we are gavurs - foreign infidel dogs - just as much in Afghanistan as we are in Iraq, and he seems not to, since he talks about wanting to achieve our goals by "partnering" with actors in the region, it is not hopeful. Go kill Bin Laden, take out al-Qaida, do whatever is necessary, but do not be deceived about how we are viewed there by Muslims.

How could Bush not understand why Iraqis would not throw flowers at the feet of foreign infidel dog invaders? Why does Obama not understand trying to "partner" with the Afghans is futile? That is the Turkish lesson. They don't know the real meaning of "gavur."

Charcuterie 101, Dried Pork Loin, Part 1

And now for something completely different! ~ Monty Python's Flying Circus

Charcuterie: The art of curing, smoking and drying meat

You might think my life revolves around C-Dory boats the the C-Brats web site...well, actually it does, but today I did something different. My friend Marc Grove of Wefings Marine, the C-Dory / Ranger Tug dealer in Apalachicola, FL, got me going on a couple of fun hobbies - coffee roasting and charcuterie. If you are thinking about buying a C-Dory or a Ranger Tug, you might as well buy it from Marc! Anyway, today I started another batch of our favorite, dried pork loin. I took some pix in case this appeals to anybody else.

This is pretty easy, you only need some pork loin, some Morton Tenderquick cure (available in many supermarkets), some gallon ziplock bags, and a place to hang the meat after it is cured. It needs to cure for about two weeks in the fridge and then hang for about three weeks to dry.

I started with a Costco pork loin, $1.85 a pound, about seven and half pounds for $13.82. The goal here is to find cheap pork! I have bought pork shoulder (Boston butts) for between $0.89 and $1.49 a pound for sausage and coppa. Loin is usually a little more, but anything under $2.00 is good, especially since the finished product retails for $20 a pound or more!

I cut the large piece into three pieces, because of the size of my drying cabinet. I usually wear latex gloves when I handle raw meat, since, well, it is just more sanitary.

Then I rubbed it with Tenderquick. Tenderquick is a salt, sugar and cure (sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate) mixture.

How much Tenderquick? Well, I really don't know, I don't measure, I just use enough to coat it well until it looks like this.

Finally it goes into the gallon ziplock bags and into the fridge.

It will stay in the fridge for two weeks, getting turned over every other day. The cure will draw the moisture out of the meat, and it will firm up considerably.

So the next installment of Charcuterie 101 will be in about two weeks, when we will coat it with a spice mixture and hang it! Stay tuned!

What's in a Name?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Definitions of "brat" on the Web ~ a very troublesome child

I have mentioned the C-Brats several times already. It's a web site, a "home for C-Dory people." It is our repository of technical knowledge, our market place, our photo gallery, and more - but most of all, it is where we communicate daily about our boats, motors, electronics, destinations, aspirations, economics, current events, kids, dogs, and sometimes politics. No rules. Just be nice.

But it is a pretty weird name - "brats"? It might be sausage cooked in beer but it isn't. My friend Roger Johnson suggested that it might mean:

C = C-Dory

B = Boating

R = Recreation

A = And

T = Technical

S = Symposium

Mike Barber, Tyboo, says he REALLY likes that one!

But it isn't that either. What is it? OK here we go.

When I first saw a C-Dory in Active Cove at Patos Island that fateful fall day in 2002 and started my Internet research, I did not come upon C-Brats, because at that time it did not exist. Instead I found a site on MSN called C-DOGs (C-Dory Owners Group). My friend Brock Arnold (Catman) recalls my first post: "I don't know when, I don't know how, but one day I will have one!"

But all was not peace and harmony on C-DOGs. The Grand Poohbah, a guy named Dale, Fishwisher, had lots and lots of rules. Hey, it was his site, he owned it, and he had every right to make rules. I guess it is up to the user community whether they like the rules or not, or like the site enough to follow the rules. As it turned out, they didn't.

Now, a whole lot of us know Greg Davidson - his 1985 Classic C-Dory Redfox is legendary and Greg's exploits in Alaska are legendary too. Greg and Redfox were featured in the 2004 C-Dory brochure. Greg is a pretty independent guy and got in trouble a few times with the Poob, for heinous offenses like posting nature photos instead of boat photos. Greg started referring to himself as a "C-Brat," and it was absolutely in the "troublesome child" sense of the word! The original C-Brat!

Mike Barber started another MSN site called C-Brats mainly as a place for Greg to post his pictures that the Poob did not allow on the C-DOG site. Greg finally committed one last heinous crime - he inserted a photo in a post. This was against the rules and the Poob called Greg out publicly on it. Mike stood up for Greg. Greg, Mike and some others got booted off the C-DOG site. Mike registered the name C-Brats.com. C-Brats, it seems, was born out of stupid rules on C-DOGs.

For a while, I really don't remember how long, there were two MSN sites for C-Dory owners. A few folks participated in both. But little by little, C-Brats surpassed C-DOGSs. Then, computer guru extraordinaire, Bill Geiss, Da Nag, created the current C-Brat site, with the phpBB software, with a lot more bells and whistles and functionality compared to the MSN sites. Now 3,600 plus users strong, and growing daily, the MSN sites could not compete with the forums (fora?), galleries, searches, maps and all the rest of the phpBB C-Brat site. The rest is history. C-DOGs withered and died. MSN ceased to exist. C-Brats flourishes!

So, that is it - the true story of the C-Brats!

I took this picture of Mike at Blakely Island in 2003 - epitomizing the true spirit of the C-Brat

No More Vacations for Russ and Toni

Definitions of "vacation" on the Web:

Leisure time away from work devoted to rest or pleasure; "we get two weeks of vacation every summer"; "we took a short vacation in Puerto Rico" ~ wordnet.princeton.edu

We just returned from a CBGT (C-Brat Get Togther) at Friday Harbor Marina with about 40 of our closest friends. Barry and Patti put the event together, and just as last year, it came off without a hitch. It was a wonderful Friday afternoon through Sunday morning escape on Daydream, with the highlight being the traditional Saturday night potluck. I will probably have some more to say about CBGTs I'm sure, but that is really not my subject today. It is vacations.

This CBGT was a mini-vacation for us. I worked on Thursday, took Friday off, had the weekend, and then Monday morning I was back at work. It was, I think, the fact that I had to go back to work on Monday that was the essence of the long weekend being, you know, a "vacation." In July we are going to take a week's vacation for two CBGTs, one in Bellingham and another in Nanaimo, BC, a week later, with a few days at Birch Bay and a few days cruising in-between. In September we are going to take a two week vacation for a CBGT at Lake Powell, Utah. Vacations. Time away from work.

Russ and Toni came up from their home in Longview, Washington, for the Friday Harbor CBGT. They have a good-looking C-Dory 25 Cruiser named Traveler. We enjoy the heck out of their company. After Friday Harbor, they say they are going on a "vacation." This is impossible for Russ and Toni. Russ and Toni, you see, are recently retired. Now, I readily admit that they are busy and have lots of "projects," like building their 40' x 70' pole building or whatever. They may be busier now than they were when they were working. A lot of retired folks say that. But since they don't go to work, tomorrow, next week or ever, the concept of a vacation as time away from work just doesn't apply to them. They can be on a "trip" or on a "cruise" or "away." But the one thing they can't be on is "vacation."

You don't have to feel sorry for Russ and Toni because they (and lots of other of our Brat friends) can never take another "vacation." They are retired. They can go where they want to, when they want to, and stay as long as they want to. They can go to the Sea of Cortes or cruise the Great Loop for a year. We would choose being retired over being able to take vacations any day. We need one of those backward countdown widgets to December 31, 2013 (or maybe 2012, if we can figure it out). But we aren't retired, and so for now, we have to be content to look forward to our real, authentic vacations. I will not miss being able to take vacations! But vacations are reserved for those of us who are still slogging off to the salt mines!

Reflections on Trading Money for Time

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

As the sands through the hourglass, so too are the days of our lives. ~TV Soap Opera

Nobody knows what the future holds. My dad, Grant Anderson, worked into his 70s. All he wanted to do after he retired was to ride around on a motorcycle with me. He bought a little Yamaha 250, and took the written test for his motorcycle endorsement. On the day before he was supposed to take the driving test, at age 73, he had a stroke from which he never really recovered. He never rode that motorcycle with me.

We are very envious of the adventures of many of our C-Brat friends. Jim and Joan cashed in everything in Spearfish, South Dakota, and now divide their time among a home on a canal on South Padre Island on the tropical tip of Texas, their luxurious Hitchhiker 5th wheel and their CD 25 cruiser, Wild Blue. Ron and Anne cashed in everything in Vancouver, B.C., and headed out on the road with their camper and CD25 Meander in tow. Last we heard, they were headed for the Sea of Cortes. And there are lots of other stories.

Trading money for time. Cashing it all in in your 50s, or earlier, to enjoy whatever time is left to each of us. What an alluring idea!

Nobody has done it better we think than our friends Bill and El Fiero. The story of how they got started is on the "Launching" page of Halcyon Days. Basically, the drill was to figure out how much would be coming in from all sources after liquidating everything and limit outgo to income. Zero-based budgeting. Needs versus wants. (But really, Bill, I have watched your computer boot up - you NEED a Mac!). They did indeed lead the nomadic life, living between a 22' C-Dory and camper on their pickup truck, until they decided they needed a "safe haven," and ended up in a Lakewood, CO, condo - fortunately, as it turned out, when Bill had his stroke. They traveled virtually every navigable waterway in America. They still are able to be on the road in their CD22 Halcyon a great deal of the time, going where fancy dictates.

The key in every case, though, was that the kids were out of the house. We had our first (Barrett) in our early 30s, our second (Lydia) in our mid-30s, and our last (Austin) in our mid-40s. Cashing it all in in your 50s is not really an option with a kid in school!

But now Austin is nearly 18, a senior in high school, on his way to college as a Running Start student with a year of college credits. Dare we dream of his graduating in three years instead of four - or five? We need to see him through college, and the simple fact is, we still use money...and I am really lucky, I know it is heresy, but I enjoy getting up and going to work every day, I work with great people, and I am fairly well compensated. Still, work does get in the way of the Great Adventures!

For us, trading money for time is not for a decade or two but for a year or two. But nobody ever said on their death bed "Gosh, I sure wish I had worked a year longer." Trading money for time - still an alluring idea!

Larry Filler and Nancy Johnson Visit Us in Snoqualmie Valley

OK, a non-C-Dory article today.

This was going to be really easy to write. But it got a little more complicated midway through yesterday afternoon.

Larry Filler is my classmate from Rutgers Camden School of Law Class of 1975, and Nancy Johnson is Larry's wife, also a Rutgers Camden Law grad. Larry and Nancy live in Princeton, New Jersey. We last saw each other 29 years ago. Larry and Nancy were our good friends in New Jersey when we lived there. We had exchanged annual Christmas cards over the years, but it is truly amazing how easy it was to pick up right where we left off after all these years. Good friends are good friends forever!

Larry was in Seattle to speak at the American Public Transportation Association conference. He is the President and CEO of a New York non-profit called Transit Center, Inc., which helps employers provide a federal transit tax benefit to employees. Larry was instrumental in getting the law through Congress to allow this benefit. He walks the walk, too - he takes a train from his home in Princeton, NJ, to his office in Manhattan, a 50 mile daily commute.

We had a delightful day. We toured the Snoqualmie Valley sights, including Snoqualmie Point Park, Snoqualmie Falls, and of course lunch at the the world-famous Snoqualmie Brewery and Taproom! We came back to our house to plan the remainder of their stay here. We got out the maps and fired up the trusty Macbook, and they now have ferry tickets to the San Juans and reservations for a cottage at Roche Harbor. Hopefully they will find time for a day in Victoria, B.C. We finished up the day taking them back into Seattle and we had a fabulous dinner together at Wild Ginger, arguably Seattle's best Pan-Asian restaurant.

So what was so complicated? Well, I am not sure how it came up, but while touring Snoqualmie Ridge, we heard a horrific tale. Larry, it seems, was in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He told a truly spell-binding tale. His office was on the 25th floor of Two World Trade Center. That morning, he was in the basement of One World Trade Center at the ATM machines, when literally all hell broke loose. Eye witness to history, and lived to tell about it. He wanted to go back to Two World Trade Center to make sure his employees were all OK, but the police made Larry and everyone else get away from the scene. Fortunately, all his employees got out OK. Larry encountered a person he knew on the street, all covered in debris, and took him to a restaurant restroom and got him all cleaned up. Somehow Larry got to Penn Station and on a train back to New Jersey. An amazing tale. It of course dwarfed everything else we had done or talked about all day. Larry related it all in his typical understated way.

And they never mentioned it in the annual Christmas card - of course it would be hard to work it in to news about the family! Just one of the most significant events in history, and my good friend Larry was an eyewitness to it all. Patty and I were just stunned as we were listening to think of how it might have turned out differently, how Nancy might have been writing to tell us about how Larry didn't get out OK. Fate is fickle, and we are so glad this had a happy ending for our friend!

No good way to close so I will just say "OUT."