Music from 2007: Best and Worst

It is a brand new year, and with it springs renewed optimism – a cleaning of the slate and with it the hopes of all things fresh and new. But it is also a time of reflection of what has passed, and so I find myself scouring the “music of the year” lists. I am normally a jazz man, and it has been quite a few years since I have paid any real attention to any other genres, so checking out the indie pop, alternative, and electronic lists was like exploring an unknown landscape. Nonetheless, I just dove in, and have been buying albums left, right, and center for the last two weeks. I just love discovering hidden gems – they renew my faith in the creative process and make me want to discover even more bands and great music.

I can recommend the following albums as something special. In short I think they are awesome.

• Animal Collective “Strawberry Jam” (alternative, indie pop)
• Menomena “Friend or Foe” (alternative, indie pop)
• Supersilent “6″ (electronic)
• Inhabitants “self-titled” (alternative jazz)
• Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words “Live in Mimer” (ambient) (free download from Ideal Recordings)

The following albums are pretty decent and are worth checking out:

• Panda Bear “Person Pitch” It is decidedly cool and atmospheric, but its same-sameness and low energy keep it from the A list.
• A Place to Bury Strangers “self-titled” Some songs I just love, but the album is uneven. Definitely a band worth watching though.

And the following albums were a disappointment:

• Justice “Cross”
• Caribou “Angorra”
• Spoon “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga”
• Stars of the Lid “The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid”

To play music I think you need to be able to hear it in your head and on that note my muse is mute. However, despite lacking any musical talent myself, I think I can recognize and appreciate a talented performance – this disparity alone makes me perfectly qualified to be a critic . And I probably should state that my bias towards what constitutes awesome or great must include technical mastery in one form or another – either instrumental or compositional. It is an elitist view of the process and maybe leads to an understanding of why I was disappointed with the above. And from that perspective Justice was the biggest disappointment. I am sorry but I fail to observe any talent here, certainly not instrumental or compositional – amateur hour dj tracks. Sorry I just don’t get it.

Coffee of the week (6)

Things have been slow on the coffee front. I have just been drinking some very decent dark roasts. Nothing fancy just smooth and tasty. At some point during the last couple of weeks, due to availability and some serendipity, I decided to give Oso Negro another try.

Oso Negro:

• Prince of Darkness
• Deeply Organic
• Simply Sustainable

I bought a lb. of their Simply Organic and it was so satisfying and so smooth that I bought the other two. All the Oso Negro coffees are roasted to an oily finish – very oily – like so oily you can’t believe how oily they are. The dark roasts in my opinion are somewhat indistinguishable, but are very smooth and satisfying. If you like a nice dark roast taste without any bitterness these coffees are awesome. The Simply Sustainable is a medium roast that has more of a (duh) medium bodied flavor to it. The coffees are blended so there really isn’t any particular flavor that stands out (at least not to me). What impresses the most is the smoothness. Highly recommended. The coffees are date stamped.

Currant scones

I love scones, and this is my favorite recipe. You can add any type of dried fruit that you like. This batch includes: currants, thompson raisins, dried apricots, and candied ginger.

First, preheat your oven to 400 F.

dry ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder

Combine all the dry ingredients, then work a 1/2 cup butter into the dry ingredients until the butter pieces are pea sized. Do not overwork.

In another bowl mix together:

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1/3 cup 10% cream (half and half)

After the wet ingredients are well mixed, add them to the butter/flour mixture. At this point you should have some pretty sticky dough. Add in the 1 to 2 cups of whatever dried fruit you like in your scones. How much fruit and what types are up to you – experiment and have fun. I like more rather than less, and the candied ginger has turned out to be a real find – it adds a nice surprise and really balances the other sweeter fruit.

At this point, you will need to add a little more flour (up to 1/4 cup) to make the mixture not so sticky. You want the dough to be moist not dry. Just add enough flour so that you can work the dough into a round that is about 1″ to 1 1/2″ high.

Brush the surface with some cream or half and half and sprinkle a tablespoon of white sugar on the surface. The cream and sugar are essential to getting a nice sweet brown crusty surface.

Cut the round into 8 slices. Arrange slices on baking sheet and put in oven for 25 minutes +- 2 minuts depending upon how light/brown you like the crust.

Remove to a wire rack and let sit for 15 minutes before eating. These will keep for up to 5 days in a cookie tin. Enjoy.

Coffee of the week (5)

It has been kind of crazy the last week and half, so this update is a long time in coming. Since the last review I have sampled a bunch of single origin coffees. This makes an interesting contrast to the previous dark roasted blends I was enjoying. Early last week I would have told you that I was hugely disappointed in the single origins compared to the blends – in contrast to the blends they seemed somewhat harsh, yes they did have crazy over the top complexity and a multitude of flavors, but they didn’t come across as well rounded or finish as smoothly. But what a difference a week makes. Here are the coffees.

Novo Coffee

• Lake Tawar Sumatra

Paradise Roasters

• Guatemala CoE #2 – San Jose

George Howell Terroir Coffee Co.

• Kangocho, Nyeri, Kenya
• El Descanso, Huila, Colombia
• Golden Mandheling, Sumatra, Indonesia

I can honestly say that I was disappointed in the Novo and the Paradise Roasters offerings. The Guatemalan tasted more like a Panamanian to me with its citrusy overtones – it certainly didn’t taste like any Guatemalan I have ever had; and the Sumatra, even though it had a syrupy earthiness it also had some other flavors that just jarred. It was almost as if the coffees were trying to do too much: too many flavours, too much complexity, and all wrapped up with an unpleasant finish. As a result, I just didn’t enjoy them – complexity is one thing, but coffee should be smooth. I adjusted my grind several times to try and find a sweet spot, one that would bring out the flavors and eliminate the aftertaste, but I just couldn’t do it. Their taste profiles were a stark contrast to the blends I was still enjoying at the same time (Peets’ Major Dickason and Starbucks’ Xmas blend); it made me appreciate the ‘lowly’ blends all that more, especially when all you want is a simple good cup of coffee.

After I finished the blends, the three SO from Terroir arrived. My first impression was also one of slight disappointment. I had high expectations for these coffees – again it had to do with smoothness, but they have grown on me over the last week and now I am loving them – complex, thick tastes but smoother than the Novo and Paradise Roasters. I would order these again.

One thing I have learned is that I no longer care for straight up Sumatra as a coffee. I used to love that earthy taste – not anymore.

I also just picked up another 1/2 lb of Starbucks’ Xmas blend, and I will reiterate that it is pretty decent – there is something to be said for a yummy dark blend for that first morning or after dinner cup.

As I lay awake…

As I lay awake in bed suffering from insomnia, anxiety, and the deleterious effects of various medications (and I not trying to be melodramatic here), I often use a relaxation breathing technique to try and mellow out my brain and body. It is something that seems to work better if I try and focus on something at the same time, so I have been focusing on places that have been special to me at one point or another in my life. This seems to be a period of intense reflection in my life these days – where I am doing a lot more introspective looking back rather than creatively planning ahead, so thinking about places that were special just seems to flow naturally. Here are a few of those places:

Treeline on Mt. Lady MacDonald (Canmore, Alberta). Can’t tell you how many times I have hiked up Mt. Lady McDonald. After you break through the treeline you come out onto a shoulder where you are looking up the Bow River Valley towards Mt. Rundel and Tunnel mountain. A specacular little perch. It is not especially high or “grand”, but it reminds me of time I spent in Scotland hiking the Western Highlands. The allusion will not be apparent, but when unsettled weather created in the afternoons starts blowing in those ephemeral storms with their swirling clouds and swathes of atmospheric lighting playing off the mountains and the valley, it does seem apt.

Burstall Pass on the Smith-Dorrien road between Canmore and Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. The hike itself is nice but nothing special, but at the pass there is a little ridge that provides a view of the Spray valley with Leman lake nestled in the trees. A wide panoramic view that really lifts the spirits. For me it is a classic Rockies destination, and for extra effort you can hike down into the valley and enjoy and explore along the creek, truly wonderous stuff.

Joshua Tree National Monument. I love this place. Can’t recall how many times I visited the place before my life changed and I had my daughter. Can’t wait to take her there and share those crazy canyons and ridges.

Apple tarts

First let me apologize for the quality of the photos, my digital camera is on its last legs; however, I am getting a new one for Xmas, so relief is on the way soon.

A couple of weekends ago I made cranberry tarts, this week it will be apple. The big problem I find with apple tarts is getting the apple mixture cooked just right – ending up with a buttery brown-sugar caramel syrup instead of apple juice, which is naturally released by the cooking and which will make the crust soggy if you keep the tarts for a couple of days. My solution is to partially precook the apple mixture and thicken it up. I also prefer to use more than one type of apple, using Gala, Ambrosia, and other types like Pink Lady – mixing the tart with the sweet. It gives it a more complex taste. Here is how I make it.

Filling:

• 7-8 apples of various types
• Juice 1 lemon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 ounces cold water

Peel, then slice the apples into nice crescent shaped wedges (1/4″ thick max.). Mix the lemon juice in the with apples to keep them fresh and from turning brown.

Once the apples are cut, put the brown sugar and butter in a pot on moderate heat and cook until you have a nice thick brown syrup. This takes approximately 3-5 minutes.

Add the apples and lemon juice to the syrup and cook until the apples are partially cooked. They should release some juice and the syrup should be all watery now. To be honest I am not sure how long this takes, maybe 5-10 minutes. The point is you don’t want to cook the apples completely as they are also going to get baked in the oven. Now add just enough of the cornstarch mixture to thicken the syrup to the consistency you like. Start with half and see how well it thickens – if that is not enough add a bit more. Stir well.

The trick here is to add just enough of the cornstarch mixture so that it becomes syrupy and still pours without making it gloopy. If it thickens too much, you can also add some water to thin it out – don’t worry, it will still have a deep buttery brown sugar taste. Remove from the heat and put aside.

Time to make the dough. First preheat the oven to 400F. I use the same dough recipe that I use for my cranberry tarts and you can refer to the cranberry tarts entry for the details. Just remember not to overwork the dough.

Dough:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 ounces butter

For the cranberry tarts I used low wide tart molds, for the apple tarts I prefer to use ramekins (2″ high by 2.5″ wide). Once the dough is made, cut it evenly into six pieces and roll the pieces into 9″ circles. Carefully place the dough into the mold so that it covers the bottom and all the sides with a little left over on each side to fold over the top.

Spoon in the apple mixture.

Then fold the pastry dough so that it covers up part of the top. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the dough. Place all the tarts on a cookie sheet with edges, just in case they overflow when cooking. Put in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes depending on how brown you like the crust.

Coffee of the week (4)

After a couple of weeks of pretty exotic blends, it was time to just enjoy some regular dark roasts.

Starbucks Coffee:

• Christmas Blend

Peets Coffee and Tea:

• Major Dickason’s Blend

Island Joe’s Gourmet Coffee:

• Beemer’s Breakfast Blend

I was really excited to try the Beemer’s Breakfast blend, as I think Island Joe’s makes some of the best espresso I have ever tried and I wanted to sample some of their other offerings; however, I wasn’t too impressed. Not sure what the problem was. There was no question that it had an intriguing taste, some exotic spicyness that gave it some complexity and uniqueness and elevated it above a regular cup, but for some reason it just wasn’t smooth enough or full bodied enough for me – maybe it was an off batch. It had a really interesting taste and I will give it another try, but on this round it wasn’t good enough. The Major Dickason’s and the Christmas Blend are excellent dark roasts – good full bodied coffees that you want to have seconds of. The Major Dickason’s was a bit smoother than the Starbuck’s Christmas Blend which exhibited a bit of a bitter after taste (but only a little). Not much more I can say here other than to give the honours to Peets’ Major Dickason’s Blend.

MACAP M4 Stepped grinder review (part 2)

Well I have had the MACAP for the better part of six weeks. And there is not a lot I can add to my original assessment. One thing is for sure, it is a much better grinder than the Rancilio Rocky Doserless. The grind is much more even and I would say the resulting coffee is smoother, and this is most evident in the drip coffee I prepare. Also it has changed the tone of my espressos. One thing to note is that despite other issues, and it has them, I send far fewer shots to the sink with the MACAP – not sure how much a role the grinder plays in this, but I think that the better grind might help to smooth out my inconsistencies when I am pulling a shot. In general the grind is much more even and the resulting grounds are fluffier.

So what keeps this from being the perfect grinder for me. It has to do with a mismatch between what the grinder was designed for (presumably light commercial espresso, where you are grinding a decent amount of the same coffee all at the same time) vs what I am using it for. I drink a mixture of drip and espresso and grind on a per shot/cup basis and usually change the bean type for each cup – diversity is the spice of life right. The process of grinding the beans and getting the grind out of the grinder isn’t optimized for the single cup user. This means that I have put in a little extra work to get the grounds out for each cup I make – not a ground breaker, but noticeable after 6 weeks of use. It adds about 30 seconds worth of extra effort for each cup. Of course this isn’t the grinder’s fault; it is mine for the purchase.

My earlier comments hold. The sliding trap door at the bottom of the hopper is a pain. When retracted (allowing access to the grinders), there is a small ledge which beans collect on. And the bottom of the hopper also has a small ledge all the way round that collects beans, so one has to find a way to nudge them all into the grinding chamber. You can’t use your fingers due to a safety guard fastened about midway in the hopper. A small paint brush is perfect for the job. A couple of quick sweeps and all the beans are pushed into the grinding area. Getting the grinds out of the dosing chamber also requires extra work. Again, the paint brush comes in handy to sweep out the path from the grinders
to the dosing chamber, and to generally remove all the grinds that cling to
the central pillar and ledges of the dosing chamber.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the grinder is good, just that it isn’t a perfect match for my coffee routine. At some point I will sell this one and find one better suited to my needs.

Coffee of the week (3)

I didn’t plan it this way, but this week became an Ethiopian shootout. So not am I only Panama’ed out, but now I am Ethiopianed out as well. Here are this week’s selections:

Novo Coffee

• Ethiopian Ariche Selection Seven

Transcend Coffee

• Ethiopia Sidamo Organic

49th Parallel Coffee Roasters

• Ethiopia Sidamo Gerbicho Lela

Lets get the Transcend Sidamo out of the way, it was okay, but it didn’t inspire. It may have been an unfair comparison with the other two coffees which are premium selections, but it had a bit of an aftertaste and wasn’t all that smooth. There were some fruit overtones, but they didn’t stand out, and it just didn’t have that ‘yummy – I want to have another cup’ kind of taste. So on to the Ariche and the Gerbicho. Both of these are expensive selective offerings, and both are very different. The Gerbicho has subtle fruits, a moderate body, and is very smooth – it is an excellent Sidamo. The Ariche, on the other hand, has amazing fruit – it is the only time I have drank a cup of coffee where the fruit was front and center and this intense; it was like drinking jam (I kid you not) – the blackberry or blackcurrant just jumped out at me – nothing subtle about this coffee. And here is the real distiction. The Ariche has a much heavier body and is a much more intense experience – two cups of this in a row for me, no way, my stomach would be reeling. Yummy to be sure, just in moderation. Both of these are excellent coffees – you decide.

Home-made pizza

I am big fan of pizza, and it is a favorite meal on the weekends. I am also a firm believer that everyone should make their own crust – it is easy, tastes great, and doesn’t take much effort. The only constraint is that you need about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs to make the dough – most of this time is just for the dough to rise; in reality, you probably spend about 10 minutes actually making it. Here’s how.

Dough starter:

• 1 tablespoon Fleischmann’s active dry yeast (don’t use quick rising)
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 cup warm water

Put the yeast and sugar in a big bowl. Pour in a cup of decently warm water. Cover the bowl with a towel and let sit for 15 minutes.

Rest of dough ingredients:

• flour (as much as needed)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• more spices/seasoning (if desired)

Once the yeast has risen, you should see a nice thick foamy layer on top of the water. Add the salt, honey, olive oil, and any additional seasoning you might want. Then start adding flour and mix with a wooden spoon. Keep adding flour and mixing until the mixture is dry enough for you to start kneading with your hands. At this point stop mixing with the spoon and use your hands. Keep adding flour and working the dough until the dough stops being sticky. Now knead the dough for a few minutes – dont’ add any more flour, just keep working it. This helps the dough as it breaks down the gluten (I think). You should end up with a nice ball of dough.

Leave the ball in the bowl, put a towel over the bowl, and let it sit for an hour or hour and a half. The towel keeps the dough moist and prevents it from drying out. While the dough is rising get your toppings ready. Use whatever you like. Tonight I am using a tomato sauce, olives, red pepper, broccoli, spinach, sun-dried tomatos, salami, and feta and cheddar cheeses. Basically use whatever you like and find tasty. After the dough has risen, you are ready to roll it out.

The dough will probably require a little more flour. Sprinkle a little flour over the dough ball and put some on the kitchen counter where you are going to roll the dough out. Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to the size you need, then put it on a pizza stone (highly recommended) or cookie sheet. At this point I toss the crust in the preheated oven (400F) for about 5-7 minutes. This helps the crust to rise and bake a little so that it doesn’t get soggy from all the ingredients. I tend to layer on a lot of ingredients and this ensures that the middle of the pizza is properly cooked. Just don’t over bake the naked crust. All you want to do is have it rise a little and have the surface start to harden – no more than 7 minutes. 

Spread the sauce, layer the ingredients, cover with cheese and toss in the oven for 25 minutes.

With practice, you will get to know what spices to add to the dough to make it taste the way you want, and how much of the dough you want to use for the pizza crust to vary its thickness. Enjoy!