Jamie Innis from the Dexter 4-H on raising chickens, for all you Ann Arbor city kids whose parents think it might be a good idea for you to have a project.
Story at the Ann Arbor News by Judy McGovern.
Blueberry Muffins (Ann Arbor Cookbook, 1904)
Compiled by the Ladies’ Aid Society of the Congregational Church
Ann Arbor, Michigan: George Wahr, 1904
Cream one level tablespoon of butter and 1/3 cup of sugar together, add 1 egg, a scant 1/2 cup of milk, 1 cup of flour and two tablespoons more measured level, a pinch of salt and 2 level teaspoons of baking powder. Mix well and then stir in carefully 1 cup of blueberries.
--
From the "Ann Arbor Cooks" collection at the Ann Arbor District Library.
We get our milk from Calder Dairy, which delivers (Stan is the milkman). Here's a short Youtube tour of their dairy farm downriver.
Since the storm is coming, I'd remind you of this page I'm collecting snow poetry on. ORD was showing 5 hour delays a few minutes ago and there are expectations of 6-10 inches.
UPDATE: Wednesday, March 5 2008. Ann Arbor Public Schools closed. Check the Arborwiki sledding page for your favorite place to slide.
UPDATE: Thursday, February 7 2008. WWJ Radio has a comprehensive schools closed list for SE Michigan. In the area already closed are several schools in Livingston Co (Brighton, Howell, Pinckney) but no news yet for Ann Arbor. Some snow day reading for kids to inspire you.
UPDATE: Friday, February 1, 2008 The Ann Arbor Public Schools are closed today.
UPDATE: Snow depth maps daily from Weather Underground
UPDATE: NOHRSC is "the ultimate source of snow information"
Ann Arbor snow day hotlines by telephone:
Ann Arbor City snow desk 734-994-2359
Ann Arbor Public Schools closing info 734-994-8684
For Ann Arbor school closings information, consult your second grader, who is planning a play date. If you don't know about that you can check the Ann Arbor school closing information page which says in part:
Inclement weather may require closing schools or changing school schedules and bus routes. The decision is made after an early inspection of road conditions and school facilities, as well as current or forecasted weather conditions. When schools are closed or schedules and/or bus routes are changed, information is sent immediately to the major radio and television stations-by 6:00 a.m. if at all possible.
February 5 is Paczki Day, and the authoritative source of information on this day is the Hamtramck Star's Keyword(s): paczki collection.
If you know of good Paczki in Ann Arbor, Arborwiki would like to know abou them. On my block downtown they are being sold at Amadeus.
If you have a kindergartener starting in the fall, it's time for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Kindergarten Roundup schedule. The Burns Park dates are 2/11/08 and 2/19/08, and if you have any questions as a new parent to the school I'd be happy to help find someone to answer. The 2/11 date is National African American Parent Involvement Day, which was founded by Joseph Dulin:
"Every parent wants their child to have a better quality of life than they themselves had. It is the American dream, and for many African Americans, this dream has not been realized as a result of their child's failure in school. Education is the key to success and parents are educators' greatest allies." Joseph Dulin
That's it for tonight.
It's January, which means no farmer's market basil until July or August. Not too early to start thinking about it, though, especially thinking about how to grow your own - perhaps using a hoop house to speed the process along. Here's some preliminary research to share.
http://mdmintake.blogspot.com/2006/08/basil-anyone.html
Brooke and I had a great time at the farm this afternoon. And by great, I mean I now know why Tricia is always wearing carhartts, a straw hat, gloves and boots. The weeds on the farm? Not so much like the weeds in our garden.
http://deberosahomestead.wordpress.com/2007/12/09/portable-hoop-house-construction/
This year we built a portable hoop house on Deberosa for tomatoes and basil. It was fairly successful but as you can see from the storm post, it didn’t survive an extremely bad wind. I think it would have survived it the rain did not make the ground so soft that the rebar simply pulled out of the mud. Oh well, we’ll rebuild for next year - it will just be a little shorter and perhaps oriented lengthwise to the prevailing wind.
http://quetzalfarm.com/tour.htm
Early in the spring we plant basil and cucumbers in our hoop house. It is significantly warmer than outside, allowing us to harvest much earlier. The basil will grow into fall.
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/beginning_farmers/0603/greens2.shtml
Basil’s really the only herb to which we give much attention, and it responds well. It flourishes in the heat of the hoop. Keep cutting back the terminal buds and it’ll bush out. Give it an occasional shot of fish and it may produce for months.
http://www.vpi.org/urban_farm.html
ReVision Urban Farm is an organic micro-farm whose guiding vision is environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable urban agriculture. The farm grows a wide variety of food crops on three reclaimed urban lots totaling one-acre of growing space. The farm enhances the delivery of nutrition services throughout our community and increases local awareness of the social, environmental, and economic benefits of sustainable urban agriculture.
Bob, Kim, Margaret and I went out for lunch at Maru today. Bob and Margaret had the bi bim bop, and Kim had a bento with spicy chicken (and a side of macaroni). I had the galbi tang, a big bowl of steaming delicious beef short rib soup for $9.
We talked about a bunch of things, and it was pleasant.
Maru is about $1 or $2 per dish more than Seoul Korner was, and for that extra you get table service, somewhat bigger portions, more banchan (we had 4 for 4 people), and a broader menu. I'm really happy with the lunch I had, and I'll go back. They did a little bit of remodeling in the restaurant to expand a bit and to provide indoor access to the bathroom. One thing I noticed is that the romanization of the hangul is different from most other Ann Arbor Korean places, so it's "galbi tang" on the menu instead of "kalbi tang" that I'm used to. (갈비탕)
There are a few reviews on Arborwiki, and there's a mention of Maru in Kitchen Chick's post on Ari Rang, and one Yelper has been there. Chowhound raves about Ann Arbor Korean food. No Ann Arbor News review yet, and I don't know if the Observer is going to get to it this month.
One Fork, One Spoon has a review of the best galbi-tang in the world.
Technorati Tags: annarbor, restaurant, review, korean, galbitang, kalbitang, 갈비탕, 48104, michigan, chowhound, kitchenchick, maru, arborwiki, bibimbop, yelp
Deb's latke recipe.
Warning: the following recipe may be bad for your health and completely
destructive of your kitchen!
From a newspaper clipping in my recipe book, much amended by me over the
years:
POTATO PANCAKES
Time: 20 minutes (More like two hours, unless you have multiple griddles)
2 large eggs
3 cups grated drained, all-purpose potatoes (see below)
1/4 cup grated onion (see below)
1 teaspoon salt, more to taste (less)
2 to 4 tablespoons matzo meal, or as needed (I used whole wheat flour;
you could also use breadcrumbs)
Canola oil, for frying
Applesauce and sour cream for serving, optional (mandatory!)
1. Put the potatoes through the food processor, using the shredding blade.
Take them out, change to the regular grinding blade, and put them through
again, adding the onion in big chunks (no need to grate!), eggs, salt and
flour. Adjust the flour to make a thick, wet batter that is neither
watery nor dry.
2. Place a large skillet (we have better luck using an ancient,
well-seasoned griddle) over medium-high heat and add 2 tablespoons oil
(more!). When oil is hot drop in heaping 1/8 cups (more!) of batter,
flattening them gently to make thick pancakes. When bottoms have browned,
after 2 or 3 minutes (more!), flip and brown on other side. Add oil as
needed. Drain on paper towels. If necessary (!), work in batches,
keeping cooked pancakes warm. Servef hot with applesauce and sour cream.
Yield: 4 servings
APPLESAUCE
Quarter and core many apples; do not peel. Cover bottom of pot with water,
put in the apples, half (or a whole) orange (pref. organic, with seeds
removed), one (or two) cinnamon sticks. Cook over gentle heat for at
least 20 minutes, up to several hours, until apples break down. Cool.
Remove cinnamon stick, scrape flesh from orange and return to pot; discard
peel. Put apple mixture through food processor; grind well, so that no
large pieces of peel remain.
from UPI in their "quirks" section:
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Officials in Ann Arbor, Mich., are working on a plan to allow residents of the college town to set up their own chicken coops.
City Councilman Stephen Kunselman told his colleagues during the weekend there is support among residents who like the idea of having access to "farm fresh" eggs, which some foodies consider to be tastier and healthier than the store-bought variety.
To the reader: a challenge to update the chicken coops page on Arborwiki, noting the urban history of residential avian husbandry, and to document in particular the tipping point at which eggs from your back yard went from being a sign of prosperity to something else.
When you write a blog called Vacuum, you get all kinds of traffic to your site that you don't expect or plan to see any sense in. Then, slowly but surely, you feel an unexplainable compulsion to be an "internet expert" (i.e. someone who quotes really well from real experts) in all things vacuum.
Thus, this note on vacuum cooking, and the remarkable device called the Gastrovac.
A photo of this apparatus on Flickr (I'll thumbnail it here when I get permission).
Time Magazine: "Adoring a vacuum", Sept 2006
The patented Gastrovac is the result of that kind of collaboration. To design it, Torres and Javier Andrés, of Valencia's well-regarded La Sucursal restaurant, joined forces with a team of scientists at Valencia's Polytechnic University. But there's a big difference to the Gastrovac's goal: while Adrià and Blumenthal routinely rely on kitchen alchemy to turn one food into another (this summer's menu at Adrià's El Bulli in Rosas, Spain, features gelatin and olive oil made into "false olives" and melon turned into caviar), the Gastrovac uses technology to make food taste more like itself.
International Cooking Concepts: Gastrovac, the vacuum revolution
The Gastrovac is a compact appliance for cooking and impregnating in a vacuum. It is patented in over 160 countries and developed with the Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and the cooks Javier Andrés (La Sucursal Restaurant, Valencia) and Sergio Torres (El Rodat Restaurant, Jávea). It functions as follows: by creating an artificial low pressure, oxygen-free atmosphere, the Gastrovac considerably reduces cooking and frying temperatures, maintaining the texture, colour and nutrients of the food. Moreover, the Gastrovac creates the “sponge effect”: when the atmospheric pressure is restored, the food absorbs the liquid around it, allowing infinite combinations of foods and flavours.
Details in the owner's manual (pdf)
IN ORDER TO CAUSE THE “SPONGE EFFECT” DURING THE VAUUM BREAKING PROCESS, IT IS ADVISABLE TO PRESS THE VACUUM BREAKING BUTTON SEVERAL TIMES (AS MANY AS POSSIBLE) UNTIL THE MEASURE GAUGE INDICATES ABOUT -0,5 BAR. ONCE THIS LEVEL IS REACHED, WE CAN THEN DISCONNECT THE VACUUM HOSE FROM THE OUTLET ON THE LID, OR PRESS THE VACUUM BREAKING BUTTON UNTIL THE MEASURE GAUGE INDICATES 0. THIS PROCESS WILL HELP THE PRODUCT TO ABSORB THE LIQUID WHERE IT IS DIPED
Technorati Tags: vacuum, gastrovac, food, sponge-effect, la-sucursal, valencia, google-mobile-docs
It's fall raspberry season, and if you pick more than you can eat, you want to save some for later. Ohio State University Extension has a publication on Uncooked Jams and Jellies (HYG-5348-97) which includes this recipe - it looks pretty simple.
Uncooked Blackberry or Raspberry Jam
3 cups crushed blackberries or raspberries (about 1 1/2 quarts)
5 1/4 cups sugar
1 box powdered pectin
3/4 cup water
If berries are extremely seedy, put part or all of them through a sieve or food mill. Measure 3 cups of prepared berries and place in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, mix well, and let stand 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Dissolve the powdered pectin in the water, bring to a boil, and boil for 1 minute. Add pectin to berries and sugar and stir for 3 minutes.
Pour the jam into freezer containers, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Cover container. Let stand at room temperature until set (up to 24 hours). Freeze or refrigerate.
Source: So Easy to Preserve (Third Ed.) (1993). Cooperative Extension Service, The University of Georgia, College of Agriculture, Athens.
Technorati Tags: raspberry, blackberry, jam, freezer-jam
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