Ephemerality – Page 35 – Tales from Easement Acres

February 1, 2021May 17, 2023

Meat

I love meat. I hunt. I worked in a butcher shop. I clean it, cure it, season it, cook it, serve it. I’d raise it too, but city ordinances take a dim view of such practices. And with hunting seasons limited and public lands far away, I’m generally relegated to the suburban method of procurement: grocery stores.

And the problem with said stores is that they tend to only carry cuts that are popular, or at least reasonably in the public knowledge. The hangar steak is my favorite, but was impossible to find…at least until the public became aware of it. Of course, when that happened, when I could find it, it was unreasonably priced. Supply and demand I suppose.

So it goes. But on the other hand, the general public’s growing curiosity towards alternate cuts has also increased the supply part of the equation. And so I’m able to find “junk” cuts, like pork belly.

Pork belly is, of course, the part used to make bacon. And bacon, being a holy gift to us mortal men by powers beyond my comprehension, sat on my shopping list were I ever to see it offered.

And lo and behold, one day it was indeed! I bought a 10 pound slab.

Of course, acquiring was only the first and smallest step. I needed to cure and smoke it. But how? I’m sure this is the burning question in your very soul at this moment, no doubt also sharing my analysis of bacon being a boon of divinity.

Lacking experience, I needed a baseline, so I followed this recipe. I take no credit:

How to Make Your Own Bacon

However, I will offer my suggestions, learned through trial and error.

Use a Food Saver bag for the curing part. This was very effective in removing most of the air, so the meat remained completely immersed in brine. Not much massaging needed. Just time.

I don’t have a smoker, but a charcoal grill worked just fine. It was hard to avoid temperature swings, so be diligent with the fussing. Better it stay cool than get too hot.

I added wood chips, placed in a foil cup and filled with water. As the water evaporated off, it steam-smoked flavor into the meat before the dry heat finished the cure.

Reduce the salt by half. I wasn’t going to leave the bacon sit out, so I’m pretty sure this is safe. Also regarding salt…

After cutting and before final cooking, soak the bacon strips in water for a half hour. Otherwise it’s just really salty, even with the reduced salt brine. I don’t know how they do this step commercially, but if you don’t, your family will complain.

And there you have it: bacon! “Healthier” bacon, and manlier because I made it myself (I’m in agreement with the above cited article). And now that I know what I’m doing, I can create my own custom cures. Experiments!

But first: homemade breakfast sausage…

–Simon

January 16, 2021May 17, 2023

Wood Burner

One of the more exciting moments from Herbert’s Dune Messiah novel was a nighttime attack with the Stone Burner. The second book in the series, it lacked some of the foreboding intrigue and suspense of its predecessor, and so the few action scenes stick out more vividly in my memory.

The Stone Burner, like most of Herbert’s pseudo-tech, was a rather ambiguous device, hinting at nuclear power but never really confirming. The terror lay in its unique ability–exploding in some pillar of fire, then emitting a radiation which liquefied eye tissue, thereby blinding everyone within range (this was a plot device I suppose, as the traditional law of Fremen was to abandon their blind in the desert).

In the SyFy miniseries, a late night rendezvous is interrupted by the ominous silence of a pre-storm, followed by the crescendoing wind, and a character’s sudden utterance of realization: “Stone Burner…!”.

This post is far less interesting. But I always think of the Stone Burner when loading my new, somewhat less destructive, wood burner, which releases…controlled infrared and…clouds of noxious fumes…at least until I get the vents adjusted properly. For comfort!

Okay: the point now. We had the chimney swept. We do this periodically as we enjoy using the fireplace. And it should be noted at this point that the chimney passed home-buying inspection (which is a nonsense cursory review at best), followed by some company that proved to be not so legit after our first cleaning (a couple rednecks with shop vacs). The time after that, a most apparent professional, or so it seemed anyway, completed a thorough examination of the chimney with cameras, concluding that we had at some point suffered a chimney fire due to excessive creosote, which conveniently put us in the position of being able to file an insurance claim for money to pay him to either do repairs or install a wood burner insert.

The insurance company, balking at a 5-figure claim, sent out their own inspector, who concluded that there was no chimney fire, but agreed that the creosote buildup, combined with ageing mortar, rendered the fireplace unusable.

We, not being chimney experts, weighed our options, and ultimately settled on the wood burner insert option (albeit without insurance money to pay for it), which bypasses the chimney entirely with it’s own metal piping (well, not bypass as it uses the path of the chimney, but it doesn’t rely on it’s insulative properties). The burner itself is entirely self-contained–essentially an oven which traps the heat, catalyzes the smoke for a clean burn, and employs a fan system to pass house air around the system to heat the room. This solution was not only half the price of a prospective chimney repair, but it actually heats the house.

It did have its learning curve though. Wood has to be split much smaller, I often have to override the fire vent’s automatic shutoff to keep it burning, and I have to leave the door open long enough for the fire to reach a self-sustaining size before closing (this is all contrary to the official instructions). Then it requires multi-stage feeding to build the coal bed.

It also works much better to burn large fires, and to not periodically feed them. It’s more of a burst system, and function over form. Still…

The whippet approves.

And no eyes were melted yet.

–Simon

January 6, 2021May 17, 2023

Garbage Pile 2

I have another garbage pile of posts, on account of me being lazy and not posting over the holiday. So here we go:

Managed to compost all the leaves this year. Hell yeah!

Tried steaming rice in banana leaves. Cook the rice first.

Sister sent us emu meat. Looking forward to trying that out.

–Simon

December 11, 2020

Family Project Management

As the only one of my family (my childhood family, to be clear) with a humanities degree, and the only one in a business management position, family conversations can be a little stilted. General banal discussion is normal enough, provided everyone agrees on the political/ethical stance of the topic, but informational discussions take a somewhat different direction, however predictable. I’ll explain:

With so many scientists available in a group chat, I would be remiss to not tap that collective knowledge. But as they’re family, it’s a no-holds-barred bargain. Here’s the typical discussion format:

Me: “Hello family, I have a science question about [insert something science-y]. Could one of you provide some information on said topic of interest?”

First Person to Respond: “Of course, the information is simply [page 1 Google search results answer, which I’ve already read].” Condescending inferences to my poor judgment in academic/career choices may follow.

Next Person to Respond: [Directed at First Person to Respond] “I concur. Let us now wax scientific in a mutual ego-stroking session, lauding our superior academic/career choices, yet making sure that Simon stays present in the conversation so he can bask in our greatness.”

Third Person to Respond [only if a Parent]: “Well, you know how bad Simon is at math.” [This comment occurs regardless of mathematical relevance to the initial question]

So why would I subject myself to this? That’s a good question. Here’s the answer:

I already know the scientific information. I either knew it previously, or looked it up prior to my query submission. I then usually read a sampling of articles to make sure I’m avoiding unqualified internet drivel.
I then compare this information to the information my family provides. At this point, I either find affirmation, additional information, inconsistencies, or contradiction. It most cases it’s the former two scenarios.
If my family reveals additional information, inconsistencies, or contradiction; my search for further knowledge continues. This may result in me pressing the dialog, but generally speaking, when I do, the motivation of my interlocutors seems to have run dry (as ego-stroking and condescension have at this point run their course) and I don’t glean anything else. In any case, I know to continue my research.
Final point: I don’t let on that I probably already know the answer. This is because I have experience in project management. The manager avoids introducing a question with such annotations in order to avoid bias and influencing others’ opinions prior to answering. That way, he gets information which is a direct result of the speaker’s knowledge and feelings on that knowledge, and isn’t altered by prompting.

It is an effective tactic, but comes with a price. It reinforces my family’s belief that I’m an idiot who made bad life choices, as well as reinforcing their own arrogance, all the while giving the false impression that anyone not in the sciences knows nothing of the natural world they inhabit. A bargain with the devil, I suppose.

(Also: why always the math thing? I struggled with Calculus, but I had a 80-something percentile on my GRE math score. I knew math better than the vast majority of graduates taking the test over a 3-year period, regardless of major. Does anyone remember that?)

Information might have been democratized, but that doesn’t stop people from feeling smug about what they know.

–Simon

December 4, 2020May 17, 2023

Quarantine Thanksgiving

Each Thanksgiving I suffer horrible heartburn. Naturally, I attributed this to the large amount of animal fat I was consuming. But this year, we were bereft of any extended family, and amazingly, despite still cooking the same meal, I didn’t have heartburn. I don’t want to make any premature conclusions, so I’ll have to give this additional tests to widen the sample size. No family is allowed to visit until further notice, pending my scientific assessment. For science!

Anyway, here’s some photos to mark the occasion. Happy Thanksgiving all!

–Simon