wiredfool

In another one of those ‘I can’t believe that it took this long to actually do that’ things, I’ve actually done slow cooking in the bbq. I’ve had the thing since 99 or so, and only ever done quick, highish temperature grilling. But now, I’ve got some big hunks of meat in the freezer, and some of them have made their way onto the grating.

It’s a bit of a challenge, since the bottom air vents are rusted open, and there isn’t actually a thermometer in the thing, so it’s hard to figure out exactly where I am. But now I’ve got a remote oven thermometer, and a couple of binder clips and aluminum foil and I can control the airflow in.

The first thing I tried was a pineapple honey glaze on a pork loin roast. I wasn’t really expecting much from the roast, since when I’ve done them in the oven, they’ve been a little tough due to a lack of extra fat. The outer bits were tough, but has almost turned into a meat candy effect from the smoke and the glaze. Yummy. This one was done for 4 or 5 hours at 250-300 or so.

Next attempt was ribs. I had a hard time controlling the temperature, and they brined a little too long. So the thin bits of the meat weren’t quite where they should have been, and the bigger chunks could have used a higher heat for longer. These went 8 hours or more at somewhere between 175 and 250. The leftovers got steamed, and after 20 minutes being steamed, they were just about right. Falling apart, hot, and tasty.

Today, I’m trying the pineapple honey glaze approach again with a fresh ham roast. It’s running in the 275-325 range, since it’s got some good fat that I want to render off. I’m aiming for 4+ hours. But already, my hair smells like hickory smoke.

I can’t believe that it’s taken so long to think of this. Intentional flat bread, with garlic and olive oil, and a bit of salt. Sort of like fococcia bread, but not as well formed. The basic idea is to take pizza dough, not spread it so thin, and put some basic toppings on.

Dough — basic pizza.

* 1lb 8oz flour, mostly bread, a little white wheat or other.
* 1lb 3.5oz water, plus 1oz olive oil.
* 1tbsp salt, 1.5 tbsp yeast.

Mix, let sit for 20 minutes. Plop out on a oiled counter, fold a few times, put back in oiled bowl. Let rise, split into two balls about an hour before baking. Just before baking, spread out on a floured surface like a pizza, only thicker. Add olive oil, chopped garlic, and salt to the top, then slide into a 500 degree oven on a pizza stone. Bake about 12 minutes.

Mostly done, may need light sanding or another coat of a harder finish. The wood’s pretty soft.

So, big weekend last weekend.

It all started with the fair, where I had three pictures in, the kids all had veggie critters, Ben had a couple of ceramic pieces, and Rose had the big quilt and a little pair of up cycled baby pants. All reasonably successful — Rose got the quilt hung up in the rafters, I had two “Merit” ribbons, and the kids all got blue for their veggie critters. And then there’s the midway. Nate’s a monster on the rides. He preferred the airplanes, different colors each day. Tim really liked the roller coaster, and Ben liked to ride the ferris wheel.

Then there was Mindcamp 7. I’ve done a couple in the past, but missed a few after the move to the island. This felt smaller, with less momentum than the earlier ones. It could have used a few more people ready to give sessions, myself included. I led 1 and a half, and I really should have listened to the nagging thought that I should bring some lighting gear and do quick headshots. I didn’t bring the gear, but I still wound up running about half of the photo session anyway when the named presenter didn’t show. Then, just after that, I did a little roundtable discussion on raising geek kids. I was good to see other people’s approaches to kids and tech.

I was planning on Werewolf, but this time there was an iOS game remix programming contest. All night, 9pm to 9am. So, when I got there, I found Adam and David, werewolf players, and planned to do the contest but take it easy, and play werewolf if we felt like it was going that way. But somehow in the early hours of the morning, we got some good traction and started to get the game working in a fun way. We added gameplay. We added graphics. We added sounds. We added fading backgrounds, 2 different ways, till Kyle from Monstercostume showed us the third way that actually worked. And, somehow, at the end of it, we had a winner. A playable game, with shiny bits and sounds that went boom. And for that, we took home the iPads. 3 days later, I’m almost recovered from the sleep deprivation and thinking of looking at the code again, just to see if I still recognize it. Besides, there are a couple bugs, and the kids want to play it.

For the first time in a long time, I actually went out to take some pictures. One of the local farms stacks their hay in the field to dry. So I showed up in the golden hour for some pictures.

This is the ferryboat coming in to take us home.

Sol Duc was slushy and wet, felt like a rain forest. It was so wet the pictures of the falls have some pretty noticeable water marks, but I couldn’t tell from the chimping. The Hoh River Rainforest felt dry by comparison, but it was sunny when we were there, and they’ve already hit their average rain for April. Pictures of those will come, probably after I’ve wrangled photoshop’s licensing back into submission after the restore from (old) backup.