Saturday Morning Musings -- If You Skip This Post You Won't Miss Anything On The Bakken -- June 25, 2016

It's interesting how tweaking the layout of a blog can make such a big difference. I am thrilled to have moved the "Featured Blogs" up to the top of the sidebar at the right. There are some incredible blogs out there. I could easily list more than five or six, but I have to set limits. I do list additional blog sites farther down in the sidebar.

I am also thrilled to see the the top ten popular posts on this website -- also linked at the sidebar at the right. The list suggests to me that there is still a lot of interest in the "Bakken."

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Weekend Reading

Updates

July 9, 2016: I think the post at Coyote Blog today says is all about wine -- in Napa, a playground for the rich and the elitists. For many wine has become a hobby farm, a sign of prestige. But certainly not a business in any normal sense of the word. 

Original Post

The highlight of the weekend is always the "Review" section in The Wall Street Journal. There might not be as much in it today that interests me, but surprisingly the other special section "Off Duty" appears to have some great articles. At one time I did not care for "Off Duty" and seldom looked at it, but ever since I started cooking (again), it's been fun to read.

Today there's another Japanese recipe by the chef I wrote about a few weeks ago. I have to laugh -- again, dashi -- the Japanese version of chicken bouillon  -- seems to be a key ingredient. It looks like this chef's "secret" is adding mirin and sake to the bouillon dashi.

On my severely caloric restricted diet, I've given up beer. I may have to reconsider. LOL. I have definitely given up wine at home. I would have wine at the appropriate at a nice dinner out, but I won't have wine at home. I've lost interest. For now. There are just too many wine choices. [The likelihood of me going to a fine restaurant where one might have wine with steak is somewhere between slim and none, and slim just left town.] I think the last time I had a beer was up on the hill overlooking Williston, Fuddrucker's where I had one of the drafts, probably Shock Top, without the orange slice. I was reminded of that with "Bitter Truths" in "Off Duty." William Bostwick talks about IPAs. Here are the five he features today, three of which I am very familiar:

• Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Hop Hunter
• Lagunitas Brewing Co. Hop Special
• Russian River Brewing Co. Pliny the Elder
• Mikkeller Aps 1000 IBU 
• Stone Brewing Co. Enjoy By IPA

I hadn't seen the "IBU" reference in a long, long time. In fact, until just now, I had completely forgotten the hoppy ranking system. From Beer Connoisseur:

Flying Monkeys Brewery of Ontario currently leads the pack with “Alpha Fornication,” which clocks in at 2500 IBUs, blowing runner-up Mikkeller’s “Hop Juice X 2007 IBU” out of the water.

What none of these breweries explicitly state is that the human palate can only distinguish up to around 110 IBUs before it tucks into its shell and retreats down the esophagus.

It could be argued that IBUs have become as much a marketing ploy as a tool for understanding beer. So if IBUs aren’t entirely useful to the common drinker, is there a better scale?

So, there you have it.

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From The New Great Northern Food Hall 

At Grand Central Station

NYC, NY

From the article, the following words and phrases that might remind some of you of the old country:

• smørrebrød 
• kanelsnurre
• Danish butter
• smoked slamon from the Faroe Island
• ymer parfaits
• light-roast brew
• aged Danish Havgus cheese
• shrimp-and-egg smørrebrød

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Hemingway

It looks like we're back to a Hemingway phase. A couple of days ago there was a book review of Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises in the WSJ. It (the book, not the book review) was written when Hemingway was married to his first wife (Hadley); during his/their Paris years. The review fits perfectly with the movie Midnight in Paris which I never get tired of watching.

Today, in the WSJ there is a short essay on Hemingway's home in Cuba. I've long forgotten the story but technically it was his third wife's home, to be honest, who found the Cuban house, Finca Vigia, where he wrote The Old Man and the Sea, Islands in the Stream, and A Moveable Feast. At least that's what I recall from Martha Gellhorn's memoir. I could be wrong.

And finally, coincidentally, I'm reading a book my daughter brought back from Key West: Papa: Hemingway in Key West, James McLendon, c. 2006, soft cover. It covers the "lost years" as the author calls that period or something to that effect, from 1928 to 1940. I don't have the book in front of me, so I have to verify some of that, because obviously the Spanish Civil War -- mid-1936 to early 1939 was certainly a part of those 12 years; it wasn't all in Key West. 

 The home in Cuba, the Finca Vigia, by the way, was restored and is maintained under the leadership of William Dupont, a professor of architecture at the University of Texas San Antonio.