HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

86 today.

Not that the years count anymore.

I hope things improve after death (for you and for reality, in general) and I hope you are at peace and in a place of eternal fascination. Keep an eye on us and feel free to deliver another World Series ring next year.

MAKE YOUR OWN ICE CREAM

The ratio of time-skill : incredible-product  is SO LOW, I don't know why this isn't being done everywhere, everyday, But here's the key to reducing complexity: 

Ice cream is ICE CREAM, not FROZEN CUSTARD !  What I mean is, don't put eggs in it.

Most recipes call for eggs but why?  If anything, I think it detracts from the flavor and the reduction in complexity by giving up the need for eggs is mind boggling.  And it has a name. It's called Philadelphia style of ice cream.  

How simple, you ask? Here's the recipe for a basic 1/2 pint of ice cream:

1 cup cream/milk

4-6 TBL sugar

Flavor it according to your imagination and available ingredients. Experiment. Go nuts !  Go bananas !  

But because I'm a guy, I recommend cinnamon !

Take 2 cinnamon sticks and 1/4 tsp ground mexican cinnamon (because it's sweeter). Place it in a pot with a pinch of kosher salt. Add 5 TBL sugar and a cup of white stuff.... 1/2 cup heavy cream and 1/2 cup light cream if you want it really rich. Scald it (i.e., take it just to boiling while stirring occasionally to help the sugar dissolve). Strain it and cool the mixture in the fridge until it comes to fridge temperature - or overnight, which I do.

Now, you do need an ice cream maker. I use a Donvier brand, which is as low tech as they come. It is a metal thing that you put in your freezer, which fits in a plastic thing and has a crank. Put it together, pour the ice cream mix in and stir it for a few minutes until it forms a smooth frozen slough, the consistency of frozen custard (is that ironic or what?). Scrape it out to a container and put it in the freezer until firmed.  You will not believe how good it is. 

Here's what else I've made so far:

• Cinnamon-Banana-Coconut-Chocolate chip - yeah, I went a little crazy
• Lavender - this was unbelievable. From observing my wife, I think it is the female equivalent to cinnamon
• Chocolate Malt - a better chocolate taste than anything you've had before, but a little grainy due to the ground up barley malt... a recipe to refine yet
• Mint Chocolate Chip - believe it or not, I needed to add green food coloring
• Caramelized Peach  - Peaches came in, so I oven dried some of them.

My final thought is that this new hobby of mine, however destructive to my cardio-vascular system, is a heart-friendly and adequate solution to the problematic fact that I do not live next door to the Glacier Ice Cream store in Boulder Colorado - which if I did, would be a serious health issue.

WALK ACROSS THE BEN FRANKLIN BRIDGE

Have a mini Philadelphia Adventure:

1. Start with a $XIX Lunch at XIX at the Park Hyatt. It cannot be beat!  Ignore Governor Rendell (sitting 2 tables away) as he seems to be enjoying the food also. Ignore too, the various other local deal makers in the room (I guess you can't rightfully call them DEALERS when we elect them, eh?)

2. Stop by to smell the caramely aromas coming form the Belgian waffle place around 13th & Walnut. If you weren't so filled with banana tiramisu, pistachio-raspberry butter cream gateau, madaleins, and boat-sinkingly dense brownies from lunch, you might have bought one.

3. Test drive a scoooter at the Vespa Store on Spring Garden street. Yeah, you're signing your life away to be able to do it, but the thrill of entering city traffic for the first time (with no experience) makes up for it.

4. Walk to Joisey on the Ben Franklin bridge. It's scary, rusty, noisy, breezy, blue & free - all at once. Try to avoid focusing on the impact a body would make if you lost sanity for 5 seconds and it hit the Delaware River after a 15o foot fall (looks more like 1500 feet) -- just try to avoid it, I dare you.

5. Rehydrate yourself at Triumph brewery on Chestnut St.  (Do it, that is, if you must make the same mistake we did.)  In spite of the $3 happy hour price, I can not recommend it for the untasty heffeweissen and a saison with a long-lasting bitter aftertaste.  The rest rooms are Stephen Starr strange and the atmosphere is cold and uncomforting in a dungeon sort of way - but maybe you like that (?).

6. Better still, leave Triumph and cross the street to Eulogy (continuing the earlier Belgian theme).   Wash down your frites with a Leffe Blond and a Rodenbach Grand Cru sour ale.  PS, better frites are elsewhere, but we like the feel of this bar.

7. Head back to Market East to catch the 7:10 R8 for home. In fact, run for it after you wait patiently outside the ladies room for the light-of-your-life, who has slyly ditched you to go down to the platform. Hey, it all works out in the end.

PUBLISH A PHOTO BOOK

The results are fantastic !  Of course, to some extent, it is dependent on your abilities as a photographer and editor, but almost anyone at any level should be able to produce a professional looking book from your home computer with little effort and experience.

I did this one using Apple's iPHOTO publishing tools and services. Although a little pricier than others I checked out, I liked it for this project because the combination of page options and automated photo decisioning (1) worked better for what I was trying to do. Also, Apple was running a 20% off sale, which brought the price down to a more reasonable level.

(1) by photo decisioning, I mean the "intelligence" built into the software that decides how to lay out and size your photos. No question that it is annoying - bordering on infuriating at times - but after I learned how to manipulate it and how to maximize the result closest to what I wanted, it wound up being better than what I was getting from another publisher - Blurb.

LEARN ITALIAN

(vintage entry from July, 2005)

I find nothing more difficult at this time in my life than learning a new language.  But mental challenge is good, no?  So I believe my first-time, crash attempt at Italian created quite a few new ganglions and dendrites -- if not a whole new lobe or two. 

Because it is that difficult.

How sad that the multiple bottles of vino and grappa wiped out all these new brain cells in just a few long Italian lunchtimes.

Sue and I both took on the challenge but when we got to Italy, the duties became clearly delineated. I was responsible for vocabulary while Sue took charge of the universal language of smiling and gesturing. It worked well (except for that near disastrous bus ride to the airport). The highlight of success was when I had to ask a non English speaking Italian on the train if I could borrow his phone, explaining that my phone was not working properly due to the lying bastardi at Cingular.  Successo !

Sue posed for this picture as we waited in Grenoble, France, for our train to Milano.

TAKE PICTURES OF WILDLIFE

Wildlife in this case, as in bugs.

This started as a research project to see what was eating my new plants.  I set my camera (Panasonic Lumix FX30) for macro capability and upped the pixels to the maximum (7 MP), figuring I could crop down and still have a decent picture. When I took the camera into the action, I was surprised at how much was going on. Here's one. Someone told me it is a thrip.

For more pictures from this series, click on bugs